Reflection
Wonder is especially important in our times, because our world has given up wonder for use as our primary experience of the universe. Use might be considered the primary orientation of American civilization toward the universe it inhabits, especially to the North American continent. Use goes with personal freedom and rights to property. To be real, a thing must be useful. Anything nonuseful is wasted, is meaningless…We seldom consider just how all this affects our way of life, the education of our children, or the fulfillment of our interior needs for something beyond the merely material experiences of life.
Thomas Berry
Prayer
Take a good look at God’s wonders—
they will take your breath away.
Psalm 66:5-6
Action
Do you take time to notice and wonder at the amazing complexity and beauty of things? Has your life become strictly utilitarian? Consider how a child sees the wonder in the ordinary. Try to see things as if for the first time. Catch yourself when you find that you are being completely materialistic. Let wonder back into your seeing.
Suggested Reading
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Matthew 5:29-29
May we constantly welcome the Lord’s surprises.
Pope Francis
It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility. Rachel Carson
The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
William Butler Yeats
Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.
E.B.White
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.
Socrates
The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age.
Aldous Huxley
Only those who look with the eyes of children can lose themselves in the object of their wonder.
Eberhard Arnold
Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.
Eddie Cantor
I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.
Gerry Spence
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
Albert Einstein
I never get tired of the blue sky.
Vincent van Gogh