Discussion Questions, Storytelling, Sharing

  • Share a story of some experience, event, or person that aroused or renewed your sense of wonder.
  • What special places always bring out your wonder?
  • Discuss the following: the closest some people get to wonder in our society is horror films, sci-fi thrillers, or movies about aliens.
  • What aspects of the worship in your religious tradition elicit your wonder?

Imagery Exercise

Rumi's poetry is filled with reflections of the wonders of a world infused with the presence of the Beloved. This exercise is developed from the quatrain beginning "This moment this love comes to rest in me" in The Essential Rumi.

Breathe out three times. Pick up a grain of wheat. See it transform into a thousand stacks of wheat.

Breathe out one time. Take a stalk of wheat. See it become the eye of the golden needle.

Breathe out one time. Look into the needle's eye and see the night sky full of stars. Know there are many beings in One Being.

Then open your eyes.

Journal Exercises

  • Take an inventory of your awareness of each of your senses. Which is most dominant? Which is overlooked? Use the Wonder Week exercise above to develop your unused senses.
  • Experiment with smells to see what memories you associate with them. Cigar smoke, cinnamon, coffee, and clorox are a few to try. Then write about the memory in your journal.
  • If you have been keeping a journal for some time, read through old entries for experiences of wonder. You will usually find they have sparked some of your most vivid descriptions.