A Call to Radical Amazement

Have you been gobsmacked today?

“Gobsmacked” is a British word that means to clap a hand to one’s mouth in astonishment. We should seek to be gobsmacked at least once a day, for as Abraham Joshua Heschel says, “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

Living in wonder is an important spiritual tool because astonishment leads us to God. When we marvel that God filled the earth with such beauty and ingenuity—what John O’Donohue referred to “life’s passionate sacramentality”—our wonder leads us to praise, thanksgiving, and the desire to know God more intimately.

Seeking to be gobsmacked at least once a day isn’t at all difficult. The key is to look at and listen to things closely—the kaleidoscopic symmetry at the center of flowers, the radiant depth of an infant’s eye, the exuberant brushstrokes of Van Gogh’s paintings, the symphony of bird song.

Being in a hurry is the enemy of wonder, because then we don’t have time to observe the beautiful world in which we are immersed. As W.H. Davies said, “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.” What a waste of our life if we brush past life’s passionate sacramentality in our efforts to be productive, efficient, or accomplished.

We aren’t called to be successful, we are called to be faithful…and to be gobsmacked.