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<\/a>Chapter 1, Introduction, \u201cIn Defense of Everything Else\u201d<\/b><\/p>\nChesterton begins and ends this short opening chapter laughing at himself\u2014as someone \u201conly too ready to write books upon the feeblest provocation,\u201d and as the author of \u201ca sort of slovenly autobiography.\u201d He claims the book is being written in response to a critic. It all seems like a pose.<\/p>\n
But inside the pose and at the heart of the chapter is an evocative tale that can be read on several levels of meaning: A British yachtsman, Chesterton writes, \u201cslightly miscalculated his course\u201d and, in search of an exotic port of call, landed in England, where he began. According to Chesterton, the yachtsman thought England both exotic and familiar.<\/p>\n
Chesterton is the yachtsman. Like every thinking, feeling human, Chesterton and the yachtsman want a life of what he calls \u201cpractical romance,\u201d one in which one feels simultaneously \u201castonished\u201d and \u201cat home.\u201d Also, like other English intellectuals of his era (late 19th\u2013early 20th century), like H. G. Welles and G. B Shaw, for two examples, Chesterton confesses that he wanted to be in the avant garde of modern thought. Instead he found himself embracing the oldest, most orthodox creed of all, the Apostles\u2019 Creed. The book, he says, will explain why.<\/p>\n
My comment here is brief: Like Chesterton in the late 19th century, I took such a journey, in the late 1960s, setting out for the exotic only to find myself, 40 years later, back home in England. I left the known confines of the Episcopal Church when I went away to boarding school, and I began to sample the spiritual smorgasbord then available. I read, and in some cases tried to apply the insights of (in alphabetical order) Baha\u2019i, the Gurdjieff Work, Sufism, Swedenborgianism, Yoga, and Zen. I know I\u2019m leaving things out, but I promised brief.<\/p>\n
Now, 40 years later, I find myself very much back in England, though Rome is more to the point. Where Episcopalianism offered a cheeseburg and fries, Catholicism provides a full gourmet dinner built around filet mignon (medium, please) and capped off with my favorite dessert, angel food cake, whipped cream, and fresh strawberries. But the main course is still just beef.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Not only do I find myself back where I started, but drawing on Chesterton\u2019s great metaphor, I find tremendous romance in the ordinary dailiness of my Catholic life. I used to look at the red brick fa\u00e7ade of my church (left) from a mental distance and think, Oh, nice. I used to watch parishioners streaming into St. Mary Star of the Sea every Sunday and think, Oh, Catholics.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/6738513599344023043-8749553421285913252?l=yimcatholic.blogspot.com\")
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