Over this Christmas the theme that seemed to come through again and again was the word Wonder. If there is something that has re- lit my spiritual life over these last ten years it is Mystery and Wonder. There is no better time to visit the theme of Wonder and the Child then Christmas. It is the quintessential of Christmas. Living in a town where snow capped mountains are standard scenic fare the fact that a peek out my back porch or short walk to the end of the street brings me a breathtaking view of snow capped mountains . Ho hum there is Golden Ears, Mount Cheam, Mount Baker . No, that is not really our reaction we simply lift our eyes go" How Beautiful" and continue our day. They have become wonderfully commonplace. The same with the night sky, the tummy of a pregnant woman, flowers in yard, healing tea, the wings of hummingbird. All these are wonders. They are there for us to drink in. To marvel, to renew our remembrance of the Creative Presence of God. They are gifts. Like miniature love token remembrances from the Beloved. If Love centres our life then these love tokens. God speaks love to us in whispered moments of wonder. Perhaps you are thinking,"' Well its a long time since God spoke to me." Have you looked at the constellations in the night sky, have you stopped to look at the heart centre of a flower, have you seen a newborn baby, walked in the woods, stepped into the room of a sleeping child , sat quietly in a church after everyone else was gone. The great saints Bonaventure for one speak about this as one of the first steps to our awareness and connection with God. I had come upon his bookIteranium in the abbey library and was reading it one Sunday morning on a stroll through our local lake centred park. His whole work spoke of how one of our early steps towards the mystery of God is in these kinds of moments. The park took on a life of its own. A spiders web in a bush caught dew in the form of little droplets of diamonds lit by the sun. The waterlilies sat like hosts on green pattens. The geese processed down to the lake the rings around their necks looking more like clerical collars. The whole park paid homage to the mystery of Sunday morning. I was caught up in one great moment of mystery. It was just Mill Lake Park. The most familiar public park in town , where we had walked hundreds of times on summer days or cool springs when the ice still made little crusts on the lake. Yet in one God infuses moment it became what it really was all the time , covered in a veil the beauty of the the Creation of God , designed for his pleasure and mine. Much more so for mine. Much so me for Him, created with this great need to worship vacum would be satisfied with anything less then the Mystery of God. The proof of this lays strangely not just in the beauty , but in a wholesale effort to replace beauty and wonder with the marketable "other". We cut down forests and block of our views of the mountains development. We can't see the night time sky with the lights from the city covered twice over by pollution. We close the drapes so the light from a sunset doesn't interfere with the evening news. Make a mental note for a moment of how many things you can think of that block your awareness of wonder. Then think of where you want to go on vacation. If you first answer is Vegas we might not be on the same page, but it's not to late for you yet.
Re-lighting your wonder requires a desire to be open to the Presence of God in your day. It may require a simple invitation of heartfelt desire to reunite with the spiritual child inside of you who has lost wonder in the rush to grow up. Like Peter Pan and Tinkerbell if your a Disney person or St.Theresa and St. Francis & Bonaventure if your into saints , we like children need to press our noses to the glass fronts of our inner needs and say Ask for them to be met. We can crawl up on the lap of the Father and find once again the love he has for us. We can wait like little children with a highly attuned awareness of the mystical to his gifts for us sent daily in breathtaking moments of beauty in the little things of life. Hidden in the routine moment of the day. He will lift the veil and we like children waiting for the moment the presents we dream for to be opened under the tree will find His Presents/Presence in hidden moments , love caught corners of our day. They were there all the time. We had not been looking or expecting or aware . Dulled by other our eyes had become closed to beauty. We have fallen asleep like Sleeping Beauty under a bad fairy spell. It feels like for a hundred years. It takes one moment , with our Prince , one kiss , to awaken us. Every Day we wake and wait now for that kiss in our day.
Prayer:
Awaken my soul oh Prince of my Life, to the love letters you send me today, to moments of beauty, to moments of mystery and wonder, created by your hand for my delight. Awake in meo Oh Lover of My Soul the joy of Wonder. Prepare my heart , clear away the cobwebs, the empty distractions, the clutter of other false packing filler we use to stuff the empty wholes in our life and make us ready to be filled the beauty of your love for us....We wait for the moment of your gift for our day. We wait for that first hint of the Divine.
( more thoughts like this in Song of Songs or St. Bernard's commentaries on the Song of Songs)
if you think Saints are tame reading you missed this one. Positively sizzling . Passion.
