Again

Sometimes I can’t wait for a song to be over so that I can play it again…and again. I love patterns and details. I just read a book that was completely full of the details of a life. I want to read it again as soon as possible. What is it about the minutia of things that is so fascinating? How can I possibly get bored, or be tired of looking at things? And yet I do. Repetitive things eventually drive me into a state of tedium. It’s been sunny every day this week? You have got to be kidding me. Left-overs again? Really? My little wants me to read Cowardly Clyde AGAIN. Really really?

“A child kicks its 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… 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

I want to cultivate that part of me that delights in details and rejoices in repetition. It’s raining again. The stars are shining again. The breeze is blowing…again…again…again. His mercies are new every morning.