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.
KOONTZ, DEAN
Because we are
imperfect beings who are self-blinded to the truth of the world’s stunning
complexity, we shave reality into paper-thin theories and ideologies that we
can easily grasp, and we call them truths.
But the truth of a sea, in all its immensity, cannot be embodied in one
tide-washed pebble…In each little life we can see great truth and beauty, and
in each little life we glimpse the way of all things in the universe. If we allow ourselves to be enchanted by the
beauty of the ordinary, we begin to see that all things are extraordinary. If we allow ourselves to be humbled by what
we do not and cannot know, in our humility we are exalted. If we allow ourselves to recognize the
mystery and the wonder of existence, our fogged minds clear. Thinking clearly, we follow wonder to awe,
and in the state of awe, we are as close to true wisdom as we will ever
be. A Big Little Life, pp. 7-9.
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.
MEACHAM, JON
Magic means there is
a spell, a formula, to work wonders.
Mystery means there is no spell, no formula – only shadow and
impenetrability and hope that one day, to borrow a phrase T. S. Eliot borrowed
from Julian of Norwich, all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be
well. NY Times Sunday Book Review of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years December 17, 2010.
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.