Awe, Language, and Limp Balloons

Originally published October 2018.

So I’m trying to do this thing where I give myself the space to just be a real human and not have a perfect, eloquent essay to give to the world all the time, and just write and let whatever comes out be what it is. Because with my perfectionist tendencies, if I don’t give myself space to be a real human, that means 1) I just don’t write at all because I get so caught up in the fear of imperfection that I don’t even begin typing because it probably won’t be good enough (*lies*) 2) I rob myself of a practice that is necessary for my mental, emotional, and spiritual health, creating unnecessary hurdles to jump over in my creativity (*Lord knows there’s already plenty of hurdles to jump over to stay in a creative space*) 3) MANY things go unprocessed because I’m an introverted external processor, which means if anything is going to be processed, it better be written out or it will be subconsciously buried, and digging up the weeds those things grow into is super time consuming (*no fun). 4) I partake in and propel the toxicity of a system that says the only things of value in our society are things that can be marketed and sold, and real life isn’t one of those things because it’s not made in a controlled lab (*more lies*)

Yesterday I pulled a chair over to the window and watched giant oaks, pines, and maples be led by wind gusts from Hurricane Michael into tree yoga that had them bending so far I couldn’t help but wonder if soon one would snap and end up hanging out with me in my living room. I know you are supposed to do the opposite of post up right next to the biggest window in your house during a hurricane, but I can’t help myself when given the opportunity to be taken to that special sacred space of smallness, the space where we are reminded we actually are not the rulers of the world.

No matter how much I willed or pushed against reality, no matter how much I checked the weather forecast for some sort of feeling of control and predictability over the situation, I could not eliminate the chance that one of those trees could in fact end up in my living room, quite possibly on top of me. It is moments like these where I am reminded of the true meaning of a word that has almost become a non-word in the English language:

Awe.

That specific, special place somewhere between bone-chilling fear and heart-bursting wonder.

The reverence that brings you to your knees, somewhere between surrender and worship.

The tension on the strings I imagine that lock your jaw in open position when you do that weird human thing where you are so filled with astonishment you for some reason don’t want to close your mouth.

That which I have felt every time I have sat with my eyes glued to a window watching a crazy storm outside.

That which penetrated my bones last June with Danielle a Mountains-to-Sea backpacking trip when we had to sprint up and over a mountain while running through a river and praying that all of the orange strikes of lightning coming down all around us wouldn’t stop our hearts forever.

That which I feel every time I walk next to a rushing river I wouldn’t be able to cross if I tried.

That which I feel when I think too hard about bacteria, or a rattlesnake bite, or space.

But at some point along the way we decided that we should forget the idea of awe and mostly just say awesome, but not in the context where it is used to describe something that makes us feel a mix of admiration and fear and wonder and apprehension like the formal definition, but more informally, to say something more lame, like-

Oh. That’s cool. I guess.

Awesome. Kind of like a filler word to give a response when we actually don’t care about taking the time and energy to ask what we actually feel about that thing. Awesome is definitely a go-to filler word for me, a go-to response just to give one. You and I both know a true example of this is that we definitely say it a ton in response to a little kid asking you to look at this thing they made and you mindlessly say awesome without even looking because you know all they care about is your validation and you don’t actually care what they made. Sorry kids, but true.

Adults don’t have time for awe anymore.

Adults are busy feeling annoyed because they have to do things like get yet ANOTHER FREAKING OIL CHANGE which means we have to drop it off and find a ride to and from work which messes up the whole schedule of the day with knowing who is going to pick up the kids from school and who is going to drive to soccer practice etc. etc. Adults don’t take the time to feel the insanity of the fact that in driving to the mechanic, they are being propelled by a metal box with a motor that some super smart guy made with his hands one time that zooms 75 miles per hour down a speedway made of concrete that someone else once figured how to make with their hands one time, a zooming metal box which would be obliterated along with your life if you hit a deer going that fast down that concrete slab, and maybe obliterate another metal box carrying another human in the process. How does that not leave you somewhere between terror and wonder?

I think there is a space for awe in most things that we do, even in the mundane. The chance to feel awe is woven all throughout our days, but at some point we lose interest in sifting through all of the frill and stress to feel the moments that remind us that we are stardust in a human-shaped form that walks on a giant rock that propels through a vacuum around a burning ball of fire at 30 kilometers per second, and then we die, and the rock just keeps going……….. … .. .

It reminds me of a quote I heard Glennon Doyle say on a podcast this morning.

“Language is always moving toward evolution or extinction.”

Is awe moving toward extinction? If so, I want to reclaim it. And not just the word, but I want to reclaim the active participation in being present in moments of it, letting myself sit in the middle between fear and wonder, instead of automatically running to cling to fear which is so easy to grow accustomed to doing.

I do not only want to reclaim awe as common language but I want to practice it. I want to live in it. The real thing, and not just call things awesome because it has become an easy response I can say to stay asleep, but call things awesome because I have forced myself to sit long enough for the rush and busyness to fall away, where the only thing that remains is the awe of the fact that there is a mass of muscle in my chest sparked by electrical impulses that sends oxygenated blood through my body so I remain alive, and I have no control over how long those electrical impulses keep pulsing. But good God am I going to feel it, and I want to feel it always.

I want to remember my neighbors the ant and the spider and give them the space to inspire awe in me, and not automatically step on them or squish them because they are on the counter and “they don’t belong there because they are gross and dirty,” because somehow we have created the story that there is only room for man on this planet, as if it were only made for us. I want my mind to be blown by the fact that both that ant and that spider has LIFE. Like they walk and do things and have a purpose and dig intricate mazes in the ground and spin crazy symmetrical geometric shapes from sticky stuff that comes out of their butthole and they have sex and sometimes eat their partner after they have sex which is weird but WHO CARES BECAUSE IT IS INSANE THAT ANY OF US IS EVEN LIVING.

Thinking about the loss of meaning of awe made me question what other words have become overused or lost in my life. There are so many words that used to mean so much and now feel like limp balloons that feel more pathetic trying to make work than just popping them and ridding myself of them all together. Some are because of my own repetition and neglect to really feel and pay attention to their true meaning, but a lot of them are words that have been over-used by systems of power, and most of them are words that lost their meaning in the system of fundamental religion.

Much of what encouraged my need to walk away from fundamental evangelical Christianity was being constantly surrounded with words and phrases that had become non-words, space fillers void of actual meaning, text-book answers that kept everyone happy but actually became walls that prevented people from actually seeing and embracing the power and transformation found in entering into their reality. Words were said so much that they lost  their meaning and power through familiarity.

Words like grace, words like mercy, and really just the big ones, yanno like Jesus, God, and love. It got to a point where I couldn’t find the meaning in it all anymore because it all had become a big game that everyone seemed to be playing, reciting the right things at the right times to keep everyone from having to wake up, singing the same phrases over and over again that became so dissolved in their repetition that I wondered if anyone actually felt realize the power in resurrection and Jesus they sung about. ANYWAY not going to go on that tangent right now because I’m writing a whole book about it (yep it’s still a thing), but just trying to give an example of a setting where the meaning of words can easily get lost in repitition and to re-state the fact that there has been a lot of language that has gone extinct at the individual level in my own life… though I think the extinction metaphor loses merit there because I actually don’t want all of those words to remain extinct forever..

Over the past year or so I have been digging back through old Spiritual language and seeing if any of it can be resurrected, if some words can be stripped of the toxicity and negativity of the trauma I experienced through deconstruction and given new life from my own new experience. If I can stitch a new story into their seams, so that when I hold them or speak them or read them, I have a tangible image/feeling/definition in relation to my own experience of grace or mercy or God or love to remember instead of the watered-down meaningless picture I would get pissed at and run away from.

Maybe I need to write about each one, perhaps I need to physically write out new meaning for them that I can hold on to so I can get all of these limp balloons out of my face.

My time to elaborate ends here today, and in spirit of human-ness I’m not going to wait until I have more time to read over this and edit and make it sound more pretty, and I’m gonna freakin post it as it is because THIS IS REAL LIFE YO

Go make some space for awe.

Grace and peace.

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Cheers to the Journey, and may your Spirit always reside in a state of wonder