Chopped-off heads and other euphemisms (lenses of the world, King Saul, spelling tests, digestive systems, basket-balancing, Medusa, Camille Saint-Saëns, Alice Walker)
6am.
For years I have thought that I would someday be a morning person; the type of morning person who someday gives TED Talks about how I wrote and developed amazing ideas and innovations by getting up earlier than everyone else.
But in order to do that, I would have to get up before everyone else in my own household. I am probably a night person by temperament and rhythm, and a morning person by necessity. However, I do like being up early once I’m up. It’s just that for 15 years, there’s usually always at least one child up before me, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing…but it’s a very different situation to be up early with other people than being up early with the solitude and focus to attack to-do lists and generate brilliance.
That being said, I enjoy my early morning occasional meetups with a friend of mine. It is meaningful to me to be able to discuss volatile topics with somebody I may disagree with, but trust and respect. He is always waiting by the time I arrive, and is always gracious. I suspect he beats me to the coffeeshop by closer to 30 minutes than three.
This morning, amongst other topics of great controversy and difficult to discuss at large with others, we talked about the different lenses with which to see the world. I shared my acronym of RASP:
Religion, Art, Science, Philosophy
We also spoke of the distinct portions of every discipline or field of Ideas and Execution.
I am grateful for the handful of friendships I have where it is possible to exchange ideas and learn from one another in a respectful, trusted manner. I will always try and invest in those and to be appreciative of them.
Bible - Samuel’s hunt for a new king.
The chronology and narrative of Israel’s King Saul is one of the great tragedies of the Bible. Here’s this fellow, plucked out of obscurity and chosen to be king of a nation - something he never asked for. For a while, he’s great. But then he makes a few mistakes - mistakes of the wrong kind - gets in trouble with God, and becomes a deeply paranoid (with good reason), angry, mercurial, unreliable, ineffective leader. There’s no happy ending. Just a slow decline from towering hero to fearful side character, as the character of David starts to rise.
Five thoughts concerning King Saul
Samuel chose King Saul. And then King Saul fell apart. And now King Saul lives with the knowledge that Samuel - the same Samuel - is on the hunt for his replacement. That has to sting.
I still have so much trouble reconciling New Testament ideas of redemption and grace with Old Testament stories where someone like Saul seemingly makes a mistake of the wrong sort; a mistake that seems to allow for no sorrow or redemptive arc or even semi-happy ending. All kinds of things to ponder regarding Calvinism, fate, destiny, free will, and the nature of God.
So David apparently played the harp for King Saul? I want to know more about the catalyst for how this came to be.
I think about what rituals are a part of our life that might seem silly to others. When I read about the anointing with oil of the chosen one, I don’t laugh or smirk…but it’s also difficult to understand the significance or reason for some of these things. I guess this is an important reason to practice respect for other people and cultures, respect for other time periods, and respect for the ongoing process of learning. If we step away and outside ourselves regularly, there’s probably plenty of things in our lives that are ritualistic and silly…but either make sense to us, or are things we don’t even think about because they’re so embedded. For today, I’m keeping the olive oil kept up high to preemptively avoid certain boys from trying to anoint one another.
Alongside Saul, Samuel’s story arc strikes me as one of the sadder ones in the Bible. Dedication to God and to serving God’s chosen…yet at the price of his own sons; his sons described as ‘wicked?’ When I think of what our own children could do to separate themselves from my love, from their mother’s love, I come up empty. That doesn’t mean I will tolerate or accept whatever actions they might take. But it does mean that I can’t imagine a future where I would choose an existence or allegiance without them.
ELA : ages 3 and 6.
I gave them a spelling test on our giant whiteboard. They gave grumbly looks of delight and then dived in with gusto.
I gave them both the same words. The 6-year old sounded and spelled them out. The 3-year old sounded out and wrote the first letter of each word. The exception was “mom.” He wrote out the entirety of the word, and I think it’s a great first word to learn how to say and to write.
Geography : ages 3 and 6.
Last week, our 6-year old announced, walking into the library, that “…I’m looking for books about the world.” When I asked him to elaborate, he explained that he wants to learn more about people and places. So we’ve been talking and learning about maps, directions, and different features of the world, especially continents, oceans, and states.
Today we reviewed the world’s oceans and continents, and talked about the state of Washington. We are very impressed with how great we are, as a state, at producing apples! Also, the 3-year old is excited about how easy it is to find on the United States map.
Health : ages 3 and 6.
We talked about the digestive system and went through diagrams of how food enters and exits the body and the different places it goes in between.
Body parts covered:
Mouth, teeth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, kidneys
Social Studies.
We recently read a wonderful 1977 picture book by Margaret Musgrove entitled Ashanti to Zulu: 26 African Traditions. It’s a journey through different countries in Africa with little snippets about the culture of each. One of these dealt with how women in certain African countries are skilled at carrying baskets on their heads.
We watched a couple different YouTube videos on how this works, specially on women in Guinea-Bissou. They can carry up to seventy percent their body weight on their heads. Incredible.
Of course it made sense that we would practice doing so ourselves. I had our younger boys practice by walking across the room with a large (non-library) picture book. My daughter, 15, picked up my full coffee mug, with a smirk, and flounced her way across the living room rug with it perched insolently on her head. I shook my head and removed it safely. Happy ending.
Greek / Latin review : ages 12 & 15.
I took them through a 15-minute view of roots we’ve been adding to over the last several years. Repetition, repetition, repetition.
Art, part I : snake-haired women.
Our 3-year old has taken, like his father and like his oldest brother at one point, a strong interest in Greek mythology. Specially, in the story of Medusa. Snake-haired Medusa who finally gets taken down by Perseus. “Taken down” is a euphemism for “head chopped off,” a detail our eagle-eared son did not miss.
We tell and retell the Biblical story of David “taking down” Goliath. I suppose why not be honest about the mythological story of Perseus “taking down” Medusa?
I had them draw pictures of this event, which they did so excitedly.
Art, part II : underrated composers (Camille Saint-Saëns).
While they illustrated their interpretations of this Romantic giant, I led a short lecture and discussion on the sunny front porch about Monsieur Saint-Saëns. It has been a great joy over the past several years to see the different ways our four children visually render the different composers and musicians we discuss.
Five notes and thoughts on Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
He was a child prodigy, but his mother was concerned about him becoming famous too young, too soon. He was a legitimate prodigy; some say on the level of a Mozart.
He was squarely in the Romantic Era (roughly 1820-1920) as a pianist, composer, and conductor.
His most well-known pieces are Danse macabre and The Carnival of the Animals. I’ve found, however, that digging deeper into his oeuvre - at least as a classical music-loving neophyte such as myself - has consistently proven rich and fertile territory for additional beautiful works, including the Second and Third Piano Concertos and First Cello Concerto.
I’ve read that he was supportive, the older he got, of the role that youth and innovation played in music. I love that. It’s easy to dismiss the new, the different as you get older; to pine and miss what was precious and familiar to you. He kept in touch, to some degree, with his own childhood and youth, enough to realize the importance of supporting the ideas and ideals he once had as a beacon the next generation now carried.
He did not reach the heights of success of the acclaimed legacy of other top-talent composers. Some have suggested that’s because he played it safe over his career, building on a foundation of tradition within French music that laid the groundwork for many after him, but not taking the sort of risks and volatile choices that self-destructive ‘geniuses’ are often heralded for as they hurtle toward the cliff, bent on achieving greatness no matter the cost. Saint-Saëns may have ‘played it safer’ than some and not received the career or legacy that others of his monstrous talent did, but he also lived a long life, was supportive of other musicians, and provided a strong foundation for others to build on what he accomplished.
Short Story : The Flowers by Alice Walker (1973).
I had them read Walker’s very-short piece about a young girl, out by herself on a summer’s day, who makes a shocking discovery. I asked them to think about five things:
Today’s short story. “The Flowers” by Alice Walker. 1973. Very short.
1. Pay attention to the imagery and setting.
2. Where is there a shift in tone and how does she segue?
3. What is the theme?
4. What do you think she’d like a reader to take from this?
5. How would you describe her use of language?
Snippets of their responses
There is a shift in tone in this line: “She had often been as far before, but the strangeness of the land made it not as pleasant as her usual haunts. It seemed gloomy in the little cove in which she found herself. The air was damp, the silence close and deep.”
The theme is the innocence of childhood.
Her use of language is very descriptive. In the beginning of the story, there is a light, airy tone and she describes summer, which signifies childhood. By the end, there is a more eerie tone and summer is over, signifying the end of childhood.
Assorted.
A Sophomore worked on Chemistry and noted the amount of Math involved; it was said with a sort of grim-smiled acceptance, but not stated with defeat or weariness.
They trudged together to the farm where they work for a chunk once a week. My heart is happy to see this experience, although it is not always something they feel like doing. Even then, they do it. That is resilience and responsibility and a host of other character sonatas all played together. I love it.
We tossed a frisbee around with Becca later in the evening. She is very fun to play these things with, in part because she makes a big deal out of her prowess, and has a sort of ongoing circus-mime act as she sometimes catches, sometimes drops the flying orb. Overall I think it’s a good thing that frisbees are not made out of metal.
A 6-year old spent part of the morning designing various games with chalk in our decrepit driveway. It was beautiful. And here’s the thing: I look at our driveway and am filled with anxiety of unfulfilled obligation and responsibility at not taking care of it. I most definitely need to. He looks at the driveway and sees it as a canvas, filled with endless textures and possibility on which to design the imaginations in his head. I love that, and it is a reminder of how vast is the amount I still need to learn about life, about character, and about perspective.
Book highlights:
Arrow to the Sun: a Pueblo Indian tale by Gerald McDermott (1974, Caldecott Award). We read this a few years ago and I wasn’t blown away. But I like to circle back to certain types of film, music, art and books that I don’t resonate with the first time, but feel like there might be something I’m missing. So I finished it this time around with a 3- and 6-year old, and they both announced that they “…really, really loved it.” It’s still not high on my favorites list, but I’m intrigued and interested to learn more about what they're drawn to about this book; a moderately-text heavy book juxtaposed with fairly abstract imagery as a boy embarks on a series of tasks to prove himself to his father, the lord of the sun.
Pond by Jim LaMarche (2016). I have fallen in love with this book. The illustrations of a group of kids exploring and building and discovering, all in the vicinity of a verdant little pond, is almost unbearably beautiful in its depiction of a slice of childhood that is nostalgia for some, slivers of memory for others, and vibrant dream for many of all ages. Gorgeous.
The Wave by Suzy Lee (2008). For the second time in a day (see: The Pond) I have emphatically stated: I love this book after a first read. In this case, it’s a wordless depiction of a girl’s playful relationship with a wave at the seashore. Stunning and simple charcoal and acrylics that bring the spirit of childhood and play alive.
It was a Wednesday, and it was good.
