“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 monotony that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten 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
If I have one goal for 28, let it be to read more G.K. Chesterton.
Last year I wanted one thing for my birthday: a quiet morning in Starbucks with something sweet and steamy to work on a crossword while my boys slept at home. Then it snowed an appalling amount and I sat stuck at my kitchen table, crossword cut off by a crying kid while I chugged a McCafe.
This year, my wish is even more indicative of an aging soul. I want a new alternator. No, that’s wrong. I need a new alternator. And I don’t even know what an alternator is, but my hopeful little Honda has drained two batteries in three days and the eyebrow-pierced AutoZone mechanic said a faulty alternator had to be the case.
Joe needs his car to get to class, and while I certainly could attempt a church-wide car-borrowing plea, that would involve the dreadful transfer of car seats, diaper bags, snacks, and clothes, plus all the other luggage when you lead a life with littles. It’s so much easier to hole up at home.
This means it is the second year in a row that my extroverted self is rendered practically incapable of so much as leaving the house for a birthday coffee.
Now before you click out of this blog post and send me over some Starbucks, don’t. DoorDash will serve me just fine, and the only thing that will make me feel worse than being stuck at home is being stuck at home and feeling like charity.
Besides, a lack of coffee is not the issue here. It’s fear. It’s the agonizing dread of being stuck all day in the same white walls, playing the same games and reading the same books and listening to the same songs as I did the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that.
Now don’t get me wrong, there’s goodness to our days. I love being a stay-at-home mom, and we certainly take time to break up our rhythms with park trips and playdates. But as the cooler weather encroaches and my incapacitated car idles for another day, I can begin to suffocate. How will I survive another round of Old MacDonald? Another reading of Little Blue Truck? Another forty-minute bath as my towheaded toddler can simply sit and stare at a tiny toy duck?
It’s here, with help from that cursed canon of Chesterton, that I’m faced with my inability to bask in boredom. Monotony is misery, I tell myself, rushing my baby from his book so I can go socialize under the guise of a pre-planned playdate. Stillness is suffering, I say, scrolling social media while a six-week-old sweetheart stares into my eyes and I can’t be bothered, for a moment, to just look her way.
The sign language “more” we taught Luke shifted from blessing to burden when I realized that every fun thing I ever did would be met with the motion for more. Tickles on his tummy, tossing him skyward, racing through slippery grocery store aisles — every pleasant endeavor has him asking for more. I’d oblige a few times, but when he kept asking, I felt tempted to whisper, “How are you not bored?!”
I have, for so long, existed in a world of forward motion. Productivity is paramount, and if I’m not checking items off a to-do list, I’m chucking precious work time out the window. How then does that lifestyle allow for a forty-minute bath? How do I be okay with ordering pretend hot dogs from a plastic food truck over and over and over and over? How do I simply sit and soak in the sweetness of my children, not darting to distractions but savoring their every tackle and twirl and time spent staring in my eyes?
Certainly there is time for schedules and chores, for making other plans and for saying, “no more.” But I wonder what it would look like, in this next year of life, to say a little more, “do it again.” To celebrate the sun that comes up day after day, and to celebrate the routines of life that seem so much the same. If God has never tired of making daisies, what might it look like to embrace make-believe hot dogs even though it’s the very same game we’ve played fifteen times before?
Faith like a child could mean a lot of things, but I wonder if it’s a little bit about hearing a song over and over and still jumping for joy at the chance to sing. Perhaps 28 could be the year I learn to be okay with boredom. To relish the routines of life with two precious image bearers. To marvel at monotony much like our Maker, with the eternal appetite of infancy, who never grows tired of displaying His glory.
I’m 28 today and I will not leave home. I will sip coffee with my kids who can’t contain their cuddles. I’ll put down my phone and look deep in their eyes. I’ll say, “do it again,” as they play and pretend, and I’ll think of our Creator who never tires of the sunrise. And of course, I’ll read a little Chesterton too.
Okay 28, I’m ready for you!
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