Praise the LORD from the earth,
you sea monsters and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and frost,
stormy wind fulfilling his command!
Mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars!
Wild animals and all cattle,creeping things and flying birds!
~Psalm 148:7-10
Earlier this fall, as I was preparing to preach Mark 10:13-16 (v. 15: “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”), I came across a reference from the Church Dogmatics in which Karl Barth invites the Christian to be “like a child in a forest, or on Christmas Eve; one who is always rightly astonished by events, by the encounters and experiences.”
Last week, I wrote about being rightly astonished by the wonder and magic of Christmas. This week, we trek into the forest.
Rachel Carson, the nature writer best known for her work, Silent Spring, wrote a lesser known but no less brilliant essay originally published posthumously in Woman’s Home Companion under the title “Help Your Child to Wonder” and later in book form as The Sense of Wonder.
She begins by telling about the time she took her baby nephew (and later adopted son) Roger, swaddled in blankets, down to the beach by her home in Maine to listen to the roar and crash of the waves, leaving them both “the same spine-tingling response to the vast, roaring ocean and the wild night around us.” They were rightly astonished.
Fast-forward a few years and Roger has come up with names for the sea shells and while other children are being tucked into bed or steered away from the mud, Roger is staying up late to watch the full moon set the water ablaze with dazzling light and surveying the wet and muddy shoreline.
Most parents, myself included, try to preclude such events. I try to keep a tight schedule and routine around bedtime. I find myself steering my child away from mud and puddles and paths less taken. I mentally calculate the number of loads of laundry and the time necessary to clean up. My adult world is efficient, mechanized, overly-scheduled. My world is flattened. I seek to control every aspect which I can. If I am honest with myself, this way of being leaves little time to wonder. I am the one who has lost the ability to be rightly astonished.
Carson laments this misfortune: “For most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood,” but a child’s world is “fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement.”
Whether in a forest or at Christmas Eve, Barth and Carson point in the same direction—a little child will lead us back into wonder.
For Carson, wonder is awakened in nature—noticing, listening, feeling, and sharing the experience with another. “Help Your Child Wonder” could likewise be titled “Help Your Adult Wonder.” The child, she says, relishes the companionship of an adult to share their excitement and astonishment. Adults need the eyes and hearts of children to see the world anew and recover their true instinct for wonder.
This shared journey of wonder between adult and child reawakens both to the sheer joy of life and the latent beauty waiting to astound. Wonder calls us out of our self-contained and self-prescribed lives and invites us to live in someone else’s world, a world that is both mysterious and wonder-full, a world in which sea monsters and creeping things, fruit trees and cedars, praise God.
And so, this Advent, take a walk outside to the forest or the seashore.
Better yet, take a child with you.
Delay dinner an hour and savor the setting sun.
Get up early to glimpse the crystallized frost on fallen leaves.
Stay up late to watch the stars light up the darkened sky.
If it snows, do not delay. Run outside to dance and play.
Become like a little child,
enter the Kingdom of God,
rightly astonished by the wonders God has shown you.
The rhythms of church life are undoubtedly good for us: church attendance, participation, tithing, tradition, creedal compliance. But they have limited capacity to inspire a deeper curiosity and faith. ” Wonder calls us out of our self-contained and self-prescribed lives…” So true! Those of us who ride bicycles know that the straight and flat road is convenient. The constantly curving and climbing road, however, is so much more scenic, exciting and inspiring.
Ultimately, it builds endurance… and wonder.
My adult world is efficient, mechanized, overly-scheduled. My world is flattened. I seek to control every aspect which I can.
This confession brought to mind Edwin A. Abbott’s book, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. We have are living in a world of two dimensions in which we hear rumors of a world of three dimension. We also have authorities who suppress theses rumors and tell us that efficient consumption of the material world and the accumulation of stuff are all that exists.
Much of the religious baggage I’ve toted for portions of the last eight decades has been shoved to the back burner, but a sense of awe and gratitude burn brighter as the years pass. What a marvelous mystery we are blessed to be part of. What a shame so many fellow travelers seem to cloud their capacity for wonder by focusing on their prosperity, living eternally, or other distractions from living in and loving the now. Thanks for a good read and good reminder.
Beautiful! Wonder-filled!
Thank you, Blaine. Anything with BOTH Carson AND Barth is good stuff. And knowing you and your child, I’ve observed you more than once eschew your “schedule and routine.” You practice what you preach. Good message.
I once took a group of young boys from urban Trenton, NJ, into the scrubbiest, littlest, most unimpressive of woods along the Delaware-Raritan Canal. With wonder in his voice, one boy exclaimed, “I’ve been to Six Flags before, but I’ve never been to the forest!”
A comment for the ages. TY for sharing!