The discipline of exclaiming “Wow” comes to us through the ages. This photo of “The Embrace” is from Burning Man 2014. I say “Wow” every time I come across it. When I stood, feeling so small, next to it the “Wow” was overwhelming. Whether it is art or the great Booker T. Washington or the stream of conscious writer Anne Lamott – the message is the same. “Wow” says it all.
“My whole life has largely been one of surprises. I believe that any man’s life will be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements of this kind if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of his life-that is, tries to make each day reach as nearly as possible the hight-water mark of pure, unselfish, useful living.” –
Washington, Booker T. (2012-04-26). Up from Slavery (Dover Thrift Editions) (p. 112). Dover Publications. Kindle Edition.
“The third great prayer, Wow, is often offered with a gasp, a sharp intake of breath, when we can’t think of another way to capture the sight of shocking beauty or destruction, of a sudden unbidden insight or an unexpected flash of grace. “Wow” means we are not ruled to wonder. We click into being fully present when we’re stunned into that gasp, by the sight of a birth, or images of the World Trade Center towers falling, or the experience of being in a fjord, at dawn, for the first time. ‘Wow’ is about having one’s mind blown by the mesmerizing or the miraculous: the veins in a leaf, birdsong, volcanoes.”
Lamott, Anne. Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. New York: Riverhead, 2012. p71.
Notice the “Wow” today.