Unleashing the Power of “What If?”: How Wonder Reshapes Reality

Have you ever experienced a time when a mindset, belief, or way of seeing the world was shattered? It was as if everything that once nourished your understanding of life—like survival gear you had been carrying in your backpack—had spoiled and was no longer adequate for sustaining you.

I had such an experience with a group of high school students visiting a church in Matamoros, Mexico. We had crossed the border at Brownsville, Texas, to spend the day learning about Mexican culture and its people. A local guide took us to a church to visit people he described as joyful and gracious despite living in poverty. Everything seemed normal until the end of the service, when the pastor invited us to stay for lunch.

Assuming we would be sitting down to eat together with the congregants, we stood off to the side of the small meeting space as tables were brought in, chairs were arranged, and platters of food were delivered by grandmothers and mothers who had prepared the most delicious-looking buffet of Mexican food I had ever seen. Then we, as guests, were invited to sit down and eat. Our hosts, however, retreated to the perimeter of the room.

At first, I was confused. What I came to understand was that guests in their culture, even foreigners—are welcomed by having their needs met first.

My mind shifted into a deep and haunting questioning mode: What if I were hosting these people back in Kansas (where I lived at the time)? Would I have offered the same level of paradigm-busting hospitality? The honest answer that surfaced was, “no!”

Yet the act of wondering brought a greater awareness of the possibilities—not only for expanding my values and beliefs about what it means to be hospitable, but also for discovering new and creative ways to practice it.

Leaning into the “what-if-ness” of life requires a major rethinking—and re-visioning—of who we are, how we relate to others in the human family, and where our ultimate loyalties lie. It calls for a shift from the role of judge to that of prophet.

Theologian Walter Brueggemann, in his seminal work The Prophetic Imagination, writes:

“The prophet engages in ‘futuring’ fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. The same royal consciousness that makes it possible to implement anything and everything is the one that shrinks imagination because imagination is a danger.”

Brueggemann goes on to implore anyone who wants to become a change agent to first ask whether something can be imagined before asking if it is realistic, practical, or viable. At the end of the day, imagination must come before implementation. The kind of imagination he lifts up requires what he calls a “dangerous oddness,” grounded in courage, freedom, and a willingness to be otherwise.

In a recent conversation with a student who was part of a leadership training experience my organization was facilitating, I asked how she was doing in her interactions with all the new people she was meeting. Her response was, “It’s awkward. I’ve always been a little weird.”

I surprised her by replying, “That’s awesome! I’m weird too. Weird is good, because the alternative is giving-in to the pressure to be the same as everyone else just to fit in.”

That brief exchange opened space for a deeper connection. Mutual vulnerability—held within healthy boundaries and infused with a sense of wonder—always makes that kind of depth possible.

In 1979, a song written by Mr. Rogers debuted called “Did You Know.” Its lyrics celebrate the universal power of wonder to open our hearts to endless possibilities for learning and growth:

Did you know? Did you know?Did you know that it's all right to wonder?Did you know that it's all right to wonder?There are all kinds of wonderful things!

Did you know? Did you know?Did you know that it's all right to marvel?Did you know that it's all right to marvel?There are all kinds of marvelous things!

You can ask a lot of questions about the world...And your place in it.You can ask about people's feelings;You can learn the sky's the limit.

Did you know? Did you know?Did you know when you wonder you're learning?Did you know when you marvel you're learning?About all kinds of wonderful,About all kinds of marvelous,Marvelously wonderful things?

Ryan Rydzewski and Gregg Behr, in their book When You Wonder You’re Learning: Mister Rogers’ Lessons for Raising Creative, Curious, and Caring Kids, suggest that losing our sense of wonder has serious consequences as both youth and adults navigate an ever-changing world. This warning feels even more urgent in an age of artificial intelligence that is rapidly reshaping reality.

They note that today’s young people are expected to change jobs an estimated 15 times over their lifetimes—and many of those jobs don’t yet exist. I recently spoke with a parent whose child, despite earning a college degree, was passed over for a role because they could not perform a task faster than AI.

Ultimately, cultivating a sense of wonder is about more than learning new things or gaining skills for future employment. It is about radically rewiring our narrow, self-serving mindsets and fear-based, narcissistic tendencies—patterns shaped by a cultural consciousness fixated on self-preservation and self-promotion.

Taking our cue from Walter Brueggemann, in one of his final keynotes at a Sojourners Conference:

“We need to ask not whether it is realistic or practical or viable, but whether it is imaginable. The practice of prophetic imagination requires energy, courage, freedom, and a sense of being otherwise. And I have no doubt that we are now arriving at a moment when there is no more middle ground—that we either sign on uncritically to totalism, or we take on this task of dangerous oddness that exposes the contradictions and performs the alternatives.”

In this spirit of wonder—one that risks leaning into “dangerous oddness,” I offer these questions to open space for all things strange and wonderful to emerge:

1. What if the transformation our world so desperately needs is being held back because we’ve lost our collective imagination to ask better questions?

2. How can we encourage one another to cultivate the courage to practice a “dangerous oddness” that disrupts our addiction to self-preservation at all costs?

3. What if questions like “Is it realistic?” or “Is it possible?” are actually shutting down something sacred?

4. What if our culture’s obsession with efficiency is eroding our capacity for wonder?

5. What if the future will be shaped more by those who wonder than by those who control?

6. What if your next step isn’t to act, but to imagine more boldly than you ever have before?