A Eulogy for GK.Chesterton

I read this eulogy in a book called Pastoral and Occasional Sermons by Monsignor Ronald Knox, edited by Philip Caraman, S.J.
It was a very good eulogy, showing how Chesterton went against the ways of the times to say what is right. And how even though Chesterton did not convert until much later in life, he always defended Catholicism.
The dedication poem for The Man Who Was Thursday is quoted:

But we were young; we lived to see God break their bitter charms-
God and the good Republic came riding back in arms;
We have seen the city of Mansoul even as it rocked, relieved-
Blessed are they who have not seen, but, being blind believed.

I really liked it and I hope I can find it on the internet somewhere, in which case I will post a link. If you're interested in buying the book you can here, it's half price right now.

Future ChesterTeen...

.... at least I hope so. Click here for a picture of this young Chestertonian.

Chesterton's Marriage Proposal

I was browsing The American Chesterton Society website which led me to "Quotemeister" which led me to this.
Enjoy.

Dorm Decor

As I mentioned in the last post many of us were gone at retreat last week. Gilbert Girl, another friend and I roomed together, and we had alot of fun decorating. I brought some post-it notes and we wrote some of our favorite quotes on them and stuck them all over the walls, here are the quotes we used:

"Daybreak is never ending glory, Getting out of bed is a never ending nuisance."

"There is no such thing as an unintesting subject, the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person."

"The men of the east may spell the stars,
and times and triumphs mark;
But the men signed with the Cross of Christ,
Go gaily in the dark."

"Journalism consists largely in saying 'Lord James is Dead' to people who never knew Lord James was alive."

"The Optimist is the person who thinks all the world is good except the pessimist
and the pessimist is the person who thinks all the world is bad except himself."

"Angels fly because they can take themselves lightly.''

By the way I'm sorry about the scanty posting, our family computer is broken so I haven't had as much time on the computer.

A Little Downtime on ChesterTeens

Almost all the contributors here will be at a retreat this week. So things wll be a little quieter this week than usual.

Please Pray.

Regina Doman, the author of The Shadow of the Bear which got many of us into Chesterton, lost her four year old son, Joshua Michael, in a car accident last week.
Please pray for her and her grieving family. May he rest in peace.

Chesterton and the Da Vinci Code

I absolutely LOVED this talk. Carl Olson is sooooo funny! He was cracking jokes through almost the whole talk, it was hilarious. I was supposed to clean my room for twenty minutes and so I decided to listen to part of his talk, I was in my room for at least an hour.
He began by asking how many people had read and/or watched The Da Vinci Code, he then remarked for those peoples benifit that there would be confessions later on.
He also read a review by Barnes and Noble on this book, The Da Vinci Hoax. They seem to think that since The Da Vinci Code is "just fiction" that it's not dangerous.
On the contrary I think it is more dangerous in the form of novel because people are more likely to be interested in reading a novel than a non-fiction book.

He continued througout the talk to summarize the inconsistencies in Dan Brown's novel. The absurdness of these, plus Carl Olson's sarcasim made for a absolutely hilarious talk. My brother and I had a great time.

"Abandon All Hopelessness Ye Who Enter Here"

We just got the set of ChesterCon CDs. I have finished Dale Ahlquist's and Carl Olsen's, and I really like them both. I am going to blog about Dale Ahlquist's first and then do Carl Olsen's.
Dale Ahlquist's was really good, it was really funny too. He read the last paragraph of the Charles Dickens book, which talks mostly about eternity. Then he said"That may be the end of the book but it is not the end of this talk, you are just beginning to learn the meaning of eternity."(:
And then of course there are the actual Chesterton quotes that are always hilarious. Like this one:

The strength of Cromwell was that he cared for religion, but the strength of relgion was that it did not care for Cromwell.

But it wasn't all laughter, he was explaining to us about hope. That hope isn't pessimism or optimism but that it is a the happy medium between these extremes. Of course he had many great Chesterton quotes to go with it and I'll try do my best to remember them.

The optimist is the person who thinks all the world is good except the pessimist and the pessimist is the person who thinks that all the world is bad except himself.

(to be continued) (hopefully:)