Finding Him So


Enjoyment requires discernment. ~Tish Harrison Warren

In a previous section of the chapter, Drinking Tea, Warren discusses God's child-likeness, that with each rising moon, or sun, or each tulip, God says, as a child would, "do it again!". I can attest to this insatiable appetite for repetition, in the same way, from my daughter. We read the same books at night time (in the same way), go through the same routines--of brushing teeth, and bath, and putting toys away, and how to play with toys, and nap time with baba and paci. And she loves it! Her world on repeat is a knowable world, a world that she can explore the nuance of.

In the section I just read, Warren admonishes against the perils of greed, the persistent cry of "Encore!" I wondered, how does "do it again!" differ from "Encore!". In one sense, they can be seen as the same, when Encore is a request to "do it again", when it is for the sake of the experience, the object as well as the observer. But Encore too often becomes a selfish indulgence, it is more "do it for me, but do it better this time." It is not about repeat, but redouble. 

 Warren concludes, "enjoyment requires discernment." We quickly get off track, and have to monitor ourselves on the path. I love Warren's inclusion of CS Lewis's quote in Letters to Malcolm:

One must walk before one can run....[We] shall not be able to adore God on the highest occasions if we have learned no habit of doing so on the lowest. At best, our faith and reason will tell us that he is adorable but we shall not have found him so."

Lord Jesus, on the path today, let me find you so.


In Jesus Name,

Amen

Romans 4:1-12 - "What then shall we say that Abraham

our father has found according to the flesh?"

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