Lift Up Your Hearts!

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry; audiobook published by christianaudio Fiction and narrated by Susan Denaker

With Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry has half made me want to live in Kentucky, which—all my Kentucky ancestors notwithstanding—was not even on my places-to-visit list.  Susan Denaker doesn't so much narrate the book as become Hannah Coulter, telling the story of the people of rural Kentucky, who "keep on living" through the sorrows and changes brought by the 20th century.  I found it spell-binding.

Denaker's skill, I think, helps save Berry from the hubris of writing a first-person narrative as a woman.  He mostly succeeds, though there are places—most obvious when Hannah is talking about her children, or sex—when the point-of-view comes across more like a man trying to think like a woman and not quite getting it.

There is beauty here, and sorrow, and strength, along with places where I wished I could argue with Hannah:  it might be a good choice for a book club, because there are several interesting discussion points.

I'd heard about Wendell Berry, but this was for me the first of his novels.  There are several more about the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky that will probably be worth reading eventually.

Most of those who know me also know that I don’t like the government being involved in our health care, for too many reasons than I can go into now.  More than once I’ve asked, “Do you really want to trust your health to the same folks who are mangling public education?” 

Important note:  I support the public school system, much as I find fault with it.  There are many teachers among our family and friends.  Our own children attended the local schools for a number of years.  We pay school taxes, and have voted in favor of most requested tax increases, including last year’s. Everyone in the family has put countless hours into (public) school volunteer work.

Another important note:  I agree that our health care system is in a big mess, and big messes invite government interference whether we like it or not.  Personal experience of family and friends has shown me that public health care can work very well (France, Switzerland) and very badly (UK, Canada).  (I know there are readers of this blog who are happy with Canada’s health care, but I’m going by the experiences of those I know personally, which, alas, are negative.)  I don’t like the way in which our government is approaching health care reform, but that’s not the point here.

The point is consistency.

In the battle over health care, the faction I will loosely designate as “pro-government-social-program” (PSGP) wins for consistency:  The same people who are pushing national health insurance are ardent advocates of public education.  Viewing education as a fundamental, essential right of every child, they make it not only available but compulsory, and not only for the poor but for everyone, and expect everyone to participate.  They frequently oppose anything (private schools, home education, vouchers) that would allow students to opt out of monopoly government schooling.

Having concluded that the cost of a (possibly large) uneducated segment of the population is greater than the cost of providing “free” education to all, they are consistent in applying the same logic to health care.

I, on the other hand, am not consistent, and neither, it seems, are many with better conservative credentials than mine.  How can I support public education for all and not health care?  Why is it considered acceptable, even admirable, for everyone—including the rich—to take government assistance in the form of public education, but lower-class, even shameful to be on Medicaid, accept Food Stamps, or live in public housing?  What makes education so much more important than health care, food, or housing?

And maybe the PGSP’s are not as consistent as I thought, because I don’t see them pushing for compulsory soup-kitchen and housing project attendance.

Although … when our kids were in school, the school breakfast/lunch program, which served a useful purpose for poor children who otherwise would not eat, was pushed on everyone.  It wasn’t exactly mandatory, but the schools used plenty of promotions and advertisers’ tricks to get children to pressure their parents to send money for their lunches rather than pack them better food from home.  In the case of breakfast, they actually kept the other students trapped on the school bus until the breakfast-eaters were finished.  So who knows what's next in the minds of the PSGP's?

I don’t know where we’re going and what we’re in for with all this, and I don’t know how I’m going to rethink my attitude in regard to public education and/or health care.  But it certainly was a revelation to discover my own inconsistency.

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World:  An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children by John Wood (Collins, 2006)

I don't believe one gets closer to God simply by climbing physically higher, but there must be something special in the rarefied air of the Himalayas.  Greg Mortenson returns from a climbing expedition inspired to build schools for isolated, impoverished communities in Central Asia; John Wood visits Nepal, then quits his high-level, very highly paid job at Microsoft, and begins building libraries for poor children all over the world.

The organization Wood founded, Room to Read, has earned the highest Charity Navigator rating of four stars.  That it has grown explosively and yet responsibly is as much a tribute to Wood's business accumen as to his good heart.  His years at Microsoft were preparation for his life's mission, though he didn't know it at the time.

As for the book, it's fascinating to read, as much for the insights into Microsoft as for the larger story.  There is, perhaps, a bit too much of Wood himself.  I find him, like Mortenson, to be rather too much full of himself. John Wood does not seem like a pleasant person to live or to work with. I was particularly bothered by his abrupt decision to drop all previous commitments to get on with his mission.  He broke up with his girlfriend, whom he supposedly loved, and with whom he was apparently serious enough not only to live with but to follow when her job moved her to China.  He made (as far as I could see) no attempt to work things out, to give her time to adjust to the radical idea and catch his vision—just "my way or the highway" (never mind that his way was the highway). He quit his job abruptly, leaving his boss and coworkers in the lurch, not giving his employer a reasonable amount of time to find a replacement and make a smooth transition—just "Goodbye."

But one does not have to be good in all aspects of life to accomplish good things, even great things. And it may be said that full-of-yourself, aggressive personalities are much better at getting certain types of things done.  Wood (and Mortenson, recent problems notwithstanding) certainly have done and are doing amazing work.  Leaving Microsoft to Change the World is a great testimony to how important to a community it is to include members with different strengths and different personalities, even personalities we dislike.  Even more, it's a brilliant example of what can be accomplished—beginning with a single, inspired, hardworking, driven individual—when great vision and solid business sense come together.

Tomorrow, Joy will turn two years old.  (I almost said, "will celebrate her second birthday," but with so many sick folks around here, I suspect the celebration will occur a bit later.)

Except for her size, you wouldn't guess her age.  Trying to keep up with three older siblings is a powerful incentive to tackle projects beyond what most people expect of you.  I've written before about her unusual physical coordination at fourteen months; she continues to excel in both large- and small-motor skills.  She dresses herself completely with no difficulty, though it must be admitted that she hasn't figured out the matching socks thing yet.

Joy is a willing and able helper.  She can help set the table.  If she's thirsty, she can get a cup and fill it at the kid-sized sink in the kitchen—though at the moment she can only reach the hot water tap.  She can clear off her place at the table and put her dishes in the dishwasher.  If the dishwasher is full of clean dishes, she can unload all but the items in the middle of the top shelf, which she can't reach, and put them away (with the help of a chair for the higher shelves of the hutch).  When it's time to fold laundry, she's quite good at knowing whose clothes are whose, and very competently folds the cloth napkins and puts them away.

She doesn't talk much yet.  No, that's not true; she talks plenty, but we're not so great at understanding her yet.  She understands a lot, however, including such complicated instructions as, "Please put the dirty napkins in the basket in the laundry room."

Having been the baby of the family for almost two years, she needs to learn a bit more about self-control when her will is thwarted, a process that will no doubt come quickly now that she is a big sister.  She has adjusted amazingly well to her new rank, no doubt in part thanks to having a couple of extra adults to fill the gap in parental attention.  She's happy to let Grandma attend to her, even when sick, and has Dad-o wrapped around her little finger.  When she gets a chance she slips out of the kitchen and climbs the stairs to the apartment where he sits with his three computers.  "Dad-o?  Dad-o?  [Read] book?"

When she can't find an adult or a sibling to play with, Joy will entertain herself for hours:  looking at books, playing with dolls, building with Legos, "cooking" in her play kitchen, writing in her "school" notebooks.

No, she's not perfect.  She has a temper, and does not take well to being shut out of her siblings' play, which happens sometimes, as she's not gentle with her sister's cards and would rather take apart Legos than build, especially if the Legos in question are her brothers' special creations.  But she's very sweet, amazing, a true delight, and well worthy of her name.

Happy second birthday, Joy!

We seem to be going in the wrong direction.  The sick list now includes:  Jon, Heather, Porter, Jonathan, and Joy (relapse, though not as bad as the first time).  Jeremiah still has a snuffly nose, but unlike the others has not had a fever.  This is a Very Good Thing, because at his age the standard procedure for a fever is hospitalization.

Noah, Faith, and I are still more or less healthy, and they are a help well beyond their ages of six and four.  I'm not sure how I would have managed without Noah.  Faith keeps asking me to take her temperature, and each time I assure her she is still fine.  It think she may be feeling a little left out....

I slept reasonably well last night, considering that Porter was coughing next to me for most of it.  This morning I found Noah in a sleeping bag on the living room floor, where he had moved to get away from Jonathan's constant coughing.

I'm thankful for good weather, because I finally had to make a grocery store run.  I had not planned to drive in a New Hampshire winter, but someone had to, and even in the live-free-or-die state they don't issue driver's licenses to six-year-olds.  But the roads were completely clear, and it was not much different from going to the grocery store in Florida—except for the narrow streets and the piles of cold white stuff all around.

Later, my chief assistant and I lugged a pile of books to the library, and returned with a pile almost as large.  Small towns (and small libraries) do have their drawbacks, but I must say it's great to walk in the door and have the librarian greet Noah with, "Did you come to get these books [on reserve] for your brother?"

On the way home, we stopped by the "penny" candy store for a few chocolate-covered gummy bears: Something about kine and grain....

Jeremiah is such a pleasant baby!  I don't know how much is personality and how much is Heather's calm confidence in going through the newborn stage for the fifth time, but he sleeps well, eats well, and fusses just a little to say he's hungry or needs a change.  None of those long sessions of, "I've fed you, burped you, changed you, walked you, rocked you, sung to you, talked to you ... why are you still crying???"  He sometimes even gives Heather three hours of sleep straight.  (Note that only a new mother would be ecstatic over three hours of sleep.)  He has picked up a bit of a cold; it doesn't seem to bother him much, but we are watching him carefully, praying he will avoid the fevers that both Jon and Joy had.

On the negative side, for days I've been the only fully-functioning adult in this homeschooling household of nine.  Until last night, when she came down for dinner, Heather has stayed upstairs for her week of "babymoon." On Sunday morning, Jon got sick and has mostly been passed out on the couch or the bed, except for slowing his recovery by performing the most necessary duties, like keeping his business running, keeping the woodstove—which is responsible for most of the heat in the house—burning, and taking the boys to their final skiing lesson.  Not to mention taking care of all his own needs, which is a huge help.  Porter was healthy until yesterday, but was hit early on by a sudden crisis at work that has kept him working long hours and sometimes needing as much care as Heather. (Before the week officially started on Monday, he had already put in 23 official hours.)  I don't expect having to stay up all night last night for an installation to help his recovery any, and being mostly awake from 3:30 till now is not the best thing for me, either.  (The first time this happened was soon after Jeremiah's birth, and I was so exhausted I slept despite the fact that he works in our bedroom; this time that didn't work out so well.)

So you see that the fact that Heather can handle all of Jeremiah's needs with almost no help is a great blessing!  We are also thankful for the people who have provided some of our dinners, and that Jon had made a grocery run before getting sick.  Meals, if erratic, have been going on.  It's also important to mention how wonderful it is that the kids are so competent and independent.  But that's another post.

But things are looking up.  Joy still has cold symptoms, but only threw up once, and the fever that kept her down and needing extra attention only lasted a day.  Heather's doing great and will be taking over the organization of school time as her first after-babymoon duty, which will help enormously.  Jon looks to be on the mend, if he didn't set himself back by taking his parents to the airport at 4:15 this morning.  Porter occasionally manages to break loose to spent some time with the kids, or to get some work done around the house.  He, Jon, and Noah got the upstairs dryer working, which will make life easier, too.

And I have made good use of this time by getting an update written.  It's now officially past time to get up.

(photo taken shortly after birth) 

Jeremiah Patrick Daley
Born 13 February 2013, 3 a.m.
Weight: 8 pounds, 2 ounces
Length: 20.5 inches

Having given birth five times, Heather could call herself an old hand at the whole pregnancy-birth-newborn process.  It's lovely to see the calm, matter-of-fact confidence that experience brings.  Sometimes, however, we get a gentle reminder that nothing should be taken for granted when it comes to babies.

Heather "always" goes into labor late.  Isaac came two days past his due date, and he was followed by Jonathan, Noah, and Faith, every single one of whom came exactly five days late.  True, Joy was then three days early, but there was some uncertainty about her due date that led Heather to believe that she was probably late as well.

Hence the confidence with which we scheduled our flights to New Hampshire a mere six days before the due date for the next baby.  Hence Heather's comfort when plans outside of their control had Jon returning from Seattle only a week before the date.  Hence a great deal of scrambling when Heather called, a full nine days early, to announce the early signs of labor.

That was Tuesday, February 12.  Perhaps Jon's story will end up on their blog; I can only tell ours.  I do know he had work to complete and a continent to cross.

We had reservations to fly out on Friday the 15th, and by Tuesday I was feeling reasonably confident—though by no means certain—that I could accomplish most of what I needed to do before then.  It was going to be a busy week, with Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday commitments.  To leaver earlier, we would have to desert our choir, which is small enough to notice two missing voices, for the singing of Fauré's beautiful Cantique do Jean Racine.  My brother was in town, and had originally planned to stay an extra day so that we could get together for dinner Thursday.  Sadly, we were unable to make that work out, which as things turned out was a good thing.

We wrestled awhile with the possibilities:  Changing reservations would be expensive, if not impossible, and early signs of labor can come days before the baby is born.  Should we keep our Friday plans?  Could we possibly get ready in time to leave early?  Should both of us go, or just me, with Porter following on the original schedule?  The only available flight would get us in after 9:30 p.m.  Would that be too late?

I called Southwest.  There were three seats left on the flight, exactly two of which could be used with their old-style "standard awards," of which we had two.  (For various reasons we decided this was a better option than paying cash to reschedule the original flights.)  Porter made the reservations and we flew into high gear.  Fortunately, I had already begun the thinking part of packing; otherwise I doubt I could have made it.  As it was we brought more than we needed, not having time to weigh the options), and forgot a few things, but nothing critical that I know of.

Never before have I decided at 11 a.m. to fly out of town at 7 p.m.  How we managed to get three days' worth of work done in five hours I still don't know—thought part of the secret lay in deciding that some things simply were not going to get done, and that would be okay.  At least I had put the final stitch into my traditional baby quilt gift the night before!  Another part is having good neighbors who will take books back to the library for you and check on your house when you're sure you've forgotten to do something important.

The friends who had planned to drive us to the airport could not do so at the new time.  Few people can during the work day.  So Porter arranged to rent a car for the one-way trip to the airport.  (It's much less expensive than a taxi ride.)  Having had a previous bad experience with that particular Hertz office before, he made a point of asking if someone would be at the desk, for sure, at the stated time, because he didn't have time to wait around.  "Absolutely," he was reassured.

I guess he didn't hear the whispered, "not."  No one was at the desk.  When he finally found the clerk, they had no car for him.  Scrambling, they came up with something (after a long wait) ... only to discover that there was almost no gas in the tank.  "Almost no" as in "about 1/14 of a tank."  Would it get us to the airport?  We could only try.

It did, though not without some worry:  the gauge was solidly in the red zone as we pulled up the final hill at the airport.  We grabbed our suitcases (two large bags, two small bags, two computer bags, and two violins) and flew to the terminal.  Due to the lateness of our reservations, we had not been able to print our boarding passes, but instead were given documents that would get us through security and had been told we'd have to get our boarding passes at the gate.  However, when we checked our bags, the attendant said we had everything we needed.  She handed me a little folder, and I asked if the boarding pass was in there; she replied affirmatively.

On to security!  The good news is that we both have Clear, so there was no line for us.  The bad news is that when I opened my folder, there was no boarding pass, only baggage claim tickets.  At that point, Porter said, "The boarding pass prints out at the kiosk; you were supposed to pick it up there.  So I dashed back—and I can't help thinking of O. J. Simpson every time I run through the airport—and to my surprised delight, the boarding pass was still there.  The attendant said she'd have been happy to print a new one if it had not been.  She also told me to relax, as I had plenty of time before the flight.

That's easy for her to say.  Little did she know that as we started to unload onto the security belt—all four computers in separate bins, shoes off, coats in bins ... what?  coats?  what coats???  We'd left our coats in the back seat of the rental car!  It being about 87 degrees when we left Orlando, their absence hadn't even registered in our somewhat addled brains.

Now it was Porter's turn to run through the airport, while I waited at security with all the luggage.  After a while, during a lull in the proceedings, two very helpful TSA workers offered, "Let's get everything through so all he needs to worry about is the coats, and he can meet you on the other side," then whisked me (and the four computers and two violins) through.  By the time I had myself put back together, there was Porter coming through the scanner.  He'd had some trouble finding the coats, but had succeeded at last.

We made it to the gate just before boarding.  I've often wondered who the poor souls are who get "C" boarding passes on Southwest, and now I know:  I was the last of the line at C-69, and Porter wasn't much ahead of me.  So we didn't have seats together, but we had seats!  After that I began to relax.  Not enough to fall asleep, however.  I rotated among looking out the window, trying to read, praying, and wondering if we'd be greeted with the news, "It's a boy!" (That was a pure guess; no one knew the sex at that point.)

We landed a little before 10, then picked up our baggage with no trouble.  Soon thereafter Jon's plane arrived; even better, he was on it.  (There had been some question about the connection he had to make.)  This was where I made a disturbing discovery:  My coat pocket had somehow come unsnapped, and while my hat, scarf, and hood were still there, my gloves were missing.  My good gloves that I had bought when we lived in Boston.  That was disappointing, to say the least, and I couldn't fathom how the pocket had come open, as it never had before, but it didn't take me long to conclude that if losing my gloves was the worst thing to happen on this adventure, I'd be well off indeed.  What made the situation odd was that the exact same thing had happened to Porter!  Pocket unsnapped, with the only thing missing being his nice Boston gloves.  At this point we began to suspect that perhaps someone at Hertz had checked the coats for ID and been a little too tempted by the nice gloves, but we'll never know.  Even at the cost of two pairs of gloves, we couldn't be too upset:  at least we had our coats!

Jon's mom picked us up at the airport, with no more news than that the kids were in bed and Heather trying to rest, and we were soon making the hour-long drive to Hillsboro.  While we were still en route to home, Heather called to let us know that when we arrived we'd be turning right around and heading for the birth center.  After some fast luggage-and-car shuffling, we were on our way.  About half an hour later, we pulled into the birth center, the kids—somewhat stunned from having been awakened so soon after falling asleep—settled themselves in the playroom, and Heather settled herself into a large, warm, birthing tub.  She had no plans for a water birth, but found laboring in the warm water to be soothing.

For a couple of hours, the kids played, Porter read stories, and I spend most of my time holding either Faith or Joy, and going with them between with play room and the birthing room, as they wished.

I said Heather had no plans for a water birth, but the baby had other ideas.  By the time Heather was ready to move to the bed, she realized she couldn't do it:  She gave a couple of loud cries, and Jeremiah made his appearance very soon thereafter, right around 3 a.m.  (Midnight for Jon.)

It was Faith's turn to announce the sex of the baby.  In the excitement I had lost track of which girl I was holding, and kept moving Joy closer in, wondering why she wasn't saying anything.  But soon the real Faith proclaimed the baby to be a boy, and Jeremiah settled happily on Mom's chest.  At some point all the other necessary things happened (e.g. delivering the placenta), and eventually they dried off and moved to the bed, surrounded by admiring family.

I don't know whether it was the water birth or just his nature, but Jeremiah (who didn't have a name at that point) was a very calm, happy baby.  I don't believe he needed any suctioning, and if he cried I don't remember it.  He simply looked around, breathed peacefully, and soon latched onto the breast as if he had decided that the world was a very good thing indeed.

I wouldn't dream of saying that any birth was easy, but I will say that Heather's getting good at this.  She was downright perky within minutes of the birth, and didn't even flinch when one of the kids said, "And Joy will announce the sex of the next one!"

After some recovery time, we piled back into the cars, our numbers increased by one, and arrived home before the dawn.  I warmed up some chicken soup for Heather, who had been instructed to eat something before going to bed.  Soon everyone else had crashed; I stayed up another couple of hours to send some e-mails and do some things that needed to be done before Porter's workday started in a few hours.  I crashed a bit after 8 a.m. and got in a whole two hours.  At some point I calculated that I had a total of three hours of sleep out of 40, and of course Heather and Jon had less.

But Jeremiah is still a very good baby.  He doesn't have day and night figured out yet, but of his four major life assignments so far—eating, sleeping, excreting, and looking unbearably cute—he does them all superbly.

I must say I'm still a bit stunned, and you can tell by the delay in getting this post out that life around here has been busy and chaotic.  Porter and I were not the only ones to have been counting on a few more days before Jeremiah's arrival!  But all is well, mother and baby doing very well, Joy adjusting admirably from baby to big sister, everyone pitching in to make things go—well, not smoothly, but at least keeping all the balls in the air.

I know it's Lent, but this occasion deserves an exception:

Alleluia!

Thanks be to God!

The History of the Medieval World:  From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade by Susan Wise Bauer (W. W. Norton, 2010)

I am now caught up with Bauer's history series, at least until The History of the Renaissance World becomes available later this year.  The History of the Medieval World is as good as the first book, The History of the Ancient World, though I will admit to some disappointment, as I was hoping for a little less of the "kings and battles and political intrigue" factor and more about art, music, and everyday life.  But alas, the former provide the background on which the rest of life is played out—and the book is 667 pages long as it is.  I'll have to be content with building up my times-people-places framework, and look elsewhere for the rest of the story.

Although the history of China, Japan, India, the Americas, and a few other parts of the world are important, it's harder for my euro-centric brain to keep the names straight, so my knowledge of those areas is still weaker.  Not that it's easy with Europe:  Just because "Charles" fits better into my memory than "Suryawarman," that doesn't mean keeping all those Germanic kingdoms straight isn't mind-boggling.  I can't even manage the Wars of the Roses yet.

The sections on European history were the most interesting to me for a different reason:  Having genealogy as a hobby means that many of the names are familiar.  Recognizing Henry the Fowler as my 34th great-grandfather, for example, lends an unusually piquant flavor to the story.

I Like Birds is a video story created by my cousin, D.B. McLaughlin.  The words, music, and photos are all his.

Think of this video as a children's book, read on a tablet by a caring adult to someone who is hungry to know more about their world. Pause the video or mute the music as you wish.

I hate to think of tablets replacing printed books, but that being said, this is great.  Perhaps some of his first cousins once removed would enjoy it.  (Update:  I see I wrote "once removed"; I had meant to say "twice removed," but no doubt the parents will enjoy it, too!)

DragonBox is just one of the reasons I feel myself being dragged inevitably toward the tablet world.  My reaction upon seeing my first tablet was that it was too big to be a phone but too limited to be a computer.  How can it be a real computer with what passes for a keyboard on a tablet?  Or without all my favorite software?  Who would want one?  But that's where all the cool new software is.  :(

Stop the presses!  The GeekDad article doesn't mention it, but DragonBox is now available for Windows!  (Linux coming soon, they say.)  And for only six dollars.  (Twice the price of the iOS and Android versions, but there's more to it.)  I already know algebra, but it's tempting to check it out.

I've been saying for years that educational software producers need to get together with gaming experts.  The potential for computer-aided learning is enormous, but most games are not written for their potential to educate and enighten, and most educational software is barely beyond the flash-cards-with-glitz stage.  Not that Joseph doesn't love my PowerPoints, of course.  :)

Jean-Baptiste Huynh is a Vietnamese Frenchman living in Norway, who taught math for several years and was frustrated with the way math is taught in schools. He wanted his kids to learn algebra in a way that made sense to them, and with tablets and gamification of education he thought that there must be some way to create an app that would make algebra easier to learn. So he started up a company called We Want to Know, aimed at creating some user-friendly educational games that are (1) really educational and (2) really games. If DragonBox is any indication, he’s on the right path so far.

[Huynh] sees tablet computers as a truly disruptive technology that can change the way we teach and learn.

Thanks to DSTB for the tip.  I can't wait to see what's next.

A Year with G.K. Chesterton:  365 Days of Wisdom, Wit, and Wonder editd by Kevin Belmonte (Thomas Nelson, 2012)

How can you go wrong with Chesterton?  How could I pass up the opportunity to receive a free copy of this collection of a year's worth of his wisdom?  So I didn't, despite my complaints about overflowing bookshelves and not enough time to read.

Since I had an obligation to review the book for its publisher, I couldn't really spread the readings out over 365 days—not that I would have exercised that much self-control anyway.  Still, it was a delight, mostly.  The selections themselves are fully delightful, mostly unknown to me, and interspersed with quotations from the Bible and quotations about Chesterton.  My only quarrel with the book is the lack of sources.  Who can read a good quotation and not want to see it in context?  Many times Belmonte tells us the origins of a particular selection, but as many times he does not, which I found very frustrating.

Google came to the rescue.  Many of Chesterton's writings are in the public domain and available online.  This made finding the context of most of the passages easy, and should have saved much time in providing samples for this review, since all I had to do was copy them.  Alas, I'm not sure that there was any savings at all, since finding the context inevitably meant I spent more time reading than I would have spent typing.

Be that as it may, here are a few treasures, mostly from the book, but some encountered through my online meanderings.  Remembering the Golden Rule, I have provided the sources.

I for one can really testify to a book that has made a difference to my whole existence, which helped me to see things in a certain way from the start; a vision of things which even so real a revolution as a change of religious allegiance has substantially only crowned and confirmed. Of all the stories I have read, including even all the novels of the same novelist, it remains the most real, the most realistic, in the exact sense of the phrase the most like life. It is called The Princess and the Goblin, and is by George MacDonald.    (From Chesterton's introduction to Greville MacDonald's book, George MadDonald and His Wife.  Those who similarly love the writings of George MacDonald will appreciate the whole essay, which is available online from the American Chesterton Society.)

If our faith had been a mere fad of the fading empire, fad would have followed fad in the twilight, and if the civilization ever re-emerged (and many such have never re-emerged) it would have been under some new barbaric flag. But the Christian Church was the last life of the old society and was also the first life of the new. She took the people who were forgetting how to make an arch and she taught them to invent the Gothic arch. In a word, the most absurd thing that could be said of the Church is the thing we have all heard said of it. How can we say that the Church wishes to bring us back into the Dark Ages? The Church was the only thing that ever brought us out of them.  (Orthodoxy)

A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.  (Orthodoxy)

The present importance of the book of Job cannot be expressed adequately even by saying that it is the most interesting of ancient books. We may almost say of the book of Job that it is the most interesting of modern books. In truth, of course, neither of the two phrases covers the matter, because fundamental human religion and fundamental human irreligion are both at once old and new; philosophy is either eternal or it is not philosophy. The modern habit of saying” This is my opinion, but I may be wrong” is entirely irrational. If I say that it may be wrong, I say that is not my opinion. The modern habit of saying “Every man has a different philosophy; this is my philosophy and it suits me”—the habit of saying this is mere weak-mindedness. A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.  (Introduction to the Book of Job)

Intangible falsehood, based upon no authority, is of all things the most difficult to fight.  (From the New York Times, 1921)

[W]hite is a color. It is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows white-hot, it draws stars. And one of the two or three defiant verities of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, for example, is exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a color. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel, or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen.  Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colors; but he never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.  (A Piece of Chalk)

For doctors as doctors, [Chesterton] said, he had profound respect; but he would knock their heads off if they undertook to make themselves advisers of the community.  The doctor was to be called upon extraordinary occasions to deal with abnormal situations.  Suppose [Mr. Chesterton] were to precipitate himself into the audience and break his leg.  A doctor would set the leg.  He would be doing his work as a doctor, but the modern idea seemed to be that he was to take charge of unbroken legs, to say when they were to be used to walk, and when they were to be used to dance.

"Take a policeman.  He is there to punish crime," Mr. Chesterton continued.  "When you and I indulge in murder, he takes charge of us and deals with us according to law.  But just imagine what you would say if told that the policeman was there to encourage virtue.  What would happen if you and I were always followed by a policeman, and we heard his voice over our shoulder telling us when to do this and not to do that?"

(From a Chesterton lecture, reported in the journal, Modern Medicine, 1921.)

The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.  (What's Wrong with the World)

Painting the town red is a delightful thing until it is done...  But when it is done, when you have painted the town red, an extraordinary thing happens.  You cannot see any red at all. I can see, as in a sort of vision, the successful artist standing in the midst of that frightful city, hung on all sides with the scarlet of his shame.  And then, when everything is red, he will long for a red rose in a green hedge and long in vain; he will dream of a red leaf and be unable even to imagine it.  He has desecrated the divine colour, and he can no longer see it, though it is all around.   I see him, a single black figure against the red-hot hell that he has kindled, where spires and turrets stand up like immobile flames:  he is stiffened in a sort of agony of prayer.  Then the mercy of Heaven is loosened, and I see one or two flakes of snow very slowly begin to fall.  (The Red Town)

[T]hey had forgotten journalism. They had forgotten that there exists in the modern world, perhaps for the first time in history, a class of peole whose interest is not that things should happen well or happen badly, should happen successfully or happen unsuccessfully, should happen to the advantage of this party orthe advantage of that party, but whose interest simply is that things should happen.   (The Ball and the Cross)

It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions.  We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding.  Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as indicating that the moving tower of terror and mystery, a man, is still abroad upon the earth.  That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is really more sensational; and it is also some thousand times more common.  But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon the permanent miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters "Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe," or "Mr. Jones of Worthing, Not Dead Yet."  They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all.  They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are not dissolved.  Hence the complete picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious they can only represent what is unusual.  However democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the minority.  (The Ball and the Cross)

A young mother remarked to me, "I don't want to teach my child any religion.  I don't want to influence him; I want him to choose for himself when he grows up."  That is a very ordinary example of a current argument, which is frequently repeated and yet never really applied.  Of course the mother was always influencing the child. Of course the mother might just as well have said:  "I hope he will choose his own friends when he grows up, so I won't introduce him to any Aunts or Uncles."  The grown-up person cannot in any case escape from the responsibility of influencing the child, not even if she accepts the enormous responsibility of not influencing the child.  The mother can bring up the child without choosing a religion for him, but not without choosing an environment for him.  If she chooses to leave out the religion, she is choosing the environment—and an infernally dismal, unnatural environment too.  The mother can bring up the child alone on a solitary island in the middle of a large lake, lest the child should be influenced by superstitions and social traditions.  But the mother is choosing the island and the lake and the loneliness, and is just as responsible for doing so as if she had chosen the sect of the Mennonites or the theology of the Mormons.  (in the Illustrated London News, 1928)

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act. ... If I had ever talked all the mean materialism about living nations and dying nations, I should say that England was certainly dying.  But I do not believe that a nation dies save by suicide.  To the very last, every problem is a problem of the will; and if we will we can be whole.   But it involves facing our own failures as well as counting our successes; it means not depending entirely on commerce and colonies; it means balancing our mercantile morals with more peasant religion and peasant equality; it means ceasing to be content to rule the sea, and making some sort of effort to return to the land.  (A Visit to Holland)

My acceptance of the universe is not optimism, it is more like patriotism. It is a matter of primary loyalty. The world is not a lodging-house at Brighton, which we are to leave because it is miserable. It is the fortress of our family, with the flag flying on the turret, and the more miserable it is the less we should leave it. The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more.  (Orthodoxy)

To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings.  To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance.  Of all these great limitations and frameworks which fashion and create the poetry and variety of life, the family is the most definite and important.  (Heretics)

We talk much about "respecting" this or that person’s religion; but the way to respect a religion is to treat it as a religion:  to ask what are its tenets and what are their consequences.  But modern tolerance is deafer than intolerance.  The old religious authorities, at least, defined a heresy before they condemned it, and read a book before they burned it.  (In the Illustrated London News, 1911)

Carlyle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity, with a surer and more reverent realism, says that they are all fools. This doctrine is sometimes called the doctrine of original sin. It may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of men. But the essential point of it is merely this, that whatever primary and far-reaching moral dangers affect any man, affect all men. All men can be criminals, if tempted; all men can be heroes, if inspired. And this doctrine does away altogether with Carlyle's pathetic belief (or anyone else's pathetic belief) in "the wise few." There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob.  (Heretics)

When you undertake legislation for the poor, try and realise that you are legislating for men, and not for some far removed race of people whom you have never seen.  Try and think about the laws which you approve, and the course of action to which you agree, and then think whether you would like it to return suddenly upon you with truncheon and battle-axe!  Realise, in a word, the fundamental unity and fraternity of men in all legislation.  (From a sermon given at St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden, 1904)

We often read nowadays of the valor or audacity with which some rebel attacks a hoary tyranny or an antiquated superstition. There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one’s grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past. He cares as little for what will be as for what has been; he cares only for what ought to be.  (What's Wrong with the World)

There is a great man who makes every man feel small.  But the real great man is the man who makes every man fee great.  (Charles Dickens)

We do not need to get good laws to restrain bad people. We need to get good people to restrain bad laws.  (All Things Considered)

Insofar as I am Man I am the chief of creatures. Insofar as I am a man I am the chief of sinners.  (Orthodoxy)

Christmas is, quite apart from all its really important elements, the central and supreme example of concentration and fixity; because it is not a movable feast. Many excessive schools of lunatics have tried in vain to move it, and even to move it away. In spite of all sorts of intellectual irritations and pedantic explaining away, human beings will almost certainly go on observing this winter feast in some fashion. If it is for them only a winter feast, they will be found celebrating it with winter sports. If it is for them only a heathen feast, they will keep it as the heathens do. But the great majority of them will go on observing forms that cannot be so explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly they will wake up and discover why.  (On Christmas)

There is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating Christmas before it comes, as I am doing in this article. It is the very essence of a festival that it breaks upon one brilliantly and abruptly, that at one moment the great day is not and the next moment the great day is. Up to a certain specific instant you are feeling ordinary and sad; for it is only Wednesday. At the next moment your heart leaps up and your soul and body dance together like lovers; for in one burst and blaze it has become Thursday. I am assuming (of course) that you are a worshipper of Thor, and that you celebrate his day once a week, possibly with human sacrifice. If, on the other hand, you are a modern Christian Englishman, you hail (of course) with the same explosion of gaiety the appearance of the English Sunday. But I say that whatever the day is that is to you festive or symbolic, it is essential that there should be a quite clear black line between it and the time going before. And all the old wholesome customs in connection with Christmas were to the effect that one should not touch or see or know or speak of something before the actual coming of Christmas Day. Thus, for instance, children were never given their presents until the actual coming of the appointed hour. The presents were kept tied up in brown-paper parcels, out of which an arm of a doll or the leg of a donkey sometimes accidentally stuck. I wish this principle were adopted in respect of modern Christmas ceremonies and publications. Especially it ought to be observed in connection with what are called the Christmas numbers of magazines. The editors of the magazines bring out their Christmas numbers so long before the time that the reader is more likely to be still lamenting for the turkey of last year than to have seriously settled down to a solid anticipation of the turkey which is to come. Christmas numbers of magazines ought to be tied up in brown paper and kept for Christmas Day. On consideration, I should favour the editors being tied up in brown paper. Whether the leg or arm of an editor should ever be allowed to protrude I leave to individual choice.  (All Things Considered)

[T]hough we may do a horrid thing in a horrid situation, we must be quite certain that we actually and already are in that situation. Thus, all sane moralists admit that one may sometimes tell a lie; but no sane moralist would approve of telling a little boy to practise telling lies, in case he might one day have to tell a justifiable one. Thus, morality has often justified shooting a robber or a burglar. But it would not justify going into the village Sunday school and shooting all the little boys who looked as if they might grow up into burglars. The need may arise; but the need must have arisen. It seems to me quite clear that if you step across this limit you step off a precipice.  (All Things Considered)

Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.  Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.  (Tremendous Trifles)

A comment made by Janet to my Quick Tourist's Conversion between Fahrenheit and Celsius post inspired these thoughts, and it seemed better to give them their own post rather than to comment on that one.:

The Orlando Sentinel of January 31 contained an article by a pediatrician, highlighting the efforts of those in his field to combat illiteracy. It included the following sentence:

One in four children grow up without learning how to read.

I have grave doubts about that statistic.  If true, there should be rioting in the streets on behalf of the 25 percent, who, under our compulsory education system, have wasted at least ten of the most important years of their lives in school.  True, there are a few (very few) children who have handicaps that keep them from learning to read, but there is absolutely no excuse for confining children for most of their young lives if they can't read when they come out.  As certain as I am that the institution of school has serious problems, I simply don't believe that it can be doing that badly.

On the other hand, true literacy is more than the mere ability to read words on a page.  Understanding, and the ability to reason, are necessary for making sense of writing.  That we fail one in four school children that way is still unbelievable, but reading comments written to news websites and blogs (especially those where the subject is political, or controversial in any way) has made it a more credible failing.

I can't get out of my mind the question someone, alas long forgotten, once asked:  Is there any material difference between someone who can't read and someone who doesn't?  It's not surprising that the mantra among teachers and parents has long been, "I don't care what they read as long as they're reading."  But comprehension and logic are skills that must be honed with practice.  To that end, what we read is critical:  Garbage in, garbage out.

Simplicity Parenting:  Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids by Kim John Payne with Lisa M. Ross (Ballantine Books, 2009)

This review was interrupted so that I could write the Things Dr. Spock Won't Tell You post, simply so I could reference it here.  When I get around to updating my list of favorite childrearing books, Simplicity Parenting will be there.

Insert here the usual disclaimer:  I don't agree with all the author says.  But there is so much of value here; I'd recommend it to all parents and parents-to-be.  Grandparents, too, and even those without children in their lives.  Because the book is as much about simplicity as it is about parenting.

I won't be able to do justice to the content of the book—and I sent it back to the library in part because I knew that if I had it I'd take too much time trying to do just that.  But I'll attempt a one-line summary:  There are incalculable advantages to a child's well-being to be found in simplicity, rhythm, and clutter-free living. 

Most of the ideas in the book are not new to me.  Perhaps one reason I like it so much is that it resonates well with theories I'd already encountered (and appreciated) over the last thirty-odd years.  Simplicity Parenting connects the dots, and its strength lies in its comprehensiveness, its gentle encouragment, and above all in its practical suggestions.  No matter how hurried, harried, stressed, and cluttered your world is, Kim John Payne convinces you that the benefits of simplicity are possible, taken in small steps and beginning exactly where you are.

When I return a book to the library with the review not yet written, you get more quotations, because I have to transcribe them all, not knowing which I will want for the review.  And once they've been typed ... generally they get included.

First, the table of contents:

• Why Simplify?
• Soul Fever
• Environment
• Rhythm
• Schedules
• Filtering Out the Adult World
• Simplicity Parenting to Go

In terms of areas to change I usually see two categories:  what is important, and what is doable.  What seems the most important is usually not; what is most doable is the place to begin.  If you do enough that is doable, you will get to the important, and your motivation will be fueled by your success. [emphasis mine]

The above are probably my absolute favorite lines in the book; if there's a mantra to protect the overwhelmed from paralyzing depression, this is it.

Simplification is a process; a pebble dropped in the waters of a family’s daily life.  It inspires changes that expand throughout the home, touching each member of the family and their relationships.

It takes time to reduce, to say “no thanks” and mean it, to the distractions and excesses that have overwhelmed our daily lives.  And changing a family’s direction isn’t easy, especially when life feels like a cyclone. … The process of simplification—a shifting of a family’s core axis—is usually driven by a parent’s simple desire to protect the ease and wonder of their children’s early years.  I’ve seen the wisdom of starting small, of beginning with the possible, relishing the results, and allowing success to then fuel the process.  I’ve found that what works best is to simplify the child’s life first:  to declutter their overloaded rooms, diets, and schedules, and to increase the rhythm and regularity of the home.

There is a period of adjustment to a more rhythmic, less frenzied lifestyle, which will be longer the older your kids are. … Your quiet unwillingness to back down will help ease this transition toward a new and usually appreciated family norm.

More effective discipline is invariably an outgrowth of the simplification process.

More often than not, the author's first recommendation to the parents who come to him for help (one of his many hats is that of family counselor) is to radically reduce the number of toys available to the child.  He recommends first getting rid of everything that is broken, missing important pieces, unloved, or otherwise not a "good toy."  He gives examples of what makes a toy good, and does allow one exception:  If it was given by a person who will likely notice and be offended by its absence, tuck it away somewhere and bring it out when the person comes to visit.  I see some wisdom in this strategy, but two faults:  (1) I should think most gift-givers would like to know if a gift is unwelcome, so as not to continue wasting time and money on something that is seen as a burden, and (2) eventually one of the children will say something like, "I'm glad you're here Grandma; we only get to play with X when you come to visit."  Chances are that even after radical reduction, a modern child will still have more toys than Payne recommends; these go into a "toy library" and are brought out on a one-in, one-out basis.  The same procedure is applied to books.

Our purpose here [in drastically reducing the number of books readily available to a child at any given time] is not to discourage reading, but to allow the child to really concentrate on, and revel in, whatever they are reading (or doing) at any given time.

Parents are often surprised by the power of less as it relates to everyday choices.  We live in a country and era that equate “choice” with “freedom.”  Yet for young children, “freedom of choice” about every small detail in their day—everything they eat, wear, or do—can be a paralyzing burden.

Only with less can a child learn what it is that they do like, and what speaks to them.  When their expectations are always met—even anticipated—their will is left flaccid and weak.

Yes, yes, I know; that's a painful sentence, especially since it could have been fixed simply by casting the whole thing in the plural. 

This or that remarkable new toy will not make  your child more creative, socially adept, or smarter, despite all the claims its manufacturer makes. … If you feel pressured as a parent to buy a toy because you fear that without it your child will “fall behind” or not “measure up” to other kids his or her age, chances are it is not a toy you want to buy.  I’m not suggesting that such a toy might be harmful; I’m suggesting that thinking about toys in this way can be.

Although on the surface the book comes across as negative about "educational toys," I think the author and I are not so far apart on this as it appears at first.  It’s true that when I consider toys one of my first concerns is always its educational value.  All toys teach.  The question is, what are they teaching?  I’m fairly certain Payne would not approve of the PowerPoint shows I make for our grandkids; after all, they’re basically high-tech flash cards, and flash cards are for crazy parents who want to make their kids into baby valedictorians, right?  Well, no.  I see these shows as much more as homemade books that are not only educational but fun, and if they’re not as good as reading with a grandchild in my lap, they’re the best I can do when the closest grandkids are over 1000 miles away.  They also work great when repeated reading requests have completely worn out my voice….  But whether or not Payne would buy that argument, we certainly agree on a preference for simple toys that encourage creativity, over noisy, flashing electronics, even if to me the issue is primarily one of educational value.

I think it is important that, whenever possible, what a child touches be real.  A plastic hammer has no solidity, no weight or heft in the hands of a five-year-old.  Even small versions of real tools are preferable to such blatantly false imitations.  Granted, a child must be taught how to use real tools, and monitored for a time.  But with such play comes the bonus of genuine involvement and mastery.  A small worktable or bench [or kitchen counter!], preferably right alongside the larger one used by Mom or Dad, can involve a child to lesser and greater degrees over many years.

By keeping [toy storage] low—at a child’s level—and movable (that is, in baskets or carts that can be pulled out), you are inviting a child’s participation in cleanup.  If the bin or toy chest is unmovable, a child will usually clean up … one … item … at … a … time.  First they’ll bring this one over to dump in the bin, then they’ll go back for this very interesting one, which really needs to be looked at more carefully, because really, when it is connected with this one over here.… The child is fully involved again, but not in cleaning up.  If the basket can be slid to the child, then he or she can use both hands to tidy up staying right there, engaged, until the task is done.

By displaying and playing from one basket at a time, a child is better able to focus while playing, and to clean up.  Upending huge bins of toys sometimes seems like a bonanza, a luxury of possibilities.  In daily life terms, however, doing so just creates, and re-creates, chaos.  Areas of clutter around the house tend to be hot spots for difficulties with transitions and discipline.  The forces of time and space naturally collide where there is too little time and too much stuff.  Kids tend to spin out in response to too many things, making cleanup and transitions even more problematic.

How many toys can your child (depending on their age) put away, by themselves, in five minutes?  Let that be your guide.  Reinforce the notion by storing most toys out of view and by saying, when necessary:  “That’s enough toys out now.”

Kids don’t need many toys to play, or any particular one.  What they need most of all is unstructured time.

Time, the rhythms of daily life, and "decluttering" family activities are the focus of a goodly section of the book.  What struck me immediately—which will surprise not one of my readers—is that, in all the author's suggestions for redeeming a family's time, the eight hours or so given over each day to school is never questioned.  When we made the decision to abandon that rat race, time figured in many of our "Fifty Reasons for Homeschooling," and almost a quarter-century later, I'd give it even more prominence.

Time, which can seem like an unpredictable tyrant, pulling and pushing a child through the day, is tamed and tied down with family dinners, reading before bed, with chores and unscheduled play, and the “compass kisses” (north, south, east, and west) bestowed before they head out the door.  Only with regularity can the joy of the unexpected and the luxury of the unplanned find a place in the home, too.  [emphasis mine]

Life today for most families is characterized more by randomness and improvisation than rhythm.  Tuesday wash day?  Cookies and milk after school?  Sunday roast beef dinner? … Whenever I ask a mother or father to describe for me a “typical day” in their home, nine times out of ten they begin by saying there is no “typical.”

Increasing the rhythm of your home life is one of the most powerful ways of simplifying your children’s lives. … It will also simplify—not complicate—yours.  And it can be done.

Rhythm calms and secures children, grounding them in the earth of family so they can branch out and grow.  The implication of rhythms is that there is an “author” behind how we do things as a family.  Parental authority is strengthened by rhythms; and “authority” is established that is gentle and understandable.  “This is what we do” also says, “There is order here, and safety.”

For parents, the advantages of rhythm are equally pronounced.  Rhythm carves the necessary channels for discipline, making it more intrinsic than imposed.  Where well-established rhythms exist, there is much less parental verbiage, less effort, and fewer problems around transitions.

Parents also suffer the effects of a chaotic, arrhythmic home life.  When life is a series of improvisations and emergencies, each day different from the next, children don’t know if they’re coming or going.  As parents, at least you know.  You know that you are coming and going at the same time, crazy busy, and no matter how adept you may be at “multitasking,” you feel stressed by it all.  Beaten down, mentally and physically.  Yes, rhythm makes children feel more secure.  Absolutely.  But a sense of rhythm makes adults calmer, too, and less plagued by parental craziness.  With consistent structures in place, you’ll feel less like a Border collie, constantly nipping at your children’s heels.

When we open up our child’s schedules, we make room for anticipation.  Just as it’s hard to cherish a toy that’s buried in the middle of a pile, it is hard to anticipate something when we’re always busy, or when we’re trying to do everything now.

One of the simplest, purest forms of stability or predictability in daily life is politeness.  It is a level of communication and interaction that can be counted on, that builds trust.  When you ask me for something, you say “please”; when I respond to your request, you say “thank you,” and I say “you’re welcome.” What could be more predictable?  In the flow of the day’s words, noises, shouts, and various utterances, this polite exchange stands out for children like a nursery rhyme, secure and familiar.  It is also a code.  In its regularity, politeness affirms and reaffirms our connection; the way we treat each other.

Some people may feel that politeness, especially for young children, is a form of blind obedience, or enforced conformity.  I take a different view.  Politeness is one of the simplest ways to establish a base beat of predictability in the home. … Politeness practiced in the home is a very basic, simple way to give children deep feelings of safety.

 A third area of major concern is too much adult information, whether from the media or from careless adult conversation.  (I would add, from other children who have been exposed to TMAI.)

Banning the television … while the kids are very young is the most controversial of my recommendations for simplifying screens.  I have seen firsthand how remarkably effective it can be in honoring the tremendous growth and creativity of early childhood, as well as its simpler, slower pace.  My experience has left me no doubt that for most families, the benefits of this step far outweigh its difficulty.  I would also recommend that children under seven not spend their time on computers, video games, or handheld electronic devices.

Obviously, I would not agree with the all-out ban-till-seven rule.  But my support of some "screen time" comes with the requirement that the quantity be a very small percentage of the child's play time, and the subject something that is better accomplished with the electronic device than without.  (As an example, a video can provide theater performances to children who would otherwise, for reasons of expense or attention span, miss out. In our case, it was Gilbert & Sullivan.)  It goes without saying that the adults in the family should be good models in this regard.

I am suggesting … that parents consciously say no thanks to media overexposure [for themselves].  Limit or cut your use of those media that alarm rather than inform.  It can make a dramatic difference in your emotional life, and the emotional climate of your home, when you refuse to allow your fear to be provoked, stoked, and incited several times a day. … [Many] parents today are better “informed” than their parents were, but they’re also much more nervous.  Their emotional well-being is being eroded by media that, if allowed, can easily saturate their lives.  Media that exploit our deepest, most primal urge to protect our children.   Yet, as parents, we need to be more than just our desire to protect, no matter how noble and important that is.  We need to live with confidence, to parent with a sense of strength and openness, and perhaps most of all, a sense of humor.

[A]dult anxieties and concerns should not be the atmosphere, a haze of too much information, that [our children] breathe.  Children need to know that theirs is a good world.  They need to feel that, sheltered by those they love, they are where they should be.  They have a place, in a time and a world of hope and promise.

[W]hat children mainly hear, in your wash of words, is the current of emotion running through them.  And what they understand, more than the details, or any words we could possibly use are our actions.  When we speak of others with respect—whether it’s our mother, bus driver, the president, or the man at the checkout stand—no explanations or distinctions are necessary.

Do you love the times you live in?  We project a general sense of optimism to children when we talk less (with them) about things they may not understand and definitely have no pwer to affect.  The details are often lost on them, but the way we move in the world determines their view.  We may not be crazy about this or that politician, or the politics in our workplace, but as adults we know things change.  We know we have the recourse of our actions and our vote.

When we talk less, we convey a sense of confidence and competence in the world, a world where people strive to be just.  There’s less need to explain, expound, justify, clarify, or qualify—and our meaning is clearer—when we pay more attention (as children do) to the tone of our words and our actions.  When I remind myself about ‘talking less,” I sometimes think of the character Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.  In the midst of a difficult, even scary situation, it was his calm and consistent manner more than his words that spoke to his children.  Such security is priceless.  It is a solid foundation.  It helps a child through those dark nights when, in your ham costume, you can’t see clearly.

One of the best filters I know for talking less has been attributed to [many sources]. …  It’s easier to remember than to put into practice.  I find this filter works wonders for parents, wherever and whenever they remember to use it, in helping them speak less, and more consciously:

Before you say something, ask yourself these three questions:  Is it true?  Is it kind?  Is it necessary?

I don’t take necessary to mean that everything we say has to be instructive, or have some larger educational or inspirational purpose.  Instead, I take necessary to mean “more important than silence.” What enables us to read a word is the white space all around it, and without some intervening quiet we couldn’t hear a thing.  Silence is important, especially in a noisy family in a noisy world.  And noise is self-perpetuating, so if your kids grow accustomed to a “noisy norm” they will always try to create and maintain that level of clamor.  [Now that's a scary thought.]

And a few more quotations, on random topics:

Requests may seem like “gentler” forms of communication [than straightforward instructions], but with so many of them they’re very easy to ignore, and their uniformity makes it hard for a child to know what’s really important.  They invite response, but not really, so the overall effect is one of background noise.  “So Ben, what do you think?  Wanna get ready for bed now?  Brush your teeth, buddy, okay?”  [versus]  “Bedtime, Ben.  You know what to do.”

[Journalist Sharon Begley] describes how neurologists have been astounded by the measurable, replicable effects of meditation practice on the mind and brain.  Their brain scan evidence showed that the neural activity of highly trained monks was “off the charts” (in relation to standard measures and in relation to the neural activity of more novice monks), even when they were not meditating.  The areas of the brain where such emotional complexities as maternal love and empathy are believed to be centered (caudate and right insula), and feelings of joy and happiness (left prefrontal cortex), were actually anatomically enlarged, structurally altered by virtue of the monks’ lives and their meditation practices.

Kids are not monks who can meditate for hours a day, but they do the equivalent when they are involved in play, in deep, uninterrupted play. 

Alas, the author does not provide a reference for this.  It makes sense—not only for children at play but for anyone allowed to work with intense focus, and without interruption, at an interesting and pleasurable activity.  But I’d like to see some documentation.

The long process toward a baby’s first steps is driven by her desire to see and experience more of the world.  From turning her head to the side, to pushing up on her elbows while lying on her belly, and eventually to rolling over, each phase requires repetitive trial and error, and great effort. … [H]uman development takes time, even if most infants manage it within a year and a half or so.  It requires many hours of “floor time,” of stretching, scooching, and crawling about.

There has been a dramatic rise in “sensory integration” therapy in the past ten years, which strives to build neural connections and pathways that were not established naturally through these early childhood activities.  In our hurry to have our children walk or in our anxiousness to serve them, we may cause them to skip stages essential for neural development. 

The developmental purpose of adolescence’s polarities is a zig-zaggedy path toward self-regulation.  We now know the brain is still developing during these years, particularly those sections that are critical for judgment and reason.

The book mentions several times the “normal” instability and contrariness of teenagers, and certainly we hear the same refrain in the news:  Teens can't be expected to control themselves; that part of the brain isn't well-formed yet.  Teens can't be expected to think logically, react politely, or even to get out of bed on time, because that's just the way they're wired.  What I want to know is, if these brain differences are real, what is cause, and what is effect?  In the past, teens did adult work and took on adult responsibilities.  Many of my ancestors were married in their teen years, and raised successful families.  Children were crowned kings, and though they had regents who held the real power, the monarchs often took matters into their own hands at sixteen or so.  David Farragut commanded a ship at age 12.  Is it possible that brains develop faster when more is expected of them?

A wonderful counterbalance to “entertaining” children is to involve them in a task, in the “work” of family life.  Home is the environment a child will know best, and they need to affect their environment through their own efforts.  As small beings they can feel like inferior, passive observers of all that happens around them.  A sense of industry—of busyness and purpose—counteracts feelings of overwhelm. … Children who grow up as little doers, making Christmas breakfast and participating in the chores of daily life, will already have an inner gesture, a posture toward competency, activity, and autonomy.

Stories affect the way children learn to narrate their own lives, and influence the stories they will tell themselves.  Einstein once said, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.  If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”  It is all there, in fairy tales:  truth, beauty, goodness, struggles and second chances, mistakes, conflicts, promises, and magic; archetypal lessons for a lifetime.

Finally, the last word:

Is there a step in the process of simplification that seems absolutely doable, something you know is possible now, in your own home?  This is your starting point, the trailhead of your path toward the larger changes you envision.  Once you have a clear image of this task—what you need to do and what your daily life will look like when it is done—get started.  Step into that picture. … Begin.

There's almost nothing in Simplicity Parenting for which I can't see some application in my own life, grandmother that I am.  I hope to incorporate several of its ideas in my Foundations 2013 program.  Indeed, some are there already, for as I said at the beginning of this post, the book is not so much new as it is comprehensive, inspirational, and practical.

Guitar Zero:  The Science of Becoming Musical at Any Age by Gary Marcus (Penguin Books, 2012)

Hooray for our library for ordering this book after I requested it!  Janet has written a great review already (which is why I wanted to read Guitar Zero in the first place), so this will be short.  For what the book's really about, read what she has to say; I'll just mention a few of my impressions.  I have 36 Post-It flags marking sections that especially interested me, but have neither time nor energy to type out more than a few.

Guitar Zero is a much better book than Kluge, also by Gary Marcus.  A bit of the professional arrogance I talked about in my review of that book comes through here when he's talking about the brain, but it's much less, and I might not even have noticed it had I read this one first.  Now I understand why Janet perceived him as very humble:  His first serious attempts to tackle playing the guitar, at nearly 40 years old, with no musical background except listening, and the handicap of an extremely poor sense of rhythm, took place during a two-week stay at the family's summer cottage, where he practiced for several hours each day, for two weeks, where not only his wife but also his in-laws could hear every painful note of his miserable beginnings.  To me, who with few exceptions won't sing or play a note unless I'm completely alone in the house, Marcus's behavior speaks of humility at a level I can't even imagine.  He also makes no attempt to hide his musical ignorance, though his musical learning is very impressive.

It was fascinating, in reading, to learn just how vastly ignorant I am of the kind of music most people love and know best.  I've kept myself consciously and deliberately ignorant of rock 'n' roll and its spawn, ever since my sixth-grade art teacher inflicted on us every day in class the music of an oddly-named British group called the Beatles.  So it was with a kind of perverse delight that I read Marcus's careful, meticulous explanation of the parts of music I've known since elementary school while tossing around names of bands and singers and musical techniques with the assumption that of course they needed no explanation.

Just a few quotes:

By around six or seven months, infants start to become sensitive to the shapes of melodies.  Given enough exposure, they can detect when a note has changed, recognize a short melody even when it has been transposed upward or downward in pitch, and sometimes remember melodies for weeks.

And maybe even younger.  I think of two different instances I've read about:  one where the sibling of a young Suzuki violin student clearly recognized, after birth, the Vivaldi concerto she had heard her brother practicing during the previous nine months; the other the newborn baby of a professional cellist, who responded similarly to the works her mother had practiced while pregnant.

The process of forming chords [on the guitar] is further complicated by the fact that one's fingers don't naturally move independently.  (Try, for example, to bring all of your fingers together, with your palm facing down, and then slowly move your pinkie back and forth; your ring finger, and possibly your thumb, will be tempted to go along for the ride.)

I have no trouble doing this, but it's easier with my left hand than with my right, the legacy of my very-long-ago violin playing in school and some teenaged efforts on folk guitar.  I never got above the barely-capable level of playing, but the circuits for the necessary independent finger movement are still imprinted on my brain.

Marcus spends a lot of time analyzing the differences and similarities between music and language.  Most of it makes sense, but I do quarrel with some of his reasoning.  He makes much of the fact that nearly every child learns to speak, and easily, whereas music is difficult to learn, not natural.  My point is that children are naturally and constantly exposed to language from before birth, have great incentive to learn to talk, and are constantly encouraged in their efforts.  What if they were similarly exposed and encouraged in music?

[Speaking of a master teacher] The single point that Michele was most adamant about was a rule for when parents should correct a child's mistake:  never, ever until the child had made that error at least three times.  [P]arents who corrected their children could easily wind up destroying their kids' motivation.

Many people probably imagine that kids are simply quicker learners, but laboratory research suggests otherwise.  In the few direct comparisons of "procedural" learning in children and college-aged adults, adults actually tend to be quicker learners than children. ... If kids outshine adults, it's probably not because they are quicker to learn but simply because they are more persistent; the same drive that can lead them to watch the same episode of a TV show five days in a row without any signs of losing interest can lead a child who aspires to play an instrument to practice the same riff over and over again.

I figured out one of the reasons why music had always been such a struggle for me:  rhythm turns out to be deeply tied to the balance-tracking vestibular system.  Since I was a child, my vestibular system has been lousy.  I could never bear to ride on a swing, despised being bounced up and down, routinely became nauseated when sitting in the back of the car, and opted out of roller coasters altogether.  A new study showed that electrical stimulation of the vestibular system can directly affect rhythmic perceptions, and in retrospect it is easy to see why rhythm has always posed a challenge for me.  It's a pretty safe bet that Jimi Hendrix enjoyed being bounced as a baby a lot more than I did.

Guitar Zero is almost enough to make me pick up an instrument again ... if only I could be humble enough to let someone hear me.  And who am I kidding?  Marcus proved (as John Holt did before him) that it's never too late to learn, what would I give up in order to find the hours and hours I'd need to practice?

The second goal I set for this project was not foundational in itself, but a subset of the fundamental goal of purposeful and deliberate reading:  To read through A History of the Medieval World by February 14.  The third was to read through the entire Bible, chronologically, in a year.  Unlike my bedtime goal, and the exercise goal below, both of these are amenable to getting ahead, and to catching up when behind.  The latter worked well when I started the Bible-reading goal a week into the year, but generally I prefer the former.  I try to stay just a little ahead of the “on track to the goal” graph, so that small distractions, such as a busy weekend, don’t put me behind.  On the other hand, I don’t want to get too far ahead, either, because that would indicate that I am probably neglecting other duties.

As you can see, I’m doing well with both of these goals.

Finally, there’s exercise.  It required a lot of cogitation to create a metric that accomplishes what I want it to, but I finally did, and I’m still very pleased with it.  At my level, the key is simply to get moving, and I’ve done that consistently and well ever since I started keeping account.  I can’t tell you the number of times I got out the door with my sneakers on for the sole reason that I couldn’t face entering a zero in the record.  At some point I added another line to the graph, representing a minimal requirement higher than zero; my intention is to raise it periodically as I get in better shape.

For a long time all I did was walk, but recently I’ve added activities that tackle core and upper body issues, along with balance and flexibility.  I quickly discovered that my initial “difficulty multiplier” of 10 was too high; 2 seems to be more realistic, though I may feel differently when I get to running, which I don’t expect to manage for quite a while.

This is another winner, and again I thank Porter, and others in my family, for their support.  The art of encouraging without nagging is a tricky one, and you’re doing it well.

So, on the one hand, I’m feeling good about my successes.  On the other hand, it’s discouraging to realize I’m already one month into the year and my “foundation” has only four stones.  And despite the above-mentioned efforts not to let myself get too far ahead in the reading, focusing on these four areas has still led to neglecting important duties.  (Don't ask about my inbox.)  How am I possible going to fit everything in?  How could I have hoped to add more to my schedule when I was already overwhelmed?  My not-very-confident hope is that as the foundations are laid and become part of life, I will become more efficient.

In any case, I need to press on.    Part of the problem is that I want the next goal to be in the area of healthy eating, and it’s too big a topic.  I’m struggling to break it into manageable pieces, and, as I did with exercise, develop a workable metric.  I’m to the point of deciding just to do something, to get started, to put up a sail, so to speak, and worry later about adjusting course.

But that’s another post.

I am exceedingly well pleased with the first month of my Foundations 2013 project.

The first foundation stone was a regular, 10 p.m. bedtime, and I’m happy to report success for the first month:  an average of 10 p.m. with a few deviations each way, but not many and only one as much as an hour.

I’m even happier to report how much better just a month of this practice has made me feel, both physically and mentally.  Unfortunately, I can’t say that I’m getting all that much more sleep, as I’ve been waking up earlier, but it’s generally better sleep.  How lovely it is to fall asleep within a few minutes of turning out the light, instead of lying awake with my mind whirling, being unable to avoid the thought that if I can’t sleep, I could at least be up accomplishing something, but staying in bed because I know I’m really tired and need the sleep.

I suspect there are several factors involved here, only one of which is the hour, though I’ve discovered through experience that 10:00 really does work best for me.  Another is the sheer regularity of the time:  as the month progressed, both my body and my mind learned to recognize when bedtime is approaching and begin, unconsciously, to prepare.

Unmeasured and undocumented, but significant, is a deliberate effort to “wind down”—usually reading a book, watching a movie, or listening to a course lecture—in the later evening hours.  I found out the hard way that rushing around trying to finish last-minute jobs and beat the 10:00 deadline does not work:  the one time I did that, I was so hyped I lay awake for two hours.

My general practice, though it’s not honored with any rigidity whatsoever, is to have the computer off by 9:00, and I find getting away from the close screen helps a lot.  If I’m watching something, as opposed to reading, I will bend the rule and keep my computer on my lap.  Without it, I will more often than not fall asleep, or get frustrated—I seem to need to do something else when watching television (and I don’t knit). That seems to do less harm—as is true of the movie itself, though it also is "screen time"—than the intensity with which I usually work at the computer, and allows me to do small, tedious, but important jobs that take time but little attention.   (For example, there are tasks that require a few clicks, then a wait, then a few clicks, then a wait—and doing them while distracted by a movie keeps me from being frustrated to tears by the delays.)  It also helps to get ready for bed (both myself and the house) before doing the winding-down activities.

This Foundation Stone is a keeper, and I am so grateful to my husband for supporting it.  When you're married, making a significant change is nearly impossible if your spouse is opposed, and passive resistance or even indifference can quickly derail all but the strongest commitment to a difficult project.  But encouragement is the lubrication that keeps the whole enterprise from seizing up.  Thank you, Porter!

There's a lot more to cover in this first-month review, but I'll take a break before moving on.