God is Young

We were on the way home and I was singing songs from the Liturgy. She, at the time – two years old, said, “Do it again, Dad!”

I remember this, especially from my oldest daughter, particularly the Trisagion hymn: “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us!”

So, between the grocery store and the house, I must have sang the Trisagion about twenty times.

I laid her down for her nap and she said, “Sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’.” So, with almost a tear in my eye, appreciating the moment, I sang “Twinkle, twinkle, little star …” When it was over she demanded: “Sing the ABC’s!” That’s when I told her it was nap time; time to go to sleep.

We do grow crusty and old, don’t we? Children love to sing, love to dance, love to experience the joy in life. Like Chesterton’s example below, God and children must be a lot alike. And to think, to get into the party, we’ve got to become just like them.

Holy God, have mercy on us!

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, Orthodoxy

This meditation originally appeared on the Antiochian webpage.