Chesterton on white

OK, show of hands. Whose brain hurts when they read Chesterton? Mine certainly does. Maybe that's why I've always preferred CS Lewis; he's eminently more approachable! But I'm determined to work through Chesterton bit by bit until he sits easier in my brain. (It might help if my reading time wasn't relegated to those hours when my children--and husband--are fast asleep. That's not exactly prime brain time. It's more like prime "prime-time" time--you know, better for zoning out than tuning in.) I find I have better ability to focus on his short essays at this stage of my life. It's easier on the brain. If you're struggling with longer works, try easing in with some short essays...

I've been playing along with reading Chesterton since Sarah first challenged us awhile ago, but this is my first time participating in a Weekends linkup... I thought that maybe those of you also living with lots of white outside your windows might find this equally worth mulling over...So, without further ado, Chesterton on the color white:

White is positive and essential. ...White is a colour. It is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. 

When, so to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows white-hot, it draws stars. 

...the chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a colour. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing...Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.

In a word, God paints in many colors; but he never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.

--GK Chesterton, A Piece of Chalk