Chesterton's Orthodox Paradox - continued

This morning as I read on the bus, Chesterton introduced to me the problem of the martyr and the suicide. Christianity teaches us to love the first and despise the last. Interestingly, Chesterton notes that even before he was a Christian his heart swelled at the song of the martyr and his hate reviled toward the stench of the suicide.

Courage as he put it - at least in my paraphrase - Courage is not the hatred of death, instead it is the love of life to the extreme, a love that acknowledges the truth that in order to save your own life you must loss it or be willing to lose it. The hero is not drawn to action by a death wish, he is moved by the truth that the way of the coward will most surely get him killed, but if he can slash his way through the enemy's parapet he may yet save his life through victory.

Courage becomes a peculiar institution as I see it bend and churl, much like I imagine the smoke from Chesterton's cigar or pipe. While at the moment the pattern makes perfect symmetry, after the fact I am hard pressed to describe it, or even present it in such a way that you know at all it was smoke I witnessed. Nevertheless I still have the odor of the thing on my clothes and know that when I was in its presence the smell was sweet like that of truth.

The suicide is another story. In this case it is not the love of life that causes the thing. It is the hatred of it. There is no glory in it only cowardice and contempt. In this East and West differ completely. I imagine that the Christian morality surrounding suicide is hard to swallow for someone who was raised to believe that it was the most honorable way to die. While Chesterton found a draw to Christianity from this chivalric bent had he been from the East it may have been a great stumbling block.

It seems to me that many paradoxes exist. Most often they confuse me. I may never fully understand the depth of Mr. Chesterton's writings but I do know that each time I walk away from them I can smell truth on my clothes -- or is that cigar smoke?