wonder – sethlewis.ie

The Eyes Of The Old And The Young

As my wife and I were walking, we caught ourselves identifying wildflowers beside the path—or at least as many as we could. There are a lot of wildflowers in Ireland, and it’s hard to keep all the names straight. As we wondered about some of the varieties, we also began to wonder if such wondering about flower names is a sign of getting older. We feed birds in our garden, after all, and keep track of which kinds of songbirds visit us. Caring about such things is often associated with age, isn’t it? If so, we’ve decided that this is clearly a benefit of aging, not something to be avoided. Noticing the beauty God put around us is always a good idea, and if it’s associated with getting older then I reckon that’s a sign that older people are generally wiser and have figured out more about what is really important on this planet. It’s not only the old who notice these things, either.

“Well, THAT was magic!”

When my second son was three, he didn’t walk—he marched. Everywhere. His stride may have been short, but it was full of confidence. I vividly remember the day he marched ahead of us into the grocery store, but had to pause as the automatic doors slid open. He watched them closely, then announced as a matter of fact: “Well, THAT was magic!” Then he marched through.

Was it magic? Not really. I know, and you know, and he knows now that he’s older, that automatic doors don’t operate on fairy dust. There is a mechanical, electrical explanation, and it all adds up and it all makes sense. Yes. But isn’t it amazing? The doors open themselves! It may not be magic in a technical sense, but isn’t there something magical about it?

Everything is Ordinary, Everything is Wonderful

Gold is just a rock. Money is just fancy paper—or these days, even less—ones and zeros floating invisible out of our mobile phones with a little bleep. But then, mobile phones are really just a collection of sand, a few bits of rare stones, and some electrically charged lithium-ions and such. Even the hands that hold them are a mix of basic components like carbon, water, calcium, and a few other things.

When you really break it down, life itself is a collection of dead elements and minerals. Under a microscope, the colours and patterns of flower petals and butterfly wings are lost in a confusion of nucleotides and mitochondrion and smooth endoplasmic reticulum.

The Discipline Of Being Overwhelmed

Beside the road, the grass was parted into a path created by the feet of those who had walked there before me. I didn’t know the destination, but I had time, so I decided to follow the lead of those feet and find out where they were going.

It was a good decision. The path took me over a rise and around a corner, then sloped down gradually with a panoramic view of the ocean in front of me. On the right, the ground sloped down sharply towards a rocky cove where people were swimming. On the left, there was no ground. Only a sheer cliff, and the waves far below.