Awe and Wonder


“Life is full of beauty, notice it, and notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, fight for your dreams.”
Ashley Smith

          Take a moment and think, not only about Smith’s words, but more so, think back to those moments when you could stand in a state of bewilderment, in a state of awe after observing or experiencing something. Can you remember the first time a worm wriggled in your hand, and when last did you become awe-struck by the beauty and constitution of a flower? It has been said that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder; I will revert to two observations that the poet Keats made in relation to beauty.

In his “Ode on a Grecian Urn” he writes:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

In his “Endymion” he writes:
A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.

Thousands of years ago, the Greek poetess, Sappho, wrote that what is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon also be beautiful. Let us not only learn but also never forget not to take any form of beauty for granted. This includes the beauty not only in the things around us but also the beauty that is present within each and every other human being.

I have learned to appreciate beauty;
not only in things, but also in you and me.
I still become overwhelmed, filled with wonder,
at simple things, such as raindrops, lightning and thunder…





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