Back in December I was driving south on 75, going somewhere with the boys (I don't remember now where). It was mid-morning, the sun was brilliant on the snow (blinding, actually), and the sky gleamed a deep, pristine blue. The light and brightness coming through the windows was enough to raise my spirits, but something else happened that gave me a joyful memory I hope I always remember.
P loves Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." Almost by accident he became acquainted with it, thanks to that widespread
Youtube video of the flash mob in Canada busting it out in a mall food court. He could watch it over and over, mesmerized, saying after each viewing, "Let's do it again!" Luckily, just hearing a recording of it was enough after a time, so we left the
Messiah recording parked in the car player throughout Advent to turn on whenever we wanted.
So I turned it on in the car as we were driving. And, per usual, we heard the Chorus once and P said, "Do it again!" I hit repeat. And as we drove along, I gazed out across the glistening snow, sparkling with billions of reflections of sunlight, and I thought of heaven, and I looked in the rearview mirror and watched P's face, rapt, as he listened. "The kingdom of this earth is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ, and of His Christ." And suddenly it dawned on me that P's insatiable love for the Chorus is nothing like the cute, tolerable obsession of a toddler we often viewed it as. It was everything like what we will be in heaven, when we shall see God clearly and not through a glass darkly. And we will never, ever get enough of Christ reigning. "And He shall reign forever and ever." Our joy will be continuous--as though our souls would cry, "Do it again!", except there will be no need, because the song will continue, and continue, and continue.
I'd cherished this moment to myself until tonight when I happened across a quote by G.K.Chesterton that reminded me of this.
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 He 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.
Read more: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=24-01-034-f#ixzz1Dcdt5bg4
Thank you, G.K., for saying so beautifully what P reminded me. May God give us the faith of children, that we might rejoice and sing hallelujahs always to Him who "exults in monotony."
