This is sincerely one of the most helpful insights I’ve heard in a long time. Thank you so much for delving into this subject and explaining the function and purpose of fairy stories. I get it. I really get it. One thought that comes to mind for me immediately, and that perhaps might be a subject you research and write about in the future, is the experience of psychedelics as a means to accessing re-enchantment. In my pre-Christian life I experimented with LSD and mushrooms and experienced a recovery of wonder and awe about the world that is very complimentary to the effect of fairy stories. The use of psychedelics for therapeutic purposes is on the rise these days. I truly wonder if much of their healing potency comes precisely from their ability to help people recover an enchanted world. Do you have any thoughts about that?
I resonate with much of what’s written here. I have an adult view of the universe. I perceive it as a giant web of mechanical forces acting upon one another. I tend to think that a better quality of life is achieved by understanding, controlling, and leveraging these forces. I tend to see people as very intricate beings, but ultimately predictable and controllable over time given properly calibrated inputs.
I need recovery, but I can’t seem to arouse it within myself. Lately I’ve been trying more contemplative practices like centering prayer and the daily examen to counter my strong cognitive bias. So far it’s not taking very well. The trite still seems trite as much as I wish it were astounding. Can enchantment be developed from within, or must it be granted from the without? If the former, I wonder how long it will take. If the latter, I wonder if will ever come at all.
There are psychological studies done on the effect of ‘awe’ in peoples lives. Awe is amazement. Amazement is, in my experience, rooted in gratitude. The ability to be grateful is the ultimate byproduct of knowing, truly knowing how we relate in God’s world, not our world. Seeing a more complete picture of how we fit in to this unbelievably enormous universe created not by humans but by a mysterious Creator. If extensive knowledge doesn’t show us exactly how little we know then we haven’t reached the half way point of knowledge. If our motivation for knowledge & understanding is to then master the subject, have power over, then we are learning for the wrong reasons. The authority to have dominion over the world was given by God so that we would then be responsible for it. Responsible stewardship is servant leadership & Jesus’s final command was to love (be responsible, serve) as He has loved (been responsible for & served).
This journey of gratitude & awe is a journey with ups & downs. It’s the hardest & most rewarding task I’ve ever undertaken. There is no short cut to the Devine. There is no way for us to heal ourselves, we can only participate in the healing & restoration that comes from God. Through this restoration journey will come the awe & enchantment we desperately seek.
Great question & thank you for asking. Dialogue & conversation, written or spoken, is essential for growth & broadening our understandings.
10-12 years ago I had the realization, while praying, that I was asking a lot but did I trust that He would actually provide. I knew God would provide what I needed & that the problem was more in me than with Him. So I started praying with expectation that He would provide what I truly needed, which wasn’t always what I wanted. This prayer almost instantly pivoted me into thanking Him for His provision. This required me to stop asking for specific results, to take my hands off the wheel & just thank Him for whatever it was He was doing or going to do.
6-7 years ago I realized that through the pain & struggles of life is where I’ve grown the absolute most & this holds true today. Then, while in a mens small group from my church, we studied the book of James. The verse that jumped off the page at me was chapter 1 verse 2, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,” (James 1:2 NIV). How I heard this was be grateful when you face trials. I was going through a great trial at that time & this idea was more than revolutionary, it was completely upside down.
The more I’ve studied the life of Jesus & writers of the New Testament I realized that the concepts proposed were unlike anything we hear in this world. So I started ‘considering it pure joy’ or thanking God for the trials I was going through. I had some history, to that point of my life, with knowing that through every tough & unpleasant situation that I was growing & becoming better because of it. Casting Crowns has a song titled “Praise You in the Storm” which seemed to be playing on my local Christian music channel every cycle. The message of being grateful for the tough time kept popping up all the time, I couldn’t escape it.
One of my beloved mentors told me, around this time, to thank God for my wife. Understand I was recently single from a dumpster fire of a relationship & was in the process of taking a year off from dating. This, again, wasn’t revolutionary, it was off the wall. So I tried it & continued to thank God for some woman that I didn’t even know & at the time wouldn’t have wanted to know me at least at that stage of the growing process yet I pressed on thanking Him.
What my belief & understanding based on my experience is that God has promised to provide all my needs. The real problem in our relationship is that I needed to get to wanting my needs instead of my wants. That takes daily & momentary work on my part. Knowing, being intimately familiar, with my own depravity (my thinking & at times my actions) & the absolute fact that God isn’t striking me down for each instance of misbehavior or ill thought helps me to remain grateful. Regarding ‘awe’ & amazement, I think the continual renewing of my mind has helped me be in a position to better catch God’s grace & also see more of His world, the people & the surroundings. This doesn’t come naturally it takes work, continuous & strenuous work. Possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever done is to have an attitude of gratitude & since it’s so hard some times I miss the mark frequently yet it remains the most rewarding activity I can do. This isn’t to say that I earn His grace, if you earn it it’s not grace. It’s just that I haven’t found a better posture for life.
I’m not sure what you mean when you say you are ‘now in deconstruction’. I’d love to chat more about that. What I recommend to the men I mentor, based on my own experience, is that wherever they are at in their faith or hope journey that they thank God for this time, this season. God is always trying to reveal Himself to us. He welcomes the doubts, the questions, being cursed out. Heck ALL of the 12 abandoned Jesus after spending 3+ years with Him yet He still returned to entrust them with His ministry. Also if you mean deconstruction of traditional ideas surrounding faith you are in the best company because Jesus was the most opposed to organized religion as any of us could ever be all while promoting that we stick together. That was His intent, stick together (the church) but don’t make the sticking together the center, He wanted to be the center. Far too many “christians” have got the order backwards.
Thank Him for the season you are in. I don’t know a better posture. He is trying to show you more of who He is, it’s what He does. Take all your questions & all the things that need deconstructing to Him, cast your cares upon Him, why?, because He cares. Praise Him for the wonderful mind you have that can question & process & critically think about life & its meaning. Thank Him for revealing Himself through this time & through everything in His creation.
I’d love to hear more of your thoughts & ideas. I frequently post on my substack discussing these & other issues. Thank you for asking. I hope this was helpful.
Alan, thank you for your thorough response, and thank you for sharing some of your story. The main themes I’m picking up are that you came to trust that God will provide all of your needs. You started and continue the deliberate process of identifying, wanting, and asking for your needs. You practice expressing gratitude each day – both for the challenges (because they promote growth), and the blessings. Renewing your mind, that is, reminding yourself of your depravity alongside God’s gentle patience, reveals his grace which in turn inspires awe. You encourage others to thank God for every spiritual season, because in each one God is revealing more of himself.
I’m on board with most of this, particularly maintaining an attitude of gratitude. Indeed, that’s the primary means by which I’m pursing God currently. It’s also the same posture I see among the most peaceful and pleasant people I know, whether Christians or not.
As far as God providing or all my needs…I think I can see what is meant by it, but it’s not a conviction that necessarily inspires trust, at least not at this time. It seems to me that many people, both believers and non-believers, end their lives in states of hunger (need for nourishment), disease (need for wellness), loneliness (need for relationship), pain (need for comfort), and debt (need for money). To say that God provides all one’s needs at least requires some nuance for it to be meaningful. I’ve seen that nuance come in various forms. Some say that God’s provision for those needs can be, in some sense, cancelled, by poor decisions. Some say that God’s provision is sufficient for whatever purposes that person was supposed to fulfill in life. In that sense, someone who dies in pain or debt or loneliness did so because he/she had accomplished all that God had intended for him/her, and thus required no further provision. In any case, whenever a promise about God’s behavior is made – ie “He will always provide for your needs” – the goalposts for that promise seem forever moving to accommodate any possible outcome such that the promise can never be broken. In my opinion, it can also never be fulfilled.
On a similar note, I wonder about the wisdom of thanking God for my current spiritual season – indeed, thanking God for every spiritual season. The underlying hope seems to be that this is part of the plan. It is all working towards some greater end – a fuller revelation of God, or more intimate experience of God, a greater appreciation of his love, or something like that. As in the thought experiment above, I wonder if people every in their lives resentful of God, estranged from God, indifferent towards God, misguided about God? If so, could it be that those people had spiritual seasons that propelled them further and further away from God, rather than towards him? If the answer is “yes,” and I think it is, I hesitate to thank God for this season, or any season, because I don’t know if it’s actually working towards something beautiful or something tragic.
That being said, in my ambivalence, it is generally more encouraging and more motivating, to take the optimistic perspective, so I’ll probably end up adding this to the gratitude list anyways.
Our Western culture not only has dirty windows, but they're boarded up with the drapes drawn. Our modern version of fairy stories is the video game (or graphic novel) based on, what else, power and domination. Mordor 2.0.
This is sincerely one of the most helpful insights I’ve heard in a long time. Thank you so much for delving into this subject and explaining the function and purpose of fairy stories. I get it. I really get it. One thought that comes to mind for me immediately, and that perhaps might be a subject you research and write about in the future, is the experience of psychedelics as a means to accessing re-enchantment. In my pre-Christian life I experimented with LSD and mushrooms and experienced a recovery of wonder and awe about the world that is very complimentary to the effect of fairy stories. The use of psychedelics for therapeutic purposes is on the rise these days. I truly wonder if much of their healing potency comes precisely from their ability to help people recover an enchanted world. Do you have any thoughts about that?
Shawn, thank you for sharing. Your comment triggered some thoughts that I wrote in my comment. I hope it’s helpful. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
I resonate with much of what’s written here. I have an adult view of the universe. I perceive it as a giant web of mechanical forces acting upon one another. I tend to think that a better quality of life is achieved by understanding, controlling, and leveraging these forces. I tend to see people as very intricate beings, but ultimately predictable and controllable over time given properly calibrated inputs.
I need recovery, but I can’t seem to arouse it within myself. Lately I’ve been trying more contemplative practices like centering prayer and the daily examen to counter my strong cognitive bias. So far it’s not taking very well. The trite still seems trite as much as I wish it were astounding. Can enchantment be developed from within, or must it be granted from the without? If the former, I wonder how long it will take. If the latter, I wonder if will ever come at all.
Brian, thank you for your comment. What you wrote created some thoughts I wrote in my comment. Hope it’s helpful. I’d love to hear you thoughts.
There are psychological studies done on the effect of ‘awe’ in peoples lives. Awe is amazement. Amazement is, in my experience, rooted in gratitude. The ability to be grateful is the ultimate byproduct of knowing, truly knowing how we relate in God’s world, not our world. Seeing a more complete picture of how we fit in to this unbelievably enormous universe created not by humans but by a mysterious Creator. If extensive knowledge doesn’t show us exactly how little we know then we haven’t reached the half way point of knowledge. If our motivation for knowledge & understanding is to then master the subject, have power over, then we are learning for the wrong reasons. The authority to have dominion over the world was given by God so that we would then be responsible for it. Responsible stewardship is servant leadership & Jesus’s final command was to love (be responsible, serve) as He has loved (been responsible for & served).
This journey of gratitude & awe is a journey with ups & downs. It’s the hardest & most rewarding task I’ve ever undertaken. There is no short cut to the Devine. There is no way for us to heal ourselves, we can only participate in the healing & restoration that comes from God. Through this restoration journey will come the awe & enchantment we desperately seek.
Thank you for the comments Alan. I'm curious as to what practices or actionable steps you take continue on the journey of gratitude and awe?
Great question & thank you for asking. Dialogue & conversation, written or spoken, is essential for growth & broadening our understandings.
10-12 years ago I had the realization, while praying, that I was asking a lot but did I trust that He would actually provide. I knew God would provide what I needed & that the problem was more in me than with Him. So I started praying with expectation that He would provide what I truly needed, which wasn’t always what I wanted. This prayer almost instantly pivoted me into thanking Him for His provision. This required me to stop asking for specific results, to take my hands off the wheel & just thank Him for whatever it was He was doing or going to do.
6-7 years ago I realized that through the pain & struggles of life is where I’ve grown the absolute most & this holds true today. Then, while in a mens small group from my church, we studied the book of James. The verse that jumped off the page at me was chapter 1 verse 2, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,” (James 1:2 NIV). How I heard this was be grateful when you face trials. I was going through a great trial at that time & this idea was more than revolutionary, it was completely upside down.
The more I’ve studied the life of Jesus & writers of the New Testament I realized that the concepts proposed were unlike anything we hear in this world. So I started ‘considering it pure joy’ or thanking God for the trials I was going through. I had some history, to that point of my life, with knowing that through every tough & unpleasant situation that I was growing & becoming better because of it. Casting Crowns has a song titled “Praise You in the Storm” which seemed to be playing on my local Christian music channel every cycle. The message of being grateful for the tough time kept popping up all the time, I couldn’t escape it.
One of my beloved mentors told me, around this time, to thank God for my wife. Understand I was recently single from a dumpster fire of a relationship & was in the process of taking a year off from dating. This, again, wasn’t revolutionary, it was off the wall. So I tried it & continued to thank God for some woman that I didn’t even know & at the time wouldn’t have wanted to know me at least at that stage of the growing process yet I pressed on thanking Him.
What my belief & understanding based on my experience is that God has promised to provide all my needs. The real problem in our relationship is that I needed to get to wanting my needs instead of my wants. That takes daily & momentary work on my part. Knowing, being intimately familiar, with my own depravity (my thinking & at times my actions) & the absolute fact that God isn’t striking me down for each instance of misbehavior or ill thought helps me to remain grateful. Regarding ‘awe’ & amazement, I think the continual renewing of my mind has helped me be in a position to better catch God’s grace & also see more of His world, the people & the surroundings. This doesn’t come naturally it takes work, continuous & strenuous work. Possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever done is to have an attitude of gratitude & since it’s so hard some times I miss the mark frequently yet it remains the most rewarding activity I can do. This isn’t to say that I earn His grace, if you earn it it’s not grace. It’s just that I haven’t found a better posture for life.
I’m not sure what you mean when you say you are ‘now in deconstruction’. I’d love to chat more about that. What I recommend to the men I mentor, based on my own experience, is that wherever they are at in their faith or hope journey that they thank God for this time, this season. God is always trying to reveal Himself to us. He welcomes the doubts, the questions, being cursed out. Heck ALL of the 12 abandoned Jesus after spending 3+ years with Him yet He still returned to entrust them with His ministry. Also if you mean deconstruction of traditional ideas surrounding faith you are in the best company because Jesus was the most opposed to organized religion as any of us could ever be all while promoting that we stick together. That was His intent, stick together (the church) but don’t make the sticking together the center, He wanted to be the center. Far too many “christians” have got the order backwards.
Thank Him for the season you are in. I don’t know a better posture. He is trying to show you more of who He is, it’s what He does. Take all your questions & all the things that need deconstructing to Him, cast your cares upon Him, why?, because He cares. Praise Him for the wonderful mind you have that can question & process & critically think about life & its meaning. Thank Him for revealing Himself through this time & through everything in His creation.
I’d love to hear more of your thoughts & ideas. I frequently post on my substack discussing these & other issues. Thank you for asking. I hope this was helpful.
Alan, thank you for your thorough response, and thank you for sharing some of your story. The main themes I’m picking up are that you came to trust that God will provide all of your needs. You started and continue the deliberate process of identifying, wanting, and asking for your needs. You practice expressing gratitude each day – both for the challenges (because they promote growth), and the blessings. Renewing your mind, that is, reminding yourself of your depravity alongside God’s gentle patience, reveals his grace which in turn inspires awe. You encourage others to thank God for every spiritual season, because in each one God is revealing more of himself.
I’m on board with most of this, particularly maintaining an attitude of gratitude. Indeed, that’s the primary means by which I’m pursing God currently. It’s also the same posture I see among the most peaceful and pleasant people I know, whether Christians or not.
As far as God providing or all my needs…I think I can see what is meant by it, but it’s not a conviction that necessarily inspires trust, at least not at this time. It seems to me that many people, both believers and non-believers, end their lives in states of hunger (need for nourishment), disease (need for wellness), loneliness (need for relationship), pain (need for comfort), and debt (need for money). To say that God provides all one’s needs at least requires some nuance for it to be meaningful. I’ve seen that nuance come in various forms. Some say that God’s provision for those needs can be, in some sense, cancelled, by poor decisions. Some say that God’s provision is sufficient for whatever purposes that person was supposed to fulfill in life. In that sense, someone who dies in pain or debt or loneliness did so because he/she had accomplished all that God had intended for him/her, and thus required no further provision. In any case, whenever a promise about God’s behavior is made – ie “He will always provide for your needs” – the goalposts for that promise seem forever moving to accommodate any possible outcome such that the promise can never be broken. In my opinion, it can also never be fulfilled.
On a similar note, I wonder about the wisdom of thanking God for my current spiritual season – indeed, thanking God for every spiritual season. The underlying hope seems to be that this is part of the plan. It is all working towards some greater end – a fuller revelation of God, or more intimate experience of God, a greater appreciation of his love, or something like that. As in the thought experiment above, I wonder if people every in their lives resentful of God, estranged from God, indifferent towards God, misguided about God? If so, could it be that those people had spiritual seasons that propelled them further and further away from God, rather than towards him? If the answer is “yes,” and I think it is, I hesitate to thank God for this season, or any season, because I don’t know if it’s actually working towards something beautiful or something tragic.
That being said, in my ambivalence, it is generally more encouraging and more motivating, to take the optimistic perspective, so I’ll probably end up adding this to the gratitude list anyways.
Our Western culture not only has dirty windows, but they're boarded up with the drapes drawn. Our modern version of fairy stories is the video game (or graphic novel) based on, what else, power and domination. Mordor 2.0.