Alive! Alive!

Beloved in Christ,

One of the best novels I have read in recent years is Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary (which has been recently made into a movie). It’s the story of an astronaut from earth who develops a rich and wonderful friendship with an alien life form he calls Rocky. Both characters are marked by a deep and insatiable curiosity about the life and experience of the other. One of Rocky’s common responses to learning something new is to shout “Amaze! Amaze!” Part of what makes the story so satisfying is the way in which Rocky in particular is marked by a contagious and life-giving sense of awe and wonder at what the universe has to offer. 

Our reading from Acts 2 for this Sunday describes how, in the early days of the Christian community after Pentecost, “Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.” The first followers of Jesus were marked, not just by communal love and commitment to justice and mercy, but by amazement at what is possible through the power of God. The story in Acts is driven by a pulsing, palpable spiritual energy that makes everything that occurs possible. 

In the modern western world, we’ve largely lost touch with that pulsing, palpable spiritual energy. Our capacity for awe and wonder—to be amazed—has largely atrophied. We regard claims of the miraculous with cynicism, we tend to frown with internal suspicion at the parts of the Bible or the creeds that seem too strange. We tend to view everything—from our work, to our relationships, to the earth itself, through a largely transactional lens, where everything and everyone is reduced to a consideration of “what do I get out of this?” 

So much of the injustice, suffering, and oppression all around us is born from this tendency to see everything through the lens of how it benefits me. Following Jesus is about seeing everything and everyone as possessing inherent and unchangeable worth because it is infused with the holiness of God, the creator of all. 

In a world being torn apart by quid pro quo thinking, cultivating awe and wonder is an act of resistance and revolution. When the situation in the world, the challenges of your life, and the buzz of constant distraction feel like such a heavy yoke, take a moment to look up, to notice the buds beginning to burst on the trees, to really see the person you love, to allow yourself to laugh, to feel the pulsing spiritual energy driving the fabric of all things, and let your life be an infectious cry of “Amaze! Amaze!” that helps set the whole world free.  

Grace and Peace,

The Right Rev. Craig Loya