Happy New Year!

Wishing you and your families and friends the best of everything in the new year. Peace, joy, prosperity and happiness in 2009!

Prayers for the Gilbert Magazine family

Please pray for our Gilbert magazine family. A few of our members are experiencing difficult situations, and so we ask you to join us in praying for them. Thank you.

Wall Street Journal on Chesterton: A Century of 'Thursday's

The Wall Street Journal printed a fairly big article on our man GKC on Saturday, Dec. 28th, 2008. Titled: A Century of Thursdays: G.K. Chesterton dismissed his own book as 'moonshine', but it endures by Allen Barra, whom, I'm told is an American Chesterton Society member (go Allen!).

I read it yesterday when my spouse brought home a photo copy from the library, and I thought it was extremely good. After reading the latest Gilbert, I was kind of waiting for the shoe (of anti-Semite) to drop, but it never did. Yeah, Allen Barra, yeah WSJ! And yeah Randy Jones, too, who conjured up a new Chesterton caricature for the piece (check it out, it's great).

Dale Ahlquist, our intrepid leader, hopes this might pave the way for a WSJ article on our annual conference. Apparently they were there last year, interviewed a bunch of people, but then never produced an article. Oh well, things happen in the journalistic world.

Barra was good, quoted nicely and accurately, brought out some great points, linked it into the current presidency and the past election campaign, writing a nice, succinct and wide ranging (appropriately Chestertonian) article.

If you like the article, you can write to Mr. Barra, his email is listed at the end of the article. Even journalists like to hear some positive feedback every once in a while ;-)

UPDATE: I just tried emailing Mr. Barra, and it bounced, so I hope he finds this on his own.

NRO Interviews Father Brown (as played by Kevin O'Brien)

Kevin O'Brien was recently interviewed by John Miller of National Review Online, and it's quite interesting. Listen here.

Chesterton and the Jews

My new issue of Gilbert Magazine came the other day, and it's a large issue (over sized because it combines November and December's issues) devoted to the unfortunate myth of Chesterton's reported view of Jews being negative.

This was recently dragged into the public square again, when the New Yorker magazine ran an article that favorably recorded the fact that this was the 100th anniversary year of the publication of Orthodoxy, but then trotted out the old myth as a way of sort of dismissing Chesterton's genius at anything. Our President, Dale Ahlquist, sent this response to the New Yorker, but it was, sadly, never published.

So, the Chesterton group decided that if the New Yorker wouldn't publish it, Gilbert would, with additional support from anyone who has anything to say about Chesterton and Jews. Which, naturally, a lot of us did.

After spending several days reading this large issue, I have to say that it would be the perfect resource for anyone needing to defend Chesterton against the charges of being an anti-Semite. For those in the future finding this blog post, it is Gilbert Magazine, Volume 12, Numbers 2 & 3, the November/December 2008 issue.

The Flying Stars is Quoted!

I got my Christmas issue of Gilbert (we'll talk about this fantastic issue later) and I find myself quoted (twice!) on the internet. First, by Kathy Shaidle, at Five Feet of Fury, where she is quoting another blogger, The Other McCain: Unspeakable Truth, Mandatory Lies who read the latest Gilbert.

Both of them picked up on my opening paragraph of my latest The Flying Stars column, titled: An Author Accused:

Our current culture holds the twin paradoxical views that racial diversity is gloriously wonderful, but racial descriptions of individuals are taboo. Celebrating diversity is good; describing diversity is bad. We should acknowledge that people are of different races and be glad, but not glad enough to wonder what those races are.

Which is cool, thanks both of you!

Merry Christmas from the American Chesterton Society

The American Chesterton Society and the American Chesterton Society Blog would like to wish you and yours a very Happy, Holy, and Blessed Christmas, and any other religious holiday you are celebrating. God bless us, everyone!

Christmas Issue of Gilbert

One of the most interesting articles, containing a lot of humor, too, in the latest Gilbert magazine was Kevin O'Brien's account of his experiences as EWTN filming various things for the ACS and his own hew show (isn't that exciting!): Theater of the Word Incorporated. Not Theater of the Word, Inc, mind you. Think, the Word in-CORPorated.

Anyway, it was fun to see the pictures of the episodes, and hear the stories of the filming. My daughter picked up on Ashley Ahlquist's name (I had missed the "Reverand" in front of the "Doctor") and of course the famous Stanford Nutting, whom you can see on YouTube, but don't have your coffee cup in your hand or you'll risk spillage due to laughter.

Have a very Merry Christmas, drive safely, and keep warm.

Chesterton on Santa Claus: New York Times Dec. 22, 1912

In this book review (which I've never seen before), Chesterton defends Santa, and concludes:

...the only test of whether he is genuine is whether he is recognized.

In this article, which comes up, I'm sorry to say, as a pdf and more like a picture file than a word file, Chesterton is reviewing a book by S.R. Littlewood, The Story of Santa Claus. Apparently, Chesterton has mainly disagreed with the author, and seeks to inform us of that fact.

The third point is more obvious, but even more neglected; here it need only be mentioned to correct what has gone before. It should always be remembered that dogmatic and authoristative religious spend much of their time rather in restraining superstitions than in encouraging them, and that such enthusiasms as that which Protestants call "Mariolatry" generally display all the merits and defects of widespread democratic movements. If saints, such as St. Nicholas of the Children, do not exist, they were not a priestly deception, but an erroneous public opinion.

I hope you can download this and use AdobeReader to read it all, because it's great.

H/T/: Deb L. and Bob C.

Danny Gospel

This book was recommended by Dale Ahlquist in a recent issue of Gilbert Magazine. I thought I'd check it out for you. If you've read it, please comment below.
Danny Gospel by David Athey

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
As an answer to the recent question, "Why can't someone write a good book about someone suffering a tragedy who gets through it by having normal everyday encounters with family, friends, and strangers, who overcomes the situation with grace, and not by visiting an imaginary shack where he hallucinates about talking to God the Father (an African American woman), God the Son and God the Holy Spirit with an occasional appearance of Holy Wisdom, not a fourth person of the Trinity?", Danny Gospel is a wonderful book.

Danny, like the main character in The Shack, suffers terrible tragedies and must deal with death. Danny, like the main character in The Shack, has a car accident near the end of the book. Danny, unlike the main character in The Shack, has to deal with this sadness of life by normal everyday encounters with people.

Danny Gospel is the reminder that although Jesus is Lord and Savior, He isn't walking the earth anymore. Through a life of prayer, direction and help come in the physical contacts of everyday life: through friends, neighbors, brothers, and even strangers.

Danny is a lot like St. Francis of Assisi, and especially G.K. Chesterton's biography of the saint as a confusing jumble of ascetic/stigmatist and singer of songs to birds. Danny is a singer who fasts, too. And, like St. Francis, he is an extremely likeable, if at times complicated, person.

Danny Gospel is a compelling story. Once getting to know Danny, one's curiosity is piqued to keep finding out what was going to happen next.

Looking for an alternative to The Shack? Looking for a good book to read this week in particular, but any week would do? Looking for a book where the main character suffers a tragedy, but figures out, through friends and strangers, how to live again? How to forgive? How to really love? Read Danny Gospel. I think you'll like it.
View all my reviews.

WSJ Opinion: There Is a God

Thanks, Dave, for sending this article.

"He isn't real, is he?"

Perhaps a more responsible parent would confess, but I hesitate. For this I blame G.K. Chesterton, whose treatise "Orthodoxy" had its 100th anniversary this year. One of its themes is the violence that rationalistic modernism has worked on the valuable idea of a "mystical condition," which is to say the mystery inherent in a supernaturally created world. Writing of his path to faith in God, Chesterton says: "I had always believed that the world involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician.

Merry Christmas from Kevin O'Brien

H/T: Theater of the Word

Funny: Watch the dog. As Kevin gets more animated, the dog jumps, settles, jumps again, and finally leaves. I guess he had too much consumerism for one day ;-)

Wish I Lived in Greensboro--Don't You?

Fascinating article about a Chestertonian Christmas event in Greensboro, NC.

NEW -- The Chesterton Review General Index from 1974 - 2008 REVISED

The Chesterton Review has put out a new edition of their Index, and I would think any Chestertonian academic or scholar would be interested to have this information on hand, if not to own, at least to know it is available.

H/T: Peter F.

GKC's Christmas Paragraph in Orthodoxy

Today, December 18, is the second of the "Greater Feria", the grand Christmas countdown which the Church (like a little child) uses in her delight and anticipation for the great feast. I had debated whether to suspend our study of Orthodoxy - and then I was delighted to see what is in the very next paragraph! Oh the delight of being Thursday! (hee hee) I could not have planned it better - but then I did not plan it at all.

For this next paragraph - yes, finally - this is the great paragraph of Orthodoxy! The one everyone quotes, and misquotes. It gives us the two important truths about the "two paths" we must choose from: the path of light, or the path of darkness, which today shall go by another name - the name which is the other opposite of "light".

Ever since Christianity freed science from the slavery of the eternal cycles and from the ridiculous view that the "heavens" (the place of the sun, moon, planets and stars, not the place of God) used a different set of laws - if they used laws at all - physicists have been struggling to understand how things move. In the last few decades, we have gotten to a view of four main "forces" which govern the motion of all things. Two (the strong nuclear and the weak nuclear) govern subatomic particles and hold the nucleus of atoms together. The electromagnetic is the one we most often deal with in our lives: not only does it make computers and cars work, but simpler things like holding our bodies together, keeping lions in cages, and stuff like that - for it governs how atoms interact with each other. Finally, the most mysterious force - the hardest to study, but one which we also experience continually (unless we are astronauts) - the force of gravity, which governs how collections of atoms interact, and governs both the smallest grains of sand and the great collections of galaxies.

And though everyone tends to forget - unless one is reading these columns - it is the force of Christmas. But you will think it merely a pun. It may be a pun. But it happens to be true, and if you want to turn and become like little children for this feast when God Himself became a little children, you have to understand this next paragraph - if you never read any other paragraph of Orthodoxy - or of Chesterton.

((When you are ready to turn, click here))

The mystery to be revealed here is a stunning revelation of what might be called "angelology" - the study of the pure spirits or "angels". It is important to realize we actually know something about angels! GKC pointed that out in a hilarious way in a famous Christmas essay, and I will give you a little more of it than I usually quote:

Meanwhile, it remains true that I shall eat a great deal of turkey this Christmas; and it is not in the least true (as the vegetarians say) that I shall do it because I do not realise what I am doing, or because I do what I know is wrong, or that I do it with shame or doubt or a fundamental unrest of conscience. In one sense I know quite well what I am doing; in another sense I know quite well that I know not what I do. Scrooge and the Cratchits and I are, as I have said, all in one boat; the turkey and I are, to say the most of it, ships that pass in the night, and greet each other in passing. I wish him well; but it is really practically impossible to discover whether I treat him well. I can avoid, and I do avoid with horror, all special and artificial tormenting of him, sticking pins in him for fun or sticking knives in him for scientific investigation. But whether by feeding him slowly and killing him quickly for the needs of my brethren, I have improved in his own solemn eyes his own strange and separate destiny, whether I have made him in the sight of God a slave or a martyr, or one whom the gods love and who die young - that is far more removed from my possibilities of knowledge than the most abstruse intricacies of mysticism or theology. A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished.
[GKC ILN Jan 4 1908 CW28:20-21]

Yes, God has told us a little. And now - Chesterton will use that little to tell us a little more. You will think this all verbal fireworks, or all puns, or all nonsense. Oh, no. It is deep philosophy - it is as savory as a stuffed turkey, as pleasing and pungent as fresh and decorated pines - for it is ontology the science of being itself. But sit down, pour yourself something to drink, put on some Christmas lights, and read:

It is one of the hundred answers to the fugitive perversion of modern "force" that the promptest and boldest agencies are also the most fragile or full of sensibility. The swiftest things are the softest things. A bird is active, because a bird is soft. A stone is helpless, because a stone is hard. The stone must by its own nature go downwards, because hardness is weakness. The bird can of its nature go upwards, because fragility is force. In perfect force there is a kind of frivolity, an airiness that can maintain itself in the air. Modern investigators of miraculous history have solemnly admitted that a characteristic of the great saints is their power of "levitation." They might go further; a characteristic of the great saints is their power of levity. Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. This has been always the instinct of Christendom, and especially the instinct of Christian art. Remember how Fra Angelico represented all his angels, not only as birds, but almost as butterflies. Remember how the most earnest mediaeval art was full of light and fluttering draperies, of quick and capering feet. It was the one thing that the modern Pre-raphaelites could not imitate in the real Pre-raphaelites. Burne-Jones could never recover the deep levity of the Middle Ages. In the old Christian pictures the sky over every figure is like a blue or gold parachute. Every figure seems ready to fly up and float about in the heavens. The tattered cloak of the beggar will bear him up like the rayed plumes of the angels. But the kings in their heavy gold and the proud in their robes of purple will all of their nature sink downwards, for pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One "settles down" into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness. A man "falls" into a brown study; he reaches up at a blue sky. Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.
[CW1:325-6]

Yes, there it is. The famous "toucan" line, in all its splendour and its exquisite setting of ontological context! Let us say it together, just to try to learn its correct form:

Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.

It's called the toucan quote because it contains two "can"s. (hee hee) But we must not lose sight of its corollary line, which we also need to have at our disposal:

Satan fell by the force of gravity.

I have said before that one of Chesterton's greatest sustained demonstrations in all his writing has been on the dangers of PRIDE. There is this insight, written long before his conversion to Roman Catholicism:

Now, one of these very practical and working mysteries in the Christian tradition, and one which the Roman Catholic Church, as I say, has done her best work in singling out, is the conception of the sinfulness of pride. Pride is a weakness in the character; it dries up laughter, it dries up wonder, it dries up chivalry and energy.
[GKC Heretics CW1:107]

There too we see how one of the effects of pride is to remove humour and delight - to dry up laughter. But our paragraph doesn't simply warn us of what not to do. It tells us what we ought to do. We ought to take ourselves lightly. I ought to quote his entire famous essay in The Common Man, "If I Only Had One Sermon to Preach" - but I shall just give you the essential. In trying to explain the difficulties of terminology, GKC gives the scene of a pompous prideful braggart who enters a homely and popular pub - and gives the reactions of the Common Man to this visitor:

"He comes in here and he thinks he's God Almighty."

To which GKC appends "The man in the pub has precisely repeated, word for word, the theological formula about Satan." That is what it means to think too much of ourselves!

But those of us who can remember, as the good angels remember, that we are not God - and in fact are quite insignificant in the universe - well, then we can take ourselves lightly... and perhaps we too will fly up to join the choir which sang at the Birthday In the Cave.

One of the things we might do to recover that light and childline sense - on Christmas especially - is to remember to play - and I don't mean football or video games - or even board games. But silly games, simple, family games. Dickens himself linked these ideas:

After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.
[Charles Dickens, Stave 3, A Christmas Carol]

No I am not going to give you the rules for "forfeits" or even "Hunt the Slipper" which comes up in Chesterton. Instead you might try a couple of rounds of Gype, which means you will have to make up the rules first, which is even better. How you do it is your choice, but you ought to think about taking yourself lightly, even if you for some reason cannot field a Gype Team this year. (hee hee!)

Why do I think this is the most perfect paragraph for Christmas? Not only because we ought to laugh in this season, not only because of the angels who sing, and the demons who cower at the glory from the cave. No, those are true, but it is more human than that. Because it reveals the whoe reason for the season - the Protoevangelion, the words which Satan heard pronounced to Eve, that there would be One Who Would Come To Crush The Enemy.... again and again GKC is trying to remind us, there was this thing called "the Fall" - whcih is as Christmas as one can get. No wonder we put a Tree in our house... the Tree of Life.

And then, in the fullness of time, God decided to show us a mystery of a force greater than gravity, one which could pull Him out of heaven, and down to Earth:

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." [John 1:14]

Chesterton in Sight and Sound

H/T: Bob C.

This YouTube video contains more audio than I've heard before. The part that was new to me was the Canadian Literary Luncheon for Rudyard Kipling. I'd read that before, but never heard it.

Highlight: Hearing Chesterton laughing at his own humorous jokes–always a pleasure.

Ahlquist and GKC go to IHOP

From Dale:

I just returned from EWTN where Chuck Chalberg taped his segments as G.K. Chesterton for the 5th season of “The Apostle of Common Sense”, which will be aired next fall. I was down there in August, taping my segments along with the dramatic vignettes (featuring, among others, the infamous Stanford Nutting, played by Kevin O’Brien). We also taped an entire Fr. Brown story, “The Honour of Israel Gow” which will be included in Kevin’s upcoming “Theatre of the Word” series for EWTN. “Israel Gow” will have its premiere at the Chesterton conference in Seattle in August. It’s going to be really good! I saw a first edit while I was at EWTN this week, and I was very impressed with the high quality of the production.

Chuck and I arrived late in the day and started taping right away in the evening. At the end of the shoot, we needed to be fed, and the only place open was the local International House of Pancakes. There was no time for Chuck to change out of costume, so GK Chesterton went with me to the IHOP. The amazing thing is, no one noticed. In fact, he wasn’t even the most interesting looking person there!

Thanks for the update, Dale, sounds like a fun time.

Now we all have an extra reason to get ourselves to Seattle in August: to see the debut of The Honour of Israel Gow.

Father Brown, Columbo, and Kevin O'Brien

Kevin O'Brien was interviewed by National Review Online Thursday about Father Brown and the audio book. The interview will be a podcast and will be put up next week sometime on NRO and also on itunes. (I'll give you the link when Kevin sends it.)

Also, Kevin'll be on "The Journey Home" live Monday night (Dec. 15) on EWTN talking about his conversion, and Chesterton's role in it. And he'll be on EWTN's "Bookmark" talking about the audio book as well - though he doesn't know when that airs.

One of the things he discovered in preparing for these interviews was confirmation that Columbo was based in part on Father Brown.

This is from "How We Created Columbo" by the creators themselves, Levinson and Link.

When we created Columbo, we were influenced by the bureaucratic Petrovitch in Crime and Punishment and by G.K. Chesterton's marvelous little cleric, Father Brown. But [Peter] Falk added a childlike wonder all his own. He also added the raincoat. We had given Columbo a wrinkled top coat in our play, but during the filming of "Prescription: Murder," Falk dug out one of his old raincoats from the back of a closet and never took it off. He wore the same suit, shirt, tie, and shoes for the entire 10 year run of the series, giving "Columbo" the somewhat dubious distinction of having the lowest budget for male wardrobe in the history of the medium, with the possible exception of Big Bird.

Kevin would like to give special thanks to Dr. Thursday who helped him prepare for the interview.

Be sure to watch EWTN tonight!

Chesterton in the Newspapers

Thursday's Crossword Puzzle in the Philadelphia Inquirer (page D-7, written by Alan P. Olschwang) has a 5 part clue for a "Chesterton Quip."

The "quip" (mis)-quoted reads "If a thing is not worth doing, it's worth doing badly." That is, unless I did the puzzle completely wrong.

Fitting that he would be misquoted, I suppose. Just wanted to give you a heads-up. Perhaps the reference will pique some interest at any rate.

H/T: Joey G.

Gloria In Profundis

GLORIA IN PROFUNDIS

G.K. Chesterton

There has fallen on earth for a token
A god too great for the sky.
He has burst out of all things and broken
The bounds of eternity:
Into time and the terminal land
He has strayed like a thief or a lover,
For the wine of the world brims over,
Its splendour is spilt on the sand.

Who is proud when the heavens are humble,
Who mounts if the mountains fall,
If the fixed stars topple and tumble
And a deluge of love drowns all-
Who rears up his head for a crown,
Who holds up his will for a warrant,
Who strives with the starry torrent,
When all that is good goes down?

For in dread of such falling and failing
The fallen angels fell
Inverted in insolence, scaling
The hanging mountain of hell:
But unmeasured of plummet and rod
Too deep for their sight to scan,
Outrushing the fall of man
Is the height of the fall of God.

Glory to God in the Lowest
The spout of the stars in spate-
Where thunderbolt thinks to be slowest
And the lightning fears to be late:
As men dive for sunken gem
Pursuing, we hunt and hound it,
The fallen star has found it
In the cavern of Bethlehem.

It all started with Chuck, asking me if I could just explain one line of this poem:

For the wine of the world brims over,
Its splendour is spilt on the sand.

To which I said:

Chesterton is talking about the beauty of the world, the "wine" of the world, the gifts of the earth and all its beauty and splendor, and being spilt on the sand, I believe he is saying that we don't know what we've got, we don't appreciate the beauty we have, it's wasted on us who are blind to it (for the most part). We do occasionally partake of the wine of the world, glory in a sunset, stop and wonder at the beauty of a landscape, smell the roses, etc. But most of our lives, that beauty is wasted on us: spilt on the sand.

To which Chuck luckily said, tell me more. So, I asked some other Chestertonians, and a few who are poets, and got some great responses, which I have to share with you, and especially during this time of Advent, when this all seems so profound, as it were.

Peter said:

it is rather like things in The Everlasting Man.... maybe this is a poetic version extended into the prose of The Everlasting Man .... the idea that even pagan Rome, victorious over Carthage, could not fix the Fall. The sand makes me think of the Arena (Latin arena = English sand) see GKC's poem of that name - the scene of battle and death was converted by She who saw her Son die... the paradox in "She whose name is Seven Sorrows and the Cause of all our Joy"...

And Chris said:

I'm really not sure what to say here, except that in the context of the poem, GKC is saying that earthly, material pleasures don't count for much in the long run, since they are innately ephemeral and sometimes self-destructive. Wines can "brim over" when they're improperly stored or contaminated, making them impossible to pour neatly (such as when a heated bottle of champagne is opened- it makes an awful mess). Wines can become unstable due to gaseous accumulation, producing awful smells. "The wine of the world" could contrast with, say, the transubstantiated wine used in the Eucharist.

Sheila said:

had not read this poem before, so I pulled out my Collected Works volume and looked it up. It's amazing! I think I will blog on the complete thing tomorrow. But, in answer to the question about the one line about the wine of the world: I think the "wine of the world" is supposed to be its pleasures and delights. These Chesterton always acknowledged as great things--hence the word "splendour". But he always said we should thank God for wine by not drinking too much of it. When these worldly pleasures are excessive, they overflow their bounds and, as a result, are lost and wasted. A good portion of his book about St. Francis of Assisi discusses this very topic -- how, at the beginning of Christianity, hedonism was at a height, and the only cure for it was asceticism. When the pleasures of the world had been purged of their excess, they could be enjoyed again.

And Rob said:

The whole poem is in praise of humility, using Chesterton's favorite upside down imagery. The main idea is the humility of the Incarnation, contrasted with the pride of the fallen angels. In the first verse, there is a series of contrasting images of something great which God is greater than, and something humble which He is become humbler than: too great for the sky / fallen on earth, burst the bonds of eternity / into the terminal land. The wine and the sand line is one of these. The wine of the world is the same as the blood that is spilt, meaning the sacrament of the Eucharist, and the wine of the world running over is a reference to Psalm 32, so this is the exalted half of the image, whereas the blood spilt of the sand--I say it's a reference to the scourging at the pillar, my father thinks it might be to the martyrdoms and the sand spread on arena floors, though there's no reason it couldn't suggest both--is the humble half.

So then find those same pairs throughout the poem: in the second verse, note that this juxtaposition is what makes the proud ridiculous. In the third, note the reversal of the contrast in the fallen angels: desire to be exalted drives them to debase themselves. In the final verse note the result of all these inversions is the nativity. Note also the first line is an English translation of the title.

Which I think ties it all in nicely.

Thanks, Chuck, for this interesting question, and thanks Chestertonian folks, for providing such insightfully wonderful answers.

Calling It What It Is...

Our last little exploration of GKC's Orthodoxy ended with this excerpt:

"I call it what it is - the Fall."
[CW1:321]

It is not at all one of the greater Chestertonian aphorisms, epigrams or "famous quotes" - but this is perhaps the most powerful line in the whole book. It is the reason - or perhaps I ought to say part of the reason - why Christianity is so bitterly hated, not only in ancient Rome, but in modern America. People do not like to be told they are wrong - and especially told that they have always been wrong, and are prone to wrong, and will most likely be wrong over and over again. Especially the "Media" (yes, including bloggers). Especially academics (yes, including guys with doctorates, and even theologians, and even ordained clergy!) Even though that is how we are.

But as GKC points out elsewhere (I quoted his The Thing CW3:311-2 last week) this view of the Fall is the only hopeful view - for it is the view that contains Christmas! Don't you get it? Why did Jesus come? Not to give lectures or write journal articles (or even encyclicals!) Not to just cure and feed and calm storms. He came, very specifically, to do something about our Fallen situation. (See TEM CW2:339: "The primary thing that he was going to do was to
die." Cf. Mt 16:21, Lk 12:49-50) Sure it was going to be difficult, since we had gotten ourselves into quite a mess... Well, this is not the time for me to lecture, even though something as stinging as that requires more to be said. Chesterton himself knew this, and he had more to say.

((to hear more about this, click here))

"The Fall"... powerful, belligerent, fighting words? Yes, they are. GKC does not quote our Lord here, but he is quite in tune with those Divine words which horrify the peaceniks and that bunch who yammer about what they call "God's unconditional love":

Think ye, that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, no; but separation. [Lk 12:51]

These forget there is a War going on, which was why Jesus came in the first place! I bother to point this out because it is one of the aspects of Christmas which few other than Chesterton have seen and written about:

There is something defiant in it also; something that makes the abrupt bells at midnight sound like the great guns of a battle that has just been won. All this indescribable thing that we call the Christmas atmosphere only hangs in the air as something like a lingering fragrance or fading vapour from the exultant explosion of that one hour in the Judean hills nearly two thousand years ago. But the savour is still unmistakeable, and it is something too subtle or too solitary to be covered by our use of the word peace. By the very nature of the story the rejoicings in the cavern were rejoicings in a fortress or an outlaw's den; properly understood it is not unduly flippant to say they were rejoicings in a dug-out. It is not only true that such a subterranean chamber was a hiding-place from enemies; and that the enemies were already scouring the stony plain that lay above it like a sky. It is not only that the very horse-hoofs of Herod might in that sense have passed like thunder over the sunken head of Christ. It is also that there is in that image a true idea of an outpost, of a piercing through the rock and an entrance into an enemy territory. There is in this buried divinity an idea of undermining the world; of shaking the towers and palaces from below; even as Herod the great king felt that earthquake under him and swayed with his swaying palace.
[GKC The Everlasting Man CW2:312-3]

And if that also sounds like Tolkien, yes, those are comparable to Elrond's words about the hobbits:

This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great.
[JRRT The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring Book II Chapter 2 "The Council of Elrond" 288]

But let us resume our study:

I have spoken of orthodoxy coming in like a sword; here I confess it came in like a battle-axe. For really (when I came to think of it) Christianity is the only thing left that has any real right to question the power of the well-nurtured or the well-bred. I have listened often enough to Socialists, or even to democrats, saying that the physical conditions of the poor must of necessity make them mentally and morally degraded. I have listened to scientific men (and there are still scientific men not opposed to democracy) saying that if we give the poor healthier conditions vice and wrong will disappear. I have listened to them with a horrible attention, with a hideous fascination. For it was like watching a man energetically sawing from the tree the branch he is sitting on. If these happy democrats could prove their case, they would strike democracy dead. If the poor are thus utterly demoralized, it may or may not be practical to raise them. But it is certainly quite practical to disfranchise them. If the man with a bad bedroom cannot give a good vote, then the first and swiftest deduction is that he shall give no vote. The governing class may not unreasonably say: "It may take us some time to reform his bedroom. But if he is the brute you say, it will take him very little time to ruin our country. Therefore we will take your hint and not give him the chance." It fills me with horrible amusement to observe the way in which the earnest Socialist industriously lays the foundation of all aristocracy, expatiating blandly upon the evident unfitness of the poor to rule. It is like listening to somebody at an evening party apologising for entering without evening dress, and explaining that he had recently been intoxicated, had a personal habit of taking off his clothes in the street, and had, moreover, only just changed from prison uniform. At any moment, one feels, the host might say that really, if it was as bad as that, he need not come in at all. So it is when the ordinary Socialist, with a beaming face, proves that the poor, after their smashing experiences, cannot be really trustworthy. At any moment the rich may say, "Very well, then, we won't trust them," and bang the door in his face. On the basis of Mr. Blatchford's view of heredity and environment, the case for the aristocracy is quite overwhelming. If clean homes and clean air make clean souls, why not give the power (for the present at any rate) to those who undoubtedly have the clean air? If better conditions will make the poor more fit to govern themselves, why should not better conditions already make the rich more fit to govern them? On the ordinary environment argument the matter is fairly manifest. The comfortable class must be merely our vanguard in Utopia.
[CW1:321-2]

Now here we find what seems to be a digression, to a commentary on government and social conditions - but of course it is really nothing more than another example of the point GKC is making. Those of us who rejoice in the possession of CW1 have not only Heretics and Orthodoxy but also the letters comprising what is called "the Blatchford Controversy" - in which Robert Blatchford permitted generous length to Chesterton to argue and defend Christianity. But you may be more startled to realize that this odd view about poverty breeding crime (or paying people not to sin) was already on the loose then! GKC knew how dangerous that was, and proceeds to address it in one of the longest paragraphs in our text:

Is there any answer to the proposition that those who have had the best opportunities will probably be our best guides? Is there any answer to the argument that those who have breathed clean air had better decide for those who have breathed foul? As far as I know, there is only one answer, and that answer is Christianity. Only the Christian Church can offer any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich. For she has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man's environment, but in man. Further, she has maintained that if we come to talk of a dangerous environment, the most dangerous environment of all is the commodious environment. I know that the most modern manufacture has been really occupied in trying to produce an abnormally large needle. I know that the most recent biologists have been chiefly anxious to discover a very small camel. But if we diminish the camel to his smallest, or open the eye of the needle to its largest - if, in short, we assume the words of Christ to have meant the very least that they could mean, His words must at the very least mean this - that rich men are not very likely to be morally trustworthy. Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. For the whole modern world is absolutely based on the assumption, not that the rich are necessary (which is tenable), but that the rich are trustworthy, which (for a Christian) is not tenable. You will hear everlastingly, in all discussions about newspapers, companies, aristocracies, or party politics, this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man. The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt. There is one thing that Christ and all the Christian saints have said with a sort of savage monotony. They have said simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to kill the rich as violators of definable justice. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to crown the rich as convenient rulers of society. It is not certainly un-Christian to rebel against the rich or to submit to the rich. But it is quite certainly un-Christian to trust the rich, to regard the rich as more morally safe than the poor. A Christian may consistently say, "I respect that man's rank, although he takes bribes." But a Christian cannot say, as all modern men are saying at lunch and breakfast, "a man of that rank would not take bribes." For it is a part of Christian dogma that any man in any rank may take bribes. It is a part of Christian dogma; it also happens by a curious coincidence that it is a part of obvious human history. When people say that a man "in that position" would be incorruptible, there is no need to bring Christianity into the discussion. Was Lord Bacon a bootblack? Was the Duke of Marlborough a crossing sweeper? In the best Utopia, I must be prepared for the moral fall of any man in any position at any moment; especially for my fall from my position at this moment.
[CW1:322-4]

A few notes may help here: The camel/needle allusion is in Mt 19:24, Mk 10:25, Lk 18:25. GKC gives two famous examples of wealthy men who committed serious crimes: Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was a English philosopher and author - bribery and corrupt dealing in chancery led to fines and dismissal from Parliament and court. The Duke of Marlborough was John Churchill (1650-1722)- he was dismissed from office on charges of embezzlement. GKC courteously refrains from mentioning examples of those alive when he wrote, so I shall do the same. But I am sure you can think of a few names. Ahem. Of course it was just a page or two previous that we read this, where GKC quotes a dictum far older even than Jesus:

In this matter I am entirely on the side of the revolutionists. They are really right to be always suspecting human institutions; they are right not to put their trust in princes nor in any child of man.
[CW1:321, quoting Ps 145:2-3(146:3)]

Yes... which takes us right to the next and very interesting paragraph.

Much vague and sentimental journalism has been poured out to the effect that Christianity is akin to democracy, and most of it is scarcely strong or clear enough to refute the fact that the two things have often quarrelled. The real ground upon which Christianity and democracy are one is very much deeper. The one specially and peculiarly un-Christian idea is the idea of Carlyle - the idea that the man should rule who feels that he can rule. Whatever else is Christian, this is heathen. If our faith comments on government at all, its comment must be this - that the man should rule who does not think that he can rule. Carlyle's hero may say, "I will be king"; but the Christian saint must say "Nolo episcopari." If the great paradox of Christianity means anything, it means this - that we must take the crown in our hands, and go hunting in dry places and dark corners of the earth until we find the one man who feels himself unfit to wear it. Carlyle was quite wrong; we have not got to crown the exceptional man who knows he can rule. Rather we must crown the much more exceptional man who knows he can't.
[CW1:324]

The Latin phrase, "Nolo episcopari" means "I do not wish to be bishop" - this was cried by St. Ambrose (339-397) when he was proclaimed bishop of Milan. Now, if you have thought our excerpt today was all a negative rant, watch carefully and see how GKC gives a truly unique and dramatic dignity - and sense - to democracy! Yes - but read on:

Now, this is one of the two or three vital defences of working democracy. The mere machinery of voting is not democracy, though at present it is not easy to effect any simpler democratic method. But even the machinery of voting is profoundly Christian in this practical sense - that it is an attempt to get at the opinion of those who would be too modest to offer it. It is a mystical adventure; it is specially trusting those who do not trust themselves. That enigma is strictly peculiar to Christendom. There is nothing really humble about the abnegation of the Buddhist; the mild Hindoo is mild, but he is not meek. But there is something psychologically Christian about the idea of seeking for the opinion of the obscure rather than taking the obvious course of accepting the opinion of the prominent. To say that voting is particularly Christian may seem somewhat curious. To say that canvassing is Christian may seem quite crazy. But canvassing is very Christian in its primary idea. It is encouraging the humble; it is saying to the modest man, "Friend, go up higher." [Lk 14:10] Or if there is some slight defect in canvassing, that is in its perfect and rounded piety, it is only because it may possibly neglect to encourage the modesty of the canvasser.

Aristocracy is not an institution: aristocracy is a sin; generally a very venial one. It is merely the drift or slide of men into a sort of natural pomposity and praise of the powerful, which is the most easy and obvious affair in the world.
[CW1:324-5]

Those last lines do not seem to fit, but I could not defer them to next week, since they relate more to this context than the next - they do have some sense of an afterthought, as if he felt (having reflected on "the common man") perhaps there was something a bit harsh in his earlier words. (But they do link forward too, as we shall see.) However, I would like to call your attention to another rarely quoted but very interesting observation, well worth our attention, not just in America, but anywhere that people try to govern themselves:

[Democracy] is a mystical adventure; it is specially trusting those who do not trust themselves. That enigma is strictly peculiar to Christendom.

Why does he say that? I could just quote Jefferson and the rest who wrote about the self-evident truth that "all men are created equal" - but I would rather quote Chesterton:

when we say that all pennies are equal, we do not mean that they all look exactly the same. We mean that they are absolutely equal in their one absolute character, in the most important thing about them. It may be put practically by saying that they are coins of a certain value, twelve of which go to a shilling. It may be put symbolically, and even mystically, by saying that they all bear the image of the King. And, though the most mystical, it is also the most practical summary of equality that all men bear the image of the King of Kings.
[GKC A Short History of England CW20]

For religion all men are equal, as all pennies are equal, because the only value in any of them is that they bear the image of the King.
[GKC Charles Dickens CW15:44

And that is where we shall stop. For our Advent meditation today, let us ponder that likeness of all men - including ourselves - to the great King Who came to us little - as a little helpless infant...

Facebook and Chesterton

Here is an amazing fact: Chesterton has over 3,600 fans on Facebook! Isn't that an incredible number?

This is a screen shot of the Chesterton page. I am just awed by the numbers. And Facebook is mainly high school and college.

H/T: Mike, thanks!

What have you done lately to promote Chesterton?

The ACS exists to promote Chesterton. YOU are the ACS. Together, we try to figure out ways to promote the work of one of our favorite journalists.

Ways to help: Become a member of the ACS. Give gift subscriptions to Gilbert for Christmas. Read Chesterton. Quote Chesterton. Try to obtain a Chestertonian way of thinking and responding to the arguments of the day. Use logic and reason and a heavy dose of humor. Start a Chesterton Society in your local area. (Anyone want to form one half way between Milwaukee and Chicago?) Join a local Chesterton Society in your area. Attend the annual Chesterton meeting this coming August in Seattle. Watch the EWTN shows of The Apostle of Common Sense. Order the DVDs for your family and friends. Invite people to your house and have discussions and debates along with the steak and potatoes, cigars and wine.

If you are a student, ask your teachers to teach Chesterton. When you write a paper, quote Chesterton. When pondering a moral or ethical situation, read Chesterton.

What am I doing? I'm currently working on my second childrens adaptation of Father Brown mysteries. After that...oh ho! A writing project for homeschoolers and high schoolers using the work of Chesterton to help students learn to write. After that...another adaptation, but not Father Brown...

What are you doing? Any interesting ways of promoting Chesterton? I'd love to hear about it.

Happy Anniversary, Blog!

Happy Anniversary!

Today is the 3rd anniversary of the American Chesterton Society Blog.

Our current stats: We've had over one hundred thousand visitors. We have an average of over 120 unique visitors a day (although you'd never guess that from the number of comments. A lot of you are lurkers...come join the conversation! Ask us a question! Tell us something interesting about yourself and Chesterton.)

We have 80-100 new visitors every day, and 30-50 returning readers a day.

We have eight "followers"--faithful readers who use Blogger to keep track of their blogs. There are other ways to follow this blog, but I don't follow them.

The vast majority of our readers are in North America and Europe, with a few in India and southeast Asia. We get occasional readers from all over the globe.

We've had over a thousand posts, mostly made by me, and joined weekly by the amazing Dr. Thursday.

FYI: I, Nancy C. Brown, am editor of this blog for the American Chesterton Society. Contrary to some opinions, I've been given full control over the content of the blog. If your comments are occasionally edited or deleted, I'm responsible. If you have complaints, the buck stops here, with me. This blog, like any other blog, is not an exercise in "free speech" per se. We do expect people to be polite and use their God-given powers of reason. However, that said, the most common thing I delete is some sort of spam, lately involving the cessation of smoking. Apparently some poor laborer is tasked to search out smoking references in blogs and then put a certain link in the comments of that post. Poor things.

So, cigars? Wine? Cheese? Cake? Yes! Let's have a party. 3rd anniversaries don't roll around every day. *Cheers* Here's to the American Chesterton Society!

Gilbert Magazine

Looking for a gift for a Chesterton-deprived friend?

I was just looking again at the latest Gilbert, and one of the features I particularly enjoy (and think so clever) is the Mail Bag, where "Gilbert Keith Chesterton Answers His Mail".

This feature always amazes me, because Chesterton's answers are just as relevant for today as they were almost 100 (and sometimes more than 100) years ago.

I actually don't know which clever Chestertonian works on this page, but whoever it is, congratulations! Always fun reading.

Vigilance and Hope and the White Post

Wow! Here we are in Advent of 2008, and I am ashamed to say that we have almost a quarter of Orthodoxy yet to examine! I have resisted asking whether this is worth the effort... but then I remember (let us chant it together) "if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly." [WWWTW CW4:199]

And then - as if in some divinely arranged scheme, or plot twist, my ill-considered sectioning of paragraphs brings a most marvellous selection for us to study today. There is a real matter of concern in our society now - far worse than dragons or global "warming" or some bank failing: it is the failure of human adults to act grown-up. Our esteemed bloggmistress ponders (over on her own blogg) about forgiveness, but even more, why adults sometimes act very childish - no, not in the Chestertonian mode of wonder, or that end-product of conversion commanded by Christ [Mt 18:3] - but like some narsty grade-school bullies: whiney, rude, and unthinking. And the question implied is this: "Why is this happening? What is going wrong?" Today we shall hear GKC's explanation. We shall also hear one of those amazing "verbal fireworks" which has taken on an almost uncanny predictive value in our present highly-biassed modern media, and which you will want to e-mail to your friends. Today's excerpt is most instructive, indeed.

(( when you are ready to act grown-up, click here! ))


You will recall that Chesterton has so far listed two items which he had invented, after long struggle with the maniacs and the dark philosophers - and which (to his amaze) he had found being proclaimed for nearly 2000 years by Christianity:

Twice again, therefore, Christianity had come in with the exact answer that I required. I had said, "The ideal must be fixed," and the Church had answered, "Mine is literally fixed, for it existed before anything else." I said secondly, "It must be artistically combined, like a picture"; and the Church answered, "Mine is quite literally a picture, for I know who painted it."
[CW1:319]

Last week I had broken off there - yes, in the middle of a paragraph - but he was not finished with his list:

Then I went on to the third thing, which, as it seemed to me, was needed for an Utopia or goal of progress. And of all the three it is infinitely the hardest to express. Perhaps it might be put thus: that we need watchfulness even in Utopia, lest we fall from Utopia as we fell from Eden.
[CW1:319]

Recall that "Utopia" is the name of a novel by St. Thomas More, lawyer and martyr, which tells about a so-called perfect society. Some say it comes from the Greek prefix eu which means "good"; the dictionary says the prefix is ou which mean "not", so adding the root topia (meaning "place"), we have "No-place". This idea of "watching" or vigilance is quite important (my erstwhile monitoring software for cable TV was called WATCHER, hee hee), and GKC goes on to explain more about it:

We have remarked that one reason offered for being a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow better. But the only real reason for being a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow worse. The corruption in things is not only the best argument for being progressive; it is also the only argument against being conservative. The conservative theory would really be quite sweeping and unanswerable if it were not for this one fact. But all conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post. But this which is true even of inanimate things is in a quite special and terrible sense true of all human things. An almost unnatural vigilance is really required of the citizen because of the horrible rapidity with which human institutions grow old. It is the custom in passing romance and journalism to talk of men suffering under old tyrannies. But, as a fact, men have almost always suffered under new tyrannies; under tyrannies that had been public liberties hardly twenty years before. Thus England went mad with joy over the patriotic monarchy of Elizabeth; and then (almost immediately afterwards) went mad with rage in the trap of the tyranny of Charles the First. So, again, in France the monarchy became intolerable, not just after it had been tolerated, but just after it had been adored. The son of Louis the well-beloved was Louis the guillotined. So in the same way in England in the nineteenth century the Radical manufacturer was entirely trusted as a mere tribune of the people, until suddenly we heard the cry of the Socialist that he was a tyrant eating the people like bread. So again, we have almost up to the last instant trusted the newspapers as organs of public opinion. Just recently some of us have seen (not slowly, but with a start) that they are obviously nothing of the kind. They are, by the nature of the case, the hobbies of a few rich men. We have not any need to rebel against antiquity; we have to rebel against novelty. It is the new rulers, the capitalist or the editor, who really hold up the modern world. There is no fear that a modern king will attempt to override the constitution; it is more likely that he will ignore the constitution and work behind its back; he will take no advantage of his kingly power; it is more likely that he will take advantage of his kingly powerlessness, of the fact that he is free from criticism and publicity. For the king is the most private person of our time. It will not be necessary for any one to fight again against the proposal of a censorship of the press. We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press.
[CW1:319-321]

Yes - isn't that amazing? How true! let us see that again, maybe in bold:

We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press.

This might be a paradigm for other illnesses of today: We have unions which have utterly reversed the good once seen by Leo XIII, now more tyrannical than any management. We have governments who are intolerantly forcing "tolerance" in violation of their own constitutions as well as natural law. And we have media which censor most stringently in favour of their own interests, even while they saw through the branches on which they are perched. But we have something more than just a bumper-sticker slogan here - we have a timeless insight, which we need to consider, and which leads to something much more important than the media.

For in that just-quoted paragraph, we have a powerful dictum, which defeats the current media cant about "change" and all its related matters. You may have missed it, so I will put it in bold:

if you want the old white post you must have a new white post.

Yes. The simple error of course is that what we call "time" might simply be just another way of saying "change" - so it is as silly to be "for" change as it is to be "for" time. The issue is not in "change" but in will - that is, what will you do with time? Because as the rock song puts it,

If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice!
[Rush, "Free Will"]

If you choose to have a white post, you will have to choose to maintain that post as white, or you will soon not have that white post any more. More of the inner philosophy of this issue can be found in GKC's great epic, The Ballad of the White Horse, and in another place, to be seen in just a moment. Now we must hurry on, for the great line which we really need to ponder in our Advent preparations:

This startling swiftness with which popular systems turn oppressive is the third fact for which we shall ask our perfect theory of progress to allow. It must always be on the look out for every privilege being abused, for every working right becoming a wrong. In this matter I am entirely on the side of the revolutionists. They are really right to be always suspecting human institutions; they are right not to put their trust in princes nor in any child of man. The chieftain chosen to be the friend of the people becomes the enemy of the people; the newspaper started to tell the truth now exists to prevent the truth being told. Here, I say, I felt that I was really at last on the side of the revolutionary. And then I caught my breath again: for I remembered that I was once again on the side of the orthodox. Christianity spoke again and said: "I have always maintained that men were naturally backsliders; that human virtue tended of its own nature to rust or to rot; I have always said that human beings as such go wrong, especially happy human beings, especially proud and prosperous human beings. This eternal revolution, this suspicion sustained through centuries, you (being a vague modern) call the doctrine of progress. If you were a philosopher you would call it, as I do, the doctrine of original sin. You may call it the cosmic advance as much as you like; I call it what it is - the Fall."
[CW1:321]

Yes: the Fall. That is the answer. Quite some time ago, near the very beginning of our text, we heard this:

Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.
[CW1:217]

You see? We know something is wrong. We know that we will keep on falling - or failing - unless we work very hard, and seek divine assistance continuously. We have been told not to put our "trust in princes nor in any child of man" which is from Psalm 145(146).

This sounds HOPELESS you say? Oh, no, not at all. We have to get to the real issue, the real problem, the real disease - and then we will begin to know what we'll have to do to remedy, cure, repair it. We'll see more next week. But there is another paragraph from a later book which you ought to consider in connection with the previous one, especially because of what I just said - I mean you just said - about "hopelessness":

The Fall is a view of life. It is not only the only enlightening, but the only encouraging view of life. It holds, as against the only real alternative philosophies, those of the Buddhist or the Pessimist or the Promethean, that we have misused a good world, and not merely been entrapped into a bad one. It refers evil back to the wrong use of the will, and thus declares that it can eventually be righted by the right use of the will. Every other creed except that one is some form of surrender to fate. A man who holds this view of life will find it giving light on a thousand things; on which mere evolutionary ethics have not a word to say. For instance, on the colossal contrast between the completeness of man's machines and the continued corruption of his motives; on the fact that no social progress really seems to leave self behind; on the fact that the first and not the last men of any school or revolution are generally the best and purest; as William Penn was better than a Quaker millionaire or Washington better than an American oil magnate; on that proverb that says: "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance," which is only what the theologians say of every other virtue, and is itself only a way of stating the truth of original sin; on those extremes of good and evil by which man exceeds all the animals by the measure of heaven and hell; on that sublime sense of loss that is in the very sound of all great poetry, and nowhere more than in the poetry of pagans and sceptics: "We look before and after, and pine for what is not"; which cries against all prigs and Progressives out of the very depths and abysses of the broken heart of man, that happiness is not only a hope, but also in some strange manner a memory; and that we are all kings in exile.
[GKC The Thing CW3:311-2]

Yes, the only enlightening, the only encouraging view.

Now, perhaps you will understand that mystic line in the carol, which will assist you with its power as we prepare for Christmas:

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie:
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the Everlasting Light:
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

Conversation: A History of a Declining Art

This isn't a new book, but I just read an interview of the author that totally explains the lack of decent conversations I was able to have this election cycle.

Whatever happened to polite disagreement? During the months leading up to Election 2008, the conversations of America's political punditry -- from bloggers on "Daily Kos" to partisans on Fox's "Hannity and Colmes"-- were often marked more by name-calling than by reason.

The conversations of average Americans didn't fare much better, with Internet comment boxes filled with vitriol and more than a few family get-togethers ending with shouting and door slamming.

Yes, we had shouting right in my own homeschooling group, and I expect more from them. Or at least, I expect them to be able to have a civil conversation. But I guess we aren't immune to "declining conversations skills syndrome" either.

I'm going to see if my library has this title, as it sounds very interesting.

The Internationality of Chesterton

I'm sure a lot of you know that Chesterton is popular the world over, not just here in North American.

There's even another "ACS"--not American, but the Australian Chesterton Society. There are societies in South America, Mexico, Canada, and all over Europe. I don't know about Asia, but I suspect not. However, there should be, and maybe that's coming.

I just had a funny thought. Maybe not so funny. But imagine in China, there being a Chinese Chesterton Society. The government gets wind of it, and they have to go underground, and the approved face of the group is now the Chinese Official Government Sponsored Chesterton Society. Well, it is that subversive, I can see it, can't you? And down in the catacombs of China, they have a secret handshake, password, and symbol (a cigar, don't you think?) to show they are members. Below ground, they risk arrest for smoking, beer-drinking, cheese-eating, and, worst of all, free conversation.

Anyway, it's one of the things I really like about Chesterton: his universality.