There was a time when almost everything was strange. The moon followed us home. Thunder shook the world. A caterpillar disappeared and somehow returned with wings.

As children, we didn’t need to be taught to wonder. It was our natural response to being alive.

Then we learned the names of things. The moon became a satellite. Thunder became expanding air. The caterpillar became metamorphosis. And somewhere along the way, explanation began to replace astonishment.

But naming something is not the same as understanding it.

Right now, light is entering your eyes and somehow becoming words, thoughts, and awareness. Tonight you may fall asleep, disappear into dreams, and awaken a few hours later. We have names for these experiences. Their deepest mystery remains.

More than two thousand years ago, Socrates connected philosophy with wonder. The insight still feels true. Wonder interrupts certainty. It allows ordinary things to become extraordinary again.

Gnostic thought begins with a similar intuition. Not that we need more information, but that reality may be deeper than it first appears. Direct knowing begins when we stop assuming we already understand what we see.

Perhaps that is why children often seem closer to mystery than adults. They have not yet learned which things they are supposed to stop being amazed by.

Maybe the world never stopped being strange.

Perhaps we simply became accustomed to it.

And every now and then, if we look closely enough, the mystery returns.