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
That is absolutely fascinating. Thanks.
Tom
Tom – Yes, I wish I’d thought of it! An interesting technique.
Of the 127 people who walked by me at the Rideau Centre, about 1 PM Friday,
52.5% were “white”, the rest “other”. We all got along. 😀
Barbara – Good to hear. I’m always alert for reports of disturbances when you go out . . . Things like accosting people for their pocket lint. 🙂
That was over years ago! Now I just listen to their stories which they are so eager to tell. I’m filling up another journal binder with “Stranger Talk” — stay tuned.
Barbara – “That was over years ago!” I know, but it goes to character, Your Honour. 🙂
Yeah. Guilty. It started early…I have no boundaries. I’m a flavourful friend.
Barbara – LOL. I’ll remember that excuse, I mean justification. It could come in handy . . .
I used to do something similar, back in the days when I sometimes led workshops for the United Church’s Mission and Service Fund. Assuming there were about 100 people in the room, I’d have them all stand up. Then I’d have a certain number (I don’t recall the details any more, but it was similar to your video clip) sit down because they went to bed hungry that night. A number more, because they couldn’t read or write. A number more, who had no education beyond, say, Grade 6… and so on.
Usually, I could end up with one or two people left standing, who represented the relatively affluent western nations.
Churches are really good at “guilt trips.”
Jim – LOL. When I did a few talks to schools for Operation Eyesight I did the same thing. Ten stand up representing people with cataracts and then 4 sit down right away because they live where they can get surgery for them. For me the challenge is to try on different perspectives without getting into the negative aspects of guilt.
I was amazed that the male/female split was 50/50
That the Christians made up 33%
That 75% had a phone (I have lessened the split)
Barry – IKR? I seem to remember that in the North American adult population the male/female split is 48/52. But then you have to account for the Chinese, whose live births disproportionately favour males, or so I’ve heard. And the phone could be because many in the developing world use it for banking/cash – they have no access to bricks & mortar banks.
I’ve heard of multilinguals but that cohort speaking thousands of languages is a record-breaker, for sure!
🙂
This is a clear and simple way of presenting some facts about what we tend to take for granted.
Laurna – LOL. Indeed. Impressive.