Wonder Year
In a world that spoon-feeds us so much paltry "inspiration," we need to notice the real thing in our everyday lives.
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series.
To see what is in front of your nose is a constant struggle.
—Andrew Sullivan
NEARLY A DECADE AGO—Dec. 12, 2015, to be exact—I was driving home from Halsey on a country road when I decided to write a book that never got written.
In the darkness, the windshield wipers on my ’95 Nissan pickup were fighting the Oregon rain like two fencers on sugar highs. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the letter. It had been read aloud before a talk I gave to the Central Linn Lions Club, a chapter of the national social service organization that, among other pursuits, gathers used eyeglasses and gives them to people who can’t afford new ones.
On this rainy night, only a dozen of us had gathered in a century-old Methodist church in Halsey, on Highway 99E between Eugene and Albany. The business portion of the meeting involved two things: First, whose truck was going to pull the club’s “float”—a trailer with people holding a Lions sign—in the 5 p.m. Christmas parade Sunday. And second, when the spaghetti dinner after the parade was going to start. At approximately 5:10 p.m., I learned, after realizing that small towns have really short parades.
“Aren’t you going to read the letter?” someone asked the vice president near the meeting’s end.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “The letter.”
She cleared her throat and began reading the words of an elderly local man: “I wish to thank you for the gift of glasses” he wrote, “and the blessing of improved sight.”
A few heads bobbed in appreciation. “For the first time I was able to actually see my granddaughter make a winning goal in the soccer playoffs!”
Smiles broke out. Eyes misted, mine included. And why not? If not a flat-out miracle, it was a reasonable facsimile, a modern-day version of Jesus helping the blind man see.
As I drove home, however, I thought of how on our giant planet, so few people would ever hear of this wisp of wonder. And, conversely, how readily we mire ourselves in counterfeit versions of “wonder” spawned by the new media, by social media, by people who would have us believe in greatness that isn’t greatness at all.
We heap praise, money and attention on the rich, famous and powerful. People who thrill the judges on “Dancing with the Stars.” Shoot a sweet three-pointer on the basketball floor. Or, at a political rally, whip everyone into a fervor with hollow promises and haughty chest beating.
My point isn’t that unsung heroes deserve more attention from the media to somehow even the score. My point is that there’s wonder in our midst that we’re missing because, at times, we can’t see the forest for the trees. If we’re so busy depending on athletes, entertainers, politicians and business tycoons to inspire us—the “spotlight” people—we might be missing the inspiration across the kitchen table from us or in the coffee shop or even in the mirror.
Americans suffer from what I call “inspirational farsightedness”—the inability to see the wonder right in front of us. Not just beauty and aesthetics—see photo above taken this morning of my friend Wally Anderson towing my sailboat to the ramp because my motor died and today is take-out-the-boat day—but people acting in ways that create quiet awe.