A Sunday Thought About That Sense of Awe and Astonishment to Start the Week Off Right

Sometimes children's eyes remind us of the awe and astonishment we once had. Do you remember? Think hard. The world wasn't always so "normal." Once the smallest, simplest things could capture you attention and hold it almost forever. Kermit the Frog wasn't a puppet manipulated by some guy you couldn't see; it was actually Kermit. That book you read to your four year old that to you had words on one page and a beautiful illustration on the other, drew your child into a wonderful new world.

“My habitual feeling,” wrote Abbot John Chapman, “is that the world is so extremely odd., and everything in it is so surprising. Why should there be green grass and liquid water, and why have I got hands and feet?”

Chesterton puts it this way:

“The mere man on two legs, as such, should be felt as something more heartbreaking than any music and more startling than any caricature. Death is more tragic even than death by starvation. Having a nose is more comic even than having a Norman nose….We all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is interested by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales but babies like realistic tales for they find them romantic…This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.”

Last week we talked about new seasons and new beginnings.; how every Sunday brings a new beginning no matter the season, as we commemorate that greatest of new beginnings, the Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. we receive Our Lord's Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist, we begin anew. As we begin this week anew, let's pray that we can capture some of the awe and astonishment that we once had, and which we so desperately need.

Meanwhile, here's a little girl who hasn't yet been molded and folded into the adult way of seeing the world. OK, it's a little too cutesy maybe. But give it a try. It certainly perked me up when I saw it.