“We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News Oct. 21, 1905, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #2 (Nov.-Dec. 2021)
“In the name of commonsense let it be remembered that Shakespeare lived before the time when unsuccessful poets thought it poetical to be decadent and unsuccessful soldiers thought it military to be silent. Men like Sidney and Raleigh and Essex could have fought as well as Macbeth and could have ranted as well as Macbeth. Why should Shakespeare shrink from making a great general talk poetry when half the great generals of his time actually wrote great poetry?”
“The Macbeths,” in G.K. Chesterton Brave New Family
“I have very little doubt myself that, somehow or other, an inspiring and compelling creed will return to our country, because religion is really a need, like fires in winter: where there is no vision, the people perish, and perish of cold. The nation that has no gods at all not only dies, but what is more, is bored to death. But if ever a faith is firmly founded again, it will be at least interesting to notice those few things that have bridged the gulf, that stood firm when faith was lost, and were still standing when it was found again. Of these really interesting things one, in all probability, will be the English celebration of Christmas.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News, January 9, 1909, quoted in “GKC on Scripture – Conducted by Peter Floriani” “Proverbs Part 2” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the G.K. Chesterton Society Vol. 25 #3 (Jan.-Feb. 2022)
“The world owes God to the Jews”
G.K. Chesterton, cited as header quotation without further attribution in “An Orthodox Rabbi Looks at the ChesterBelloc” by Rabbi Mayer Schiller in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022)
“If the judge himself had owned both the Brownlee farm and Hell, he would have rented out the Brownlee place and lived in Hell.”
“Fate’s Purse” in Russell Kirk Ancestral Shadows
In my latest Epoch Times column I contemplate the painfully familiar task of finding comfort at Christmastime despite everything.
“The Satanic Temple is celebrating 10 years of existence with its SatanCon convention in Boston this weekend, but it's not what you probably think. The organization is as much a theater of American satire as it is a place for believers. The temple, not be confused with the Satanic Church, does not formally deify Satan as the personification of evil, but rather it sees him as a literary character, a necessary rebel, while mocking traditional religion and calling out government’s embrace of institutions like the Catholic Church, co-founder Malcolm Jarry said. ‘They believe in a literary representation of Satan,’ Jarry said of the temple’s estimated 700,000 members around the world. ‘It’s a heroic figure who fights against tyrannical authority and for humanity, even if it’s a losing battle.’... The weekend convention at the Boston Marriott Copley Place is sold out, temple organizers say, boasting that it will be the largest satanic gathering in history. The convention, which is scheduled to include the temple's rituals, a marketplace and a wedding chapel, also caps a successful 10 years for the organization, symbolically based in a Victorian house in Salem, Massachusetts, Jarry said.... He described the typical temple member as ‘anyone who is nonconforming’ and those who are ‘marginalized people.’ These satanists support women's shelters, highway cleanup and addiction recovery centers, he said. A big issue for the temple is abortion rights. It recently launched a telehealth clinic in New Mexico that it says provides abortion medication via mail.”
NBC April 25, 2023
“Just as I learned I was pregnant with my first son, I saw the film 1917, a brutal World War I drama. I was struck by a final scene: not the one where the protagonist sprints across a trench, but one showing hundreds of men having their limbs amputated. I must confess I watched 1917 a half dozen times before delivering my son. As morbid as it sounds, I needed to see suffering more extreme than what I would endure so when the time came for my own bravery, I’d remember it was once far, far worse. But... Left and right can’t seem to agree on anything these days, but on the subject of suffering there is near consensus: eradicating it in full is the common goal of government, technology, medicine, and science.... Technology, meanwhile, has waged its own war on suffering, striving to eradicate even the mildest forms of it. Whether by rewriting the rules of ‘harmful’ speech or erasing internet clowns, a handful of companies became the ultimate arbiters of what is deemed safe in our virtual world.... In a culture that has no reverence or tolerance for suffering of any kind, even the smallest forms of it can seem like oppression.... But eradicating suffering in this country—or at least striving to reach that utopian goal—has come with some unforeseen consequences. Among them: a loss for what to replace suffering with. And the results of the multi-decade war on suffering haven’t been all that impressive. Recent headlines show no one’s coping very well these days, with growing depression and hopelessness among teenage girls and the ‘crisis of men,’ who lag behind women in education and the workplace. Though we may not realize it, nearly all of our modern cultural debates and ailments stem from the contemporary belief that suffering is not a natural or essential part of the human condition. The war on suffering has not only robbed us of resilience; it has sold us a mirage that is making us miserable. It is not a coincidence that the modern campaign to eradicate suffering commenced just as religiosity in general and Christianity in particular began to decline at a rapid pace in America. There is no religion that doesn’t embrace suffering as integral to its teaching. Christianity deified it, with adherents wearing a symbol of torture as a symbol of their belief…. With so much focus on comfort and safety, why aren’t we. . . happier?... And resilience in our people, our institutions, and even the physical infrastructure of our cities is increasingly deemed the missing ingredient in all aspects of American life.... We have long been fully invested in eradicating the suffering we deem unconscionable, but more important are the simple questions that define a serious life: For whom will you sacrifice? What will you defend? For what will you choose to suffer?”
Katherine Boyle “Get Serious” on The Free Press March 4, 2023 [https://www.thefp.com/p/get-serious-about-suffering]