Words From A Rabbi

"The World Will Never Suffer From A Lack Of Information.  It Suffers From A Lack Of Wonder."

I heard these words on CBC radio station last week while driving to Walkerton.  They have been playing around in my head ever since; for me that is always a message that I should write about them, otherwise I will have to deal with them in my head forever.

These words have probably more true today than at any other time in history. I believe that all children up to age 6 don't suffer from a lack of wonder.  They are seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting things for the first time.  They are truly experiencing things for the first time.  For the first couple of years of their life they really don't know fear.  They have to be taught fear.  A 20 year old woman who screams or shudders when she sees a spider is the same person who at a year old was very curious about a very similar spider that was crawling on her crib rail.  She wanted to touch it, grab it even, see how it felt and even how it tasted.  It is only when the adult enters the room and screams or shudders that she becomes afraid.  We are truly the "wunderkind" for the first years of our lives. Today the German word wunderkind means child prodigy, it's original meaning was "A Child Full Of Wonder".

Twenty years ago most of us had no idea that there would be a computer or two or three in our homes.  That the word "google would become a word, never mind a verb.  Yet even before the advent of computers we all, or most of us lost our sense of wonder.  School really did it for me.  By it's very definition school means accumulating information then spitting it back out in the form of tests and exams.  Our natural sense of wonder is certainly discouraged in exchange for "good marks" that we get through using our minds to memorize information and regurgitate at regular intervals.

After school comes earning a living, which quite often means doing repetitive things for 8 to 12 hours a day.  How creative is that? Life is full of children's needs, earning a living, maintaining a home etc etc.

Possibly you have to be a 70 Something Woman/Man to have time and the desire to spend time wondering at the at the miracles occurring around us all the time.  Maybe that is why it is called
"A Second Childhood".  I am just glad I am there. So many of us don't ever get there.