Hannah Whitall Smith, mother to seven, speaker, suffragist, and author, wrote The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life in 1875. I found her timeless wisdom to be refreshing, challenging, and grounding to my soul that teetered on the fulcrum between the eras of modernism and postmodernism.
When we think of relationships, we usually think of those persons whose lives have touched our lives – family, friends, and co-workers. As important as these are, we must expand our vision.
Rarely do we see transformation in one simple step, and never have I seen it without tension. We can use that tension and decide that what we left behind was left behind us.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of this habit of attention. It is …”within the reach of everyone and should be made the primary object of all mental discipline.” — Charlotte Mason
How often it is that we go through life missing the simple pleasures. Our focus is on ourselves; our thoughts, our plans and our concerns–failing to hear the joy around us. Charlotte Mason reminds us to be fully present and to listen. Miss Mason’s idyllic picture of being “in the fields on a spring day” is far from the reality of most 21st century lives. Although being in the fields on a spring day, or most days for that matter, would do us all good.
How often it is that we go through life missing the simple pleasures. Our focus is on ourselves; our thoughts, our plans and our concerns–failing to hear the joy around us. Charlotte Mason reminds us to be fully present and to listen. Miss Mason’s idyllic picture of being “in the fields on a spring day” is far from the reality of most 21st century lives. Although being in the fields on a spring day, or most days for that matter, would do us all good.
How often it is that we go through life missing the simple pleasures. Our focus is on ourselves; our thoughts, our plans and our concerns–failing to hear the joy around us. Charlotte Mason reminds us to be fully present and to listen. Miss Mason’s idyllic picture of being “in the fields on a spring day” is far from the reality of most 21st century lives. Although being in the fields on a spring day, or most days for that matter, would do us all good.
We often talk of ideas in the classrooms at Ambleside, but what about the ideas in our homes? We want our children to love learning, but does our home life foster this love? Charlotte Mason says that every parent holds their breath when they hear that their children take direction and inspiration from all the casual life about them, and that even the parents’ words and ways form the starting point from which he develops.
Why is a ‘method’ of education more important than utilizing a ‘system’? In “Home Education,” Charlotte Mason says our tendency in educating children is toward a system — which is ‘alluring’ because it is successful in achieving precise results. But we are educating children – and children are persons, individuals, image-bearers of God – who thrive on relationship. She proposes the idea of a method of education instead.
