First There is Awe©
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church
December 8, 2019

 

Early in my seminary days, I had a conversation with a fellow student about how we experienced the divine, the numinous, the ineffable, or whatever name you might want to give that which is greater than ourselves. My friend described the time she experienced the vastness of the night sky, and how small it made her feel, how unimportant, and how that terrified her. I had no choice but to confess that I simply had never had that experience. For me, stars are beautiful, and I love looking at them. My friend commented, “Well, I guess you are just really well-adjusted.” But I thought about that conversation for a long time afterward, and found myself wondering if I simply lack imagination. Am I supposed to feel awe to the point of fear? Or am I trying at some level to avoid the fear, and don’t give myself permission to notice and to feel awe at all, to let in those thoughts?

It turns out that awe is a really important but complicated response to the world around us. We might not use the word “awe” much in December, but we hear the word ‘wonder’ – its close cousin – all the time. “Star of wonder, star of light…” “I wonder as I wander”, or even “It’s the most wonder-ful time of the year.” Wonder-full. We spend so much of our year engaged with facts, and knowledge. We want the truth – just think, in our UU tradition we name as our fourth principle the search for truth and meaning.

And then in December we are asked to embrace ancient stories and myths – a tiny amount of oil lasting for eight days until more could be procured, the sun seeming to disappear and then gradually returning, a child born in a stable among animals who was a deity incarnate. We are invited to wonder, to allow wonder, and awe, into our lives in a more immediate way.

This can be such a challenge for many of us – those of us who seek the facts. We might notice with amazement things we have no words for, but we might resist feeling awestruck. It sounds too religious.

This month, I am inviting you to welcome awe into your life. I am giving you permission to experience it, to open to it, to allow yourselves to be brought to your knees by some experience of all that exists outside of ourselves, that is greater than ourselves.

Not long ago I talked a bit about the idea of reverence, which I think is closely associated with awe. I shared with you that reverence was regarded as a virtue, and that we should welcome feelings of reverence so that we may better understand our place in the world.

Reverence, and awe, is our response to a glimpse of something that is greater than ourselves. And as we experience that glimpse – the night sky, a bird that reminds us of a dinosaur, music that makes us weep, we can understand better how we are just one small part of the whole of the universe. You might be the star of your own life, but you are sharing the stage with countless other lives, across time and space.

“Mystery hidden in mystery, back through all time;…

Ponder this thing in your heart; ponder with awe…”

An experience of awe can cause fear, especially if it opens up a new way of looking at familiar things in the world. We can fear a loss of control, or just a sense of dislocation and change.

And then there is this: a colleague pointed out the other day that during the Iraq War, in 2003, our military used the term ‘shock and awe’ to describe massive bombing raids intended to terrify the Iraqis into submission as quickly as possible. And so for some, the term ‘awe’ has become indelibly connected with military power and the desire for total domination.

At the beginning I noted that the topic of Awe was going to be complicated.

Awe can be terrifying – the overwhelming mystery of all we do not understand, or the sudden perceived threat to our safety. A thunderstorm or tornado can certainly be awe-inspiring, in the frightening sense of the word. Thinking about this, about the fear associated with awe, made me remember how common the words “be not afraid” are in the Bible. “Be not afraid” is repeated throughout – whenever there is an encounter with the Holy, an inbreaking of the divine.

So perhaps we turn away from awe – try to keep from experiencing it – tamp it down deep inside so that we don’t experience the emotions that can arise: the emotions that we fear.

But today is about encouragement; about giving permission to let awe enter, to open to it, to let awe show us how to see ourselves and the world in new ways. To do this, we give ourselves permission to redefine it a bit. Give yourself permission to forget about ‘shock and awe’, perhaps, and to remember the story of the great blue heron. Give yourself permission to stand and applaud when something unexpected moves you.

Today is about permission; and so, I invite you to give yourselves permission to think like a mystic as well as like a scientist. And I have offered you today the example of Chet Raymo, the author, scientist, and religious naturalist. Chet Raymo demonstrates that scientific accomplishment does not diminish our ability to be awestruck. They are not mutually exclusive. Raymo wrote, “The thoughtful person will try to walk the line between drop-jawed amazement at the wonder of creation, and cautious skepticism about the correctness or finality of our knowledge.” (in Skeptics and True Believers, p. 253)

Raymo suggests that our knowledge contributes to our sense of wonder and awe. He told the story of watching a great blue heron take flight. Raymo’s awestruck reaction was partly in response to the nearness and otherness of the heron, but also based on his knowledge of the bird’s ancestry. He knew in that moment, watching that bird, that he was witnessing something primordial, something very similar to what a prehistoric ancestor would have. His knowledge of science served to enhance his sense of wonder.

Raymo calls himself a religious naturalist because a sense of awe is a religious response to a heartstopping experience. In this he is much like the Transcendentalists of the 19th century. His writing calls to mind Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote this famous passage in his essay “Nature”: “Standing on the bare ground – my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature.)

We tend to read this passage and emphasize the hyperbole of the expression ‘transparent eyeball’, but let’s think for a moment of Emerson’s phrase: “all mean egotism vanishes.” Once again, there is awe, or reverence, and this response to it: that we are merely a part of the Universe, part of the Whole of all existence. We regain our proper place; we know where we should be.

For this reason, awe is not to be feared, but welcomed. It turns out that awe is good for us! Awe is an evolutionary response that serves to connect us to others, to help us grow in compassion and understanding of others. A study at Berkeley demonstrated this. Researchers divided people into two groups. The first group stood outside and faced some buildings. The second group was instructed to stand nearby but to study Berkeley’s grove of giant eucalyptus trees. Then researchers staged an accident: they instructed a person to trip and fall and drop a large container of pens they were carrying. It turned out that the people who had been staring up into the tall trees spent more time and picked up more pens than the people who had been gazing at the buildings.

“All mean egotism vanishes.”

Researchers believe that there is a strong connection between awe and altruism – we have a greater sense of connection, less focus on the self, and thereby an ability to be kinder and more compassionate. (“Why Do We Feel Awe?” in Greater Good Magazine, by Dacher Keltner, May, 2016. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_do_we_feel_awe?fbclid=IwAR03IcoJP4XZZDLTgs5pyJz9S3uK9hP1d4Hr6FgqbgGFeYGUZwb1Eb-yx9Y)

I have described awe here as a religious response to an experience. As Chet Raymo knows, and Emerson knew, our religious feelings of connection to nature and to everything around us, our sense of our true size and our true place, flows from an experience of awe. First, there is awe. Religious teachings and rituals arise as a way to respond to a glimpse of something we can’t explain, to this sense of reverence. The author and minister Frederick Buechner wrote, “Religion as institution, as ethics, as dogma, as social action – all of this comes later and in the long run maybe counts for less. Religions start, as Frost said poems do, with a lump in the throat, to put it mildly, or with a bush going up in flames, the rain of flowers, the dove coming down out of the sky.” (Frederick Buechner, “A Doorway Opens,” in The Alphabet of Grace.) At their best, religious teachings encourage us to channel our awestruck moments into joy, and into praise and gratitude for the gift of having seen the rainbow or heard the soul-stirring music. The religious teachings themselves, the words and actions of praise and thanksgiving, do not lead us to awe. It’s the opposite, the other way around – awe leads us to our religious impulses. Emerson again: “the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me: I am part or parcel of God.”

Last week I took a walk as the sun was setting, which as I like to loudly complain these days, happens shortly after lunch. The sky was mostly gray, but suddenly the clouds parted and the setting sun blazed forth and illuminated a patch of reeds growing on the shore of a nearby pond. It was astonishing, but only for a moment. Just as quickly as it appeared the color receded, and darkness gathered. My response to that breathtaking moment was one of deep gratitude: that I had been there just then, and have the vision to see it. Without that moment of awe, I doubt I would have been feeling especially grateful – it was cold, and getting dark. But the moment of awe made it possible for me to respond gratefully; to have a religious experience. The awe came first.

First there is awe. Without it, we fail to have the emotional and religious responses that help us to reach more deeply within, to remember that there is so much mystery, so much we do not understand. Chet Raymo wrote, “I stand on the shore of knowledge and look to the far horizon of mystery. The mystery strikes deep. A shiver up the spine. Exhilaration and fear.” (in Skeptics and True Believers, p. 256.)

My friends, today is about permission. Today is an invitation to notice, to open your minds and hearts to everything you encounter that exhilarates, that stops you in your tracks, even if it is unsettling and a bit scary. Today we open up all the meanings of awe, so that we can welcome it, rather than fear it. Today is an invitation to open yourselves to awe, to remember that awe can be triggered by knowledge and understanding of science just as much as by mystery. In these days of wonder, when we are invited to ponder myths, to remember ancient stories, let us hold space in our hearts as well as in our heads. Let us make space for awe and wonder. Be not afraid. May you find a time when all you can do is stand on a bridge and applaud.

May it be so,
Amen.