Wonderment

I am a student leader for Freshman Family Groups at the Wesley Foundation at OSU. This small group of freshman, 3 student leaders, and 2 Wesley staffpeople get together every week to have a small "lesson" or discussion, play a game, and just enjoy each others' company.

This semester, we decided to have a theme (for at least a little while). It is not officially "wonderment," but it's the same idea of seeing beauty and awe in both small and large things. Last week started with one of the staff, we'll call him A, telling a story of something that happened at the Passion conference in Atlanta last month. This conference is no small feat in general (more than 60,000 18-25 year olds were in attendance at the Georgia Dome), but what Jimmy John's did one day was close to magnificent: sandwiches for all 60,000 people delivered to each person in just 26 minutes. Everyone was amazed. When A mentioned this story, I immediately imagined the feeding of the 5000.

The next day, Jimmy John's was there and completed the task in incredible time again. This day, though, no one seemed amazed anymore. It wasn't new and shiny - it had already become "normal." Our goal with the freshman (and ourselves, to be honest) is to notice these moments of wonder and continue finding them, well, wonderful.

I am reminded of this message every time I take out the telescope I received as a Christmas present from Boyfriend. I could look through it every day and still be completely enthralled with looking at stars, the moon, and planets. Yes, planets! Tonight was the first night that I was awake late enough to see Saturn! Even the simplest of telescopes (and even some really good binoculars) will show you Saturn, its rings, and some of its moons. It was so awesome. I can't wait to do it again. The universe is full of wonder. It's important to remember that.