Monday, December 15, 2025: Awe is enough.

Announcement! The Education Committee will present the 2nd video of a      4-part series on Tues., Dec. 30, at 1:00pm at Nancy and Bob’s.  Please  RSVP Nancy at RNMCFAR1938@yahoo.com

or text or call 707-280-4705.  Below is info on Meghan McKenna, the speaker, and a brief description of her talk.

Reflection:

The roots of ultimate insights are found … on the level of wonder and radical amazement, in the depth of awe, in our sensitivity to the mystery.  —Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man 

Richard Rohr and several other thinkers and writers teach that awe is a foundational spiritual experience that keeps us open to the mystery of God: 

I believe the basic, primal, foundational spiritual intuition is a moment of awe and wonder. We say, “God, that’s beautiful!” Why do we so often say “God!” when we have such moments? I think it’s a recognition that this is a godly moment. We are somehow aware that something is just too good, too right, too much, too timely. When awe and wonder are absent from our life, we build our religion on laws and rituals, trying to manufacture some moment of awe. It works occasionally; I guess. 

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. – Albert Einstein

I think people who live their lives open to awe and wonder have a much greater chance of meeting the Holy than someone who goes to church but doesn’t live in an open way. We almost domesticate the Holy by making it so commonplace. That’s what I fear happens with the way we ritualize worship. I see people come to church day after day unprepared for anything new or different. Even if something new or different happens, they fit it into their old boxes. Their stance seems to be, “I will not be awestruck.” 

I don’t think we get very far with such resistance to the new, the Real, and the amazing. That’s probably why God allows most of our great relationships to begin with a kind of infatuation with another person—and I don’t just mean sexual infatuation, but any deep admiration or appreciation. It allows us to take our place as a student and learner. If we never do that, nothing new will happen. [1] 

“Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.” - Thomas Aquinas

I think Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn understood this when he wrote, “The Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive.” [2] It’s a telling judgment. The Western mind almost refuses to be in awe anymore. It’s only aware of what is wrong, and seemingly incapable of rejoicing in what is still good and true and beautiful. 

The surest way out of that trap is through a new imagination and new cosmology, often created by positive God-experience. Education, problem-solving, and rigid ideology are ultimately inadequate by themselves to create cosmic hope and meaning. Only great religion can do that, which is probably why Jesus spent so much of his ministry trying to reform religion. 

Healthy religion, which always makes space for Mystery, gives us a foundational sense of awe. It re-enchants an otherwise empty universe. It gives people a universal reverence toward all things. Only with such reverence do we find confidence and coherence. Only then does the world become a safe home. Then we can see the reflection of the divine image in the human, in the animal, in the entire natural world—which has now become inherently “supernatural.” [3]

“We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even for us. We have fulfilled the danger of this by making our personal pride and greed the standard of our behavior toward the world - to the incalculable disadvantage of the world and every living thing in it. 

And now, perhaps very close to too late, our great error has become clear. It is not only our own creativity - our own capacity for life - that is stifled by our arrogant assumption; the creation itself is stifled.

We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.” - Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House

Contemplative Summit Day 1 Replay

The Poor Save Us WITH MEGAN MCKENNA

What if true wealth isn't what you keep-but what you give away?

Join megan mckenna as she invites us to retrinkour, spirituality, and community through a contemplative lens. As she describes it, contemplation is a "long loving look at reality," especially the hard truths of poverty, injustice, and suffering

Discover how being truly seen-and learning to see others as God sees them-breaks down barriers of "us versus them" and calls us into compassionate solidarity with the poor, the earin, and each other. Join us as we challenge individualism and uncover a vision of spirituality rooted in friendship, vulnerability, and prophetic witness.

Megan Mckenna is a world Storyteller. A native of new york city, She has lived, visited and

gypsied through North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. She works with Indigenous groups, Christian Communities, justice and peace groups, as well as parishes. dioceses and religious communities. Her books include The Poor Save Us; A Bowl of Perfect Light: Stories of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Repairing the World; Not Counting Women and children. Neglected stories from the bible. Neglected Stories tor the bible, and many more.

She has been on the United States National Board of Pax Christi and in 2002 was appointed an Ambassador of Peace for Pay Christi.