Family, According to Chesterton

If you are a fan of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, you should read G.K. Chesterton's work. Born in 1874 (died in 1936), Gilbert Keith Chesterton was a Catholic theologian, playwright, and social critic. His works, ranging widely from detective stories to poetry to apologetics, are always deep with insight and laden with humor. Lewis, though he never met Chesterton, was profoundly influenced by Chesterton's book, The Everlasting Man.

I myself haven't read much of Chesterton's writings, but my husband has shared passages with me. Recently, I was astounded to hear Chesterton write on God's purpose for family in his book Heretics. Here are a few excerpts:

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbor. Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and as indifferent as rain... It is a good thing for a man to live in a family for the same reason that it is a good thing for a man to be besieged in a city... [or] snowed up in a street. They all force him to realize that life is not a thing from the outside, but a thing from the inside. Above all, they insist upon the fact that life, if it be a truly stimulating and fascinating life, is a thing which, of its nature, exists in spite of ourselves...

The family is a good institution because it is uncongenial... Those who wish, rightly or wrongly, to step out of all this, do definitely wish to step into a narrower world... This is, indeed the sublime and special romance of the family. It is romantic because it is a toss-up... because it is arbitrary... The element of adventure begins to exist; for an adventure is, by its nature, a thing that comes to us. It is a thing that chooses us, not a thing that we choose...

When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which could do without us, into a world that we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family, we step into a fairy-tale.

An adventure... a fairy-tale... how Chesterton puts a different spin on family! We tend to view family as a job, a duty, a responsibility... nothing as magical as Chesterton describes. And yet, just as a pregnant mother anticipates the birth of her baby like a child anticipates opening a Christmas present, there is an element of surprise there, isn't there?

And though Chesterton describes the "romance of the family" as being a "toss-up" and "arbitrary", keep in mind that it is only from our perspective that it is so. For God, there are no surprises- He's the one who wrapped the presents! The people in your family were hand-picked by God to be in your lives. Whatever disagreements you have with your parents, or difficulties you have with your children, think about these relationship as stories that is written by the great Author Himself!


If you are interested in reading more of Chesterton's works, my husband and I recommend Orthodoxy, Manalive, and his detective stories, The Father Brown Mysteries and Club of Queer Trades.