G.K. Chesterton

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1. svieiraApr 2020
   Start with _The Gorgias_ by Plato - does Justice exist? Then move on to _Orthodoxy_ by G. K. Chesterton (why does Justice require free will and the soul). Finish up with the Gospel of John.

   For a more detailed breakdown, take a look at _The Four Cardinal Virtues_ by Josef Pieper

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2. glidefreshJul 2019
   St. Augustine - Confessions (first spiritual autobiography) or City of God

   G. K. Chesterton - The Everlasting Man

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3. yesenadamNov 2017
   Metaphors We Live By - Lakoff/Johnson

   Philosophy in the Flesh - L/J

   Rationalism in Politics - Oakeshott

   Erving Goffman – Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

   Walter Lippmann – Public Opinion

   Art as Experience - John Dewey

   Plutarch's Lives

   G.K. Chesterton – Heretics

   (essay) William James - On A Certain Blindness in Human Beings (and its sequel)

   (essay) R.L. Stevenson - The Lantern-Bearers

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4. michaelsbradleyMar 2015
   Gerard Manley Hopkins[1], G.K. Chesterton[2] and John Bradburne[3].

       Spring and Fall
       
       to a young child
       
       Margaret, are you grieving
       Over Goldengrove unleaving?
       Leaves, like the things of man, you
       With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
       Ah! as the heart grows older
       It will come to such sights colder
       By and by, nor spare a sigh
       Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
       And yet you will weep know why.
       Now no matter, child, the name:
       Sorrow’s springs are the same.
       Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
       What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
       It is the blight man was born for,
       It is Margaret you mourn for.
       
       – Hopkins, 1880
       
       
       A Little Litany
       
       When God turned back eternity and was young,
       Ancient of Days, grown little for your mirth
       (As under the low arch the land is bright)
       Peered through you, gate of heaven—and saw the earth.
       
       Or shutting out his shining skies awhile
       Built you about him for a house of gold
       To see in pictured walls his storied world
       Return upon him as a tale is told.
       
       Or found his mirror there; the only glass
       That would not break with that unbearable light
       Till in a corner of the high dark house
       God looked on God, as ghosts meet in the night.
       
       Star of his morning; that unfallen star
       In that strange starry overturn of space
       When earth and sky changed places for an hour
       And heaven looked upwards in a human face.
       
       Or young on your strong knees and lifted up
       Wisdom cried out, whose voice is in the street,
       And more than twilight of twiformed cherubim
       Made of his throne indeed a mercy-seat.
       
       Or risen from play at your pale raiment's hem
       God, grown adventurous from all time's repose,
       Or your tall body climbed the ivory tower
       And kissed upon your mouth the mystic rose.
       
       – Chesterton
       
       
       Love
       
       Love is a short disease, a long desire,
       A strong and lasting healing; love is like
       An angler landing fish, a hand at lyre,
       A roadhog flogging home his motor-bike;
       Love is a deep unsleeping thing, leaps time
       And steeps amidst eternity for rest
       And love is like three candles lighting rhyme
       And metre I am making for the best;
       An Alleluiatic sequence shows
       A little of love's eloquence that lasts;
       Love has three lights, one to another glows,
       A third proceeds between: naught overcasts
       True love because it knows that it possesses,
       Being possessed, a zest above distresses.
       
       – Bradburne, 1971
   
   

   There are a couple of rare recordings of John Bradburne reciting his own poetry[4]. Much of his work was completely unknown until after his death in 1979 – he wrote about 6,000 poems.

   [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Manley_Hopkins

   [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton

   [3] http://www.johnbradburnepoems.com/

   [4] http://vimeo.com/michaelbradleyjr/love

   [&] http://vimeo.com/michaelbradleyjr/mombe

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5. phalangionMar 2022
   Chesterton's fence refers to a principle that before changing something, you should first understand why it is the way it is.

   > Chesterton’s Fence is a heuristic inspired by a quote from the writer and polymath G. K. Chesterton’s 1929 book, The Thing. It’s best known as being one of John F. Kennedy’s favored sayings, as well as a principle Wikipedia encourages its editors to follow. In the book, Chesterton describes the classic case of the reformer who notices something, such as a fence, and fails to see the reason for its existence. However, before they decide to remove it, they must figure out why it exists in the first place. If they do not do this, they are likely to do more harm than good with its removal. In its most concise version, Chesterton’s Fence states the following: Do not remove a fence until you know why it was put up in the first place.

   [0] https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/

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