Yesterday’s
New York
Times editorial about human endeavors reminded me of my post of July 12,
2017 about “Wonder.” As I work this week preparing a schedule for a virtual spiritual
formation at-home retreat I thought it would give me a respite timewise and offer
you a respite from our challenging political and pandemical times. Enjoy!
Others
have come to the same conclusion, but in the sixty-six years that I have been
given, I believe the essential ingredient of a spiritual life is wonder.
It
can be found and expressed in many ways: worship, contemplation, compassion,
activism, lovemaking, the beloved community, science, art, nature, and the
recognition of the commonwealth of God, to name a few.
But
the farther away any of these get from wonder, they can become tablets of
stone, stumbling blocks, millstones round our necks, a dutiful obligation
rather than a pleasurable joy.
As
I write this, Luna, our neighbor’s cat, is chasing something in our back yard.
I have spent happy moments watching Luna from my home office windows as she
approaches our yard with wonder, leaping up the tall, central Bradford pear
tree, slinking beneath our hedge of privet shrubs, luxuriating in rubbing her
back on our weedy grass.
From
our front porch, I’ve enjoyed watching her go on morning walks with her family
(yes, really!): a dog named Lexi,
children with a literary and a biblical name, Darcy and Micah, their father
Chris, a New Testament professor at Mercer University, and mother Jenelle, who
is the organizing pastor of the newly-forming Ormewood Church.
Luna
runs ahead and lingers behind, depending on what catches her attention in the
moment. She exemplifies wonder. And I realize that we human beings know only a
little more than she does about the nature of things.
The
morning I write this, I greeted them again from our front porch during my
prayers, after reading a couple of psalms and Matthew 18, which includes Jesus’
counsel to enter the kingdom as a child, remove their stumbling blocks, find
the lost sheep, confront wrongdoing in yourself and in the community, and
finally, forgive from the heart, even as we have been forgiven.
In
silence I contemplated the very tall and old leafy trees before me, the tiny
bird chirping on the railing, the runner going by, the found stones that line
our gardens, only a little distracted by the passing cars, some of which take
the stop sign at the intersection as a mere “suggestion.”
The
week I write this, I awoke each morning to NPR reporting on various
catastrophes, a high rise fire, several bombings and mass shootings, the
investigation of the administration.
Despite
all that, I found myself marveling (yes, I realize how antiquated the gerund)
that all I saw before me, including me, has evolved. What impetus organizes seemingly inert matter
into living things, thinking beings, and seems to call for beauty and
compassion and wonder?
A
couple of days ago, I read how the liver regenerates itself daily as it carries
out so many mysteries that ancients thought it was the seat of the soul. And not long ago I read how disparate parts
of the brain organize the various signals from our eyes into what we “see.”
No
wonder the psalmist sang this morning, “The earth is full of the steadfast love
of the Lord. By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host
by the breath of God’s mouth” (33:5b-6).
“Breathe
on me, breath of God,” sings the old hymn.
What a sensual yet spiritual request!
“The
glory of God is the human being fully alive.” This popular quote from Irenaeus of Lyons
hangs in our hallway, written by the hand of the calligrapher who once graced
Mt. Calvary Retreat House in the hills above Santa Barbara before its
destruction in the 2008 Montecito fire.
From
dust to dust, ashes to ashes, our brief flicker in between is a cause for
wonder.
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Copyright © 2017 by Chris R. Glaser.
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