Issue No. 403 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting is important and confessional. Read my review of the new book on G.K. Chesterton. It’s witty, wise, and worth your time. I promise! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and visit Issue No. 397 for my 2018 Book-of-the-Year and my Top-10 books of 2018.
Who Is This Guy and Why Haven’t I Heard of Him?
G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936) “was once asked what advice he would give to a young journalist. He said he would tell him to write one article for the Sporting Times and one for the Religious Times and then put them in the wrong envelopes.”
Oh, my. You must read this book—because the envelope story is a brilliant summary of the person John Ortberg called “one of the most erudite and creative Christian writers in the first half of the twentieth Christian century.”
Author Dale Ahlquist, who leads the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, adds to the envelope story: “This was essentially the advice he followed himself his whole journalistic career. He wrote about religion for the secular papers. But he didn’t write about religion per se. He wrote about religion when he was writing about everything else.”
Hot-off-the-press this year, Knight of the Holy Ghost: A Short History of G. K. Chesterton, is just 170 pages, and I can’t stop talking about it. (Ask my wife, Joanne!)
But first…a confession. For years, I’ve dropped witty G.K. Chesterton quotes into conversations, articles, books, and blogs—but with some guilt. Who was this guy? Well, I knew he was from England. Writer. Thinker. (Oh, look…there’s another perfect quotation. Thanks, G.K.!)
I’ve borrowed John Ortberg’s tribute to Chesterton (in The Life You’ve Always Wanted) many times:
“If you were marooned on a desert island and could have only a single book with you, what would you choose? Somebody once asked this question of G. K. Chesterton. Given his reputation as one of the most erudite and creative Christian writers in the first half of the twentieth Christian century, one would naturally expect his response to be the Bible. It was not. Chesterton chose Thomas' Guide to Practical Shipbuilding.”
I’ve also recycled these Chesterton favorites:
• “I’ve searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees.”
• “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”
• “The Bible tells us to love our neighbor and to love our enemy, generally because they are the same people.”
Some book reviews write themselves. Not this one—because Chesterton’s depth and breadth (he weighed 300 pounds) are stunning. Writer. Speaker. Wit. Christ-follower. (You can thank me now for not writing a 5,000-word review.)
Amazingly, Ahlquist’s “short history” is comprehensive, inspiring, and breath-taking. After listing a dozen favorite Chesterton quotes including, “Satire has weakened in our epoch for several reasons, but chiefly, I think, because the world has become too absurd to be satirized” (Take that—Babylon Bee! Take that—Lark News!), the author respects Chesterton’s humor with his own playful style—punctuated with truth.
Ahlquist: “I could go on and on. I often do. Chesterton is delicious. His words provide exquisite flavor and enormous satisfaction. But what do we especially notice in the above quotations besides how clearly and crisply the truth bursts out of them? They are utterly timely. They describe today. Yet they were written a hundred years ago.”
On the jam-packed website of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, you must read “Who Is This Guy and Why Haven’t I Heard of Him?” by Dale Ahlquist:
“Born in London, G.K. Chesterton was educated at St. Paul’s, but never went to college. He went to art school. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some 200 short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown.
“In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4,000 newspaper essays, including 30 years’ worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.”
The author adds, “To put it into perspective, 4,000 essays is the equivalent of writing an essay a day, every day, for 11 years. If you’re not impressed, try it some time. But they have to be good essays—all of them—as funny as they are serious, and as readable and rewarding a century after you’ve written them.”
Stunning! And I agree with Ahlquist. Chesterton is timely—2019 timely:
• He writes on the utter failure of socialism, but also the warped values of capitalism. (“Capitalism does not care about marriage.”) He championed distributism. (Learn more here.)
• “Modern materialism is solemn about sports because it has no other rites to solemnize.”
• Abortion: “He said it should be called by its real name: ‘murder at its worst; not only the brand of Cain but the brand of Herod.’”
• The politician: “His whole career has only two stages: first, as quickly as possible to represent his town; then as quickly as possible to misrepresent it.”
• “Every political question is a religious question.”
• Alhquist summarizing Chesterton: “Progress has become an ideal, even though its goal is not defined, which makes the word meaningless.”
The author notes that “a better title for Chesterton may be the General of Generalizations.” And “…if Chesterton had a specialty, it was everything. Everything was the thing he was always writing about, everything involved in being human.” Yet—as you’ll read in this heart-probing book, Chesterton’s entire being pointed to God. (Always a believer, he became Catholic just 12 years before his death. He was 62 when he died.)
The book has just three sections: The Man, The Writer, and The Saint? The author shares Fr. Vincent McNabb’s sweet memory of G.K.’s head and heart:
“It was hard to speak with Gilbert Chesterton and not to think—and to think of God. Even the atheist who spoke with him, and who would have despised the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, felt he would like to know about the God of Gilbert Chesterton—this God whom the very laughter of Gilbert Chesterton seemed to prove was such a lovably human, though transcendent being…”
That reminded me of King David’s charge: “Solomon, my son, get to know the God of your fathers.” (1 Chron. 28:9, TLB)
Enjoy this intellectual and inspirational feast and see why the author honors Chesterton with the title, “Knight of the Holy Ghost.” This just might be my 2019 book-of-the-year. I can’t stop talking about it.
To order from Amazon, click on the title for Knight of the Holy Ghost: A Short History of G. K. Chesterton, by Dale Ahlquist. (And thanks to Carmel Communications and Ignatius Press for the review copy.)
If you’re a listener (not a reader), check out other books by Chesterton at Libro.fm.
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Joanne and I are faithful fans of the Father Brown series on PBS. Ahlquist notes that Chesterton’s new genre of the “priest sleuth” and the “underdog detective” changed the course of detective fiction. “Everyone thinks he’s naïve. It doesn’t occur to them that a guy who listens to confessions might know something about how the criminal mind works.” Discuss: what other wisdom advantages do priests and pastors have over many of us?
2) Reading about Chesterton prompted me to imagine a roundtable discussion with Chesterton (1874-1936), C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), Peter Drucker (1909-2005), Andrew Murray (1828-1917), and Mother Teresa (1910-1997). Who would you add to the panel?
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The Culture Bucket: Counterfeit Holiness
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook
Because Chesterton’s specialty was “everything,” I’m inclined to list his book in all 20 management buckets. But if I had to choose just one today, it would be The Culture Bucket. This week I recommended Humility, by Andrew Murray, on the Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations blog. Murray and Chesterton align:
• Murray: “The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility.”
• Chesterton: “The best kind of giving is thanksgiving.”
• Murray: “Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure.”
• “The Donkey,” by Chesterton, “is a sweet and simple poem about how the humble shall be exalted.”
As you focus on results, customers, strategy, and more—don’t neglect culture. For more resources visit The Culture Bucket webpage here.
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What’s Wrong With the World?
JASON PEARSON’s 2016 solo exhibition, “The Problem With the World Is Me,” was inspired by G.K. Chesterton’s response when The Times of London invited intellectuals to respond to the question, “What’s the problem with the world?” View Jason’s three-minute video with Chesterton’s two-word answer.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Chesterton wrote, “We are putting all the best things to all the worst uses.” To position your message against the grain—and to thrive—check out the innovative ideas from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). Click here.
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