The Crossing Ball

"In other words the cross, in fact as well as figure, does really stand for the idea of breaking out of the circle that is everything and nothing. It does escape from the circular argument by which everything begins and ends in the mind. Since we are still dealing in symbols, it might be put in a parable in the form of that story about St. Francis, which says that the birds departing with his benediction could wing their way into the infinities of the four winds of heaven, their tracks making a vast cross upon the sky"
--The Everlasting Man, G. K. Chesterton
The Crossing Ball by Algernon W. Gedgrave
The Ancient Greeks, with their preoccupation with circles as representing the symbol of perfection, seemed to have really been on to something. For, considering all of what we see around us, in the cosmological Universe, the physical processes of heavenly bodies, which include stars, planets and otherwise spherical bodies, suggests that circles are the order of the day, so to speak, of our experiential world.
But, circles present a real problem, however, upon closer observation. For our planets and their orbits are hardly circular. In fact, as Galileo had observed centuries ago, they are elliptical. This is the result of other forces exerting their influence on the body, so that, this perfect circle is not only implausible, unthinkable and absurd, but ultimately irrational and illogical. The hope of ever finding a specimen that represents this archetype of the Greeks, in lieu of modern Science, is therefore less than bleak and in fact quite hopeless.
In spite of this, we in modern society perpetuate themes that place a great deal of faith in the circle as a symbol. We hear in song and poem of the Circle of Life, in ethics we remind others what comes around goes around (an extension of that ubiquitous and often misunderstood cult of karma) and in cosmology, of course, we imagine the universe as an infinite cycle. Many philosophers throughout the ages have embraced a round 'a' bout philosophy. Nietzsche, for instance, felt that given the nature of eternity, all things break down and are consequently remade through physical forces into every possible form that exists. This, he suggested, results in every possibility being actualized an infinite number of times. For instance, the atoms that make up my body will be reorganized, given the eternal restructuring of forms, so that the situation of me sitting here writing this article will occur an infinite number of times; just as you reading it will occur an infinite number of times. The circle, thus, of existence reforms and restructures, but is stagnant and essentially goes no where.
But, is it true that all that life is, all that ethics is, all that reality is, is nothing more than a revolving pool of the same stuff coming and going and back again, throughout eternity? The modern idea would like you to think so. However, stagnancy is far too stagnant to host the spirit of Man. For, eternality implies a continuing newness. A circle can never satisfy the demands of reality anymore than a plate could carry all the food that was, is and is to come from a stove. Walking in a circle is more a distraction than a destination. And coming back to something is very much like trying to live off of one's own vomit. Even Nature, though to the naked eye appears circular, relies just as much on the invisible, but nonetheless real, persistence of novelty and new creations, as Man is to live from the every renewing Word of God. The point is, like the symbol of the Cross, with its intersecting lines that go off in opposite, but nonetheless infinite, directions, reality, the universe of Mankind's spirit is going somewhere. We, at The Crossing Ball, embrace the symbol of a ball turning into a cross. For isn't that the message of God, to have His creation break out of the redundancy of a circular existence? After all, traversing a circle is dizzying and gets one nowhere. But, the cross symbolizes the freedom of choosing to go somewhere; into infinite experiences of the eternal categories of Truth, Goodness and Beauty as expressed in the Persons of God.