5. We Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
Slow Journeys in the Same Direction blog post written by Associate Chaplain, Geoffrey Baines.
Here is the first doodle I drew for the book. It's where I just had to begin, with a message of wonder.
We are a species capable of being both amazed and amazing.
There’s a connection here.
This is how it is with every child but amazement and amazing appear to wane as we grow older.
Once upon a time we asked hundreds of questions every day. It's been noticed by some that when we enter into formal education our questions reduce in number whilst the things we are taught but have not asked the questions to increases.
Our curiosity is tempered. We thought we had grown up but the reality is our world has become smaller.
Psychologist Carol Dweck's research has identified two kinds of mindset: fixed and growth. The fixed mindset believes This is who I am, this is what I can do, this is my lot in life. Even very talented people can protect their reputation, stop taking risks, and stop moving towards the horizon. Those with a growth mindset believe it is simply impossible to know what they will be able to achieve through focus and effort. As a result, they take different kinds of risk – rather than repeating the same – and keep pushing the boundaries.
We begin, then, with the wonder that is a human life. For all we know it is the most complex entity in the universe. It usually means we're not only a mystery to others, we are also a mystery to ourselves.
In the doodle, the first part of the text comes from Psalm 139: I am fearfully and wonderfully made; I know this full well. I've always enjoyed these words delight in our original goodness.
The second part comes from my friend and mentor Alex McManus. A single sentence that is a poem to me: 'We are a mystery wrapped in a question.'
Life is about mystery and questions, from beginning to end, and each of us is perfectly positioned in the universe to explore these.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi offers us hope, believing we can learn to be curious again – though it is something that needs to be constantly nurtured.
SOMETHING TO DO: Download the doodle and add your own colour.
If you're journalling, you may want to take a few minutes, imagining what you would say to yourself ten years in the past about where you are and what you are doing now that you hadn’t imagined yourself doing back then – it doesn't have to be something big, only surprising. (Ten years ago I had never doodled.)
RESOURCES YOU MAY ENJOY: Makers of Fire by Alex McManus. Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Flow by by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Mindset by Carol Dweck Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman Movie: Paterson Mihaly Csikszentmihalyii's TEDtalk Flow, the Secret to Happiness