Value Five: Wonder
On finding our way back to wonder.
When I was a child, I was filled with wonder.
On long car journeys at night, I’d lean my head against the window and watch the stars stretch across the dark. The movement of the car made it feel as though the stars were moving with us – like they were alive, keeping time with our journey. The hum of the engine became a kind of background lull, and I’d stare at the night sky until my eyelids grew heavy.
I didn’t know their names, or what made them burn, or how far away they were. But I knew enough to be amazed.
Mystery Upon Mystery
Then, at school, I learned that each one of those stars might have a whole solar system like ours spinning around it – worlds we’d never seen, light-years away. I remember feeling my chest tighten with awe. The mystery hadn’t disappeared. It had multiplied.
That’s the strange thing about wonder: the more you learn, the deeper it goes.
As mystery is replaced by even more mystery, the sense of awe doesn’t diminish – it deepens. Each new layer of understanding only seems to reveal another layer of beauty yes, but questions too.
The Awe of New Life
I’ve been told that a similar, if not greater, sense of awe dawns when a baby is born. When the first cry fills the room, and the tiny hands that didn’t exist a moment ago curl around your finger. Life itself, breathing before you.
In that moment, knowledge gives way to wonder. Time seems to pause, and you realise that what you’re witnessing isn’t just ordinary – it’s extraordinary.
Awe in the Ordinary
But wonder isn’t reserved for the vast or the miraculous.
There is wonder in the everyday too – in the scent of coffee, the rhythm of rain, the warmth of another person’s presence. There is awe waiting in the ordinary, if only we stop long enough to see it.
The whisper of the kettle before it boils. The late-afternoon light spilling across the table. The way a friend remembers to ask how you really are.
All of it – a quiet reminder that life itself is a kind of gift.
Growing Up
Somewhere along the road from childhood to adulthood, we learn to protect ourselves from looking foolish. We learn to lower our voices, to walk a little straighter, to guard our hearts against being caught off guard.
We trade wonder for knowing. Curiosity for certainty. Childlikeness for being grown up.
We learn that confidence means being sure – that to lead, we mustn’t be seen to doubt. But what if that’s never what true confidence was meant to be?
Because curiosity and confidence aren’t opposites. They belong together.
Curiosity says, I don’t know, but I’m willing to learn.
Confidence says, I don’t know, and that’s okay.
Both are forms of courage. Both require humility. Both move us forward – not through control, but through openness.
The most confident people I know are not the ones who have all the answers, but the ones who are unafraid to keep asking the questions.
Maybe that’s the kind of confidence wonder invites – a quiet steadiness rooted not in certainty, but in trust that discovery itself is good. That we can explore without fear. That the unknown isn’t our enemy, but our teacher.
We learn that answers earn respect, that questions expose weakness, that awe is something to outgrow. But the truth is, childishness and childlikeness are not the same thing.
Childish or Childlike
Childishness demands to be the centre. It clings to control, refuses to share, shouts to be heard. It wants to be seen, but not changed.
Childlikeness, though – childlikeness trusts. It notices. It receives. It looks out of the car window and whispers, wow.
To be childlike is not to go backwards. It’s to return – to remember how to see. To live with open hands instead of clenched fists. To rediscover that joy was never something we had to earn – it was something we were born knowing how to feel.
Still Stopped by the Stars
Every year I grow older. Hopefully a little wiser. Definitely more aware of the complexity of existence – the ache, the uncertainty, the fragile brilliance of being alive.
Yet when I look up at the stars now, they still stop me. They still speak to me.
They remind me that I will never outgrow awe. That no matter how much I learn or understand, there will always be more beyond my reach. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s what wonder really is – the steady widening of the heart, even as the mind begins to understand more.
The closer we get, the more vast it becomes. The more we know, the more we realise how extraordinary it is that we’re here at all.
Standing in Wonder
When I think back through these values:
Curiosity asks, what’s really going on here?
Attentiveness notices, I can see it.
Invitation says, can I share it with you?
Vulnerability asks, will I still be accepted if I’m really seen?
And now – Wonder stands still and says, wow – this moment is sacred.
Because that’s what this is all about.
A Curious Follower exists to help us remember that. To make space for curiosity and attentiveness and all the quiet practices that lead us back to wonder. To recall us to the kind of life we were made for – slower, deeper, more alive.
The Radical Recall
That phrase – to recall us – sits at the heart of my upcoming book, The Radical Recall to Rest. It’s a deeper invitation into the same posture this series has been exploring: slowing down, paying attention, and rediscovering meaning in the simple.
Because when we are recalled to rest, we are also recalled to wonder.
Perhaps wonder is not something to chase, but something to welcome. Not a fleeting feeling, but a faithful posture. A quiet readiness to be amazed again.
Look Up
So maybe today, just look up.
Not to escape, but to remember. Not to find answers, but to rediscover awe.
Let curiosity have room again – the kind that leads to noticing, not knowing. Let confidence return – not the brittle kind that needs to be right, but the quiet kind that trusts it’s okay not to be.
Let wonder do its work.
Because when we pause long enough to see – really see – the world as it is, something inside us shifts. We remember that we belong here. That life, in all its mystery and mess, is still a gift.
And maybe that’s what this whole journey has been about – not arriving, but awakening. Not growing up, but growing open. Because wonder isn’t something we lose and find again. It’s something that’s been waiting all along, whispering:
I’m still here. Welcome Home.
Josh | A Curious Follower
If this reflection stirred something in you, my first book – The Radical Recall to Rest – goes even deeper into these same rhythms of slowing down, paying attention, and rediscovering the sacred in the simple.
Pre-orders are open now until Monday 3rd November only. Each signed copy helps support the work of A Curious Follower and makes future projects possible.
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Thank you, as always, for walking this road with me.