"I Wonder as the Sea"

There is so much beauty and mystery in the things that surround us. Even the little and the mundane, the seemingly insignificant and the common all have a spark within themselves that can ignite a conflagration of splendor that will bring us upon the throes of awe.

To wonder, to reflect, to think, to imagine—are these not acts that a soul relishes in doing frequently? Unfortunately, this is not the case. Many of us have lost this beautiful sense of wonder. Our present materialistic society looks upon the world only as a means of gaining self-satisfaction, especially of the carnal and fleeting kind. We have, as it were, fled from the natural, the near, and the simple and clung to the sensational, the fashionable and the pleasurable which do not last and just pass away like smoke in the wind. We only look at things as we see them, but fail to look beyond, to look deeper.

Maybe because I have always been an introvert that I always liked taking a few steps back to look at the bigger picture before me. Sometimes, I would also take a few steps closer to try and see things more clearly and look at the more intricate webs and relations that connect one thing to another. Furthermore, because our family has not always been considerably rich, I have not always gotten what I wanted, be it the most trendy cloth line, cell phone or computer—and I still don’t!—that I have been spared from having a deep-seated materialistic attitude.

What I developed then was a great love for books. At an early age, I found pleasure in reading. In the world of books, there was another world where I could go to and escape to. But no, this did not turn me into an anti-social nerd. Rather, it helped me look at things in a refreshing light. My mind began to expand; my thoughts began to travel far and wide. I began to imagine, I began to think more deeply, I began to reflect more profoundly, and as I grew older and began to see more, I began to wonder all the more.

In hindsight, as I unlock the door to my memories, I realize that even before I learned to read, daydream and imagine I had already began to wonder. Just like any child, in my eyes everything was new. Everyday, every moment, was a new adventure waiting to unfold with its endless possibilities. Being so little, the house seemed so large and mysterious that I tried to explore every nook and cranny. So curious was I, so mystified by the wonder of it all that as a consequence I broke a few vases and some potted plants here and there. From broken flowerpots to the plants themselves, from critters to insects, from trees to the fruits they bear, to the neighborhood “jungle”, to the city “skyscrapers”, to the seemingly winding and tentacular streets of Tagbilaran—these were all things that enthralled me. This sense of wonder began to grow and encompass not only the things that I could perceive by my senses but also the ideologies, the intricate web of interpersonal human relationships, and the realm of the spirit and the profound depths and beauty of our faith. I wondered and wondered and wondered. It was an insatiable thirst.

But as I began to closely follow my calling and entered and hid myself within the four walls of a friary, everything changed. I was plunged into a cacophony of silence. Where no sound existed except for the beating of my heart, I was made to look into myself more deeply, more truthfully as each day passed by. I was made to look at everything that constituted my whole life through a different perspective. With the aid of daily prayer and meditation, the rigorous schedule and discipline, something new came over me. It was as if I had seen myself for the very first time. It was a profound wonder of my own being, of my own place in the designs of God. It was a wonder wrought with ambivalence: profound joy at my election as an adopted child of God and a sublime sorrow of my own ingratitude and sinfulness and a peaceful acceptance of my own utter lowliness before such an Infinite Being.

After such a profound self-discovery, it was as if I was also beginning to see the world for the very first time. Everything around me seemed to be basking in a fresh new light and vigor. I was filled with a renewed wonder which I could not contain. It was as if the ordinary suddenly became so extraordinary. It was as if the rays of the sun shone more joyfully through the trees in the early morn. There was a soft, sweet melody of the flowing waters of the river, a subtle freshness to the air, a harmonious song in the singing of the birds, the vibrant sound of insects and a harmony of all nature. This is but a futile attempt at describing this experience, but mere words would not do it justice. It was a wonder so profound yet so simple, so vast yet so minute, primordial yet so new, so totally obvious yet so utterly ethereal.

Wonder itself had seized me.

Even though I have long since left the walls of the friary, that invigorating sense of wonder has not left me. It has stayed with me still and I grapple with the reality that I have within me something so sublime which I cannot contain on my own that if I were not to make itself manifest, I would burst. Where then do I turn to but to the one thing that has enthralled me, mesmerized me more than anything, even more than books could? I say with the Psalmist:

Deep is calling on deep

in the roar of waters

Your torrents and your waves

Sweep over me

A sea canal in Venice

The Sea. Its immensity, unfathomable abysses, glorious sunrises, fiery sunsets, and its mystifying and shifting portraits with the moon and the stars and even its fury and tempests—who would not see in it an embodiment and epitome of wonder itself? If I was not wading and swimming within its waters, I would be sitting on the pebble-strewn shore gazing at the waves, simply enveloped in the salty air of serenity, listening to the music of the waves as they kiss the shore, my heart beating to the tune of internal solitude and rapt in this sense of wonder.

Then I wonder, what if the sea was capable of consciousness? No doubt it would wonder about me and every man or child which has gazed upon it with awe. For all its seemingly infinite grasp about the world, its profundity, its mysticism, its power and even its wrath, it cannot fully comprehend what I am. For though I am small, mortal and powerless, I hold within me something more powerful, transcendent and eternal. I can behold the sea in a single gaze, delve into its depths with a single thought, and go beyond its limits by a single prayer. The sea may drown me, pull me under its depths, wash over me, capture me but it will never contain my spirit. It would only realize that it can never the plumb the depths within me.

The very depths of the sea resound within the very depths of my own soul. The sea wonders at me. I wonder at wonder and the Source of all wonder.

In other words, I wonder as the sea…