MIND-BODY-SPIRIT
Wonder, Awe and Reverence
BY THERISIA “TRISH” HALL Summer reverence evokes lush responses… the opportunity to lie in the grass and see a world of fantasy in the clouds… to go bird-watch- ing or bird-listening… to plant seeds and plants and watch them grow… to be in amazement over compost or hike and gaze out at the vastness of the countryside or the sheltered stillness of the forest…. I invite you to, as author Ernest Holmes declared, “Change your thinking, Change your Life.” Join an ongoing “spiritual adventure” — a challenge that will recast how you open to and experience your world. In this adventure, you will alter the “how” of how you engage with life. What you engage with may remain the same, however, it is very likely you will be inclined to make different choices. Author Wayne Dyer also declared, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. ” This applies to everything! Your perspective matters. Perceptions are altered by how you see and sense your world, and everything and everyone in it. You are the com - mon denominator that causes how you experience everything! How you look at and interact within every moment of your life changes the way it will seem to you. Choose how you wish to participate with life. Shift your behavior and your perspective. You will discover a brand- new world! Children tend to live naturally in a perpetual state of won- der and awe. In Matthew 18:3 (NIV) Jesus is quoted as having said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” That kingdom of heaven is the state of being truly alive and keenly alert to the wonders of your environment. The first step in this direction is to adopt the practice of taking “rev - erence respites.” If one has the luxury of long expanses of time, a rev- erence respite could be a whole day or more. Or, as I am more inclined to do, you can insert snippets of reverence respites throughout the day. They are amazingly restorative. Stop what you are doing. Invite in distraction rather than trying to exclude it. Open to your environ- ment — a flower in the yard, a pesky fly buzzing in your office, what - ever — and drop into wonder, awe and reverence. Fling open your curiosity! Investigate! Marvel! It’s quite simple: Let go of “must-get-this-done” compulsiveness and take a bit of a detour. It will actually reenergize you so you will accomplish more with less effort when you return to whatever it was you were working on. Let Yourself Be Guided Let your intuition guide your focus. I lean toward the natural world, yet I can be absolutely fascinated by the wonders of science, art, ar- chitecture and technology. I am in awe at the amazing capacities of the human mind, including its feelings, emotions, creativity and in- tellectual pursuits. Have you ever spent time just wondering about wonder? To engage in wonder, we have to get out of ourselves (a good thing) and open to exploration — whether droplets of water or giant ocean waves, the vastness of the cosmos or the intricacies of microbes, to the texture of a beach’s grittiness and how that might correlate with sandcastles and the Swiss Alps or Himalayas. Do you question how this or that came about? Do you ask, how is it all sustaining? Or is it? So much is evolving before our eyes when we simply wake up and wonder. If you are already questioning, I compliment you for your curiosity. If not yet, I hope this challenge will pique your interest, and engage you in a new way of being alive throughout your days. When we ponder what we are within creation — our roles and re-
Son Doong Cave, Vietnam. Image Credit: Dave Bunnell, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
sponsibilities within original creation and/or human creativity — our perceptions begin to transform. Do we accept responsibility for what we may consciously or otherwise be putting in motion? Whether you are the cause that packs a child’s lunch or launches a spaceship, imple - ments a program to deliver clean water to remote villages, discovers a cure for cancer or gently comforts a friend — whatever your contri- bution — it is essential to the well-being of all the rest of us who share this life journey. You matter! Your unique passion and perception are vital to the collective. I dance between awe and wonder. My curiosity stimulates my won - der and awe is my response. Sometimes I feel small, perhaps insig- nificant, in the presence of the greatness that has preceded, and will succeed, me. I am humbled by the expansiveness and minuteness of nature, by the exponential progress of science — by the intensity of it all. The beauty and pure potentiality stun me. In awe, I open to as much as I can grasp. The entirety of creation is made of atoms and quarks; each is essential to the whole. We are all individuations of the Creator. Through time, I am finding more and more people who identify themselves as “spiritual.” Some practice a religion. Many don’t. What they commonly share is a sense there is a Creator (by myriad names) that is expressing as all creation — the cosmos and all its occupants. “Spiritual rather than religious” is a phrase used to describe a way of engaging with meaning, purpose, and the sacred that is grounded per- sonally within each individual rather than institutionally defined. It points to a reliance on direct, lived experience — inner awareness, per- sonal relationship with the sacred (however defined), and an evolving sense of truth that may draw from multiple sources. These individuals feel a direct connection to the sacred, which is real and deeply import- ant to them. They are intuitively seeking congruence — alignment of inner experience with outer expression, often resulting in a sense that they no longer feel their beliefs fit neatly inside a single tradition, doc - trine or institution. As with many of my fellow spiritual beings, I believe there is one Creator in expression as all creation, so it is all sacred and worthy of respect and care. The slip from awe to reverence is natural and in- stantaneous. Reverence is a felt-sense that is also relational and ethi -
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PATHWAYS—Summer 26—9
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