Charlotte Mason: Way Beyond Tip-Toeing Through the Tulips

Posted on April 3, 2022 by Kay Pelham

There is the Courage of our opinions. By opinions I do not mean the loosely taken up catchwords of the moment, those things which ‘everybody says,’ and with which it is rather agreeable than otherwise to startle our less advanced friends; but those few opinions founded upon knowledge and principle which we really possess. ~Charlotte Mason, Ourselves, Book 1, p. 115

A friend posted the quote above in The Literary Life patrons group, and I commented, “You know, people have no idea who or what Charlotte Mason is until they read those volumes —- especially Ourselves. She had something to say about us humans and went way beyond narration, copywork, picture study, and tip-toeing through the tulips.”

And now I’d like to say a little bit more about that here.

There are a few “classical” (and I really mean those quotation marks) education methods that are based off of (a twisting and crystallization) of one speech from a brilliant classics scholar (and detective novelist). (Enough hints?) One writer in whose camp are many of these “classical” educators has a book with the same title as that speech, with one word added at the beginning. Another has a writing curriculum using the same title, with one word changed at the end. I could say much more about all that, but the thing I wanted to note here is that this “classical” education method was built from one short speech (ignoring nearly everything else the brilliant woman wrote that would oppose the kingdom that they have built).

Today we have Charlotte Mason’s thoughts and concerns about children and education available in six volumes, as well as various articles from the Parent’s Review (a periodical from the PNEU, her parent-teacher organization), and other writings by those who knew and worked with her. You can find the 6 volumes in print by a few publishers, as well as on the AmblesideOnline website, with their annotations. AO also has PR articles and a wealth of other information about Charlotte Mason and her philosophy of children and education.

There is a tremendous amount of material produced from the mind and heart of Charlotte Mason and her colleagues. I have been an avid student since 2005, and I am still at it, although I have officially retired from homeschooling my own child. That is because Charlotte Mason didn’t just share ideas about K-12, she shared about life — from the birth to the grave (and beyond, really). And if I haven’t made my point clear yet — there is a ton of material from which this philosophy of education and life is based, not just one speech, and it offers a lifetime of learning and pondering about education and life, based on her own lifetime of observing, learning, and discussing with others.

My son and I spent 6 years reading through her “Volume 4” Ourselves. Charlotte wrote that specifically for older students, so James and I read it from his Year 7 to 12 (which AmblesideOnline freely schedules out for its users). The book is brilliant right up to the very last sentence. And it is bold. Charlotte did not hold back. The sample above is mild compared to many other places where she exposes our weaknesses and follies. But she also shows how fearfully and wonderfully we are made, and our potential to live up to the Image in which we were made. I say it is brilliant, but I realize it only ‘works’ for those who truly want to ‘see’.

I could say it over and over until I’m blue in the face — Charlotte Mason is more than just a curriculum. It is more than just a book list, narration, copywork, composer, picture, and nature study, and handicrafts. It is even more than the 20 Principles, although that is a great place to start. And it is definitely more than just tip-toeing through the tulips.

Speaking of the 20 Principles, when people say that they don’t like “Charlotte Mason” or don’t agree with “Charlotte Mason”, I want to ask, ‘So, you don’t believe children are born persons? They’re more like little data machines or empty sacks to be filled? Not persons but objects?” And I could go on down through the 20, stating them in the opposite (which perhaps I’ll do in another post), trying to find just what the objection is to “Charlotte Mason”.

Because, you see, Charlotte Mason, is more than…..well, I hope you’ve got my point. And I hope that if you don’t care to know more about her ideas and how they inform how we live and teach, you will at least admit that you do not really know what Charlotte Mason is.

Let me know if you’re interested in hearing more. I can also suggest a stack of books by my own colleagues concerning the matter of Charlotte Mason.

She still speaks today. Still so relevant.
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Stay in your lane (Part 2)

Posted on March 20, 2022 by Kay Pelham

I’m going to do some more barely scratching the surface as I attempt to give a glimpse of pre-Modern ideas of the cosmos, particularly the Heavens (or as we moderns call it, Space), and how that gave them a sense of ‘lanes’ and proper order.

Prior to our time of rapidly advancing technology and distractions, humans did a ton more of observing and contemplating on what they saw. Not just the scientists and teachers in their ‘ivory towers’, but also the ‘lowly’ farmer, who recognized the signs and seasons. I think the ‘lowly’ farmer went beyond ‘Look and See’ (in the words of Wendell Berry) just for the sake of his crops, but he was simply curious about what was beyond him.

Order. One thing that humans learned from their seeing and contemplating, and which became a part of the culture of belief and morality, was that there is Order in the Heavens (as well as the Nature below our Moon). Some often commented about the Dance that they saw above — a very orderly dance. Everything in its place, or moving in its proper path, and in its proper time. They could see all this because they spent a great deal of time looking up. We don’t. And from their observation many mythologies (in the true meaning of the word) came about to explain, for one thing, the origin of this Order. Just as the Genesis story tells, Order came out of Chaos. And people understood that when anything is put out of Order, Chaos returns.

Humility. A second thing that happened when humans gave considerable time to seeing and contemplating is that they realized how very small and insignificant they were in comparison to the great expanse above them. It did not stop them from ‘studying’ the Heavens, but it did create a different thinking and ethos than our modern idea of ‘space exploration’ has done. There is a big difference (and results) between exploring in order to know ourselves better and in exploring for the sake of knowing alone. There is definitely a ‘knowledge puffs up’ in our modern way and purpose for exploring. C.S. Lewis had a great knowledge of the medieval understanding of the cosmos, and was concerned about the modern ‘space race’. To put in perspective the time in which he lived, Lewis was born just before the turn of the century and died on the same day as JFK. Lewis could see where all the focus of the ‘Cold War’ was headed. Again, there is the idea of exploration and knowing that produces awe and humility, and then there is the purpose of exploration and knowing in order to conquer the material, to be above the material studied and its Maker. To conquer God. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin has been quoted as saying in 1961: “I went up to space, but I didn’t encounter God.” According to friends, Gagarin was a devout Christian and never uttered these words, but it is telling that the Soviet leadership promoted this as words he said. This was their purpose. Unlike the thinking of this Psalmist:

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which you have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him?
~from Psalm 8

Enough for now. Stay tuned for Part 3.

Do yourself and your soul a favor, and go outside and consider the Heavens.

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Stay in your lane (Part 1)

Posted on March 15, 2022 by Kay Pelham

Let me say at the beginning that I will only be ‘scratching the surface’ of the ideas that I want to discuss, especially because I’m only on the surface of contemplating and having a real understanding of them myself. Just about everything that I’ve been reading, and the classes that I’ve been taking for the past few years have all been challenging me on how much I (and the rest of my world) think like a ‘modern’. Even as you learn about the ways of seeing the world in any era prior to the so-called ‘Enlightenment’, you have to battle against the way you’ve been trained to see and think your whole life, in a culture that has been inundated with this thinking for generations through the classroom, media, and the communities in which we live.

So when you’ve grown up in a democratic society (yes, I know the US is supposedly a constitutional republic), and especially the American one where we are told we can be whatever and whoever we want to be, and you hear about this ‘stay in your lane’ idea of the Middle Ages (I know, how medieval, right?), you wonder, can this be a right way to think and live?

Forbidden knowledge. That goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. ~Genesis 2:17

but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ~Genesis 3:3

How does that make you feel that there are just some things that you do not get to know?

All over C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia there are instances where a character is told ‘that’s not for you to know’. When Lucy asks at some point if things would have turned out all right had she made another choice, Aslan informs her that no one is allowed to know what might have been. When she asks about the future of another character, again she is told it is not for her to know. It reminded me of this interaction between Peter and Jesus concerning John:

When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?”
Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain until I return, what is that to you? You follow Me!”

There are just some things that are nunya business.

C.S. Lewis knew very well the mind of Medieval people. Their way of seeing the world — the Heavens, Nature, and Humanity — is all over his stories. He knew that for them Ambition was never good, that is was always associated with Pride. You know, one of the seven deadly sins.

Know your place. Knowledge of self is not forbidden. But it can take time. Maybe a lifetime. Identity quests are a big part of story, and there are several that go on in Lewis’ stories. And knowing your place does not always involve ‘stay below’. In the story of Prince Caspian he learns much about his past and who he is and who he is to become. Although he has learned much, in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader he is still challenged to ‘know his place’ when he wants to go on with Reepicheep and not return with the others. He is reminded by Reepicheep:

You are the King of Narnia. You break faith with all your subjects…if you do not return. You shall not please yourself with adventures as if you were a private person.

Yes, even a King has no freedom to drive in another lane. He must know his place.

Stay tuned for my next installment where I scratch the surface of the humbling effect of pre-modern thoughts on the cosmos, a paradox involving pure intellectual research and imaginative ponderings, and an episode from The Fairie Queene concerning equality. I also plan to explore the idea of ‘vocation’ or ‘calling’, as I contemplate that lane in which one should stay. Exciting stuff.

Stories will save the world and your world….if you let them.

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And he writes of us

Posted on March 2, 2022 by Kay Pelham

On this our 20th wedding anniversary my poet writes of our journey.

And if you’re curious about the day of the daisy, here is where I wrote about that.

What else would you like to know?

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On the Occasion of Two Decades of For Better, For Worse, For Richer, For Poorer

Posted on March 2, 2022 by Kay Pelham

Twenty years ago today we stood on that stage at a little church in Tennessee, with our families and friends as witnesses, and made those pledges above. I remember that I also vowed to support all of his efforts to learn and teach the things he found important, and he promised to love my cat.

How did I feel I could soundly make that pledge to him? How well did I know the mind and heart of this man that I was promising all this to? Our acquaintance went back three years and four months, but our real getting to know each began in the spring of the previous year. I had been singing in Jack’s choir for about a year, getting to know him in rehearsals and performances, but it became a more personal acquaintance when care for a mutual friend had us communicating more. Through email chats and in person conversations and finally officially dating that summer I got to know the mind and heart and integrity of Jack Pelham. And I found that we cared deeply about many of the same things. We both had no dog in the hunt but a sincere desire to cut through the crap and find the truth about life and our Creator.

You might have thought that it was the music that brought us together, and although that is the reason we initially met, it was really those wonders about life, as I said above, that made the real connection. There was also that special moment when I found out he knew who “Cousin Pearl” was. That pretty much cinched the deal. I had found Home. But it was more than going back to the comforts of Home that I knew growing up; it was the Home I had been lonely for all my life. Finding a companion who cared about and could talk about all the things that mattered to me. Someone with whom I could be honest. Someone that I didn’t have to work around trying to find something to talk about, or working to keep my mouth shut about things they didn’t care about. Someone who left my mind and soul invigorated rather than exhausted. I had waited for 40 years for Home.

“I do want to be stuck with you.” ~old Mr. Carson to his Elsie

“The winter … exits March the second on the dot.” ~ Alan Jay Lerner

Feels like home to me
Feels like I’m all the way back
Where I come from
Feels like home to me
Feels like I’m on my way back
Where I belong ~Randy Newman

In the studio he made for her, this old girl sings about finally finding Home twenty years ago at age 40
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Appearances Can Be Deceiving; or First, Second, Third, even Fourth Impressions

Posted on February 13, 2022 by Kay Pelham

In Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Book IV, Canto V, there is a contest of knights’ ladies to determine ‘the fairest of them all’. The prize is a girdle which was made by Vulcan for his wife Venus, which he endowed with the ability to make the wearer virtuous. Apparently, he knew his wife was a wanderer. And so she was. One day she removes it so she can go play with Mars, and it is found and then possessed by a woman named Florimell. Previously in this story of The Faerie Queene, this Florimell has disappeared and been replaced by a totally false version. She’s not even human but made of physical materials with some magic thrown in. At the real one’s disappearance someone had found this girdle, and now it is being offered as a prize at this event. The thing to know about this girdle is that, at least now, not only will it make the wearer virtuous, it also recognizes if she is already virtuous.

So each knight escorts his lady in a procession, with each one being deemed more beautiful than the one presented before. They thought they had finally seen the fairest of them all in a woman named Amoret until a less than honorable dude named Blandamour presents who he thinks is the true Florimell, who we the readers know is actually the false Florimell. Not only is she not that woman, she’s not even a human. But she is all glowy and other-worldly beautiful (as she has been forged to be), and they are so in awe that they award her the top prize. We are told that they were so happy to see Florimell, yet they all were thinking that they didn’t remember her being this beautiful. But, hey, you say it’s Florimell, we’ll believe it is Florimell. Spenser tells us that the ‘guilefull Goldsmith’ will throw on ‘more goodly glosse…to hide his falshood, then if it were trew’, and that what they were looking at ‘seem’d to passe’ the (real) Florimell, as ‘forged things’ so often do. The fake things often look better than the real deal, and even though we should know better, we will believe in it.

So guess what happens when they put that grand prize girdle on this fake woman? It will not stay. Yes, the girdle knows lack of virtue when it sees it. And, also, with the real Florimell being its previous owner, it most likely recognizes that this one is false. But then many of those other beautiful girls are trying it on, and it will not stay on them either. All these beautiful women that so wowed the crowd, none are deemed virtuous by the girdle that knows. Until it’s put on Amoret — you know, the one that almost won the prize before the fake one showed up — on her it stays…..until false Florimell snatches it off. But I’m going to stop the story right there. I’m sure you’ve had enough. And now I want to share some thoughts about outside appearances and true virtue.

Reading this Canto this morning has got me thinking about how often I have been fooled by the outward appearance of people, thinking that they are just as bright, kind, honest, and thoughtful as they ‘appear’ on first meeting. And as I said in the title, on second, third, fourth, and on. Then one day you find out something quite different, and you wonder ‘where did that come from?!’ It has happened to me many times in my 6 decades, and perhaps it’s because life is speeding up, but it seems that it is happening more frequently to me. Is it because we’re in this age of appearances with our clever words on Twitter, and pretty faces and pictures and snappy reels on Facebook and Instagram? All the flashy graphics and filters. Who are you really?

I also wonder at what kind of people we are ‘creating’ from our education system, both public and private, as well as in the church world. The public school world may be awash with situational ethics and gray areas and PC jargon, but the world outside of those walls in private schools and home schools and the churches have been less than successful in producing truly virtuous people. Often what I’m finding (after those 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on meetings) is people who present (somewhat) virtuously on the outside — they know all the proper answers and vocabulary and dress, but it does not go deep inside. Here’s something Jesus was compelled to say to some religious leaders:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

And so they teach their people to be.

In the private school world, particularly amongst the religious ones, there are curricula written specifically for studies in Character. Often they use stories to teach these ‘lessons’. And if you’ve been around me enough you know that I am convinced that using stories is a bad, bad thing. Just yesterday I shared a CS Lewis quote on ‘education without values’ on social media and commented that I hesitated to share it because people would think, ‘Oh, we must purchase a Character curriculum or preach a specific moral when reading a fairy tale with our children‘, and I continued, ‘but that’s not it AT ALL. In fact, that’s a good way to rear an unloving, judgmental prig with tons of hubris.’ I have seen this over and over with kids raised on these kinds of characters studies and memorizing of facts. Here and here I wrote about such a thing.

So when do we stop being fooled by outward appearance? What is the cost, really? We all have different neurologies (my made up word, I guess, because it gets the squiggles), so there are different levels of hurt and damage done. I do not want to become so jaded that I immediately suspect the one who appears friendly, honest, and open on the outside. But I have grown weary of the disappointments.

And then we should ask, ‘Am I such a person? Do I try to appear virtuous on the outside, but inside I am full of bad, bad stuff?’ Why might that be? As I said here, do you want to get well? (Yes, Jesus said it before me. Go read the post. I do give him the credit.) What can you do to get well? Throw out that lame curriculum and Sunday school type lessons, for one. Learn to read rightly. You might want to get away from certain influencers — both on social media and in real life. Lord have mercy that we have such a label as influencer. What do you do for a living? I influence. I got nothing inside, but I sure do influence. I don’t do anything, but I sure do influence.

I want to end with a brief message on Story. As I said, I do not believe in using Story, but you might think that’s exactly what I did in this post. I used the story to illustrate a point. But, you see, that’s the ‘magic’ of story, the transformative power of story. I did not go into it looking for ‘the point’ — ‘what is Spenser teaching us here?’ I was reading it because, well, it was my assignment for my class. But the images and metaphors got into my mind and heart (and maybe my belly, too!) who went to work on it, and it got me thinking about my own life and how I see similar things happening. Stories have many, many layers, my people. Images and metaphors, also. Stories will save the world. If we let them. Learn to read, my people. And stop tearing the stories apart, but rather allow the stories to work on you. “In the beginning,” the greatest storybook of all begins. Read it. Learn the images and metaphors. Be changed. Be genuinely like the One in whose Image the story tells us we were made.

[No picture because I really want you to see these words in your mind’s eye.]

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On the 16th Anniversary of our Daughter’s Birth: Grace meet Wendi, Wendi meet Grace

Posted on February 3, 2022 by Kay Pelham

This post is sort of what I planned for this day of remembering Virginia Grace Pelham (February 3, 2006 ~ February 24, 2006), but with the death yesterday, February 1, of my friend Wendi Capehart, who was already a part of the story I wanted to tell, I will focus deeper on only one of the many ways my daughter changed my life. (For previous posts on Grace, you can click the ‘Virginia Grace’ tag to the right.) When disappointments happen in life, especially with the loss of a loved one ‘too early’, we often ask Why. With my daughter I wonder why she even came at all if she was only to stay those few weeks after her birth. Chatting with a friend the other day, I told her about my sleepless nights while pregnant with Grace, and how I stayed up nights surfing the internet, researching my plan to educate my son James, just 2 years old at that time, and what a wonder it was that Grace was helping her older brother back then from the womb as she kept me from sleeping. If that was the only reason Grace came to us but only for a while, that would be enough. As the years go by I see more reasons, but rather than go into those as I planned, I will park right there. Let me take you back to 2005, me sitting in our former carport/office in little Red Boiling Springs, TN, late nights to the wee hours of the morning, traveling through cyberspace, and meeting Wendi.

2005: When homeschooling information and chats were moving from catalogs and magazines to the internet. People were blogging and often joining those blogs together with ‘carnivals’. One late night I came upon a blog titled The Common Room. There was no real name attached to it. With their nicknames, I met the mother, ‘Deputy Headmistress’, and ‘Headgirl’, ‘Jenny Dots’, and about 5 others. Mostly it was the mother writing posts, but occasionally the older girls would contribute. This woman wrote about everything — homeschooling, raising children, food, old recipes, old books, vintage everything, politics, news, world events. How did she know so much? How did she read so much? How did she have time to do immediate analysis and commentary on the news, making so many connections, with all those kids in the house? I couldn’t keep up. This was truly the smartest woman I had ever ‘met’. But who was she? Where did she live? It was all so secret. She talked a lot about Charlotte Mason, some late 19th/early 20th century British educator. I’d never heard of Charlotte Mason — me who read so much and was a big Anglophile. Me who loved old books and old ways. I liked what I was hearing about this Charlotte Mason and what she thought about children and how we learn and what’s important in life. This DHM (Deputy Headmistress) also talked about AmblesideOnline, a Charlotte Mason curriculum. I might have been led there through DHM linking Mason’s writings which were housed at AO. In searching for how we would homeschool our son, I began with looking at all the ‘classical’ methods out there, and as I came to know Charlotte Mason more through DHM and AO, I knew I had found home. Here was the ‘classical’ that I wanted. It was different from many that I had been researching. It was ‘classical with heart’, as I thought of it then.

But still, who was this DHM, this smartest woman I had ever met? As I got to know more about AmblesideOnline, and mined the depths of their website — it runs deep, my friends, but you don’t know that at first glance — I learned that there were 6 women who had founded, written, and continued to oversee this curriculum. They were called The Advisory. So mysterious they were, with their bios having no pictures, just those Willow Tree figurines representing each one and her family. I decided that DHM must be one of them, and through time I identified her as Wendi Capehart. And I was right! Deciding that this was the curriculum I would use with my son, we followed their ‘Year 0’ suggestions until we officially began ‘Year 1’ when he was 6. (For all that that curriculum meant to us over the years, see my several posts here on the blog.) Through the years I got to know Wendi personally online, sending many questions her way. I was so honored when she messaged me one day to ask if I would be a moderator on the discussion group that they were moving from Yahoo groups to a forum on their own website. “We trust you. We think you are very level-headed,” she wrote to me. Not that I felt capable, but how could I turn down these women that had given so much to me? In 2016, when I didn’t think I could afford to go to Dallas for the AO conference, Wendi was part of the team that made sure I got there. That’s when I got to see her lovely face and hear her lovely voice in person. That’s when I got to hang out after hours in “the green room” with the Advisory and close friends, and see these women “with their hair down”, as it were, and find that they were the real deal and not just for show, and also incredibly funny. In 2019 I was at AO Camp Meeting in Tennessee, which I wrote about here. In that post I share about a special moment with Wendi teaching us a folk song. Wendi was a champion for “the riches”: Folksongs, Hymn Study, Picture Study, Composer Study, Nature Study. Wendi was extremely smart with academics, but she knew “the riches” (she came up with the name, as opposed to “the extras”) in order to emphasize that they were essential to education and to life, and not to be left to last and then neglected because we ran out of time. “The Riches” make it all worth it. Just last month this podcast interview with Wendi and Cindy Rollins was published. Wendi speaks a great deal in the interview about the importance of folk music. I will be writing more about that in another post.

The AmblesideOnline Advisory. Best friends and colleagues for over 20 years. Six women so different from each other, but so bonded in heart. Each essential to the team. They’ve communicated daily, sometimes from different continents. They’ve met in person only a handful of times. Their impact on my family’s life is eternal.

Wendi’s life was far from easy. There were was some intense and near tragic times with her family. Wendi raised and educated her 7 children, including a severely disabled daughter. Angel was in her 30s and still being taken care of by Wendi full time when they both went into the hospital last month. Angel passed away the week before Wendi did.

I don’t have time and space here to explain Charlotte Mason to those of you who don’t know. Read more of my blog to find out, or ask me questions sometime. But I’ll briefly try to explain that “Charlotte Mason” is not just a curriculum or educational philosophy, it is a way of thinking and living. Charlotte Mason was one of the most authentic persons I have ever known. I imagine her to be a lot like Wendi Capehart. Brilliant. Truth-seeker. Honest. Blunt. Reader. Thinker. Bluff-caller. Lover of all Creation. In awe of the Creator. Never giving up although going through many physical trials. Charlotte and Wendi, neither sought fame but they loved the truth and children and just could not keep what they knew to themselves.

In one of her last posts on social media, Wendi shared this quote from John Ruskin:

“Education is not teaching the youth of England the shapes of letters and their tricks of numbers, and then leaving them to turn their arithmetic to roguery and their literature to lust. Rather, it is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them; and the final results of the education I want you to give your children will be, in a few words, this–they will know what it is to see the sky, they will know what it is to breathe it, and they will know, best of all, what it is to behave under it, as in the presence of a Father who is in heaven.”

I put that last half in bold because I imagine these are Wendi’s words to us now that she is gone.

This chain of Grace to Wendi to Charlotte (and still Wendi)…..Little Grace who could not stay. She brought me mentors who taught me what a child is and what education is, who gave me a curriculum to follow, a philosophy to lead me in raising her brother, and in seeing all children that I meet and that I teach as fully human and capable. Little Grace, who couldn’t stay and grow up and be a child here, her life mattered, and daily has an impact on the lives of every child and adult her mother meets. Thank you, Grace, for bringing me to Wendi. Thank you, Wendi, for bringing me to Charlotte. And now, Grace meet Wendi. Wendi meet Grace. Till we all meet again.

  • Wendi Lord Capehart
  • Virginia Grace Pelham
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Imagine That!

Posted on January 17, 2022 by Kay Pelham

I will ponder all your work,
and meditate on your mighty deeds.

Psalm 77:12

Go to the ant, O sluggard;
consider her ways, and be wise.

Proverbs 6:6

This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.

Haggai 1:7

Humans are wonderfully made and are unique in the animal kingdom in having the ability to ‘see’ in the ‘mind’s eye’ what is not physically there. Throughout the Judeo-Christian writings there are admonitions for humans to use that unique ability to ponder, consider, meditate, think, contemplate, wonder, as well as times when the writer himself is relating how he is doing these very things. Christians, as humans, are endowed with and often directed as followers of these teachings to use this ability to Imagine, to see what is not physically there, to see what could be. And yet so many of them balk at this idea. Just give me those facts, those 10 or more commandments, those requirements for salvation, and I’m good. Tell me what to physically do, and I’m good.

From beginning to end the Bible is full of images, symbols, and metaphors, to give our wonderfully-made minds ideas to feed on. This is the way that our Creator chose to transmit to us knowledge of Him. Do you really want to know Me? Here let me give you thousands of images to feast on. Then you will really know.

Open my eyes, that I may see
Wondrous things from Your law.

Psalm 119:18

I ask that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know…

Ephesians 1:18

Really? Literal eyes? Literal eyes of your literal heart? What we have here is encouragement to Imagine wrapped up in Imaginative language.

From In the beginning to the Revelation of Jesus Christ given to John, with all the stories and prophecies of the ‘Old Testament’ and Jesus’ the kingdom of Heaven is like, the Bible is full of images and metaphors. And so the tradition continues through the folk tales of nations and cultures all over this planet. In the beginning – can you say once upon a time? And so many of these folk tales are retellings of the Gospel story. Edens to Falls to Redemption. So many end with a reunion, a wedding feast, a dance, a celebration — just as the Bible story does. Did you know that? Do you know the Images? Are you giving careful attention? Do you have eyes to see? Do you use your Imagination?

Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:

“You will indeed hear but never understand,
and you will indeed see but never perceive.”
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and with their ears they can barely hear,
and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart
and turn, and I would heal them.

’But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

To be continued…

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The Octave and Home

Posted on December 29, 2021 by Kay Pelham

I have a million things to write about. So much I am constantly learning and want to share. It’s really overwhelming, and the more I delay writing, the more is piled on in my heart and head, and my overwhelmitude grows exponentially. I am grabbing this moment to make myself write about the subject in the title.

My teachers Angelina Stanford and Kelly Cumbee have mentioned the idea of the Octave, its metaphorical meaning, and how philosophers of the past (particularly the Medievals) thought about it. Musically we recognize the octave through the diatonic scale beginning with Do and returning (in the words of Oscar Hammerstein, ‘and that brings us back to’) Do, but at a higher level. Whether or not you understand music theory, you have experienced that feeling of being left hanging if a tune does not return ‘home’ to Do.

But is it really a return home if you do not end on the original lower Do? Again, you may not know the theory, but you certainly can recognize the feeling of a solid landing home with the arrival to the lower Do, and the feeling of being at a new home when you end with the higher Do. When I messaged my musician husband about this idea, he responded: “Going to the high Do brings you ‘home’, but with more energy. It’s like putting an exclamation point at the end of the final sentence! Not just a statement of fact, but of emphaticnessity.”

Comedy, Tragedy, and Romance have come to suggest different things today from their original meaning when it comes to story structure. If you are a legitimate teacher of literature, as my teachers are, as well as 20th century writers/teachers Northrop Frye and C.S. Lewis, you know those original meanings, which are still valid today. Tragedy and Comedy in the simplest description are inversions of each other, the tragedy represented by the frown, and comedy by the smile. (You see these in the Greek theatre masks.) A Romance takes the upward motion of the ending of a Comedy even higher. There is a journey to Paradise beyond the resolution of things on Earth. I was very moved recently by listening to Kelly talk through the ending of King Lear, which has always seemed like a total tragedy to me with the deaths of just about everyone, including practically angelic Cordelia and her repentant father Lear, who have just been reconciled. Kelly showed us the Romance sub-layer of this Tragedy. Cordelia and Lear are reconciled and have moved on up to Paradise, our final home, our real home.

And so this morning as I have been contemplating the Octave — musically, metaphorically, spiritually — I am determined that it is a Romance. We do not return to our original Home. We are not brought back to Do (sorry Mr. Hammerstein), but instead are brought to a new Home, a higher Home. The 8th is Resurrection. God rested on the 7th day, and then there was the 8th day. We all are familiar with “the passion week”, Jesus’ final week leading to his crucifixion. But it wasn’t final because on the 8th day, the first day of the following week, He arose! The work was completed, and we all have a chance for a new Home. Christ is both Dos, both homes. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.

The Creator of this cosmos is amazing. So generous with all the beauties that I’m certain he got a kick out of making, and so thrilled when humans make a connection with and get joy out of the glorious order about us. What a genius teacher He is to show us concepts of reality through all of this. What a living education is story and music and nature. And what grace is shown to people like me that it is not too late learn and love all of this.

I’m pressing on the upward way,
New heights I’m gaining every day;
Still praying as I onward bound,
“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”
 Lord, lift me up, and let me stand
By faith on Canaan’s tableland;
A higher plane than I have found,
  Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.
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A Great Question: Do You Want to Get Well?

Posted on November 6, 2021 by Kay Pelham

John, one of the apostles of Jesus, tells of a time when Jesus was in Jerusalem and passed by a pool where many disabled people waited for healing. Jesus says to a guy that he learns has been in this condition for a long time, “Do you want to get well?” Most modern versions of John’s story translate the question that way, but the King James version has: “Wilt thou be made whole?”, which I find closer to the strength of what I think Jesus is really asking the man.

Principle 17 of Charlotte Mason’s 20 Principles begins: “Children should be taught to distinguish between ‘I want’ and ‘I will'”, and she goes on to elaborate on The Way of the Will. When Charlotte speaks of ‘the strong-willed child’, she does not mean it at all in our modern use of the phrase — no, quite the opposite. And this Will is something that must be trained, and this training of the Will is well described in Charlotte’s writings.

There are all kinds of things that we want or wish for, but the proof is in our thelō (the Greek verb that John quotes Jesus saying). That word can be defined as: to be resolved or determined, to purpose. A truly strong Will does not happen overnight. The training of the Will can be strenuous and often needs a rest or diversion, and then it is ready to be at work again. Alongside the training of the Will is the training of the Conscience so that the Will is directed in the right direction.

I hear many things from friends about wanting this or that — to be a better mother, to be a better teacher, to be a better friend, to be more organized, to eat better, exercise more, be kinder, more patient, more confident, more at peace —- and the question is, “Wilt thou?”

The Way of the Will is a hard road — perhaps not for long, though. The more we train and practice, the lighter the load it is to Do when we ought and to say No when we ought. It really is foundational for the education of and living out this Life to the fullest.

To learn more about The Way of the Will, I suggest the writings of Charlotte Mason, as well as books by Karen Glass and Anne White, including the following: Ideas Freely Sown, Minds More Awake, In Vital Harmony.

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