The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning, but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life.
The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun, and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon.
It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. (paragraph breaks added)
Source: Orthodoxy, GK Chesterton
Echoes of Roy Rogers and Ella Fitzgerald.
Different kind of times now, I guess.
Tom
Tom – While I understand those that keep people from falling into abandoned pit mines, I was surprised to see the fence that seemed to keep people in a rest stop from wandering out into desert (even just a few yards to take a vista photo unencumbered by fence). Private property on the other side? Maybe.
Yes, and Ian Tyson’s version of “Home on the Range”, which is by far the most nostalgic rendition of that old western song. To me at least.
Speaking of Ian…might I suggest him as a possible National Treasure, if you haven’t already included him?
Ian Tyson holds down #40 on this list. But get your suggestions in – we only have 19 spots still available.
Robert Frost’s poem about “Good fences do good neighbours make” doesn’t really promote fences, but questions their value. In our neighbourhood, the orchards and vineyards have all put up eight-foot fences to keep the deer out. Driving up the road to our house feels like entering a medium security prison. And they don’t keep the deer out, because someone always leaves a gate open-end then the deer are in, not out, and can’t get out, and would rather stay in anyway where they can browse on fresh green shoots…. I can’t help thinking about a White House that wants to build fences — he seems unable to comprehend that the same fence that would keep Mexicans out also serves (figuratively, at least) to keep Americans in.
Jim T
Jim T – Yes, I’m sometimes unsure who’s being kept in, and who out. But I sympathize with folks trying to control their borders. The “how” is another matter.