Something About Wonder

     I want to write about wonder.  How to define it so that it makes sense is a serious problem, one I won't attempt to resolve.  Instead, I want to suggest that just as in poetry ideas can be hinted at that can't be adequately defined, so the concept of wonder stands as something we know but have trouble putting into logical terms.  An early effort to deal with the idea is Rudolf Otto's now classic The Idea of the Holy.  The book is an attempt to relate the feeling of awe in a religious, specifically Christian context, but can be usefully read as a secular piece.  One of the difficult aspects of discussing such a concept as wonder or awe is that many such efforts are specifically Christian, and it requires that a serious investigator into the idea relinquish previously held beliefs about religion.  Indeed, perhaps most attempts to pursue the idea of wonder are to be      found in the writings of mystics of all religious denominations, although secular studies also have been published, such as Milton K.Munitz's The Mystery of Existence.  Perhaps the most popular work on the subject of awe as it relates to mysticism is Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism, still in print after a century. A brief summary of which I am fond is F.C. Happold's Mysticism/ A Study and an Anthology.  More recent works are by Frank Collins of genome fame (see the Internet for this).  For those interested in pursuing a more scientific view of the concept, I recommend Krista Tippett's Einstein's God, especially the first chapter.The book consists of a series of interviews with eminent investigators from a broad spectrum of scientific fields.
     Allow me to end this blog by quoting a poem by Walt Whitman that early on led me, a practicing scientist, to recognize that there are experiences beyond the ordinary that allow us to know the world differently than we otherwise might.  It's called, after the first line, When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer.
               When I heard the learn's astronomer,
               When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
               When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
               When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
               How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
               Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself,
               In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time,
               Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
     Not to everyone's liking, maybe, but there it is.  If you have anything to add, and if you're alive and thinking you probably have, perhaps you'll let me know.  If you can't otherwise reach me, try clicking  on the word Introduction in the first blog, and a comment space will open up.
     Until next time.