Discovering Landmarks

From Clifton Fadiman's The Lifetime Reading Plan, which I found in a nice hardcover edition for a dime at the library rack:

I do not wish to claim too much for The Lifetime Reading Plan.  It is not magic.  It does not automatically make you or me an "educated man."  It offers no solution to life's ultimate mysteries.  It will not make you "happy" -- such claims are made by tooth pastes, motorcars, and deodorants, not by Plato, Dickens and Hemingway.  It will simply help to make your interior life more meaningful and interesting, as a love affair does, or some task calling forth your deepest energies.

Like many other men, I have been reading these books, off and on, for most of my life.  One thing I've found out is that it's easy enough to say that they enlerge you, but rather difficult to prove it in adance.  It is less difficult to prove (you'll sens it in short order) that they act like a developing fluid on film.  That is, they bring into consciousness what you didn't know you knew.  Even more than tools of self-enhancement, they are tools of self-discovery.  This notion is not mine.  You will find it in Plato who, as with many other matters, thought of it first.  Socrates called himself a midewife of ideas.  A great book is often such a midwife, delivering to full existence what has been coiled like an embryo in the dark, silent depths of the brain."

Since Fadiman is very clear that he was requested to compile the list and that he thinks a "Reading Plan" is only a start, he probably wouldn't mind me putting CS Lewis's caveat alongside (from a letter he wrote -- HT:  The Scriptorium):

I don’t feel at all qualified to contribute to a ‘master’ list of writings. The languages I don’t know are of course very much more numerous than those I know; and even in the languages I do know there are a great many books I have not read. And I rather doubt whether a list of masterpieces picked from all over the world –mostly, I presume to be read in translations?- is a v. useful thing.

I would rather see young men beginning from where they are and being led on from one thing to another: e.g. that Milton shd. lead them either to Virgil and Homer (and therefore to a really serious study of Latin or Greek) or to Dante (and therefore to a whole course of Medieval and Italian studies). That, after all, is how every educated person’s development has actually come about.

The sort of culture one can get from the 100 or 1000 Best Books read in isolation from the societies and literatures that begot them seems to me like the sort of knowledge of Europe I shd. get from staying at big hotels in Paris, Berlin, Rome, etc. It wd. be far better to know intimately one little district, going from village to village, getting to know the local politics, jokes, wines, and cheeses. Or so it seems to me.

I am not sure if Lewis's analogy quite holds because we are talking about citizens who weren't educated like he was.  My son had to read Whirligig for sophomore language arts.   I'm sure it's good reading, but it means that this book was the Big Hotel and if he ever wants to read The Divine Comedy or Sophocles, chances are he will have to read it on his own.    The Big Hotels are falling into ruin as the tourists hang out in youth hostels and eat at the Paris McDonald's and maybe snap a quick picture of Notre Dame Cathedral on their cells as they pass by.

So there is a need for the guided tours like Fadiman's.   We are more like the barbarian tribes nowadays than we are like passive tourists.  If we are to inherit our tradition and make it our own, we may need to listen to someone from the old school so we know what to destroy and what to preserve and cherish.

Still, CS Lewis shows us how the old wonders are best to be approached -- not with passive, indifferent respect, but with a personal level of engagement, as if it really mattered.   As Lewis says:

beginning from where they are and being led on from one thing to another

or as Fadiman says:

delivering to full existence what has been coiled like an embryo in the dark, silent depths of the brain.

Poetic Knowledge: Aristotle Quote

I liked this from Aristotle's Politics:

The customary branches of education are in number four; they are- (1) reading and writing, (2) gymnastic exercises, (3) music, to which is sometimes added (4) drawing. Of these, reading and writing and drawing are regarded as useful for the purposes of life in a variety of ways, and gymnastic exercises are thought to infuse courage. concerning music a doubt may be raised- in our own day most men cultivate it for the sake of pleasure, but originally it was included in education, because nature herself, as has been often said, requires that we should be able, not only to work well, but to use leisure well; for, as I must repeat once again, the first principle of all action is leisure. Both are required, but leisure is better than occupation and is its end; and therefore the question must be asked, what ought we to do when at leisure? Clearly we ought not to be amusing ourselves, for then amusement would be the end of life. But if this is inconceivable, and amusement is needed more amid serious occupations than at other times (for he who is hard at work has need of relaxation, and amusement gives relaxation, whereas occupation is always accompanied with exertion and effort), we should introduce amusements only at suitable times, and they should be our medicines, for the emotion which they create in the soul is a relaxation, and from the pleasure we obtain rest. But leisure of itself gives pleasure and happiness and enjoyment of life, which are experienced, not by the busy man, but by those who have leisure. For he who is occupied has in view some end which he has not attained; but happiness is an end, since all men deem it to be accompanied with pleasure and not with pain. This pleasure, however, is regarded differently by different persons, and varies according to the habit of individuals; the pleasure of the best man is the best, and springs from the noblest sources. It is clear then that there are branches of learning and education which we must study merely with a view to leisure spent in intellectual activity, and these are to be valued for their own sake; whereas those kinds of knowledge which are useful in business are to be deemed necessary, and exist for the sake of other things. And therefore our fathers admitted music into education, not on the ground either of its necessity or utility, for it is not necessary, nor indeed useful in the same manner as reading and writing, which are useful in money-making, in the management of a household, in the acquisition of knowledge and in political life, nor like drawing, useful for a more correct judgment of the works of artists, nor again like gymnastic, which gives health and strength; for neither of these is to be gained from music

A Plague of Locusts

Next time I feel sorry for myself I will remember the locusts.  From Callista, a Tale of the 3rd Century, by Cardinal John Henry Newman.   And no one writes in this measured, periodic, unfolding way anymore, which is sad and makes me start feeling sorry for myself again.  

THE plague of locusts, one of the most awful visitations to which the countries included in the Roman empire were exposed, extended from the Atlantic to Ethiopia, from Arabia to India, and from the Nile and Red Sea to Greece and the north of Asia Minor. Instances are recorded in history of clouds of the devastating insect crossing the Black Sea to Poland, and the Mediterranean to Lombardy. It is as numerous in its species as it is wide in its range of territory. Brood follows brood, with a sort of family likeness, yet with distinct attributes, as we read in the prophets of the Old Testament, from whom Bochart tells us it is possible to enumerate as many as ten kinds. It wakens into existence and activity as early as the month of March; but instances are not wanting, as in our present history, of its appearance as late as June. Even one flight comprises myriads upon myriads passing imagination, to which the drops of rain or the sands of the sea are the only fit comparison; and hence it is almost a proverbial mode of expression in the East (as may be illustrated by the sacred pages to which we just now referred), by way of describing a vast invading army, to liken it to the locusts. So dense are they, when upon the wing, that it is no exaggeration to say that they hide the sun, from which circumstance indeed their name in Arabic is derived. And so ubiquitous are they when they have alighted on the earth, that they simply cover or clothe its surface.

This last characteristic is stated in the sacred account of the plagues of Egypt, where their faculty of devastation is also mentioned. The corrupting fly and the bruising and prostrating hail had preceded them in that series of visitations, but they came to do the work of ruin more thoroughly. For not only the crops and fruits, but the foliage of the forest itself, nay, the small twigs and the bark of the trees are the victims of their curious and energetic rapacity. They have been known even to gnaw the door-posts of the houses. Nor do they execute their task in so slovenly a way, that, as they have succeeded other plagues so they may have successors themselves. They take pains to spoil what they leave. Like the Harpies, they smear every thing that they touch with a miserable slime, which has the effect of a virus in corroding, or, as some say, in scorching and burning it. And then, as if all this were little, when they can do nothing else, they die;—as if out of sheer malevolence to man, for the poisonous elements of their nature are then let loose, and dispersed abroad, and create a pestilence; and they manage to destroy many more by their death than in their life.

Such are the locusts,—whose existence the ancient heretics brought forward as their palmary proof that there was an evil creator, and of whom an Arabian writer shows his national horror, when he says that they have the head of a horse, the eyes of an elephant, the neck of a bull, the horns of a stag, the breast of a lion, the belly of a scorpion, the wings of an eagle, the legs of a camel, the feet of an ostrich, and the tail of a serpent.

the road to sainthood is in the office, the classroom, the factory, the kitchen

Saints are Not Perfect by Bishop Kevin Farrell

...people like Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa were normal human beings with all the strengths and weaknesses that are part of the human condition. They made mistakes, they made errors in judgment, and they became frustrated and lost their temper at times. What is important is that they didn’t give up on God.

Like each of us they were called to discipleship, to follow Jesus, to seek to imitate him so closely that they might say with St. Paul, “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20), for that is the goal of discipleship. However, human nature being what it is saints find themselves also saying, as St. Paul did, “What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.” (Rom 7:15)

The Church uses the term “heroic virtue,” which could be defined as constantly seeking to imitate Jesus, gladly, even in the face of internal and external opposition, often at a considerable personal sacrifice. That means it is not easy and includes a lot of forgiving and being forgiven.

It also means that there are many out there who demonstrate heroic virtue in their lives but will never be formally recognized as venerable or blessed or as saints. They are the saints of Dallas or Plano or Waxahachie. Their road to sainthood is not on the streets of Calcutta or in the Vatican, but in the office, in the classroom, in the factory or in the kitchen.

Sacred Silence

To make possible true inner silence, practice:


Silence of the eyes, by seeking always the beauty and goodness of God everywhere, and closing them to the faults of others and to all that is sinful and disturbing to the soul.

Silence of the ears, by listening always to the voice of God and to the cry of the poor and the needy, and closing them to all other voices that come from fallen human nature, such as gossip, tale bearing, and uncharitable words.

Silence of the tongue, by praising God and speaking the life-giving Word of God that is the truth, that enlightens and inspires, brings peace, hope, and joy; and by refraining from self-defense and every word that causes darkness, turmoil, pain, and death.


Silence of the mind, by opening it to the truth and knowledge of God in prayer and contemplation, like Mary who pondered the marvels of the Lord in her heart, and by closing it to all untruths, distractions, destructive thoughts, rash judgments, false suspicions of others, vengeful thoughts, and desires.

Silence of the heart, by loving God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength; loving one another as God loves; and avoiding all selfishness, hatred, envy, jealousy, and greed. Mother Teresa, Heart of the World

Also:

• Sacred Silence in the Domestic Church
• Restoring silence in the liturgy
• Holy Silence, the Secret of the Saints
• Quotes from the saints on Silence

The Family Cloister has sections on Obedience, Silence, Humility, and Attentiveness.   It seems to me that these three are closely related.   Obedience is silence of one's own will.   Silence -- well, of course.  Humility -- silencing the clamor of your ego which wants everything to center around itself.  And Attentiveness -- no one can listen and hear unless he is silent.

In thinking about how this applies to family life:

A lot of people have excellent and wholesome traditions connected with sacred silence.  Here are a few that I can think of:

1. Morning devotions or "quiet time" for each child who is old enough to study on his own.
2. Afternoon "quiet time" to allow rest and alone time.
3. A hush in honor of our Lord's Passion at 3 pm
4. Silence for prayers or reading, during mealtime or elsewhere.
5. The stillness of night.
6. Requiring quiet from children during Mass or church services.
7. Quiet in the sanctuary -- no chatting before or after Mass, while still inside the sanctuary.
8. Turning off music or TV during Lent.
9. Periodic family retreats -- for an hour, a morning, a day.  
10. Getting outside into Nature. 

Maria Montessori had a Silence Lesson.   Sometimes it is called the Silence Game.    It was thought of as a preparation, because when you think of it, many "callings" came out of the silence.   David lived the lonely life of a shepherd before he was called to be anointed as king.  Samuel heard and answered God during the silence of the night. 

One of the early symptoms of misbehavior in my house is an escalation of noise.  Sometimes the child is making noise and basically shutting out his inner wisdom by doing this, sometimes the noise is around the child and fraying at his peace of mind until he acts against his better judgment.    All noise affects the emotional landscape. ... it seems to have a magnifying effect on whatever emotion it targets.   When you are outside, the various sounds of nature are balanced out with silences, but in artificial surroundings, sometimes noise is almost an entity in itself.   That's one of the things I best remember about my schooldays -- the constant, echoing, dull roaring noise!

Homeschooling, in some ways, can be a choice for silence.  But sometimes homeschoolers are tempted to rush to fill in the silence with a scurry of activities and talk and music.  It's not that these things are bad, but that they can pile upon themselves recklessly if not balanced, like a closetful of art supplies or games that are good in themselves, but piled in great quantities so they are in danger of falling out every time the door is opened.

Anyway, this is what I get from The Family Cloister.   I happen to like silence, but sometimes I tolerate noise because I've learned to basically shut it out.   As a mom I probably should help my children be more aware of the discipline of practicing silence in the right contexts. 

Epic Mosquitoes

Related to nothing else, but this made me laugh because mosquitoes in Alaska are exactly like this.  From Three in Norway  

Another hour passed, and our small remaining stock of good temper went: we were very hungry, and all our food was on the sleighs, and the mosquitoes seemed to be even more hungry than we were. Hope deferred, with nothing but mosquitoes to distract one's thoughts, maketh the heart very sick indeed: and these were most annoyingly large mosquitoes; the finest brand that we have yet inspected, and with more strength of character than the ordinary kind. We were so much annoyed with the world in general, and each other, that we were obliged to separate, and Esau retired for a short time to attempt a sketch. He


came back very angry, because just at the critical moment a mosquito had knocked his hat off, and he had had a desperate and perspiring conflict with it under a tropical sun ; but eventually the brute was vanquished and its head cut off, which he said he would have stuffed, to hang up in his ancestral halls. He certainly bore on his face the marks of the struggle, so that there seemed to be no reason to doubt the story.

 On Narration (Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education)

“Here on the very surface is the key to that attention, interest, literary style, wide vocabulary, love of books and readiness in speaking, which we all feel should belong to an education that is only begun in school and continued throughout life.”

unity of means

Francois Mauriac said "Purify the source" and this passage seems to tell HOW you might go about doing that.

The interior life is the life and sway of the love of Jesus within the soul.  It is Jesus owning and ruling all its faculties, filling them with hiss grace and virrtue, pouring himself forth upon them and drawing them within himself, that they may dwell there as in a center or peace and rest.

To attain this life, which is the object of all exterior practices and devotions, you must first of all bring about unity in the means.

For a certain period, nourish your mind, heart, piety and virtue solely on the love of Jesus, that this divine thought may become second nature within you, habitual, easy and lovable.

To train yourself to think of and to feel the love of Jesus, read and meditate on nothing but divine love, until this constant nourishment has developed a spirit or mentality within your soul.  Acts of virtue should begin by acts of reason.  The heart will follow its light very quickly, and will be won to divine sweetness and goodness, when they are revealed to it in their lovable truth.  Before God can be loved, he must be known.   God manifests himself to man in light.  One grace of light is worth more than a thousand graces and sweetness and consolation.  Feelings pass, but convictions remain.

The devil wages war especially on graces of light, by means of the distractions and bondage of temporal affairs or of worldly amusements.

The devil can do nothing to a soul rapt in God.  To recollect oneself is to gather oneself up from things without to things within.   It is to live around God, with God.  A soul is strong and makes progress in virtue only in so far as it is recollected.   Indeed recollection is the just and inexorable balancing of its profit and loss, its virtues and its defects.

Saint Peter Julian Eymard
His feast day was actually August 2. 

Unbearable Ugliness

Unbearable mental fatigue.  Work alone could rest me, gratuitous work, or play....I am far from that.  Each thought becomes an anxiety in my brain; I am becoming that ugliest of all things:  a busy man.   --  Andre Gide, Journals.

What I have noticed is that I become "busy" the moment I forget the center of everything.   Having a lot to do is not in itself ugly -- it becomes ugly when it's overdone -- heaping distorting, crushing burdens upon oneself.   The state of being a "busy man" is a pathetic one.

It seems to me that when Gide is talking about play or "gratuitous work" he is talking essentially about leisure, schola, which seems to me similar to the modern idea of "flow" defined as  "a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity...single-minded immersion" -- which is perhaps one of the closest secular things possible to approaching the love of God.  

I can feel the danger -- of talking, thinking, doing, having, seeing or hearing too much.... Non multa sed multum seems to apply. 

World without Logos

Every created thing has its own logos. So do man made things. The teacher's goal is to discover that logos and then enable the student to see it. The most important preparation for every lesson, then, is to identify the logos of the lesson. The second most important part is to embody it so the student can perceive it.

Modern thought is a crazed effort to build a world without a logos. -- Quiddity

I had to clip this because it expressed so closely something I was trying to think out earlier today.   However, I do not find the "logos" always easy to identify and I wonder if this "seeing" described in the passage is more like a habit of close looking than an actual outcome of having seen.    Having caught a glimpse of the "logos" of something, one is probably better prepared to catch a better glimpse on a future occasion, but I am afraid of the presumption in thinking one has grasped and known even a man-made creation.  Please note that I am not critiquing the Quiddity post here; quite the opposite, since reading Quiddity has helped me think through what education is really all about.  If I'm thinking of anything specific, it's of some of the glib "Christian worldview" type resources that we've probably all seen that seem to reduce philosophy to a set of cliches and slogans that aren't much better than the radio ads of the 50's.  

Aquinas says in a treatise on faith:

..If man of himself could in a perfect manner know all things visible and invisible, it would indeed be foolish to believe what he does not see. But our manner of knowing is so weak that no philosopher could perfectly investigate the nature of even one little fly. We even read that a certain philosopher spent thirty years in solitude in order to know the nature of the bee.

A little child takes it on trust that the evidence of his eyes is correlated with reality.   Yet a child also seems to understand that what he does perceive is only the very rudiments of a great mystery that can be approached but never completely mastered.   For a child, that understanding is delightful because it is like opening a door to a new world and taking the first step through.  So it almost seems to me that what our society has lost is partly that kind of wonder and openness to otherness that allows us to glimpse the "logos" of a given thing.  I don't even think this sense of wonder is destroyed by silly childish Disneyfication so much, though it's perhaps trivialized and commodified in the world of commercial tie-ins.   I think it's the pragmatism of our educational system and the toxicity of the adult culture that has done the worst damage.  

I guess what I am saying is that I wouldn't want the teaching of the logos to become a Gradgrind sort of endeavour.   When I think of traditional paideia I think of teachers patiently forming their students towards the habit of contemplating, of dwelling on things that are not easy or directly accessible, of perceiving subtlety and newness without immediately trying to categorize and "frame" it within the scope of your present understanding.   For some reason the visual image that keeps coming up is that of bird-watching.   You might sit patiently in a covert all day and never glimpse that rara avis or you might be strolling along thinking of something altogether different and suddenly catch a breathtaking serendipitous view of it.   But either way, you are better off than the one who is thinking of how he will spend his next paycheck and never sees the rara avis at all or the Gradgrind-type student who thinks he knows the bird because he knows various quantifiables about it.   Or the one who makes up and relays a lot of mystical esoteric rubbish about the rara avis in order to feel wise or psychically in the know.  Or the one who wears a picture of it on his T-shirt or puts a sticker on his notebook and thinks that somehow that substitutes for seeking it out and hoping to actually glimpse it. 

From Wonder to Wisdom

I liked this from Laura Berquist:

The end of education is wisdom. Man desires by nature to know, and that means we want to have not only the facts, but the reasons for the facts. We want to think about the highest things, the most noble, the most interesting in themselves.

There are steps in such an education. One can't begin by studying the very highest things.... Why not? Because the student won't be able to understand what he reads. He needs to do some preliminary work. But that preliminary work is ordered to eventually understanding the very highest truths.

Liberal education, which we also call classical education, is such an education. It begins in wonder and aims at wisdom.

The part about "all men by nature desire to know" comes from Aristotle, and  the reference to wonder and wisdom is from Plato.

Liam said today that people naturally tend to ask "Why?" and keep asking until they get back to the First Principles, or final answer.  I was thinking that maybe that idea would help me unify all those scattered homeschool subjects.  But we'll see.

Scatter of Quotes

 "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."  -Howard Thurman

 HT Conversion Diary 


 Mythopoeia by JRR Tolkien

The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.

and then, from On Fairy Stories:

Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it. If he indeed achieves a quality that can fairly be described by the dictionary definition: “inner consistency of reality,” it is difficult to conceive how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality. The peculiar quality of the ”joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a “consolation” for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, “Is it true?” The answer to this question that I gave at first was (quite rightly): “If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world.” That is enough for the artist (or the artist part of the artist). But in the “eucatastrophe” we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater—it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world. The use of this word gives a hint of my epilogue. It is a serious and dangerous matter. It is presumptuous of me to touch upon such a theme; but if by grace what I say has in any respect any validity, it is, of course, only one facet of a truth incalculably rich: finite only because the capacity of Man for whom this was done is finite.

Finally, a lecture about Edith Stein which reminds me that this bit is why Liam originally gave me the Phenomenology lectures to read -- we were discussing something like this, especially the second part:

Philosophers of science investigate the thinking -- the logical inferences -- that turn raw data into accepted statements of fact. They ask how data get to be "data" in the first place. Some scientists, and most of the general public, assume that the data are just "caused" by the experiments, and that a good scientist merely reports findings without adding any "interpretation." They assume that anything "added" by the scientist would introduce bias, and would spoil the possibility of other scientists' getting identical results from running the same experiment. Science is supposed to be "impersonal." By contrast, the humanities are supposed to focus on distinctive personal and cultural factors.

The center holds

The liturgy ... is an action (not a program, or a performance) which occurs on the cusp between time and eternity, and between our earthly mortality and the Civitas Dei. We are not an audience. We are not spectators. The liturgy ("the work of the people" is what the word means) draws us in, sacramentally, but quite literally, to the action whereby Jesus Christ offers himself to the Father in our behalf as the perfect Offering for sings. The Church asks us to kneel, to stand, to sit, to bow, to trace the sign of the Cross on ourselves, and to echo with "Thanks be to God," or "And also with you," or "Amen," like deep calling unto deep which we glimpse in the psalms. Every single gesture and phrase is freighted with mystery and glory. --Thomas Howard

Sense, Being, Becoming

Since according to common agreement there is nothing outside and separate in existence from sensible spatial magnitudes, the objects of thought are in the sensible forms, viz. both the abstract objects and all the states and affections of sensible things. Hence (1) no one can learn or understand anything in the absence of sense, and (2) when the mind is actively aware of anything it is necessarily aware of it along with an image; for images are like sensuous contents except that they contain no matter."

"So out of sense-perception comes to be what we call memory, and out of frequently repeated memories of the same thing develops experience; for a number of memories constitute a single experience. From experience again -- i.e., from the universal now stabilized in its entirety within the soul, the one beside the many which is a single identity within them all -- originate the skill of the craftsman and the knowledge of the man of science, skill in the sphere of becoming and knowledge in the sphere of being."
--Aristotle

He hath satisfied the empty soul

The Fast of Loneliness and the Feast of Friendship -- beautiful reflection by Colleen at Footprints on the Fridge.

Reminds me of Psalm 107:

From the rising and the setting of the sun, from the north and from the sea.
They wandered in a wilderness, in a place without water:
they found not the way of a city for their habitation.
They were hungry and thirsty: their soul fainted in them.
And they cried to the Lord in their tribulation:
and he delivered them out of their distresses.
And he led them into the right way:
that they might go to a city of habitation.
Let the mercies of the Lord give glory to him:
and his wonderful works to the children of men.
For he hath satisfied the empty soul,
and hath filled the hungry soul with good things.

On Reading Aloud

Love this section on reading aloud from One Myth Two Truths by Andrew Pudewa

One of the biggest mistakes we make as parents and teachers is to stop reading out loud to our children when they reach the age of reading faster independently. In doing so, not only do we deprive them of the opportunity to hear these all-important reliably correct, and sophisticated language patterns, we lose the chance to read to them above their level, stretching and expanding their vocabulary, interests, and understanding. We begin to lose the chance to discuss words and their nuance, idioms, cultural expressions, and historical connotations. And they lose something far more valuable than even the linguistic enrichment that oral reading provides; they lose the opportunity to develop attentiveness, the chance to experience the dramatic feeling that a good reader can inject, and even the habit of asking questions about what they’ve heard. Tragically, because of our hectic, entertainment-saturated, individualistic, test-obsessed, and overscheduled lives, few of us take sufficient time to read out loud to our students, even into their early teens—a sensitive period when understanding of language and understanding of life are woven together and sealed into the intellect. Because linguistic information is best stored in the brain auditorily, children who have had read to them reliably correct and sophisticated language patterns for many years are much more likely to develop competence in written (and verbal) communication skills.

Augustine and the delight of obscure language

Cindy at Ordo Amoris followed up on the Chesterton quote and the combox discussion was interesting too.

Something she said in the combox about liking the effort involved in reading and pondering complex language so long as it wasn't "affected" reminded me of something St Augustine said in On Christian Doctrine so I'm putting down the quote in full here since I didn't want to load down her combox. It discusses the possible reasons for using more "hidden" and obscure language and how it can benefit the reader. I bolded the parts that seemed to have the most to do with that part of it.

But hasty and careless readers are led astray by many and manifold obscurities and ambiguities, substituting one meaning for another; and in some places they cannot hit upon even a fair interpretation. Some of the expressions are so obscure as to shroud the meaning in the thickest darkness. And I do not doubt that all this was divinely arranged for the purpose of subduing pride by toil, and of preventing a feeling of satiety in the intellect, which generally holds in small esteem what is discovered without difficulty.

For why is it, I ask, that if any one says that there are holy and just men whose life and conversation the Church of Christ uses as a means of redeeming those who come to it from all kinds of superstitions, and making them through their imitation of good men members of its own body; men who, as good and true servants of God, have come to the baptismal font laying down the burdens of the world, and who rising thence do, through the implanting of the Holy Spirit, yield the fruit of a two-fold love, a love, that is, of God and their neighbor;--how is it, I say, that if a man says this, he does not please his hearer so much as when he draws the same meaning from that passage in Canticles, where it is said of the Church, when it is being praised under the figure of a beautiful woman, "Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are shorn which came up from the washing, whereof every one bears twins, and none is barren among them?"(1)

Does the hearer learn anything more than when he listens to the same thought expressed in the plainest language, without the help of this figure? And yet, I don't know why, I feel greater pleasure in contemplating holy men, when I view them as the teeth of the Church, tearing men away from their errors, and bringing them into the Church's body, with all their harshness softened down, just as if they had been torn off and masticated by the teeth. It is with the greatest pleasure, too, that I recognize them under the figure of sheep that have been shorn, laying down the burthens of the world like fleeces, and coming up from the washing, i.e., from baptism, and all bearing twins, i.e., the twin commandments of love, and none among them barren in that holy fruit.

But why I view them with greater delight under that aspect than if no such figure were drawn from the sacred books, though the fact would remain the same and the knowledge the same, is another question, and one very difficult to answer. Nobody, however, has any doubt about the facts, both that it is pleasanter in some cases to have knowledge communicated through figures, and that what is attended with difficulty in the seeking gives greater pleasure in the finding.-- For those who seek but do not find suffer from hunger. Those, again, who do not seek at all because they have what they require just beside them often grow languid from satiety.

Now weakness from either of these causes is to be avoided. Accordingly the Holy Spirit has, with admirable wisdom and care for our welfare, so arranged the Holy Scriptures as by the plainer passages to satisfy our hunger, and by the more obscure to stimulate our appetite. For almost nothing is dug out of those obscure passages which may not be found set forth in the plainest language elsewhere.

outward obscurity as a sign of inward clarity

Liam told me that as a freshman he had trouble getting better than a "B" on a paper because he had too much to say and it was difficult to say it within the word limits for the paper. When he cut it down to get it to size his thought processes became cryptic to those who read his papers. I liked this bit from Chesterton on Browning.as a charitable and perceptive explanation of why a young author might write in a less than clear fashion. By the way, Liam happily did go on to be able to write his thoughts in a more comprehensible fashion, but not out of vanity; rather from a more accurate sense of what the reader needed out of his writing.

A man who is intellectually vain does not make himself incomprehensible, because he is so enormously impressed with the difference between his readers' intelligence and his own that he talks down to them with elaborate repetition and lucidity. What poet was ever vainer than Byron? What poet was ever so magnificently lucid? But a young man of genius who has a genuine humility in his heart does not elaborately explain his discoveries, because he does not think that they are discoveries. He thinks that the whole street is humming with his ideas, and that the postman and the tailor are poets like himself. Browning's impenetrable poetry was the natural expression of this beautiful optimism. Sordello was the most glorious compliment that has ever been paid to the average man.

In the same manner, of course, outward obscurity is in a young author a mark of inward clarity. A man who is vague in his ideas does not speak obscurely, because his own dazed and drifting condition leads him to clutch at phrases like ropes and use the formulæ that every one understands. No one ever found Miss Marie Corelli obscure, because she believes only in words. But if a young man really has ideas of his own, he must be obscure at first, because he lives in a world of his own in which there are symbols and correspondences and categories unknown to the rest of the world.

Diligence as Delight

I was going through old papers and found a few articles on sloth and diligence which I wanted to make a note of before I burn the papers.

An article on diligence --

The word "diligence" comes from a Latin word meaning "to love." A related Latin word gives us "delight." In its original meaning, diligence is attentiveness, care, and concern in what we do, and eagerness, quickness, and zeal to do it. In consists in making the most of God’s gifts out of love for him and his Kingdom.

Maybe that makes some sense of my puzzle about Jerome writing "voluntas" for what I usually read in modern version as "delight" in Psalms 1. Diligence sounds like a scary word -- "keeping your nose to the grindstone" -- but when you think of it as a labor of love, it seems to make things much clearer somehow.

The article goes on to say that the main aspect of diligence is spiritual. This is why Mary was commended while Martha was gently rebuked by Our Lord, I suppose. One was letting herself get scattered and irritable while the other was completely diligent and focused on what mattered. As the article says:

This is why the contemplative life of, say, cloistered religious is not a form of laziness. As it ought to be lived, the contemplative life makes use of the greatest of God’s gifts: union with Him in prayer. Even those of us who are not contemplatives need to be fruitful in using this gift. If we are not diligent in our spiritual life first, our other activities are are not offered to God and are so much useless motion. We are like a child who, on being told to pick up his clothes, simply flings them into another corner of the room.

I was just reading the Rule of St Benedict where he often refers to "The Work of God" meaning their contemplative religious life.

Another article was an excerpt from a book by Fr Lorenzo Scupoli called The Spiritual Combat. Here it is on Google Books. It was recommended by St Francis de Sales; it is full of practical advice for conquering oneself. I found this helpful:

You may, at first, find your strength insufficient to undergo all the difficulties and troubles that you will encounter on your road to perfection. Then you must acquire the habit of hiding them from yourself. They will appear more insignificant than the slothful are apt to imagine them to be.

When an act must be repeated many times in order to acquire some particular virtue, and this has to be continued for several days in opposition to countless powerful enemies, begin to do these acts as though a few would suffice and your trouble would soon end.

Attack one enemy at a time, as though you had but one to encounter. Be confident that, with God's grace, you will master them all. In this way you will overcome your sloth and acquire the contrary virtue.

Use the same method in regard to prayer. If you are to pray for an hour, and the time seems long, begin as though you were to pray but a quarter of an hour. When that is finished, propose another quarter hour, and the hour will elapse imperceptibly.

If, however, during this period you experience a great repugnance and aversion to prayer, cease praying for a while. In a short time return again to the prayers that you had interrupted.

This is also true in regard to manual labor. If you feel that you are overwhelmed by the amount of work before you and by the difficulties involved, do not permit indolence to discourage you.

Begin with what demands your immediate attention and do not think of the rest. Be very diligent, for when this is well done, the remainder will follow with much less trouble than you had anticipated.

Sacrament of Peace

Probably not of much interest to non-Catholics, but this section from the end of Family of Families by Father Filias, SJ, was very helpful to me when I read it and I wanted to copy it to my blog to remember it.

Above all else Penance is the sacrament of peace, because outside of it, ordinarily no greater assurance can be obtained on this earth that God has forgiven sin and has completely restored the sinner to His friendship. Christ our Lord instituted the sacrament of Penance primarily in order to remit all serious sins committed after Baptism. He also wished that the sacrament exercise a secondary effect as well. When received by a person who has no mortal sins to confess, Penance bestows an increase of sanctifying grace and grants extra special helps of actual grace to combat temptations and faults.

One misunderstanding regarding Penance is that it cannot be received unless the penitent has committed mortal sin since the last confession. In reality, such is not the case. It is sufficient either to mention a few venial sins of which you are aware, or to make a general accusation of some sin from your past life (and here, too, a venial sin is sufficient). In this manner you are able to gain the special graces which only Penance can impart.

Of course, all mortal sins committed since the preceding confession must be mentioned, although if any are forgotten in good faith, they are indirectly forgiven by being included in the act of contrition of the penitent and in the absolution of the priest. If later they come to mind, they should be specified in the next confession not in order to be forgiven (for they have already been remitted), but in order that the law of Christ concerning the confession of mortal sins might be fulfilled. This is why mortal sins are called "necessary matter" for confession in distinction to venial sins, which are called merely "sufficient matter."

Although at least one venial sin must be confessed in order to provide this "sufficient matter" (if there is nothing serious to mention), there is no obligation to confess all venial sins inasmuch as they can be forgiven outside of the sacrament by means of an act of contrition, the offering of other prayers, or the performance
of good works. Nonetheless, all venial sins are forgiven in every good confession provided that the penitent includes them at least in a general, implicit fashion in his declaration and acts of contrition, including his purpose of amendment.

By submitting venial sins to the tribunal of Penance, part at least of the temporal punishment is remitted. Venial sins do not incur any eternal punishment because while they are flaws in our friendship with God, they by no means constitute the wanton ingratitude and treason which we call mortal sin. In the present state of human nature our faith tells us that no one can go through life without committing venial sin, unless he or she has been given a very special grace. Our Blessed Lady certainly enjoyed this privilege, and we piously believe, St. Joseph. In our own case, however, we know how easily we fail. Anger, jealousy, manifestations of selfishness, rash judgments, hesitation in repelling temptation--these are some of the faults that mar our perfection but can be gradually eliminated from our conduct.

There is one particular circumstance which calls for explicit mention. Let us suppose that by some misfortune serious sin has been committed and confession at the moment is impossible. Must mortal sin remain on the soul?

God in His goodness has given the weakness of our human nature a first-aid remedy even in this instance. An act of perfect contrition will remit mortal sin provided there is included at least implicitly the desire to receive the sacrament of Penance and thus have the mortal sin forgiven officially. Such serious sins must be mentioned in the next confession. To make such an act of contrition, we must regret having sinned because we have offended God Himself, who in Himself is all-good, all-worthy of our love. In other words the motive for perfect contrition is love of
God. This is more than is required for confession, where only an act of "attrition" is requisite--that is, sorrow for sin arising from a motive of fear of punishment or detestation of the malice of sin in itself. But this sorrow is not to be without wholesome acknowledgment of, and reliance on, God's mercy and love.

Such are the general principles regarding the use of Penance as a remote preparation for a happy and holy death. The frequent reception of the sacrament throughout your life will deepen ever more and more the serenity that characterizes the children of God and the adopted brothers and sisters of Jesus. In a sense, Penance is always a "last sacrament" because it provides a fund of supernatural peace to offset any worry or fear that may arise when the unpredictable moment of death approaches. Sins from one's past life are so positively forgiven when subjected to the sacrament of Peace, that years later there can be absolutely no ground for umeasiness concerning them.