In Praise of Wonder

Perhaps Blake’s seeing angels in trees and God in his kitchen is the true nature of things, and everyday appearances are the real delusions. yes

As God, Christ is supposed to be radically foreign, but as Jesus he is intimately human. .....

I want to praise the New York Times for including these lovely Christmas stories at this time of year. It is a very important Christian holiday for many of us as we celebrate the birth of our savior Jesus. It really puts us in the mood as many of us get ready for religious services. Again thank you for these extremely enlightening and uplifting articles. We still take this holiday seriously. Merry Christmas.

Wonder is a moment of self-awareness that incorporates humility, looks past the dirty reality that must be endured, looks into the mystery of the night sky or the morning sunrise, and cannot be adequately described in words. Nevertheless, we have tried to explain it here. It is for us a clear hope which arises from deep love, the kind that wishes good health and happiness without placing the ego in the equation. Wonder can quite literally take our breath away, dropping our body to the ground, stricken with the awe of a moment that allows the mind to encompass the magnitude of it all. Whatever your reaction, we own this for ourselves and in kindness offer these words to you. But we don't ask for a response. Just ... wonder ...

When I was a boy the thing I loved about Christmas was the gradual, magical eclipse as ordinary life gave way to the happy tide... seeing among the ordinary mail first a green envelope... then a red one... then two more... then ten! And the cards all gathered together: glitter, silver foil, impossibly fancy lettering and poetry and handwritten, loving messages of “hope to see you soon... wishing you happiness... “ Candles. The ordinary world felt so far away, waiting somewhere out in the cold dark night.

And perhaps this sense of wonder, of existential awe, can be “invited” into our lives, wherever we have chosen to BE, been placed, by making a much needed difference which can make a critical difference to those whom we know. As well as to a stranger whom we may yet come to know.To trust. To respect. To enter into dialogues with.A birth which made a difference. For some. A life of words and deeds, which made a difference. For some. A cruel, painful murderous-death, which made a difference. For some. As well as not, for many others. THEN, and increasingly, and daily, less so NOW. This article’s “wonder,” sacred as well as existentially-secular, is all too easily blocked. Ravished. Distorted. Mantrafied. Commodified in a toxic WE-THEY culture which is enabled to violate created, targeted, selected “the other(s).” Daily. People. Values. Norms.Dehumanized. Marginalized. Excluded. The sacredness suggested in this article transmutes into active complacency by a wonderless many, and by ranges of unaccountable many! Wondering about what “ miracle,” by whom, when and where will it begin, and how man innocents will pay with life, limb and unending traumas will distance us from this holi day’s gifts of challenging opportunities to BE... To BE come...To embrace the randomness, during waking hours, having somehow “failed at...” to get up, physically, a wondrous movement not to be taken for granted, to continue...experiencing the wonder of IT all, “ failing better” the next time.Wondering?

William Blake is an artist to live with for a lifetime, that you may be as enchanted by him at the end as you were at the beginning. My own Blakean baptism came in the fall of 1988, when I discovered "Head of a Damned Soul", aka "Satan" - since included in several cross-Atlantic Blake exhibitions - as an illustration in The Times Literary Supplement, on a page devoted to a review of a book, on, I think, John Bunyan: https://wsimag.com/ashmolean-museum/artworks/52730

A thought provoking piece, if a little to propitious towards superstition. There is enough "wonder" in the natural cosmos without invoking the Creator of the universe sticking his head in on your breakfast.

The only “ Wonder “ I have is an answer to THIS question : When will we be free of that creature in the Oval Office ??? Period.

Wonder. Yes, there is much to wonder about. Heidegger said we needed to get back to the sense of awe and wonder that early thinkers felt when they looked at what was around them. He was right. We have lost something in that we don't wonder any more at nature. Instead, we rape it so that it -- and we humans -- become a standing reserve for capitalist greed. We do not need fairly tales based in credulity and ignorance to recreate wonder in the world. Religion, in fact, leads in the opposite direction: Not to wonder, as the author indicates, but to dogmatic certainly and all that follows from it. Religion and all that goes along with it, "is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that it is painful to think that the majority of mortals will never be able to rise above its view of life." Lets think of Jesus as a wise man who understood that love and forgiveness is at the core of what is best in human beings and also, when denied or perverted, the cause of what is worst.

How sad that William Blake's "The Descent of Peace, 1814-1816", turned in the course of history to the manifestations of human intolerance and cruelty. The cause was not the schism per se of primordial monotheism into Judaism and Christianity, but the obsession of the major Christian churches with the idea of "their faith being the only true one".

Bravo. Beautifully written. An apt contemplative essay worthy of the NYTimes and our attention.

A strange, luminous vision indeed, but it shows a scene within a stable; the manger is not depicted.

Even as a non-Christian, I can appreciate the wonder that Mr. Simon feels and writes about. Unfortunately, that spark of wonder is buried beneath an enormous mountain of commercial greed. It is forgotten by the self-righteous practitioners and officious clergy who think that religion is about telling people how to and how not to behave rather than inspiring them how to believe. The promise of Christianity leads millions in the developing world to believe; in a world of poverty, war and suffering, who wouldn't want to believe in an eternal paradise? The hypocrisy of Christians leads millions in Europe and North America away from the faith and towards other sources of wonder and spiritual fulfillment. For you, Mr. Simon, I wish a very Merry Christmas.

Thanks. This is an apt antidote to the pious nonsense of William Lane Craig's interview on "virgin birth" in Nicholas Kristof's latest op-ed installment.

Alexander Pope’s Age of Lead is ushered in: See Mystery to Mathematics fly! In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. Religion blushing veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires. Nor public Flame, nor private, dares to shine; Nor human Spark is left, nor Glimpse divine! Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos! is restor'd; Light dies before thy uncreating word: Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; And Universal Darkness buries All. Bool III, The Dunciad, Alexander Pope

What other fairy tales do you celebrate?

I love to wonder, but I don't think there's any evidence in history or archaeology that Herod ever massacred the innocents, that is, ordered the death of every male child in Judea under the age of two. This was fake news during its time and it was made up to promote hatred, not wonder. The type of wonder I like is "Miracle on 37th Street" where Kris Kringle is put through a competency hearing for believing he's Santa Claus. Is Santa real? To the Post Office, Santa's real, because they're expected to forward his mail. This movie stands out as a defense for all acts of imagination including Luke Skywalker and Wonder Woman.

Rather dissapointed left sugar off that list.

Christmas is a special time of year and Christmas wonder is for everyone. One of my muslim friends summed Christmas up beautifully when he said "I love Christmas, I love peace and goodwill for all and I love the small kindnesses I see at this time of year." I'm with Ibrahim, I love Christmas too!

A Cento of Scientists (Alternating lines from Charles Darwin, Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno) There is grandeur The sun with all the circling planets it sustains God is glorified and the greatness of his kingdom made manifest in this view of life the sun with all the circling planets yet glorified not in one but in countless suns from so simple a beginning endless forms the sun with the planets it sustains yet can ripen a bunch of grapes not a single earth, a single world, but a thousand thousand endless forms most beatiful and most wonderful the sun can ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do not a single world but in a thousand thousand, an infinity of worlds endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved as if it had nothing else in the universe to do All things are in the universe, and the universe is in all things, we in it and it in us There is a grandeur in this view of life. Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018)

For many non Christians the experience is not of embracing by the Christians. Christians treat all other religions as false. They will embrace you if you follow their doctrine. This article is so misleading. Such is our world.

Christmas is a reminder of the ease of hypocrisy and the tyranny of empty obligations.

Good thing Blake wasn’t born recently; some Ritalin would have been prescribed; that is if some ambitious priest didn’t get hold of him first. Wonder, you say. Good idea (see for example, in this paper, a world-class warmonger discussing grace), and topical. Let’s break it down. There’s my kind of wonder; astonishment at the intricacy of the physical universe, its size, its history, its evolution. Then there’s the version marketed by religions, where we’re told exactly what to wonder about, regardless of how self-conflicted, weird, or baldly political it is. We’ve also got Hollywood’s packaging of wonder, a vast panoply of imagination, single-shooter combat games, violent movies and pap animation directed at children who can’t distinguish magic from experience. Yup, there’s lots of wonder to go around. You can buy whatever type seems most entertaining. In fact, we here at Untethered America have a great great holiday sale this week. Due to our recent expansion into cannabis sales, we are introducing some especially augmented realities in specified locations. Remember, without a good dose of wonder, the darkest week of winter isn’t much fun.

Thank you Mr. Simon. What you write is extraordinary in that it moves my emotional state to a better place. A world of wonder and not of fear and hatred. Thank you and Happy Holidays from one who admires what you write from afar.

I find it very difficult to become too excited about Christmas in a secular city like New York. I was told by an employee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that they were not supposed to say Merry Christmas to the customers. An employee of CVS told me the same thing. I grew up in Boston (Belmont) in the 1950s where everyone said Merry Christmas without giving it a second thought. Now it is happy holidays which makes my blood boil. I cringe when I hear those words. I am a Catholic Christian who takes the Christmas season very seriously. It is not about the gift giving but the birth of Jesus. He is the one we should be concentrating on and giving thanks to. It has become such a commercialized holiday which misses the true meaning of Christmas. We should be helping the poor and needy, the homeless who really do not have much to celebrate when it should be such a joyous holiday. We do not need more things which we will probably stuff in a drawer anyway. If we each gave one or two fewer gifts to loved ones and gave the money to charity the world would be a much better place. How many material things do we need anyway? I am going to be a little more generous with those in need and less so to those who have everything. It is better to give to those who have little or nothing than those who have lots. Isn't this the true meaning of Christmas anyway. Merry Christmas.

Great article, & amazing picture--I'd never seen it before.

The ingrained human desire (or lust) for control, the need for someone to dominate - from others to the planet and beyond - dashes and trashes wonder, compassion, imaginative freedom. In a separate Times' story, we are reminded of children abused because of grades and rankings. Our present President is not alone in his pursuit of total control -- resulting in near-total chaos where "things fall apart" on cue. Anti-intellectualism, well-described years ago by Richard Hofstadter, has again raised new legions indifferent to the eternal search for knowledge, understanding, enlightenment. Wonder and the "delight" in its miraculous wake are trampled, ridiculed, ignored in the common desire to triumph through self-interest and the dominance of one's deluded superiority. Aided by instant Internet (a demon in disguise), the clash of Ignorant Armies has proliferated, a cancer not only on some presidency but on the nation and the globe. Yes, as in times past, our current "age of anger, anxiety and fear" and greed and dominance is a demon to address, not only for a day celebrating Christ's birth, but for everyone, everywhere regardless of religion and the hypocrisy that we are heir to. As in the hymn, "It's still the same old story . . ." Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana

Once gods gave us signs, interceded for us in our arguments with other gods to the Father and arbiter of disputes (Zeus) even fought with us—at least against Achilles, whose mother came from the sea. Then Plato decided this was all “poetry” (i.e. “fake news”). Truth is our destiny and our downfall. Science puts nature at our beck and call, and each new invention from Silicon Valley gives us greater command over our surroundings and less over ourselves. No wonder we are angry.

We now have a president with zero sense of wonder, and we suffer for it.

I have always loved the holiday season and, until the relentless attack on the Separation of Church and State, honored christian religious ceremonies. I will not honor them now until the attacks stop. A link to one of my favorite songs is below - "Let There Be Peace On Earth". As I have done with most "christian" things I make up my own words for secular meaning. "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be With our common creator United all are we Let us walk with each other In Perfect Harmony" I hope you will listen to this beautiful rendition by Vince Gills and remember that we are all in this together, united just by being here in this marvelous place and time. Happy Holidays everyone May your lives be filled with enduring grace, peace and joy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPH4LRASWbo