Getting your "head into the heavens"

[SweetSue92]

"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits."--G.K. Chesterton

Thoughts?

 

[RodISHI]

When our flesh is made aware of the spiritual realm it is actually a shock to our flesh minds. As children we walked with complete faith but we were indoctrinated from early on to trust in the precepts of the world of flesh. Heaven is put in with breath from the beginning but we do not realize that until we are awakened to it. Thus adam/humankind was put into a deep sleep and not awakened until the lord does such. Even then it is so subtle most of the time we do not recognize it. It takes that deep self examination to begin to get an understanding of the spiritual realm within us.

 

[SweetSue92]

When our flesh is made aware of the spiritual realm it is actually a shock to our flesh minds. As children we walked with complete faith but we were indoctrinated from early on to trust in the precepts of the world of flesh. Heaven is put in with breath from the beginning but we do not realize that until we are awakened to it. Thus adam/humankind was put into a deep sleep and not awakened until the lord does such. Even then it is so subtle most of the time we do not recognize it. It takes that deep self examination to begin to get an understanding of the spiritual realm within us.

This is close to Christianity but not completely there? I'm not sure really. Christianity says we are not capable of being "awakened", not even through self examination, unless the Spirit works. Maybe this what you meant, however.

It's interesting, and I find it Biblical, that Chesterton says the creators are "closer" to God than those who try to puzzle Him out.

 

[ding]

"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits."--G.K. Chesterton

Thoughts?

Here is a little more context from Chesterton on the quote you posted.

There is a notion adrift everywhere that imagination, especially mystical imagination, is dangerous to man's mental balance. Poets are commonly spoken of as psychologically unreliable; and generally there is a vague association between wreathing laurels in your hair and sticking straws in it. Facts and history utterly contradict this view. Most of the very great poets have been not only sane, but extremely business-like; and if Shakespeare ever really held horses, it was because he was much the safest man to hold them. Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination. Artistic paternity is as wholesome as physical paternity. Moreover, it is worthy of remark that when a poet really was morbid it was commonly because he had some weak spot of rationality on his brain. Poe, for instance, really was morbid; not because he was poetical, but because he was specially analytical. Even chess was too poetical for him; he disliked chess because it was full of knights and castles, like a poem. He avowedly preferred the black discs of draughts, because they were more like the mere black dots on a diagram. Perhaps the strongest case of all is this: that only one great English poet went mad, Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad by logic, by the ugly and alien logic of predestination. Poetry was not the disease, but the medicine; poetry partly kept him in health. He could sometimes forget the red and thirsty hell to which his hideous necessitarianism dragged him among the wide waters and the white flat lilies of the Ouse. He was damned by John Calvin; he was almost saved by John Gilpin. Everywhere we see that men do not go mad by dreaming. Critics are much madder than poets. Homer is complete and calm enough; it is his critics who tear him into extravagant tatters. Shakespeare is quite himself; it is only some of his critics who have discovered that he was somebody else. And though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators. The general fact is simple. Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like the physical exhaustion of Mr. Holbein. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.

Chesterton isn't attacking logic per se. He is defending imagination from what he perceived as attacks on imagination. Unfortunately Chesterton does so at the expense of logic and unintentionally does the same thing to logic that he perceived others did to imagination.

I say that logic and imagination are inseparable sisters much like joy and sorrow are inseparable sisters. They complement each other. There's no reason to tear one down to build the other up. Both can be celebrated equally.

 

[toobfreak]

"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits."--G.K. Chesterton Thoughts?

The poet approaches God through the heart, while the logician futilely tries to capture God through the mind.

 

[SweetSue92]

Here is a little more context from Chesterton on the quote you posted.



Chesterton isn't attacking logic per se. He is defending imagination from what he perceived as attacks on imagination. Unfortunately Chesterton does so at the expense of logic and unintentionally does the same thing to logic that he perceived others did to imagination.

I say that logic and imagination are inseparable sisters much like joy and sorrow are inseparable sisters. They complement each other. There's no reason to tear one down to build the other up. Both can be celebrated equally.

The Chesterton quote here specifically refers to heaven. How do you understand, approach, get close to heaven? Compare Job v. the Psalms and I think the answer is clear. It's not a matter of exclusion, by the way, but of preferred (or superior) method.

 

[ding]

The Chesterton quote here specifically refers to heaven. How do you understand, approach, get close to heaven? Compare Job v. the Psalms and I think the answer is clear. It's not a matter of exclusion, by the way, but of preferred (or superior) method.

Nice chatting with you, Sue.