Homesick at Home

He looked at the dandelions and crickets and realized that he was gigantic. We are too fond of reckoning by mountains, every object is infinitely vast as well as infinitely small.

He stretched himself like one crucified in an uncontainable greatness.

“Oh God, who hast made me and all things, hear four songs of praise. One for my feet that Thou hast made strong and light upon Thy daisies. One for my head, which Thou hast lifted and crowned above the four corners of Thy heaven. One for my heart, which Thou hast made a heaven of angels singing Thy glory. And one for that pearl-tinted cloudlet far away above the stone pines on the hill.”

He felt like Adam newly created. He had suddenly inherited all things, even the sun and stars. Have you ever been out for a walk?

He had come to the end of the world. Every spot on earth is either the beginning of the end, according to the heart of man.

But he leaned wearily on his staff. Then he raised his voice once more.

“O God, who hast made me and all things, hear four songs of praise. One for my feet, because they are sore and slow, now that they draw near the door. One for my head, because it is bowed and hoary, now that Thou crownest it with the sun. One for my heart, because Thou hast taught it in sorrow and hope deferred that it is the road that makes the home. And one for the daisy at my feet.”

G. K. Chesterton, Homesick at Home, 1896.