The Back of the World

"Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding its face? If only we could get around in front . . ." (G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who was Thursday)

My mom used to do cross-stitch and she said it reminded her of life because if you looked at the back of the cloth everything was a mess of knots. You could still see colors and vague patterns, could still get a sense of the picture; in fact, if you didn't know there was a front, you could probably convince yourself that that was what the picture was supposed to look like. But then you turn it over.
And sometimes we think we see patterns in this world, in our lives, we think we see colors and shapes and then we despair because it still looks like a mess. And we convince ourselves this is real life. We don't realize we're still on the back of the cloth. And you need all the messy knots, or else there won't be a picture.