The Wonder Paradox Study Guide

The Wonder Paradox on Goodreads

The Wonder Paradox was written in order to suggest a template for secular rituals that can substitute for the many holidays, life celebrations, and daily affirmations that religion provides.

It makes an excellent out-of-the-box book club read for secular groups, whose selections usually tend towards the more scientific and cerebral than the poetic.

It offers a lot of fodder for interesting new discussions that will challenge your preconceptions about the purpose and importance of religious rituals and scriptural poetry.

This study guide contains brief summaries of the main topic for each chapter, with several discussion questions for each, links to the text for each poem, and timestamps for each poem in the Audible version of the audiobook. This makes it easy to listen to the poems together during your discussion.

Addressing all of the discussion questions from each chapter will require 4-6 hours. Keep this in mind if you plan to cover the book in a single meeting.

Introduction

This book offers a unique perspective in the atheist literary canon, because it looks at religion from a poetic and functional perspective rather than a literal one. It asks "what psychological functions do rituals and scriptural readings serve?" and acknowledges they can have positive benefits.

This book really helps atheists and others with scientific worldviews to understand scripture as poetry that is not meant to be interpreted literally. Like poetry, it contains wisdom in the way it elicits emotional truths, and allows for interpretation that helps create meaning.

Rather than clinging to tradition as many secular gurus have recently advocated, Hecht constructs a new ritual liturgy and poetic canon using her extensive knowledge and love of poetry to find words that can convey the necessary gravitas when important moments call for it.

Author Interviews

These interviews with the author can help refresh you on the ideas that were presented in the book, or give a good summary for those who failed to finish reading it!

Discussion Questions

• Do you agree that ritual is important to human psychology?
• Can ritual be rational or is it inherently irrational?
• Can poetry reinforce reason?
• Define "cultural liturgy"
• Define "liminal space"
• What do you think of the term "Interfaithless"?

1. On Decisions: What Alice Lost

Many people pray or meditate in order to help make important decisions. These rituals can focus the mind on a problem, help set intentions and goals, and cultivate hope for success. See Stochastic Manifestation.

Discussion Questions

• Can ritualized reflection help with decision making?
• Do any of you have a contemplation or decision making ritual that replaces prayer?
• What is the "sweet spot between gravitas and pleasure" for secular people?

Poems

• Traveler There Is No Road by Antonio Machado (11:25)

2. On Eating: Okakura's Tea, Lee's Peaches, and Emily's Worm

Many religions encourage saying a prayer before meals, especially holiday meals and banquets. These practices can help us appreciate our food and the complex natural and human systems that have produced the abundance we currently enjoy.

Discussion Questions

• Did your family say prayers before meals?
• Do any of you currently practice a gratitude ritual before meals?
• What about Thanksgiving, holidays, or banquets? Do you offer words of gratitude on these occasions?
• Can a moment of reflection before eating help with diet or eating disorders?
• What are the missing words in "Not only the sugar, but the days, to hold"?

Poems

• From Blossoms by Li-Young Lee (14:10)
• The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (17:50)
• A Bird, came down the walk by Emily Dickinson (28:22)
• Wild Geese by Mary Oliver (30:10)

3. On Gratitude: Tasty Lists

Many scientific studies have shown that practices cultivating gratitude have a huge benefit to our happiness. Prayers of gratitude are a part of every religion in some form.

Discussion Questions

• Do you ever feel the need to thank the universe for being awesome and giving you consciousness?
• Do humanists have a responsibility to cultivate generosity?
• Who has kept a gratitude journal? What was your experience?
• "If you aren't in love with late-capitalism, why are you letting it store all its stuff at your place?"
• Is a poem better if its stanzas follow a mathematical pattern like the Fibonacci sequence?
• What's in your cosmic gratitude poem?

Poems

• Alphabet by Inger Christensen (full poem is a book) (11:53)
• Mark Strand poem (link not available) (27:25)

4. On Sleep: Looking Over Your Shoulder

Bedtime rituals can help you calm your mind and create Pavlovian triggers that cause it to enter the sleep state more easily.

Discussion Questions

• Have you ever dreamed about Dolly Parton? Fran Liebowitz? (for those TN or NYC especially)
• Who was taught to say prayers before bed as a kid?
• Can you still recite the "Now I lay me down to sleep...." poem from memory?
• Has anyone kept up a bedtime ritual?
• Can a bedtime ritual help you sleep?

Poems

• The Sleep that Comes Over Me by Fernando Pessoa (link not available) (18:19)

5. On Meditation: Contemplating a Poem

Meditation is like prayer without the kayfabe. It can help calm your mind, reduce anxiety and negativity, set goals and intentions, and lead the mind to solutions for persistent personal problems.

Discussion Questions

• Who has done meditation? Who does it regularly?
• Does focusing our mind on our goals or wishes help make them come true?
• Does humanism/science fail to address mental states and qualia?
• Is it possible to develop a scientific practice for describing and inducing mental states?
• What is your original face before your parents were born?
• Who is it who drags your corpse around?
• Do you suffer from rumination? Do you have a mental technique to avoid it?

Poems

• Wannabe Hoochie Mama Gallery of Realities’ Red Dress Code by Thylias Moss (14:32)

6. On Happier Holidays: Stocking Your Cabinets of Culture

Putting the meaning back into holidays that secularism has removed. Recasting harvest holidays as "earth days."

Discussion Questions

• Do you celebrate religious holidays like Christmas and Easter? Did you always?
• Do you celebrate the "humanist holidays"? [1][2]
• We should be doing more Diwalis! (not a question, just a fact)
• What holidays would you feel uncomfortable missing entirely?
• What holidays do you personally work hardest on, in whatever way?
• Are there holidays you dread?
• Which holiday most delights you?
• Are there holidays outside your tradition that you find attractive?
• Which holidays do people in your life care about most?

Poems

• New Year’s morning by Kobyashi Issa (15:10)
• Holiday poem template / "Christmas Cabinet"

7. On Scary Holidays: Facing our Fears with Face Paint

Sad holidays help us grieve loss and remind us of really bad things that we would like to not forget in order to avoid them in the future, like World Wars and 9/11s.

Discussion Questions

• Don't we really need a good death/ancestor remembrance holiday like day of the dead?
• Does it say something about the way our culture deals with death that we don't have such a holiday?
• Is "being made of star stuff" an inherently scientific, spiritual and poetic concept?
• How does having regular holidays to remember tragic events help people process them?

Poems

• Could Have by Wislawa Szymborskas (13:52)

8. On a Day for Shame and Grace: Messing Up

In the opening story, "I'm just getting ready to be blessed" gives an example of a positive response to misfortune enabled by belief.

Discussion Questions

• Is forgiveness the antidote to cancel culture?
• Is shame a necessary by-product of having high ideals?
• Can you aspire to perfection without feeling shame when you fail to achieve it?
• Purification rituals - good or bad? If we can remove guilt or shame with a ritual, shouldn't we?
• Can group fasting be fun and enlightening? Can it gain traction in America if it's not "intermittent"?
• Do shame and regret subside in middle age? Y'all should know!

Poems

• Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare (16:45)

9. On Sabbaths and Fool's Days: Rest, Creativity, and Solitude

Celebrating rest, leisure time, and the joy of pulling pranks. It also makes the point that change is the only constant, using the metaphor "you can never wash in the same river twice."

Discussion Questions

• What would you do in a "last man on earth" situation? How long before you get bored?
• Is the sabbath a scriptural version of worker's rights?
• Is the sabbath pronatalism?
• Should we not view having regular days of rest as sacred? The more the better!
• Do you enjoy April Fool's Day? Do you make a point to prank people?
• Other than Loki, who are your favorite trickster gods?

Poems

• Things I Didn't Know I Loved by Nâzim Hikmet (15:35)

10. On Earth Day and Rebirth: Climate Change Pain and Nature Festivals

Many holidays celebrate our connection to the Earth already, and many other religious celebrations that invoke god could be reframed as celebrating nature or the universe.

Discussion Questions

• Is connection to nature the materialist's equivalent to connection to god?
• Is Earth day a humanist holiday? Do you make a point to celebrate it?
• Can poetry be a better way to move people to preserve the Earth than climate statistics?
• Could moral imperatives to be good environmental stewards help with climate change?
• How is the experience of understanding an allusion like an inside joke?

Poems

• When the World as we Knew It Ended by Joy Harjo (13:30)
• Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (25:30)
• Ozymandius by Percy Bysshe Shelley (29:15)

11. On Weddings: Metaphors of Unity in Mud, Ribs, and Fire

If there's ever a time where people regularly research and choose poetry readings, it's a wedding! Weddings are also one of the primary venues for forced religiosity. Often, this is due to a lack of good secular templates for weddings, though this is rapidly changing.

Discussion Questions

• Did you have a religious or a secular wedding?
• Was that what you and your partner wanted at the time?
• How does ritual reinforce the life changes and commitments being made?
• How does the liturgical nature of wedding traditions help you feel "more married"?

Poems

• Married Love by Guan Daosheng (16:13)
• [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by E. E. Cummings (24:25)

12. On Welcoming Babies: Snowstorms of Surprise

Celebrating the brining of a new life into the world is universal. This chapter also discusses the Sufi poet Rumi, whose works offer many great examples of poems that evoke the sacred and wonderous without explicitly supernatural references.

Discussion Questions

• Was having a baby the biggest life change you experienced? Did anything else come close?
• What birth rites did you perform when your kids were born?
• Did you have a "baby welcoming ceremony"?

Poems

• You Were Born With Wings by Rumi (16:13)

13. On Coming-of-Age: Seijin no Hi, Quinceañera, and a Different Drum

One of the most important rituals that we neglect in the modern age is the Coming of Age ceremony. These rituals can help children flip a mental switch into greater maturity and responsibility.

Discussion Questions

• Are graduations is the best coming of age ceremony most kids get? What are they lacking?
• What is the importance of the "liminal space" in the transition to adulthood?
• Have you heard of a "gift book" as a humanist tradition?

Poems

• Nonsense poems
• Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll (13:47)

14. On Love Poetry: With Sappho, Pushkin, Keats

Love poems, haiku and limerick are the most common poems that most people write themselves. This chapter also discusses how love poetry and rituals can be an integral part of the process of seduction, allowing people to recognize each others signals and develop emotional bonds with intentionality.

Discussion Questions

• Who has written a love poem before?
• Do you agree with the Hindu list of the types/stages of love?
• What about the idea of using a "love potion" and poem to open your mind to love?
• How is this similar to the placebo effect?
• Does love benefit from scarcity? It it easier to find your soul mate in a small pool? How do arranged marriages and small towns work?

Poems

• Song of Solomon (10:35)
• I'm Glad You've Lost Your Mind Over Someone and It's Not Me by Marina Tsvetaeva (link not available) (25:10)
• Bright Star by John Keats (32:40)

15. Funerals and Memorials

Funerals are traumatic for many secular people who find themselves being proselytized to in times of grief, often by a religious figure who did not know the deceased well, and often against their expressed wishes.

Rituals for grieving and mourning can give direction to the process that leads ultimately to closure. Without these rituals, it is easier to become stuck in cycles of rumination or emotional suppression.

Discussion Questions

• How many have attended a funeral and felt uncomfortable being proselytized to?
• Have you ever attended a "good" funeral? What was the best funeral you've ever attended?
• How do funerals help bring us closure and process grief?
• How does performing the specific liturgical steps, the viewing, the eulogies, the burial, the wake, the receiving of casseroles, signal that the grieving process is completed?
• Do you agree with her "cultural liturgy" for funerals?
• How can poetry help us express strong emotions in times of grief?
• What do you think of the list of funeral poem requirements? Anything missing/incorrect?

Poems

• Love Sonnet LXXXIX by Pablo Neruda (17:50)

16. On Depression: At Play with the Sacraments of Misery

The epidemic of mental illness in modern society suggests there may be something missing from society to help people process their negative emotions.

Discussion Questions

• Did you ever turn to religion when you were depressed and religious?
• What are your "sacraments of misery"?
• Do you have personal rituals to cheer yourself up intentionally?

Poems

• Let Your Name Touch Her Lips by Ada Jafarey (17:40)

17. On the Social Contract Blues: Returning from Political Loss

This chapter has unfortunately become highly relevant once again, even though it was composed as a response to a previous incarnation of loss. This chapter explores how poetry can inspire our sense of justice and call us to political action. Facts are convincing, but when we combine them with poetry they become truly compelling.

Discussion Questions

• How nice is it that we're talking poetry, not *shudder* politics?
• What is your opinion of psalm 23? It the quote "Happy shall he be that dasheth thy little ones against the stone" a bit much, even if they are the children of your oppressor?
• Is poetry necessary to motivate political action?

Poems

• Still I Rise by Maya Angelou (14:22)

18. On Choosing a Code to Live By: A Midnight Snack with the Flower of Toledo

Poems that reinforce our moral codes, ideals and values.

Discussion Questions

• How do you feel about Ruyard Kipling's depiction of masculinity?
• Is Ecclesiastes 3:1-1:5 cultural liturgy?
• Has it been separated from its scriptural origins and secularized?
• Is the Dead Parrot Sketch poetry?

Poems

• If-- by Ruyard Kipling (3:10)
• Ecclesiastes 3:1-1:5 (16:05)
• The Choir Invisible by George Eliot (18:38)

19. On Talking to Children About Heavenlessness: Trusting Our Future Selves

Poetry that helps explain deep feelings and subjects in ways that children can understand. How to treat mythology and stories like Santa Clause when raising children to be critical thinkers.

This chapter has a great quote and perfect metaphor for how our feelings, values, desires, and personalities change over time. "A six year old's reaction to sexuality is not predictive of the future."

Discussion Questions

• How did your parents handle the Santa Clause story?
• What did you tell your children about Santa Clause?
• Did you ever wish your kids could believe in heaven? Or been jealous of their ability to believe in it?
• Are rituals more necessary for raising children than they are for adults?
• Is it better to gloss over the reality of death with stories about the afterlife?

Poems

• O Beautiful End by Rabindranath Tagore (19:25)

20. On Morality: The Big Question and the Poetic Realist Answer

This chapter explores secular morality and values systems. Love and morality are real facets of humanity. Love tends to be irrational, so it doesn't tend to be the focus of "rationalists." Confucianism, Social Contract, Utilitarianism, Objectivism, Communism, Humanism are all examples of secular values systems.

Discussion Questions

• Does the universal witness improve moral outcomes?
• Is the modern surveillance state a new omniscient god?
• How can poetry reinforce our values or strengthen our convictions?
• How do rational people celebrate and reinforce virtues?  Why is it necessary to do so?
• Is poetic truth a valid pursuit of truth?
• How can we find poetic truth without confusing it with objective reality?

Poems

• Mother in a Refugee Camp by Chinua Achebe (19:28)