Awe
“Awe
binds us together. It's a likely reason human beings are wired to
feel awe to get us to act in more collaborative ways. Ensuring our
survival...Our thinking shifts from me to we.”
Parade
Magazine
“Human
spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with
curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved,
differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it is fragile.
Bernard Beckett (Genesis)
Bernard Beckett (Genesis)
The Parade Magazine
article about awe goes on to reference the feeling we have when we
see a great vista—a beautiful sunset, the milky way, the inside of
a grand cathedral. It speaks of the view of our blue planet as seen
by astronauts from space; how tiny it looks, how beautiful, and
whole, and fragile, just hanging there in space. I felt awe just the
other day, when my friend, Anna, sent me a video of a massive herd of
wild buffalo racing toward the Native people who are holding their
ground against the building of a pipeline through their sacred lands
in North Dakota. The buffalo seemed to be in solidarity, even coming
to the rescue, and the people responded with joy, calling and singing
to them. It gives me chills just thinking about it.
Awe is the province of
the human spirit. It causes us to experience being “one-with.”
One with the earth, one with the people of the earth, one with all of
creation. Those moments of awe are when we connect with the All. They
are wonderful, sometimes even life-changing. We realize that life is
short, that we are a tiny speck in an instant of time. All notion of
ego, of self-interest, of self-aggrandizement evaporate, and we see
ourselves as we are—a grain of sand in an infinite universe. Yet,
all that is holy is there in that moment.
If you're given to awe,
now would be a good time to experience it. We are facing, as we have
on many occasions, an uncertain future. Being able to muster
curiosity and optimism, and the assurance that whatever comes, we are
up to the task, is the confidence we need to run with the wild
buffalo.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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