May, Mary and Books

May, of course, is Mary’s month.  It’s a good time to read a free book on the Blessed Virgin – mine, originally published by Word Among Us, now out of print and available in a pdf version here.

This May is also the centenary of the first Fatima apparition – May 13, 1917. Plenty of books are being published to celebrate, and I want to draw your attention to one in particular that is the work, in part, of my friend and frequent collaborator Ann Kissane Engelhart:

Written by Donna Marie Cooper O’Boyle and published by Sophia, Ann was brought in to do the illustrations, so let’s give her due credit, shall we? Isn’t that a nice cover? I don’t have a copy of the book, nor can I access illustrated pages online, so I don’t know how the interior illustrations were actually used, but here are some samples Ann sent me:

Blurbs for the book have specifically mentioned the illustrations as worthy of note. So if this appears on your radar, remember that the very talented artist involved has other books:

Another recent work to which Ann contributed is this:

Written by Nancy Carpentier Brown, it’s a fictional account of a friendship between G.K. and Frances Chesterton and another family. 

Ann and I aren’t working on anything specific at the moment, but we are tossing around ideas – it’s challenging to find a Catholic publisher willing to invest in quality illustrated children’s books, but we’re trying!

(If you would like a sneak peak at my newest, forthcoming book, check out Instagram Stories – you can only access the “stories” part via the app on a phone, by clicking on my photo.)

Read Full Post »

It’s the Most Wonderful time…

Yes, it changes and shifts, but it’s a fun thing to watch this time of year, sacrament season:

 

For the past couple of years Heroes has sold more strongly (#4 in the overall “Catholicism” category right now, for example…what?) than Saints during this time of year, and I don’t know why – I don’t know if Loyola is doing some sort of marketing push for it in particular or what.

(Remember you can get signed books from me here.)

Today, I’m in Living Faith, by the way. 

Read Full Post »

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

The following will be rather mindless because I’ve just spend five hours at an academic competition (going on to nationals in June! Joy.) which stressed this introvert out, but I have work to finish up tomorrow morning, so I want to knock this out  tonight….

Yes, I’ve been doing some work this week, and it’s kind of odd and refreshing because the work isn’t a Big Project. It’s a small project that I should be able to knock off in a few days, and I will, but one that still stretches me just a bit because it is, indeed, small.

It’s more challenging to write succinctly and meaningfully than you might think. But it’s my favorite kind of challenge.

— 2 —

The  other project I’m working on involves seeing if  a collection of talks from a conference can be shaped into a book. We’ll see….

Speaking of talks…I have one! Now that everyone is getting older, I’ve started accepting speaking invitations again..the next one will be an inservice/retreat thingy for Catholic school teachers a couple of hours away, and I’m looking forward to it. Also, Ann Engelhart and I will be speaking up on Long Island somewhere in early June…more on that when they finish up the PR materials.

— 3—

Recent reads:

Tuesday night, I read the novel The Risen by Ron Rash. It was the most interesting-looking book on the “fiction new releases” shelf at the library. It was short – really, probably novella-length, and it was a good way to spend a couple of hours. The plot involved two brothers, and an incident that had happened almost fifty years before with a teenaged girl. I kept thinking of Rectify as I read, since a long-ago crime involving a teenage female victim is at the heart of that, too.

The fundamental issue at hand was….how can we even try to compensate for the wrong that we have done? What is the relationship between the wrong things and the good that we do with our lives later? Does one cancel out the other – in either direction? A knotty problem, indeed. Artfully written, yes, and it certainly held my attention for a couple of hours and moved me a bit in the end, but at the same time there was a mannered aspect about it that ultimately left me cold. Well, not cold, but cooler than I feel I should have been left.

— 4 —

Drifting about at the library the other day, I picked up a book of Maugham stories. Took it home, and read On the Internet that the one with the most startling titles, “The Hairless Mexican,” was considered one of Maugham’s best. So I read it, could see the “twist” about 2/3 of the way through, and then felt that the “twist” could have been handled much more subtly. As in…the hammer wasn’t necessary. So that was enough of that.

— 5 —.

This was on the “new releases” shelf, too,  so I had to grab it. As of this writing, I’m only about 60 pages in, but am thoroughly enjoying it, and not just Because Rome. I read a lot of social history and history of pop culture, and so far, this is one of the best. One of the flaws of modern writing on these matters is the authorial voice is usually way too intrusive, presuming that the reason we’re reading this book is that we’re super interested in the author’s relationship to the subject matter, when honestly guys, we’re not. This is free of that narcissism, and is quite enjoyable and briskly, yet solidly written. Full report next week.

— 6 —

Miss McKenzie! She found love! So exciting. Okay, not exciting. But a very satisfying read, even though none of her suitors, even the one she eventually accepted, were worthy of her. I’ve decided to immerse myself in Trollope for a time. What I find interesting and instructive is the forthrightness of the issues at hand – namely the restrictions and limitations in which the characters live, mostly financial in nature. We like to think that in our day, we make our choices freely, constrained only by our own lack of self-worth or society’s failure to accept us as we are. None of this in Trollope: your choices are limited, clearly, by how much money and property you have and by your gender. This is your life, as it is.  What will you make of it? Very thought-provoking.

— 7 —

Forgive me for repeating this Take from last week…but..it still pertains, don’t you think?

Lent is coming! Here’s a post from yesterday with links to all my Lent-related material.

The past two weeks, I’ve seen a spike in hits for  this post – and I’m glad to see it.

It’s a 2015 post on one of the most inexplicable post-Vatican II liturgical changes (and..there’s a lot of competition on that score) – the total obliteration of Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima Sundays – the three Sundays preceding the First Sunday of Lent. So for those who celebrate the Extraordinary Form and some Anglicans, I understand, February 12 is Septuagesima Sunday. From a Dappled Things article I cite in the post:

In the chapter titled “The History of Septuagesima,” Dom Guéranger added, “The Church, therefore, has instituted a preparation for the holy time of Lent. She gives us the three weeks of Septuagesima, during which she withdraws us, as much as may be, from the noisy distractions of the world, in order that our hearts may be the more readily impressed by the solemn warning she is to give us, at the commencement of Lent, by marking our foreheads with ashes.”

 Also: tomorrow (February 11) is the celebration of Our Lady of Lourdes. Want to read more about Mary? How about this free book – Mary and the Christian Life.  And St. Bernadette? She’s in The Loyola Kids’ Book of Saints. 

Oh and…did you get the mass email from EWTN tying into…the Feast of the Immaculate Conception? Oops.

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

Read Full Post »

Put that on a banner

 
For years, I have been answering the question, “Why go to Mass?” for myself and others. You probably have, too. It  tends to comes up.

I answered it for high school students. I discussed it with adults. I talked about it, wrote about it. I answered it for my own children, and I contemplate it myself.

The answers we give teens and young adults these days – and let’s focus on them –  tend to flow from a particular focus: YOU.

Go to Mass because you will get something out of it. You will be happier. More at peace. You will feel closer to God. Your week will be off to a great start! It’s awesome!

There’s nothing (not much) wrong with this. Taking for granted that the salvation of one’s soul is, indeed, about yourself, other self-centric concerns aren’t ignored even by spiritual writers from the past. Francis de Sales:

Strive then to your utmost to be present every day at this holy Celebration, in order that with the priest you may offer the Sacrifice of your Redeemer on behalf of yourself and the whole Church to God the Father. Saint Chrysostom says that the Angels crowd around it in adoration, and if we are found together with them, united in one intention, we cannot but be most favourably influenced by such society. Moreover, all the heavenly choirs of the Church triumphant, as well as those of the Church militant, are joined to our Dear Lord in this divine act, so that with Him, in Him, and by Him, they may win the favour of God the Father, and obtain His Mercy for us. How great the blessing to my soul to contribute its share towards the attainment of so gracious a gift!

Introduction to the Devout Life

From a 1958 high school textbook:

His goodness to us in instituting the Blessed Sacrament is beyond measure. He comes to the altar at the call of the priest and comes to dwell in our souls and in our bodies, transforming us, comforting us, bringing that ‘peace which the world cannot give.’

Of course this is why we go to Mass. God graciously created us for life with him, and after Baptism, this is the core of it. Everything is there in Him, and there it is we find our true selves, which means we find peace and yes, happiness.

But when it comes to encouraging young people to go to Mass and like it, by George, I tire of the appeal to the self. I tire of the appeal to the self in relation to all contemporary spirit-talk, as a matter of fact.

For in a culture dominated by economics and the market, the line between evangelism and marketing is quite thin. It is challenging for evangelizers to make their case without thinking of their listeners as consumers who must be sold on the personal benefits of their product. Impossible, apparently

But the appeal to the self and its feelings is not enough, and it’s not true to authentic Christian spirituality, which is rooted, not most of all in how our spiritual acts will make us feel, but how they reflect our duty to love God and neighbor, since that is where authentic peace is found. The spiritual masters know a lot about the mystery of emotion, most of all that emotions can reveal, but emotions can also distract and conceal. Our emotions can tug us forward and lead us to a real place with God, but just as quickly, they can mislead us into thinking God is present where He isn’t – or absent when he is quite near.

So I am afraid that if I were to ever return to the classroom, my patience with coaxing, marketing and promising good feelings as a selling point for Mass would be shot at this point.  I wouldn’t even bother. As I have gotten older, as one does, and witnessed more and more suffering in the various circles of my life, near and far, the reasons for going to Mass have flipped. The urgency I feel (ah!) about me going to Mass, about my kids and everyone I know going to Mass is not about inspiring or soothing feelings we might derive from the experience.  After the basic, no-other-reason-is-necessary – duty to give thanks to God and join in Christ’s sacrifice, I really just want to say…….

…the world needs prayer. You need prayer. I need prayer. Your friends need prayer. So many sick people. Have you heard? Violence. Despair. People afraid and lost.

How about we try to stop being so lazy and self-centered  and pray for each other?

You didn’t make it to Mass this week? Forget about yourself..don’t you care about anyone else enough to get out of bed, turn the phone off, put some decent clothes on and bring all the people you say you care about into the presence of the only One who can give any of us real peace in our suffering?

We are all so scattered, we are all so busy, and even when we take the time, our spiritual and corporal works of mercy reach one person at a time, for a moment.

Our hands, no matter how expert, can heal and cure, but not for all time, and only until the next pain strikes. Our understanding words can help, our contributions can turn life around, our time can save someone’s sanity. All of this is true.

This is what we can do, what we are called to do, what we are mandated to do.

But as we know to our frustration, even this, even at the level of the saints, is only so much.

In the Mass, those walls crumble. We enter into the Presence of Infinite Love poured out on Calvary for every person in the entire world. We are right there.

Knowing the hurt, confusion and fear, knowing the physical suffering, knowing the spiritual isolation that haunts the world, how can I say no to the chance to bring this mystery of human suffering into the presence of the greater Mystery of Love?

So there you go. My new pitch to the Kids:

Try to stop being such a selfish jerk. Go to Mass and pray for your mom. She needs it.

You think it will sell at youth group?

Read Full Post »

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

 

I usually try to get this 7 QT blog post done on Thursday night, but that didn’t happen. I couldn’t sleep at all Wednesday night, for some reason – too much Diet Coke too late in the day, a bunch of stuff happening over the next few days – all that combined to render the OFF button on my brain unusable. So for the first time in a very long time, I just got about an hour of sleep. Wow. I POWERED THROUGH, however, and actually didn’t feel bad at all during the day, but Thursday night..was useless.  All recalibrated now.

 

— 2 —

Yesterday morning, I received a shipment in the mail:

Yes, my new book – Praying with the Pivotal Players. It’s my contribution to Bishop Barron’s Pivotal Players series. If you go here, I have a short video on Instagram looking inside the book. It’s listed on Amazon, but is not available yet – I don’t know when it will be. If you have received a shipment of the entire program,entire program, it’s included in that, however.

. — 3 —

 

Saints! Here are last year’s entries on today and tomorrow’s saints:

September 16 – St. Cyprian

September 17 – St. Robert Bellarmine

 — 4 —

Good listens this week while walking, both from the BBC In Our Time podcasts.

Sovereignty –  Which was excellent, but missing any serious consideration of how the loss of a sense of divine sovereignty over all impacted the development of the concept.

The Collapse of the Bronze Age – the beginning of which at least I am going to have my younger son listen to, as it deals quite efficiently with the tenuous nature of our understanding of the deep past and the almost arbitrary nature of periodization.

— 5 —

Really great news for artist Ben Hatke – those of you with kids have perhaps (I hope) encountered his Zita the Space Girl series (You might have learned about him first years ago as the illustrator of Regina Doman’s lovely Angel in the Waters book.)  Well...Zita’s been optioned for the movies!!

— 6–

If you want to hear some of the kind of sacred music we have here at the Cathedral of St. Paul…here’s a tiny bit. 

— 7 —

For some reason, Dan Brown has released a “young adult” version of the Da Vinci Code.  I wrote about it earlier this week.  My De-Coding Da Vinci is now out of print, so I’ve put it online in a free pdf version. You can access it either at the previous link or more directly, here. It’s basically a short course in early Church history and formation of the Canon of the Bible…so have at it!

 

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

Read Full Post »

15 years!

I realized this past weekend that September 1 marked the 15th anniversary of The Loyola Kids Book of Saints. 

It was the first book I wrote. About the same time I was working on Prove It God, but this one came out first. It was a crazy time, that spring of 2000. (In publishing, it generally takes about a year from submission of the manuscript to publication. It can be done faster – DeCoding Da Vinci took two months – but generally not.)

As I said, it was crazy, with tons of life stuff going on. I procrastinated and before I knew it the holidays had sped by and I was facing a March 1 deadline. So I wrote it in six weeks.

(Lesson learned. Ever since, when planning out projects, I never ask for a deadline between January 1 and April 1. You hit mid-November and it’s almost impossible to get writing done and then you look up and it’s January 10 and you have a deadline in a month. Awful.)

And it’s still in print, which is great. It still sells well, which is even better.

 Loyola wanted a book of saints for children and they were familiar with my column-writing, so they invited me to do this.  I struggled a while with the organization.  I really wanted to make it different from other saints books, which are either organized chronologically through history, chronologically through the liturgical year, or alphabetically.  I wanted a more compelling, interesting organizational principle.  So was born the “Saints are people who….” sections, as you can see below.

Good for read-alouds from about age 5 on, independent reading (depending on child) from about 8 on. The emphasis is on helping children see the connection between their own journey to holiness and the saints’.

Saints Are People Who Create
St. Hildegard of Bingen,Blessed Fra Angelico,St. John of the Cross,Blessed Miguel Pro

Saints Are People Who Teach Us New Ways to Pray
St. Benedict,St. Dominic de Guzman,St. Teresa of Avila,St. Louis de Monfort

Saints Are People Who See Beyond the Everyday
St. Juan Diego, St. Frances of Rome, St. Bernadette Soubirous, Blessed Padre Pio

Saints Are People Who Travel From Home
St. Boniface, St. Peter Claver, St. Francis Xavier, St. Francis Solano, St. Francis Xavier Cabrini

Saints Are People Who Are Strong Leaders
St. Helena, St. Leo the Great, St. Wenceslaus, St. John Neumann

Saints Are People Who Tell The Truth
St. Polycarp, St. Thomas Becket, St. Thomas More, Blessed Titus Brandsma

Saints Are People Who Help Us Understand God
St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Jerome, St. Patrick, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Edith Stein

Saints Are People Who Change Their Lives for God
St. Ambrose, St. Gregory the Great, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Camillus de Lellis, St. Katharine Drexel

Saints Are People Who Are Brave
St. Perpetua and St. Felicity, St. George, St. Margaret Clitherow, St. Isaac Jogues, The Carmelite Nuns of Compiegne, St. Maximilian Kolbe

Saints Are People Who Help the Poor and Sick
St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Martin de Porres, Blessed Joseph de Veuster

Saints Are People Who Help In Ordinary Ways
St. Christopher, St. Blaise, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Bernard of Montjoux

Saints Are People Who Come From All Over the World
Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, St. Paul Miki, Blessed Peter To Rot, Blessed Maria Clementine Anuarite Nengapeta

If you have used this (or the Book of Heroes) in any setting – especially the classroom – and have found it useful, would you write a testimony to that fact? 

We are working on a marketing push for fall 2017, and I thought it would be great to have blurbs from people who have actually used the books. So if you are a parent, librarian, catechist or classroom teacher, have something to offer and are willing to have your name and institution used in marketing materials, please send me an email – amywelborn60 – at – gmail.com – and I will pass it on to Loyola.

 

Thanks so much!

 

Read Full Post »

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Super quick. I just gave myself 30 minutes to do a Homeschool Takeaway Blog post – and I’m going to give myself 20 to knock of this one. GO.

First – today is St. John Eudes. Here’s a post from last year, highlighting what B16 had to say:

Today is the liturgical Memorial of St John Eudes, a tireless apostle of the devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary who lived in France in the 17th century that was marked by opposing religious phenomena and serious political problems. It was the time of the Thirty Years’ War, which devastated not only a large part of Central Europe but also souls. While contempt for the Christian faith was being spread by certain currents of thought which then prevailed, the Holy Spirit was inspiring a spiritual renewal full of fervour with important figures such as de Bérulle, St Vincent de Paul, St Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort and St John Eudes. This great “French school” of holiness also included St John Mary Vianney. Through a mysterious design of Providence, my venerable Predecessor Pius XI canonized John Eudes and the Curé d’Ars together, on 31 May 1925, holding up to the whole world two extraordinary examples of priestly holiness.

 

— 2 —

I love reading history, but can’t always have a book going – or finish one. So I try to read academic journal articles – even if I read one a day, that’s a heap of learning. There aren’t many freely available online, and I don’t have access to a university library account, so I hunt around and take what I can get. Last week, I discovered that via JSTOR, you can access three academic journal articles…every two weeks. It’s kind of complicated, but you register, and you have a “shelf” and you can have up to three articles on that shelf at any time, and you “check out” an article for two weeks. Better than nothing.

— 3 —

This week’s reads:

The Science of Salvation: French Diocesan Catechisms and Catholic Reform (1650-1800)  Nothing earth-shaking, but a helpful overview of how clergy viewed the laity’s responsibilities to learn and understand the Faith.

The Naughty Canon of Catalonia and the Sack Friars: The Dynamics of “Passage” from Monk to Mendicant  First, engaging writing – unusual in an academic paper – and really interesting information both on the source of the information of the event and the event itself.

That led me to want to know more about the non-Franciscan and Dominican orders – I did not know almost all of them were suppressed after the Second Council of Lyon. This article, in addition to some other research, explained much of the period.  

 — 4 —

Perhaps the details of late Medieval history are not your thing – they probably aren’t – but honestly, if you want to understand – and perhaps be able to deal with – current Church controversies and questions, having a grasp of history is so very helpful.

— 5 —

This is cute. Several months ago , a young British woman made a little mistake: 

Heekin made headlines earlier this year when she mistakenly booked a holiday to Las Vegas departing from Birmingham, Alabama, rather than Birmingham, England. The trip was a 30^th birthday present to her boyfriend, Ben Marlow, and the two only realized the mistake when they showed up at the Birmingham, England, airport for their flight.

After the story went viral, many people stepped forward to turn the couple’s lemons into lemonade, to include Richard Branson and Virgin Atlantic (who funded their trip to Las Vegas) and famed Birmingham (Alabama) problem-solver Tom Cosby, who insisted the couple come to the Magic City to see what they were missing.

And so they were here for a couple of days this week, following an absolutely exhausting itinerary – see some photos here.

They came after Las Vegas, so I’m sure it was….okay.

— 6–

On my list for weekend reading: Alan Jacobs’ essay on Christian intellectuals in Harpers. There’s been a lot of blowback on this one, much of it from those who see the phrase as an oxymoron, and don’t hesitate to say so in the most tolerant, liberal way.

— 7 —

Almost out of time! Well, I’ll finish with some self-promotion. If you know anyone involved in school, parish or diocesan ministry who might be interested in an Advent devotional (no, it’s not too early!), you could point them to the one I wrote for Liguori, available in October. 

Follow on Instagram and Snapchat (amywelborn2)  – not much excitement this week, but there you go.

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

Read Full Post »

Homeschool Takeaways

A blog comment indicated that I was leaving the impression that my lack of follow-up on a promised homeschool takeaway post was perhaps because I was in agony about it.

Yikes, no.

The delay is due more to the fact that it’s hard for me to write about the topic succinctly. I tend to plunge in and just go on and on. I’m going to give myself 30 minutes from start to finish on this one, starting….now. 

But inspired by that nudge, I’ll start. I’ll begin with the personal takeaway, and follow up at another time with my Big Thoughts on Philosophical Issues. I was initially going to write about this in terms of “what I learned,” but as I thought about it, I realized that wasn’t quite and accurate characterization of my takeaway. It wasn’t about learning, it was more about things I knew, but perhaps didn’t know I knew…or didn’t know that I believed so deeply.

When in doubt, bullet points:

• I didn’t realize how much I had internalized the system. I thought I was all flexible and open, but I wasn’t. Homeschooling freed me in a deep way from assuming that once a certain path is begun, that’s the only way. That is – you start high school at this certain school..does that mean you have to finish there? Does that mean you are locked into the 4-year School Family Treadmill? No.
• I learned that I’m not an unschooler. Sad. Just couldn’t let go of some things.
• I learned that the reason we divide fractions is by multiplying the dividend by the reciprocal of the divisor is because that’s what division is . (8 divided by 5 is the same as 8 multiplied by 1/5.  8/5.)
• Now, I say that, not just as a fun fact, but as a representation of a larger point: I learned a lot through homeschooling. 
• With the math, as I have said before, I’m not mathy but nor am I terrible at math, and I’ve used it enough to still remember most of everything through Algebra. But using the Art of Problem Solving curricula with my kids taught me a great deal, introduced me to the architecture of mathematics in a way that I had never experienced and was sorry I hadn’t – understanding math the AOPS way would have helped everything make so much more sense to me in high school. So with the fractions and division thing – it was always presented as just a rule, with no reason. Sort of a random weird thing you do when dividing fractions. But it’s not random! There’s a reason! And that reason helps a lot of other things – division itself, fractions, decimals – fall together in a reasonable pattern.
• But oh, so much more. Stuff I once knew, but had forgotten, and so much I didn’t know – about science, history, art…
• One of the most wonderful things about homeschooling to me was that I think my kids understood that we were indeed learning together. Yes, I can go on and on about certain subjects, and sometimes they both irritate and amaze me with their questions to me and I say, “Well, I guess I should be flattered that you think I am some sort of encyclopedic genius,” but for the most part our homeschool environment was one of mutual learning and exploration, with me providing resources, guiding and explaining when needed, but me also saying regularly, “Wow, I didn’t know that!”
• I think it became clear to them that the proper way to look at a teacher is as both an authority and expert of sorts, but also as a co-learner. Not all teachers present themselves that way, of course, but be honest. It’s what we are. I am endlessly curious about almost everything – which is not always a good thing, as it can lead to never being able to just calm down and stop researching – and I hope that they picked up that curiosity and open-mindedness, along with some degree of authoritative understanding – makes for a good learning experience.
• We were also exposed, on a daily basis, to the fluidity of knowledge. Over and over again we encountered points of information that would be presented in a traditional school textbook as just FACT but are in FACT being called into question by current research and new information.
• I came to appreciate the sciences and engineering and related fields so very much. I think this is a huge takeaway for me. It is not that I didn’t admire those fields – it’s that I come from a total humanities background – English/history/religion/political science/philosophy. Hardly anyone in my family (which is small, so I don’t have a large study cohort to go on) went into any other field but those. Through the reading that we did, the videos that we watched, the programs that we attended, I came to really appreciate the sciences and related fields as truly creative, exciting areas which contribute so much to human flourishing, even at the most technical levels, and this became a point I communicated to the boys over and over.
• It may not make sense to some, but my goal as a home educator eventually evolved to: Help them become humble, skillful, wise skeptics. 
• Humble: so we know how little we know and are never closed.
• Skillful: so we can do what we need to do (write, compute, make)  well
• Wise: so our minds are in communion with the Word
• Skeptics: so we know that all human things, including knowledge, are contingent and temporary
• I learned a lot about my kids. I am not keen on writing a lot about them in a public space, but I will say that my sense of my older son’s aptitude for planning, logic and making connections was confirmed and deepened by our two years of homeschooling and my appreciation of my younger son’s enthusiastic embrace of All Things Nature was as well.
• Homeschooling them is going to be of great help to me in advocating for them and guiding them as we not homeschool.
• On a very practical level, homeschooling revealed to me how many resources there are out there – explicitly educational resources, as well as others – both in real life in the community and online.  I wouldn’t have known about them if I hadn’t been up until 1 am following rabbit trails. There is no excuse for having a boring classroom these days. None.
• I’m about to run out of time. So I suppose my final takeaway will bleed into the next episode about broader issues.  It was confirmed for me, although I had felt it and it was indeed a reason I decided to homeschool in the first place, how much of a time and energy suck school is. We did “school” in at most three hours a day – not counting days when they did classes or activities outside the home – and although we were busy, home was a pretty relaxed place.  Now they are gone 8 hours a day and re-entry into the home is marked by a flurry of papers, the mental effort for everyone to sort out what needs to be done and when and fatigue and the general, already
  aggravated wistful look forward to May.
• Don’t get me wrong. There are good teachers teaching interesting things in ways that they could not experience at home and systems that are having to build up ways to help everyone accomplish and learn and I get it. I get the challenges. I’ve been there. It’s just taking some effort to not allow the system and its many often picayune requirements pollute that culture of open-minded, relaxed learning that we enjoyed for four years, and in some small way, to keep it alive here in the amount of time The School Family permits.
• Trade-off. Just keep saying it. Trade-offs. 

(Other homeschooling posts here, here, here and here. At some point I’ll do a category for these.)

 

 

Read Full Post »

7 Quick Takes

 

— 1 —

Happy feast day of St. Mary Magdalene. In case you haven’t been around, all week, I have been posting big chunks of the book I wrote on her a while back (now out of print, so it’s okay), De-Coding Mary Magdalene.  

Chapter one: Introducing Mary Magdalene in the Bible

Chapter two: Mary Magdalene at the Resurrection

Chapter three: Mary Magdalene in Gnostic writings

Chapter four: Mary Magdalene in Patristic writings

Chapter ten: Mary and the Mystics

— 2 —

You can access the entire book, in pdf form here. 

As far as I know, it’s the only book-length popular treatment of Mary Magdalene put out by a Catholic publisher in recent years, and I remain mildly bitter that it was put out of print. A little more creative marketing and a title that wasn’t so tied to a particular moment (The Da Vinci Code) might have helped.

— 3 —

Summer chugs along. For us, the end is sadly near – school in the South starts super early – August 8 for the high school, which means the week before for orientation and so on.

So, because of that and a couple of scout trips our family travel has been pretty low-key. Memphis last week for me and the kid left at home, next week a couple of days in Charleston, and that will be about it.

 

 — 4 —

That same younger son has been given most of his piano repertoire for the coming year, and I’m buying stock in Kleenex or Puffs or something. I mean…his teacher has been instructing him for two years and has a Master’s in this stuff and knows what he’s doing (M won the state concerto competition in his age group last spring) but still. Is he really going to be able to play this in eight months or so? Plus other stuff??

So weird (and good)  when your kid surpasses you in things like this…

— 5 —

Here’s a new book!  Colleen C. Mitchell’s Who Does He Say You Are? is very good – honest and true and substantive. It would be great for a parish study group this fall..or any time.

— 6–

Oh, we did go to a water park this week. I am not a fan of such places – I don’t like to spend the money, the concrete and the mess get to me – it was so hot, the pool of which we are a member had lost its appeal for that day, and we hadn’t been in a couple of years, so…off we went.

It was fine. The place has come under new ownership since the last time we had gone. It was much cleaner, they didn’t charge for parking (that always sets me off), and they had somehow gotten a handle on the wasp issue, which was huge last time we were there – attracted by both the water and trash, it was a big, annoying problem.

— 7 —

Tomorrow I think that the younger son and I (since older son is off scout-ing) will head down to the southern part of the state for a little adventure. Follow on Instagram and Snapchat (amywelborn2) for more of that..

 

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

Read Full Post »

St. Benedict for Children

Today, we celebrate a great, fascinating saint. First entry today will be alerting to you what I’ve written about him for children. Another entry will follow.

He’s in The Loyola Kids Book of Saints under “Saints are people who teach us new ways to pray.” Here are some excerpts – click on images to get a fuller view.

Read Full Post »