When I was a child I threw myself at life. Literally I flung myself over cliffs and down precipitous bike hills. I splashed and crashed in raging rivers. Heedless wonder dominated my days. One of my favorite thrills was to climb tall, young cottonwood trees, grasp the top, and leap into the Mile High air wondering if the tree would lower me to the ground safely. They did—mostly. Elevator trees, we named them.
I woke to wonder fresh everyday. I thought I’d live forever. Or more realistically, death never came within a hundred miles of my mind. And heaven? When each blue sky Colorado day is an eternity, why bother with some place promised in the clouds? Heaven was here and now and as real as the blood gushing from one more childish flesh wound!

Even when I started experiencing seizures from a fractured skull, piled up serious medical complications, and later broke my left leg from literally throwing myself from a cliff, I never doubted my ability to recover and endanger my life again.
That’s not to say there were not spankings and scoldings and troubles galore. My dad made me eat spinach! But these pot-holes seemed minor and part of the package.
“Won’t your mom kill you if you do this?”
“Probably!”
Children and the Kingdom of Wonder

How do you wake wonder in life?
Some say this hunger for wonder is immaturity and ignorance. And surely this is partially true. I was both immature and ignorant. I have the scars to prove it. But what if it is equally true that when young, we are still so close to God’s creative work in the womb that we naturally still wear wonder like a freshly painted masterpiece with the Master’s wet brush strokes still showing?
When Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” he did not mean only going to heaven at the end of life. He meant now!
He also said, “The kingdom of God is at hand.” In other words, close, within reach. The kingdom is open to children by God’s grace and because they retain a natural sense of wonder and belief.
In the movie The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Lucy stumbles out of the wardrobe into Narnia with pine trees laden with sparkling snow and silence as deep as heaven itself. She believes the wonder before her.
Though I did not know of Jesus as a child, heaven was naturally near. And even in my teens, after life became more a burden than a romp, when Jesus finally spoke up, it was like hearing the echo of a familiar voice.
When Life Dulls the Edge of Wonder

I know not all children experience life this way. This reality breaks my heart. And God’s. My father died when I was eleven and life became more like a labyrinth of sorrow than a museum of wonder. But the capacity for kingdom wonder is always there. It often bursts in like a vagrant shard of sun penetrating dark clouds.
Even in these days of fear and masked faces and hearts, I’ve wondered at people’s eyes. Some work desperately to reveal their veiled smile as a glint in their brown, blue, or green eyes. What wonderful thing have you seen and heard in these hard times? Whatever it was for you, it is God’s kingdom breaking through. Be a child again and grasp the wispy top of it and jump!
The Waking of Wonder
And after sixty-four years of a good, but often difficult life, I find the appreciation for wonder returning. This began in earnest after my 2015 heart attack. For me the fear, pain, and sorrow of that event began to wake me to wonder blooming fresh again. If death is so close, life can be too! Again I began to believe I’d live forever, just now in a different way.
It’s as if being closer to either end of life gives one a built in geiger counter for God’s presence. I’m not throwing myself from trees and cliffs but I am throwing myself into the wonder of worms and hummingbirds and smiles and conversations and coffee and beer and hikes and brown trout on the end of my line. I laugh more than I have in years, especially with The Redheaded-Wildflower at our puppy, Sir Winston.

But you don’t have to be a child or a codger to experience God’s wonderful kingdom. Let God wake the child in you again. The child’s still there.
“Come to me,” Jesus invited. His hands are open before you. Take them.
Think like a child. Read a favorite children’s story. Take a walk for wonder not exercise. Play with a child and let the child lead. Dream. Wade. Wander. Imagine something.
Pray this prayer.

God of wonder,
Draw our downcast eyes up and beyond the horizon of fear and trouble we see constantly before us. Wake us again to child-like wonder. Let the glorious dreams we once had be reborn in our hearts. Uncross our arms folded across our chests in self-protection that we may reach freely for your hand, your kingdom.
Touch us tenderly, like a fresh spring morning breeze. Silence the blaring noise and open your Word to us that truth may once again prevail in our hearts and minds. Speak poems and stories and art to us again. Rouse us to see the beauty in others. Enliven us to glimpse you in the flotsam of each day.
Wonderful God,
Draw near to those whose stone-like lives have ground their wonder to dust. Re-animate it.
Fill the children and child-like with wonder and your Spirit, especially those who are unprotected, unfed, and are or feel unloved. Protect them, feed them, love them. Let your loving protection burst through into their lives like a bolt of lightning. Give them long hope. They are who you call us to be like. Make it true. And use us who are regaining our sense of wonder to give wonder away.
Amen

Amen,… my brother, a year younger than me, regularly “hooked up” with pals (especially on their bikes), and “off they would go!”,… who knew where?,… and happily, they would come back ~ later,… (on the home front, I think we kind of enjoyed the resulting “peace and quiet” of their absences),… according to some of the “stories” we heard much later, it wasn’t exactly “safe” out there, nor were they always “using good sense”, but they survived,… I’ve always thought that that “was completely natural” for boys to “find these kinds of things to do”,… the energy and the innocence, and perhaps God “inviting them” to jump in and “take hold of life” full throttle,… there was a sense of happiness in their endless adventures,… and “the Life” that surrounded them, buoyed them up, and urged them on, was palpable ~ God existing everywhere, on a Grand Scale ~ calling to everyone, “Enter in!”,…
You remind me that maybe we have squelched wonder by our modern quest for control and safety! But God waits for us to enter in.
so true,… you remind me of the song ~ “Those were the days, my friend! ~ We thought they’d never end,… ”
to be honest, (I only think of this once in a very great while, Eugene), there was “something” more precious about “Life” and “Living”, something we felt surrounded with, invited by, part of, and even loved and protected by, as well,… something exciting, and “goodwill” that you could trust,… we “all” were created equal and belonged to “Life”, in general,… kids could run around, playing “hide and seek” and “kick the can”, after dark, and no one worried,… kids were a precious gift, from a precious Creator,… we all were ~ it was “palpable”, and basically unquestioned,…
until abortion came along, societally, and basically undermined the value and preciousness of each one’s life, everywhere,… now, deep down, kids feel more like they are “optional”, rather than the expression of being “a fore-ordained gift of God” to Life as a whole,…
I “noticed” this very sad change in the social patterns rather early on,… no one “talked about it”,… where was that “instinctive joy”?,… zest for Life,… “joie de vivre”?,… “those Truly were the days, my friend”,… a “lost art”,…
thanks for listening,…
“But God waits for us to enter in”,… yes, and touch the “fullness and joy”,… but there also can be “natural” risks involved, which is where I think “prayer”, “faith” and “trust”, (hello, moms?), and surely a modicum of “good sense”, do come in, as well,… the Bible tells us that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18 ),… our “modern collective scenarios” seem to be more interwoven with “fear”, subtle, if not outspoken, which is definite a “joy killer”,… or even “aiming too high”, which cancels finding “joy” in the supposedly “ordinary” things of Life,… I don’t think that God wanted to “make enjoying Life to be that hard”,…
a definite,… sorry,… (-:
Your writing & photography are beautiful
& inspiring, Eugene. Pres is in renal failure,
sadly. As I go forward alone, I will think about
trying to “awaken the wonder” to enhance the
time I have left. Thank you for a special gift!
Sandy, I am saddened by this news. I can only see Pres as vibrantly alive in my memory. God will store up wonder for you in this difficult time. I am praying for you.