If today were my birthday...(Revised)

I would not celebrate my birth, but the birth of the world. Because it is on this day, today, that the world was born for me.

Perhaps I should clarify.

I think it's definitely with Chesterton's help that I started on this line of thought.

You see, instead of simply celebrating my own birth, (or any of ours) isn't it more wonderful to celebrate how for me, on that day, everything came into existence?

The fact is that I was born into a world and I was given the privilege of life!

Stars existed before I was born, but how would I know of them if not for my birth?

Perhaps it is a far-fetched and forced perspective, but it makes it more wonderful for me to think of God preparing the world for us, rather than we being prepared for the world.

In fact, I think that is what Traherne means! OOOOOOHhhhhh! Mid Blogpost Epiphany!

Here's a quote:

When things are are ours in their proper places, nothing is needful but prizing to enjoy them. God therefore hath made it infinitely easy to enjoy, by making everything ours, and us able so easily to prize them. Everything is ours that serves us in its place. The Sun serves us as much as is possible, and more than we could imagine. The Clouds and Stars minister unto us, the World surrounds us with beauty, the Air refresheth us, the Sea revives the earth and us. The Earth itself is better than gold because it produceth fruits and flowers. And therefore in the beginning, was it made manifest to be mine, because Adam alone was made to enjoy it. By making one, and not a multitude, God evidently shewed one alone to be the end of the World and every one its enjoyer. For every one may enjoy it as much as He....in the midst of such rich demonstratons, you may infinitely delight in God as your Father, Friend and Benefactor, in yourself as His Heir, Child and Bride, in the whole World, as the Gift and Token of His love; neither can anything but Ignorance destroy your joys. For if you know yourself, or God, or the World, you must of necessity enjoy it (Thomas Traherne 10-11).

Did you catch the Calvin and Dante references in the last line?

Remember how Calvin speaks about all of knowledge being contained under two categories, the knowledge of man and the knowledge of God?

And how Beatrice in Canto 26 I think of Paradise talks about Vision of the Good necessarily leading to Love of the Good?

The only question I'd have for Traherne would be to ask, wasn't it "not good" for man to be alone? That's why Eve was made right?

Does that clarify why I would celebrate the birth of the world for me rather than my birth to the world?

So if today were my birthday, I would not celebrate my birth into the world, rather, I would celebrate the birth of the world, on that day, for me. And I think that's the greatest birthday present I've ever received. ;)