EVERYDAY CHALLENGES

The unique and the everyday challenges you to wonder at what you so easily take for granted: the unique love you receive from another human being; the everyday conversations between you and co-workers.

The finely honed sense of wonder will enable you to relish the thrill of repetition in your everyday lives:

your daily work,

your continuous efforts to improve yourself,

your prayer life,

your conversations with family members,

mowing the lawn,

cleaning up the kitchen,

checking the children’s homework,

dating, reading and learning, your habits of eating, walking, seeing, hearing, smelling.

The U.S. clergyman, Peter Marshall, spoke eloquently about this thrill of wonder when he said, "There is beauty in homely things that many people have never seen:

Sunlight through a jar of beach-plum jelly;

a rainbow in soapsuds in dishwater;

an egg yolk in a blue bowl;

white ruffled curtains sifting moonlight;

the color of cranberry glass;

a little cottage with blue shutters;

crimson roses in an old stone crock;

the smell of newly baked bread;

candlelight on old brass;

the soft brown of a cocker’s eyes."

How well Elizabeth Browning captures the sense of wonder:

Earth is crammed with heaven

Every bush aflame with God

Only he who sees takes off his shoes

The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.