On the Blog!

Tag: wonder

  • Going Deep

    Going Deep

    I journaled at the end of last year, I feel that deep down I am missing stuff.  Life is not slow enough… not wondrous enough… not worshipful enough…. 

    This has been my heart’s yearning for a long time, but despite my best intentions, I often overcommit and over function and instead of paring back like I should, I crank up efficiency and organisation.   Now sometimes this is a strength, but I have come to realise that what I lose in doing so, is sometimes far greater than what I gain.  Very soon I become fixated on my goals, and my world shrinks and along with it my joy and all these things I yearn for. 

    Frank Dimitri (2018) says that “Wonder is the impulse behind scientific, and philosophical inquiry, artistic creativity and spiritual yearning.” While we have all experienced wonder as a child and at least once as an adult, the reality is that it often becomes blocked- perhaps even used up as we get older.  I discovered during some research, that if I wish to be open to experiencing wonder, I must be mindful of my senses. That means going slow enough and being mindful or open to experiencing the depth of my sensory experiences.  Too often I shovel food in my mouth without tasting it, rush a shower without feeling it or rush throughout my garden tending it, without smelling the roses.  No wonder I am missing ‘stuff‘ and feel my life lacks wonder and I yearn to be worshipful.   

    For the past ten years, our family have often holidayed on the Great Barrier Reef.  I remember the first time I saw baby turtles hatching and held one of those leathery tiny creatures in the palm of my hand. I recall standing in wonder, watching the hatchlings scramble for the ocean in the moonlight. Fast forward several trips later, and I lamented my lack of wonder, having seen this sight many times.  It took a child, filled with joy and delight at the sight, to challenge me to reactivate mine.

    For a long time, I have relied on the promise of travel to bring relief to my everyday busyness and fixation on doing.  Without realising it I have sought new adventurous experiences to fill my senses and activate this wonder, which fuels my sense of worship.  What can be considered culture shock in a foreign land, I have come to draw on to fill my sensory ‘wonder’ bank with new smells, tastes, sounds and sights.

    I have been lamenting for too long now, that this global pandemic has thwarted all my plans for travel. I woke up one morning in the new year and decided ‘if I can’t go wide with travel, I am going to go deep with the life I have’.  I am still working out exactly what that looks like and how to reduce overload and overwhelm.  The early birthday gift of a puppy we called Daisy has helped me to make a change. Daisy has been my invitation to go slow. I wonder at her energy in her little body.   I smile at her antics, draw in her puppy scent and giggle like a child when she licks and wriggles. I marvel at this cute creature, part of God’s creation.  I believe that while it is true that worship can lead to wonder; I am discovering that wonder leads to worship. 

    It feels a lot like mining meaning in what it is front of me, instead of seeking more.and more.  Perhaps that is exactly what going deep means. Instead of finding the shiny at the surface, I can dig deep and find the riches there.  I am looking forward to a year that includes more of slow, more wonder and more worship.   

    Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash

  • Wondering about wonder-ing…

    Wondering about wonder-ing…

    Ever felt you spend more time wondering rather than in wonder?  I do.  What ever happened to that little girl who unashamedly expressed her delight and pleasure at some of the smaller things in life? 

    I watched a young boy today playing with leaves that floated in the breeze like the blades on a helicopter rotor.  He was so caught up in the wonder of the moment that his eyes were alight and he did not care what anyone else thought.  He enthusiastically shared a leaf with me and described how they turned and floated with that same light in his eyes.  

    One of my children were like that with lizards.  He took great delight in peering into a garden hoping to catch sight of and even catching a garden skink.  His grandmother and he would spend lots of time wandering and wonder-filled in her garden.  He would get so excited to have a little skink stay on the palm of his hand long enough for him to gaze upon it with wonder. 

    As a child growing up on a farm, my siblings and I would love riding on the back of the farm utility. We would stand shoulder to shoulder with our hands gripping the bar to the rear of the cab.  We would press our faces into the breeze and open our mouths and make noises as the air rushed past.  Our long hair would blow behind us and occasionally whip around our face.  I am sure we may have even sung very loudly-and off key.  We did not care as no one was watching or could hear us.   

    A meme on social media has resonated with me on this topic. It is a picture of a young girl overflowing with enthusiasm and with a caption that reads, ‘Remember her. She is still there…inside you…waiting.  Let’s go get her!”

    A similar picture with a very excited younger girl was captioned “When your flowers start blooming.”  That’s me (and a few of my friends) when I see a rose bud opening up on one of my rose bushes.  Perhaps that younger wonder-filled version of me is in fact still there, not too far away.  Just a little less outwardly enthusiastic and more internally beserk! 

    Perhaps it was the same girl who dug her toes into the ocean’s surface as the long boat skimmed across a bay in the Philippines earlier this year.  A few of us ‘girls’ sat low on a plank seat on the side and took our shoes off, so our toes and feet would skim across the surface of the water creating ripples and a gentle shower of sea spray.  It was a time I stopped wondering and actually was present to the wonder of the moment and the sensory experience.

    We have five senses. Sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch.  For most of us, they all work-some work better than the others.  I am very visual and also spend a lot of time thinking.  That means in the here and now I do not always pay attention to sounds, to what I am tasting, what I smell and even what I am feeling under my feet, through my fingers and on my skin. 

    When I think back to my childhood moments of pure joy and wonder, I get glimpses of living in the moment and experiencing sensory play.  How long has it been since I played in mud?  What would it take I wonder, to regain some of the wonder?  What if I stopped wondering and intentionally focused on all of my senses to recapture some of the wonder? 

    Instead of a sand pit, it could be digging my toes into the sand on a beach.  Instead of play dough, it could be enjoying the sensation of kneading dough. Maybe its taking five minutes to identify the bird songs all around me or to take in the scent of that opening rose bud. Maybe I will savour every bite of my next meal instead of gulping it down.  That’s only the beginning. 

    My next wondering and pondering though is a question I have yet to answer.  As an adult, is going ‘internally beserk’ a sufficient response to wonder? Is it appropriate or even necessary to outwardly express my enthusiasm as I would have unashamedly done as a child?  What do you think?