Recently I came across a book with the title “I Was Just Wondering” and it reminded me of a wonderful church hymn from our current hymnbook Community of Christ Sings (“CCS”) number 176, “Teach Me God to Wonder”. You may like to look it up. This set me wondering about a number of items.
Firstly, about people who wondered and discovered like James Watt watching the steam pushing up the lid on the kettle, leading to the steam engine, or the man who invented the paper clip.
Then there are so many bumper stickers that challenge and give you advice, along with notice boards. Over the years I have enjoyed one I saw in Punt Road, Melbourne, and at The Mill on the road to Wingham, and at St Barnabas at Broadway. Signs that said “No God No Life, Know God, Know Life” or “Man may be made from dust, but he shouldn’t live in it”; “God’s diet plan-Reduce the number of words you have to eat every day”.
Again, I was wondering upon the words of scripture that bring insight and meaning to our lives – Think about the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, or the insights found in the parables – the story of the Wise and foolish builder; New wine in old wineskins; The lost sheep etc.
This brought me to wondering how do we interpret phrases from other languages which contain a similar message to that found in our own, e.g. from the Japanese: “Even a stone Buddha can talk.” (Every picture tells a story); “A gold coin to a cat” (Pearls before swine); “The blind do not fear snakes” (Ignorance is bliss).
Wondering about interpretation brought up the need for a CANON. Its value is in checking and reviewing at some early Christian writings like this example: -
“When he was three, he once came across some boys playing with a basin of water. Jesus took a dried fish and placed it in the basin of water with the words ‘cast out thy salt that is in thee and go to the water.’ The fish came to life and the other children ran home to tell their parents. The notoriety which the incident attracted to the Holy Family had the unfortunate effect of making the landlady, the Egyptian widow; ask them to leave her house.”
This reminded me of my experience of learning French at High School. It was relatively easy, when compared to the difficulty of others learning English as I found out helping boys at St Joseph’s College, where English was a second language. Sentences like: “The bandage was wound around the wound”; “We must polish the Polish furniture”; “The farm was used to produce produce”. (Even the computer didn’t understand and wanted to delete the repeated “produce”).
I well remember my understanding of cricket being broadened while having the finer points explained to me by Graham McAleer. Wondering alone was not sufficient. I needed to have some expert guidance so that I could fully understand and appreciate this game that has enthralled so many for so many years. My limited understanding could well have been summed up using the following explanation found in the United States to clarify for people there: -
“You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man in the side that’s in, goes out, when he’s out, he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out. When they’re all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When both sides have been in and out, including not outs, that is the end of the game.”
No wonder we often need a paradigm shift – the way of understanding our reality, so we can organise the system to understand and structure our perceptions.
Most notably in the 16th and 17th centuries there was a change from the Ptolemaic paradigm to the Copernican paradigm. Each was a way of picturing the solar system as a whole and the earth’s place in it. The Ptolemaic view was dominant in Western science for about 1500 years. It was an earth centred paradigm; it sought to understand the motion of the planets and the stars in relationship to a stationary earth at the centre. But in 1543 Copernicus argued, “The Sun not the Earth was the Centre” and Galileo in 1609 developed a telescope and supported Copernicus’s theory.
Similarly, we can appreciate that the church has undergone some paradigm changes over the years and we are now facing another critical time. President Veazey in his article “A Time to Act” said, “The word of calling, hope and possibility is that new ways of understanding, communicating and living the gospel in response to changing circumstances already are happening in Community of Christ. The church’s future is related directly to our willingness to go where the Spirit is calling us to go.” (Read the full article in the Herald)
Let’s go back to where I started, and the Hymn CCS176 “Teach me God to Wonder.” I trust that we may be open and receptive to where God’s Spirit is endeavouring to lead us. We live in portentous times but, maybe, it is in these times that God is prepared to do God’s best work through us if we will trust in the Divine Initiative in and for the world.