Friday, October 28, 2011

Wendell speaks

ON Civil Disobedience.
October 20, 2o11 in Cambridge, Mass.
This reminds me of A Christian
Manifesto
by Francis Schaeffer.
( must read in high school)

I got a few of his earlier poetry
books out of the library.
First editions .
Small and tight.
I love such poetry books.


http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/a8/ef/a8ef7afdc792a5e59306c545251434d414f4541.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/718Es2frY9L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

WE had already read this Richard Wilbur poem


So amazing the timing!
Wilbur is our poet of the
semester.

A Barred Owl

The warping night air having brought the boom
Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,
We tell the wakened child that all she heard
Was an odd question from a forest bird,
Asking of us, if rightly listened to,
“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight
Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw
Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

Yesterday, I told my Elementary poetry
students about WHAT happened,
they left my house WHOOOING....
up my driveway on alert to hear
a WHO COOKS FOR YOU back!

Monday, October 24, 2011

That owl was hungry


Our day with the OWL in our
yard this afternoon.

The OWL who sat on a branch
outside our back porch.

The OWL who had a mockingbird
mock him, swoop at him, and
chatter so much that HE was
danger!

The OWL who flew to our front
roof over the front porch. We
sat in Gordan's bedroom and
watched him get something
dead out of the gutter!

The OWL who then flew
to the magnolia tree and
stared at us. YOU know they
stare right at you.

The OWL who then had a
squirrel from his beak.

Back home 3 hours later,
he is sitting on a branch
of the Bradford pears at
the top of the driveway.

Emma hears a shriek.
The OWL is in the squirrel
nest up a pine tree. I yelled
up at him how BAD he was.
Third squirrel in 24 hours
in his beak.

Many FIRSTS to record!

( photos and a video were
taken! Stay tuned.)


FIRSTS


I always think of this now:
Book of Firsts.

I made one in a blank journal.
Nancy writes a good blog
on The Calendar of First.



It is a capital plan for the children to keep a calendar––the first oak-leaf, the first tadpole, the first cowslip, the first catkin, the first ripe blackberries, where seen, and when.
( Charlotte Mason)


It builds a habit.
Attention.
Observation.
Recording in a book.

Yesterday , my neighbors
and husband all said this as
we sat on their back porch:

"THIS is the first time we've seen
that."


An owl swooped from the trees
to the top of my green roof
with an animal in it's mouth.
A squirrel.
He held it down.
We could hear the animal.
Then he flew to a branch in my
front yard. By this time, we
had binoculars.

This morning the crows were
cawing and cawing. It was such
a raucous that I looked outside.
They were chasing a hawk.
He just sat there on a branch too.

Well, our Squirrel Nutkin got more
than his tail off and I made sure
our cat Oreo was inside!




Tuesday, October 18, 2011

New Tim Keller Book: Nov. 1

White on white with this book cover!
Excitement.
Tim and Kathy Keller write the book
from their lectures and his sermons
on the subject : Marriage.
Watch a short , fun video of the
two here.

November 1st.

Monday, October 17, 2011

For my students and children




Farmer Sitting by the Fireside Reading....Van Gogh


“Deeply engaged reading leads to perceptual awakening, stimulation of the core of the intuitive and experiential . . . What reading and writing can teach us is a deeper empathy that leads us to desire the best for others who are entirely different from us, and to long to communicate with them.”

- Makoto Fujimura, “Refractions #26: The Epistle of Van Gogh


http://d28hgpri8am2if.cloudfront.net/book_images/cvr9781416580867_9781416580867.jpg

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The Letter T

I recently saw this illuminated
letter "T:
at MoBia's KJV's 400th Anniv.
Exhibit. It is small but glorious.

All the letters were beside the
larger canvas which Makoto
did for each of the Four Gospels.
Each Gospel had it's own wall.
He then illuminated each chapter.
Here is Chapter 1 of Matthew:

Matthew 1 TE

My Matthew 1 chapter head initial letter (each initial letter was specifically designed for each chapter) Here you can see the names in Matthew's genealogy listed inside the "T." The shape of the "T" always reminds me of the cross of Jesus.

Makoto Fujimura

Monday, October 10, 2011

The beginning of another week and a book


Monday is a stay at home
day. I get ready for three
busy days, then friday is
a stay at home day.
Book Ends.

I finished Donald Miller's
To Own a Dragon: Reflections
of Growing Up without a Father.

over the weekend in a few days.
He wrote Blue Like Jazz and
seems to have a knack for putting
jazz into his writing. I never
thought I needed to read this book.
One of my sons loved Miller's books
but we didn't get this one because
he has a dad. Me: divorce. So reading
this book brought to light a few
things to help me go deeper into that
wound. I recommend it to anyone
who has absence in their life. Absence
of any kind, not just a dad. It also is
one of the best books on manhood!

I found this short interview and wonder
if Miller has done this:

Miller: I’m working on a book called A Map of Eden, which is a biography of a performance artist who, with his art, brings to life social justice issues and calls people to action. Thomas Nelson will publish that.

Are you wondering at the title?
It is in the second chapter:

" I didn't start reading till in college,
but I knew about fairies and dragons
and trolls from hearing about them
at reading time when the librarian
at my elementary school crossed her
long legs and sat silently until we
sat silently. Then she'd wrap her lips
around the simple words of a children's
book, holding her palm against the
crease of the page , turning the book
towards us to display the watercolor
pictures ~~~ a small troll in a big coat
who lived under a bridge, his eyes ever
alert for travelers on the bridge. There
was a book of a boy riding a dragon
through the clouds, smoke and fire...
and I remember wondering what it would
be like to own a dragon.....

I bring this up because in writing some
thoughts about a father, or not having
a father, I feel as though I am writing
a book about a dragon or a troll under
a bridge. For me a father is nothing more
than a character in a fairy tale."

https://www.inspire4less.com/productimages/9781576837313.jpg

Friday, October 7, 2011

Julia's Yarn




Maybe you saw this if you
knit and read Getting
Stitched on the Farm.
It is another sign of the
times: Kristin Nicholas' Julia
yarn( named after her daughter)
is being discontinued.
Read here and order halfprice
for her scrumptious colors
from her sheep!

photos from Getting Stitched
on the Farm~~

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Apple's head


I am reading the NY Times
tonight about Steve Job.
Very interesting

He put much stock in the notion of “taste,” a word he used frequently. It was a sensibility that shone in products that looked like works of art and delighted users. Great products, he said, were a triumph of taste, of “trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then trying to bring those things into what you are doing.

and this about consumers
which is what I think (I am
so technically ignorant!)

When asked what market research went into the iPad, Mr. Jobs replied: “None. It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.”

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Kuyper


"Thinking itself is a spiritual activity"

Abraham Kuyper

Monday, October 3, 2011

Busy, busy writing



My Students are writing stories.

Richard Wilbur, poet the siblings
are learning this semester, writes about
his daughter writing. My daughter
is writing. He reads it HERE.
I might have
to read it
with my students.
Several
metaphors and imagery and
that last line~!!

THE WRITER

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,

And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.