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Any awe, a response to something nonreligious or religious, shares the same quality of fear. Hence, reverent response to something nonreligious echoes the Sacred, wonder witnesses to the Ineffability of Life. The awe a nonreligious person might feel at the birth of a child or a lovely sunset is the same awe a religious person might feel engaging in a religious rite or at a historic holy site. A person tending a garden may feel the same wonder of one who officiates a ritual of faith.
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Awe is related to our predispositions and transcends them. One person may meet the same site as another, and one of the two touched with wonderment and the other left untouched.
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Love allows us to relate familiarly with the Divine Presence, while awe gives our relationship with the Sacred the nature of profound, respectful, and reverent veneration. In silent contemplation, we may find ourselves alternating between tender affection and an awestruck sense of the otherness of Presence. We may find ourselves wanting to pray praise, or we may find we feel muted in the Grandeur of Boundlessness. We may relate with the Sacred sometimes more like a Friend, at other times as the Totally Other.
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The late mythologist Joseph Campbell refers to this Totally Other regarding myth. He writes, in Pathways to Bliss:
Myth is not the same as history; myths are not inspiring stories of people who lived notable lives. No, myth is the transcendent in relationship to the present.
Awe arises from this mythic quality of religiousness. In the awe-full moment, the Grandness confronts our human smallness. This happening, like a magnifying glass, magnifies our humanness: we are humiliated, positively. The Infinite puts us in our rightful place, alongside the birds and rocks, raindrops, cancer cells, mud, lice, worms, and the rest. This quality is why spiritual beings are humble beings. The flicker of arrogance is vanquished in the SunLight of awe and wonder.
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