Dear Reader:

I fear the expression “I wonder,” spoken in a thoughtful, pensive way, will soon become obsolete in today’s world. Instead of taking time to ‘wander often and wonder always’ we simply google the information we are looking for and unfortunately, take it as the correct response to our questioning…which is quite “iffy” under the best of conditions.

Quinn Caldwell, in his devotion “Two Senses” reiterates this line of musing with this observation:

“There’s not a lot of room left in the world for wondering these days.  When was the last time you said, “I wonder what . . .”  or “I wonder how . . .” or “I wonder who . . .” and didn’t just head straight for Wikipedia?  When was the last time you pondered a question about the world for a while instead of just pulling your phone out of your pocket and looking it up?  I can’t tell you the last time I really wondered instead of just Googling.”

It is probably only around Christmas time with the Christmas Story, being re-read from Luke, that we stop and wonder about that magical birth and the shining star leading the Wise Men to the Christ-Child. This sense of wonder will always envelope me, even now as an adult, the same way it first did when I heard the story as a child. Wow! The best story ever!

Of all the beautiful Christmas music that is available to be heard throughout the season…the one that touches me and still fills me with a sense of longing is the old Appalachian tune…“I Wonder as I Wander.”

A Kentucky balladeer, John Jacob Niles, composed the beautiful Appalachian song, deliberately keeping the lyrics simple because he never was able to hear the young girl who sang the first three lines ever sing more than that …. Niles recalls the incident:

“I Wonder As I Wander” grew out of three lines of music sung for me by a girl who called herself Annie Morgan. The place was Murphy, North Carolina,and the time was July, 1933. The Morgan family, revivalists all, were about to be ejected by the police, after having camped in the town square for some little time, coking, washing, hanging their wash from the Confederate monument and generally conducting themselves in such a way as to be classed a public nuisance.

Preacher Morgan and his wife pleaded poverty; they had to hold one more meeting in order to buy enough gas to get out of town. It was then that Annie Morgan came out–a tousled, unwashed blond, and very lovely. She sang the first three lines of the verse of “I Wonder As I Wander”.

She never could come up with more than that so Niles gave the family some money to help them get gas and food and kept humming the haunting melody with the five words “I wonder as I wander” over and over again until he completed the melody and added some simple verses to accompany it.

He believed the beauty in the song was the gift of wonder, itself, as the listener began to imagine long walks in beautiful woods, while pondering the world God gave us, including His most special gift, His Son Jesus.

Niles had no idea that this song would become one of the most beloved carols and sung throughout the world with its simply melody and wonder.

I wonder as I wander -Rutter, Cambridge Singers – YouTube

I think we should all find time, in our daily life, to wonder and wander. I remember grandmother used to take my hand and we would sometimes walk down the little dirt road that lead to Uncle Herschel’s county store and get a coke or a Nehi orange drink (with a bag of peanuts) that we would promptly drop in the soda.

Life was never so good as at that moment.

Even with my father’s death and mother’s left hand amputation our talks were about wildflowers (that grew in the pastures with all kinds of beautiful and funny names.) Grandmother was probably my first real geography teacher (she had been a teacher in Due West) since she entertained me with the funny names of towns in South Carolina as I slurped peanuts from my soda.

Little did I know when she told me the history of a town named Due West (Grandmother’s birthplace) that I would actually go there to college-Erskine College…and believe me, I knew the history well before arriving.

…But there were other funny town names she taught me back then like Ketchuptown, SC which made me snicker and wonder if everyone had a ketchup bottle hanging from their mailbox. Grandmother told me about Coosawatchie, South Carolina which really made me giggle…(and lose some of my peanuts) because, with my baby teeth in the midst of falling out…I couldn’t pronounce it (for all the gaps) and we both ended up chuckling together.

These “wonder” moments are some of my most precious moments with my grandmother. There is a lot to be said about the importance of  ‘wondering’ alone and together.

These days, however, if I start to get ahead of myself, wondering about health problems and where they might lead in the future…I put a brake on these types of wonderings. These are the kinds of wonder best left up to the only Person Who has the map from start to finish of our own, unique passage.

I just hope, that along my travels, I continue to wonder at the mysteries around me and most importantly, laugh at the funny places I pass during my life.

So until tomorrow let us never lose our sense of childish wonder…it is one of the most beautiful gifts God bestowed on us.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*With February being Black History Month…I thought you might be interested in this obscure connection between Queen Victoria and Harriett Tubman. Queen Victoria invited Tubman to her Diamond Jubilee in 1897 but Tubman could not attend due to financial and health restraints.

So, later, Queen Victoria sent her a silk, linen shawl as a gift of appreciation for all she did to eradicate human bondage. Don’t you love it? If you are like me and watching the PBS Victoria mini-series you have become as fascinated as I have with Queen Victoria. Today the shawl can be found in the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. It was given to the Museum by her grand-niece along with 39 other artifacts.

White, square-shaped shawl made of silk lace and linen.

So next time you are in our nation’s capital…wander on over to the museum and wonder about this amazing American heroine!