A Cup of Chesterton

Sometimes rambling and venting and writing are soothing and useful. Words tumble frantically onto a page as I sort out the racing in my mind and the jumbling in my heart. But sometimes an empty cup needs to be filled.

Sometimes, when the words just won't sort themselves into sentences and the thoughts won't arrange themselves into paragraphs, the solution lies not in my pen but in my books.

And so, on this quiet fall evening, I hope these words of G.K. Chesterton, full of far more wisdom than I possess, bring you as much calm and insight as they have bestowed on me.

"You have not wasted your time; you have helped to save the world. We are not buffoons, but very desperate men at war with a vast conspiracy."

"To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless."

“The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.” 

“Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do?” 

“What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.” 

“Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.” 

“In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless, that hope begins to dawn.” 

“The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle - and not lose it.”