Christmas C.M. Countdown, Day 18

Part One

Here's a little challenge from Charlotte Mason.

Take some positive values like self-control, self-constraint, and self-denial. Really work at them, quite deliberately, until you have the moves down perfectly. Aim to behave in a way that would satisfy even Caroline Ingalls' strictest notions of ladylike restraint. Don't ask for anything, because people will like you much better if you let them have their way in things. Make sure you affirm yourself regularly, that you tell yourself how wonderful you are and, most importantly, how serene you are becoming. And make sure you keep practicing this so that you are happy with yourself and complacent about what a nice person and a great peacemaker you are.

If you have done this successfully, you have just become a very frightening sort of person. The experiment in self-denial has resulted in a severe case of self-absorption, and a deficiency in love. Here is the cure:

"Give the Will an object outside itself, and it will leap to service, even to that most difficult of all service, the control of the forces of Mansoul... It is not self-ordering, but an object outside of ourselves, leading to self-forgetfulness and a certain valiant rising of the will, to which we must look for a cure for the maladies that vex us." (Ourselves, pp. 154-155)

Moral of the story: don't be so busy worrying about how good you are becoming that you forget why you're doing it...or the One you're doing it for (p. 155).

Part Two

Apathy, masquerading as tolerance, has no place in the life of one governed by Will (p. 157). But how are we supposed to decide about anything, when there are so many possibilities, so many sides of things to consider? What if we always seem to have a lot of trouble making up our minds, so much that we're torn and anxious over big and small decisions? That's a warning sign that you've veered off the track, says Charlotte Mason. "The decisions of Will are always simple, because they have, for good or ill, an end in view outside of Self" (pp. 158-159). Of course choosing is hard work, but we are not left completely to ourselves. "As the wise parent sees that his children are invigorated by proper exercise, so we may venture to think that Providence strengthens the children of men by giving to each opportunities for effort, chiefly, perhaps, for this effort of decision" (p. 158). 

And Will, as we have seen, does not work in isolation.

"Throughout our lives, Will has been busy, taking counsel with Imagination, Reason, Conscience, Affection; and forming, by degrees, those great decisions on conduct which we call Principles, or those upon matters of thought which we call Opinions. The opinions and principles are at hand for little and great occasions. Our business is to see that we are not distracted by manifold little movements of Self. Then our decisions are prompt and final; we are not fretted by wondering if we have made a mistake, or, if we should have done better by deciding otherwise." 

What have you been given by God this Christmas? One gift, as we saw earlier, is our growing understanding of our full personhood, the inheritance of our Mansoul, to be used in the service of our Creator. Another gift comes in a thousand little pieces: the many opportunities we are given to strengthen the Will by making choices. Here's the only catch: if you use it for Self, it disappears. Use it for an object outside of yourself, and it will keep on giving.

Christmas C.M. Countdown, Day 17: Let's go Christmas Shopping with Charlotte Mason

What Shall We Buy?

In the previous posts about Will, we mentioned choosing between things and courses of action; but in Chapter IV (The Scope of Will), Charlotte Mason makes a finer distinction and says that the true function of the Will is to choose not between things themselves, but "between the ideas which these represent" (p. 147). 

"We must bring wide reading, reflection, conscience, and judgment to bear upon our opinions, if it be only an opinion concerning a novel or a sermon––upon our principles, if they affect only the ordering of our day." (p. 150)

To take it even further (Mason says), if we think we are just making a "regular" choice about something, let's say buying a Christmas present, we may actually be acting with Will, because we're choosing a principle, maybe, of "common sense and good taste," rather than ego and vanity, or even idolatry. Sometimes using the Will is easier than we think!  

"Once having arrived at principles of choice in such matters, the special occasions give very little trouble. A choice of will implies some previous action of judgment and conscience, some knowledge of the subject, and, generally, some exercise of taste and imagination. We do not choose a thing because we will to do so––that would be mere waywardness; but will acts upon information and reflection." (p. 149)

The key warning word seems to be "suggestion," whether it comes from the media, from what's offered as we browse (online or in a store), or by a salesperson. (See a previous post on this topic.) Those who have read Charlotte Mason's guides to education will recall her criticism of teachers who use "suggestion" as a subtle means of manipulating students. Again, this is a very fine line, because we know that even a tiny suggestion can be very potent, especially if it comes from a respected source. (Idolatry again?) When we can see a mistake about to be made, it is so, so hard to maintain "masterly inactivity" and not to interfere. 

Too complicated? Here's the short version according to Mason: if you're watching kids play, and if nobody's in immediate and serious danger of getting hurt, back off. If giving advice to friends means that you're stealing an opportunity for them to build their choosing muscles, keep quiet. And when it comes to your own choices, realize that you are dealing with ideas more than things, and try to choose based more on "information and reflection," and firm, clear principles, than spur-of-the-moment suggestions.

Shop Till We Drop...Where?

"Cheap 'Notions.'––The dishonest fallacy, that it is our business to get the best that is to be had at the lowest price, is another cause of infinite waste of time, money, and nervous energy. The haunting of sales, the ransacking of shop after shop, the sending for patterns here, there, and everywhere, and various other immoralities, would be avoided if we began with the deliberate will-choice of a guiding principle; that, for example, we are not in search of the best and the cheapest, but, of what answers our purpose at the price we can afford to pay.

"The mad hunt for the best, newest, most striking, and cheapest, is not confined to matters of dress and ornament, household use and decoration. We are apt to run after our opinions and ideas with the same restless uncertainty. Indeed, it is ideas we hunt all the time; even if we go to a sale with the dishonest and silly notion that we shall get such and such a thing––'a bargain,' that is, for less than its actual worth." (p. 149)

Charlotte Mason would seem to be very much in tune with current ideas of sustainable and well-considered shopping. As someone who lives next door to a discount store, I am well aware of the temptations of imported bargains and glitz. Even there, though, I try to think through what comes home. There is no reason to impulse-buy four t-shirts just because they're cheap; but they did have decent cloth handkerchiefs awhile ago, so I bought two packages. I don't buy Santa sweatshirts, but I did buy a solid-colour turtleneck sweater that looked like it would hold up through a reasonable number of washings. In a way, for me, shopping there is a good choice because it means I do not run to other stores looking for bargains. Still, I'm aware of even better alternatives, including fair trade, buying from a local maker, shopping used, or not buying anything new at all (re-using, different-using, up-cycling), and I try to choose those options when I can.

That sounds boring! I would rather live in Whoville at Christmas!

"The great decision open to us all, the great will act of a life, is whether we shall make our particular Mansoul available for service by means of knowledge, love, and endeavour. Then, the opportunities that come are not our affair, any more than it is the affair of the soldier whether he has sentry duty or is called to the attack." (p. 151)

So here's the thing...

If we're available, and not caught up with some other "really important" thing, the adventures will come.

And if we're paying attention, we won't miss hearing the angels.

(Here's a related post from a few years ago.)

Christmas C.M. Countdown, Day 13

Today we begin the second of three major themes in Ourselves Book II: The Will.

This business of understanding ourselves is, admittedly, hard work. It is made more difficult (Charlotte Mason says) by the tendency of many of our Personsoul attributes to dominate, to not play nicely with others, or (at the least) to seem to run under their own poorly-understood power, to go off on subconscious tangents which can be interesting and even useful (in the case of creative activity), but which leave us feeling sometimes like the observer rather than the initiator. Mason refers to them...or, rather, us...as "a ménage full of unbroken horses, each minded to go his own way and each able to drag the poor [person] after him" (p. 127). She also points out that even our seemingly more decisive actions, such as the ability to "reason, imagine, love, judge" can be put on autopilot: no actual decision-making necessary.

"Life is to such persons a series of casualties; things happen well or they happen ill, but they always happen; and the absence of purpose and resolution in themselves makes it impossible for them to understand that these exist in God; so their religion, also, comes to consist of conventional phrases and superstitions" (p. 128).

Do you know what the "governor" on an engine does? It's a regulating device that contains speed or force. It keeps the system from getting out of control. When Charlotte Mason refers to the Will as a governor in Mansoul [or Personsoul], it may help us to add that mechanical image to our ideas of the things that governors do. (Consider this: to will is also a verb.) She will be examining the function of the Will much more closely throughout this section.

For now, she simply gives us that image of "the willless life, marked by a general inanition of powers and an absence of purpose,––beyond that of being as others are, and doing as others do." No regulators, but also no purpose. The prospect is bleak.

But consider this:

"The assumption of an impersonal beginning cannot adequately explain the personal beings we see around us; and when men try to explain man on the basis of an original impersonal, man soon disappears.

"In short, an impersonal beginning explains neither the form of the universe nor the personality of man. Hence it gives no basis for understanding human relationships, building just societies, or engaging in any kind of cultural effort. Itís not just the man in the university who needs to understand these questions. The farmer, the peasant, anyone at all who moves and thinks needs to know. That is, as I look and see that something is there, I need to know what to do with it.  

"...The universe had a personal beginning -- a personal beginning on the high order of the Trinity. That is, before "in the beginning" the personal was already there. Love and thought and communication existed prior to the creation of the heavens and the earth." ~~ Francis Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time

 

"Love came down at Christmas..."

From the archives: What CM teachers really need

First posted October 2013; part of a series.
 
We have principles, tools, and a whole world to explore.
It means that we can stop worrying what the lady at church thinks.
It also means that we have a greater understanding and purpose when we do choose learning materials.

So what does one need for teaching?  (Also here)

One or more persons, also known as children (also here)

The principle of authority, used wisely

The principle of obedience, taught well

The respect due to the personality of children

Three educational instruments--the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit (also here), and the 
presentation of living ideas (also here)

All the knowledge that is proper to children, communicated in well-chosen language

A vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books (also here), for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of "those first-born affinities that fit our new existence to existing things."

The way of the will

The way of reason (also here)

The Divine Spirit who has constant access to their spirits; their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.

~~ Charlotte Mason, "20 Principles," found in Towards a Philosophy of Education and elsewhere

Quote for the day: Frye on the power of practical decision

"It follows that such a cliche as 'teaching the student to think for himself' is not a simple conception either...In real thinking we first study a given subject long enough to enable its laws and categories to take possession of our minds, after which we may move around inside the subject with some freedom. There is no real thought outside such disciplines...Of course a thinker should be able to return to society with an enormously heightened power of practical decision, but by that time he has lost interest in thinking for himself." ~~ Northrop Frye, "The Critical Discipline," an address to the Fellows of Sections I and II of the Royal Society of Canada, June 1960, included in his book On Education 

From the archives: Charlotte Mason and "that sweet thing which she did not buy"

First posted October 2014

"Before she goes 'shopping,' she must use her reason, and that rapidly, to lay down the principles on which she is to choose her dress,--it is to be pretty, becoming, suitable for the occasions on which it is to be worn, in harmony with what else is worn with it.  Now, she goes to the shop; is able to describe definitely what she wants...judgment is prompt to decide upon the grounds already laid down by reason and what is more, the will steps in to make the decision final, not allowing so much as a twinge of after-regret for that 'sweet thing' which she did not buy." ~~ Charlotte Mason, Formation of Character

Photo from The Apprentice's Barbie story, here.

Quote for the Day: The outpouring of a human heart

"The Christian religion is, in its very nature, objective. It offers for our worship, reverence, service, adoration and delight, a Divine Person, the Desire of the world. Simplicity, happiness and expansion come from the outpouring of a human heart upon that which is altogether worthy. But we mistake our own needs, are occupied with our own falls and our own repentances, our manifold states of consciousness. Our religion is subjective first, and after that, so far as we are able, objective. The order should rather be objective first and after that, so far as we have any time or care to think about ourselves, subjective." ~~ Charlotte Mason, Parents and Children, Chapter 26: The Eternal Child

Quote for the day: It's mediocre (Joshua Gibbs on Circe)

"Good things are hard to like, and mediocre things easy. Mediocre things are tailored to our most ready, most easily accessible desires. All men desire beauty and goodness, but those desires lay buried deep within our souls and we are only willing to hoist them out on rare occasions. Liking good things requires effort, but we are accidentally seduced by the mediocre. The man who succumbs early to the temptations of mediocrity knows that, whatever else, he at very least has a great volume of something in store for himself. There is far more money to be made in the mediocre than in the beautiful and good." ~~ "The Dangers of Mediocrity in a Consumerist Society," by Joshua Gibbs on the Circe Blog

Rise and shine (or, the unexpected journey toward minimalist living)

So did you have a chance yet to look at 10 Ways Minimalism Ruined My Life Forever? It's tongue-in-cheek, of course, because the Welder's Wife blog is all about letting things go and living more naturally, a little at a time. An example of her objections: "I no longer have the pleasure of searching for something."  But yes, she's right, in a way. Making more "mindful" choices in any area of our lives takes more brain power than taking the default option. Most times those choices are going to cost us something, or at least force us to use flabby will-muscles that are, naturally, going to object to being roused and stretched.

Our old habits, too, may not take kindly to being ignored. The clean-swept room, and all that. If you find a certain comfort in piles of things, or enjoy having something of an Undiscovered Country in the basement, then trimming stuff down may seem akin to stripping naked. There are always things we would just as soon hide, and I don't mean the garbage bag (or three) full of mouldering stuffed animals or high school t-shirts, but the anxieties and old scripts that brought them in and left them there in the first place. Letting stuff go can feel like you've just been kicked in the hopes and dreams. Or like you've just let somebody down who would be very, very disappointed in you for not keeping that thing.

After giving it some thought, I would say that the biggest thing you might lose, on the way to living with less, is a sense of urgency. Or emergency. That is (as the Welder's Wife said), you miss not only the fun of searching for a needle in a clutter haystack or an overstuffed desk drawer, but the embarrassment, panic, and threatened consequences that sometimes go with those searches. We can find more enjoyable ways to get that adrenaline rush.

And it's true, as that post says, that if we suddenly are freed from shopping and maintaining and paying for things, we may have to face questions like "what else is there to do with my time?" As with silence, many of us are a little uncomfortable with empty spaces, both physical and temporal.

But reality sometimes (thankfully) steps in and gives us no choice, or at least makes very clear what choices we need to make, and fast. A Sold sign out front is one way to do it. For some people like Courtney Carver, change comes after a health crisis.  Or someone asks us to come on a dragon-hunting adventure, with dwarves...and pack light.

Make It Your Own (Part One of Five)

Is "conscious consumerism" a lie?

"When I was a child, my mother said to me,
"Clean the plate, because children are starving in Europe..."
So I would clean the plate, four, five, six times a day.
Because somehow I felt that that would keep the children from starving
in Europe.
But I was wrong. They kept starving. And I got fat." ~~ Allan Sherman

Consider Chrissy Teigen's thousands-of-dollar pyjamas. [A Yahoo news item]

When the world's consumption (and fascination with others' consumption) comes that far, the question of whether I should feel guilty over buying a non-sustainable bath mat at Walmart seems to be a moot point. But since I'm not Chrissy Teigen, and we all have our own rows to hoe, I do think there is a need for personal accountability. It's not just about government policy and corporate bad guys; I want to believe that individual choices do matter.

What are the important principles in our lives? What are the reasons that keep us going? Some possibilities:

* promoting community and relationships between people, including a local economy and traditions such as skills and handicrafts
* creating and maintaining living spaces that are respectful of the humans and other creatures who live there (for example, fighting a new highway that cuts a community in half)
* living orderly lives with integrity, or what Charlotte Mason called "straight living and serviceableness"
* living with contentment, trusting God for our needs
* not being like the Bible's "fat cows of Bashan," rich people who were impervious to the suffering of others
* communicating the hope that we have
* working for both justice and mercy
* valuing creativity (however we might define that)
* caring for creation
* strengthening and supporting families, in whatever areas we have influence: education, worship, leisure, business, medical care
* having "a single eye" (a Christian term akin to the currently popular "mindfulness")
* caring for weak and marginalized people ("no matter how small"), since they are individuals created in God's image

Charlotte Mason understood a lot about the disconnect between our "appetites" and the genuine desires that are based on principles such as those listed above. She said that the willful person (not the person acting with Will) was at the mercy of his appetites and his chance desires (Ourselves, Book II, pages 137-138). Will, for Charlotte Mason, was a good thing. "[Will] "implies impersonal aims...[it means] the power to project himself beyond himself and shape his life upon a purpose." For those who are willful, on the other hand, "life...is a series of casualties." But we are not to confuse the deliberate, disciplined force of Will with virtue: "it is possible to have a constant will with unworthy and even evil ends," or to get to a worthy goal by unworthy means.

We don't want to live our life as a series of casualties, meaning avoidable mishaps and disasters, or, at best, letting the stuff happen that just happens.

We want to project "ourselves beyond ourselves." It's not all about us. We want to master our appetites, not have them master us. This doesn't refer only to food, but to all the good things we naturally desire. We want the discernment that says "enough."

We want to, somehow, get to those good places by worthy means. Whatever that means.

And what does that have to do with thousand-dollar pajamas and cheap bathmats?

Recently we watched an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, where (long story arc made short) there's an ongoing battle to find a bunch of aliens called the Xindi, who are developing a weapon to destroy the Earth. The crew of the Enterprise are being helped by another team of military experts, and their leader develops a rivalry with the Enterprise head of weapons, Lieutenant Reed. Near the end of the episode, the two men go overboard during a training exercise and decide to show each other who's boss. The next scene shows the two of them standing, covered with bruises, in front of the captain, who chews them out for being so egotistical and thoughtless as to risk each other's well-being in the midst of this campaign to find and destroy the Xindi weapon. 

Let's not beat each other up over minimalism. There's too much at stake.

In the next few posts, I will try to look more closely at how we can "own what we do" and make the most of what we own. Part Two is here. Part Three is here. Part Four is here.  Part Five is here.

From the archives: Charlotte Mason, salvation, and service

First posted December 2014

In a post of January 2013, on Philosophy of Education (Volume 6), chapter 3, I wrote this: "[Charlotte Mason] believed that Christian thought had previously over-emphasized the issue of personal salvation, to the neglect of concern for 'the community, the nation, the race.'"

In Ourselves Book II (Volume 4), Chapter XI "Freewill," she sends that message home loudly and clearly. She has been talking about the need for mature adults (not young children who are still developing "the way of the will") to doeverything deliberately, even if everything just means choosing which habits you acquire. 

She scolds not only those who swallow current "intellectual and moral fallacies," but those who settle for "commonplace respectability which never errs, because every act conforms to the standard of general custom; not by choice of will, but in lazy imitation." 

No risk, no pain, but no gain, and even more, no real giving or serving, no object outside of themselves. Aha. She admits that those entrenched in commonplace respectability are "excellent citizens," but sees that they mostly follow the rules, embrace that conventionality, for their own good.

And for her that wasn't good enough. "Life, circumscribed by self, its interests and advantages, falls under the condemnation,––'He that saveth his life shall lose it.'"

"And this reverence must be paid even to those sinners whose souls seem to be dead, because it is Christ, who is that life of the soul, who is dead in them: they are his tombs, and Christ in the tomb is potentially the risen Christ. For the same reason, no one of use who has fallen into mortal sin himself must ever lose hope..." -- Caryll Houselander, A Rocking Horse Catholic (quoted in Elizabeth Goudge, A Book of Comfort)

"Therefore, Christ ate with publicans and sinners, and pronounced woes against the respectable classes because the sinners might still have a Will which might rise, however weakly, at the impact of a great thought, at the call to a life outside of themselves." -- Charlotte Mason, Ourselves

So much for the sinners: what of the respectable, impeccable ones she was talking about before? She uses the word "unconscious," referring to quick and unthinking decision making vs. using the Will, but "unconscious" can also refer to that state of lifelessness that she saw in those who did not consider themselves sinful. In outright sinfulness, there was at least the potential for repentance; complacency seemed more difficult to fight against.

But this is where is gets deeply theological, and those who have ever questioned Charlotte Mason's commitment to Christianity must have missed this passage. I'm paraphrasing here for the sake of length: if you have to serve somebody, God or man, you might possibly end up serving God somewhat without using the Will IF your personal goal is to help other people. That's possible.  BUT you cannot just "drift into the service of God" (her phrase) if your main interest is yourself, EVEN if that main interest is your own salvation. No two ways about it."Will must have an object outside of itself, whether for good or ill; and, therefore, perhaps there is more hope for some sinners than for certain respectable persons." 

In her theology, salvation was important (vital); but the aim of the Christian life was to serve God.

She concludes by saying that you cannot catch hold of the Will and analyze it, define it, count all its parts; like a leprechaun in a field, trying to trap it will elude you. Is it then something that you have to allow to sneak up on you, perhaps like grace that can catch you unaware? Without getting into Calvinist/Arminian Lutheran/Baptist arguments, yes, you are caught by grace, but that grace, she says, may come in the form of an idea or a call that your Will responds to, "however weakly." So there is an act of choosing, of answering and following, and that choice brings you to life "outside of yourself."

From the Archives: Charlotte Mason on how not to be a ShoppingZilla (and read to the end, it's more than shopping)

First posted January 2015. Based on Charlotte Mason's book Ourselves, Book II, "The Scope of Will."

If you don't keep them out, they will sneak in.

 "If we keep the will in abeyance, things and affairs still present themselves, but we allow instead of choosing. We allow a suggestion from without, which runs with our nature, to decide for us. There would not seem to be much difference between the two courses; but most ruined lives and ruined families are the result of letting allowance do duty for will-choice." 

Does that mean you have to go to a lot of fuss every time you make a choice? What if you just make a typical choice for your own lifestyle? Do you have to refuse everything that is "normal?"

"But, you will say, he has not chosen at all! Yes, he has; he has chosen with modesty and good sense to follow the lead set by the common sense of his class."

It's worse to go in with no ideas and let yourself be "sold" something, than to go in with a good but not eye-popping idea and stick to it.

"Or, again, there is the man whose conceit leads him to defy general usage and startle the world with checks and ties, feeling that he is a mighty independent fellow. He is merely obeying the good conceit he has formed of himself, and his daring ventures come of allowance and not of choice." 

If you're not an EverydayZilla, you won't be a BrideZilla.

"The question of a lady's shopping is only a by-issue, but it is well worth considering; for, alas! the shopping scene at Madame Mantalini's is of too frequent occurrence, and is as damaging to the nerves and morale of the purchaser as to those of the weary shopwomen."

Again, it's more than shopping.

"Are we going after the newest and cheapest things in morals and religion? are we picking up our notions from the penny press or from the chance talk of acquaintances? If we are, they are easily come by, but will prove in the end a dear bargain."

Arranging your own convenience (how messing with your own head can be productive)

When you're trying to do the next thing, it helps to know what that thing is. There's an old writer's trick of stopping work in the middle of a chapter, so that when you get back to work, you know exactly where you're at, just pick things up and start writing again.

Many homeschoolers, not all but many of them, do pre-planning in the summer. Sometimes (as in Lydia's Grade 8 year), this goes as far as having an entire year's weekly work written out and bound at Staples. The thinking is that then, even if you change some things, you already have that idea in your head; you know what you're doing, and all that's left is to do it. I know at least one person who made a point of collecting up all the art and science supplies required for the term (or maybe the year) and having them handy in one box. (At least the non-perishable ones.) And it makes sense: even if you don't buy a science kit, shouldn't you have the same convenience as those who do, even if you have to arrange the convenience yourself?

We are not homeschooling this year, but I still do a lot of pre-arranging, maybe more than ever.To quote Aristotle and Mary Poppins, it seems like well begun really is half done. Especially if you buy a lot of zip-lock bags. (Oh, how I love those extra-large ones--and I wonder why I waited all those years to buy any.)

I pre-sorted and pre-cut fabric and supplies for Christmas crafting, and that way I knew how far the fabric was going to stretch, whether I actually had any interfacing, and where the spool of red thread was. When I felt like sewing and had time, I took out the right (large, extra-large) bag and everything was right there, no excuses, just like a craft kit. I think of this as a sort of messing with my own head, in a good way. If you know you tend to procrastinate on things because they're too much work, then having them pre-started can be enough of an incentive to finish them off.

That's one reason freezer-non-cooking has worked well for us this fall.The meals are made, they just have to be cooked. Recently I have done the same thing with dry ingredients for baking (more zip-lock bags, and I do wash and re-use them). I have an awesome bread-machine recipe for whole-wheat bread, but I buy the bag of whole-wheat flour and then forget to make any until the flour goes rancid. (Yes, I know you can freeze it.) I figured out that a small bag of flour makes about three loaves (and a couple of cups left over for muffins), so that's what I did: pre-measured the bread ingredients into bags, wrote on them what else to add (water, oil, yeast), and stored them in the cold room. I did the same for pizza dough and two types of muffins, and some of the ingredients I have collected up for holiday baking. I figured out that we had just enough coconut, but no dried cranberries, so those went on the shopping list.

All this has nicely short-circuited my procrastinatory tendencies, allowing my do-it side to shout a Simpson-esque "HA-HA" at the Daemon of Sloth. Aside from feeling so virtuous and actually getting the sewing completed (so much so that yesterday I just looked at the sewing machine and knew we were done our relationship for this season), it has paid off in more practical terms. At four o'clock yesterday afternoon, I put a bag of pizza-dough mix into the bread machine, let it run its fairly short pizza-dough-mix-rise cycle, preheated the oven, stretched the dough into a big pan, spread it with some garlic margarine Lydia had talked me into buying, sprinkled it with grated cheese (I do buy grated cheese sometimes, especially the mixed Italian kind), pre-cut it into breadsticks with a pizza wheel, and baked the whole thing for about twenty minutes. Mr. Fixit and Lydia got home at 5:30, and the big puffy cheesy breadsticks were just coming out of the oven.

Now here's the truth, if you really need to know how lazy I can be: pizza dough has hardly anything in it anyway. I think all that was in the bag was pre-measured flour and salt. (I added water, oil, and yeast when I mixed it.) It would not have taken much for me to think "bread sticks. Yes, there's a new bag of flour. There's the salt. Measure it out, off we go." Really, I could have managed that. But there's this extra incentive: a zip-lock bag with Pizza Dough written on it, telling me to add things to it, tantalizing me with its existence, begging me to make something out of it. The same with the bags of pre-sorted fabric and trims: "I'm a little XXX waiting to be born. Bring me to life." And freezer meals: "I'm a Crockpot full of chili."

And that's all there is to it.

CM Quote for the Day: A Full Reservoir

 "Now the thought that we choose is commonly the thought that we ought to think and the part of the teacher is to afford to each child a full reservoir of the right thought of the world to draw from. For right thinking is by no means a matter of self-expression. Right thought flows upon the stimulus of an idea, and ideas are stored as we have seen in books and pictures and the lives of men and nations; these instruct the conscience and stimulate the will, and man or child 'chooses.'" ~~ Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education, page 130

"With Folded Hands": Servants, Masters, and the Will

Science-fiction writer Jack Williamson died in 2006; somewhat ironically, that's the year in which his 1947 novelette With Folded Hands was set. A half-hour Dimension X radio adaptation  was made in 1950, and is broadcast periodically on golden-age-of-radio shows.

Without giving away too many spoilers, the story is about servant-robots called Humanoids. They arrive on Earth to serve, protect, and make people happy. Their (extremely irritating) tagline is "At your service." The trouble is, they work too well. They do too much. They protect too much. If you let them in the door, they never leave. And their final method of making people happy is quite drastic.

Did I mention they're indestructible?

I'd forgotten about this story until our local golden-age show played it again this week. Over the next couple of days I kept thinking about how disturbingly close to technological reality some of that is now. But then an even better application came along: this week's chapter from Ourselves.

Guard the postern, says Charlotte Mason. Examine each and every one of those ideas that are all clamouring to get into your Personsoul. Because if you do let them come in, you may end up serving them instead of the other way around. If you sit around with folded hands (without using your Will), the ideas, fads and opinions of others will leave you even more helpless.

Pray first, she says; then go to work examining the applicants, and diverting your thoughts wherever necessary. But if that whole scenario scares you, remember what else she says, and it's something else that came up in this week's Latin lesson: Horatius and his friends had to confront only one enemy at a time.

Even rude comedians sometimes get it right

Grandpa Squirrel shared his copy of last weekend's Globe and Mail with us, and one interesting piece was this column about comedian Louis C.K. (Warning: adult language and content.) Louis C.K. is probably not someone I would enjoy watching or listening to, not my cuppa at all, and I totally don't agree with the last quote in the column, but I liked this part:

"Louis C.K. is a moralist, with a knack for simplifying concepts mistaken for complex. I started watching him around my final year as a philosophy undergrad, and it was like discovering a hole at the base of a tall fence. Here is Kant:
'Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.'
And here is Louis:
'You should act in a way that, if everyone acted that way, things would work out.'” ~~ Alexandra Molotkow, "Louis C.K. Knows How to Pack an Ethical Punchline"

If you don't keep them out, they will sneak in. (Ourselves, Book II: The Scope of Will)

If you don't keep them out, they will sneak in.

 "If we keep the will in abeyance, things and affairs still present themselves, but we allow instead of choosing. We allow a suggestion from without, which runs with our nature, to decide for us. There would not seem to be much difference between the two courses; but most ruined lives and ruined families are the result of letting allowance do duty for will-choice." ~~ Charlotte Mason

Does that mean you have to go to a lot of fuss every time you make a choice? What if you just make a typical choice for your own lifestyle? Do you have to refuse everything that is "normal?"

"But, you will say, he has not chosen at all! Yes, he has; he has chosen with modesty and good sense to follow the lead set by the common sense of his class."

It's worse to go in with no ideas and let yourself be "sold" something, than to go in with a good but not eye-popping idea and stick to it.

"Or, again, there is the man whose conceit leads him to defy general usage and startle the world with checks and ties, feeling that he is a mighty independent fellow. He is merely obeying the good conceit he has formed of himself, and his daring ventures come of allowance and not of choice."

If you're not an EverydayZilla, you won't be a BrideZilla.

"The question of a lady's shopping is only a by-issue, but it is well worth considering; for, alas! the shopping scene at Madame Mantalini's is of too frequent occurrence, and is as damaging to the nerves and morale of the purchaser as to those of the weary shopwomen."

Again, it's more than shopping.

"Are we going after the newest and cheapest things in morals and religion? are we picking up our notions from the penny press or from the chance talk of acquaintances? If we are, they are easily come by, but will prove in the end a dear bargain."

This week's lesson from Ourselves: "The Will and its Peers"

Ourselves, Book II, by Charlotte Mason. Chapter IV The Will And Its Peers  Slightly edited for the feminine perspective.

Photo found here.

The Will subject to Solicitations.––It is rather easeful to think of Will standing before the forces of Girlsoul, saying to this one, 'Go,' and to another, 'Come,' and to a third, 'Do this, and she doeth it.' The Will is subject to solicitations all round from 'the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.' Every dæmon of Girlsoul tries, as we have seen, to get the ear of the Prime Minister, and shows, with plausible reasoning, that she, alone and unaided, is able to satisfy all the wants of the State. From the mere greed of eating and drinking to ambition, that 'last infirmity of noble minds,' every single power of Girlsoul will, if it be permitted, make for misrule. 

But, courage, my Lady Will! and the forces fall into place and obey the word of command. We have already seen how the Reason firm, the enlightened Imagination, the ordered Affections, the instructed Conscience, are at hand with instant counsel towards every act of volition.

Will does not Act alone.––It takes the whole person to will, and a person wills wisely, justly, and strongly in proportion as all her powers are in training and under instruction. It is well to know this, to be quite sure that we may not leave any part of ourselves ignorant or untrained, with the notion that what there is of us will act for the best.

Living means more than the happenings of one day after another. We must understand in order to will. "How is it that ye will not understand?" said our Lord; and that is the way with most of us, we will not understand. We think that in youth there is no particular matter to exercise our Will about, but that we shall certainly will when we get older and go into the world. But the same thing repeats itself: great occasions do not come to us at any time of our lives; or, if they do, they come in the guise of little matters of every day. Let us be aware of this. The 'great' sphere for our Will is in ourselves. Our concern with life is to be fit, and according to our fitness come the occasions and the uses we shall be put to. To preserve Girlsoul from waste, to keep every province in order––that, and not efforts in the outside world, is the business of Lady Will.

Opening hymn for today: Keble, New Every Morning is the Love.

"The trivial round, the common task,
 Will furnish all we ought to ask
 Room to deny ourselves, a road 
To bring us daily nearer God."

Photos by Lydia.

Education is a discipline: It starts with us

At the L'Harmas retreat, Tammy Glaser did a demonstration lesson using "The Story of Grandpa's Sled and the Pig," from Little House in the Big Woods. In the book, Pa uses this family story not only to teach Laura to behave herself on Sundays, but to make the point that his Sabbath-keeping expectations are not nearly as strict as those of previous generations. In other words, she has it comparatively easy.

As do we, around here, in homeschooling.  Non-homeschoolers are downright shocked when I tell them that no, we don't have to send in curriculum reports or have our children write standardized tests. In Ontario, it's more than enough to just send in names and ages. That's good for personal liberty, and I wouldn't have it otherwise, but it can be risky for the parents' self-discipline. There is very little accountability to anyone outside the family.

"What Mary does shows intelligence and pleasure in her work; but then she has done so little. She has only attempted one-third of the questions, and, even so, two of her answers are incomplete."  "She does not know as much as Bessie?"  "She knows six times as much. I believe she could have answered every question had she been able to pull herself together and get the work done in the time." ~~ Charlotte Mason, "The Parents' Review School," in the Parents' Review, Volume 2, 1891/92, pg. 308-317

And Ambleside Online, being a resource, a project, and a community, but not an umbrella school, has no authority either, if one-third or two-thirds of the exam questions get answered, or if the nature notebook stays empty. It's up to the teaching parent. Charlotte Mason conceived the "Parents' Review School" as a means of increasing accountability and discipline in home schools, and AO functions as that for us, to some extent.  But when some of what should be done, doesn't get done, what then? And how does a parent know how much to push?  To require?  How does one actually get Mary to work up to Bessie's example?

"But while we all think that our parents and guardians made gross mistakes with us, and that our turning out so well is entirely due to our superior natural dispositions, we fancy that our children at least will have no cause to complain of their training, and no pretext for making their forbears accountable for their failings and follies." ~~ Mrs. Ward, "'Grit,' Or Raising and Educating our Children," in The Parents' Review,Volume 2, no. 2, 1891/92, pg. 49

Well, first off we want to be examples of what we expect.  Why should we require self-discipline from our children but not from ourselves?

But if it's up to the students to learn good habits and eventually practice the Way of the Will (CM's theory of self-discipline), how do we get them there?

Maybe we start with a story.

(Another Treehouse post you might like: Get Some Grit.)

Use-what-you-choose homeschooling (Part Four, one more to come)

From Part Three:

We have principles, tools, and a whole world to explore.
It means that we can stop worrying what the lady at church thinks.
It also means that we have a greater understanding and purpose when we do choose learning materials. 

So what does one need for teaching?  (Also here)

One or more persons, also known as children (also here)
The principle of authority, used wisely
The principle of obedience, taught well
The respect due to the personality of children
Three educational instruments--the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit (also here), and the presentation of living ideas (also here)
All the knowledge that is proper to children, communicated in well-chosen language
A vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books (also here), for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of "those first-born affinities that fit our new existence to existing things."
The way of the will (also here)
The way of reason (also here)
The Divine Spirit who has constant access to their spirits; their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.

~~ Charlotte Mason, "20 Principles," found in Towards a Philosophy of Education and elsewhere

One more post to come.