“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious,” wrote Albert Einstein. “It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead.”
Wonder illuminates our childhood, and yet it dims for many as we grow (“all is seared with trade, bleared, smeared with toil,” as Gerard Manley Hopkins has it in his poem here). In this Spring 2022 issue of Parabola, architect Berni LaPlante writes of his mystical experience as a child, easily lost in an adult’s fog of doubt but to him a touchstone that was miraculously repeated as an adult. LaPlante is not alone. From the late and beloved poet Mary Oliver in her essay here, urging us to attend to the wonders around us, to actor/Zen master Peter Coyote recalling the transformative energies of the 1960s and beyond, to Wisdom teacher Cynthia Bourgeault on the marvels revealed by practical spiritual work, nearly every contributor offers inspiring and useful guidance on how to rekindle and maintain our sense of wonder.
Three compelling interviews in the issue deepen our understanding of wonder. Rabbi Raphael Shuchat offers Kabbalistic understanding. Author and "ritual maker" Fabiana Fondevila gives hands-on advice on exploring the wonders of our senses, and Italian priest Fr. Guidalberto Bormolini shares wisdom on life, death, and prayer. Reaching into the past, these pages offer a new translation by Carmen Acevedo Butcher of Brother Lawrence’s seventeenth-century guide to The Practice of the Presence of God, and there is a provocative consideration by animal chaplain Sarah A. Bowen of the possible spiritual and religious experiences of our fellow creatures.
A report on the 2021 Parliament of the World’s Religions by Parabola regular Trebbe Johnson concludes this issue on a note of hope, as we see the globe’s spiritual forces coming together to face climate change and other existential challenges. May this issue, too, leave you with great hope that, despite all, in this blessed world wonder can and does abide.
—Jeff Zaleski
