What is Wonder?

Megan
The Christians in the World-6
September 20, 2012

Wonder

My object is a mini turtle pillow pet. As a child I liked to think the the movie Toy Story was real; that toys came alive when you left a room, and returned to their place before I got home. The possibilities of my turtle pillow pet are endless. What if his true identity was a purple unicorn, but he is really under cover as a turtle by day. I mean when I sleep with it, He is never in my arms when I wake up. Maybe that is it opportunities to become a purple unicorn. How should I know. I'm usually asleep.

Wonder, to me, is the heart of imagination. Wonder allows us to spend endless days trying to figure out things that are truly unimportant in the real world, but speak to our heart. As a six year old, I probably would have said Wonder is Wondering things, because wonder is something very difficult to describe. This kind of reminds me of when we had to write about 'I.' Its like everyone knows what wonder is, but not really how to describe it exactly.

As we get older, it is true that were are less able to wonder and imagine things. I think we are blind to what is going on in reality at a young age, while allows us to imagine, and do things like play house, or with Barbie dolls and have broad imaginations. While I am still able to pick up a Barbie doll with my little cousin after a long family dinner, I find it to be pointless. I find it really remarkable that she is able to think up things to play with the doll, her imagination is huge and ever flowing, and I can barely make a conversation for the Barbie I am holding. I think part of it is I am so much more focused on other things. As a six year old, I didn't see my parents fighting all the time, my family crumbling before my eyes, or the fact that I was failing first grade. I just saw the Barbie dolls, and wanted to play with them. Like I said before, we tend to see the truth of reality as we grow older and more mature. This is a tough fact to face, to be honest. When I was sitting with the Peer Ministers at the retreat we had right before school started, we all shared things we were afraid of, and I heard a lot of people say how scared they were to grow up, to lose that childish imagination and mature enough to deal with the reality sitting right on their toes: College, Senior year, family, media, everything. Some people were so absorbed in  being a kid for just a little bit long that they didn't see reality stalking them from behind. For some reason, I envy these people. I had to grow up a long time ago. I didn't really get to 'wonder' in my childhood, because I was too busy growing up and facing my own reality. I am not saying I didn't have an imagination, because I did. But my wonder began to diminish much earlier then I would have liked it to.

As for the quote, "Concepts create idols, only wonder knows," I think it means that some idols are created out of concepts that one could only discover through wonder. I don't really know how I feel about this to be honest, I mean, idols seem to be something that people who are older (Not old, just older) have created, and most older people have lost that true meaning of wonder. So I am not really sure what side to take on that.