Letter from Maya: The Spiritual Practice of Wondering

Hello St. Paul’s! As we enter into the holy season of Lent, many of us take time to reflect on practices or habits we can give up or take on to deepen our relationship with God as we prepare for Holy Week and Easter. 

For some, that might look like a commitment to reading scripture every day. Or perhaps limiting social media use or committing to a certain prayer practice, like an Ignatian Examen. This year, I am going to turn off my phone at 8 pm and use the time I would spend mindlessly scrolling to pray or read scripture or journal- things that enrich my relationship with God. 

As I tell the kids here at St. Paul’s; Lent is a time where we focus on three things in particular; prayer, giving, and practice. Because sometimes, in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, we forget how to love others well, be charitable, or sometimes we forget about God’s love for us or that God is even there for us- so we practice. 

I want to offer a specific spiritual practice to you, one that I think is sometimes overlooked; wondering. Our capacity to wonder arises from our natural curiosity about and the desire to make meaning of the grand adventure of life and the Sacred. Wonder, as a feeling, is characterized by a sense of awe and curiosity and openness. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “It takes three things to attain a sense of significant being: God, a Soul, and a Moment. And the three are always here.” The spirituality of wonder draws us out of ourselves and allows us to live in the moment and be attune to the glorious ways God moves in our lives. 

The opposite of wonder is perhaps indifference or apathy. It is too easy these days to be indifferent; indifferent to both the beauty and the pain of the world. We often run on autopilot and remain indifferent and therefore, unchanged. We are called to be transformed in our relationship with God, and one way we can do this is by wondering, by slowing down and opening ourselves up to reflect on how God is ever-present in our stories. 

Now, I am going to invite you to a specific opportunity to practice wonder this Lent. This SUnday, we are hosting our first “Wondering Together Potluck” in the Great Hall after the 10:30 service. Each Sunday in Lent, all ages and all members of the community are invited to bring a dish and wonder together about five topics central to our Christian faith; week one begins with us wondering about Jesus, the following week we will wonder about the Bible, worship, and then prayer, and finally our mission. 

These topics were selected because, due to the fact they are considered fundamental or foundational to our faith, they tend to be engaged with… certainty or questions pertaining to these topics are met with authoritative, canonical, and awfully convenient answers, leaving little room for curiosity and openness and wonder. 

As a result, we may think that the Bible or ways we can worship and pray are static and relics from long ago, and therefore insignificant or inapplicable to our everyday experience here at this moment. Or we may let the clergy explore these topics; after all, they’re the experts. Whereas clergy and spiritual leaders offer very valuable insight and profound wisdom, its important for all Christians explore these topics and how God shows up in their own experience, in their story. 

So, at our potlucks, a short story will be read- the story of the BIble or the story of prayer., for example. Each person at your table will be invited, though never required, to share their response to 3-4 “wondering questions”. Wondering questions are open-ended inquiries that invite us to explore and consider how these stories intertwine with our lived experience. THere are no right or wrong answers in wondering together. 

Stories and wondering also connect us to one another. My hope is that this series of potlucks will enrich our ties as a community, especially intergenerational ones. 

The content for these potlucks are not sequential, so you don’t need to commit to every Sunday in Lent to join us. For setup, a simple headcount RSVP is appreciated, which you can do by scanning this QR code, which leads to www.stpaulcathedral.org/potlucks. I would like to thank Stacey Klaman, chair of our Formation committee and Dean Penny and Richard Hogue for their collaborative efforts in planning this offering.

I hope to see you all soon as we develop our capacity for wonder this Lenten season. 

Acknowledgement: I took inspiration from the children’s religious education work of Sonya Stewart, Jerome Berryman, and Sally Thomas. See Young Children and Worship and The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 1 and the Wondering Together Project.