Happy Thanks Giving Day!
--Dr. Thursday
Paganism could make things; it could make festivals and festive days; it could make an alternative to Christmas, if it were still alive. But the modern Pagans cannot. The modern Pagans are merely atheists; who worship nothing and therefore create nothing. They could not, for instance, even make a substitute for Thanksgiving Day. For half of them are pessimists who say they have nothing to be thankful for; and the other half are atheists who have nobody to thank.
[GKC's broadcast to the US, Dec 25 1931, reprinted in Chesterton Continued by John Sullivan]
The test of all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful, though I hardly knew to whom. Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth?[GKC Orthodoxy CW1:258]
[shortly after asking this, GKC responds:]
...magic must have a meaning, and meaning must have some one to mean it. There was something personal in the world, as in a work of art; whatever it meant it meant violently. ... I thought this purpose beautiful in its old design, in spite of its defects, such as dragons. ...the proper form of thanks ... is some form of humility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them. We owed, also, an obedience to whatever made us.
[GKC Orthodoxy CW1:258]
Maybe it is time for us to actually THINK about what Chesterton wrote, and not just read him, comment on him, criticise him - but begin to imitate him - for he truly enacts that very famous directive of St. Paul:
Dedicate yourselves to thankfulness. [See Col 3:15]Or, as we say in every Holy Mass:
Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro.
Dignum et justum est.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right and just.
Posts
"The modern Pagans are merely atheists; who worship nothing and therefore create nothing. . . . For half of them are pessimists who say they have nothing to be thankful for; and the other half are atheists who have nobody to thank."
ReplyDeleteIf Chesterton said that, then he was an ignoramus. I doubt that he had ever knowingly met a contemporary Pagan or spoken with one. Of course, they largely kept quiet in 1931, since Witchcraft was still technically illegal in the U.K. at that time ("The Dark Ages called--they want their laws back.")
If you are interested in some facts (as opposed to elegantly expressed ignorance and bigotry), I'd suggest starting with Prof. Hutton's The Triumph of the Moon.
If I may butt in here: Makairos, I think you mistake the matter--he isn't referring to literal New Age Pagans or those who practice Wicca--he was referring to those whom the inheritance of Paganism had transferred in his time. Because you are quite right. The literal practice of Wicca was not something widely acknowledged or present in his culture. He is merely discussing the form Paganism had taken in society at that time--and for him it was Pessimism and Atheism.
ReplyDeleteYou could think of these "Pagans" as those who need conversion, the correlate to the Pagans who were converted during the early history of Christianity.
I think you'd find Chesterton more than a little sympathetic to actual Wiccans and he would find them a couple of degrees above atheists and pessimists. Both he and Belloc agreed that actual Paganism was alive and well within Catholicism, and both felt that the Pagan was redeemed within Roman Catholic Christianity.
He wrote in several places of his sympathy for the true Pagans of old.
Nice response Blog nerd!
ReplyDeleteBtw, shouldn't it be "whom" instead of "who" in "now we know WHO to thank"?
Or am I missing something?
Question & Quote
ReplyDeleteBlognerd, you said "Both he and Belloc agreed that actual Paganism was alive and well within Catholicism" - do you just mean that Catholicism took from Paganism everything of value and incorporated/altered different aspects of paganism into the church - or do you mean what you are literally saying: that there are actual pagans in the church. If it is the former no explanation required, if it is the latter, please elaborate. I know that C.S. Lewis said something along the lines of the fact that Protestantism at is worst was the worship of an indescribable void with no edges, definitions, rules, etc; and that Catholicism at its worst is priest-craft and saint-worship. But, I don’t remember every reading anything from GKC that hinted at that sort of thing. If he did I’d enjoy reading it.
***Also, this post reminded me of a very popular GKC quote:
“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
***I don't remember what book this is from. ... anyone?
-Dan.