Secrets (Dr. Thursday's Thursday post)

Dr. Thursday has been involved in a fraternity since his college days, and has a very interesting article for us today. Thanks, Dr. T.

Why Secrets?

I am quite busy getting ready for the voyage to ChesterCon07 - if you are travelling to it from anywhere on the route that leads west from Pennsylvania please let Nancy know - in any case I hope to see you there.

We are now after Pentecost, though the Paschal season still has its effect - there's still Trinity and Corpus Christi and the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart. Even more than at Christmas, the Church is like a little kid, just wants to keep celebrating. And so we anticipate the "Inn at the End of the World" where we won't have to worry about time, or wearing out, or getting bored - or old - or any of that. We'll have a new heavens and a new earth, and the Good Wine... Meanwhile, we are still here, and like Milo in The Phantom Tollbooth, facing the demons of ignorance. People make up silly lines about "peace" - but they've forgotten what Gandalf said: "It only takes one to have a war" (I quote from memory.) Thank God we have our dear Uncle Gilbert to help us with the weapon of his mighty pen.

In the last week or so I heard a simply stupid - no, simply hilarious - proposal.
To find out the proposal, continue reading.

It seems that one of those awful Greek Letter College Associations (a "fraternity") is considering the publication of its secrets. Never mind that all their history is available for public contemplation. Never mind that their "constitution" or written form of government was published back in the 1800s. They suggest that it would be "better" to tell the handful of details which they have kept to themselves since they were founded.

Now the correct term for this is "identity theft". It is the destruction of the one thing which makes such an organization be itself-and-no-other. Hence I said it's stupid.

But it's actually very hilarious, because it reveals a greater secret. It reveals that those members proposing it have not read Chesterton, and have not grasped the nature of the thing these fraternities call "secrets".

For they are secrets kept for one of the Three Great Reasons why humans keep secrets and have always kept secrets - which you can read about in ILN August 10, 1907 (CW27:523) or reprinted in All Things Considered. If you don't have the time to read it now, I can be of assistance here...

(1) Things are kept secret because EVERYONE knows about them. Like s-*-x.

(2) Things are kept secret because NOBODY has a clue about them, including the main person involved. Like why one stops for a moment on a hike and looks at a stone or a tree or a view...

But the third reason is the one which applies to fraternity, and the one which those unfortunates have overlooked.

(3) Things are kept secret for the sole purpose of revealing them at the proper time and proper conditions. Like a gift which is wrapped, or the solution of a detective novel.

It has escaped these college graduates that the "secrets" of fraternities - usually amounting to little more than three Greek words and their specific interpretation, a handshake and password - are preserved as secrets, not because they have some sinister plot, but simply because of the real fun of being able to reveal them to their new members. (No, it's not about hazing, or swallowing goldfish - you'll have to trust me on this.)

Like religions, where some people recite a creed stating their beliefs, even if they do not understand the complete character of the dogmas they are attesting, the typical fraternity member may not grasp the intricacies of their "secrets" - they leave such curiosities to the scholars, just as the man-in-the-pew leaves homoousion to the theologians... (Shh - there's a Greek word! Maybe a password?) Sure, the effect of that word is still in the public creed, but religions rarely mention that term, much less its technical lore. And the same is true for fraternities. Nobody is going to study page after page of detailed attributions to ponder the theory of a Greek word because the founders of some college club happened to like its sound. Not even college administrations have that kind of time to spend. But those members-to-be, those who are reading the mystery story, they deserve this little surprise.

Alas. The poor, deprived people who are proposing this most heinous of crimes (like the posting of solutions to Father Brown stories without a "spoiler" warning) would never post their bank accounts and PIN numbers and social security numbers. There's an awareness of the modern e-thugs, e-bandits, and e-pirates who steal identities. The same is true in this case. Let the children's gifts stay wrapped; let the children open them for whom the gifts are intended. We've got our own gifts - we ought to be thankful, even if we've kept them secret. "Your Father who sees in secret will repay you" for He "knows the secrets of the heart". [Mt 6:4, Ps43:22]

The Poet and the Lunatics: Chapter One

Chapter One: The Fantastic Friends

The Inn of the Rising Sun. I love the name. I love Chesterton's description of it. I love the painter. Notice that the only patron in months walks out and has red hair. Chesterton loved to give his lively characters red hair.

Having just traveled along Route 66 almost all the way to Texas last month, this line:

...and now everything goes by the new bridge a mile away.

reminded me of what interstates have done to the businesses along good old Route 66.

This line:

And on this side, where the white road curved over the hill, two figures were advancing, which seemed, even when they were hardly more than dots in the distance, to be markedly dissimiliar.

reminds me of both the Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas, where Chesterton compares Aquinas to St. Francis of Assisi, and to the closing scene of The Blue Cross, where Father Brown and Flambeau are seen in sillouette against the setting sun in Hampstead Heath, just before the greatest arrest of the century.

I liked this:

the chin beneath jutted forward, almost as if it had formed an unconscious resolution of its own

watch for the chin to keep playing this prominent role.

Questions: What does the innkeeper mean when he says he wants a tonic of "Prussic acid"? Is he saying he wants to die?
When the two men arrive at the inn, the man with the painter (whom we find out is named Hurrel) says his painter friend is "an RA"--what does that mean?
Does a "pewter pot" hold paints?
Hurrel has been talking as if he were a "cheap-jack"--what's that?
"if you will play Haroun Alraschid"--what is that?
"tenacity of a tout" ?

Who is the insane person in this chapter? Why?

Chestertonian theme: He must be locked up in a cell to show him that life is worth living after all, and the world a bright, happy place to live in. The man standing on his head. (or rather on his hands, as Chesterton says) See the landscape upsidedown. It's true for philosophy as well as art.

Gale says: you can only forbid him to die, can you persuade him to live? What would persuade a person to live?

Transcendental tomfoolery. I love that phrase.

We're all flies crawling on the ceiling, and it's an everlasting mercy that we don't drop off. Peter, crucified upside down. All men hanging on the mercy of God.
Crazy! Crazy, crazy, crazy! She thinks. Ah, now we think we've identified the lunatic, don't we?

Another dark river was flowing between her and her own fairyland. What does this mean?

Gosh, there's so much just in this one chapter. So much Chestertonian thoughts packed in one short story!

What part of this chapter do you like the best? I like where Diana says, "I thought YOU were the lunatic!"

Happy Birthday Gilbert!

Bowing down in blind credulity, as is my custom, before mere authority
and the tradition of the elders, superstitiously swallowing a story I
could not test at the time by experiment or private judgment, I am
firmly of opinion that I was born on the 29th of May, 1874, on
Campden Hill, Kensington; and baptised according to the formularies of
the Church of England in the little church of St. George opposite the
large Waterworks Tower that dominated that ridge. I do not allege any
significance in the relation of the two buildings; and I indignantly
deny that the church was chosen because it needed the whole water-power
of West London to turn me into a Christian.

-- The beginning of GKC's Autobiography CW16
(Thanks Dr. T!)

Young guy quoting Chesterton

I read a bit of his blog, good stuff.

Thursday's Dr. Thursday Post

Thursday during the Great Novena

I am very busy just now, but even if I had time, I hesitate
to approach the profound harmonies which would link GKC's work with the
Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit... it will demand a greater discipline
and a purer holiness and a simpler and clearer mind than I have, sinful
as I am. But I will dare make a selection for our meditation today. It
is in very great resonance with the "Fairy Tale" essay by our beloved
J.R.R.Tolkien, and of course with many other writings of GKC like
Manalive. And I would especially mention that superlative
discussion on the "literary style" of Jesus and His bridge-building
fulfillment of the "granting of a real romance", discussed in the second
half of The Everlasting Man.

Please read it slowly, and think carefully, and deeply, while pondering
the story near the beginning of the "Acts of the Apostles" where the
great wind came, not to Beacon Hill, but to the upper room where the
Apostles where in prayer with Mary...

--Dr. Thursday.

For every mood there is an appropriate impossibility - a decent and
tactful impossibility - fitted to the frame of mind. Every train of
thought may end in an ecstasy, and all roads lead to Elfland. But few
now walk far enough along the street of Dickens to find the place where
the cockney villas grow so comic that they become poetical. People do
not know how far mere good spirits will go. For instance, we never think
(as the old folk-lore did) of good spirits reaching to the spiritual
world. We see this in the complete absence from modern, popular
supernaturalism of the old popular mirth. We hear plenty to-day of the
wisdom of the spiritual world; but we do not hear, as our fathers did,
of the folly of the spiritual world, of the tricks of the gods, and the
jokes of the patron saints. Our popular tales tell us of a man who is so
wise that he touches the supernatural, like Dr. Nikola; but they never
tell us (like the popular tales of the past) of a man who was so silly
that he touched the supernatural, like Bottom the Weaver. We do not
understand the dark and transcendental sympathy between fairies and
fools. We understand a devout occultism, an evil occultism, a tragic
occultism, but a farcical occultism is beyond us. Yet a farcical
occultism is the very essence of "The Midsummer Night's Dream." It is
also the right and credible essence of "The Christmas Carol." Whether we
understand it depends upon whether we can understand that exhilaration
is not a physical accident, but a mystical fact; that exhilaration can
be infinite, like sorrow; that a joke can be so big that it breaks the
roof of the stars. By simply going on being absurd, a thing can become
godlike; there is but one step from the ridiculous to the sublime.

[GKC, Charles Dickens CW15:49-50]

.....Come Holy Ghost, renew in us Your seven-fold gifts...

Anyone know? RIDES TO CONFERENCE

Reader bleg:

This will be my first Chesterton Conference. I fly in to Minn/St. P HHHumphrey terminal on SunCountry at noon on Thursday and out at 10 a.m. on Sunday. If anyone could give rides, carpools, sharing a cab from the airport, etc, around those times, I'd appreciate knowing about it.

Also, do you have any idea of cab fare from the airport to the college, or whether there is an alternative, e.g., bus, shuttle, or van services?

Thanks for any info/help.

I've driven into town, so I don't know the airport situation at all.

UPDATE: From Dale--Everybody who needs a ride to the airport on Sunday will get one. A ride
from the airport is trickier, but workable.

2nd Update: From Sara B on the airport:

the answer to the airport question is that there are two terminals at
MSP. Most flights go into the main terminal, Lindbergh. Humphrey is the newer terminal.

They are a couple of miles away from each other. You could possibly share a taxi going back -- and certainly share a volunteer ride -- but not one coming in without enormous hassle. There's a shuttle bus between the twoterminals, but you want to get the right one the first time.

Speaking as someone who gave a ride to Humphrey and fortunately noticed in time that the airline wasn't listed -- and hightailed it to Lindbergh.

As always, check your itinerary. The current map of Humphrey lists AirTran, Midwest, Sun Country, Ryan and Champion air as the airlines there -- it's also used for a lot of charter flights. Northwest and the others are at Lindbergh.

I don't know the current taxi fare, but as things go in the MSP area, the terminals really aren't that far from the conference. It's about a 15 minute ride.

But it shouldn't be a huge cab fare to leave the airport and go to the conference. Just make sure you have your map along to get them to the right check-in point if you don't know University of St. Thomas.

March Gilbert

I did finally get it a couple days ago. Just haven't had a chance to do much more than look at it. It looks nice, doesn't it?

Last week, the next issue finished up and was sent to print. Now, we can look forward to another great issue, edited with bubbles and brewing going on in the background. Should be good!

Lobster Mayonaise

Make it in honor of The Man Who Was Thursday.

Poet and Lunatics--Introduction

OK, let's get started on The Poet and the Lunatics: Episodes in the Life of Gabriel Gale. This is one of Chesterton's lesser known works, originally published in 1929. According to the Chesterton Society's Bibliography:

"Eight mysteries featuring the poet-detective, Gabriel Gale, who solves (or prevents) crimes committed by madmen. The lunatics all represent the modern breakdown of reason.
-Out of Print.

Quote:

"I doubt whether any truth can be told except in a parable."

But of course the "Out of Print" information is already out of date. I have a House of Stratus edition published in 2001.

The clue from above, that Gale solves or prevents crimes is interesting. And also that each lunatic represents a modern breakdown of reason. I think we'll find that these "modern breakdowns" are current to our day.

And first impressions?

Mine, as usual, is that Chesterton has written a mysterious book, one which I need help to read and understand. Some of you have probably read this book more than once, and know it inside and out. I'm only on my first reading of it, so you will all help me out, ok?

Dawn Eden on the Radio talking about the Chesterton Conference

I'm happy to report that going to be on Gus Lloyd's "Seize the Day" show this Monday on Sirius Catholic Chanel at 6:40 a.m. Eastern and have told the producer I'd like to discuss the Chesterton conference and what I'll be speaking about there. Could you mention it on any Chesterton blogs with which you're involved? I believe readers can get free three-day online Sirius memberships at http://www.siriusradio.com, where they should be able to hear the Catholic Channel. Thanks!

Brew Update

From Sean:

Update for my homebrew (Gabri-Ale): I racked it into the secondary fermenter on Thursday. It is doing very well: I took a hydrometer reading and it will be at just about 5 percent alcohol, which is what you want for an English pale ale, which is what this is.

The beer, still uncarbonated, has a nice yellow-ish hue with a hint of orange. In other words, when the light shone through it, it looked very lovely. It'll settle out further for the next four or five days, and then it'll be ready to bottle. It'll carbonate, or "condition," in the bottles. With this batch, I am "dry hopping" for the very first time. Dry hopping means adding hops during secondary fermentation, in addition to the hops I added during the boil. This is a traditional English method of hopping and improves hop aroma.

Right now it is sitting in my office in its glass carboy with a towel wrapped around it. It is nice editing Gilbert Magazine while homebrew ferments behind me. Sort of like having a guardian angel there. The towel is to keep the light out. Why? Ever had a "skunked" beer? It gets that way from being exposed to light: light reacts badly with the hops, making them emit a skunk flavor and odor if exposed to light. That's why most bottled beer comes in brown bottles: it protects the beer from sunlight. Any skunked beer you might have had, I guarantee, came in a green or clear bottle. Beer in green or clear bottles is nearly always skunked. Corona, in clear bottles, is notorously skunky. Avoid it. Drink homebrew.

Pretend it's Thursday

The Ascension: Some Technical Aspects
From Dr. Thusday

I myself have little Latin and less Greek. But I know enough Greek to know the meaning of the second syllable of "enthusiasm," and I know it to be the key to this and every other discussion.
[GKC, The Thing CW3:139]
Note: the second syllable of enthusiasm comes from the Greek word QeoV which means God.

Yes, like GKC I have very little Latin and even less Greek - but I try to be enthusiastic. Hence, for me, and for the Chestertonians who like The Man Who Was Thursday, today's feast is a very special one. After all, it is always celebrated on a Thursday! Yes, so is Holy Thursday. And there is a very curious connection between these two great feasts.To find out the curiosity, continue reading.

Our modern world - no, the civilized world - makes much of connections, of linkings, of unitings, of tyings-together, bonds, unions, weddings, contracts. So many forms, so many purposes.

If there is one word which is the glaring trademark of civilization, from ancient Sumer and Egypt, out to the Magellanic Clouds and all points south, it is communication, which is the most fundamental and most grand form of joining. It links two minds, separated by years, or by distance, or by life-experience. The mystery of the spoken word, the written word: this is the linking which binds us in time. This is a reasonable, and even logical thing to recall today, for St. John calls Jesus "the Word" ("ho Logos in Greek)!

And from time immemorial, there have been ships, there have been carts and waggons, there have been beasts-of-burden - and there have been roads, both Roman and interstate. There's a method in my madness, however - for Jesus told us "I am the way" ("he Hodos" in Greek)!

Now today we see another road - the road to heaven, to eternity - taken by a Man who was dead, but now lives.

Today marks His "departure" from this world in that visible body with its five glorious wounds. Yet today is not at all sad - nor are His last words the usual words of departure or leave-taking. Yes, it is paradoxical - like oOur dear Uncle Gilbert, whose last words were "Hello, my dear" - the last words of Jesus were "Behold, I am with you always." (see the very end of St. Matthew for the details.)

So - this day is a kind of feast day of communication. (Speaking personally and quite technically, I would have to say that the real feast day for communication is March 25, but I will have to discuss that another day.)

Why? Well, partly because communication plays well into the haphazard structure of meditations for the Thursdays of Paschaltide which I stumbled into a few weeks back. We've been exploring the Great Vigil, and last week we had gotten up to the blessing of the water and the renewal of Baptism. But after that, except for the proper prayers and a special Hanc igitur, and the double Alleluias at the dismissal, there really isn't anything different in the bulk of the Vigil Mass from that of any Mass from the rest of the year. Just what is in that "bulk"? Chiefly, it is simply the "thanksgiving" prayer (which is what "eucharist" means) - but it is the re-presentation of Calvary, as Jesus taught us at the Last Supper.

In a word, it is Transubstantiation - it is the way in which Jesus is with us always.

Yes, that's a hard word, for us who deal with fuel injection and broadband and internet web pages and so forth. No, it's just the supreme form of commuication, whereby God communicates with us - and we communicate with God.

As to Transubstantiation, it is less easy to talk currently about that; but I would gently suggest that, to most ordinary outsiders with any common sense, there would be a considerable practical difference between Jehovah pervading the universe and Jesus Christ coming into the room.
[GKC, The Thing CW3:180]

As you read this, the signals of hundreds of television channels, of radio stations, of beams and signals from satellites, from cell-phone towers, from antennae of many kinds - all kinds of waves are pervading your presence. You, poor weak human, are completely unaware of them - the most that might happen is you would be cooked if you were too close to a high-power microwave source. But any detector, even a simple one, can turn those undetectable waves into a form we can perceive - it's as if their source walked into the room with you.

Behold, our God has not left us orphans. He is with us hidden in the sacred species, as hidden in His Manhood as He once hid His divinity on Calvary. And if there is one clear fact about the sacred species, it is that they are products of engineering: you have to grind wheat, crush grapes, add water, and do all the rest of the various steps in just the right way - ain't no philosophy there, buddy - it's reality.

So, too, in the Ascension, there is another kind of engineering. Jesus, the Way, shows us the way we also will go, if we choose to follow Him. He has built the "back-channel", the other side of the highway - the bridge which goes back from earth to heaven.

P.S. I've always wondered why there aren't some devout engineering titles for our Lord. Well - maybe there is at least one: the Pope is still called by a title of the high priests of ancient Rome - pontifex maximus - the Greatest Bridge Builder. And if the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, I guess Christ can have that title too. (You can just imagine Him out there with His hard hat and clipboard, blueprints rolled up under His arm, checking the traverses!) But though there are other liturgical phrases and prayers which hint at the technical character of our faith (like St. Joseph the worker!) there is always that beautiful line in the Litany of the Sacred Heart:

"Heart of Jesus, in Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, have mercy on us.

[See St. Paul's letter to the Colossians 2:3 for the source.]

Turning the World Upsidedown

A recurring theme in the Chesterton writings is seeing the world anew by turning it upsidedown. There's even a blog called Standing on my Head.

What does it mean to see the world upsidedown? How can we get a new perspective on our lives by seeing things differently?

It seems to me as if The Poet and the Lunatics is Chesterton's attempt to answer these questions.

On Monday, we'll begin with Chapter One.

Approximately One Month...

...have you registered for the conference? Time to do so. Make those travel plans.

Carpool help here. Let us know if you'd like a ride, can offer a ride, etc. Also needed are people to pick up people from the airport and take them to the conference.

Who is Aidan Mackey?

There will be a session at the conference called "AAA" Ask Aidan Anything. Another with Aidan's perspective on The Man Who Was Thursday.

The brochure says he's the founder of the G.K. Chesterton Study Centre in England. My bet is he's British (accent and all).

This is a man who knew Ada Chesterton. Talked to her. Who else did he talk to?

You people who know Aidan better than I: Tell us more about him, and why any Chestertonian would want to talk to him.

New Books at Chesterton

There is a new edition of The Well and the Shallows available through the ACS. It boasts an introduction by our own Dale Ahlquist.

Put it on your wish list, buy it at the conference, or get it today.

Something New for the Chesterton Conference

I got a letter in the mail this week about the Chesterton Conference and I noticed something new: The Chesterton Society would like to remind you that tradition has dictated that the conference be free, but increasing financial demands beg that we consider making a small donation ($10 per day) for the Conference this year.

It seems to me that $30 is still pretty low to pay for the best Conference I've ever attended.

It isn't a "registration fee" this year, but I suspect it may be next year, unless tradition prevails, or unless the suggested donation works out.

It also says in the letter that the membership fee, which includes a subscription to Gilbert and 20% discount on all Chestertonian products and books, will be going up after the conference (June 14-16) so NOW would be a good time to join (still only $35) or renew.

The letter also suggests purchasing and reading The Man Who Was Thursday in preparation for the conference, hey, we're way ahead of that here, having already had an on-line book discussion over the past few months. We're good. ;-)

So, prepare your wallets. If you can give more, please do. If not, please plan to put at least $30 in the donation box. It will help defray the costs of the building rental, and keep Chesterton Conferences going for the great annual event they've come to be.

And if you can't come but can donate, naturally, that's always welcome. If you're in that position, we thank you.

Will you be generous when the donation basket is in front of you?

GKC's Intro to Jane

Austen, that is. Some Chestertonians are Austenians, too. One I know will miss ChesterCon07 due to an AustenCon07.

Some have it

but not I.

Thursday Post

Humbly Renewing the Renewal (of Baptism)

"Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak."
[GKC "The Hammer of God" in The Innocence of Father Brown]

Our story, so far:

The new fire, the light of the New Spring of the Universe, has been kindled.

The great candle has been claimed for Christ, the Alpha and Omega, redolent with the fragrance of His five glorious wounds, and alight with the New Life which comes from death, as He foretold: "if a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies..."

And therefore, we hear chanted the great Praeconium, the hymn of His victory, which is ours. We hear reading after reading, remembering why "this night is different from all other nights" when our doors were marked with blood and we followed Moses through the sea.

And then the bells rang out, and the Gloria was chanted! the very same song which was taught to us by the angels on another night of wonder.

Then we hear Paul, the persecutor-turned-Apostle, tell us that we have died, and our lives are now hidden with Christ in God.

Then the Alleluia, and the Good News is told: how just as the sun had risen, [What a pun. But I did not make it.] the women went to the tomb, forgetting about how the stone needed to be rolled back - and what they discovered...

Sure - you know all that. But like little children, we tell it to each other, over and over, because it is Good News - night is passed, and the Day is here!

A day of new life. So now it is time for us to consider how the new life begins.
Continue reading.It begins, as the story of the world began - with water. No, my dear subatomic physicists, no, my beloved big-banging cosmologists - I am not trying to talk about some literal interpretation of how "the Spirit hovered over the face of the waters". For most of human existence, water was seen as an elementary thing - how much more, now that we know so very much about water, do we know its vast, fundamental, critical, wonderful importance for life - and for us. Especially for us Christians.

Some time ago I wrote an essay about water, setting forth a mere handful of important facts and a comment or two, almost a kind of meditation... little guessing that in 2002 Pope John Paul II would practically give us what we might call the Five Hydrous Mysteries! Should you care to read my essay, you can find "The Division of the Waters" in my index here. (My discussion of how the Luminous Mysteries are connected with water appeared in my comments for Advent 2006, which begin here.)

But here and now, we are here considering the particular use of water during the Great Paschal Vigil.

How solemn this event is! The fire, the candle, the readings, the Doxa, the Epistle, the Gospel! The memory of the races at sunrise, people running around, telling each other something too good to be true - but it was true!

But now, we enter into a deeper layer of the mystery - for we now enter into the very womb of the Church, and we shall see the organs by which the New Life is communicated - and (as much as our earthly eyes can) see that Life itself.

Such an action cannot be taken lightly. We must humble ourselves, and ask for assistance. So the priest intones the ancient Litany of the Saints, asking God for His mercy, and the intercession of Mary and all the angels and saints - and we respond, Lord have mercy! All you angels and saints, pray for us!

Then the priest opens the baptismal font, filled with that marvellous liquid called water, or H₂O.
There it sits, quiet and shimmering in the Paschal light: one of the most unique and most fascinating substances formed by God. In nearly perfect balance within itself, its pH of 7 means that only one out of every ten million molecules is incomplete, and thus charged. Yet, its powerful electric dipole gives it a "fractional" charge, formed along the central axes of a tetrahedron, and thus having the form of a cross - it is this powerful activity which makes water one of the most difficult of all substances to make warmer, or colder - and why ice floats.

Meanwhile, we humans stand nearby in reverence, the warmth of our bodies keeping the water in unceasing motion within the cells of our body forces the various proteins in those cells to maintain their correct shapes... To say nothing of the heart's pumping of blood, which is another topic in itself.

Now, to all these, and so many other amazing physical powers, the priest comes, and speaks in persona Christi, exorcizing the water - it is no longer just a thing-of-the-world; blessing the water - it is to be used for divine purposes; dipping the Paschal candle into the water...

Ah, now we see a connection to the Luminous Mysteries (L1 to be precise; see Mt 3:13-17) And, strangely enough, to Genesis. For the Paschal candle is the symbol of Christ. And once, Jesus Himself was dipped into the water of the Jordan. Now, the water which was divided in Genesis, and which divides the hydrophobic amino acids from the hydrophilics in the countless places within our bodies - now, this water will have the power to act as Jesus commanded before His ascension: "baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" [Mt28:19]

This water can now perform division: dividing New Life from death.

Alas, I've got to stop now, or I will quickly fill a gigabyte or two. After all, next week is the Ascension, and I've got to leave some room for that. Ah, I know what's missing. So far, I haven't said much about Chesterton, and just in case you don't have time to hunt up my essay, here is a relevant GKC gem for you to ponder:

Chesterton was a very large man, and he began his autobiography by stating that he "was baptised according to the formularies of the Church of England in the little Church of St. George opposite the large Waterworks Tower that dominated that ridge. I do not allege any significance in the relation of the two buildings; and I indignantly deny that the church was chosen because it needed the whole water-power of West London to turn me into a Christian." [GKC Autobiography CW16:21]
This water tower played an important role in his story The Napoleon of Notting Hill, but even more important to him was the role of baptism: "I know only one scheme that has proved its solidity, bestriding lands and ages with its gigantic arches, and carrying everywhere the high river of baptism upon an aqueduct of Rome."[GKC The Thing CW3:156]
[above quoted from my essay]

But I ought not end this solemn renewal of the renewal-of-baptism with a quote of my own, or even of GKC's. Let me, rather, quote someone who was a living Paschal candle, bearing marks of the Five Wounds in his very own flesh. He also thought very much about water, whom he loved so dearly he called her his "sister" and even wrote her into a song! Here is the verse:

Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very serviceable to us, and humble and precious and clean.
[St. Francis of Assisi, "Canticle of the Sun" quoted in the Poetry Appendix of The Liturgy of the Hours]

Manalive Movie to be made

Starring Mark Shea as Innocent.

TMWWT-Gabrie-Ale

Again from Dr. Thursday--Thanks.

Chapter VIII: The Professor Explains

When Gabriel Syme found himself finally established in a chair, and
opposite to him, fixed and final also, the lifted eyebrows and leaden
eyelids of the Professor, his fears fully returned. This
incomprehensible man from the fierce council, after all, had certainly
pursued him. If the man had one character as a paralytic and another
character as a pursuer, the antithesis might make him more interesting,
but scarcely more soothing. It would be a very small comfort that he
could not find the Professor out, if by some serious accident the
Professor should find him out. He emptied a whole pewter pot of ale before the Professor had touched his milk.

Gabrie-Ale inspired poetry

by Nick Milne (past Gilbert & Frances Scholarship award winner).

Now hear of the hundreds so hearty and hale
Who drunk of the dregs of the Gabri-ale;
Who shouted for glory and clenchèd their fists,
And cried out, "good heavens, that flavour persists!"

They quaffed it like water and praised it like wine;
They called it exquisite; they said it was fine;
They toasted the Pope and the Infant on high,
And they fought with the earth and eloped with the sky.

And each man, sincerely, who had drunk so well:
"I alone have escaped to tell."

Well, Nick, we'll miss you again this year. But thanks for the poetry.

ChesterCon Speaker

Dr. Thursday called my attention to an upcoming seminar on heraldry at
ChesterCon07. Those of you who have been reading TMWWT with us may have
wondered about the following line:

"Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies."

Such a shield would look like this:

It is not clear to us whether this is really the arms of an actual
"Syme" family, or if it is Chesterton's invention - but its simplicity
and boldness seem appropriate. Any speculations from the audience?

Gabri-Ale

Beer brewing seems to be a Chestertonian tradition (someone here can tell us all why) and I've heard tell that some home brew's been cooked up for the Conference in June. The brewer is calling it "Gabri-Ale" in honor of Gabriel Syme, hero of The Man Who Was Thursday (or perhaps The Man Who Was Thirsty as Dawn Eden calls her talk?).

TMWWT-Chapter Fifteen--Final Chapter

I've delayed writing about this last chapter, due to my reluctance to end this wonderful book. But, as I've started reading our next selection, The Poet and the Lunatics: Episodes in the Life of Gabriel Gale, and am enjoying it very much, I think it is time to conclude our study of The Man Who Was Thursday.

Well, many readers get to this chapter, finish the book, and then say, "What in the world just happened?" Did that happen to you?

I have the "Annotated" Thursday, so I get a lot of extra stuff at the back of my book. For example, Martin Gardner, the person who annotated the book, includes, in the Appendix, all of the explanations Chesterton himself offered, during his lifetime, of his book. These (he explained himself at least 5 different times) are enormously helpful. He wrote it, he knows what he meant. Of course, readers read into it what they may, and that's good. So these aren't exhaustive or exclusive.

So, back to chapter 15.

The beginning is very interesting, of the six guys making their way to their chairs. The descriptions are wonderful:
--a robe of starless black
--the perfect pattern of black and white expressed the soul of the Secretary
--no smell of ale or orchards could make the Secretary cease to ask a reasonable question (I love that!)
--Syme was a poet who always seeks to make the light in special shapes
--dressed as a windmill, an elephant, a balloon, all things they've seen along the way
--like a living question
which reminds me that ChesterTeens has a picture of a cuttlefish. I think you ought to see a hornbill as well, since it's mentioned several times in this book.

The seven great chairs reminds me of C.S. Lewis' four thrones in Narnia.

"But you are men. You did not forget your secret honour, through the whole cosmos turned an engine of torture to tear it out of you. I knew how near you were to hell. I know how you, Thursday, crossed swords with Kind Satan, and how you, Wednesday, names me in the hour without hope."

and Syme's moment of truth:
"I see everything," he cried, "everything that there is. Why does each thing on tyhe earth war against each other thing? Why does each small thing in the world have to fight against the world itself? Why does a fly have to fight the whole universe? Why does a dandelion have to fight the whole universe? For the same reason that I had to be alone in the deardul Council of the Days..."

And then, the break where the dream ends...I mean the nightmare ends, and the story resumes. And the great ending, Syme "felt he was in possession of some impossible good news, which made every other thing a triviality, but an adorable triviality."

Wow. A great book. A great rip-roaring jaunt through one man's enormous imagination. Wouldn't you like to chat with Chesterton, just once?

A book for Boys based on GKC's Writings

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

G. K. Chesterton on Boys, May 1, 2007
Reviewer: Michael W. Perry (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

What a marvelous idea for a book! It puts into action what G. K. Chesterton wrote in a 1906 magazine article:

*****
A child's instinct is almost perfect in the matter of fighting; a child always stands for the good militarism as against the bad. The child's hero is always the man or boy who defends himself suddenly and splendidly against aggression. The child's hero is never the man or boy who attempts by his mere personal force to extend his mere personal influence. In all boys' books, in all boys' conversation, the hero is one person and the bully the other. That combination of the hero and bully in one, which people now call the Strong Man or the Superman, would be simply unintelligible to any schoolboy....

But really to talk of this small human creature, who never picks up an umbrella without trying to use it as a sword, who will hardly read a book in which there is no fighting, who out of the Bible itself generally remembers the "bluggy" [bloody] parts, who never walks down the garden without imagining himself to be stuck all over with swords and daggers--to take this human creature and talk about the wickedness of teaching him to be military, seems rather a wild piece of humour. He has already not only the tradition of fighting, but a far manlier and more genial tradition of fighting than our own. No; I am not in favour of the child being taught militarism. I am in favour of the child teaching it.
****

And for those rainy days with mommy makes the young warrior stay indoors, get him wonderful, imaginative books such as Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn, and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, along with tales of exploration like those of Ernest Shackleton and the two brave young men in Across Asia on a Bicycle

--Michael W. Perry, Untangling Tolkien

For Your Closest High Schooler

A Study of G.K. Chesterton's "The Donkey." And you can see a grade school performance of the same on You Tube here.

March Issue on the way...slightly late...

April/May to follow shortly afterward. Team Gilbert working hard to gain scheduling corrective. Patient subscribers and writer's and editor's spouses will be rewarded in heaven.

Dr. Thursday on Fire and Light

via Dr. Thusday:
The Paschal Candle, or: What number is the opposite to 666?

We are investigating the great drama, that singular, once-a-year event, that most thrilling and awesome prelude to that Chief Act of all Human Life: the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered at the Paschal Vigil.

Last week's scene was an almost perfect recollection of the man-half of Chesterton's The Everlasting Man: early in spring, in the darkness of night, outside the church, the priest (acting for all of us, in the primitive darkness like cavemen) kindles a new fire.

Now, in that fresh light, he comes before a gigantic candle, one of the biggest candles most of us shall ever see. On that candle he scratches certain symbols, marking the origin-point, the junction of all the axes, the zero or golden milestone, from which all our other measures will take place.

But unlike the 6-foot-tall mile-marking pillars of ancient Roma, or our reflective turnpike markers which count downwards to the south or the west, or any of the usual systems of cartesian or polar geometry, this meauring post marks not space, but time.Continue reading.
For it is here, the death and resurrection of Jesus, the culmination of His life, which gives us the system of time we are still using. Pagans, Mohammedans, Communists, French revolutionaries, even desperately frightened computer dullards in the late 1990s - none of these have broken out of the master-clock which first struck that Sunday morning just outside Jerusalem two millennia ago.

And so the daily offering of Mass, and the yearly recollection of the liturgical seasons, have proceeded, and counted out the times and seasons.

But here is the zero, the marking-point. And the priest now proceeds to mark it with mystical and high-technology. Yes, the highest technology, for it is the study (logos) of the art (techne) which links us to God - and what art is higher than that?

We should here note: since this is a solemn and sacramental action, the priest uses words and actions as well as something physical (the candle). The candle itself is has its own ritual meaning: it is
(1) something simple from nature, the wax of bees
(2) something humanly produced (a wick is added and it is molded into a long cylinder
(3) it is a vast collection of small and individual contributions (each bee has its own very small addition)
(4) which becomes something singular by something above nature (one does not find Paschal candles sprouting on bushes, or in the sea, or by mining; the transcendent - human activity - is also required, but would fail without the work of those bees!
And more, for when it is lighted, it becomes capable of doing something normally only possible to intangibles:
(5) the flame can be divided and yet remain itself undiminished! (Compare this to the discussion in Dante's Purgatory relating to theft and the properties of tangibles and intangibles.) Then again, the last time I tried, I found that fire is rather an intangible. Hee hee.

Ahem. I am a bit ahead of myself. Before the candle is lighted, the priest recites the following words, and traces the various parts of the following symbol with each verse.

Christus heri et hodie
Principium et Finis
Alpha et Omega
Ipsius sunt tempora et saecula
Ipsi gloria et imperium
per universa aeternitatis saecula.
Amen.

vertical beam of cross: Christ yesterday and today,
horizontal beam of cross: the Beginning and the End,
capital Greek Alpha: the Alpha
capital Greek Omega: and the Omega,
first digit of year: His are the times
second digit of year: and the ages,
third digit of year: To Him be glory and empire
fourth digit of year: Throughout all the ages of eternity. Amen.

Then the priest inserts the five grains of incense (1,2,3 in a vertical column, 4 on left, 5 on right), while saying:

1. Through His holy
2. and glorious wounds
3. may Christ our Lord
4. guard
5. and protect us. Amen.

Now, the candle is ready. It is consecrated - marked as belonging to Christ - and so now it is set aflame.

In a mystic sense, this lighted candle symbolizes the Risen Jesus, for the flame indicates the "life" of the candle. Then, the priest chants the Praeconium Paschale - the "Exultet" or Easter Canticle, a rich and detailed prose-poem which summarizes the history of salvation, recalling the felix culpa - the "happy fault" of Adam which gave us this great redeemer!

But let us back up just a little and examine that symbol a little more closely.

The Cross During Lent we have considered some aspects of the cross. The death of Jesus on the cross ("suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, died, and was buried" attested to by every Christian Creed, and nearly every Christian denomination and variety) is that singular marker, unrepeated in time, which shattered the endless cycles of the "Great Year" affirmed by nearly all forms of paganism throughout the world. (For lengthy but precise details on this, including scholarly attributions, see the first six chapters of Jaki's Science and Creation.) I might make a poetic allusion to the mathematics of the plus-sign, or quote the first chapter of GKC's The Ball and the Cross, but there is a better quote, linking well with Jaki's references to the cyclic Great Year:

As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and of health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travellers.
[GKC Orthodoxy CW1:231]

The Alpha and Omega These symbols (and the accompanying words) are taken directly from the Bible:

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
[Revelation (Apocalypse) 1:8]

This is simply the Greek version of what we mean in English when we say "from A to Z". Such a figure of speech is a synecdoche - naming the parts for the whole - "A to Z" means all the letters of the alphabet. In music, "gamut" means from "Gamma" to "ut" which are the old names for the note we call "C". The Greeks in those early years actually said "the Alpha and the W" which is an omega. Here sneaks in a curious and little-known secret code, which is the answer to my title-riddle. Some classical scholars (and even some fraternity members!) know that the Greeks (like the Hebrews) used their letters to stand for numbers. The mystic number for "AntiChrist" was given as 666 (or perhaps 616) by St. John (Rv. 13:18). One guess is that meant Nero. But if 666 is AntiChrist, what is the number of Christ? Clearly, since St. John also told us that Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, His number must be "Alpha Omega", which translates to 801.

But let us not struggle with mystic poetry just now. Rather let me talk high-tech just for a moment.

Computer scientists use something called the "star-closure" to represent the set of all strings (of finite length) produced by concatenation of a given finite set of characters. What do I mean? If you have God's Own Scrabble Set, with as many letters as you might need, and decided to make a "list" of all the possible "words", you could jot them down on some "infinite" paper He would also let you use. But it would take a whole lot of "time". So computer scientists, not having access to these divine tools, write it like this:
A*
and there is the whole infinite collection of finite strings, in one tidy little symbol. We use this tool for solving questions like what computers can do, and so on. But it is merely a symbol, standing for something which contains an "infinite number" of "words". It's useful, as far as it goes. (An example: since all computers are finite, all programs, no matter how complex, are able to produce nothing but outputs of the form AB*C. That is called the "pumping lemma" for finite state machines.)

But with Alpha and Omega, we have something lots easier to deal with here, and lots easier to explain. The English-speaking child learns that the letters start with A and go on to Z (some call it zee, some call it zed) and end there. There aren't any others. Likewise the Greek child knows from alpha to omega. That's it, all, and everything. If Christ-the-Word-Made-Flesh is this "gamut" of letters, then He is all and everything too. And so the marks on the candle proclaim the same thought as the words in the Creed: per quem omnia facta sunt - "through Him all things were made". He isn't "each" of all the various words (just as "A*" isn't "this" or "that" or "candy" or "cactus") - Jesus is THE Word.

The digits of the year The old liturgical calendar used the term "Sundays after Pentecost"; the new one calls them "Sundays in Ordinary Time" - which really means "ordinal" as in counting, not the opposite of "special" as in dull, bland or banal. (But then I am just a computer scientist, and all Chestertonians know there is no such thing as a boring subject.) All Sundays in the last 1950-plus years have been Sundays after Pentecost, and we could write their ordinals (fifty-second, two-hundred-and-fifth, seventy-six-thousand, four-hundred and ninety-sixth...) if we wanted to. But that's very tedious. It's lots easier just to track how many years it has been since Jesus was born - and since this candle is the marker-thing which links this present year in its relation to that singular event from which all measures derive - yes, the Golden Milestone in the center of Roma! - well, we need to note on this milestone its appropriate distance, so we don't get lost in some cyclical view that history is going to repeat itself. After all, the Mass is a re-presentation, and a link to the one and only sacrifice of Calvary - but we "do it again" (as GKC says God commands the sun and moon). Indeed, we do it again and again because Jesus told us to do it. (See Lk 22:19; 1Cor11:25) True, the Mass is offered around the clock - yet normally a priest says Mass only once in a day. Here, at the Vigil, in a kind of parallel, we have something unique we do just once in a year - its singularity helps us remember, even after two millennia, that the Event Being Recalled happened only once.

To summarize, then:

Heaven has descended into the world of matter; the supreme spiritual power is now operating by the machinery of matter, dealing miraculously with the bodies and souls of men. It blesses all the five senses; as the senses of the baby are blessed at a Catholic christening. It blesses even material gifts and keepsakes, as with relics or rosaries. It works through water or oil or bread or wine. Now that sort of mystical materialism may please or displease [someone]. But I cannot for the life of me understand why [someone] does not see that the Incarnation is as much a part of that idea as the Mass; and that the Mass is as much a part of that idea as the Incarnation. A Puritan may think it blasphemous that God should become a wafer. A Moslem thinks it blasphemous that God should become a workman in Galilee. And he is perfectly right, from his point of view; and given his primary principle. ... If it be profane that the miraculous should descend to the plane of matter, then certainly Catholicism is profane; and Protestantism is profane; and Christianity is profane. Of all human creeds or concepts, in that sense, Christianity is the most utterly profane.
[GKC The Thing CW3:258-9]

Even more:

Mythology had many sins; but it had not been wrong in being as carnal as the Incarnation. With something of the ancient voice that was supposed to have rung through the groves, it could cry again, “We have seen, he hath seen us, a visible god.”
[GKC, The Everlasting Man CW2:308]

It must be so, in order that the priest might "give you God out of his own hands." [GKC The Ball and the Cross]

Thus, in this beautiful lighted candle, scribed with symbols, blessed with words, giving its light to others and yet in its division never diminished, (cf. the Sequence for Corpus Christi: "sumit unus, sumunt mille; quantum isti, tantum ille") we have an "icon" - an image - of the Risen Jesus, the God-man marked with His five Glorious Wounds, Who has supreme command over all times and seasons. And thus, in the Mass which shortly follows, we see fulfilled those words of Malachi the Prophet:

For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts. [Mal 1:11]

In every place, in every time: Blessed are they that are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. (Rev 19:9)

The Voice of GKC on the internet?

I'm not that familiar with his voice, but this doesn't sound like him to me. Or else, it sounds sped up or something. What do you experts think of this recording?

Robert Moore-Jumonville: “Why Did the Lamppost Cross the Road: Chesterton’s Theology of Civilization”

This is the title of Dr. Moore-Jumonville's speech, to be given Friday morning of the Chesterton Conference.
Robert Moore-Jumonville, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Religion, Spring Arbor University

Gilbert Columnist: Jogging with Chesterton, A little bit about his conversion, uses Ipods in his classroom, and delivers turkeys while putting out fires. A versatile person, a Chestertonian. I look forward to hearing him speak.

She's speaking at the Conference...she's Dawn Eden

Her self-assessment was altered radically when, on the recommendation of a musician she interviewed, she discovered famed Christian author G.K. Chesterton. Eden explains: "Back in December 1995, while doing a phone interview with Ben Eshbach of an L.A. band called the Sugarplastic, I thought I would ask him something more erudite than the usual rock-journalist questions, so I asked what he was reading. He said that he was reading G.K. Chesterton's 'The Man Who Was Thursday.' So, I thought, well, I'll impress him and I'll go out and read it. I picked it up, not knowing what I was in for."

Chesterton, she said, presented the heroes in the book as rebels who "discovered that what they were ultimately searching for was the very thing that they thought they had been rebelling against - God."

"I saw that Chesterton was presenting Christianity as the ultimate rebellion which was very jarring for me because I had defined myself as being countercultural," she said.

"This turned my worldview upside down," Eden went on, "because I had thought that Christians were conformists," said Eden. "It felt strange for me to have this idea planted in my head that to be Christian was to be creative and subversive."