Happy and Not Happy -- Good Pain and Bad Pain

Some things that make me happy:

• My morning routine
• My yarn closet
• playing the piano at mass
• Latin and Greek
• hiking with KM (husband)

Some things that make me unhappy:

• The 2-stone pile of textbooks waiting to be looked at and done starting this week
• Getting to the dentist
• Making mistakes while playing hymns at mass
• The fact that our kitchen sink is broken right now; in fact, the law of entropy in general.

I read the next chapter of the Ways of Mental Prayer, which was about causes for failing to pray well.   Basically, you can get voluntarily distracted; or you can be too lethargic about your intentions and desire to do well.   These are more or less problems with the will.   Then there are some logistical or procedural mistakes, which he calls illusions.   And finally, there is bodily indisposition.  In this final category, there are distinctions to be made, because it's not always a virtue to push yourself through indisposition.  It's probably something like "good pain" and "bad pain" when you are working out.   You should not push past bad pain, but you may want to do things differently in the rest of your  day in order to avoid having that pain in the first place.      For example, my knees used to hurt when I did the stationary bike, so it limited the time I spent on there and the intensity of the setting.   I scaled back, but also spent some time strengthening my knees in other ways.  Now I just realized that pain doesn't happen any more.   

I learned the most from the "illusions" section of the chapter -- basically, it was more or less about striking a balance.   You don't want to spend either too much or too little time on considerations (the intellectual part of the prayer) OR on affections (the emotional or affective part of the prayer).   You want to prepare ahead of time, so you know what you are going to reflect on, but you want to be able to leave the planned topic if the Holy Spirit invites you to think of some side aspect or particular light on the subject.   And so on.

I finished reading the last book in the Edward trilogy I mentioned yesterday (not the sparkly 2-century-old Edward; the middle aged Asperger's/ OCD one).    I said yesterday that the middle one was my favorite, but now I think the last one may be a contender, as Edward learns how to be a husband and father.   There is a lot of swearing (for the most part, the vulgar Anglo-Saxon kind, not the blasphemous kind).  It's an ongoing joke and sub-motif, but it may be kind of offensive to those who aren't used to a lot of four letter words in their books.

Since I still can't find my vanished butterfly shawl in progress, I started the Silvretta using a kind of yarn called Bamboo Pop which is super soft and drapey.    This project is going fast.  Quick picture:

•  The shawl makes me happy.     The yarn makes me happy.
• The textbooks:  not.
• The morning sun makes me happy, but it wreaks havoc on the lighting for my poor old-model iPhone.  

Today involves a hike with KM and BC (husband and second son) and then possibly a trip to town with CFA, PAA, and ARA (daughter and her family) for Tridentine mass and a bit of thrift store shopping.    So time to start the day.   

I think I have to figure out a way to make the bad pain of thinking about textbooks and dentists into something doable.   I can put up with productive pain easily in the pursuit of something I really want to do.    Thought for today!!! 

Of Lost Butterflies, and Bullets and Fields

I lost my Nymphalidea- in-progress.    Here is a picture of it before it vanished.   I had it yesterday, but yesterday was confusing.   AM said something mysterious about putting it on a table because it was in the way (of his Halo battle with his brother and brother in law, presumably).   Presumably it will turn up probably tomorrow when I tidy.    In the meantime I am making another double moss stitch dishcloth.  

Today is our Aristotle discussion so I have been reading about Quantity.    This was interesting.

nothing prevents some things from being many in some respect [secundum quid] and being one in another. Indeed, all sorts of things that are many are one in some respect,..... But we have to be aware of the difference that some things are many absolutely [simpliciter], and one in some respect, while the case is the reverse with others... Now something is said to be one in the same way as it is said to be a being. But a being absolutely speaking is a substance, while a being in some respect is an accident, or even [only] a being of reason. So whatever is one in substance, is one absolutely speaking, yet many in some respect. For example, a whole in the genus of substance, composed of its several integral or essential parts, is one absolutely speaking, for the whole is a being and a substance absolutely speaking, while the parts are beings and substances in the whole. Those things, however, which are diverse in substance, and one by accident, are diverse absolutely speaking, and one in some respect, as many humans are one people, or many stones are one heap; and this is the unity of composition or order. Likewise, many individuals that are one in genus or species are many absolutely speaking, and one with respect to something, for to be one in genus or species is to be one with respect to reason

There is ARA's toy basket (my granddaughter).   It has a collection of toys grouped in one place, but the collection is eclectic.    They are united by position and by species -- all in the basket, all ARA's toys.    The unity there seems kind of provisional.    We could regroup them into sub-categories of toys (cars, wooden letters, dice -- some of her ongoing categories).   We could put them in different baskets, or move the basket.  We could count them (as ARA likes to do).  Or scatter them (also a favorite project).   And put them back.   The components aren't altered, just rearranged.

There is my body -- which seems like a different type of unity.    I am one person.   My components down to my atoms are subordinate to me as a whole.   You couldn't regroup or scatter my components without making me something else than what I am.  Yet still, quantifiable components are constantly being added and subtracted.   And I fit into larger unities -- I am human, animal, etc.   I am part of my family collective.

I thought the Quantity chapter would be easier than the substance chapter, but so far it seems to be carrying on many of the puzzles and difficulties that arose during that part.    Even things like "discrete" quantity (speech and arithmetical number) and "continuous" (lines, planes, solids, and rather puzzlingly, time and place) seem strange to me.   Maybe some of it will get clearer during the discussion, though the discussions tend actually to raise more questions (sometimes more focused questions though, which is good --- the difference between being simply confused, and having a few puzzles to think about).

School starts next week and I haven't looked at the books yet.   To be done later this afternoon.

My most recent paper geek fixation has been bullet journals.   I like them because they are what I mainly do by default (that is, fill a notebook with all kinds of eclectic things), but more systematic; in other words, maybe the system would help solve my retrieval problem.   As well as my other problem of collecting all sorts of charming, but wildly diverse, kinds of notebooks and writing utensils.   A lot of people use a standard kind of notebook and a standard kind of pen for bullet journals, but I can't see doing that when there are so many cool kinds of paper and pen out there (or more specifically, in my closet....).

Through bullet journals, I found Field Notes.   This is the brand name of a kind of notebook you can put in your pocket, but I already have a large amount of pocket sized notebooks, so the interest for me was in the name itself.   Field Notes properly speaking are the observations and reflections you make while out in the field.   You know, like John Muir did.

Here is another thing I used to do often by default, but not formally.   I would do field notes on my children -- basically just log things I noticed, ideas that occurred to me while I watched over them.... etc.    Since I spend several hours a day with my granddaughter most days, I've been feeling the pull towards documenting again.   So much happens in the life of a toddler.    Photos are good too, but not quite in the same way.   And if I'm going to get back into "real" homeschooling (rather than custodian over the textbooks) I should start writing down ideas again.

Finally... a few quick notes:

I read a lot of kindle fiction, but I didn't want to try to list them all (especially not on here....) just the ones that struck me as worthy of note in some way.   Worthy of note does not mean Dosteovsky level, or without flaws or problematic parts, or coinciding with my own philosophical beliefs, or anything like that.    It is not even a recommendation, since peoples' tastes differ so much.   It just means I want to have noted I read it for some reason.  With that in mind, I want to mention that I recently read Edward Adrift.   It's a story about a guy with Asperger's and OCD.    I liked it enough to seek out the preceding and following book in the series, but I like this middle one the best as far as the story.   The swearing, not so much, though it fit into the context of the book.

I just met my weight loss goal!  (again.... I revisit it every summer....).    The unique thing about this time through is that I didn't really notice myself losing the 10 pounds.   Unlike other years, where I had to obsess about it.    I hope that means that the habit changes are locking in.   Those would be:   daily exercise, limiting carbs (using vegetables as a substitute staple), and keeping a food log at interims when I need to increase awareness of how I'm doing.   Those are the standbys.

Since I can't find my butterfly shawl, I may try this Silvretta.....

Common Good

One might be tempted to say that “communal happiness” is something common by way of predication, that the common good is simply the greatest good of the greatest number. As we have previously shown, however, what Aquinas means by the term “common good” is a single end pursued and enjoyed in common. Indeed, it is in response to one of the objections in this very article that Aquinas makes clear that a common good is “common, not by the community of genus or species, but the community of final cause.”
Thomas can only mean that man achieves happiness as a part of the civitas, by participating in the political common good precisely as a common end, not as an instrumental good ordered toward the private pursuit of happiness. The civitas does more than simply provide safety and security, and material prosperity. It is ordered toward the good life, the life of virtue lived in common with other members of the city

From a TAC tutor talk called Aquinas on the Family and the Political Common Good and though I haven't finished it yet, I wanted to highlight this part (the bolding is mine).

I thought this was a useful distinction, especially in today's political climate.   I think possibly one of the unexamined assumptions of both conservatives and progressives in our American political sphere is that the "good" is basically a utilitarian measuring stick oriented, as he says, towards the "private pursuit of happiness".  I know that both sides also have a moral language oriented towards the wider community as well, but the emphasis is instrumental.   I have no more to say about this because I haven't finished reading the article and I haven't thought it through.  

I am just starting to try to read hard things again, and I notice that I get paused on certain passages that I have to think about before proceeding.    In traditional (Catholic) spiritual books about meditating, there is often an emphasis on dwelling on the parts that bear fruit.   I most recently read it in The Ways of Mental Prayer.

It seems there is an analogy there to ordinary "hard" reading.   Certain parts of it are going to resonate more than others, and can be an entrypoint into further understanding of the work (different in intention and hopefully in result from the common modern practice of pulling quotes out of context and using them as clubs to beat a topic over the head, or as misdirected universal statements).

The roll-off bin just arrived so we can clear the "green" waste from our mountain acre.  And I hear a granddaughter knocking at the door.  So bye for now....

Knitting and Diaries, in Combo

I checked out a book from the library called "The Knitting Diaries".   With two of my favorite words in the title, why wouldn't I?  The book is a compilation of three romantic novellas.  Not my usual type of reading, but they all concerned knitting and journaling in some way, so I read them all.

Anyway, these quotes are from the last story.   I just rather liked the intertwining of the diary and the reflections on knitting.   So I guess the book was worth reading just for these passages:

Around Caro the attic was quiet, rich with memories and dreams. She leaned down, doodling in her worn leather knitting diary. The big maple tree in the front meadow gradually appeared beneath her pen. Patiently she added balls of yarn for fruit and knitting needles for stems. The knitting always stayed close, part of her now. Yarn had calmed her journey, soothed her harsh losses, stitch by stitch, for a decade and more. For Caro knitting was more than a hobby, more than simple entertainment. When she held her needles, her mind soared and dreams turned clear. Part meditation, part therapy, knitting was an interior journey where she learned to see herself....
She cradled her diary, touched the pages filled with three years of dreams, regrets and plans. A knitting diary at first. Now it held far more of her life than simply yarn and stitches. It held dreams and regrets, joys and plans. ........ Caro stared at the words. On the page nearby she saw her latest notes for a sweater, sandwiched between rough sketches of cabled sleeves and long ribbed cuffs. Yarn possibilities for future projects, taken from old knitting. But Caro wouldn’t repeat anything. She would move on and keep growing. 

I don't have an official knitting diary, but I would like to.   I found this pretty pre-set one.   But I think if I had one like that, it would meet the same fate as various book journals and assignment logs I have around the house.  I would not use it, because it would not be flexible enough for the random way I do things.  

I try to keep a list of my projects on Ravelry, and it's very useful, but I get behind on it, and there is no place for simple doodling there.   At least, not that I've found.

Right after reading the Knitting Diaries, I happened to find Melissa Wiley's recent post on notebooks.   I spent a long time after that obsessing about traveller's notebooks.   But after all, I realized that the thing that I liked about her post was not the materials per se (though they were nice) but the way she used them for sketching, color palettes, scheduling and pretty much everything.

There is an acronym for accumulation of knitting materials:  SABLE (stash beyond life expectancy).    I have a similar thing for writing materials.  All kinds of them.    So I don't really need a new paper supply.  I need a way to think of all my random jottings as a whole of some sort.   I probably need to find a way to take time with journaling too.

A couple of related links I didn't manage to work into the post itself:

Journalling, My New Hobby (my friend Chari's post on papery goodness)
Knitting inserts for Midori  (printable -- useful if I ever do end up with a TN).

By the way, since this is turning into another eclectic post, if you have a kindle and highlight passages you want to remember, it is really interesting to look back over them occasionally at your Kindle Highlights page.   Furthermore, if you look at the top option bar on that page, you will see something called Daily Review, which appears to randomize selections from your past highlights.   Today I found this, which seems to apply to some discussions I have been having with one of my grown sons recently without actually using the word unschooling  (maybe that's a topic for a future post):

All people unschool to learn most of their knowledge during most of their lives. The only variables are how well do they do it, and when do they start.   Unschooling Rules by Clark Aldrich

Washcloths and Drought

This will be another random post.

Not the most amazing picture in the world -- but I'm working on washcloths for the bathroom, using a pattern similar to this one.    Basically I cast on 34 stitches and then went in double moss stitch.  No borders or anything.    I have a lot of this cotton yarn, and each cloth takes about 2/3 of a skein.   The washcloths take less than two hours to complete.    I like the way they look folded up in a basket.

Speaking of baskets, I want to make one of these rectangular baskets.   Next on my list.

I mentioned reading The Liberal Art of Grammar the other day, and because of that, I ended up hanging out for quite a while at the Arts of Liberty site, which is very lovely.   It looks quite new, but it has more resources than it seems at first glance.     I started reading through this Astronomy course by Michael Augros, who is also a TAC tutor, like Mr Nieto.  

The past couple of years have been kind of a drought in our homeschool.   In desperation we joined a charter just so my youngest two, AM and PG, would have some academic continuity while I basically went on hiatus.   The charter though public-school-affiliated is still home-bound, so I wasn't on true hiatus -- I am responsible for daily guidance, grading etc, but we meet with a teacher monthly and we have been using the normal public school textbooks (though we don't have to, if we manage our own equivalent work, which I haven't bothered trying to plan).   The charter is a great place, very homeschool-friendly, and the teacher is great too.    I guess I would call their approach very compatible with subsidiarity.     They don't do for us what we can and want to do for ourselves.

But this year, I hope to get a bit more back into "real" learning.    Since I'm not sure what caused the drought, I'm not sure what will end it.   Maybe it's just a function of having spent more than 2 decades teaching and over 3 decades being a mom with all that entails.   I think there's a psychological shift around the half century mark where one wants to have a midlife crisis explore different ways of doing things before it gets too late.  

A couple of family members have a severe cold, and my second son is driving down the spine of the Pacific Northwest today, to visit here for a while before summer is over.

Off now to do some more knitting, and practice music for this Saturday!

Quotidian in August

Maybe Monday is a good day for a journal or daybook type post.... the quotidian part of the blog title. I'll quickly list everything I can think of.

Yesterday we went up our mountain to visit my in-laws' cabin where my daughter and her husband and baby were staying for a few days.    While up there my husband and I hiked up another 2000 feet, a 7 mile round trip.   It was beautiful, but most of my pictures didn't turn out very well.   This is the best one.  It was a moderately difficult climb but unlike our last hike (1) we had enough water (2) we didn't get lost (3) I didn't get sunburned.    So, all good.

We also made s'mores around the campfire, while up there.

We also had our Aristotle seminar for the first time in almost a month.   One week our normal schedule was interrupted by a family reunion, the next week we had the norovirus, and the next week I was just back from traveling.   But this week we discussed the second part of chapter 5 on substance, in Categories.    It is a difficult chapter, and I'm glad we have it mostly behind us.

I recently read and am presently rereading an article by a TAC tutor called On the Liberal Art of Grammar.  The reason I encountered it is sort of indirect.    My daughter and son-in-law have been teaching their little daughter some Latin, in a very age-appropriate way (she is just under two years old).   They sing their night prayers (Marian antiphons, I think -- she sometimes tries to sing them to me) and sprinkle a few Latin phrases in with their normal conversations with her.  She soaks it up.    My son-in-law PA (I'm going with initials on this blog now that my kids are adults in order to avoid them coming up on name searches) mentioned Mr Nieto's stem method of teaching Latin, which is used at TAC for freshman year.   I googled it and didn't find much, but I did find that article, plus a series of Quizlets on his Latin vocabulary.

Speaking of Latin links, here is a place where you can download Mass propers in Latin.   I was searching for the Novus Ordo mass readings in Latin, but apparently those don't exist; only Tridentine ones, but that's all right.   This is a nice site, which also includes several resources on Gregorian chant (including papal documents).

I am trying to do a better job of keeping the house tidy and organized (an ongoing, quixotic tilting endeavor of mine).    My newest habit in formation is laser-focusing on the downstairs common-living area -- the kitchen, great-room, laundry room, bathroom and hall.   Those areas get trashed very quickly with 8 people plus a toddler.    If I work daily at them, the other areas can slide a little more.    I will let you know how it goes.

Ah, and knitting!  I am working on a Nymphiladea shawl.     I like to make shawls that can be finished at a smaller size than normal, so I can use them as scarves/ neck warmers or as head scarves.

And music.... this week for music at mass:  (1) The Church's One Foundation; (2) Alleluia, Sing to Jesus (3) O Breathe On Me, O Breath of God (3) Holy God, We Praise Thy Name.   (I play the clavinova, which is what we have for accompaniment in our small mission chapel -- it's a digital piano which has a few extra voices, including organ).  

Si vis potes me mundare

40 et venit ad eum leprosus deprecans eum et genu flexo dixit "si vis potes me mundare"
41 Iesus autem misertus eius extendit manum suam et tangens eum ait illi "volo, mundare"
 42 et cum dixisset statim discessit ab eo lepra et mundatus est.   Mark 1: 40-42

I've resumed reading from the Vulgate since it helps me slow down and pay attention to the words.   This passage is about the healing of the leper, as you can see if you follow the link above.   The leper says:  if you will, you can cleanse me" and Jesus touches him and says "I will; be cleansed".  

My father was a physician; he was very interested in the "pathology" of the Bible, the details of the diseases mentioned, often in a context of healing.   He mentioned once that some of the ancient cases of leprosy recorded may actually be psoriasis (Namaan) or eczema (the poor man Lazarus).   Be that as it may, there is a kind of symbolism in the idea that skin problems are associated with uncleanliness both to the sufferers themselves and to those who shunned them.

My experiences with eczema and skin allergies have given me sympathy for those whose skin attacks their system.   It's a horrible feeling, because it starts on the outside and works its way in.   Psoriasis and eczema are associated with burning, itching and pain, bad enough, but leprosy causes numbness and degradation of the limbs themselves.  Furthermore, these illnesses interfere with one's relation to the outside world in at least a couple of ways.  One, they make it difficult to interact without discomfort.   The environment becomes potentially uncomfortable and dangerous in a much more intense way than it normally would.   (think of even a mild sunburn and how it makes you very careful of how you move).

For another thing, many skin diseases are immediately visible to others.   Unlike other ailments, they blazon themselves on the patient.  They are almost literally stigmatic.

Another thing I notice about skin ailments, that may be somewhat hard to describe, is that they seem exterior in a way even though they affect your whole self.   When I caught the norovirus a few weeks ago (also known as stomach flu or GI virus) the illness seem to come from inside (my gut, basically) and involve me from the core outwards.   In a way it became me.   With skin ailments it is the opposite, it works from outside in, and there is a kind of clarity.   The inner self seems sound in some ways, except that it is being invaded by this outer thing.  It is sort of like St Paul saying that the flesh is warring with the mind.

This is why I think leprosy and the other conditions possibly associated with it throughout history have been an analogy to sin.    Lepers are in a state of realism because unlike Pharisees, who hid their corruption on the inside and presented a "whited" exterior, lepers knew exactly what state they were in and so were in an analogous state to those sinners who were aware of their uncleanliness and anxious to be whole, but also aware of their inability to change themselves.    They also had kind of a clarity about their condition; at least the ones that were looking for help.

For there was one more prerequisite for the miracle of healing; that the sinner or sick person realized that Jesus had the power to cleanse, if He willed it.    And they had hope that He would do so.  

Of those who wouldn't acknowledge their problem or ask for help, Jesus said ironically that they had no need of a healer.