Julie's August Jottings 

We have just returned from a family holiday in Devon and were struck by how getting away from the normal routines can allow you to see the world afresh.  Visits to beautiful gardens, listening to the sound of the sea, time to appreciate wilderness and sunsets, as well as the fun of building sandcastles and listening to conversations between adult children and grandchildren about what tigers eat – these all help to refocus on simpler delights and allow for moments of awe. 

Awe is the experience of reverence or admiration or even dread in the face of something powerful, big, sublime, or beyond you. Awe often connects to experience of something Other, Ultimate, or God. Awe makes us appreciate our smallness in a world we do not control, where things happen to us and in front of us.  Experiences of awe can also release us so that when we come back down to the rest of life, we can make new choices about how we will respond to what we face.

A friend told me that as he gets older he has forgotten what awe is like.  So many things are not new, but familiar and repeated.  New experiences, looking with a child’s eye, listening to new sounds, these can reconnect us with the adventure of discovery and remind us of our need for awe. It was the philosopher Aristotle who observed, “In all things of nature there is something marvellous.”  Noticing something as small as a broken eggshell can remind us of the new life of a flown chick.  It now needs to find food, avoid the circling eagles and it will migrate when the season changes.  Yet, on a summer evening, we may hear a nightingale sing for us and feel very small.

At St Mary’s we will be looking again at our experiences of awe at the service on 6 August on the Feast of the Transfiguration.
Rev Julie Norris