An invitation

An invitation

When it happens to me, I feel fully alive. A momentary shift of perspective, sometimes intentional, sometimes a surprise. Often it’s a spiritual experience—even supernatural. What am I talking about? Wonder.

I’m inviting you to take a few minutes and wonder with me…

Wonder of flyingIt can occur in the most ordinary ways…a robin building her nest in the eaves of our front porch…tiny beaks appearing, open and hungry…the process of learning to fly.

The wonder of communication

 

Or how about my little granddaughter, lifting one hand to greet me. Her vocabulary expands exponentially at age two. I wonder at the miracle of language and the nuances of tiny gestures.

As author Anthony Doerr said, sublimity is “the instant when one thing is about to become something else. Day to night, caterpillar to butterfly. Fawn to doe. Experiment to result. Boy to man.”[i]Continue reading

The Healed Soul

The Healed Soul

“The soul is healed by being with children.”

–Fyodor Dostoevsky

Happiness came at last for Dostoevsky in his mid-forties. Anna Snitkina and Fyodor Dostoevsky married and enjoyed sixteen wondrous years.

Anna’s writings gave us an intimate glimpse of Dostoevsky as an adoring husband. Once, he waited three hours for her on a street corner when her return was delayed. He also took great joy in giving her beautiful gifts—even when money seemed scarce.

8b0c79d0b2He had a tireless love of children and soothed the housekeeper’s children when he heard coughing or crying in the night. As a devoted father, he helped with bathing and feeding their children, unlike men of his day. Anna described him…

“Fyodor was uncommonly tender with his daughter, fussed over her, carried her about in his arms, sang her to sleep and felt so happy that he wrote (a friend), ‘Oh, why aren’t you married and why don’t you have a child? I swear to you that ¾ of life’s happiness lie in that, and ¼ at most in the rest.’”[i] Anna added, “Neither before nor since have I seen a man with such a capacity to enter the world of children.”[ii]

Dostoevsky also proved to be deeply passionate about God. He knew the depths of spiritual battles and once wrote:

“Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.”[iii]

Another time he wrote, “God sends me sometimes instants when I am completely calm; at those instants I love and feel loved by others, and it is at those instances that I have shaped for myself a Credo where everything is clear and sacred for me. This Credo is very simple; here it is:Continue reading

Interestingness

Interestingness

“Self-consciousness is the enemy of ‘interestingness.’” — Malcolm Gladwell.

iStock_000016049950SmallOne of the most beautiful things about small children is their lack of self-consciousness. They sing, dance, and whirl without pretext. Their shimmering self is uncloaked and skipping about with abandon. Spend some time with a three-year-old.

Jesus said we must become as children in order to see the kingdom. Yet, sadly, children are ‘older’ now at younger ages.

Author Marie Winn, in Children Without Childhood, wrote about the cultural changes and demands that put children at risk, causing them to grow up too early–things like family breakups, accessibility of drugs and premature exposure to sex and coarse language in books, movies, TV, and on the Internet.

I was privileged to be child for most of my childhood. In other families divorce happened, people drank too much, and sometimes adults fought. I remember the moment I heard JFK had been shot and watched Martin Luther King’s funeral. But those realities were mere shadows on the periphery of my otherwise sunny world.

HidingStill, sooner or later innocence is lost. And one kind of loss is the development of self-consciousness. While it’s good to know how your words and actions affect others, there is a dark side to self-consciousness that can become a lifelong tyranny.

Do you remember being unaware of yourself? A time when you didn’t know you didn’t have a hairstyle? A place of acceptance where any question could be asked? A season of dreaming and exploring and belly flops without embarrassment.

A shift comes.Continue reading