by Demi Prentiss

In the 1979 Book of Common Prayer’s Rite of Baptism, nestled between the water and the oil of chrism, is a beautiful prayer that helps us remember how we’re called to live.  After thanking God for the gift of new life, and asking to be sustained by the Holy Spirit, we ask for four things:

• An inquiring an discerning heart
• The courage to will and to persevere
• A spirit to know and to love [God]
• The gift of joy and wonder in all [God’s] works

We’re inclined to forget that “wonder” part. Not many hymns about wonder. (#400, #412, and #580 in The Hymnal 1982 are notable.)  Scripture mentions “awe of the Lord” pretty often. But for me, wondering is a much more incarnational practice. I’m encouraged to use all my senses as well as my mind to study the subject of my wonderment – to absorb the full gift of what I’m observing. And I’m often reminded that God is God, and I am not.

When I asked EpiscoBOT about the word “wonder” in liturgy and scripture, here’s the reflection that came up:

The Episcopal tradition cherishes wonder as a doorway to faith. In scripture, wonder often follows an encounter with God’s power or love. In our worship, prayers and hymns continually invite us to stand in awe before God’s works—reminding us that faith is not just about understanding, but about being open to mystery.

If you’d like more specific references or ideas for including “wonder” in your prayers or teaching, please let me know. And remember: it is a holy thing to pause in wonder before the living God.

I love thinking of faith as opening ourselves to mystery, and wonder as a doorway to faith.  Wonder leads us to discovery and innovation.

This past week I encountered a poem that blessed me with a broader perspective of wonder as a saving gift of grace, “the rope and bucket that haul you up out of your dank well”:

Wonder is saving enough

Have you noticed the pheromones
the world is sending out to you?

Not wanting you to save it,
just to fall in love with it.

Tiny violets reassure the hillside
which every winter has been tormented by ice.

When the dam is removed after a century, salmon
already know their way to their ancestors' birthplace.

The jazz of the meadowlark.
Laughter, even at funerals.

Such things are the rope and bucket
that haul you up out of your dank well.

The smell of lilacs is meant for bees
but it comes to you.

If you make friends with crows
they give you gifts.

Downtown a kid you don't know
smiles at you anyway.

It's the world's way of letting you know
it wants to stay married to you.

  ―  by Steve Garnaas-Holmes

May we live into that baptismal prayer that claims for us “the gift of joy and wonder” in all God’s works. May we walk through our lives with enough courage and curiosity to notice the glory of God all about us. May we find ourselves fully alive to God’s presence, “lost in wonder, love, and praise.”

^{Photo credits: Matt Bango For Unsplash+; Ahmed, Licensed under the Unsplash+ License; Bruce Kee on Unsplash; Photo by Moon Bhuyan on Unsplash}