Recipe for "Sense of Wonder" Pie

One of the reasons I love the movie Waitress is the song Jenna sings to her toddler Lulu with the words "Gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle...gonna make a pie from heaven above, gonna be filled with strawberry love... gonna make a pie, and hold you forever in the middle of my heart".  

Thinking about the end of the movie, I got to thinking about the contrast between the life Jenna had before giving birth to her baby girl, fraught with unhappiness, threats and fear, compared to the new life she created for Lulu and herself filled with love and wonder.  Then I got to thinking about all those pies that Jenna made and the crazy names she gave them, which got me thinking about her recipes, which got me to thinking about what  ingredients would go into a "Sense of Wonder" pie? 

According to Dr. Peter Haiman, a sense of wonder is a key ingredient in the life of every newborn infant, saying that "Wonder is possible when children are free from threats and fears."

If we were to make a "Sense of Wonder" pie, then... imagine Dr. Haiman as a pastry chef and this is his recipe: 

"Here are some ideas of how parents can provide an atmosphere in which wonder can flourish in children. A sense of wonder is created, nourished, and sustained when:

• Sensitive parents react in a prompt, responsible, and satisfying way to the voiced and unvoiced needs of their children.
   
• Children are well-fed, rested, and allowed ample opportunity to run, jump, ride, climb, and play.
   
• Parents have lovingly held and cuddled their child in ways and amounts that addict not only the child but the parent to their mutual comfort and joy.
   
• The child feels secure in the child-satisfying love and attention of her parents.
   
• Parents and other adults who are models for the child regularly show their surprise, interest, and attraction to the natural world and its happenings - from the movements of a worm, the wag of a dog's tail, bubbles popping in a bath, the shadow cast by the sun, and a spider's web, to the mold on an old slice of bread.
   
• Parents and other adults close to the daily life of the child interact with the child and her world from evident interest, spontaneous humor, and joy.
   
• Parents encourage children to freely experiment, taste, feel, hear, see, explore, and get into things that are interesting and safe.
   
• Parents show their pleasure and delight and create novelty in what otherwise would be life's daily mundane chores and routines.
   
• Children see and hear their parents become engaged and responsively enlivened when doing such things as reading a story and playing or listening to music.
   
• Children safely and playfully enact the stories in their imaginations or the imaginations of creative, empathetic parents.
   
• Children notice that their parents let themselves get lost in the fun and creativity of play.
   
• Parents find something good about the mistakes children will make as they grow and learn.
   
• Parents are flexible enough to postpone their planned activities from time to time and let a child's creative idea or direction lead the way.
   
• Children are encouraged to voice their emotions and to talk about their hurts and fears with attentive, responsive parents.
   
• Children can choose play activities based on their own feelings of interest and boredom and not the decisions of another person.
   
• The efforts of young children are regularly encouraged and prized. Children's sense of wonder is damaged and grows weak if their efforts are often met by adult corrections and criticism.

"Wonder becomes possible when children can risk being themselves without there being any risk at all."

Excerpted from Developing a Sense of Wonder in Young Children as posted on The Natural Child Project.

Richard Louv's "Sense of Wonder" pie ingredients are... "The earlier the better. Three and four seems to be a time when that sense of wonder comes alive." Author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder ( a favorite book of mine)

"Reducing that deficit—healing the broken bond between our young and nature—is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demands it, but also because our mental, physical, and spiritual health depends upon it. The health of the earth is at stake as well. How the young respond to nature, and how they raise their own children, will shape the configurations and conditions of our cities, homes—our daily lives."

Excerpted from Last Child in the Woods.

Rachel Carson's "Sense of Wonder" pie ingredients are...

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in."

 "A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy, who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from sources of our strength." Carson, Rachel. The Sense of Wonder. New York: Harper & Row, 1956.

I highly recommend the movie Sense of Wonder about Rachel Carson.

If we want to hold our children forever in the middle of our hearts, then part of loving them  to that depth of heart is to encourage their inborn sense of wonder and love for their creator, so  that we  enjoy a healthy, life-affirming bond with them. Our nurturing puts the joyful responsibility on us to model  a lifelong relationship with God through Jesus Christ and an appreciation and respect for His creation, so that they will mature holding the beauty of God's diverse and magnificent natural world in the middle of their hearts, too... with a growing capacity to lovingly care for all that God has created.
 
A scriptural ingredient...

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. " Proverbs 22:6

It was such a joy to take our 13-month old granddaughter on a walkabout this past weekend with her Mama and Dada, giving her  opportunity to explore Le Roost Lorane, and meet our neighbor's crowing "doo-dle" and fat cackling hens,  their gentle horse and frisky pony, and  a cute"itty" that hopped about like a bunny. Sephira jumped about in the crunchy autumn leaves, her Papa raked up for her to play in,  swishing them about and offering us samples, and swinging beneath the fiery red maple tree as we looked around at everything lively and arrayed in fall colors. Here are some of our precious moments experiencing her sense of wonder... slices of our "Sense of Wonder" pie...

 

Until the next time we go on another Le Roost Lorane walkabout, we hope you enjoy creating your own "Sense of Wonder" pie and will share a slice or two with us.

Check out my "Quiching in the Dark" Pie made with chanterelles gathered from our walk in the woods near our home.