My family has been part of the classical education restoration since 1995. In terms of the contemporary movement, that's a long time. Man of the House teaches Latin, Greek, and ancient literature. We have both taught at a classical Christian school. We've attended ACCS conferences. We have read most of the "right" books, and we even agree with some of them. ;-) We attempted/are attempting to educate our own children in the classical tradition. (I use the verb "attempt" because I know we have not really captured classical education in all its fullness. Having so far to come in our own education leaves us starting out behind, but I believe by God's grace our children are better off than we were. Our hope is that they will contine recovering what has been lost with their own children.) We've been around the modern classical movement for awhile.
When it comes to being Lutherans, we are newbies. It's only been two and a half years since we made the move officially, but we have a good five years of prior study, prayer, and discussion to our credit. During those two and half years we have come to greatly appreciate the historic liturgy. Even Girl of the House prefers it. Lying just under the surface of my active thoughts during the divine service is an awareness of the connection the liturgy has to the church of the past and the saints who have gone before us. The richness and timelessness of worshiping the Lord using the very forms and words that the early Christians used is unequalled by any other mode of organizing a church service that I have ever participated in . . . and I've seen quite a few. After these few short years, I cannot imagine going back. I would miss the liturgy too much, and I'm thankful for faithful Lutheran pastors who still use it.
Now, what have these two paragraphs to do with each other? They raise a question in my mind: Why don't those who espouse classical education also espouse classical worship more often? We classical educators, whether in schools or at home, spend a lot of time looking to the past when it comes to history, literature, educational methods, etc. We rightly extol the timeless classics of past centuries, but we participate in worship that employs modes and methods that are anything but timeless. Contemporary worship services and praise songs pass their freshness dates within a few months. The historic liturgy has been around for at least a millenium and a half. It is an inconsistency I didn't see myself until my family moved to a liturgical tradition. So what I'm offering here is food for thought. If we go to so much effort to bring classical education to our children, should we not also give them classical worship?
Yes, I'm going to rant again, but I'll keep it short.
When one attends a formal or semi-formal wedding, one should not wear cargo shorts. If the groom and groomsmen are in tuxes and the bride and bridesmaids are wearing formal dresses, cargo shorts are not in keeping with the nature of the occasion. Come on, fellas, at least put on a pair of dress pants and a polo shirt, for crying out load! Even that falls short, but cargo shorts?! I ask you!
At the wedding we attended Saturday I saw three ~ count 'em, three! ~ young men (er . . . excuse me . . . guys) wearing cargo shorts. Their mothers would have hung their heads in shame had they seen their progeny so attired for an occasion of such import. People, what you wear speaks volumes about what you think of the function you are attending and the people with whom you are attending it. It is not okay to wear to a wedding what you would wear to mow your grass. The two are not of equal import and do require different clothing. And I'm sorry to say that this plague of inappropriate dress is found not only among the young. I see middle-aged and elderly people doing the same thing in increasing numbers. The rampant casualness of American society is getting out of hand. You don't have to wear a suit to change the oil, but how about to a friend's wedding? Show some respect, for Pete's sake.
Allow me a teeny rant, please. It used to be that a standing ovation was given only at truly great and wondrous performances. A regular concert-goer should expect to give possibly ten in his whole life. I myself have only twice been so awed by a musical performance that I felt compelled to stand, and they were both when I was in college. How is that I can't recall a single performance of the past decade that has not resulted in the audience leaping to its collective feet? High school musicals, preschool Christmas pageants, the Vienna Boys Choir, Aunty Tilly playing "The Old Rugged Cross" on her musical saw at the church talent night~~they ALL receive standing ovations. It is now a meaningless gesture. Stop and think about this for a moment: If we honor Aunt Tilly and the VBC equally with a standing ovation, what is left when we as an audience really do sense that we've just witnessed something extraordinary and want to express our awe and appreciation? Or can we no longer distinguish what is truly outstanding? As much as we might enjoy Aunt Tilly's saw and love Aunt Tilly herself, we should not honor mediocrity that way. Applaud till your hands fall off if you wish to, but stay seated. Don't budge, even if you are the only one in the hall still sitting. Resist the peer pressure if you don't think in the depths of your soul that a standing O is warranted. I've done it many times and have never been mobbed afterwards. We must stem the tide of over-praising and this is as good a place to begin as any. Stand with me! Errrr . . . I should say, Sit with me! ;-)
Every family has its own culture. That culture is based on shared experiences such as dinnertime rituals, vacations, holiday traditions, and sometimes trials and tribulations. Those experiences give families their own language and inside jokes and references. Just as many families have done, our family language has borrowed extensively from books and movies. Last week I began making a list of the lines we've borrowed and that are now an everyday part of our family culture. The list is six pages long and I'm still adding to it as we think of new ones! I thought it would be fun to share some of those from time to time. I'll give some below, and you try to guess the source. Some are more obvious than others, and I don't guarantee that I have the quotes exactly correct, but they should be recognizable. Feel free to leave your guesses in the comments. The prize is the knowledge of a job well done. :-)
Here we go:
The proprieties must be observed at all times.
There’s more to him than meets the eye.
Is this a kissing book?
Constant viligance!
I need two kinds of ice cream. I'm recuperating.
What does MRCVS mean to you?
Don’t want anymore corpses. Get a reputation.
Cyril never has any money.
No lickin', no larnin'.
Great doctrinal import
Things are boiling up nicely.
Things are not very good around here.
They’ll be safe with me; I’ve got twelve guns in my room.
I want some PTA!
It's a pome. I'm quotin'!
You shall not pass!
Difficulty distinguishing sounds
If I had ever learnt, I would be a true proficient.
I have a rant to make on a piddly subject, but it grates on my nerves, so here goes.
When you buy someone something for Christmas, you GIVE it to him. You don't GIFT it to him, for Pete's sake. You are GIVING presents, not GIFTING them. The hideous Thomas Kinkade knock-off statuette that you dear mother-in-law presented you with last Christmas? She GAVE it to you; she did not GIFT it to you. The nifty-neato present you've got for your husband all wrapped beautifully and waiting under the tree? GIVE it to him; don't GIFT it. "Gift" is not a verb in this context. It's a noun~a NOUN, I tell you! The child genius who lives next door is gifted, as in he's been given a gift of extraordinary intelligence, but he's not being given as a gift. The lady at your church who sings like Renee Fleming is a gifted singer. She is gifted with an incredible voice, but she is not being given as a present. I know you can see the difference. You're intelligent. You're smart. Please stop the madness before I'm driven mad myself!
If we didn't already have a verb to denote the bestowing of something, then I would not complain. But we do, and it's a good verb; it's a fine verb; in fact, it's an exemplary verb. Please, give "GIVE" a chance.
All right. There. Humph. I feel better now that that's off my chest. Please resume your regularly scheduled holiday preparations. Ho ho ho!
And the coup de grace~~Top 20 Worst Nativity Sets. People, the medium in which you place your message matters! As Mammy from Gone with the Wind would say, "It ain't fittin'. I just ain't fittin."
There's been a bit of a controversy this past week over an article published in the Wall Street Journal about boys and reading. I was working on a post about it but then saw that Cindy at Ordo Amoris had already said it very well. She's a homeschooling mother of eight boys and a girl, several of whom are graduated, so she knows something about this topic. Go read her post and be enlightened. Links to the original WSJ article and a response from Scholastic are there too.
If you homeschool or plan to homeschool, making Cindy's blog a regular stop on your blog reading schedule will be well worth your time.
When Man of the House and I were married, like most newlyweds we didn't have much money. I was teaching part-time and he was still in school and working part-time. We rented a rather ramshackle trailer and decorated it in typical early newlywed style with mismatched hand-me-down furniture and dorm room leftovers. It was necessarily cheap, though, but we worked to make it as comfortable as we could. Sometimes I would be envious of the gorgeous houses with impeccable lawns I would see as I drove around our midwestern town. It was a prosperous and growing university town with acres and acres of newly constructed houses. But it occurred to me one day that I was just as warm and dry in my small, slightly dilapidated trailer as they were in their big, fancy houses. The roof of my trailer kept the rain out just as well as the roof of the gorgeous Georgian home I coveted in a neighborhood several times removed from mine. Were those people any better off if any real way? I didn't think so. In fact, I was discovering that many of those families in those neighborhoods were not as happy as Man of the House and I were. I wouldn't have traded places with them.
I was reminded of that first year a few nights ago when I was washing dishes. Out my kitchen window I could see the luminous half-moon suspended above the trees with a few wispy clouds sailing across it in a royal blue sky. It was truly beautiful! I thought to myself that it wouldn't be any more beautiful if I were gazing at it from the balcony of a mansion or any less beautiful if seen from the flap of a tent. Those kinds of riches are priced the same for everyone: taking time to enjoy the beauty that no one can buy.
"Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you'" (Hebrews 13:5).
My poor little blog has suffered lately. It’s a busy time of year for us teachers and homeschooling moms with standardized testing of various sorts, planning for next year, registration for classes opening soon, not to mention the extra time outside. Because, yes! spring is here! But more on that in a minute. First I want to pick up the Sunday hymn posts, which so far is a series of one. Lol So here goes . . .
Sunday Hymn~~St. Patrick’s Breastplate (I Bind unto Myself Today)
The text of this hymn is attributed to the well-known St. Patrick, a Briton who in the 5th century went to Ireland to evangelize the pagans and is now the patron saint of that country. It is a lorica, or prayer for protection, and if you think about it, it is no surprise that Patrick would ask the Lord for protection in a wild land full of people hostile to the faith. The words are powerful:
I bind unto myself today The strong name of the Trinity By invocation of the same, The Three in One and One in Three.
I bind this day to me forever, By pow’r of faith, Christ’s incarnation, His baptism in the Jordan River, His cross of death for my salvation, His bursting from the spiced tomb, His riding up the heav’nly way, His coming at the day of of doom, I bind unto myself today.
I bind unto myself today The pow’r of God to hold and lead, His eye to watch, his might to stay, His ear to hearken to my need, The wisdom of my God to teach, His hand to guide, his shield to ward, The Word of God to give me speech, His heav’nly host to be my guard.
Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
I bind unto myself the name, The strong name of the Trinity By invocation of the same, The Three in One and One in Three, Of whom all nature hath creation, Eternal Father, Spirit, Word. Praise to the Lord of my salvation; Salvation is of Christ of Lord! Amen!
The tune is called, not surprisingly, St. Patrick, but I have been unable to find out anything else about it except that it comes from the Liber Hymnorum (“Hymn Book”—imaginative title, isn’t it? Lol), which consists of two manuscripts kept in Dublin. The meter is irregular, meaning that there is no regular pattern of syllables for the lines. The tune has that lovely Celtic sensibility that defies definition . . . at least, I’m not able to define it!
Here’s a rendition on pipe organ:
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We have had several days of gorgeous weather with blue skies and temperatures in the 60’s and even 70’s. The daffodils had been hovering on the brink of blooming, just waiting for warmth to make them pop out. And pop out they did in the past few days. My mini daffodils are blooming, and there are other signs of life as well~trees budding, the first hints of forsythia, birdsong in the mornings. I’m just beginning to realize how important flowers are to me. I’ve always loved them, but I’m beginning to sense how much they contribute to my mental well-being, and not just flowers but blue sky and sunshine too. I’m feeling a little guilty about that because I want to rejoice in the Creator, but I know that the creation points me to Him, and I think that ultimately I am rejoicing in Him but also in the good gifts He has given. It would be wrong, in fact, not to notice His gifts to us and be thankful for them, like an ungrateful child who does not recognize that his food, shelter, clothing, and all the things he needs for his well-being are his because his parents have worked hard to provide them. I’m reminded of a Lewis quote (as in Clive Staples) that I can’t recall the source of or the exact wording, but it goes something like this: The sunbeam is beautiful and is to be admired, but it leads our gaze up to the source of the light, the sun. So it is with God’s good gifts. He gives us all we need and more, and those gifts should lead our grateful thoughts to Him.
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Last of all, but certainly not least of all, today is Johann Sebastian Bach’s birthday. Born in Eisenach, Germany, in 1685, he was the son of a musician in a family of musicians. Bach was not known as a composer during his lifetime. In fact, he was thought to be rather pedantic and old-fashioned, and his last employers were disappointed that their first two choices were not available. “Since the best man was not available,” they said, “a lesser man will have to do.” If only they had known that Bach would eventually be recognized as the greatest composer the Western world has ever seen!
After his death in 1750 (and often before) his music languished in obscurity until Felix Mendelssohn, a fellow Lutheran, staged a production of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in Leipzig in 1829 that birthed the Bach revival, first in Germany, then in Europe and beyond.
Bach was a devout Lutheran who wrote all his music to the glory of God. He often inscribed “Jesus, help me” or “To the Glory of God Alone” in his manuscripts. His two wives bore him twenty children, ten of whom died in childhood. (I can’t even imagine!) Several of his sons came to be composers better known during their lifetimes than he was during his lifetime. Despite the loss of many of his mansucripts, Bach has left a legacy of music that is one of the very greatest achievements of the West.
If you are new to Bach, I suggest starting with his Brandenburg Concertos. There are six, and they are all fun. Go on to the orchestral suites from there. If you have several hours to spare, try the B Minor Mass or the St. Matthew Passion. The solo cello suites are elegant simplicity. There is more wonderful music than I can list here, but these are a start.
“It is only in recent generations that society does not recognize the importance of the person making a home.”
This quotation from Brenda reminded me of something that I have been noticing the last several years as I read books more than, say, fifty years old or watch movies based on those older books. My observation is this: Until the feminist revolution, people generally regarded the home and all that goes with it, including children, as so undeniably important that they thought it necessary that someone~the wife~be there to oversee it, to guide it, and to guard it. The feminists have tried to convince women (and they’ve been largely successful, more’s the pity) that we have been held back and chained down through the ages by our homemaking responsibilities, but the reality is that women were given the privilege of performing the incalculably essential tasks of homemaking. Today, we tend to think of the home and all its attendant duties as unimportant, at least not as important as a career, but men especially regarded it as a sacrifice that they gladly made for the women in their lives to be the ones who left home each day for office, shop, factory, or fields. The women held the privileged position of getting to stay home.
This attitude is evident in many older books. An example that comes readily to mind is from Anne of Green Gables. When Anne is relating to Marilla the circumstances of her birth, she says that her mother was a teacher before she married, but of course, she gave that up when she tied the knot because a husband was enough responsibility. Dickens presents us with the a counter example in Bleak House in the personage of the slovenly and preoccupied Mrs. Jellyby. She is so busy doing charitable work for the unknown Africans across the sea that her household and children are in utter and complete shambles due to her negligence. The message is very clear: Don’t be like Mrs. Jellyby! Your family is too important not to receive your ample attention! Widowers and bachelors regularly hired housekeepers to maintain their homes in the absence of a wife because they knew they couldn’t do the job themselves. They valued their homes and domestic condition enough to hire someone to look after what they themselves couldn’t.
It’s not drudgery to make a home. It’s a privilege and blessing, and every wife whose husband values her work enough to give her that privilege and blessing ought to thank him for it!
I have two bang-on articles to share with you today.
The first article is from Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon. He writes regarding the important education children receive at the family table, and I wholeheartedly agree, though I hadn’t thought of all the points he makes here. My family has always made it a point to eat dinner together most evenings. I am continually surprised at how few families do! We limited activities that would interfere with dinnertime, but that’s not to say we outlawed every one of them. If it was a worthy endeavor, then we’d work mealtimes around it, but the overwhelming majority of our dinners are shared as a family. And now, after reading this, I’m gladder’n’ever that we do!
The second is from the American Enterprise Institute. I am especially interested in it because the subject of the article, Prof. Patrick Allitt of Emory University, is also one of the lecturers in the Teaching Co.’s US history course Girl 2 used in high school. He was very knowledgeable and engaging, and after reading this article, I’m sure he’s even more so in person. Also, I relate to his lament; I see some of the same complaints from my own students, who are junior and senior high school age. I am strengthened in my resolve with my remaining homeschooled child and my students to stick to my persnickety ways!
The great state of _________ requires every homeschooled student between the ages of six and sixteen to undergo either yearly standardized testing or a portfolio evaluation. For many reasons (which I may go into at some other time), we’ve chosen the portfolio option for Girl 2. Some years we’ve done both. After six years, I can tell you that the yearly evaluation undermines rather than enhances my teaching of our younger daughter. Here’s how: I believe that Girl 2 is one of those non-mathematically inclined children who would have greatly benefitted from waiting for formal mathematics until age ten or so, but because we are required by the state to submit either a standardized test score or a portfolio evaluation of her math studies and abilities, we could not wait until age ten. So we’ve plunged ahead, working slowly and painstakingly through many a math lesson, sometimes with tears (on both our parts!) and with Girl 2’s growing dread and dislike of math. She declares at least once a week that she hates math and is bad at it. And I can only wonder how she’d feel about it if she’d been allowed to wait until she was ready for it, until her brain had matured and she’d stand a better chance of excelling. She might not love it, but I doubt she’d be convinced that she is a math dunce. The moral of the story: Sometimes the government’s attempts to improve education actually hinder it.
Wish I had written this. The Man of the House and I have had maybe a dozen traditional dates since we got married in 1987, and our marriage is none the worse for it. In fact, it may be better because we have learned to live happily together in the everyday, to savor the ordinary moments together (which are usually pretty extraordinary if we think about it), and to build a very satisfying life together without the external bells and whistles of nights on the town, etc. We enjoy each other’s company and snatch time together whenever we can. Our favorite is our near daily walk, but there are other times: talking in bed in the hushed silence of the late-night house, early breakfasts together before anyone else is up, even conversations over IM when we need a little privacy but the house is full. I don’t think our ancestors planned regular dates, and we don’t need to either. If you can do it and want to, do, but don’t think your marriage is doomed because you can’t or you find that you don’t really enjoy it. Give yourself the freedom to spend time together as it fits you and don’t be bound by others’ expectations.
