Leading up to January 10

MOTHER CULTURE

As part of my reading, I came across this quote in Megan Hoyt's A Touch of the Infinite that I wanted to share with you. (I have now finished her book. It was lovely!)

"In teaching my children, I tried to remember these three things and even meditate on them so that I never forgot them. Our main goal is to give our children:
1) something to love
2) something to do, and
3) something to think about.
We ought to keep this in mind for every subject we teach. It's the anchor." (181)

This really struck a chord with me. It isn't revolutionary or anything, but it is a good, simple reminder of what we are doing here with this whole homeschooling thing.


I started read Anne White's Minds More Awake. I also had the pleasure of chatting with her for 5 minutes at l'HaRMaS. I am incredibly glad that I went to that weekend.

So, my foray into typing for AO led me to ask my now good virtual friend (though I met him once in person!) Art M. if he needed any kind of help with the CM poetry work he does. And, guess what? He DOES need some help.  So now I will be working with his collaborator Linda, looking through some of Charlotte Mason's handwritten manuscripts to figure out what is going on and sort of gather some info from them, so that they can decide which ones they would like to put the effort into transcribing. Is that exciting or what? To be doing actual primary source work! All my years of researching in undergrad and grad school have prepared me for this! I feel so blessed to be able to give something back to the life-giving world of Charlotte Mason.

UPDATE: We are looking at CM's Volume 7 of her poetry, Story of the World. Handwritten manuscript that was presumably never published. Oh my goodness!

And I am also taking on this other project for Art. As I was reading CM's poetry attached to my Bible reading, through the Logos app, I wanted to find where a specific poem was in her 6 volumes of The Saviour of the World. (It was actually because I thought I had found a typo, so I wanted to go back to his typed transcription to see if it was there and then back to the actual scans of the pages of the books they have online to see how it was written there.) Well, it is (nearly) impossible to go back and find which book the poem is from. I ended up having to scroll through pages and pages of stuff to find where the poem was! This led me to wonder why they hadn't included the volume, book and poem number in each poem as they attached it to Logos. I mentioned that to him and told him this is exactly the kind of meticulous work I am good at! (Art himself wrote to me that when he has come across a poem in Logos that he wanted to reference in one of his writings, he has had to go through those same hoops to figure out where it is in the poetic volumes!) I am very pleased to be a part of this. The big job was transcribing and attaching all the poems to their respective Bible verses. Countless hours of labour, I am sure. This little tweak will just make things even better.



I love this poem by Charlotte Mason. I hit upon it while reading Genesis 3:8 with the Logos app.  I don't know from which one of her six poetic volumes it is (but once my work is done, I will be able to quickly find out!)

Before Abraham was, I AM 

Always, Oh Christ, wert there? At the cool of eve
Didst walk in the Garden with the primal pair?
When Enoch mounted chariot, wert Thou there?
Did old Methuselah see Thee and believe? 

Didst watch with David, hastening to retrieve
Thy chosen Singer, that he yet might share
Divine Companionship, might still declare
All that a man may of his God conceive? 

Did Plato know Thee in the dim obscure?
Great Alexander, saw he Righteousness,
A world his mighty arm was made to bless?
Was Phidias of Thy Beauty very sure? 

In every age, where man at goodness wrought,
Lord, wert Thou with him, unperceived, unsought?

Isn't that a lovely poem? Quite connected to the ideas in The Great Recognition, I think. God is everywhere, in everything, even when we don't know it.


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With all my mother culture overload going on right now, poor Fina has been left to do the menial tasks.   (And enjoying playing, drawing, painting, playing, reading, playing, lounging, playing outside, loving life.)


If you are old enough to make a giant mess at the sink when brushing your teeth, you are old enough to clean said sink. And mirror. And counter.  I brought up my Norwex cloths and she did it. Lovingly enough, thankfully.

Fina got some woodcarving tools as late Christmas gifts from both sets of grandparents. There are a LOT of wood shavings everywhere! She is having so much fun!

Today we have our outdoor playgroup. It snowed a lovely snow overnight, so it should be a fun time!  Hoping to do some school work tomorrow!

Thanks for joining me here. Please keep my work in your prayers.