SOFTLY SINGS THE DONKEY POEM FULL

Ridiculous.Ĭhesterton wrote a bit of poetry, including an epic ballad about King Alfred the Great called “ The Ballad of the White Horse“.

We can understand then the old dictum from Tertullian, “I believe because it is absurd.” All of this comes to a head during Holy Week, where the author of life is put to death and raised up again to restore sinners to a place they do not deserve.

SOFTLY SINGS THE DONKEY POEM FULL

“Courage”, Chesterton wrote, “means a strong desire to live taking the form of a willingness to die.” And of course, Jesus’ own words were full of paradoxes: “Whosoever will lose his life, will find it.” Christianity is absurd, wild, and reeling.

Forgiveness (real forgiveness) means forgiving the unforgivable. Love, Caritas, means loving the unloveable. The Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection are all cosmic paradoxes. I’ll spare you that, except to say this: Chesterton saw that paradox was at the heart of Christianity. I’m tempted here to go on and on and on about paradox and to quote heavily from his brilliant chapter from Orthodoxy, “The Paradoxes of Christianity”. Or as Chesterton put it, “truth standing on its head to gain attention.” And if truth is standing on its head, then in order to see it clearly, we need to stand on our heads, to turn our worldview upside down, to come out of our cave walking on our hands and see the world hanging upside down . A paradox is a truth disguised as a contradiction. Paradox, is at the heart of his worldview, his writing, and his life. If Chesterton is known for anything, it’s paradoxes. A six-foot two-inch, two-hundred-fifty pound donkey. Chesterton was many things: an essayist, artist, a social commentator, husband, master of paradoxes, convert…donkey.

Softly sings the donkey poem