Category: Faith

Gratitude & Glories {1st week of September}

amyofhearthridge7 Comments

~I am thankful for this week…

~ darling baby “reading” with the “click clack moo” cadence his Click, Clack, Moo book ~ postponed graduation party of a friend, so nice to visit for hours at a beautiful park ~ riding alone with my oldest to do an errand, uninterrupted time to chat ~ corn on the cob for dinner, sitting around and talking long with all the children ~ my husband playing Sheepshead with the children while I went to bed early~ letters of encouragement in the post ~ rereading my shelf, all the favorites that bring me so much joy ~ Pauline Banes illustrated end papers of Professor Tolkien’s words ~

~”walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit”, Holy Scriptures inspiring our first morning of formal back to {home}school ~ morning nature ramble for half hour after breakfast each day, poetry, devotions, and Scriptures ~ neat connections between Roman history and Hans Brinker of all things, by my oldest ~ sketching in our timeline journals called a Book of Centuries ~ reading of cow horn lanterns and time candles ~ all the lovely new books we cracked open~ hard adjustments, after all, first days are always that way, but good just the same ~

~elderberry syrup making by my 11 yo, Ella ~ convicting, helpful marriage reminders through an old book ~ one of my children working on a written narration from the Fairie Queen, really enjoying it ~ picnic table schooling in gorgeous, warm, flickering sunlight ~ watching an older version of Little Women with Greer Garson as Aunt March with my middles and littles. We really enjoy this version!

~Full gorgeous Corn Moon and very windy, my wind chimes singing away ~ seeing the lovely Butter-n-Eggs on our nature ramble, among many favorite late summer flowers~ drove older two for bank errand, post office stop, and ice cream scoop, very fun albeit, I’m a nervous wreck about number 2 driver’s ed student 😉 ~ Benjamin (6 yo) helping me make beef and brown rice for supper ~ Redwall or an OZ book being read in evenings before bed ~ old pair of jeans dug out and cut up, making slings, love when they get creative with what’s on hand ~ my 13 yo enjoying a video Latin program we are trying out ~

~starting earlier, getting done earlier, so we have time to do our own things ~ reading out on the lawn chair in the sun ~ our old folksong and hymn CDS being taken out and listened to, just like meeting with old friends again ~ lots of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong while we work in journals or on copywork ~ a beloved daughter begging to read just a little bit more of The Secret Garden ~ delicious bucket of garden fresh tomatoes and basil from my brother and sister-in-laws garden ~ date out for a moon filled sky and cheese burger and veggies ~ new book in the post, Romancing the Ordinary, that looks lovely ~ apple, grape, and late raspberry snacks from our orchard ~ getting a big clothing/porch/storage area cleaned and organized while beginning to listen to Anna Karenina ~

So much to be thankful for this week! How ’bout you?

Gratitude & Glories {4th week of August}

amyofhearthridge6 Comments

IMG_20200828_160846_396

This week I’m thankful for…

~a few days at the cozy cabin, beating the surprise heat wave ~ gorgeous drive and rereading The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery ~ baby’s happiness to be out of the van and running up and down the hall, his short, stubby legs tooling around ~ children building in the sand, burying one another, and swimming ~ napping ~ dropping off Amos and some children for a tubing run, driving in silence to the pick up point, gorgeous sun and quiet, riverside ~ seeing a Kingfisher twice! ~ bonfire smell and crackle ~ delicious peaches with my breakfast ~ rainy, but cool, romance-tinged air in-between rain showers ~ canoeing on a lovely little lake…so peaceful ~ wooden bridges and pines ~ glass-like lakes reflecting the sky and treeline~ green everywhere ~ lilypads ~ oldest son dragging us through a shallow connecting inlet, laughs all around ~

 

~ hard days that drive us to our knees, humbling this mama ~ catching up on piles, so satisfying ~ new Christmas book arriving in the post, can’t wait to share it with the children ~ early morning prayer and reflection time ~ commonplacing quotes that I’ve read for further reflection and meditation ~ picking a bouquet of flowers and weeds for the table with my Ben ~ a library poetry book and CD listened to over and over again, delighting us all ~ library pickup again, checking out The Mouse Mansion yet again and may need to make our own mouse house, a good autumn/winter project possibly ~ Ella, Phoebe, Benjamin, and Gideon helping me make homemade pizza and zucchini pizza, candle lit, and little hands shredding cheese so chubby and sweet ~ my husband’s invitation to go out and watch the lightening with him, he knows I love the wild and windy approaching of a storm, just what I needed to blow away a case of cobwebbys! ~ last dates to local drive-in cafe before it closes for the season, love their coleslaw~

 

~a morning thunderstorm welcoming Friday in ~ some older children not going to work and helping me purge, rearrange, and spruce up our homeschool supply closet, living room, and library a bit ~ encouraging vlogs and little tidbits I’m reading here and there, preparing my heart and mind for school beginning next week ~ the way the wind whipped my sunflowers and the apples in the orchard, the black willows gorgeous in the sunlight ~ cooler weather rolling in today ~ Ella and Phoebe getting to spend time with a beloved grandma and friends, swimming and playing games ~ haircuts for three of my boys, so good to see their eyes again 😛 ~ Louis Armstrong and blog perusing ~ and look at this lovely mug on sale! ~ continued regular afternoon tea set up by my Ella ~ barn swallows still swishing and swooping my spirit up, up, and up ~ goldenrod bouquets on my book table ~

How was your week? I’ll leave you with this lovely quote that I jotted down in my commonplace journal ~

“As August comes to her slow and dreaming end, the air has a special smell, the smell of ripening, the smell of drying hay, the smell of the piney woods in the cool of the evening. The strange rusty smell of marigolds and the prickling odor of zinnias, and so exciting to breathe it all in! I do not, ever, like ends. I like beginnings and rich plump middles, but ends are always sad. Of all the ends in this old unquiet world, though, the end of summer is one of the best. For the first small throb of color in the swamp maples in September is a fine thing to behold. And the first nip of the air on a golden morning is heavenly to feel after the languor of summer’s heat.”

~ Gladys Taber

Gratitude & Glories {3rd week of August}

amyofhearthridge8 Comments

20200818_181230

This week I’m thankful for…

~busy Sunday, full to the brim with a graduation of our two older boys from a scouting camp through our church ~ picnic and flea market moments, talking with a sweet woman from Chicago at park ~ free water park tickets from my husband’s aunt ~ time for me to run to JoAnn Fabrics and use up a coffee gift card, Iced Breve latte was so delicious ~ some ribbon for my new apron and felt for some Christmas softies for my middles/littles ~ new-to-us ping pong table, laughs on fitting it into our van ~ date with Amos to hash out some things, delish hamburger patty and veggies ~ gorgeous drive to a bungalow that some mom friends and I rented for a few days ~ cooking healthy meals for each other ~ tea, devotions, and prayer time ~ strolls through lovely neighborhoods, a favorite house with a lavish Zinna fence border ~ hiking, talking, and admiring lovely, expansive views ~coffee with healthy muffins, fruit, and yogurt parfait ~ small gifts from the friends, bags of veggies, helpful recipes and charts, and other little tokens to help on our health journey ~

~ my middle kids watching The Hideaways movie based on the book, The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – some of my children loved this book, others disliked it and the movie brought a similar reaction, but fun all the same ~ loving new prayer app someone told me about and morning hush this week took on a new meaning to me, just introducing something fresh ~ lovely moments just laying out together on lawn chairs in shady, dappled light from our tree ~ my “outdoor” office as I try to wrap up school planning ~ sun-soaked breezy naps w/pillow and soft coffee-mug blanket outdoors ~ garage sale, finding a perfect fit of a book for one of my children’s school lessons for $2 ~ Joe’s Coconut coffee coming in the post, mmmmm ~ church outing, nice to see family and friends ~ trying new recipes, eating beets for the first time! ~ getting a good grocery list/menu plan down for the next few weeks ~ crafting with pretty washi tapes and nice, scritch scratchy pens, a third “draft” of my school ideas for the new year ~

~ a recommendation from a friend of a couple of lovely new-to-us picture books from the library we’ve been lingering over, Monarch and Milkweed by Helen Frost and Leonid Gore and Daylight Starlight Wildlife by Wendell Minor, highly recommend both~ catching and releasing a baby mouse, one daughter sketching it ~ oatmeal with Greek yogurt, cinnamon, a couple walnuts, and oh, the glorious PEACHES ~ writing a 4 page letter to a lovely pen pal ~ dipping in and out of a few books ~  continuing the resurrected afternoon tea time per my lovely 11 yo daughter who brews, bakes, and sets it all up ~

What wonderful slow wrap up this August has been to summer…not sure I’m quite ready to leave it! God is faithful! How did your week go?

~

Monday Ponderings {August 17th}

amyofhearthridgeLeave a comment

20200728_071652

“The Generosity” ~ by Luci Shaw

What well-chosen small presents arrive almost every day,

wrapped in the newspaper of the ordinary.

No ribbons. No gift cards.

Just the coin of the sun glinting behind a gray broth of clouds.

A knuckle of dark rock exposed as 

a freeze lets go and the snow settles in its own melting.

Trees showing off their good bones, skeletal, naked – 

their fractual structures echoing 

the repeating patterns of atoms. 

Yesterday a tender rain came and went,

and the grass drank and was refreshed.

And today, a raven feather on the sidewalk

and wings in the sky,

memos from heaven everywhere.

 

~

{a pen pal friend, Bonnie, sent this to me recently

and it touched me greatly. Hope it does for you, too.

Happy Monday!)

Gratitude & Glories: {2nd week of August}

amyofhearthridge10 Comments

20200728_071826

This week I’m thankful for…

~Sunday, early morn quiet, coffee, moon and stars, sure and steady, prayer, Bible & books ~ is it a boat or bowl? from a curved leaf conversation with Benjamin ~ rereading prayer journal entries, Jesus’ faithfulness~ 5 year journal, loving it ~ swallows and finches roosting in our ash tree in the evening before dusk, chirping and chattering and then going silent for the night ~ early morning chirping again, greeting the dawn ~ house wren pair ~ fog, sunrise, Queen Anne’s Lace ~ online Zoom picture study of Brueghel’s,  “The Preaching of St. John the Baptist” and discussion after it~

Pieter_Brueghel_The Elder - The Preaching of St. John the Baptish

~cuddling with 1 year old at 1:00 am as he plays with my face and eyelashes, his wide Precious-Moment-like eyes looking at me sweetly ~ explosion of Morning Glories on deck railing, never failing to encourage me, my own private little Anne-Blythe-Idlewild, if you will ~ listening to my sweet 11 yo on library pick up date and snuggling later with her on deck as we watch the stars ~ my husband getting out the telescope and telling me about how he and some children looked at the night sky and sketched some of what the saw ~ impromptu lunch picnic under the Honey Locust of delish chicken, zucchini, and brown rice stir fry ~ decaf cuppa of vanilla hazelnut in the afternoon ~ washing my face with rosemary lavender bar soap, so refreshing ~ looking at old Taproot magazines outdoors for crafting inspiration with my middle and little children ~ Christmas handmade planning beginnings, better start now, or they won’t get done ~ Queen Anne’s lace added to my nature journal ~

 

 

~delicious bits of atmospheric Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase (not one I’d 100% recommend, FYI), happily searching for the elusive type of read I love ~ the glow-y hour of the evening, looking silently at the chickens, baby boy and I ~ a friend recommending this podcast on addiction, sparking a lot of ideas and offering hope ~ pursuing some lovely domestic type books, especially my favorite one for creating inspiration ~ atmospheric soundtracks on Youtube ~ dragging out sewing machines with my middle and littles ~

 

 

~ working on organizing sewing/crafting items ~ little doll aprons ~ Noah passing written driver’s exam ~ school planning, almost done – surely have way too much on list, but will have to run it for awhile to see what needs tweaking ~ writing a long letter to a pen-pal ~ beautiful countryside passing by as I helped my husband move farm equipment around ~reading in car while waiting for boys to finish lawn mowing job, sipping coffee from ball jar ~ baking gingerbread biscuits (we felt in an autumn-ish mood) with Ella, Phoebe, and Ben for tea time and the freezer, used up a can of black treacle I had in cupboard ~ now I have the beautiful tin to find English Ivy to put in! ~ watching Miss Potter with kids that night and bringing out our collection of Beatrix Potter books to ooh and ahh over, the Hill Top photos in the movie bringing back my trip there in 2016, swoon ~

 

 

 ~ swooning over Lore Pemberton’s art, I was given a piece of her work for Mother’s Day this year and it’s just one of my favorite things EVER ~ concert done by the middles and littles for my husband and I, so wonderfully sweet and screechy at the same time 😉 ~ missing my older boys who are camping and oldest daughter who’s working and hanging with friends, but trying to let go and begin embracing different seasons ~ got a wonderful, awful idea about how to incorporate my love of writing and creating into one, can’t wait to get started ~ gorgeous thunderstorm last night ~

20200814_080440

~Exhausting, but GLORIOUS week in the Lord. So, so grateful! ~ How was yours?

“Stand in the ways and see,

And ask for the old paths, where the good way is,

And walk in it.

Then you will find rest for your souls.”

~ Book of Jeremiah

 

Monday Ponderings {August 10th}

amyofhearthridge1 Comment

20200803_122928

“Only the waters which in perfect stillness lie

Give back an undistorted image of the sky!” 

Trench, p. 260

“Wisdom is oft-times nearer when we stoop

Than when we soar.”

Wordsworth, p. 343

~The Cloud of Witness

 

I have taught you in the way of wisdom; I have led you in right paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hindered. And when you run, you will not stumble. Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go; Keep her, for she is your life.

~Proverbs 4:11-13

~

Gratitude & Glories: {1st week of August}

amyofhearthridge16 Comments

20200802_094912

This week I’m thankful for…

 ~a drive through dappled, morning sunlight, through hills, fields, woods, rereading Miss Read’s delightful Village School, a perfect pre-autumn school-ish inspirational read ~New Life Lavender’s Organic Shea Butter w/Lavender Essential Oil, soothing my eczema ~ wind chimes donging and tinkling peacefulness through the open window ~ a new, pale periwinkle type color of Morning Glory blooming Sunday morning ~ country drive with my husband that took us through new-to-us Amish homesteads ~ cool, almost autumn-ish feel to a brand, spanking new dewy morning ~ playing Schliech animals (a favorite toy here) with my 1 yo, Gideon ~ reading some timely and encouraging things in the Book of Numbers ~ crisp, buttery, whole wheat pancakes for the kids ~ reciting “Be Not Afraid” at breakfast with everyone, so inspiring ~ beginning the first Redwall book all over again with a new bunch of children ~ My daughter Ella and I finishing up the wonderful historical fiction book, Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit ~ nodding Queen Anne’s Lace and pale blue Chicory on the roadsides ~

20200803_122400

~morning walks with whatever kids are available and my husband ~ visiting a lavender farm, lavender ice cream, and lemon lavender tea, rosemary lavender soap purchased – a surfeit of lavender! ~ Zoom book study, looking at the Habits are Ten Natures section of Charlotte Mason’s Volume 1 with friends, wonderful discussions ~ 4:00 afternoon tea parties with the “Queen” ~

20200803_160901

~driver’s education test preparation, my 15 yo son’s gratitude for my help ~ library book pick up stacks with my middle son, uninterrupted conversation for a wee bit ~reading outdoors, under the Honey Locust~ chemistry books trickling in via the post, so thankful for living book recommendations from friends ~swinging baby and boy every afternoon in the balmy breeze ~ my 6 yo arranging the  garden tomatoes beautifully ~

20200805_184236

~errand date with son, little free library, pig feed pickup, drive-in ice cream, and Amish veggie stand for sweet corn ~ staying up late to watch an Avenger movie with two oldest ~ finishing The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel ~ broiling fresh sliced tomatoes with basil and a little cheese ~ clouds, black swallowtails, zinnias, hollyhocks, cosmos, barn swallows, and every other small bit of natural beauty gifted to us this week ~

What a blessed week ~ Thank You, Lord Jesus!

How was yours?

~

{I hope to make this a regular post on my blog as I want to live in a posture and attitude of gratitude, a form of ‘practicing resurrection’. These don’t mean my life is perfect and trouble free, but I’m choosing to focus on the good as a way to give thanks. Please join me on your blogs, in the comments, or on your own.}

Clive and Charlotte Converge: A Mother’s Look at 2020 so far {Part 4}

amyofhearthridge7 Comments

20200728_071617

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

Lewis echoes something I’m just barely starting to see in this glorious life. That Nature shows us a teeny bit of Glory, he calls it the “first sketch” of greater glory. Isn’t that beautiful? Those little things, the wind lifting the edges of the blankets on the clothesline. That fresh loaf of bread out of the oven, eager little hands buttering a hot, thick slice. Little boy’s eyes eagerly scanning Landseer’s, The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner, turning to me with questions about the sad doggy, those slightly wilted bouquets of clover and Queen Anne’s lace, and the chubby hands pressed against my cheeks point to a greater something, Someone out there. A promise so glorious and so incomprehensible that our finite brains cannot begin to imagine. That “…the whole man is to drink from the fountain of joy.” p. 44, The Weight of Glory

     Lewis, in his conclusion brings we out of my rapturous musings back to earth with a bit of humorous reality, “Meanwhile, the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning. 🙂 A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside.” p. 45, emphasis mine

     Following Him is the essential point he says but an equally heavy weight of glory is my neighbors. Starting with those immediately around me, am I faithfully sowing and giving and caring for those who, “all day long,” am I, “…in some degree , helping to one or other of these destinations?” Am I growing into my skin, resting Jesus’ work, lovingly sharing life, beauty, hope, and encouragement through what I value, through what I give my time to, through my words, and what I am grateful for? Is it “a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner”…remembering that there are “no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations – these are mortal, and their life is to our as the life of a gnat.” p. 46 We remember we are immortals, life will go on in one way or another after we die.

“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, – immediately or in the long run.” ~Thoreau 

     How will I spend the rest of 2020 or the next 40 years of my life? Here I am with a 1 year old and on the other end a 17 year old almost ready to graduate. How can I live and breathe in a way that reflects our true home Heaven in a world full of cheap imitations and symbols that in the end just don’t measure up? How can I live gratitude for these small glimpses of glory that echo eternity? How will I remember today to Whom I will go? My Lord and Savior, Jesus, who has the words of eternal, real and lasting life and the key to our true forever home. There is so much more in C.S. Lewis’ essay, “The Weight of Glory”, but these are a few things that jumped out to me, and I don’t want to forget.

~

Monday Ponderings {August 3rd}

amyofhearthridgeLeave a comment

20200728_201538

The Caged Skylark

As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage

Man’s mounting spirit in his bone-house,

mean house, dwells –

That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;

This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life’s age.

 

Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage,

Both sing sometimes the sweetest, sweetest spells,

Yet both droop deadly sometimes in their cells

Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.

 

Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest –

Why, hear him, hear him babble and drop down to his nest,

But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.

 

Man’s spirit will be flesh-bound when found at best,

But uncumbered: meadow-down is no distressed

For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bones risen.

 

~ Gerald Manley Hopkins

Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets : Hopkins, p. 17

 

{This is missing the accent marks needed for reading this well out loud! I apologize as I’m not sure how to get those without searching and just copying and pasting them?}

~

 

 

 

 

Clive and Charlotte Converge: A Mother’s Look at 2020 so far {Part 3}

amyofhearthridge6 Comments

20200728_201922

Part 1 and Part 2

Picking up we left off with Lewis, he seems to be saying, I think, that our natural loves and desires are just a faint longing for something bigger than what we can understand. In the book, A Time of Gifts, travel memoirist, Patrick Leigh Fermor, shared the story of how as he trekked across a particularly bleak stretch of German wilderness, he kept himself from loneliness and despair by reciting to himself all the random snatches of poetry, recitation, Latin phrases, Shakespeare, and other bits he had memorized as a child and into early adulthood. This struck me so vividly. Mr. Fermor probably never imagined that those required tidbits or ideas would be indispensable to him later on, in his exhausted, famished physical state, but his soul and spirit were warmed by this treasury of beauty stored inside of him. The idea that in a strange and unfamiliar land, he was able to carry with him something that spoke to him of his true home, or the home of his memories, comforts, and delight. I think what Lewis goes on to say is that we see Heaven in terms of how we understand life here and now and what a poor view and inadequate one it is! Yet it is what we have for the present, as long as we keep them in proper perspective. The symbols I have can faintly represent the joy to come.

I want to fill myself, my children, and those around me with as much beauty as possible, so that any encouragement and small albeit poor glimpse of eternity can be seen or felt when we need to draw from it. Seen or felt in our mind’s eye in those cold, bleak wildernesses of life, even now in the circumstances we find our world. Personally, anything that separates people, life, Heaven, and earth from each other becomes repulsive to me quickly. Unfortunately, for me, media and the Internet often breed isolation, disjointed words without their informing ideas, or without people’s real life stories. These all turn one away from the idea that you and I are created for more. We are created for God’s pleasure and love. Lewis goes on to say that at long last I can learn,

“…that she pleases Him whom she was created to please.” p. 38

     Appreciation by God is a worthy goal that can be reached. “Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself.” p.38 Again the lifelong lesson of getting comfortable in my own skin…that knowing, not pridefully who we are, but humbly acknowledging Who’s we are.

“The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son – it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.” p. 38-39, emphasis mine

     My gratitude for this gift of life and the chance to please my loving God is so well described by Lewis’ lines above. Lewis goes on to share how especially Scriptural symbols have authority, but the things I like to call ‘truth, beauty, and goodness’ symbols that are given to me help along, “for a few minutes, the illusion of belonging to that world.” The world that is beyond this dark, fallen, sad one we live in. These glimpses and the songs, artist’s paintings, and natural beauty, Lewis contends can’t in the end do anything for us. For me, however, they have definitely given me an “…indescribable something of which they become for a moment the messengers.”

It reminds me of Jesus, coming so long ago as a babe, as God-With-Us. As I walk my motherhood journey (and I have ever so many years ahead, prayerfully) and as I continue to grow into the shape of the woman God created me to be, I see many areas of these gifts of God pointing me to our ultimate reunion with Him. Lewis explains so well how and why poets and writers speak to me…

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it…At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of the morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so, someday, God willing, we shall get in.” p. 42-43

Part 4 to follow ~

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clive and Charlotte Converge: A Mother’s Look at 2020 so far {Part 2}

amyofhearthridge6 Comments

20200728_071905

{Part 1}

     Those early years of doing nature walks, journals, reading all the books, and scrambling to check all the Charlotte Mason boxes, all the mothering angst over the various day-to-day decisions over meals, bed times, fights, and friends, all of the second guessing myself over my faith, my writing, and my worth starts to take on a different light. Lewis goes on to say that we can feel very much like the school boy in our faith,

“…Those who have attained everlasting life in the vision of God doubtless know very well that it is no mere bribe, but the very consummation of their earthly discipleship; but we who have not yet attained it cannot know this in the same way, and cannot even begin to know it all except by continuing to obey and finding the first reward of our obedience in our increasing power to desire the ultimate reward. Just in proportion as the desire grows, our fear lest it should be a mercenary desire will die away and finally be recognised as an absurdity. But probably this will not, for most of us, happen in a day; poetry replaces grammar, gospel replaces law, longing transforms obedience, as gradually as the tide lifts a grounded ship. ” 

p. 28, The Weight of Glory, emphasis mine

     I gather all my paper bits and books and scramble indoors as the rain is now coming in earnest. “…by continuing to obey,” Lewis said. And that’s it. The crux of some of this transformational process. Little daily repetitions add up to something lasting. Faithfulness begets fruit. We eat healthy over and over again, we turn to the promises of God day in and day out, we smile, choosing joy, over and over again. We wash that same dish again and again. We sow seeds of dailiness in our faith journey, into our children, into our art, and into truly finding out who we are to Jesus, fitting into our skin in a real way. Can I truly now begin to live? Can my 40th turn around this blue-green ball we call home be a new beginning? Can I, like Charlotte Mason, see a LONG, lifetime view of child rearing and by faith and obedience, just keep sowing? Small gifts, small obedience, adds up in the end.

“It is in the infinitely little we must study the infinitely great.”

~ Charlotte Mason, Home Education, p. 29

      Can I accept that words matter to me and I must paper and ink them out one at a time? Yet as important and life changing these revelations are to me, a life time of growing and prayerfully, continuing to grow, Lewis goes on to allude that the are all symbols of our Truest and Deepest desire…

“If transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy.”

p. 29, The Weight of Glory

     The desire for “our own far-off country”… is a “secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both.” These past seventeen years of stumbling along through the Bible, the writings of Charlotte Mason, sleepless nights of nursing, the many gorgeous rain showers, the countless meals, stories, and memories, all are glimpses of beauty that are just small peeks at the glory to come. Lewis issues a good perspective and warning to me, if I find myself flying a bit away on the heights of inspiration.

“The books or music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the real thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” p.30, emphasis mine

     Lewis, oh my, dear to my heart, talks about how fairy tales and for me, I believe, some fantasy helps keep the gift and knowledge that we aren’t made for this world alive. There is more to this life I’m living, a spiritual reality beyond.

“Our real goal is elsewhere.” p.31

I will continue in Part 3 ~

~

 

Clive and Charlotte Converge: A Mother’s Look at 2020 so far {Part 1}

amyofhearthridge16 Comments

 

20200728_201823

But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” ~John 6:68-69

Where or to whom do we go, indeed? The smell of approaching rain mingles with the warm, yeasty, crust of the earth smell that deep summer bakes. This year has been something, else, hasn’t it? And here we are on the cusp of beginning the only-and-already eighth month. Everything seems to be going so slow and so fast simultaneously. I’ve been trying to wrap my head and thoughts around the many cobwebby things tickling my subconscious. As I lean toward and into this coming last full month of summer, with blue skies, flocked with fluffy, white clouds, endless green, and the magical swish and swoop of the barn swallows overhead, a few things are converging in my heart and soul. This year, I opened it out with this (among other things) as an inspiring motto:

“Man must pass from old to new,

From vain to real, from mistake to fact,

From what once seemed good, to what now proves best;

How could man have progression otherwise?”

~ Browning, p. 58

The Cloud of Witness

     As the year began, I knew that my health, physical and mental, needed change and adjustment. I started eating healthier and took breaks from media, as those were two areas I greatly needed. I knew that my home educating was going to change forever in two ways…a year of my most students ever at once, six, plus a little guy toddling about and then my first toddler, blink, now a 17 year old in her last year, a graduate coming for me at the end of this school year. The weight of this year being my 40th birthday lent me more contemplative as well. As a writer, I also felt the winds of change as I’m seeing that I have to be “true to myself” for lack of a better term, and this art in which I’m called to live. Our Honey Locust protects me from the splattering, spitting rain, concentric circles flowing outward in driveway puddles. All this and more rolls around and around in my mind, growing slowly bigger and disappearing out into the void. Then covid happened and is still happening and I’m still processing and joining Peter in the lament, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” My own meager words have felt locked up, or private or dormant for this season. Sometimes, the more we have to say, the less words we have. So, we take it one moment, one word, one journal page, one image at a time, giving room for art and idea and thought to bloom. My trellis of purple and pink Morning Glories finally opened this week, the tightly furled flower buds bursting into a mass riot of vines, color, and heart-shaped happiness.

20200728_071953

As I’ve been stumbling around and reflecting on all this, especially in the light of my 40th…I got to thinking about my continuing metamorphosis as a mother and woman through the years, C.S. Lewis’ essay/talk “The Weight of Glory” took on a fascinating life of its own to me. I’ve found that this gift of womanhood and motherhood has shaped me in more ways then I could possibly have imagined. Here we are, supposedly the ones guiding our children, and yet I’m the one learning how to live and move and have my being in Jesus. A gentle, rain-tinge breeze stirs the Honey Locust branch overhead. Lewis opens out his essay alluding to how we all start something in life for the reward at the end. For me, this idea is far-reaching, in all the branches of my life. If I just used Charlotte Mason’s educational methods in my family, we will end up with educated, whole, well-rounded children at the end, or if I mother this way, write this genre or style, be this kind of person, check the checks and tick the ticks, everything will work out perfectly. In this talk, Lewis in context is alluding to our faith journey, by way of a school boy’s example, but I’m applying it broadly to my mothering and growth as a woman.

“…He begins by working for marks, or to escape punishment, or to please his parents, or at best, in the hope of a future good which he cannot at present imagine or desire.“

p. 27, The Weight of Glory, emphasis mine

     He contends that at first in anything our goal is a bit “mercenary”, a reward for whatever it is we aimed for. Aiming at home educating my children well, I didn’t expect to run into joy and growth for MYSELF, in the middle of my dreams and hopes for them. Lewis goes on to say, “...enjoyment creeps in upon the mere drudgery…it is just insofar as he approaches the reward that he becomes able to desire it for its own sake; indeed, the power of so desiring it is itself a preliminary reward.” p. 28, emphasis mine.

I will return to these thoughts in Part 2 soon!

~