Since I received the inspiration for this year's theme for the Inner Christmas Messages I have been deeply challenged. Why Wonder? It's been two months of wondering what is there to write about wonder? Here are
some of my thoughts on why 2017 is the year of Wonder.
The world and my soul needs wondering.
2400 years ago, Socrates said "All wisdom begins in wonder." The world urgently needs a new wisdom, so we best find our way to a more
conscious capacity for wonder. To spend 12 sacred nights devoting our soul's attention to wonder may bless us with new wisdom in our thoughts, feelings and deeds.
Most people think of wonder as a state or experience...a noun. Yes, wonder brings joy to our weary, anxious and despairing lives and that certainly is a wonderful thing, the soothing feeling of wonder. But the wonder
Socrates was speaking of and that we will be working with during the Holy Nights is the deed of wondering...the active verb that leads to wisdom, takes strength and imagines the unknown.
Most people feel wonder is a childlike innocence, surprise and delight. The wonder of the Holy Nights is mature and developed. Children perceive the earthly wonders naively. We will be engaging wonder
beyond perception. We will see wonder as the activity of penetrating, even permeating through committed questioning, expectation, attention and listening.
Wondering lives behind all wisdom. Let us wonder at wondering as the deed of the of the Holy Nights. Only through conscious and mature wondering will we find capacities to see our world, our future, each other and ourselves
wisely.
