Day 86 Family by Family

"Family Embrace," Gustav Klimt

(see also Education)

“The Chief Thing we have to do––The last chapter introduced the thought of parents in their highest function––as revealers of God to their children. To bring the human race, family by family, child by child, out of the savage and inhuman desolation where He is not, into the light and warmth and comfort of the presence of God, is, no doubt, the chief thing we have to do in the world. And this individual work with each child, being the most momentous work in the world, is put into the hands of the wisest, most loving, disciplined, and divinely instructed of human beings. Be ye perfect as your Father is perfect, is the perfection of parenthood, perhaps to be attained in its fulness only through parenthood. There are mistaken parents, ignorant parents, a few indifferent parents; even, as one in a thousand, callous parents; but the good that is done upon the earth is done, under God, by parents, whether directly or indirectly.”

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“But the fussy parent, the anxious parent, the parent who explains overmuch, who commands overmuch, who excuses overmuch, who restrains overmuch, who interferes overmuch, even the parent who is with the children overmuch, does away with dignity and simplicity of that relationship which, like all the best and most delicate things in life, suffer by being asserted or defended.”
 
 
 
Examen:  Who is the primary actor in the “most momentous work in the world?” Do I usually think of myself as supporting parents’ “individual work with each child?”  How does that ease my practice?


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The Chief Thing: Charlotte M. Mason, Parents and  Children,  2:50.
But the fussy:  Charlotte M. Mason, School Education, 3:39.
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Day 86 Family by Family meditation/100 days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025

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