Blood-sucking Monkeys from West Mifflin, Pennsylvania (how not to be one)

 

Illustration of pygmy marmoset and giant toad from Sarah Saw a Blue Macaw, by Jo Ellen Bogart, illustrations by Sylvie Daigneault

by Anne White

Charlotte Mason drew a line between people (famous, infamous, and not-so-famous) who lived with Will, and those who did not. This was not about their moral behaviour, but about whether they lived their lives, first of all, with an object outside of themselves; and, second, with an ability to choose and act, rather than merely to react. The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre wrote that the difficult part of ethics is deciding not between the good and the bad, but between the good and the good; and this is where we touch on the idea of our vocation being a “bit of the world’s work,” requiring that we say “no” to opportunities and ideas that would sidetrack our chosen path.  Christians would say it’s the path to which God has called us, but we still need to continually choose to stay on it. (Look at what happened to Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress when he tried to take a shortcut.)

A third hallmark of Charlotte’s “Will” people was that they understood self-denial, at least when their personal comfort or desires stood between them and the larger goal. Charlotte warned us not to be “That Person,” in whatever life situations we might be getting into, as much as we can help it. That rude customer, or passenger. That tiring person whose five-minute request always stretches to half an hour. That driver who endangers others by their recklessness or carelessness; or just someone who makes others have a worse day.

Now, if Charlotte was trying to illustrate those same principles today, she might start at a different point. I can imagine her drawing a line between people who bring oxygen into a room, and those who suck it out. Or, if you want to get a bit messier, those who act like “blood-sucking monkeys from West Mifflin, Pennsylvania.” (Credit to Joe Flaherty as Count Floyd on SCTV.) Even the Bible contains images of things that take life rather than giving it back: ““The leech has two daughters. ‘Give! Give!’ they cry” (Proverbs 30:15 NIV).

What does that have to do with Will? This: when we come into a situation, we view it with strength and determination (we want to get something done), but not with self-regard. We don’t use up the oxygen in the room; we try to replenish it. In a certain sense, each objective choice we make shoots the meter a bit more into the positive zone. You know that Christmas movie where all the people singing together create enough force to get Santa’s sleigh off the ground? Yeah, like that.

Which is a pretty long stretch from blood-sucking monkeys, but there we are. Let's aim for liftoff.

Eating all the cookies

by Anne White

There have been a lot of popular habit-themed books written in recent years, and one of them is Tiny Habits, by B. J. Fogg, Here are my takeaways from it: 

If you want to increase your chances of cementing or continuing a habit, you have to make it easier OR give the person a stronger motivation for doing it.

If you want to break one, you have to make the thing more difficult OR change their motivation. 

Fogg doesn't talk about Frog, Toad, and their difficulty in not eating cookies (in Frog and Toad Together), but that story comes close to what he's saying. By putting the box up on a shelf, they did make it more difficult to get at them, but they still had a strong motivation to eat the cookies, so it didn't work very well. Still, changing just one of those factors makes it more likely that you will change the habit, one way or another. 

Another example is something my husband mentioned: that people aren't giving blood as much these days, and the blood-donation places are wondering why. One reason may be that workplaces used to make blood donation super-easy, having clinics on site or giving people time off to go to them. Since people's internal motivation to donate blood can be very low or mixed (they know it's a good thing to do, but it might hurt), that's something that you have to counteract by making it as easy and painless as possible for them to do so. We're not describing a habit here, but it's the same sort of problem where, to see an action happen more often or more regularly, you have to make it easier to people to buy into it. Or harder for them not to.

B. J. Fogg claims that it is NOT necessary to do something for a month or a certain number of times in order for it to become a habit: the factors that really count in forming a habit are things like motivation and ease of doing the action. He offers the example of a young person who is given a smart phone which is immediately glued to them. There are certain habits we can pick up very quickly, but also some that we can drop just as quickly.

Charlotte Mason makes a great deal of the power of habit, and we usually focus on the word "habit" there, but I think we should emphasize the word "power" just as much. And this "power" is something that we can have over ourselves, if we have the right tools. One tool is the power of association, or what we might now call "triggers." The interesting power of recognizing "triggers" is that they can be turned on their heads. To break a habit, you need to purposefully change what that trigger tells you to do. I think it was in Fogg's book that I saw this example:. A woman was going through a bitter divorce, and every time she had to meet with her husband he would say nasty things. She created a cunning plan in which she gave herself little rewards (like watching an episode of her favourite show) based on how many whammies he threw at her. Sounds very odd, but for her it created a new sense of delight rather than resentment; the trigger of an insult gave her something to look forward to, rather than the urge to retaliate. (Disclaimer: this example is not meant to reflect on anyone's marital experience or to minimalize the pain of interpersonal conflict, it's just something that apparently worked for one person.)

Another part of the power of habits is our ability to chain them together--and many of us have seen this as we train children to go through a morning routine, where  they comb their hair, then brush their teeth, then make their bed. One action triggers the next. If we already have one good habit fixed in place, we can more easily load a bonus habit on top of it.

Which is, perhaps, a whole new side of the idea that "education is the science of relations."

What do you think?

To have is not to hold

A quilt made during WWII by a neighbourhood children's club. Hundreds of people donated ten cents apiece to have their names embroidered on the quilt, which was then given to a veterans' hospital.

by Anne White 

"And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity." (2 Peter 1:5-7)

In that first verse, the Greek word translated "add" carries a similar meaning to what a generous benefactor does to help another. If you want Latin roots instead, think of "contribute," which comes from con, with, and tribuere, bestow. Or the word "endowment," which comes from root words meaning "gift." As the public broadcasting station says before the concert starts, it is "made possible by a grant from The National Endowment for the Arts, and the financial support of viewers like you."

Bible commentators have pointed out that Peter's emphasis is on virtue being used for the good of the body or community, rather than to better oneself. You don't bestow something to yourself, or make a donation to yourself. Charlotte Mason talked about the danger of the "cult of the self" too, including the dangers of building up the mind, muscles, physical health, or even emotional or spiritual health, simply for our own good. Her emphasis was always objective, that is, having an "object" in view outside of ourselves.

There are girls of another pattern, who have no enthusiasms––other than a new "frock" excites; who do not "gush," have no exaggerated notions of duty or affection, but look upon the world as a place wherein they are to have and to get, but not, save under compulsion, to do, to bear, and to give––these three, which make up the ideal of a noble life, have no part in their thoughts. (Formation of Character, p. 237)

Our "enthusiasm," inspiration, and passion should indeed be to add or bestow virtue to our faith; and those other things too (though it almost seems virtue itself would be enough). But its purpose is not for us to increase our have and get (not only material possessions, but physical and emotional well-being), but our do and give, along with our bear, or courage and fortitude. Knowledge and temperance are lower on Peter's list than are the black-belt traits of patience and kindness.

But let's have the courage to start, no matter where we are. Because a diligent dime can go a long way.

But Sunday's Coming

Backyard barbecue, 1967. (The giant coffeepot was a must.)

by Anne White 

Our aim in Education is to give a Full Life...Thou hast set my feet in a large room; should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking––the strain would be too great––but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest. (School Education, p. 170)

About two years ago, Malcolm Guite did a video in which he introduced viewers to the philosopher-critic-professor George Steiner, and read a passage from Steiner's 1991 book Real Presences. For the sake of brevity, I'm going to paraphrase it. "People of many beliefs understand something about both Good Friday and  Resurrection Sunday. The horror of the Crucifixion mirrors the deepest pain of their own lives. The hope of the Resurrection, no small thing even for non-believers, is symbolic of their own 'liberation from inhumanity and servitude,' no matter where they might be looking for that liberation. Friday is so terribly dark that 'even the greatest art and poetry are almost helpless.' And Sunday is so blissfully happy that such things will 'no longer have logic or necessity.' However, it is Saturday, stretching between Friday's 'suffering, aloneness, unutterable waste,' and Sunday's 'dream of liberation, of rebirth,' with which we need to concern ourselves here." In Steiner's own words:

The apprehensions and figurations in the play of metaphysical imagining, in the poem and the music, which tell of pain and of hope, of the flesh which is said to taste of Ash and of the spirit which is said to have the savor of fire, are always Sabbatarian. They have risen out of an immensity of waiting which is that of man. Without them, how could we be patient?

Did you get that? Even for Christians, who celebrate the joy of Sunday and feel the grief of Friday, this human life is made up largely of 

one

LOOOONNNNNNNNNG

Saturday.

And that's okay.

It's exactly because of Saturday that human beings need story, poetry, art, and music. These things arise out of our "immensity of waiting." They represent something we're longing for, hoping for, searching for. At their best, they combine the memory of Friday's suffering with the hope of Sunday's happy ending. 

And when Lucy was tired of eating the Faun began to talk. He had wonderful tales to tell of life in the forest...about feasting and treasure-seeking with the wild Red Dwarfs in deep mines and caverns far beneath the forest floor; and then about summer when the woods were green...Then to cheer himself up he took out from its case on the dresser a strange little flute that looked as if it were made of straw and began to play. And the tune he played made Lucy want to cry and laugh and dance and go to sleep all at the same time." (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis)

But don't scoff  at our need for this kind of play and poetry, for the wildness of imagining, for our Beethoven's Sixth Symphony ability to enjoy a picnic on the banks of the river but follow it up with a thunderstorm. The life of "born persons" anticipates the full-on light of Sunday (though seen only in glimpses), and includes the half-remembered darkness of Friday (though we must not succumb to it).

"It was about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill, I know that much. But I can't remember and what shall I do?" And she never could remember; and ever since that day what Lucy means by a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician's Book. (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C. S. Lewis) 

As Steiner said, without this sense of longing, how could we learn patience? (And without understanding that same sense in others, how could we learn empathy?) It is that same longing that makes us attempt to recreate the forgotten story, or to reproduce that beauty we have seen in glimpses.

No, we are not decadent on the whole, and our uneasiness is perhaps caused by growing pains. We may be poor things, but we are ready to break forth into singing should the chance open to us of a full life of passionate devotion. (Philosophy of Education, p. 336) 

(Me with my great-grandmother.)

"Something that concerns you and concerns many men."

Not asphodel, but definitely greeny.

by Anne White

Of asphodel, that greeny flower,

                        I come, my sweet,
                                                to sing to you!
My heart rouses
                        thinking to bring you news
                                                of something
that concerns you
                        and concerns many men.  Look at
                                                what passes for the new.
You will not find it there but in
                        despised poems.
                                                It is difficult
to get the news from poems
                        yet men die miserably every day
                                                for lack
of what is found there...

(Excerpt of "Asphodel, that greeny flower," by William Carlos Williams.)

Poems are not places to get today's news, according to William Carlos Williams; or facts, or dates, or phone numbers. Or, really, anything practical and useful.

And yet, he says, we die (not peacefully, but miserably!) "for lack of what is found there..."

In Can Poetry Matter: Essays on Poetry and American Culture, Dana Gioia refers to this poem in a slightly different context. He has been discussing the problem of poetry, in the twentieth century, having lost its wider audience, and having become sort of a niche thing that only other poets care about. Gioia says this:

Williams understood poetry's human value but had no illusions about the difficulties his contemporaries faced in trying to engage the audience that needed the art most desperately. To regain poetry's readership one must begin by meeting Williams's challenge to find what "concerns many men," not simply what concerns poets. (p. 17)

Now, all this is undoubtedly true of poetry, and requires much thought. But let's expand. Is Christianity just for Christians? Certainly not (although "Christian sub-culture" is a real issue). Is educational truth just for educators? Are homeschooling methods just good for homeschoolers? And here's a big one for us: is Charlotte Mason's philosophy only to be kept in a C.M. box, to be brought out at C.M.-branded events or in C.M.-labelled books? Consider this principle of education:

12. "Education is the Science of Relations"; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of––  "Those first-born affinities / "That fit our new existence to existing things." 

If we are indeed born persons, living in a world in which we relate to several billion other born persons, we need to care that many of those same persons are dying (not peacefully) "for lack of what is found there..."  They are not finding it "in what passes for the new." And yet we tremble to offer our despised poetry, our good news (on whatever level). We are, as Charlotte says, "diffident," modest, shy (Preface to Ourselves). However, as she also says there, we are  urged to "encourage the others.". And not just the friendly "others," but the older ones, the younger ones, the better-educated ones, the bored and cynical ones. Not just those who sign up for conferences or buy books, but those who might throw our asphodel on the ground and stomp on it.

What is that mysterious, vital something found in poems (that isn't the news)?

The answer seems to be this: in discovering what it is "that concerns many men," or, in other words, the people around us. As Charlotte said, what is the spirit of our time? What questions are people asking about science and art, or (more worryingly) are they asking any questions at all? Can we offer handicrafts and living books? Can we help others to reclaim their first-born affinities?

Let's rouse our hearts, as Williams says, and take courage. Swap books. Start Sunday schools and math clubs. Care for communities. Share beauty and truth. And think of asphodel, that greeny flower.

You should really pay attention to this one.

by Anne White

One of the better-known stories in Formation of Character is "Inconstant Kitty," or, if you're reading Leslie Laurio's Modern English version, "Flighty Katie." The chapter is written as two letters, one by little Kitty/Katie's frustrated mother, and the other in response by the older, wiser aunt. The problem, as the mother sees it, is Kitty's extreme lack of attention in every situation: lessons, playing with dolls, etc. The response from Aunt Charlotte is twofold: first, meet Kitty where she is (create opportunities for success, while remembering she's still a little girl); but, second, don't let this habit-forming opportunity slip by, thinking "we'll take care of that later on."

There is a fine line, in other words, between destroying Kitty's spirit, and neglecting a faultline that could lead to tremors and quakes. Children are born persons, unique and individual, but also with a need to live up to their potential personhood, and that's formation of character. Kitty's mother needed to let her daughter blossom in her imaginative and enthusiastic way, but she also needed not to sow harmful idea-seeds, or to allow weeds to choke out that growth. We don't get a "Ten Years Later" on this story, so we can only hope that things improved for Kitty and her family.

But let's back up here a minute. What was, perhaps, an unusual problem in Charlotte's day, is now very much the norm. We are surrounded, in this generation, with Inconstant Kitties, who may in fact be ourselves.  I don't have to give all the examples, they're very familiar: high school teachers who no longer use books, children surrounded by toys but who don't know how to play, adults who quickly tire of relationships or jobs. Middle-aged readers who feel they've lost their focus. Are there physical, chemical reasons for this? Is it our damaged social infrastructure? Should we blame everything on electronics?

Like Kitty's great-aunt, we might start our letter of response by saying that the reasons, to a certain extent, don't matter. The bigger question itself seems to be: do we still value the habit of attention? Why does it matter? Are parents being overly strict if they require children to sit quietly (even for a short time) in church? Are there any tasks given to children that still require their absolute attention? What about their play? 

There is a difference between holding onto things (or people, or groups, or causes) loosely, not strangling them or being trapped by them,  knowing that all things are God's, and people are in his hand; and not understanding why we should commit ourselves to any of those things in the first place. If we don't have attention, we can't have commitment, and if we don't have "how much does he care," the same. It's closely related to Will.

As Aunt Charlotte might say, that's an awful lot to lay on a little child. We cannot reasonably expect mighty oak trees of virtue from preschool and elementary-aged children.

But we begin with ten minutes of attention. One story, one short walk, one cleanup job well done. Or even two or three minutes, if that's all we can manage. One poem, one kitchen task (done together). Little shoots, growing into small but healthy plants.

Don't give up.

It matters. 

Are you feeling liminal?

(Photo taken at Woolwich Dam and Reservoir, September 2024)

by Anne White

In the bleakness of January 2021 (when it felt like Christmas had taken a Narnia-like pass and the winter would go on imprisoning us forever), Amber Sparks wrote a piece for ElectricLiterature.com, called "I Just Want to Hang Out in the Wardrobe." 

Well, who wouldn't? But Sparks (chafing in that pandemic limbo) says her craving isn't for full-on Narnia; she writes, "I’ve been wishing instead to stop at the threshold, to open the door of the spare room and crawl into that wardrobe and not come out again." She goes on to talk about the particular attraction of "liminal spaces" in literature--the thresholds, vestibules, hallways, or phantom tollbooths that lead us to--well, somewhere else. That cinematic moment when Dorothy pauses with her hand on the doorknob; or, in The Secret Garden, Mary finding the locked door in the wall. Sparks doesn't specifically mention C. S. Lewis's "Wood Between the Worlds," but that would also fall into the "liminal" category: not a world in itself, but a place containing the doorways to all the other worlds. 

She warns that those of us over a certain age may never be able to return fully to the fantasy worlds that not only enriched our childhoods, but that, often, helped us survive them. As a child, she dreamed of finding "a place where a kind of low, slow magic still exists, where gym class doesn’t, where underdogs are issued powerful weapons and magical powers"; and books became those magical spaces for her. And for a time so long that we think it won't end, we keep returning, until one day, like Alice in Wonderland, we find we can no longer fit through the doorway.

"At 42, let’s be real, I can’t imagine a talking animal giving me a magic talisman without snickering a little. The first time I thought about how the Pevensie children’s mother must have broken her heart with worry when she sent them to the country, I think I wept a little to be so grown up at last."

But there is still a memory of that enchantment that we allow ourselves, or perhaps there is a new one that (as Sparks says) we don't fully experience until we have slowed down enough to appreciate those thresholds for themselves. 

"Waiting is, in fact, a repellent concept for most children, eager to be in action, eager for answers."

It might be similar to discovering a peculiar enjoyment of airports and train stations; or even of the journey itself, rattling down tracks past the backsides of towns, or suspended in that unlike-anything-else time of flight, before we get to our real destination. T. S. Eliot wrote about exactly that sense in "The Dry Salvages" (part of the Four Quartets):

When the train starts, and the passengers are settled
To fruit, periodicals and business letters
(And those who saw them off have left the platform)
Their faces relax from grief into relief,
To the sleepy rhythm of a hundred hours.
Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past
Into different lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus...

Some of you reading this may still be able to fit yourselves fully through the doorways of enchantment; to get off the train and know you have arrived. Others, like the camel in Nick Butterworth's The Little Gate, may find they have to kneel down or unload a few things first. And then there are those of us whose knees are getting a bit stiff to go through fairy doorways. What then shall we do? Just wait outside?

Sparks finds that writing itself "is a kind of liminal space, with all the possibilities of wonder and none of the risk. We can’t get back to Neverland once we are grown, but we can write a path through the midnight sky." In other words, there is a sense that our creativity can open those worlds for others. And perhaps those of us who don't write (or paint or compose or sculpt or weave), but do read, and particularly those of us who read to others (older or younger), can do the same. This also applies to those who teach Sunday school, lead nature walks, or explore mathematics joyfully. 

And for ourselves? Even if we cannot force our way in, Sparks says, we may still find that "liminal spaces have a regenerative power of their own...Perhaps we liminal adults can feel we, too, belong, that the world is almost a good place for us, too, if we can remake it in these spaces." These outside places, these doorsteps and waiting spaces, also have things to teach us.

As Sparks says, liminal spaces can still offer wonder, without the risk. Maybe there is a new kind of adventure for us right there in the woods, even when the magic rings are lost.