You need not go elsewhere to discover wonder: to dream and delight, to be astonished and grateful for the sheer joy of being alive. Watch a child take in life to be reminded how living in wonder is an innate gift. Wonder is to be found in the ordinary.
The experience of wonder is within reach of your senses and memory, now. You need only pay attention: Laugh at squirrels. Gase at flower petals in their most intricate colors, and forms, and fragrances. Eat slowly enough to guess the spices. Listen for the oboe at the symphony. Watch your cat watching; scratch your dog’s chest. Experience what good architecture does for your soul. Notice the difference in color between the light of dawn and the light of dusk. Notice how shadows make life so much more interesting. Wink at yourself in the mirror. Hum. Turn off your radio or iPod and hum. Hum from memory; hum up something new. Watch children playing. Revere your body as a miracle and delight in what your body can do, what your hands can do, what your fingers can do, what your index finger can do. How many things can your index finger do? Listen for birds and choose your favorite bird call, your favorite that day. Recall the road less traveled that you have taken that has made all the difference. Say “thank you” at least a dozen times a day. Take a sip of tea, and put your tea cup down; when you’re ready, take another sip. Find an outdoor fountain and watch the flow of water. Repeat after me: “rubber baby buggy bumpers,” or make up your own tongue twister and try it out at a dinner party. Close your eyes and fly like you could when you were a child. Retrieve something old, something that you had almost forgotten. Create something new. Remember who it was, that first person who got through to you, who convinced you that you could do it. Reclaim your most notorious failures, and what good has come out of them. Find something that makes you laugh. Go to a museum and visit one gallery, one only, and stay until you’ve learned the secret you need to know. Remember your first love. Remember what brings tears to your eyes; remember who brings tears to your eyes.
On I could go. On you could go, and you should. Live the miracle of life, each passing moment. Take nothing for granted; take everything for gratitude. In the beginning, God created life, and it was good, so good, so amazingly good, that God could not help but share it...with you.
While wonder is all around us, alive within us, and ready at any moment to be cherished, the monastic tradition upholds two practices as especially helpful in opening doorways to wonder: contentment and silence. The English word “contentment” comes from the Latin word contentus, “contained,” “satisfied.” We live in a culture in which we are considered “consumers,” in a market economy constantly alluring us with dissatisfaction. We are taught that what is next, or what is new, is better than what is now. Not so. An ancient monastic principle teaches that the freedom to be fully alive is found in the context of limitation. You cannot have it all, nor should you. To be content is to engage with the wonder of life that is now. Grow your soul downward, deeper, into the ground of your being.
Likewise, claiming moments of silence in the course of each day will invite your being really present to the wonder of life. Silence is like punctuation for the soul, otherwise life can be gibberish, like a run-on sentence that has no meaning. Being silent and still will bring the wonder of life into focus, lest life otherwise only be a blur. The SSJE Rule of Life values “the silence of adoring love for the mystery of God which words cannot express. In silence we pass through the bounds of language to lose ourselves in wonder.” Incorporate some silence and stillness in the cadence of your day to help you take in the grandeur of life, the panoply of God’s splendor. Life is wondrous. Stop. Look. Listen.
Not all of life is wonderful. Some days are crushing. The experience of wonder can be very elusive in the face of suffering, injustice, loss, and death. And yet, you can feel more than one thing at a time. Being attentive to the wonder of life with counterbalance what is not wonderful and will make a world of difference to you. In the best of times and in the worst of times, opening the door of your soul to wonder will help you pray your life, your amazing life, with hope and zeal.
Brother Curtis Almquist, The Society of St. John the Evangelist