A Promising Paradox? by Susan Caldwell

What is wrong with the world today?

I humbly submit as my answer the same one G. K. Chesterton gave “The Times”, almost a century ago, when they invited him to write an essay on the topic.

“Dear Sirs,
What is wrong with the world today?
I am.”

Sincerely,
G. K. Chesterton

With that said, I feel compelled to share some thoughts about the world around me that these following quotes from Chesterton’s life awoke in me.

"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." - Everlasting Man, 1925
I do not want to be a dead thing…a dead thing in the world around me or in the Church. And yet sadly I fear that choosing to be alive today means I will be fighting an “upstream” battle the whole time…and for the most part this battle may be against mainstream Christianity in America.

"The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice." - ILN, 6/11/10
I have yet to meet a person who can or will tell the whole truth, not just to others but to himself most of all. We must not really believe “the truth will set us free” or else we would be the first to tell on ourselves…and even more determine to help those we say we love tell on themselves. Leaving us shackled to the half-truth, “only tell what you want known” proving what we really believe is true… better safe than...free.

"Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice." - ILN 9/11/09
The church in America today commits idolatry by setting up the false god of the perfect Christian parent or the perfect Christian spouse. And this is reflected most clearly in our false devils; by making children fear; sex or underage drinking or the worst offense, the exposure of any behavior that would make us look like bad parents, when we should be afraid of our own spiritual corruption and cowardice.

"I would rather a boy learnt in the roughest school the courage to hit a politician, or gained in the hardest school the learning to refute him - rather than that he should gain in the most enlightened school the cunning to copy him." (ILN 8-31-12)
How will our children determine what is holy, good, right, whole truth and honorable when we are working so hard to teach them to copy? I want my children to have courage not to fear. I want them to have the ability to think for themselves and to walk in whole truth. I want them to have freedom to refute those who use fear to manipulate. I want them to live in and with a community that is willing to stop being controlled by the need to conform. I want my children to hold mirrors up to themselves…looking into their own hearts…driving them to confession instead of the cunning to copy an image.

I find what Chesterton articulated so brilliantly, the paradox of living as a sinful man while aspiring to reflect and follow the teachings of Jesus, continues to be my struggle as well. And while I find comfort and inspiration in his words it is the actions of a woman who said these words “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts there can be no more hurt only more love,” (Mother Teresa) that rekindles my desire to keep living in this promising paradox and even if I am never able to change anything in me or around me I able to keep choosing to try.