The Case for Wonder

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Why did humans ever begin to philosophize, to create literature, or to make scientific experiments? What has been the animating force behind this remarkable project known as civilization? Among the many possible answers, consider the case for wonder.

Philosophy was, from the start, awe-inspired. Plato said that, “philosophy begins in wonder.” Aristotle agreed that “it is owing to their wonder that men…philosophize.” Martin Heidegger claimed that “astonishment carries and pervades philosophy.” And Alfred North Whitehead believed that, “philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.”

This sentiment is not exclusive to philosophers. Thomas Aquinas saw that poetry and philosophy arise from the same impulse. “The reason why the philosopher can be compared to the poet,” he said, “is that both are concerned with wonder.” And the writer Annie Dillard insisted that the work of literature is to, “give voice to this, your own astonishment.”

The scientist can also be driven by a wide-eyed admiration with the world. Albert Einstein remarked that, “he who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” Isaac Newton once described his own inspiration as that of, “a boy playing on the seashore…whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

It’s no surprise that civilization should be the fruit of wonder, nor that conversation would be enriched by its presence. It is a posture towards the world – one that acknowledges that this planet is odd, unexpected, and yet intelligible. This posture creates the conditions for the genuine curiosity upon which good discussion depends.

Such curiosity is in short supply. On one side we meet people so disenchanted with the world that they think there is nothing interesting left to discover. Someone else has already climbed all of the mountains and plumbed all of the oceans. The person sitting across from us, familiar and ordinary, couldn’t possibly surprise or intrigue us. Best to stick with safe, predictable pleasures. An endless stream of diversions become the tawdry successor to the longings of youth.

On the other side we meet people so fearful of curiosity that they dare not ask honest questions. They are strict partisans, anxious to draw lines around their politics or theology, and to banish anyone who falls outside of those lines. In so doing, they exile themselves to an island of their own narrow point of view. It’s an island well armed against heretics, but vulnerable to demagogues.

The surest way back to curiosity is around a coffee table. It is at a pub table, or on a walking path. As individuals silence their phones and attend to one another, they can’t help but court wonder. As they enter honestly into discussion, their disenchantment begins to dissolve. The bizarreness of this world, after all, is hard to conceal.

When the partisan leaves the echo chamber of social media, he encounters the forms upon which his straw men were based. People are not so ridiculous, as it turns out. Or, at least, they are not ridiculous in the way he had expected. He is likely, over time, to soften on some positions. He will have confronted the complexity of reality and been changed by it. He is also likely to believe some of his positions even more strongly. But in those instances they will be, more than before, his true opinions. His former fear and disdain for his political enemies will have been replaced with honest intellectual conviction.

We have spent too much time with our heads buried in screens. That is a world full of diversion and certainty, but too often devoid of wonder. We would do well to lift ourselves up, leaving behind disenchantment and fear, and confront other living human beings. And in such encounters we could expose ourselves to that civilizing force known as wonder.

 

This is the third post in a series on the topic of conversation. Links to the first two posts are below:

1. How to Impress a Teenager

2. A Feast for the Soul

A Feast for the Soul

feastforthesoul

Allow me to give you a piece of marriage advice: things will be easier if only one of you cares about food. Otherwise, planning for dinner parties becomes a battle of wills. Your spouse feels that a double-crusted turkey pot pie would be nice, while you want very badly to make 48 hour short ribs. It is unlikely that you will make two entrees, which means that at least one of you will not get your way. The likelihood of pouting is significant.

Of course, you both mean well. You want to present your guests with good food in a welcoming environment. You are imagining a scene of conviviality, where everyone is comfortable, happy, and nourished. You are driven by hospitality, that noble old human instinct. But is it possible that good conversation, even more than good food, is the heart of hospitality?

Augustine seemed to think so. Once, for his birthday, he invited a group of people to join him for a meal. “I had already provided a little feast for the body,” he said, adding that “it was fitting that I should also provide them a feast for the soul.” Just as he had chosen a meal to fit the occasion, he took it upon himself to prepare a topic of conversation.

Augustine understood that people are embodied souls. Our bodies are important, certainly, and hospitality requires that we consider the comfort of our guests. But we aren’t simply animals, interested only in what we can taste and smell. If we leave the table with famished souls, then we have not really feasted. “There are two kinds of food for the soul just as there are two kinds of food for the body: one, wholesome and helpful, the other, unwholesome and harmful.”

The good host is thoughtful. She considers the occasion, her guests, and her own resources. She knows whether the event is formal or casual. She keeps in mind how many children will be present, or that one of the attendees fancies himself allergic to gluten. Her hospitality is a dialectic between her own creative expression and the situation at hand. These same factors have to be considered in the preparation of a discussion. I should know, because I have suffered the consequences of ignoring them.

I once tried to lead a conversation with a group of friends on a Saturday morning. We were packed into a living room, struggling to hear each other over the din of crying babies. As toddlers stumbled between breakfast plates, I cleared my throat. I was determined to make some point about Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher. This alone should tell you how oblivious I was to the situation at hand. One of the young mothers had her child in a headlock, trying to extract an alien object – perhaps a watch battery or a cyanide capsule – from his stubborn maw. I thought it a good time to ask her for an opinion on Kierkegaard’s concept of the teleological suspension of the ethical. She replied with a glare, the meaning of which is unprintable. I had misunderstood the situation, and my mistake was a failure of hospitality.

I like to think that I have improved over the years. I’ve tried to be a generous host and a gracious guest. I’ve even been known, with great effort, to hold back a bawdy, inappropriate joke. I still want to make those 48 hour short ribs, and maybe I will. But, I suspect I can be a better host when I attend to people’s souls as well as their bellies.

How To Impress a Teenager

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I recently read Paper Towns by John Green. The novel, which focuses on two high school students, was entirely inappropriate, demographically speaking. It departed significantly from the sorts of things that a family man in his late 30s is supposed to read. But I was inspired nonetheless. It challenged me to think about the art of discussion and how our conversations reveal what we care about most.

The book tells the story of Quentin and Margo, two teenagers who are pulled by their longings into adventure. Margo longs for an exciting life and Quentin longs for Margo. There’s a scene in which our protagonists sneak into the top floor of an office building in the middle of the night. They make their way into a dimly lit conference room as the lights of their Florida suburb twinkle outside. Gazing through the large windows, Margo says, “I’ve lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.”

As Margo sees it, all of the people in her life, young and old alike, are distracted by triviality. They obsess over grades or chores, or distract themselves with gossip. But no one seems to be engaged in that most human of activities: thinking about and discussing things of real importance.

I sympathize with Margo. As a being made in God’s image, it would be a kind of sacrilege to live out my days in diversion. I wouldn’t do justice to God’s image if my sole concerns in life were football scores or home renovations. People like Margo should notice something different about me. In fact, they should be able to say, “I’ve never come across anyone who cares about anything that matters, except for this weird Christian.”

So, what can we do? I propose the radical act of talking to one another, live and in person, about real things. Between bad jokes and embellished stories, we could discuss justice, education, cosmology, and linguistics. We could stay up too late for the sake of real fellowship, and in so doing remind ourselves that we are in this world, but not of it.

Hopefully our conversations will be an encouragement to those around us. But, even if they go unnoticed, they will not have been in vain. Good conversation is valuable in and of itself. It is a humanizing activity and a welcome antidote to our current state of distraction and political polarization.

Look for more thoughts on this in the weeks that follow.

SEX ED.

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I know that I need to talk to my daughter about sex. She’ll be nine, and if I don’t say something soon, someone else will. A health teacher will broach the subject, explaining it all in medical terms. Or a classmate will whisper something confusing. In neither case will they tell her about intimacy proceeding from a vow and leading to life. In neither case will they tell her about consummation.

They aren’t likely to tell her about a wedding day. And why would they? Why would they mention my role in walking her down the aisle; in giving her away? What could be more regressive and old fashioned than suggesting that I had protected her thus far and that her new husband was supposed to protect her now?

The health teacher might talk about consent. He or she might explain that sex should be an agreement, that all parties should be free and willing participants. Or maybe a video will explain it all with crisp editing and upbeat music. But who will tell her that the fullest consent is given in marriage? It would be unusual and unmodern to talk about wedding vows as specific and public consent. To talk about families and friends participating in that consent and promising to buttress it.

A teacher might tell a classroom about intercourse. Friends might talk about screwing. But I doubt either would tell her that the wedding night is an embodied experience of unity, without which the wedding is incomplete. That becoming one flesh is a physical reality as well as a spiritual one.
Who would dare to mention that in this peculiar consummation each participant is consumed and consumes. And in being consumed they are not diminished. They become more, not less. That in this act, and in this act alone, exists the possibility of new life.

That kind of talk is suspect, after all. It sounds suspiciously exclusive. It is impolite to point out that a man and a woman alone together hold the key to life. The facts of biology are in the path of history, and who can stand before such a force?

Weddings are old ceremonies leavened by youth. Individuality is displayed through the common rituals of humanity. The participants have joined a historic liturgy, and in so doing they have not lost their individuality. They display uniqueness and freedom, submission and membership. The dancers are young but the song is ancient.

I want my daughter to know the old and ordered Christian view of sex. I want her younger brothers to know it too. And I worry that, if I can’t find the nerve to bring up the subject, then they will miss out on the Church’s view of humanity. They’ll learn about sex as though men and women could be understood in purely biological terms. They will have a view of themselves and of others that is impoverished. They will be less dignified, less free.