Here are Four Great Things from the week of 04/19/2024.

Johannes Vermeer

One area of personal study I have enjoyed in these last weeks is classic artwork. This started from a simple homeschool study but grew as I continue to work through "Love What Lasts" by Joshua Gibbs.

I have featured George Bothamley's Substack "Art Everyday" before, but he covered one of my favorites: Johannes Vermeer. The insight of simplicity here was just a breath of fresh air. Due to the digital age, we are so accustomed to movement in what we see. Bothamley's work trains readers in what to look for in paintings, how to see them properly.

"Are Children a Good Idea"

Mary Ellen Mitchell asks the question if children are a good idea for modern married couples to engage in—from the political climate to the pressures of individualization to a longing for more support as parents, she considers many angles before answering with a "yes," although she does not declare that children are for everyone.

"As individuals, most of us maintain a localized hope for babies, but when it comes to those powers and principalities that shape a cultural mood, we assume burden before gift." Good grief, what an argument—and she's right. Ubiquitously we have seen and heard how the youngest generation is who we should invest in if we want a change for the future, yet many are just not in it for the long game.

As I think through my own life of homeschooling 3 girls and directing a children's ministry at church, I am challenged to always see all children with hope and even gratitude.

The Common House

This one is very new for me, so I am still working on a rhythm with it. The Commonplace is a podcast by Autumn Kern about classical homeschooling. She also has an incredible amount of content for those who have children under 5 years old.

She then started The Common House as a way for homeschooling moms to take courses from one another, ask questions, throw around book lists and suggestions, and even purchase gently used classic books from one another. There are scheduled online book meetings and full access to all archived material. It is very well organized and has given me good things to think about. It is subscription based at $9 a month—worth it.

Wendell Berry Reading Group

I am a big fan of Wendell Berry—I suppose I will always be working through his Sabbath Poems. It is no doubt very easy to find plenty of people talking about him as our digital age continues to shape life. His writings teach us about simplicity, quiet, slowness, and union with the Creator rather than the self.

Hadden Turner has created a Wendell Berry Reading Group that can be accessed through a subscription. However, he did post what this first one along with questions. This is from Berry's "The World Ending Fire."

What I'm working on:

• I was actually able to do a little reading on beauty: "Beautiful things are a bonding of the physical and the spiritual; thus the enjoyment of beauty is the unification of sense and intellect." Love What Lasts by Joshua Gibbs
• The physical act of Mary wiping Jesus's feet with her tears, perfume, and hair tied with the spiritual implications of humility and gratitude make it beautiful. 1 Peter 3 says that wives are to have an imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit—the physical is the gentle responses and the spiritual is the humility that I don't have to fight my way to greatness.

Quotable:

• I still don't know where "Devotions" is packed away, but here is what I have been reading: "Pleasure takes place in the body, but satisfaction takes place in the soul. Great art is satisfying because it creates bonds between body and soul, but mediocre art uses exaggerated offers of pleasure to seduce the body away from the soul in much the same way than an antiques dealer must offer an intellectually overwhelming sum for a priceless family heirloom." Love What Lasts by Joshua Gibbs

Worth the Memory

She Walks in Beauty

By Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

What are your great things from the week?