Invitation to a Thanksgiving of Song, Books, and Poetry

Posted on October 26, 2012 by lettersfromheartscontent

Yesterday I sent out Thanksgiving invitations to Mom and Dad, Aunt Mary, and my sister’s family. Remembering the laughter of the last Thanksgiving here, when Dad lip-synched the chorus of “The Witch Doctor” to my daughter’s singing behind a curtain, I made plans to make our gathering sparkle again.

Behind my husband’s chair at the head of the table is a double glass door, which we will open again. I will hang floor length dark curtains to create a stage in that opening. This year, instead of impromptu performances forced upon my good-natured guests, I have them preparing three things: a review of a book or movie they found outstanding, a family song or skit to be performed in the stage, and a haiku. These I’ll scatter at the place settings and we’ll read them one at a time, hoping to identify each author.

Never again will we have the experience of scarfing down a complex dinner in a quarter of an hour and staring blankly at each other afterwards. I have a funny family.  All they need is a little momentum for this quirky train to go rolicking down the tracks.

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Monet Refuses the Operation

Posted on October 6, 2012 by lettersfromheartscontent
Monet Refuses the Operation
by Lisel Mueller
 
Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don’t know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent.  The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and changes our bones, skin, clothes
to gases.  Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.
 
Lisel Mueller (b. 1924)
 
Deborah Horner-Richardson posted this on her blog.
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Cold and Dark

Posted on September 30, 2012 by lettersfromheartscontent

Dread.

At Lisai’s Market both customers and those behind the counters agreed: the days are rapidly getting shorter and we don’t like it. If we are waking before sunrise, can the rock-hard dark days of winter be far behind?

Out of curiosity I looked up a sunrise-sunset calendar. Listen to this: On September 1 sunrise is at 6:15 a.m. (EDT) and sunset 7:26 p.m.  Day length is 13h 12m.  But on Sept 30, they are 6:47 a.m., 6:34 p.m. and the day is 11h 48m long.  We lost 1 hour and 24 minutes in day length over the course of the month!

In October we lose 35 minutes in the morning but 49 minutes at sunset. Day length becomes 10h 20m, 1 hour and 25 minutes shorter yet again.

In November the rate slows, so we lose a mere hour over the course of the month, and around the solstice in December the days are as short as they will ever be: 8h 58m for four days.  Ah, but here is the good news: on Christmas Eve the days start to lengthen. Isn’t that wonderful? When the excitement of Christmas is over and we find ourselves chained to the cold, lifeless corpse of winter we can mutter, “The days are getting longer. The days are getting longer.”

I fight the darkness by suspending frugality rules.   All lights are on in the main areas from waking to bed time. We burn candles every day. I sit by the full spectrum light to do much of my desk work, though I really don’t think I have SAD. It helps. I string white Christmas tree lights along the exposed log beams in our dining room and parlor, and they stay up until April.

I did mention cold, didn’t I?   Turtlenecks are my mainstay. Socks and shoes a must. But the fire in the woodstove is my chocolate: a comfort, a treat, a source of calories. (Ahem.) Come spring I’ll be ready to sweep all the firewood debris out the door but for many months the woodstove will be at the center of our homelife.

But truly, the best thing we do to fight the winter blues is have company over. Soups, stews, breads, and pies appear frequently on our table, comforting homey fare for raw days. Why not have someone over to share it? The lone benefit of long nights is that the gardens have been put to bed since October and folks have no excuse for turning up a dinner and game night. Winter is our social season.

For the cold we pile on quilts and sweaters. Against the darkness we revel in light. But hospitality binds fellow sufferers in the warmth and delight of good food and company.

In some ways our northern winters have the summers beat.

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The Practical Tutor III

Posted on September 21, 2012 by lettersfromheartscontent

I got this idea when I visited Christy Bradley’s home this summer.

To keep track of her sons’ assignments, she meets individually with them one evening each week to break up their work for the next four days.  I do it on Tuesday nights, after community day. We sit down with their assignment guide before us and I write a Post-it for each task, generally four per seminar, which my child then takes to a large white board marked with a large grid. Under the column with his name he places one task for each day, until every seminar is represented. The rows are marked Day 1, 2, 3, 4 and (Day 5), the latter referring to Saturday, which is actually the fourth day from Tuesday not the fifth, but it works for us.  The last row is “evenings”.  I also have a column for family events, such as appointments.  Sometimes we have to look closely at the books to break the work up into four sensible bites, but for something like Math it is easy. Right now I model the decision making, but they’ve been watching and one is already taking initiative to do it for himself.

So, in the morning, my kids come and get their six or seven Post-its and work their way through them. Each time they finish a task they ball up the little paper and throw it out. When they are through with them, they are through their work. It is a wonderful feeling to know you are done for the day! I feel a great deal of satisfaction watching them handle their responsibilities so well. With this practical idea I am able to keep track of the studies my Challenge children have for the week.

I wonder if there is a way for me to do it? I can’t even keep track of my To Do list through the day, never mind all the items on it.  A pack of Post-it tasks I could work through?  When I get to the bottom I am truly done for the day?  Hmm. If I ever pull it off, I will post it.

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Life Behind Walls of Glass

Posted on September 16, 2012 by lettersfromheartscontent

Most of my day, a dirty window filters the world. I view life through the car window, through a smudged mirror, through a computer screen. I see through glass, darkly.  Whenever I can I ride with my window down to feel the wind beating unpredictably on my face or hear the whisssh of tires on wet pavement after rain.

When I ride my bike, sometimes I am forced to wear sunglasses to keep the bugs and dust out of my eyes at critical moments.  I get spooked when I am spinning nearly out of control down a hill and I can barely see out of one eye while the other weeps in protest over an errant piece of sand. But I only tolerate sunglasses; I spend my life behind a film no more than I have to. When the glasses come off, life bursts into vivid color again. Have you noticed?

Today I found those walls built in my heart. Outside the glory of the Lord shines while I am hunched behind stacks of mental clutter. Man, I do not like how the computer has crowded out real life.

I mean to take it firmly to task, reminding it of its place in my life as a tool, no more. Where I can serve God through my wretched typing, fine. But when it seeks to beguile me with Stuff I Just Have to Look Up, I will sternly slap down the lid and tend to something else. I can certainly go to bed earlier!

I make exception for the Lizzie Bennet diaries, but they only last four minutes on Mondays and Thursdays, after all. I’ll think of it as a piece of dark chocolate at the end of a good day.

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Lessons from Summer

Posted on August 23, 2012 by lettersfromheartscontent

This is what I learned this summer:

That breaks really make a difference. Relax the rubber band or it will lose the stretch that makes it so good at what it does.

That exercise feels sooo good when it is regular. If it is something I like doing I will anticipate it rather than dread it.

That the stupid computer and all its illusory attractions rob me of my humanity. I need time to contemplate, to chew on slow reading, to talk ideas with my family over several dinner tables.  Email and internet tasks fragment my soul.

That I need to write in my journal. I thought I should lay it aside as something I have outgrown. Nuh uh. It is a wick to draw out the toxins, a pool in which to cool down, a garden bed for ephemeral flowers. I have no pride–I need that book of empty pages to scribble in.

That each season has its joys.

This has been a fabulous summer for me. I put at least 600 miles on my bike and, consequently, wear some stylish clothes for a change. I studied and read some books, and then experienced the mimetic sequence, and so I am a different person than  I was. Really. My approach to tutoring and parenting has changed.

Maybe I dread the rapidly coming darkness of those long Vermont winter nights. Soon it will be dark when I get up.  But summer’s relentless sunniness makes me pant for the dappled days of autumn.

If the mimetic sequence is how we naturally learn, then it exists in the mind of the Creator, and He teaches me through what I encounter. I chose my guiding verse for the year:

Teach me Thy way, O Lord; I will walk in Thy truth. Unite my heart to fear Thy name. Ps. 86:11

Summer was a sunny spot in the road.  Thank You, Lord, for it.

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Practical Tutor 2

Posted on July 22, 2012 by lettersfromheartscontent

What is the best way to prepare this summer for a year of tutoring Challenge B in Classical Conversations?

Make yourself familiar with the Guide, poring over it so you know what is coming. Then set aside time to study.  I am very, very glad I worked through Introductory Logic during that first summer.  I also recommend making Latin flashcards for at least the first six weeks and drilling vocab and endings. I would not start to research current events topics or even the scientists. Can you find time to read some of Soul of Science?  You’ll encounter quite a few of our guys in that, and it gives us a big picture that is helpful. The details you can work out week to week. If you explore the scientists and current events just ahead of the students, you will have fresh interest and excitement, which makes your presentation more exciting.

Is there a book on classical education waiting on your bedside table?  You’ll be transformed (into a classical tutor) through the renewing of your mind. Feel like you have a long way to go?  Join the crowd!  But I can testify that classical education is not only informative, but formative! It forms our mind and we are becoming better thinkers, better tutors. I recommend each tutor feed that process by perusing a book on classical education each summer, starting with Echo in Celebration if not already read. Anyone who has been around the block a few times would enjoy Climbing Parnassus.  Those who look on that as an easy read (!!!) should take on Norms and Nobility.

I’ll let you in on a secret–I have heard many mature tutors say they have chewed on Norms or Soul of Science over several summers, taking time to digest, not able to complete the meal in one summer.

No experts!  Remember, you didn’t become a part of the Classical Conversations team because you are an expert, but because you love to learn and you have a heart for the students of your community. Learn with them and model your joy in discovery.

Welcome to the hardest job you will ever love.

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What the best dressed are wearing

Posted on July 22, 2012 by lettersfromheartscontent

The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium.  ~Norbet Platt

Well, I haven’t been writing in my journal but I have been going quietly nuts with so much to process and no way to do it.  I have discovered the value of writing: it forces me to move in a linear fashion through a problem, one word at a time.  You would think talking (or praying) would do this too, but think of how often you interrupt yourself with a tangent, tidbit, note, or other distraction.  When we write, we are compelled to follow one thread at a time.

Another thing we need to do is sort between the voices in our head. We have the one that tells us we are no good, that thinks dark thoughts, that calculates what’s best for Self and “hang everyone else”. We have the other that stands between this derelict and the Titanic world, which is an entity of both tremendous promise and unfathomable doom. The need is stupendous; who is sufficient? This better self says, “Here I am, Lord, send me.”  It says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  It says, “I am a new creature in Christ.” But the other voice tells us we have nothing to offer and offers several vivid proofs of past failure. How do we make sense of this?

It is that ‘put off–put on’ concept of Colossians 3: put off the old nature, and put on the new. So, is it an image we put on, a covering, an illusion? I pondered this as I rode my bike for two hours yesterday. Who wants to be tangled in illusion?  What is real?  Ah, that’s the thing–our change is real. We have a new nature in this body, this body that still contains the old.  Our old, utterly self-absorbed nature rots in us because it has been judged in the death of Christ, while the warm heart of a new nature beats in us.  We have a heart which is sensitive to the Spirit, replacing the cold, stone one that would not, could not acknowledge God’s rule over us.

So, being real means allowing our minds to be re-formed by the message of the Word, which says to reckon ourselves dead to the old way and new to an obedient life to our living God. Those who keep in step with the Spirit are expressing a real relationship with the Lord.  We have died, and we live in Christ, in whom our lives are tucked away in safety.

“For you have died and your life is hidden with God.” (Col. 3:3) It braces me to think He knows who I am better than I do myself, and that as I walk this journey He removes the dross and reveals who I really am little by little, so that by the end I will be both more Real and more reflective of His glory.

So, I put on not an outer garment, but an attitude that acknowledges the truth of this new nature I have through Christ, which is being renewed day by day into His likeness. I am a queen where once I was a snarling street rat. I am to remember I am a queen, and wear the beauty of holiness.

And maybe, just maybe, writing helps me get there.

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Writing Letters

Posted on June 10, 2012 by lettersfromheartscontent

Attention, my two readers!

Letters from Heart’s Content has been brought under new management. (That’s still me.)  I am making some changes around here and blogging is a part of it.  I have kept a journal since I was 14 years old, because I seem to process life through a pen.   I love the flow of thought down my arm and into words. I marvel at the process of half-grasped concepts crystallizing into fully shaped form. I love words! They have to power to inform, encourage, create something new.

It is time to move from private journal writing to a public offering. Here is the plan: a tip a week for the busy homeschool mother and tutor. I explain the problem, the solution I think will fix it, and then show the results.  Keeping things real, I’m going to give you the ugly as well as the absolutely terrific, but I have been on this tour of duty since 1994 and I am pretty good at figuring out what might actually work.

So, welcome to The Practical Tutor series.

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The Practical Tutor, Part I

Posted on June 10, 2012 by lettersfromheartscontent

I spend too much time at my computer.  This week I finally got around to paying the bills, a week late, somehow missing punitive fees.  Whew! Half the payments went into envelopes, half were paid online. As I finished up I grumbled about how much time it took.

I’ve been studying leadership and how the big girls handle big responsibility.  The same old habits of home management are robbing me of valuable time I could be spending in planning healthymeals, loving my children, feeding my soul.  So, I am switching over to Automatic Bill Pay.  Enough! I will set them and forget them.

The next thing I tackle–after I grade my tests, write progress reports, and pack for vacation–is to reorganize my office.  I’ll take a Before, and I would post it, too, if only to give my audience a laugh of astonishment.

I’ll post it, but only with the After.  I do, after all, have some dignity.

I know I saw that camera here…somewhere…

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