Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…
“Think and wonder, wonder and think.” Dr. Seuss
“I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.”
Gary Spence
“Youth is the most wonderful thing in this world—and what a pity that is has to be wasted on children!” George Bernard Shaw
“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” E.B. White
“He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” Albert Einstein
At what age do we lose the wonder? Our grandson, Cooper, is filled with wonder. His parents took him to the mall; it was a Nordstrom preschool shoe run for big brother Camden. Thanks to the pandemic restrictions and precautions, Cooper had no memory of ever being in a mall. Cooper, I am told, was wide-eyed in wonder. “What? What, those stairs are moving?” He had a ride or two on the escalator, and according to his mother, he would have ridden those stairs all day long. One of the great gifts of being with little children is the joy of seeing wonder in their eyes. They find wonder in garbage trucks, bugs, animals, and trees. Wonder is a part of their everyday experience, and that makes life very rich.
At what age do we lose the wonder? When do we stop seeing garbage trucks and marveling at their technology? Why are we not speechless at the sight of a harvest moon, or a star filled sky? At what age do we lose the wonder? I cut my finger, and with no thought or intention of my mind, the body sets out to heal itself. Every year on October 23rd the swallows swirl into the skies of San Juan Capistrano and begin their 6,000-mile journey to their winter home in Argentina. Each year millions of Monarch butterflies fly south from the United States and Canada to the Oyamel fir forests near the Sierra Madre mountains. In huge roosts they survive the winter, only to head back north in the Spring. On the journey north they cycle through three to five generations before they reach their destination.
“What was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. It was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world.”
G.K. Chesterton
“A state of wonder is a state of mind.” Margaret Stone
At what age do we lose the wonder? I pray for new eyes in old age. I pray that we might stop on occasion and be open to wonder again. I pray that this day wonder will break into our lives and we might sing out: “O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the works thy hand hath made, I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder, thy power throughout the universe displayed; then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, how great thou art! How great thou art!”
I wish you wonder!
Pastor Jim
