{P.E.I, Canada, August 2017}
The decisions of Will are always simple, because they have, for good or ill, an end in view outside of Self.
Charlotte Mason, Volume 4, p. 158
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Category: Journals
Brace, Compel, and Do Right
Do not let the children pass a day without distinct efforts, intellectual, moral, volitional; let them brace themselves to understand; let them compel themselves to do and to bear; and let them do right at the sacrifice of ease and pleasure: and this for many higher reasons, but, in the first and lowest place, that the mere physical organ of mind and will may grow vigorous with work.
Charlotte Mason, Volume 1, p. 22
{Emphasis is mine. This quote is highly convicting and pointed. I need to take Miss Mason’s advice in my own life and also consider it in my children’s lives. I’m rereading Volume 1 with friends and it is so good!}
~
Gratitude List {One Hundred Bits By Thanksgivng} #3
{continuing my gratitude list}
21. Yesterday
22. Today
23. Sunlight flickering through field corn
24. Sumac’s brilliant red color
25. Friends to talk about home educating with
26. Commonplace journal for quotes to look back on
27. Sam and Ella chopping ham and potatoes for crockpot
28. 45 minute drive we have to get to bigger towns – time to think, pray, decompress
29. Prayer
30. Holidays coming to see family
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Monday Ponderings {October 9th}
“Never put happiness at center stage. It is the by-product of a life of service, never the chief end of life. Happiness is not a right to be grasped, but a serendipity to be enjoyed.”
Freedom of Simplicity
Richard J. Foster
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Monday Ponderings {October 2nd}
WILLOW
In the young century’s cool nursery,
In its checkered silence, I was born.
Sweet to me was not the voice of man,
But the wind’s voice was understood by me.
The burdocks and the nettles fed my soul,
But I loved the silver willow best of all.
And, grateful for my love, it lived
All its life with me, and with its weeping
Branches fanned my insomnia with dreams. But
– Surprisingly enough! – I have outlived
It. Now, a stump’s out there. Under these skies,
Under these skies of ours, are other
Willows, and their alien voices rise.
And I am silent…As thought I’d lost a brother.
1940
Anna Akmatova
AKHATOVA POEMS
Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets
p. 120
Soup’s On
The pungent odor, the juicy, crisp feel, onions sliced, dropped into the pot. The sizzling music plays as flavors meld together, spatula stirring and chopping ground turkey as it browns.
The pungent, slightly morbid poem “Adventures of Isabel” by Nash chuckled at over breakfast. Uncontrollable laughter over Carrie, the half talking cat in Lear’s Half Magic, dropped lightly into the mixture.
Plump, diced chunks of tomatoes. Thin, black beans, morsels of golden corn added with the onions and meat.
Dicey moments over proper way to make a basic dough. Guffaws breaking tension as full stick of butter falls on floor, face down, bits splattering. A quick clean up, stir of resolution and a pinch of lets-start-over thrown in.
Water running, water necessary for life, soup pot is filling. Spices to birth flavor, to compliment vegetables, meat, and bringing soul, depth to sustenance.
Stones and sand, water flowing over our mock little river bed, four boy eyes gazing at geology experiment. The flowing, flowing of life giving words from The Holy Bible, Charlotte Mason’s Ourselves, rushing, tumbling, swirling, compassion and interest about a boy in Malawi. Folk tales about Paul Bunyan and Babe, straighting out a road in Minnesota. Spice for the heart, soaking for the imagination.
The simmering. Hot heat on my hand as I gently stir. The patience and a light shake, bit o’ pepper and salt into it all.
Listening, answering, sowing, words, numbers, the scorching of being “on” all the time. Inner patience, cultivation of a restful heart silence even through the shaky hop, skip, and jump of relationships. Throwing in an extra measure of grace, knowing full well how truly much I’ve been given.
A smell so delicious sifts through the air. A simple table cloth, candles flickering, mismatched bowls catch the light. Hearty soup, bread, fresh stick of butter, the meal has been prepared. The mixing and simmering are in the background, the relationships are here all around.
Gather in closer, sip, lather your slice with creaminess, taste and see. A daily dance of living ingredients, slowness, humility, and astonished gratefulness.
~
Monday Ponderings {September 18th}
“The Mother is qualified,” says Pestalozzi,” and qualified by the Creator Himself, to become the principal agent in the development of her child;…and what is demanded of her is – a thinking love. …God has given to thy child all the faculties of our nature, but the grand point remains undecided – how shall this heart, this head, these hands, be employed? To whose service shall they be dedicated? A question the answer to which involves a futurity of happiness or misery to a life so dear to thee. Maternal love is the first agent in education.
Home Education
Charlotte Mason
p. 2
(emphasis mine)
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A Fascinating Expectancy
I was blue and disgruntled all the forenoon and looked forward to the coming of the mail as the one possible rescue from the doldrums. There is always such a fascinating expectancy and uncertainty about the mail.
Emily’s Quest
L.M. Montgomery
p. 13
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Monday Ponderings {August 28th}
Much of the beauty of the Island is due to the vivid colour contrasts – the rich red of the winding roads, the brilliant emerald of the uplands and meadows, the glowing sapphire of the encircling sea. It is the sea which makes Prince Edward Island in more senses than the geographical. You cannot get away from the sea down there. Save for a few places in the interior, it is ever visible somewhere, if only in a tiny blue gap between distant hills, or a turquoise gleam through the dark boughs of spruce fringing an estuary. Great is our love for it; its tang gets into our blood: its siren call rings ever in our ears; and no matter where we wander in lands afar, the murmur of its waves ever summons us back in our dreams to the homeland.
The Alpine Path
L.M. Montgomery
p. 11
(my husband and I just returned from a dream trip to P.E.I. in celebration of our upcoming 15th wedding anniversary. It was so soul-enriching. I can’t tell you how much I loved this trip and the time with my husband on this gorgeous island.)
~
Time
The most precious thing a human being has to give is time.
Edith Schaeffer
L’Abri
p. 28
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Folk Call the Road Lonely
Folk call the road lonely, because there is not human traffic and human stirring. Because I have walked it so many times and seen such a tumult of life there, it seems to me one of the most populous highways of my acquaintance. I have walked it in ecstasy, and in joy it is beloved. Every pine tree, every gallberry bush, every passion vine, every joree rustling in the underbrush, is vibrant. I have walked it in trouble, and the wind in the trees beside me is easing. I have walked it in despair, and the red of the sunset is my own blood dissolving into the night’s darkness. For all such things were on earth before us and will survive after us, and it is given to us to join ourselves with them and be comforted.
-Marjorie Kinnen Rawlings
Cross Creek
p.14
Monday Ponderings {July 17}
Violet looked at him. Never before had she felt so much love for this man who seemed to live to give freedom to others. “You’d set all the world free if you could, wouldn’t you, Amos?” He shook his head. “Just the part of it that I can touch. That’s all any man can do.”
Amos Fortune: Free Man
Elizabeth Yates
p. 161
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A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 