Let our minds wander in a sense of wonder...

When is the point in life when people seem to give up their innocent curiosity? Allow me to explain...

There are so many reasons to stand in awesome wonder...

Just the other morning, Ben was explaining to Rose (4) what the entire process will be like when we fly for our upcoming vacation. He started with the check-in and security, added details like which luggage we'll keep with us and what we'll do with the rest of it, and described how we might fly through and above the clouds.

Rose listened, learned and asked questions. This is a pretty common type of discussion in our house. Obviously she's still exploring life, so it's natural for her to be curious about such things. However, she also asks questions that I never really think twice about. On different occasions, we have watched YouTube videos about how they make crayons and had discussions about how exactly the music gets to our radio.

That same day of the flying explanation, I was updating my Amazon Subscribe and Save diaper size (full disclosure here!) and started wondering how Amazon works. Maybe you already know (surely there's been some sort of documentary-type show on it), but that was the first time I really thought about it. Do they have enormous warehouses somewhere? How many people do they employ solely dedicated to website design and functionality? Do they have some kind of special relationship with the major shipping companies to make sure they can fulfill all their orders? How did it all get started? And the most important question of all, does anyone remember what life was like without Amazon?

Let's be honest, adults have mostly lost this sense of wonder - probably in the clutter of junkmail and other useless stuff we accumulate. Instead, we are information interceptors. If there's a show on about how things are done, we'll watch and absorb. Or how many blog posts or articles do we read each day because they're trending on Facebook or have a catchy title. We find it truly interesting, but would we have sought the knowledge if it hadn't shown up on our tv or computer screens? And a lot of the information we seek isn't exactly out of "innocent curiosity." It's oftentimes driven by fear or desire to back up our existing opinions.

I recently observed the flip side - cynicism. A barn burnt down at a nearby poultry farm recently. When I saw nearby, I mean we could see the fire from our house, and we used to do some farm business with them - we sold them corn and they applied their chicken manure on our fields. Anyway, the Milwaukee news posted the breaking news to Facebook a couple times that night, and I was appalled by the mean comments some people had posted. Comments assuming that it was arson, comments that the farm must be horrible based on the number of animals, etc. One commenter defended them, saying that her dad was an employee. Just think of that daughter, and any other owners and employees who might have read those insults. Those words were stinging salt in the already deep wounds.

Why do we do that? Why have we become so judgmental, particularly of agriculture? Stereotypes are generally frowned upon in most of our society. But when it comes to agriculture, we take direct aim at our targets: big corporate farmers, red-neck farmers, hippy organic farmers, subsidy-taking farmers, evil Monsanto, Franken-food. Why can't we stop to realize that there are real people on the other side. Real people who are flawed like everyone else, but they try their hardest and they believe in what they're doing. Why can't we come to the table (how's that for a perfect pun?) with a truly innocent curiosity? 

Let's try to reconnect with our sense of wonder - our innocent curiosity. When we find it, we'll probably also stumble upon greater peace, love and gratitude...