From Dr. Thurow:
Congratulations to Mrs Robinson, Mrs. Cruz, Mr. Carswell, and all the students on a delightful, energetic, and funny first annual Arts Night! What a wonderful way to end our first semester!
Chesterton is unusual in that the arts are not extra-curricular activities, but an essential part of the core of the education itself. The reason for this is not some idiosyncratic belief of the founders that the arts are important nor a desire for this school to be a magnate or pre-professional arts institution. The reason is that this school seeks to form our students in accordance with the fullness of the common human nature and ends given each of us by our God. This also happens to be the only way to actively form a person for happiness.
Beasts know nothing of beauty (or humor for that matter). These are distinct gifts given to the rational animal and thus speak of that very different end which separates us from all other animals: we are made for union with our God in eternal joy. Great writers have spoken not only of the beauty seen by the saints, but also of the laughter of the saints! Laughter and love, in their holy form, are ultimately responses to the same thing. There is a Great Beauty within and behind this world, the beauty of the Creator. Where it is manifest we are astounded and fall in love: with the beautiful deed, the beautiful person, the beautiful work of art or nature. We do this because in these things we see a little resemblance of He who made them, our True Love, though we are also always aware that they fall short of His perfection and so yearn more for Him even as we love His creation.
Where the beauty that stems from the Creator is less apparent, however, we often laugh. There is a devilish laughter of mockery or despair, but true and innocent laughter is always about beauty and truth. When we laugh at Algernon or Cecily, for instance, we do so fondly because we see in them the same flaws and foibles we ourselves are prone to, only exaggerated. When we laugh together as an audience, we realize that we are all together in this fallen condition and that, in the end, it will be alright. We don’t worry about Algernon’s soul because we know that the world of the good comedy is governed, like the whole of the real world, by a kindly and good intent. No real and lasting harm will be done. We trust the author. True comedies always have happy endings; beauty peeps out from behind the lowness of human flailings and failings. Holy laughter acknowledges that Christ will triumph over sin and all that is low will be lifted up high in the end, even us, in all our foolishness.
December 12, 2025