It rained yesterday and the night before. This is news in southern California. Suddenly the world seemed “mud-luscious” and “puddle wonderful.” With perfect synchronicity, a friend from the perennially precipitating Northwest posted the “little” film clip above on Facebook that reminded me of one of my favorite e. e. cumming’s poems “Chansons Innocentes” that begins

in Just-
spring  when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles           far       and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and its
spring

whenthe world is puddle-wonderful . . .

The late Thomas Berry, Passionist priest, cultural historian, and ecotheologian (or as he referred to himself later in life, “geologian”) maintained that the human species finds itself in an unprecedented, precarious place, cut-off from the very matter of which we are made and the natural world that makes human existence possible. He calls this devastating ailment spiritual autism because it is marked by a certain self-absorption and life of enclosure. He traces this contemporary malady to the loss of intimacy with the earth itself and connection to the natural world. What has been lost, he laments, is a sense of the world as enchanted.

To the child, the natural world is an enchanted place, immediately magical, mystical, tactilely fascinating. It is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful. The child, intimately, sensuously, and mutually in relationship with the earth, has an intuitive sense of the interactive nature of nature.

But even that which is “natural” must be carefully nurtured, consciously supported, and intentionally encouraged, otherwise over time it will disappear. Some educators believe that a child’s sense of enchantment and wonder are in danger and begin to disappear as early as the 2^nd grade. Rabbi Abraham Heschel, an apologist for radical amazement, says that wonder must be kept alive by acts of wonder. In her classic book The Sense of Wonder, the renowned marine biologist and conservationist Rachel Carson famously advises:

If a child is to keep his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.

Today, sadly, we need to consider reversing Carson’s wisdom of wonder and let the young children lead and guide us whether that child is our young daughter or son, niece or nephew, grandchild, neighbor’s child, or child hiding deep within ourselves. Those who are busy, over-scheduled adolescents, those who are young, middle-aged, or senior adults no longer practiced in the natural art of listening for the “living music” of the earth, who make no time to notice or experience nature’s incantations, those who have become disenchanted with life, need to find the companionship of at least one child who will reintroduce them to the mystery of the world, to what Dorothy Day called “the duty to delight” until the desire to delight is reborn in them. They must become reacquainted with the magic of puddles, the songs humming in the soil, the refreshing adagio of summer air, the whisper and the wailing of water, and the rising and descending chorus of fire. And, of course, They Я Us.

I’ve never met anyone who approached the porch of their death, sat down and said, “Woe is me! I spent too much time delighting, gave too much time to wonder and awe and gratitude for it all, wasted too much time savoring the beauty of creation, devoted too much energy to exploring the intricate enchantments of the earth, of others, expended too much breath on oohing and aahing at the incomprehensible surprise of living.” Rabbi Heschel cries out in awe so deep it hurts, “It’s so embarrassing to live.”

The question is how do we wake up to that realization, to what we once knew innately as children, before it’s too late. When life comes knocking in whatever disguise or state of undress and people see it, really see it– as if for the first time– for what it is, often what seemed to matter only hours or days or weeks before is rendered inconsequential, much ado about nothing. All of a sudden they get it. Or it gets them, and the ears of their ears awake and the eyes of their eyes are opened.1 They realize so much of what they have given themselves to was driven by the lesser angels of their nature and was unworthy of their time, of their “one wild and precious life.” What seemed trivial, frivolous, childish, not worthy of their energy and attention suddenly becomes a symbol of their regret. Now what matters is often found in the realm of enchantment and delight and they hear within a voice mixed with grief and joy, “Puddle, don’t piddle.” Or as poet Mary Oliver so pointedly puts it, don’t “end up having simply visited this world.” And, of course, They Я Us.

The desire to take delight in life and reverence the grandeur of creation, both in their intricate particularity and mysterious vastness, to participate in the joy and responsibility of the whole earth and to see the universe as “a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects” as Berry writes, involves falling in love with creation, again and again and again. All personal happiness, all healthy relationships, all care for the most vulnerable, all environmental concern and care for the earth are born and flower in wonder. As the mystics know, wonder is what love looks like in its infancy and maturity. So what was once natural for us as children must be recovered and practiced by us as adults, so that reborn by radical amazement, our sense of entitlement or indifference will be replaced by delight and awe and actions that enliven and heal.

The world, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, is enchanted. “The world,” as Hopkins sang, “is charged with the grandeur of God.” It is not the world but we who have lost our enchantment. When enchantment is lost, when the wonder of the child and the awe of the mystic vanish, when the mutually enhancing relationship between humans and the sacred community of the earth is broken, callousness and indifference set in and exploitation and destruction are sure to follow.

So I remind myself, and I urge you, to resist disenchantment. I encourage us not to piddle around, not to puddle-jump. Instead let us be like the children who make of the puddle a spiritual practice, a romping, stomping, splash dance of delight. The child whose life is regularly revivified with wonder, will grow up to be an adult of deep and wide compassion because he or she will come to understand life as a sacred web of intimate, mutually enlivening connections. Wonder-full persons are in fact the most naturally grateful, genuinely joyful, environmentally concerned, socially responsible, and consciously compassionate of earth citizens. To be enchanted, to be persons of radical amazement is to taste and see the holy communion of all beings and of all that is, and to joyfully and responsibly participate in the mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful liturgy of life. And, of course, They Я Us.

Yours Truly,

The little lame balloon man

1 from “i thank you God for most this amazing” by e. e. cummings.