Punch and Judy

I am sure there are those of you out there who know a lot more about the connection between Punch and Judy and Chesterton than I do. All I can say is that, in reading the list of traditional characters in a Punch and Judy show, I finally felt I understood the characters in the story called "The Flying Stars" where a harlequin and a doctor and a policeman appear, each traditional characters in a P&J puppet show.

I cannot recall ever having actually seen a P&J show, although I've certainly seen snippets, Punch with a stick wacking at everyone in sight, etc., but I never knew the history or the story, nor how much this influenced Chesterton.

I hope that those who know will comment here, because I feel quite inadequate. I enjoyed reading this short history of P&J and knew that it was an important piece in understanding Chesterton (in trying to read some of the material he himself would have been familiar with and read in his day) so I enjoyed reading it.
Note from Gramps on Chesterton on Punch click here.
ILN October 8, 1921

I was delighted to see that Dr. Kimmins, at the recent British Association Conference, declared that children still find the fullest measure of fun in Punch and Judy. He said that his investigations had convinced him that most children preferred it to the cinema, in which I entirely agree with them. I can enjoy the cinema also, in due and distant subordination to Punch and Judy. As Tennyson says, "Let her know her place; she is second, not the first." At present it seems doubtful whether the cinema does know its place. It seems to have an indiscriminate craving for all stories and styles that are most unsuitable to it. I have remarked before on the incredible rumour of the filming of Mr. Bernard Shaw's play of "Pygmalion," which is exactly as if the original Pygmalion had advertised his statue as being recently translated from the original Hebrew, or arranged in syncopated time suitable to the banjo.It means literally nothing whatever. There is no play of "Pygmalion" apart from the tones of voice in which the heroine speaks. But apart from such extreme cases, the cinema producer seems to have very vague notions of the nature and limits of his own art. He delights in producing "Vanity Fair" by the machinery of the movies; or some such story that obviously depends on talk, and even on gossip. Now if I were to announce that I was producing "Vanity Fair" by the machinery of Punch and Judy, it would be clear that the form of art chosen had its limitations. It would have its triumphs also - the soul-sufficing, thundering thwack that Rawdon Crawley gives to Lord Steyne could be given with an energy far beyond the cinema or even the stage. These are the high moments of the Punch and Judy art; high even in philosophy and in ethics and politics. For do not our day-dreams of practical politics now largely consist in wishing we could hit wooden heads with a wooden stick?

The truth is that the cinema prevails over Punch end Judy not as great art, but merely as big business. There was probably more fun got out of Punch and Judy, but there was less money got out of it. And many modern people have a sort of imaginative reverence for a thing not only because a lot of money is got out of it, but merely because a lot of money is put into it. The materials of the old puppet-show were as simple as the wood carving and colouring of the old mediaeval crafts. The reason why all such puppet-shows have died out, I regret to say, is the same as that which has caused the guilds and the local liberties to die out. It is the same that has destroyed the free peasant and the small shop-keeper. It is the denial of dignity and poetry to the poor, and the concentration of worship as well as wealth upon a smaller and smaller ring of the rich. Dickens, who represented the last of the old liberty in a sort of glorious sunset, threw his rays of colour and romance on a thousand such poor and private figures, and among others on two men who travelled with a Punch and Judy. Dickens was a true egalitarian, seeing such men as men in an equal balance, for one of his showmen is a humbug and the other an honest fellow. But by no possibility could those two mountebanks have become millionaires, even by humbug, let alone honesty. They would never in any case become Lord Codlin and Sir Thomas Short.

That is where they differed from any adventurer producing films; and that is where they fail to attract or interest the emancipated modern mind.

Punch and Judy, or more properly, perhaps, Codlin and Short, suffer from the opposite fault to the vulgar universalism of the cinema. Punch is too modest, or Short is too shy. Punch and Judy, like the colder classical drama of Seneca and Corneille, does not extend its range even legitimately beyond certain unities of time and place. The firm of Messrs. Codlin and Short had in its hands a method that really could be applied to a great many other things besides Punch and Judy. I have always wondered that nobody has applied it; for the method of direct manipulation of dolls by the human hand itself is both a simple and a suggestive one. Like Mr. Short, I am more modest and moderate in my views than are the advertisers of the American film. I do not propose to produce "Pelleas and Melisande"in the manner of Punch and Judy. It might indeed be appropriate enough to represent such dramatic figures as dolls. The great Belgian dramatist often implies that his people are the puppets of fate. But they do not fight with fate with anything like the heroic courage shown by Mr. Punch. Punch is not a model of moral conduct in all his domestic relations; but the play is the more moral of the two in that vital respect - that Punch is defiant where Pelleas is only discontented. There is more kick in the old puppets than in many of the modern personalities. But I do not, as I say, propose to transfer the whole tragic and romantic drama of antiquity and modern times to that little stage in the street. I recognise its limitations, as the artists of the film do not seem to recognise theirs. The Punch and Judy method is admirably adapted to a certain type of artistic effect, which might be achieved by any number of other stories of the same style and spirit. It is adapted to the knock-about pantomime or fantastic farce, in which people are hammered with clubs or hanged on gibbets. But we have only to survey the society around us with a philosophical and philanthropic eye to see that there are many who want hammering as much as Judy, and many who need hanging as well as the Beadle. Anything in the way of mock tournaments, comic combats with broadsword or quarterstaff, dances at the end of a rope or otherwise beheading people, boiling them in big pots, or other simple sports of an age of innocence, could be performed in this fashion with any amount of vivacity and variety. I see such a vista of adventures for the wooden dolls that I feel inclined to devote my declining years to writing dramas for the Punch and Judy show.

The art of the Punch and Judy, like the arts of the old guilds, is a handicraft. It is that low thing called manual labour, like the work of the sculptor, the violinist, and the painter of the Transfiguration. The interest of it lies in the fact that the only instrument really employed is the hand, and the costume of the comic figure is merely a kind of glove. Everything is done with those three fingers, or rather two fingers and a thumb, with which, in fact, all the mightiest or most ingenious works of man have been done. Everything turns on the co-operation of that trinity of digits: the pen, the pencil, the bow of the violin, and even the foil or the sword. In this respect Punch and Judy has a purity and classical simplicity as a form of art, superior even to what is more commonly called the puppet show - the more mechanical system of marionettes that work on wires. And there is this final touch of disgrace in the neglect of it: that while marionettes are mostly a foreign amusement, Punch has become a purely English survival. It is very English; it is really popular, it is within the reach of comparatively poor men. Who can wonder that it is dying out? GKC ILN October 8, 1921

Lucky New York City--Live Performance of The Surprise

Male Friendship

I was re-reading the poem that Chesterton dedicated to Bentley which originally appeared in The Man Who Was Thursday and was recently reproduced in Gilbert magazine, and I felt jealous of their friendship. I wish I had some female friendships like Chestertons/Bentley/Belloc/etcs.

And I know there are some male friendships forged by Chesterton even today. I hear about these guys drinking wine, smoking cigars, singing Belloc's songs, etc., and I feel a little bit jealous.

Why is it so hard to make lasting and deep frienships today? My husband has been thinking about this for a while. He goes to Knights of Columbus meetings at our church, the only male organization there. They are all old guys playing pinochle. He goes, but hasn't forged any friendships.

He goes to art groups, art leagues, etc., and most of them are either artist wannabes (not working artists...yet) or elderly people who have art in common and are looking for some social outlets. He's met a lot of people this way, but no real friends.

He isn't into Chesterton, so I can't introduce him to my friends. ;-)

So, I read about Chesterton and I think about friendship, and I long for the Inn at the End of the World, where I'll go in, and everybody will know my name. "Hey, Nancy!" Sounds nice, eh?

Another California Ahlquist appearance

Californians: FYI

Dale Ahlquist, President of the American Chesterton Society, has written books and appeared on EWTN discussing G. K. Chesterton. We have arranged for Mr. Ahlquist to speak at the UC Berkeley campus on Sunday, October 21, 2007 at 7:00 P.M.

His topic will be "The Art of Thinking: G.K. Chesterton on How to Use Your Brain for Its Intended Purpose."

The talk will be held in Room 166 of Barrows Hall. Barrows Hall is a short walk from the Sather Gate entrance to the UC Berkeley Campus. Limited street parking is available, or you can park at the Sather Gate Garage at 2450 Durant Avenue.

Please download and share the flier for this event with anyone you know who might be interested.

Website: www.StAnthonyPaduaInstitute.org
Phone: 888-619-7882

Thursday's Dr. Thursday Post

Life in Three Dimensions

"Were you ever an isosceles triangle?"
[Gabriel Gale asks this in "The Yellow Bird" in GKC's The Poet and the Lunatics

There is something beyond expression moving to the imagination in the idea of the holy fugitives being brought lower than the very land; as if the earth had swallowed them; the glory of God like gold buried in the ground. Perhaps the image is too deep for art, even in the sense of dealing in another dimension. For it might be difficult for any art to convey simultaneously the divine secret of the cavern and the cavalcade of the mysterious kings, trampling the rocky plain and shaking the cavern roof. Yet the medieval pictures would often represent parallel scenes on the same canvas; and the medieval popular theatre, which the guildsmen wheeled about the streets, was sometimes a structure of three floors, with one scene above another.
[GKC "Bethlehem and the Great Cities" in New Witness, December 8, 1922; reprinted in The Spice of Life 139]


Christ was not only born on the level of the world, but even lower than the world. The first act of the divine drama was enacted, not only on no stage set up above the sight-seer, but on a dark and curtained stage sunken out of sight; and that is an idea very difficult to express in most modes of artistic expression. It is the idea of simultaneous happenings on different levels of life. Something like it might have been attempted in the more archaic and decorative medieval art. But the more the artists learned of realism and perspective, the less they could depict at once the angels in the heavens and the shepherds on the hills, and the glory in the darkness that was under the hills. Perhaps it could have been best conveyed by the characteristic expedient of some of the medieval guilds, when they wheeled about the streets a theatre with three stages one above the other, with heaven above the earth and hell under the earth. But in the riddle of Bethlehem it was heaven that was under the earth. [GKC The Everlasting Man CW2:305]

Since we've had a lot of very serious and technical matters from theology recently, I thought we'd go to the other end of the University and spend some time with the math department. Of course this gets me in trouble right away: first because of the tendency of certain Chestertonians to think that the ACS and its blogg, and - in fact - ALL Chestertonians - are supposed to be "lit'ry" people, and shun the technical and mathematical. But then a quiet little Greek scholar sticks her head up and points out that the "Great Commission" in Mt 28:19 has the verb maqhteusate or mathêtusate which means "make disciples" - make LEARNERs. The ancient Greeks called this hated subject "The Learning" because it was learned. And some years ago, while I was at the unnamed school doing my doctorate, and we heard about the talking doll that said "Math is hard", I spent some time looking into the matter. The answer, as you might expect, is in Aquinas (his commentary on Boethius), and the answre is that Math is easy - as far as its "class" of knowledge is concerned. Obviously, it can be that any given aspect of math might be easy- or hard - for any given person. But that is not the same thing at all.

However interesting it may be to explore epistemology - the science of knowledge, it is a bit more than I want to write about. I have enough writing to do just now, and I want to get into something fun. It all started with last week's discussion of light - and the Lepanto novena. I say the "Luminous" mysteries, the "Mysteries of Light" - which explore the various scenes of the Public Ministry of Jesus. But one could just as easily call them the "Mysteries of Water" because water enters into each of them in a special way.

So I thought I might talk about water - thinking about the Baptism of our Lord at the Jordan, I imagined that every baptism since then contained a molecule of water which had touched Jesus.... and I started to wonder how many molecules that would be.

Well, one mole of water is just 18 grams - and a mole contains about 6.02e23 molecules - that's a computer way of writing a BIG number: 602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 602 sextillion. That's plenty of molecules.

An aside about the word "mole" - this is also called "Avogadro's number" - it is really just a number with a "special name" like dozen, gross, or score... which reminds me of a limerick. But I will spare you. (If you are desperate, see here.)

But not having any nice imagery for such a vast number, I decided to look at the smaller one - 18 grams. Now that's not very big at all - but how big is it? I began to work it out, and found myself using a specialised form of mathematics called "dimensional analysis" - I wonder if it is even taught any more. It's a way of managing equations, say of physics or chemistry, or any real-world problem, so that the units are correct. Often someone is playing with miles per hour and needs the speed in feet per second - or something like that... dimensional analysis is just algebra applied to dimensions. Just to give you the answer, 18 grams of water is less than an ounce - about a shot-glass full.

Now, "dimension" comes from a Latin word meaning "measure": length, time, weight, temperature, and so on... Most of the time, we think there are "three" dimensions, sometimes called x, y, and z - left and right, in and out, up and down. It's when we talk about the fourth and other dimensions that things can get complicated. And then there are the fractional dimensions... at first, it sounds like a joke, like trying to go upstairs by exactly three and a half steps - but labelling a train platform "Nine and Three Quarters" starts sounding quite respectable to such geometers!

And perhaps you've thought I've lost the Chestertonian view? Not at all! In fact, the rest of this posting is pure GKC. You need to get the three dimension down pat, so I can proceed into other dimensions in a future posting. Please read carefully, and think about what you read; there MAY be a quiz next time...

--Dr. Thursday
Press here to enter the Chesterton Dimension...

The tendency of mankind to split up everything into three is hard to explain rationally. It is either false and a piece of superstition; or it is true and a part of religion. In either case it cannot be adequately explained on ordinary human judgment or average human experience. Three is really a very uncommon number in nature. The dual principle runs through nature as a whole; it is almost as if our earth and heaven had been made by the Heavenly Twins. There is no beast with three horns, no bird with three wings; no fish with three fins and no more. No monster has three eyes, except in fairy tales; no cat has three tails, except in logic. Sages have proved the world to be flat and round and oblate and oval; but none (as far as I know) have yet proved it to be triangular. Indeed, the triangle is one of the rarest shapes, not merely in the primal patterns of the cosmos, but even in the multifarious details of man's civilisation. There are three-cornered hats, certainly, and three-cornered tarts; but even taken together they scarcely provide the whole equipment of civilisation. Three-cornered tarts might be monotonous as a diet; as three-cornered hats would certainly be inadequate as a costume. The tripod was certainly important in pagan antiquity; but I cannot help thinking that its modern representative, the three-legged stool, has rather come down in the world. Evolution and the Struggle for Life (if I may mention such holy things in so light a connection) seem to have gone rather against the tripod; and even the three-legged stool is not so common as it was. Victory has gone to the quadrupeds of furniture: to the huge, ruthless sofas, the rampant and swaggering armchairs. It seems clear, therefore, that there is nothing in common human necessities, just as there is nothing in the structure and system of the physical world, to impregnate man with his curious taste for the number three. Yet he shows it in everything from the Three Brothers in the fairy-tale to the Three Estates of the realm; in everything from the Three Dimensions to the Three Bears. If the thing has a reason, it must be a reason beyond reason. It must be mystical; it may be theological.
[GKC ILN Dec 10 1910 CW28:643-4]

Mathematicians still go cracked over the mysterious properties of the number Nine; on hot days you can hear their heads going pop on all sides like chestnuts. Inventors still run about with little machines for Perpetual Motion. Philosophers still argue about the Fourth Dimension, without having the faintest reason to suppose that there is any such thing. These things are parts of the divine energy of man, because they are Games. But the disaster is this, that by calling our worst sins and tragedies by the name of "problems" we hazily remind people of these everlasting amusements - such as squaring the circle; and so make them content with slowness, with pedantry, with idleness, and with sterility. The reformer thinks himself as swift as Achilles if he goes nearly as fast as a tortoise. ...while the philosopher lives in the fourth dimension, the other three dimensions are closing in in meaner rooms and darker prisons around others of the children of men; and it takes a great deal longer to square the circle than to square the politicians. [GKC ILN Nov 25 1911 CW29:194]

The truth is that Professor Einstein has indeed revealed a kind of relativity which he did not intend to reveal. It is a relativity more relative, in Hamlet's sense of the word, than his own. Whatever be the merits of his own scientific theory, he has let out a secret about all scientific theories - or rather, to speak more justly, about the way in which all scientific theories may become scientific fashions. And that is by simply ceasing to be scientific.

And the importance of Einstein and his relativity in this relation is that, in his case, there cannot be anything scientific in the fashion, whatever there may be in the theory. In this case at least, if in this case for the first time, the public is quite certainly talking about what it does not understand. In the biological and psychological cases it may at least have been talking about what it imperfectly understood. It would not be very satisfactory for a biologist or a psychologist to be not so much a theory as a name, and not so much a name as a joke. It would not satisfy a biologist to be applauded in connection with the antics of a pantomime elephant. It would not have pleased Darwin that the Missing Link should appear only in the place of the pantomime cat. But at least it might be argued that men recognised the reference because they recognised the idea. At least it might be argued that the Darwinian idea does apply to elephants and does apply to cats. The popular impression of Darwinism was doubtless very dim and confused, as it is still. For most people it amounted to the notion that men were descended from monkeys; for many people it included the notion that men ought to scramble and fight each other like monkeys. This was not Darwin, but it was Darwinism. It was an idol more enormous, more evident, more solid, and perhaps more permanent than the idea which it misrepresented. The scientific thesis of natural selection was quite serious and thoughtful, and has been largely abandoned by scientific men. The fashionable legend was quite anarchical and absurd, and it is still firmly maintained by multitudes of unscientific men. But if the legend was a caricature of the theory, there was something in the theory to caricature. Darwin did say something about men and monkeys, as well as about cats and elephants; and the something could be popularised, if only in a pantomime. There is something to laugh at in the idea of a man who is half a monkey. There is nothing to laugh at in the idea of relativity. Men did make an image of the Missing Link; though it was an illogical image, because he was missing. They do not make an image of the Fourth Dimension, even an illogical image, because it is missing from imagination as well as experience. If they cheer and laugh at the mere word, it is not only because it is a word, but actually because it is a nonsense word. [GKC ILN Apr 15 1922 CW32:356-7]

...for a medieval man, his Paganism was like a wall and his Catholicism was like a window. No discussions of degree or relativity can get over the difference between a wall and a window. It is more even that a difference of dimension or of plane; it is very near to one of negative and positive. Anyhow, just as a very white sheet of paper looks black if held up against the sun, so any wall looks dark against any window. It may be a whitewashed wall, but it will not be as white as the dullest daylight.

... [Chaucer] had set up, as part of the structure of his own mind a sort of lower and larger stage, for all mankind, in which anything could happen without seriously hurting anybody; and an upper stage which he kept almost deliberately separate, on which walked the angels of the justice and the mercy and the omniscience of God. This was a sort of cosmic complexity, which was supported by the dual standpoint of his morality and philosophy, but which belonged in any case to his individual temperament. It was a temperament especially English; but it is not quite fair to infer in the usual fashion, that it was therefore merely illogical. At bottom, it was no more illogical than the three
dimensions are illogical. It depended on whether he was thinking along one line; or in the flat, as in broad farce; or of the solid images of virtue. [GKC, Chaucer CW18:354, 358]

It is queer that there have been so many philosophical fancies about The Fourth Dimension, in a world in which so many people have not yet discovered The Third. For in that spirit of antic allegory we may say that the modern materialistic world has been in two dimensions and very flat; rather like the Loves of the Triangles or those fishes on the floor of the sea which are almost as flat as figures in geometry. For most periods and civilisations, except the modern period in our civilisation, have really had something which may be best described as a third dimension; a third dimension of depth. It was also, as in the mathematical parallel, a third dimension of height. One way of putting it is to say that people had more of an inner life; but it was an inner life that sank into the abysses and ascended to the sky. We commonly cover it with the name of religion; but it must here be used in a wider sense than anything that is commonly meant by Christianity. Indeed, one of the most obvious forms of it is commonly called Paganism. It was the sense that something was present in the most material actions of men, which was not material but mystical.

If two friends were drinking wine together, there was also a third friend present, for whom wine was actually poured out; the god who had given wine to the human race. To him the vine was sacred; and the vine remained sacred long after the god was rather vague. But it gave to the very act of drinking a ritual character, which was ultimately a religious character. ... I have used the figure of the Loves of the Triangles; but perhaps, oddly enough, it is often the tragedy of this modern love that it is not a triangle. I am aware that there is a threadbare and rather shabby theme that is vulgarly identified with the triangular figure; but there is something deeper and more dignified which deserves much better to be called by the title of the Eternal Triangle. It is the third thing with which the lovers are united at the wedding, as the friends were united over the wine-cup. It is that third dimension of something deeper and more divine which increases all that is most happy and human. We say that it takes two to make a quarrel; and where they are really only two, they probably will quarrel. We say that two is company and three is none; and we shall have gone much deeper into the deepest realities before we discover what even the heathens knew: that three is company and two is none. [GKC ILN June 1, 1935 - thanks to Frank Petta and my mother]

There is perhaps nothing so perfect in all language or literature as the use of these three degrees in the parable of the lilies of the field; in which he seems first to take one small flower in his hand and note its simplicity and even its impotence; then suddenly expands it in flamboyant colours into all the palaces and pavilions full of a great name in national legend and national glory; and then, by yet a third overturn, shrivels it to nothing once more with a gesture as if flinging it away “...and if God so clothes the grass that to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven - how much more...” [Mt 6:28-30] It is like the building of a good Babel tower by white magic in a moment and in the movement of a hand; a tower heaved suddenly up to heaven on the top of which can be seen afar off, higher than we had fancied possible, the figure of man; lifted by three infinities above all other things, on a starry ladder of light logic and swift imagination. Merely in a literary sense it would be more of a masterpiece than most of the masterpieces in the libraries; yet it seems to have been uttered almost at random while a man might pull a flower. But merely in a literary sense also, this use of the comparative in several degrees has about it a quality which seems to me to hint of much higher things than the modern suggestion of the simple teaching of pastoral or communal ethics. [GKC The Everlasting Man CW2:332-3]

Reader Needs Our Help

If you can help Rich, please e-mail me ASAP.

Hi Nancy,

It's Rich. Can I ask you for a favour? Would you post a question on the ACS blog for anyone who could help?

The book is almost done. I am annotating it as we speak and soon I will have a complete manuscript on the distributist anthology of G.K.'s Weekly. I've run into a snag and maybe your readers can assist.

I came across a name Chesterton gives to the private big business owner named Moses Miggs. I'm assuming it is a fictitious name because I could not find the name online anywhere. Do you know or do your readers know if they have seen the name of Moses Miggs in any of Chesterton's fiction? I'm trying to find out if this is a real person or not (I assume the latter).

Here is the context and thanks in advance!

"But if Mr. Moses Miggs, who has a shop next door to the Post Office, buys up all the pens, ink, and paper, from all the shops miles round, so that nobody can write a letter except by coming to terms with him, then Mr. Miggs does in fact obtain exactly the same power as the Post Office..."

Anyone know?

The Oldest and Noisiest Chestertonian

A must-read by Aidan Mackey.

The Ball and the Cross

Question from a reader who is reading The Ball and the Cross at her parish book club (yeah for them!) and looking for some help with a study guide, or study questions. Has anyone run across any? Written any?

I know some of you run Chesterton clubs, so I thought maybe there might be something out there.

Thanks for your help.

Chesterton Outmoded?

Reader takes up some sort of "Outmoded" book challenge, takes Napolean of Notting Hill off her shelf, and discovers she has a first edition!

The American Cecil Chesterton Society

This took me by surprise when I discovered it today.

Our Mr. Chesterton

I enjoy this feature of the magazine (Gilbert) very much. I like the personal anecdotes. Probably because I like the person of Chesterton so much. And his heroic virtue of....oh, that's another post, sorry ;-)

In this issue, we have a note from E.C. Bentley, a close friend of Chesterton's, describing the notebooks filled with Chesterton's writing, from very early on. I would love to see the book that they wrote together, taking turns writing chapters. And the item that he hated having anyone read his work while he was present....well, I thought I was the only one. ;-)

Dr. Thursday's Feast of St. Francis Post

Francis, Francis and Frances: the Meaning of Light

We are now on the sixth day of our Lepanto Novena. These nine days provide a rich stellar display of feasts:

Sept 29: St. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, archangels
Sept 30: Doctor St. Jerome
Oct 1: DOCTOR St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower
Oct 2: Holy Guardian Angels
Oct 4: John Bernardone (an alias - but read on...)
Oct 5: St. Maria Faustina
Oct 6: St. Bruno
Oct 7: Our Lady of the Rosary (and the victory at Lepanto)

In fact, October 3 seems to be the only date of the new calendar without a saint - though in the old calendar that used to be Doctor Terry's feast. (Although it may be of interest, I have no time to go into these calendar shifts; I have enough of that at work. "Clock Day" is one of the true horrors for those of us who have to watch clocks... and it's not far off.)

I mention this stellar lineup because with our entry into October, there is a lot of excitement for those of us who think about the stars. There are always thrilling things to see on a clear night - now is the time when we can see the great Andromeda galaxy, some 2 million light years away! And soon we'll be into the very dramatic season when there are a whole lot of really bright stars all visible at once... Aldebaran, Capella, Rigel, Betelgeuse, Procyon, Sirius, Castor, Pollux, Regulus, Spica... and the splendid three-in-a-row, the Belt of Orion, called the "Three Marys" by some. (Oh, boy, I can't wait!)

I have quoted elsewhere one of the most profound comments ever made about the stars, and since it is very impressive, I shall quote it again here:

"Considered as a collector of rare and precious things, the amateur astronomer has a great advantage over amateurs in all other fields, who must content themselves with second and third rate specimens. For example, only a few of the world's mineralogists could hope to own such a specimen as the Hope diamond... In contrast, the amateur astronomer has access at all times to the original objects of his study; the masterworks of the heavens belong to him as much as to the great observatories of the world."
[Robert Burnham Jr., Burnham's Celestial Handbook, 5, emphasis added]

Of course, all Chestertonians will hear a mystical harmony with another link of gems and stars:

I felt economical about the stars as if they were sapphires (they are called so in Milton's Eden): I hoarded the hills. For the universe is a single jewel, and while it is a natural cant to talk of a jewel as peerless and priceless, of this jewel it is literally true. This cosmos is indeed without peer and without price: for there cannot be another one. [GKC, Orthodoxy CW1:268]

Remember that next time somebody comes up with terms like "parallel universes", "multiverse" or such nonsense.

But what is a star? A gem or jewel? A big ball of hydrogen being fused at themonuclear temperatures? Faint sky lights you can ignore when you're out at night? Something for experts? Or something else?

In order to find out, we ought to find the right expert. Hmmm...

A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good - " [GKC, Heretics CW1:46]

Yes, Chesterton tells us, "all depends on what is the philosophy of Light." OK. Then what is light?

Er... a wave or a particle, something moving at 3e8 m/s, a stream of photons, energy dependent on the frequency... Oh, sure, if you know some physics, you can write

E = m c²

c = l f

E = h n

all you want, and then there's Maxwell... (ooh!)

But we need the philosophy, not the physics.

OK! (Ahem.) But what does the philosophy of light have to do with Francis, Francis and Frances? Press here to find out.

Here is the pivotal quote by which I hope to disentangle myself.

In the words of G. K. Chesterton, who married Frances Blogg and took Francis as his confirmation name:

the whole philosophy of St. Francis revolved round the idea of a new supernatural light on natural things, which meant the ultimate recovery not the ultimate refusal of natural things.
[GKC, St. Francis of Assisi CW2:59]

One of the deepest and most mystical of all words I know is a word from ancient Greek - the word Qewria - that is theôria, where the ô is a LONG o. It is the word from which the English word "theory" is derived. I shall not attempt to define it or even begin to explore it - it would take more disk space than I have, both at home and at work. But among the many curious and deep things about it is the link to another Greek word which means "I see".

For the mental thing (whatever it really is) which is called "theory" (in its most general sense) might also be called "vision" or "contemplation" - somehow it is linked to a kind of abstract "seeing" within the mind. And that is where the Light - in its philosophical sense - comes in.

Ahem. You are lost. Doc, you're really tiresome today. Lots of Greek, lots of math, lots of physics. One of the DARKEST essays you've tried to read recently - right?

Perhaps I can enLIGHTen you. I will try an analogy.

I have an idea, wandering around in my head. I will NOT tell you what it is NOW - I will represent it by the @ sign. I want to tell you about my idea. So I say:

There is green at the bottom, and blue at the top. Standing on the green is a big something - the @. The @ faces left, and seems to be chewing something. There is a brass bell around its neck. The @ is black and white, and has horns. The @ makes a sound (I will spell it "moo"). Somebody comes to the @, does something I cannot quite make out, and soon there is a pail of milk.

Sure, you laugh. Oh silly Doctor, you could have said "cow" and saved yourself a lot of typing!

Is that beginning to make any sense?

Let's give Chesterton a try:

Out of some dark forest under some ancient dawn there must come towards us, with lumbering yet dancing motions, one of the very queerest of the prehistoric creatures. We must see for the first time the strangely small head set on a neck not only longer but thicker than itself, as the face of a gargoyle is thrust out upon a gutter-spout, the one disproportionate crest of hair running along the ridge of that heavy neck like a beard in the wrong place; the feet, each like a solid club of horn, alone amid the feet of so many cattle; so that the true fear is to be found in showing, not the cloven, but the uncloven hoof. Nor is it mere verbal fancy to see him thus as a unique monster; for in a sense a monster means what is unique, and he is really unique. [GKC, The Everlasting Man CW2:149-50]

And again you say "horse" - very good. (I think his is better than mine.)

But what if the idea is something much more profound? What if the idea is something you have never seen, and will never see in this life?

It was for this reason - and here I hear the "Great Chorus" of two millennia of writers sing in harmony - indeed, it was for this reason that the Word was made Man - and this is the reason that we confess in our Sunday Creed that Jesus is "Light from Light". Or, as the priest says in the Preface for Christmas: "In him we see our God made visible and so are caught up in the love of the God we cannot see." It is the most wonderful of ideas - God - which has been set forth in the person of Jesus - and in Him this idea was elucidated much better than I could - or even GKC - could.

Alas, after 1100 years, the memory of this idea had gotten - well, maybe a little faded and torn around the edges. (Was that a black and white thing standing on something green, or perhaps a green thing standing on something black and white? Was the neck long, or the beard?) Remember, the idea was still around, and people still called it "cow" or "horse" or "Jesus" - but it was the fine and brilliant detail which had faded.

And then from a small Italian town God called forth a playboy-soldier, a troubador who liked to sing and dance - a young man named John Bernardone. (See October 4, above) He kept on singing and dancing, but he did it, and a lot more, for a whole new reason.

For in himself he made visible an image of Jesus. A man, a poor man, a happy man, a man interested in all things, but especially in other persons, and most of all interested in God.

It was this man, called "Francis" from his youth, who wrote one of the greatest love-poems ever written. He wrote it in a language which was just beginning to be its own fresh Italian instead of a very tired Latin. He wrote it very much like certain psalms or Bible canticles, or the ever-rich and ever-confusing first chapter of Genesis, simply by putting together a list. (I'd like to see your neighborhood cosmologist try that!) GKC told us that "The greatest of poems is an inventory." [Orthodoxy CW1:267] And in this love-song, John (aka Francis) Bernardone inventories all the things in creation, and put them - much like the brilliant Scholastics - into their proper order and place - that is, in their relation to God.

This song is the great Canticle of the Creatures, and here, at almost the very beginning, is the height of the description of light:

All praise be yours, my Lord, through all that you have made,
And first my lord Brother Sun,
Who brings the day; and light you give to us through him.

How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Please read those last two lines again:

How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Ah - perhaps now you can see! I hope these words of St. Francis have helped to shine some light on light.

Happy feast of St. Francis to all!

--Dr. Thursday

PS: Perhaps today you might try to read a little of GKC's own book about this wonderful saint. Don't forget that our bloggmistress Nancy Brown has a helpful Study Guide for GKC's book. I should warn you - you don't have to be a child to take advantage of it.

If you live in or near Ro"chesterton", NY...

A conference which includes Chesterton.

Scholarship Winners

One thing I love to read each year in Gilbert is the Gilbert and Frances Scholarship winners essays. The latest Gilbert had two essays, by Spencer Howe and Alex Ogrodnick.

Naturally, as a homeschooling mother, I enjoyed Spencer's article: "The Attack on Parents as Primary Educators."

If parents abdicate thier role as teachers of their children, then external influences will inculcate the young with popular and one-sided views on the most controversial and disputed dogmas, including political involvement, history, religion, and morality.

Not bad.

Alex's article, "Of Beaatitudes, Money, and Gratitude" was a Chestertonian view of possessions.

I enjoyed reading these young authors work, and wish them the best in their future endeavors.

Gilbert's Vanity Plates seen in Arizona

Very cool. I think every state should have a Chesterton plate, and the proceeds should go to the ACS.

Gilbert Editorial

"The Nightmare--One Hundred Years Later"

If you own a copy of the book The Critical Judgements, you can read the contemporary reviews of The Man Who Was Thursday (TMWWT). Then, like today, some readers "got it" and some don't.

I remember Dawn Eden's talk at ChesterCon07, and she was talking about the influence of TMWWT. As she spoke, she held a copy of TMWWT in her hand. I was sitting in a place where I could see her hand, and the book, and I noticed that the book was able to lay flat (spine broken?), had many dogears, seemed to have underlines and notes on every page, and in every way showed signs of frequent reading. Dawn quoted to us several passages that had made a difference to her life.

Which brings me to a curious fact. The passages she quoted, were not the ones I underlined and remember. I have different sentences that mean much to me. And this is a great thing about Chesterton. He speaks to many different people in many different ways--using the same story. Amazing.

So, back to the editorial. Here we are, just completing a conference and an issue on a story that is 100 years old. Wonderful. Before the conference, we had a book discussion on line here about Thursday, and we discussed why it was called a Nightmare, which the editorial touches upon as well.

So, do you know what we are celebrating at ChesterCon08? The 100th Anniversary of Orthodoxy. I think maybe in about April, we'll start a book discussion of that, in preparation for the conference. Anyone interested in that?

Lepanto Novena Day 3

Chesterton's Potential Sainthood and Dorothy Collins' Remark

Seems below Gramps is determined to throw a wet blanket on the idea of Chesterton as a saint. Well, none of us really knows. That's why we have a church to think about such things. All we can do is produce evidence, give it to the right people, and they will decide, not us.

However, as I was reading this past weekend, I came across this curious passage in Aidan Mackey's new book, G.K. Chesterton: A Prophet for the 21st Century, With an Introduction by Dale Ahlquist:

"Again, he [Chesterton] so belittled his own powers that even those who knew him could be deceived. On several occasions, I [Aidan Mackey] asked Dorothy Collins, his secretary, who was as a daughter to Gilbert and Frances Chesterton, with which languages Gilbert had some familiarity. Each time I was assured that he had no knowledge whatsoever of any tongue other than English, other than a very few words of schoolboy French. Yet a reading of his Chaucer and other of his works clearly displays very sensitive knowledge of French and acquaintanceship with Latin. In fact, he translated a sonnet from the French of Joachim du Bellay so marvellously, that Mr. George Steiner....paid it...high tribute [which Mr. Mackey goes on to quote].

...I have since discovered that G.K.C. was awarded the Sixth Form ('A' Group) Prize for French at St. Paul's School in 1891...to have been the recipient of this award most certainly proves that he was brilliant at both written and oral French.

I merely relate Mr. Mackey's remarks as proof that even someone as close to Chesterton as Dorothy Collins may not have known him all that well.

St. Louis Chums with Chesterton and Bums with Belloc

Ohh. I see a Dawn Eden headline there. ;-)
Those St. Louis Chestertonians are so lucky. Yes, I'm jealous.

UPDATE: Pictures of the chums and bums here.

Lepanto Novena begins today

"For in just over a week, the date of October 7 shall again occur on a Sunday, as it did in 1571, when the young Don John of Austria defeated the galleys of the Turks in the historic battle of Lepanto. That Sunday morning, he had small hope for victory - the Turkish fleet was far larger; the forces of the West were hodge-podge, barely united under Don John's command. Their hope, such as it was, was based on the plea of the Pope, who had asked for prayers to be said - in particular, the prayer of the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, wherein the various mysteries of the birth, life, death and glorification of Jesus the God-Man are recalled.

The records tell of the dramatic moment after Holy Mass, soon after sunrise, when the forces of the West rowed into the wind, towards the sun, in the battle-array of a cross - facing the west-sailing galleys arranged in the Crescent of the Turks....

But then! Ah, how to make this pivot dramatic... Then as the historian Beeching puts it in a paragraph of just five short words:

And then the wind changed.

The wind swung into the west (as it did on Beacon Hill for Innocent Smith!) aiding Don John and thwarting the Turks - and hope sprang up for the forces of the Cross.

Yes, that battle was won. But we must still face evil - not fearful galleys on a sunrise sea - but the hidden Powers of Darkness. They continue to assault our world, our country, our cities, our families, our own lives - not with swords or guns, but with every spiritual weapon, to destroy peace, wipe out hope, darken faith, quench love.

Where can we go for aid?
"And they came to him, and awaked him, saying: 'Lord, save us, we perish'." [Mt 8:25]
We must pray - we must ask for the Spirit of light, of strength, of love. We must again appeal to the One Who directs the wind, Who came upon the Apostles in tongues of fire!
And Jesus saith to them: "Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?" Then rising up, he commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying: "What manner of man is this, for he winds and the sea obey him?" [Mt 8:26-27]
So, please join in the nine day novena of the Rosary, starting this Saturday, September 29, and continuing to Sunday October 7."--Dr. Thursday

Read more about it at the Blue Boar.

Letters

Note to Editor: Top of page 5: first class postage is now 41 cents. No wonder your letters to the editor come in so slowly. :-)

Gregory Bohen's letter to the editor is fascinating. And shows how widely spread Chesterton's stuff is. Here is a place in Texas, a place I am fairly certain Chesterton never visited (correct me if I'm wrong) which has two folders of over 500 handwritten pages of Chesterton's, including illustrations! What a find. I enjoyed reading Mr. Bohen's discovery and was glad to see some of the illustrations reproduced for our enjoyment. The best part was where he said the papers still smelled of tobacco smoke. (See pages 5-6 of the latest [July/August 2007] issue.)

Thursday's Dr. Thursday Post

The Wind: Setting the Volume to Max

As I have mentioned in last week's posting, there are a lot of memories connected with September. It was in September of 1969 when I first picked up a bow and began to learn the bass fiddle, also called the double-bass or string bass, the largest of the orchestral strings.

It was a lot of fun... I was never very good, but I did play in the high school stage band, and also in the string ensemble at college. That first practice we began with Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" and it was so awesome that I forgot to play, I was just so amazed by being "inside" the orchestra.

But my playing the string bass had another outcome: a good friend who is now the organist of a cathedral. He provided the musical talent when I built the pipe organ in my basement, and played at its first (and only) recital. From him, from our music teacher at high school, from a number of books, and from direct experience, I learned a lot about pipe organs, which have some strange associations with computers. Computer scientists aren't the only ones who care about numbers like 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, and 1 - but organists must also deal with two-and-two-thirds and one-and-three-fifths, the so-called "mutation" stops, which we can talk about another time.

The first thing one learns about the pipe organ is that it is two major parts: a collection of pipes sitting on a box full of compressed air (the "wind chest"), and machinery to control them (keyboards, stops, and so on). One must have at least five dozen pipes - because each pipe can make only one sound. An organ pipe is not like a flute or clarinet, which has a number of holes, and various keys covering those holes. In an organ, the music comes by having a "rank" - a set of 61 pipes, each made as similarly as possible to the others, except for its size - one for each of the 61 keys of the standard organ keyboard. (That's five octaves and a note, from the "C" 2 ledgers below the bass clef to the second "C" above the staff.)

Most organs have several ranks of pipes. Each rank will have its own shape, which gives that rank its particular "timbre" or tonal quality... again this amazing topic is something for another time.

But I tell you about this very high "system" view of the pipe organ for this purpose: all the keyboards and other various switches (called stop knobs or tabs) are arranged simply in order to control getting the "wind" (the compressed air) to each single pipe. The particular key pressed determines which size pipe - what pitch. The stop knob selects which rank of pipes - what tonal quality. Obviously, when you press several keys, you play a chord, and notes sound in harmony (let us hope!). And, when you pull out more than one stop, you get an increased and mixed tonal effect. This is the origin of the phrase - "pulling out all the stops" - which is called "full organ". In rock and roll, it is called setting the amps to "ten" ("eleven" if you are in "Spinal Tap"). The first album of the rock group "Rush" directs the listener to "set the volume to maximum for best results" (See here for more on that.)

Now it may seem surprising to go into such details about music on a Chesterton blogg. It is said that he was nearly tone-deaf: "Yet it was all but impossible to teach Gilbert a tune, and Bernard Shaw felt this (as we have seen) a real drawback to his friend's understanding of his own life and career. Music was to Shaw what line and color were to Chesterton; but to Chesterton singing was just making a noise to show he felt happy." [Ward, Gilbert Keith Chesterton 276, my emphasis] Father O'Connor, perceptive and careful, applies the scholastic distinguo: "[He] was tone-deaf, though most sensitive to musical rhythm or tempo. [O'Connor, Father Brown on Chesterton, 21, my emphasis]

But as usual Chesterton understood a lot more than we think.

To hear more about this, pull out all the stops and click here...


I think GKC would have greatly approved of the instructions from "Rush", or the "eleven" on the amps of "Spinal Tap" - because - of all things - he understood just what really happened on Palm Sunday.

Now, if that sounds like a Father Brown riddle, perhaps you have not yet read Tremendous Trifles, which is again available! Here is the solution:

I remember a debate in which I had praised militant music in ritual, and some one asked me if I could imagine Christ walking down the street before a brass band. I said I could imagine it with the greatest ease; for Christ definitely approved a natural noisiness at a great moment. When the street children shouted too loud, certain priggish disciples did begin to rebuke them in the name of good taste. He said: "If these were silent the very stones would cry out." [GKC, "The Tower" in Tremendous Trifles, quoting Luke 19:40, my emphasis]

As usual, there is something more to be discovered, if one takes the time. This is an example of where saying the Rosary can pay off - careful reading of Scripture, or real attention at Holy Mass have equal effects, but the Rosary is designed (ah, let use keep to our musical theme) to compose variations on a basso ostinato.

On that Sunday before Passover, as the palms were strewn and the children raised their voices, there was something more than just making noise - there was, to use a modern term, an advertisement, an attention-getter. Specifically the cheers and cries of "Hosanna!" called attention to something going on - to a piece of news - to a new event.

And, if one takes a look at the events exactly eight weeks later, one finds the exact same thing happening. But this time, the sound had a rather different origin:

And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, [the Apostles] were all together in one place: And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming: and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. [Acts 2:1-2, emphasis added]

Wow. Talk about setting the volume to max!

Here we see that Someone has controlled the wind! The master Organist of the Universe has "pulled out all the stops" in order to call attention to something new. ("Behold, I make all things new." [Rv 21:5])

This new wind is so powerful, and yet so subtle that Chesterton could not help but call upon it in his own writing:

"How The Great Wind Came To Beacon House"

A wind sprang high in the west, like a wave of unreasonable happiness, and tore eastward across England, trailing with it the frosty scent of forests and the cold intoxication of the sea. In a million holes and corners it refreshed a man like a flagon and astonished him like a blow. In the inmost chambers of intricate and embowered houses it woke like a domestic explosion, littering the floor with some professor's papers till they seemed as precious as fugitive, or blowing out the candle by which a boy read Treasure Island and wrapping him in roaring dark. But everywhere it bore drama into undramatic lives, and carried the trump of crisis across the world. Many a harassed mother in a mean backyard had looked at five dwarfish shirts on the clothes-line as at some small, sick tragedy; it was as if she had hanged her five children. The wind came, and they were full and kicking as if five fat imps had sprung into them; and far down in her oppressed subconsciousness she half remembered those coarse comedies of her fathers when the elves still dwelt in the homes of men. Many an unnoticed girl in a dank walled garden had tossed herself into the hammock with the same intolerant gesture with which she might have tossed herself into the Thames; and that wind rent the waving wall of woods and lifted the hammock like a balloon, and showed her shapes of quaint cloud far beyond, and pictures of bright villages far below, as if she rode heaven in a fairy boat. Many a dusty clerk or curate, plodding a telescopic road of poplars, thought for the hundredth time that they were like the plumes of a hearse, when this invisible energy caught and swung and clashed them round his head like a wreath or salutation of seraphic wings. There was in it something more inspired and authoritative even than the old wind of the proverb; for this was the good wind that blows nobody harm. [GKC, Manalive, first chapter]

As you may have expected, I bring all this up for a purpose. For in just over a week, the date of October 7 shall again occur on a Sunday, as it did in 1571, when the young Don John of Austria defeated the galleys of the Turks in the historic battle of Lepanto. That Sunday morning, he had small hope for victory - the Turkish fleet was far larger; the forces of the West were hodge-podge, barely united under Don John's command. Their hope, such as it was, was based on the plea of the Pope, who had asked for prayers to be said - in particular, the prayer of the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, wherein the various mysteries of the birth, life, death and glorification of Jesus the God-Man are recalled.

The records tell of the dramatic moment after Holy Mass, soon after sunrise, when the forces of the West rowed into the wind, towards the sun, in the battle-array of a cross - facing the west-sailing galleys arranged in the Crescent of the Turks....

But then! Ah, how to make this pivot dramatic... Then as the historian Beeching puts it in a paragraph of just five short words:

And then the wind changed.

The wind swung into the west (as it did on Beacon Hill for Innocent Smith!) aiding Don John and thwarting the Turks - and hope sprang up for the forces of the Cross.

Yes, that battle was won. But we must still face evil - not fearful galleys on a sunrise sea - but the hidden Powers of Darkness. They continue to assault our world, our country, our cities, our families, our own lives - not with swords or guns, but with every spiritual weapon, to destroy peace, wipe out hope, darken faith, quench love.

Where can we go for aid?

"And they came to him, and awaked him, saying: 'Lord, save us, we perish'." [Mt 8:25]

We must pray - we must ask for the Spirit of light, of strength, of love. We must again appeal to the One Who directs the wind, Who came upon the Apostles in tongues of fire!

And Jesus saith to them: "Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?" Then rising up, he commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying: "What manner of man is this, for he winds and the sea obey him?" [Mt 8:26-27]

So, please join in the nine day novena of the Rosary, starting this Saturday, September 29, and continuing to Sunday October 7.

Blatchford or Chesterton?

Mark Shea, Chestertonian writer, on Catholic Exchange.

Heads Up! Be Prepared to Pray

Check out the novena we're about to start here.HT Chestertonian and Dr. Thursday.

Christmas List Idea?

Rumor has it, these are available now. I know *I* would want one ;-)

What?

I was reading Tremendous Trifles, and came across this astonishing and puzzling line:

"Chesterton's and Francis (sic) Blogg's marriage to Walt Whitman.

(Editorial note: Female Frances with an "e", male Francis with an "i")

What? Gilbert and Frances were never married to Walt Whitman, heaven forbid! It took several readings to understand the sentence:

"Peter's lengthy essays cover every topic imaginable, from the meaning of "Ordinary Time" to Chesterton's and Francis (sic) Blogg's marriage (missing comma here) to Walt Whitman.

Just one little missing comma. Tee hee!

Write a letter!

Address your letter thus:

Rt. Rev. Peter Doyle
Bishop's House
Marriott St.
Northampton NN2 6AW
UK

My Lord Bishop,

and then state all of the many reasons you can think of why the cause of Gilbert and Frances Chesterton should move forward.

Thanks.

Proofreaders wanted for e-Chesterton

Their name even sounds Chestertonian-- "Distributed Proofreaders".

Michael Crichton on GKC

The top book (of GKC's) is the one I'm reading now.

The Surprise opens in St. Louis!

Gilbert Here: Conference Issue Rocks!

I spent the better part of yesterday immersed in my Gilbert, reliving the glory days of June 2007, the people I met, the conversations I had, the beer I tried...looking at all the glorious pictures and remembering the fun of it all.

If I have one regret, its that I mentioned that Dawn Eden stutters. Could you all forget I said that, please? I think I might have hurt her feelings. Sorry, Dawn. Your talk was fantastic. I guess the stutter took me by surprise, your pictures just exude this generous and zippy personality, which, of course, can go along with a stutter...oh dear, I feel I'm just digging my hole bigger and better stop. It's kind of like GKC, when people mention his voice, they recall how soft spoken and high pitched his voice was, and based on his looks, it just didn't go. That's the kind of Chestertonian comparison I wanted to make. And Dawn is just as wise and intelligent as Chesterton.

Front cover: I feel I must mention to anyone not in attendance at the closing banquet that the "Chestertones" were just a complete cover for Anne-Sophie Olsen to show off her tremendous violin talent. The rest of them were all hacks.

See the picture of Dawn? Doesn't she just look friendly? Don't you just wish she lived next door?

Aidan Mackey. What a gentleman. What a wealth of Chestertonian knowledge. It was so fun to be able to ask him "anything".

Dale Ahlquist. What a cut up. If you never heard him talk about Chesterton, you might wonder if he ever takes life seriously. But then, he's a true Chestertonian, and knows how to take things "lightly"--a wonderful quality.

More notes....when I return to you here on Monday.

The Wisdom of Father Brown

On MP3 audio. Download and listen.

The Surprise Opens tonight in St. Louis: Prayers requested

We all wish you guys blessings and good luck tonight, Kevin. Break a leg!

Chesterton Banned?

What next? Will people be burning Orthodoxy? Oh wait, that's already been done. ;-)

Some people are getting their....

...conference issues. Mine's not here yet, so we won't discuss yet.

Dr. Thursday's Thursday Post

Last week - it being the week containing that date "among the most famous in history" - I recounted, in a half-fictional form, my own memories of that day in 2001. I prefaced it by saying that "September is rich in memories, for many reasons..." It is the month when many of us went back to school - even if, once we were in college, we had to return in August. For me, it is connected with work (I mean employment) in one very special way - yesterday, September 19, marked the thirtieth anniversary of my starting work in computing. I left that job long ago, and the company was sold back in the 1980s, but so many of my best memories of work are there. Some real triumphs, some horrible failures, some rude awakenings - as usual for most of us.

Ahem. But this is NOT my blogg - if you wish to know a bit more you can go here where I tell a bit about that first day.

Four years before, September was the month when I first began to write computer programs - punching cards on the old keypunch machines at the school-which-must-not-be-named, with their two-million dollar computer designed by Seymour Cray (a name as great to me in computing as GKC is!)...

But there is another memory which is recalled by September - a memory from much further back than 1977, and which was renewed in me by another blogg-item (to be mentioned at the very end of this post). It was that day in 1962 when, just after lunch, my second-grade teacher told us she was going upstairs to the third grade, and the third-grade teacher was coming to teach us. This was something new.

So the third-grade teacher came in, and she picked up some strange little something (I did not really know what it was) and went up to the blackboard and moved her hand...

And there appeared not ONE line - but FIVE lines at once.

Then on top of those she drew a something, a strange shape, a wonderful shape, something I had never seen before - a shape, as I would now say, which is NOT an ASCII character, so I cannot type it. It was the shape we call the "treble" or G-clef.

As you know, the word "clef" comes from the Latin clavis or key. The "key" is key to all kinds of things, not just music, not just computing. It was important to Chesterton also.

To read more, press your mouse "key" here...

The key is the framing symbol to GKC's autobiography. The second chapter is called "The Man with the Golden Key" and the last is called "The God With the Golden Key". It will be best if I let GKC speak here:

The very first thing I can ever remember seeing with my own eyes was a young man walking across a bridge. He had a curly moustache and an attitude of confidence verging on swagger. He carried in his hand a disproportionately large key of a shining yellow metal and wore a large golden or gilded crown. The bridge he was crossing sprang on the one side from the edge of a highly perilous mountain chasm, the peaks of the range rising fantastically in the distance; and at the other end it joined the upper part of the tower of an almost excessively castellated castle. In the castle tower there was one window, out of which a young lady was looking. I cannot remember in the least what she looked like; but I will do battle with anyone who denies her superlative good looks.

[all the intervening chapters are here omitted]

This story, therefore, can only end as any detective story should end, with its own particular questions answered and its own primary problem solved. Thousands of totally different stories, with totally different problems have ended in the same place with their problems solved. But for me my end is my beginning, as Maurice Baring quoted of Mary Stuart, and this overwhelming conviction that there is one key which can unlock all doors brings back to me the first glimpse of the glorious gift of the senses; and the sensational experience of sensation. And there starts up again before me, standing sharp and clear in shape as of old, the figure of a man who crosses a bridge and carries a key; as I saw him when I first looked into fairyland through the window of my father's peep-show. But I know that he who is called Pontifex, the Builder of the Bridge, is called also Claviger, the Bearer of the Key; and that such keys were given him to bind and loose when he was a poor fisher in a far province, beside a small and almost secret sea.
[GKC Autobiography CW16:39, 330-1]

It would be futile for me to attempt an analysis of the word "key" in all its wonderful senses, even if I merely limit my study to the works of GKC. If one is curious to read more, especially in the application of "key" to things like the Petrine Commission in Matthew 16:19, I would advise consulting Fr. Jaki's wonderful little book called The Keys of the Kingdom: a Tool's Witness to Truth available from Real View Books - yes, as a careful scholar and deep Chestertonian, he quotes GKC to advantage!

But there is one powerful Chesterton quote which Jaki does not mention. Perhaps because it comes in the masterwork which forms the "head of the corner" to GKC's conversion, and Jaki's work, dealing with the Papal office as it does, did not require this particular analysis. I should here point out, as GKC does in his preface, that "It is impossible, I hope, for any Catholic to write any book on any subject, above all this subject, without showing that he is a Catholic; but this study is not specially concerned with the differences between a Catholic and a Protestant. Much of it is devoted to many sorts of Pagans rather than any sort of Christians..." [CW2:141] And those of you who have suffered through my lengthy ramblings may perhaps sense how I've tried to proceed in that manner. Ahem! In any case, let us hear GKC's keynote discussion of the keys:

Christ founded the Church with two great figures of speech; in the final words to the Apostles who received authority to found it. The first was the phrase about founding it on Peter as on a rock; the second was the symbol of the keys. About the meaning of the former there is naturally no doubt in my own case; but it does not directly affect the argument here save in two more secondary aspects. It is yet another example of a thing that could only fully expand and explain itself afterwards, and even long afterwards. And it is yet another example of something the very reverse of simple and self-evident even in the language, in so far as it described a man as a rock when he had much more the appearance of a reed. But the other image of the keys has an exactitude that has hardly been exactly noticed. The keys have been conspicuous enough in the art and heraldry of Christendom; but not every one has noted the peculiar aptness of the allegory. We have now reached the point in history where something must be said of the first appearance and activities of the Church in the Roman Empire; and for that brief description nothing could be more perfect than that ancient metaphor. The Early Christian was very precisely a person carrying about a key, or what he said was a key. The whole Christian movement consisted in claiming to possess that key. It was not merely a vague forward movement, which might be better represented by a battering-ram. It was not something that swept along with it similar or dissimilar things, as does a modern social movement. As we shall see in a moment, it rather definitely refused to do so. It definitely asserted that there was a key and that it possessed that key and that no other key was like it; in that sense it was as narrow as you please. Only it happened to be the key that could unlock the prison of the whole world; and let in the white daylight of liberty. The creed was like a key in three respects; which can be most conveniently summed up under this symbol. First, a key is above all things a thing with a shape. It is a thing that depends entirely upon keeping its shape. The Christian creed is above all things the philosophy of shapes and the enemy of shapelessness. That is where it differs from all that formless infinity, Manichean or Buddhist, which makes a sort of pool of night in the dark heart of Asia; the ideal of uncreating all the creatures. That is where it differs also from the analogous vagueness of mere evolutionism; the idea of creatures constantly losing their shape. A man told that his solitary latchkey had been melted down with a million others into a Buddhistic unity would be annoyed. But a man told that his key was gradually growing and sprouting in his pocket, and branching into new wards or complications, would not be more gratified. Second, the shape of a key is in itself a rather fantastic shape. A savage who did not know it was a key would have the greatest difficulty in guessing what it could possibly be. And it is fantastic because it is in a sense arbitrary. A key is not a matter of abstractions; in that sense a key is not a matter of argument. It either fits the lock or it does not. It is useless for men to stand disputing over it, considered by itself; or reconstructing it on pure principles of geometry or decorative art. It is senseless for a man to say he would like a simpler key; it would be far more sensible to do his best with a crowbar. And thirdly, as the key is necessarily a thing with a pattern, so this was one having in some ways a rather elaborate pattern. When people complain of the religion being so early complicated with theology and things of the kind, they forget that the world had not only got into a hole, but had got into a whole maze of holes and corners. The problem itself was a complicated problem; it did not in the ordinary sense merely involve anything so simple as sin. It was also full of secrets, of unexplored and unfathomable fallacies, of unconscious mental diseases, of dangers in all directions. If the faith had faced the world only with the platitudes about peace and simplicity some moralists would confine it to, it would not have had the faintest effect on that luxurious and labyrinthine lunatic asylum. What it did do we must now roughly describe; it is enough to say here that there was undoubtedly much about the key that seemed complex; indeed there was only one thing about it that was simple. It opened the door.
[GKC, The Everlasting Man CW2:346-7]

Indeed - no relativistic view of words can by any means whatsoever permit access to your computer if you press the wrong key when you type your password! As in DNA, as in music, as in computers - "not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter shall pass away..."

--Dr. Thursday

P.S. Just in case you are wondering what it was that linked all these thoughts together, please see the lovely picture on Nancy Brown's blogg, which shows Pope Benedict XVI at the keys...

Prayers requested for Surprise

HP Must Read

Orthodoxy Inspired Music

I really enjoy Philip Yancey, Donald Miller and C.S. Lewis. G.K. Chesterton may be my great beacon of a favorite, though. His book Orthodoxy changed my life. It’s a terrible title that makes it sound very boring, but it’s one of the most exciting books I’ve ever read. Yeah, I’m a nerd, but it’s where a lot of my songs come from.

My great beacon of a favorite I like that phrase.

Mutual Admiration Society

Cecil Chesterton's bio of GK back in print

Thanks to Inkling Books for reprinting this biography (which I have not read yet...) and which is now available through the ACS web site.

Most Chesterton fans are aware that G. K. Chesterton's younger brother Cecil published a biography of Gilbert in 1908. Unfortunately, except for a brief academic reprint in the 1960s, his book has been out of print ever since. Now, just one year shy of the centennial of its first publication, Inkling Books has brought out a Centennial Edition. As always with Inkling reprints, this book is enhanced to make its reading more enjoyable and informative.

All the original text is there, along with the book's four pictures. The new edition also includes the following.
* Three additional pictures, including a marvelous cover photograph of the Chesterton family from about 1908 supplied by Aidan Mackey.
* A foreword by Aidan Mackay, author and Chesterton scholar.
* An introduction by Brocard Sewell, who worked with Chesterton at G.K.'s Weekly.
* An appreciation of Cecil written by Gilbert. Cecil died just after the end of World War I of an illness acquired in the trenches.
* No less than 223 footnotes explaining historical and biographical details that are less well-known today than in 1908.
* A detailed index.

H/T Ellen, thanks.

Guardian Recommends: After reading Doyle, read Chesterton

Hear Belloc Sing!

Common Sense

First, I want to thank Dr. Thursday for that moving story yesterday. *sniff*

Secondly, picking up on the What's Wrong with the World discussion, I am wondering how to define "common sense".

I grew up with a mother who firmly and solidly believed in common sense; I know this because my lack of it was regularly the cause of her to say:

"Use your common sense!"

in a rather exasperated way.

I wasn't sure then just exactly what she meant. I *knew* I wasn't born with this "common sense", in my case, anyway, maybe I was unusual, I had to learn it. So, to me, it couldn't have been that "common".

I really didn't feel that I learned common sense until I began to read Chesterton. But I still have trouble defining it. Any suggestions?

Dr. Thursday's Thursday Post

Over on The Blue Boar, our esteemed magazine Editor asks, "Where Were You" on Tuesday September 11, 2001?

September is rich in memories, for many reasons... the memory may be somewhat distorted by the way I have chosen, but perhaps it has just enough Chesterton in it to justify my selection.

And yes, in case you are wondering, this is almost exactly what happened, though Joe, Al, and Ian are imaginary. And the Control Room (alas) no longer exists.

The Doctor, however, is all too real, though out here in the E-cosmos, he is known by another name...

--Dr. Thursday

Joe the Control Room Guy
in
"A Famous Date"

"...a date that ought to be among the most famous in history - September 11, 1683..."
-- H. Belloc, The Great Heresies

"...part of what historians call 'the specious present' for Muslims."
-- in an essay by W. Cinfici in The Annotated Lepanto

It was a Tuesday in the fall of 2001, 08:01 by the big red master clock in the corner of the Control Room of a cable TV company somewhere in the greater suburbs of southeastern Pennsylvania. Joe checked over the four big display screens which showed the status of the hundreds of computers in the Field - computers which played the commercials on some 40-odd cable TV networks. Normally scheduled for nights, Joe had the day shift today, having swapped with Al, who was home with his wife and new daughter. All the displays showed normal status - all the telltales were green, so things were running fine. The ever shifting eyes of CUSTOS the system guardian were placid. In a long row of equipment racks below the four big screens, 48 black-and-white monitors showed the various cable networks, a random flashing collage of entertainment and information. Nothing abnormal there. Joe nodded to Jeff, his supervisor, who was talking on the phone, then he went out to the lunchroom to get some coffee.

Joe nodded to co-workers he passed - some in the halls discussing current projects, some sitting in their cubicles talking to customers.
"Ain't seen you for a while, Joe - on days now?" someone asked.
"Just while Al's out this week," he explained. He got some donuts from the vending machine, helped himself to the coffee, and headed back to the Control Room.

Joe was looking over the displays again when Bill from Traffic came in pushing a cart loaded with dozens of video tapes. "Whole lot of spots today, Joe," he said.
"A little early in the week, aren't they?" Joe asked. Bill only shrugged and left the room without a word. Joe shrugged too, then pushed the cart over to an encoder, and began the boring task of converting the tapes into the electronic form for satellite distribution to all the remote locations where they were needed.
He had just put in the first tape when Jeff came over. "Hey, Joe - I have a meeting with my boss, so it'll just be you in here for a while. Everything looks fine right now, but 'Doc' said to let him know if PUMP goes down - he's back in the lab if you need him."
Joe nodded and Jeff left for his meeting. It sure was great to have someone around who took care of the machinery. Joe had talked to "Doc" several times, day or night - he was the developer of the company software, and PUMP was the main satellite transport program, so named because it was the "heart" of their system. Joe didn't even have to watch anything; the CUSTOS monitor had a special audio alert to warn him if something failed. He sat back and began the encoding.

Tape followed tape as Joe worked. Then a woman's voice stated: "Attention: Pump is not running." Joe got up and looked at the big screens - sure enough, the CUSTOS eyes were red, as was the little telltale for PUMP. He took a quick scan over the rest of the displays - everything else looked as it should - then grabbed the cell phone and headed back to the lab.

* * *

Joe went into the lab - it was kept colder than the Control Room because of all the racks of test equipment. The Doctor, in a white lab coat, stood by one of the racks, talking with Ian his boss - they were looking at a new piece of equipment, connected to a row of 16 tiny tv monitors.
"Hey, Joe," Ian said. "What's up?"
"Pump just went down, and Jeff said to let Doc know."
The Doctor nodded. "Thanks Joe - yeah, I had to fix something, and I expected this. Just hold on while I..." He turned to a keyboard and typed furiously.

"Hey, what's that?" Ian asked. "Looks like a plane just hit one of the world Trade Towers."
Joe peered intently at the little screen.
"Some kind of disaster flick? the Doctor commented, busy with the machinery.
"Nah - it's one of the news networks," Ian said, switching the machinery to bring that network to the lab monitor. He turned up the volume and an announcer was talking about the strange event which had just occurred.
"This is strange," Ian said. "How's that PUMP situation?"
"Just ready now," the Doctor said. "It's already corrected and running fine."
"C'mon Joe, Doc; let's get over to the Control Room," Ian said. "Something's going on.

* * *

The three went back into the Control Room. As he glanced at the 48 little monitors, Joe knew something was going on. The same strange shot - a glimpse of a plane, then smoke billowing - was appearing on several different networks.
"Put it up on the big screen," Ian ordered. Joe sat down at the main console and pressed buttons, then adjusted the volume. On the big screen the horrible view was even more intense and nearby - it was strange to think that they were only a couple of hours drive away from it.

Then the view changed - another plane had hit the other tower. The reporter said something about a third plane hitting the Pentagon, and there was some report of yet another plane crashing somewhere in Pennsylvania.

Joe shivered slightly, not just from the cold of the Control Room. He looked up at the Doctor, who had made the sign of the cross. He's Catholic, Joe thought to himself. He heard the main door click open, and Jeff came in, followed by several members of higher management. No one said anything - all eyes were intent on the strange view being shown on the big screen.

But duty calls, Joe thought to himself. On one of the desk computers, he flipped through the various monitoring displays. Everything seemed to be running normally, except that there hadn't been any cues for some time. Joe understood - when the networks go to live coverage, they do not send the "cue" signals to indicate a time when a commercial could be played - and the machinery was dutifully reporting this unusual state. There was nothing to be done - something historic was occurring, and lesser matters were of no importance. Looking over the 48 monitors, Joe was surprised to see even the music-video networks were showing live coverage from New York - he had never seen so many networks all showing the same thing.

From among the higher management came a whiney pompous voice - "What a terrible thing. I am surprised that such things occur."

The room was silent for a moment, then Joe heard the Doctor's voice. "As Chesterton once said, 'I am never surprised at any work of hell." [GKC, "The God of the Gongs" in The Wisdom of Father Brown]

But he did not stop there. "Ian, I'm going home. I'll be at church - if you need me, I have my cell. God bless us all, and protect us."

"Amen," Joe murmured.

Chesterton Named Official Patron Saint of "Writing for Money" Blog!

Yes, and not without some help from this quarter and others who attend to this blog, thank you.

I've sent links and a short bio, which will be up shortly. If you are a writer or an aspiring writer, go check out Writing for Money.

Coming to you if you live nearby

And this if you live in New York City.

What's Wrong with the World?

Basically, the answer is that not enough people read Chesterton.

If they did, they would know what's wrong with the world.

I just got my order from the American Chesterton Society. I am reading What's Wrong with the World, and I also ordered the TV version of the Father Brown mysteries, which I will watch with my young Chesterteen in a week or so when our life allows. We are both looking forward to that.

Meanwhile, I'm just going to kick back and see just what is wrong with this 'ole world.

Chesterton mentioned as Archbishop Chaput officially opens new Catholic college in Wyoming

Thanks, Joe.

Yippee! A New Kevin O'Brien Mini-Mystery!

From Dr. Thursday

Happy for more than a quarter of a billion miles

You can call it a year, or one solar orbit. If you calculate 365 days, each 24 hours long, with 60 minutes in each hour, and 60 seconds in each minute, you will get 31,536,000 seconds. But if you figure out the distance we have travelled during that time, you will get the even more gigantic figure of some 290 million miles, which is perhaps more easily phrased as "more than a quarter of a billion miles". This really adds up quick, when you multiply by your age... I've been flying for some 13 billion miles - too long to walk, but barely 1/2000 of the way to the nearest star. Whew.

As you might guess, I have had a major struggle to put this posting together, partly because of work, and partly because I wrote something else, quite long and emotional, which I have decided not to post. Instead you must be subjected to this posting, which (it is to be hoped) will induce a little laughter - or at least a few smiles.

In a previous post we recalled how "smiles" is the longest word of English (because there is a "mile" between the two S's!) and we looked at a few other long words, some of which were rather funny. Of course the synthesis of these two items (laughter and long words) leads to the famous modern magic fairy tale called "Mary Poppins" - where one hear nice long words (which I refuse to pronounce, or even spell!) - and one can see demonstrated with the full technicolor power of modern special-effects what happens when one takes one's self lightly... Hee hee. Tea parties on the ceiling, I ask you! Well, if Innocent Smith (of Manalive) can have a picnic on the roof, why not?

But let us proceed to something which links humor with the earth's orbit.

Perhaps you do not believe that the earth moves, not having seen proof... well, then why are you using the INTERNET, silly goose? You probably think this posting is about you - but it's not. (Hee hee.) It's about Chesterton, and his essay called "In Defence of Planets" and whatever else I can throw in in coordination and support of his ideas.

Now, there are two demonstrations for which we waited quite some time which tell us the truth of the motion of our earth - the first is called the parallax of the stars, and the other I omit for today. The idea of parallax is easily demonstrated, as you may know:

To Demonstrate Parallax:
1. Hold your arm out, with one finger raised.
2. Close one eye.
3. Look at the background of your room or office, or wherever you are, and note exactly where your finger is in relation to it.
4. Now for the "magic" - open the closed eye, and close the one which had been opened, and
5. You will see your finger "jump" against the background!

Alas, the even the closest stars are much further away than your finger - which is just at the end of your arm. And so it was not until 1837 that Bessel was able to measure the very tiny jump which just one star makes as we go from January to July - the equivalent of closing your left eye and opening your right eye.

But this is not funny - oh, no - but the idea of you sticking your hand out at work or school and blinking at it? Well, that is funny. But then these are the humiliations to which the true scientist will submit - for humility before the REAL WORLD is the first trademark of the Scientist. It is Jesus meek and humble of heart Who is also the storehouse of all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (See Mt 11:29, Col 2:3)

Ah... but I said I was going to talk about Chesterton's essay. Well, after this depth, it may be too funny to turn to that, but here is a sample:

A book has at one time come under my notice called 'Terra Firma: the Earth not a Planet.' The author was a Mr. D. Wardlaw Scott, and he quoted very seriously the opinions of a large number of other persons, of whom we have never heard, but who are evidently very important. Mr. Beach of Southsea, for example, thinks that the world is flat; and in Southsea perhaps it is. It is no part of my present intention, however, to follow Mr. Scott's arguments in detail. On the lines of such arguments it may be shown that the earth is flat, and, for the matter of that, that it is triangular. A few examples will suffice: One of Mr. Scott's objections was that if a projectile is fired from a moving body there is a difference in the distance to which it carries according to the direction in which it is sent. But as in practice there is not the slightest difference whichever way the thing is done, in the case of the earth 'we have a forcible overthrow of all fancies relative to the motion of the earth, and a striking proof that the earth is not a globe.' This is altogether one of the quaintest arguments we have ever seen. It never seems to occur to the author, among other things, that when the firing and falling of the shot all take place upon the moving body, there is nothing whatever to compare them with. As a matter of fact, of course, a shot fired at an elephant does actually often travel towards the marksman, but much slower than the marksman travels. Mr. Scott probably would not like to contemplate the fact that the elephant, properly speaking, swings round and hits the bullet. To us it appears full of a rich cosmic humour.
[GKC, "In Defence of Planets", The Defendant]

Actually, this is by no means the funniest part - perhaps this is:

This sort of thing reduces my mind to a pulp. I can faintly resist when a man says that if the earth were a globe cats would not have four legs; but when he says that if the earth were a globe cats would not have have legs I am crushed.

But then, as GKC goes on to point out, he is not giving a technical study of physics - he has a somewhat larger, more comic purpose... (that is NOT a typo for cosmic! Hee hee)

it is not in the scientific aspect of this remarkable theory that I am for the moment interested. It is rather with the difference between the flat and the round worlds as conceptions in art and imagination that I am concerned. It is a very remarkable thing that none of us are really Copernicans in our actual outlook upon things. We are convinced intellectually that we inhabit a small provincial planet, but we do not feel in the least suburban. Men of science have quarrelled with the Bible because it is not based upon the true astronomical system, but it is certainly open to the orthodox to say that if it had been it would never have convinced anybody. If a single poem or a single story were really transfused with the Copernican idea, the thing would be a nightmare. Can we think of a solemn scene of mountain stillness in which some prophet is standing in a trance, and then realize that the whole scene is whizzing round like a zoetrope at the rate of nineteen miles a second? Could we tolerate the notion of a mighty King delivering a sublime fiat and then remember that for all practical purposes he is hanging head downwards in space? A strange fable might be written of a man who was blessed or cursed with the Copernican eye, and saw all men on the earth like tintacks clustering round a magnet.
[ibid.]

Well, perhaps if we, like the king, tried hanging upside down in space, we might begin to take ourselves lightly.

And then it would not just be "that Poppins woman" who would come in for tea. No, there will be other, rather more important guests, who call us to the good wine of the wedding feast [cf Jn2, Ap 19:9]: "If any one love me, he will keep my word. And my Father will love him and we will come to him and will make our abode with him." [Jn14:23]

Happy they will be. So let us prepare well...

--Dr. Thursday

From a Brand New Chestertonian

Until yesterday, i knew nothing of G.K. Chesterton, except his name. Now, having heard a great talk by Dale Ahlquist, about the thoughts of G.K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense, i have a new appreciation of the concept, reality, potential, and advocacy of "common sense."

Indeed, does not common sense in ourselves and others make it possible for us to better experience relationships of simple love, goodness, wisdom, and truth? And, if not, is it possible we still lack the simple wisdom(faith?) that truth requires the spiritual qualities of love and goodness, as well as the mental qualities of knowledge and wisdom? And finally, in googling for some other thoughts and uses of "common sense," i found the following three views that seem consistent with my new found apprecitation of common sense, thanks to Mr. Dale Ahlquist:

1) The greatest error of teachings about the Scriptures is the doctrine of their being sealed books of mystery and wisdom which only the wise (snobby?) minds of the nation dare to interpret. The revelations of divine truth are not sealed except by human ignorance, bigotry, and narrow-minded intolerance. The light of the Scriptures is only dimmed by prejudice and darkened by superstition. A false fear of sacredness has prevented religion from being safeguarded by common sense. The fear of the authority of the sacred writings of the past effectively prevents the honest souls of today from accepting the new light of the gospel, the light which these very God-knowing men of another generation so intensely longed to see.

2) "Happy are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted." So-called common sense or the best of logic would never suggest that happiness could be derived from mourning. But Jesus did not refer to outward or ostentatious mourning. He alluded to an emotional attitude of tenderheartedness. It is a great error to teach boys and young men that it is unmanly to show tenderness or otherwise to give evidence of emotional feeling or physical suffering. Sympathy is a worthy attribute of the male as well as the female. It is not necessary to be calloused in order to be manly. This is the wrong way to create courageous men. The world's great men have not been afraid to mourn. Moses, the mourner, was a greater man than either Samson or Goliath. Moses was a superb leader, but he was also a man of meekness. Being sensitive and responsive to human need creates genuine and lasting happiness, while such kindly attitudes safeguard the soul from the destructive influences of anger, hate, and suspicion.

3) Jesus, was so reasonable, so approachable. He was so practical in all his ministry, while all his plans were characterized by such sanctified common sense. He was so free from all freakish, erratic, and eccentric tendencies. He was never capricious, whimsical, or hysterical. In all his teaching and in everything he did there was always an exquisite discrimination associated with an extraordinary sense of propriety.

From Richard S. in Michigan, who would love some feedback on his first commentary on GKC.