Kindred Spirit?

I haven't even read the essay, I just thought you all would appreciate the first sentence.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that it is only a short road that leads from grammatical laxity to cannibalism.

1,000 Words

Happy Birthday, Hopkins!

God's Grandeur

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

(... and the Spark Notes in case you want to investigate further.)

Tuesday

It would've been a black mark on my permanent record if I'd photographed the biggest victory of today, so you'll have to be satisfied with me telling you that the state of Minnesota has officially declared that Nick is permitted to drive. In fact, I believe he said he got all the questions correct.

After the celebratory lunch at DQ (Sadly, Han's Bakery is out of business), we went to the county fair and discovered that yesterday's electrical project is going to the state fair! This I was permitted to photograph.

Small world?

Ha! Seeing this guy after hearing the Ricky Bobby homily almost makes me want to watch NASCAR again. Or not.

Monday's victories!

Three for three on today's blues!

(Two foods and an electricity project.)

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child

I first saw this book in the ISI site’s bookstore and was pleased to find it at the public library (inter-library loan). I’d highly recommend it to anyone with children and wish I’d read it earlier in my home schooling career. There are definitely some things I’d consider doing differently based on the opinions given here. I may buy a copy so I can reread it periodically.

There are many quotable passages, but this one, in a chapter entitled Cast Aspersions upon the Heroic and Patriotic, finally moved me to post it. Here, Esolen comments on the topic of multiculturalism:

… But we want no patriots. Therefore we want no lovers of their own place. The very purpose of what is miscalled multiculturalism is to destroy culture, by teaching students to dismiss their own and to patronize the rest. Hence the antidote to love of this place is not only a hatred of this place, but a phony engagement with any other place. Multiculturalism in this sense is like going a-whoring. Pretending to love every woman you meet, you love none at all. Nor do you genuinely get to know any of them, since it never occurs to you that there are any depths to learn to appreciate. If there’s nothing to claim your devotion to Georgia [referring to a Flannery O’Connor quote earlier in the chapter], what should there be to do so in South Wales? We will raise, at best, the mildly interested tourist, who collapses everything he sees into the two dimensions of a social fad. They will rack up places they’ve seen just as callous safari hunters rack up skins and horns, only without the danger that might awaken the heart. Or they will stay home, since one place will be as dull as the next.

Blueprint for our family vacation

Over the past three Sundays, when greeting French pilgrims, Pope Benedict XVI has made several brief but important suggestions about how to spend our summer vacation. First of all, he invited those of us who can, to use our vacation time in a way that helps renew our relationships with others and with God. Interrupting the hectic and frantic pace of daily life, we can take time to dedicate ourselves to others and to God. The Pope even suggested we include a copy of the Sacred Scriptures in our suitcase. He also invited us to contemplate the greatness, and admire the beauty, of creation around us, recognizing in it the wonderful presence of the Creator.

We need to observe this magnificent gift, he said, with the same attention Jesus did. He knew how to interpret the language and signs of Creation, which is a gift we must respect, protect and care for, in the name of God, humanity and future generations.

Finally, Pope Benedict suggested that pilgrims and travellers apply their intelligence and curiosity to discovering the monuments of the past – witnesses of culture and faith, as he called them, examples of our spiritual roots and heritage. Cathedral and abbeys, in particular, are places where beauty helps us feel the presence of God and inspires us to pray for the rest of humanity, on its pilgrimage through the Third Millennium. The enjoyment of friendship, reading, nature and culture helps to nourish and restore our spirit. It gives us the strength to continue our journey refreshed and renewed.

Hat tip