Awe and wonder

    

with gratitude to my dad for a sense of wonder from the beginning

                                             

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom

Gregory of Nyssa, March 9, 2021

Psalm 119:97-104; Wisdom 7:24-8:1; John 14:23-26 

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Somewhere in the collection of needlepointed kneelers neatly lined up in each row of St. Luke’s Cathedral in Portland, Maine is one with a quote by Gregory of Nyssa. “Concepts create idols. Only wonder comprehends anything.” My dad commissioned that kneeler. It is his all time favorite quote. Perhaps a “life quote” you might say. One that embodies his way of seeing the world. My dad loved science all through school. He is a lawyer. He has spent his professional life strongly bound to and placing a high value on “concepts.” But even in his practice of the law or his photography of the natural world, there is a foundational curiosity. A reverent awe for all that is beyond his understanding. My parents built the house in which I grew up. They purposefully oriented it on the compass so that you could watch the sunrise or sunset through enormous plate glass windows. Many a childhood dinner was put on pause, so that we could go watch the splendor of creation. There was a nearly flat roof above the living room, perfect for lying on one’s back or for placing a telescope to gaze at the wonders of the galaxy. 

Wonder. Awe. Reverence. These are valuable and essential to our life, to our faith, to the health of our souls. They invite us to inhabit a space, a way of being that fosters the wisdom so beautifully described in our Scriptures for today. An emmenation from God, a reflection of God’s goodness. There are opportunities to see that each and every day. Of course for many of us that can come easiest in the natural world, as my Dad has shown me. But he does not limit his sense of awe to Creation. There are moments of awe in worship, in learning, in small moments of human connection. While certainly those moments of wonder can be inspired by outside forces, by the glorious splendor of a sunset that takes your breath away, what my dad taught me most of all was that really it was about us. It was about the disposition of our hearts. My dad has shown me that our sense of wonder and awe can in fact lead us to a deeper connection with all that is good and holy in the world. It is really a matter of whether or not we are open and paying attention. 

In this time, when our worlds have largely shrunk to our own living spaces and the screen in front of us seems to be our connection to everything. When there are pings and notifications nonstop. Life can feel frenetic and harried. We are pulled this way and that. It could be easy to lose our sense of wonder. To feel disconnected from those moments that ground us and bring us more fully into God’s presence. 

We long to be on a mountaintop or a beach. At a lake or on an airplane. We long to see different vistas. Increasingly we are able or will soon be able to do that. Thanks be to God. 

And I think there is an important invitation to us, in this moment, on this feast of St. Gregory, as we mark a year of life in a pandemic this week. It is an invitation to remember that we can cultivate our sense of wonder in the smallest moments. It is easy to feel awe as we gaze across the ocean or at the “vast expanse of interstellar space.” Yet we can find that same sense of awe in the midst of the quiet moments of daily life too.  

We can be grateful for this technology that allows us to see and hear each other. To gather together across many time zones. We can marvel at tenacious trees and plants that push their way up to the sun. We can marvel at a moment of human connection. The simple joy of a cup of tea or coffee. The beauty of the light coming through our windows and the increasing daylight hours. The list can go on and on. 

So in these days, especially when it will be easy to get agitated as we wait for things to open and to be able to do more and more, let us remember to pause, to find moments each day for wonder. Moments to connect with God and grow in wisdom. AMEN.