I want to be able to emulate G.K. Chesterton\u2019s charism of gratitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.\u201d (A Short History of England \u00bb Ch. 6: The Age of the Crusades)<\/p>
\u201cAnd they specially affected one idea; which I hope it is not pompous to call the chief idea of my life; I will not say the doctrine I have always taught, but the doctrine I should always have liked to teach. That is the idea of taking things with gratitude, and not taking things for granted.\u201d (Autobiography, XVI.\u2014The God with the Golden Key)<\/p>
\u201cYou say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.\u201d (early notebook, mid 1890s)*<\/p>
\u201cThe test of all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful, though I hardly knew to whom. Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth?\u201d (Orthodoxy, \u201cThe Ethics of Elfland\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Note: Often you see the above quote with \u201cGod\u201d substituted for \u201cSanta Clause.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Plus this zinger:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Americans have established a Thanksgiving Day to celebrate the fact that the Pilgrim Fathers reached America. The English might very well establish another Thanksgiving Day to celebrate the happy fact that the Pilgrim Fathers left England.\u201d (Chesterton in America \u201cAnd What about the Quakers?\u201d)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I want to be able to emulate G.K. Chesterton\u2019s charism of gratitude. \u201cI would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-punditry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17230,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17229\/revisions\/17230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}