We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.
~G.K. Chesterton
Can we find a way to wonder?
In these jaded decades we have learned the hard way to peer into faces and facts and faiths and assume the worst. Leaked information, offshore accounts, we soak in wire-tapped wariness. Nothing can be trusted.
Your view of God, the Bible, and humanity is merely your interpretation (so we are firmly told) colored by your experience, your tradition, your bias. Others have their own beliefs, as skewed as yours.
Truth has become a personal choice, and drained of any wonder.
Scholars term this malaise a hermeneutics of suspicion, a phrase coined by French philosopher Paul Ricoeur to describe the doubt that hangs like a brown, bitter fog over our struggle to understand.
Doubt Has Its Place
When lies are spread as smoothly and generously as peanut butter and jelly on soft bread, it’s good to question. It is wise to doubt. It is prudent to wonder what goes on behind the curtain.
And it is good to search for answers, to refuse to think second-hand or let others believe for you, to stop swallowing pre-chewed theology while your brain snores gently in the other room.
Wonder Is Our Home
But suspicion was never meant to be our settled state. We were made for wonder, because there is One who is wonder-ful. The Bible points beyond our experience, bias and personal beliefs and informs us Truth has a name. His name is Jesus.
Look at me, learn from me, walk with me, my words, my life, my incomparable act of love that permeates all of human history. Gaze at my creation, marvel at my redemption, weep with joy for answered cries. Look for me at work wherever unqualified love, indescribable beauty, long-suffering justice have their way.
Let go of suspicion and cultivate a hermeneutics of wonder.
Are you learning to wonder again?
Photograph by Melanie Hunt
