Pearce looking Fierce Clerihew

The look on the face of Joseph Pearce 

was positively fierce. 

As he was about to send his latest out the door 

he suddenly realized he'd written the same thing before.

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 needed 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 - or in my case, child-like 19-year-olds - to face cruel enemies, including, as with me, 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 actually 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 the Spirit in 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 particular 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 thing 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.

The Chestertons and Christmas

 

Why was Christmas special to G.K. and Frances Chesterton?
Maria Wiering/OSV News | 12.26.2024Section: Features

ST. PAUL, Minn. (OSV News) — “The hands that made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of cattle,” G.K. Chesterton wrote in “The Everlasting Man.”

He was speaking, of course, of Jesus in the manger. It’s “a line that should be on a Christmas card,” said Dale Ahlquist, president of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton. “The whole center of history is when Christ comes to earth, when God becomes a human being. … It’s the Incarnation in a nutshell.”

Devoted fans of Chesterton (1874-1936), a well-known British writer and Catholic convert, marked the 150th anniversary of his birthday in May. He is beloved worldwide for “his great way of turning a phrase,” Ahlquist said. And that’s especially true for his writings about Christmas, which was a special holiday for the writer and his wife, Frances. ... 

To see the rest, use the Features link. Features

For This Year's Christmas Card: Clerihews

 

Every year, I try to include some creative element with my Christmas cards. It varies: Sometimes a story, sometimes a poem, sometimes a collection of poems. This year it's a collection of clerihews about holy people or Biblical characters. A number of the poems have appeared here previously in separate posts, and some have been published in Gilbert. 

Merry Christmas! 

At Nicaea, St. Nicholas
slapped a naughty Arius.
Since then he's found a list does fine
to help keep those who stray in line.

St. Thomas More
wandered into a Denver marijuana store
where he was chagrined by the cornucopia
of products labeled "Utopia."

When he was young St. Polycarp
religiously practiced the harp.
When a musical career proved a non-starter
he instead became a martyr.

Too sick to attend, St. Clare
miraculously saw the service as if there.
Because of that vision
she's now the patron saint of television.

That holy doorman Solanus Casey
was someone whom people flocked to see.
Folks say that his only sin
was the way he played the violin.

In his early life Thomas Merton
was often uncertain.
He ended his consternation
through contemplation.

Lot's wife
ended her life
when she came to a halt
and proved her salt.

After that day in Moriah, young Isaac
developed many a nervous tic,
and was tempted to run for his life
whenever Abraham picked up a knife.

Ezekiel
was full of prophetic zeal.
He was only wrong when it came to bets
on the Jets and the Mets.

St. Francis of Assisi,
joyfully grateful for the Nativity,
created at Greccio a stable display
that’s imitated world-wide to this day.

St. Rose
was plagued by earthly beaus.
To discourage their thoughts of marriage
she used pepper to spice up her visage.

St. Thomas Aquinas
was noted for his reticence and shyness.
But crack open a bottle
and he’d expound at length on Aristotle.

Irascible St. Jerome
was justly noted for his biblical tome,
but he was upset that no one would look
at his vegetarian cookbook.

Methuselah
was one long-lived fella.
It wasn't because longevity was bred in his bones,
he was just determined to pay off all his college loans.

St. Dominic
considered using a sword or a stick,
but found that rosary beads
worked quite well for his demon-battling needs.

The replacement Apostle Matthias
was chosen by lot, not by bias.
Alas, except for his selection.
he's eluded all other historical detection.

We can probably assume Saint Blaise
is in Heaven these days.
Martyrdom likely led him to eternal glory
and not just some fish story.

The prophet Amos
became justly famous
not for his cookie baking skill,
but for proclaiming God's will.

St. Paul,
by modern standards wasn’t tall,
but he did go from guarding the coats
to being one of the Church’s GOATs.

St. Robert Southwell
sat musing for a spell,
then sadly said, “It does seem a shame
Americans don’t properly pronounce my name.”

Chesterton and Mary

 

For this Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a passage from The Well and the Shallows: 

M)en need an image, single, coloured and clear in outline, an image to be called up instantly in the imagination, when what is Catholic is to be distinguished from what claims to be Christian or even what in one sense is Christian. Now I can scarcely remember a time when the image of Our Lady did not stand up in my mind quite definitely, at the mention or the thought of all these things. I was quite distant from these things, and then doubtful about these things; and then disputing with the world for them, and with myself against them; for that is the condition before conversion. But whether the figure was distant, or was dark and mysterious, or was a scandal to my contemporaries, or was a challenge to myself – I never doubted that this figure was the figure of the Faith; that she embodied, as a complete human being still only human, all that this Thing had to say to humanity. The instant I remembered the Catholic Church, I remembered her; when I tried to forget the Catholic Church, I tried to forget her; when I finally saw what was nobler than my fate, the freest and the hardest of all my acts of freedom, it was in front of a gilded and very gaudy little image of her in the port of Brindisi, that I promised the thing that I would do, if I returned to my own land.

Appreciation

 

 “The aim of life is appreciation; There is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.” - G. K. Chesterton 

Today we got our first real snow of the season. I took the dog out into the backyard, and he had a grand time. 

He clearly appreciated the snow! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder” - G.K. Chesterton

That Rediscovered Chesterton Essay

 

I recently heard about an newly rediscovered Chesterton essay, "The Historical Detective Story." Apparently he had written it for a magazine the Detection Club (to which he belonged) was thinking of creating. The magazine never came into existence, and the essay remained unpublished. Somehow the manuscript ended up at the University of Notre Dame and was recently rediscovered. It was finally published in Strand Magazine with a forward by Dale Ahlquist.

Today, I bought a copy of the magazine at a local bookstore (despite that fact that the cover of the magazine proclaims "Display until Nov. 15").

In the essay, Chesterton discusses contemporary detective stories and laments "a sameness, or even a staleness." 

He then suggests a way to get around this problem while still preserving the "dynamic morality of the detective tale."

Before making his suggestion, he develops the "morality"idea.

"For the detective tale is almost the only decently moral tale that is still being told. It is only in blood and thunder stories that there is anything so Christian as blood crying out for justice to the thunder of  of the judgment; and the shocker is now the only novel that is not shocking."

His suggestion: The historical detective story. Even though the elements of the "mysterious heart of man" would be the same, the settings, the trappings, would add some new life. 

He's not calling for all detective stories to be set in ancient times, but having some set there would bring some freshness to the genre.

His argument about the moral nature of detective stories resonates with me. It is one of the reasons why I like such stories. Indeed, when I read a detective story and there is not justice at the end I am disappointed.

As for historical settings, I have read some that do indeed do make use of such settings. The delightful Medieval Brother Cadfael mysteries of Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) and The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco come to mind. But, of course, there are many more. 

Maybe Chesterton was prophetic.

I have even myself been tempted to create my own detective story set around the time of the Civil War. Perhaps I will .

As for this rediscovered essay, I enjoyed it. The mentions of Dorothy Sayers and E. C. Bentley added to the delight. And he had a few other suggestions that make it well worth reading.

Get to the bookstore before they take the magazine off the shelf! 

Chesterton Station

 

Somehow I missed it, but I just recently discovered Chesterton Station starring the new official G. K. Chesterton, John Walker. 

The program, an EWTN production, features Chesterton at a deserted railway station encountering various famous people passing through, including Robert Louis Stevenson, George Bernard Shaw, Father Robert Hugh Benson, and Dorothy Sayers. It airs Thursdays at 5 p.m., then is rebroadcast Fridays at 9 a.m. It can also be found on demand 

I saw one source that said the show is in it's seventh season. The earliest episode I can find, though, is from 2020. The most recently created episode was released September of this year.

  

I have only seen one episode (the Stevenson one) but my wife has seen several. I liked the one I saw, she has liked them all. 

Walker does a fine job, And the production apparently has had the help of Benjamin Wiker of Saints vs Scoundrels fame.  

Check it out.

The Post-Election Post (With Some Clerihews)

 

For good or evil, a line has been passed in our political history; and something that we have known all our lives is dead. I will take only one example of it: our politicians can no longer be caricatured.  - Gilbert K. Chesterton

The 2024 election in the U.S. is mostly over. There are still some Senate and House seat winners to be determined, but some things are clear: Donald Trump will return to the Presidency, and the Republicans will control the Senate (House control will be determined when the remaining races are resolved).

I did not support Trump; I voted for Peter Sonski of the American Solidarity Party, which was very pro-life and had a platform that aligned with Catholic social teachings. Moreover, the Party embraced economic ideas that echo Chestertonian Distributism (or as it is now being called, Localism).

During the Biden interlude, the attempts to undermine Trump, and the campaign I wrote a number of political clerihews. I admit, they are more pointed and less whimsical than true clerihews should be, but they were amusing to write.

First, the Biden years. I admit, given the irregularities in the 2020 campaign I refused to call him by the title he assumed. 

The eyes of former Vice President Biden
suddenly began to widen.
"Wait, you mean now that they say I've won,
people actually expect me to get something done???"

Former Vice President Joe Biden
is content to let gender definitions widen.
He has himself long used the trick
of identifying as a devout Roman Catholic.

Former Vice President Joe Biden
caused some Royal eyes to widen.
His press people sighed, for from the start,
they've been battling accusations he's just an old fart.

Former Vice President Joe Biden
watches Ukraine, the border, inflation, and his poll numbers slidin'.
With so much at stake
it's time for an ice cream break.

Each encounter with Joe Biden
reveals what his handlers have been hidin':
Beneath that thinning hair,
there's less and less there there.

With delight the eyes of Joe Biden
suddenly began to widen
when one of his aides said,
"It's time for bed."

Then there were the Lawfare efforts to undermine Trump.

Fani Willis
used Nathan Wade for some carnal bliss,
What drew him to her is not plain to see;
perhaps money and the odor of mendacity?

Fani Willis
with Nathan Wade sought illicit bliss.
Part of her appeal may have been her capacity
for mendacity.

Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis
on the stand appeared to be quite cheerless.
Maybe before storming in she should have gotten loose
with the help of some Grey Goose.

New York Attorney General Letitia James
is fond of playing games.
Her latest was attending a trial and practicing her smirk
instead of showing up at the office to work.

We then witnessed the Republican primaries.

They say Nikki Haley
practices taekwondo almost daily.
At the debate Ramaswamy felt
what it was like to get hit by someone with a black belt.

Vivek Ramaswamy
is fond of making origami.
As was shown during the first debate,
some of his views are similarly pretty but light-weight.

Finally, there was the actual campaign after the coup, with Harris getting the nomination and choosing to run with Tim Walz.

Kamala Harris
serves salad to her guests on the terrace.
Those seeking more substantial fare
won't find it there.

Kamala Harris
stood on her multi-million dollar mansion's terrace.
Although she claims to have grown up middle class
she now views middle-class values as crass.

Kamala Harris
stood smiling on her multi-million dollar mansion's terrace.
Although she claims to have grown up middle class
she now gives middle-class values a pass.

Kamala Harris
finally made it to Paris.
And, yes, she did once visit near the border,
at a peaceful site her handlers found made-to-order.

Kamala Harris
didn't mean to scare us,
but her economic plan is so bad
some are now calling her "Komrade."

Assistant Coach Tim Walz
was enjoying some spaghetti and meatballs,
but then got a sick feeling in his belly
when an ad for tampons came on the telly.

Governor Tim Walz
was enjoying some spaghetti and meatballs,
but then got a sick feeling in his belly
when an ad for tampons came on the telly.

With a weird smile, Assistant Coach Tim Walz
placed tampon dispensers outside young boys' bathroom stalls.
And then he proved no slouch
when it comes to repeating crude lies about a couch.

I don't know if J.D. Vance
has ever been to France,
but unlike Walz he doesn't lack
service to the nation in Iraq.

When Trump assumes power in January I'm sure there will me more political clerihews surfacing!

 

For these days when we remember the departed, a Chesterton essay from Illustrated London News, April 14, 1906 

Skepticism and Spiritualism

Glancing over several papers of late, I see such headings as "Another Medium Exposed," and "Another Spiritualistic Fraud." The easy and conventional comments made upon the matter by the journalists seem to me to be singularly lacking in a logical sense, and there seems to be an underlying assumption in all such comments that the more often you discover a dishonest medium or a fraudulent seance, the more you have diminished the credit or probability of spiritualism. I have never been at a seance in my life, and I never had, and probably never shall have, anything to do with the specific set of people who call themselves spiritualists. But as a mere matter of intellectual justice or mental lucidity, it is desirable to protest against this confused argument which connects the proved falsity of knaves with the probable falsity of psychic phenomena. The two things have no logical connection whatever. No conceivable number of false mediums affects the probability of the existence of real mediums one way or the other. This is surely obvious enough. No conceivable number of forged bank-notes can disprove the existence of the Bank of England. If anything, the argument might as well be turned the other way,; we might say with rather more reason that as all hypocrisies are the evil fruits of public virtue, so in the same way the more real spiritualism there is in the world the more false spiritualism there is likely to be.

In fact, the mere abstract rationality of this problem is very wrongly discussed. For instance, it is always considered ludicrous and a signal for a burst of laughter if the spiritualists say that a seance has been spoiled by the presence of a skeptic, or that an attitude of faith is necessary to encourage the psychic communications. But there is nothing at all unreasonable or unlikely about the idea that doubt might discourage and faith encourage spiritual communications, if there are any. The suggestion does not make spiritualism in abstract logic any more improbable. All that it does make it is more difficult. There is nothing foolish or fantastic about the supposition that a dispassionate person acts as a deterrent to passionate truths. Only it happens to make it much harder for any dispassionate person to find out what is true. There are a thousand practical parallels. An impartial psychologist studying the problem of human nature could, no doubt, learn a great deal from a man and woman making love to each other in his presence. None the less, it is unfortunately the fact that no man and woman would make love to each other in the presence of an impartial psychologist. Students of physiology and surgery might learn something from a man suddenly stabbing another man on a platform in a lecture-theater. But no man would stab another man on a platform in a lecture-theater. A schoolmaster would learn much if the boys would be boys in his presence; but they never are boys in his presence. An educationalist studying infancy might make important discoveries if he could hear the things said by a baby when absolutely alone and at his ease with his mother. But it is quite obvious that the mere entrance of a great ugly educationalist (they are an ugly lot) would set the child screaming with terror.

The problem, then, of skepticism and spiritual ecstacies is a perfectly human and intelligible problem to state, though it may be a difficult problem to solve. It is exactly as if a man pointed at some lady (you can choose the lady out of your own acquaintance at your own discretion) and said with marked emphasis, "Under no circumstance could I address a sonnet to that lady." We might reply, "Oh, yes; if you fell in love with her you might feel inclined to do so." He would be fully justified in replying (with tears in his eyes), "But I cannot fall in love with her by any imaginable process." But he would not be logically justified in replying "Oh, that is all nonsense. You want me to give up my judgment, and become a silly partisan." The whole question under discussion is what would happen if he did become a partisan. In the same way, the skeptic who is expelled with bashed hat and tattered coat-tails from a spiritualistic seance has a perfect right to say (with or without tears in his eyes) "But why blame me for unbelief? I cannot manage to believe in such things by any imaginable process." But he has no logical right to say that it could not have been his skepticism that spoilt the seance, or that there was anything at all unphilosophical in supposing that it was. An impartial person is a good judge of many things, but not of all. He is not (for instance) a good judge of what it feels like to be partial.

For my own part, what little I resent in what little I have seen of spiritualism is altogether the opposite element. I do not mind spiritualism, in so far as it is fierce and credulous. In that it seems to me to be akin to sex, to song, to the great epics and the great religions, to all that has made humanity heroic. I do not object to spiritualism in so far as it is spiritualistic. I do object to it in so far as it is scientific. Conviction and curiosity are both very good things. But they ought to have two different houses. There have been many frantic and blasphemous beliefs in this old barbaric earth of ours; men have served their deities with obscene dances, with cannibalism, and the blood of infants. But no religion was quite so blasphemous as to pretend that it was scientifically investigating its god to see what he was made of. Bacchanals did not say, "Let us discover whether there is a god of wine." They enjoyed wine so much that they cried out naturally to the god of it. Christians did not say, "A few experiments will show us whether there is a god of goodness." They loved good so much that they knew that it was a god. Moreover, all the great religions always loved passionately and poetically the symbols and machinery by which they worked --the temple, the colored robes, the altar, the symbolic flowers, or the sacrificial fire. It made these things beautiful: it laid itself open to the charge of idolatry. And into these great ritual religions there has descended, whatever the meaning of it, the thing of which Sophocles spoke, "The power of the gods, which is mighty and groweth not old." When I hear that the spiritualists have begun to carve great golden wings upon their flying tables, I shall recognize the atmosphere of a faith. When I hear them accused of worshipping a planchet made of ivory and sardonyx (whatever that is) I shall know that they have become a great religion. Meanwhile, I fear I shall remain one of those who believe in spirits much too easily ever to become a spiritualist. Modern people think the supernatural so improbable that they want to see it. I think it so probable that I leave it alone. Spirits are not worth all this fuss; I know that, for I am one myself. . .