Finding The Spectacular in Everything

At this time of year I normally check the weather forecast every hour or so, worrying about whether we will be able to have our annual community picnic or not. It is perhaps a blessing in disguise that this year it will have to be online, and so soggy grass and grey clouds are not an issue. 

And yet the community’s annual picnic in Highgate Woods will be sorely missed. The picnic combines what we love; company, eating, playing, being outside, a moment for appreciating our blessings, and enjoying ourselves until the sun sets and the last stragglers walk through the darkening woods to the exit. The picnic is normally the point where we all gather and take a deep breath before the last mad sprint before the summer holidays. The topic of conversation usually centres on ‘just hanging in there’ for a few more weeks. The picnic is a pressure valve, and a measure of where we are at.

But this summer is different as we all know. We have lived with heightened anxiety, fear and worries for so long now without a break, the pressure on people is taking its toll. Though we are gaining more freedoms the worries and fear are not dispelled. In between giddy first visits to hairdressers or that first cup of coffee in a cafe the worries and fear about what September will bring is a constant topic of conversation. 

Though the picnic cannot act in quite the same way, especially as it will be online (though we might after all be able to sit outside), the focus on the outdoors, on the feeling that we get when in nature is important. Going for walks in local woodland, planting and tending vegetables, camping in the garden, binge watching travel programs to exotic places or awe inspiring nature shows, or reminiscing about places we have been are topics of conversation that keep coming up.

I’ve been thinking about our trip to Wales last year; about early morning cups of tea as the sun rose and the dew dried, watching the trees emerge from misty darkness, about the quiet and stillness before the day began. At night the number of stars could be overwhelming, their glow and intensity unreal. We long to be able to feel that again. It’s what the rabbis of old termed ‘yirah’ a sense of awe, fear and reverence. It’s the sort of experience that can’t be explained or really described, but that most of us experience in nature. Yirah is also the incredible feeling when hearing a baby’s first cry, or the fear when stuck in a raging  thunder and lightning storm. 

But all these moments are ‘freebies’ because they rarely take any effort. 

One of the things lockdown has taught me is that the question is not where can we go to be in awe, but rather how can we cultivate a sense of awe in the everyday. The challenge is to look for awe where we are, in the small things. 

It’s a practice that is good for our souls in general, but especially in the circumstances we find ourselves in at the moment. For yirah can work as an antidote to fear, worry and tunnel vision. Cultivating a sense of awe, of the spectacular, whether it’s contemplating the baby birds in the garden, the body’s ability to heal, the wonder of yeast, or the cloudless sky, takes us out of ourselves, and reminds us of that there is something much bigger than us and that this is one moment in time. It is not about us being insignificant but rather that we are part of something much larger. And with yirah comes a sense of hope.

This shabbat, whether we are outside or inside, reminds us to look up, to look out, and to find yirah in the small things.