Where do we lose the battle? – Loss of Wonder

(Continued from previous post "Should we or not? Stories -Heroes" - Chaitanya)

Heroic acts of yesterday cause inspiration and bring hope to our own everyday battles. While it is necessary for us to hear them on a repeated basis, in order to develop faith in God and build confidence in ourselves, there is also a danger of losing the heat in the process of repetition. I believe we lose our zeal to become lion chasers, and join the elite achiever’s club, as we allow the heat to simmer down.

For example, our reaction to a courageous act of a hero changes from the first time to every other time we hear it. The first time I read the story of a plowman, Shamgar, who used his ox goad to kill six hundred soldiers of philistine, I was amazed. But by the time it was repeated three times I lost the original admiration. As I discussed in my previous post, repetition of heroic stories has its own disadvantages. I laid down three of them, and I would like to explore them one by one.

The primary disadvantage is our sense of wonder diminishes. How do we lose our sense of wonder?

I think, our sense of wonder diminishes, primarily for two reasons. One is the explanation of the reasonability of a given event and other is the acceptance of the supernatural involvement in an incident. Let me explicate.

As children, every time we hear about how we have come out of our mother’s tiny womb, our minds are filled with wonder. Our eyes swell, mouths gape, and hearts pound at the incredulity of such a thing. As we grow, we learn and understand the human anatomy, we gain knowledge on the reproduction process of human species. I think that’s when the marvel of it all gets lost, in the reasonability of a baby’s birth process. You can explain it away!

The death of a giant in the hand of a teenage boy with a single sling shot will definitely raise astonishment. As the story gets repeated, we start explaining away the courage of David. This guy encountered several other perils as a shepherd boy even before he became a giant killer. He probably could kill the giant in the first attempt, because he became an expert sling shot. He had practice protecting his sheep from wolves and bears. That explanation steals the thundering feel of the story. We then conclude an act like that is possible, reasonable, and therefore achievable. Its greatness is lost. That exactly is my point, reducing a heroic act in to rational explanation can diminish the ‘wonder effect’. Our minds start rationalizing everything we hear repetitively.

The miracle of an axe head floating on water, with a simple, faith filled prayer of Elisha is simply unbelievable. Once it is established as a historical fact then the trouble starts. Anything out of ordinary will catch our attention. Floating axe head is extraordinary. Our initial response is to question the reliability of the story, once it is authenticated, the predictable conclusion would be the presence of supernatural element in it. Then the tendency for us is to think, since it is not our typical everyday happening, and there is a transcendent power involved; should I expect that power to get involved in the problems of my own tiny world? Is not, my life too small for something like that to happen on everyday basis.

A conclusion of this sort will pinch the cherishing feel of that event. Though the event itself has spectacular in it, eventually we ramble about the impracticality of anything spectacular happening in our own lives.

Did you see my point? Both, explaining away the reasonability of an event or focusing only on the  supernaturality of an event, naturally results in loss of Wonder.

Tomorrow we shall dig deeper…