A Day at a Time · Chapter
Wonder explained
This chapter explores the essential role of wonder in religious life and human relationships.
What happens
This chapter explores the essential role of wonder in religious life and human relationships. It argues that wonder is the foundation of true worship and gratitude, warning against the dangers of familiarity, ignorance, and a fashionable disdain for surprise. Drawing on Moses, Ruskin, and George Eliot, it calls readers to cultivate a childlike heart that marvels at God's gifts—both in nature and in the everyday love of family and friends.
Themes in this chapter
Wonder and Awe
The central theme: wonder is presented as the essential prerequisite for genuine worship, gratitude, and relationship with God.
Love and Generosity
The chapter emphasizes the need to wonder at the daily sacrifices and love of family, lest we take them for granted and fail to give thanks.
Divine Presence in Everyday Life
Wonder opens the heart to see God in the common and familiar—in a bush, in home, in human love—making everyday life a continual prayer.
Characters to notice
- Moses
Cited as an exemplar of wonder: at eighty years old, he turned aside to see the burning bush, showing that wonder can persist throughout life.
- Jesus Christ
Quoted as teaching that the ideal of religion is the childlike heart, which embodies wonder, humility, and responsiveness.
- George Eliot
Referenced for her poignant observation about the agony of stinted affection and the failure to revere the sacred human souls close to us.
- Ruskin
Quoted expressing his preference to 'live in a cottage and wonder at everything' rather than in a castle and wonder at nothing.
- John Kelman
His interpretation of the childhood of the Kingdom is cited: it means 'wonder and humility and responsiveness, the straight gaze of childhood past conventionalities.'
Key passages
“George Eliot has spoken somewhere of the agony of the thought that we can never atone to the dead for the stinted affection we gave them, for the 'little reverence we showed to that sacred human soul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing God has given us to know.'”
George Eliot once described the painful realization that we can never make up for the love we failed to show to those who have died, for the small respect we gave to the holy human soul that lived right beside us—the most divine gift God has given us to experience.
This quote is used to illustrate the danger of taking loved ones for granted and the need for wonder to fuel gratitude.
“I had rather live in a cottage and wonder at everything, than live in Warwick Castle and wonder at nothing.”
Ruskin said he would prefer to live in a humble home filled with awe for all things than to dwell in a grand castle with no sense of wonder.
This aphorism underscores the chapter's argument that wonder is more valuable than material splendor.
“It means wonder and humility and responsiveness, the straight gaze of childhood past conventionalities, the simplicity of a mind open to any truth, and a heart with love alive in it.”
John Kelman explains that becoming like a child in Christ's sense means having wonder, humility, and openness—looking at the world directly, without pretense, with a mind ready to receive truth and a heart full of love.
This definition of childlike faith is central to the chapter's thesis that wonder is the gateway to true religion.