Farewell, Beloved Knight

The great English journalist Mr. Gilbert Kieth Chesterton had (and still has) a remarkable effect on people. He is impossible to ignore. Love him or hate him, he was larger than life-- eccentric, brilliant, and absolutely unforgettable. His contemporaries could never quite pass him by unnoticed, could never completely leave him alone, and could never simply pretend that he did not exist, no matter how much many of them might have wished that he did not.

There was nothing lukewarm about Chesterton, nor was there anything lukewarm about the responses that he elicited from his readers. He was praised, admired, or at least respected in his own times by men as diverse as Hilaire Belloc and George Bernard Shaw. He was equally insulted and despised by countless others of his own generation. If the number of books, websites, comments and quotes I frequently encounter are any indication, I would say that he is at least as popular now as he was in his own lifetime, and just as unforgettable. My own impressions of GKC have gone through several major changes since I first met him years ago in Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man, but after long acquaintance I would like to offer a few thoughts and a few words in praise of that giant Christian.

There are many reasons why Mr. Chesterton was either greatly admired or else despised and detested. One reason was his style of paradoxical writing. It is, to put it simply, infuriating. Infuriatingly good or infuriatingly bad, depending on your perspective. Chesterton viewed paradox as "truth standing on its head" trying to get attention, and attention is exactly what he got. He put paradox to great use in nearly all of his writings, expressing truth in pithy, witty, and unforgettable lines. Opinions concerning his writing style were almost always polarized. Many men of his own time found his writing brilliant, and  Belloc even composed a poem about G. K. Chesterton in which he referred to him as "the only man I regularly read". Others found his style simply maddening and provoking, and even some contemporary Catholics found it cheap. Again, you may either love it or hate it, but you cannot ignore it.

My own first encounter with Chesterton occurred many years ago. In my mid-teens my family discovered C. S. Lewis. We loved him. My first experience with Lewis, around the age of fourteen or fifteen, was The Abolition of Man, a oft-forgotten work that I think is really one of his best. As we were reading and admiring Lewis, my father came across a comment that Lewis had been greatly influenced by the writings of another Englishman, named G. K. Chesterton. The obvious thing to do after enjoying Lewis then was to read some Chesterton. So my Dad discovered Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man, and my life was never quite the same. He used to read us passages from Chesterton that he thought were remarkably good, though he would occasionally comment that he could not understand how a man as brilliant as G. K. Chesterton could have ever converted and become Catholic. I suppose that it was astonishing that intellect and true Christianity could ever look towards Rome. Ah, strange and beautiful paradox, that at last I understand!

I will never forget the impression that Chesterton first left in my mind. He was the only other really logical, intellectual Christian besides Lewis that I had read at that time, but the difference between him and Lewis was remarkable. Where Lewis was cautious, Chesterton threw caution to the winds. Where Lewis wrote beautifully, Chesterton wrote with such exquisite and gloriously lyrical passion that I wanted to rejoice, sing, and weep; usually all at the same time. And where Lewis was profound, scholarly and careful, Chesterton was scintillating, brilliantly incisive (though seemingly careless), effortlessly slicing through layers of error and misconception, and exposing the simple and beautiful Truth in a way that made one want to laugh for sheer delight. I still remember the joy with which I encountered lines such as this one, from Orthodoxy:

"To have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom--that would indeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands.To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect."

Or this one from The Everlasting Man:

"We are Christians and Catholics not because we worship a key, but because we have passed a door; and felt the wind that is the trumpet of liberty blow over the land of the living."

Or one of my first encounters with his poetry:

                                                                 The Donkey

                                                 When fishes flew and forest walked
                                                 And figs grew upon thorn,
                                                 Some moment when the moon was blood
                                                 Then surely I was born.

                                                With monstrous head and sickening cry
                                                And ears like errant wings,
                                                The devil's walking parody
                                                Of all four-footed things,
                                           
                                                The tattered outlaw of the earth
                                                Of ancient, crooked will
                                                Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb
                                                I keep my secret still.

                                                Fools! For I also had my hour,
                                               One far fierce hour and sweet
                                               There was a shout about my ears
                                               And palms before my feet."

I was captivated, and I wanted more. Besides the beauty of Chesterton's writing, and his obvious wit and genius, I was struck by something else. I was struck by fact that when Chesterton wrote on something he was almost always absolutely certain that he was right. While this may appear to some to be arrogance, and may in fact be another reason why many have so heartily disliked him, his certainty was actually far from arrogant. It was coupled with a great humility and a healthy dose of humor which made it all the more charming and refreshing. This point is important, because Chesterton's assurance represented something to me that I had never really encountered before. As a sort of quasi-fundamentalist, my experiences with certainty were unlike what I saw in books like Orthodoxy. In a background like mine one experiences a curious mix of a multiplicity of opinions, combined with a strong personal certainty that often smacks of subjectivity. In the "home church" environment of my youth I encountered disagreements and theological speculations, and yet also the dogmatic though often subjective certainty of my father and others. But I had never really encountered anything like the certainty of Gilbert Kieth Chesterton before.

There was nothing abrasive about it. It did not hint of subjectivity, arrogance, bigotry, or dominance. It smacked of freedom. It was humble because Chesterton was not leaning upon his own understanding, but rather upon the authority of the Church. It was freeing because that authority was divinely instituted, because it was really true, and the truth sets us free. It was objective because it did not deal in how one felt, or how one thought the Scriptures should be interpreted. In a world  blighted by the dreadful doctrine of relativism Chesterton did not snivel and second-guess; he did not say things like "Well, that's what I think, but it's just my opinion, of course", or "I believe so, but I could be wrong". Chesterton wasn't dealing in speculations, relativism, or subjectivity. No, he truly had passed a door and felt the wind of liberty blow over the land of the living. Indeed, he even seemed (for all his monstrous girth) to be frolicking in the fields of that land, rejoicing in certainty, experiencing reality, and free from diverse interpretations. To find a man who is not uncertain, who through obedience to an authority outside himself is humble, yet who stands with his feet on a Rock and knows what he believes; a man, who, free from confusion can say "This is true" without arrogance; to find such a man in our times is a rare and beautiful thing.

Chesterton himself had some words to say on this very topic: "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....At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table....Scoffers of old time were to proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the earth, but these are too meek to even claim their inheritance." (G. K. Chesterton Orthodoxy) No wonder that I thrilled when I first read Chesterton! Somewhere in my heart and subconscious I wanted what he had.

Over time I continued reading, discovering Father Brown, the bizarre yet beautiful novel The Man Who was Thursday, and finally the seminal Conversion and the Catholic Church. But, eventually, I stopped reading Chesterton, and left him alone for a very long time.

Times and people change; we learn and grow and become different for better or for worse. When, at last, my own twisted path began to turn once more towards Home, I still did not read Chesterton. I encountered new authors, different books, and my tastes had changed. I did read his biography of St. Francis of Assisi, and loved it, but when I tried the first few pages of The Dumb Ox (on St. Aquinas), I did not find it as interesting, and left it untouched. Only last last year did I finally read that brilliant and monumental work, and presently consider myself much indebted to it.

I still held a certain  respect for GKC, but I think that I, too, had tired of his style. I unconsciously fell into the error of thinking the that he was sometimes shallow in his paradox, occasionally extravagant and careless in his writing. Fondness turned to condescension, the mental "pat on the head", and this is a great mistake with G. K. Chesterton.

I became reacquainted with Chesterton eventually, not that long ago, and not only did I find my appreciation for him had returned, but was even greater than before. But this time around I have noticed something that I had never realized before, and I think it may help to explain some things about Chesterton. It may help to explain how he could be so incredibly right about nearly everything, but still make mistakes; how he could be so scholarly and yet so careless; so studied and yet so hasty. Of course, the simple answer is that he was human, and therefore fallible. But I think that there is something more to the story, and it is this that I particularly wish to share with you today.

I am no Chesterton scholar; I have not read all his works, nor examined biographies of him, nor considered the opinions of those whose business it is the analyze the thoughts and feelings of notable historic characters after they have died. But I believe that in lives of truly remarkable men and women we may come to see themes or patterns, certain driving passions and defining characteristics. In the case of Chesterton, I suppose that the most obvious thing is that he was Catholic. But there are two other characteristics that would I like to share here, which have been growing in my mind, and which have helped me to see Chesterton in clearer light than before.

The first is that Chesterton was helplessly enamored with the fact of existence. He was ceaselessly amazed that this universe is real, constantly overwhelmed by blades of grass or stars in the sky, and especially awestruck with fact that he himself had been created and was alive. The most remarkable things in life (and especially life itself) are often the things that we take for granted, and few of us have been given the gift of being truly aware of the astonishing miracle that any of this, or any of us, should ever exist at all. Chesterton was one of the few who was truly saturated with this gift, amazed with the incredible fact that he was, and he never got over it. In response to people who speak of "might-have-been's", Chesterton wrote that the really remarkable thing is that each man "is a great might-not-have-been". The fact that Chesterton, during a period of severe darkness, was driven to the point of contemplating suicide, makes his enduring celebration of life all the more rich and poignant.

 But there is something more to the man, a characteristic of which I have become aware as I have become reacquainted with him. Chesterton's writings are full of fairy tales and fireworks, knights and heraldry, chivalry and romance. There is an almost childlike quality in his appreciation of these things, and there is certainly nothing wrong with being childlike. But let us never mistake child-likeness with childishness. Chesterton was neither childish nor simple. But to be like a child is a very good thing, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Chesterton was a medievalist, in the best sense of the term, and I think that herein may be a key to understanding much that seems confusing or inconsistent with him.

Much as we may consider St. Francis of Assisi as the last and greatest of the troubadours (or perhaps more accurately, as he himself might have said, one of the jongleur de Dieu), so I think that Chesterton was one of the greatest and last of the Christian knights of our times. Yes, a knight with a pen instead of a sword, but a knight nonetheless. Flying the banner of God, and wearing the insignia of his beloved Lady the Church over his heart, Chesterton plunged into all the great battles of his day with heedless virtue and luminous veracity. A knight is very certain, because he fights for king or queen and country. His mind is unconfused, he sees what needs to be done very clearly, and he does it. His is chivalrous and romantic, he brooks no insult to his lady, nor any danger to his native land. A knight is very real, for he deals daily with life and death, and the simple beauties and realities of life are all the more precious to him after the battle is over. But for all this he is not a scholar, though they both fight for the same things. He is a man of action and great passion, not a slow and careful schoolman. And so a great knight, though he be seen as noble after victory, or praised in songs and with monuments, may also have his more quixotic moments. In all his vigorous action he may occasionally mistake a windmill for a giant, or find that the noble steed on which he thinks he rides is really just a donkey. He may even seem to be the donkey at times himself and appear to the world to be a fool. But no matter, the message of the Cross was considered foolishness to the Greeks, and our Divine Savior Himself entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey. And I am very sure of this: that neither you nor I, or any other ass who has ever lived, when bearing our Lord, is in any way less noble than the greatest stallion running lonely in the fields.

And so, I have more appreciation for Chesterton now. He makes more sense to me. He was a large man, physically and intellectually, and he was a man with a giant heart. No cautious statesman he, no meditative monk or solitary hermit, but he was a titan of a man, born with a childlike love of life into a gray and dying society that was attacking everything he loved, everything he deemed worth living for. He fought like the knights of old for all that was good and beautiful with no thought for himself or any careful consideration that he might seem to be outnumbered. He fought, not with despair, but as a man in love, who would have done battle with a hundred men with only his naked hands, just to spare some flower in the grass. He was indeed one of the last great knights, and we may not soon see his like again.

It is not for me to try here to compare the various levels of the virtues of the saints, nor even to say if Chesterton was a saint, in the sense that the Church uses that word. He has never been canonized, but he has been declared as a Defender of the Faith, and there is something remarkably fitting in that knight-like title. In heaven I do not know how bright his aureole will shine compared to those around him. But each person has something special about him or her, something unique and precious, however great or small person may be. And somehow, I like to imagine, that when we are all at last called home to the great Wedding Feast of the Lamb, when we sit around the Banquet Table of the Lord, that Chesterton will drink deeply of the wine of the joy of God as the bowl is passed around, and will laugh louder and sing with more abandon, than most of those that we have known on earth.

So rest now from your labors, good and honest subject of the King, for you fought well for the cause of God. And may you, O faithful departed soul, dwell forever in light perpetual. Farewell, beloved knight. Requiescat in pace, Mr. Chesterton.