Chesterton Junior Peyton Smith's 2021 Testimonial
“When Life Hands You Lemons”
Peyton Smith (2022) presented his testimonial at Chesterton’s 2021 Rose of Tepeyac Gala
In the spring of 2020, my mom first approached me with a link to “a promising school option,” asking me to check it out sometime. I remember refusing to look into it for at least a week. Nothing in me wanted to go to the *private* school known as Chesterton Academy. At the time, I was homeschooling through a curriculum provider that will remain unnamed, and my parents and I were extremely dissatisfied with how that was going. To be honest, at the time, I had no idea what I was going to do after high school, and uh… also to be honest, I still don’t.
Thanks to Chesterton Academy though, I have more available paths than I had ever imagined.
No matter what plans you have for your future, the year 2020 made it clear that a wrench can get thrown into any plans, big or small... But, when life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back - get mad. We don’t want your darn lemons. What are we supposed to do with these?? That was, as far as I know, the attitude that the founders of Chesterton Academy of Our Lady of Guadalupe had when they continued to build up a Catholic school in Michigan, in the middle of one of the few times in history that education itself was outlawed. Chesterton Academy of Our Lady of Guadalupe managed to become a strong and stable force in a time when nearly nothing was, aside from God Himself. Chesterton Academy was, and continues to be, a beacon of education and growth for many, throughout the global pandemic, which is due, in no small part, to its strong foundation of faith.
This strong base of faith is what initially attracted my parents to look into the school because, after all, it’s hard to go wrong with daily Mass and prayer. Similarly to how Dante, who, in his Divine Comedy, was taught by the great poet Virgil, who was the source of knowledge and virtue that taught Dante about Faith in his journey through literal hell, the students here at Chesterton are also given firm and loving instruction about the Truths of Faith by our very own theology teacher, Mrs. Correa (with a distinct lack of eternal suffering in our case). This last semester of theology was focused on the Holy Trinity, shedding light on what seems to be the most confusing mystery in Church teaching. For instance, did you know that, within the Blessed Trinity, the Father and the Son actively spirate the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is passively spirated of the Father and the Son? Hmmm? Probably not, but you would have, if you had gone to Chesterton Academy!
Besides hopefully eventually leading us directly to heaven, faith also creates a sound and stable community within the school. The shared faith of the students is a starting point for a trusting community. It’s the one thing that we students are guaranteed to have in common. From there, we’re free to explore each others’ many other interests, including but not limited to: The Lord of the Rings, Minecraft, the color green being the best, Fortnite bad, skittles are better than m&ms, the king of hearts is the best card, hypothetical extremes are bad (I guess), murder is bad, throwing things is bad, etc.
This quote by C.S. Lewis sums up this interaction between these “soon to be friends”: “Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one." Not that anyone ever thought they were the only one who liked the Lord of the Rings... But it’s still a pretty cool quote.
Anyway, other than growing closer to God, finally having friends, and learning how to spell “Guadalupe” (it took me a second), everything about my work ethic has improved since I joined Chesterton. From finally consistently waking up before 8am, to being able to explain an entire chapter of papal documents to a class, to being able to stay calm while giving a really long speech to a bunch of people I can’t see, these things and more were made possible in no small part to Chesterton. The teachers challenge their students to excel, and they’ve caused me to take another Lewis quote, from a character in “The Screwtape Letters,” to heart: “I now see that I spent most of my life doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.” Because of the healthy yet demanding expectations of the teachers, I had to rethink how I spent my free time, cutting out anything I could out of necessity. This made me realize how much of what I did for fun was simply done out of habit, instead of seeking enjoyment.
All of this: constant and consistent faith, strong student life, and a work-ethic-improving curriculum, was provided by a few people who wanted to start a school in a harsh environment with just a few of life’s lemons. Imagine what they have in store for the future.
