Trinity Ruiz (Editor-in-chief) and Matthew Engelhaupt (Associate Editor) articulated wonder as the great combatant of apathy. Earlier in the week, in a conversation with a philosopher, I was convinced that the task of the writer was to preserve— to preserve love, memory, and the things that die. While I still think that the writer is fundamentally one, who in his cradle of the pen and pad, preserves even if briefly, I have come to understand my profound error in holding true that writers always write in grief that a phenomenon has become lost, or to discover some hidden truth to save it from its inevitable forgetting. Living through a spring of coffee sipping, flower observing, and silly friends has led me once more into a moment of wonder, whereby I am thrust into a radically open state of rosy lucidity. The anecdote to an apathetic world is not grief at what leaves without our notice but to take moments standing in the greatest posture of love and quietude in front of evidence of what once was or is.

The young writers at Inventio and young writers in general who live through spring– are writers who experience wonder. They look at the world and in a moment full of fascination and gratitude they jot things down. They find passed-over correlations, influences, and patterns. Through loving work and research, the student brings about a secret world to share with others. Good research begins with a love of the world. This is what wonder has taught me. This is what Issue 9 has taught me. Fascination is what will pull us out of winter, not sadness at what evades us and what passes. Maybe this is spring optimism, but it is undoubtedly the spirit of Inventio. 

The editors also described wonder as the doorstep to a change in man. They wrote, "Wonder marks the beginning of what can be described by the Greek term: metanoia. The term is associated with a transformation of mind or conversion." 1 Metanoia is issued many times in the Greek New Testament. Wonder is an emotion so closely connected to God because, in everything true, good, and beautiful, we are surprised and struck by the eternal entering time and by the almighty God humbling himself into a stable born child to love us. Something I read that changed how I viewed the life of the writer was 2 Peter Chapter 3

My dear friends, this is the second letter I have written to you, trying to awaken in you by my reminders an unclouded understanding.(2)Remember what was said in the past by the holy prophets and the command of the Lord and Saviour given by your apostles. (3) First of all, do not forget that in the final days there will come sarcastic scoffers whose life is ruled by their passions.(4) 'What has happened to the promise of his coming?' they will say, 'Since our Fathers died everything has gone on just as it has since the beginning of creation!'(5) They deliberately ignore the fact that long ago there were the heavens and the earth, formed out of water and through water by the Word of God,(6) and that it was through these same factors that the world of those days was destroyed by the floodwaters. (7) It is the same Word which is reserving the present heavens and earth for fire, keeping them till the Day of Judgement and of the destruction of sinners.(8) But there is one thing, my dear friends, that you must never forget: that with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.(9) The Lord is not being slow in carrying out his promises, as some people think he is; rather is he being patient with you, wanting nobody to be lost and everybody to be brought to repentance. 2

The last word of this bit comes out of the Greek metanoia; it is translated as repentance. Peter writes, trying to "awaken" an "unclouded understanding." He urges that as more and more people come to doubt God's promise, we must cling to the wonder of "the fact that long ago there were the heavens and the earth, formed out of the water and through water by the Word of God," The men that forget this are "sarcastic scoffers." We must not ask the question "What has happened to the promise of his coming?'" because "with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." He wants "nobody to be lost and everybody to be brought to repentance." If metanoia is the first step to an understanding or mental conversion, it is wonder and awe in the face of the Mystery that will lead us to satiation. We cannot have Faith without love, and Faith is allergic to apathy. 3

The same philosopher with whom I discussed what I perceived as the sadness and nostalgia of the writer discussed with me a simple image from Rilke's First Duino Elegy:" some tree on a slope, to which our eyes returned/ day after day; leaves us yesterday's street/ and the coddled loyalty of an old habit/ that liked it here, lingered, and never left."4 This tree is the same tree that you pass every day on your way to work and passively see but never look at. One day, you are changed, and it grabs you by the eyes. It calls out to you, "Look at me" and "cherish me," a hidden world of complexities if revealed to its looker who possessed a moment, attention, and a sense of wonder. Wonder is the antithesis of apathy. Inventio authors have taught me that writers are profoundly people who allow their wonder to lead them to "some tree on a slope" and bring them into “repentance” where they can be found– this is the essential act of writing. 

ENDNOTES 

1. Inventio Volume 9: a Letter From the Editors, Ruiz, Trinity and Matthew Engelhaupt (Washington, D.C: Inventio, 2024), 5. 

2. PET. 2: 1-9 NAB. 

3. Ibid. 

4. Duino Elegies: a Bilingual Edition, trans. Stephen Cohn (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1989), 20.