Day 25—Wednesday, December 24 (Christmas Eve)

When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, “Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.” So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger. When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child. And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.
Luke 2:15-20

BEHOLD, WONDER

All "wondered," Mary "pondered," and "the shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God.”

By many accounts, we moderns are short on wonder these days. Way back in 1801, British poet William Wordsworth worried that the human mind was becoming incapable of wonder ("being excited") except by "the application of gross and violent stimulants"—and this was long before the current age of adrenaline with its blockbuster films, raging video games, and the million digital pulses that ripple through our nervous systems daily.

Filmmakers and preachers alike have to work hard to make us wonder now; we have seen and felt it all. Pity the church staffs who must marshal all their complicated creative and technological know-how every Christmas season just to stimulate in you and me some excitement for the good news of Jesus' birth.

Certainly, the fault for the erosion of our capacity for simple wonder lies in part with the supercharged rise of the entertainment industry, which has led us from Amusing Ourselves to Death (Postman 1985) to now being Thrilled to Death (Archibald Hart 2007). But pop culture is not the only culprit here. Modern education has trained us in a habit of learning and reading that is not wonder-full. The Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper distinguishes between two basic modes of learning. One he calls ratio, which is the hard work we associate with education—analysis, critical thinking, and the ability quickly and competently to scan an argument for theses, major claims, and evidence ("reading to the test," we now call it). Certainly, these are necessary and valuable skills and not enough of us do these well enough. 

However, such learning is all us—and the fortitude, effort, and stress of this and only this over the years, says Pieper, become "permanently etched" in the lines on our faces. For many people, this is all that learning is, which is why so many hate school. But there is another mode, which Pieper calls intellectus, and which we might call "contemplation" or just "beholding." (He's not making this stuff up but merely recalling more ancient and Christian practices of listening, reading and knowing.)  To learn to behold is to be on the doorstep of wonder.

It's telling that the word "behold" has dropped out of contemporary use, probably because, well . . . it sounds so old. (I do not say to my wife, "Behold, our tax refund has arrived.") To behold something is, as Pieper says, a "receptive looking." It recognizes that, when it comes to deep knowing, it takes two to tango—the object known must in a certain sense come to us as well as we to it. When we see this word in the Scriptures people are usually receiving something from another. From Genesis, where God says to Adam and Eve, "Behold, I have given you every plant . . . [and] its fruit. You shall have them for food," to Gospel of Luke where the angel tells Mary, "Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus"—this kind of attention involves the capacity for deep reception. For this kind of knowing and learning, the chief virtues are humility, patience, love (or longing), and detachment (from our demand always to get something from our learning that we can use for the self.) Jesus' parable of the soils teaches us—in a wonder-full way—that it is finally the depth of reception, not the number of seeds pitched, that determines whether the Word of God will be fruitful in us. In this passage, all who wonder, Mary who ponders, and the shepherds who glorify and praise God, are engaged in this kind of receptive knowing—a knowledge often full of wonder that inspires love and leads to response.

Enough of this talk. It is time for you to enter in. I can point the way, but I cannot go there for you. You must yourself "taste and see that the Lord is good." But here are some guidelines, if they help:

• Set aside some time (15 minutes? 30?) and stick to it; no more, no less.
• Find a nice quiet place to sit or a path to walk, slowly.
• Put out of view all other screens, whose links tempt us to escape the present moment.
• Take a few deep breaths from the given air. (Through your nose, it's just better.)
• Address God (how do you do so: "Abba," "Jesus," "Lord"?). He is always already there.
• Read the passage above; gaze on this painting, listen to these songs.
• Read, gaze, and listen again.  (I sometimes add paper and crayons to the mix.)
• If your mind wanders, address God again, bringing yourself back into His presence.
• Take what God gives during this time.  If "nothing" is happening (something is always happening, by the way), then give up your demand for a feeling or insight or experience.  If necessary, let this time humble you. You may be a relative beginner at this compared to the humble figures who had little choice in their lives but to wait upon the Lord.  
• Yes, take what the Lord gives, and just behold (gaze receptively) at the truth that the God of all creation has, through the advent of Jesus, by the coming of the Spirit, indwelt you, so that you might cry out in turn, "Abba Father."
• Now, wonder at that.

Todd Pickett, Dean of Spiritual Development