My bucket list has shortened as the years go by. Maybe no marathon or New York Times best-seller. But hold me to this goal: I want to keep clapping until the very end. I never, never want to lose the sense of wonder.
We recently returned from a trip to Seabrook Island, SC, one of the three places in the world where dolphins “strand fish.” The mama dolphins teach their calves to herd fish and push them up on shore. I got to see it. I clapped and hugged strangers. (Yes, they backed away. Yes, I apologized.)
If I had to choose only one word from my acronym G.R.O.W.L (Gratitude, Resilience, Obedience, Wonder, Laughter), it would be wonder. Because I shiver when I consider what’s the opposite of wonder: boredom, cynicism, apathy, joylessness, weariness.
Wonder is a choice.
“Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!” Matthew 6:21-23 MSG
Wonder = Worship.
How can you make living a life of wonder a spiritual practice? Think of “wonder” as both a noun and verb.
Wonder as a noun: Live in wonder. Slow down, pay attention and observe the world around you. (At least once a day.) Clapping is optional but find your own way of saying “Wow!” back to God.
Wonder as a verb: Ask yourself (with a stress on curiosity, not doubt), “I wonder what God is doing here?” Breathe in a God bigger, more beautiful and better than you, whose ways are not your ways, whose timing is not your timing. Practice wonder-worship in all your waiting rooms. A wonder which embraces mystery and lives in the questions, not the answers.
In this midst of these dark and despairing days, Wendell Berry shows me how to practice wonder so I can “for a time I rest in the grace of the world.”
The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Pray that the gospel will never lose its wonder for you. Sing “And Can it Be?” and other hymns to remember the wonder of it all God has done for you through Jesus Christ. Scripture shouts of the wonder of God and his world.
“We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us. . . . He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.” Col 1:11-12, 18-20 MSG
Apostle Paul never lost the wonder that Christ saved him. It reminds me of this quote from John Newton, the former slaver and writer of the hymn, Amazing Grace. “Although my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.” I’ll be the one clapping as I follow Christ leading the Resurrection Parade.
(Photo credit: Bill Carroll)
