We started the Bath and Wells annual Grand Rumpus Meet yesterday with 20 minutes of awe and wonder. Everyone present was invited to share a moment of awe they had experienced recently in connection with pioneering. It was a feast that fed the spirit with joy, encouragement, wonder and praise.
It was the day the church celebrates the coming of the wise men to worship the baby Jesus… The Magi journey with curiosity, following hints and intimations, aware of the possibilility of disappointment, of turning out to be fools to themselves and others.
They are pioneers. On a physical journey, not a spiritual one, but their experience is so similar to ours who follow the star of an inner vision or God-given direction without a clear goal. As it happens their own assumptions about power mislead them, and they find their way with guidance from a despot’s advisers… things for us to learn here too? – But it is the star they chose to follow that is waiting for them when they arrive.
I’ve been privileged to experience awe and wonder at what God is doing in our times. I sometimes think I know how the wise men felt as they knelt. The sense that your stomach lining is shimmering…that your spirit is expanding and ethereal… the speech centre in your brain shorting out and shutting down as words fail… and joy hovering at the edges of your self, flimmering like the wings of tiny angels…
I think they would have been OK getting home. Awe and wonder gives as much energy for life as a camel’s hump. It has kept me afloat.