Tuesday, December 4, 2012

WOW

As I mentioned yesterday, Anne Lamott's new book about prayer is titled Thanks, Help, Wow.  Yesterday I wrote a little about Thanks and Help.  Today I read Wow.

Anne's Wows are times in our lives when we are awed and amazed.  I thought back over the past sixty-nine years and tried to remember my Wow moments.  As a child I really don't remember any but assume I was wowed when I first went to the Washington National Zoo and the first time I went to NYC as a preteen, but I don't actually remembered being awed and amazed.  Same goes for the first time I went to The National Theater in Washington and saw a live performance starring Helen Hayes, a famous actress at the time.  Ohhhh, I do remember the grandeur of the big downtown movie theaters.  Lots of steps and marble and velvet.  I saw  the movie"White Christmas" with my childhood best friend and when we came out it was snowing.  And the Christmas it really did snow a lot and I had gotten a bicycle but I didn't care because snow in our neighborhood was awesome for sure.  Very hilly,  no traffic, so lots of sledding with the neighborhood kids.  And a bonfire at the top of the hill built by the older kids.

Traveling down memory land looking for Wows was fun!  Anne has capital WOWs and lower case wows.  Some of those for me would be riding a Ferris wheel and a roller coaster.  My first time at Disney and Myrtle Beach.  Last summer when I won entrance into a national quilt challenge was a lower case wow.  When I found out I was pregnant with twins....WOW.

Even though I have been to Israel, Austria, Italy, and England....looking back I'm pretty wowless.  Is it because we see so many huge ginormous things on the tv that seeing them in person seems lame.  The Twin Towers imploding, huge mudslides, that Tsunami... now those are some WOW moments if you are there in person.  But watching on tv; they become wow moments.

I liked the Grand Canyon, not so much Las Vegas.  Really I think the Mitchell Corn Palace wowed me just as much. There are hundereds of mosaics on the inside and outside made of ears of corn.  They are all taken down and replaced with new different corn designs each year. 

Speaking of art....the winners at the International Quilt Festival are WOWS for me as well.

Then my mind wound down to God and Jesus.  Jesus had some very big WOW moments, Lazarus coming forth from the tomb, the demoniac healed and clothed in his right mind, the crippled man at the pool  of Bethesda, the epileptic, the blind......and to top it all off with his resurrection..... Wowie Kazowie!!!  Of course God's creation of this intricate amazing world is the ALL TIME BIGGEST WOW in my book.

I do believe that even if you and I are pretty wowless these days....when Jesus Returns to get his church and we are caught up in the clouds.....we will shout WOW!  And those left behind will shout OMG!

(Got any Wow moments you want to share?)

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