"....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." --G. K. Chesterton, from Orthodoxy (1908)
This is a book I never get tired of telling people about. It's just full of quotes like this. If you're not familiar with Chesterton, he was a major influence on both J.R.R.Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. (And me, too!) George Bernard Shaw once said, "The world is not thankful enough for Chesterton."
My copy is available to anyone who wants to borrow it.....as long as I get it back!
--Cliff
