Everyday Awe

There’s been a theme for me recently in what I’ve been experiencing recently.  A simple word with an infinitely bigger meaning.

Awe

It is in several books that I’ve read recently - Enchantment by Katherine May, The Hours of the Universe by Ilia Delia, and currently Awe by Darcher Keltner.  Awe is in several of my recent posts I’ve shared.  And awe is part of the framework of my every night journal entries (Awe and Ache).

As I’m reading Keltner’s book, I am resonating deeply with what he shares about the effect that intentionally seeking awe has upon life.  Over the last ten years, I feel like awe has been at the heart of my healing, growth, and transformation.  When my spiritual director at Davison told me in November in 2013 that “my soul was starving” I agreed with her but I wasn’t sure what to do about it.  But looking back, I believe that seeking and sharing awe has been at the center of that nurturing.

Keltner defines awe as “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world. (Keltner, Dacher. Awe (p. 7). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ). I feel like I have been experiencing that more and more.  As I share in my contemplative photography groups, part of the practice is about “seeing” more - but not only literal seeing but seeing more in what there is to discover, to understand, and to feel.

As I have been reading Keltner’s book, I have found myself wondering if everyday awe is something that we have stopped experiencing and so more and more of our souls are starving and it is affecting us physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  Keltner shares a great deal from his and others’ research about the health impacts of awe.  He noted that his research shows a correlation (not causation) between everyday awe and physical health.

“Everyday awe, then, can be a pathway for avoiding chronic inflammation and the diseases of the twenty-first century such inflammation is associated with, including depression, chronic anxiety, heart disease, autoimmune problems, and despair.”(Keltner, Dacher. Awe (p. 118). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

But awe doesn’t simply have an effect on us individually but also our communal experience.  He writes:

It should not surprise that people who feel even five minutes a day of everyday awe are more curious about art, music, poetry, new scientific discoveries, philosophy, and questions about life and death. They feel more comfortable with mysteries, with that which cannot be explained. (Keltner, Dacher. Awe (p. 39). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

As I read his chapters this morning on art and music I remembered this moment at the Art Institute of Chicago several years ago.

As we walked into one of the galleries, there was a young girl just sitting in front of this painting.  I immediately noticed the streaks of pink in her otherwise sandy blonde hair which connected with the redwood color of the floor.  She was just sitting there quietly sketching the painting that was before her.  It was such a beautiful moment.  (Standing nearby was an older woman I discovered to be her grandmother.  I asked her if I could photograph the moment and she gave me permission if I didn’t photograph her face).  After the photograph, I simply stood there and took in this moment.  It was an experience of awe for me and I also believe it was for this young girl.

This morning had another.  Scout and I were out walking on what I thought was going to be a grey cloudy morning.  As we were at the farthest point out of our hike, I turned around and saw this...

I was not expecting to see any color in the sky this morning other than the greys and blues of a cloudy morning but there was this bright pink as the sun was rising.  But here’s the thing...it was literally there for all of about five minutes because as I made the turn on this loop back towards the east, that color was gone.  It was just a moment of awe but it filled my spirit this morning.

A member of the congregation I served asked me a few weeks ago what my vision for the church is and I wonder as I write this whether it has to do with helping this beautiful group of people discover more and more awe in the world and seeing the effect that awe has upon our life together.  Would we see what Keltner’s research shows about how changes us physically?  Would we see how awe widens our perspectives and worldviews?

As Keltner closed the chapter I read this morning, he told a story about getting to have dinner with Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw (how awe-some is that??).  Keltner asked Spielberg about awe and Spielberg shared about how an experience with his dad opened him up to awe.

One night his dad gathered him up and hustled him into the car. They went to a field and lay on their backs on blankets. A meteor shower washed over the sky. Steven recalls the light, the profusion of stars, how vast the night sky was, and his experiments with seeing—directly, or out of the corner of the eye—fleeting patterns of stellar awe. It was this wonder of life he hoped to give to others in E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. As Steven asked for the check, he summed up why he still goes to movies and makes movies for others: We are all equal in awe.  (Keltner, Dacher. Awe (p. 192). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

We are all equal in awe.

I am one for whom awe has made a transforming difference.  I wonder what it can do for others.

We are all equal in awe.