Seeking ‘Atoms of Delight’
Amazement is one of those words with a double-edged meaning. It can connote being stupefied, as in being unable to easily comprehend something. It can also signify experiencing indescribable moments of wonder and delight.
Some people keep a gratitude journal, a worthy practice. I like to keep a wonder journal. In these chaotic and turbulent times, I believe our capacity to be astonished by beauty and wonder will help ease us through the next few years.
Last weekend I attended an online reading given by the wonderful Scottish poet Kenneth Steven. Kenneth is the author of a recent book, “Atoms of Delight: Ten Pilgrimages in Nature.” The book transports its readers to places in his native Scotland of near mythical beauty and fascination. Whenever you take a walk in nature, Kenneth says, it is like going on a religious pilgrimage. “You are entering into story, into myth, you are entering a threshold.”
Atoms of delight are moments of unexpected, undeserved beauty that drop before us, like prayer beads sent from a divine source. It might be the sound of rubber boots as they scruff along a bed of dry autumn leaves, or the silence that overshadows a city street just after a snowfall begins, or spotting one perfectly round and shiny brown seed inside of the spiked green helmet of a chestnut shell.
Kenneth invites us to revel in these small moments, to “learn to look for the little things,” as he says in his beautiful poems, “Of Price and Worth:”
Let the ordinary be in your hand;
hold it open and imagine a bird landing,
offering all it possesses in trust
to come to you.
Learn to look for the little things
that weigh nothing at all,
but fill the heart with such light
they can never be measured.
The line, “hold it open and imagine a bird landing,” recalls an ancient tale about St. Kevin, who praying one day with his hands extended, was astonished to find a blackbird had laid its eggs in one of his upturned palms. Moved by pity, he remains with his hand extended until the blackbird’s fledglings are able to fly.
Few of us will experience such an amazing event, but learning to appreciate even seemingly “little things” — the extaordinary at hand — can fill us with comfort and wonder.
This past week, with the drip-drip of disturbing news emanating from Congress and the Trump administration, I took comfort in looking up at the waning gibbous moon and seeing the unusually bright bulb of Venus keeping it company in the night sky. I paused to watch a large, lobed leaf, probably from a sycamore, soar in the wind as if it was a bird. I marveled at how the sun spreads its light a few seconds earlier each morning, and how a flock of some 20 sparrows chose my front lawn to rest in for a time before lifting off to who knows where.
At the start of the new year, my friend singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer, gifted readers of her weekly blog “A Gathering of Spirits” with a calendar. It contained some of her favorite quotes and had small blank spaces for each day. Carrie asked that we not fill the spaces with appointments or reminders of what we need to do, but rather write down memories of what brought us wonder.
I suggest we all keep two sets of calendars: one to keep track of our duties, and another to record our “atoms of delight.”
The news these days can be stupefying indeed. It is hard to believe that many of the actions being taken by the Trump administration are happening in the U.S — and with so little dissent. Those of us who disagree are called to resist. And so we write our Congress people. We call the White House. We march in the streets. We respond with counter-acting small and random acts of kindness.
We also “learn to look for the little things” that fill our hearts with light.
Those moments remind us that the current chaos will pass, but beauty and wonder remain eternal, as Kenneth describes in a poem he wrote shortly after the first Trump administration. It remains as true today as ever:
Despite the Darkness
Sometimes it is not strange to think that God
is out behind the darkness of the night;
that there is hope, however small and odd
the thought might be. Sometimes it is all right
believing that the good will yet win out
against the weight of hate, and that the light
will shine again when all the voices doubt
and you have fought the dark with all your might.
Lift up your hand and see its grace anew
and open wide the window to the dawn
to hear the birds that sing the morning in.
For this is still a thousand times more true
than fear and lies and giving in to wrong.
So keep your faith — believe, begin again.
How many atoms of delight can we collect this week? Can we open our hands to the amazing “little things” that occur in the course of an ordinary day? Can we see the presence of God “out behind the darkness?”
To learn more about Kenneth Steven please visit his podcast, https://www.patreon.com/ImaginingThings and his Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=Imagining%20Things
To read Carrie Newcomer’s posts, please visit her blog A Gathering of Spirits at https://www.carrienewcomer.com/a-gathering-of-spirits-on-substack
Kenneth Steven’s reading was sponsored by Pat Leyko Connelly of The Church on the Hill, Weston, VT. Enjoy Pat’s poems and photographs at https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=sacredness%20surrounds%20us%20photos
