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Childlike Wonder

One of the many things I like about the Catholic tradition is its use of the lectionary.  The lectionary is a set of pre-selected readings---multiple readings per day if you want---for use in both daily life and the life of a community, if you are part of a monastery or church.  Additionally, there are specific days to honor the variety of saints.  One of my favorite spiritual giants from the past is St Francis of Assisi, 13th century and sometime soldier.  At some point, he realized he was being called to a different way of life, committed himself to poverty and to live the gospel as he understood it.

Francis became associated with love of nature and of animals.  I like to see him as a gentle giant among the saints.  He is someone I really wish I could have met, although I think his life would be a real challenge to my own more superficial, dabbling in the spiritual journey.  Along with the challenge, I also think he would be inspirational.  In fact, I do find him and his life inspiring.  One contemporary place where he is still relevant is in facing the impending global climate crisis.  It is easy to know where he would stand on this issue.

With this backdrop, I want to share a great line from a recent piece written by Brenna Davis, who is very concerned about the climate issue.  At the outset of her written piece, she quotes from Francis and his famous poem, Canticle of the Sun.  Francis writes, “Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind, and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather through which You give sustenance to Your creatures.”  Francis continues, “Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water, which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.”  To this Francis writes about Brother Fire and then he closes with an affirmation of Sister Mother Earth, whom he praises in this manner: “who sustains us and governs us and who produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.”

I always appreciate reading this poem and being provoked to think about Francis and his concerns, which are very much our concerns.  And reading Brenna Davis made me appreciate her perspective and her challenge.  I do not know Davis, so I was surprised to learn she lives quite close to me.  Now I am challenged to touch base, meet her and continue to learn from her.  Even though she is a good bit younger than I am, she seems farther along in her sensitivity to and valuing nature and how it is threatened by a self-centered way of living.

Now I want to lift up the sentence in her piece that spoke deeply to me.  She describes our climate threat as a global storm.  She comments, “Paradoxically, in the midst of this global storm that threatens to overwhelm us, we are being invited to root ourselves in our particular places and in the daily spiritual practices of gratitude, childlike wonder and heart-centered connection that provide ongoing conversion.”  I would agree that this threat is a threat that soon enough may overwhelm us.  

Legitimately, we should be asking if the extreme drought in the southwest is a harbinger of times to come?  We are so overusing the water from the Colorado River, people living luxuriously in the desert feel “threatened.”  We might suspect, they have seen nothing yet!  I am not one prone to apocalyptic thinking, but I do believe the scientists on this one.

It does not seem Davis resorts to despair.  As a woman of faith, she says we are being invited.  I like invitational leadership!  We are being invited to root ourselves in our particular place.  We can choose our place, but she is challenging us about our travel habits and misusing resources “just because.”

In our place she counsels that we develop daily spiritual practices.  This reminds me of the lectionary.  Use the lectionary and cultivate daily spiritual practices.  Do it daily.  Don’t be a dilettante---just messing around.  In fact, she knows it is going to be a conversion for most of us.  And she grounds this daily practice in three ways.  First, we cultivate gratitude.  We learn to be grateful and more grateful.  Learn to replace greed with gratitude.  Learn to be satisfied and be grateful.  You’ll be happier.  

Secondly, we are to cultivate childlike wonder.  I love this one and used it as the title of my own inspirational piece.  I have young grandchildren.  I see the wonder in their faces and sounds.  When did I lose my wonder?  Can I recover it in order legitimately to use “wonderful” in my language again?  It is possible to live lives full of wonder.  Catch a sunrise, play in the rain, make a snowball.  Nature is a wonderland; why would we want to destroy it?  Consume less; recycle more.  Learn to share.  Francis committed to poverty.  Quakers talk about simplicity.  I can at least do simple living.

Finally, Davis counsels that we develop heart-centered connection.  We do this with nature and with each other around the globe.  Think about how we lock doors and put up walls.

Too many of us live “gated lives.”  We seal off our lives, rather than take seriously the implications of our baptism, which sealed our lives for a different calling and serving.  

I want to begin developing that childlike wonder…surely I can do this!


https://www.ncronline.org/news/earthbeat/home-creation-sustaining-our-happy-places-through-radical-delight


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