A-wondering we must go!

Aug 07, 2021

By Lucille Dass
When all comes to all, the most precious element in life is wonder … That is our sixth sense. And it is the natural religious sense. ~ D.H. Lawrence.

I’m a lover, wonderer, and hoarder of quotes. I also write quotes and reflections on quotes that tug at the heartstrings … like the above did. I wonder if Mother Mary inked her reflections …? She stored all words in her capacious heart and pondered and wondered about them. I know because the Bible tells me so.

How often have you and I paused to put to good use this wondrous “precious element” to ponder what we are doing with our life? Reality: we are on earth but heaven bound. Yet, many of us live a make-belief reality that shoring up and hoarding securities matters most. Why let tomorrow worry about itself? Really? As if today’s trouble is not enough! (cf.Matt.6:34). Have we wondered why we stress out ourselves like this? I finally did. Here are my musings: It was because I let my divine destination remain shrouded, hazy, unknown, remote and unreal. I did not wonder enough about this Wonderland to realise its significance and relevance to my now-life.

Living this bodily concept of life is tangible and real; it can be bodily and materially gratified through the basic senses. No need for a vaporous sixth sense. Well, if that be all, we must wonder why there are so many well-heeled and successful but unsatisfied and unhappy people. Perhaps we have not lingered religiously enough on Matthew 18:18 to wonder about the heaven and earth tie-up. How religiously have we wondered the Wonder that God is? The wonder that His creation is? Hark! The wise Qoheleth cautions from the start, “Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!” Yes, toiling and storing all “good things” to no avail because we neglect to “…understand what is best for men to do under the heavens during the limited days of their life” (Ecclesiastes 2:3).

True, one needs to work hard to make and mark one’s place in life. No thanks to Adam for subjecting us to “painful toil” to make a good living! But thanks to Adam for teaching us the need to make our living good. This, we should learn early. I say this with a tinge of guilt-ridden regret and lean into St Augustine’s confession: Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. Yes, I told myself “Heaven can wait” (no, not the 1978 film) and busied securing myself, scarcely paying heed to Proverb 4:26 that security and refuge come offered to those who fear the Lord. Truly, it is the fear of the Lord (not literal, but spiritual sense) that gives us a transcendental view of life and gifts us with a proper perspective and purpose of our earthly life.

Admittedly, there is a God-void within each of us. That, which we mistakenly think, can be filled up with material acquisitions and accomplishments. We dupe ourselves into thinking and justifying that we are doing this in good faith. We might feel happy… for a while. Soon we find ourselves struggling in “painful toil” again, for want of more, not of need. Happiness does not necessarily equate with joy. Joy is an elevated fruit of the Spirit – an attitude that springs from the in-dwelling goodness in the void of our BEING. That void is God’s dwelling place … sacrosanct. Only the “goodness of the Lord” can dwell therein because God is good … all the time. A state of turmoil or unease will manifest itself before long if anything else seeks tenancy there! I learned, again from this good saint, the axiomatic truth: You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. ~ St Augustine.

We tend to take God for granted, until something or someone gives us a jolt. The sooner we learn that we do not belong to ourselves but are beholden to God for every breath we take, the more at peace we will be. How to know? C.S. Lewis teaches: If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. We are given life in this world to ready ourselves for another world. We must begin early because “It’s a long road … winding, steep and high,” hardly a highway. If we discard our blinders we will see how so many life-events intimate that we are His. Let us not go the way of fake prophets who rationalise that the pandemic is God’s cruel punishment. How quickly these reprobates forget that in life, suffering has been endemic since the time of Adam! This pandemic can inform and form our faith. Through faith, we trust and believe God knows best.

Finally, let me close with another complementary quote on the sixth sense: There are subjects where reason cannot take us far and we have to accept things in faith. Faith then does not contradict reason but transcends it. Faith is a kind of sixth sense which works in cases which are without the purview of reason. ~ Mahatma Gandhi. 

--Lucille, a retired but ‘rewired’ lecturer, styles herself as passionate. Her signature quote is: The power of ability is the passion to make things happen. She enjoys word-work with coffee for company – a happy combination that has helped yield some publications ...scholastic and poetic. All made possible through God’s intervention. She believes: To get ‘beyond us’ we must be God-conscious.