An Enchanted World

“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendor, doing wonders?”

–Exodus 15:11

A few months ago, I was browsing some books online, and came across a used pocket edition of the 1947 Book of Worship of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, one of the predecessor denominations that formed the United Church of Christ. I was raised in a UCC congregation that began life as a German Evangelical Church, so the words of those liturgies were familiar to me from the E&R Hymnal still in use there when I was a child. I quickly bought it and was transported back to the cadences and rhythms of worship services in my childhood.

While I was leafing through the pages, I came across the liturgy for the baptism of a child. I noticed that the thin onion skin pages were crinkled in that section in an unmistakable way indicating they had been wet at some point. I immediately felt a visceral connection to the sacrament in that moment, realizing that the very water that had blessed a child perhaps six or seven decades ago had left an indelible mark on the pages of a book I was holding in my hands now. Someone I never knew and will never know, and yet we were connected across time and space in the communion of saints and through the physical remnants of a gathered community that had witnessed that moment of blessing. It was a moment of wonder unmediated by screens or drowned out in noise, grounded in a millennia old tradition that nevertheless felt immediate and intimate. And it was an experience that stood out to me in part because of how rare that kind of moment can feel in a busy week of going about the tasks of ministry.

Wonder is hard in our world today. Screens, algorithms, the constant drumbeat of news about injustices and pain around the world, the worries and struggles of our daily lives—can all conspire to drown out moments of awe or the still, small voice of peace that has the power to ground us. It can be so easy to lose connection with that spiritual foundation, and miss out on the moments of transcendence that take us beyond ourselves and remind us of who and whose we are.

Richard Beck, the ACU psychologist and theologian, writes about what he calls the loss of enchantment in our world today in his book, Hunting Magic Eels: Recovering an Enchanted Faith in a Skeptical Age. Our scientific and technological age have often stripped the world of mystery, and what replaces it can sometimes leave us feeling empty. At heart, what is lacking is awareness and attention. Beck quotes the theologian and mystic Thomas Merton, who once wrote these words:

“Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently. God manifests Himself everywhere, in everything—in people and in things and in nature and in events. It becomes very obvious that He is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without Him. You cannot be without God. It’s impossible. It’s simply impossible. The only thing is that we don’t see it.”

In this new year, with all its challenges and opportunities, with all the ways that the world will seek to distract, divide, and depress us, how will you find ways to be more aware? God, Merton reminds us, is absolutely transparent—if we open our eyes. My goal in the year ahead is to look for God, to cultivate awareness, to set down the distractions as best I’m able and allow those moments of wonder and awe to break through. It might be something as simple as leafing through the pages of an old book, or going for a walk, or sitting in quiet and stillness for a few minutes. Wonder and awe are always there, waiting for us to catch up. And that sense of awe, that connection with God, will strengthen our souls and hearts and minds for the journey ahead, as we seek the kingdom of God—on earth as it is in heaven.