From My Commonplace: On Love, True Love

"…ceasing to be 'in love' need not mean ceasing to love.  Love in this second sense – love as distinct from being 'in love' – is not merely a feeling.  It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive from God. They can have this love for each other even at these moments when they do not like each other… 'Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise."

 

"Let the thrill go – let it die away – go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow – and you will find you are living a world of new thrills all the time."

 

Part 3 – Chapter 6 – "On Christian Marriage"

~ CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

 

 

I read this book years ago, as a college student.  I remember enjoying it – I've always been a fan of CS Lewis – but I don't remember now much about what I took away from it.  (I actually really wish I still had the same copy I read all those years ago, because I'd love to see now what sections I marked and commented on my first go around, and how it compares to my second go.  Alas, that book was lost somewhere in one of our many international moves over the last 15 years.)  I am so enjoying reading it again, though.   Even though Lewis wrote this somewhere around the time of World War 2, if I'm not mistaken, there has been so much that has just resonated as timely and true in the issues of our modern culture.   And that's the mark of a good book, don't you think?

 

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On My Nightstand This Week:

Devotional: Luke with the Luke for Everyone Commentary (Wright)

The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven (Maurice)

The Ancient Christian Devotional: Lectionary Cycle A (Crosby and Oden)

 Theological: Mere Christianity (Lewis)

On Education: Norms and Nobility (Hicks)

                                                          Personal Choice Fiction: Middlemarch (Eliot)

Personal Choice Nonfiction: Slowly savoring the Circe 2017 Magazine while between books. J

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: At the Back of the North Wind (MacDonald)

 

 

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From My Commonplace: On Conversation

"To 'converse' originally meant to live among or together, or to act together, to foster community, to commune with.  It was a large verb that implied public, cooperative, and deliberate action.  When we converse, we act together toward a common end, and we act upon one another.  Indeed, conversation is a form of activism – a political enterprise in the largest and oldest sense – a way of building and sustaining community."  (p. 89)

 

"His willingness to listen for correction is always a lesson in humility and grace, and even in courage. Good conversation, if it is to involve mutual teaching and learning, does require courage – not only the courage of one's convictions, but also the courage to admit one's limited range of vision and to allow for change, which always exacts some cost in comfort and the security of being 'right'." (p. 105)

 

"And prayer itself is a conversation.  To be in conversation with God is, like tithing, a way of returning to Him some part of the gift of words we have received from Him who is the Word.  Like the long intimate conversations of shared life among partners and friends, conversation with God keeps us turning toward, confiding in, trusting, and learning from the very source of life and language. In that intimate conversation we can be sure of receiving whatever direction and words we need for all the others." (p. 110)

 

~Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies

 

I finished this gem of a book over Thanksgiving break.  So much food for thought – I will be revisiting it I'm sure, even as I continue to mull over the thoughts I recorded in my commonplace.  This was actually recommended to me by a friend from church, and it's not a Charlotte Mason or Classical Education book per se.  But there are a lot of ideas that will probably be of interest to my fellow CM or Classical educators and/or literature lovers.  Worth checking it out, in case you needed another book to add to your already immense stack.  (Ha!) 

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On My Nightstand This Week:

Devotional: Luke with the Luke for Everyone Commentary (Wright)

The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven (Maurice)

The Ancient Christian Devotional: Lectionary Cycle A (Crosby and Oden)

 Theological: Mere Christianity (Lewis)

On Education: Norms and Nobility (Hicks)

                                                          Personal Choice Fiction: Hannah Coulter (Berry)

Personal Choice Nonfiction: Slowly savoring the Circe 2017 Magazine while between books. J

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: At the Back of the North Wind (MacDonald)

 

 

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From My Commonplace: On Loving Words

"We gather these gifts of language as we go along – lines from poems, verses from Scripture, quips, turns of phrase, or simply words that delight us.  We use them in moments of need.  We share them with friend, and we reach for them in our own dark nights.  They bring us into loving relationship with the large, loose 'communion of saints' who have written and spoken truths that go to the heart and the gut and linger in memory.  So our task as stewards of the word begins and ends in love.  Loving language means cherishing it for its beauty, precision, power to enhance understanding, power to name, power to heal.  And it means using words as instruments of love."  p.23

 

~Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies

 

The thing that immediately came to mind when I read this quote was commonplacing – the act of gathering the 'gifts of language' – recording the words, thoughts, and ideas that strike us as we read.   This was a habit that Charlotte Mason encouraged on her older students and trainee teachers, and is one that I have appropriated to myself.  I have been keeping a commonplace for over two years now, and just began my fourth journal.  It is simple really – take those quotes and passages that really strike me in my reading and jot them down in a book.  The overflow of that collection is what appears in this space.

 

James KA Smith asserts in his book You Are What You Love  that we are all lovers – we will love something – it's part of our nature as human beings.  Our habits shape our loves for good or for ill.  The habit of commonplacing forces us to slow down – to consider – to savor words.  It teaches us to love words and to use them well.

 

Sometimes, the simplest things are the most powerful.

 

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On My Nightstand This Week:

Devotional: Luke with the Luke for Everyone Commentary (NT Wright)

The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven (Maurice)

The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission

 Theological: Mere Christianity (Lewis)

On Education: Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators (Woodward)

                                                          Personal Choice Fiction: The Game (King)

Personal Choice Nonfiction: Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies (McEntyre)

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: At the Back of the North Wind (MacDonald)

 

 

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From My Commonplace: "O Goodness Infinite!"

(Originally posted July 20, 2016.  I had a new quote queued up to post today, but this one seemed a fitting reminder today.)

"Yet him God the Most High vouchsafes

To call by vision, from his father's house,

His kindred, and false gods, into a land

Which He will show him, And from him will raise

A mighty nation, and upon him shower

His benediction, so that in his seed

All nations shall be blest. He straight obeys,

Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes.

'I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith

He leaves his gods, his friends, and native soil…

 

Not wandering poor, but trusting all his wealth

With God, who called him, in a land unknown…

 

This ponder, that all nations of the earth

Shall in his seed be blessed. By the seed

Is meant they great Deliverer, who shall bruise

The serpent's head…"

(Lines 120-129, 133-134, 147-150)

 

"Jesus…

…who shall quell

The adversary serpent, and bring back,

Through the world's wilderness, long-wandered Man

Safe to eternal paradise of rest…

… of His reign shall be no end."

(Lines 310-314, 330)

 

"Thy punishment

He shall endure, by coming in the flesh

To a reproachful life, and cursed death;

Proclaiming life to all who shall be believe

In His redemption; and that His obedience,

Imputed, becomes theirs by faith: His merits

To save them, not their own, though legal, works."

(Lines 404-410)

                                                                                                                                                                                          

"O Goodness infinite, Goodness immense!

That all this good of evil shall produce,

And evil turn to good; more wonderful

Than that which by creation first brought forth

Light out of darkness."

(Lines 469-473)

 

~John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book XII

 

A few choice lines from the final book of Paradise Lost.   I had set Paradise Lost aside during a busy season this past spring, and figured it might be a couple of years before I would pick it up again.  So much to read, so little time, right?  But my summer reading took a bit of a detour when I picked up a paperback copy of Surprised by Oxford (I had previously read it off my Kindle) and re-read it.  Her descriptions of studying seventeenth century literature at Oxford inspired me to pick Paradise Lost back up...and I finished it!  I am so very glad I did.  The story Milton tells in Paradise Lost is a heartbreaking one.  Satan rebels against God in heaven…he falls.  God creates a beautifully perfect world – He speaks order into the chaos, and Satan infiltrates it and tempts Adam and Eve into sin as well.  They are cursed, and thrown out of God's beautiful paradise.  All is lost.

 

Or so we think.

 

But all is not lost.  There is Another One coming.  One who will triumph.   One who did triumph at the cross, and One who will come again in ultimate victory.

 

 

This is a crazy world we live in.  There are times when the Unthinkable happens.  There are times when it seems that Chaos overwhelms.  There are times when it seems All is Lost.

 

Christ Has Died.  Christ Is Risen.  Christ Will Come Again.   We declare those words every week in church as part of the Anglican liturgy.

 

I don't know about you, but that's a truth I need to hold on to.

 

"O Goodness infinite, Goodness immense!"

 

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In My Reading Stack This Week:

Devotional: Luke with the Luke for Everyone Commentary (NT Wright)

The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven (FD Maurice)

The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission

 Theological: Mere Christianity (Lewis)

On Education: Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators (Woodward)

Personal Choice Fiction: The Game (King)
Personal Choice Nonfiction: Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies (McEntyre)

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: At the Back of the North Wind (MacDonald)

 

 

 

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From My Commonplace: On The Power of Imaginative Reading

"The books were like rooms in a great house and the pictures were lamps lit in the rooms to show them to him.  As he read, his dreams slowly changed.  The nightmares of being stuck in chimneys that suddenly started to get smaller and smaller, squeezing him until he woke up choking and screaming, gradually gave way to dreams of forests full of great trees, where fabulous beasts galloped down to the cool green aisles, meadows full of flowers and celestial mountains musical with streams.  He dreamed of the sea that had never seen and ships upon it, and of caves where the tide washed in and out."  (p.66)

 

~Elizabeth Goudge, The Dean's Watch

 

 

 

"Deep inside I believe that reading aloud covers a multitude of sins.  It is a grace.  When we cannot escape ourselves, we can escape to other worlds together."  (p.139)

 

~Cindy Rollins, Mere Motherhood

 

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On My Nightstand This Week:

Devotional: 2 Thessalonians with the Paul for Everyone Commentary (NT Wright)

The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission

 Theological: (Between Books)

AO Book Discussion Group: Kim (Kipling)

On Education: Consider This (Glass)

                                                          Personal Choice: The Dean's Watch (Goudge)

Poetry: TS Eliot

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)

 

*I am also reading Charlotte Mason's Volume 6 for a local CM book club, but these meetings are infrequent, and it is my third – or fourth? – pass through it and so I just read the brief section assigned as our meetings come up. 

 

 

 

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From my Commonplace: Learning to Pray (or learning to do anything, really)

"Prayer and music have always gone together in the Christian church, and making another musical illustration may help us find ways of making Paul's prayers our own.  When children begin to learn a musical instrument, or to sing, the teacher often plays alongside them.  The children hear the music from the teacher mixed in with the sounds they are making, and this encourages them to work together, to copy the teacher and make the same noises.  It will take time, of course; and often the noise of youthful music-making is some way from being pleasant to listen to on its own, or even with a teacher. But as children grow in confidence, they move step by step towards the day when they can play without the teacher there, and may even in due course become teachers themselves." (p.113-114)

 

~NT Wright, thoughts on learning how to pray from Paul's prayer in 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians

 

I love this analogy on so many levels.

 

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On My Nightstand This Week:

Devotional: 1 Thessalonians with the Paul for Everyone Commentary (NT Wright)

The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission

 Theological: The Supper of the Lamb (Capon)

AO Book Discussion Group: Kim (Kipling)

On Education: Consider This (Glass)

                                                          Personal Choice: The Dean's Watch (Goudge)

Poetry: TS Eliot

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)

 

*I am also reading Charlotte Mason's Volume 6 for a local CM book club, but these meetings are infrequent, and it is my third – or fourth? – pass through it and so I just read the brief section assigned as our meetings come up. 

 

 

 

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From My Commonplace: On Divine Appointments

"When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you.  So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation?  If you confront insult or antagonism, you first impulse will be to respond in kind.  But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person. He would probably laugh at the thought that the Lord sent him to you for your benefit (and his), but that is the perfection of the disguise, his own ignorance of it."  (p. 124)

 

~Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

 

(Another must-read for your list, by the way.  I've really hit a gold-mine in my reading choices these days.)

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On My Nightstand This Week:

Devotional: 1 Thessalonians with the Paul for Everyone Commentary (NT Wright)

The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission

 Theological: The Supper of the Lamb (Capon)

AO Book Discussion Group: Kim (Kipling)

On Education: Consider This (Glass)

                                                          Personal Choice: The Dean's Watch (Goudge)

Poetry: TS Eliot

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)

 

*I am also reading Charlotte Mason's Volume 6 for a local CM book club, but these meetings are infrequent, and it is my third – or fourth? – pass through it and so I just read the brief section assigned as our meetings come up. 

 

 

 

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From My Commonplace: Learning By Root

" 'Because what you memorize by heart, you take to heart,' replied Dr Nuttham simply. 'It shouldn't be called by 'rote' but by 'root', for you get at the source of text, its foundation. Once you really absorb of the text, its foundation.  Once you really absorb the words, the words become your own.  Then, and only then, can you mull them over your tongue, appreciating them as you would good wine, enjoying them as the company of a good friend.  Besides,' he added, 'we always value something for which we've had to labor."  (p.225)

 

~Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford

 

 

"...remembering is the most profoundly significant thing we do in education...Remembrance includes memorizing, but it is ever-so-much more.  It is the difference between 'lightening and the lightening bug,' as Samuel Clemens used to say.  If we understand the difference between memorizing and remembrance, then it will help us choose what to memorize.  Remembrance is culture.  It is all that has come before that makes us the kind of people we are.  To not remember is to commit cultural suicide...." (p. 126)

 

~Cindy Rollins, Mere Motherhood

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My Bookbag This Week:

Devotional: 1 Thessalonians with the Paul for Everyone Commentary (NT Wright)

The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission

 Theological: The Supper of the Lamb (Capon)

AO Book Discussion Group: Kim (Kipling)

On Education: (Between Books)

Personal Choice: (Between Books)
Poetry: TS Eliot

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)

 

*I am also reading Charlotte Mason's Volume 6 for a local CM book club, but these meetings are infrequent, and it is my third – or fourth? – pass through it and so I just read the brief section assigned as our meetings come up. 

 

 

 

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From My Commonplace: No Perfect Families

"Most mothers like to think there are perfect families out there.  It makes them hopeful, but what should make them hopeful is that there are no perfect families yet.  There is only redemption, offered to you and your family through Jesus Christ…

 

Motherhood is a high calling.  Civilization depends upon motherhood.  I do not believe you should lose yourself so thoroughly in your motherhood that that is all you are.  That is not healthy for you or for your family.  But I do think women need to know that motherhood is a high-value commodity in the market of civilization.   Mama, you are the first pillar of education.  You are a vital part of the infrastructure of culture, family, and even the body of Christ. 

 

This is not about having the perfect family or the perfect school.  Your success or failure doesn't rest on your perfection, just your faithfulness."  (p. 158, 160)

 

~Cindy Rollins, Mere Motherhood

 

Whew.

 

(More to come on this book later….but if you haven't yet, please do grab a copy and give it a read.  It's not dense or heavy – actually it is a delight to read – but it will make you want to get up tomorrow continue on faithfully being the best mama you can be, with God's help.)

 

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On My Nightstand This Week:

Devotional: 1 Thessalonians with the Paul for Everyone Commentary (NT Wright)

The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission

 Theological: Surprised by Joy (Lewis)

AO Book Discussion Group: (Between Books)

On Education: (Between Books)

                                                          Personal Choice: Gilead (Robinson)       

Kim (Kipling) – Pre-reading for AO Year 5
Poetry: TS Eliot

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)

 

*I am also reading Charlotte Mason's Volume 6 for a local CM book club, but these meetings are infrequent, and it is my third – or fourth? – pass through it and so I just read the brief section assigned as our meetings come up. 

 

 

 

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