In Response To The Anonymous Commenter

Dear Anonymous Commenter,

You asked me what I want to write. The answer is quite simple: Words. I am a philologist. A love and affinity for words flows through my very marrow. A brilliant man, a teacher of mine, once asked me "What is a word?" and I struggled with the answer. Ever since I was asked that question many moons ago, a deep-rooted affection for words has grown within me.

What do I want to write? Words.

From a less literal standpoint, however, I will now answer your question. I want to write the truth. I want to examine the tiniest little aspects and quirks of the human nature and disect them to find the veritas that lies within all things. You see, my friend, nothing is relative. There is a truth to every matter, regardless of how grey it looks. There is a truth to why you brush your teeth in the morning and a truth to why love makes even the strongest of men squirm and giggle like a small child. There is a truth to why success is equated with excess and there is a truth about why the two should never be compared.

What do I want to write? The truth.
What form do I want to write it in? Any and every form. Anything from poetry, to novels, to short stories, that is where I will stake my claim. That is where I will explore these truths. As J.R.R. Tolkien said, "The road goes ever on and on..." and I will go where that road, where my Lord, takes me, and I will write in whatever form He tells me to.

I do believe you are the only person who has ever read this lonely blog. Though I care not, for as long as these lonely musings reach at least one man, I cannot be silenced.

-L.M.Davis

The Lack of Learning

Though this blog is merely something I created so that I would be capable of reading and commenting my teacher's blogs, I still feel as if what I write here is reaching someone's ears.

As Alice Cooper once mused, "School's out for the Summer." Though, unlike Mr. Cooper, I'm not terribly thrilled about this. True, Summer is a time for rest, for relaxation, for rejuvenation, but I'm not tired and I need no rejuvenation. As I sit here, desperately trying to figure out what beneficial activity I should put my mind to, I can't help but lament that there are two and a half months ahead of me in which I don't have the option of classical education.

I suppose I'm the oddball. Unlike most, I enjoy few things more than our Humanities lectures. True, having to retain every bit of that information in order to regurgitate it onto a test can be stressful, but nevertheless, Humanities excites me. To me, sitting smugly on the back row, listening to Dr. Grant baptise me in knowledge is like going to the movies. Hearing about the treacherous Hapsburgs and the daring soldiers of the Reformation keeps me on the edge of my seat.

No, I won't sit patiently by and watch my Summer fly past. I've got big plans to tear through several books (mostly Chesterton, of course) and get caught up in my imagination. I'll be Chesterton, I'll change this place.

Some day.




-L. Mckinley Davis

Gilbert Keith, Happy Birthday

Today (though, by this hour, I suppose it was yesterday), May the 29th, was G.K. Chesterton's birthday. In celebration of such a marvelous man's birthday, I took a few hours to myself and indulged in some of the author's more light-hearted works (though, seeing as it's my tendency to do this most days, I suppose the fact that it's his birthday really had nothing to do with it).

As I made my way through the beginning of "The Man Who Was Thursday" as well as a slew of stories from the "Scandal of Father Brown," I found myself repeatedly distracted by my own thoughts, my own dillusions of grandeur. G.K. Chesterton has had such a marvelous impact on my life and writing that it pains me that I will never get the oppurtunity to properly shake his hand and thank him whilst on this world. Whenever I crack the spine of a new Chesterton book, every minute fiber of my being longs to be exactly like this man who's writing I am most fond of.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton has no idea who I am and he has no idea what an impact he has had on my life in the past year. Chesterton, though I'm sure he was unaware of it, had an impact that has lasted a century. Very similar, in some ways, to Gerhard Groote, Chesterton is a man that is relatively unknown to the public, yet there are so many things accepted as the cultural norm that are directly caused by Chesterton's actions during his life.

Though he died well over 60 years ago, Gilbert Keith Chesterton is still playing a roll in today's world. It is my only wish to be able to have that much impact for the Kingdom. I don't care if anyone ever knows my name, I just want to further the Kingdom of Christ, and I want to do it with a pen in my hand.



Cheers,
L. Mckinley Davis