“But, it is important to note, close attention to creatures, as also to oneself, will bring with it an understanding of the damage to which they have all been subjected, and so it will provoke lament as well as delight. Lament is the knower’s response to damage just as admiring delight is the knower’s response to creatures being as they should be. Both are instances of knowing’s participation in the known.”

Griffiths, Paul J. Intellectual Appetite: a Theological Grammar. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009, p. 137.

Comment: “Creatures” in this commonplace refers really to any other created being – animal, vegetable, or mineral – coming across your field of notice.