novembre 15, 2003
The Chivalric Synthesis
Growing up, C.S. Lewis's essay The Necessity of Chivalry helped form my idea of what manhood should look like. I looked for it online, but only found a brief overview here. Lewis "wrote that the disparate strands of manhood-- fierceness and gentleness--can find healthy synthesis in the person of the knight and in the code of chivalry. Here these competing impulses--normally found in different individuals--find their union.
"Were one of these two bents given full rein, the balance required for authentic Christian manhood would be lost. Strength and power, without tenderness, for example, give us the brute. Tenderness and compassion without masculine firmness and aggressiveness produce a male without the fire to lead or inspire others."
Now that God has given me four little men of my own to raise, I often think back to this essay. I'm trying to raise my boys within this same tension. Looking over some photos from France today, two of them seemed to capture this. One has them in Normandy, saluting in front of a German pillbox. The other is them with their favorite Degas sculpture at the Musee D'orsay -- The Little Dancer.
