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"Picasso is in the Kitchen"
There
are lyrics to a song sung by Barbra Streisand back in the 60’s that go like
this…
Where are the marvels that I marveled at?
What changed the kitten into a cat?
Where are the mysteries that I couldn’t solve?
What made the world revolve?
Where is the wonder that years conceal,
That a child can feel now and then?
I’m sure there is something in each of us that can identify with all these
questions – Of course we know a heck of a lot more than we did when we were ten
years old. And it’s true for most of us that our level of wonder has receded a
bit. The singer is sounding wistful primarily because she’s grown up; my guess
is she’s yearning for the simplicity of younger days. But I don’t imagine that
she has literally become a person incapable of surprise or marveling at the
world – If she is still wondering why snowflakes melt, I’m going to worry
about her. But the sensation of wonder, amazement or awe – are things we don’t –
or at least we shouldn’t, outgrow. The ability to be surprised is a requirement
of psychological and spiritual health -
My favorite science writer, Lewis Thomas said this about wonder:
“Wonder is a word to wonder about. It contains a mixture of messages: something marvelous and miraculous, surprising, raising unanswerable questions about itself, making the observer wonder, even raising skeptical questions like, “I wonder about that.”
One of the oldest experiences of humankind is the spontaneous sense of dread and wonder that we feel in the presence of the earth’s majestic power. Thomas Carlyle and others have said that wonder is the basis of worship. Socrates said wonder is the root of wisdom. The theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel said wonder was the beginning of all knowledge.
In spite of all that some of you may not surprise or experience wonder very easily. When thinking about this topic today I imagined doing an actual experiment with you but we’ll have to settle for a little thought experiment – this is Einstein’s term – relativity was hard to test, so he resorted to this a lot.
Anyway, I wanted to ask those of you who don’t surprise very easily to raise your hand. In this thought experiment I’d invite one of you into my office for a short minute during which I would successfully surprise you, and then we’d come back out.
Then I’d conduct a one question interview: I’d say, “So, were you surprised – and you’d say, without hesitation – yes. (And that would be real – you would have been surprised.) Then I’d ask you not to reveal to anyone what had gone on in my office and I’d invite you to sit back down.. That would leave the rest of you wondering, really wondering what had gone on in my office. I thought of actually doing this. I could, but I chose not to because the surprise (although possible) was a little bit beyond my wherewithal to pull off. So let’s move on…
Why bring our capacity for wonder and amazement up today, why now, why here in a church? Because studies now cite “overload and boredom” as one of modern humanity’s greatest problems. There’s a new buzz word, “superboredom.” There’s a “been there, done that’ attitude common among some of our youth at a very young age, which some don’t outgrow. For some it’s fashionable not to be surprised by anything.
That gets difficult if you’re trying to share being surprised. One year I put three water hyacinths in my little pond. They really caught my attention when I came back after I had been away for nine days. I came back to a pond choked with hyacinths – there was no water visible at all to the point where I had to cart several loads away by wheelbarrow. I told this to a friend who then began to explain how water hyacynths multiply. In fact I already knew how they multiplied – that wasn’t the point. The point was – wasn’t it amazing!
Psychologists are beginning to worry that there is an eclipse of wonder occurring in our culture – and that’s worrisome. To live with chronic boredom, with an absence of a sense of possibility is to live in a confined, limited world. It is easy to despair in such a closed, spiritually deadened state of mind.
Oh, are you wondering what the surprise was, that had been pulled off in my office?
Do you want me to tell you what it was? I’m hoping you might have thought of some interesting possibilities. Some of you might not have listened to a word I’ve said since then because you’ve been thinking about it. Perhaps one of you might imagine that I have a tattoo no one knows about, that says “born to be wild” somewhere on my body…
If not, maybe you’re jaded – the definition of jaded is: exhausted, bored, incapable of surprise.”
I will tell you what the surprise was as it happened to me. A few years ago I was visiting an old college friend. Since I’d seen her last her favorite aunt from Wellesley had died, and so she talked about her aunt for awhile and then told me to look in a couple of cartons that were on the kitchen floor. They were paintings – art collected by Aunt Janna. I flipped through them as I would a record collection - when I came to the one which was a sketch that you see on the cover, my roommate casually said, “Take that one out and look at the back. I turned it over and could barely believe my eyes – for there was a piece of paper – a yellowed, embossed museum seal of authentification on the back –along with instructions on "how to hang your original Picasso”. I was holding an original Picasso in one hand!
Now, if you wouldn’t have been surprised by that – all I can say is, “You know you’re old when you’ve lost all your marvels… (that’s marvel with a V)
A Picasso in the kitchen, no big deal – if Picasso himself were in the kitchen - maybe….
Eventually my friend got this Picasso appraised – it turned out to be a signed print that was produced during Picasso’s lifetime which had been signed by him. Valuable, but not outrageous.
I was teasing you in that thought experiment, but I was hoping for you to actually feel some sense of openness to the possibility of amazement. Where did you go with that?
If the thought experiment didn’t do it, maybe holding the real Picasso in your own hand would have. Life confounds reasonable expectations all the time – and if we stay open to that fact we are kept humble – and we are reminded that we don’t know as much as we think we do.
Boredom, like any emotion we’ve been given, isn’t all bad. Small doses bear fruit and can be a state of creative gestation, quiet preparation for change and impetus for new ideas. Boredom may begin to surface in the listless know-it-all adolescent, but it comes to full force in many of us when we’re middle-aged and older – when the learning curve of life begins to flatten out a bit and we see our options as narrowed. If this describes you, pay attention, for the health of your soul – that word may be problematic for you – your well-being may be at stake…
Albert Einstein said,
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
If you are without wonder, Einstein says, your eyes are closed. I’d like to push that just a bit more and say some part of your heart is too.
The Picasso test is a rather frivolous example of wonder – but it is true that real wonders that can make us marvel are all around us. Author Henry Miller clearly would agree with that. He said, “The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world unto itself.” As George Burns said in the movie O God, “You want a miracle? You make a fish from scratch!”
If the individual whose eyes are closed to wonder and awe is as good as dead, then it follows that those who are exceptionally responsive may be more fully alive. What is that like? Naturalist John Muir is a good example – in describing Mother Nature, a passion of his, he says,
"The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls." John Muir gets it – that a common sunfish in the stream is every bit as amazing as Picasso in your kitchen.
Rabindranath Tagore said, “The world will never starve for wonders; but only for want of wonder.” Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, said, “Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life….Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, “The more unintelligent a [person] is, the less mysterious existence seems.” What he’s saying is that being awake to mystery, keeping an open heart, is a kind of intelligence. So how do we get smart – how do we open our heart if it is beginning to close?
FIGURE OUT WHAT AMAZES YOU – WHATEVER IT IS, FIND A WAY TO EXERCISE YOUR WONDER MUSCLE. For all intents and purposes, Picasso or some equal surprise, is in the kitchen, and in the basement, and out front.
A new study of boredom published by sociologist Orrin Klapp says there is evidence that the constant inundation with information has led to an attrition of meaning – the suggestion is that no matter where we turn or what we look at there is so much information that we shut down to most of it. For example, we no longer merely contemplate the earth in space – we can look at it digitally on-line and zoom in to any location – too much information – we can get more, but we care less.
Rachel Carson said if she had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, she would ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life. That was her wish. Carson points us in the right direction. Let us be careful when our children share with us their excitement over something new, that we leave room for wonder – everything doesn’t need to be explained – let us be careful that we don’t lose our marvels – .