The late Elie Wiesel, famed writer and holocaust survivor, commented that there is divine beauty in learning, just as there is human beauty in tolerance. Most of us as Christians believe in the value of tolerance even if we cannot define what it means. The Concise Oxford Dictionary speaks of tolerance as forbearance which means to completely bear with someone’s failings as you patiently give them time to grow. As Ephesian 4:2 says, we are to be patient, forbearing and bearing with one another in love. To joyfully tolerate someone doesn’t mean that we need to agree with them. As Dr John Gottman puts it, when you honor and respect each other, you’re usually able to appreciate each other’s point of view, even if you don’t agree with it. You don’t need to be a moral relativist winking at sin, in order to be biblically tolerant. The joy of tolerance is the love of neighbour, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Tolerance is also about choosing to forgive. As Colossians 3:13 puts it, we need to be forbearing one another and forgiving one another, if you have any quarrel against one another. Sometimes our children and teenagers greatly try our patience, particularly when they may be teasing their siblings. The joy of tolerance includes setting healthy boundaries while not giving up on painful people, including our family members.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary also speaks of tolerance as recognition of the right of private judgement in religious matters, including the liberty to uphold one’s religious opinions and forms of worship. Our democratic freedoms, like freedom of thought, speech and assembly, enshrined in our Bill of Rights, are all rooted in the primary freedom, which is freedom of religion. The British Act of Toleration in 1689 was a huge step forward in advancing the democratic rights of people to freedom of religion. GK Chesterton commented that tolerance sometimes leads to timidity where people become afraid to even mention their religious views. True tolerance doesn’t push religion into a closet but welcomes it joyfully in the public square. Intolerance is often like bad breath and body odor; it is difficult to always notice one’s own intolerance. Sometimes people who pride themselves on being more tolerant than others end up intolerantly looking down on other people. Dr Timothy Keller commented: “If you’re intolerant of people you think are intolerant, you’re still intolerant. If you are judgmental of people you think are judgmental, you are judgmental.” Sometimes smokers in our postmodern culture are intolerantly treated like outcasts. We Christians need to remember to love the smoker even if we cannot tolerate their second-hand smoke.
We visited all 10,000 homes in the Seymour/Deep Cove area, inviting people to the March 3rd to 5th 2017 Festival of Hope at Rogers Arena with Franklin Graham. We were impressed by the tolerant welcome and hospitality of our neighbours. Even atheists would kindly engage us in fascinating conversations. True tolerance does not have to agree in order to love. As Romans 2:4 says, God himself is tolerant, forbearing, kind and patient, giving us time to change and turn back. My prayer for the Lower Mainland Christian community is that we would grow in joyful tolerance as we share our common faith in the one Lord Jesus.
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a personally signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
The late G.K. Chesterton is one of the most significant writers in the past hundred years.[1] His ‘friendly enemy’ George Bernard Shaw called him a colossal genius.[2] Chesterton wrote many biographies, including those of Robert Louis Stevenson, William Chaucer, St Benedict and St Francis of Assisi. Chesterton’s biography on St Francis told us as much about Chesterton as about St. Francis. They had remarkable things in common. Both Chesterton and Francis had a grateful appreciation of the gift of God’s creation. Rather than exploit nature, they both cared for it as faithful stewards. Who can forget the classic 1972 movie ‘Brother Sun Sister Moon’, with its message of peace so loved by the hippies of San Francisco (Spanish for Saint Francis)?[3] As Chesterton noted, “St Francis was so fiery and even fidgety that the church officials, before he appeared quite suddenly, thought he was a madman.”[4] To renounce his wealthy father’s materialism did not make any initial sense to most people in his home town of Assisi. Both Francis and Chesterton were radically spontaneously generous to the poor and hurting. Everything they did for others was out of gratitude for Jesus’ sacrificial love on the cross.
There was a playful laughter with both Francis and Chesterton that won the hearts of millions. Both used humorous drama to awaken the world from its cynical slumber.[5] Chesterton was called the Angelic Jester.[6] There is in both Chesterton and Francis an endearing childlikeness and innocence that draws people to Christ. Joseph Pearce, a Chesterton biographer, noted that “…the paradox of innocent wisdom was a fertile ground for Chesterton’s imagination.”[7] The famous Oxford atheist CS Lewis came to faith after reading Chesterton’s book The Everlasting Man. It has been said that Chesterton, as one of the deepest thinkers who ever existed, made up for being deep by being witty.[8] Both Chesterton and Francis not only made you think but also made you laugh.[9] In a very Franciscan way, Chesterton taught that the secret of life lies in laughter and humility.[10] Only grateful people are humble enough to laugh at themselves.
Both Chesterton and Francis were romantic troubadours of hope calling people away from fashionable despair and cynicism.[11] As self-described jugglers and jesters of God, they passionately romanced our hearts.[12] At the heart of this romance was the key idea of taking things with gratitude and not taking things for granted.[13] Without gratitude, said Chesterton, all we are left with is the emptiness of ‘bread and circuses’.[14] Gratitude to God enables us, with Francis and Chesterton, to enjoy the gifts that are all around us. Chesterton commented about the joy of seeing a dandelion after temporary blindness, and how true pessimists can’t even notice the sunset.[15]
My prayer for those reading this article is that we like Chesterton and Francis will notice the dandelions and sunsets with new gratitude.
[1] Joseph Pearce, Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of GK Chesterton“, (Hodder & Stoughton, London, UK, 1996), vii ‘…one of the giants of 20th Century literature’
[2] “Orthodoxologist”, Time, 11 October 1943, (Accessed August 4, 2016); Pearce, vii “His wit was a match for that of Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and a host of others.”
[8] Maisie Ward, Return to Chesterton (London, 1952), 526.
[9] Dale Ahlquist, “Who is this Guy and Why Haven’t I Heard of Him?”, The American Chesterton Society, 2014, http://www.chesterton.org/who-is-this-guy (Chesteron) “doesn’t merely astonish you. He doesn’t just perform the wonder of making you think. He goes beyond that. He makes you laugh.”
[11] Pearce, 161 “…cynicism pollutes and destroys wisdom as much as it pollutes and destroys innocence.”
[12]The Times Literary Supplement, October 3rd 1933, “As the nineteenth century clutched at the Franciscan romance, precisely because it had neglected romance…”; Pearce, 297; Chesterton, Francis of Assisi, 74-77. “The jongleur (of God) was properly a joculator or jester; sometimes he was what we should call a juggler.”
[14]G.K’s Weekly, December 13th 1934. “The vulgar school of panem et circenses only gives people circuses; it does not even tell them how to enjoy circuses.”
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a personally signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
At age 10, Lewis saw his mother dying of cancer. “With my mother’s death”, said Lewis, “all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life.” Tolkien experienced the double loss of both his father at age 3 and his mother at age 12. Tolkien’s strong desire for friendship/fellowship, as with Frodo, Sam, Merry & Pippin, came from Tolkien’s loss of his three best friends in the trenches. Referring to trench warfare, CS Lewis commented: “Through the winter, weariness and water were our chief enemies. I have gone to sleep marching and woken again and found myself marching still.” Lewis vividly remembered “the frights, the cold,…the horribly smashed men still moving like half-crushed beetles, the sitting or standing corpses, the landscape of sheer earth without a blade of grass, the boots worn day and night until they seemed to grow to your feet…”Anthony Hopkins portrayed CS (Jack) Lewis, the author of the hugely popular Narnia Tales, in the thoughtful movie ‘Shadowlands’. Since Lewis’ death in 1963, sales of his books have risen to over 2 million a year. For much of his life, Lewis, the son of a solicitor and of an Anglican clergyman’s daughter, was a convinced atheist. While teaching at Oxford College, Lewis formed a lasting friendship with JRR Tolkien. Both Lewis and Tolkien had much in common, as both had been traumatized by the premature death of their mothers and by the horrors of trench warfare in World War I.
Both CS Lewis and Tolkien loved the history of the English language, especially as expressed in the ancient tales like Beowulf. CS Lewis commented: “When I began teaching for the English Faculty, I made two other friends, both Christians (those queer people seemed to pop up on every side) who were later to give me much help in getting over the last stile/steps. They were HVD Dyson and JRR Tolkien. Friendship with the latter marked the breakdown of two old prejudices…” Lewis said to Tolkien that tales or myths are ‘lies and therefore worthless, even though breathed through silver’. ‘No’, said Tolkien, ‘they are not lies’. Tolkien went on to explain to Lewis that in Jesus Christ, the ancient stories or myths of a dying and rising God entered history and became fact. Twelve days later, Lewis wrote to another friend Arthur Greeves: “I have just passed on from believing in God to definitely believing in Christ – in Christianity. I will try to explain this another time. My long night talk with Dyson and Tolkien had a good deal to do with it”.
CS Lewis recalls going by motorcycle with his brother Warren to Whipsnade Zoo, about thirty miles east of Oxford. “When we set out, I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo, I did”. In his autobiography Surprised by Joy, Lewis commented: “In the Trinity term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God…perhaps the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England”.
When CS Lewis turned to Christ, he was surprised to find the skies bluer and the grass greener.* “Today”, Lewis wrote, “I got such a sudden intense feeling of delight that it sort of stopped me in my walk and spun me round. Indeed the sweetness was so great, and seemed so to affect the whole body as well as the mind, that it gave me pause.” Lewis commented: “I really seem to have had youth given back to me lately.”
Lewis and Tolkien formed an ‘Inklings’ group at Oxford in which they read out and critiqued each other’s manuscripts like ‘Narnia Tales’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’. Lewis’ brother Warren said that at the Inklings, “the fun would be riotous with Jack at the top of his form and enjoying every minute…an outpouring of wit, nonsense, whimsy, dialectical swordplay, and pungent judgement such as I have rarely heard equaled…” The Inklings group was a clear example of that ancient Proverb “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another”.
Charles Williams, another author and member of the Inklings group, commented that “much was possible to a man in solitude, but some things were possible only to a man in companionship, and of these, the most important was balance. No mind was so good that it did not need another mind to counter it and equal it and to save it from conceit and bigotry and folly.” In October 1933, Tolkien wrote in his diary that friendship with Lewis ‘besides giving constant pleasure and comfort, has done me much good from the contact with a man at once honest, brave, intellectual – a scholar, a poet, and a philosopher – and a lover, at least after a long pilgrimage, of our Lord’.
The internationally respected Vancouver author, Dr. JI Packer, says that ‘the combination within CS Lewis of insight with vitality, wisdom with wit, and imaginative power with analytical precision made him a sparkling communicator of the everlasting gospel.’ At bottom, says Dr. Packer, Lewis was a mythmaker. As Austin Farrer commented of Lewis’ writings, “we think we are listening to an argument; in fact, we are presented with a vision; and it is the vision that carries conviction.” Myth, says Dr. Packer, is perhaps best defined as a story that projects a vision of life of actual or potential communal significance by reason of the identity and attitudes that it invites us to adopt.
When Tolkien first shared his ‘Lord of the Rings’ manuscript at the Inklings group, CS Lewis said: ‘This book is a lightning from a clear sky. Not content to create his own story, he creates with an almost insolent prodigality the whole world in which it is to move; with its own theology, myths, geography, history, paleography, languages and order of beings.’ Recent polls have consistently declared that Tolkien is the most influential author of the last 100 years and that the Lord of the Rings is the book of this recent century. Without the Inklings fellowship of Tolkien and Lewis, neither the Narnia Tales nor the Lord of the Rings might have ever seen the light of day. I thank God for the faithful Christian friendship of two pilgrims on a Quest.
*For more information on C.S. Lewis’ Joy, just click.
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
I enjoyed reading ‘Laugh Again’ by the best-selling author and radio communicator, Dr. Chuck Swindoll. He tells the story of a cute Peanuts cartoon where Lucy says to Snoopy: ‘There are times when you really bug me, but I must admit there are also times when I feel like giving you a big hug.’ Snoopy replies: ‘That’s the way I am…huggable and buggable.’
Chuck’s book gives practical tips on how to take ourselves less seriously, and how to fall more in love with life. Too many adults, says Chuck, have become so serious and overly responsible that they have lost one of God’s best gifts: a sense of humour.
Dr. Swindoll met a man who told Chuck of his need to work hard at being happier. He said that he had been reared in an ultraserious home. “We didn’t talk about our feelings…we worked…Funny thing…in my sixty-plus years I have achieved about everything I dreamed of doing and I have been awarded for it. My problem is that I don’t know how to have fun and enjoy these things hard work has brought me. I cannot remember the last time I laughed–I mean really laughed.”
As he turned to walk away, he dropped this ‘bomb’: “I suppose I now need to work harder at being happier.” Chuck reached over, took him by the arm, and said: “Trust me on this one- a happy heart is not achieved by hard work and long hours. If it were, the happiest people on earth would be the workaholics…and I have never met a workaholic whose sense of humour balanced out his intensity.”
Dr. Swindoll goes on to talk about the up-side and downside of our drive to achieve. Jokingly speaking of an ‘elite club’ High Achievers Anonymous, Chuck spoke compassionately about the high cost that our work addictions play in our primary relationships. The tragedy is, enough is never enough. Life becomes reduced to work, tasks, effort, an endless list of shoulds and musts…minus the necessary fun and laughter that keeps everything in perspective. Chuck says that there is always one telltale sign when pride takes charge of our life: the fun leaves.
Deep within, the overachiever begans to think that life is much too busy, much too serious to waste it on silly things like relaxation and laughter. Why has our 20th century suffered so terribly from laughless dictators like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini? G.K. Chesterton comments: ‘Madmen are always serious; they go mad from lack of humour.’
G.K. Chesterton also commented: “I’m all in favour of laughing. Laughter has something in common in it with the ancient winds of faith and inspiration; it unfreezes pride and unwinds secrecy; it makes men forget themselves in the presence of something greater than themselves; something that they cannot resist.”
Dr. Swindoll had a deep fear that if he became ordained, he would have to become ultra-serious and sour-faced. One day God said to him: “You can faithfully serve Me, but you can still be yourself. Being my servant doesn’t require you to stop laughing.”
Laughter is hope’s last weapon. As Dr.Swindoll puts it, only those who are firm in their faith can laugh in the face of tragedy. A young woman had booked herself into a motel in order to do herself in. She had endured numerous failed relationships with men and had had several abortions. She was empty, angry, and could see no reason to go on. Finally, just before dawn, she reached into her purse and pulled out a loaded pistol. Trembling, she stuck it into her mouth and closed her eyes. Suddenly the clock alarm snapped on with the message of new hope from Dr. Swindoll. Before the thirty-minute broadcast was over, she gave her life to Jesus Christ. When she phoned Dr. Swindoll’s office to share what had happened, she said that she could still taste the cold steel from the gun barrel she had pulled from her mouth.
My prayer for those reading this article is that each of us may discover an unshakable reason to keep on living and an unshakable love of our Creator.
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
Gottman puts it, when you honor and respect each other, you’re usually able to appreciate each other’s point of view, even if you don’t agree with it. You don’t need to be a moral relativist winking at sin, in order to be biblically tolerant. The joy of tolerance is the love of neighbour, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Tolerance is also about choosing to forgive. As Colossians 3:13 puts it, we need to be forbearing one another and forgiving one another, if you have any quarrel against one another. Sometimes our children and teenagers greatly try our patience, particularly when they may be teasing their siblings. The joy of tolerance includes setting healthy boundaries while not giving up on painful people, including our family members.
religion. The British Act of Toleration in 1689 was a huge step forward in advancing the democratic rights of people to freedom of religion. GK Chesterton commented that tolerance sometimes leads to timidity where people become afraid to even mention their religious views. True tolerance doesn’t push religion into a closet but welcomes it joyfully in the public square. Intolerance is often like bad breath and body odor; it is difficult to always notice one’s own intolerance. Sometimes people who pride themselves on being more tolerant than others end up intolerantly looking down on other people. Dr Timothy Keller commented: “If you’re intolerant of people you think are intolerant, you’re still intolerant. If you are judgmental of people you think are judgmental, you are judgmental.” Sometimes smokers in our postmodern culture are intolerantly treated like outcasts. We Christians need to remember to love the smoker even if we cannot tolerate their second-hand smoke.
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
madman.”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Dr. Swindoll met a man who told Chuck of his need to work hard at being happier. He said that he had been reared in an ultraserious home. “We didn’t talk about our feelings…we worked…Funny thing…in my sixty-plus years I have achieved about everything I dreamed of doing and I have been awarded for it. My problem is that I don’t know how to have fun and enjoy these things hard work has brought me. I cannot remember the last time I laughed–I mean really laughed.”
and downside of our drive to achieve. Jokingly speaking of an ‘elite club’ High Achievers Anonymous, Chuck spoke compassionately about the high cost that our work addictions play in our primary relationships. The tragedy is, enough is never enough. Life becomes reduced to work, tasks, effort, an endless list of shoulds and musts…minus the necessary fun and laughter that keeps everything in perspective. Chuck says that there is always one telltale sign when pride takes charge of our life: the fun leaves.
G.K. Chesterton also commented: “I’m all in favour of laughing. Laughter has something in common in it with the ancient winds of faith and inspiration; it unfreezes pride and unwinds secrecy; it makes men forget themselves in the presence of something greater than themselves; something that they cannot resist.”
Edhird's Blog 