14. Start with Awe
‘When we awaken awe, we awaken gratitude’
Matthew Fox
‘Forfeit your sense of awe … and the Universe becomes a marketplace for you.’
Rabbi Herschel
We have grown used to the idea of an inert, value-free version of the physical universe, built from the ground up with blind force and a few varieties of elementary particles. But our lives are lived in direct opposition to this view. Our experience of the world is a highly subjective one and very much defined by value. Life as it is lived is all about choosing and valuing. How very different things look if we think that the universe has said ‘yes’ to life — as a choice and not just as an accident. I think that this makes the universe always on the ‘half-full’ side of things, weighted to the positive. It is not the bland, valueless, morally neutral, entropy-burdened and indifferent place sometimes portrayed to us, with consciousness perceived as a mere by-product of matter.
‘What is the human?’, asks Brian Swimme, ‘The human is a space, an opening, where the universe celebrates its existence.’ Elsewhere Swimme links our response to the universe with the flow and counterflow of form and formlessness. He says:
‘…the ground of being is generosity. The ultimate source of all that is, the support and well of being is ultimate Generosity. All being comes forth and shines, glitters and glistens, because the root reality of the universe is generosity of being. That’s why the ground of being is empty: everything has been given over to the universe; all existence has been poured forth; all being has gushed forth because ultimate Generosity retains no thing.’
Both quotes from Brian Swimme — The Universe is a Green Dragon
Likewise, deep ecologist writer Joanna Macey says that our starting point in relating to the universe should be gratitude whilst Meister Eckhart suggests that if the only prayer you say in your whole life is ‘thank you’ this will suffice.
In Indian philosophy it is said that Brahman is manifest as ‘Sat-Chit-Ananda’ meaning, ‘conscious joyful existence’. In similar vein, the Hindus describe Creation as ‘Lila’ — God’s play. The Earth has given us life. She provides our food and everything else we rely on for our continued existence. Perhaps you could stretch this and call it providence — or grace. Somehow life exists and thrives despite all the odds stacked against it. Somehow too, there is a strength that seems to come from beyond ourselves. The origin of grace is mystery. No matter how sophisticated our philosophy or theology might be, we are left in awe at the generosity and celebration of the universe. However, I believe that we can try to be the means of grace in the world — to make it manifest in our everyday lives. This would be a true and pragmatic form of spirituality – not abstract and other-worldly, but rooted in the here and now. Pleasure, beauty, awe, gratitude, creativity, celebration — they are all connected — feeding and nurturing each other as we enter them more deeply. A large part of the awe we feel for the world is derived from beauty. The beauty of nature has a special significance for us as our story unfolds. Originally it was the ‘second book’ in the Christian tradition, the manifest presence of God. Our modern Western culture has lost sight of this, so our relationship with beauty can be a conflicted one. Even so, as I hope we will see, our response to nature in awe is critical.
