Monday, January 18, 2010

Evotional.com

Evotional.com Borrowed entirely from Mark Batterson
A few years ago I read a book by Arthur Gordon titled Wonder. I actually remember where I was when I was reading. Lora and I were on the Island of Capri celebrating an anniversary. My favorite chapter is titled The Night the Stars Fell.

Arthur Gordon was a small boy. His family was staying at a seaside cottage during the summer. And late one night his father came into his room where he was sleeping. He woke him up by picking him up in his arms. Then he carried his son outside. Down the porch. Down to the beach. Then his father told him to look up into the night sky and watch. Just as his father said it, a streak of fire blazed across the sky. Then another. And another. Arthur asked his dad what they were. He said, “Shooting stars.” He explained that every year on certain nights in August, the sky would put on a shooting star show.

Arthur never forgot that night.

"No doubt in my childhood I had the usual quota of playthings, but these are forgotten now. What I remember is the night the stars fell, the day we rode in a caboose, the time we tried to skin the alligator, the telegraph we made that really worked...father had, to a marvelous degree, the gift of opening doors for his children, of leading them into areas of splendid newness...he believed that a new experience was more important for a small boy than an unbroken night of sleep."

I love that. I want to be like that!

"This, surely, is the most valuable legacy we can pass on to the next generation: not money, not houses or heirlooms, but a capacity for wonder and gratitude, a sense of aliveness and joy."

1 comment:

Carol Connell said...

Hi Carmen,

That's a good thing to instill in our children, a sense of wonder. In our natural world, there are so many things that can ignite that sense of wonder - a beautiful sunset, shooting stars, an errupting volcano(watched from a safe distance, of course)Spiritually speaking, there are also things that can produce a sense of wonder - the story of Calvary, seeing someone receive the Holy Ghost for the very first time, etc. etc. May we never stop wondering at all God's wonders, both natural and spiritual.

Thanks for this post.

Blessings,
Carol