Awe like Lightning

I like feeling small.

And last night I stood wind-whipped, with the porch planks as amphitheater seats, and heard a colossal concert that dwarfed the assumed largeness of myself.  Crickets hummed like violins, strong wind blew flute song through my ponytailed hair, and the percussive thunder punctuating the symphony matched the pounding of my awestruck heart.

I thought I may as well be struck by lightning because the excitement pulsed through every synapse and left me glowing and electrified.


What if we stood up and took notice when we say “wow”? Awe is an integral Christian “disposition of the soul,” [Herbert] Anderson* contends. It leads us into and disposes us toward faith. Luther himself said, “Wonder brings faith.” Such a disposition is what actually connects belief and practice. Without an outlook titled toward awe, belief becomes a hallow platitude and practice turns into empty habit. Builidng on Luther, Anderson emphasizes, “We will be more disposed toward moments of extraordinary awe if we have been attending all along to wonder and awe in the ordinary.”
-In the Midst of Chaos, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore