Wondering is about entertaining and exploring possibilities.
It is about hope and faith. It can also be about questioning and doubt . . . wondering why things are the way they are.
We invite good things to make an appearance. We expect that dreams can make life better. We refuse to settle for less.
“Hold fast to dreams,” warned Langston Hughes, “for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.”
Our sense of wonder - if alive and well - applauds each marvel, each grace, each surprise. We appreciate the extraordinary, the novel and the unique. We hunger for the good, work for the better and hope that the hohumdrum pressures and banalities of life will be supplanted by something more magical. We dream that we can transcend the mundane, that we can escape oblivion, boredom and a life without consequence.
If we are capable of wondering, our mind takes flight and dares to dream. Wondering infuses our questioning and our thinking with a spiritual aspect. Children learn that life can be much more than another brick in the wall.
Much of my own thinking about wonder was inspired by reading Rachel Carson’s The Sense of Wonder, first published by Harper & Row in 1965. As an elementary principal spending lots of time wondering about the dreaming, thinking and questioning of very young children, I found that certain passages resonated intensely with my own impressions and thoughts.
It is about hope and faith. It can also be about questioning and doubt . . . wondering why things are the way they are.
We invite good things to make an appearance. We expect that dreams can make life better. We refuse to settle for less.
“Hold fast to dreams,” warned Langston Hughes, “for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.”
Our sense of wonder - if alive and well - applauds each marvel, each grace, each surprise. We appreciate the extraordinary, the novel and the unique. We hunger for the good, work for the better and hope that the hohumdrum pressures and banalities of life will be supplanted by something more magical. We dream that we can transcend the mundane, that we can escape oblivion, boredom and a life without consequence.
If we are capable of wondering, our mind takes flight and dares to dream. Wondering infuses our questioning and our thinking with a spiritual aspect. Children learn that life can be much more than another brick in the wall.
Much of my own thinking about wonder was inspired by reading Rachel Carson’s The Sense of Wonder, first published by Harper & Row in 1965. As an elementary principal spending lots of time wondering about the dreaming, thinking and questioning of very young children, I found that certain passages resonated intensely with my own impressions and thoughts.
