Awe and Wonder

This particular mini-editorial occurred last night.  In no way am I suggesting that if you duplicate my situ, you will experience anything similar.  I do not think that is any more possible than for me to say, “Last night when I held my wife’s hand, I felt something indescribable.  Here, you hold her hand too, or your wife’s, so you can feel the same thing.”  That’s absurd. 

The purpose of sharing this experience and my thoughts on it is to underscore that a sense of awe comes unexpectedly, can never be planned, and creates a moment, lasting only a few minutes, to feel as though it overlaps with eternity.  C. S. Lewis spoke of such experiences in Surprised by Joy, this title itself being a quote from the poet, Wordsworth. 

I do not believe such moments are exclusive property of the church, singing to the LORD, or meditating on God’s word.  The LORD’s unveiling an emotional peek into His world is at His whim and discretion, using tools we’d least imagine. 

For those of you interested in the existential catalyst, then here is the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs_-DKUimeo.  Again, I want to strongly iterate that you may watch this and think, “You’ve got to be kidding.”  The purpose of this mini-editorial is not to point to or discuss a WHAT, but how the LORD might awaken wonder in us by a thousand different WHATs.  These are highly personal, highly emotionally charged moments that are difficult to share; but, if setting aside all the noise of our culture that distracts us, everyone will agree having experienced such feelings.  I am sharing such a moment, not to incite you to experience one, but to help you remember one that you’ve had yourself.  To think of the time that, like the giant Angel of Revelation with had one foot on the earth and one foot on the sea, you had one foot in Time and one foot in Eternity, albeit, for just a moment.

Why is it that one vista haunts our memories, or one smile from a loved one outranks all the others, or a particular song, a scene in a movie, stanza from a poem, a color of Spring, a hit of the bat, or a crocus breaking the soil seizes us so that we never forget it?  I’m suggesting that is God’s gift to remind us that the things that we see, touch, experience are but snippets of the wonders that await us. 

My journal entry now follows.

9:25 PM

I was entering into the diary when I wrote about Snowy River.  Recalling that it was a poem, I looked it up and downloaded it to the Kindle.  While doing this, I noticed a link to YouTube, guessing this was a professional reader.  More so, the reader was Australian, and clips from the two Snowy River movies were pieced together to illustrate the poem.  In a word, magnificent.  I called MJ over, and, being only eight minutes, watched it together.  The excellent reading, the scenes, the music created a moment together that would be similar to C. S. Lewis’ surprised by joy, those peeks into wonder and awe that screams to the soul, “There is more than this.”  Literally, we experienced the sensation of eternity.  My hand was on hers for most of the presentation.  Couple engaging in sex often talk of the excitement of climaxing together.  This was a mutual spiritual climax, unsought for, unlooked for, unprepared for.  No forethought could have created or paved such expectations.  I wonder if this is what Lucy felt like when she first opened the wardrobe and peered into the winter cold of Narnia for the first time or, perhaps, Paul when he first saw the third heaven. 

As I think on this I fail to sympathize with the efforts of atheists to create awe devoid of the supernatural.  Dawkins’ book, The Unweaving of the Rainbow, is dedicated to the (futile) attempt to create awe without God.  Even in his own book he laments why poets have not seized on the wonders of science to share with others what he feels as he is overwhelmed with the continual insights of science.  What he fails to understand is that poets reach beyond nature, a striving for something, anything that is universal, eternal, meaningful.  Science can never, never accomplish this.  Science is physical to the core.  Poetry, beauty, truth, good, meaning are metaphysical.

Another picture by Hubble, a new discovery of a larger galaxy or a black hole beyond comprehension, pi being calculated to a trillion, trillion places will soon cease to wonder.  All of these are things, things, things.  The first elephant that a child sees may create nightmares.  The hundred one might not even be noticed.  The first dozen pictures of deep space spiraled my mind into awed confusion.  When I see one now, I wonder, “Hmm, have I already seen that one.”  The reactions to things become like those of the viewers of The Truman Show when Truman was freed, “Hey, what’s on another channel?” 

How many fractal images of chaos are needed before you begin to yawn?  (See https://www.google.com/search?q=fractals+images+of+chaos&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=enkxUb2fHMT_ygGNv4HwDA&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1740&bih=865 ).

Edgar Allan Poe wrote it best in his Sonnet to Science.  [The bold is mine.]

  Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!

   Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

  Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,

   Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

  How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

   Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

  To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,

   Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

  Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,

   And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

  To seek a shelter in some happier star?

   Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

  The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

  The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

 

Awe without the supernatural?  It will be easier to have love without songs, babies without smiles, or Spring without life.