Berwick Thought for the Week article: We need to recover a sense of wonder in our lives

Wonder is not an everyday emotion. Anthony de Mello once wrote: ‘Though they don’t know it, many people seem to sleep-walk through life. They are born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep ...they even die in their sleep without ever waking up.

‘They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence.’

In the apparent chaos of our world at present, we desperately need to recover a sense of wonder in our lives. We need to find a deeper meaning to existence, a refresher course in love and gratitude whatever the challenges that beset us.

Such an awakening is not a secret. It may come during a holiday when we encounter a new culture or lifestyle. The birth of a child often sparks an awakening of profound wonder.

Equally, the threat of serious illness can make us stop our tracks and ask fundamental questions of life. One man who emerged from a serious cancer scare wrote ‘Things we take for granted, like having a shower, drinking orange juice, have an extraordinary brilliancy at the moment.’

William Blake famously expressed this in a poem: ‘To see a world in a grain of sand/ And heaven in wild flower/ Hold infinity in the palm of your hand/ And eternity in an hour.’

Wonder, like reverence, is not for grasping to suit our own ends or needs. It requires a certain surrender, a self forgetting.

It is about paying attention to what is already present, but too easily goes unnoticed. It takes practice, but it is all there waiting for us!

Stephen Hewitt (with due acknowledgement to words from ‘Dust and Glory’ by Rev David Runcorn)

It’s often believed that old age brings wisdom, and maybe sometimes this is still true. But most of us in the West are living longer than we ever expected and understand less of the world we live in.

In fact, as I get older I find myself meeting new challenges and having to review the lessons I learnt in the past.

For me the important lesson is to live in the present, even when things are difficult. Its there, in the present, that we discover our true self and there that we can find ultimate meaning.