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. Chesteron, Orthodoxy
G.K. Chesterton captures the experience of children with the phrase, “Do it again.” Children thrive on the rituals of repetitive action, stories that endlessly repeat with subtle variation, the recitation of familiar words and anecdotes.
The jaded adult becomes agitated and despondent in the presence of this innocent joy. The child’s exultant command, “Do it again,” is met with the exasperated eyeroll, “Again?” Somewhere in adolescence so many of us shed our curiosity, assuming that repetition is inherently dull.
For anyone with the least attunement to the Divine, it is bewildering listening to The People’s NPR Ira Glass joylessly chuckle at the supposed stupidity of worship. He, a non-believing Jew, describes daily prayers as a “rerun,” heavily implying they are inane, pointless, boring, and dull. He admits to feeling a modicum of consolation from the predictability and has the good sense to find someone who actually believes in God to explain to him that the worship of God is for our not His benefit. Still, Glass’s tone is dismissive, assuming we can move beyond such childish repetition and boring rituals.
But is there really a time for abandoning repetition? To remain childlike is to cling to that joyful optimism of innocence. The task is a challenging one. Our sight is darkened by our sins and desperate grasping at control of our lives. To relinquish control, accept the present moment as a gift, and dive with all our being into a repeated prayer, activity, book, or song may seem foolish and irresponsible to the wordly. Yet, this is the path to eternity.
If eternity is nothing other than never-ending presence, then those epiphanic moments of ecstasy are a taste. When time falls away, the sense of drudgery departs, and the fulness of life opens up to us: this is the state of children almost by default. They can be robbed of this joy through premature introduction to the drudgery of leaving the house at 6:30 AM, getting plugged into mind-numbing television, continually be rushed out of quiet, timeless moments. But their natural state seems to be one capable of accessing eternity much more easily than their parents.
On the other hand, adults can rediscover what it is to revel in the mundane through acquaintance with a child. When the child demands the same story again and again, the adult who ceases to resist the pounding, rhythmic waves of repetition may actually find something to enjoy. The story, a flower, a song are good (assuming they are good—if they are not, get better books!). You can endlessly revisit something and find new aspects to appreciate if in fact it was worth visiting in the first place.
Here is the splendor of routines. Predictable habits of life open up the moments of work and leisure when we don’t have to think about what we are doing and simply think about what is. Our culture prizes spontaneity above all else as an expression of individualism and authenticity. Being tied to a routine is seen as a shackling that prevents our flourishing. And yet, no one is flourishing when he has to scrounge around to figure out where the clean undies are or what on earth is for dinner. In the practicality of family life, of which most of us partake, routines are ordering principles that allow real spontaneity to exist.
When routines descend to attempts to control, neurotically forcing the day to hinge uncompromisingly on a 10:30 AM nap, then the joy can vanish. The weary, jaded adult perspective asserts itself, and the routine becomes an unending list of things that must be done. “It’s just one thing after another,” as the weary mother bemoans.
The idea that in human life we will outsource all drudgery for more meaningful and productive occupations, that the goal is unbridled spontaneity is utter foolishness. Life relentlessly presents the same needs, the same misfortunes, the same opportunities. These wants, needs, and desires stack up into one all-consuming sense of being. Confronted with this reality, we can succumb to despair at the unfinished nature of our existence, the constant lack and insufficiency. Or, we can rejoice in the splendor of our creation, stand in wonder at the ways the desires of our heart make us strain toward fulfillment and idealism.
The feeling of an empty stomach (and the luxury of having the ability to fill it) can be met with frustration and despair at our want and inability to fulfill ourselves. Or, we can be marvel at the gift—again—of sustenance, the miracle of our continued being.
Heaven and hell are not the caricatures of angels on puffy clouds and grinning little demons in the bowels of the earth. An examination of the range of human experience shows that heaven and hell are states of being that begin in the here-and-now. Faced with the inevitable drudgery of human existence, the blessed rejoice and find endlessly reasons to enter more fully into being. The damned see only the endless rerun, torturing them with incompletion and the Sisyphean nature of mortality.
In order to learn how to start living in heaven instead of hell, look to the child whose innocence and wonder inoculate against so many forms of self-made pain and misery.
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