Grapevine June 1968 - The Sense of Wonder

Grapevine June 1968 Vol. 25 No. 1

The Sense of Wonder
. . . AA has taught me--to relate myself to the universe . . .

CAN ANY of us who grew up in the colder climates ever forget those first few weeks of spring? Everything seemed new and clean then. Tiny rivulets, born in the vanishing slush, combined and recombined, becoming larger and larger until they reached the creek. From there, our parents said, the water went on and on, until it reached the ocean.

The first brown patches of earth were a signal to search for Indian Biscuit--a pungent root we thought used to be a staple of the tribes who roamed the West centuries ago. Then there was the challenge of spotting the first buttercup, the first violet.

The climax--the really magic moment--was when the ground was warm enough for walking barefoot. Taking our shoes off was forbidden by parents, but the earth itself was calling! I can remember the feel of each pebble, of the warming sand.

I remember wondering then (and I still wonder--perhaps now more than ever) how this brown earth can bring forth so many plants of all the colors there are: yellow, purple, red, blue. And how each seed can somehow carry the entire blueprint of what it is to become wrapped up inside itself. I marvel at the Intelligence behind it all. How can a seed no bigger than a speck of dust be stirred into life by radiations from a sun millions of miles away? But it is. The seed answers the sun and becomes a flower.

We lose so easily the sense of the wonder of things, and we lose so easily the sense of our closeness to the earth! When I was young we had root cellars. That seemed to keep us happily earthbound. The very smell of these places was distinctive, impossible to forget these many years later. We were, I'm sure of it, closer to nature then. Storing food is instinctive to all animals; it made us feel good to have vegetables put away, to see the shelves loaded with home-canned fruit, the bins filled with potatoes and turnips, the floor covered with squashes.

I grew up and became, not just an alcoholic, but a seaman. These are a seaman's reveries of the land, where he no longer feels quite at home. It's at sea that I most keenly feel that we are on a planet; that the earth is not a flat thing, but a living, moving being circling wisely among other living beings. I call this having a "planetary" sense.

The seaman, standing his solitary watch far at sea, acquires it. Ships coming "up" over the horizon, and cloud formations give the feeling of curvature. Watching the planet Venus orbit, we feel ourselves in orbit, only farther out from the sun. Jupiter and Mars are easily seen, after a few observations, to be outside of our orbit. And the yearly progression of the constellations makes it fairly easy to note our progress around the sun.

The earth seems unique in our solar system in that it fairly teems with life, while the other planets seem hostile to it. As an apple tree grows only apples, and an orange tree only oranges, each after its kind, so the earth is perhaps a "people tree." It is our home. We belong here.

Is life on earth unique? "In my Father's house are many mansions." Either the universe teems with life, as seems probable, or the earth is alone. Either thought is staggering.

Suppose some cosmic calamity came along and pulverized the earth. Yet signs that man had been here would still be in the universe. Man-made radio signals have been radiating from the earth ever since before the turn of the century. The millions of kilowatts of energy would show up in a distant galaxy as an extremely bright radio source; and if intelligent beings were observing that source, they would know that somewhere, at some time past, other intelligent beings had lived. It is perhaps disheartening to think that man's monument in the universe might very well be some of the trash being broadcast today!

The point of this observation, however, is that I am here, today. Nothing can ever change that. I belong here. I'm not a very big part of the universe, but a part, nonetheless, and God wants me here as such. I have a part to play; but it is simply too big for me to discover on my own. So I humbly ask God what His will is for me, today.

That is what AA has taught me--to relate myself to the universe--to God as I understand Him. In so doing, I can get things in their proper perspective, and find "the peace that passeth all understanding." The things that used to keep me awake nights now no longer bother me, because I can put them against the backdrop of eternity. The long, lonely winter that 'was alcoholism has turned into spring--the rebirth, the renewal of my life. It is God's promise. He was there all the time. It just took AA to show me the way.

B. L.
Seattle, Washington