I was teaching a class of junior high students in an urban parish, and we had just read a psalm in which the word "awe" was used. One of the students asked me: "What does 'awe' mean?"

After a few moments of discussion trying to explain that word, and seeing a blank look on his face, I began using the example of a sunset. You know how when you see a really beautiful sunset, you are just struck with this "awe," this feeling of beauty beyond words? Still nothing. Continuing, I spoke of the beauty of watching the sky slowly turn colors, the incredible, almost imperceptible change in color as the sun slowly sank, and the colors spread across the sky in constantly changing hues. I spoke of the way the colors splashed on the clouds and were echoed on the mountains on the other side...

I was stopped by a student. "There are no colors on the other side," he chimed in. "It's just black." Not when it is dark, I explained, but as it is still changing colors and turning to dark. "No," he argued. "It's black. There's no color except where the sun is." We continued for some time, discussing whether there was color or just blackness. The other students chimed in, arguing his case. Gradually it began to dawn on me that he had perhaps never seen a sunset. So I asked the students: "How many of you have ever actually seen a sunset? I mean, not just glancing out the window of the car or house, or on TV, but how many have been outside and watched a sunset from beginning to end, from the sun gradually sinking on the horizon, through the color changes, to darkness, and the stars coming out?"

Out of a class of about 25 students, 2 raised their hands, and they were boy scouts. I was stunned. I asked them how much time they spend outside, and what they do. "We don't go outside," they replied. "Hardly ever, just on our way places." I asked, "What do you do when you come home from school?" "Homework or video games, mostly."

"Do you ever go outside to play?" I asked? "We're not allowed to," was the reply. I asked them if they ever thought they were missing out on something by not seeing the world first hand. What ensued was a discussion of how life is better on the TV. No really, you are pulling my leg, I insisted. No, they meant it. With TV, if they got tired of it (life?), they could just turn it off, or change the channel. They didn't have to watch anything or experience anything they didn't want to. But don't you feel like you are missing something by not experiencing life first-hand? They insisted that they were not missing anything. They had control with TV and video games. They had "life" on their terms, though it was really not their life at all.

I soon realized why they had perceived the "darkness" of the sunset, because they had never seen the other side of it. They had only seen sunsets on TV, they told me, and on TV, there were only the colors on the screen. The rest of the room was dark.

For their "assignment" that week, I asked them to go watch a sunset outside [and better yet, take their parents out with them].

How is one to understand the "awe of God" if one has never experienced God in nature, in beauty beyond words? Contemplating the wonder and exquisite beauty of God's universe is one of the primary ways in which we encounter God. If our children do not experience this, how will they know God for themselves?

© Caryn Brady 2009