This is an excerpt from George Weigel's book, Letters to a Young Catholic. This is one of the outstanding books we are reading for our J-term class, Christian Theological Tradition. Weigel is currently commenting on GK Chesterton's Orthodoxy.
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Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light. Satan fell by force of gravity. -GKC
His own, that is: Satan fell by force of his own gravity. By taking himself too seriously - by taking himself with ultimate seriousness - Satan fell. His weight became too much for him to bear, and so he fell. Crashed. Cratered. Isn't that rather like the modern gnostic mind-set? Because nothing in the world counts, only I count: only my imperial, autonomous, self-generating self counts. Now that's heavy; far too heavy. A sacramental outlook on the world teaches us that, yes, we count (and infinitely). But so does everyone else. (Weigel, 95)
