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| G K Chesterton - Tobias Haller |
Some days while praying
The Daily Office I am distracted the entire time to the point that right in the middle of the prayer time I think of something I MUST jump up and do right this minute. Other days I'm middling focused. God is always waiting for me, always present, but sometimes I am not truly present. Ah, but today was different. From the beginning, I was right in the groove with God. The grace of the felt presence of the loving God is a wonder, but it is not to be counted on, and who knows (only God) but that prayer in the face of great distraction is more efficacious than the prayer that comes easy. And so I persevere.
O God of earth and altar, you gave G. K. Chesterton a ready tongue
and pen, and inspired him to use them in your service: Mercifully grant
that we may be inspired to witness cheerfully to the hope that is in us;
through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the
Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The icon is a selection from “quick ikons” of
Holy Women and Holy Men written by Tobias Haller.
Right-wing poseur and anti-Semite, Mimi. And, while we're about it, third-rate author. Beloved of the Opus Dei crew.
ReplyDeleteChristopher Hitchens, in his very last piece of writing, published in March's "Atlantic", was far kinder to Chesterton than I. Read it.
ReplyDeleteGod bless you and Amen, Grandmere.
ReplyDeleteLapin, do you think I'm completely ignorant of Chesterton? I read and thoroughly enjoyed the Fr Brown mysteries, and I read a good many of his essays with pleasure, all when I was quite young, not lately. However, just now, I reread an essay from a book of his that I still own, and I liked what he said. Remember a good many English men of letters of his time were anti-Semites.
ReplyDeleteToday is Chesterton's feast day. None of the saints in the canon are perfect people. What is your point? That Chesterton should not be in the canon? That I should not have posted the Collect of the day? That I should not have used the icon?
It may be that if I undertook a reading of the works of the two men today, I may come away preferring Chesterton to Hitchens, whose writing I don't much admire.
Thanks, margaret. God's blessing to you.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to read that praying the Daily Office for you is much like it is for me. I just have to believe that committing myself to the rites prescribed somehow brings me into community with the people of God (that is, everyone!)
ReplyDeleteYou're familiar with him because the pre-Vatican II church of your youth loved him at a time when many first-rate writers were on the Index. Curious that a Methodist turned RC apologist, who could write of Edward I that he was "never more truly representative of his people than when he expelled the Jews - as powerful as they are unpopular", should be in the Episcopal calendar.
ReplyDeleteNotwithstanding the Iraq War silliness, Hitchens was the most brilliant political essayist of his generation. Why do so many Christians seem so unforgiving where unabashed atheists are concerned?
'The Everlasting Man' is quite brilliant, I think, and was instrumental in the conversion process of C.S. Lewis. Als, he has a pretty good surname, don't you think?
ReplyDeletejan, my comments on my own blog seem to be disappearing. I responded to yours last night that I agree that the commitment to join with many others in the Christian community to pray The Daily Office is no small thing in itself, however fruitful or fruitless the prayers seem at the time.
ReplyDeleteTim, I took my book of Chesterton's essays to bed with me last night, and I read two which were lovely, one on the city of Edinburgh, and another on prisons and punishment that can last a lifetime beyond time served. Yes, G K had a fine surname.
Lapin, Rmj at Adventus says better than I could what I don't like about Hitchens beyond his support of the Iraq war.
ReplyDeleteThere is also the matter that I don't really want to speak ill of the late Mr. Hitchens: I didn't know him, I marginally know his work, and I was never terribly impressed with his polemical style (so I still haven't tried to know much about his work). My experience has been that polemics and eloquence usually mask a lack of thought, and that Mr. Hitchens work was often, to quote a review, "Thought-provoking but poorly referenced." There's something to be said for provoking thought; but there's also something to be said for being annoying.
RMJ speaks of an article in Slate in which Hitchens rips into Mother Teresa. The whole post is worth a read. Mother Teresa surely had feet of clay and wrong (according to my way of thinking) opinions on certain subjects, but does that negate everything she did?
Discernment is much more interesting than polemics; if it isn't nearly as much fun.
And I suspect had he examined Mother Teresa's work, rather than set out to savage it, he might have done the world a great deal more good.It might almost, dare I say it, have been an epiphany.
When speaking and writing about Christianity, Hitchens so often set up straw men that were easy to knock down. Not that there isn't a lot to criticize in Christianity, but he painted with far too broad a brush by lumping all Christians together, and he all too often appeared ill-informed on the subject. That's my beef with Hitchens, whose work I admit I have not read widely, because I don't like what I've read.
"....so I still haven't tried to know much about his work" says as much as I need to know of RMJ as critic. Hitchens' 1988 Prepared for the worst, is a brilliant commentary on the nastiness of the Reagan era, now sadly forgotten by many in the centre and on the left who have now swallowed the Republicans' Reagan myth. Incidentally, Hitchens did more than rip into Mother Teresa in Slate, he wrote a book about her - quite slim book, admittedly. Have a copy, which I will be glad to lend you. The clay reached higher than her feet. Mother T enjoyed and enjoys great, uncritical press. Those who loved the last pope, whose college of cardinals elected the bishop of Rome we currently enjoy, will love her.
ReplyDeleteI wonder, seeing the opprobrium that is heaped at some sites (not particularly this) on atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins, if the root cause is not fear that such writers might flesh out the bones of the readers' own dormant disbelief.
As well I didn't, in my first comment, wander onto the topic of Lewis. I almost did(!)
If atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens fleshed out the bones of their critiques of Christianity, I might have more respect for them. Dawkins is abysmally ignorant about God and Christianity. The god Dawkins disposes of rather quickly is not the God I believe in. Why would I wish to spend my time with authors who knock down straw men? Do you make it a point to read deeply into the work of authors whose writing you disrespect? I don't. Life is short. A little goes a long way.
ReplyDeleteI have not forgotten the nastiness of the Reagan era (and the George H W Bush era), and others besides Hitchens have written brilliant critiques, so not reading Hitchens would not necessarily leave one in ignorance.
"A mind is like a parachute", Mimi.
ReplyDeleteRight. You imply that my mind is closed, and we'll leave the discussion there, because I will not proceed in my own defense.
ReplyDeleteBeliever or atheist - "four legs good ...." Whatever.
ReplyDeleteI read Hitchens' 'God is Not Great' a couple of years ago. I did not have specialized knowledge of the subject areas of many of his chapters. I do however know quite a bit about New Testament scholarship. I remember counting at least fifteen factual errors in that chapter, along with about twenty elementary misunderstandings. 'Poorly referenced', indeed.
ReplyDeleteTim, exactly. I would not argue science with Dawkins, because my knowledge of science is narrow and shallow. His expertise in religion seems to me to be in the same category as my knowledge of science. If Dawkins is going to write entire books on the subject, he should do his homework.
ReplyDeleteWhat possible use is New Testament scholarship to a disbeliever? Seriously. Think about it folks.
ReplyDeleteDepends on the disbeliever. Bart Ehrman is a notable scholar on the New Testament and also an agnostic atheist.
ReplyDeleteBTW I mentioned Chesterton's poem on overwrought MPs in another thread
Antichrist, Or The Reunion Of Christendom: An Ode
G. K. Chesterton
‘A Bill which has shocked the conscience of every Christian community in Europe.’ —Mr. F.E. Smith, on the Welsh Disestablishment Bill.
ARE they clinging to their crosses,
F.E. Smith,
Where the Breton boat-fleet tosses,
Are they, Smith?
Do they, fasting, trembling, bleeding,
Wait the news from this our city?
Groaning ‘That’s the Second Reading!’
Hissing ‘There is still Committee!’
If the voice of Cecil falters,
If McKenna’s point has pith,
Do they tremble for their altars?
Do they, Smith?
...
(F.E. Smith was no ordinary MP, he later served as Lord Chancellor)
Erp, Chesterton's poem was perfect for the bitching and moaning of the senior bishops about the terrible consequences for the church if same-sex marriage is allowed.
ReplyDelete