ADAMS, DOUGLAS
Several billion trillion
tons of superhot exploding hydrogen nuclei rose slowly above the horizon and
managed to look small, cold and slightly damp. Life, the Universe and Everything. Ch. 7.
If he
is an astronomer, then one of the things you could ask him is how far away the
sun is. The answer will probably
startle you. If it doesn’t, then tell
him from me that he hasn’t explained it very well. After he’s told you how far away the sun is, ask him how far away
some of the stars are. That will really
surprise you. “For Children Only,” The Salmon of Doubt, p79.
AUDEN, W. H.
Whatever its actual
context and overt interest, every poem is rooted in imaginative awe.
The Dyer’s Hand.
BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries...
“Aurora Leigh” in Masterpieces of Religious Verse, New
York: Harper Brothers, 1948, p.16.
GASSET, JOSE ORTEGA
“To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to
understand.” The Revolt of the
Masses.
HOPKINS, GERARD MANLEY
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed.
Why do men now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
All is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with
toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell:
the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
For all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down
things...
And though the last lights off the black west
went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward,
springs-
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah!
bright wings.
KANT, IMMANUEL
Two things fill the mind
with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily
we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within
me. Critique of Practical Reason, p.
166.
KAZANTZAKIS, NIKOS
The highest point a man
can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness or Victory, but something
even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe. Zorba the Greek. Ch. 24
KEEN,
SAM
A
mature sense of wonder does not need the constant titillation of the
sensational to keep it alive. It is
most often called forth by a confrontation with the mysterious depth of meaning
at the heart of the familiar and quotidian.
Rare birds–the scarlet tanagers and indigo bunting of experience–do upon
occasion delight us, but a mature sense of wonder may be evoked by starlings
and English sparrows. One is reminded
of the incident in Zorba the Greek when Zorba and the boss meet a
peasant riding on a donkey.
“One
day, I remember, when we were making our way to the village, we met a little
old man astride a mule. Zorba opened
his eyes wide as he looked at the beast.
And his look was so intense that the peasant cried out in terror:
‘For
God’s sake, brother, don’t give him the evil eye!’ And he crossed himself.
I
turned to Zorba.
“What
did you do to the old chap to make him cry out like that?’ I asked him.
‘Me? What d’ you think I did? I was looking at his mule, that’s all! Didn’t it strike you, boss?’
‘What?’
‘Well.
. .that there are such things as mules in this world!’” Apology for Wonder p.
23 - 24.
When I
was six years old I was walking by a courthouse in a small town in Tennessee. A man came out, followed by a large
crowd. As he walked past me, he pulled
a knife from his belt and said, “I present you with this knife.” Before I could see his face or overcome my
shock and thank him, he turned and disappeared. The knife was a strange and mysterious gift. The handle was made out of the foot of a
deer, and on the blade there was something written in a foreign language which
no one in town could translate. For
weeks after this event I lived with a pervasive sense of gratitude to the
stranger and with a wondering expectancy created by the realization that such a
strange and wonderful happening could occur in the ordinary world of
Maryville. If nameless strangers gave
such gifts, what surprises might be expected in the world? ibid. page 211.
LEWIS, C. S.
“Oh, yes! Tell us about Aslan!” said several voices at
once; for once again that strange feeling – like the first signs of spring,
like good news, had come over them.
“Who
is Aslan?” asked Susan.
“Aslan?”
said Mr. Beaver, “Why don’t you know?
He’s the King. He’s the Lord of
the whole wood.”
“But
shall we see him?” asked Susan.
“Why,
Daughter of Eve, that’s what I brought you here for. I’m to lead you where you shall meet him,” said Mr. Beaver.
“Is–is
he a man?” asked Lucy.
“Aslan
a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly.
“Certainly not. I tell you he is
the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of
Beasts? Aslan is a lion–the
lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!”
said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man.
Is he – quite safe? I shall feel
rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That
you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can
appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than
most or else just silly.”
“Then
he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?”
said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what
Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said
anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t
safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
“I’m
longing to see him,” said Peter, “even if I do feel frightened when it comes to
the point.”
“That’s
right, Son of Adam,” said Mr. Beaver.
From
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. pp. 74-76.
LUCADO, MAX
I’ve seen you stalking
the malls, walking the aisles, searching for that extra-special gift. Stashing away a few dollars a month to buy
him some lizard-skin boots; staring at a thousand rings to find her the best
diamond; staying up all night Christmas Eve, assembling the new bicycle.
Why do
you do it? So the eyes will pop, the
jaw will drop. To hear those words of
disbelief: “You did this for me?”
And
that is why God did it. Next time a
sunrise steals your breath or a meadow of flowers leaves you speechless, remain
that way. Say nothing and listen as
heaven whispers, “Do you like it? I did
it just for you.” The Great House of
God (Word).
MACHEN, ARTHUR
Every branch of human
knowledge if traced up to its source and final principles vanishes into
mystery. Quoted by Michael Reagan in The
Hand of God. P. 150.
MASEFIELD, JOHN
Sea Fever
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely
sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer
her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the
white sail’s
shaking.
And a gray mist on the sea’s face, and a gray
dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call
of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be
denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds
flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the
sea gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant
gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the
wind’s like a
whetted
knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing
fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long
trick’s over.
MENCKEN, H. L.
Penetrating so many
secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits, nevertheless, calmly licking its chops. Quoted by Michael Reagan in The Hand of
God. P. 145.
SAGAN, CARL
Look, we all have a
thirst for wonder. It’s a deeply human
quality. Science and religion are both
bound up with it. What I’m saying is,
you don’t have to make stories up, you don’t have to exaggerate. There’s wonder and awe enough in the real
world. Nature’s a lot better at
inventing wonders than we are. Contact,
p. 178.
Our brains are no longer conditioned for
reverence and awe. We cannot imagine a Second
Coming that would not be cut down to size by the televised evening news, or a
Last Judgement not subjected to pages of holier-than-Thou second-guessing in The
New York Review of Books…All mysteries are subject to the modernist
dissolution. Self-Consciousness,
p. 216, 218.
VON GOETHE, JOHANN WOLFGANG
The highest happiness of
man. . . is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is
unknowable. Quoted by Michael Reagan in
The Hand of God. P. 73
WHITEHEAD, ALFRED NORTH
Philosophy begins in
wonder. And, at the end, when
philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains. Nature and Life, p. 46.