tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20391600664396029622024-03-27T13:20:04.634-07:00The Quotidian Reader*My Commonplace Book*Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.comBlogger870125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-23457093676347137052016-08-01T08:22:00.003-07:002016-08-01T08:22:46.963-07:00Fire and WaterWe had a fire day up here in the Sierras this Saturday. First, at a memorial for an old church friend, we could hear fire sirens constantly, and the roar of giant fire planes. Later on, at mass down in the foothills, the church was evacuated due to an entirely different fire. The fire near our house was quickly controlled, but the<a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article92853282.html"> one in the foothills</a> has spread and is only partially contained. <br />
<br />
Recently I read <a href="http://www.franciscanfriarstor.com/archive/stfrancis/stf_canticle_of_the_sun.htm">St Francis's Canticle</a>, and noticed how the praise subtly shifts during the song from the unequivocal praises of natural things, to the blessings through tribulation. Sister Water and Brother Fire are both praised in the canticle, towards the middle:<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,<br /> which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.<br />Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,<br /> through whom you light the night and he is beautiful<br /> and playful and robust and strong.</blockquote>
<br />
These praises come towards the middle and in my reflections at least almost serve as a hinge. Water and fire are lifegiving yet also dangerous; sometimes catastrophic. There are so many things like that.<br />
<br />
Apparently, according to the site I linked to, the thematic shifts of the canticle are associated with its composition, as the three different sections were composed at different times in the saint's life. Even the praises of nature at the beginning, however, are associated with suffering, since Francis apparently composed them when he was undergoing the stigmata, and was reflecting upon how we humans mis-use the gifts we are given by God.<br />
<br />
I hadn't noticed the connection until I started writing this, but of course, Pope Francis's exhortation <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html">Laudato Si</a> begins with a reference to this very canticle. The whole thing is in the vein of St Francis's praise/ lament. We have been given such marvellous gifts. If we value them the way they should be valued, perhaps we will be careful how we use them.<br />
<br />
The friend whom we memorialized this weekend chose hymns for her service that reflected this love for natural things and trust in God who gave us these things:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>How Great Thou Art</li>
<li>Prayer of St Francis</li>
<li>Be Not Afraid</li>
<li>Because He Lives</li>
</ul>
<div>
One of her grandsons said that she told him to be a "ten percenter". She had a rather counter-cultural definition of the term -- she told him to leave everything 10 percent better than he found it, and backed it up by instilling in him a habit of bringing a trash bag with him to the lake or forest, so he could pick up the trash left by careless people. He said that as a kid he thought it was unfair that he had to undo the damage done by other people, but as an adult he realizes that this is more than a habit, it is a way of living. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I want to remember that about her, and try to live that way too. In her life, stewardship and concern for others were closely linked, in a very practical and quotidian way. If every Christian lived like her, I don't think the pope would have had to write his exhortation. </div>
Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-33820272812553058882016-07-30T09:01:00.000-07:002016-07-30T09:02:02.965-07:00Words from ReadingA lot of my reading in the past year or so has been free or inexpensive Kindle books, mostly mysteries. I think perhaps I should start listing the ones I particularly like, but I haven't done it up till now. Partly, I think I need a system. Some indy books are promising but quirky; others are just not good; others are basically equivalent to an old-style printed and published book, but the authors just chose to go the indy route.<br />
<br />
Anyway, recently I found a couple of interesting words in a couple of indy police procedurals. <br />
<br />
1. anorak<br />
<br />
I knew an anorak was a kind of jacket. Originally the word meant a hooded polar type jacket like a parka. But when I went to a British high school in Switzerland, the kids called any weather-resistant jacket an anorak.<br />
<br />
But recently, in British slang, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anorak_(slang)">the word can mean something like a nerd or geek</a>. In the book I read, a character said of another that she liked him though he was "a bit of an anorak." At first I pictured someone like <a href="http://images.fashionnstyle.com/data/images/full/26231/ally-640x378-jpg.jpg">Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club</a>, someone who wears a heavy jacket as a kind of protective barrier during school hours. But I guess it refers to something more like the way my son AM collects photos of the things people put on the top racks of their SUVs. You don't need to actually be equipped with an anorak to be a bit of one. <br />
<br />
2. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku">tsundoku</a><br />
<br />
Now here is a word that could be the subheading of my blog. It's sort of a play on two Japanese words meaning "pile up" and "read". It basically refers to the habit of bibliophiles of buying books and letting them pile up unread. <a href="http://www.adweek.com/galleycat/tsundoku-illustrated-definition-of-a-book-lovers-problem/71533"> Illustration here</a>. Yep, useful word.<br />
<br />
3. <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/faba"> faba</a><br />
<br />
This one is here because 2 words doesn't seem like enough for a list. It has very specific family context. My almost 2 year old granddaughter calls little candies "beans". This started when I had some starburst jelly beans left over from Easter and would occasionally give her a couple as a treat. She also has a compact Latin dictionary that she likes to carry around. Her 13 year old uncle PG took to quizzing the family using the book (when she lets him have it : )). He quizzed us on "faba" and she seized the book back and said with a magisterial gravity "faba -- BEAN". <br />
<br />
Talking babies are a great addition to any household, especially in adding new richness to common language, and I'm glad my youngest gets the chance to be around one of them. <br />
<br />
<br />Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-28878596434037401992016-07-29T07:21:00.000-07:002016-07-29T07:21:33.566-07:00Interstate Tesseract<blockquote>
And I was just getting up,<br />
hit the road before it's light<br />
Trying to catch an hour on the sun...</blockquote>
(<a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/neilyoung/thrasher.html">Neil Young</a>)<br />
<br />
On Monday, my oldest sons and I drove up the interstate towards their Oregon habitations, and yesterday I drove back to our California mountain home. Interstate 5 has become archetypical in our family's life, like Mark Twain's Mississippi. It has paragraphed major life changes -- the first time I drove down with my future husband to meet his family, which of course was not the first time he had travelled that road; the trips with small children, embarked upon late in the afternoon so they would sleep through the bulk of the 11 hour trip; the first time stopping to meet the Bryan family; the trips laden with spare houswares to set up my oldest's first apartment. <br />
<br />
How odd to think about -- all those past selves, "lines in the field of time". Still there, because how could things that once existed go away completely?<br />
<br />
I picture a <a href="http://nerdist.com/go-inside-the-tesseract-from-interstellar/">tesseract, as in Interstellar</a>. ... a hyper-geometric figure of that long, slender, straw-colored corridor of traffic, unfolding to glimpses of those past moments. I can't communicate with those former versions of family, driving along to their destinations in a Ford Pinto, or a Toyota Corona, or a Chevy Suburban, or a Nissan Quest, or a Dodge Durango, but they can communicate with me, in a way. At least, they were present to me on this trip. <br />
<br />
Maybe it was because we had recently had an extended family reunion, and it was like a time warp to see so many nieces and nephews grown and carrying on their adult lives. It could have been because this particular family gathering went viral, literally, as one by one we came down with the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/07/19/norovirus-strikes-the-republican-national-convention/">norovirus</a>. Being sick for several days has a way of making time eddy strangely, as does travelling. As do family reunions. <br />
<br />
Anyway, for some reason, maybe because I was driving with only my two oldest sons and thus not as distracted as usual, I started blogging in my head, for the first time in forever. I used to blog in my head often, but I rarely have done in the past couple of years. Not sure why. It wasn't a conscious decision. It would go like this, at intervals of every few months:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
--Self, do you have anything to blog about?<br />
--Not really.<br />
--Okay, then.</blockquote>
But on this trip, the posts kept composing themselves. I don't want to ignore them.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-73013764660640213652012-04-29T20:19:00.002-07:002012-04-29T20:19:39.783-07:00New Physics and Old Metaphysics, repriseI tried to discuss <a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/10/grand-design.html">Stephen Hawkings' book The Grand Design back here. </a>I wasn't that thrilled with my post but wanted to get my thoughts out in writing. I wrote<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I do not know if the authors are making this assumption, but I have seen
some scientistis and even some theologians assume that the word "God"
is a way for people to explain physical mysteries. So when there are
no more physical mysteries, there is no more need for God. <br />
<br />
I have never quite understood that line of thinking, but apparently it
came about in the Enlightenment, when philosophy took a post-Cartesian
credibility hit and physical science came to the fore as a presumably
more realistic substitute given the terms of the Cartesian approach.
Most of the scientists of the time were still Deists, though many of
them weren't orthodox. And the same was true of many theologians. So
God did begin to become for them a way to explain what couldn't be
explained by empirical methods of the time. In that approach, God
became a component of our thinking, a kind of placeholder, so as our
thinking became more scientific, the place for God in our heads got
smaller and smaller. </blockquote>
Well, over here is a lecture called <a href="http://www.campioncollege.ca/events/nash-memorial-lecture-series/33rd-Nash-Lecture">The New Physics and the Old Metaphysics</a> by Br. Guy Consolmagno, S.J., Ph.D. He says it much more elegantly and Chestertonianly (: )) by saying that Hawkings was absolutely right, he did eliminate the need for God to explain the universe, and rightly so, because that kind of deist God, designed as an explanation for what can't be explained otherwise, needs to be done away with.<br />
<br />
The real God, Consolmagno says (I can't past his words directly because of the format of the lecture text), the God of Abraham, is not bound within the cosmos. Quoting Wittgenstein, he says, "the sense of the world must lie outside the world." <br />
<br />
This may sound a bit Kantian, but it does not have to be that way. While Kant would say that God can't be known, Consolmagno says that God indeed can be known experientially. We cannot "derive" God from analysis, but we CAN know Him; in fact, we know all things BY Him, whether we happen to know that or not. <br />
<br />
I'm not updating this blog regularly anymore but this doesn't quite seem to belong to <a href="http://take-up-and-read.blogspot.com/">Take Up and Read </a>so I'm putting it here!<br />
<br />
<i>HT for the link to the talk: Michael Baruzzini in the <a href="http://catholicscience.com/">CatholicScience.com</a> newsletter. </i><br />Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-83512258099490430052012-04-24T22:08:00.000-07:002012-04-21T07:30:49.356-07:00Where the Moose Go<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxb127A-zeWhDTdWDkRgr2kxvw6qfzC0gnUJUtnVEXgeBcww5WEHFodAlsuCEIE-kJ7PXRp2nUR1riAviyAEy_iiP_YFcbi8ujdwu2L6SBVBqfO8lIWlbTSjdYrzqC50ABNGYJcZyju_Oo/s640/blogger-image-880348227.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxb127A-zeWhDTdWDkRgr2kxvw6qfzC0gnUJUtnVEXgeBcww5WEHFodAlsuCEIE-kJ7PXRp2nUR1riAviyAEy_iiP_YFcbi8ujdwu2L6SBVBqfO8lIWlbTSjdYrzqC50ABNGYJcZyju_Oo/s640/blogger-image-880348227.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/feeding-hungry-moose-fundraising-bonanza">moose have been hungry in Alaska this winter</a>. This doesn't have much to do with anything that follows in this post, but it does give me a chance to post this photo of my Mom's cute window hanger (and the moose-hungry-making winter landscape behind it) and also, when else am I ever going to get a chance to write a line like that with credibility?<br />
<br />
I am thinking of opening a novel with the line, though, "The moose were hungry that winter...." Now I have a head start for next November's novel writing! <br />
<br />
Ever since the New Year I have been trying to figure out my plans for this blog. In November I started a <a href="http://take-up-and-read.blogspot.com/">new blog</a> and though that one hasn't quite hit its natural stride yet, it overlaps so much with this one that I don't really need to keep this one going. In the past I have managed to keep two or more blogs alive at the same time, but recently I just haven't been keeping up that pace. I used to think I was addicted, and maybe I was, but nowadays I almost have to make "blog every day" a Lenten resolution! (not quite a penance, because it IS after all something I enjoy and am by no means obligated to do). Anyway, most of the posts I write on here can just as easily go on the other one. <br />
<br />
So I am thinking that default posting will be on<a href="http://take-up-and-read.blogspot.com/"> Take Up and Read</a>. We have lots of plans for that blog. It is Catholic in emphasis as a quick look will show, but it is also about literary homeschooling and large family logistics and that sort of thing, and non-Catholics are very welcome. Chari and I are both converts with many non-Catholic friends and family members.<br />
<br />
As for the moose, I feel sort of sorry for them. I see them lope past outside quite often. I heard from Mom's neighbor that the deep snow really tires them out and also makes it hard for them to find food, so they have been gravitating towards roads and railroad tracks because it is easier to walk there. But of course, that isn't a great survival strategy. Come to think of it, that is a good Lenten parable.... I too often gravitate towards the wide easy road where engines of destruction can easily sweep me into their path and toss me aside. <br />
<br />
I am not planning to close down this blog -- I like to leave my old posts up so I can link to them in future -- and I may still post randomly when I want to draw attention to something -- but I just wanted you all to know where I had gone and what is going on.<br />
<br />
A MOST BLESSED LENT AND EASTER TO YOU ALL!Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-51768816368602827582012-04-21T07:27:00.002-07:002012-04-21T08:09:15.110-07:00Index of Planning PostsI'm importing these from <a href="http://everywakinghour.blogspot.com/">my older blog</a>.
<br />
<br />
I'm trying to predate them so they don't show up on readers but if it doesn't work, sorry about that. Blogger used to let me predate but apparently not so easily nowadays. So this is just housekeeping! <br />
<br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-large;">2007 Planning Posts</span><br />
<br />
<ul style="background-color: #e6f0ff; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.5em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-indent: -15px;"><a href="http://everywakinghour.blogspot.com/2007/01/when-i-plan.html" style="color: #215670; line-height: 1.5em;">Beginning the Journey</a></li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.5em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-indent: -15px;"><a href="http://everywakinghour.blogspot.com/2007/01/spacious-plan.html" style="color: #215670;">Map of the Terrain</a></li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.5em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-indent: -15px;"><a href="http://everywakinghour.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-i-plan-overview.html" style="color: #215670;">The Forest</a></li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.5em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-indent: -15px;"><a href="http://everywakinghour.blogspot.com/2007/02/trees-step-by-step-planning-process.html" style="color: #215670;">The Trees</a></li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.5em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-indent: -15px;"><a href="http://everywakinghour.blogspot.com/2006/12/setting-their-feet-in-spacious-place.html" style="color: #215670;">Setting Their Feet in a Spacious Place</a></li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.5em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-indent: -15px;"><span style="background-color: transparent;"><a href="http://everywakinghour.blogspot.com/search/label/Planning">Miscellaneous Twigs and Branches </a>(more planning posts)</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.5em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-indent: -15px;"><span style="background-color: transparent;"><a href="http://planningnotebook.blogspot.com/2007/06/considerations.html">Considerations</a>
</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: -15px;">
<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">2010 Planning Posts</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2010/04/index-of-high-school-posts.html">Index of High School Posts</a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2010/08/focusing-on-4rs.html">Focusing on the 4Rs</a></span><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2010/08/4rs-reading-good-books.html">Reading Good Books</a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2010/08/4rs-writing.html">The 4Rs -- Writing</a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2010/08/4rs-writing-continued.html">The 4Rs -- Writing cont</a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2010/08/thoughts-on-less-is-more-homeschooling.html">Less is More Planning</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: -15px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span></div>Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-76683251285812379702012-03-01T07:47:00.000-08:002012-03-02T16:46:51.443-08:00Kindle Book: The Life and Writings of Saint AugustineI know I haven't blogged here for a while! The little blogging I have been doing is over at <a href="http://take-up-and-read.blogspot.com/">Take Up and Read</a>.<br />
<br />
I am up at Wasilla visiting my mom and though I probably have more time in the day than I do at home, it somehow doesn't feel that way, so I have sort of gotten out of the blogging rhythm. <br />
<br />
But I wanted to mention.... <br />
<br />
I found a good book for free for the Amazon Kindle (I'm guessing you can find it for the Nook, too). <br />
<br />
It is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Life-Writings-Saint-Augustine-ebook/dp/B007EHJ9IG/">The Life and Writings of Saint Augustine.</a> <br />
<br />
It is a collection of some of his major works like Confessions, City of God, and On Christian Doctrine (and more as well, those are just the ones I can remember offhand) and there is also a section with some quotes of his.<br />
<br />
Though the works are in public domain, this is an actual collection made by <strike>someone</strike> <a href="http://www.bieberpublishing.com/Bieber_Publishing/Wyatt_North_Publishing.html">Wyatt North Publishing</a> so there is a hyperlinked table of contents, and Kindle-specific formatting, which makes collections like this way more useable. I don't know how long it will stay free, so I wanted to mention it! <br />
<br />
<br />Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-75279642546808890982012-02-06T09:19:00.000-08:002012-02-06T17:27:34.945-08:00Poetic Knowledge Book Study IndexThis is the index to my posts about <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Knowledge-Education-James-Taylor/dp/0791435865">Poetic Knowledge</a>, with links to Mystie's posts which link to other posts by other readers. I knew it would take a long time to compile it so I've been procrastinating!<br />
<br />
Mystie has moved to a new location at <a href="http://www.convivialhome.com/">The Convivial Home</a>, but her old domain at <a href="http://www.pelennorfields.com/mystie/">A Healer's Geste</a> remains up for the next year, so the links still will work for quite a while. <br />
<br />
<b>Chapter 1</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/04/poetic-impulse-to-reflect-what-is.html">"The poetic impulse to reflect what is already there" </a><br />
<br />
<b>Chapter 2:</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/04/poetic-knowledge-philosophical.html">The universal embedded in the particular</a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-poetic-knowledge-works.html"> How Poetic Knowledge works</a><br />
<br />
<b>Chapter 3</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/04/poetic-knowledge-more-on-modes-of.html">Modes of Knowledge -- poetry is sane because it floats easily on an infinite sea</a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/05/poetic-knowledge-week-4-habit-of-poetic.html">The Habit of Poetic Knowledge</a><br />
<br />
<b>Chapter 4</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/05/poetic-knowledge-descartes-and-his.html">Descartes and His Legacy</a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/05/poetic-knowledge-week-6.html">The ascendancy of the materialistic view of man</a><br />
<br />
<b>Chapter 5</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/05/poetic-knowledge-aristotle-quote.html">Aristotle quote </a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/05/poetic-knowledge-week-8.html">So that souls can bloom</a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/05/logic-of-crafts-and-gymnastics.html">The logic of crafts and gymnastics</a><br />
<br />
<b>Chapter 6</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/05/dullard-who-grew-up-to-be-educational.html">The unmaking of a dullard</a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/05/some-links-related-to-pearson.html">Some links connected to the integrated humanities program</a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/05/poetic-knowledge-week-9.html">Rediscovery of their childhood</a><br />
<b><br /></b><br />
<b>Chapter 7</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/06/poetic-knowledge-week-10.html">some more links, and a list of books</a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/06/end-of-education.html">a poem by John Senior: the End of Education</a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/06/poetic-knowledge-week-11.html">the integration of an idea and a desire</a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/06/poetic-knowledge-more-on-week-12.html"> preparation for perception of the beautiful</a><br />
<b><br /></b><br />
<b>Chapter 8</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/06/poetic-knowledge-week-12.html">Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy and art</a><br />
<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/06/poetic-knowledge-wrap-up.html">Application: not a checklist but a process</a><br />
<br />
<br />Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-4399148243866374852012-02-05T21:00:00.000-08:002012-02-06T16:56:31.741-08:00Keeping House Book Study: Wrap-Up<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjow748aTI9K_SpPKcchCOaHmant31jixKBd_5XTJaq0-bcvK_8_e2OIOnloCrwFDkzS_pAY54focmLZC41ItL2QtiyzB_LgHUVQsKsTD2FO0VEqZOl2Xf4OWrvewlZcep8KNNfRU2UroA/s1600/Keeping+House+button.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjow748aTI9K_SpPKcchCOaHmant31jixKBd_5XTJaq0-bcvK_8_e2OIOnloCrwFDkzS_pAY54focmLZC41ItL2QtiyzB_LgHUVQsKsTD2FO0VEqZOl2Xf4OWrvewlZcep8KNNfRU2UroA/s200/Keeping+House+button.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
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(<a href="http://.designsponge.com/2010/04/food-paintings-by-janet-hill.html">vintage kitchen by janet hill</a>)<br />
<br />
I've very much enjoyed <a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/11/keeping-house-book-study.html">this study</a>! (follow the link for the index to all the posts, or else look at my sidebar) I think the main take-away theme, that housekeeping is daily and both personal and social, but not for those reasons drudging, isolating or menial, was the main thing I want to remember. Since reading this book, I've tried to look more carefully at the way I, and other people I visit, keep house and what that reflects about their lives and how they think of their responsibilities.<br />
<br />
Just in case I have visited you or I ever do visit your house please don't worry that I am looking around with a gimlet eye at stains and clutter and dust bunnies or other possible "frays". As Mrs Peterson says, we are all a little frayed. That is why we need each other.<br />
<br />
When I visit someone else's house I usually see that way more clearly than I do in my own house -- the love, care and bits of beauty that come out in ordinary flawed homes with ordinary traces of clutter and spills. This helps me realize how the same things are shown in my home even though I'm often mildly discontented and frustrated with my own surroundings and my own limitations.<br />
<br />
This book has helped me detach "care and love and work" from "immaculate perfection and constant striving for the unattainable." Perhaps in that way it helps that the author is someone who genuinely loves keeping her house, even though she is a well educated person who could probably have a very successful career. Her love for the work involved in keeping the house, even while admitting it is repetitious and continual, helps me to see past my occasional "hamster in a wheel" feeling to how keeping house echoes the loving providence of our Father.<br />
<br />
The Scripture references especially brought home to me how much God's providence is expressed in terms of nurturing, feeding, providing and preparing food, shelter, and clothing. <br />
<br />
I thought I would go into a part of the last chapter that I didn't really get to last week, and also tie into the subtitle of the book "Litany of Everyday Life". <br />
<br />
Ways that keeping house is like the sacred liturgy:<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;">It is continuing and ongoing:</span><br />
<br />
The routine never ends, though it is not like a wheel where you end up just where you began. If it is like a wheel it is in the sense of the same elements constantly changing and moving you in the direction you want to go in. <br />
<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<span style="font-size: large;">There are daily, weekly and seasonal changes in emphasis and practice. </span></div>
<br />
You do different things in the morning in your house than you do in the evening, and different things on Sunday than you do on Friday. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Some seasons are busier than others.</span><br />
<br />
You can't do everything all the time. It seems best to focus on different things in different sections of the day, week, season or life. <br />
<div style="color: red;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: red;">
<span style="font-size: large;">It can seem overwhelming at first experience, but you move into it by participating.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
The book uses the example of someone from a non-liturgical church visiting a more ritualized church for the first time. I have had this experience since I grew up as an Evangelical and sometimes attended some Lutheran and Episcopalian services before becoming a Catholic. Getting used to the rubrics took some time. And certainly it was somewhat the same when I first had a baby, then several young children, then teenagers and babies both, then entered the world of special needs and medical fragility. I have to say I often wished there was a missal to help me learn the new routines for every new phase of life. But indeed, the main way to get used to the routine is to jump in and start following along responding to situations as they come up. That is how a small child learns language and manners, and how to participate in Christian religious life. Though there are no missals telling us how to be the keepers of our homes, there are certainly lots of books available to guide us and help us think more deeply and effectively about what we are doing.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Wrap-Up </span><br />
<br />
Thanks everyone who got to the end of this study with me! I enjoyed reading your thoughtful posts and comments. If anyone stumbles across this in future and wants to comment, or if anyone is still finishing the book and wants to post or leave a link when you get to the relevant chapters, please feel free. <br />
<br />
If you don't have your own thoughts to go into this week, I would love to hear where you are planning to go in your house-home related reading after this. I know many of you try to keep going with a house-related improvement project almost all year around.<br />
<br />
From PaperbackSwap I got a book called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Family-Manager-Takes-Charge-Organized/dp/B0020MMBAI/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1328502511&sr=1-1-catcorr">The Family Manager Takes Charge</a> which is completely different in tone and emphasis than Keeping House. It takes the idea of the homemaker as manager of a small business concern and goes from there, including many, many practical ideas on how to make house management easier, more effective and more shared with other family members. I usually don't get as much from the practical books as I do from the more musing sort, but I think it's a good time to try to upgrade my house management so I thought this one would work for a change of pace. <br />
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<script src="http://www.blenza.com/linkies/autolink.php?owner=WJFR&postid=06Feb2012" type="text/javascript">
</script>Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-69981268775088858122012-02-04T09:44:00.000-08:002012-02-05T19:59:38.310-08:00Sundry LinksWildly varied collection of links I wanted to save/share:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.danpink.com/archives/2011/02/why-you-should-come-up-with-at-least-1-bad-idea-today">Why you should come up with at least 1 bad idea today:</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I spent some time working in the television industry, and I learned a technique that writers use. <i>It’s called “the bad version.”</i>
When you feel that a plot solution exists, but you can’t yet imagine
it, you describe instead a bad version that has no purpose other than
stimulating the other writers to imagine a better version. </blockquote>
<a href="http://pleasantviewschoolhouse.blogspot.com/2012/01/crocheting-jersey-rug.html"> Crocheting a Jersey Rug</a><br />
<br />
I hate throwing away old stained and ragged T-shirts and this seems like a great way to repurpose.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://thoughtsaftergod.blogspot.com/2011/11/merry-early-christmas-100-free-kindle.html">100+ Free Kindle Books</a><br />
<br />
Brandy at Afterthoughts bought a Kindle for her 9 year old and has shared titles and links to a bunch of free (public domain) Kindle books appropriate for that age! Since I just bought a Kindle for my 9 year old, I went back to look at her list for extra ideas!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/1nl29IzroXk">Epic improv by young viola player</a><br />
<br />
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1nl29IzroXk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br />
You may have seen this already since it's gone viral.. What happens when an audience cell phone disrupts a young man's viola performance.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Readers-Odyssey-Individualized-Literature-Homeschooling/dp/0984831312/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328376711&sr=8-1">The Reader's Odyssey</a><br />
<br />
A friend of mine recently authored and published this book and it is great to see it available on Amazon! I got to read a pre-publication copy which I really enjoyed and hope to post a review soon. From the book page at Amazon:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The Reader's Odyssey</i> is a four-year literature program for
homeschoolers that combines structure and flexibility to instill in
students a propensity to engage in good and great books. Emphasizing
the value of classic works that have endured the test of time, this
program's developmentally appropriate, "errorless" approach allows
students to focus first on exploring many diverse literary works and
only later on applying what they have learned to interpreting and
evaluating literature for themselves. The individualized aspect of the
program allows fluent and reluctant readers alike to accumulate
meaningful experiences with literature, to appreciate ideas that are
beautiful and true, and to grow more sophisticated and wiser in
understanding through reading. </blockquote>
<br />
<a href="http://rosaryarmy.newevangelizers.com/"> The Rosary Army</a><br />
<br />
This site has audio rosaries that you can put on your<a href="http://rosaryarmy.newevangelizers.com/resources/"> IPhone or MP3 player</a>. You can get either the kind that has a Scripture to introduce each decade, or the kind that has a verse for each Hail Mary.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/default.aspx">The Common App</a><br />
<br />
Since my son Sean is at the college application stage, he used this online Common App which lets you make an application that can be used for quite a few of the private colleges out there. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.giantcampus.com/">Giant Campus</a><br />
<br />
Someone told me about this online high school level resource for taking <a href="http://www.giantcampus.com/students/online-courses">various courses</a> related to computer programming, game design, business and engineering. The spring classes are still open to enrollment. I don't know much about it, but it sounds useful and interesting, and since the campus is leagued with several public schools I am assuming it is quite legit.<br />
<br />
See you Monday when I will post the final Keeping House Book Club entry! <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-31373092914297939192012-01-30T11:33:00.000-08:002012-02-05T20:07:34.731-08:00Keeping House Book Study Chapter Eight<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjow748aTI9K_SpPKcchCOaHmant31jixKBd_5XTJaq0-bcvK_8_e2OIOnloCrwFDkzS_pAY54focmLZC41ItL2QtiyzB_LgHUVQsKsTD2FO0VEqZOl2Xf4OWrvewlZcep8KNNfRU2UroA/s1600/Keeping+House+button.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjow748aTI9K_SpPKcchCOaHmant31jixKBd_5XTJaq0-bcvK_8_e2OIOnloCrwFDkzS_pAY54focmLZC41ItL2QtiyzB_LgHUVQsKsTD2FO0VEqZOl2Xf4OWrvewlZcep8KNNfRU2UroA/s200/Keeping+House+button.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
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(<a href="http://.designsponge.com/2010/04/food-paintings-by-janet-hill.html">vintage kitchen by janet hill</a>)<br />
<br />
So much has been happening recently that I was not able to sit down at the computer for long enough to write about chapter 7. In the interests of keeping on schedule, and because we already discussed food a little bit, I am going to move on to: <br />
<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Chapter Eight: The Well Kept House!</span></div>
<br />
This is the last chapter. I am going to continue for one more week after this one, in order to wrap up the study, and you are welcome to join in with any loose ends or reflections or thoughts inspired by the study. <br />
<br />
IT is timely for me to think about the well kept house! In the past week I have traveled from my mom's home in Wasilla, to my sons' apartment in Oregon, and now to my own log home in the Sierra Mountains. <br />
<br />
A few considerations from the chapter on the attributes of a well kept home:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;">1. </span><b style="color: red;">Importance:</b><span style="color: red;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
It is an important part of Christian living to have a well managed house. Look at <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Timothy+3&version=NIV">1 Timothy 3</a> which describes the qualifications for a deacon. Much of it is intrinsically tied in with the man's management of his own household and family as well as his own personal temperance and honesty.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;">2. <b>Hospitality.</b> </span><br />
<br />
Hospitality meant a different thing in Biblical times than it seems to nowadays. It meant welcoming the stranger or wayfarer, and was a sort of return to others of what God had given to Israel, or individually to us.<br />
<br />
For this reason, hospitality nowadays doesn't have to mean so much spotless perfection or elegant dining, but simply sharing one's life with others.<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;">3. <b>Dealing with the basics.</b> </span> <br />
<br />
How much better to focus on meeting basic needs with dignity and care, rather than shoot for some standard of elegance and perfection! I know that when I visited my Mom's house I was struck by how she has set things up so that hospitality is almost second nature. Everything is clean and simple and smells good and looks nice. She doesn't tend to worry about having everything perfectly ordered. We owe our own families this kind of care, too; and since care is a communal effort, all the members of the family should participate in keeping things up. It shouldn't be the job of just one person (usually, statisfically, the mom).<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;">4. <b>Routines</b>. </span><br />
<br />
Household routines are like church liturgies in that there is a daily, weekly, and seasonal routine and these things are not to be arbitrarily changed. Oh, this is a huge topic! In fact, routine is something I feel like I am lacking right at the moment, probably because of changing households three times in a week. When I was with my mom, I felt like routines were very important in shaping the day and meeting with the various challenges of ill health and lots of things to get done. Back at home, I'm floundering a bit more. I think part of it is that routines tend to be naturally communal and cooperative. When I am at home with my boys I feel like I am doing most of the pulling and tugging. The temptation is to become discouraged. I will let you know in a week or so where I am on this!<br />
<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<span style="font-size: large;">5. <b>Emergencies.</b> </span></div>
<br />
What do you do when the routines break down? I suppose I am somewhat there right now. When things are in transition, or someone is sick, or newborn, or something else changes the status quo, then routines tend to develop glitches or fail to work.<br />
<br />
Mrs Peterson makes a great point about safety. A routine is not about maximum efficiency, so that the least disruption in the machinery means that it grinds over the individual needs of the members of the family. Daily life has to have margin, safety -- so when a need comes up, it can be generously met. <br />
<br />
Another great point she makes is that maximum efficiency is often a way of devaluing work. In other words, it is a kind of sloth. When you are working like a machine, all the time, the work is essentially dehumanized and made into an end in itself rather than a means to an end. Work becomes more important than the human worker, rather than the work being FOR the human.<br />
<br />
I know that I personally have a temptation to work just to get it done. Mrs Peterson mentions that work should be tucked into the corners and folds of life, be intrinsically bound into its fabric, not thought of as a huge separate block. This is something I am glad to have a chance to think about this week particularly. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Nurturance and caregiving are notoriously inefficient. Insofar as housekeeping participates in and forms part of the infrastructure for nurturance and care, it makes good sense for housekeeping to be designed not for maximum efficiency but for appropriate redundancy. We need to plan to take enough time to do the work—perhaps not always as much time as might be ideal but enough time that on a normal day most of the things that need to be done can get done and on a hard day there are corners that can be cut.</blockquote>
This is my Thought for the Week! It really goes against my natural grain, but it connects with my <a href="http://take-up-and-read.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-is-your-word-for-2012.html">Word for 2012, Diligence</a>. Diligence is a kind of joyful care for the details. .... a kind of nurturing care. It is NOT machine-like efficiency.<br />
<br />
<br />
In this context, I think of a book I read about a man who lived among the Amish for a year. The Amish are notably hard workers, but he noticed that their work had little in common with factory-line efficiency. As they farmed or built or whatever, little organic pauses were built into the rhythm of labor. The work was human, not machine-like.<br />
<br />
Household emergencies can be opportunities -- for giving and receiving help. I noticed often when I had a newborn or our family was facing a medical crisis, the normal routines and productivity went by the board. This is often frustrating, but the frustration is to an extent an immature response. Crises and births and transitions are occasions for very unique and extraordinary graces. To want "ordinary time" to continue all year around, with no feasts or fasts, would not be in any way a sign of sanctity; it's more like laziness. Of course, I can say that and still feel my natural reluctance to have to change and grow and respond.<br />
<br />
This chapter continues, but I think I have enough to think about for now. Next week in my wrap-up post I will try to tie in whatever I can of those last few pages. I hope you enjoyed this book study -- and will use next week to explore any trails that this study has brought up, or reflect on any new things you have learned. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<script src="http://www.blenza.com/linkies/autolink.php?owner=WJFR&postid=30Jan2012" type="text/javascript">
</script>Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-81943469052400582922012-01-16T05:14:00.000-08:002012-01-16T05:14:52.713-08:00Keeping House Book Study Chapter 6<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjow748aTI9K_SpPKcchCOaHmant31jixKBd_5XTJaq0-bcvK_8_e2OIOnloCrwFDkzS_pAY54focmLZC41ItL2QtiyzB_LgHUVQsKsTD2FO0VEqZOl2Xf4OWrvewlZcep8KNNfRU2UroA/s1600/Keeping+House+button.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjow748aTI9K_SpPKcchCOaHmant31jixKBd_5XTJaq0-bcvK_8_e2OIOnloCrwFDkzS_pAY54focmLZC41ItL2QtiyzB_LgHUVQsKsTD2FO0VEqZOl2Xf4OWrvewlZcep8KNNfRU2UroA/s200/Keeping+House+button.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
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(<a href="http://.designsponge.com/2010/04/food-paintings-by-janet-hill.html">vintage kitchen by janet hill</a>)<br />
<br />
This is chapter 6 of <a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/search/label/Keeping%20House">Keeping House: A Litany of Everyday Life</a> and is about <span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Food to Eat</span>. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Food is so daily". </blockquote>
<br />
And because of that, it has a lot of significance to us as human being. In the Bible, food is the occasion of the first sin, and food also becomes intrinsically connected with our salvation, prefigured in the Passover meal and in the manna in the desert, and then in the feeding of the five thousand, and finally coming to full significance in<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+6&version=NIV"> Jesus's declaration that He is the Bread of Life</a>. We are called upon as Christians to "feed the hungry"<br />
<br />
This chapter is divided up into four aspects of food -- the eating of it, the food itself, the preparation of it, and who we eat with. Since I have been up in Alaska visiting my mom I have been comparing how flexible and yet continuous these things are.<br />
<br />
My mom likes to have things nice -- not rigidly perfect, just pretty nice. She uses line-dried cotton or linen tablecloths and cloth placemats and napkins. When I first came up here, since we were both ladies and we both eat fairly simply, we set out very simple meals three times a day. But she has a lot of habits that keep even simple meals a ceremonial and pleasant occasion. We set the table, we moved the food from cooking dish to serving dish, and we sat down to say a grace and eat. My mom watches the news before dinner but always turns off the TV before sitting down to eat. We make sure to have prepared a balance of fruit and vegetables, a wholegrain food and some meat or cheese or eggs. We usually prepare the meals together, dividing up the little tasks.<br />
<br />
In contrast, my boys' apartment in Eugene doesn't yet have a regular table and meals have to be plentiful and are often much less ceremonious. They often eat in or around the kitchen and we use that chance to talk and sort of interact.<br />
<br />
And I noticed that when my brother showed up here, things were varied again. My brother loves to cook (who knew?) and so he politely holds on to the kitchen proceedings and gets everything set up and prepared before calling us to eat. Since he's a pastor he has often been reading a Psalm or improvising a grace since he showed up. <br />
<br />
What I am thinking is that food, its preparation and what it is and who serves it, and how it is served and eaten, are a very interesting mixture of individuality and commonality. You probably can get a better idea of a family or society culture by watching how the meal is prepared and served and eaten, than almost any other way.<br />
<br />
Meals are also a kind of teaching and learning through action. But it's not the directly didactic kind of teaching; it's more like a teaching by participation.<br />
<br />
So, perhaps a good time to reflect on meals you have partaken of in past years, what they said about what was going on, how these occasions look in your own family, and what you would like them to look like. Since it's the New Year, it's a good time to reflect on your systems and what direction you want them to go in. Any other reflections or rabbit trails on this chapter would also be welcome! <br />
<script src="http://www.blenza.com/linkies/autolink.php?owner=WJFR&postid=16Jan2012" type="text/javascript">
</script>Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-71038386167500072162012-01-16T04:37:00.000-08:002012-01-16T04:40:29.957-08:00Photos from WasillaI realized that I missed posting last week's Keeping House book study. I have been up in Alaska -- my mom's health has taken a rather sudden turn for the worse and that has kept me preoccupied enough so that I haven't been online much at all. <br />
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Any prayers would be very much appreciated!<br />
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It has been breathlessly cold here -- down to minus 25 last night -- so I haven't been out much, but I took some pictures of the sunset last night through the upstairs window of her house. The pictures are slightly blurry through the glass and don't do justice to the colors, but you can get an idea of the beauty -- the sunsets this far north come very early and last a long, long time especially since the sun has to sink below the mountains.<br />
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That little light in the second and third pictures? It's someone enjoying their Martin Luther King weekend by ski-mobiling on the frozen lake! Everyone has their own choice of enjoyment -- I am sure it was awesome being out there surrounded by the sky but the chill factor must be a beast! Alaskans! <br />
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In the next couple of days I'll put a book study post up but it might be shorter than usual. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEWkdumUCj7o4hq2p3bq154RdYV7eBMZl4yezWHJXkE3EnLHYON-CQLLAXMufYBmcZqS5WtEIfacuq5FGoANfm15zg4bp52w6gQsxrTXk_Y8SF5clX_9ZwK1s4B9oj1VpvURYJ8H3RBh6A/s640/blogger-image-1737840864.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="479" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEWkdumUCj7o4hq2p3bq154RdYV7eBMZl4yezWHJXkE3EnLHYON-CQLLAXMufYBmcZqS5WtEIfacuq5FGoANfm15zg4bp52w6gQsxrTXk_Y8SF5clX_9ZwK1s4B9oj1VpvURYJ8H3RBh6A/s640/blogger-image-1737840864.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-15477649390773903932012-01-03T13:21:00.000-08:002012-01-03T13:23:09.549-08:00New Year Pictures<div style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">A Happy New Year!</span></i></div>
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Since I have not been posting here much and can't think of much to say I thought I would post some family pictures. We have an unhappy tradition of family-picture-taking. You can see that Clare is almost never the problem. It's her brothers. One is always sure to be frowning, or closing his eyes, or turning away, or trying to disappear off the edge of the picture or behind someone else's head.. <br />
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Plus, I find California light challenging. I will say no more. <br />
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We went to our lake to get these pictures. It has been historically drained to be cleaned out and have something else environmentally friendly done to it. You can see it in the background of some of the pictures.<br />
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I don't know when all our family will be together again. In a few days we all scatter to different parts of the Pacific coast. To think, only 9 years ago Paddy was a newborn and my oldest was only 16! No wonder I often feel dizzy! <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqGSjQxdswIw7vgE9uv3q9LFil-5K9K1v1jnPS0RE2rl_XK8jA4mEsTc20XNAzPrVtyhdtYPBTmaO5kAKSUXaZ-KVJCbraABiHvJNxvXZEH9lMZpm1y8Y03Qg-NCYa4H5FGR7-4vbqvaPC/s640/blogger-image-1988097350.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqGSjQxdswIw7vgE9uv3q9LFil-5K9K1v1jnPS0RE2rl_XK8jA4mEsTc20XNAzPrVtyhdtYPBTmaO5kAKSUXaZ-KVJCbraABiHvJNxvXZEH9lMZpm1y8Y03Qg-NCYa4H5FGR7-4vbqvaPC/s400/blogger-image-1988097350.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Good form, picture too backlit</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQskd3p26hWAuGKwEj917UQ6-uZw5Aqgdb8P33Cuw1MOVTecSQn3a7UYxXzt_pCXGRgL_EgtuWLVKxokI5f1ANbcA6qdBbdI0WiDhWLgeuUVEBhKjX_k98u086DbkXhUv1nU2ZnIW6aaxt/s640/blogger-image--1404847146.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQskd3p26hWAuGKwEj917UQ6-uZw5Aqgdb8P33Cuw1MOVTecSQn3a7UYxXzt_pCXGRgL_EgtuWLVKxokI5f1ANbcA6qdBbdI0WiDhWLgeuUVEBhKjX_k98u086DbkXhUv1nU2ZnIW6aaxt/s400/blogger-image--1404847146.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A little overexposed now, Kieron is obscured and Paddy looks spacy. </td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sean and Liam take a talk break</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nice background, but family all shadowy </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvpzzR7yuqcmXK9vuTjE-UAtTDVy4lRHHTbjjFMom3m-0jMZUbwYzvsgtSTBTATXSZmX4bBii4tPrnRcravcMia62UVGr_5pHgrohVbJToj5BPuULaRLGEMBRF_EvWXbN0fJe8yCy-Es9H/s640/blogger-image--1743382362.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvpzzR7yuqcmXK9vuTjE-UAtTDVy4lRHHTbjjFMom3m-0jMZUbwYzvsgtSTBTATXSZmX4bBii4tPrnRcravcMia62UVGr_5pHgrohVbJToj5BPuULaRLGEMBRF_EvWXbN0fJe8yCy-Es9H/s400/blogger-image--1743382362.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cute, but Sean is completely blocked </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0g2EY6boHWjT_tbPPo3_PLdDhsTxJH7-d8COv-GNJWuJgTlgJClopUQ2C4wH3vWdjoniVdpcq4NOeJSd8JHm0Gcaw6Uzh-VXEBhA5hgH4z-ASQHsD-GrFE04g81-x3bTCUqG_GWKp2Ftg/s640/blogger-image-1161841968.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0g2EY6boHWjT_tbPPo3_PLdDhsTxJH7-d8COv-GNJWuJgTlgJClopUQ2C4wH3vWdjoniVdpcq4NOeJSd8JHm0Gcaw6Uzh-VXEBhA5hgH4z-ASQHsD-GrFE04g81-x3bTCUqG_GWKp2Ftg/s640/blogger-image-1161841968.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clare and Paddy take some time off</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-76645337570904431612011-12-25T21:17:00.000-08:002011-12-25T21:17:26.407-08:00Merry Christmas!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVoyJejhuEmz0jZF0q5x5zkmBkLgVYXW9_HM9iKINvTKsDu0E9lV2bqZXs6s-V1iSZJ-vnL9iV27KYGq3bjxcsZ_OAs1-xCZxVx-MOKEe8307fmOZzT78SrUnqiksYmQsVcfZ65BnpOgw/s1600/ryan.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVoyJejhuEmz0jZF0q5x5zkmBkLgVYXW9_HM9iKINvTKsDu0E9lV2bqZXs6s-V1iSZJ-vnL9iV27KYGq3bjxcsZ_OAs1-xCZxVx-MOKEe8307fmOZzT78SrUnqiksYmQsVcfZ65BnpOgw/s400/ryan.JPG" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" width="400" /></i> </a></div>
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A rare picture of all our family together for the first time in a year! Our clothes are even somewhat color-coordinated. I suppose it is too much to ask that we all have open eyes at the same time. </div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">Wishing you all a very blessed Christmastide! </span></i></div>
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<br />Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-90129863462493403392011-12-23T16:09:00.000-08:002011-12-24T09:05:06.089-08:00Questions, Wonder, FaithGoing for a walk this afternoon -- we have had a warm winter so far and the outdoors isn't covered with snow as it usually is -- I was thinking more about that quote about wonder and how it is the beginning of the road to wisdom.<br />
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I was thinking about how I can read a book or article, understand what I'm reading yet after I put it down remember almost nothing about it UNLESS (and this is what struck me) it was somewhat mysterious. And there are all sorts of ways to be mysterious and therefore memorable. My favorite poetry is somewhat obscure; and I often remember an essay better if I disagreed with it than when I completely agreed; and the stories I remember best are the ones that seem to open up a new vista or leave something unresolved.<br />
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It can't be a mystery of incompetence -- I don't like pretentiously obscure poetry, or blockheaded essays, or stories that have lots of loose ends because the writer dropped literary stitches as he wrote. It has to be a puzzle or like a curtain that somehow shifted where I got a glimpse of something beautiful and strange, but the curtain fell back before I could see it completely.<br />
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Realizing this, I wonder if it could help me remember better what I read. Study Skills courses tell me to pose myself questions as I read in order to remember, and this paralyzes me with disgusted boredom from the start. It's sort of like looking at a Cosmo cover in the grocery line which promises to tell me how to attract my significant other. I feel like something slimy has tried to drop on me. <br />
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But in another way, it seems true that this wondering instinct leads me to muse and ponder, and those are the only ways to find out. It is said more than once of Mary that she "pondered in her heart" and this is a very sign of how she recognized and acknowledged mystery without turning away from it as if it were merely a closed box marked "mystery here"<br />
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It seems like nowadays we either deny there is mystery, or think of it as a sort of shallow puzzle or distraction, or imbue it with a deceptive gnostic cloak, turn away with fear and distrust in favor of something more easily grasped by our senses. <br />
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We also teach badly by ignoring real questions in favor of ones that are too easily answerable. Children start wondering as soon as their survival needs are met. But it's easy to imply to them that learning is just stocking the head with information, and then they stop wondering. <br />
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<a href="http://www.newmanreader.org/works/oxford/sermon14.html">Cardinal Newman </a>says that learning is ultimately directed towards wisdom or enlargement of mind, which is a very different thing from mere quantity of information. <br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Or, again, the censure often passed on what is called
undigested reading, shows us that knowledge without system is not
Philosophy. Students who store themselves so amply with literature or
science, that no room is left for determining the respective relations
which exist between their acquisitions, one by one, are rather said to
load their minds than to enlarge them.</blockquote>
Some other things that are different from true enlargement of mind, though they may masquerade as such: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
love
of system, theorizing, fancifulness, dogmatism, and bigotry</blockquote>
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<a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.1.i.html">Aristotle (in the Metaphysics) </a>says similiarly that wisdom is not just a mass of particulars <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Again, we
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="64"></a>do not regard any of the senses as Wisdom; yet surely these give the most
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="65"></a>authoritative knowledge of particulars. But they do not tell us the 'why'
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="66"></a>of anything-e.g. why fire is hot; they only say that it is hot.</blockquote>
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So Wisdom is the knowledge of "what kind
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="91"></a>are the causes and the principles". </blockquote>
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It is in wondering, according to Aristotle, that we start on the journey to wisdom, not by doing or making things per se: <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="80"></a><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"That it (wisdom) is not a science of production is clear even from the
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="129"></a>history of the earliest philosophers. For it is owing to their wonder that
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="130"></a>men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="131"></a>at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="132"></a>difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="133"></a>moon and those of the sun and of the stars, and about the genesis of the
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="134"></a>universe.<br />
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And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="135"></a>(whence even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover of Wisdom, for the
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="136"></a>myth is composed of wonders); therefore since they philosophized order
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="137"></a>to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="138"></a>to know, and not for any utilitarian end. And this is confirmed by the
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="139"></a>facts; for it was when almost all the necessities of life and the things
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="140"></a>that make for comfort and recreation had been secured, that such knowledge
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="141"></a>began to be sought. Evidently then we do not seek it for the sake of any
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="142"></a>other advantage; but as the man is free, we say, who exists for his own
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="143"></a>sake and not for another's, so we pursue this as the only free science,
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2039160066439602962" name="144"></a>for it alone exists for its own sake. </blockquote>
Newman talks about Wisdom somewhat differently, as beginning in Faith, but still "right judgment" is not all that different from knowledge of first principles and causes, except that (as Newman says later in his sermon) Faith can bypass and surpass the painful intellectual rigor needed to even approach by human means a partial understanding of these causes and principles. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Collect virtually speaks of Faith, when it makes
mention of Almighty God's "teaching the hearts of His faithful
people by the sending to them the light of His Holy Spirit;" and
of the Wisdom of the perfect, when it prays God, that "by the
same Spirit" we may "have a right judgment in all
things."</blockquote>
In this context the movement of the Holy Spirit begins with Faith and is perfected in wisdom, or right judgement. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
knowledge itself, though a condition of the mind's enlargement,
yet, whatever be its range, is not that very thing which enlarges it.
Rather the foregoing instances show that this enlargement consists in
the comparison of the subjects of knowledge one with another. We feel
ourselves to be ranging freely, when we not only learn something, but
when we also refer it to what we knew before. It is not the mere
addition to our knowledge which is the enlargement, but the change of
place, the movement onwards, of that moral centre, to which what we
know and what we have been acquiring, the whole mass of our knowledge,
as it were, gravitates. And therefore a philosophical cast of thought,
or a comprehensive mind, or wisdom in conduct or policy, implies a
connected view of the old with the new; an insight into the bearing
and influence of each part upon every other; without which there is no
whole, and could be no centre. It is the knowledge, not only of
things, but of their mutual relations. It is organized, and therefore
living knowledge. </blockquote>
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Later on in the sermon, he describes how Faith (speaking generally) can reach the highest that Wisdom is capable of (naturally speaking):<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Whatever be the
subject-matter and the point in question, sacred or profane, Faith has
a true view of it, and Wisdom can have no more; nor does it become
truer because it is held in connexion with other opinions, or less
true because it is not. And thus, since Faith is the characteristic of
all Christians, a peasant may take the same view of human affairs in
detail as a philosopher; and we are often perplexed whether to say
that such persons are intellectually gifted or not. They have clear
and distinct opinions; they know what they are saying; they have
something to say about any subject; they do not confuse points of
primary with those of secondary importance; {305} they never contradict
themselves: on the other hand they are not aware that there is any
thing extraordinary about their judgments; they do not connect any two
judgments together; they do not recognize any common principles
running through them; they forget the opinions they have expressed,
together with the occasion; they cannot defend themselves; they are
easily perplexed and silenced; and, if they set themselves to reason,
they use arguments which appear to be faulty, as being but types and
shadows of those which they really feel, and attempts to analyze that
vast system of thought which is their life, but not their instrument. </blockquote>
He distinguishes it here from Bigotry, which is like Faith often partially uneducated, but doesn't possess the habit of right judgment -- it misjudges, and over-extends partial truths, and puts things out of order. Of course, in most actual people you find a mixture of traits -- there is hardly anyone free of bigotry, either rationalistic or fideistic, but you do find exemplars of Faith in the saints, whether they happened to be well educated, or not.<br />
<br />
In this way, true Faith is perfected in Wisdom, not by human means but by grace. I am supposing that false or warped faith always resolves into some kind of bigotry. And I'm not just talking about professedly religious faith here, either, because, as Newman says, we can't do without some sort of dogmatism or principle, whether we happen to acknowledge it or not: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Thus, what is invidiously called dogmatism and
system, in one shape or other, in one degree or another, is, I may
say, necessary to the human mind; we cannot reason, feel, or act,
without it; it forms the stamina of thought, which, when it is
removed, languishes, and droops. Sooner than dispense with principles,
the mind will take them at the hand of others, will put up with such
as are faulty or uncertain;—and thus much Wisdom, Bigotry, and
Faith, have in common. Principle is the life of them all; but Wisdom
is the application of adequate principles to the state of things as we
find them, Bigotry is the application of inadequate or narrow
principles, while Faith is the maintenance of principles, without
caring to apply or adjust them..</blockquote>
and also<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Even sceptics cannot
proceed without elementary principles, though they would fain dispense
with every yoke and bond.</blockquote>
<br />Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-13690907409026702722011-12-23T00:30:00.000-08:002011-12-23T00:30:00.410-08:00Speaking of Reading Books.....and about <a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/12/year-of-books.html">thoughts on 2011 and plans for 2012</a>, I thought of another couple of things I wanted to change this year. <br />
<br />
One was that I didn't really read very many devotional books when I look back on last year. I read lots of books with a Christian perspective, and particularly I am glad I read so many Christian novels, but I didn't finish many classic books on Christian living. Next year I'd like to read more of these, particularly rereads.<br />
<br />
Another related thing -- I had no way to record reading that wasn't book or was only excerpted from books. So when I, say, browsed through a book on my shelves and read for about an hour, but didn't read from cover to cover, I just didn't write it down, even if it was good quality reading. <br />
<br />
I stayed away from some reading I would have liked to do because I wasn't sure if I could commit to reading the whole thing cover to cover. This sort of ties in with the lack of religious books recorded because sometimes I did start reading an excellent religious book -- I started reading CS Lewis's Christian Reflections, I reread some of ST Francis de Sales' God's Will For You, I read quite a lot of a biography on St Francis de Sales, I reread a good bit of Imitation of Christ, and I read parts of a compilation of St Thomas Aquinas. But I didn't really know how to count this. Should I count pages next year? That sounds too difficult and quantity-oriented for something like reading. What about when I read an article online? Do any of you keep track of this kind of reading and if so, how? <br />
<br />
<br />Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-8930581142160118152011-12-22T00:23:00.000-08:002011-12-22T00:34:14.816-08:00Hollow Men<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
This is from <a href="http://www.goodcatholicbooks.org/dekoninck/hollow-universe.html">The Hollow Universe</a>, by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_De_Koninck">Charles de Koninck</a>, and reminds me a bit of CS Lewis's<a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/search/label/Abolition%20of%20Man"> Abolition of Man which we were discussing this fall</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The prevailing 'scientific outlook', above all in the Commonwealth,
is now more than ever dominated by Hume. His critique does not affect
science as a tool; indeed, mathematics is now largely recognized for
what he thought it was—a tool, and a quite reliable one. But his
treatment of induction and causality is now being used to snuff out that
first type of wonder : wonder about what a cause is, what is cause of
what, what movement is, what place and time are, and so on. His
apparently cold analysis has met with considerable popular success; and
its effect is to drive from the human mind that primordial curiosity,
the parent of all other motives of inquiry, which Aristotle describes in
his account of the beginnings of science and wisdom.<br />
<br />
Surely it is disheartening to reflect that we live in an age when it
can be necessary, not merely to explain Einstein's speculative goal, but
even to defend it against another type of mind which would have it that
his time might have been better spent in the practice of plumbing. But
the spirit of intellectual nihilism is gaining ground. It is frightening
to think of the extent to which people are now being encouraged to
banish from the minds of their children great questions as devoid of all
meaning; to dispel the wonder which is a young mind's birthright; to
confine their spirit to petty problems that can be answered once and for
all to the satisfaction of reasoners incapable of raising a question to
begin with. We now have a philosophy to show that there are no problems
but those which it has shown to be no problem; and to decree that there
is no philosophy other than one that is a denial of philosophy. Under
the twinkle of a fading star, Hollow Men rejoice at a hollow world of
their own making.</blockquote>
<br />
De Koninck was a Belgian Thomistic scholar who taught on the topic of "the compatibility and complementarity of philosophical knowledge
and scientific inquiry". Apparently the late Dr Ralph McInerny studied under him. There are several writings of De Koninck's linked online at <a href="http://www.goodcatholicbooks.org/dekoninck/dekoninck-philosophy.html">Good Catholic Books</a>. <br />
<br />
Interesting factoid, if Wikipedia is to be believed:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
De Koninck and his family hosted and entertained many notables in their Quebec City residence, among them Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and his fiery writer-artist wife, Consuelo Suncín, during their five week stay in the province in the spring of 1942. The De Koninck's precocious eight year old son, Thomas, whom Saint-Exupéry met, may have served as an inspiration for the extraterrestrial visitor of his most famous novella, The Little Prince.</blockquote>Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-68251294160920627082011-12-20T10:52:00.000-08:002011-12-20T12:02:50.767-08:00Keeping House Book Study: Chapter Five<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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(<a href="http://.designsponge.com/2010/04/food-paintings-by-janet-hill.html">vintage kitchen by janet hill</a>)<br />
<br />
This is chapter 5 of the <a href="http://quotidianmoments.blogspot.com/2011/11/keeping-house-book-study.html">Keeping House Book Study</a>, on <span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Clothing a Household. </span> Like me, you probably are busy with your own household and not really focusing on book studies. I almost decided to skip this week. But I'm going to go ahead and get this out. There will be no book study for next week due to Christmas. I will pick up January 2nd unless it is just too crazy, in which case the next post will be January 9. <br />
<br />
In this chapter, Margaret Peterson compares the past with the present in this chapter on what it takes to clothe a household. I'm going to follow that pattern and then comment on what I personally do in each category. Please share any ideas or clothing hacks or insights you want to talk about, as well as the parts of the chapter that struck you most. Or just say Hi. My standards are so very low for topicality during this holiday season. <br />
<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<b>Providing Clothin</b>g </div>
<br />
<i style="color: #6aa84f;">In the old days</i>, this meant taking up your needle and thread, or knitting needles perhaps, and building a wardrobe for your household. Some households perhaps even spun and wove cloth starting from the original wool. If the mistress of the household and her daughters didn't do this, perhaps their servants did. Even when richer households went to a tailor or dressmaker, they didn't buy readymade clothing. It was custom-made for them. <br />
<br />
<i><span style="color: #6aa84f;">Nowadays,</span></i> generally woman buy rather than make clothing. If they do sew or knit or crochet, they generally do it in a more creative than utilitarian spirit. Clothing is inexpensive, ready-made, and ubiquitous in stores. That means there are stores devoted completely to clothing and more where you can buy clothing along with other things.<br />
<br />
<i style="color: #6aa84f;">My household </i>== I have gradually become more conscious that most discount clothing is outsourced to countries where cheap labor is plentiful. Sometimes I feel like we are like the early days of the Industrial Revolution where women and children slaved for starvation wages. Plus, I don't much like cheap clothes and don't like spending the money on more expensive stuff. Consequently, I almost always shop at thrift stores.... except for socks and underwear.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<b>Our Drawers and Closets</b></div>
<br />
<i style="color: #6aa84f;">In the old days</i>, poor people might only have 2 or 3 outfits. They made their clothes last through several incarnations..... they repaired, retrimmed or reworked their worn clothes, perhaps trimming them down for their children, or eventually tearing them up for rags. I believe rich people often had far, far more even than we do nowadays, and it was often impractical clothing, fine flimsy silks that couldn't be passed on to the needy after wearing.<br />
<br />
<i style="color: #6aa84f;">Nowadays,</i> clothing is so abundant that we can easily end up with more than we ever wear. Lots of people want to wear what's in style which means buying all new clothing (often marked up in price) and the right store name or brand name.<br />
<br />
<i style="color: #6aa84f;">In my household</i> -- Homeschooling seems to help somewhat with this, and so does being somewhat nerdy, because one tends not to care so much what one wears, as long as it's comfortable and decent. I am not sure what people do if they or their kids really care about labels and that kind of thing. I suppose I would have the kids spend their own money for status upgrades. My daughter finds nice things in thrift stores and my sons generally develop some type of clothing convention -- my oldest son wears khakis and collared shirts and my other boys wear either casual/athletic or sometimes nicer pants and collared shirts or sweaters. <br />
<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<b>Laundry</b></div>
<div style="color: #6aa84f;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<i style="color: #6aa84f;">In the old day</i>s, laundry was backbreaking and labor intensive. There was a reason why we "washed on Mondays" -- because we were well rested after the Sunday Sabbath. Again, poorer folk did their own laundry or took in others' laundry; rich folk had it done by others.<br />
<br />
<i style="color: #6aa84f;">Nowadays</i>, everyone has a washer and dryer. This hasn't made laundry exactly more manageable, but it is definitely easier to do. And we do way more of it. We wash our clothes after one or two wearings.<br />
<br />
<i style="color: #6aa84f;">In my household</i>, I sort of resist this imperative of continuous laundering, but it is difficult because boys really are hard on their clothes and adults and older teens usually don't want to put on already-worn clothes because hyper-cleanliness is sort of engrained in our culture.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<b>Mending</b></div>
<br />
<i style="color: #6aa84f;">In the old days,</i> poor people valued every precious scrap of fabric, as I mentioned above, so they would repurpose again and again until the last rag was worn threadbare.<br />
<br />
<i style="color: #6aa84f;">Nowadays,</i> our clothing is so consumable. We often aren't very aware of where it came from or where it goes after we tire of it and toss it in the trash or give it away.<br />
<br />
<i style="color: #6aa84f;">In my household,</i> I've tried to re-purpose torn clothes, but polyester doesn't work
well for rags (just saying) and you never see kids wearing patched or
repaired clothing any more. Socks wear fast and they don't darn
easily. The fabric usually isn't the kind you can really use for
quilts and the like. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I've done different things through the years to deal with this
-- I sometimes use old socks as dusters, for example. And because we
live in the mountains, and I have boys, I keep worn clothes for play
clothes even after they are unacceptable for public wear. I also
convert trousers with holes in the knees into shorts. And I keep the
better casual clothes only for going out into company.<br />
<br />
<br />
My own clothes are easier.. As long as I keep them
in decent shape I can usually pass them back to the thrift store. I
usually buy simple tops and jeans and skirts that don't really follow
the fashion so that they aren't obsolete by the time I hand them back
in. My problem is buying too much. I really like sorting through thrift stores and finding new things. I've gotten better about letting go of things I find I am not wearing. <br />
<br />
These last two parts are more about the natural rhythm of seasons, ages, and dealing with the daily flow of clothing, which probably hasn't changed quite so much as other things from past to present, because it's sort of inevitable that we will deal with these rhythms to some extent. <br />
<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<b>Seasons and Ages</b></div>
<br />
<br />
We all have our strategies for dealing with seasons and age changes. I rotate clothes in and out by seasons. When we were having babies, we kept outgrown clothes for the next child. Nowadays only two of my kids are still growing and they are quite close to the same size so I don't really have put-away clothes since the outgrown ones go right from Aidan to Paddy.<br />
<br />
It's easy to keep way too many clothes between kids, though. I used to keep almost everything, but finally realized that I only needed to keep a basic wardrobe in storage for the next kid. The most important thing to keep is dressy clothes since they are more expensive to replace. I have a couple of boxes devoted to boys' dress clothes, all white shirts and navy pants, for almost every size. But now of course I can discard the ones that Paddy has outgrown since he is the youngest.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<b>Putting Things Away</b></div>
<br />
Mrs Peterson talks about the rhythm of sorting laundry before cleaning, folding or ironing laundry as it comes out, bringing out clothes by season or age, and putting things away after use or cleaning. I have to admit that where I dislike most household maintenance jobs, I do really relish the rhythm of laundry and seasonal taking out and bringing in of clothes.<br />
<br />
I used to get overwhelmed with it but I weeded out a lot of extras and what was left was way more manageable. I think I like laundry because it feels and smells good, whereas most household maintenance involves slimy, disgusting, or harsh smelling things. I love hanging up laundry to dry and bringing it in to fold it, but I only do this during the warmer months. Once our dryer was broken for two years because we couldn't afford to replace or repair it, and I hardly missed it. I hung the clothes up in the loft above the wood stove and they came down warm and dry and smelling so clean.<br />
<br />
I am not very good at folding and don't spend a long time on mathematical precision, but I enjoy it. I often get lost in thought while I'm doing it. I wish everything in our Keeping House litany was as simple and gratifying for me. I suppose it's true of any<a href="http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=453"> litany</a> or oft-repeated prayer, that there will be some phrases that are particularly satisfying to say either because they just sound good or because they have some personal significance. <br />
<br />
Please share any random thoughts that occur to you. Do you have any useful or creative strategies for dealing with our consumable, trendy, too abundant clothing modern challenges with clothing? <br />
<script src="http://www.blenza.com/linkies/autolink.php?owner=WJFR&postid=20Dec2011" type="text/javascript">
</script>Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-67391646618382265302011-12-19T17:16:00.000-08:002011-12-19T17:16:07.230-08:00The Year of Books2011 was definitely a Year of Book Reading for me. Right now I am up at 175 books. <br />
<br />
So I definitely met the <a href="http://www.read52booksin52weeks.com/">52 books in 52 weeks</a> challenge. <br />
<br />
Because of the challenge, this is the first year I actually kept track of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1180880?shelf=52-books-in-2011">everything I read --- with the help of Goodreads</a>. <br />
<br />
A few thoughts about that:<br />
<br />
It was nice to really focus seriously on reading for a year. In past years I probably simply couldn't have found the time. Plus, in past years, I tried very hard to restrain my tendency to read voraciously. I think even something good like reading can be disordered if it becomes too big a part of your life. <br />
<br />
On the other hand, I know that many people I really admire are great readers -- they have read widely and deeply. There is no way around it: that simply takes some time. I couldn't do it when I had a special needs preschooler, a baby and five homeschool students of all ages. But I have more time right now. It may not last forever, but while it does, why not catch up on reading? <br />
<br />
<br />
I am especially proud of reading the books I had always wanted to read, like War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Consolations of Philosophy, Augustine's Confessions, and others of that sort, that are on Great Books lists everywhere. Now at least I can say I've read them, and even learned from them. <br />
<br />
All in all, I think it worked out well to use 2011 as a sort of Book Sabbatical. But I don't think I need to do that every year. <br />
<br />
Here are some thoughts on my Reading Challenge for 2012. <br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Not Quite So Many Books. </b> Next year I probably won't push myself to read the equivalent of a book almost every other day, which is what 175 to 365 roughly comes out to. <br />
<br />
<b>Books On My Shelves</b>. I think I instead will try to focus more on reading or rereading the books on my shelves. I know I have said that before. But I really do want to. If books are on my shelf, presumably it is for a reason --- so that they can be read. If that is not happening, why are they there? <br />
<br />
<b>Juvenile Books:</b> Most of the books on the kids' shelves, I have already read, but I probably will try to read the rest. I found that when I was reading so much last year, I sometimes needed to read a lighter book after I had plodded through a more difficult one. So in those cases I can read a juvenile book. Now that my teenager and myself both have Kindles, I can read public domain juvenile books along with the ones for older folk. <br />
<br />
<b>Rereading Books</b> I think I will try to do a reread for every few new books I read. In about a year I turn 50. I think this age is a good time to read back through some of the most influential books in my life. <br />
<br />
<b>Books that Changed the World.</b> My husband subscribed to Easton Press's<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collections_from_Easton_Press#Books_That_Changed_the_World"> Books that Changed the World</a>. So we have a shelf full of these handsome leather bound books that really want someone to read them. I am not vowing to read them all, but I'm going to try to make a dent in them. <br />
<br />
<b>Keep Track Of Books Read.</b> My father always kept track of the books he read and encouraged us to do the same. I always tried, but rarely kept a consistent log. This is the first year I really did record everything I read. I would like to keep doing it. <br />
<br />
So there are my thoughts and plans. Have you thought yet about what you are going to do about your reading in 2012?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-89107994700062007932011-12-13T01:00:00.000-08:002011-12-20T10:49:51.111-08:00Keeping House Book Study: Chapter Four<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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(<a href="http://.designsponge.com/2010/04/food-paintings-by-janet-hill.html">vintage kitchen by janet hill</a>)<br />
<br />
We now move to Chapter Four of <span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Keeping House: A Litany of Everyday Life. </span> This chapter is one of a pair. Chapter 4 is about <span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Clothes to Wear</span> and Chapter 5 is called Clothing a Household. In fact, the middle part of the book is structured so that the chapters come in pairs, with the first in the pair being a sort of meditation on context and Scriptural background, and the second being more about application. I am only noticing this now, on my second read-through, and me an English Litearture major! I guess that's why it's good to study a book rather than just read through it.<br />
<br />
Points emphasized in this chapter.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: red;">Clothing and Scripture </b><br />
<br />
While animals and plants are already clothed in their beautiful and suitable garments,<b><span style="color: #6aa84f;"> humans are naked without clothing</span></b>. I once read an article by Mark Shea on <a href="http://www.catholicity.com/commentary/shea/08146.html">Clothing the Naked</a> that "nake" is an obsolete verb meaning "to strip." In other words, to humans after the Fall, nakedness is a humiliating privation, not a natural state. Obviously, we unclothe ourselves for certain situations like taking a bath, but then we are sort of "clothed" with privacy and seclusion, as if our surroundings were our garments. <br />
<br />
Clothes have symbolism that <i style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>invest function and decorum with meaning</b></i>. Adam and Eve clothe themselves with fig leaves, surely an inadequate covering, out of shame at their sin. God gives them animal skins to wear, in a way restoring them some dignity as continued stewards of Creation even though brokenly so, and also showing them His intention to continue to provide for them even in changed circumstances.<br />
<br />
We all remember how Israel's favoritism towards Joseph was expressed in
terms of a fine and rich garment. The garment becomes a symbol of
injustice for his brothers, and later, a symbol of violence when it is
stained with blood and shown to his grieving father. Clothing can
symbolize grief, as when Israel rent his garments when he thought his
son was dead. Clothing can also symbolize one's role in life -- the
prophets wore distinctive garments that set them apart from others. <br />
<br />
<i><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;">Prophecies</span></b></i> are sometimes rendered in terms of clothing: <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion, put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city” (Isaiah 52:1).</blockquote>
The <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs%2031&version=DRA">Proverbs 31</a> woman is shown in terms of <i><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;">clothing as provision and care</span></b></i>: <br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
She
shall not fear for her house in the cold of snow: for all her domestics
are clothed with double garments. She hath made for herself clothing of
tapestry: fine linen, and purple is her covering.</blockquote>
The meditation also includes clothing in terms of providing for others, including the poor and needy, and keeping busy with the spindle. In this way, we see how our humble earthly missions can be reflections of how God provides for us. <br />
<br />
The basic point seems to be that <i><b style="color: #6aa84f;">clothes are an extension of oneself and one's relation to the world.</b></i> In some ways, they are deeply connected with one's body and one's inner self and one's outer self -- how one interacts with the outer world. <br />
<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<br />
<b>New Testament and the Plan of Salvation </b></div>
<br />
<br />
Later, in the New Testament, garments are often thought of <i style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>sacramentally, as outward signs of spiritual things.</b></i> When the woman with the humiliating bleeding issue touches Jesus's garment, she is healed, and He feels the power leave Him and is thus aware of what she did. When Jesus is transfigured, His clothes are white and too bright to look at. His Shroud is cast aside when He is resurrected, and the women find it lying in His tomb, discarded. <br />
<br />
Of course, we are all aware that <i style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>one of the Corporal Acts of Mercy is to clothe the naked.</b></i> More than practicality is involved here -- we are acting in proxy for our Lord, restoring dignity and giving loving concern to those who have been divested of those things.<br />
<br />
Then there is the mysterious parable of the bridal guest, who is thrown into the outer darkness when he comes to the wedding feast wearing his old tattered clothes rather than the wedding garments provided for him. Here, we notice that <i style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>appropriate clothes are a mark of respect for others</b></i>, not just showing our own dignity but also showing what we think of those around us.<br />
<br />
I don't want to get out of my theological depth, but I notice that in these New Testament examples, garments become more than symbols or signs. They are actually deeply associated with God's grace itself, and our participation in His Life through that grace. Another example of this might be St Paul's use of the idea of the<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+6%3A10-18&version=NIV"> "armor of God" in Ephesians 6</a>, where the armor referred to is righteousness, faith, truth, peace, salvation, and the Word. These are directly spiritual gifts, realities of God's provisions for our souls. <br />
<br />
<br />
Now on to how we clothe ourselves and how it matters -- these are sort of scattered, because I couldn't find the "pattern" in Mrs Peterson's order of considerations, but you could say that basically she considers clothes in terms of: <b style="color: red;">Personal Identity, Social or Group Identity, Geographical/Seasonal Context, and Tradition</b>. At least, that is how I would sum up the different categories. <br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">Clothing as extension of self. </span></b> Clothing can be like housing in that we show our personal character traits by what we have in our closet. Many of us have a lot of clothes we don't wear. Some wear wrinkled, unflattering clothes, while others take very great care with their appearance. I usually wear jeans and simple loose tops reflecting that I don't want to be bothered and that soft clothes don't irritate me like newer or crisper ones.<br />
<br />
You can tell a lot about someone by what they choose to wear. My daughter has been fascinated by the topic of modesty and how it relates to the inner self, ever since her teenage years, and <a href="http://catholicyoungwoman.blogspot.com/search/label/Modesty%20and%20Style">has written about it extensively on her blog</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">Clothing and Personal Identity.</span></b> We dress according to who we are or sometimes who we would like to be. Sometimes our jobs or roles have a particular style of dress -- a judge wears a robe, a priest wears a collar. Sometimes our choices are aspirational: we aspire to be something we're not yet -- say, a movie star or a rich person -- and our choices are a reflection of that.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">Clothing and group identity.</span></b> Because our society emphasizes individuality, sometimes we resist things like dress codes that try to focus on group rather than personal identity. In California at least, people tend to dress casually for things that were formerly formal -- like churchgoing and restaurants.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">Clothing and family.</span></b> When we are mothers or wives, our family's clothes may add up to an extension of ourselves too. Mrs Peterson describes the tensions that can ensue when a preschooler or teen wants to wear things that we don't think are suitable. Personally, I give my kids a lot of range except where their clothing choices seem to reflect disrespect either to the situation/company or to their own bodies. My children tend naturally to err on the side of privacy and modesty -- I think largely because they are introverts with introverted parents.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">Clothing and climate</span></b>. We dress according to where we live. The Swedes reportedly say that there is no bad weather, only bad dress for the weather. <br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">Clothing and season</span></b> -- young children generally have to be instructed in what kind of clothes are appropriate for what season. I come from Alaska where we get out the summer clothes when the temperature is above 50 so sometimes my family shocks Californians when the kids are jacket-less in what seems like winter weather to valley-dwellers.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">Clothing and context. </span></b> The author makes the point that people who seem dressed completely cluelessly reveal a lack of connection to the outside world. This seems just to me. Aquinas talks about modesty not just as wearing clothes that aren't scanty, but as appropriateness to what is around the person. So a person who showed up at a ball in severe black clothing would be somewhat immodest, unless there was a modest reason for doing so (I suppose if one was a religious or a prophet or in deep mourning).<br />
<br />
So in that way, clothing has a kind of justice to it -- it respects both what one owes to oneself and one's dependents, and also what one owes to the occasion and to the other people. <br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">Clothing and Integrity. </span></b> The author makes a point that clothes should probably have some truthfulness in them. For example, the modern trend towards "distressing" new clothes seems in some ways to make a false statement. Another example is when older people try to dress as if they were much younger. <br />
<br />
<b style="color: red;"> Clothing and ceremony.</b> She also makes the point that "ceremonious" clothing shows a link to tradition (or a disrespect of it). For example, people involved in a wedding or funeral or graduation traditionally wear certain types of clothing. When people violate the traditions, it probably does indicate either cluelessness, or a lack of concern for tradition. <br />
<br />
On the other hand, I think it's probably possible to be over the top and
excessive in concern for tradition and convention, to the point where
we might become excessively fixated on having just the right appearance,
and judge uncharitably those who don't meet our standards. This type
of thing isn't very common in central California where I live, but I'm
sure it exists, especially since I seem to have a fictional spinster great aunt in my head who makes horrible silent criticisms whenever I dress my family for some "occasion". My own spinster great aunts were very jolly and never criticized others' clothing, so I don't know where this voice comes from! <br />
<br />
<b style="color: red;">Clothing and the DIY tradition.</b> Many of us, she mentions, find it much less expensive to buy clothes than make them, while the reverse was true in past times. More of this next week, but one solution I've found is to buy from thrift stores and repurpose. No need to give away the sewing machine and knitting needles quite yet, especially if you enjoy the creative aspect of clothing your household.<br />
<br />
The next chapter goes into more detail about how we clothe our households -- details such as shopping, laundry, and so on. In the meantime, it might be valuable to ponder how our closets and laundry piles look.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: red;">Some thought questions: </b><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Do we have too much that is unused?</li>
<li>Do we have enough of the right types of clothes? (such as good outfits for special occasions, worn clothes for play or work).</li>
<li>How do we care for our clothes considering that they may be passed on to others after we have outgrown them or realized they are unnecessary?</li>
<li>Do your kids, like mine, actually ask for socks and underwear for gifts since their mom doesn't always keep up with the level of entropy for these things?</li>
<li>How does clothing relate to provision and care, both in material and spiritual matters? </li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<br />
There may be more things to consider. These are areas that have been stumbling areas for me in the past. I used to have all kinds of trouble reserving a "best outfit" for my kids; I often acquire too many clothes (just because you can get them cheap at yard sales, thrift stores and as handmedowns from generous friends and relatives, doesn't mean it's OK to have too much).<br />
<br />
I also have traditionally had trouble respecting clothes and keeping them in good condition so I can pass them on (especially boys' clothes -- and definitely, that can be challenging territory, especially when clothes in the US aren't always made to last through more than one child!).<br />
<br />
Only recently have I become aware that clothing is a sign -- that choosing good clothes for special occasions (for example) is not just a tiresome social duty, but a sort of testimony as to the importance of that occasion. <br />
<br />
<script src="http://www.blenza.com/linkies/autolink.php?owner=WJFR&postid=13Dec2011" type="text/javascript">
</script>Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-12775039770245713052011-12-12T07:14:00.000-08:002011-12-12T11:09:13.595-08:00the family Quest meets with misadventureWe have been up in Oregon all week, which is the reason I haven't been blogging much at all. For some reason, I never seem to be able to sit and write while we are there. I think it might be because there are lots of little errands to run, and moments to spend with the older boys catching up on their lives, and also because it's a small apartment -- 2 bedrooms and 8 people. We do all right but it is close quarters.<br />
<br />
While we were up there our (Nissan) Quest ran into some difficulties. We were involved in a low-speed crash. No one was much hurt, thankfully, but the Quest looks over:<br />
<br />
Probably fixable, but since there are almost 150,000 miles on it and it's a 98 vehicle, perhaps not worth it? We haven't decided yet. <br />
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<br />
Our family Quest, to try to all get to heaven eventually, still remains in effect, but possibly, some other vehicle will have to convey us towards that destination. We drove back to California in a rental Mazda.<br />
<br />
I haven't ever been in a car accident with that much force in it, and I just thought it was interesting that though I didn't feel that much anxiety consciously, I trembled whenever I talked about the thing for the next couple of days. Plus, the two friends I was texting in the hours after the accident both said I wasn't making much sense. <br />
<br />
I had a very stiff neck and back for a couple of days; because of the way the impact slewed us sideways, and I also slept way more than usual. Every afternoon I would get sleepy and freezing cold and go off and nap for most of the afternoon -- it was like getting a flu, except that I wasn't getting a flu.<br />
<br />
The third day I woke up feeling pretty much OK, though both Kevin and I are a bit more jumpy as drivers and front seat passenger these days.<br />
<br />
The young man riding with us at the time, an old friend of the family who was up with us to visit Sean and the other older boys, was at the ground zero of the impact, but fortunately the inside pushed in way less than the outside. He was sore for a few days, but hopefully is mostly recovered now.<br />
<br />
Aidan, in the back rear, didn't appear affected at all. He seemed to think it was rather exciting, since he spends his life looking for ambulances and fire trucks, and there were a multitude around us. Later he talked about how the windows "exploded" which from his perspective they did, but fortunately outwards, not into the car. All in all, his experience of the crash was not at all stressful. <br />
<br />
Prayers that everyone involved recovers fully would be appreciated, thank you! <br />
<br />
Because we only got back home late last night from Oregon, and today will be a catch up day, I probably won't get to the next section of Keeping House until tomorrow. Today I hope to read others' posts linked in my Mr Linky Widget. <br />
<br />Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-12398362257146807112011-12-05T00:30:00.000-08:002011-12-05T11:46:56.042-08:00Keeping House Book Study: Chapter Three<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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(<a href="http://.designsponge.com/2010/04/food-paintings-by-janet-hill.html">vintage kitchen by janet hill</a>)<br />
<br />
We are on <span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Chapter Three of Keeping House: A Litany of Everyday Life. </span> <br />
<br />
I like the way Margaret Peterson takes a theme and carries it through with a series of reflections on different aspects. Here in chapter 3, she discusses <span style="color: red; font-size: large;">"Sheltering a Household."</span> I almost wish I had scheduled two weeks to discuss this chapter because there is so much to think about. <br />
<br />
I put some thought questions after every item. They are not obligatory, obviously; I just want to be able to come back to this part of the book and think about the questions it raises for me. I think it's good to really think through our household arrangements, say, once or twice a year or perhaps every couple of years, and so this chapter seems helpful to me in getting at what keeping house is really about. <br />
<br />
<b>1. Idea of the Dream House.</b><br />
<br />
Part of the American dream seems to be the idea of a "dream house", a spacious, elegant, low-maintenance place where we can enjoy all the comforts of life. Mrs Peterson suggests that this dream may distract us from the reality of many who have no home at all. It also may keep us from putting heart into the less-than-ideal home we actually have. <br />
<br />
I can see another side, though, where a dream might work like a vision and help keep our imaginations interacting with the homes we actually have. Sometimes after I have thought about my dream, my creativity wakes up and I actually make some good changes that affect my real home for the better.<br />
<br />
<i><span style="color: red;">Do you have a "dream house" in your imagination? Does the dream help you live better, or does it make you discontent and withdrawn from your actual house? </span></i><br />
<br />
<b>2. The Structure of Our Home</b><br />
<br />
How our home is constructed does matter. For example, she says, many new houses are built with an open kitchen/great room area dominated by a blank wall where a huge entertainment center is meant to be set. With this arrangement, it seems all too easy to have our family life dominated by TV and the media.<br />
<br />
The neighborhood also matters. Everyone has seen gated communities filled with big enclosed houses where it is obvious there is no real community -- that people spend very little time at home and when they are at home, want to keep to themselves.<br />
<br />
These types of things might be considerations when we are looking for a house. If we already have one, we still have a lot of control over how we live in it. We don't HAVE to put a huge TV in front of that blank wall -- we could hang family pictures or have a huge bookshelf or board-game center.<br />
<br />
<i style="color: red;">What is the structure of your house meant to encourage? Does it fit your family's values? Is there any way to make it fit more closely</i>? <br />
<br />
<b>3. The Size of Our Home</b><br />
<br />
Everyone thinks their home is too small. Except me. But I have a big house and with only five people left, it feels like living in an empty lodge. Everyone thinks they have too little storage space. Members of our society tend to accumulate too much stuff and hesitate to let any of it go. I've gotten MUCH better about this through the past 10 years. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The premise of our culture is that limits are not compatible with either creativity or contentment. Christian tradition, on the other hand, has been inclined to see limits as a necessary component of human flourishing."</blockquote>
This seems like a good point. I'm never so unhappy as when I have too much freedom -- or perhaps, to put it another way -- too few boundaries and parameters. An opening up of possibilities at first is a rush, and then a burden.<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<br /></div>
<i style="color: red;">How do the boundaries and limits of your life help foster contentment and creativity? Have you ever found satisfaction in making do with what you have, or repurposing in a creative way? </i> <br />
<br />
<b>4. Beauty in the Home</b><br />
<br />
It's not necessary to have a house decorator or access to glamorous stores and catalogs in order to nurture beauty in your home. And Margaret Peterson does think cultivating beauty is an important part of keeping house. She recommends paint as a frugal, simple way of making the house more lovely. My daughter is very good at adding little decorative touches to a corner or room -- a flower, a bit of lace, a carefully placed ornament. I tend to like the beauty of clean lines .<br />
<br />
<i><span style="color: red;">What is your idea of beauty in a home? Does it fit your own style; is it left over from your childhood or shaped by glamorous magazines? </span></i><br />
<br />
<b>5. Space and How to Use It</b><br />
<br />
Mrs Peterson says we can think about what we want to happen in our house, what we want our life to be like within its walls, and then arrange our house to make those things more possible and likely. For example, when my husband and I thought about house design (we had our house built about 15 years ago) we wanted a great central open area with a fireplace right in the middle of things so we could gather easily in the heart of the home. We also wanted a lot of little nooks and crannies so our introverts could always find a little quiet and privacy, so we had window seats and various corners set up for that reason. We wanted our own bedroom large to give enough room for our babies to sleep close to us.<br />
<br />
We wanted a family room where we could relax, and where we'd have enough room for homeschool projects and bookshelves and the like, but we didn't want it altogether separate from the rest of the house, so we made a loft/schoolroom. The children had smaller rooms that they shared (except for my only daughter, who has a tiny room of her very own) because we didn't want their rooms to be like kingdoms with endless space for toys and excess clothes. We wanted it just large enough so they would have a few things for themselves and then most of the toys and books could be in central locations.<br />
<br />
<i style="color: red;">How does your house use space? Is there any way you can make the spaces in your household work better for you? </i><br />
<br />
<b>6. A Room of One's Own</b><br />
<br />
Peterson suggests that the homemaker really deserves and needs a space of her own -- if not a room, at least a small corner or craft center or desk -- anyway, a somewhat private and personal space. In my case, our master bedroom walk in closet is devoted to homeschool supplies and "my" books and things. My husband and I don't have many clothes so we really didn't need a walk-in closet. I've also sometimes had a desk of my own in the loft, when I needed to keep an eye on the babies and toddlers. Now I usually sit in my room or in front of the fireplace.<br />
<br />
<i><span style="color: red;">Do you have a personal space (even if it is sometimes shared with toddlers or teens who want to hang out with you?) What do you do in this space? Is there a way to make it more suitable to your own interests and talents? </span> </i><br />
<br />
<b>7. Beware of Too Many Masterpieces</b><br />
<br />
This is correlated with the idea of "too much stuff". It's better to have one special thing (not necessarily an expensive item, just something unique or significant) as a focal point in a room, not a huge jumble. If you do have a bunch of things to showcase, it's probably better to have a "theme" to organize the display -- my mother in law likes collecting, but she collects in "themes" (like figurines of elephants) so there is visual unity in her displays. She also has a large collection of vintage family photographs on one wall. So her house is full of fascinating things to look at, but they don't strike the eye as a jumble because of the way she places them.<br />
<br />
<i style="color: red;">Would taking away some things make what is left more meaningful? Is there any way you can group your treasures to give them a more unified effect? </i><br />
<br />
<b>8. A Place for Everything</b><br />
<br />
When you start running out of room, discard a few things or don't buy anything new. People are finite, she says -- there is a limit to what they can manage and enjoy. Personally, when I stopped thinking of myself as a curator of possessions and started thinking of myself as someone who does better making do with a few things, I gained so much freedom. I realized it was more trouble for me to organize and keep track of a non-essential thing I used perhaps a couple of times a year, than to just make do without it. Others may be more gifted in curatorship than I am, and more capable of ordering and maintaining large amounts of "things".<br />
<br />
<i style="color: red;">Do you feel overwhelmed by your things? Does it take a lot of time and energy to find things, or to dig them out of their storage to use them, or to put them away? Is there any way to simplify? </i> <br />
<br />
<b>9. Cleanliness and Godliness?</b><br />
<br />
Here's a bit of perspective for those of us who feel that if people can't eat off our floors, we are failures in housekeeping! I think this was HUGE with me in my younger days and I am afraid I neglected the other creative parts of housekeeping because I was pursuing a sort of (vain) vision of an immaculate, perfectly ordered house. Margaret Peterson says that while it's true that cleanliness (purity) and order are identified with righteousness in Scriptures, they only became basically synonymous in the 19th century. There was a new awareness of the importance of hygiene in medical treatment, and this carried over almost to an obsession with cleanliness as something that divided the cultured class from the disadvantaged class.<br />
<br />
I noticed this when I read a book my father wrote about tuberculosis in Alaska. He quoted many primary sources and it was amazing how often white people would come into Native environments and start scrubbing and disinfecting. It almost came across as an act of aggression. Not that cleanliness isn't a good thing, but it's not necessarily identical with righteousness and superiority.<br />
<br />
Because cleanliness is symbolic to many people, how clean the house should be seems to be at the bottom of many housekeeping disagreements. The one with the highest standards, for some reason, seems to be the one who stands on the moral high ground. You get lots of cleaning-related power plays, from the housekeeper who feels superior to others because her house is cleaner, to the wife and mother who scolds her family because they don't care as much about order and cleanliness as she does. I certainly don't have any answers here. I was going to say I don't care much about cleanliness, but in fact I do -- I don't like filth and germs much. But I am not particularly attached to the LOOK of cleanliness -- a little bit of dust on the windowsills or crumbs on the floor doesn't really bother me much because it doesn't seem dangerous to me. However, a clean appearance is important to me for appearance's sake -- in that I feel embarrassed if someone comes over to my house and there are crumbs on the floor or a smudgy counter. I think that is why I have such an ambivalent relationship to housekeeping. I realize that it's not really a virtue to care for appearances, but at the same time I guess I am intrinsically comfortable with a certain level of messiness so if it weren't for appearances, and a fear of getting too comfortable with disorder, I would be happy with that.<br />
<br />
<i style="color: red;">How clean does a house need to be? What areas are most important to maintain (perhaps bathrooms and kitchens? and entryways?) What's the balance between your own time and energy, what allows your family to thrive, and what is appropriate for welcoming others into your home? </i><br />
<br />
<b>10. The Value of Space</b><br />
<br />
Wrapping up here -- Mrs Peterson suggests that space is worth at least as much as stuff. I mentioned how I had changed my views on this during my married life. I used to collect "just in case". It's easy even for people with low incomes to collect a lot of pretty good but not necessary stuff. I've walked out of thrift stores with a box of fairly good childrens' picture books for $5 or less.<br />
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In order not to burden myself with "just in case" things, for me, meant assigning a positive value to emptiness and trying to ensure that drawers were not stuffed to capacity, bookshelves not double-stacked, parts of the walls left clean and empty. I admit it was way harder when we lived in a tiny, tiny house, but I still think that having some clear empty spaces and surfaces really soothes and blesses the spirit. If you do have to stock a house almost to the brim, the second best is to have it beautifully and meticulously arranged, but if all that stuff is actually being used, especially by children who can't arrange cupboards like 3D jigsaw puzzles with every piece nested in proper order, then face it -- you will have a lot of trouble using all that stuff AND keeping it from swamping every available space in your house.<br />
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<i style="color: red;">Looking at space as a positive value, are there any things around that just clutter up the space and don't add much? </i><br />
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<b>Assignment:</b><br />
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From now on in this study I am going to try to think of something to actually DO as well as think about. Now that we are getting into the more concrete part of the book (and getting well into Advent, where I like to try to make some changes and resolutions) it seems like a good time. <br />
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So for this week I'm going to try her suggestion of thinking about what I want to see happen in my house, and then working backwards in imagination to what should be there (and what should NOT be there) in order to make those things more likely to happen. I would like to think through her ideas about beauty, space, structure, cleanliness and so on, and try to see what in our house is not quite working for our family goals, and what could be improved.<br />
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I suppose in a way this connects to the litany idea. Surely there is a sort of household "litany" of things I really want to see increase and bear fruit in my home -- things like good eating, prayer, reading, quiet study, teamwork, creative projects, and conversation. There are also things I might not care so much about but that are important to my family. For instance, though I'm not much of a movie-watcher, my husband loves movie-watching, and it has become a family type activity. So then it's a matter of arranging household time and space around things that are important to my family and in general, that promote the common good. <br />
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</script>Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-10741664957836390222011-12-01T16:04:00.001-08:002011-12-02T07:28:14.064-08:00An app for the new translation of the MassLast Sunday, for the beginning of the new Church Year, Catholic churches all over the USA started using <a href="http://www.adoremus.org/1110BishopElliott.html">the new translation of the Latin Novus Ordo mass</a>. I am sure there are all sorts of bloggy comments all over the internet. I liked MacBeth's take on the <a href="http://macbethsopinion.blogspot.com/2011/11/under-my-roof.html">"under my roof"</a> part. I also liked <a href="http://blog.adw.org/2011/11/well-actually-hes-not-talking-to-you-answering-one-critique-of-the-new-translation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=well-actually-hes-not-talking-to-you-answering-one-critique-of-the-new-translation">Msr Charles Pope's Well, Actually, He's Not Talking to You.</a> Both of these answer the charge that the new language is too complicated for us poor dumb laypeople. <br />
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Since my two youngest received their First Holy Communion just last spring, and my 15 year old is an altar server, I thought perhaps the entrance of the new translation might be a good time to go through the Mass bit by bit with them and talk about what the different parts mean. Studying the Mass adds up to a doctrinal, devotional and scriptural catechesis in itself because every part of it has meaning.<br />
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At the IPhone app store I found this app called<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imassexplained/id477706267?mt=8"> iMassExplained</a>. It is by the <a href="http://www.pauline.org/">Daughters of St Paul</a>, who publish books, videos, music CDs and other media related to the Catholic faith, both for adults and children.<br />
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Unlike other apps I have mentioned on this blog, it is not free, but 99 cents didn't seem unreasonable to me.<br />
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What you get: Basically what you might see in the front pages of the paper missal they hand out at church. The changes are bolded and if you click them there is an explanation of what the change means. Other rubrics and prayers are in color and if you click them, you get a box containing some sort of explanation or additional information on the prayer or activity.<br />
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So for example, in the introductory part of the mass, the explanation of "Stand" tells how you actually start praying before the Mass proper begins. The holy water you bless yourself with as you enter is a reminder of your baptism which brought you originally into the Church. You genuflect out of respect to the Real Presence of Our Lord in the tabernacle (ETA: as Beate mentioned in the comments, the proper word is "adoration" or "in worship").<br />
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The language is simple, so it's not a rigorous explanation of doctrine, but it is substantial enough to make a good start for discussion with my group of boys ages 8 to 15. Kieron is an altar server so most of this is already familiar to him but that is helpful in our group format as he can add his own perspective.<br />
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There are also some prayers in the app, many of them quotes from Pope John Paul II. <br />
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I am planning to go through the whole Mass "in slow motion" this way and hopefully in the process also change my apparently set-in-stone habit of responding "And also with you" rather than the more correct "And with your spirit".<br />
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We live up in a "station church" area with no Latin masses available closer than an hour's drive, so from that perspective I am very glad that the new translation is more faithful to the Latin and more substantial than the older one. <br />
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About the criticism that using more substantial, dignified language leaves dumb Americans in the dark about what the words MEAN, I find that very often, traditional language and more elevated concepts are often easier for children, especially, to grasp, because they are usually richer and more specific. Who would not remember "through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault" better than, umm, whatever we used to say (I've already sort of forgotten)? And as MacBeth says, behind "Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof" is the<a href="http://biblebrowser.com/matthew/8-8.htm"> beautiful story of the centurion</a> of whom Jesus marvelled and said,<br />
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“Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven."</blockquote>
He was talking of US with that "many will come from east and west"! and what a privilege it is to make that same amazing profession of faith along with that Gentile centurion!Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-18910143694330057512011-11-30T16:13:00.001-08:002011-11-30T20:58:45.724-08:00Intellectualizing about IntellectualizingA loved one recently told me I was "intellectualizing" and my first reaction was to sort of know what she meant and feel both defensive (no I'm not, how can you say that!) and embarrassed (I probably AM). And of course, a bit hurt and off balance, as well. <br />
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My second reaction was "but what does that actually MEAN?" which probably sort of demonstrates the point. Then after mulling it over for a few days, I went hunting for information on the term on the internet.... thus clinching the case. I do intellectualize. Still, it can be useful at times. I did learn something. And I gained something out of what she said, which I might not have if I had just reacted simply with something like "How could you say that???"<br />
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So here's what I gathered: <br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectualization">Intellectualization</a> is a "flight into reason". It's often associated with the use of jargon. It differs from rationalization which strives to justify irrational activity. Someone intellectualizes in order to consider an event or reaction without feeling the anxiety involved in the full experience. It's a way of detaching or distancing. <br />
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Some think it is associated with emotional impoverishment or unpredictability in childhood -- intellectual activity becomes a way to self-soothe, to regulate distress. I suppose that aside from that, if the family style is somewhat intellectual and a child perceives it, he or she may adopt that style of relating starting at a very early age. In my case, I have always been very emotional, and often found emotional things very difficult to manage directly. As a child, I didn't like the results when I did let my emotions loose. Thinking gave me a certain amount of clarity while feelings alone were just disturbing, as often as not. It might be as simple as that. <br />
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Apparently the problem with intellectualizing is when it's used not just to modify anxiety or to gain perspective but in order to escape altogether from dis, or to repress emotion. <br />
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While searching, I found another site that gives<a href="http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/coping/coping.htm"> a list of coping mechanisms</a>. Wow, there's quite a list there. There is a section on <a href="http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/coping/positive_coping.htm">positive coping</a>. Because I wanted to know the difference between defensive mechanism and positive strategies, I read that carefully.<br />
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The way you cope positively is: solve the problem, address the underlying root problem, look for the benefits in the bad things (silver lining, making lemonade, etc), and use the problem as a way to grow spiritually. The basic idea with these positive mechanisms is that adversity becomes an opportunity rather than something that weakens you permanently. So you find solutions, genuinely adapt or grow in response to the bad situation.<br />
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Following up on this idea and looking for ways to turn bad things to good, I found <a href="http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/%7Ehealth/materials/s_knoll_coping.pdf">a PDF article on positive coping</a>. I haven't read all of it, but I thought there were some interesting distinctions here: <br />
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Researchers have come up with two basic distinctions, such as (a)<b> instrumental, attentive, vigilant, or confrontative coping</b> on the one hand, as opposed to (b) <b>avoidant, palliative, and emotional coping </b>on the other . A well-known approach has been put forward by Lazarus (1991), who separates <b>problem-focused from emotion-focused coping</b>. Another conceptual distinction is between <b>assimilative and accommodative coping</b>, whereby the former aims at modifying the environment and the latter at modifying oneself (Brandtstädter, 1992). Assimilative coping implies tenacious goal pursuit, and accommodative coping flexible goal adjustment.</blockquote>
I have only the vaguest idea of what might be meant here, but they seem to indicate different styles or approaches to coping. The article goes on to talk more in detail about that idea of constructive problem-solving. It seems to depend quite a bit on the confidence that one CAN modify one's circumstances (or at least, adapt to them). <br />
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This still left me a little puzzled in regards to HOW intellectualization is maladaptive. Couldn't you say that it gives you more ways to problem-solve and grow? For example, by this research, am I not finding various strategies and insights that could be helpful? <br />
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I suppose a key phrase there is "could be". For example, I am often aware that I am spinning my wheels when I go beyond what I could act on and into "information-gathering" mode. I did that excessive information gathering a lot when I first began homeschooling. I was anxious about such a new thing, and so to cope I would often research to the point beyond where it was helpful.. Some of the research was useful. But using it for "comfort", beyond a certain point, was using the wrong tool for the wrong procedure. I should ideally be researching in order to learn and not to alleviate anxiety (at least, not more than necessary -- so often motives are mixed and obscure in this sort of thing!) <br />
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I can also see where the intellectual approach would be a problem when one person is looking for direct response and the other person is deviating into side tracks. This would be frustrating for the first person because it's not really acknowledging the situation. <br />
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Seeing that, I started wondering how I could do this differently in future. I grew up thinking that when two emotional people confronted each other emotionally, usually nothing came of it but harm. At the same time, I can see where trying to take the high ground and put an intellectual spin on relationship difficulties might just add to the problem. So what does one do to meet conflict constructively, but without sort of dropping the ball by defensive tactics? <br />
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I went looking for information on coping with conflict, and found <a href="http://www.livestrong.com/article/14683-handling-conflict/">this</a>. Conflict is one of the types of stressors where many people use their least positive coping mechanisms, probably because different types of conflict are probably way back in the deepest experience of most people who have grown up in families. <br />
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The basic idea seems to be that conflict should be done as constructively as possible.<br />
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The problem is, often conflict is very threatening. Hardly anyone I know handles that kind of threat well. In fact, what Tolstoy says about every unhappy family being unhappy in its own way seems particularly applicable in terms of relationship dynamics. There are definitely patterns that you can see -- some people avoid personal conflict and others seem to seek it out, etc. But everyone seems to bring their unique spin to it, and too often, it's fragmented bits and pieces from their basic temperament, their family's dynamics, and their reactions to their family dynamics, all so pre-rational that it's hard to even understand what is making oneself react in a given way, let alone the other person. Very often, threatened people cling to a "right way" that isn't necessarily helpful, but that has been more or less engrained in them. <br />
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I don't feel like I understand much better how to manage this tricky kind of life problem. But I did get a better sense of how one might approach emotional things -- not by distancing from emotion OR getting submerged in it, but trying to figure out how to resolve things in a positive way, and looking at conflicts and life difficulties as things that can be helpful rather than just as dangers and drains to one's well-being. Not that all conflicts can be resolved perfectly, but even with the ones that don't work out, sometimes you can still grow and become stronger in some way or another by tackling it rather than trying to put it at a distance. <br />
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After writing all that, I feel a bit like one of CS Lewis's "Men without Chests." He talks about how all the reasoning in the world won't help a man stand firm under fire, or rush into risk to help his buddy.. And that is very true. I feel like my approach is rather roundabout; all the same, he didn't say never to think, only that reducing everything down to pragmatics left you without even something as pragmatic as good common sense. <br />
<br />Willahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.com3