Face Pressed Against the Glass

(Of the vast mysteries of the world)

I asked her the same question I ask everyone. I asked her because I always need to hear the answer. About a month ago I was moderating a Q&A for my friend Mary Fontana at an event for her beautiful new book on Annunciation House in El Paso, Strangers in the Province of Joy, and I slid my own question in right at the very end.

After an hour of talking about the goodness of the human spirit on display in the hospitality and community of Annunciation House, and also the horrific climate of xenophobia and hatred of migrants, refugees, and immigrants in this moment, fanned into mountain-high flames by this administration, I asked:

Mary, what is giving you hope?

Without skipping a beat, Mary answered that there had been some studies recently conducted by a UC Berkeley professor, finding that awe is one means of creating meaning in people’s lives, and that the most common form of awe he encountered in his research was brought about by witnessing moral courage in others.

Something clicked into place in my heart and in my brain. (You can watch a video of Mary’s event here, and if you make it to the very end, I think you can see it on my face!)

The thrill of recognition spread through my body because, of course. This is what I do. When I look around me or read the news or dwell on how we will ever (collectively, individually, socially, spiritually) recover from the hatred and violence we have spewed at each other, this is what I do.

I reread Fannie Lou Hamer. I stick my nose in the homilies of St. Óscar Romero (if it’s a very bad day, I fire up a recording and listen to his voice.) I think about Dorothy Day and how dogged and driven she was, insisting on human dignity until her very last breath. I, like Mr. Rogers taught us, look for the helpers, including the very brave and committed community organizers and leaders I’m lucky to know in person.

I don’t know if they (you) will ever know how much they (you) hold me up.

The UC Berkeley professor Dacher Keltner (go Bears, or at least, go massive nerds like me who spent seven years in the library there, entirely oblivious of sports) who conducted the research has also written a book, which I’ve just started reading. It’s called Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. I can shy away from a prescriptive title as much as the next person, but in this case…yeah, I actually do think awe has the capacity to change all of our lives.

I was struck by the definition that Keltner gives for awe:

“Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.”

Most notably, he finds, awe is something that moves us beyond ourselves, outside the cage of our own individual concerns. It’s something that connects us to others and to what he calls “the vast mysteries of life.”

I think what Keltner is getting at is that awe is part of what makes us human, and also what allows us to catch a glimpse of transcendence, right here in our flesh.

And that’s how I want to live, face pressed against the glass of the vast mysteries of the world.

There have been plenty of them on display this summer, from my neighbor’s wildly gorgeous hydrangeas, the diamond sparkle of the light on Lake Washington, the subtle way our blueberries turn from cloudy white moons to blush and then to deep ocean blue, the absolutely intoxicating scent of privet. I could go on and on. I collect these precious details like shiny coins.

Perhaps if there is a child in your life, you’re acquainted with Minecraft. I have been marveling this summer at the idea that our world could have looked the way it does in those imagined terrains, blocky and blurry and flat, but instead, it looks like every wild shape and curve and color. I might never get over the profligate abundance of that. I am grateful. I am in awe. My face is pressed against the glass of it all.

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The Book Report

It’s been a very busy spring and summer (leading retreats in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and a good handful locally), but I’ve still been reading like there’s no tomorrow (it’s Book Bingo season!)

-I Hope You Find What You’re Looking For, by Bsrat Mezghebe. This was the first great read read of the summer. I knew very little about Eritrea, and this novel is a masterclass in conveying the realities of history through luminous narrative. A gift.

-The Antidote, by Karen Russell. How have I been sleeping on Karen Russell?! This is her first work I’ve read (not finished yet, no spoilers, please!), and I knew within about five pages that she was a lightning rod of talent. A treat.

-Inciting Joy, by Ross Gay. Well, people, I’ll just come out and say it: Ross Gay is IT. You will think you are just along for a pleasant ramble, and then, bam, he’ll gather up all the threads of his essay and jiujitsu them into something that takes your breath away. I am considering coining Ross Gay as a verb, because to Ross Gay my way through the world with that degree of attentiveness and wisdom is something I desperately long to do.

-The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss, and Kitchen Objects, by Bee Wilson. I’m just starting this one, and it’s a dream, especially for someone as invested in the idea of objects as repositories of memory and stories waiting to be unspooled as I am. A treasure.

-Counterweights: An Essential Practice for Holding Hope in a Weary World, by Shannan Martin. Just starting this one, as I’ve been waiting a long time for my library hold to come in. (Library holds! The gift that keeps on giving, often when you least expect it.) I know that so many of you have been encouraged by Shannan’s work over the years, and I must say that she is someone who walks the walk as she talks the talk. Really looking forward to gathering my own counterweights.

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The Joy Report

-One of the extreme delights of my summer is that my fellow writer friend David Drury and I have joined Folio, a membership library located on the second floor of Pike Place Market. These views! Folio has lots of author events in the evenings that I look forward to going to when my life has a bit more margin, but for now it’s marvelous to ride the train downtown and set up shop at one of the tables to work, taking a lunch break to eat our way through the market. So far we’ve hit up the vegan taco place, the Russian pastry place, and David always swings for the apple cider stand. Yum. I am very much a homebody, and I’m trying to emerge from my cocoon and actually see the world (nothing makes me feel better—Mary Oliver runs through my blood). This has been such a joy.

-At the Ignatian Wisdom Fellows retreat I led last month, I got to lead a session of visio divina on the work of Corita Kent, and I made this little piece of art that lifted my soul (along with the wonderful people I got to spend those days thinking and praying with).

-Summer fruit box! An embarrassment of riches.

Let me know what you’re reading and where you’re finding joy?

Face pressed against the glass with you,
Cameron