B.R.A.W.G.

For about 10 years I have used the moniker BRAWG in my posts and articles. For me it stands for 5 very powerful words that I have been wrestling with since I uncovered them in 1979 and ’80 in the words of a highly esteemed teacher and holy man – ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL. There is hardly any writing by Rebbe Heschel that did not lean into these words. These words are:

Beauty

Radical Amazement

Awe

Wonder

Grandeur

Words that speak to a certain quality of encounter. An encounter that opens us up – often cracking us open like coconut or shelled nut of any kind – exposing the meat of our lives to the “biggness of the universe of things”.

An encounter that opens us up because we are stymied and somewhat at a disadvantage to describe or explain in detail something that has overwhelmed us with its sense of “gloriousness” – if you will.

Something larger than us (or something smaller that makes us feel dwarfed in our amazement), that makes us stop and stare in marvel at some other thing that shares space with us in this grand and fabulous world.

I find a lot of these encounters in nature and the wild. But, I also find them in words and ideas that people are able to grasp and organize to help us realize how incredibly complex and holographic every little thing around us really is. Nothing is simply what it appears to be on the surface, but it is comprised of an endless number of intricate parts and pieces.

I also find these encounters in art that people create. These encounters are leaning into the powerful energy of art that allows us to have one thing mean another, or one thing point us to another.

I have found them in human encounters where kindness, compassion, and mercy are revealed – particularly when they seem to be in danger of not being received; or when they seem to be the result of a massive compromise and or the complete and utter reliance on an impressive trust that their vulnerability – in acting with kindness, compassion, and mercy – will make a difference. A powerful difference.

I started listening to a book today on awe. I heard the author on an NPR interview. The book is entitled Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. It is by author Dacher Keltner and can be found at: https://www.amazon.com/Awe-Science-Everyday-Wonder-Transform/dp/1984879685

So, where have you wrestled with these things in your life; where have you had encounters with BEAUTY, RADICAL AMAZEMENT, AWE, WONDER, and GRANDEUR? How have they left you – after the encounter? How have they ravished you?

A few years after I organized these words into a acronymn, I found an urban dictionary online that actually defined BRAWG as – “a way of describing something as cool, awesome, or chill. A very laid back term, and commonly used now. Often used to say how great something is.” I knew I had listened closely to the inner voice once I saw that.

One of the many quotes of Rebbe Heschel on awe:

“The meaning of awe is to realize that life takes place under wide horizons, horizons that range beyond the span of an individual life or even the life of a nation, a generation, or an era. Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism

“Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel