Cultivating Awe
Keely Adler and
Cultivating Awe
More than the grand beauties of our lives, wonder is about having the presence to pay attention to the commonplace. It could be said that to find beauty in the ordinary is a deeper exercise than climbing to the mountaintop.
Cole Arthur Riley • This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
We train our focus on beauty here or there—this poem, that architecture—because it is easier than bearing witness to our own story. We begin to gravitate not toward beauty but toward illusion. In this state, you are not approaching what you seek. You are running from your own face. But this is not the way of wonder. Wonder requires a person not to
... See moreCole Arthur Riley • This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
Awe is not a lens through which to see the world but our sole path to seeing. Any other lens is not a lens but a veil. And I’ve come to believe that our beholding—seeing the veils of this world peeled back again and again, if only for a moment—is no small form of salvation.
Cole Arthur Riley • This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction
Derek Thompson • 9 highlights
amazon.com
The Sense of Wonder
goodreads.com
Rachel Carson's best known book is Silent Spring, but this book (originally an essay) is a personal favorite. She maintained a deep conviction that wonder has to be at the foundation of our relationship with wider world. This book is a demonstration of that belief, and a celebration of the expansive potential of curiosity and wonder. Her writing is a great reminder that with enough attention, adults can develop the 'clear eyed vision' that comes naturally to children, but fades over time if not kept alive.
As we grow older, the “serious” becomes a simulacrum for wisdom and even honor. Impoverished by the honor withheld from us in childhood, we become very willing participants in a kind of spiritual maturation that honors the profound and grave, even at the expense of the simple and beautiful. In fact, the path to wonder is not sophistication or
... See more