Orthodoxy

“What could be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humane security of coming home again?”

Typical of his style, Chesterton uses the paradox of adventure and homecoming to illustrate the point of discovering something completely brand new to the individual that nevertheless is quite ancient and well-known to others. Making a discovery that others have already made is, as he says, like landing on a beach you’ve never seen only to discover that it’s actually just down the road from where you live. In his own life, this is what it was like to discover that there was truth in the Christian religion.

“Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite.”

Chesterton compares the impact of the arts on an individual’s mindset with that of the “saner” pursuits of math or technical sciences. Chesterton is convinced that it is more rational pursuits that will eventually drive an individual “insane” due to the fact that any rational attempt to totally understand the universe is simply impossible. Poetry and the arts, however, are intrinsically open to the transcendent and the infinite and are therefore much more suitable avenues for looking into the deeper questions about life.