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“Wear the world like a loose garment, which touches us in a few places and there lightly.” ~ attributed to St. Francis of Assisi
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 The calendar says 10 days more of winter but today it might be time to read the sky instead and reach for a kite.  Welcome, March Artwork: George William Russell  Vintage Tomie dePaola What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade
Written by Brad Aaron Modlin Read by Pádraig Ó Tuama Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas, how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took questions on how not to feel lost in the dark After lunch she distributed worksheets that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep without feeling you had forgotten to do something else --something important—and how to believe the house you wake in is your home. This prompted Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks, and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts are all you hear; also, that you have enough. The English lesson was that I am is a complete sentence. And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions, and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking for whatever it was you lost, and one person add up to something. Editor's P.S. Don't be absent -- join our 100 Days of Keeping! Where I Come From
by Elizabeth Brewster People are made of places. They carry with them hints of jungles or mountains, a tropic grace or the cool eyes of sea gazers. Atmosphere of cities how different drops from them, like the smell of smog or the almost-not-smell of tulips in the spring, nature tidily plotted with a guidebook; or the smell of work, glue factories maybe, chromium-plated offices; smell of subways crowded at rush hours. Where I come from, people carry woods in their minds, acres of pine woods; blueberry patches in the burned-out bush; wooden farmhouses, old, in need of paint, with yards where hens and chickens circle about, clucking aimlessly; battered schoolhouses behind which violets grow. Spring and winter are the mind's chief seasons: ice and the breaking of ice. A door in the mind blows open, and there blows a frosty wind from fields of snow. "The very facts of the world are a poem. Light is turned into sugar. Salamanders find their way to ancestral ponds following magnetic lines radiating from the earth. The saliva of grazing buffalo causes the grass to grow taller. Tobacco seeds germinate when they smell smoke. Microbes in industrial waste can destroy mercury. Aren't these stories we should all know?" ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer  Kandinsky, "Winter Landscape" 1909 It's Epiphany. What are you seeing in a new light? Third Advent  Tom Thompson, "Moonlight in Fall, 1914" Advent Two You, God, who live next door--
If at times, through the long night, I trouble you with my urgent knocking-- this is why: I hear you breathe so seldom. I know you're all alone in that room. If you should be thirsty, there's no one to get you a glass of water. I wait listening, always. Just give me a sign! I'm right here. As it happens, the wall between ius is very thin. Why couldn't a cry from one of us break it down? It would crumble easily, it would barely make a sound. I,6 by Rainer Maria Rilke translation by Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy "Truth is never violent; and the newspaper or magazine or book, the party or the public speech, which makes strong and bitter charges against the other side, we may be sure is, for the moment, calumnious; and, if we steep ourselves in such speaking or reading, the punishment that will come upon us is that we shall become incapable of discerning Truth and shall rejoice in evil speaking. Fanaticism.––This is what happens to people when they become fanatics. It is not that they will not believe what is said on the other side, but that they cannot; they have lost the power; and efforts to convince them are futile. A man may be a fanatic for peace or a fanatic for war, a fanatic for religion or a fanatic for atheism. In fact, it is sad that good as well as evil causes may have their fanatics, who injure what they would support by their incapacity to see more than one side of a question. A good cause may also have its martyrs; but a martyr is not a clamorous person; he suffers, but does not shout, for the cause he has at heart. It was good and refreshing, after the calumnious clamour of the press on both sides and in several countries, to come upon a book by a British officer wherein the courage and endurance of Boer and Briton alike were duly honoured, and the Boer women who followed their husbands into the trenches were spoken of with kindliness and reverence. There are few better equipments for a citizen than a mind capable of discerning the Truth, whether it lie on the side of our party or on that of our opponents. But this just mind can only be preserved by those who take heed what they hear, and how." ~ Charlotte M. Mason, Ourselves It could have been me put the thorns in your crown
Rooted as I am in a violent ground How many times have I turned your promise down Still you pour out your love Pour out your love I was a dweller by a dark stream A crying heart hooked on a dark dream In my convict soul I saw your love gleam And you showed me what you've done Jesus, thank-you joyous Son You entered a life like ours to give us back our own You wanted us like you, as choosers not clones You offered up your flesh and death was overthrown Now salvation is ours, Salvation is ours I was a dweller by a dark stream A crying heart hooked on a dark dream In my convict soul I saw your love gleam And you showed me what you've done Jesus, thank-you joyous Son So I'm walking this prison camp world I long for a glimpse of the new world unfurled The chrysalis cracking and moisten winds uncurl Like in the vision John saw The vision John saw I was a dweller by a dark stream A crying heart hooked on a dark dream In my convict soul I saw your love gleam And you showed me what you've done Jesus, thank-you joyous Son Sir Bruce Cockburn |
"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
Images are linked to their original posts where possible. They were chosen because I have found something of value there and hope my readers will likewise find a helpful resource as we explore the philosophy of Charlotte Mason together. In the case of miss-attribution or if you desire your work not be linked, please let me know.
Images are linked to their original posts where possible. They were chosen because I have found something of value there and hope my readers will likewise find a helpful resource as we explore the philosophy of Charlotte Mason together. In the case of miss-attribution or if you desire your work not be linked, please let me know.
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