Let me take a blog to introduce you to a writer that has greatly influenced the way I think. He was not thought of initially as a theologian, philosopher, or an apologist. He was a literary critic writing newspaper articles. Yet, he became one of the most formidable apologist of the last century, writing with wit, eloquence, and common sense. He was later named the Apostle of Common Sense, I am talking about GK Chesterton.
He wrote with such a command of the english language that his words seemed to flow like a stream, yet penetrating as if they were swords. He did not take inappropriate shots at his opponents rather made jokes about himself, while at the same time, making the profoundest of points. He was critical of the “modern intellectual man” who by reason and science had come to realize they had no need of God. Yet, Chesterton took it upon himself to show through common sense and good humor how such a statement revealed their need of God. He once wrote,“Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.” He would go on to argue the only way man could be sure that his thoughts were accurate was if God Himself backed them.
One of Chesterton’s ambitions was to show, with common sense, the arrogance and presumption of the modern man to presume that he had discovered that God never existed. In one of my favorite books, Orthodoxy, Chesterton, as only he could do, writes,
“Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth: this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert-himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt – the Divine Reason… The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping: not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.”
Though my faith is more vibrant and my apologetics more informed, the thing Chesterton did and still does most, is help me to be grateful. He would make me grateful that grass was green and not purple. He reminded me that it was “magical” (perhaps we would say supernatural now) that apples appear on an apple tree. He helped me to see the splendor in the ordinary, the eternal in the temporary, and the satisfaction of that comes from being small in God’s big world. He once wrote, “It is quite futile to argue that man is small compared to the cosmos; for man was always small compared to the nearest tree.” Fueling my gratitude were such statements like “The worst moment for an atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank,” or “When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?.”
He taught me that to trust God is to be able to laugh. He reminded me that there was humor that was not aimed at the dehumanizing or hurting of others. He was an eccentric gentleman, who insisted, on wearing a black top hat, long coat, and carrying a cain. Remarking once that the cain was necessary for one never knew when one would need to fight a dragon. Never having children of his own, most likely, compounded his delight in children. He seemed to delight in thinking about how children were experiencing this wonderful world that he had come to love. Speaking of children he writes, “As we walk the streets and see below us those delightful bulbous heads, three times too big for the body, which mark these human mushrooms, we ought always to remember that within every one of these heads there is a new universe, as new as it was on the seventh day of creation. In each of those orbs there is a new system of stars, new grass, new cities, a new sea.” Perhaps, some of his fondness for children came from a shared love: fairytales. In Orthodoxy, he has chapter entitled The Ethics of Elfland that is a profound and humorous philosophical argument about the necessity of gratitude for living in order to live ethically. It is from this chapter one of his most popular quotes came, “Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be beaten.”
He influenced many like CS Lewis, Ghandi, Tolkien, to name a few. There is a story told that a newspaper wanted him to write an article about England’s presence in India. Not wanting to write the article, he constantly put it off until the night before the deadline, when he went into a pub and sat down with a beer and wrote the article in a half hour. Young Ghandi would later read it and cite it as influential in his decision to engage in nonviolent resistance to England oppression. Chesterton’s influence runs deep and in many directions.
I am thankful for Chesterton and the many things his writings have added to my life and faith. But above all, I am thankful to him for helping me be thankful. For helping me come to know “that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” For teaching me that the aim of life is not success, rather, “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.” “When it comes to life,” he once wrote, “the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”
The critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude. – Chesterton
The thankfulness I learned from Chesterton turned into wonder and delight which resulted in more thanksgiving, which is constantly working humility in me. I come back to him often. I read Orthodoxy about every two years. And if I ever find myself in despair or depressed, I turn to one of his works. As I write this, I am reminded of his thoughts on thanksgiving and prayer, “You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”
Thanks Chesterton. Of course, he would point out that thankfulness is such a powerful thing because there is a Being to whom thanks is due. For there are many things we take credit for but we all know we did not choose to exist. So, let us join in with Chesterton and thousands throughout history and Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His love endures forever. 1 Chronicles 16:34