The Gift of Goose Bumps

Many people today do not seek the mysterious and those things that inspire awe. We seem to be happy with the humdrum and the mundane. This is not good.

The Grand Canyon.

A hurricane.

The "Hallelujah Chorus."

A starry night in the desert.

The birth of a child.

Abraham Lincoln, Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela.

Connect the dots and what do you get? A sense of awe. Each of these persons or events has the power to give us goose bumps.

Awe comes from being overwhelmed by greatness. We feel it when we stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon. When we cower in the basement during a roaring hurricane. When we rise to our feet during the "Hallelujah Chorus," look up at the Milky Way on a clear night or witness the birth of a baby. We even feel it when we encounter the steadfastness of an Abraham Lincoln, the love of a Mother Teresa or the charisma of a Nelson Mandela.

When we feel awe, we may get goose bumps. Our body is telling us that we are standing in the presence of greatness and seeing something we've never seen before.

Unfortunately, we're not experiencing a lot of awe these days. Many of us find our current political leaders to be awful —...