Wonder-filled

"And I'll be singing 
Halle-halle-halle-halle-hallelujah
Halle-hallelujah
Whether you like it or not."
 - Hallelujah, by Oh Wonder


I've been considering the concept of wonder and awe. I remember being a teenager when the word "awesome" reentered everyday vernacular. Before then, it was a word of the 60's and 70's: "Awesome, dude. Far out." It was a word for that time period, until slowly, it wiggled back into normal conversations. I'm pretty sure I first said, "That's awesome" while in a conversation with my Mom and sister while in a book store, and that my Mom looked at me funny. I remember the blush, yet the unapologetic boldness too: this word was being claimed by my generation as well.

The thing is, we use the word "awesome" so much in everyday conversation, it doesn't really mean "extremely impressing or daunting" anymore. That band you love is coming to town? Awesome! Dinner is ready? Awesome. You have a coupon? Awesome. We say it, even if it's not really accurate.

But when we see natural wonders of the world, whether it be something spectacular such as the Grand Canyon or Aurora Borealis, or as simple as perfect, delicate mushrooms growing from an impossible crack in the pavement, then we are likely to be filled with wonder and awe. When someone is alive after a car crash or other event which, by all reasonable accounts, should have killed them. When we travel to the country and look at the night sky and see the Milky Way and constellations. When someone still likes us and is there for us after we grandly screw up and hurt them, a Godzilla wreaking havoc in our own lives. When we experience what some call coincidence and some call a miracle .. we are filled with wonder and awe, again and again and again.

I was thinking about how human creations can inspire this feeling as well, particularly art. It can be a painting, a dance, a piece of music, a sculpture, or a poem. Immediately, the first thing which came to my mind is the song "Non Nobis Domine", from the soundtrack to Kenneth Branagh's film retelling of Shakespeare's "Henry V". In the film, King Henry V has given the rousing "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers" speech. Full of hope and recklessness, they surge into battle. After a brutal fight, the king learns that his enemy is retreating; he can scarcely believe it, yet they have won. His next speech is balanced with the headiness of victory alongside the grim tragedy of all the lives which were lost. As the remaining soldiers disperse, one begins to sing. One lone voice, singing in Latin. His is joined by another, and the camera pans out to find King Henry, who has hoisted the body of a young boy onto his shoulders. He begins to make his way across the battle field, past crude defenses as a whole choir of voices can be heard singing together. He trudges past weary soldiers and sorrowful corpses, through the field which has been turned to mud by the trampling of horses and past puddles stained with blood. The voices cease as the music swells, and every time it's the surging of the strings which cracks my heart in two. Every time it's the passionate pleading of the violins which arrests me and breaks me, and it's the returning of the choir which restores me. I listen to that song, and I'm undone and renewed all in five minutes. I feel despair, thinking both of death and war and the insane fact that someone came up with music so pure which I can only listen to in complete rapture and how I will likely never come close to creating anything so beautiful in all my life. I feel hope, contemplating the welling up of joy that someone could sing after battle (fictional or no), and that loss con coexist with victory. I feel peace and awe that voices and violins exist to merge and meld and be. I feel thankfulness that I can listen to this song any time I want and be undone and redone, and wonder that my heart can take it again and over again.

When I need to remind myself to feel wonder, I listen to that song. I recite the poem "Thanks", by W. S. Merwin. I go for a run or walk in nature, preferably near water. I think about the fact of my own minuscule-ness yet ability nonetheless. About the feeling of the sun on my skin after winter, of swimming past the breakers of the ocean, and there it is: wonder and awe, all over again.

It's more than "cool" or "neat". If it is awesome, it is worthy of awe and wonder. It is enough to make me feel as though I'm coming apart and becoming more alive, both at once. So whatever your moment of awe is - your piece of art or place in the world - remember to visit it; regularly, and with reverence. Frame it inside yourself. Treasure it. Regularly, and with reverence. Wonder and awe.