Wonder and think
The following passage was written by Texas Children’s Chaplain James Denham.
You know, it occurred to me yesterday that I feel like we are in a Dr. Seuss book. Particularly, I feel like I am living the book “Oh, The Thinks You Can Think.” In the beginning of that book, you are reading about birds and yellow and blue. Pages later, you are reading about snuvs with their gloves and bloogs blowing over black water and running into a jibboo! In the middle of the reading, you are invited to think about a day in Da Dake and a night in Na-Nupp with its three moons up.
The past few months feel similar to that. The times we are living in are unprecedented and almost unreal to be honest. A pandemic, with places shut down, travel slowed, and ubiquitous masks. I sometimes feel like I am living right there in Na-Nupp, a world I can only imagine, and it seems kind of scary. In Dr. Seuss’s book, we are led through the adventures of Peter the Postman who unenviably delivers mail to angry walruses and is forced to go left no matter what. I feel his stress. It’s as though he knows the world we are living in today. It’s as though the many thinks we can think are much more real and that some are straight from the pages of this book.
However, Dr. Seuss doesn’t suggest fear or stress. In the face of the many thinks we have thought, we are invited to wonder and think, think and wonder as it says in the book. Maybe this world isn’t so scary after all. As I read this book to my son, I often find a sense of peace by the end. “Oh the thinks you can think up if only you try!” Indeed.
It is as though the imagination releases the power of those fears or stresses. To wonder and think, think and wonder, allows us to actually respond to what we see. The more I think about meeting a jibboo, the better I am at actually doing what I thought about. Imagination gives us options and possibilities.
The book also invites a different reason why we wonder and think and think and wonder. We reframe through our imagination. Instead of seeing a world we couldn’t have imagined like Da Dake or Na-Nupp, and feeling the what-ifs as heavy, we see the world in all its intricacies. Instead of seeing with fear that the virus is relentless, we wonder and think about the relentless success of our medical teams in treating it more effectively. Instead of seeing with only fear about what will happen in the fall, I get to wonder and think about the quality time with my wife and son and the silliness of my dogs. Instead of fear and stress or quarantine, I can also imagine my laughter that beft go left and the Vipper of Vipp, as I laugh about the silliness in our crazy world too.
It’s relieving that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Reframing, like this children’s book does, does not negate the hard. It just points out the possibilities otherwise. When we wonder and think, think and wonder, there is no beauty or joy that cannot be had, even in a pandemic. This world is still full of good, sacred, beautiful, and amazing things and people. Oh the thinks you can think up!