A Whisper of Wholeness
Sometimes one needs to wander ... to remember how to wonder.
We've become very good at moving on mission. Every step mapped, every hour accounted for, every route optimized for efficiency. And there's nothing wrong with that — until it becomes the only way we know how to move. Mission-driven lives are full lives. But they can also become lives where everything is a means to an end, where even a walk becomes a commute and a conversation becomes a transaction. Somewhere in all that missional motion, we stopped wandering. And when we stopped wandering, we slowly forgot how to wonder.
Wonder doesn't tend to announce itself in dramatic fashion. It rarely shows up in the moments we've planned for. I think we assume awe is reserved for the grand occasions — the breathtaking view, the once-in-a-lifetime experience. But I've begun to notice that awe has been quietly waiting in far smaller places. The way light moves through a window in late afternoon. A sentence someone says that stops me mid-step. The strange, ordinary miracle of a single conversation where two people actually hear each other. These moments aren't rare. I just stopped wandering long enough to notice them. Maybe wonder never left us. Maybe we just stopped giving it room to find us in one small, unhurried moment at a time.
For further reflection
When was the last time I wandered — without agenda — and noticed something that surprised me?