Wonder - Part 2: Cultivating Wonder

In part 1 the goal was to talk about experiencing wonder and to cause you, dear reader, to think about wonder in your life. So if you have not read part 1, please do.

In this article, I want to ask the question, “Can we make wonder?”

If you have read some of my previous articles you may know that I recently changed careers to work in Software Engineering. One of the things I have loved most about developing is that I get to create things. In the beginning it was not very good, but it was creativity nonetheless. As time has gone on, I have gotten more skilled at creating websites and software and yet, I still have a long ways to go and I do not think I will ever ‘get there.’

Why do I say that? I say that because I believe that most of our lives are given to trying to achieve something that even if we did what we wanted, it would still not be what we thought it would be. What do I mean? Let me go back to a previous article I wrote on Tolkien’s short story, Leaf By Niggle.

Niggle had a grand vision of what he wanted his painting to be but never achieved it. As soon as he got something done he thought was good, another greater vision came into mind. Now this is not wrong, this is how we are as humans. But where we so often lose ourselves is when our identity becomes attached to our work, the vision.

Only a vision of wonder will cause you to be able to work as hard as you can to cultivate beauty and wonder and care for your culture, without crushing your dreams when things don’t go the way they are ‘supposed to.’

As a developer/engineer (apparently the terms are interchangable and yet some people are very particular about them) creating beautiful, awe-inspiring pieces of software is what I long to do. However, what is my reference point? Is it someone else’s great looking website? If it is then I am trying to recreate someone else’s stuff.

However, if I have seen and known wonder and wonder has seen and known me, I am free to create out of that security knowing that what I create is a cultivation/reflecting/refracting of Wonder. I can now be patient with myself because my identity is found somewhere else, in someone else.

So, can we make wonder? I think the answer is no. BUT! It is one of the best no’s we can get. Why? Because you have to see and experience wonder before you can reflect it in what you ‘create’. Art is reflection of the highest order and magnitude. We get to steward and subdue the earth through acts of cultivating what is, reflecting what is beautiful and turning eyes towards Wonder.