Are you odd or awed?
Have you been fortunate enough to look up at the stars lately? Awe is the best description.
I was at my cabin and not feeling particularly great (slightly sore throat and low mood) and I needed to go outside late at night for some reason. I stopped and looked up, and oh my goodness!! So many stars and planets and satellites. I could even see the Milky Way clearly. Talk about being put in my place in an instant. Feel sorry for myself, really? How insignificant I actually am in the universe, and how very blessed I am to have a moment where I can see SO MANY STARS!
Okay, so maybe that sounds childish but it really happened. It was a thing, last night, and it actually changed my attitude. How in the world can I be feeling down AND be in such awe simultaneously? I can’t, so I choose Awe.
Richard Wagamese has recently become on of my favourite authors. He wrote this cool meditation/rules-for-a-good-life book called Embers. I would highly recommend owning it as the book itself is a piece of art, and also downloading the audio book for a great way to not care about traffic or troubles while you are driving. In it he says how when he was younger he was Odd. Now he prefers to refer to himself as Awed. So brilliant!
I’ve been referred to as odd before. Nowadays, I prefer to refer to myself as “awed.” I want awe to be the greatest ongoing relationship in my life. I want to move through my days floored by the magnificence and generosity of my Creator. The breaking of a day, the silence between words, the light emanating from a real conversation, and kindness, truth, love and the apparently random hand of grace: I want to remain gobsmacked by all of it. Rendered speechless by wonder, I await the next unfolding. Peace, friends. Be awed today. ~ “Embers — One Ojibway’s Meditations” by Richard Wagamese (pp. 90)
So what exactly can this look like practically I think is the real question. We know we all go through times of strife, sickness, experience loss, disappointments — how do we hold onto this “awe” amidst our pain?
I believe if we look to the great thought leaders of our time we can find some of these answers. Viktor Frankl, a famous psychiatrist, is a great example. A prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp who not only survives, but seems to actually be able to hold gratitude and hope during this extended time of uncertainty.
…there are three main avenues at which one arrives at meaning in life. The first is by creating a work, or by doing a deed. The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words, meaning can be found not only in work but also in love…Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself. “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl (pp 145 - 146)
Another great peace activist and Vietnamese Buddhist monk that reminds us to stop and look up at the stars is Thich Nhat Hanh.
We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive. ~ Thích Nhất Hạnh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Mother Teresa also comes to mind as I think about great people who exemplified peace amidst difficult circumstances. Google tells us that this was her goal in life:
Throughout it all, Mother Teresa never lost sight of her ultimate goal: to bring joy and comfort to those who suffered most. Her unwavering faith served as an anchor during times of doubt or hardship.
All of this conversation and talk about great peoples doing great things, while suffering themselves, reminds me of a book I read many years ago.
Each of the world-changing figures who stride across these pages — Joan of Arc, Susanna Wesley, Hannah More, Maria Skobtsova, Corrie ten Boom, Mother Teresa, and Rosa Parks — is an exemplary model of true womanhood. Teenaged Joan of Arc followed God’s call and liberated her country, dying a heroic martyr’s death. Susanna Wesley had nineteen children and gave the world its most significant evangelist and its greatest hymn-writer, her sons John and Charles. Corrie ten Boom, arrested for hiding Dutch Jews from the Nazis, survived the horrors of a concentration camp to astonish the world by forgiving her tormentors. And Rosa Parks’ deep sense of justice and unshakeable dignity and faith helped launch the twentieth-century’s greatest social movement. ~ goodreads
One of the women found in the pages of this book is perhaps someone you might not readily recognize, Hannah More. I found her story particularly fascinating. Among her many accomplishments, she was a poet who used her art of words to forward the abolishment of slavery. She joined forces in 1787 with William Wilberforce as they both shared a passionate opposition to the slave trade. A fascinating woman who truly exemplified the power of the pen, particularly in her poem Slavery.
Perhaps by following some of these great people as examples can indeed inspire us to bring more awe into our own odd lives. It is true that there are many obstacles and roadblocks in front of us always, but if we take a moment to look up, Awe is all we see.
