A Life of Wonder and Imagination...Antigua Style

I’m beginning to believe that some of us have lost our senses of wonder.  As I have reached the one-month point in my journey in Guatemala, I find it fantastic that everyday I am still made to wonder by something or someone.  It isn’t necessarily that my breath is suddenly taken away, I grow teary-eyed, or I have to run and share the moment with another person; these moments just surprise me, and I do believe it is because I have only recently opened my eyes.

For me, any experience with relics, archeology, or any object of antiquity excites a sense of wonder in me like no other, yet it also tends to stimulate my imagination.  I recently traveled to Antigua, where I did not know what to expect, so I was joyously surprised throughout my entire experience...


...It is still early in Antigua as I begin my day of adventure.  I walk down the center of a cobblestone street to get the feel of the uneven stones below my feet, imagining all of the souls who have walked and worn smooth these stones beneath me.  Slowly, I veer to my left toward the crooked stone-slab sidewalk.  The wall beside me seems around 100 feet tall and though I don’t know its purpose, I choose to take a leap of imagination.  I simply close my eyes and block out the noise of the city, then slowly run my fingers over the crumbling brick and mortar wondering who molded this brick, whose hands laid each brick and layered it with mortar, then covered it with plaster and finally, when did this giant piece of architecture begin to crumble, becoming merely an eerie remnant of times past?

I was made to wonder.

Later, a friend and I stepped into what still stands of the original cathedral of Antigua.  The blue sky shines through missing domes hundreds of feet above us and archways sweep across the sky seeming like optical illusions.  I look up, and imagine those who worked to build the massive cathedral that was shattered by earthquakes and abandoned only 100 years after it’s construction.  The grandeur of such artistic talent, strength, detail, sculpture work, script work, tile work, masonry, etc., broken into rubble, left for those of us today to merely piece together in our minds.  We walk through what seems like every inch of the gargantuan property that is overgrown with vines and grass, and I hear the laughter of children on a field trip.  I am curious, on a market day hundreds of years ago, would there have been the same sounds of laughter as a mother and father visited the cathedral market, their children scurrying around their feet?  Would this grass be clipped short, be worn dirt paths, or stone walkways?  Were monks, priests, nuns, and other clergy about the cathedral practicing their duties?  These pieces of stone are not ruins; these are pieces of a story that will never fully be told...

Again, I was made to wonder.

So much wonder is around us.  Yes, I am fortunate enough to travel to such beautiful places while in Guatemala, but the location is not important, for that which we tend to miss is that which is right in front of our eyes; that which we can still run our fingers over and about which we can still pose questions.  Working with children every day, I am relearning to open my eyes to the wonder around me, and see how a spark of imagination creates an entire world of adventure.  However, let me clarify: it is NOT childish or whimsical to let your imagination soar.  Wonder and imagination are gifts that were given to the human mind, you simply must open your eyes.

Original Cathedral, Antigua, Guatemala