Christmas C.M. Countdown, Day 15

In Charlotte Mason's third chapter on The Will, this often-quoted line appears:

"The simple, rectified Will, what our Lord calls 'the single eye,' would appear to be the one thing needful for straight living and serviceableness" (p. 138).

It's a topic I've discussed previously on the blog.  As we saw in the previous post, "Un-Will" is "all that we do or think, in spite of ourselves" (p. 140). We can't help ourselves, whatever it was just pops up or out, and we go along with it. All that we do out of our nature, or out of habit or custom, is not willed.

"Thus far we have seen, that, just as to reign is the distinctive quality of a king, so is to will the quality of a man. A king is not a king unless he reign; and a man is less than a man unless he will" (p. 140).

We need to be careful here, because Charlotte Mason's approach to child training and early education begins with building good habits. Habit, Mason said elsewhere, is "a good servant but a bad master" (Philosophy of Education, p. 53). It's a tool for us to use, but not our default setting for important choices.  If we have a habit of closing the door, we don't have to think about whether to close the door or not, and that's okay. If we have a custom of making a pot of tea in the afternoon, that's fine. To use my friend the DHM's phrase in a different context, we don't use a chainsaw to butter our bread. We need to be people of Will, to bypass the "tempting by-paths and strike ahead" (p. 139); but not everything in life needs to make use of the Will. It's a power tool.

Mason warns that being "turbulent" and "headstrong" is the opposite of being governed by Will. However, acting with Will and having a purpose outside of oneself does not rule out creativity, spontaneity, intuition, or even serendipity. It's those who unconsideringly act from habit, or who fly off with the latest popular idea, who are actually less creative and original. They are less free to act when the moment is right; they miss opportunities to fight boldly for a cause, to live out a principle. Those governed by Will are not bound to some kind of 24/7 scheduling with no surprises: they can act unexpectedly, but in ways that, seen in the big picture, make perfect sense. (But remember that Will is not necessarily moral, so the actions of a criminal or a terrorist can also make perfect sense.)

When I thought about that, here's the illustration that came to mind.

In "A Charlie Brown Christmas," Lucy, who wants only "real estate" for Christmas and who has cast herself as the Christmas Queen in the kids' play, seems to be the perfect example of "turbulent" and "headstrong." Lucy and her friends send Charlie Brown and Linus off to buy a "shiny aluminum Christmas tree," "maybe painted pink." But Charlie bypasses the shiny fakes and chooses a "wooden Christmas tree," the smallest and worst on the lot. "I think it needs me," he tells Linus. He has a principle and a purpose outside of himself: to care for something weak that needs help. To him, that's worth doing the unexpected, even though he second-guesses himself later when he is scolded and ridiculed by the other kids. They later have a change of heart and show the tree some love, which causes it to grow into the biggest, most beautiful Christmas tree ever.

A little tree and a little Will create a little Christmas magic. 

Christmas C.M. Countdown, Day 14

In the next chapter on The Will, Charlotte Mason gets controversial on some side issues that we can quickly dispense with. Her ethnic musings towards the end of the chapter are not vital to our understanding of the topic.

So let's stick to defining one of the true C.M. distinctives: drawing the line between Will and Wilfulness (or Willfulness, as the spellchecker prefers it). 

Years ago, a visiting missionary at our church talked about her childhood. She grew up in a conservative Christian home, on a farm, and had very few opportunities to "sin," at least in any interesting ways. "But," she said, "I had a nice way of getting my own way." Nobody would have called her a "strong-willed child"; her superpower was being a sweet little girl. She did not stomp her feet and throw tantrums; but she did know how to work situations and people to get what she wanted. Was she Wilful, or was she acting with Will?

Mason can't seem to hit, at first, on the right literary example to show exactly what she means by the Will and Wilfulness. After wandering past a few kings and Bible characters, she narrows it down to the brothers Jacob and Esau. The difference is not which one is sneakier or more untrustworthy, or even which one is more appealing or generous, but only which of the two is "at the mercy of his appetites and his chance desires. Esau must needs have that red pottage...or do whatever his desires move him towards at the moment" (p. 130). So, the first definition of people acting without Will is that they want instant gratification, and that they are at the mercy of chance desires for shiny things. They are marshmallow-choosers, impulse shoppers and even "inordinate novel-readers!"

Here's what Mason says about Jacob, and it's not the description you normally hear:

"Jacob, too, gets his way, often by subtle means, and every subtlety brings its chastisement; but he does not seek his way for its own sake. All his chance desires are subordinated to an end––in his case, the great end of founding the kingdom of promise. The means he uses are bad and good. 'Few and evil are the days of my life,' he complains at the end, so sore have been his chastisements; but, always, he has willed steadily towards an end outside of himself" (p. 131).

So a second definition, or un-definition, of those who act with Will is that they don't always make good moral choices. Recently we watched a few episodes of an old BBC crime drama called The Sweeney, about a squad of police officers who use various means, sometimes morally questionable, to take down criminals. This raises tough questions about how far police should be able to go to protect the community; and, in fact, the real-life team that inspired the show was investigated later for its breaches of ethics. Acting with Will, Mason says, won't necessarily make you morally good, and you may have to face the consequences of those choices.

A life based on Will also won't guarantee success or fame. But people can be very successful without exercising Will. Mason uses Napoleon as an example of someone ruled by ambition and vanity, living for personal ends, and not by the desire "to shape his life upon a purpose" (pp. 132-133). Here's another literary example:

"What a fine study, again, we get of Will and Wilfulness in that crusaders' camp in [Scott's novel] The Talisman! Each of the princes present was engaged in the wilful pursuit of personal ends, each fighting for his own hand. And Saladin looked on, magnanimous of mind and generous of heart, because he was a man of will, urged towards ends which were more than himself. I can hardly conceive a better moral education than is to be had out of Scott and Shakespeare. I put Scott first as so much the more easy and obvious; but both recognise that the Will is the man."

More than ourselves. As Charlie Brown shouts to Lucy, "That's It!" (Imagine Lucy flying through the air...)

And our later-to-be-missionary? Based on this definition, she was not acting with Will at all. Ironically, when we met her (and I think she was about eighty at the time), she was best known for promoting a teaching about submitting our wills, and willing to be made willing. But that is a different will, for another time.

Quote for the day: why writers write

This is kind of a quote within a quote within a quote.  It's from a review of Katherine Paterson's book Gates of Excellence, in which she quotes from both Edith Hamilton (who is quoting from Hesiod) and Charles Schultz.  Gates of Excellence is where I first heard (years ago) of Children of the Fox, which I tracked down and read, and which I then had to "sweat" to get through ILL so that we could use it in school this year.

At the beginning of the book, when Paterson is asked when she wanted to be a writer, she explains that it was her love of reading that made her want to “get inside the process (Paterson, p. 2)” not that she ever wanted to be a writer at all. In this opening essay, she shares two items in her office that apparently protect her from her “terror of mediocrity.” One is a Greek quote borrowed from Edith Hamilton which also provides the title for this collection:

Before the gates of excellence
The high gods have placed sweat (Ibid, p. 3).

The other is a mounted Charles Schultz cartoon of Snoopy typing, “It was a dark and stormy night.” Snoopy then remarks, “Good writing is hard work.” I’m not sure the Greeks actually said “sweat” but the point is both remind her that she is a worker, not a part of some gifted group bestowing their words on “less fortunate mortals (Ibid p.3).”