I serve as pastor of Chapel in the Pines, a church in Chatham County. But I don’t want to preach in this column. I would like to offer readers less of a charge and more of a hope — not marching orders, but a wish for the future.
Rachel Carson is best known for her book, “Silent Spring,” which sparked a ban of certain pesticides. She also began a manuscript titled “The Sense of Wonder.” Carson died before she finished this book, but not before penning these words:
“If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.”
This is a newspaper column, not a christening or religious ceremony, yet I would appeal to all good fairies, angels and spirits to give this indestructible sense of wonder. To wonder is to feel awe and reverence. To “live the questions,” as poet Rainer Rilke put it, “like locked rooms and books written in a foreign language.” To wonder is to be in awe without answers.
There is a time for certitude. But wonder is more feeling than fact. Carson likened the feeling of wonder to “a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and unknown.” I understand that the last few years have produced anxiety about the unknown …
But what makes you wonder?
In living into this question, we would do well to look not only for good fairies but at the example of the ones they bless — the same little ones that a certain wandering rabbi of long ago welcomed into his arms.
Carson welcomed her nephew, Roger, to her home along the rocky shoreline of Maine, and she let the young boy join the adults to watch the full moon over the bay, which “set the water ablaze with silver flames.” Carson believed that memory would mean more to Roger than the sleep he was losing!
We might also consider what experiences we prioritize for children, for those experiences teach our values, and our values will leave the most lasting impression on the next generation.
But now I’m getting preachy! Let me tell a story instead.
Last summer, my family vacationed at a cabin on a remote mountain lake. The days were filled with swimming, kayaking and splashing — the kids were worn out in the best way by the end of the day. But there was a meteor shower on the last night.
Down by the lakeshore, it was chilly enough to need sweatshirts and the little ones snuggled into the laps of their parents. Just as they were starting to drift into sleep, the youngest saw the first meteor, a bright line across the inky black sky. I told my kids that you can make a wish on a shooting star.
But as I watched for the next meteor to pierce the dark, I knew that my wish had already come true. It was wonderful.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church. His newly-published book is a collection of his columns for the Chatham News + Record titled “Hope Matters: Churchless Sermons.”
