The Gift of Rhythm
The humans live in time, and experience reality successively. To experience much of it, therefore, they must experience many different things; in other words, they must experience change. And since they need change, the Enemy (being a hedonist at heart) has made change pleasurable to them, just as He has made eating pleasurable. But since He does not wish them to make change, any more than eating, an end in itself, He has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has made, by that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme. He gives them in His Church a spiritual year; they change from a fast to a feast, but it is the same feast as before.
—C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
God designed life to balance both change and permanence. We need variety, so He made change pleasurable—like the freshness of spring or the joy of a feast. But He also gave us the comfort of constancy, the assurance that seasons return, and that some celebrations are the same year after year. This rhythm is woven into creation and into the life of the Church, offering both excitement and stability.
In recovery and in faith, we need this same balance. Change helps us grow, bringing new challenges and fresh joy. Permanence anchors us, giving security and peace when life feels uncertain. By embracing God’s rhythm—welcoming both the new and the familiar—we learn to live with gratitude, trusting that every season has its place in His good design. —DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics