In Praise of Wonder

Credit: Michelle Liu

BY JOAQUIN RIVERA

I see people striving to seek beauty by visiting the Bahamas, buying new clothes, or watching TikTok reels. On September 27, 2023, I found beauty by turning around.

That beauty was the moon. They say a cloudless night is most beautiful, but I disagree. Clouds covered the sky, but it was thin enough that, rather than blocking the light, they were illuminated by it and softly glowing with the moonlight. If I were Van Gogh (I’m a far cry from Van Gogh, to be clear), I would have painted this sky and made it famous for the world to see. The moon was beautiful, and I almost missed it.

I was speedily returning home from Collegetown, walking determinedly, for I was quite desirous of a shower. Music was blasting in my off brand air pods. As I was walking alongside the slope right on top of the Cocktail Lounge, I noticed a guy walking in the opposite direction. Right before we walked past each other, I saw him stop and gawk at the sky. Yet I continued walking forward, intent to get home so I could take a shower. But then I stopped. I just had to see what made him so starstruck.

Then I saw it all. The moon, the clouds, the clock tower made for the most beautiful image of the night sky that I had ever seen. The mystic stranger I had passed looked back at me, and I said “It’s beautiful.” “Stunning,” he quietly replied. After a few more minutes of silence, my new friend left, but I had to stay. I was still captivated by it all.

I sat down on one of the benches and gazed at the heavens for the next 15 minutes. People passed by hurriedly, and I just wanted to tell them to join me in viewing this spectacle. Some, to their credit I suppose, took out their phones to take a quick picture before going on their way. Perhaps I would have just done that too, but my terrible Android’s camera would have captured the scene as ineffectively as I would have done with a paintbrush. And this, in retrospect, was all for the better in that moment. What’s the point of looking at that view on a phone later? Right there in that moment, by standing there I was refreshed and captivated by the soft light of the moon, the dreaminess of the clouds, and the mystery of the stars.

God’s timing can be incredible, for that was quite the topical experience. 20 seconds prior to turning around, I had just breathed a prayer to God, asking for rest. It had been a long day full of cool conversations, but it had been a non stop day. Everything I had scheduled was back to back, with little margin. And then 20 seconds later, God compelled me to stand there and just see.

This experience was noteworthy for another reason. I have been steeping myself in G.K. Chesterton’s Tremendous Trifles recently. [1] It’s an incredible compilation of essays that Chesterton had written over several years, with the central theme of the essays being the idea of seeing the adventure in even the little moments of life. His object was to show how “tremendous” a “trifle” of a moment could be. In the first, and perhaps the most famous essay of the book, Chesterton describes two boys, Peter and Paul. They are given the choice to wish for whatever they want, to which Paul answers that he wishes to be a giant so that he could visit all the great places of the world with ease. His wish is granted, and he goes on a walk to the Himalayas, and then to the Niagara Falls, and then…he gets bored. Everything is so inconsequential and small at his feet, that he loses the capacity to feel wonder.

Peter, on the other hand, wishes to become half an inch tall, and his wish is granted. Immediately, the small front yard garden that the two boys were in becomes an endless forest to the miniature Peter. Each blade of grass is a tree to be climbed, each molehill a mountain to be conquered. And he will never tire of any of it. Chesterton ends the essay with the thought provoking assertion “I will sit still and let the marvels and the adventures settle on me like flies. There are plenty of them, I assure you. The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.”

Funnily enough, the night before this moon incident, I led a Claritas discussion on that very Chesterton essay. Additionally, during lunch that day, I had introduced that essay to a non-Christian friend. So, in the abstractly intellectual sense, I was very onboard with this idea of giving myself time to see and to let wonders come upon me. But as I was speeding my way back home, my thoughts were on anything but appreciating the beauty of the world around me.

Fitting that this whole episode happened as I was within 100 feet of the clock tower. Former Claritas Editor-in-Chief Jack Kubinec once aptly wrote “Cornellians have a tortured relationship with time, and our clock tower is a reminder. After losing touch with who they were, the ancients built the Tower of Babel. For much the same reason, we built the Tower of Time.” [2] I vividly remember that during this walk, I was planning out the rest of my night. It was around 9:30. I wanted to sleep by 11 so I could get that sweet 8-9 hours. I had to shower by 10 so my hair had time to dry. Maybe I would have time to scroll through the billion things I had to do on my laptop and get something done. There was no room in my plan for anything unplanned to happen.

To give myself credit, over these last few months, I have really sought to renew my love of nature. I have started to acquire the skills of tree climbing. Well, climbing that one big tree on the Arts Quad in particular. After my last final last semester, I climbed that tree as my first celebration. A few weeks ago I climbed it at night with a friend to have a deep conversation about my upbringing, and on any given day I often just feel compelled to climb it and feel comforted within its branches. As my Bible Study has been reading through Genesis, I have come to this understanding about how important nature is to God and to man. God chose to create Adam and Eve in a garden, and charged them to do work there, eat its fruit, and tend to the creatures within. It is in a garden that God chose to walk alongside humans. It was in a garden where man first sinned, and in a garden where Jesus sat and prayed that God’s will be done before he was arrested, beaten, then crucified.

But even beyond nature, I think we could all do better to revive our wonder at the little things. Wonder at the things you are learning, about the stories of the person you’re sitting next to in class, or at the delicious food that Cornell dining supplies you with. Open your eyes to see the amazing adventures that are here, and, maybe, don’t walk so fast on the way home every night.

SOURCES

[1] The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tremendous Trifles, by G. K. Chesterton

[2 ] KUBINEC | In Praise of Lingering - The Cornell Daily Sun (cornellsun.com)