the sun would make me see him
…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 in 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 they are 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 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.
but our Father is younger than we.
much of nature seemed to be excited repetition,
like that of an excited schoolmaster saying the same thing over and over again.
the grass seemed signaling to me with all its fingers at once…
the crowded stars seemed bent on upon being understood…
the sun would make me see him if he rose a thousand times.
the re-occurrences of the universe rose to the maddening rhythm of an incantation
and i began to see an idea…
in short, i had always believed that the world involved magic.
now i thought perhaps, that it involved a magician
and this pointed a profound emotion always present and subconscious
that this world of ours has some purpose…
and if there is a purpose, there is a Person.
i had always felt life first as a story…
and if there is a story, there is a Storyteller.
-g.k. chesterton - orthodoxy