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Tuesday 4 March 2008

Saint GK suggests I have a nice glass of Shiraz

From Chesterton's Heretics, courtesy of Father Boyle, a "South Ashford Priest" http://south-ashford-priest.blogspot.com/ we receive this bit of sage advice , (the "Apostle of Common Sense" indeed!)

Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.
Never drink when you are wretched without it, or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be like the laughing peasant of Italy.
Never drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell.
But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world....
Jesus Christ made wine, not a medicine, but a sacrament. But Omar [Khayam?] makes it, not a sacrament, but a medicine.
He feasts because life is not joyful; he revels because he is not glad.
"Drink," he says, "for you know not whence you come nor why.
Drink, for you know not when you go nor where.
Drink, because the stars are cruel and the world as idle as a humming-top.
Drink, because there is nothingworth trusting, nothing worth fighting for.
Drink, because all things are lapsed in a base equality and an evil peace."
So he stands offering his cup in his hand.

And at the high altar of Christianity stands another figure, in whose hand also is the cup of the vine.
"Drink" he says "for the whole world is as red as this wine, with the crimson of the love and wrath of God.
Drink, for the trumpets are blowing for battle and this is the stirrup-cup.
Drink, for this my blood of the new testament that is shed for you.
Drink, for I know of whence you come and why.
Drink, for I know of when you go and where."

So first --- simple advice, almost a bit of self-help.
And then teased out from that, so naturally and obviously that it seems as if anyone should have figured it out, as if a dolt could have said it, rather than the genuius that Chesterton is, sublime and poetic theology.
Magnificent.

1 comment:

Sir Monocle said...

I loved this one!