Tag: wonder

Can peace and resilience lead us to joy and wonder? #oxfordchildrenswordoftheyear

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections20 Comments
My daughter, years ago, at the Oregon coast

Perhaps you have heard the news as well. Across the U.K., a survey with youth ages 6-14 revealed “peace” to be the 2025 Oxford Children’s Word of the Year. The runner up was “AI.” Third place went to “resilience.” All three choices fitting for our global current events. There is a melancholy note of hope to the theme of the trio that speaks volumes about the world we have endowed to our children. I find myself hoping that someday the frontrunners voted by our youth will be “joy” and “wonder.” If I am being an idealist, “joy” would take first place, and “wonder” second. Perhaps “peace” would round out third, but I haven’t quite decided upon that yet. For now, I’m choosing to focus on joy and wonder.

Interestingly, one of the newsfeeds through which I heard about the Oxford Children’s Word of the Year for 2025 was 1440. At the end of their current events, they always include a quote. Today’s quote is about joy and happiness, taken from the reclusive writer J.D. Salinger. It states: “The fact is always obvious much too late, but the singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy is a liquid.”

I disagree. Rather than discuss the writer attributed to this quote, or his work, I’d like to talk about joy and wonder. Well, for sake of argument, let’s include happiness too. In fact, let’s start with it. What do you think? Is happiness, in fact, a solid form? If I were the editor and had found this statement in a work of nonfiction, my scientific and metaphysical mind would beg to disagree. I would suggest the writer forgo the term “solid,” when referring to “happiness,” and use the liquid metaphor instead. As for joy, I would endow it with light. I would give joy the properties of a photon, and add to it “wonder” as the “solid” through which it travels and emanates.

I am the idealist that Salinger appeared to eschew as Holden took center stage and Phoebe was resigned to play the role as supporting actor, but never mind that. I said I wasn’t going to make this about the author or his work. On the other hand, one cannot overlook the relevance to our present time. Here we are now, today, with our youth calling out for us to find peace in this increasingly AI generated and conflict riddled world that constantly affects our children’s internal and external state of being. And, here they are, fortified by their own youthful resilience pleading with us, more than implicitly, to find a balanced and sustainable way of existence.

This is where joy and wonder come into play as sustaining forces. For despite their dearth in our social projections, they are a constant, albeit arguably dormant state of being and driving force inside of us. When we allow ourselves to open to them, wonder becomes the vehicle through which joy rides throughout our being. It opens our cells to the spark of light that ignites us, reconnecting us to our origin story that extends and expands us beyond the confines of the corporeal, and weaves our essence into the unity of connection. When joy is ignited within us, peace becomes a constant, and resilience slips aside for there is no need for its hold. When wonder takes the reins, joy rides us into the knowing that we are, in fact, photons that seek only to dance the spectrum of light as a continuous, unbroken wave. A wave that knows no division or ending.

Illusions and the magic of reality #wonder

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections17 Comments
Not today’s scene, but a recent one from earlier in the summer at the lake

Outside my window, a yellowed leaf from the old apple tree twirls from an invisible thread. It is dancing in the rain with the illusion of magic. I am mesmerized, unable to detect from inside my home, the strand of the spider’s web. Watching it, I am reminded of how easy it is to find wonder. When we pause to observe, we find it all around us. It is, quite literally, inescapable. Wonder exists in this ability to type words on a screen and send them out to readers across the globe in an instant. Wonder is the pull of gravity that holds us to the Earth, as well as the lift of force and currents that allows us to rise above it. Wonder is the code of beauty held inside a cell. It is the expression of joy on a child’s face…

Yet, wonder quite often escapes our notice when we rush through the minutes to tick off tasks and accrue accomplishments. Our egos, feeling the boost of satisfaction, quickly fidget for more, while wonder pleads for presence to nurture the soul, begging us to remember that we are, in essence, creatures of wonder.

Find wonder.

To Dream a Life into Being #wonder #nature #being

On By Alethea KehasIn Uncategorized13 Comments
The river beside the trail

Or perhaps I should say, “To walk a life into being.”

My husband and I spent the 4th in nature. It was the perfect way for us to express a reverence for what feels worthy, real, and based upon love. We brought the dogs along, which meant a perfect day for our canine companions as well.

Sitting on our front porch with a cup of tea dividing us, I scrolled through the “All Trails” app on my phone until I found one that just felt right. A new trail, to us, not too far away. And so, after breakfast was consumed, water bottles filled, and a couple of granola bars tucked in pockets, we set off in a race to the “minivan.”

We no longer have a minivan, but my husband and I love to shout out, “go straight to the minivan,” to incite the dogs and annoy the teenagers. The said teenagers, though, had their own plans for the day. Still, it brought a smile to our faces, and, naturally the dogs’ who could not have been happier. There’s nothing like a good car ride as long as the destination is not the vets.

With windows cranked to snout-level, we were off on our new adventure. The day perfect according to the weather. The high hovering around 80, the breeze just enough to keep most of the bugs away, and the sky as blue as our children’s eyes. We did miss them, but sometimes it’s nice to have that time to recall how you began.

And for us, it began 31 years ago. I’m going to take a slight pause to let that sink in…

We were at the place where our son is temporarily residing, the St. Paul’s School Advanced Studies Program. It was July 4th, 1991, and although I can’t tell you the exact details about the weather, I can recall in full-color the certain sundress I borrowed from a friend to impress a boy I had seen on the baseball field at recreation time. We met over bowls of ice cream, and the rest is our story.

So here we were, 31 years later, celebrating our story in the quiet way we knew best. Out in nature. We parked beside a wooden sign in front of a field of grasses, milkweed, and butterflies and suddenly I found myself falling in love, again. This land, not wholly ours, but from which we are all birthed, enfolding us like a mother who forgives even if she never forgets. And we, walking upon her, opened to love.

And wild wonder.

I was 48, 17, and 4. All ages wrapped up into one body, which is the way wonder finds us. Time slips past meaning and nothing else matters. The body’s bounds tangible, yet free. And the mind, that illusive organ without a physical structure, finds its tune and begins to sing of home. There it nothing better.

Life unties its binds in these moments and pure being erupts into the dream without the nightmare. As we walked that trail through the butterfly fields and into the woods beside a river, I began to dream of Life as it opened before us. The smile, spreading ever-wide upon my face. My body alive with the energy of being. And that vision that enfolded wider with each footstep, imprinted in full-color upon the canvas of my mind.

What a gift of a day.