“To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
— Abraham Joshua Heschel
“Look at those truck wheels!” I remember my boys saying this when they were young sitting in the backseat looking at a nearby semi-truck. It reminded me how naturally children can discover wonder in something the rest of us barely notice.
I think the way to reestablish our sense of wonder is to wander into nature or anything that reminds us that there is something greater than ourselves. As a child, a massive stained-glass cathedral made me feel this way when I accompanied my grandmother to church. It also can be found in everyday events like deer in the backyard—my sister was excited sending me photos of them— or a massive spider web that was woven outside my window. I really loved watching that web being created over the course of months!
Too much of our lives is lived on autopilot. This usually entails running from task-to-task and forgetting that there is a level of awe that needs to accompany life to give it its grandness versus one big “to-do list” (I’m guilty of that).
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel believed we should live in what he called “radical amazement.” For Heschel, taking life for granted dulls our awareness of the divine.
Because familiarity dulls attention.
Psychologists call it hedonic adaptation—we get used to things. For instance, we get married, and suddenly that spark that we had as a dating couple becomes a little more tempered. We just stop noticing.
I think this comes with slowing down, sometimes without a device in our hands. Pick up your head. Take time to look around —to be aware. Use all your senses.
Wonder is not limited by how much of the world you’ve seen. It’s determined by how fully you pay attention to what you’re seeing.
Just this week, I stood within a few feet of a Red-shouldered Hawk as it ate a lizard in a neighborhood tree. I walked a little at a time, getting closer and closer to the tree and the hawk. It never flew away. It was completely absorbed in the ordinary work of being a hawk. And I found myself just as absorbed in watching it. For several minutes, nothing else mattered. It wasn’t a miracle. It was simply life unfolding.
As a medium, every reading reminds me that reality is larger than I understand. One of my early readings still makes me smile. I said to the sitter, “your aunt is bringing up Marilyn Monroe.” The sitter replied, “yes, she was friends with Marilyn Monroe.” Even after years of sitting with people, I still find myself surprised. Wonder has not diminished with experience. If anything, it has deepened.
Tomorrow morning, before checking your phone, pause for a moment. Look out your window. Notice something you’ve walked past a hundred times without seeing. Wonder isn’t reserved for children. It isn’t reserved for mountaintops. It’s available to anyone willing to pay attention.
