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Sophia
Inquisia
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“Sophia,”

“Yes?”

“I wonder – where does wonder come from?”

“A nature of inquiry?”

“No, no, not like that. The other kind of wonder. The kind that makes things wonderful.”

“Like magic?”

“Yes, but magic isn’t wonder, it’s just magic. It is full of wonder, but where does the wonder come from that fills it?”

“Well, do you think you dragons are wonderful?”

“Of course!”

“What if I didn’t? What if I feared and hated dragons, so that to me they are not wonderful, but terrible? What would you think of wonder then?”

“I . . . I would think it must come from within.”

“Do you think caves are wonderful?”

“Oh no! They’re dark and frightening.”

“But if you were a bat or a bear, a cave would be wonderful because it is home. So you see something as terrible, whereas another would see it as wonderful. It is like beauty.”

“Like how they say ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder?’ So wonder is in the heart of the thinker? Or the feeler?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because it is not true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

“How do you mean?”

“If you were to see a dead puppy, would you think that was beautiful?”

“Oh, no, never!”

“Ah, but what if you were to see someone kill the cat which had first killed the puppy? Would that be beautiful?”

“No, I don’t think so. It would be good, in a way, but the cat still died. And how death be beautiful?”

“It cannot.”

“But why? Why is it some things, no matter how they are or happen, cannot truly be beautiful?”

“When you look at a lumpy log and then the deer standing on the log, which do you think is more beautiful?”

“The deer!”

“But why?”

“Because . . . because it . . . I’m not sure.”

“Would you like me to tell you?”

“Please do.”

“You see the deer as beautiful because it is graceful like water, and strong like trees, and swift like the wind, and very very much alive. Whereas the log is like a toad, or a sore, or an unfinished carving.”

“Yes, water and trees and wind are beautiful.”

“But then which of them is more beautiful?”

“I cannot say. I think . . . no, no it would be loss from one to all the others were it simply to not be.”

“What do you think is the most beautiful thing of all?”

“Light.”

“What kind of light?”

“Sunlight.”

“Because?”

“Because it is warm and makes things come alive and people happy.”

“What is sunlight most like?”

“I think . . . it is like love.”

“And is love more beautiful than sunlight?”

“Yes, it is much more than light. Light is like a picture of it.”

“Ah, but what is love a picture of?”

“I do not know. Will you tell me?”

“If the deer is like water, and water is like light, and light is love, then love is like God.”

“But what is God like?”

“What is more beautiful than God?”

“Flowers?”

“No, child. For flowers end and cease to be beautiful. So does the deer and the water, the light and the love. But God never ends. Because He is infinite, He is the most beautiful. There is no end to His beauty.”

“But what does God’s beauty have to do with what beauty – and wonder – really are?”

“He has put within us the understanding to see that which is like Himself. The light and flowers, magic and love. And whatever is more and more like Him, must it not be more and more beautiful?”

“I am not sure I understand.”

“It is like colors. If you have yellow, it is more like red than blue. But if you have orange, it is even more like red than blue than yellow. If you have a deer, it is like God. If you have light, it is even more like God. If you have God, He is God, and beauty is truest in Him.”

“Does this mean that wonder is also from God?”

“Wonder is a kind of beauty, just like happiness is a kind of joy, or hope a kind of life. And since beauty is from God, yes, wonder is as well. It is a word we use when that little understanding God put in us is trying to whisper what He looks like.”

“God must be very beautiful.”

“He is.”