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
Nice images Isabel. Come back in a few weeks after the eggs yet-to-be laid have hatched and it is neat to see the chicks sticking their long sharp beaks down the parent’s throat to obtain food.
Jim R – Stay tuned! I have one or two almost clear photos of the feeding. It triggers my gag reflex . . .
The only good thing that can be said about parent birds’ way of feeding their young is that it’s a lot more caring than the reptiles who simply abandon their offspring in the sand, on the shore, in the rushes, wherever. Bards are amazing creatures — their ability to operate in three dimensions, the sense of navigation, their ability to make tools, etc. — but their ways of feeding nestlings are not something I would recommend as an evolutionary example to follow.
Jim T
Jim T – Well, it seems to work for them, and *that’s* a good thing. And, like reading Nietzsche, I’m glad it’s not me.