In Which I Try To Write, But Lewis and Chesterton Roast Me Mercilessly

Some Saturday Satire

Some weekend satire for you, loosely based on the realities of my actual life.

It was a crisp morning in May, which meant I was feeling poetic. Or at least like a person who might look poetic if you passed them quickly in a bookstore.

I had just crossed the mystical, sacred threshold of “100 Substack subscribers.”

Triple digits. No blue check, but still… a hundred people signed up to read my writing. (Although, I fear some of them are probably bots. One is definitely my mom. Still counts.)

So, naturally, I decided it was time to become A Real Writer™.

I brewed my Yorkshire tea (bagged… not loose-leaf, to my shame), lit my candle (pine scented, if you must know), and sat at my desk with all the gravitas of someone who just rewatched Dead Poets Society. I opened my laptop. I cracked my knuckles. I summoned the muses. I inhaled the scent of pine and dreams. I whispered:

“Now, let’s write something that matters.”

Enter my son, Jack.

Three and a half years old. Hair like a baby lion, voice like a malfunctioning siren. He stormed into the room in Sesame Street pajamas and the unshakable conviction that he was the one who needed to “typey-type” on Daddy’s computer.

“DADDY I WANT TO WRITE A STORY ABOUT MONSTERS AND BEARS AND ELMO.”

He lunged. I panicked. Tea spilled. Candle flickered violently.

My carefully curated aura of contemplative academia dissolved into chaos and overstimulation as he smashed random keys like a caffeinated raccoon.

My brain, already running twelve tabs and three internal monologues—froze. ADHD kicked in like a glitching Windows startup sound.

I tried to focus. I tried to breathe. I tried not to have a full existential crisis over the fact that my wife is due to have our little girl in July, our budget spreadsheet is more faith-based than factual, and I’m job hunting while trying to pastor a small band of Gen Z misfits through the Sermon on the Mount.

At that moment, as I sat in a puddle of tea and defeat, the air shimmered with the sound of tweed and spiritual authority.

Enter: C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton.

I don’t know how they got in. Possibly through a wardrobe.

Possibly through my anxiety.

Lewis stood with his arms crossed, bemused and faintly judgmental, like a headmaster who caught you plagiarizing The Screwtape Letters.

Chesterton, beaming and wild-eyed, looked like he had just wrestled a hedgehog in a pub and won.

“Ah,” said Lewis, surveying the scene. “So this is the, ahem, great theological voice of your generation. Tea-stained and throttled by a toddler.”

Chesterton snorted. “I like this one. He’s got the look of a distracted prophet and the posture of a man who’s forgotten what he got up for.”

I blinked. “Am I hallucinating? Is this a stress vision?”

“You quote me constantly,” Lewis said, stepping over a pile of Duplo bricks. “But I wonder—have you truly lived anything I wrote? Or do you just copy-paste it when you're feeling particularly literary on Instagram?”

I tried to protest, but Chesterton boomed, “Give the lad a break! At least he hasn’t started a theology TikTok. That’s worth something.”

Then they turned on each other.

“Oh please,” said Lewis. “At least people read me while I was alive.”

Chesterton gasped. “You were an Oxford snob with a savior complex!”

“You were a chaotic good Catholic with no filter!”

“You wrote about grief like a man writing a math equation!”

“You made theological points by comparing them to cheese!”

They both turned to me, eyes suddenly clear and kind.

Chesterton leaned in. “You think the calling means clarity? It doesn’t. It means fire. It means noise. It means scribbling in the margins while your children are screaming about monsters and Moses.”

Lewis nodded. “Most days, we felt like imposters. Out of step with the world. Outside the inner circle. Unnoticed by the powers that be. But the call kept burning. And so we kept writing. Obscure, underpaid, misunderstood.”

Chesterton grinned. “And we spilled far more than tea.”

I have so many questions.

I wiped tea off my keyboard with the sleeve of my flannel, looked up at these two literary phantoms who had apparently broken through the veil for the sake of my breakdown, and sighed.

“Okay,” I said, “if you’re here… I suppose I have questions.”

Chesterton leaned back in a brown leather chair (that hadn’t been there a moment ago), puffing on a phantom pipe that smelled suspiciously like cinnamon rolls.

“Excellent. Nothing kills the soul like an answer too soon.”

Lewis crossed his arms. “Ask, then. We don’t have all eternity.”

I nodded. “How do you write anything meaningful when you're constantly overwhelmed? Tired? Like the whole world is on fire?”

Chesterton laughed. “Oh splendid! You’ve noticed the fire. Most people are too busy trying to sell smoke detectors to realize they’re already aflame. My dear boy, the world has always been overwhelming—what with dragons, taxes, and trousers that fit poorly—but that’s why we write. Not because life is manageable, but because it isn’t. The pen is a sword wielded by those too clumsy for war but too stubborn to surrender.”

He spun dramatically in his chair.

“Do you know what I did when I was overwhelmed? I became more absurd! I laughed at shadows. I argued with lamps. I wore a cape to brunch and shouted about fairies! Because when the world becomes mad, only the poets are sane.”

Lewis took a long drag on his pipe. “You want to write meaningfully, yet you fear fatigue? You forget that meaning only exists because of suffering. Would you rather pen distractions? Would you rather contribute to the noise?”

He walked slowly to my desk and tapped the tea-stained notebook.

“You don’t need a pristine schedule or a cabin in the woods. You need obedience. You need to write because the truth demands it… not because the circumstances are comfortable. Do not wait for peace to do the work of the peacemaker.”

He looked at me squarely.

“You’re not meant to be efficient. You’re meant to be faithful.”

I nodded, gulped, and tried again.

“Okay. But how do I know if what I’m doing matters? Like… what if this ministry, this writing, my discipleship nights with eight broke college kids... what if it never goes anywhere?”

Chesterton’s belly jiggled as he gave it a hard slap.

“HA! What if it doesn’t? Delightful question! You speak as if going ‘somewhere’ is the aim. I’ve been places. Mostly by train. It’s terribly overrated. But to remain—faithfully, foolishly, ferociously—in one little place, with a few small souls, doing one tiny good thing over and over? That is the divine comedy, my boy!”

He leaned in, eyes wide.

“The Kingdom of God is not a brand. It is not a platform. It is not a demographic or a conversion rate. It is the great reversal, the upside-down banquet where the last are first and the burnt-out youth pastor is closer to the throne than the celebrity with a spotlight and a social media manager.”

Lewis was pacing now, voice firm.

“Did Aslan tell Susan how many people would read about The Last Battle? Did the Apostle Paul include a footnote on the potential church-planting ROI of Ephesus? No.”

He stopped.

“Because obedience is not weighed by impact. It is measured by love.”

Then, a pause.

“You must come to terms with this, my friend: You are not writing a resume for God. You are living a story He is telling.”

Lewis smiled faintly, the kind of smile that felt like both encouragement and judgment, like he was pleased you’d finally caught up but annoyed it took this long.

Then he gestured toward little Jack, who was now beneath the desk, narrating an elaborate battle between “monster bears” and “ninja Jesus.”

“And if you’re worried about trying to write with a toddler and ADHD,” Lewis said dryly, “just look at Chesterton…”

Chesterton perked up. “Oho! A compliment?”

Lewis didn’t blink. “That diagnosis didn’t exist in our time—”

“In MY day, we just called it madness.” Chesterton snorted proudly.

“—but let’s be honest—” Lewis continued, “there is no possible universe in which you didn’t have it. You once missed your own train because you got distracted following a goose. You mailed your wife a telegram that just said,

‘Am in Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?’”

Chesterton wheezed with laughter. “Brilliant day, that. Lovely cheese shop.”

Lewis kept going, merciless. “You once dictated an entire chapter on theological paradox while wearing two mismatched shoes and accidentally setting fire to your sleeve. You wrote like a prophet and lived like a man who lost a bet with time itself.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Chesterton said, clearly doing so regardless.

“You would,” muttered Lewis.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

Suddenly, little Jack emerged from under the desk, climbed onto my lap, and smashed both palms into the keyboard like he was playing jazz on a typewriter.

“LOOK DADDY I’M WRITING THE STORY.”

I opened a blank document, smiled, and let him go wild.

Gibberish poured forth. Capital letters. Ampersands. The occasional Korean character, somehow. All of it glorious.

Chesterton peered at the screen and clapped. “HA! Well, looks like he’s a better writer than you.”

Lewis nodded solemnly. “Certainly more productive.”

Jack beamed. The ghosts faded.

The tea was cold.

But my tired, exhausted, scatterbrained heart was warmed.

---

Well, that’s enough of THAT! 😂

I hope you’ve enjoyed a bit of Saturday satire… and perhaps, as a fellow writer, you see yourself in this chaotic holy mess.

Now go. Write something.

Even if it’s nonsense. Especially if it’s nonsense.

I believe, quite often, nonsense is exactly what the world needs to stay sane.