The "Others."

There is a haunting movie out there called "The Others," a dark Nicole Kidman flick that I have always enjoyed, revolving around two families interacting in curious ways over an apparently haunted house.
In the film, the exploration of human relationships is so vivid. The mother, at times appearing the perfectly poised and responsible and even superhero-ish Army wife she must be in her situation, increasingly acts completely insane as the pressure begins to mount. My husband says we are all just a hair's breadth away from insanity.
Her marriage is a source of complete struggle. Relying on her husband's imaginary presence and memory to keep her going, his actual presence when he finally returns is a source of confusion and heartache. The ghosts in her house end up being her closest companions and her greatest source of confusion, fear, and unrest.

How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.
-- Psalm 119:9

I am a married woman now, and I haven't always lived a Christian life. When I was younger, teachings about purity and living a chaste life eluded me for various reasons, and though I felt I was always a "good person" or at least trying to be, I am a person who has been intimate with others, besides my husband (among many, many other sins besides.)

This little fact-- seemingly unimportant among other qualities I have and daily impose on my husband-- has been one of the most relevant pieces of baggage I have brought to this marriage, and has had a profound effect on all parts of it. Because of that, it seemed like a good idea to discuss these things openly, so that someone, somewhere, reading this might finally understand why God places such seemingly restrictive "rules" on our feelings and our bodies.

Let me be clear: my previous relationships, of which several really stand out, are not things I regret. They were beautiful, and had a potential to be pure and glorious and life-giving. They were sincere, and genuine. I use the term "relationships" loosely here. Some of the encounters I am talking about lasted one moment, but it was a moment full of the strongest and most noble of possible emotions-- moments that were stopped in their tracks by life's circumstances. Other encounters were conscious enterings into a long term partnership, or an attempt at life sharing. None of these--- none of them--- even come close to marriage. But they were powerful encounters, and life changing, and I will never forget them. And neither will they, those "others" that periodically invade my marriage bed, home, or family life.  Like Nicole Kidman's ghosts, sometimes they are welcome guests, helping my husband and myself to work out an issue. Other times they are intruders...inescapable presences that lurk behind every closed door and invade every quiet moment.

I look back on most of them with great fondness and affection, with tenderness. Unbearable tenderness, sometimes. They were not, of themselves, a bad thing. Love is good. I've heard it argued that these types of relationships were not "love" in and of themselves, and I have to agree-- love is an action, not a feeling, and is sacrificial, not self- serving. But I use the term "love" here to describe the intense fondness and affection that one can feel for another human being. I do not regret having had those feelings. I have learned from them, and I have had a glimpse of the joy that true Union can bring. A glimpse, mind you. Just a fleeting vision.

What I do regret is the progression of that "love" feeling into boiling lust, and then into.... blandness or boredom, a natural side-effect of human relationships.  Worse, what was then transformed into..... lies, deceit, anger, unrest, and eventually.... brokenness. I have "loved" others with my whole heart, only to take it away from them when I found myself bored by them, or interested by the next passing thing. And I will live forever with the guilt of the pain that I caused in some of the dearest people I have ever known.

Some of these loves I have lost went on to live "normal" and productive lives. I have even remained friends with them. What passes between us now is a deep friendship, one that is hard to define but obviously understandable... we have shared life together. When I think about these relationships in retrospect, I am grateful. These are people who allowed me to make serious mistakes- even to hurt them in the worst kinds of ways-- and had the inner strength and grace to not only forgive me but move on and still give me this beautiful, undeserved kindness. These people helped form who I am today and by allowing me the freedom to make serious mistakes but still love me, gave me a wonderful witness of Christ-likeness in their behavior-- even the ones who are not, and never have been, Christians.

But there are others. Though they also helped form who I am, these others haunt me and the thought of them makes my stomach turn and my heart beat anxiously. These are the people I know I will answer to God for in my final hours, whose suffering faces I can not forget. These are people I hurt and who never recovered, or who recovered only superficially. These are people who are broken because of my actions and lack of love and selfishness. Some of these faces are the faces of people I was in a direct relationship with. Others of them are people who were in relationships with people I developed a sexual relationship with. All of these people are hurt, directly, in some way, because of me, and don't have a relationship with God to shed light into those dark places in their heart and psyche and to warm and heal them.

Because purity wasn't on my moral radar, my soul became fragmented. Because purity wasn't on my moral radar, I harmed people and left them to rot in their sadness.

At the time, it was so easy to justify what I was doing. I loved deeply, and then, one day-- the next day, in some cases, I'm embarrassed to say--  I simply didn't love deeply.

In retrospect, I think my French and American backgrounds combined to create a perfect storm in me: My inner French girl--  deeply romantic and interested in the seduction game, accepting of sexuality as a whole part of myself, and on the other hand my inner American girl--a creature of excess, of blacks and whites, of hypocrisy and of idolized stoic morality, and of stepping on the little guys to get to the top of the power ladder regardless of convention or tradition or obligation.

On the other hand, maybe I was just.... lonely. I can't fully explain it. And I can't say I've always come out "on top" either--- I can think of a few relationships that left me weeping and mourning in the dust. But by and large, I've been responsible for way too many heartbreaks, and my past is a story of love lost and hearts broken.

Nothing wounds like love. Khalil Gibran, in my favorite poem on love, says:

"When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep,
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you."
  

 I have often heard Christian testimonies given when people talk about how they were empty or sad or "looking for something" when they met God. Many talk about how having had a long string of relationships meant that they were seeking what God had to offer. Though I can understand that, it wasn't my experience. I felt full and overflowing when I met God and came face to face with him for the first time. I was not looking for him, and I did not feel that I was visibly in unrest... I felt content with myself, my life, and my relationships at the time.

But on the night I met Him--- really met Him-- face to face, He spoke through people directly to my soul and addressed those broken parts in me... not the parts that knew I wasn't fully loved, though they were there, but the parts that knew I had lacked in love.... the parts that knew I had done harm. This caused a great, heaving shift in me. It CREATED unrest. Discomfort. and a place I can only describe as..... a wound. But picking at that scab, I realized that what was under there was a festering, horrible, deep, dangerous mess that had always been there and that I had been completely ignorant of until that night. I needed God.

Reflecting back, it was in that moment that I saw my selfishness for what it was, in all its ugliness. And most of my Christian walk since that night has been an attempt to go back to the fullness of that revelation and to turn from it-- to make the change that I knew that night needed to be made.

The effects of those hurts, magnified by the fact that not only my heart and soul but my body had been "united" with these people (and in some cases, not really my heart, but only my body-- the vessel which carries my heart and soul!) have impacted my marriage in every way.

My husband has had a very different experience of past relationships, as he always "knew" that he was destined to marry one woman and remain with her. I can't believe that woman was me, because the difference in our approaches to love mean that just by virtue of having lived the way I have, I have harmed and wounded him in the most painful of ways. And yet he loves me!

He is and always has been much more pure than I am, and I am grateful for his example and his ability to understand that all things are fleeting in this world-- something I always wish I understood more deeply.

As I watch parents near me parent their children, particularly their teenaged children (I don't really like the term "teenager.") I am constantly reflecting about these issues. In some families, chastity is greatly valued and teenagers, though anticipating and experiencing their first "love" experiences, are so motivated and prepared to wait --to  wait for the one prepared for them.
In other families, "significant others" are encouraged, or at least accepted. They become a part of the
fabric of the family. Breakups are felt by the whole family. I still have "other mothers" and "other fathers," "other siblings" that I can't shake. They are a part of me too.

Looking at it this way, it seems obvious why God would ask people to wait. Wait to build a relationship and bond until your wedding day-- the day you stand before God and man and say: forever, through thick and thin. Wait for union and for your turn to taste the pleasures of the flesh the way God ordained it. Wait because every action you take in the other direction runs the risk of remaining with you and a part of you forever as well.

There are eyes and hands I saw and felt, an Italian accent in a deep voice that fascinated me on a long plane ride home one year and that I never again encountered, but that will stay with me forever. There is a Polish boy I once shared a scooter ride, a beer and a postcard exchange with who stopped me in my tracks for a time, and a Turkish boy in Germany with haunting eyes and the sweetest smile. There was a Swedish boy who welcomed me into his family and even moved across the world for me. Good ol' American boys, heavy drinkers and happy partiers, or thoughtful, quiet, artistic ones, who I have loved and walked away from. There are French boys with hearts warm with sun and laughter I can never forget, the sound of whose scooters along the gravel path above me I listened for longingly each night from my bedroom window... until I didn't. There are Irish boys, and Australian boys. Arab boys. Jewish boys. Boys I have camped with, traveled with, or gone to school with. Boys in passing vehicles or walking near me with whom I have shared the most intimate of glances. I can never forget any of them. If I apply myself, not even one.

They grew up to be men-- the ones who still have breath in them, and to form families of their own, just as I have, and to be haunted by their pasts, just as I have been. When those families have fallen apart I have often heard from them and the sound of their reaching is a comfort to me I know comes from the most sinful part of my fleshly nature-- the part that desires consolation, but not to console. They give my heart an easy escape, but it is an illusion, because behind each door is the exact same cage: a prison called Giving.

And no amount of declaring those bonds broken, of the handing over of these relationships to Jesus,  will ever erase the memory of them or the lessons that were learned, or the pain seared into me or them whenever our names or faces pop up on my facebook feed or in my dreams or nightmares or in my home or marriage bed. No amount of knowing the wrongness of them will ever make them wrong, because God placed those desires and feelings within us knowing where they COULD lead us, how they would help us to choose now whom we will serve, to declare that "as for me, and my family, we will serve the Lord."

These encounters were wrong because God declares them so, but His declaration is not because they were "bad" but because I am bad.  I have evil inclinations bound up within the good I am capable of-- because I am fallen. Because I am not pure, though I am capable of purity.
Because I am not loving, although I am capable of love.

Because I am not able to do this living and loving thing on my own-- only with the help of God can the voices of these others be released from me so that I am free to focus on the thing I am here, doing: loving my husband, loving my children--- a family which is so holy and pure, a family which my baggage has often overwhelmed and which has somehow, some way, loved me anyways because they know that Giving has another name, too: and that name is Freedom.

And so my "others" haunt me, but they also free me. And so by having loved them, I am able to REALLY love another. And so by having loved them, I am able to acknowledge what real love is and what it isn't.  When my marriage has been hard, I have often asked myself if I would be happier with an "other." What would our lives be like? Would we argue and struggle as much as this? Although I cannot say, I do know that every human relationship will have moments of glory and moments of pure hell. I do know that entering, and remaining, in a human relationship has a cost-- none more great than Marriage. I do know that that cost becomes more easy to bear when one has not tasted of the wonders that these others have to offer. I do know that everything we do--- each passing, loaded glance, each word we speak, each piece of our heart we choose to share or choose to keep to ourselves must be purified by the Word of God so that it might bear good fruit... because in the words of Khalil Gibran, through love:

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,
that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

2013 Term I Daily Routine and Reading Schedule

   Appian Way Academy Term 1 2013

You never can tell

You Never Can Tell
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

You never can tell when you send a word,
Like an arrow shot from a bow
By an archer blind, be it cruel or kind,
Just where it may chance to go!


It may pierce the breast of your dearest friend,
Tipped with its poison or balm;
To a stranger's heart in life's great mart,
It may carry its pain or its calm.


* * * * *

You never can tell when you do an act
Just what the result will be;
But with every deed you are sowing a seed,
Though the harvest you may not see.


Each kindly act is an acorn dropped
In God's productive soil.
You may not know, but the tree shall grow,
With shelter for those who toil.


* * * * *

You never can tell what your thoughts will do,
In bringing you hate or love;
For thoughts are things, and their airy wings
Are swifter than carrier doves.
They follow the law of the universe,
Each thing must create its kind;
And they speed o'er the track to bring you back
Whatever went out from your mind.

Mind and matter: The freedom to love

Recently, I've been reading with great interest all of the parenting posts online of people making headway with children suffering from very challenging disorders. From adhd to sensory issues and autism, oppositional defiance disorder to hypersensitivity and anxiety disorders... it seems they are everywhere we turn and I often fear in my own household as well.

It is hard to sort out my feelings about how to handle these incredibly difficult experiences. I wholeheartedly believe that professional counseling, diet changes, and close professional monitoring are often necessary. But I also believe in the healing power of Our Lord to help these children -- and their parents-- overcome.

A wise old friend, priest exorcist, and mentor to me who has a higher education in psychology AND  theology once told me something that really hit me.
He said--
"In a sense, psychology is really a necessary bunch of hooey. Necessary, but psychology will never save us. The practice of psychology essentially gives a name to a symptom. It categorizes, it notices, it points out. But the work of healing must be done within, no person receiving psychotherapy is healed by the psychologist, but by God."

I think it is helpful to look at clusters of symptoms, to listen to the experiences of others who seem to experience them, to speak about them regularly with someone, and to examine oneself.

More useful are two things:
(1) Unconditional love and acceptance, respect and human dignity
(2) a good example.

I'm coming to realize that this is the only way to parent, and the only way to evangelize... and the only way to disciple.

I'm also starting to realize just how much craftier Satan is than I had ever, ever thought (and believe me, I've thought and thought because I worked in deliverance ministry for years.)

You see, part of the inheritance we receive from our bloodline includes genetic weaknesses... tendencies. Sometimes they have to do with obvious sins like alcoholism or rebelliousness. Other times with inherited issues surrounding neurotransmitters or organ formation.... but some of these can be spiritual too.

In my first day of psychology, I learned that some of us are "born" with the seed for certain issues, but that no one really understands when / why they get activated and begin to grow. Studies do show that a person with a certain chemical tendency in the brain, given the right environment, may never experience its effects. Studies also show that given the WRONG environment, even a person who suffers from NO SUCH genetic pre-disposition can and WILL develop said issue. It seems to me, then, that the best solution is and always will be to begin with infancy and to watch over our children.

When Charlotte Mason said "education is a discipline, an atmosphere and a life...." she was NOT kidding! We cannot let go for one instant. At the same time, we WILL fail, of course, at providing the perfect atmosphere and discipline. Not only because we will sin ourselves, but because ultimately we cannot control some kinds of input. Our children will see, hear, eat, observe all kinds of things that we would rater they not at some point, and our vigilance can only go so far.

That's where the Will of God comes in-- those difficulties which He in His infinite wisdom allows us to experience despite our best attempts at vigilance. We must accept them as the will of God for our lives and embrace the sanctifying suffering which they cause us.

This is why we confess our own sins, and not the sins of others. This is why when a person wants an exorcism, we begin by reminding them that the best exorcism in the world will fail when you do not have a penitent spirit. This is why, on the other hand, a baby who is baptized (and therefore exorcised, as the rite of baptism contains an exorcism) is instantly healed of original sin, and why food that is blessed becomes blessed.

It is also why a psychologist in a therapeutic setting will lead a person through painful/traumatic experiences and ask him to examine them in light of truth. Naturally, for us, truth is not objective! We have a rock on which to stand.

When we look at ways we have been wounded and accept that these experiences were wounding, but that Jesus heals us and that we are called to forgive and to fight with all our might against our OWN sins, we may not need any further assistance.

But when our hearts become closed to this idea... when we begin to feel justified in our violence and unforgiveness and wrong reactions and in our anger and bitterness and hurt.... THAT is when a mental imbalance begins to develop and strengthen. It is also when a physical imbalance can be begin to develop and strengthen--- and even a spiritual imbalance.

Were we justified to experience anger and resentment and paralyzing fear when we were abused as a child? These are natural responses to such a horrific act, and no one in their right mind would blame us for having them. But is there a better way? Is there a path of peace, and if so, how can we find our footing along it? Psychology offers us some insight, but only theology offers us the answers. Those who appear healed without God will find that they may have been "saved" from a suffering which was intended to give them a real, and deeper salvation.

Sin is messy and ugly, and the working out of our own salvation (Phil 2:12) is rough, difficult work.
Like childbirth, it involves pain so bad we don't think we will live through it, and an inner strengthening which can come only from above.

So psychology is extremely helpful, but it does not always provide the focus we might need.
Before I studied psychology or returned to the Church, I was surrounded by people who were FORMER psychiatrists and psychologists-- people who had ceased to practice because of their Christian faith. They felt like frauds, essentially, keeping people from the Gospel, and were adamant about the work of healing belonging to the Holy Spirit. I learned very much from these people and I still hold them in very high esteem. I watched some of the most challenging cases find healing and peace through their interactions, and I cannot deny that what they said would happen... did. And that people were better off and at peace.

When I returned to the Church, it was a confusing time for me. No longer sure of the path God had put me on, I realized quickly that there was no room for me in the ministry of exorcism of the Church in a professional kind of way. In the Catholic Church, the only exorcists are Catholic priests. At the same time, I KNEW that I had prayed with people and that the demonic torments they were experiencing had left them. So I couldn't deny that. It was one of the hinge-issues that kept me from embracing a full return immediately. Fortunately, a wise priest once explained to me: "just because you CAN, doesn't always mean you SHOULD." Ahhhh.

I began to see that I had been very foolish as a protestant in deliverance ministry, and had only been protected from evil by God's ocean of mercy. I never really experienced the kind of mind boggling, bone-chilling (I SO know the root of that expression now!), horrifying and subtle evil-with-a-capital-E until I returned to the Church. That's when, it seemed, my pride was exposed for what it really was to me.... because whereas before I had been sure of myself and sure of God's ability to deliver, I had also been both telling God what to do and telling the person how they should respond. I had been completely unaware of these things as I did them-- I really thought I was doing what was best. But it was revealed to me very quickly that my former actions had been prideful, self-centered in many ways, and also narrow-minded. God's plan includes a far greater purpose than just "feeling good." It involves holiness, and sanctification. Nothing less than our pruning and perfecting.

I met people who were "doing all the right things" by Christian standards, and yet who simply could not "achieve" deliverance. At first I thought that these must be signs of the profound evil-ness of Catholicity, and I wondered if I had been deceived into returning. But then I began to notice that these suffering people were experiencing something I had never really seen from the scores of people who were delivered in the settings I was used to before and freed to walk away. These suffering people were holy. And holiness was something oft talked about in my circles before, but not often seen.

Within the Church, I was at first so amazed and frustrated to find that we always had to consult psychologists first to help people. It seemed so secular and unspiritual. I felt psychologists couldn't possibly help anyone in a really LASTING kind of way. And because of that, I felt that any child suffering from any type of disorder was really in need of nothing but a prayer and a good talking to.

But over time, although I vehemently disagree with many Bishops, including my own, in their stance on the ministry of exorcism (For you shocked Catholics--- I'm looking to Peter, always my eyes on Peter, and he has never let me down. ;) ) I have found that psychology is a useful tool to help pinpoint certain characteristics and concepts that lead us to root causes. In modern usage, a Bishop requests that a complete psychiatric evaluation be undertaken before the rite of exorcism is approved. Further, the Rite of Exorcism is ONLY approved if one of six super-natural signs (things like levitating or knowledge of something the person cannot have knowledge of) are present. This is "prudence." Now, most exorcists I have met live extremely lonely lives. They walk between two worlds, and no one wants what they have-- not even themselves.
They are also some of the holiest and most prayerful people I know. AND the most mentally taxed. I pray for them daily, and you should too.
I don't know a single exorcist who thinks that any harm would come to a person who WASN'T suffering from possession having been exorcised. The general consensus among them is that evil is present in the world and we must root it out and combat it, particularly when it hides. This whole cautionary craziness is all about fear... mostly fear of scandal, they assert.
At the same time, there is wisdom in the precautionary attitude.
While the Rite of Exorcism serves to literally command a demon to go from hidden to visible so that it can be dealt with accordingly, psychology serves to root out a sin so that it can be faced, or to root out a biological tendency that needs addressing which may be the result of evolutionary conditioning (years upon years of sinful behaviors that produce long term results).

And  this gift is oft neglected, although I know that as a protestant I was SURE that I was incorporating it into my ministry.

As a totally random example-- there is now a disorder called exploding head syndrome. Scientists noticed that many people reported waking up suddenly with extremely heightened physiological awareness that they were in danger, having heard a door slam, for example, that they realized had never slammed when they woke up. They behave physically as if they are in life-threatening danger (heavy breathing, heart pounding, adrenaline pumping), but everything is calm and peaceful when they awake. Some people experience it once a lifetime. Others several times a night.

Scientists can now pinpoint the exact part of the brain that is activated when Exploding Head Syndrome occurs. They have named it, named the disorder, and done studies to correlate lifestyle choices and genetic situations which make it more common than for others. They have done studies and found medications which can limit the number of experiences or at least slow down the active parts of the brain that cause it.

But science STOPS there. It cannot tell you WHY a person experiences exploding head syndrome and it cannot tell you WHAT activated this pinpoint in the brain. It cannot explain the activity in the physical brain matter at the time, only say that it. is. there.

Now, in my personal life, I have met many people who complained of Exploding Head Syndrome and many other strange disorders besides. And though I am not a psychologist, with the help of my own mentors and teachers and by the grace of God I have been able to help them. And how? By doing the above:

(1) Unconditional love and acceptance, respect and human dignity (2) a good example.

Obviously, the only key that truly unlocked what they needed was prayer. Obviously it was through prayer that God moved and that they agreed to accept Him and that they were healed. But the real deliverance happens when a person accepts that there is a better way than sin!

At the same time, I'll tell you a secret--- in all those years in deliverance ministry and then in the Catholic Church helping people who were in need of exorcisms and priest exorcists and Bishops communicate, I have found that some people appear to be simply beyond deliverance. Neither doctors nor medicine, nor priests nor prayer, have been able to help them. For some people, the Exploding Head Syndrome doesn't stop. The nervous tics, the uncontrollable impulses, the compulsive behaviors, the voices.... they won't let up. In those people, some medicated, some not, I have found two reactions: either peace, or panic.

I know countless people who have been failed by both psychology and the Church. They lie, rotting in hospitals without help, and their screams are ignored. They are kept sedated and quieted by force. My heart aches for them, and I pray for them daily.

There are others, though, who have shown a different way is possible.

I know a woman who suffers tremendously from schizophrenia. Medicated or not, she cannot find quiet from the voices in her head. She has had exorcisms to no avail, she has had psychotherapy and even hospitalization. Nothing. When I met her, she was terrifying to me. Today, she still hears the voices and still suffers from schizophrenia.
She is also the proud, happy mother of three beautiful and well-adjusted children, wife to a kind and wonderful man, and generally a very happy and well-faring person. How? Because she knows JESUS.

She knows the power of God over her visions and voices and evil thoughts.. She has experienced his deliverance over the issues of her body and soul. At the same time, she accepts her cross--- His will for her life--- and she has spoken to Him about it extensively. Daily she gets up and receives strength and light to face her unusual journey. And daily He delivers, although she is not like you and me. Her insight and wisdom are attractive to all who meet her. And her peace is profound.

This is how I always want to look at disorder and mental illness. I want to remember that there are two choices for each of us: peace, or panic. And to walk the way of Peace, with the Prince of Peace.
And I want to remember that in my interactions with others, whether they be my own children or the children of others exhibiting strange and difficult disorders of the mind and body..... there are really only two things I can do besides pray:

I can love without limits.
I can lead to my Lord.
Amen.

Family integrated worship

I often hear mothers complain that it is impossible to get children to be quiet in church, or conversely, who believe it is possible but cry out in desperation when time and again they suffer through mass. I also hear many different solutions offered from well-meaning parents that include deep pressure massage, hugs, patiently waiting for childhood to pass, snacks, coloring books, a bag of quiet toys, and other distractions. I have even heard some people  recommend pinching them to get them to snap back to attention(!)

The solution that I have found was not easy to implement, but once I began, I did not stop. Committed, I struggled through about six months of constant frustration on my end as I adjusted to having my kids WITH me and not being able to focus on worship the way I had been accustomed. In the beginning, it was a great struggle, because it required that I remain completely collected and calm, that I address every infraction but seem to be immersed and busy in worship, that I allowed no peep to come from their lips and that every blessed moment of my time in Divine Liturgy be simultaneously engaged in adoration of God and the deep trenches of motherhood where fear and panic and desperation often lurk.

Along the way, little things convinced me that that keeping them with me was the right thing to do. Even before my return to the Church, I felt guilty putting them in children's church. I knew they were playing and coloring pictures and not in worship. I knew they weren't seeing me and their father worship and thus not gleaning the importance of it from us. Even when they went to children's church or the nursery guilt free---- I started to notice that they got sick. EVERY TIME. And the cycle was exhausting. One day, my husband decided we were going to attend a church that simply didn't HAVE a childen's nursery. I had a moment of panic, but also recognized the value of what I was being asked to undertake. Motivated by Charlotte Mason's motto for her students, I breathed in deep and said under my breath: I can, I am, I ought, and I will.It was time.

Determined to stick it out until it was DONE and they were trained, I endeavored to do the only three things I knew to do:

1. Expect them to behave. I knew they were capable, because I had been to churches where I had met children who behaved. I had seen neat rows of families with mother on one end and father on the other end and children who listened and were reverent and wore matching clothes with brushed hair. I had stared at those families with awe and wonder and a hushed sense of the sacred Presence while my own beasts wriggled and squealed and hollered and bit pews and worked on stealing the pencils and tearing apart the hymnals. I knew it COULD be done and I determined to expect that my little monkeys were just as capable as any other children. I also sat right in the front, to ensure that they could see and be a part of what was happening. Sitting in the front also puts the pressure on. People can see us.

2. Ignore their attempts to lure me into conversation and attention-giving during liturgy. Every attempt they made to talk to me was met with a swift "Shhhhh" and a redirection towards the front. I used the same theory I use at night with my babies: Don't turn on the light, don't make eye contact, no noise. Even trips to the bathroom were swift, unconversational, and non-interactive. Mass is only one hour long. It seemed to me that anyone-- even a toddler or a pregnant mother-- could forego water or snacks during that hour. No food. No drinks. No books. No toys. No games. Just Liturgy. That was the plan.

3. Address bad habits immediately. I didn't want my kids to drop things and make noise, and I knew that if they had things to hold... they inevitably WOULD because that's what kids do. So I didn't give them coloring books or snacks or toys. I didn't give them books or children's missals because I knew they would read them instead of paying attention. I explained my expectation, and I trained them in it at home whenever I had the opportunity to (for example, when we pray the liturgy of the hours together in the morning and at night.) If I saw that a child was particularly unruly I was not beyond taking them out, but when I took them out I made the experience as horrid and bland as possible. If perchance I was forced to take out an unruly one year old (that's the hardest age because they are still so young but also so loud) we would just stare at a wall for a few moments til they realized liturgy was more interesting. I didn't let them get down and run around, play, or run in the narthex. As soon as they were reasonably quiet again, we would return to our seat.

Our reasoning for the solution I determined to use is that we are a Charlotte Mason education family. CM believed wholeheartedly that kids could rise to the occasion when we expected more of them and treated them with respect. She was pro-parental authority (the parent sets the standard) but also pro-respect of the child as a person with rights and the capacity to do well.
She never manipulated, used love or fear, etc to motivate the child, but rather believed that parents should model good behavior themselves and train in good habits from the beginning-- and not allow bad habits to ever take place in the first place.
In other words, if we don't eat or draw in church, there is no reason a kid should, so from the beginning we expect and train the child to pay attention without using fear or love or bribes or manipulation as a tactic. They catch on very quickly---- and although I still have to take my one year old to the back from time to time, even she understands to lower her voice and sit still during the one hour we are at mass, and I am quite certain that if I never let her get in the habit of doing anything else it will stay that way.

Also, habits come by practice. Because we pray the liturgy of the hours as a family and they are also required to sit still and be attentive at that time, it isn't a foreign situation when we go to mass.

In the beginning, it worked pretty well, but there were still struggles, particularly when I was alone with the kids (my husband is often gone).
One day, my husband said to me, rather harshly, that though I was doing a good job, I was still enabling any bad behavior that came from them because I paid so much attention to it.
Calm redirection, he told me, was ALWAYS better than any reaction I was having.

Watching him with my children from the back while I rock a sleepy, loud, baby has sometimes been funny. I have seen the kids get to all sorts of shennanigans behind his back as he worships, but ultimately, they have been quiet, which is the main goal, and undistracting to all but ME, which is the other goal.

The hardest moment in my mothering came when I felt that I had finally arrived-- as per the above-- and that I could now rest in the peace of knowing that I had done a good job. In the car on the way home from mass one day I casually mentioned it to my husband and mentioned in a joking matter how glad I was for my quiet times of prayer at home when I could really HEAR God.
To my shock and surprise, he chastised me heavily for not paying attention during mass.

At first, I felt this was completely unfair--- I was supposed to keep everybody under control, excel at that AND find a way to listen??? But then I realized that he was more than able to do so.
I determined from that day to do even better, and though I haven't "arrived" yet I can say that I am now both able to keep our kids quiet and attentive AND am able to narrate the homily and say that I was able to pray during liturgy. It truly is a glorious level of peace we reach when we get to this stage in our motherhood.

I have strong feelings that this is a skill that REALLY helps children to grow both in confidence in themselves and in their relationship with Jesus. I also have strong feelings that it's an important skill to teach them because I am a firefighter's wife, and my kids have had to represent him by behaving well both at funerals and award ceremonies where misbehaving children are seen with much less empathy than the kids that act up during mass where people at least are thinking: "I'm glad they are there." Because we have insisted that they can, will, and ought to behave and pay attention during mass, they can represent their father in public events like that and truly give honor to the person being honored (in the case of Mass-- to Jesus!) and that makes my heart so happy.

I am praying for all of you who have not yet found the "perfect" solution to get them to pay attention, as it is such a valuable life skill. God reward all of you for your faithfulness to keep trying although it is -- as I well know--- a very, very difficult task.

Please do not think I am sitting here with my feet up and all the answers--- I too struggle when my younger children have decided to misbehave on any given day. But I do have peace, because I know what to do, and my intention in writing this is not to say that I am better than you or that my kids are better than your kids, but rather to share that peace and the means by which it came. As far as I'm concerned, all is grace. These ideas came from the example of holy mothers who have gone before and are the fruit of hours spent in tears in the bathroom holding an unruly child.

Incidentally, my mother in law still pulls out her organizer and writes notes in church and passes them around to people in the pews. She is in her sixties.

Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6

CM Principles 3 & 4

Today's principles are a hot topic and a favorite parenting device of mine.

3. The principles of authority on the one hand, and of obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but--
4. These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestion or influence, or by undue play upon any one natural desire.

I am firmly convinced that principles 3 and 4 cannot really be separated in that though we can focus on one, we always need to keep it in the context of the other, so I determined to put them both together in my own study of the 20 Principles.

This question has been heavy on my mind much lately as I re-evaluate my parenting techniques and styles which have evolved tremendously since the days of having just one little one.

Growing up in parenthood in Christian circles, we all passed around the same books. You know the ones--  the ones that you mention on a facebook status and lose friends over. The ones that have upwards of 5 000 negative reviews on amazon from grumpy hippies with hilarious screen names like gentlemama or heartsong. The ones I recently read that some of my friends who are into attachment parenting actually go to the bookstore and move around so that no one else will chance upon them and read them. o.O

The fundamental issue at stake in the hatred of those well-intentioned books is a philosophy of parenting revolving around teaching the child to become others-centered rather than the entire family being subject to the child's whims.

And there is one majorly "controversial element" involved-- the act of SPANKING, a topic which my husband has forever banned me from discussing on my blog or in other social media because the very fact that I approve of the use of spanking and was willing to say so on my blog once got CPS sent to our door (what a world.) So, by the way, did Charlotte Mason.

So instead of talking about the logistics of spanking, we'll let the bad guys win here and talk about the reason those kinds of books elicit that kind of response... because very rarely do  we hear from anyone that discipline and training and guidance are CRITICAL to the education of a Child. Modern blogs, articles, classes and educators focus extensively on the need for kindness, empathy, affection, "attachment" etc... But rarely training. And that is where they go wrong.

In my experience, those things go without saying to those of us who feel motherhood is the highest calling, and to those of who regularly try to live our lives anchored on a rock who is Love-Come-Down-to-be-with-Us. Therefore books written by and for Christians of the sort I described above don't actually spend much time on these topics-- instead focusing on the methodology of training and correction.

When people who DON'T have the mindset of truly embracing motherhood and our families pick these books up, they find them jarring and horrific. They see only harsh words and "mean" ideas. In a word... they see abuse. Thus, especially in American circles where we wander through the land of Either/Or, the Mommy Wars continue.

And I have been guilty! Oh how I have been guilty. Only recently has God really granted me the grace to see that in many ways I was perpetuating the problem instead of focusing on the obvious through common ground, through focus on what's right and true and beautiful.

So it was refreshing for me to note that  here in these pages, CM develops for us a vision of parenthood which is very balanced and addresses both sides.

3. The principles of authority on the one hand, and of obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but--

(in other words, it should go without saying that children are to learn obedience, that they are subordinate to the parents in their parental authority, etc.)

AND

4. These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestion or influence, or by undue play upon any one natural desire.

 

(in other words, it should go without saying that children are persons and should be treated with human dignity.)

One hallmark of a Charlotte Mason education is that we neither manipulate, threaten, coerce, or otherwise force children into compliance. Instead, we expect and we model. We train in habits.... and we watch them rise to the occasion.

This type of parenting is not for the faint of heart, because it requires that we live what we preach, and that we accept our own limitation and work on them. It requires that we find a source of patience and strength outside of ourselves. And it also requires that we remember our calling: our vocation to education.

As outspoken as I am against attachment parenting as a cultural norm, I stumbled across this blog last night and found myself nodding in agreement with all of her points... these are the things which people need to hear and reflect on. The author, like most Attachment fans,  focuses entirely too much on feelings, a subject which I won't touch on here. Suffice to say that our feelings should not rule our world.
That being said.... her points are so relevant to the ideas we are discussing here, and some are things which I've had to learn by experience and which I wish were included more often in my "so now you're a mom" type tutorials.

Once you've all recovered from the fact that I just posted a link to a super pro-attachment parenting blog, you can laugh with me and enjoy the CM-centered peace that comes from leaving the so-called mommy wars behind. They are over. They are useless.

Mothering is always right so long as we are doing the best we can AND at the same time acknowledging that we are not doing the best we can. Period.

CM is really good at giving a general vision or a sense of how things should be.  And when it comes to curriculum or methodology in education, she can be very specific. But in this case, she does not provide all that much in the way of practical examples.

So what are we to do?
Hint: when she repeats herself over and over.... it's gonna be on the test. ;)

1. Get your self in order. (In Vol I, p 15 she mentions allowing the child to see that you also are law-compelled and that we can offend children by disregarding laws of health, intellect, morality, and need for love.)

2. Train in good habits and never let a bad habit slip past. When you have, retrain with great attention and patience, redirecting as often as needed.

3. Allow law to ensure liberty. Once the child demonstrates a reasonable amount of proper response and effort, allow him the freedom to enjoy his liberty.

4. Do not make many rules, and do not give a command you don't intend to see through to the end. This prevents us from being overbearing but also from being wishy-washy pushovers. (Dr Ray Guerendi said something to the effect of leaving a child alone to do as he will unless he is infringing upon the rights of others and/or likely to hurt himself. These are good guidelines.)

5. Punishment by consequences, particularly natural ones, is very effective.

6. Be good-natured, and have confidence in the children's ability to respond to this training. Don't be anxious, domineering, interfering, or demanding.

7. Keep at it patiently until you see SELF-discipline in your child. Self-discipline is the only kind of discipline that works.

With those in mind, I believe you are equipped to follow principles 3 and 4.

More missions goodness!

we want YOU to learn the faith!

Suddenly, I am feeling so encouraged!!

After the missionary conversation I had with my children the other day, my kids wanted to talk about it more over lunch. They said they understood WHY the Church needs missionaries, but what they wanted to know was how to do it. So,  I asked them what they could do to be better at fulfilling the mission Pope Francis gave us all when he said:

 "We need to avoid the spiritual sickness of a church that is wrapped up in its own world: when a church becomes like this, it grows sick. It is true that going out on to the street implies the risk of accidents happening, as they would to any ordinary man or woman. But if the church stays wrapped up in itself, it will age. And if I had to choose between a wounded church that goes out on to the streets and a sick, withdrawn church, I would definitely choose the first one."

The kids went as far as to get a piece of paper and to write / draw down a plan for how we would fulfill the mission better. Many of the things they talked about we already do, but there were fresh and new and good ideas in there that encouraged me a great deal.

They determined we were called to be missionaries in four ways.

The first, they said, was that we were supposed to pray and study ourselves,  and teach people to pray and study. So they set a specific time each day for our prayer times so that we wouldn't skip over them anymore (we often don't get around to evening prayer, for example, because we just forget).

They planned a family dinner/rosary night like we have had before with loved ones, and a family-only night to restore us(!)

The plan they came up with looked like this:

1. We go to mass and confession every week and invite people to come with us.
2. We say morning prayer (they chose 7 am "because by then everyone is kind of awake"), evening prayer (5 pm "because it's before dinner") and their father and I say night prayer (10 pm "before you go to bed.")  If people are over, we agreed,  the more the merrier.
3. We have dinner-and-a-rosary parties on Wednesdays and Saturdays and invite friends to participate whenever we can.
4. We have our regular family shabbat night, reserved for our own family and close relations when possible, where we talk about family business, bless each other and enjoy each other and pray for each other.
5. We spend time studying the faith every day, alone and together, and with others whenever we can.

I was amazed at their insight, and how they outlined many of the same goals I have tried to set for our family. But then it got better!

The second part, they said, was to do acts of mercy in our neighborhood. I, of course, agreed. The Church recommends that when we do good works, we use the following guidelines:

The 7 Corporal Works of Mercy
To feed the hungry
To give drink to the thirsty
To clothe the naked
To shelter the homeless
To visit the sick
To visit the imprisoned
To bury the dead

7 Spiritual Works of Mercy
To counsel the doubtful
To instruct the ignorant
To admonish the sinner
To comfort the sorrowful
To forgive all injuries
To bear wrongs patiently
To pray for the living and the dead

 Parts two and three of their plan involved good works and discipleship. They decided that each of us would have an assigned job in the community and that we would serve in that way. As a homeschooling family, we take education very seriously, and create educational pathways for those in our community at every opportunity. Also, their daddy is a firefighter/EMT, their mommy a student-midwife, my oldest wants to babysit for people and teach art lessons, my five year old said he wanted to do yard work for people and paint, and my three year old said she would be a storyteller for the littlest people.  As if that wasn't amazing enough, they each then identified a "friend" in their lives that they could have over regularly to help them grow in their walk with Jesus. They told me their friends' names, and how often they felt they should see them and what they would do together. Then they told me that "daddy and mommy's job was to do that for us, first, and then for other people that come over."

The fourth part of their plan was to live simply.
We talked about how missionaries have to be ready to go wherever God calls them, so that just as when we had to pack to go to California, and to France, and brought nothing but God provided everything we needed, so we would have to live very simply and have only what we needed, and God would provide the rest. I asked them what they thought constituted our "needs."
Some clothes (they got as specific as to tell me what types and styles to keep and which ones to get rid of... hooray for our plan to dump stuff!!) some books for school and work, and some DVDs "that teach people things." They decided to get rid of all their toys except a few dolls and---- get this---- a box of costumes so they could teach bible stories and the lives of the saints. (BRILLIANT!) They also mentioned eating small meals regularly so that we would have enough money to buy great foods to serve the people that came over on feast days...something I've never discussed with them that is in my personal plan.

All in all, an amazing child-led conversation that ended up inspiring me. Surprise! From the mouths of babes...

Mission - a requirement of the Church's catholicity

849 The missionary mandate. "Having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be 'the universal sacrament of salvation,' the Church, in obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men":[339] "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and Lo, I am with you always, until the close of the age."[340]

850 The origin and purpose of mission. The Lord's missionary mandate is ultimately grounded in the eternal love of the Most Holy Trinity: "The Church on earth is by her nature missionary since, according to the plan of the Father, she has as her origin the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit."[341] The ultimate purpose of mission is none other than to make men share in the communion between the Father and the Son in their Spirit of love.[342]

851 Missionary motivation. It is from God's love for all men that the Church in every age receives both the obligation and the vigor of her missionary dynamism, "for the love of Christ urges us on."[343] Indeed, God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth";[344] that is, God wills the salvation of everyone through the knowledge of the truth. Salvation is found in the truth. Those who obey the prompting of the Spirit of truth are already on the way of salvation. But the Church, to whom this truth has been entrusted, must go out to meet their desire, so as to bring them the truth. Because she believes in God's universal plan of salvation, the Church must be missionary.

852 Missionary paths. The Holy Spirit is the protagonist, "the principal agent of the whole of the Church's mission."[345] It is he who leads the Church on her missionary paths. "This mission continues and, in the course of history, unfolds the mission of Christ, who was sent to evangelize the poor; so the Church, urged on by the Spirit of Christ, must walk the road Christ himself walked, a way of poverty and obedience, of service and self-sacrifice even to death, a death from which he emerged victorious by his resurrection."[346] So it is that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians."[347]

853 On her pilgrimage, the Church has also experienced the "discrepancy existing between the message she proclaims and the human weakness of those to whom the Gospel has been entrusted."[348] Only by taking the "way of penance and renewal," the "narrow way of the cross," can the People of God extend Christ's reign.[349] For "just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and oppression, so the Church is called to follow the same path if she is to communicate the fruits of salvation to men."[350]

854 By her very mission, "the Church . . . travels the same journey as all humanity and shares the same earthly lot with the world: she is to be a leaven and, as it were, the soul of human society in its renewal by Christ and transformation into the family of God."[351] Missionary endeavor requires patience. It begins with the proclamation of the Gospel to peoples and groups who do not yet believe in Christ,[352] continues with the establishment of Christian communities that are "a sign of God's presence in the world,"[353] and leads to the foundation of local churches.[354] It must involve a process of inculturation if the Gospel is to take flesh in each people's culture.[355] There will be times of defeat. "With regard to individuals, groups, and peoples it is only by degrees that [the Church] touches and penetrates them and so receives them into a fullness which is Catholic."[356]

855 The Church's mission stimulates efforts towards Christian unity.[357] Indeed, "divisions among Christians prevent the Church from realizing in practice the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her sons who, though joined to her by Baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her. Furthermore, the Church herself finds it more difficult to express in actual life her full catholicity in all its aspects."[358]

856 The missionary task implies a respectful dialogue with those who do not yet accept the Gospel.[359] Believers can profit from this dialogue by learning to appreciate better "those elements of truth and grace which are found among peoples, and which are, as it were, a secret presence of God."[360] They proclaim the Good News to those who do not know it, in order to consolidate, complete, and raise up the truth and the goodness that God has distributed among men and nations, and to purify them from error and evil "for the glory of God, the confusion of the demon, and the happiness of man."[361]
-- Catechism of the Catholic Church

All is vanity...

God's been working on me about my vanity and pride lately.

Earlier this morning, I posted a blog explaining our book of centuries, a book I am quite proud of.
Several minutes later, I walked in to find that my three year old, who NEVER does this kind of thing, had decided to completely dismantle, draw on, rip up, and otherwise destroy my Book of Centuries. She is normally so well-behaved and I can trust her around almost anything.... so  I could not have been more surprised to find this. 

Instantly, my inner spirit-person came to life. And I was flooded with the sense that God was speaking directly to my pride.
Holy Spirit spanking! Sigh.
All is vanity..... lest we forget. ;)
Just wanted to share.

Book of Centuries

There is a wonderful PNEU article about how to set up a book of centuries which I fully intend to use with a simple composition book once my children are older. I have often had to fight the urge to scrap this one and make one of those, but I'm going to wait a few years.

Since they are young right now, we are using a family Book of Centuries, which is primarily my responsibility to fill in because I'm super type-A and like things to be pretty and orderly... and if my children had charge of it I can only imagine the number of hobbits and butterflies and things I'd find drawn in the margins, which would drive me nuts. Charlotte wanted the child to make the book of centuries HIS OWN, and I assure you that when my kids are old enough, they will. But for now, in the young stages, I keep this family version, and they have their own composition books we call books of centuries but which are actually just books in which they record their narrations or narration maps for every history book they read.
This one stays out and on the table as long as it's a school day, and sometimes even when it's not. On Thursdays (our history day) at tea-time I take it out and we drink tea and eat cookies and go through it, talking about things they like.

As of now, there is not much filled in because we have only covered creation and early civilization alone in a formal way. But I've been asked how I do it, so here are some pictures and an explanation of our own book.

I used a three ring binder with a pattern that spoke to me about history (kinda greek), and printed out the free book of centuries template from Simply Charlotte Mason, not using facing pages and not printing on both sides of the sheets.
I made a nice cover for it and ghetto-laminated it using packing tape (my specialty!), and instead of dividers I use a printed page in papyrus font (my go-to history font!) in sheet protectors for separating the four eras that correspond with the four volumes/years of the Connecting With History  Program that we use for studying world history as a family. We make an entry for each of our lessons if appropriate, and it takes less than five minutes to do each time, if that.

On the inside cover, I pasted a key to the codes we use on each main century overview page.:

These include things like wars and conflicts, massacres, rise and fall of a nation, important events in church history, etc.

There are two main sections. One is World Chronology and the other is Geography.

I placed a world map (modern) at the very front for quick access, and then began placing dividers and centuries for each volume of Connecting with History, century by century.

World Chronology has three pages per century, plus some additional pages in the front.

The additional pages start with the story of before the world began. I made these, although one of the pages contains an idea I snatched up about the beginning of time from my favorite Fisher Academy blog.

Then the centuries really begin. There are three pages per century. The first is a grid with 100 squares representing years in each century. We use the codes from above to mark up the overview grid so that we can see it in a kind of at-a-glance way. (bear in mind that ours are not very full yet because we haven't even reached Christ's birth in our family study.)

After that is a written overview page with categories and dates we can fill in that I made based on a template I saw and liked on Simply Charlotte Mason's site.

Last, I placed the page from the download of SCM's basic timeline book, on which we will be drawing artifacts we see throughout the year in museums on field trips  (prehistory doesn't have a lot of representation here in our local museums, so these are-- for now-- blank for the most part at the moment.) The dates are written at the top and the rest of the page is blank for drawing. (sorry about the fuzzy picture.)

Behind the centuries, I have a geography section which includes historical maps we have used, either printed out from the Map Trek program we use for Connecting with History or from random places around the internet for whatever purpose we have used them for, organized in chronological order. These are in plastic sleeves also so that my kids can take them out and use a dry erase to trace a route or whatever if need be. (Doesn't happen much since I hate dry erase, but in theory, it seemed like a good idea. They mostly just use their fingers. I am full of good ideas that hardly ever end up getting used, haha.)

That's it! Let me know if you have questions, and I hope it helps someone.
And if perchance you find this post to be discouraging rather than helpful, you might enjoy this.

Habit building

I wanted to share this wonderful resource. It's a blog written by a friend of mine, and while the entire thing is a priceless treasure, this particular post will be of interest to so many Charlotte Mason educators. It talks about the spiritual side of habit training, and I think you will be blessed.

Supposedly it takes 21 days to form a new habit, although I believe this is a myth.  However long it takes, we all know it takes repetition.  We all have bad habits, and hopefully we all have some good ones, too, like brushing our teeth.
It’s been brought to my attention through various sources that I have a tendency to be critical and opinionated.  I tell myself, “don’t be critical, don’t be critical, don’t be critical.”  It seems the more I try to NOT be critical and opinionated, the more I find myself slipping into that place.  Why is that?  The Bible gives us the answer in the book of Romans (ch. 7).... Read more.

Catholic Family World History plans-- Middle Ages-- for next year

I think I finally have sorted out what books I will be using for next year's Connecting With History, Volume II. I'll be doing things a little differently this year-- following along in each unit but still slowing down the pace of our reading because last year we tried to read everything on the list. Although I enjoyed it, I think the kids felt a bit rushed and also.... I think it wasn't as CM as it could have been, since she advocated building a long, slow relationship with only the BEST books. I really want us to stay as faithful to CM's methods as we can.

This year I have one kid in Grade 2, one in Grade 1, one in Prep, and one in Awakening. ;)

I plan to include tales from each unit in our term's literature/tales reading, and saints in each term's catechism/church history reading, just as we did last year in our study of the Ancient World.

History readings will include work from the spine (Our Island Story), Catholic supplementation (Founders of Freedom for the littles and Old World's Gifts to the New for the oldest), and one historical literature book per term that I felt encompasses the era.

We will still be doing age appropriate copywork and memory work from CWH, bible reading, as well as narration topics for testing understanding, activities (one per unit), a book of centuries, mapwork,  and presenting (usually a play) at the end.

I know I've been asked a few times which way I'm going to go, so here are the final choices I've made.
The family read-aloud is Our Island Story, Founders of Freedom,  and also the reading from the lives of the saints each unit, and the rest are individual assignments.

For MA users Prep Level/ AO users Y0/ Grade Prek/ K:

Core:  Founders of Freedom and Our Island Story
Saints: Once Upon  a Time Saints
Tales: D'Aulaire's Norse Gods and Giants

Term 1: Spend the day in Ancient Rome, Mary my Mother, Good St Joseph, The Apostles of Jesus, Pompeii: Buried alive
Term 2: St Valentine, St George and the Dragon, St Brigid, and Hodges' King Arthur
Term 3: Usborne time traveler: Vikings

For MA users Level 1B/ AO Y1/ Grade 1:
Core: Founders of Freedom and Our Island Story

Saints: Once upon a time saints and More once upon a time saints
Tales: D'Aulaire's Norse Gods and Giants

Term 1:  St Paul the Apostle by Windeatt
Term 2:King Arthur Tales from the Round Table
Term 3: Leif the Lucky by D'Aulaire

For MA users Level 1A (1) / AOY2 / Grade 2:

Core: The Old World's Gifts to the New and Our Island Story
Saints: 57 Stories of Saints
Tales: D'Aulaire's Norse Gods and Giants

Term 1: Augustus Caesar's World
Term 2: King Arthur and His Knights
Term 3: Viking Tales

Geographic and Historic Dreaming

For the past several years, my family has been enthusiastically studying Australia, in particular Aboriginal culture which we find fascinating. The highlight of our study, reflecting back, was learning about songlines (sometimes called dreaming tracks.) We have spent endless hours out-of-doors, in ceremonies of our own making, practicing bushcraft and indigenous survivalism. We have clustered together round beautiful pieces of aboriginal art and told-stories (a most sacred occupation) from the billabong. We have learned to play the digeridoo, and practiced bush-medicine.

In aboriginal mythology, the creation story is called The Dreaming, and involves ancestral spirits roaming the earth and creating it's geography in detailed stories which are told, sung, and ritualized.
The one thing we have retained most from this study has been our responsibility to care for and interact with our natural environment, as stewards of the sacred spaces we have been given to live and love in.

Here, the text from a "Visit Aboriginal Australia" brochure, explains:

Aboriginal Australians have developed and are bound by highly complex belief systems that interconnect the land, spirituality, law, social life and care of the environment. The terms Dreamtime, Dreaming and Songlines are regularly used and interchanged to describe these important elements of Aboriginal cultures.

The Dreamtime is the period of creation when the world was a featureless void where ancestral spirits in human and other life forms emerged from the earth and the sky creating all living things and the landscape we see today.

All Aboriginal people have a common belief in the creation or Dreaming, which is a time when the ancestral beings traveled across the country creating the natural world and making laws and customs for Aboriginal people to live by. The Dreaming ancestors take the form of humans, animals or natural features in the landscape.

Creation beliefs and customary practices vary greatly across Australia, however they are all based on the journeys of ancestral beings and events which took place during the creation time.

"My people believe that our ancestors were responsible for the creation of our country and it was they who handed down to us our rules for living… We have ceremonies to look after the well-being and products of our land. These things penetrate our culture.
Dreamtime ancestors made the Songlines as part of the creation story – we still use these today."

Tiwi Elder, NTTC Experience Aboriginal Culture in Australia’s Northern Territory, 1997

Ceremony incorporating dance, art and song is an important part of both individual and family obligations to practice their culture.

Many of the Dreaming stories are presented as elaborate song cycles (Songlines) that relate to a specific place, group and individual.

They provide a map recording details of the landscape and express the relationship between the land, sea and the people.

The stories and Songlines encompass law, culture and spirituality to ensure the continuity of all things living.

"The ancestor is responsible for the law and country, a responsibility which is carried by the traditional owner of the song today. The owner of the song is responsible for the country and particular sacred places, and when the song travels over these sacred places it is sung by the traditional owner of song or country."

Bill Harney, Wardaman Elder, 2009

"Kaltjiti artist sing country, dance country and paint the song of their lands. The epic song cycles of the Western Desert peoples have resounded for thousands of years across these sand dunes of central Australia, echoed back from the orange rock faces of the granite hills and eddied around the deep blue rock holes where precious water hides from the scorching sun.
The creation ancestors first sang these songs at the dawn of time. These giant beings strode the land changing their shape from human to beast or plant, to water, earth or wind. The landscape still holds their resting forms in rounded hills, the fury of their flight was caught in twisted bloodwood trees and their flesh – know transformed – wraps the marble gums as dappled bark.
Songs sung down the generations have kept the land alive and spirit of her people strong."

Dr Diana James, Author, Painting the Song Kaltjiti artists of the sand dune country, 2009

"Today many Aboriginal communities are wanting to explain their heritage and show visitors around their country.
Firsthand knowledge gained in this way may help to understand Aboriginal Australia, as a living legacy of spiritual knowledge shared through rituals, dance, stories and journeys touching on aspects of the Dreamtime.

"Dr Irene Watson, Tanganekald & Meintangk woman, Lonely Planet Aboriginal Australia & Torres Strait Islands, Sydney, 2001

We custodians of this place are really happy for you to come and look around our country. Look around and learn so that you can know something about Aboriginal people and understand that Aboriginal culture is strong and really important.

Tony Tjamiwa, Uluru elder, NTTC Experience Aboriginal Culture in Australia’s Northern Territory, 1997

 So what does this have to do with us? While we don't believe the Dreamtime story exactly as told in most aboriginal communities, we have our own version, and we understand it's critical role in the salvation of the precious Aboriginal people, many of whom today have become very active Catholics in active Australian Catholic communities.

How can this be? The Catechism of the Catholic Church holds the answer, when it says:

“From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times  of their  existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God  and perhaps grope for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each of us.”        Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 28 

Indeed, this has been the experience of those aboriginal people who have turned to Jesus:

Richard Campbell from the Gumbaingirr/Dhungutti people recalls the moment when he realised how close Christian and Aboriginal stories can be:

“A Catholic priest once asked me to connect Aboriginal spirituality with Bible stories through a painting.
“When I started to paint, I felt my own spirituality come flooding back and I started to remember the stories of my people. That’s when I became aware of the similarity between Aboriginal and Christian stories.
“We all have a spiritual connection…, we all belong to one big God—call it Christ, we call it Birrigun, we are all one in God.”

 You see, my children at this time in their young lives view history in terms of a four-part timeline:

The Dreamtime
The Back Then
The Nowtimes
The Time After This Day 

And in this way, by learning all of the intricate connections between the mythology of the aborigines, the ancient means of describing and learning geographic structures, the awakening sense of their own selves as dots on a lengthy timeline of the events of salvation history, and by placing before them a rich tapestry of beautiful ideas with which they can form relations, they learn geography and history -- even arts and music and science-- in a way that totally transcends the fact-based learning that so many people associate with those subjects. To me, this is the wisdom of Charlotte Mason's method in action, and what I love is that it has a unique twist that is -- from what I observe around me--- only happening in my family. Other families I know who faithfully use CM's ideas are learning geography in similar ways, and yet are making it "their own" in ways that directly speak to their own personalities and interests.

Charlotte Mason said this about outdoor time and natural philosophy:

"Of the teaching of Natural Philosophy, I will only remind the reader of what was said in an earlier chapter––that there is no part of a child's education more important than that he should lay, by his own observation, a wide basis of facts towards scientific knowledge in the future. He must live hours daily in the open air, and, as far as possible, in the country; must look and touch and listen; must be quick to note, consciously, every peculiarity of habit or structure, in beast, bird, or insect; the manner of growth and fructification of every plant. He must be accustomed to ask why––Why does the wind blow? Why does the river flow? Why is a leaf-bud sticky? And do not hurry to answer his questions for him; let him think his difficulties out so far as his small experience will carry him. Above all, when you come to the rescue, let it not be in the 'cut and dried' formula of some miserable little text-book; let him have all the insight available and you will find that on many scientific questions the child may be brought at once to the level of modern thought. Do not embarrass him with too much scientific nomenclature. If he discover for himself (helped, perhaps, by a leading question or two), by comparing an oyster and his cat, that some animals have backbones and some have not, it is less important that he should learn the terms vertebrate and invertebrate than that he should class the animals he meets with according to this difference.The method of this sort of instruction is shown in Evenings at Home, where 'Eyes and No-eyes' go for a walk. No-eyes come home bored; he has seen nothing, been interested in nothing: while Eyes is all agog to discuss a hundred things that have interested him. As I have already tried to point out, to get this sort of instruction for himself is simply the nature of a child: the business of the parent is to afford him abundant and varied opportunities, and to direct his observations, so that, knowing little of the principles of scientific classification, he is, unconsciously, furnishing himself with the materials for such classification. It is needless to repeat what has already been said on this subject; but, indeed, the future of the man or woman depends very largely on the store of real knowledge gathered, and the habits of intelligent observation acquired, by the child. "Think you," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, "that the rounded rock marked with parallel scratches calls up as much poetry in an ignorant mind as in the mind of the geologist, who knows that over this rock a glacier slid a million of years ago? The truth is, that those who have never entered on scientific pursuits are blind to most of the poetry by which they are surrounded. Whoever has not in youth collected plants and insects, knows not half the halo of interest which lanes and hedgerows can assume." (Volume I)

Our time outdoors in geography, filled with tracking and observing and leaf-collecting and stone-overturning and pace-counting, record-keeping and timing and touching, squinting at and listening to.... this is time best spent for young people. This is what enables my children to walk down a busy suburban street and find three birds nests and a new kind of ant in the time it takes for another child joining us that day to say "I'm bored," or "I'm hot." This is what enables my three year old to step outside and gleefully exclaim: "A daddy cardinal!" and what enables my children to step outdoors, then turn around and come rushing back in to jump on me and exclaim: "The Cicadas!! We hear them!! They're finally here!!!" Whereas visiting children to our yard have often asked for toys, a trampoline or swimming pool to keep them entertained. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, but just that it's marvelous to know that our children will be content and learning no matter their location.)

"All natural phenomena are orderly; they are governed by law; they are not magical. They are comprehended by someone; why not by the child himself?"

Further, Miss Mason had this to say about Geography:

Geography As commonly Taught.––Now, how is the subject commonly taught? The child learns the names of the capital cities of Europe, or of the rivers of England, or of the mountain-summits of Scotland, from some miserable text-book, with length in miles, and height in feet, and population, finding the names on his map or not, according as his teacher is more or less up to her work. Poor little fellow! the lesson is hard work to him; but as far as education goes––that is, the developing of power, the furnishing of the mind––he would be better employed in watching the progress of a fly across the window-pane. But, you will say, geography has a further use than this strictly educative one; everybody wants the sort of information which the geography lesson should afford. That is true, and is to be borne in mind in the schoolroom; the child's geography lesson should furnish just the sort of information which grown-up people care to possess. Now, do think how unreasonable we are in this matter; nothing will persuade us to read a book of travel unless it be interesting, graphic, with a spice of personal adventure. Even when we are going about with Murray in hand, we skip the dry facts and figures, and read the suggestive pictorial scraps; these are the sorts of things we like to know, and remember
with ease. But none of this pleasant padding for the poor child, if you please; do not let him have little pictorial sentences that he may dream over; facts and names and figures––these are the pabulum for him!
Geography should be Interesting.––But, you say, this sort of knowledge, though it may be a labour to the child to acquire it, is useful in after life. Not a bit of it; and for this reason––it has never been really received by the brain at all; has never got further than the floating nebulae of mere verbal memory of which I have already had occasion to speak. Most of us have gone through a good deal of drudgery in the way of 'geography' lessons, but how much do we remember? Just the pleasant bits we heard from travelled friends, about the Rhine, or Paris, or Venice, or bits from The Voyages of Captain Cook, or other pleasant tales of travel and adventure. We begin to see the lines we must go upon in teaching geography: for educative purposes, the child must learn such geography, and in such a way, that his mind shall thereby be stored with ideas, his imagination with images; for practical purposes he must learn such geography only as, the nature of his mind considered, he will be able to remember; in other words, he must learn what interests him. The educative and the practical run in one groove, and the geography lesson becomes the most charming occupation of the child's day. (Volume I)

She gives tips in Volume I for beginning geography lessons in this way:

1. Spending long hours out of doors noticing things.
2. Showing them rude sketch-maps of geographical information.
3. Telling them stories of travel and geography in a natural manner, as it comes up.



To round out this type of teaching, she recommends two things: Reading to the children to familiarize themselves with one geographical area and learning about and using maps.  I find it particularly fascinating that she insinuates in this next quote that a child can be "at home" in a geographical location utterly outside of his own sphere / realm in this manner.... it has certainly been our experience this past year that Australia has become a kind of "home" to us although we have never been there to visit and explore in person!

Give him next intimate knowledge, with the fullest details, of any country or region of the world, any county or district of his own country. It is not necessary that he should learn at this stage what is called the 'geography' of the countries of Europe, the continents of the world––mere strings of names for the most part: he may learn these, but it is tolerably certain that he will not remember them. But let him be at home in any single region; let him see, with the mind's eye, the people at their work and at their play, the flowers and fruits in their seasons, the beasts, each in its habitat; and let him see all sympathetically, that is, let him follow the adventures of a traveller; and he knows more, is better furnished with ideas, than if he had learnt all the names on all the maps. The 'way' of this kind of teaching is very simple and obvious; read to him, or read for him, that is, read bit by bit, and tell as you read, Hartwig's Tropical World, the same author's Polar World, Livingstone's missionary travels, Mrs. Bishop's Unbeaten Tracks in Japan––in fact, any interesting, well-written book of travel. It may be necessary to leave out a good deal, but every illustrative anecdote, every bit of description, is so much towards the child's education. Here, as elsewhere, the question is, not how many things does he know, but how much does he know about each thing.

and on maps:

Maps must be carefully used in this type of work,––a sketch-map following the traveller's progress, to be compared finally with a complete map of the region; and the teacher will exact a description of such and such a town, and such and such a district, marked on the map, by way of testing and confirming the child's exact knowledge. In this way, too, he gets intelligent notions of physical geography; in the course of his readings he falls in with a description of a volcano, a glacier, a cañon, a hurricane; he hears all about, and asks and learns the how and the why, of such phenomena at the moment when his interest is excited. In other words, he learns as his elders elect to learn for themselves, though they rarely allow the children to tread in paths so pleasant.

Then, again, geography should be learned chiefly from maps. Pictorial readings and talks introduce him to the subject, but so soon as his geography lessons become definite they are to be learned, in the first place, from the map. This is an important principle to bear in mind. The child who gets no ideas from considering the map, say of Italy or of Russia, has no knowledge of geography, however many facts about places he may be able to produce. Therefore he should begin this study by learning the meaning of a map and how to use it. He must learn to draw a plan of his schoolroom, etc., according to scale, go on to the plan of a field, consider how to make the plan of his town, and be carried gradually from the idea of a plan to that of a map; always beginning with the notion of an explorer who finds the land and measures it, and by means of sun and stars, is able to record just where it is on the earth's surface, east or west, north or south.
Now he will arrive at the meaning of the lines of latitude and longitude. He will learn how sea and land are shown on a map, how rivers and mountains are represented; and having learned his points of direction and the use of his compass, and knowing that maps are always made as if the beholder were
looking to the north, he will be able to tell a good deal about situation, direction, and the like, in very early days. The fundamental ideas of geography and the meaning of a map are subjects well fitted to form an attractive introduction to the study. Some of them should awaken the delightful interest which attaches in a child's mind to that which is wonderful, incomprehensible, while the map lessons should lead to mechanical efforts equally delightful. It is only when presented to the child for the first time in the form of stale knowledge and foregone conclusions that the facts taught in such lessons appear dry and repulsive to him. An effort should be made to treat the subject with the sort of sympathetic interest and freshness which attracts children to a new study.

In practical terms, this means: select living books about travel, become familiar in an "expert" sense with one or two locations, and then conduct quick but careful map drills in a natural way-- as the result of these stories being read.

History, she says, is "caught" much in a similar manner, and I'll write on that next, but I just wanted to share some of these ideas about Geography, time outdoors, and how they have related to our study of a particular culture.


Lest you think this sounds too complicated to format, organize and teach, I would remind you that Charlotte advocates a natural means of learning.
Our successful study of geography in this house has come not from memorizing place names and definitions of geographical features, nor even from intently studying Charlotte's thoughts on geography -- which I recommend doing, but which I just now discovered!--  but instead happened in this way:

We have an Australian uncle who is a famous scientist in the field of ants. We live in the Carolinas, and have a lot of ants, so we have contacted him a great deal just to answer questions about ants and geography. We watched the film "Australia" and it became an immediate family favorite, mostly because my husband and I have always been very interested in Australian culture. We began to play Aboriginal dress up games and watch more movies about the culture. I looked for a booklist and called my uncle, and began reading to them from aboriginal folk tales. My six year old decided she wanted to be an excellent tracker, so we deepened our tracking skills. We hiked quite a bit and became familiar with the landscape. We became aware of others' ability to track US, and started being more careful with how we moved through the woods. We sang songs and told stories, and read poems, about Australia. We looked at a map and my two year old shouted: "Australia!" and pointed.
We grew in our intimacy with the natural world around us. When we began to study ancient history, we compared and contrasted what we knew about traditional aboriginal culture with the developments of farming, settling, city-state building, etc. We interacted on facebook with my Australian friends and family and looked at pictures of the nature around them. We listened to stories of their visits to natural areas. We looked at maps and traveled them with our fingers. We wrote our own songlines for our Carolina woods. We watched youtube videos of Dreamtime stories and the kids acted them out. We developed a deep longing for the land of Australia and a desire to touch the sacred ground which we had studied. We began to hope we could move there, and to look for jobs we could do and ways we could get there. We realized we didn't have the money or ability for such a plan to be a real possibility, and became very sad. One day, driving over the bridge into Wilmington, our local beach community, our then-two year old exclaimed with great wonder and excitement: "Australia!!!" We realized, with awe and gratitude, seeing the land around us through her eyes, that the shape of the geographic formations around us, the way the entryway into the city was formed, and the big boats in the water reminded her of the opening scene of the movie Australia where we are introduced to the Darwin harbor. She was right!! The view outside our car windows was almost identical!
This brought me to reflect on the large red ant-hills we had seen and walked around in our woods. It also reminded me of the days I had, as a young child, walked hand-in-hand with my Australian uncle through the eucalyptus groves of my youth in Southern California, talking about snugglepot and cuddlepie and watching the Monarch butterflies migrate, dreaming of Kangaroos. Australia was a far-off island, yes, but also a eucalyptus grove in my backyard by the beach on Butterfly lane in Santa Barbara, CA, and a red dirt road in Fayetteville, NC. And a harbor in Wilmington, NC. I began to see Australia as a home in my heart, and less as the name of a place on a map I would never set foot in. And so do my children, now, as they make their own connections between the history of empire building and colonization, of the human roots we share hunting and gathering, of the geography they study in our secret woods, of the paths they have traced on a map, and of the God who has made them for heaven.

Reflecting on this idea a bit more, I can see how God has placed similar moments in my heart when I have reflected on "home." Well-traveled though I was growing up, I have not been so fortunate in my adult years. And yet I can "feel" the Provence of my youth in the thick heat of the Carolina summers, with the pine and sycamore scents bursting from the woods, and cicadas chirping away. Provence is a part of me when I make a mustard plaster for a coughing kid or whip up an aioli. I can see and feel the Swedish Christmas of my youth in the crunch of snow underfoot and the flickering candles and scent of apple cider bubbling away on the stove when we come in. I can feel Scotland in me rising up when we scramble from rock to rock through the wilderness, kilted and blue, ready for anything in games we play with the kids. This is our earth. And it is alive to us..... not because we have studied, so much as because we have made natural connections in our hearts and minds between maps, stories, saints, heroes, battles, love affairs, weather, herbs, miracles, heartbreaks and hillsides, mountains and rivers, rocks and  revolutions, laws and landscapes...

This is a living education.