Awe & Wonder with Christine Aroney-Sine

Dr Christine Sine is the author of three inspirational books. Her most recent one, entitled” The Gift of Wonder", is the topic of today's conversation. In this awe and wonder episode, she and her husband Tom, are both authors and also co-founders of the mustard seed associates. Christine, trained as a physician in Australia, practiced in New Zealand and founded and directed the healthcare ministry for Mercy Ships. Perhaps you've heard of them. They're famous throughout the world. She has founded God space, an online community, and is in her second season of podcasting the “Liturgical Rebels”, which is how we met. Her stories are captivating, and she leads us through some creative practices for establishing awe and wonder in our lives. I can't wait for you to hear her. In this episode of “Call IT in With Dar”! 

Transcript

Speaker Dar 

I am so blessed to have you with us today, but before we get into this deep conversation about awe and wonder, please tell our audience a little bit about yourself and how you got to this point in your life.  

Speaker Christine 

Well, thank you, Darla, it's a delight to have met you and to have this chance to be a part of your podcast. I grew up in Australia, trained there as a medical doctor, and then moved to New Zealand and practiced in New Zealand for a few years before I heard of an organization called “Youth With A Mission” which at that point, this was in the early 80s, had just purchased a ship that they were in the process of renovating to build a hospital on board. And there was something about this that really caught my imagination, in spite of the fact that I knew, even then, that I could get sea sick standing on the wharf, looking at the sea. So I actually kind of let go of my practice. I went to where the ship was, which was at that point in Greece, being renovated. And I ended up spending 12 years helping to establish a medical ministry to do cleft lip and palate eye surgery and medical and dental work, mainly in underprivileged countries. And the delight of one of the delights of my life is that that organization has grown and grown and “Mercy Ships” now is very well known around the world, and so it is wonderful to have had that opportunity. And then… Well, during those years, I met my husband, who was an author, and sometimes came to the ship to speak. And we, over a period of eight years, got interested in each other and ended up getting married, and so now I live in the United States, and have done so for 30 years. I no longer practice medicine, but medicine, at least my medical knowledge, really influences a lot of what I do. I am an author. I've written a number of books, and I do retreats for people and just generally, oh, and I nearly forgot, because it's fairly new, I also run a podcast called “The Liturgical Rebels”. 

Speaker  Dar 

Yes, and that is basically how we met, that's right, yes, yes, it was because of our shared interest in podcasts, really, that we met.  Yes. So let's get down to the nitty gritty and define what it's like to live in awe and wonder. 

 Speaker  Christine 

Well, when you asked me about a definition for awe & wonder,  

I thought, you know, awe and wonder is very difficult to define, but I picked up a book by one of my favorite authors called walking in wonder, by John O'Donoghue, and he says "The lovely thing….” ” The lovely thing about the concept of wonder is that it completely escapes the grid of control and predictability. It seems to witness another sense of sourcing which cannot be programmed.” 

If you look at the concept of wonder, you have presences like surprise, expectation, celebration, inspiration, unpredictability, participation and mystery. And one of the lovely things about wonder is that it's also the sister of novelty and newness and freshness. And I know that's not really a definition, but for me, it sums up what wonder is all about. It's about not trying to program things, about not trying to kind of get things into rigid patterns, or anything about that, but really allowing a certain expectation and unpredictability to come into the way that we look at the world. 

 Speaker Dar   

Yes, I love that. It's a great definition. And what really comes to my mind is the stark contrast between  being a medical doctor and being in that state of wonder, surprise, celebration, mystery, newness, freshness.   Bringing those two sides of your life together. 

 Speaker Christine 

 It's true to a certain extent. I mean, the practice of medicine, yes, you know, there's gotta be predictability and things like that. But actually, the underlying things in medicine, you know, the, I think, the exploration of the body and the processes that happen in our body. To me there is an absolute sense of awe and wonder. I think we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are made. You know, sometimes I will look at my hand and think how amazing it is that a hand functions the way it does, or at other parts of the body. And when people have something wrong with them, even I look at it and I think, you know, we shouldn't kind of look at people and think, oh, or look at ourselves. They think, oh, I'm sick. This is terrible. But we should think, wow. The amazing thing is that we function as well as we do for as long as we do. You know the fact that the heart keeps beating over and over and over again, 6070 times a minute for all of our lives. I mean, it's awe inspiring to me, you know. So there is that kind of knowledge at the back of medicine that is quite awe inspiring as far as I'm concerned, Speaker  Dar yes, and I know I read in your book, one of the most exciting things is to see the birth of a baby.  

Speaker Christine 

Oh yes, that is full of all this wonder. 

Speaker Dar  

It certainly is. Yeah, 

Speaker Christine  

Watching a baby be born, watching the parents respond to this new life is, I think, one of the most incredible things in the world.  There is just such joy obviously associated with it. There is Wonder looking at this little child that's been born. There is such wonder in what a child is like, in how it's formed and in how it grows after that point too. That is again, it's just awe and wonder all around 

 Speaker  Dar 

Well, I know you have many stories that you've gathered, and I would like it if you could share a few of your favorites with us. Well, I think I have learned, I would say, over the last 10 years, to look at the world through the eyes of awe and wonder. You know, when I started working on my book The gift of wonder, which this is, partly what this is about. Part of what I did was I started looking at what gives me a sense of awe and wonder. 

And it started to change the way I looked at the world and to and part of it was, it was an invitation to slow down and take notice of things. And when I slow down and take notice of things, I am often arrested by the awe and wonder of something I mean just looking at a leaf. I'm a keen gardener, and sometimes, and I have a lot of indoor plants as well as outdoor plants. And sometimes I will just stop and look at one of my plants, and look at the leaves, look at the texture of the leaves, look at the colors in the leaves, look at and it's again, there is that sense of amazing, awe inspiring nature of this, to see how incredible a leaf is, to see how incredible a flower is, to see how incredible the face of another person is, you know, stopping and noticing, I think, is one of the big things that I have learned Over the last 10 years that has totally changed my way of looking at the world and seeing awe and wonder, not just in the occasional thing, but in every part of the day and every part of my life. 

You know when I first started looking at awe and wonder, of course, I think it was around the time that there had been an eclipse, and I here in Seattle, where I live, we had, I think it was 99% coverage of the of the sun, and we went up to the local park. And it just absolutely amazed me, you know, the way that people responded to this awe inspiring event. I mean, you know, people were hugging each other, they were singing, they were laughing, they were crying together. They were just filled with awe and wonder. And I think in the last year or so, you know, there was another Eclipse not that long ago, and then we had over the summer here in Seattle.  Or the Aurora Borealis has been visible on several occasions, and the awe and wonder of these things is phenomenal. But most people, I think, only think of awe and wonder as something that happens occasionally, at least adults do. But children think of awe and wonder that they see awe and wonder half a dozen times or more a day. And I think part of what has changed in me is maybe not the desire to become childlike, but the desire to look at the world in a way like a child that sees awe and wonder in everything that I I see around me. 

You know, I think play is something that is quite awe inspiring. I know when I was working on my book The gift of wonder, I I started giving myself permission to play. And this is, I think in some ways, one of my favorite stories from the book. And we had something that doesn't happen very often in Seattle. We had snow and snow that stuck for several days. And so everybody, of course, was out sledding and now our kind of skiing and doing whatever they could to take advantage of this unexpected bit of snow,  and so I decided to give myself permission to go out and play in the snow. And some friends of ours had a sled, and what we did was we actually attached our dog, who's a golden retriever  up to the sled, and she pulled us up to the local park, and then we went round and round the park. I mean, talk about fun. Talk about awe and wonder…, she absolutely loved it. She was made to be a sled dog, I think. And we absolutely loved it as well. And it was just one of those delightful kinds of things, where, because I was thinking about the importance of play and the importance of awe and wonder, that I actually gave myself permission to do that, whereas normally, I think most of us don't give ourselves permission to do those kinds of things. 

 Speaker  Dar 

That is so true. I'm glad you mentioned giving yourself permission? 

 Speaker  Christine 

Yeah, I think in a way to live in awe and wonder, we have to give ourselves permission,  because it does mean slowing down. It does mean developing that attitude of taking notice. It does mean kind of changing the way that we look at the world. And of course, that doesn't come naturally, so it's something that we've really got to give ourselves permission to do, and then we've got to work on it as well. But boy, I think the benefits are worthwhile, SpeakerDar yes, and that almost living in the “Now” moment is what a lot of that is about. 

 Speaker Christine 

 Definitely, yes, yes. We're kind of so trained in the culture that we grow up in to live in the future. Always be thinking about the next thing that needs to be done. Always kind of 100 things going through our minds, and awe and wonder is something that really does need to happen in the moment, in a way, you know, we need to give ourselves permission to just stop and look, lisr   and just take advantage of what comes to us in that moment,   Speaker Dar   and also that feeling of gratitude. I know when I pause and spend time in the moment, I am just so filled with gratitude.  Speaker Christine 

 Yes, I think that awe and wonder brings gratitude into our lives. Maybe it's a circular thing. Gratitude tends to bring awe and wonder. Awe and wonder tends to bring gratitude as well. And again, you know, living with gratitude as a common practice, I think again, is something that is very powerful, and again, can change the way that we look at the world. 

 Speaker Dar  

Yes, I think it'd be a cycle to me too. I think that's a great way to discuss it,   another word, and that's resilience as an outcome. Will you talk about that for a little bit? 

 Speaker Christine  

Yeah, I do think that living in awe and wonder and living in gratitude helped to make us resilient people. It's interesting to me you know, as a medical doctor,  

I am very interested in what kind of changes these kinds of emotions and practices create in our bodies, and there is a lot of evidence that shows that awe and wonder and gratitude do bring about changes in the chemicals in our bodies in such a way that we become happier kinds of people. And of course, that is part of what creates resilience for us. And so, you know, it's the changes I think, that they create in our bodies that brings about some of the resilience that awe and wonder can bring to our lives. 

 Speaker  Dar 

I'm just going to quickly mention now to our audience that I have your recent book,” the gift of wonder”, and I was telling her earlier that I really love the way it's organized. There's 14 chapters, and each chapter has a suggested practice, and she's incorporated several other practices that a person could do. And I just like how you can read a chapter, ponder on it. She's got multiple stories, and then you can do an activity or a practice, and I'll mention a couple of my favorite practices later. But could you lead our audience through an activity or a practice? 

 Speaker Christine 

 Yeah, well, can I just give a little bit of background to the book in terms of how it came into being, because it actually came out of my posting on Facebook. 

The book is written for a faith based audience, to a large extent, but I posted on Facebook. You know, what do you think are the childlike characteristics that make us most fit for the kingdom of God? And I was amazed at the response. You know, I got, probably got over 100 responses to this, people saying all kinds of things, play, imagination, love of nature, gratitude was one, just all kinds of things. And so what I did was I took the top 12 of those and I made those the chapters for the book. And so with eachr   topic that I took, I decided I did some research, medical research, looking at what kind of an impact do these things make on our bodies and on our minds and on our spirits,looking at  play, imagination, as I said, curiosity, looking at the rhythm of our lives and things like that, and it was fascinating to me that each thing that I looked at had a positive impact on our bodies. It made a positive impact that made us better people. In fact, play, which is one of the things that I start with. 

The author, sorry, the head of the National Institute for Play says that he believes “ play is as important as oxygen for our survival. “ And it's like, wow. You know, that's a pretty, pretty strong statement that he made there. But I know what he means. I think that what he's saying is that because we as adults have lost our ability to play, we have lost a tremendous amount of who we are meant to be and how we are meant to interact with the world, we've become very serious in a way that is not necessarily healthy for us. You know, I think we've become anxious and fearful because we've given up these kinds of things, awe and wonder, gratitude, playfulness, all kind of help us to be more relaxed and less fearful, less anxious, kind of people. And so this was quite an education for me as I worked on the book to see how much these kinds of practices The Speakercan make a difference in our lives in a very positive way. And so that's what brought about the book. But the one that I probably do the most frequently is what I call my awe and wonder walks, and this particularly during COVID. But even since then, I mean, it's been.  Something that is an everyday part of my life. You know, I've always had dogs most of the time that we've been married, but I started, you know, about 10 years ago, being much more intentional in the way I looked at the world as I walked my dog. And what I usually do is I'll focus on one thing. Maybe I'll say, Okay, today I'm going to look at green leaves, or in the fall, you know, maybe I'm going to look at red leaves, and I'm going to kind of notice these in their different shapes and their different sizes and the way they look in the landscape. And that's going to be the focus for my aura wonder. Sometimes I look at the clouds, sometimes I look at the people that I pass, and it's just become a wonderful, inspirational and all filled kind of practice for me. One of the books that I read said that we have, can't remember the exact quote, but basically said we have stunned the world out of wonder. Because we kind of don't have this kind of a wonder type of an approach to the world. It really makes a very negative kind of impression on who we are and how we look at the world around us as well. 

Speaker  Dar 

And I love that you have created a practice, and I'm just going to add that in your book, you mentioned that your husband and you have a couple practices. Do you want to discuss a couple of those?  

Speaker Christine 

Well, this is, you know, one of the things that we do together. The other thing that I talk about is that every, about every six months, we go on a retreat or a mini vacation together. We take, usually, about three days, and we go to a place that is just in about an hour out of Seattle, and we found a B and B up there that is right on the bluff looking out over the water, just a beautiful place, I mean, a place of real awe and wonder, as far as I'm concerned, and we go there not to kind of study or to, you know, kind of read the Bible or to study, yeah, to do anything like that. We go there basically to reorient our lives and to think about, you know, what are we doing that we should be doing? What are we doing that we shouldn't be doing? How can we more intentionally focus our lives on the things that we feel are important? And I think that awe and wonder and the kind of enjoyment of life is one of those things that we definitely talk about. 

Speaker Dar  That is great.  

So I already mentioned that I have the book. I would thoroughly recommend it, and I can see how it would just go so well, and to have women in groups even use the book to reestablish their feeling of awe and wonder and their connections to the divine. It's just a lovely book with great format, and I'm excited. I don't have I don't have any plans for using it right now, but I sure will let you know if it ends up being an integral part of some group learning in my life.  

 Speaker Christine 

Well, thank you, Darla, I know of a number of groups that have used it, and some of them have made it into a year long study because, you know, it gives them time then to go through each chapter, to do the exercises at the end of each chapter, and to take time to then come back, rather than kind of doing one each week, to go through a chapter, take a the exercise, and then go away and then come back a week or so later and talk about the exercise that they've done. And sometimes people send me photos of the things that they've done, and it's such fun to kind of have that opportunity to go through exercises with people. There's one that I know that is fun, where people basically, Well, one of the things that I love to do is to collect rocks. And so I said yes to people that they collect rocks and do some kind of design with them. And it's fascinating to see the different kinds of things that people come up with, and the ways that they use them, and just the delight that comes through as people do these simple kind of exercises that can make a huge difference in their lives, I think,  and it can make a difference in others too, because I know I've gotten together with a group of women, and we've decorated the rocks, and then we've put them throughout a really popular park area, and then people would find them, and yes, they would experience that. I wonder at finding a rock that someone else had left there and reminded them of something like faith or belief. Oh, it's a lovely, you know, simple kind of thing. The other one of the other ones I've done in the fall, is to collect leaves, and then to get people to decorate the leaves, and then to use those as decorations on their table at Thanksgiving. That's another one that I know that people have really delighted in, and it's not only given them delight, but then it's given delight to all of the people that they've had invited to the Thanksgiving meal as well. And it's something special about something handmade like that that you don't quite get when you just buy all the decorations. I think, 

Speaker Dar  

Well, I'm a big proponent of handmade decorations, so I definitely agree with you. 

Speaker  Christine 

Once, yeah, it really is.  

 Speaker Dar 

I was just going to say that a couple of my favorites, just like   out of your book, would be to walk a finger labyrinth, and the other one was 10 miracles before breakfast. That stood out to me. 

Speaker  Christine 

Okay, yeah, well, the finger labyrinth. I mean, I have a number of finger labyrinths. And the interesting thing about the finger Labyrinth is that using a finger Labyrinth is not just something that can be relaxing, but it actually is something that can often help us solve problems that we have, because, basically they say that if you walk a finger labyrinth with your non dominant hand that you know, if you state a problem that you have before you start walking the finger labyrinth, and then you do the finger labyrinth into The Center and restate the problem, and then basically walk the labyrinth out again. By the time you get to the end, you will probably have the solution to your problem. And I've tried it, and it does seem to work. You know, it's great if you're an author and you've got writer's block. That's one way to often clear writer's block is to use a finger labyrinth. But it can also be something that can just help calm people down as well. You know, if you're anxious about something, you're kind of, you know how it is when we're anxious, things go round and round in our minds. And if we take whatever it is that's going round and round in our minds, state it before we do the finger labyrinth, walk in and then come out again.  

Speaker  Christine 

Sometimes, you know, it really helps us to find peace in the midst of that anxiety as well. I, I'm I'm one for doing finger labyrinths, and they're easy to find. If you don't have a finger labyrinth. They're easy to find templates online that you can just print out and use. And unlike a maze, you know, a finger labyrinth has a set path to it, and so you're not going to get lost on the walk. You can just walk it round and then get to the center and then come back Gallagher gated. It's just a very simple, again, a simple practice, but one that can be very, very useful for us. I think  

Speaker  Dar 

I love that, yes, and I'm sure I was attached to that because I actually have a labyrinth on my property here. Oh, how lovely. Yes. And I walk it quite often, and I agree that you can walk in state your problem, get to the center, express it again, and walk out. And just magically, I'm using that word magic, magically, the answers just start to flow into my brain when I get to the outside of that labyrinth. 

Oh, it is. It's amazing. And there is research that suggests that it does actually work in this way. You know, it's not that we just imagine, that it kind of. 

Speaker  Christine 

It creates an environment for us to find a solution. But you know, I mean, for those that feel they need the research to know what's happening, there is research that shows that these things do help us. Yes, I've read a few books on it, and then once, the first year I had the labyrinth in my backyard,  a mother came and had her two does. How lovely they laid in the labyrinth.  I couldn't believe it that they just came there every day for a couple weeks, and just seemed to soak up the energy of the labyrinth. And I was in awe and wonder. 

 Christine Speaker   

That's beautiful. I know we've made labyrinths for various retreats I've done where the retreats are outside, and I remember one where it was a family retreat, and the kids absolutely loved walking this labyrinth. And one little girl went and sat in the center of the labyrinth, and I think she spent the whole afternoon in that labyrinth. It was obviously a place of comfort for her. There was something about that. And every now and then she'd get up and she'd walk the labyrinth and then go straight back to the center again. And, you know, I don't know what was going through her mind, but it was obviously something that was very comforting. And just, yeah, comfort, I suppose, is the best word to use for it, 

Speaker  Dar 

yes, and then the other one that I liked was 10 miracles before breakfast. And of course, that comes from 

Speaker Christine 

Lewis's book. Alice Through the Looking Glass, Alice of wonder, sorry, Alice in Wonderland. And yes, it's Yeah, as he talks about, you know, 10 miracles before breakfast. So yes, I tried doing this at one point in time where I before I had breakfast in the morning, I sat down with my journal and I wrote, wrote down each morning 10 things that I thought were quite miraculous. And when we sit and think about the world around us, you know, the number of things that are miraculous are just  incredible. You know, there's so much of the world around us that is incredible, the way things grow, the way the wind rustles through the leaves, the way water flows, you know, the way ice melts. I mean, whatever you look at can be a sense of awe and wonder and a sense of a miracle. And so, yeah, try it. Sit down and think about 10 miracles before breakfast. I kind of got addicted to it for a while, and would do it every day, and it was quite not both fun, but also it was something that just lifted my spirits to write it down and say, Wow, we live in an awe inspiring world. You know, it's very easy for us, I think, to often look at the things that are going wrong in the world around us, but if we sit and look at the things that truly are quite awe inspiring and miraculous, it it. It really does lift our spirits.  

 Speaker  Dar 

I agree. I so agree. As we start to wrap up, is there any final thought that you'd like to leave our audience with today?  

 Speaker Christine 

Well, I think maybe what I just said then is that, you know, we have a tendency to look at the negative things in the world around us. And I think part of what awe and wonder can do for us and a deliberate, intentional focusing on the awe and wonder in the world around us is that it can change us from people that are pulled down by the negative things to people who are lifted up by the positive things that are happening in the world around us. But it's it's something we've got to do intentionally, but it can make a huge difference in our lives, right? That's beautiful and it reminds me that joy is a choice. Yes, definitely it is. It is and it can transform us. 

Speaker  Dar 

Thank you so much. I'm reaching out with big Virtual hugs for your time together. I'm just so appreciative and.  

And I'll be thinking of you as I dive even deeper into this book. Thank you.  

 Speaker Christine 

Thank you. I'm glad that you're enjoying the gift of wonder. I've been thinking about writing a sequel, so who knows. Okay, 

Speaker Dar  

we'll keep an eye on that.  All of Christine's information will be in the show notes. So as far as all all of her books, we've been talking about the one book, but you'll be able to take a look at all of her books and her online community, and we'll just have that all available for you in the show notes. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai