An excerpt from my reading in “Orthodoxy”, by Gilbert Chesterton. So far so good. He will get into doctrine later on in the book, but at first confronts points of view from which we see these doctrines. He explores what makes a man “mad”, and/or “sane”. You’d have to read it to get it all, but so far to sum it up…the mad man analyzes EVERYTHING. The mad man uses logic (based in the self) and in an attempt to explain everything, drives himself to a maddened state. The sane man is completely aware of complexities, and is okay with not being able to analyze them all. The illustration of the “Mad Hatter” was a good one, from Alice in Wonderland. He’s mad because he spends his life “measuring the heads of men”. Analyzing, figuring out, and breaking down each person he meets, he drives himself mad. Anyways…here is a small section I thought pretty good….it was hard to stop copying it, because every sentence gave way to another…u’ll have to read it to fully appreciate it. But here’s a sample:

“Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand.”

Lord help us to continue in the MYSTERY of God. Amen.