I’ve read a number of great books this year. Often they’re from Anne’s shelf. When it’s a Pulitzer winner you’re pretty sure the reward will be there. I just re-read a two-paragraph passage in a recent one, Gilead, a novel by Marilynne Robinson, one that reads like poetry but easier in its flowing prose. It’s a light touch on the wonder of life.
Here’s how it starts:
“I have been thinking about existence lately. In fact, I have been so full of admiration for existence that I have hardly been able to enjoy it properly.”
For context, the voice is that of an aged reverend who, knowing his days are numbered, is writing his reflections to his son (7) to be read in the son’s adulthood. He’s just been out walking, noticing the changing of the trees and wondering at the beauty of it all. He continues:
“I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can’t believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try.”
By the time I finished that book (and moved onto the next) I’d marked many passages. But this one stands out, especially about our being like a child who opens his eyes once, sees amazing things he’ll never know the names of, and closes them again. That, and though there’s a better world coming, this one is overwhelmingly sufficient.
Talk about the wonder of nature and a brief look, such was our trip to Maine and Vermont and Montreal. (See the blog about Anne’s artwork on clothing if you missed it.) Now, after two weeks at home we’re off to another, work related, in Ojai, California, also a place to wonder, of trees, of humanity, and God.
Always grateful.
A morning in Vermont from our lodgings. We were there just before the storied changing of the colors, but still overflowing for the eyes.
Our Lives Together
Its About Life
9:37 am
We just returned from Maine last week. Our second trip in 2 years – reestablishing relationships with long lost relatives, including some in those small graveyards you mentioned in your last post “. . . silent gravestones might be calling us to slow down, to live life to the fullest . . . or to speed up, also to live life to the fullest.” May the beauty of this earth, and the gravestones, silent testimonies to lives lived, full or not, speak loud enough for us to slow down and “wonder.”
10:02 am
So glad you shared this, Hyatt. Having just spent time in the Northwest with each of my grown sons & families, I had my own cherished moments with that “sense of wonder” coming over me. Each time I experience this, it’s almost overwhelming… the beauty and incomprehensible aspects of raw nature. Maybe my age? Perhaps a season of life I’m coming into? If so, I’ll take it! Each time, I get that this-is-enough feeling. A shadow of things to come?
9:21 pm
Wanted to share a book that Tim and I enjoyed….I ASKED FOR WONDER by Abraham Joshua Heschel. Tim often quoted from his book:
“When I regained consciousness, my first feelings were not of despair or anger. I felt only gratitude to God for my life, for every moment I had lived. I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder. And You gave it to me”
Thought you would resonate with Heschel!
10:55 pm
A delightful read with wonderfully crafted sentences, full of feeling and thought provoking wonder. Thanks for the share.
8:05 am
Dad (Hyatt 3), Thanks for the book recommendation as well. I picked up a copy of it and am looking forward to reading it next. Love, son (Hyatt 4).
10:20 am
Hyatt,
Thank you for sharing those beautiful quotes and your thoughts on them. I marvel at how you wonder and see! Your mind is beautiful, and I am so glad God gifted you wirh the ability to take these beautiful messages of the phenomena of God and put them on canvas for those of us who wish we could, but cannot. I suppose I join in your art as you (and we all) join in God’s art, as admirers and those thankful for the experience of awe and wonder!
Your friend and admirer, Kerry
12:10 pm
The beauty of our Precious Lord’s creation: It is perhaps the ultimate place where we find the most infinitely lovely art, touching up against a vastly complex manifestation of science (perhaps never to be understood by mortals). I continue to gawk and wonder, with tears.
11:55 pm
I was going to write to you about this lovely insightful musing, but I got distracted by the message from Hyatt 4. That says it all. You are indeed blessed.