When Magic Goes Missing.
On recovering wonder and whimsy in the world.
The other night I was sitting out on the back porch of the Airbnb that we have been staying at for the past 30 days. It’s a covered porch with a couple of chairs and a small couch with a coffee table centered between them. From the porch you can see 180 degrees. You look from left to right and all you see is green. Green grass, green trees, a pond reflecting those same green trees, and then a black barn off to the right.
My favorite thing is to sit out on this porch in the early morning or late evening at dawn or dusk. I’m not sure why, but it seems like those two time periods are when the magic begins. Everything becomes quite still and the sun just sits so softly on the trees as it arrives or departs (depending on the time of day).
And many nights I have been lucky enough to watch as several white-tail deer slip out from the trees into the rolling grassy hills that sit below the farmhouse we’re staying in.
It’s funny to me how many people look at these deer as simply part of the landscape, just another ordinary piece of the scenery. And I get it. White-tail deer are especially common in this area. When you see something every single day, it’s easy for the wonder to slowly wear off. What was once captivating becomes familiar, and what becomes familiar can start to feel just…ordinary.
But to me, they are still some of the most enchanting creatures on the planet. They silently slip out of the trees and cautiously walk into the fields so they can graze on the grass in peace. As long as you’re very still, you can sit and watch them for quite some time. They are always on high alert, constantly scanning the environment.
If they hear a twig break, they stop eating immediately, lift their head, and bend their ear to ensure that there’s no danger near. Every now and then something will spook them and they will stomp, snort, and bound off in great leaps across the field and duck into the trees, slipping between the branches and all the thick timber, just vanishing into the forest to not be seen again that day.
I think that’s what makes them so special: although they may be common, they are so majestic and so easily spooked. To me, they represent so much mystery of what lies behind all of the green trees that I stare at each night.
Maybe the fact that I’m a hunter and that I’ve spent a lot of time trying to track these animals’ movements and patterns gives me a greater affinity for them or a greater level of respect, but to be honest, it’s not just the white-tail deer.
It’s the way fireflies light up the dark. It’s the way hawks soar and dive to snatch their prey with pinpoint accuracy. It’s the way that a rainbow trout glistens and reflects so many different colors when you pull them from the creek and hold them in the sun for a moment before releasing them back into the icy mountain waters.
For some reason, the outdoors have always been the place where I go to help me restore my sense of wonder. It’s the place where I still experience that feeling of whimsy. It’s the place where I can find magic in the world.
This idea of wonder and whimsy is something that I’ve wanted to write about for several weeks now, and I’ve been waiting to find some extended time to be able to write about it. I really didn’t want it to be a quick article but rather one that I could sit with and really put some thought behind the idea.
The benefit of taking my time to write about it is that I’ve had much more time to think about it. I’ve spent many nights sitting out on this porch or walking along the edge of the property. I’ve been able to not only experience this wonder and whimsy that I’m going to write a bit about today, but I’ve also been able to think about the places where it exists in this world and the places that it’s begun to disappear from.
Perhaps I’ll start there, pointing out the places where it seems our world has lost its sense of wonder and whimsy. The places where the world has lost its magic…
I think one of the most obvious places is in architecture. If you just look around our cities, especially in the West, what you will see is that Western civilization has become obsessed with efficiency, minimalism, and function. So much so that we have mostly given up on craftsmanship, beauty, and character.
The problem with beauty is that it’s inefficient. To make something unique out of materials that have character requires time and it requires money.
Most people today are much less concerned with beauty and much more concerned with profit margins. With efficiency. With scalability.
So instead of creating things that are unique and beautiful, we tend to create things that are easily repeatable. Everything now seems to be minimalist, grayscale, and something where you can hand the plans to another builder and have them build the exact same thing in the next town over in no time at all.
I saw these photos on Instagram that compared and contrasted similar photos from different decades and its striking when you see how much color the world has lost:
Credit: @insidehistory on instgaram
No wonder we have lost our wonder…
But this idea of efficiency really doesn’t stop at architecture, but it continues into our manufacturing. Everything is outsourced, and many things are built as cheaply as possible overseas.
Furniture used to be made to last for a lifetime. Now much of what’s available to us are things that will be broken, worn out, or thrown out within just a few years because of how poorly they are made.
Again, because beauty and craftsmanship weren’t the goal… efficiency was. And I believe that efficiency can sometimes inadvertently kill imagination. And without imagination, wonder and whimsy cannot grow and thrive.
I want to be clear here - I’m not trying to say efficiency is evil or wrong, but I do want to point out that when that’s the end goal, you do lose some other important things in the midst of that pursuit. Because efficiency often asks, “What is the fastest way to accomplish this?”
But imagination asks a different question:
“What could this become?”
And those are two very different questions.
Look at these two different chairs:
One of them is clearly created with imagination, with the craftsman having asked, “What could this become?” while the other is something very different, something that could be mass-produced and done so at a low cost.
I almost hesitate to use this example because I do know there is a place in the world for things that are affordable and accessible to many. But what I am really trying to communicate is that when we lose our sense of wonder and our appreciation for the whimsy found in the world, I think the loss of excellence quickly follows.
It just seems to me that people who still hold on to some semblance of wonder in the everyday tend to appreciate things at a different level. In my experience, they bring a different level of intentionality to everything they do.
For example, if you have ever talked to a barista that’s really passionate about coffee, they have a sense of wonder for the coffee plant, for the sourcing, and for the little hidden notes in all the different varieties of coffee beans from different regions across the world. They love waking up in the morning and going through the ritual of making that first cup of coffee.
Hand grinding the beans to the perfect texture, ensuring that it’s measured and weighed according to the amount of coffee they plan to brew. They go painstakingly slow not because they aren’t busy or in a hurry but because it deserves the time and attention required to be excellent. They have an appreciation for it, and so they don’t want to rush the process and risk souring the experience of the morning’s first sip.
I understand that to some of you that sounds ridiculous. For you, maybe your morning ritual looks like waking up to a pot that’s already brewed because you put Folgers in the coffee maker and set the alarm for 6 a.m. the night before. That’s fine if that’s your process, but these people have found wonder in the ordinary. Coffee has become something that gives them a sense of joy.
I could go on and give dozens of different examples of how this plays out differently in our world, but I think you get the point. Wonder and whimsy typically lead to good places. It leads us to more joy and more appreciation. I believe it leads us into a greater awareness of God’s presence, His goodness, and His power.
Scripture speaks to this idea in Psalm 19:
“The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard.”
Psalm 19:1-3 NLT
St. Thérèse of Lisieux, in her autobiography, said this: “I was between six and seven when I saw the sea for the first time. I could not turn away my eyes: its majesty, the roaring of the waves, the whole vast spectacle impressed me deeply and spoke to my soul of God’s power and greatness.”
I think one of the reasons (besides humility and dependence) Jesus spoke of us becoming like little children is because children still have their sense of wonder. They are still blown away when they stand and look at the ocean. They are still captivated by fireflies. They still scream and shout, “LOOK DADDY, A DEER! A DEER!” when they drive past a field with a white-tail in it.
They have not yet become jaded, cynical, and numb like so many of us have.
I know some of you may think that sounds like a broad brush critique, and perhaps it is… but I do think many adults have lost their sense of wonder. I think for many of us, we have lost our desire to create beautiful things. I think we have gotten caught up in things that are not important. I think we have become obsessed with optimization, efficiency, and scalability.
I think we have lost some of our ability to find beauty in the ordinary. I think we have let this incredible world we live in become common and familiar.
I think we have become so accustomed (dare I say entitled) to the rising and setting of the sun that we have forgotten what a miracle it is that it happens each day. And what a gift that God made it so incredibly beautiful to watch the sun as it rises and sets. He didn’t have to do that…but He did.
God created a world overflowing with things that serve no obvious purpose other than to reveal beauty. He could have created one kind of flower, one kind of tree, one shade of green (or no colors at all). He could have made a world that was purely functional, but He didn’t. Instead, He created a world filled with unnecessary beauty, a world with imagination woven into the fabric of it.
And I can’t help but wonder if one of the reasons so many of us feel tired, cynical, and disconnected is because somewhere along the way we stopped paying attention to the magic hidden in the ordinary.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve been immersing myself in the world of Lewis and Tolkien lately, or maybe it’s just the stage my children are in, but I find myself in the midst of a journey back to wonder and whimsy. It’s like the Lord has been gently leading me to this place for over a year. He has lovingly challenged me and has been pointing out to me the places where my heart has been hardened and the places where cynicism has found itself a home.
It is with great pleasure that I share with you that I have disavowed cynicism. I will no longer let it rob me of the beauty of the ordinary. I will not fall victim to apathy, and I will not bow to fear any longer. (I have come to discover cynicism and fear often go hand in hand. More on this in the future.)
I am committed in this season to discovering what it means to have “kingdom eyes.” To see people how God sees people. To see the world how He sees the world. To see the magic in the midst of the ordinary. To see each day as a gift again.
I’m also committed to finding ways to preserve wonder in the lives of my children. I think some of that will come from protecting them from influences and things that would steal from their childhood like I spoke about last time I wrote. I think some of it will come from my own example of finding wonder again. I think some of it will come from creating opportunities to experience the world beyond the walls of our home.
But I am committed to helping facilitate moments of wonder and whimsy. I am committed to finding and preserving the idea of magic in the world for them.
So if you are like me, and the places you find magic in the world have become limited, first go to those places that you do find magic. Where you do experience wonder and whimsy…and while you are there might I suggest opening a good fiction book and letting your imagination run free once again…
Just so you know, it’s radically inefficient… Kind of like cooking a meal from scratch instead of eating out, or telling your kid a bedtime story instead of putting on a bedtime podcast.
But I promise you will thank me later.
Cheers,
Landon
LYH Reflection Questions:
Where has something beautiful in your life become ordinary simply because it has become familiar?
Where has the pursuit of efficiency started to crowd out moments of wonder, imagination, or presence in your life?
What is one “inefficient” thing you can do this week that creates space for connection, beauty, or joy with the people you love most?