It is a good thing for a man to live in
a family in the same sense that it is a beautiful and delightful thing for a
man to be snowed up in a street. It forces him to realize that life is not a
thing from outside, but a thing from inside. Above all, life, if it is to be a
truly stimulating and fascinating life, is a thing which, of its nature, exists
in spite of ourselves.
The modern writers who have suggested,
in a more or less open manner, that the family is a bad institution have
generally confined themselves to suggesting, with much sharpness, bitterness,
or pathos, that perhaps the family is not always very congenial. Of course the
family is a good institution because it is uncongenial.
It is wholesome precisely because it
contains so many divergencies and varieties. It is, as the sentimentalists,
like a little kingdom, and like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a
state of something resembling anarchy.
It is exactly because our brother
George is not interested in our religious difficulties, but is interested in
the Trocadero Restaurant, that the family has some of the bracing qualities of
the commonwealth. It is precisely because our uncle Henry does not approve of
the theatrical ambitions of our sister Sarah that the family is like humanity.
The men and women who, for good reasons
or bad, revolt against the family are, for good reasons and bad, simply
revolting against mankind. Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, like mankind. Papa
is excitable, like mankind. Our youngest brother is mischievous, like mankind.
Grandpapa is stupid, like the world; he is old, like the world…
The best way that a man could test his
readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a
chimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with the
people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that
he was born. This is, indeed, the sublime and special romance of the family. It
is romantic because it is a toss-up. It is romantic because it is arbitrary. It
is romantic because it is there.
GK Chesterton, Heretics
Reflection –
Chesterton goes on at some length in this vein, and it is
all very amusing and delightful. Clearly he is passionate about the subject,
not just of the family, but of the essentially romantic and picaresque nature
of life itself. The most romantic and startling thing that has ever happened to
any of us was being born (even if we were too young to make note of it at the
time). Even falling in love, he says, does not compare to this, since there is
always some element of choice in that event. Being born is the shocking plot
twist that none of us could have foreseen, and over which none of us has the
slightest measure of control.
Just to give a bit more of the flavor of
his prose, he says that ‘our father and mother do lie in wait for us and leap
out on us, like brigands from a bush. Our uncle is a surprise. Our aunt is, in
the beautiful common expression, a bolt from the blue.’ Now the tragic
philosopher, Sartre for example, would maunder on at this point about nausea
and ‘l’enfer, c’est les autres’ and such blather (I would have loved to see
what GKC would have made of Sartre).
But really, it is not so much hell that
is made up of other people, as, well Middle Earth. Narnia. Never-never land.
The great adventure, the great sweeping epic story, is found nowhere but in the
call to sally forth from the safe confines of the womb into the grand adventure
of life and the very strange people indeed we find there.
A young couple I know just had their
first baby. They are a very funny, goofy couple (who read this blog from time
to time, so, um - hi, guys!), and I was joking with them that this poor kid had
no idea what she was getting herself into by showing up in this particular
home. But ain’t that the truth for all of us. We had no idea what we were
getting ourselves in to.
We are all Robinson Crusoe, shipwrecked
on the island of the world, foraging and salvaging a life from the bits and
pieces of wreckage, flora, and fauna we find. We are all the child stolen by
fairies in one of the old folk tales, but the fairies were our parents and our
siblings. We are all embarked on a story we did not write, populated by
characters we would never have chosen, with an ending we cannot possibly guess
at (and no peeking ahead allowed!).
We can sit down and mourn and weep at how
lousy it all is and how nauseous it makes us and what a rotten no good story it
is. Or we can accept the adventure as it has been given to us, and get on with
it.
True, some people’s adventures are salted with a great deal more suffering
and darkness than others. Given my ministry as a priest, I would be the last
person to be unaware of that, or insensible to it. But nonetheless—adventure it
is, one of those ‘choose your own adventure’ books, since our choices in it do
affect the ending.
I believe even the darkest and grimmest of the grim fairy tales
has a happy ending on offer, and that fact is what keeps us in the battle, on
the quest, fighting the dragon, wooing the princess, fleeing the wicked king,
scaling the cliff—whatever and wherever your story and mine takes us. And with
that, I’ve got some dragons to slay and cliffs to scale today, so I’d better
sign off for now! Have a good adventure.
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