The Sacredness of Nature and Repetition

Devotional Classics, G.K. Chesterton, Excerpts from Orthodoxy

All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption.  It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork. (333)

 The sun rises every morning.  I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction.

[Children] 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 the 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. (334)

In short, I had always believed that the world involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician.  And this pointed a profound emotion always present and sub-conscious; that this world of ours has some purpose; and if there is a purpose, there is a person.  I had always felt life first a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller.  (335)

The one thing [modern thought]loved to talk about was expansion and largeness. . . .  Why should  a man surrender his dignity to the solar system any more than to a whale?  If mere size proves that man is not the image of God, then a whale may be the image of God.  (335) 

 I felt in my bones; first, that this world does not explain itself.  It may be a miracle with a supernatural explanation; it may be a conjuring trick, with a natural explanation.  But the explanation of the conjuring trick, if it is to satisfy me, will have to be better than the natural explanations I have heard.  The thing is magic, true or false.

 Second, I came to feel as if magic must have some meaning, and meaning must have someone to mean it.  There was something very personal in the world, as in a work of art; whatever it meant it meant violently.

 Third, I though this purpose beautiful in its old design, in spite of its defects, such as dragons.  Fourth, that the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them.  We owed, also an obedience to whatever made us.

And last, and strangest, there had come into my mind a vague and vast impression that in some way all good was remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin.  Man had saved his good as Crusoe saved his goods: he had saved them from a wreck.  (336)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  (Colossians 1:15-17)

Recently, I was taking quiet walks in the woods near our house.  In the silence I began to be aware of the trees and clouds in particular.  By going out among the trees and clouds and spending time there, I began to have a sense of friendship with them.  I could see how pagan religions would life up the natural elements as “brothers and sisters” or even as gods.  There was something comforting and close about Nature.

I saw the trees lifting their branches to greet the morning, a congregation of praise and worship.  I saw the clouds dance across the sky, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly.  The birds sang in unison with these quieter cousins.  I could join them in my heart or even with my voice.  There was so much praise.

In the Fall, I could hear the trees going to sleep.  The ground itself rested as blankets of snow were laid on it.  The silence was not death, but rest and expectation.  I was taught that times of resting and waiting  were times of life as well.

I am used to thinking of such thoughts and feelings as “poetic” and “imaginative.”  Nature, like life, seemed to be a “tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.”  As Nature is, so is my life.  My life, then became a microcosm of meaningless repetition and the gratification of whatever fancies hit me.  My sense of trees and clouds “telling” me something or showing any “meaning” in life were creations of my fancy.

No doubt, I have had my fanciful moments.  Usually, I had the sense that the universe was somehow against me.  “Murphy’s Law” was one I thought might have some merit.  “If anything can go wrong, it probably will.”  I was “Christian” enough to blame God for my misfortunes and troubles.  Funny how Nature is devoid of meaning until something bad happens and then I shake my fist at the sky and ask, “Why?”

What Chesterton seemed aware of from an early age, I have had to fight to understand later in my life.  The universe is not mostly empty space, but full of God and the heavens.  The beauty I see is not merely fanciful, but a “purpose beautiful in its old design.”  The pain and struggle indicate “some primordial ruin.”  My work in these days is like Robinson Crusoe, was to find in this wreckage that “all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred."

At the heart of this universe is purpose.  The explanation of purposelessness cannot be sustained in my mind for long.  Meaning is as important to human life as food and drink (Viktor Frankl).  Where there is a hunger, there is most likely a corresponding supply.  The meaning at the heart of the universe is Christ.  All things were created for him.  People, specifically, were “called according to [God’s] purpose, . . . to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”  (Romans 8:28-29)

Lord, each blade of grass, each cloud in the sky, each animal that lives and breathes, and each stream which flows lives (in its own way) to do your will.  Your will is that this would house your Son and his siblings, each person who by their desire and choice live a life as he would live in their place.  May the ruin I face in this world and in my life not overcome me, but by your grace inspire me to store and hold sacred the good of this world and this life for your sake.  Amen.

The roots of Christian unity, indeed, human unity are to be found in this purpose embedded in the universe.  I know that such unity will not be found by simply announcing it or by changing laws to enforce it, but rather by inner transformation  that yields a life conformed to the likeness of Christ.  This will be our unity, or nothing.  My part is to join the revolution of renewal, being in Christ and like him even as I go about my daily life of work, rest, eating, and relating.  For me, frequent  blessings and prayers remind me of whose world I live in and what purpose he has.