Living our lives from a single point of perspective constricts our internal compass to that which we have been taught to believe in. We take the outside world at face value, often ignoring what we "feel" inside.
What if we instead began to "wonder" at the world outside of us and in? What if instead we saw something or someone and really wondered who they were or what their purpose was?
In yoga my teachers would often tell a story about a pen. At the front of the class the teacher would hold up a pen and ask the students what it was. Of course everyone would say "it's a pen". Yet when the teacher went on, he would begin to ask what it would be to a dog. What would it look like to a monkey or a baby? In those cases the pen would become a chew toy, a tool or even something to suck on.
As people we need to learn the same lesson. Because we've been taught that something looks one way on the outside, doesn't mean that that's necessarily what it is.When we look at the bud of a flower that's what we see. What we don't see is the beauty of the flower in full blown. In other words, what it can become. We can nurture ourselves and our children this way. It's not seeing things and people as they look now, but looking at them with the potential for what could be and wonder what they truly are.
There's a wonderful book out on the market now called "Wonder". It's about a boy with a deformity that begins to go to a public school. Everyone looks at him for who they think he is from the outside. The boy longs for people to look at and know him from the inside. For as much money and time as we spend to "look" one way or another on the "outside", we all long for the same thing as this boy does. For someone to really know who we are on the inside and to be loved and accepted.
Here is an excerpt about the book:
"You can't blend in when you were born to stand out.
My name is August. I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse."
August Pullman wants to be an ordinary ten-year-old. He does ordinary things. He eats ice cream. He plays on his Xbox. He feels ordinary - inside.
But Auggie is far from ordinary. Ordinary kids don't make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids don't get stared at wherever they go.
Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life, in an attempt to protect him from the cruelty of the outside world. Now, for the first time, he's being sent to a real school - and he's dreading it. All he wants is to be accepted - but can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, underneath it all?
What if we instead began to "wonder" at the world outside of us and in? What if instead we saw something or someone and really wondered who they were or what their purpose was?
In yoga my teachers would often tell a story about a pen. At the front of the class the teacher would hold up a pen and ask the students what it was. Of course everyone would say "it's a pen". Yet when the teacher went on, he would begin to ask what it would be to a dog. What would it look like to a monkey or a baby? In those cases the pen would become a chew toy, a tool or even something to suck on.
As people we need to learn the same lesson. Because we've been taught that something looks one way on the outside, doesn't mean that that's necessarily what it is.When we look at the bud of a flower that's what we see. What we don't see is the beauty of the flower in full blown. In other words, what it can become. We can nurture ourselves and our children this way. It's not seeing things and people as they look now, but looking at them with the potential for what could be and wonder what they truly are.
There's a wonderful book out on the market now called "Wonder". It's about a boy with a deformity that begins to go to a public school. Everyone looks at him for who they think he is from the outside. The boy longs for people to look at and know him from the inside. For as much money and time as we spend to "look" one way or another on the "outside", we all long for the same thing as this boy does. For someone to really know who we are on the inside and to be loved and accepted.
Here is an excerpt about the book:
"You can't blend in when you were born to stand out.
My name is August. I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse."
August Pullman wants to be an ordinary ten-year-old. He does ordinary things. He eats ice cream. He plays on his Xbox. He feels ordinary - inside.
But Auggie is far from ordinary. Ordinary kids don't make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids don't get stared at wherever they go.
Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life, in an attempt to protect him from the cruelty of the outside world. Now, for the first time, he's being sent to a real school - and he's dreading it. All he wants is to be accepted - but can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, underneath it all?
Narrated by Auggie and the people around him whose lives he touches forever, Wonder is a funny, frank, astonishingly moving debut to read in one sitting, pass on to others, and remember long after the final page.
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