The Glory of Wonder
When we become receptive to wonder, our lives take on new and powerful dimensions.
I remember a remarkable, transformative night during my childhood. It had been a fitful, sleepless night . My mind dashed and skipped, and my thoughts circled around a primary thought. Barely thirteen years old, I did not have the cognitive complexity to understand the significance of this epiphany — that what I was experiencing would linger with me for more than six decades. The insight came from some other-worldly place.
My young mind had been supercharged by Superman — a hero portrayed by actor George Reeves. For several years before this night, I had been an enthusiastic fan of the television series. I would tie a bathroom towel around my neck and run through my home shouting “It’s a bird; it’s a plane; it’s Superman!” Excitement elevated me above the floor. I’m sure this predictable behavior irritated my parents. But I was filled with the possibilities liberated by running faster than a speeding bullet, climbing a building in a single bound, or peering through women’s clothes with x-ray vision. Superman symbolized a nascent wish that I might live a fortunate and heroic future.
Darkness also filled my bedroom with uncertainty, leading to rhetorical questions. Could I be heroic? Would my existence matter? Who would notice? Who might care?
I said a prayer, asking God to guide me to a life of significance. I asked Him to give me a chance to demonstrate my worthiness.
That night stands out among the roughly 27,000 days that I have lived. This was my first time thinking critically beyond the boundaries of boyhood and immaturity. I considered my place in the future, and I prayed for an outcome that would make me proud to have been born and lived. Full of aspirations, my swirling imagination also led me to a state of wonder.
As a noun, wonder is “a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.” As a verb, the word means “a desire to be curious, to know something.” Wonder also implies doubt in reaction to questions such as, “Are we living beings on earth alone in the universe?”
I felt awe before a future of choices yet to be made. My small body grew to the size of a robust and ripped George Reeves, the personification of humanistic manhood and steel determination.
I talked to myself in a whisper: “I want to make a difference with my life. I want to help others. I need to matter.”
Even then, I knew Superman was merely a boy’s fantasy, an impossible set of powers for a mortal man. I knew he was an actor in a costume. Nevertheless, I embraced what he stood for: charity, protectiveness, courage, and self-sacrifice. He was both the affable Clark Kent and the unyielding Man of Steel. He was gentle and strong. Kind and fearsome.
I rested on my back and stared at the bedroom ceiling. I saw the possibilities and limitations of life. I missed my Grandma Grace who had recently died of ovarian cancer. I knew without doubt about my certain pathway to death far in the future. The realization of her death fueled my deep desire to live for others. Gracie had so much pride in her grandson; she loved me unconditionally and completely.
That love carried me through a sleepless night until the wee hours of the morning when I finally drifted off to slumberland.
When I awoke, late in the following morning, I had become a different person. I did not then know my purpose, but I had embraced the values of purposeful living. Rather, I had become a more complete person with a sense of true north for my life, a yearning that has never subsided.
Wondering about all the possibilities ahead stamped this night into long-term memory. The visual image of me lying in darkness, beseeching God to fill me with resolute determination, whether through good works, charity, volunteering, or stepping up when challenged.
Looking back across six decades, I still wonder. I savor thinking about life as possibilities while our human species always discovers deeper insights into life on our planet, the expansive cosmos around us and how we humans have become “the universe understanding itself.”
I harbor no grandiose beliefs that I have succeeded in achieving all the aspirations of that boy. I feel no need to apologize for falling short of childhood dreams.
Yet, every day I have moments of deeper appreciation for what we understand as an intelligent species. Our science has disclosed so much about cosmic existence, from the infinitesimally small to the astonishingly large. I have grown from that knowledge.
We are specks of life in an endless universe of stars and galaxies. Our collective human minds have traveled from the subatomic to the cosmic. We are each made up of 37 trillion cells, acting and reacting in harmony. Our technological travels have escorted our robots beyond the boundaries of the sun’s influence to the edges of the solar system, past the Oort Cloud, where the sun’s gravity has no more influence. We are an intelligent species in which our children can imagine the possibilities of becoming superhuman.
A sense of wonder is a mystical experience that makes life worth living. A state of awe about who and what we are can break through banalities of everyday existence. Pure transcendence propels us to possibilities. Wonder bestows hope. And wisdom. And clarity.
Contemplating that which is wonderful can overcome depression and cynicism. Learning about things our forebears never understood — or even envisioned — fulfills a deeper yearning to answer questions about what, why, and how. Perhaps we also will evolve to become better stewards of our fragile planet and all the creatures that share our space, from ants to giant blue whales.
Life has challenges and disappointments. Some days can feel hopeless. But yet we can feel more alive when we imagine all the wonderful experiences and knowledge waiting to be discovered. A multi-planet species? The end of disease and aging? Travel across the cosmos?
Remembering that influential night in my life, as I do today so vividly, always fills me with hope. One night mattered. It set the psychological stage for yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
I promise that your life can become more vivid when you learn about the wonderful possibilities that science and technology have brought to collective consciousness and reality. Wonder makes us more human and equal. We stand together in awe and understand how we are connected to 8 billion others on a tiny blue planet orbiting a vast cosmos.
Let wonder well up inside you as it has me. I felt the loneliness of a dark childhood room around me, but I filled my consciousness with light: a commitment to keep learning and trying to apply what I have learned.
To being wonder-full.
