Awe and Wonder

            Have you ever felt wonder, or a sense of awe? I have, and it is ethereal.  For me it transpires the most in nature, when all of my senses are being used to experience the moment.  The smell of pine, the swish of tall grass, the chirrup of crickets, the rough feel of bark beneath my fingertips, the feel of the sun, and the taste of fresh air; together, in harmony, elicit a sense of wonder and awe in me.  What is this phenomenon of wonder and where do these feelings come from?

          
           Kant has a theory, mainly in regards to beauty, but I think it can just as easily be related to wonder.  When we are struck with the beauty of a place, experience, or situation, wonder is born.  This feeling almost detaches us from reality.  In fact we can only experience true awe and wonder when we have no purpose for the thing which produces our wonder.  Using beauty as an example; if I view a flower and see it as beautiful, it means I have no desired purpose for that flower.  However as soon as I decide to pick it and bring it to someone, it loses its beauty to me, and I lose my sense of wonder along with it.  For wonder is elicited with purposefulness without purpose. We perceive that the flower has a purpose, but one that is not to our own ends. 

         
           True wonder then exists completely within the individual.  It actually is a moment when we are free from ourselves.  When have no immediate interest in the object of our attention, then our desires have no place in our experience.  Normally we are enslaved by our desires, but when we feel wonder and awe we step away from our selfishness for just a moment.  After the experience one can reflect and analyze the feelings that transpired, but by this time our reflection only pertains to the memory of what we felt.  In order to feel a sense of awe, to become awful as it were, we must try to experience without purposeful intention.  This is very hard to do, and that is why wonder strikes us unawares.  We can be completely focused on the task at hand, look up, and be completely wowed by what we behold.  That again, results because we didn’t expect it, and we didn’t use it; we just experienced it.  

        
           Wonder plays an important role in our existence.  It helps us realize that there is something more to our world then our independent lives.  When we are struck with awe, we bare witness to reality in a new and profound way.  We catch a glimpse of how everything and anything reflects God's glory and majesty.

"We need a renaissance of wonder.  We need to renew, in our hearts and in our souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial sense that life is miracle and magic." -E. Merril Root