I was just looking over my old posts on Advent and came across a link to an article I read years ago when we were first learning about Church seasons: The Christian Season of Advent: Anticipation and Hope. In it he explains what Advent is, describes the Advent wreath and the significance of the candles, and lists lots of hymns appropriate to the season.
That article is part of his series on the Church year, Seasons of the Church Year, which is a great resource. Check it out.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
Greatness
It’s October and that means I’m thinking about Alfred the Great whose feast day is on the 26th. We’re enjoying our tradition of reading Chesterton’s The Ballad of the White Horse, my favorite long poetic work, which is about Alfred – the only English king to be called “the Great” – and his struggle to stop the Danish invaders. This is not a retelling of historical events in verse, but an epic poem of the legendary Alfred, portraying the eternal conflict between Christian faith and pagan nihilism.
It is layer upon layer of truth and beauty, and greatness. I think this is our fifth time to read it, and every time I find a new gem, which is one reason it’s so important to be deeply familiar with a few great works.
The passage that stands out the most to me this time is from Book II: The Gathering of the Chiefs. In Book I, Alfred had a vision of Mary in which he asked whether he would succeed in driving out the pagan invaders. She refused to answer him, saying only that it would get worse and he must be brave. In Book II, Alfred has been to Eldred, a chief who is of Saxon descent, and Mark, of Roman blood. He now comes to Colan, who is Welsh and Irish, representing the pre-Roman Britons. I’ve shared before the passage where Colan is introduced to us. Here is Alfred’s encounter with him:
Look at that again:
If you read yesterday’s post, you’ll know that I need these lessons myself as much as, if not more than, my children.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
The Ballad of the White Horse is available online for free at Gutenberg.com and for Kindle, but I highly recommend the hardback by Ignatius Press, especially if you’re going to be reading it over and over again, which of course you should. This copy is elegantly laid out, uses a simple and beautiful font, and is generously illustrated with woodcuts by Robert Austin. The introduction gives a brief historical note on the events in the poem as well as some discussion of the poem itself, and contains a photograph of the actual white horse, which is cut into the turf on the side of a hill and filled with chalk – it’s nearly 400 feet long and its age is unknown. When the Romans asked the Britons about it, they said that when their people first arrived it was already there, and the people who were there before them did not know who had made it. This copy of the book also has a lot of end notes with helpful and interesting tidbits, but there are no notes in the text itself, so you’re not distracted by them while reading.
Also helpful is Benjamin Merkle's biography, The White Horse King (also available for Kindle).
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Previous entries on Alfred the Great:
Alfred the Great post from the 26th of October, 2005; history, prayers, and lots of cool links; don’t miss it!
Three selections from Poetry Month 2008:
The Way of the Cross (Mary’s answer to Alfred, when he asked whether he would prevail over the enemy)
The Great Gaels of Ireland (where Colan is introduced)
The King’s Laughter (from the episode of the old woman and burnt cakes)
All my posts where he’s mentioned are filed under the Alfred the Great label
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you click through the links to The Ballad of the White Horse and buy it, I'll earn a little bit for advertising on my blog.
It is layer upon layer of truth and beauty, and greatness. I think this is our fifth time to read it, and every time I find a new gem, which is one reason it’s so important to be deeply familiar with a few great works.
The passage that stands out the most to me this time is from Book II: The Gathering of the Chiefs. In Book I, Alfred had a vision of Mary in which he asked whether he would succeed in driving out the pagan invaders. She refused to answer him, saying only that it would get worse and he must be brave. In Book II, Alfred has been to Eldred, a chief who is of Saxon descent, and Mark, of Roman blood. He now comes to Colan, who is Welsh and Irish, representing the pre-Roman Britons. I’ve shared before the passage where Colan is introduced to us. Here is Alfred’s encounter with him:
Lifting the great green ivy~*~ ~*~ ~*~
And the great spear lowering,
One said, “I am Alfred of Wessex,
And I am a conquered king.”
And the man of the cave made answer,
And his eyes were stars of scorn,
“And better kings were conquered
Or ever your sires were born.
“What goddess was your mother,
What fay your breed begot,
That you should not die with Uther
And Arthur and Lancelot?
“But when you win you brag and blow,
And when you lose you rail,
Army of eastland yokels
Not strong enough to fail.”
“I bring not boast or railing,”
Spake Alfred not in ire,
“I bring of Our Lady a lesson set,
This—that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.”
Then Colan of the Sacred Tree
Tossed his black mane on high,
And cried, as rigidly he rose,
“And if the sea and sky be foes,
We will tame the sea and sky.”
Look at that again:
“But when you win you brag and blow,After we finished reading Book Two, I went back and read that passage over again to my children. It is said that if you want to know what something is, one thing you should do is learn what it is not. Alfred does not respond in anger, but humbly accepts the rebuke and proves proves his greatness by stating that he’s planning on continuing the fight, even if it ultimately ends in defeat.
And when you lose you rail,
Army of eastland yokels
Not strong enough to fail.”
If you read yesterday’s post, you’ll know that I need these lessons myself as much as, if not more than, my children.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
The Ballad of the White Horse is available online for free at Gutenberg.com and for Kindle, but I highly recommend the hardback by Ignatius Press, especially if you’re going to be reading it over and over again, which of course you should. This copy is elegantly laid out, uses a simple and beautiful font, and is generously illustrated with woodcuts by Robert Austin. The introduction gives a brief historical note on the events in the poem as well as some discussion of the poem itself, and contains a photograph of the actual white horse, which is cut into the turf on the side of a hill and filled with chalk – it’s nearly 400 feet long and its age is unknown. When the Romans asked the Britons about it, they said that when their people first arrived it was already there, and the people who were there before them did not know who had made it. This copy of the book also has a lot of end notes with helpful and interesting tidbits, but there are no notes in the text itself, so you’re not distracted by them while reading.Also helpful is Benjamin Merkle's biography, The White Horse King (also available for Kindle).
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Previous entries on Alfred the Great:
Alfred the Great post from the 26th of October, 2005; history, prayers, and lots of cool links; don’t miss it!
Three selections from Poetry Month 2008:
The Way of the Cross (Mary’s answer to Alfred, when he asked whether he would prevail over the enemy)
The Great Gaels of Ireland (where Colan is introduced)
The King’s Laughter (from the episode of the old woman and burnt cakes)
All my posts where he’s mentioned are filed under the Alfred the Great label
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you click through the links to The Ballad of the White Horse and buy it, I'll earn a little bit for advertising on my blog.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
First post since Blogger forced me into the new layout
I'm trying to write about my beloved Ballad of the White Horse and let me just say how much I hate this new interface. I can't find anything. The HTML editor doesn't behave like it used to -- I really dislike using the "Compose" mode. Blogger is despicable, I loathe Google, I hate most of the world right now, and I wish people who make arbitrary and capricious changes would go to the devil.
There. Indulging in a little railing makes me feel better. You'll laugh when see which passage I'm writing on.
There. Indulging in a little railing makes me feel better. You'll laugh when see which passage I'm writing on.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Mid-Term Break
Six weeks of school = time for a break!
Yesterday I slept late then went to visit a friend and her new baby. Today I’m taking my son shopping for baseball pants. This week I also need to make some phone calls, get caught up on housework and book-keeping, and think about the next six weeks. And there’s the post I’ve promised to write for Ideas Have Consequences. Plus I’m reading two books on mathematical thinking and have signed up for a free online class on the same topic.
Mozart is our composer this term, so I need to remember to play something each day. I don’t like background music, so Listening to Music is always an event for me. Also, we have half a chapter of Stories of the Old Dominion left over from last week that I need to read to the kids, plus we should catch up on our timeline books.
The garden needs end-of-season care. I hope to go down to the river for a walk – we haven’t been there since the spring. It’s a half-hour drive a longish walk just to get there – from the parking lot you have to walk through about a quarter of mile of woods down a steep and winding path – but it’s so beautiful and quiet and we nearly always find fossils.
Also, I’ve had Drawing for Children for more than a decade but have never used it because it seemed so overwhelming. But a couple of weeks ago I was looking at it again and suddenly it occurred to me that I don’t have to do a drawing lesson every day or even every week. Just once a month would be more than they’ve ever had, so I’m hoping to get to that this week using lessons from Donna Young (recommended by Brandy), but, um, my week “off” is starting to look pretty busy.
And so naturally instead of doing any of that I’m sitting here typing a blog post and experimenting with a different color scheme for the blog. And I just spilled coffee on my white shirt. :-p
Yesterday I slept late then went to visit a friend and her new baby. Today I’m taking my son shopping for baseball pants. This week I also need to make some phone calls, get caught up on housework and book-keeping, and think about the next six weeks. And there’s the post I’ve promised to write for Ideas Have Consequences. Plus I’m reading two books on mathematical thinking and have signed up for a free online class on the same topic.
Mozart is our composer this term, so I need to remember to play something each day. I don’t like background music, so Listening to Music is always an event for me. Also, we have half a chapter of Stories of the Old Dominion left over from last week that I need to read to the kids, plus we should catch up on our timeline books.
The garden needs end-of-season care. I hope to go down to the river for a walk – we haven’t been there since the spring. It’s a half-hour drive a longish walk just to get there – from the parking lot you have to walk through about a quarter of mile of woods down a steep and winding path – but it’s so beautiful and quiet and we nearly always find fossils.
Also, I’ve had Drawing for Children for more than a decade but have never used it because it seemed so overwhelming. But a couple of weeks ago I was looking at it again and suddenly it occurred to me that I don’t have to do a drawing lesson every day or even every week. Just once a month would be more than they’ve ever had, so I’m hoping to get to that this week using lessons from Donna Young (recommended by Brandy), but, um, my week “off” is starting to look pretty busy.
And so naturally instead of doing any of that I’m sitting here typing a blog post and experimenting with a different color scheme for the blog. And I just spilled coffee on my white shirt. :-p
Friday, August 24, 2012
Background thoughts on "The Last Metaphysical Right"
I told Brandy in the comments to her post on chapter 7 that this chapter of Ideas Have Consequences is my favorite and I'd try really hard to write about it, even though I've haven't posted anything since the first week. But first I've reposted my 2007 book club comments on the chapter from my old blog, which can be read here.
In the post I mention my daughter's illness -- she had appendicitis and was in the hospital for a week, but thankfully didn't have to have the appendix removed. She recovered and is fine now. Didn't want to leave anyone hanging there. :-D
In the post I mention my daughter's illness -- she had appendicitis and was in the hospital for a week, but thankfully didn't have to have the appendix removed. She recovered and is fine now. Didn't want to leave anyone hanging there. :-D
Thursday, August 23, 2012
You can listen to me on Blogtalkradio tomorrow night
Scott Terry is hosting a round table discussion on making the transition from a suburban to a rural and agrarian life and has invited me and two other women to participate. You can hear the live broadcast, Transitioning to Rural Life, on Friday the 24th of August at 9:00 pm, Eastern time, or you can download the talk later and listen whenever it's convenient.
Whether you listen or not, y'all pray for me, okay?
Whether you listen or not, y'all pray for me, okay?
Thursday, August 2, 2012
School planning -- fitting the pieces together
We’re starting back to school next week and I’m shuffling our daily schedule a bit to make time for my two youngest students’ work in the morning when I have more energy. I spent the morning really confused but I think I’ve solved it, so I’m sharing it in hopes it’ll help someone else out.
I’m trying to keep in mind Charlotte Mason’s suggestion to mix up the lessons, so that I don’t have two or three similar kinds of work scheduled back-to-back. For instance, handwriting and math worksheets both require fine motor work, so they should be separated by something very different, such as reading.
Further complicating matters, I’m also trying to follow Ruth Beechick’s advice not to combine concrete and abstract thinking in one math lesson. So I have math flashcards (memory, drill, abstract), a lesson from Arithmetic for Young Children (oral, narrative, concrete), and a math worksheet (fine motor, drill, abstract) to plan for, but I don’t want them to happen one after another.
I need to have both the students with me because we do some things together (math and phonics flashcards, handwriting) but I need to have them each alternate between independent work (reading, math sheets) and lessons with me (math, reading).
Finally I decided to use the technique that makes Managers of Their Homes so helpful – make slips of paper for each activity, a different color for each person.
My son is blue, my daughter is pink (aren’t I original?), and the two of them together are white. After shuffling pieces around for a couple of minutes I figured it out.
Here’s what I came up with. I’ll keep this page in my notebook until I get the routine down well enough not to need a cheat sheet.
And here’s how my weekly plan book looks for Summer 2012. Laura of Lines in Pleasant Places recommended this planner to me several years ago and I've used it ever since then. It's been a huge help.
Notice I don’t use the plan book the way it’s meant to be. I put the days of the week across the top and the subjects down the side. The first section is our Morning Time, which we have in the living room. Everyone who’s at home participates in that, even my “graduated” students. The next section is for my 13-year-old student, most of which she does independently, and the next is for my two youngest. The goal is for all of this to get done before lunch, though my 13yod will probably need to spend time later in the day to finish hers.
We’ll have lunch and outside time, plus a rest time, then come back together for the next section which is mostly Ambleside books. The four youngest and I sit around the school table, while I read the selections for each day, stopping occasionally to let someone narrate. The kids are allowed to color or do anything quiet as long as they’re paying attention to what I’m reading.
The composer entry doesn’t have a scheduled time. We’ll listen to that music at random times throughout the week, such as before Morning Time when we’re waiting for everyone to gather.
That last entry, “Read Aloud,” is what we read for fun, meaning the kids don’t have to narrate. Right now we’re reading some of George MacDonald’s fairy tales (even when we’re not doing school we always have a read-aloud going) and before that we read The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff, and Captain Blood by Raphael Sabatini. We usually have read-aloud in the late afternoon before we have to start evening chores, but given the changes I’ve made, I’ll probably need to do it right after lunch instead. We’ll see.
As we go through the day I make a brief note of what we’ve done. This way, the list in the first column serves as my guide to the school year, but the daily columns show what we’ve actually accomplished, which keeps me “doing the next thing” without having to constantly rewrite lists for each week or month.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Resources:
[I noticed two of my links don't show up on Google Reader, so here are text links -- hope they work!
The Three R's
Scholastic Daily Planner]
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you click through these links and buy something I'll get a bit of money for advertising.
I’m trying to keep in mind Charlotte Mason’s suggestion to mix up the lessons, so that I don’t have two or three similar kinds of work scheduled back-to-back. For instance, handwriting and math worksheets both require fine motor work, so they should be separated by something very different, such as reading.
Further complicating matters, I’m also trying to follow Ruth Beechick’s advice not to combine concrete and abstract thinking in one math lesson. So I have math flashcards (memory, drill, abstract), a lesson from Arithmetic for Young Children (oral, narrative, concrete), and a math worksheet (fine motor, drill, abstract) to plan for, but I don’t want them to happen one after another.
I need to have both the students with me because we do some things together (math and phonics flashcards, handwriting) but I need to have them each alternate between independent work (reading, math sheets) and lessons with me (math, reading).
Finally I decided to use the technique that makes Managers of Their Homes so helpful – make slips of paper for each activity, a different color for each person.
My son is blue, my daughter is pink (aren’t I original?), and the two of them together are white. After shuffling pieces around for a couple of minutes I figured it out.
Here’s what I came up with. I’ll keep this page in my notebook until I get the routine down well enough not to need a cheat sheet.
And here’s how my weekly plan book looks for Summer 2012. Laura of Lines in Pleasant Places recommended this planner to me several years ago and I've used it ever since then. It's been a huge help.
Notice I don’t use the plan book the way it’s meant to be. I put the days of the week across the top and the subjects down the side. The first section is our Morning Time, which we have in the living room. Everyone who’s at home participates in that, even my “graduated” students. The next section is for my 13-year-old student, most of which she does independently, and the next is for my two youngest. The goal is for all of this to get done before lunch, though my 13yod will probably need to spend time later in the day to finish hers.
We’ll have lunch and outside time, plus a rest time, then come back together for the next section which is mostly Ambleside books. The four youngest and I sit around the school table, while I read the selections for each day, stopping occasionally to let someone narrate. The kids are allowed to color or do anything quiet as long as they’re paying attention to what I’m reading.
The composer entry doesn’t have a scheduled time. We’ll listen to that music at random times throughout the week, such as before Morning Time when we’re waiting for everyone to gather.
That last entry, “Read Aloud,” is what we read for fun, meaning the kids don’t have to narrate. Right now we’re reading some of George MacDonald’s fairy tales (even when we’re not doing school we always have a read-aloud going) and before that we read The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff, and Captain Blood by Raphael Sabatini. We usually have read-aloud in the late afternoon before we have to start evening chores, but given the changes I’ve made, I’ll probably need to do it right after lunch instead. We’ll see.
As we go through the day I make a brief note of what we’ve done. This way, the list in the first column serves as my guide to the school year, but the daily columns show what we’ve actually accomplished, which keeps me “doing the next thing” without having to constantly rewrite lists for each week or month.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Resources:
[I noticed two of my links don't show up on Google Reader, so here are text links -- hope they work!
The Three R's
Scholastic Daily Planner]
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you click through these links and buy something I'll get a bit of money for advertising.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Some initial thoughts on the 2012 CiRCE conference
because I can’t go back to reading Ideas Have Consequences as long as I’m full of this conference – I’m afraid it’ll make my head explode
“The world that God made is best known through harmony.” ~John Hodges
In the first session, “A Contemplation of Creation, Part I,” Andrew Kern talked about creation, metaphor, and analogy. He said that the Law of God, the Torah, should not be thought of as a legal code, but as the wisdom of God. Notice that it begins with the story of his creation, and of his care for his people. Torah teaches us of his creation, his craftsmanship, his artistry. The core principle is harmony, unity in diversity.
All of the creation myths in the world embody the Myth of Violence. Think about the Greek story of Chaos and the Titans and the gods. Think of the modern myth of the Big Bang. Only the Biblical account does not begin in violence – a Triune God, at unity within the Godhead, creating out of his love and peace. The world we live in today is very angry at us because only we have the Myth of Peace. Referencing Elizabeth’s Theokritoff’s book Living in God's Creation he said that we are the bond of unity in creation – we are to unite the disparate aspects of the created order and bring them into unity with God.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
John Hodges gave his lecture, “Music and Metaphor: Towards a Sacramental View of Creation,” right after Andrew Kern, and he swore that they hadn’t been comparing notes. The quote at the top is from his lecture, which was all about harmony.
He said that Christ used metaphors to teach about himself – “I am the vine,” “I am the door” – but the metaphor works the other way too. Since Christ was there first, and since creation reflects the creator, the reason we even have vines in the first place is because they are like God in some way.
Other insights from John Hodges:
Metaphor is taking two disparate things and bringing them into harmony
Art is embodying something that is not able to be perceived except through that medium
Our Triune God is invisible; Trinity cannot be imaged logically
Perception of beauty = the ability to see harmony
Our ability to perceive beauty (and beauty itself) is fallen – we have broken perception; therefore we must help our students hone their ability to see harmony, we must teach them what to listen for in music, what to look for in the arts, show them what it is about a great work that makes it worth loving
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
I was impressed (again) with the importance of having a harmonious household – that our relations with each other should be harmonious is the obvious application, but our relationship with our things and the things’ relationship with each other also should be in harmony. Making the home a harmonious environment is foundational to teaching our children what harmony is, and teaching them to love it.
And of course, the reason I keep harping on this is because I need to hear it myself. OFTEN.
“The world that God made is best known through harmony.” ~John Hodges
In the first session, “A Contemplation of Creation, Part I,” Andrew Kern talked about creation, metaphor, and analogy. He said that the Law of God, the Torah, should not be thought of as a legal code, but as the wisdom of God. Notice that it begins with the story of his creation, and of his care for his people. Torah teaches us of his creation, his craftsmanship, his artistry. The core principle is harmony, unity in diversity.
All of the creation myths in the world embody the Myth of Violence. Think about the Greek story of Chaos and the Titans and the gods. Think of the modern myth of the Big Bang. Only the Biblical account does not begin in violence – a Triune God, at unity within the Godhead, creating out of his love and peace. The world we live in today is very angry at us because only we have the Myth of Peace. Referencing Elizabeth’s Theokritoff’s book Living in God's Creation he said that we are the bond of unity in creation – we are to unite the disparate aspects of the created order and bring them into unity with God.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
John Hodges gave his lecture, “Music and Metaphor: Towards a Sacramental View of Creation,” right after Andrew Kern, and he swore that they hadn’t been comparing notes. The quote at the top is from his lecture, which was all about harmony.
He said that Christ used metaphors to teach about himself – “I am the vine,” “I am the door” – but the metaphor works the other way too. Since Christ was there first, and since creation reflects the creator, the reason we even have vines in the first place is because they are like God in some way.
Other insights from John Hodges:
Metaphor is taking two disparate things and bringing them into harmony
Art is embodying something that is not able to be perceived except through that medium
Our Triune God is invisible; Trinity cannot be imaged logically
Perception of beauty = the ability to see harmony
Our ability to perceive beauty (and beauty itself) is fallen – we have broken perception; therefore we must help our students hone their ability to see harmony, we must teach them what to listen for in music, what to look for in the arts, show them what it is about a great work that makes it worth loving
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
I was impressed (again) with the importance of having a harmonious household – that our relations with each other should be harmonious is the obvious application, but our relationship with our things and the things’ relationship with each other also should be in harmony. Making the home a harmonious environment is foundational to teaching our children what harmony is, and teaching them to love it.
And of course, the reason I keep harping on this is because I need to hear it myself. OFTEN.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Ideas Have Consequences: Chapter 1, The Unsentimental Sentiment
[I have out of town guests arriving at any moment, so I'm just copying and paste my post for this chapter from last time -- the original can be found here.]
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Forgot to add this:
Join the discussion at Mystie's blog
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Blogging through this book with Cindy and others is not going to be easy. The concepts are so huge that they are hard to summarize and it’s difficult even to pick out quotes since Richard Weaver did not write in sound bites. For this reason, please be patient with me when I quote long passages.
Chapter I: The Unsentimental Sentiment
When I first started this blog, my header said something like “…taking dominion by beautifying one tiny little corner of the world.” By saying that, I was trying to express the idea that everything we do as Christian women to beautify the sphere the Lord has put us into is a very real and a very valuable way of fulfilling mankind’s creation mandate, of rejoicing in being created in his image, and of glorifying the Lord. But after reading the book mentioned in the previous post, I changed it to the much superior words of fellow Arkansan John Gould Fletcher: “…to make our lives an art…”
This, I think, is at least partly what Mr. Weaver is pointing to in this chapter, and this is something I need to remind myself of on a regular basis. I tend to have lofty ideals but then translating those ideals into practice is very hard for me, and for other women I know. Here are some ideas that might inspire those who need foundational help in this area.
• Be sure that your day has a reasonably predictable rhythm to it. If you have no idea where to begin, start with meals and bedtimes - decide when you should have supper, and that will let you know when you need to start preparing it, when the little ones need naps, when to serve lunch and whether the little ones need a snack between lunch and supper, and so forth. From there you can decide when to schedule regular chores, like laundry, when to have storytime…
• Do have nap time every afternoon, even if all your children have outgrown the need for a nap. Everyone in the family still needs a space of quiet, alone time when they’re free to daydream or play with their favorite things without having to share. Moms who are homeschooling (unless they are extremely extroverted and get charged up by being around small people all day long - of which, I am most decidedly not one) especially need this regular time every day, if they are going to make it for the long haul.
• Set the table, with real dishes, for every meal, using paper plates only on rare occasion. Unless you’re in absolute survival mode and can’t possibly face having plates to wash after meals, I’d recommend this for all meals. Having a pretty table to sit down to makes the meal so much more pleasant - and you don’t have to have all matching stuff. I have four different sets of flatware, half of it picked up at thrift stores, that we use at each meal. For a long time I had two different sets of stoneware, but they were both white, so it looked fine on the table.
• A trick I learned from a “More Hours in my Day” seminar with Emilie Barnes is to ring a bell a few minutes before a meal to give everyone time to finish up what they’re doing and wash their hands. At supper I ring ours twenty to thirty minutes before the meal because Mike and a couple of the older kids are usually still out doing barn chores. This gives them plenty of time to finish what they’re doing and time to change clothes if needed. In the meantime, the rest of us come to the living room and sit down and read or play quietly or talk. It’s amazing how civilizing this time is. The family gathers in one place, I make a last-minute check on things and then tell them they can come to the table. (This is, of coure, the ideal - it doesn’t happen every day, especially if Mike had to work late at the office.)
• Model using a pleasant tone of voice and encourage your children to do the same. Shouting is for outside - don’t yell for your kids unless there’s an emergency. Get up and go find them or send a messenger. We have a rule in our family that we aren’t supposed to speak to someone unless we can see their eyes. This reminds us to get close enough to speak in a moderate tone of voice, and it helps us notice whether the person is already speaking to someone else so that we don’t interrupt. Teach your children to say “Yes, Ma’am,” and “Yes, Sir,” or whatever is the appropriately respectful response in your family or region.
• Get dressed first thing in the morning. Fix your hair, and if you wear makeup or jewelry, put it on before you go to the kitchen to start breakfast. Don’t laugh! I know that sounds really basic, but I grew up with the habit of not getting dressed right away unless we were going somewhere (which, of course, was every day but most Saturdays) and I’d actually been a wife and mother for two or three years before I realized that this was my job and I ought to get dressed for my family even though I wasn’t going out that morning. :-p Expect the older kids to dress themselves before breakfast, including having their teeth brushed and hair neat. I am not going to require you to put on shoes every day the way some homemaking advisors do - I’m a Southerner, and like Henny-penny, “I go barefoot, barefoot, barefoot!” :-D
• Make eye contact, smile, and greet one another with a hug first thing each morning. As Laura said in These Happy Golden Years, saying “Good morning” really does make it a good morning!
• Listen to a wide range of good music throughout the week. We’re focusing our attention this term on Antonine Dvořák’s music, so sometimes we’ll listen to his piano solos or Slavonic dances while preparing meals. I prefer listening to his symphonies and string quartets when I have time to sit down and pay attention. His Mass in D major is simply beautiful (ignore the review at Amazon - the guy’s a snob; apparantly he didn’t like it because it’s a live recording of an actual church choir in church, rather than professionals in a studio, but that’s exactly the version I wanted).
• Read some poetry each day to your children. The little ones and I are reading through Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses, and with the older ones I’m reading through Ambleside Online’s Year 6 poetry list, chosen because I haven’t read poetry with the older ones since they were little.
My biggest challenge is simply keeping the house tidy. Children need to grow up in an orderly and peaceful environment, and we have too much stuff, defined as “more stuff than I can manage without being consumed by it.” I feel like I’ve been ruthlessly dejunking this year, but evidently I’m going to have to be ruthlesser. ;-) If you’re a mom just starting out, take two bits of advice from me: 1) Don’t accumulate stuff, and 2) Teach your children to pick up after themselves from infancy. Trust me. I’ve learned this the hard way.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Resources:
The Hidden Art of Homemaking, by Edith Schaeffer
Sidetracked Home Executives, by Pam Young and Peggy Jones
More Hours in My Day, by Emilie Barnes
Ambleside Online has Charlotte Mason’s books online so you can read them for free - many of her ideas are in the vein of what I’ve been trying to say in this post.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
By the way, if you want to read the book is actually about, go over to Dana’s blog, Hidden Art. She has insight and a wonderful way with words.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you click through the links to Amazon and buy something I'll be compensated a tiny bit for advertising on my blog.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Forgot to add this:
Join the discussion at Mystie's blog
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Blogging through this book with Cindy and others is not going to be easy. The concepts are so huge that they are hard to summarize and it’s difficult even to pick out quotes since Richard Weaver did not write in sound bites. For this reason, please be patient with me when I quote long passages.
Chapter I: The Unsentimental Sentiment
The man of self-control is he who can consistently perform the feat of abstraction. He is therefore trained to see things under the aspect of eternity, because form is the enduring part. Thus we invariably find in the man of true culture a deep respect for forms. He approaches even those he does not understand with awareness that a deep thought lies in an old observance. Such respect distinguishes him from the barbarian, on the one hand, and the degenerate, on the other. The truth can be expressed in another way by saying that the man of culture has a sense of style. Style requires measure, whether in space or time, for measure imparts structure, and it is structure which is essential to intellectual apprenhension. (p. 23)
When I first started this blog, my header said something like “…taking dominion by beautifying one tiny little corner of the world.” By saying that, I was trying to express the idea that everything we do as Christian women to beautify the sphere the Lord has put us into is a very real and a very valuable way of fulfilling mankind’s creation mandate, of rejoicing in being created in his image, and of glorifying the Lord. But after reading the book mentioned in the previous post, I changed it to the much superior words of fellow Arkansan John Gould Fletcher: “…to make our lives an art…”
This, I think, is at least partly what Mr. Weaver is pointing to in this chapter, and this is something I need to remind myself of on a regular basis. I tend to have lofty ideals but then translating those ideals into practice is very hard for me, and for other women I know. Here are some ideas that might inspire those who need foundational help in this area.
• Be sure that your day has a reasonably predictable rhythm to it. If you have no idea where to begin, start with meals and bedtimes - decide when you should have supper, and that will let you know when you need to start preparing it, when the little ones need naps, when to serve lunch and whether the little ones need a snack between lunch and supper, and so forth. From there you can decide when to schedule regular chores, like laundry, when to have storytime…
• Do have nap time every afternoon, even if all your children have outgrown the need for a nap. Everyone in the family still needs a space of quiet, alone time when they’re free to daydream or play with their favorite things without having to share. Moms who are homeschooling (unless they are extremely extroverted and get charged up by being around small people all day long - of which, I am most decidedly not one) especially need this regular time every day, if they are going to make it for the long haul.
• Set the table, with real dishes, for every meal, using paper plates only on rare occasion. Unless you’re in absolute survival mode and can’t possibly face having plates to wash after meals, I’d recommend this for all meals. Having a pretty table to sit down to makes the meal so much more pleasant - and you don’t have to have all matching stuff. I have four different sets of flatware, half of it picked up at thrift stores, that we use at each meal. For a long time I had two different sets of stoneware, but they were both white, so it looked fine on the table.
• A trick I learned from a “More Hours in my Day” seminar with Emilie Barnes is to ring a bell a few minutes before a meal to give everyone time to finish up what they’re doing and wash their hands. At supper I ring ours twenty to thirty minutes before the meal because Mike and a couple of the older kids are usually still out doing barn chores. This gives them plenty of time to finish what they’re doing and time to change clothes if needed. In the meantime, the rest of us come to the living room and sit down and read or play quietly or talk. It’s amazing how civilizing this time is. The family gathers in one place, I make a last-minute check on things and then tell them they can come to the table. (This is, of coure, the ideal - it doesn’t happen every day, especially if Mike had to work late at the office.)
• Model using a pleasant tone of voice and encourage your children to do the same. Shouting is for outside - don’t yell for your kids unless there’s an emergency. Get up and go find them or send a messenger. We have a rule in our family that we aren’t supposed to speak to someone unless we can see their eyes. This reminds us to get close enough to speak in a moderate tone of voice, and it helps us notice whether the person is already speaking to someone else so that we don’t interrupt. Teach your children to say “Yes, Ma’am,” and “Yes, Sir,” or whatever is the appropriately respectful response in your family or region.
• Get dressed first thing in the morning. Fix your hair, and if you wear makeup or jewelry, put it on before you go to the kitchen to start breakfast. Don’t laugh! I know that sounds really basic, but I grew up with the habit of not getting dressed right away unless we were going somewhere (which, of course, was every day but most Saturdays) and I’d actually been a wife and mother for two or three years before I realized that this was my job and I ought to get dressed for my family even though I wasn’t going out that morning. :-p Expect the older kids to dress themselves before breakfast, including having their teeth brushed and hair neat. I am not going to require you to put on shoes every day the way some homemaking advisors do - I’m a Southerner, and like Henny-penny, “I go barefoot, barefoot, barefoot!” :-D
• Make eye contact, smile, and greet one another with a hug first thing each morning. As Laura said in These Happy Golden Years, saying “Good morning” really does make it a good morning!
• Listen to a wide range of good music throughout the week. We’re focusing our attention this term on Antonine Dvořák’s music, so sometimes we’ll listen to his piano solos or Slavonic dances while preparing meals. I prefer listening to his symphonies and string quartets when I have time to sit down and pay attention. His Mass in D major is simply beautiful (ignore the review at Amazon - the guy’s a snob; apparantly he didn’t like it because it’s a live recording of an actual church choir in church, rather than professionals in a studio, but that’s exactly the version I wanted).
• Read some poetry each day to your children. The little ones and I are reading through Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses, and with the older ones I’m reading through Ambleside Online’s Year 6 poetry list, chosen because I haven’t read poetry with the older ones since they were little.
My biggest challenge is simply keeping the house tidy. Children need to grow up in an orderly and peaceful environment, and we have too much stuff, defined as “more stuff than I can manage without being consumed by it.” I feel like I’ve been ruthlessly dejunking this year, but evidently I’m going to have to be ruthlesser. ;-) If you’re a mom just starting out, take two bits of advice from me: 1) Don’t accumulate stuff, and 2) Teach your children to pick up after themselves from infancy. Trust me. I’ve learned this the hard way.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Resources:
The Hidden Art of Homemaking, by Edith Schaeffer
Sidetracked Home Executives, by Pam Young and Peggy Jones
More Hours in My Day, by Emilie Barnes
Ambleside Online has Charlotte Mason’s books online so you can read them for free - many of her ideas are in the vein of what I’ve been trying to say in this post.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
By the way, if you want to read the book is actually about, go over to Dana’s blog, Hidden Art. She has insight and a wonderful way with words.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you click through the links to Amazon and buy something I'll be compensated a tiny bit for advertising on my blog.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Ideas Have Consequences: Introduction
Mystie is hosting this book club, which I'm planning on participating in. I read the book when Cindy hosted the discussion in 2007, but I wasn't able to comment on each chapter. This time around I'm mainly planning on dusting off my old posts (which aren't on this site yet -- I was blogging elsewhere then and that site died, sadly), but hopefully I'll be able to reread the book and have more to say this time.
That said, I hadn't planned on doing the introductory chapter, but the discussion at Mystie's blog spurred me to write a long enough response that I figured I may as well post it here. The subject of technology came up and whether it's good, bad, or neutral.
(For a summary of this chapter, be sure to visit Mystie's blog.)
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
I’ve been thinking all week, trying to figure out how to word this and I haven’t come up with anything satisfactory, but here goes anyway.
It seems to me that “things” (specifically technology, since that’s the topic) by their nature encourage certain uses and choices and discourage others, so that they aren’t exactly completely neutral objects. I’m not going so far as to say that they are actors, but I also can’t say that they are completely... neutral or passive in the way they are used.
We conservatives are fond of saying things like “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people,” which is true as far as it goes, but the fact is that guns are designed to blow holes in things from a distance, ideally while keeping the user safe from close contact with the target.
So, a gun, as a weapon is used differently than a sword, for instance, and it requires different skills and different strategies. Same thing as a hunting tool when compared to a hand-made spear. So the kind of person who is trained to use one weapon will turn out to be different than the kind who is trained to use the other.
That’s what I mean by technologies not being neutral.
I find it interesting that in most of these discussions someone eventually gets around to saying, “I’m not saying we should all be Amish,” but that betrays a lack of understanding of how the Amish approach technology. They don’t reject things outright. New technologies are picked up by interested members of the community and used for a while, while everyone else watches what happens. How does the technology actually affect the user? How does it change the way he’s been doing things? How does it affect his family? How does it affect the broader community? After a few years of watching this experimentation, the bishops will meet and begin discussing what they’re learning, and eventually reach a conclusion. This technology has these effects, so in order to protect our relationships with each other it may be used in this way but not in that.
It’s a slow and deliberate method of evaluating change, values the family and the community above individual convenience or profit, and is understood and respected by the community. Seems like a good plan to me.
A few years ago, Rick Saenz mentioned on his blog that prior to the Industrial Revolution, new technology developed really slowly so that the broader culture had time to adapt to the changes brought about by each new thing before the next new thing was developed. I think that was a blessing. The more I read about the Industrial Revolution the more I wonder why it happened. Why was it a revolution and not simply a continuation of the past slow progress? What was different and why had it changed? Even though we’ve benefitted materially in many ways from it, overall I can’t help but think that as human beings, as families, we really are not better off.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
I'm an Amazon Affiliate, which means I'll get a bit of monetary compensation for advertising on my blog if you click through the links and purchase the book.
That said, I hadn't planned on doing the introductory chapter, but the discussion at Mystie's blog spurred me to write a long enough response that I figured I may as well post it here. The subject of technology came up and whether it's good, bad, or neutral.
(For a summary of this chapter, be sure to visit Mystie's blog.)
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
I’ve been thinking all week, trying to figure out how to word this and I haven’t come up with anything satisfactory, but here goes anyway.
It seems to me that “things” (specifically technology, since that’s the topic) by their nature encourage certain uses and choices and discourage others, so that they aren’t exactly completely neutral objects. I’m not going so far as to say that they are actors, but I also can’t say that they are completely... neutral or passive in the way they are used.
We conservatives are fond of saying things like “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people,” which is true as far as it goes, but the fact is that guns are designed to blow holes in things from a distance, ideally while keeping the user safe from close contact with the target.
So, a gun, as a weapon is used differently than a sword, for instance, and it requires different skills and different strategies. Same thing as a hunting tool when compared to a hand-made spear. So the kind of person who is trained to use one weapon will turn out to be different than the kind who is trained to use the other.
That’s what I mean by technologies not being neutral.
I find it interesting that in most of these discussions someone eventually gets around to saying, “I’m not saying we should all be Amish,” but that betrays a lack of understanding of how the Amish approach technology. They don’t reject things outright. New technologies are picked up by interested members of the community and used for a while, while everyone else watches what happens. How does the technology actually affect the user? How does it change the way he’s been doing things? How does it affect his family? How does it affect the broader community? After a few years of watching this experimentation, the bishops will meet and begin discussing what they’re learning, and eventually reach a conclusion. This technology has these effects, so in order to protect our relationships with each other it may be used in this way but not in that.
It’s a slow and deliberate method of evaluating change, values the family and the community above individual convenience or profit, and is understood and respected by the community. Seems like a good plan to me.
A few years ago, Rick Saenz mentioned on his blog that prior to the Industrial Revolution, new technology developed really slowly so that the broader culture had time to adapt to the changes brought about by each new thing before the next new thing was developed. I think that was a blessing. The more I read about the Industrial Revolution the more I wonder why it happened. Why was it a revolution and not simply a continuation of the past slow progress? What was different and why had it changed? Even though we’ve benefitted materially in many ways from it, overall I can’t help but think that as human beings, as families, we really are not better off.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
I'm an Amazon Affiliate, which means I'll get a bit of monetary compensation for advertising on my blog if you click through the links and purchase the book.
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