Sunday, February 22, 2009

The Man Who was Friday...

..Always makes it in during the weekend.

Oddly enough, still thinking about this same theme of Stoics, Philosophy in general, and GKC. As Ive been tossing around these ideas for the last couple weeks, its occured to me that I never have really given GKC his full due in this area.

In the Army, I was a 37F PSYOP NCO by MOS, and I spent my time in those information warfare circles. From this perspective, Chesterton is a true genius. He breaks open debates, makes thousand year old arguments seem alive and vital, and never allows his detractors to label him.

As Ive thought deeper, it amazes me how little we discuss Chesterton's inner life, and his spirituality. For all of his curmudgeonliness, (hehe, is that a word?) we know more about Belloc as a man of prayer, at least as a superficial image.

Some of the things that Chesterton says are not the products of a debater or a rhetoritician. Much of what he says have the flavor of the fruits of contemplation.

To quickly paraphrase those at the top of my head:
"Their pity is untruthful, and thier truth is pitiless" --regarding liberals vs. conservatives
"Hope is the virtue balanced between the sins of despair and presumption" --massacred paraphrase, but still sublime
"The Catholic Church is the only thing capable of saving a man from slavery to his age"

There is so much more out there than this, but I think the greater point to ponder is that these are not comebacks, or even apologetics, but an outer revelation of an inner experience.

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