Food and mealtimes shared have always been thought of as a closer kind  of communication than simply talking to people without eating together.

So states Edith Schaeffer in her treatise, The Hidden Art of Homemaking.

Over and over again, I have found this adage to be more than true.

Last Saturday we took a field trip in honor of DD#3's Birthday, a visit from one of her college friends (hey Cindy! she's from Cincinnati) and the new job my nephew started with the Zac Brown Band!!

Leaving the ATL early, we traveled South to Social Circle and dined at the famous Blue Willow Inn.

Imagine on my pretty dinner plate collards, green beans, sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and cornbread.  I topped it off with some peach cobbler and one bite of peanut butter pie.

Exemplary of a certain era of Southern cooking, the Blue Willow Inn recipes are not ones that I use now.  But my tastebuds do have special places in my heart (imagination) for these flavors and love savouring the traditions of my heritage.

I hope you'll consider a visit to the Blue Willow Inn, if you're every in this neck of the woods, as they are struggling to stay afloat in this slow economy (link to AJC article).

Last but not least ~

Take time to walk through the charming shops in downtown Social Circle because it sure is a social circle!

Read my review of Anthony Esolen's Method #5 for destroying your child's imagination to understand how important this field trip really is.

Happy Birthday, DD#3!!!

Reading about successful marriages is my way of celebrating Valentine's Day.

This year I choose Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and her husband, Eugene.

To friends, Betsey and Gene.

Her testimony is powerful and his memoir exemplary.

If you are not familiar with this couple, I commend them to your attention.

From Chapter 2, entitled "Souffle", the opening quote is from one of my favorite authors, Gail Godwin ~

having each other make(s) more of them both

Evensong

This section speaks to me since I work for my husband as his office manager.  Behind the scenes, not on stage, closely, but never instead of.

Betsey and I team-taught college courses,
coauthored books and articles,
and shared platforms at professional meetings.
  Colleagues ofen asked
how we managed to work so closely without straining our marriage.
  We replied
that spousal collaboration falls into the category
the French invoke for making a souffle:
  It is easy or impossible.

Lastly, I would like to draw your attention to another author ~ one whom Dr. Fox-Genovese appreciated:  Augusta Jane Evans, one of the most popular writers of the 19th century and a defender of marriage and family. LSU Press has re-issued some of her books, notably Beulah which is edited and introduced Fox-Genovese.

Read her NYTimes Obituary or this First Things recap.   Better yet her book on marriage.

How are you celebrating Valentine's Day?

"I am making out fine in spite of any conflicting stories,"  she wrote to Robert Lowell.

"If I have enough energy to write with and as that is all I have any business doing anyhow, I can with one eye squinted take it all as a blessing.

"What you have to measure out, you come to observe more closely, or so I tell myself."

1953 Letter to Lowell and his wife

Flannery O'Connor
The Habit of Being

On this day in history, four traveled to Milledgeville to engage with this iconic American writer ~ to see where she lived, to read what she wrote, and to perhaps understand her voice.

To tired to write now.

More entries will follow next week.

Last week I made a list of my favorite parenting books, only to find myself wanting to add another:  my current bookclub selection, Ten Ways to Destroy Your Child's Imagination by Anthony Esolen, PhD.

Now it is displaced by one I had overlooked: Leila Denmark's
Every Child Should Have a Chance, written in 1971 and reprinted many times. 

Today, February 1st, is Dr. Denmark's birthday.  Here's a link to the newspaper's tribute (AJC link).

While she marks her 113th, I commend to you her parenting advice which is timeless.

This book is not your run-of-the-mill manual full of methodologies. 

Therefore, reading it should take a place of priority.

It doesnt matter if you dont have any babies right now.

My copy is a Second Edition Hardback given to me by my mother, when our first child was born in 1984.

I'd like to list the Table of Contents in order to pique your interest; and copy a selection from the chapter about careers in order to encourage us as we guide our charges into their lives of service.

In other words, I believe the information in this volume is relevant to everyone whether you have children or not.  In addition, the storytelling style of Denmark's writing plus the personal vignettes tie into my bookclub's discussion of sparking the imaginations of our children.

Table of Contents

1)   First Visit to a Newborn Baby
2)   The Stages in the Life of a Child
3)   Feeding Children
4)   Thumb Sucking
5)   Clothes
6)   Nursery School and Kindergarten
7)   Looking for the Obvious
8)   Grandparents
9)   Teaching a Child Manners, Decorum, and Customs
10) Natural Laws, The Laws of the Creator
11) Selecting a Way of Life, Career
12) Dissipation

Now for the vignette describing Denmark's determination in following her dreams.

I finished college and tried teaching for two years, but that was not my field.  I sent my application in to medical college, but it was not acknowledged.  The day for medical school to open I was there and asked to be admitted but was refused on the grounds that the school had fifty-two students already and there was room for only thirty-six so it would be out of the question for me to get a place.  I asked them to just fix me a place in any corner and take me on a trial basis for a few days.  So the officials of the school got together that night and decided to let me stay.  They had one married man, one Yankee boy nobody wanted to work with so they put us three outcasts together.  (This was a Southern college.)  A married man in school at that time was not at all popular and a Yankee less so, and even less than that, a female student.

Amazing, right?

Failure is not a word in my vocabulary and I'm glad to learn from this story that it wasnt in Dr Denmark's either.  She hurdled over setbacks and obstacles because she could see her vision.

May Every Child Should Have a Chance help you help your child see his/hers.

Bonus Link to my pastor's wife's tribute to Dr. Denmark in 2009.  Becky chronicles the pediatricians life in three parts, ending with a dear poem.

Never having considered myself imaginative, I do finally understand that I can be creative.  Edith Schaeffer's treatise The Hidden Art of Homemaking is helping me exercise those faculties.  Here's a link to a recipe when I first began to grasp the concept.

Despite how I felt in art class, especially in 7th grade.

In elementary school, I can remember recognizing that I was wasting valuable class time (that 45- minute trap) scouring my brain and trying to think of something to paint, draw, or sculpt.

So, in this post I want to do two things:

1)  Remember this quote from Schaeffer's chapter entitled Painting, Sketching, Sculpturing, because it's never too late to learn.

There is no need to lock up this capacity for expression because you have not been able to make a career of it.

Develop it for your own sake, for the enrichment of the lives of those you live with,

and as an unconscious spark to set fire to other dry wood, other creative creatures on a finite level.

While Schaeffer is specifically addressing the *artist-mom* (this makes me think of my my friend, Debby Beisner who is picking up her brushes again), I am trying to apply this principle in all areas of homemaking.

I also am inspired by my own mother, who picked up drawing and painting at age 55.  She started taking lessons through the local recreation department, meeting and following a certain teacher, whom she helped establish his own studio, Old World Art. 

Dont miss looking at her website.  She is definitely a spark to others.

And ~ 

2) I want to relate a story from my own schooling as it ties into my online bookclub where we are studying Anthony Esolen's Ten Ways to Destroy Your Child's Imagination.

When I reviewed Esolen's Method #1 for destroying a child's imagination, I made the following statement ~

Now that my children are grown it is easier for me to see the big picture:
 how the frustrating schools days and seemingly disorganized academic years
do provide children with the ability
to form the mental images, sensations, and concepts that comprise their imaginations.

In the comment section, Brandy of Afterthoughts asked for clarification.  Here's the specific frustrating situation that I was referring to:

I was twelve years old and listening to the art teacher give instructions for the day's lesson. After some introductory remarks, (which I cant remember) Mrs Young said, "Draw a picture of pollution."  I sat for several minutes trying to conjure up some images, sensations, and concepts, but the vault of my imagination came up empty.  I raised my hand and announced with apology,  "I'm having trouble with that."  "Well then," she replied. "then draw a picture of how you would like for the world to look."  I answered, "I like the way it looks now."  At which point, Mrs Young sent me from class to the principal's office.

Forty years later I recognize that I was probably reacting to what I perceived to be the teacher's hidden agenda.  I think that my story is an example of what Brandy is referring to when she talks about rehabilitating herself after being *educated.*  There are perhaps many lessons to be garnered from that one lesson plan and it's inability to stimulate my imagination at a *good* school, not the least of which might have been learning to cooperate with the authority figure

For now I continue to be amazed at what passes for art (pollution?) these days and was pleased to read in this AJC news article of a student's arrest for his diabolic creativity.

It's important to inform the mind morally from a very early age. 

Esolen's book is encouraging, as are my mother's accomplishments, Debby's re-commitment, and this Leonardo daVinci quote.

There are three classes of people:
 those who see,
those who see when they are shown,
those who do not see.

I really want to learn how to see.

It will likely help my painting skills.

Artwork Credit:
"Bouquet"
Acrylic on Canvas
10" x 14"
signed *DJ*
Sunday, April 28, 1968

Last night I rented and watched this movie primarily because it's been nominated for so many awards, but also to avoid the SOTU (The State of the Union).

The Social Network is in stiff competition for awards with The King's Speech, which I thoroughly enjoyed (link to my review).

I liked Network's storyline (competitive edge etc)and recommend the film, but don't want to own the DVD of it like I do The King's Speech.

The similarity I want to focus on is the rearing of these two boys/men. 

What parenting techniques were in play?

What types of academic schooling were pursued?

What did each read *to fuel the imagination*?

All this also relates to the parenting book I'm reading with an online bookclub:  Ten Ways to Destroy Your Child's Imagination by Anthony Esolen.

I haven't totally bought into the author's premise (that imaginations are being destroyed and this is how), but I do appreciate his positive parenting style because I think many parents need that type of strong encouragement with detailed examples.

I'm balancing Esolen's laid back approach with doses of another favorite author, George Roche.

His Education in America states ~

Accomplishment, intuition, and creativity have always come from those who knew who they were and what they believed, even when they suffered at the hands of the world for their firm grasp of reality and personal identity.

Such creative (imaginative-my word) people, knowing who they are and what they value, tend to reflect self-esteem (confidence-my word).

Those boys coming from homes where parents maintained a close interest in them, where parents demanded high standards of behavior and performance, where firm discipline was a fact, not a debating point, proved to be boys of strength and achievement, capable of creative application of intellect, personality, and imagination.

Last, but not least, I'm including a link to one of the best lectures I've heard in recent years on the topic of raising boys.  With imaginative terminology, Elder Tim Price captured my attention and gained my respect because he calls children *children* and not *kids.*  He refers to teenagers and *young adults*, explaining how/why the words changed. 

How we address our charges is demonstrative of how we view them and makes a big difference in how they see themselves.

Let's help them see themselves as God sees them.

Imaginative beings designed to serve their Creator.

Book club topic this week is Method 2 of Ten Ways to Destroy Your Child's Imagination subtitled Never Leave Children to Themselves or If We Only Had a Committee.

I've posted my weekly commentary on my other blog but want to share a funny tidbit about committees found in George Roche's book, Education in America.  The entire volume adds substantiation to Professor Esolen's methodology.  In fact, I expected to find Roche's title in Esolen's index.

At any rate, from the Chapter entitled Creativity ~

When we complain of the "failures of our age," do we not label ourselves unrealistic?  Haven't all ages and all societies been filled with shortcomings?  The great achievements have always been individualistic.  In deed, any original achievement implies separation from the majority.  Though society may honor achievement, it can never produce it.

The morning after Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic nonstop from New York to Paris, an associate of Charles Kettering rushed into the research expert's laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, shouting:  "He made it!  Lindbergh landed safely in Paris!"  Kettering went on working.  The associate spoke again:  "Think of it - Lindbergh flew the Atlantic alone!  He did it all by himself!"  Kettering looked up from his work momentarily and remarked quietly:  "When he flies it with a committee, let me know."

I just thought that was an interesting paradox in light the problems we all know exist with *committees*

Education in America is available online at no charge.

I hope you will read it.

George C. Roche III                                                                        by Deborah Melvin
Oil on Canvas, dimensions unknown                                                                1981

The confusion over Martin Luther King's Dream and American principles,
 which continues to haunt King scholars as well as popular perceptions of King,
is doubtless a result, at least in part, of King's own ambiguity on the matter.

As will be discussed in later chapters, King most often appealed to American principles for his causes --  and increasingly toward the end of his career --
he suggested that it was necessary to go beyond American principles,
to transform them into something new and different.

In light of this double claim, and especially in light of King's legal status as a national hero,
Americans must again ask a question which heretofore has been avoided.

What does the King federal holiday mean for America?

In other words, in celebrating the King federal holiday
are we committing ourselves as a nation to the full dimensions of his Dream,
including its radical elements,
and thus altering our inherited political tradition,
or are we only celebrating the pre-1965 King
and his more traditional liberal principles?

Quoting from Nathan Schlueter's doctoral dissertation published in 1999, I think I have finally found a book I want to read about Dr King.  A few years ago I had hoped that the one being penned by his personal secretary would come to fruition, but no volume has yet come to market.

Schlueter's opinions seem trustworthy for several reasons:  he is currently a professor at my alma mater, Hillsdale College, that bastion of liberal arts study where truth and liberty are promoted; DD#3 took US Constitution from him there;  and I thoroughly enjoyed this essay, The Romance of Domesticity, recently published in Touchstone magazine.

Here's a link to some past blog posts on this topic.  I guess it piques my curiosity for sure.  But as far as a full-fledged book review of this interesting title goes, look for it around this time.... next year?

In the meantime, how are you spending your federal holiday?

The Skating Minister                                                                            by Henry Raeburn
Oil on canvas, 30 x 25 inches                                                                   around 1795

Prompted by Atlanta's snow-and-ice-laden landscape to recall this famous painting, I spent a little bit of time reading up on the life and times of Robert Walker (1755 - 1808), who was a close friend of the artist, Henry Raeburn, 1756 - 1823.  They both lived in Edinburgh, Scotland during a fascinating time in history.

Unconventional in this particular portrait, Raeburn painted dozens of others in the traditional fashion, the list reading like a "Who's Who" in 18th century Scotland:  Walter Scott, David Hume, William Creech, James Hutton, Adam Fergusson, and Robert Burns, just to name a few.  In this article, The Joy of Portraiture by Paul Johnson (Spectator 2009), I learned that Raeburn employed the tried-and-true *sight-size* method which no doubt contributed to his success.

Walker, bona fide minister who can boast that Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) was one of his parishioners, spent a portion of his childhood in Holland where he developed a love for sports, especially skating.  I like to imagine that in this scene he's deep in thought, perhaps composing the lines from this Sunday sermon delivered in the winter of 1789.

The glory of the summer is departed,
the blast of the wilderness has passed over it, and it is gone,
and winter tarnishes the beauty of  nature.
  It is sad to see the leafless trees, the naked fields, the ruins of the year.
  Yet the beauty of nature shall be restored, the leaves, the bloom, and fruits, shall revive...
 But thy mispent youth, O man! shall never return.

Thankfully, today's temperature here in Canton, GA (30 miles north of Atlanta) will rise above freezing, the ice will melt, and I wont have to resort to skating to work, like this fine historical Scot.

But I do need to be on my way ~