Chesterton wrote in his book Orthodoxy,
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
In moments like this, it is quite evident how he could be considered a spiritual sibling to Saint Therese of Lisieux, the namesake of our humble podcast. And while it might make the prime choice of a flower for Chesterton appear to be the daisy, there is one flower that might be even more fitting for all the same reasons and just two more.
To pair with G.K. Chesterton, we have to offer a simple dandelion. Just as in the seemingly monotonous vein of the daisy, the dandelion seems to show Chesterton’s gilding and sacramentalization of the every-day. Likewise, both the daisy and the dandelion are pervasive plants that are made out to be ordinary by their commonness, such that (even with the Chestertonian influences of thought) we can take foregranted how present they are in our daily lives. However, the dandelion has a single deciding factor that makes it more fitting for Chesterton than even a daisy. To see the dalliance of a dandelion on the wind bringing wide-eyed-wonder to a child seems the perfect pairing to Chesterton, the man whose own wonder, jubillence, and joy seemed childlike in the face of God’s creation. Chesterton, it seems, was able to see the world in a light of beauty that always revelled in Christ, through Himself, making all things new.