Wonder: A Letter To My Son

Do you remember all the moments we've shared gazing up at the wonders of the world and the night sky? Like the time we went backpacking with Bepa and camped above Duck Lake in the Sierra Nevada. We watched a powerful storm approach as we crossed the exposed saddle between two peaks. Lightning danced across the sky, thunder rolled around us, and we finally found shelter beneath a small grove of trees.

Later, the sun slipped behind the granite peaks, setting the clouds ablaze with orange and crimson. One by one, the stars appeared until the Milky Way stretched across the night sky. We shared our thoughts, then fell quiet together, taking in the immensity above us.

In moments like these, we never had to try to feel connected. We simply were. Together, we found ourselves fully present—held by silence, wonder, and the beauty surrounding us.

My son, this universe is endlessly wonderful.

Beauty weaves through it—from the smallest particles to the grandest galaxies. Everything is in constant motion, endlessly unfolding and enfolding. Beneath it all is Wholeness, that which words can never fully convey: constant, infinite, and immeasurable.

You see the world with eyes of wonder, Noah. Your voice never dimmed. Your curiosity never faded. Watching you has reminded me that we never outgrow wonder. For most of us, wonder is something we slowly learn to overlook. As we grow older, it becomes surprisingly easy to drift into the patterns around us. Knowing is important. Looking toward the future is expected.  Being sensitive, alive to the world, is lazy and holds one back.  We become busy. Distracted. We forget to slow down. We forget to notice. Little by little, we lose touch with the quiet sense of aliveness that once came so naturally. My hope is that you never stop seeing the world in wonder.

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I have nowhere to go and nothing to become. Because of that, I'm continually amazed by what I see. Over the years, I have discovered that I love to walk. Every walk invites me to slow down, notice, and wonder. With each footstep, I return—not to someplace new, but to myself.

Walking has a quiet simplicity. Nothing needs to be accomplished. Nothing needs to be solved. The mind gradually settles, and the world begins to reveal itself in ways we easily overlook when life hurries by.

I have come to see that wonder is always available. It doesn't belong only to mountaintops or rivers or forests. It waits patiently in every ordinary moment, ready to reveal itself whenever we pause long enough to truly see.

Looking back over my life, I realize that wonder has always been there for me. Even as a child, when fear and anxiety clouded my mind, wonder quietly found its way through. A tree. A bird. A stream. A book. A night sky. Somehow, it kept reminding me that something lay beneath my thoughts, even before I had words for it. Only much later did I begin to understand what those moments were gently pointing toward.

Over the years, wonder has met me in unexpected places. I have watched a dragonfly hover effortlessly above reeds and cattails, its wings catching the light with astonishing brilliance. I have stood beneath the ever-changing canvas of the daytime sky and watched colors spill across mountains as evening settled over them. I have wandered through forests, followed rivers as they meandered toward the sea, and stood in silence beneath the dancing curtains of the Aurora Borealis. I have looked into the immense depths of the Grand Canyon and climbed among granite peaks that seemed to disappear into the sky.

Sometimes wonder has appeared in something even smaller—a milkweed flower resting in my hand or the quiet gaze of another living being. Wherever I have found it, wonder has always carried the same invitation:

Slow down.

Be here now.

in presence 

is wonder

The farther I have traveled, the more I have discovered something unexpected. I sometimes think that even if I never left my home in Vermont, I could journey just as far as if I traveled across the universe. Every walk reveals something I had never noticed before. Every season offers another expression of life. Wonder has taught me that depth is not found by going somewhere else, but by learning to see where we already are. I mean, we live on this planet, a planet full of life, revolving in a galaxy full of billions of stars, within an eternal, infinite reality.  It doesn’t make sense, and yet here we are, and wonder gives us the chance to enter the deep, immeasurable presence of reality.

Perhaps that is why walking has become such an important part of my life. When I walk without needing to arrive anywhere, the world quiets. I notice the rhythm of my breath, the changing light through the trees, birds calling from unseen branches, and the countless lives unfolding all around me. Nothing extraordinary seemed to have happened, and yet everything feels extraordinary.  A stillness lies beneath it all, an immeasurable quiet, and everything flows into this Wholeness.

Wonder has slowly taught me that the extraordinary was never somewhere else. It has always been here, waiting to be seen. As I have grown older, I have come to believe that wonder is not something we create. It is something we uncover. It is waiting beneath the constant movement of our lives, beneath the endless stream of thought, beneath our plans, worries, and ambitions. It is what quietly emerges whenever we become still enough to meet the world without trying to explain or categorize it.

Walking gradually taught me this. No destination lay hidden farther down the trail. No final insight waiting at the top of a mountain. The gift was never at the end of the walk. It was in learning to arrive completely where I already was. When I stopped rushing, something remarkable began to happen. The ordinary became extraordinary. A snowy egret in stillness at the edge of a pond, sunlight filtering through maple leaves, the rhythm of my own breathing, the laughter of you, Noah, as we wandered together—each became an invitation into a deeper intimacy with life.  I wasn't acquiring a new way of seeing. I was remembering one I had known as a child. Perhaps that is why wonder feels so familiar. It asks nothing of us except our complete attention. In those moments, I was no longer concerned with becoming someone or arriving somewhere. I simply belonged to the living world that had always been welcoming me home.