“This is how it is with the kingdom of
God;
it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land
and would sleep and rise night and day
and through it all the seed would sprout and grow,
he knows not how.
Of its own accord, the land yields fruit,
first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain
in the ear.
And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle
at once,
for the harvest has come.”
In today’s parables, Jesus reminds us of the promise hidden in what is small and
unremarkable – seeds that grow in hiddenness and mystery. How like our prayer,
our life that is ordinary, obscure, and laborious. We dare to believe that what
we bear and what we do and pray has an apostolic reverberation – fruitfulness
far beyond the cloister, with a blessing for those in need. We trust, we
believe, though we do not always understand. We love Jesus our Lord. Love brings us knowledge and trust of a God beyond our simple understanding. And so,
we live, we pray in mystery and in wonder.
Wonder allows God to be God. It beckons us to be aware, to see as God sees, and to take nothing for granted. Wonder receives with open hands, open heart; it never grasps; it loves all God loves and gives and gazes upon. Wonder does what God does. It is reverent awe that is at once humble and selfless.
Wonder happens when we allow ourselves to be disarmed by God’s in-breaking and respond with reverent awe. It lets us acknowledge what we do not know or may never know or understand, allows us to acknowledge and appreciate our limits, our finiteness. It is a different kind of knowledge, a state of being with the world and with oneself that allows humble faith; it allows uncertainty. Like love, wonder allows all things, believes all things. It lets God be God, magnificent, extravagant but also hidden and quiet and unremarkable. We begin to see the world ever charged with the divine, with an ever-present porosity - a thinness between the ordinary and the divine. This is the beginning of contemplation, perhaps its essence.
We notice reverently - whether it be the pattern of light falling upon a wall, a blossom or a tiny bug inching along, the unexpected kindness of a friend, or a passage of Scripture. Wonder demands fascination and simple noticing. It is poisoned by cynicism, which is the absolute enemy of contemplation.
To
pray we must relax into an unknowing that is a certitude beyond argument. To
allow Christ in means I don’t have to understand; I believe. I pay attention. I love. I
gaze on beauty as well as confusion and believe that God is working. I allow myself
to be disarmed and fascinated by Christ and how he will use anything at all to
get my attention. Our life of liturgy and prayer demands wonder, not dramatic
but real and ongoing; an unwillingness to judge, a willingness to be still, a
second naiveté, perhaps a constant naiveté, back down to a place where we can
be amazed and inefficient, unaccomplished.
