The Instinct of Christendom

Modern investigators of miraculous history have solemnly admitted that a characteristic of the great saints is their power of “levitation.” They might go further; a characteristic of the great saints is their power of levity. Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. This has been always the instinct of Christendom, and especially the instinct of Christian art. Remember how Fra Angelico represented all his angels, not only as birds, but almost as butterflies. Remember how the most earnest mediaeval art was full of light and fluttering draperies, of quick and capering feet. It was the one thing that the modern Pre-raphaelites could not imitate in the real Pre-raphaelites. Burne-Jones could never recover the deep levity of the Middle Ages.

-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Deep Levity

I stole the phrase deep levity to serve as an ethos that I hope spills out in my attempt to write about deep things in a light way, or, light things in a deep way. This substack is not my attempt to recover the deep levity of the Middle Ages, though that would be cool. But I will likely take a few pot shots at Modernity.