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I enjoy sharing some of G.K. Chesterton’s thoughts on art (did you know he was trained as an artist?) – the whiteness of chalk, the value of doing things badly, the importance of framing, whether poetry should rhyme, learning to bear the tension of paradox, etc…. So many people know other facets of his thought, or enjoy his fiction without delving into what he thought about art-making, being a creator, or the role of the artist in the Church and society.
Chesterton is a great example of a truly playful soul – one who romps around in a universe made of building blocks and filled with toys enjoying it almost as much as its Maker does. His character Innocent Smith, in Manalive, is an artistic embodiment of this fresh, childlike, world-overturning spirit.
For all his fictionality, he’s a real and true example of what it means to be a Christian adult, fearfully and wonderfully made and gloriously free. Chesterton’s Gabriel Gale solves mysteries with poetic insight and his Father Brown solves them with more of a dramatic sense, placing himself right into the character of the unknown killer in order to know him well.
It’s delightful to read Chesterton’s own comments about art in the light of what he accomplished through art himself.
[su_pullquote align=”right”]”…the artist is a person who communicates something…the moment of creation is the moment of communication. It is when the work has passed from mind to mind that it becomes a work of art.”[/su_pullquote]
[su_pullquote align=”right”]”What is now needed most is intensive imagination. I mean the power to turn our imaginations inwards, on the things we already have, and to make those things live. It is not merely seeking new experiences, which rapidly become old experiences. It is really learning how to experience our experiences. It is learning how to enjoy our enjoyments.”[/su_pullquote]
Weaving Supernatural Joy into Natural Life I created this talk for Benedictine College’s Symposium on the New Evangelization. It’s about the role art can play in helping us realize our ideals of virtue and holiness. I linked G.K. Chesterton, his character Innocent Smith (from Manalive) and St. Francis of Assisi to show how Chesterton wove […]
Need a 3-Talk Retreat? I was asked to suggest possibilities for a three-part retreat. Here are my ideas: Related
I had so much fun presenting “B is for Brick” at the Kansas Catholic Homeschool Conference! This was a brand spankin’ new talk, created just for this event. It’s about the ways our conversation with kids can help build the ‘interior arch’ that supports them against burdens both internal and external. Related
I once asked a friend who calls herself a Jewish-Catholic if it had been hard for her to accept Mary’s role in Salvation History. She laughed and said, “Heck no! Every Sabbath was begun by a Jewish mama’s prayers! I’d have been suspicious if Lord Sabbaoth hadn’t come through a woman.” Jewish women welcomed Sabbath […]
Gosh, I enjoy giving papers at C.S. Lewis Conferences! But it’s expensive. Most of those who do it have, it seems, college department budgets paying their expenses. For an amateur Lewis ‘scholar,’ it’s hard to get there from here. I’ve been lucky to have a C.S. Lewis studies class nearby so as to become a […]
If, as artists, we hope to recall man to himself, to set him free, to draw him toward God, then we must understand the human person as an icon and icon-writer. The more we understand about icons, the more fully we can enter into the treasury of prayer they open to us. There are four […]
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Do You Suffer from PERS?!?!? In a recent talk – Home Schooling to Rock the World – I mentioned some symptoms that a person may be suffering from ‘post-Enlightenment reduction syndrome,’ (PERS) or ‘flattening’. This is the atrophy of one’s analogic sense – a reduction in the metaphoric dimension of human being. The problem is […]
Your Worst Nightmares Might it be that some dark trends in popular culture are the manifestations of the inherent human need to grapple with the Four Last Things? Related
For Groundhog Day, I imagine Catholic bloggers everywhere are weighing in about the movie by that name. It’s so Catholic! How can we resist? I love this movie, Related
It’s hard being a boy these days, in a sanitized, feminized environment where it’s so unsafe to run around on your own. I just finished a list of ideas to help a mom help her boys, and thought it might be helpful for others. For what it’s worth: Related
Link to the whole talk on YouTube, here. Related
I thoroughly enjoyed creating this new offering for our regional home educators. Related
Purgatory – you’re in Heaven’s ante-chamber and there’s work to be done. But you can’t do it. The days of your power to act in your own behalf, to cultivate the self, are over. You’re here to be acted upon, to be purified, to be loved. As C.S. Lewis has pointed out, the “weight of […]
