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
Isabel
I heard part of the interview with Garnet Rogers the other day on Q. Very interesting and worthwhile listen. Warts and all.
Tom
Tom – Yes, it was all news to me, although the one time I saw Stan and the band in concert (at a small venue in Saskatoon a few years before he died), I daw Stan talking to someone who had showed up to sell his CDs. Not unreasonably, Stan figured that was their prerogative. They worked something out, but it got a wee bit intense. I thought of that as I listened to Garnet talking about being afraid and even hungry most of the time.