There is but one thingWhich is both work and wage,Both wound and healing,Both journey and inn,Both motive and method,Both master and servant,Both giving and receiving,Both law and freedom,Both antiquity and novelty,Both tradition and revolution,Both mystery and familiarity,Both innocence and knowledge,Both germ and consummation,Both child and ancient,Both origin and aim.~ GK Chesterton, mid 1890’s
“THE personal is not a mere figure for the impersonal; rather the impersonal is a clumsy term for something more personal than common personality. God is not a symbol of goodness. Goodness is a symbol of God.” ~G.K. Chesterton: “William Blake.’
My husband recently read me this lovely piece from The Soul of Wit, a compilation on the subject of Shakespeare, taken from GK Chesterton’s works. It was so lovely, I thought I would share. “But in a much deeper sense, Shakespeare was classical, because he was civilized. Voltaire criticized him as a barbarian. But he…
I find I’ve been struggling with my will lately; “I” want to sit down and read something good, and feeding. But the other “me,” the foolish child “me,” has a million thoughts to distract her, or would rather check Instagram, or thinks we should find that “really good quote.” (“It’s important,” she says!) Ah, Lord…
“…Come away—With the fairies, hand in hand, For the world is more full of weeping Than you can understand.” —WB Yeats Chesterton, with the answer of Elf-land: From the Wood of the Old Wives’ Fables They glittered out of the grey, And with all the Armies of Elf-land I strove like a beast at…
For every tiny town or place God made the stars especially; Babies look up with owlish face And see them tangled in a tree; You saw a moon from Sussex Downs, A Sussex moon, untravelled still, I saw a moon that was the town’s, The largest lamp on Campden Hill. Yea; Heaven is everywhere at…
Love is enough for the loving, love without self’s alloy, Its mighty breast enfolding the flame of a secret joy. Love is enough for the loving as pure of envy and strife, It is poured as a fiery torrent from the brimming urns of Life. Love is no money-changer, to weigh the return…
Not that the widespread wings of wrong brood o’er a moaning earth, Not from the clinging curse of gold, the random lot of birth; Not from the misery of the weak, the madness of the strong, Goes upward from our lips the cry, “How long, oh Lord, how long?” Not only from the huts of…
bethandbear.com 