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When human organisations are housed in enormous, undifferentiated buildings, people stop identifying with the staff who work there as personalities and think only of the institution as an impersonal monolith, staffed by personnel. In short the more monolithic the building is, the more it prevents people from being personal and from making human contact with the other people in the building.
Christopher Alexander via Isa Crawford
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"A wise man does not wish to change his situation, because he knows that it is possible to fulfill the law of God, the law of love, in every situation." Tolstoy
"I THINK that in no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States."
- de Tocqueville  A Sunday School started by Anna Eliza Hunt met here in the 1850s. "Miss Hunt was of sanguine temperament, and had a cultural mind and refined tastes, full of love and appreciation for the good, the true, and the beautiful, wherever she found them. She had a poetical insight, and her interpretation of life was full of imaginative charm. She had the highest trust in the mercy and goodness and love of God, and she loved the church and all its treasure of historic and idealistic beauty."  Her tireless work eventually led to a Church building in 1879. "'What are you reading?' I couldn't help asking her.
Even in my hurry I was curious, as I always am, to see what book is in someone's hands, and when she showed me the book I felt as if it were a magnet and I were a paper clip tumbling toward it." Lemony Snicket "There is nothing more important, according to the Torah, than to preserve human life." Abraham Heschel
"Above all, Mr. Gilbert White is a man of system. Naturalist, physico-theologist. He lives in inches and ounces and hours and degrees. Matter flows in upon him. New information crowds in every day. He examines the forest sand through a microscope--smooth from collision, a yellow color. Watches the weather glass closely. Supine is the man who fails to put out his thermometer.
Weather on March 20, 1780, the day I was first set loose in Selborne? Dark, moist, and mild. Fifty degrees. Southwest wind. Full moon. Crocuses in high bloom. A matter of record. Mr. Gilbert White chronicles rain and snow and barometric pressure. As if they were baptisms and burials and marriage s in the parish register--the death of Anne Wheeler, age twenty-four, last year, or the union of William Trimming and Elizabeth Bartholomew. The burial, just a few days ago of Mary Burbey, age sixteen, of this parish, "by me, Gil White curate." Sixteen years and gone. A mayfly's life. The human year 1751, Mr. Gilbert White records, 'was one of the wettest Years in the memory of Man.' He is able to report that the 24th of August, 1764 was 'the fourth most beautiful harvest-day that ever was seen.' Glass very high. 'Those that had the most patience will have by much the best corn,' he declares, like the parson he is. He identifies four hundred and thirty-nine local plants. Traveler's joy, twayblade, eye-bright cow wheat, go-to-bed-at-noon. Knee-holly, or butcher's broom. Knows the common tongue for plants and the learned one too. Which birds possess a local name--the sit-ye-down. And which don't--Regulus non cristatus. " Verlyn Klinkenborg "So to us in wartime, cut off from mental distractions by restrictions and blackouts, and cowering in a cellar with a gas mask under threat of imminent death, comes in the stronger fear and sits down beside us.
'What,' he demands, rather disagreeably, 'do you make of all this? Is there anything you value more than life, or are you making a virtue of necessity? What do you believe?" Is your faith a comfort to you under the present circumstances?' At this point, before he has time to sidetrack the argument and entangle us in irrelevancies, we shall do well to reply boldly that a faith is not primarily a comfort, but a truth about ourselves. What we in fact believe is not necessarily the theory we most desire or admire. It is the thing that, consciously or unconsciously, we take for granted and act on. Thus, it is useless to say that we believe in the friendly treatment of minorities if, in practice, we habitually bully the office clerk; our actions clearly show that we believe nothing of the sort. Only when we know what we truly believe can we decide whether it is comforting. If we are comforted by something we do not really believe, then we had better think again. " Dorothy Sayers IF
- Rudyard Kipling If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!  "It's enjoyable to sit with a big sheet of paper and map out what the best arrangement for a typical day or week would be for you. It's not a fantasy - you're not daydreaming about a roster of lovers or the ideal time for the butler to bring the cocktail tray. The ideal routine is closely aligned with your actual life: it tries to set out a good way of organizing the things you are already involved with." Small Pleasures
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"Ideas
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"Perhaps this is one of the secrets of life--to know 'glory' when we see it."
--Charlotte Mason
Virtual Life?
A wee explanation: this website was created as a way to amplify the daily surprise of seeing glory in one small life. The notebook entries represented here are all selected from things actually lived and noted on paper in an effort to live the full life British educator Charlotte Mason so ably championed.
In Appreciation
Photos chosen are linked to their original posts in most cases because I have found something of value there and hope my readers will likewise find a helpful resource. In the case of miss-attribution or if you desire your work not be linked, please let me know.
Photos chosen are linked to their original posts in most cases because I have found something of value there and hope my readers will likewise find a helpful resource. In the case of miss-attribution or if you desire your work not be linked, please let me know.
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