Poetic Knowledge Book Study Index

This is the index to my posts about Poetic Knowledge, 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!

Mystie has moved to a new location at The Convivial Home, but  her old domain at A Healer's Geste remains up for the next year, so the links still will work for quite a while. 

Chapter 1

"The poetic impulse to reflect what is already there" 

Chapter 2:

The universal embedded in the particular
 How Poetic Knowledge works

Chapter 3

Modes of Knowledge -- poetry is sane because it floats easily on an infinite sea
The Habit of Poetic Knowledge

Chapter 4

Descartes and His Legacy
The ascendancy of the materialistic view of man

Chapter 5

Aristotle quote
So that souls can bloom
The logic of crafts and gymnastics

Chapter 6

The unmaking of a dullard
Some links connected to the integrated humanities program
Rediscovery of their childhood


Chapter 7

some more links, and a list of books
a poem by John Senior:  the End of Education
the integration of an idea and a desire
 preparation for perception of the beautiful


Chapter 8

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy and art
Application:  not a checklist but a process

Keeping House Book Study: Wrap-Up

(vintage kitchen by janet hill)

I've very much enjoyed this study!  (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.

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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". 

Ways that keeping house is like the sacred liturgy:

It is continuing and ongoing:

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. 

There are daily, weekly and seasonal changes in emphasis and practice.  

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.  

Some seasons are busier than others.

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.

It can seem overwhelming at first experience, but you move into it by participating.

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.

Wrap-Up

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.  

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.

From PaperbackSwap  I got a book called The Family Manager Takes Charge 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.

Sundry Links

Wildly varied collection of links I wanted to save/share:

Why you should come up with at least 1 bad idea today:

I spent some time working in the television industry, and I learned a technique that writers use. It’s called “the bad version.” 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.

 Crocheting a Jersey Rug

I hate throwing away old stained and ragged T-shirts and this seems like a great way to repurpose.

100+ Free Kindle Books

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!

Epic improv by young viola player


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.

The Reader's Odyssey

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:

The Reader's Odyssey 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. 

 The Rosary Army

This site has audio rosaries that you can put on your IPhone or MP3 player.   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.

The Common App

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.

Giant Campus

Someone told me about this online high school level resource for taking various courses  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.

See you Monday when I will post the final Keeping House Book Club entry!  

Keeping House Book Study Chapter Eight

(vintage kitchen by janet hill)

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:  

Chapter Eight:  The Well Kept House!

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. 

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.   

A few considerations from the chapter on the attributes of a well kept home:

1.  Importance: 

It is an important part of Christian living to have a well managed house.   Look at 1 Timothy 3 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.

2.  Hospitality.   

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.

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.

3.  Dealing with the basics.  

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).

4.  Routines.

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!

5.  Emergencies.   

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

This is my Thought for the Week!  It really goes against my natural grain, but it connects with my Word for 2012, Diligence.   Diligence is a kind of joyful care for the details.  .... a kind of nurturing care.  It is NOT machine-like efficiency.


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.

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.

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.  

Keeping House Book Study Chapter 6

(vintage kitchen by janet hill)

This is chapter 6 of Keeping House:  A Litany of Everyday Life and is about Food to Eat.

"Food is so daily".   

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 Jesus's declaration that He is the Bread of Life.    We are called upon as Christians to "feed the hungry"

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.

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.

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.

  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. 

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.

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.

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!

Photos from Wasilla

I 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.    

Any prayers would be very much appreciated!

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.

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! 

In the next couple of days I'll put a book study post up but it might be shorter than usual.  

New Year Pictures

A Happy New Year!

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..

Plus, I find California light challenging.   I will say no more. 

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.

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!  

Good form, picture too backlit

A little overexposed now, Kieron is obscured and Paddy looks spacy.

Sean and Liam take a talk break

Nice background, but family all shadowy

Cute, but Sean is completely blocked

Clare and Paddy take some time off