an appreciative look

Last week, I listened to an episode of The Literary Life Podcast with Dr. Vigen Guroian on Fairy Tales and Children's Literature. I was already familiar with his book Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination and had perused it several years ago, but hearing him discuss it himself was a great refresher on this topic.
The show notes link to his article in Touchstone magazine, The Fairy Tale Wars which goes into more detail on some of the topics he touched on. And it references an article by Dickens that I also read entitled Frauds on the Fairies from October 1, 1853 and which the first paragraph honors the fairy tales passed down in various retellings.

It would be hard to estimate the amount of gentleness and mercy that has made its way among us through these slight channels. Forbearance, courtesy, consideration for poor and aged, kind treatment of animals, love of nature, abhorrence of tyranny and brute force--many such good things have been first nourished in the child's heart by this powerful aid. It has greatly helped to keep us, in some sense, ever young, by preserving through our worldly ways one slender track not overgrown with weeds, where we may walk with children, sharing their delights.

Dickens goes on to lament how illustrator Mr. George Cruikshank has altered versions of fairy tales so that he can incorporate moral lessons on "Total Abstinence, Prohibition of the sale of spirituous liquors, Free Trade, and Popular Education" to which Dickens protests that Cruikshank has "no greater moral justification in altering the harmless little books than we should have in altering his best etchings". 
One of my favorite lines in the essay was his recalling this bit of lore: " like the famous definition of a weed; a thing growing up in a wrong place". The opinions Cruikshank interpolates into the esteemed fairy tales may be good, but they are in the wrong place, Dickens argues. That use of the word interpolates carries the same meaning that Charlotte Mason warned about teachers and parents placing themselves and their thoughts in between the text and the student so that a disruption between the mind of the writer and the mind of the student occurs.
From School Education, p.177

Again, as I have already said, ideas must reach us directly from the mind of the thinker, and it is chiefly by means of the books they have written that we get in touch with the best minds.

Earlier on the same page, she remarks that the right books have their power of giving impulse and stirring emotion. Dickens considered that fairy tales are the slight channels in which inestimable amounts of gentleness and mercy have reached us. 
I'm not aware of Dicken's theology of how these good traits come to readers of fairy tales, but I do know that Charlotte Mason attributed this to the work of the Holy Spirit.

(Parents and Children, p. 270-271)

...but the great recognition, that God the Holy Spirit is Himself, personally, the Imparter of knowledge, the Instructor of youth, the Inspirer of genius, is a conception so far lost to us...

By trying to force our opinions, ideas and concerns of coaxing the child's character towards the good by the stories and books they are exposed to, we usurp the role of the Holy Spirit who knows exactly when and how to bring to mind the ideas necessary to instruct the conscience in the best and most meaningful way. By limiting our own flow of explaining and talk, we can instead share what Mason calls, an appreciate look or word and thus we ensure that we leave a generous avenue for even the slightest nudge of the Holy Spirit to do His work when the child can benefit from it the most. So much more could be said, but I will leave these unoriginal ideas here for now.

Not fairy tales, but bedtime stories and nursery rhymes for my in-laws to enjoy sharing with their newest grandchild born earlier this year. I gave my MIL this basket of baby toys for Mother's Day this year to celebrate her becoming a Nannie again.

And...I liked the Nursery Rhymes book so much, I ordered one for our home library!

links in the spirit of Christmas

To read:

Eleven Christmas Books Everyone Should Read

Operators Are Standing By

Wintry

Professor Carol

To watch:

Rick Steve's European Christmas

A Christmas in Wales

a gathering of ideas

Here is a selection of online materials that I have been enjoying over the last couple of weeks as I prepare for the return to our lessons in September and as I pray and meditate on the Word of God. How rich we are to have an abundance of godly men and women who can provide such a feast for our souls, even in this dark hour of our culture.

Catechisms for the Imagination

Podcast: Hemingway, Waugh, and the Collapse of Shared Spiritual Value after WW1

Classical Q and A with Dr. Chris Perrin

Theology of Wonder: Integrating the Humanities

R.C. Sproul and D.A Carson on Biblical Exegesis

In honor of Cindy Rollins closing a chapter in her life by pulling her blog Ordo Amoris off the web indefinitely, here are some of her words which I hope will help you think through the role of motherhood and womanhood.

Yesterday I received in the mail my yearly statement from the Social Security Administration. Not much has changed in the last 20 years. If you looked at the statement you could almost say that it reflects 5 years of earning and 20 years of learning. Because I have been a stay-at-home mom, I have had the leisure to pursue scholastics. I am beginning to grasp why the word schola is linked to the word leisure. I have had the leisure to learn. In modern times we think of leisure as the pursuit of pleasure rather than the pursuit of wisdom, but truthfully, you must have leisure to learn.

This isn’t a new idea with me but if that is true then surely mothers at home are the modern equivalent of the monastics. We are the preservers of truth and beauty in our culture. This will never be understood by the culture at large. We will continue to be scorned and told we are not contributing.  But some day, maybe hundreds of years from now, someone will write a book titled How Motherhood Saved Civilization.

In light of this we should be very, very busy in our homes creating an environment of truth and beauty. The future of civilization is depending upon us.

education is a life

"Some of you look at the Mother's Education Course and you can't wait for something like that. But I know that others of you look at it and it's just another insurmountable thing you Can't Do. I've been in both camps.
I didn't read anything other than my Bible the first year that I was a mother. I was just so overwhelmed and lonely. By the end of that year, I knew it'd be the death of me if I continued that behavior, and so I started to read again."
 from On Mother Culture

"After realizing that I was a terrible model, I began to think about screen time alternatives. I was just learning about Charlotte Mason, and I acquired tons of great books, which was great. BUT. . .”Education is a Life.” I needed to get a life!"
from Business vs. Desire

"To improve the lives of their employees, the company provided a savings bank on site and contributed to a fund from which workers could borrow to purchase houses. To make sure that life in these homes was all it could be, the company also sponsored competitions to encourage domestic skills, with cash rewards for sewing, cooking, decorating, gardening, and hat making. Concerts and lectures were provided for the wives of workers, in the belief that the moral and intellectual level of a home would arise only to that of the mother or wife who lived there." ~ Stephen Mansfield, The Search for God and Guinness: A Biography of the Beer That Changed the World

other good thoughts

Carol from her newer blog, A Living Pencil:  Song of Joy and Strength

Do you remember the flash mob videos in a shopping mall? It is always a delight to see a bystander perk up her ears, look around in wonderment and then settle in with a smile to see what happens. People stop talking, they stop walking, they stop shopping and they watch and listen. This is what your marriage will do when you are singing in tune, making a harmonious sound.  Your song will invite others to the Music.

Also her previous post: Given a New Life

So we have three boys and two parents that love this baby before she is born. Before we have held her, before we have looked into her big eyes, before we have seen her smile, before she can walk, before she can talk, before she can do anything that would earn our love—she has been loved.

A letter from Adoniram Judson to his children posted at The Andrew Fuller Center called: Determine to Stand by Christ found via Ray Van Neste's blog, The Children's Hour

Go on, my dear boys, and not rest until you have made your calling and election sure. I believe that you both and Abby Ann will become true Christians, and meet me in heaven; for I never pray without praying for your conversion, and I think I pray in faith. Go to school, attend to your studies, be good scholars, try to get a good education; but, O, heaven is all. Life, life, eternal life! Without this, without an interest in the Lord of life, you are lost, lost forever.

Lindsay from My Child, I Love You on being with her children: Time

I want to have raised my own children. I want to have been the one that was there day after day answering all of life's questions big and small. I want to be the one they see each day and hope they find security that mom is at her post waiting to help them, laugh with them, pray for them.

Brandy from Afterthoughts called: On Inconveniences in Homeschooling: Meltdowns and Other Messes

And all this sounds so great until someone turns on the water works and starts howling about math. Here's the deal: if education is about filling young minds full of facts, then a meltdown really is getting in the way. But if education is about formation--about becoming something other than we are--then meltdowns are an opportunity.

interesting tidbits

Unbelievable Places
I have seen a few of these images posted on Tumblr, but seeing them again along with the other photos makes my heart soar at the creativity and power of God the Creator.

Self-Portraits
A teen-aged boy and his sister have created some amazing images featuring him in surreal scenes. This post from his blog provides a quirky and brief explanation of how the photos are done. It will only take a minute to read, but the humor and creativity will stick with you.

Lomelino's Ice Cream Film
Food, film, and music come together in this short film done by Linda Lomelino, a Swedish cook/baker, photographer and band member who blogs at Call Me Cupcake.

Sanna Fyring Liedgren
And if you enjoyed that short film centering on ice cream,  you will enjoy Sanna's films as well, another Swede whose work in the kitchen is captured on film and set to music by her husband. I love seeing her family in the films. And you are a regular shopper at IKEA, you will probably recognize many items from your own kitchen.

Reading and Its Seasons

Lewis’ fiction led to his non-fiction, and woke in me a serious interest in Theology. I read Francis Schaeffer and Julian of Norwich – all the while still loving Roald Dahl and E. Nesbit and Kenneth Grahame. I read some popular Christian authors, but found that most of the “contemporary” authors didn’t have much to contribute to the Conversation. I intuitively sensed that the only real answer to contemporary questions was to abandon the contemporary and seek the timeless.

Siblings Recall Blessings of Family with 17 Children
This is an older article, but if you didn't see it back in 2011, then it's great to read now anyway.

The Due Use of Books

It takes years and years of narration, copywork, and dictation, and the progress is slow and incremental. This can be frustrating when your child is twelve and is still not using capital letters and periods in all his sentences, and your friends are shaking their heads and telling you to invest in a good writing program. Give it more time.

London in 1927
And lastly, from Tim Sparke on Vimeo, color video footage of scenes around London taken in 1927 by Claude Friese-Greene, a British filmmaker and cinematographer.