Awe-some
“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”
Psalm 8:3-4
We modern people seem to have lost our ability to experience awe. Somewhere in our transition from childhood to adulthood, awe and wonder were left behind, or perhaps those emotions were just buried under the busyness of life.
Technology has brought about efficiency, and we have become human “doings” rather than human “beings.” We look at a beautiful sunset and all we think about is to grab our phones and take a selfie! We are a long way from having an astronaut echo our Psalmist quoted above by reporting his marvel at the “tiny pea, pretty and blue, [that] was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”[1]
Awe does that to us. It makes us so very small in the scheme of all things. Real awe forces us to stop, or at least pause, and be still. It helps us experience reverence when no words are possible or even needed.
On this, the Monday of Easter week, we should all still be experiencing a lingering sense of Easter awe, that the Creator should have a such great love for us than to, first, become human and inhabit our same flesh, but God didn’t stop at that, did He? He lived among us, befriended us, taught us, healed us, served us and died for us. But the most “awe-some” thing of all, God conquered death for us.
How did this happen? What took place in that tomb that night long ago? How can we begin to explain what this means? That’s the thing about awe, it provides “insight into a meaning greater than ourselves … the beginning of wisdom is awe.”[2] It is a mystery.
Embrace the Paschal, the Easter and mystery. It is that same pattern we will live throughout our lives, the sufferings and little dyings that lead to new life, whether it be a job loss, a marriage ending, a death of a loved one, or even facing our death. Jesus has sanctified these movements throughout our lives and promises us one final resurrection into eternal life at the end of our own life here on earth.
And that should fill us with awe. Have a blessed Easter!
[1] This reflection has been attributed to both Neil Armstrong and Jim Lovell, and even sometimes Michael Collins!
[2] Abraham Joshual Heschel, "Who is Man?" (Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 1965).
