Amazing World
20/08/12 03:17
Several years ago, when our children were teenagers, we took a family vacation to the Pacific Northwest. We were rather tightly packed into our family car. In addition to our two children, we had an exchange student from Japan that year. We headed west from Rapid City with the intention of visiting family and showing our guest a bit of the United States. We had a small pop up camping trailer so we were able to keep expenses low. We took a swing through Yellowstone National Park, visited Boise, Idaho, where we had once lived, and headed west to Portland, Oregon, to visit family and see the sights. From Portland, we went up to Seattle and out onto Whidbey Island before heading east across Washington and Montana on our way home. It was a grand adventure for our family and we visited a lot of territory and saw a lot of sights along the way.
While in Seattle on that trip, we paid a visit to the Pike Street Market and wandered through the Seattle Aquarium on the waterfront. I remember our delight in the exhibits. We especially enjoyed the tanks of sea stars and the brightly colored tropical fish. There were also good displays of sea otters as well as river otters.
The years pass and the memories become less precise, but the mood of the visit has lingered. So yesterday, when we had time, we decided to return to the Aquarium. We thought that our grandson might enjoy the outing and looking at the fish.
I was predisposed to enjoy the adventure. After all, spending time with our son and daughter in law and grandson is a delight for me. Our family has always enjoyed adventures and we were returning to a place that held fond memories. The pleasant and wonderful surprise of the day was the delight and excitement of our grandson. When you are 18 months old, the entire world is an adventure filled with wonderful surprises.
Elliot doesn’t have a very large vocabulary at this point, but he is doing a lot of vocalizing and imitating of sounds. We had no problem, however, interpreting his exclamations of “Wow!” and “Ooh!” and “Woo!” and “Oh!” It was powerful to put our faces next to his and to look at the world from his perspective. This is, after all, an amazingly diverse and complex world filled with wonders at every turn.
I thought that he might enjoy looking at the divers in the tanks, but he didn’t like them. They wore diving masks on their faces and appeared strange to Elliot. He didn’t want to look at them, even when they waved at him through the glass of the tank. What he did want to look at were bright colors and rapidly moving creatures. He could recognize some features such as eyes, but he has no experience with fish. We wandered from exhibit to exhibit at a slow pace, lingering longer at displays that were close to the floor where he could stand and look.
The wonder with which he greets his world is a quality that we oldsters sometimes forget. Awe and wonder are the appropriate responses to the beauty and diversity of creation. We have been allowed to see so many magnificent sights along our way. And just when we think we have seen it all, we discover that there is so much that we missed when we looked the first time. There are enough new discoveries and wonders to last a lifetime and more.
Jesus talked about receiving God’s realm as a child. “Unless you become as one of these little ones, you will never enter God’s realm.” Once again we were reminded that having a child as a guide is a good way to great the world. As the prophet Isaiah reminds us, on the journey toward peace, “A little child shall lead them.”
Seattle is a bustling town. It is the height of tourist season. And the weather was gorgeous. The result is that the waterfront and Pike Street Market were filled with lots and lots of people. I think that even on a calm day, Pike Street Market is an overwhelming place. There are layers and layers of shops and stalls and stands with narrow passageways and a lot of people. There are vendors shouting about their goods and musicians busking for grocery money. There are street performers and a few shops, such as the fish market right at the entryway, that are an entertainment just to watch. The fish sellers were throwing huge fish back and forth, shoveling ice, making sales, ringing a bell, and chanting in unison. They sang and laughed and entertained even those of us who weren’t buying at the moment.
It is an intense crowd and we are, at our core, small town people who aren’t always comfortable in crowds. After a while we needed a break and retreated to the relative calm of the Market Starbucks – the first of the now nationwide chain of coffee houses.
On the way we met someone we knew! Even in a crowded city, there are faces in the crowd who seem familiar. Katie Umenthum, the daughter of the moderator of our congregation, was visiting Seattle with her fiancé, Rob. Out of the crowd two faces emerged as complete persons, whose stories we knew. We’ve watched Katie grow up, shared her confirmation journey with her and walked with her family through the death of her father. She has, however, been away at school and we have followed her mostly through her occasional visits home and the stories her mother shares. I guess we all need to have a “small world” encounter from time to time. It was another reminder that there are yet more surprises to be found for those who are open to receiving them.
Even on a Sunday, when the traffic is light, Seattle is more than an hour’s drive form Olympia, so the time quickly came for us to return home. As we went to bed last night, I could still picture our grandson and his expressions of delight.
This really is an amazing world. Wow!
While in Seattle on that trip, we paid a visit to the Pike Street Market and wandered through the Seattle Aquarium on the waterfront. I remember our delight in the exhibits. We especially enjoyed the tanks of sea stars and the brightly colored tropical fish. There were also good displays of sea otters as well as river otters.
The years pass and the memories become less precise, but the mood of the visit has lingered. So yesterday, when we had time, we decided to return to the Aquarium. We thought that our grandson might enjoy the outing and looking at the fish.
I was predisposed to enjoy the adventure. After all, spending time with our son and daughter in law and grandson is a delight for me. Our family has always enjoyed adventures and we were returning to a place that held fond memories. The pleasant and wonderful surprise of the day was the delight and excitement of our grandson. When you are 18 months old, the entire world is an adventure filled with wonderful surprises.
Elliot doesn’t have a very large vocabulary at this point, but he is doing a lot of vocalizing and imitating of sounds. We had no problem, however, interpreting his exclamations of “Wow!” and “Ooh!” and “Woo!” and “Oh!” It was powerful to put our faces next to his and to look at the world from his perspective. This is, after all, an amazingly diverse and complex world filled with wonders at every turn.
The wonder with which he greets his world is a quality that we oldsters sometimes forget. Awe and wonder are the appropriate responses to the beauty and diversity of creation. We have been allowed to see so many magnificent sights along our way. And just when we think we have seen it all, we discover that there is so much that we missed when we looked the first time. There are enough new discoveries and wonders to last a lifetime and more.
Jesus talked about receiving God’s realm as a child. “Unless you become as one of these little ones, you will never enter God’s realm.” Once again we were reminded that having a child as a guide is a good way to great the world. As the prophet Isaiah reminds us, on the journey toward peace, “A little child shall lead them.”
It is an intense crowd and we are, at our core, small town people who aren’t always comfortable in crowds. After a while we needed a break and retreated to the relative calm of the Market Starbucks – the first of the now nationwide chain of coffee houses.
On the way we met someone we knew! Even in a crowded city, there are faces in the crowd who seem familiar. Katie Umenthum, the daughter of the moderator of our congregation, was visiting Seattle with her fiancé, Rob. Out of the crowd two faces emerged as complete persons, whose stories we knew. We’ve watched Katie grow up, shared her confirmation journey with her and walked with her family through the death of her father. She has, however, been away at school and we have followed her mostly through her occasional visits home and the stories her mother shares. I guess we all need to have a “small world” encounter from time to time. It was another reminder that there are yet more surprises to be found for those who are open to receiving them.
Even on a Sunday, when the traffic is light, Seattle is more than an hour’s drive form Olympia, so the time quickly came for us to return home. As we went to bed last night, I could still picture our grandson and his expressions of delight.
This really is an amazing world. Wow!