Ineffably Awesome

Walking through the woods this morning, looking up through the trees with their multicolored leaves to the blue sky above, it once again struck me how awesome it is – this world and my being here to experience it. I can find no words to express the depth of that feeling. I have read many writers with far greater skills who have fared no better in expressing their sense of awe. Words can only give hints and echoes, the awe has to be experienced directly.  

I am sure many people do experience this sense of awesomeness; and I suspect that such a sense of awesomeness has much to do with the spirituality of many spiritual naturalists. It is great to be able to talk to others about such an experience and know that they understand.

This morning this sense of awesomeness struck me while walking in the woods, but I have experienced it in urban settings also. A while back, while sitting in a coffee shop on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, watching the city come alive, I had the same feeling of awe at how the skyscrapers, the people who were going to work, the buses and cars, the coffee I was drinking, and my being as I contemplated it all – how all of it was part of Nature’s creativity. And just feeling awe at Nature’s creativity.

The theist would ascribe all this to God’s creativity, which to a certain extent I feel is a negation of the real wonder of it. But whether one is a theist or a naturalist, one has to recognize that this world is awesomely complex and novelty producing. It is worthy of an awe and reverence greater than we can bring to it and certainly greater than we can express. It is worthy of the highest degree of spirituality that we can attain.

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People a generation or two younger than me are in the habit of using the word “awesome” for just about anything. When I first heard the word being used to describe anything from a hamburger to a television show, I thought “if you use the word “awesome” for that, what word would you use to describe the heavens on a clear dark night; or the aurora borealis; or the Grand Canyon; or the many other grandeurs of the world? 

Language, also, is an awesome aspect of this world. We tend to take it for granted, but what a height of biological and cultural evolution our languages are! Not everything can be expressed in words, as I have said above. Yet, poets and other literary artists strive to give words the sharpness and precision needed to express things hard, even impossible, to express. The popular media and the verbal fads it sets in motion blunts and blurs the meaning of words. For us who love words and their power to express, it is disheartening. But then there is much to be disheartened about, that the sloppy use of language hardly registers.

How refreshing to find that beyond all that disheartens there still is Nature, this ever present source of creation, this ineffably awesome process of the world. The foolishness of humans may dishearten, but in the contemplation of Nature and its creativity I find a timeless wisdom that brings me peace and joy. 

I wish for everyone everywhere peace and joy!

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The Spiritual Naturalist Society works to spread awareness of spiritual naturalism as a way of life, develop its thought and practice, and help bring together like-minded practitioners in fellowship.

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