Samwise Gamgee, the Chestertonian Everyman, and Mysticism

I'm officially at college, as of the day this post goes up! I'll have a bigger update on that and how Mom's & my road trip went this past week in my post next Friday. :)

This summer, my pastor, Fr. DD, has been doing a livestreamed & semi-interactive series of talks going through G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy (which happens to be one of the loves of my life). And so I'm reading through it again, and listening to his talks (and asking tons of questions), and I'm getting a ton more insight into it than before! (Heads up: there may be some Chestertonian Musings in the future. In fact, I think this is the first, even if I'm not calling it that.) It's definitely been one of the highlights of my summer.

Anyway. I'm not here to talk about the talks, I'm here to talk about one of the insights I've had! We were reading chapter 2, "The Maniac", which, as I've mentioned, is rather terrifying to me, and after many pages of discussion of the problem of reducing the world by reason alone, we reached the end of the chapter, in which he gives the solution.

The solution is mysticism. 

"The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in the earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them."

"The secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand...the mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid."

This is terribly interesting, but I'm not going to dissect that point down to its base. Chesterton does an excellent job of that, and if you wish to read a dissection, read Orthodoxy. Actually, read Orthodoxy even if you don't wish to read a dissection.

What I'm going to talk about is who this reminds me of.

Yes, not "what", but "who". 

Let me change tacks for a second and give you a clue by talking about one of Chesterton's other ideas, this time from the chapter "The Ethics of Elfland" (my second-favorite chapter in the whole shebang!)

"Ordinary things are more valuable than extraordinary things; nay, they are more extraordinary."

"This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things in men are the things they hold in common, not the things they hold separately." 

"I have always been more inclined to believe the ruck of hard-working people than to believe that special and troublesome literary class to which I belong. I prefer even the fancies and prejudices of the people who see life from the inside to the clearest demonstrations of the people who see life from the outside."

Chesterton has, not only in Orthodoxy but in many of his other works, too, a huge respect for the common person. The person who is connected to the earth. Who sees life "from the inside". Who has common sense, that true attribute of a common person. As he says a bit later,

"As long as wit is mother wit it can be as wild as it pleases." 

Common sense, and the common person. You can actually also see that from his quotes about mysticism, as well. To Chesterton, these people are the salt of the earth.

And I concur, at least where this particular person is concerned.

At this point, perhaps you've figured out who I'm talking about? Hint: it is, in fact, in the title of the post. And yes, I've been working backwards through my title, by accident, as it happens. 

Introducing the man of the hour, the "who" that all this reminds me of:

Samwise Gamgee.

The moment I heard the quote about the ordinary man being a mystic, and permitting the twilight, he popped into my head.

Because Sam, he is an ordinary man, a tiller of the soil, a hobbit of common sense, a hobbit who just wants to get back to his garden, who loves the trees and hates to see them cut down. 

And yet...he also longs to see elves. And oliphaunts. And to have an adventure.

After all, when Gandalf tells him that he's going to go on Mr. Frodo's adventure, just after pulling him out of the garden where he was working (and eavesdropping), he says, "Me go and see Elves and all! Hooray!" and then bursts into tears. 

These two things are not opposed--even if they must be somewhat separate. Just like Chesterton says in "The Paradoxes of Christianity":

"Christianity sought...to keep two colours coexistent but pure. It is not a mixture like russet or purple; it is rather like a shot silk, for a shot silk is always at right angles, and is in the pattern of the cross." 

It is inherently Sam to love his garden; it is inherently Sam to love seeing elves. 

The thing about Sam is that he sees everything with wonder, whether it's his own garden at home, the fact that seeds grow and flowers blossom, or elves and oliphaunts and the wide world. Another very Chestertonian attribute--Chesterton talks about wonder a lot, at one point in "The Ethics of Elfland" saying:

"When we are asked why eggs turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderela asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o'clock. We must answer that it is magic."

And again,

"life [is] as precious as it [is] puzzling. It was an ecstacy because it was an adventure; it was an adventure because it was an opportunity."

In fact, when Frodo is at his worst, Sam tries to cheer him with the humble and yet incredible and wondrous things of home:

"Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields...and eating the first of the strawberries with cream." 

In case all this--Sam's common sense and earthiness and wonder--wasn't enough, there's the small matter of his optimism. "There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for." 

This is Chesterton's perfect optimist, from "The Flag of the World" (my favorite chapter)--one who loves the world unconditionally, unreasonably, because it is his, but who is freed, by that love, to improve it, to fight for it, to, as Chesterton says, "lay it waste and turn it into the New Jerusalem." 

It works, this Sam-optimism. The world is saved and made new through his journey, his sacrifices, and his love. Specifically, though, the Shire is made new through his journey, his labors, and his love. It is he who renews it, after its degradation, with his beautiful optimism. He is truly the salt of the earth!

The salt of the earth, and perhaps, also, an ideal Chestertonian man. Would it be too much of an overstatement to say that Sam himself is an ideal Chestertonian man? 

Hmm. 

This post didn't go quite where I was thinking it would, but I suppose that's good, right? I've been pondering and putting together, and finding parallels, and concluding that Tolkien of course read Chesterton (I mean, I knew that already, but I hadn't ever seen any Chestertonian influence in Tolkien's writing before), and in fact put a lot of Chestertonian ideas in Sam. In fact, even in writing this, I've found more Chesterton in Sam than I possibly thought there was (and I'm not even done with my Orthodoxy reread yet). And I love all that very much.

What do you think? Is it an overstatement to say that Sam is an ideal Chestertonian man? Have you read Orthodoxy? If so, what's your favorite chapter?