"Yep, I still can't believe this whole thing is real! If it's one galaxy after another, after another, how can there be any end to it? An example of "forever"?"
These are the words of Don Burklo, my dad, responding to my recent "musing" in which I wrote about how his sense of awe nurtured my own. He's 93 years young with wonderment at the night sky when he looks out the window.
His great-grandson, Jacob, 22 months old, lifted up a stone from the ground during a family Halloween party this past weekend, and showed it to me. "Cool rock!" he said with a beaming smile.
These are examples of awexercise. Pronounced "ahhh-kser-size". A word I invented for a soul workout, with no heavy lifting required. All you gotta do is answer this question: what blows you away today?
It could be anything. I am a rockhound, having amassed a collection of specimens over my lifetime. I'm delighted that Jake and I appear to share this fascination. But the rock that Jacob was examining, a chunk of the decomposed granite that litters the neighborhood, was unremarkable to me. I know that rock very well, or so I thought at the time.
But to Jake, that rock was astounding.
With the hindsight of a few days, I begin to share his perspective. Just because I know a name for that rock doesn't mean I know much more about it than my toddler grandson does. I've been pondering how little I know about that rock ever since he handed it to me. Why is some granite hard and dark, and others are crumbly and brown like this one? What was going on underground that generated its form? What chemistry resulted in its color? The questions go on and on. My ignorance of the answers goes on and on and on. Now, finally, I'm in awe of that rock.
When it comes to awexercise, Jake is in great shape. I aim to catch up with him, even if I'm usually a few days behind.
Let's get some awexercise right now. You're reading this "musing" someplace. Turn away from the screen and find any object and hold it up and stare at it. What don't you know about it? What else don't you know about it? Make a mental list of the things about it that boggle your mind, until you are slack-jawed with wonderment.
Awexercise is the discipline of deep attention - getting past the words, categories, and judgments we make about the people and things around us so that we can begin to see them for who or what they are, on their own terms, apart from our own. Deep, kind, non-judgmental attention is the same thing as love. And unconditional love is God.
Awexercise is a pathway into communion with Ultimate Reality. And the fitness center where we can practice it is all around us - wherever we are, and whomever we're with....