A Proper Introduction

How can I describe my friend, Gilbert Keith Chesterton?

First of all he is quite a presence:  six foot four  and weighing in at 300 pounds, he is hard to miss!  A Goliath, you might say, but he is more like a jolly giant or an overgrown elf.  He is full of joy and laughter.  As he says, "I suppose I enjoy myself more than most other people, because there's such a lot of me having a good time."

He wears a crumpled hat and a heavy cape and carries a walking stick with a sword concealed inside.  A swordstick?  He says he carries it because he likes things that come to a point.  But that is not the only weapon he carries....he carries a gun!  "I bought it on the day of my wedding", he explains...and then adds, "to defend my bride".  He says it also has proved to be quite useful on other occasions.  For instance, whenever he hears a man say that life is not worth living, he takes out the gun and offers to shoot him.  "Always with the most satisfactory results", he laughs.

But wait!  Is this how I really want to introduce him?  I could go on and on about the contents of his pockets (he wrote about it) and his way of life.  But I really need to tell you that he is a genius and a prolific writer.  He wrote millions of words - as a journalist with a daily newspaper column; in a monthly magazine he produced with his friends; as a novelist, essayist, poet, mystery story writer.

But wait!  I need to mention that he is a Christian apologist and wrote works that influenced Tolkien and C.S. Lewis such as Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man.  He debated the atheists and Progressives of his day and was famous for it.  Now I am getting closer to telling you what is important about G.K. Chesterton.

EVERYTHING he wrote was a defense of  what he called the permanent things:  Orthodoxy in religion, the home, the family, Christian Culture.  He defended it against the same Progressivist agenda that is steam rolling us today and he did it with grace, clarity and good humor.  When you read  his books it seems as though they were written just yesterday.

He was endowed with a considerable intellect and used it with all his might in the service of our Lord.  In the poem the Wild Knight we get a glimpse of his motivation:

The wasting thistle whitens on my crest,
The barren grasses blow upon my spear,
A green, pale pennon:  blazon of wild faith
And love of fruitless things:  yea, of my love,
Among the golden loves of all the knights, 
Alone:  most hopeless, sweet, and blasphemous,
The love of God:
I hear the crumbling creeds
Like cliffs washed down by water, change, and pass,
I hear a noise of words, age after age,
A new cold wind that blows across the plains, 
 And all the shrines stand empty;and to me
All these are nothing: priests and schools may doubt
Who never have believed;  but I have loved.

The poem goes on with all the reasons his enemies tell him that he should not seek after God, but no matter how reasonable they sound, all he can respond is that he loves Him and desires nothing more than to see His face, because God had spoken to him once... The last few lines are:

But the grey clouds come down
In hail upon the icy plains:  I ride,
burning for ever in consuming fire.

I have been reading G.K. Chesterton for a while - some poetry, some novels, some apologetics, some essays, and many mystery stories.  Eventually I would like to review them here.