I believe that children have, if human beings can be said to have one at all, a default position. It returns naturally to attitudes of awe and wonder. This is why children bring so much joy to their parents and grandparents; through them we vicariously live the awe and wonder we once knew in that brief one-sixth of our lifespan we called our childhood. It happens, I suspect because most everything a child engages in is a first. First’s are always memorable and elicit a level of excitement leftovers don’t. We older folk of course experience awe and wonder, but because we’re often bogged down with the “same old” we tend to be more discriminating and less spontaneous about recognizing what’s wondrous and awesome.
I discovered wonder recently: it was, as they say, totally awesome.
I was at Grandparent’s Day recently at the Seventh District Elementary School in Baltimore Country where two of my grandchildren attend. There were more grandparents there than children. The school was a multigenerational zoo.
I’ve watched documentaries of apiaries. You see hundreds of bees, all squirming and wiggling this way and that, endlessly buzzing and all the while performing the particular tasks for which providence has equipped them. The trick is in knowing which bee is doing what. It was like that with the kids. Like beehives, the activity seemed chaotic but was definitely informed by an invisible intelligence.
Granddaughter Hildry’s third grade had arranged for grandparents to join in discussing student class projects about inventions. The children had researched the history of common household items like radios, cameras, telephones and washing machines. The event was staged like show and tell where a student shows an object and then tells you what he knows about it. One child showed us a rotary phone and told us about Alexander Graham Bell. Children heard from some grandparents about party lines, where families shared access to the same telephone line. Another child showed old phonograph records. We also saw pushbutton phones and one of the first transistor radios. I told the class that in 1945 I had a crystal set (which I described) that actually received radio broadcasts. They appeared unimpressed. One student researcher on cameras said that when Kodak issued its first Box Cameras their use was prohibited on beaches. One child researched the history of washing machines, gave a brief history and told us they were too big and heavy for him to bring one to show. One grandmother allowed as to how her hair once caught in an old machine’s ringer. Her hair had to be cut loose to free her. That thought generated considerable awe among the children.
Granddaughter Winnie is in the fifth grade. The children were assigned riddles to answer. The children divided into two groups. One group made up the riddles. The other guessed them.
Winnie’s team invented this riddle:
It’s a cat not a pet,
It has fur but no hair,
It likes to play but not with you
What is it?
I thought Winnie would be a grandparent herself before I’d ever figure it out.
The young minds were ingenious in constructing the riddles, and the joy in their faces was palpable as they collectively attempted figured out the answers. Winnie’s team read their riddle.
As she read, the other group’s faces grew intense; brows knitted, mouths pursed, lips pressed tightly, some heads rising enquiringly, other heads falling in concentration. Like a litter of pups, the kids moved and nudged each other, while figuring things out. Heads would shake, no; then some nodded, yes, hesitantly. Then, as one or two children got it, I saw light appear in the children’s eyes the way neon tubes, when first turned on, flicker before they fully illuminate. I was witnessing the human soul’s equivalent of a nuclear reaction. It was like a bolt of atomic energy had been released in their bodies, exiting through their faces, especially through their eyes that sparkled with irrepressible delight. The children were experiencing the exhilaration and pure joy of discovery, the sheer wonder of engaging their minds with a mystery while struggling to understand its meaning.
When the psalmist wrote how the awe of God is the beginning of wisdom I suspect he had children in mind. The psalmist is alluding to the wisdom in spirituality that invites our awe, arouses our wonder and brings us joy. Another way of saying it is that viable spirituality enthuses. The root meaning of the word “enthusiasm” means to be “in God,” to be excited in finding the meaning in the small mysteries that life presents us with daily. It’s the pure joy that’s available to young and old. It’s just easier for kids. They have the advantage of confronting so many novel situations. Novelty whets our curiosity.
After the classes, grandparents and children went to the book fair to buy books. My grandchildren enjoy reading, so we bought a number of books. And speaking of awe, I had no idea children’s books had become so expensive. I wondered why.
By the way, the answer to Winnie’s riddle: a lion.
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