it would be GK Chesterton. He is probably my favorite person ever, and for sure my favorite author.
I just finished "The Man Who Was Thursday," and it was wonderful! It is a ridiculous story about anarchists, but really it is about modernity's attempt to kill God. When I say ridiculous, I mean it ... there are swordfights, mobs, secret lairs, a dance complete with ridiculous costumes, and a man riding an elephant. And that is why I so dearly love GKC ... because only he can make the fantastical (and even farcical) into a striking lesson about God and living in the Kingdom. The book makes it very clear that nothing is what it seems, but for the purpose of giving one hope in the unseen. This is not a dualist book, however, for Chesteron does not find the visible to be wholly bad ... one character says near the end:
"Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face?"
How wonderful an expression of the truth that nature and the world were created good, but sin has forced the goodness of life to turn its back on us. Redemption of the world will allow us to see the world as it was meant to be seen, trading its brutality for beauty.
This is a book for those who are frustrated with life, its meaninglessness and its confusion ... the peace of God looks very unlike what we would imagine, and this book gives the reader a new perspective (or rather illuminates her/his current one).
Read it ... you will love it. It is weird and crazy and phenomenal.
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