Our spiritual theme this month is awe. Awe. When you hear that word what comes to mind for you?

Is it a time when you have been in nature, swept away by the beauty before you? Is it a time when you heard a particular piece of music? Or is it from your life experience—in the midst of a birth? Or maybe in the presence of a loved one’s death?

The best definition that I have come across describes awe as being in the presence of something vast that transcends our understanding of the world.[1] It is something that reminds of us our connection with something larger. It could be something that is breath taking—literally taking our breath away. It might be something that causes goose bumps. And sometimes that sense of grandeur can come with an edge of fear because it points us towards some unknown, some mystery.

One of my earliest memories is an experience of what I would call awe happened when I was young, probably three or four years old. I am lying in the grass and my two dogs are with me. I was there looking up at the brilliant blue sky with those big billowy white clouds passing by and had this overwhelming sense of being connected with all of life, that I was one with everything. I don’t know how long I was there in the grass but all these years later I can go back to that place and that sense of wonder and connection returns.

I expect many of us have experiences like that that we can return to.

Awe can be a reminder that we are not just individual, isolated beings but part of something larger. In our family worship this morning we went on an exploration through the cosmos with the scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson. It was a video tour of the universe, through stars and planets and galaxies. It was a reminder that our bodies, the tiniest elements in our own bodies are made of the same particles of matter as those stars and galaxies are.

Tyson says that it could be that we feel small in the midst of something so big and amazing and vast—or it could be that we actually feel larger. That we are part of that same and large and vast universe. That we, too, are star stuff.

It could be easy to see awe as that which is extraordinary, something we experience only at exceptional times. But those moments can also be commonplace, especially when we are surprised in the moment. Have you ever had the experience of seeing a tree in bloom at this time of year and feel a rush just looking at it? Or have you witnessed a child coming to some newly discovered awareness of what’s around them and caught up in just how amazing all that is?

Whatever the particulars I think that awe is something that takes us out of ourselves. It brings us up to the boundaries of what we know and what we don’t know about the universe and our place in it. It can bring with it a deep sense of connection. It can bring with it a sense of humility as we get a glimpse of ourselves in relation to that vastness. It can be a reminder of the fragility of life, and sometimes it can bring remind us of a fine line that can exist between awe and fear. Have you ever been in the middle of a thunderstorm and felt not only rush of awe but also a ripple of fear as well? And those who attend to births will tell you that what is present in the room is joy and anticipation but the awareness too of just how fragile all of this can be. How connected life can be.

Many years ago I had the privilege of witnessing an open heart surgery. I had spent my summer training to be chaplain in a hospital and the floor I was assigned to was the heart bypass floor. After being a chaplain for a bunch of people going into or just coming out of this surgery I now had a chance to actually witness one. I was there with some other young chaplains and a doctor explained to us what would be happening, where we were to stand and what we should do if we felt like we might faint witnessing the surgery, especially the part where the patient’s chest is actually cut open. I remember the light-hearted atmosphere in the room including the song, “Slip, Sliding Away playing on the radio.” Clearly this was all pretty routine for the doctors and nurses in the room.

The patient was prepped for surgery and we all made it through that. Through much of the actual surgery the heart and lungs were kept going by artificial means. And then there came a time when the heart and lungs were ready to begin working on their own again, when they were transitioned off the machines keeping them going. All of a sudden, things got very quiet. All of a sudden there was not frivolity in the room. Two small paddles were placed under the heart and it was gently shocked and the heart started beating again and the lungs started breathing again and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed. I was aware of the miracle of life in a way that I had not been aware of it before. I was filled with awe and also aware of the presence of a little fear too. Just how close those two can be.

A sense of awe is a reminder of the miraculous all around us. That even in the commonplace there can be something extraordinary. And according to scientists it is part of how we as humans have come to evolve through the ages. There is actually a center at the University of California that studies awe and how it plays a role in how we relate to others and the world.[2]

In one study, near a grove of eucalyptus trees on the UC Berkeley campus, researchers staged a minor accident near that grove to see if the awe inspired by that place and those trees would prompt greater kindness towards others.

This grove of eucalyptus trees is said to be the tallest in North America. When you gaze up at these trees, with their peeling bark and their grayish green foliage, with their amazing scent, it is pretty amazing. So it was in this place that researchers decided to stage a minor accident to see if it might prompt a more kind response to someone in need. Participants first either looked up into the tall trees for one minute—long enough for them to report being filled with awe—or oriented 90 degrees away to look up at the façade of a large science building close by. They then encountered a person who stumbled, dropping a handful of pens into the dirt. Participants who had been gazing up at the awe-inspiring trees pick up more pens. They seemed to be more inclined to help someone in need. They also reported feeling less entitled and self-important than the other study participants did.

The researchers say that in subsequent studies that they have found that awe—more so than emotions like pride and amusement—leads people to cooperate, to share resources, and to sacrifice for others. Those, of course, are all things that help to foster our collective life. And still other studies have explained what has been called the awe-altruism link: being in the presence of vast things calls forth a more modest, less narcissistic self, which enables greater kindness towards others.

So the question becomes what is all that about? What role does awe play in such experiences? Researchers hypothesize that in the course of our evolution we became more social. We defended ourselves, hunted, reproduced, raised vulnerable offspring, slept, fought, and played in social collectives. They say making this shift to more collective living required a new balancing act between gratification of self-interest and an orientation toward supporting the welfare of others. And experiencing awe may have helped us to make that shift. Experiences of awe, that call us out of ourselves, may help us focus more of our actions towards the interests of others, more aware of our interdependence.

Imagining how this has happened as part of our evolution, how we have become more and more aware of something larger than ourselves, of something we may not necessarily comprehend, I want to return to that sense of awe as being not too far removed from fear. How awe and fear can sometimes be two sides of a coin. Take that example of a thunderstorm. That sense of exhilaration is followed closely by a dose of fear, of vulnerability. And when you think about other examples, they too can skirt some line between life and death. That is true in the presence of birth, and it can be true in the presence, too, of death. Both call us to something heightened. Both make us more aware of what is around us. They can all be experiences of being lifted out of ourselves and not fully knowing what all this is about. This takes us to that larger-than-life dimension that awe can have. It calls us to a place of paying attention.

And I’ve found myself especially thinking about all that in this era of COVID as we continue to live in these complicated and unprecedented times. This has been a time of loss, a time of disruption. It has been a time more often than not when we have found ourselves in what feels like unfamiliar territory.  When we have felt unmoored and uncertain, away from some of our norms. When we have perhaps felt disconnected from ourselves and the world around us.

And through all this that sense of fear and awe have also been present. A kind of amazement at the power of a virus that has brought the world to its knees and made us newly aware of just how vulnerable we are. Amazed at just how quickly this can travel and now how quickly the variants can travel. And how now we have vaccines that can decrease the chances of us dying from this. All that is present. And how on an almost daily basis we are asked to reappraise where we are with things. Is it almost over? Are we now in the midst of another wave? What about the variants that are coming from places all over the world? Will life get back to even a semblance of what we knew as normal? Will we and those we love get through this?

Those are some enormous questions that have been before us. Big questions to try to take in.

I have been struck to see the range of reactions to the pandemic and the risk of illness and even death. I’ve seen people almost paralyzed with fear and others pretty nonchalant about it all. I’ve seen some OK with so much unknown and others needing to have a much greater sense of control than any of us can have right now.

I think this time of COVID has been a time when we have been more and more aware of our vulnerability, of just how precarious life can be. How life can just feel out of control and we may not know what to do.

And I wonder if it has meant for all of us some reappraisal of our place in the grand order of things. I wonder if it has meant some new awareness of our fragility, but also some new awareness of the gift that it is to be alive. To have breath. To have people around us. To be in places that we have come to take for granted.

It is a kind of existential questioning of how it is we are in relation to the world.

Part of the spiritual journey—part of life—is coming to understand our connection to what is around us. Think of being around young children and their questions about why—why is something the way that it is? Do we find ourselves asking some of those fundamental questions more frequently in these days as well?

And what will that mean coming out of this time? When, if ever, will we be so free to go and hug someone we care about? Will there be a time when masks are no longer own normal? Or will that ever be the case? Will there come a time when we can go back to having good old potluck dinners together? Or not?

Like so much of life there seem to be all kinds of questions right now. I know that is the case when it comes to church life and what that will look like in the future. When it will be safe to return in whatever form that will take?

Yes, this continues to feel like a time when we don’t know what life will look like and what our new normals, our new patterns, will look like.

But I also don’t want to lose sight of the opportunity that perhaps has come out of this time. It is easy to get into our accustomed routines and the patterns where things simply become the way they are. We may lose sight of much of a sense of possibility and curiosity.

And it may be that when we get outside our comfort zones that we are able to see something in a way that we haven’t been able to see it before.

I think many of us, myself certainly included, have been made more aware of our privilege in these times. For us maybe we are especially invited to look at that and to imagine what is being asked of us. How the patterns of privilege are not necessarily in keeping with the call to see how what is good for each of us needs to be good for the whole as well. That hopefully some of the new-found awareness we have come to know won’t just go away

The last year has been a time when I expect a lot of us have known both that sense of awe and fear, but also a time when we have been invited to see the world through a wider set of lenses.

We may be newly aware of our own sense of vulnerability, especially when we see so much uncertainty ahead of us. Do we see signs of hope or do we follow that impulse to pull back, not knowing what is coming next?

Our call, the invitation that comes over and over again, is to move into that place of awe and wonder and even that place of fear, and to see it as an invitation. An invitation to pay attention.

In closing, words again from the poet[3]:

Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.”

No matter what the days ahead bring, may we not lose sight of that invitation. No matter what the days ahead offer, may we continue to find our way towards awe.

Will you pray with me now?

Prayer

Spirit of life and of love. be with us in these awe filled, these fear filled, these complicated times. Remind us to be astonished. Remind us to be curious. Remind us to be grateful. Remind us, over and over and over again, that we are part of some greater whole. Remind us, through it all, that we are held in love. Amen.

Benediction

In these days, remember that your very breath is a miracle. Remember that all of life is a miracle. Embrace that life, cherish it, and be glad.

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[1] https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_do_we_feel_awe

[2] https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_do_we_feel_awe

[3] “Messenger” by Mary Oliver

Topics: Awe