Spiritual Electric Shock Therapy — Dappled Things

Spiritual Electric Shock Therapy — Dappled Things: Why today’s writers need G. K. Chesterton

Narnia Is for More Than Kids

 

I came across this meme on Facebook. It reminded me of not only Lewis, but, or course, Chesterton, who was a stanch supporter of good children's literature.

I did not have the pleasure of encountering Lewis as a child. I had heard of him, but he was not on the curriculum in my elementary or high schools.

When I was 19, I discovered a set of the Narnia stories in an apartment in New York City I was allowed to stay in for a while (that's another story!)  I borrowed them, and read them all in just a week. I credit them with helping to restore my faith and returning me to the Church from which I had strayed. I read them at the same time as I first read Chesterton's St. Francis and St. Augustine's Confessions, two other works that spoke to me at a time when I need to encounter such works.

Since then, I've gone back and reread all the Narnia stories, and even required The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as summer reading when I taught middle school.

They are more than just children's stories. They teach life lessons, and prepare children - on in my case, child-like 19-year-olds - to face cruel enemies, including, in my case, worldly temptation. 

In them, we see seeming defeats turned to victory, feats of courage, former enemies and perpetrators of evil repenting and finding salvation, and, sadly, people we love turning away (like Susan). Reality. 

One of my favorite scenes is in The Last Battle. Seemingly on the verge of defeat by the Calormines, the followers of Aslan are able to enter "further up and further in," and with them is Emeth, a Calormine. Aslan tells him that his service to a false god, Tash, done sincerely, obeying the natural moral laws (though that term is not used) was actual.y service to Aslan. The lesson is that even seeming enemies, those who follow false beliefs, can be saved. As adults, we can understand that means people of different faiths may find their way into eternity if they honestly follow the promptings of their hearts.

There are so many more lessons in the books. They are children's stories, yes, but they prepare the children to face life and to know they will defeat the forces of darkness in the end. 

That certainly was a good lesson for a certain 19-year-old who was adrift.

A Political Clerihew - Letitia James

 

NY AG Letitia James
was fond of targeting political foes with legal games.
In a twist, this time
she's the target, and there is an actual crime.

Jules Verne

 

Today, February 8, is the 196th birthday of Jules Verne. Happy birthday. 

Verne, of course, gave us such works of fantasy and science fiction as Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, and Around the World in Eighty Days.

I don't know if Chesterton wrote much about Verne. In the essay "The Domesticity of Detectives", he did mention Verne when discussing French writers.

"Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, for instance, both wrote fairy-tales of science; Mr. Wells has much the larger mind and interest in life; but he often lacks one power which Jules Verne possesses supremely—the power of going to the point. Verne is very French in his rigid relevancy; Wells is very English in his rich irrelevance." 

Perhaps Chesterton did write more about Verne. Perhaps some more knowledgeable person could offer some wisdom?  

As for me, I have read some Verne - Journey to the Center of the Earth, From Earth to the Moon, and a children's version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea - but I have read far more of Wells's science fiction, and I prefer what I have read of his works.

Still, it might be worth giving Verne some attention - after I finish some of the books currently in my "To Read" pile.

At least I should start with a full version of Twenty Thousand Leagues. 

St. Thomas Aquinas

 

Over on X - Twitter - there is a feature called "Grok." If you ask Grok a question about yourself it scans your recent tweets and answers based on those tweets.

The other day I asked "Which philosopher am I most like?"

The response was: Given your interests and the themes in your posts, you seem most aligned with the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas was a medieval Catholic philosopher and theologian known for his efforts to synthesize Christian theology with the philosophy of Aristotle. His work often deals with ethics, morality, and the nature of God, which resonates with your expressions of faith and moral concerns. Aquinas's emphasis on natural law and the moral implications of human actions could be seen as parallel to your focus on life issues and the integration of faith into daily life.

I was pleased at the response!

Interestingly enough, back in the 1970's when I first discovered Chesterton, the second book of his I read was his study of Aquinas (St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox). The first book of Chesterton I read, by the way, was St. Francis of Assisi.

Given their respective sizes, and their brilliance, it was natural that Chesterton would be drawn to St. Thomas. I could imagine Chesterton playing the saint in a play. Hmm. Did he?

The Society of G. K. Chesterton published an his uncollected essay that first appeared in The Spectator on February 27, 1932. That essay appeared before Chesterton wrote his book about Aquinas. I post that essay below.

St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas confronts other creeds of good and evil, without at all denying evil, with a theory of two levels of good.

The difficulty of dealing with St. Thomas Aquinas in this brief article is the difficulty of selecting that aspect of a many-sided mind which will best suggest its size or scale. Because of the massive body which carried his massive brain, he was called “The Ox”; but any attempt to boil down such a brain into tabloid literature passes all possible jokes about an ox in a teacup. He was one of the two or three giants; one of the two or three greatest men who ever lived; and I should never be surprised if he turned out, quite apart from sanctity, to be the greatest of all. another way of putting the problem is to say that proportion alters according to what other men we are at the moment classing him with or pitting him against. We do not get the scale until we come to the few men in history who can be his rivals.

Thus, to begin with, we may compare him with the common life of his time; and tell the story of his adventures among his contemporaries. In this alone he shed a light on history, apart from the light he shed on philosophy. He was born in high station, related to the Imperial house, the son of a great noble of Aquino, not far from Naples, and when he expressed a wish to be a monk, it is typical of the time that everything was made smooth for him – up to a point. A great gentleman could be decorously admitted into the now ancient routine of the Benedictines; like a squire’s younger son becoming a parson. But the world had just been shaken by a religious revolution, and strange feet were on all the highways. And when young Thomas insisted on becoming a Dominican – that is a wandering and begging friar – his brothers pursued him, kidnapped him and shut him up in a gaol. It was as if the squire’s son had become a gipsy or a Communist. However, he managed to become a friar; and the favourite pupil of the great Albertus Magnus at Cologne. He afterwards proceeded to Paris, and was prominent in defending the new mendicant orders at the Sorbonne and elsewhere. From this he passed to the great central controversy on Averroes and Aristotle; in effect to the great reconciliation of Christian faith and Pagan philosophy. His external life was prodigiously preoccupied with these things. He was a big, burly, baldish man, patient and good-natured, but given to blank trances of absence of mind. When dining with St. Louis, the French King, he fell into a brown study and suddenly smote the table with a mighty fist, saying: “And that will settle the Manichees!” The King, with his fine irony of innocence, sent a secretary to take down the line of argument, lest it be forgotten.

Then he could be compared with other saints or theologians, as mystic rather than dogmatic. For he was, like a sensible man, a mystic in private and a philosopher in public. He had “religious experience” all right; but he did not, in the modern manner, ask other people to reason from his experience. He only asked them to reason from their own experience. His experiences included well-attested cases of levitation in ecstasy; and the Blessed Virgin appeared to him, comforting him with the welcome news that he would never be a Bishop. Similarly, we might compare the Thomist scheme with others, touching on the points in which Scotus or Bonaventura differed from it. There is no space for such distinctions here, beyond the general one; that St. Thomas tends at least relatively to the rational; the others to the mystic; we might almost say the romantic. In any case, there was certainly never a greater theologian, and probably never a greater saint. But saying that he was greater than Dominic or Francis, would not (in the sense needed here) even hint at how great he was.

To understand his importance, we must pit him against the two or three alternative cosmic creeds: he is the whole Christian intellect speaking to Paganism or to Pessimism. He is arguing across the ages with Plato or with Buddha; and he has the best of the argument. His mind was so broad, and its balance so beautiful, that to suggest it would be to discuss a million things. But perhaps the best simplification is this. St. Thomas confronts other creeds of good and evil, without at all denying evil, with a theory of two levels of good. The supernatural order is the supreme good, as for any Eastern mystic; but the natural order is good; as solidly good as it is for any man in the street. That is what”settles the Manichees.” Faith is higher than reason; but reason is higher than anything else, and has supreme rights in its own domain. That is where it anticipates and answers the anti-rational cry of Luther and the rest; as a highly Pagan poet said to me: “The Reformation happened because people hadn’t the brains to understand Aquinas.” The Church is more immortally important than the State; but the State has its rights, for all that. This Christian duality had always been implicit, as in Christ’s distinction between God and Caesar, or the dogmatic distinction between the natures of Christ. But St. Thomas has the glory of having seized this double thread as the clue to a thousand things; and thereby created the only creed in which the saints can be sane. It presents itself chiefly, perhaps, to the modern world as the only creed in which the poets can be sane. For there is nobody now to settle the Manichees; and all culture is infected with a faint unclean sense that Nature and all things behind us and below us are bad; that there is only praise to the highbrow in the height. St. Thomas exalted God without lowering Man; he exalted Man without lowering Nature. Therefore, he made a cosmos of common sense; terra vientium; a land of the living. His philosophy, like his theology, is that of common sense. He does not torture the brain with desperate attempts to explain existence by explaining it away. The first steps of his mind are the first steps of any honest mind; just as the first virtues of his creed could be those of any honest peasant. For he, who combined so many things, combined also intellectual subtlety and spiritual simplicity; and the priest who attended the deathbed of this Titan of intellectual energy, whose brain had torn up the roots of the world and pierced every star and split every straw in the whole universe of thought and even of scepticism, said that in listening to the dying man’s confession, he fancied suddenly that he was listening to the first confession of a child of five.

C. S. Lewis on Porn

 

In the most recent issue of Touchstone there is a troubling but thought-provoking article about pornography infecting our culture and targeting our youth ("A Modesty Proposal" by David Santifer). 

I remembered C. S. Lewis had some things to say about porn, and found an article citing some of his comments in the Catholic Education Resource Center "C. S. Lewis on Pornography and Masturbation."

Mere Christianity

C. S. Lewis
1898-1961

“There is nothing to be ashamed of in enjoying your food: there would be everything to be ashamed of if half the world made food the main interest of their lives and spent their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips…. We grow up surrounded by propaganda in favor of unchastity. There are people who want to keep our sex instinct inflamed in order to make money out of us. Because, of course, a man with an obsession is a man who has very little sales-resistance. God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome.”

The Weight of Glory

In The Weight of Glory he summarizes a man’s battle with pornography. 

“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

“Lying on that study sofa…I had sensations which you can imagine. And at once I knew that the Enemy would take advantage of the vague longings and tendernesses to try and make me believe later on that he had the fulfillment that I really wanted. So I balked him by letting the longings go even deeper and turning my mind to the One, the real object of all desire, which (you know my view) is what we are really wanting in all wants… “

In some letters, Lewis writes:

“For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back; sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides.

“And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman.

“For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no woman can rival.

“Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover; no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity.

“In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself…After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.

“The evidence seems to be that God sometimes works such a complete metamorphosis and sometimes not. We don’t know why: God forbid we should presume it went by merit.

“He never in my unmarried days did it for me. He gave me –- at least and after many ups and down, the power to resist the temptation so far as the act was concerned. Never did he stop the recurrent temptations, nor was I guarded from the sin of mental consent. I don’t mean I wasn’t given sufficient grace. I mean that I sometimes fell into it, grace or no…

“The great discovery for me was that the attack does not last forever. It is the devil’s lie that the only escape from the tension is through yielding.”

Jack and Me!

 

On X (Twitter) there is a think called "Grok" that will answer questions about you if you have an account and post. I asked:Which famous author am I most like?

Answer

Based on the themes and tone of your recent posts on X, Lee, you seem to resonate most with C.S. Lewis. Lewis was known for his deep Christian faith, which heavily influenced his writing, similar to how your posts reflect a strong emphasis on faith, prayer, and moral considerations. His works often blend elements of fantasy with profound philosophical and theological questions, akin to your posts that challenge or reflect on contemporary issues through a spiritual lens.

Lewis's ability to critique societal norms and explore the nature of good versus evil in his writings, like in "The Chronicles of Narnia" or "The Screwtape Letters," mirrors your engagement with topics that touch on morality, truth, and the human condition.

Okay, I will be honest. While I regularly and enthusiastically read Chesterton, and own more books by and about him, in the past I have read far more of Lewis than I have of Chesterton. Indeed, in the '80s I binged on Lewis. Chesterton is catching up, though, as I have read more of his works in recent years. .   

The Ball and the Cross

 

There are a number of Chesterton groups around the world. They engage in various activities.

Here in Rochester, N.Y., the local Chesterton Society used to sponsor one of the best annual regional  conferences in the nation. Not as great as the National Conference, certainly, but still very good, drawing all sorts of national speakers, including, of course, Dale Ahlquist and Joseph Pearce. 

Alas, the pool of money that had been set aside for the conferences ran out, so they are no more. 

But the society continues to meet.on a monthly basis most of the year. The members spend those meetings reading and discussing works by Chesterton.

For the past few months we have been reading The Ball and the Cross. We each take parts (including narrator) as we read. Tonight we read Chapters X and XI. 

I've read the book before, but there's something different about hearing it and sharing insights.

Much of he book involves an atheist and a devoutly religious man trying to have a duel - science vs. religion - but facing constant interference from the world. 

Of course it's full of silliness, social commentary, and plenty of vivid descriptions and wordplay.

Chesterton's novels are not his greatest works, but they are still well worth reading. My personal favorite is The Napoleon of Notting Hill.    

The Golden Key - Chesterton Station

 

In a previous post I mentioned Chesterton Station. The show features John Walker as Chesterton, who is at a railway station where he encounters various fellow writers - George Bernard Shaw, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dorothy Sayers, and more. 

As a Christmas gift I received the first episode, "The Golden Key."

It's actually a two-part episode, with Chesterton arriving in the station, and delivering a long monologue highlighting key events in his life, and his literary, philosophical, and spiritual beliefs.

I watched it and got the sense it may have been intended as just a one-time program ending with, well, his passage into eternal life. But it worked, and maybe that lead to the subsequent episodes featuring him returning to the station to encounter fellow writers. Or maybe the creators did hope for a series when they set out.

Anyway, "The Golden Key" is delightful. As a fan of Chesterton, I found it reminding me of life details and favorite works by him. For my wife, who is not a reader of Chesterton, it was a wonderful introduction to him.

Indeed, I recommend it and the other episodes as a way to introduce Chesterton to a wider audience. 

The episodes are shown on Thursdays at 5 p.m. on EWTN - unless preempted by special programming. 

Chesterton and Resolutions

 

From Aleteia - 

Why G.K. Chesterton approved of New Year’s resolutions

By John Touhey - published on 12/31/24

The date that marks the beginning of the year is admittedly arbitrary, but the hope it represents for us reveals an undeniable truth.

Many people find the idea of New Year’s resolutions to be ridiculous. The date that a “new year” begins is arbitrary after all. (The Babylonians and ancient Romans started their new year in March during the spring equinox.) There is no reason to wait until January to set new goals. And more than 90% of the resolutions we do make will not last through the year.

Most of us realize that we will probably fail; yet we continue to make life-changing resolutions on January 1.

Chesterton on resolutions

For the great G.K. Chesterton that is a good thing – as he explain in the very first entry of 1916’s The G.K. Chesterton Calendar:

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year’s resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Hope and rebirth

In the same calendar’s entry for December 31, Chesterton warns against viewing what comes tomorrow as “clear and inevitable.” If we do so, we will be like those who looked at Medusa and her sisters and were “turned to stone.”

That’s because only hope can make us new people. To accept that tomorrow must be like yesterday and that life will never change is to die inside. Even something as simple as a New Year’s resolution is an acknowledgement that God made us creatures of hope.

“There is one thing that gives radiance to everything,” Chesterton said on another occasion. “It is the idea of something around the corner.”

One resolution you can keep

Chesterton is always surprising us, especially in how he looks at life through the lens of his Christian faith, finding promise and goodness even in the most mundane things. Just imagine what it would be like to go through the Jubilee Year of 2025 with that attitude!

If you do make resolutions this New Year’s Day perhaps one of them could be to read a little more Chesterton — and to try to imitate his openness and positivity when dealing with the world at large.