Episodes
Tuesday Jan 12, 2021
Calming the Troubled Heart
Tuesday Jan 12, 2021
Tuesday Jan 12, 2021
We humans are destined to live in troubled times. As novelist and screenwriter William Goldman puts it in The Princess Bride, “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”
Goldman echoes the words of Jesus, who made this clear to His followers, “In this world, you will have tribulation.” Trouble is the norm, not the exception, and troubled hearts always tend toward paralysis and polarization.
In troubled states, one wants desperately either to despair and quit, or to do something. But what?
Friday Dec 18, 2020
The Greatest Gift of All (Christmas 2020)
Friday Dec 18, 2020
Friday Dec 18, 2020
Take a moment to imagine a time when someone was truly interested in you.
What would it be like for you to give this same kind of attention to your spouse, to your children, and to others?
This Christmas, consider giving the greatest gift of all: your sacred presence.
Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
The Primary Thing For Them
Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
Thursday Nov 19, 2020
To Know and To Love
Thursday Nov 19, 2020
Thursday Nov 19, 2020
In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, we find three major players, each with a different orientation toward life:
- The younger brother who seeks to ESCAPE and INDULGE
- The older brother who seeks to PERFORM and CONTROL
- The father who seeks TO KNOW and TO LOVE
A true education must promote knowing and loving, not performing or indulging.
Wednesday Nov 04, 2020
On Providence
Wednesday Nov 04, 2020
Wednesday Nov 04, 2020
To believe in Divine Providence is to accept that we do not always know what is best, and the world does not conform to our will but to God's.
Thursday Oct 15, 2020
Every Person: A Creature of Desire
Thursday Oct 15, 2020
Thursday Oct 15, 2020
Slogans like "Be your way" and "Just do it," slogans that encourage us to follow any and all desires, may be good for sales, but they're horrible for souls.
Monday Sep 28, 2020
Every Person: A Web of Relations
Monday Sep 28, 2020
Monday Sep 28, 2020
As the spider is made for building silk webs, so we are made for building relations with persons and things. Our brains are designed for and dependent upon the creation of meaningful relations with persons and things.
Friday Sep 04, 2020
Persons: Strange and Glorious Amphibians
Friday Sep 04, 2020
Friday Sep 04, 2020
Humans are not mere matter or a body directed by some external soul. They are a body-soul unity. In this dense discussion of these primary approaches to understanding humanity, we propose that a proper understanding of human nature will necessarily inform right relationship and education.
Wednesday Aug 19, 2020
Children Are Born Persons --- Part 1
Wednesday Aug 19, 2020
Wednesday Aug 19, 2020
The first article of a valid educational creed – “children are born persons” – is of a revolutionary character; for what is a revolution but a complete reversal of attitude? - Charlotte Mason
Tuesday Aug 11, 2020
Nurturing the Divine Life in the Child
Tuesday Aug 11, 2020
Tuesday Aug 11, 2020
It is a hard truth that, as a rule, a child will not give greater care and attention to the divine life than do his parents and teachers. read more
Friday Jul 10, 2020
Knowing God
Friday Jul 10, 2020
Friday Jul 10, 2020
Education is the science of relations, relations with saints and sinners, the past and the present, earth and sky, art and craft, work and leisure. Still, there is more. read more.
Monday Jun 29, 2020
Instructing in the Beauty Sense
Monday Jun 29, 2020
Monday Jun 29, 2020
Last time, we spoke of the Beauty Sense, a formative force rarely considered in its potent ability to shape the character of children. The Beautiful, together with the Good and the True are servants to one another, each drawing to the others, as it draws us to itself. Charlotte Mason speaks of imagination with the trained eye and ear, as central to the perception of beauty. read more
Friday Jun 12, 2020
Thursday May 28, 2020
“Bringing up” Children in Distressing Times (Part 2)
Thursday May 28, 2020
Thursday May 28, 2020
The story of the principal and Suzie was primarily about recovery from a distressed brain state, but this is only half of the work that is to be accomplished. It is also the responsibility of parents and teachers to build resilience. Resilience is the capacity to absorb adversity without slipping into a dysfunctional, distressed brain state. The greater the resilience, the less likely a child (or anyone for that matter) is to respond adversely, regardless of what is happening in the environs. Eight practices for building resilience will be the topic of this blog. read more
Friday May 15, 2020
“Bringing up” Children in Distressing Times (Part 1)
Friday May 15, 2020
Friday May 15, 2020
These last weeks have been taxing. Routines have been radically altered. Freedoms have been constrained. Normal pleasures have been curtailed. For many, income has been disrupted. And perhaps most trying of all, the future is uncertain. The illusion that we are in control is being challenged. Such testing times can be stressful for parent and child alike. read more
Monday Nov 25, 2019
Child Gymnasium or Child Garden
Monday Nov 25, 2019
Monday Nov 25, 2019
That children should be trained to endure hardness, was a principle of the old regime. "I shall never make a sailor if I can't face the wind and rain," said a little fellow of five who was taken out on a bitter night to see a torchlight procession; and, though, shaking with cold, he declined the shelter of a shed. Nowadays, the shed is everything; the children must not be permitted to suffer from fatigue or exposure.
That children should do as they are bid, mind their books, and take pleasure as it offers when nothing stands in the way, sums up the old theory; now, the pleasures of children are apt to be made more account than their duties. Formerly, they were brought up in subjection; now, the elders give place, and the world is made for the children.[1]
[1] Mason, Charlotte. Home Education. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1989. 7.
Thursday Aug 29, 2019
Thursday Aug 15, 2019
Thursday Aug 01, 2019
Thursday Jun 13, 2019
Opportunities at Home
Thursday Jun 13, 2019
Thursday Jun 13, 2019
Last time, we heard from Essex Cholmondeley about opportunities, the opportunities parents have at home “to bring children up to be or to do” to be the kind of persons who have the power to live the life God has given them in exactly the way God intends, complete in mind, heart and soul with “the needs of something to love, something to do and something to think about.” It’s a lofty work indeed, to bring children up in these varied relationships. In truth, each parent and each teacher are a part of this work already, consciously or unconsciously. more
Thursday Jun 06, 2019
Parenting in a Digital Age Part 3 with Dr. Bill St. Cyr
Thursday Jun 06, 2019
Thursday Jun 06, 2019
Modern technologies propagate a value system. Winners win and losers lose but is that a true statement?
Is the purpose of life. To make it to the one percent? Or would I or which would I rather have my child be? A neurotic performance-oriented performance driven member of the one percent. Or totally average in lifestyle but knows how to love his spouse and care for his children enjoys that which is good true and beautiful has a rich relationship with ideas and books as many friends and is a blessing to everyone in the neighborhood a quote winner one rich in the relation of life to set different value systems. Which do you want for your child?