Chesterton

photo uploaded by Harold Laudeus

“Today I arise and thank you Father for calling me from the tomb of sleep yet again to live in the ever-increasing light of resurrection.”

There came a time in my life when I ran out of prayer. I had used up all my words. I wanted to cry out to God, but the words stuck. Sounds fell from my mouth like stones dropping into a dry well.

I’m sure this sounds a bit crazy, but as I tried to pray there were no words. Sometimes cries, moans, or wordless songs ascended from my lips.

In this desert of prayer, I picked up an Christian prayer book and began reading morning prayers aloud each day. In the weeks, months and even years ahead, ancient words rooted in Scripture shaped my cries before God. Basil the Great, Macarius, Ephraim and other Christians from the early centuries of faith taught me to pray again.

In their simple morning prayers to God, I noticed a pattern. Many of their morning prayers began with the phrase “Arising from sleep.” They consistently connected the idea of resurrection to arising from sleep. Sleep seems to mean both the night of sleep, the sleep of sin that kept me blind to God, and even the sleep of this life in light of eternity.

Every morning, these ancient Christians reminded me that I am waking in light of eternity. So every morning is like a day of resurrection, a day of celebration, a day to join the ever worshipping choirs of angels proclaiming the glory of God. In this rhythm of prayer, I began to realize that I am truly waking from glory to glory.

The Father calls us forth into life and into life and into life. The wonder His love continually opens before us in people and places where we dwell. Each new day really is a new day, really is the day of salvation. Each day we awake in light of the Day of the Lord.

In the simplicity of these “rising prayers” I began to notice the hand of the Father who had been calling, waking, leading me into life long before I had any sense of His love, His faithfulness, His ever watchful Spirit leading me forward into the fullness of His Risen Son.

Now I as look back over the last few years, I am aware of encounters, events, and experiences that seem like conversion experiences, like resurrections. The morning I watched the sun rise over the dark water, I experienced the start of a new day, and a New Day.

The stories and songs of the early Celtic Christians awoke me to the simplicity of uplifted hands in ceaseless prays. Their world centered in the bread and cup of communion Jesus serves His disciples. And in this simple meal, we discover that all of life is rooted in thanksgiving. So I join them in realizing that the place where I am standing is holy, yet I also join them in longing for the place of my resurrection.

After taking a year of creative thinking classes in graduate school, I realized something happened. During the weeks and months of the previous year, I had been changed. I woke up. I stepped into a freedom and joy that felt like entering childhood all over again. I had been converted into a child and was prepared to enter the kingdom of God.

Reading G.K. Chesterton’s biography of Thomas Aquinas, I felt the ground shake beneath my feet. Not because it was dissipating but because it seemed like for the first time in my life, I was walking on real ground, in a real world that the Father had created in love for His children. What could I do? Only fall to my knees in praise.

Each day I arise, I arise to new wonder. I arise to a new world of real people and real things. This real world is not an empty space, but all things have been created in and through the Word of God, and all things are reconciled through the Word

In this real world of real trees and real flowers and real beauty, I’ve experienced real suffering. At times, the suffering felt like death. But in the dying, I have encountered the voice of the God who raises the dead. He creates and sustains all things through His Word, Jesus Christ.

In Christ, I’ve encountered a love that passes my reason or my capacity to explain or defend. I simply rest in the faithful love of a God I cannot grasp, but who grasps me, shapes me, breathes into me, and calls me forth into life.

On this day of thanks, I lift up a voice of rejoicing, joining the prayers of my brothers and sisters across time, who’ve encountered the loving Father in the Son by the power of His Spirit poured out on us.

In the words of Basil the Great,
“As I rise from sleep I thank Thee, O Holy Trinity, for through Thy great goodness and patience Thou wast not angered with me, an idler and sinner, nor hast Thou destroyed me in my sins, but hast shown Thy usual love for men, and when I was prostrate in despair, Thou hast raised me to keep the morning watch and glorify Thy power. And now enlighten my mind’s eye and open my mouth to study Thy words and understand Thy commandments and do Thy will and sing to Thee in heartfelt adoration and praise Thy Most Holy Name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.
O come let us worship God our King. 
O come let us worship and fall down before Christ our King and our God. 
O come let us worship and fall down before Christ Himself, our King and our God.”

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I still remember the shock I first experienced when Ebenezer Scrooge (in the guise of Mr. Magoo) saw his name on the tombstone. In some strange way, this odd slightly scary image is one of my earliest impressions of Christmas. And I think of it fondly.

Mr. Magoo introduced me to the wonder of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” and for that I was always be grateful. I can barely imagine Christmas without the wonder of this marvelous story.

Over the years, I’ve watched almost every version of “A Christmas Carol.” And yet, every year I find another one I haven’t seen. This year I had the pleasure of discovering a haunting 1935 version with Seymour Hicks. Drawing elements from German expressionism, this version captures the terrible wonder of this story.

I believe the master storyteller Charles Dickens in all his flaws was graced by God to bless the world with his rich legacy of penetrating stories. (Here is a little essay I wrote on Charles Dickens in the early 90s.)

Dickens saw the suffering of the world first-hand. As a child, his family went to the poor, but Dickens was left behind to fend for himself. For several months, he drifted through a nightmare of existence.

His nightmares became the stories I’ve loved so deeply. Dickens doesn’t hesitate to portray the gritty ugliness of our world and the people in our world. And yet, his loves those people. He loves Scrooge. So he can’t leave him in his dis-grace.

A few friendly ghosts will rescue the old man in his misery. During of night of visions, Scrooge encounters the ugliness of his soul, his need for redemption, and the heart of Christmas joy. While “A Christmas Carol” does not explicitly detail the story of Christ, the image is never far from the surface. Listen to Dickens own words as he talks about his image of Christmas:

What images do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set forth on the Christmas tree? Known before all others, keeping far apart from all other, they gather round my bed. An angel, speaking to a group of shepherds in a field; some travelers, with eyes uplifted, following a star; a baby in a manger; a child in a spacious temple, talking with grave men; a solemn figure, with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand; again, near a city gate, calling back the son of a widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people looking through the opened roof of a chamber where he sits, and letting down a sick person on a bed, with ropes; the same, in a tempest, walking on the water to a ship again; again, on a sea-shore, teaching a great multitude; again, with a child upon his knee, and other children round; again, restoring sight to the sick, strength to the lame, knowledge to the ignorant; again, dying upon a Cross, watched by armed soldiers, a thick darkness coming on, the earth beginning to shake, and only one voice hear, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Dickens saw the “writing on the tree” so to speak. He saw what Christmas envisioned. The birth, life and death of the Savior for all humanity. The only hope in a world darkened by human violence and human oppression.

Alongside Dickens, we learn to love Scrooge as we witness a man wounded and damaged in this world of sin. Scrooge, the grumpy bah-humbug truly becomes the “founder of the feast” that Bob Cratchitt has called him. In his redemption, Scrooge comes to exemplify the very spirit of Christmas present. Joy and generosity overflow from the man who once was a pit of stinginess.

In the 1970 musical version starring Albert Finney, Scrooge is so deeply transformed that he tears up his debt book (bringing up images of Zacchaeus after he encounters Jesus). Then Scrooge dons a Santa outfit and proceeds to pour out gifts and laughter and joy upon everyone in his presence. Wherever Scrooge goes, he brings the celebration with him.

That spirit of abundance, of generosity, of overwhelming joy inspires me to bring the joy, and not to wait for someone or something else to make me happy. I’ve tasted the secret of joy in the goodness of God’s grace, and I want to spread it to all people I meet. Just as Cratchitt loved the unlovable Scrooge, I want to love and call for the best from the people around me.

When Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol,” the London Times hadn’t mentioned Christmas for over 30 years. But Dickens saw the possibility of what could be, and he wrote about it. Chesterton rightly calls Dickens the “founder of the feast” because he fell in love with the despairing people around him and wrote a vision of their transformation.

Sounds a bit like the wonder of a God who loved and loves his enemies. And his relentless love transforms our dark and hateful souls into something wondrous. Oh Lord, grant me eyes to see your love for the people around me. Just as my haunting memory of the Mr. Magoo Scrooge facing a tombstone, I know we all face a tombstone.

We have a brief sojourn before ascending. Let us love deeply and widely and unreservedly. Let us pray and hope and expect the grace of God to penetrate all the Scrooges in our world.

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Much like a zen master, G.K. Chesterton reminds me where to turn for mentors:

Distribute to dignified people and the capable people and the highly businesslike people among all the situations which their ambition or their innate corruption may demand, but keep close to your heart, keep deep in your inner councils the absurd people; let the clever people pretend to govern you, let the unimpeachable people pretend to advise you, but lets the fools alone influence you; let the laughable peope whose faults you see and understand be the only people who are really inside your life, who really come near you or accompany you on your lonely march towards the last impossibility.

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Here’s a little ditty from Chesterton:

Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline.

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After posting that Paul Johnson quote the other day, I thought I might share some quotes I like. I’ll act like there will be one every day, but knowing my poor history at follow-through there will be some new quotes offered “on occasion.”

I’ve begin many a talk with the following quote:

“If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” G.K. Chesterton

This quote usually disarms the audience. “What?” Chesterton realizes that you don’t have always be the best at everything you try. He was concerned even in his day that there was a dangerous trend to “professionalizing” life. Instead of playing ball in the back yard, people pay experts to play. Instead singing, we buy CDs. Instead of telling our stories, we watch TV. In other words, we are in danger of giving the living of life over to others while we just sit back and watch.

Far better to jump in the ring. Trying living life firsthand. Even if we aren’t the best, and even if we don’t win awards, we at least are living.

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Sisu offered a delightful Paul Johnson quote:

The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false. – Paul Johnson

Makes me think of this Chesterton quote:

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.” G.K. Chesterton

I think both quotes point to the illusion that the current generation is always more advanced than previous generations. We cannot see outside our particular cultural milieu. While every group in history is trapped by the particularity of their times, we can gain perspective by listening and engaging those from other ages and cultures. And when we do, we realize humans are humans in all ages and struggle with many similar challenges, so in spite our our hyperlinked world, we’re still human with basic human struggles and we can learn from those who’ve gone before us.

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