Most often wonder is perceived as having a religious connection. G.K. Chesterton reflected that “religion is about wonder” and “the sense of wonder silences us…from being in the presence of god.” Robert Fuller approached the same idea writing, “Because wonder encourages us to think beyond the ordinary boundaries of understanding, it frequently leads to both fantasy and magical thinking. It might, for example, prompt us to posit the existence of supernatural beings such as fairies, angels and gods” [Wonder: From Emotion to Spirituality (2006: 91)]. Indeed, the study of wonder includes exploring its place in spirituality.
To be spiritual is to be receptive to an above order of existence. Indeed, wonder makes a huge emotional and spiritual impact on individuals who are seeking closeness to divinity. Because spirituality is a matter of self-fulfillment and not a utilitarian tool leading to practical solutions for daily survival, common people need a strong motivation to dedicate their life to a high order of belief. To go beyond their ordinary knowledge they need a striking sign of proof to make them commit to a specific spiritual life. If in the Stone Age a thunder light was enough to induce spiritual ideas, in later times people needed religious “proof” for their faith.
Consequently, messiahs, prophets and other holy men reinforced their teachings by performing convincing wonders. All the prophets from Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad used their miracle work to provide their followers with much needed confidence to overcome doubt and live a sacrificial life. In the case of Jesus, a star of wonder announced his birth and led the magi of Bethlehem to search for the Son of God. It could have been a coincidental comet, but it was considered a divine clue. I point out here that humans have a tendency to believe in miracles when they are attached to wonder.
We see this as well when we consider the power of suggestion on the subconscious mind. When a hypnotist hands a pencil to a person in a trance and tells him it is a hot iron, the man drops the object at once. However, later he may have to go to the hospital for third degree burns on his hand. A wonder we pay little attention may greatly affect our subconscious mind and produce comparable effects in our existence.
Wonder is often connected with the power of prayer. We may pray to God for help with our personal problems, for healing, for prosperity and happiness. When those ardent prayers are answered, we experience sublime wonder—proof that God has rewarded our trust and faith in Him. At times, we are so overwhelmed by a specific wonder that we erect shrines to immortalize the divine gift.
At my humble level I am most fascinated by small and banal wonders that make me happy and reinforce the feeling that I am part of a great plan that blesses me with good luck. When I drive down a busy street and every light is green, or immediately identify the one key I need out of the many on my keychain, or run into an old friend I haven’t seen in ages, I revel in the wonders of my life.
A most unusual wonder comes about when I deal with my old TV set, which once in a while acts up and brings back the image after I have clicked the off button. With amazing predictability, I know when that bizarre malfunction will happen, and each time I chuckle with confidence that I have such power of anticipation. With the same anticipation I know before I pull out of my driveway that I will have to wait for a column of cars to pass by, even though most days my street has hardly any traffic.
Often I find myself anticipating wonders: a letter or check may arrive! Will there be any money in the pocket of this old jacket? Could that be my friend from France on the phone? Often enough, the wonders happen! And when they don’t, I know they very well may another time. Anticipating wonder fills my life with optimism and reinforces my spirituality.
At this point, based on evidence, experience and a range of considerations, we can theorize that wonder is a basic instinct connected to joy and surprise. Individuals who appreciate wonder are likely to be creative in arts and music. They may be inspired by wonder to create more wonder—to bring order to chaos, to identify the extraordinary buried within the ordinary and shape images or craft tunes that become wonders in their own right. They are the admired geniuses whose masterpieces are immortalized and are offered for public enjoyment. Writers base their plots on wonder actions and characters, and poets use wonder to appeal to our sensibility. Nearly 2500 years ago, Aristotle believed that wonder was specific to humans because only they are capable of reason and create art for entertainment. Thousands of years before Aristotle, humans produced masterpieces known as the wonders of the world; one of them, the Pyramid of Giza, still astonishes modern tourists. Equally magnificent testimonies of human-made wonders are the Great Wall of China, the Coliseum in Rome, and, built and destroyed the most recently, the World Trade Towers in New York City. They all have something in common—human competition with Mother Nature, which has countless wonders on display all over the globe.
In almost the same category we might include the human wonder-mind that produced fabulous mythological legends, like Santa Claus who comes down the chimney with a sack of gifts, the Tooth Fairy who visits young children when they lose a tooth, the Loch Ness Monster who graces selected people with a vision, the Yeti whose footprints thrill and challenge us, and countless other myths that engage us. Periodic apparitions of the Virgin Mary in front of thousands of believers prove how extraordinary the power of wonder is as it crosses the boundary between the substantive, the illusive, and the imagined. Still, because of our trust in wonder, any resurrection is possible, including that of Elvis Presley. When it comes to belief, there is no limit to what wonder can create—and its incredible global impact must be considered.
A well accepted concept is that any religion is based on commanding signs from heaven. A well known Biblical wonder concerns Moses and the Exodus event, when the Red Sea departed and the Jews escaped the slaughter of the Egyptian army which was in close pursuit. It was the time when the water of the Nile turned into blood and there were many famines for which Moses blamed the Israelites because they were not obeying God. As a corrective measure, the Ten Commandments materialized in a background of thunder and lightning. The Old Testament is full of wonders that offer messages and lessons in survival to the Hebrews who for these reasons believed themselves to be God’s chosen race.
These wonders consolidated the foundation for the Judeo-Christian belief, only to be explained later by science in most atheistic ways. Admittedly, Exodus happened around 1,500 B.C. when Santorini Island became the place of a volcano eruption that wrapped the globe in ashes and destroyed crops and animals. Only 700 kilometers away from Egypt, the volcano tremor opened a dry path for the flying Jews and the ashes colored the Nile water in red. It was a multiple wonder that combined all the natural and spiritual elements with miraculous effects that continue to our days. Regardless of any scientific explanation, we still believe that a “good spirit” is behind good deeds, while “evil spirits” induce misfortunes.
Centuries later, it was wonder that led Columbus to discover the New World and that tempted Magellan to circle the Earth—both of them featuring the cross of faith on their sails.
Our modern times have produced technological wonders despite earlier scientific decrees that certain things were impossible, like a heavier-than-air object would fly or achieve the speed of sound. Today many impossible wonders of the past are realities. Indeed, to see a plane larger than a ship flying twenty miles up in the sky, to send an electronic message with the speed of light across the globe, and to live in a climate control environment would have made people wonder one hundred years ago—and makes many wonder today.
With some of these modern wonders, though, comes a gloomy vision about the capacity of man to destroy mankind with nuclear weapons that can blow the Earth into splinters. This is a wonder even mythology could not envision. With it as well comes the danger that dry science and regimented education may kill the magic of innocent wonder. Skeptics may say that more knowledge of anything brings more unsolved problems and stress. I think that in spite of our incredible advanced civilization and super-busy lives, humans remain emotionally the same as they have been through the ages; the wonder we feel may be masked, but it has not been eliminated from our lives. Somehow in our subconscious, we try to duplicate the greatness of universe in our inner world.
That was not the case, however, with the English mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, he wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), a story that became the source of countless movies, cartoons, television adaptations, poems, and songs. The story captures the wonder of a world of surprises as a girl follows a rabbit with a pocket watch into a hole in the ground. It reflects a vivid imagination and confusion between fantasy and reality, the way children embrace ideas that are possible only in their minds. As for adult readers, they step into a world in which twisted plots recall their years of innocence and wonder. Some time ago a popular television show, “The Wonder Years,” drew on that same nostalgic eminence of earlier wonders.
Likewise, the folk tales of any nation are based on the unpredictable element of wonder which develops and resolves magic plots. Mighty and witty fairy tale heroes mingle with angels and evil characters, including flame breathing dragons and terrifying witches, who make a deep impression on the little reader who learns that good triumphs in any world. These stories become an introduction for children to the wonders of ontology and to a concept of God. Many of these stories duplicate biblical events, packaged in an alternative way for preschool children. The revealing of supernatural wonders is a way of teaching small children metaphysic concepts about trust, love, and wisdom. Here, too, we see that in any depiction of wonder there is a spiritual quality.
The teaching of science is necessary for children because it demonstrates how the world operates. It increases our understanding of the world around us, while at the same time it opens a river of questions about which answers should be provided to future generations. Espousing reason and pragmatism, not faith and dogma, science often clashes with religious beliefs. In our present days the marvels of science seem to win the “race” because science makes our life easier and more comfortable—few people choose to live an ascetic and pious life. Yet even though the wonders of science are pleasing and plenty, they are often physical and therefore perishable. The invention of the computer, downloading music onto an ipod, conversing on a cell phone—all are innovations that have rapidly evolved into new wonders—so rapidly, in fact, that we have lost our sense of real wonder over these scientific inventions; we have quickly become inured to the “wow” and instead focus on what will come next, and then next, and then next.
Still there is wonder in our lives and in our world. Wonder goes beyond “good enough” and “what’s next” in order to materialize.
Besides the wonder so casually accepted in the field of science, there is a wonder that is limitless, that never causes harm, that has no rival in the imagination. It provides amazing displays of a high order that cannot be controlled by humans and offers an ultimate invitation to sample extraordinary happenings. When witnessing the wonder that exceeds human power and understanding, the presence of a Force larger than ourselves is instantly felt. I call this force the “holy matter of wonder”—it is the spiritual essence of wonder. It is close enough to be observed but distant enough to stop us from interfering with it. It is a glowing example of what metaphysics is about. Certainly, science alone cannot explain the wonder of love, of gratitude, of forgiveness, of noble purpose, and other marvels of human emotions. Ironically, it is wonder, with all its spiritual dimensions, that led to the scientific inquiries responsible for abolishing old theories and discover other wonders.
During the seventy years of Communist dictatorship in Russia and Eastern Europe, religion and the idea of wonder were replaced with proletarian slogans that affirmed faith only in god-like leaders. God was replaced by Marx and Lenin, and Stalin credited himself as responsible for the wonders of the world. As a first grader in Romania, I witnessed children being urged to pray to heavenly God for candy. Nothing happened. But after they asked Father Stalin from the Kremlin for candy, wonder of wonders!, the ceiling opened and candy dropped into the classroom! The Creator was named President of Nature, and all wonders were under the control of the dialectical materialism dogma. Yet, faith in God increased for the people living in the Evil Empire, and hope in miracles never diminished. Homo Sovieticus never materialized.
In the United States religious wonders were challenged in a different manner when it came to creationism that traced human origin to the Book of Genesis. Darwin’s theory on the origin of the species was the alternative, speculating that it did not take six days but billions of years of evolution and natural selection to create modern humans. The teaching of evolution in schools was put officially on trial in 1925. Seventy years later the argument about the origin of mankind was again in the news and the courts. Many schools chose to teach the theory of Intelligent Design, either alongside evolution or by itself. This was a politically correct wonder in itself. Nevertheless, much objection continues to be voiced by the Americans who refuse to believe humans evolved at all, much less from apes. One may wonder how God had the time to create over 360,000 species of beetles, or if that is exactly the proof of his Creation.
The science versus religion standoff introduces another question to this study: do animals experience wonder? Like humans they stop in front of something surprisingly different with a feeling of bewilderment, undecided what to do. Documentary films show that an eclipse of the sun induces wonder in animals as well as humans—or so it appears as we observe animals reacting to the blackening sun in the middle of a bright sky. Certainly animals have no spiritual thoughts, but they have enough sense of what’s out of the ordinary to stop and respond to the smell of smoke, the cracking of the earth’s surface, or a powerful wind. Philosopher G.K. Chesterton called this kind of wonder “animal appreciation” when facing “mysteries of Nature” and “elemental powers.”
Charles Darwin noticed how humans and animals shared the same attitudes and habitual movements when experiencing something unusual. His book The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) documented many similarities that demonstrate that evolution did not erase inherited instinctive emotions that belong to both man and animals. A cat and a primitive man would react with the same wonder in front of a mirror. Unlike humans, however, animals sense natural disasters in the making. Just like humans they are responsive to wonder as an indication of both beauty and danger. Humans and animals have an internal wonder reflex, which in humans is manifested as emotions. Emotions are the beginning elements of religious thought based on the matter of wonder and expressions of spirituality.
While my focus has been on the beauty and positive aspects of wonder, we need also look at wonder that is connected to disasters and tragedies. Here, too, there is an awe reaction, the “wow” factor, the “how is this possible” question. For some, a negative wonder leads to accusations—how can God allow such a calamity to happen? For others, a horror wonder is proof that God does not exist. The unwanted wonders may reinforce a belief that a larger and stronger force can do anything—that God has His plans that we do not know, or that the Universe is capricious. Personal tragedies and harmful turns of events trigger the same cries.
It is my opinion that wonder is spiritual matter comprised of positive and negative energy that unleashes constructive or destructive forces. A volcano eruption can build an island and provide the richest mineral soil for agriculture, or it can melt cities and kill people. What we see is the effect of those hidden forces that shape different wonders. Mostly good, wonder reinforces our trust in God who has created things so they happen in a specific way.
But most wonders happen right before our eyes, as the ordinary is transformed into the extraordinary. This radical change of perception is described by David C. Downing in Into the Region of Awe (2005:87):
In these hours the world seems charged with a new vitality, with a splendor which does not belong to it but is poured through it, as light through a colored window, grace through a sacrament… In such moods of heightened consciousness, each blade of grass seems fierce with meaning and becomes a well of wondrous light: a little emerald set in the City of God.
Indeed, looking at the giant redwood we may not consider the minuscule seed that was responsible for such a wonder. When swatting at a spider web, we most likely don’t think to acknowledge the wonder of labor and artistry displayed by the humble insect. For some people the idea of wonder is not a big deal, yet when they come face to face with wonder, it leaves them motionless and speechless. What we see intrinsically carries an undeniable natural order that makes wonder possible and so redirects our lives according to the ready-to-understand message. It may be the miracle of birth making possible the renewal of life, or it may be the wonder of death as an existence comes to an end.
When the move It’s A Wonderful Life made its debut in 1946, its box-office flop was credited to its have a child-like subject. So much innocence was lost during the pre-war depression and the war years that the public had little compassion for a suicidal loser who was saved by a trainee angel. Despite this, it turned out that the movie collected many Hollywood rewards, and by 1974 when it was shown on television as a Christmas story, it was a huge hit and has remained a much-loved classic.
Its success did not come from the rather monotonous plot but from how the hero was forced to see life going on without him. This was a lesson in gratitude he had overlooked because of temporary hardships. Suddenly removed from this family he experienced a unique wonder that brought him right back where he belonged. With confidence reset by wonderful events, he began a new life—sharing with viewers the wonder of optimism, the knowledge that indeed miracles are possible.
Wonder is often labeled as an incomplete or distorted understanding of the real world, more like a kaleidoscope that offers entertaining images with little content to substantiate it. Many times it is presented as a mental hallucination, close to a narcotic that is short-lived and leaves little in its wake. This image may contain a grain of truth for individuals with no emotional sensibility and minimal spirituality. In this vein it is worth mentioning that to wonder is to idealize something and even to create mythical memory that serves a beautiful image or empowers a special presence. Many historical leaders (Hitler being one) mastered the ability to project wonder and used it to mesmerize the masses through hypnotic dominance.
Any kind of wonder rekindles the fire of thinking and reflection. Like anything else important, after the wonder is over, its spiritual and practical value increases tremendously, gaining legendary dimensions. Eventually a lesson in knowledge emerges to teach us more about various aspects of wonder, including its connection with spirituality. For sure, it goes beyond our five senses and often establishes a belief in miracles.
All comes to an end after a lifetime of rewards and struggles, accomplishments and disappointments. We all hope to reach the silver and golden ages of retrospective reflections. It is during the retirement years that we make room for the next generations to take over the world, we resign our importance (often not easily) and face the fact of our heading to the final destination from which there is no escape. This is the time when we supposedly reap the benefits of our long labor and begin to deeply wonder what life was about. Sadly we have the wisdom but not the energy or desire to use it. We try to apply it to our children, who just like us in the past, believe they do not need it. We turn our attention to our grandchildren and eventually to our great-grandchildren and wonder how much of us is in them.
As we look for help and safety, we turn our focus on our spouse or companion and may develop a tremendous bond of dependence, so comforting in old age. Lost in long meditations about the past and wondering about the future, we may spiritually connect with many of our thoughts. We often decide to forget bad deeds and bad people and vow that from now on we’ll do and think only good. Strange wonders come to mind, like: time does not exist, the past is gone, the present is already past, and the future is in the future. We may persuade ourselves that we are ageless.
We tend to be happy to meet with relatives and friends from childhood or school and reminisce about old times. All that was so vital in the past, such as business, politics, competition, and sensational news, is now the subject of jokes and a reason to laugh. Health is crucially important, and going to the doctor is a trip into wonder—either good or worrisome. If we’re in good health and have the financial means, we take trips to see the wonders of the world listed in books as “see this before you die.” If strapped by a tight budget, we may turn to the wonder of gardening, knitting, painting, or writing family memoirs.
Many senior citizens live alone and are happy to accept any attention, be it phone calls or visits. Finding purpose becomes a goal and volunteering in the community can become a way to reinforce usefulness, as well as providing a reason to get out of the house. Going to church may be more of a spiritual than social event as we get older; in church we confirm our faith while we pray for our redemption. Being among good people feels good and rejuvenating. Praying may take on more meaning and we may do it more often. Those who are in touch with their feelings see the wonder in all of these activities. Wonder has become less a matter of “wow” and more an awareness of gratitude.
Sometime we look back to our life and wonder what we would do differently if we could start all over again. We realize with regret that we did not believe enough in the power of wonder and became stagnant in our safe and comfortable lives. We did not follow many of our dreams. Sadly, we wonder about our real but unknown potential in life; what if we had dared to do what we only wondered about…
In the meantime there remains so much to consider before we can arrive at a peaceful resolution concerning unresolved issues. As we look toward the end of life, some of us anticipate a spiritual after-life filled with eternal wonder; others look forward to meeting their Maker who has even more wonders to reveal. Still others see an end to wonder, believing they will be reintegrated with nature or disintegrate into nothingness.
And so we come full circle: from primitive society to today’s technological age, we find wonder; in beauty and disaster, we see wonder; in folklore, fiction, and scientific discovery there is wonder. The prophets showed us wonder, prayer often leads to wonder, our subconscious may seek wonder. There are wonders in our everyday life, wonders that are once in a lifetime, and wonders that are beyond our comprehension. There are countless wonders we live with every day, “wow” moments that endlessly enrich our lives—the wonder of rainbows, of falling stars, of comets, of fountains, of clear blue skies, cotton candy, a child’s laugh, a hug, the wonder of a good night’s sleep. There is the wonder of a volcano’s eruption, the formation of a new island, the destructive power of a wave, the explosion that creates a new star.
The matter of wonder—the essence of wonder—is spirituality. The awe of the Universe is in every wonder, however small or great, however much science analyzes and dissects it, however jaded or tired we are, whatever age we are. And when we come to the end of life, we will hopefully be grateful for all the wonders we have experienced—and open to whatever wonders await us.