For nearly 20 years, I've been chatting daily with my best friend about everything.
The day we first moved apart, we simply said, 'I'll talk to you tomorrow.' And we have.
Changes haven't altered our conversation. While my kiddos, both, got on the bus, I had talked her into Classical Conversations. We talked on. When hers went for a year to public school, we honored each other's schedules and broke our unspoken no-call rule on Saturday. Family-first and all.
But yesterday, I told her about something I knew she'd love. Sometimes there really isn't enough time to tell it all, and I'd only mentioned over the summer I was reading this or that. She didn't know I was studying. I was digging deeper.
I had begun while reading Karen Glass's Consider This not realizing I was using the very tool implemented by great readers for years, perhaps centuries.
The following is from Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakable Peace, by Sarah Mackenzie, famous most lately for her phenomenal Read Aloud Revival.
-- "Commonplace books aren't anything new. For centuries, these personal collections have played a significant role in the way scholars read, learn, and remember. They paint a beautiful picture of an individual's growth over time-- of his or her personal journey of learning and growing." Passages, thoughts, reflections, "Anything I read that causes me to pause and read again--to stop and savor the words or ponder the message-- it all belongs in my book."
I don't know about you, but I seem to hear a lot, but can't remember where I read or heard it. And the only way I have been successful in collecting thoughts is to gather them together. Whether it is related to faith, school, marriage, children, family, food, ..... It goes in my book.
The following is from Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakable Peace, by Sarah Mackenzie, famous most lately for her phenomenal Read Aloud Revival.
-- "Commonplace books aren't anything new. For centuries, these personal collections have played a significant role in the way scholars read, learn, and remember. They paint a beautiful picture of an individual's growth over time-- of his or her personal journey of learning and growing." Passages, thoughts, reflections, "Anything I read that causes me to pause and read again--to stop and savor the words or ponder the message-- it all belongs in my book."
I don't know about you, but I seem to hear a lot, but can't remember where I read or heard it. And the only way I have been successful in collecting thoughts is to gather them together. Whether it is related to faith, school, marriage, children, family, food, ..... It goes in my book.
This isn't a recipe collection. It's a collection of the bigger discussions I have in my head, so that when I actually am speaking with a person, my words are clearer. I can effectively share my thoughts. Perhaps the most important reason, I can be at peace with my thoughts and convictions. Being a functioning mother/wife/friend is important to honoring God. Sanity is priority.
I have found a commonplace book to be sanity-saving. I have been able to generate gumption I didn't know I could muster, when my life's events seemed to go against what I knew to be true. I carefully and humbly add, it has helped me submit to God's purposes, when the path of least resistance has been so easily accessible.
Mine isn't a prayer journal, yet it contains prayers.
It isn't a book-study, yet, it does contain copious notes from selected books.
I know it's working when books cross paths. Especially when podcast/recorded word crosses with timeless written. Like these and these.
I've recently gathered up a few new to me texts that will also receive their dose of notes and marking. But the commonplace book is the billboard where I can collect these writers and many times great thinkers,-- have a conversation with them. Call them back to my living room, drink coffee with them and visit. I can wander to another mother's journey and see her notes on how an idea plays out in real life. Because she's reading the same things I've been, my commonplace book in hand, her insights to be pondered.
I use the $1 cardboard cover composition books. But that's me. I use the metal grabber clips to keep only a few items that might have been scratched out when I didn't have my book. But these get transcribed or taped in.
I wish not to be pulled to and fro by every idea out there, troubled in my soul, wondering if I'm foolish for believing something. I wish to take every thought captive, or at least a few that might aid in honoring God more fully.
I have only received 'Teaching from Rest' just a day ago. (Merry Christmas to me.)
and have also received Mind to Mind: an Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason and Karen Glass. I remember Karen 'talking' about it this summer. I couldn't wait, but had to, looking forward to see how she accomplished this endeavor.
So while these are the thinking books I have decided to savor this spring semester, I shared with Leslie a couple of others I've selected to study.
Total Truth by Nancy Pearcy. (scored with Dad's notes included-- I'll return it Dad....)
The Ring of Truth J.B. Phillips A Translator's Testimony.
The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
The Feminization of American Culture by Ann Douglas (selected based on a reference made in a podcast at Circe Institute Conference by Angelina Stanford 'What is Woman? A Reexamination of Feminism and the Church.' found under Resources- Free Audio Library.
Your God is Too Small by J.B. Phillips
One further thought I would add, because Leslie brought it up.
Ann Voskamp has been sharing her blessings for years now. Her book brought the story full-circle, explaining how she came to her need to count 1000 gifts.
I have called mine 'lifemeds' and stopped counting individually and just listed the posts.
I can easily reference, back by title. But I'm seeing now, the beauty of writing these in a composition book, much like my commonplace book.
I can see the penmanship, and the coffee stain, the wine spill, the stress or ease of my handwriting. So fewer posts, online, as I tend to get sucked into media quicker than I count blessings and gifts. I am indebted to those who have begun the greater conversations, of faith and confidence and to friends, like Leslie, who think great thoughts, no matter where they heard them or generated them. Her thoughts on contentment were shared and I'm sure have already made their way into her commonplace book today.
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