Dream MLK-style

Unfortunately, King’s conservative Dream has been hijacked by the Left to promote causes King never would have dreamed of supporting, including the legal rights to abortion and same-sex “marriage.” 

King rightly saw that the principles of the Declaration of Independence are rooted in “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” and not in the repudiation of Nature and God for the sake of radical autonomy and equality.

 In severing the essential link in America’s founding principles between law and its trans-political ground in Nature and God, the American Left is making the “rough places plain,” not for the realization of King’s Dream, but for a statist Nightmare.


Author Nathan Schlueter is an associate professor of history at Hillsdale College, my alma mater.

RIP Edith Schaeffer 
1914 - 2013

Middelmann tribute

Tim Challies' tribute

Son Frank's tribute

Christianity Today (article link)

Much Depends Upon Dinner*

Children in our culture learn manners at the dining table, and not manners only.


It is believed that falling away from the cultural custom of eating with others at table three times a day can cause backwardness in all of a child's speaking skills.

pg 13




Cultural anthropologist, Margaret Visser, has intrigued me for a long time.  Ever since I received her first book* as a gift.  And while I have not finished reading this one, the two-sentence excerpt above covers a lot of ground when it comes to rearing a family these days.

I think many make the task out to be harder than it really is.

Just remember ~

Eat together often.

Visitin'  happens.

One by One

Book Club Moderator and Virtue-Ordering Mother-Extraordinaire, Cindy asserted yesterday that poetic knowledge trumps the educational trick and better prepares the student for life.

While I dont believe Cindy thinks that math/science should be ignored in the curriculum, I do want to challenge all of us to remember that the poetic exists in those realms as well.

As we read through Anthony Esolen's methodologies (link to Mirus review) for reviving our own imaginations (the only way to keep from destroying those of our children) allow me set before you the advice of one who wielding his weapon did do battle with the times and can help us sharpen our own swords.

Meet the Sage of Mecosta ~ Russell Amos Kirk.

In his autobiography, The Sword of the Imagination, Dr Kirk explains that there is not one sword of imagination, but five!  The historical, political, moral, poetic, and prophetic.

If I may borrow from Gleaves Whitney's ISI book review,

• Leaders need the historical imagination to understand what humankind has been.
• They need the political imagination to know what humankind can do in community.
• They need the moral imagination to discern what the human person ought to be.
• They need the poetic imagination to perceive how human beings can best use their creative energies.
• They need the prophetic imagination to divine what human beings will be, given the choices they make.

Cindy's blog name Ordo Amoris (ordering of affections) is a throwback to Augustine's definition of virtue, whick Kirk addresses as well.

This ordering or prioritizing (my word) shows itself in different civilizations which Kirk traced in his book, Roots of American Order.  We Americans have been privileged to inherit the ordering of the soul from the Hebrews, the ordering of the minds from the ancient Greeks, the ordering of polity from the Romans, the ordering of law from the English, and last but most important, the ordering of LOVE from Christ (Christians).

Now with that background, let's be on our mission of redeeming the time with our young (potential) leaders.

What are yours reading today?




Photo Credit: Julie Robison
Family Heirloom Sword
situated above the mantel at
Piety Hill, Mecosta, MI
home of Russell and Annette Kirk

Dr John Willson (seated before the fireplace in above photo) is giving a short lecture about this knight errant to Hillsdale College students who made a pilgrimmage Kirk's ancestral home last Spring.

Today, however, here's a link to what you should be reading: Dr Willson's exhortation for recovery, Was There a Founding?,at e-zine, Imaginative Conservative.

Sparking the Imagination

Book club hostess, Cindy, of Dominion Family Fame, rightly is focusing on literature which fuels the imagination and is giving us the opportunity to make suggestions, submit a list.

There are several books on my shelf which address this topic, like Gladys Hunt's Honey for a Child's Heart, Elizabeth Wilson's Books Children Love, or Elizabeth McCalllum's The Book Tree.

Last year's book club selection, Norm's and Nobility's final chapter outlined an high school curriculum that Cindy still wants to discuss.

But here I share some upper-level suggestions, because

1)  there are already many good choices listed for preschoolers and elementary-aged children; and


2)  where there is no vision, the people will perish.  That is to say what you hope for your children may not happen, if you have trouble with expectations.

So, I reveal Dr. Kirk's list from his book Decadence and Renewal (Chapter 3 entitled Perishing for Want of Imagery) since many may not have immediate access to this book, but may have highschoolers on the premises.

In this case, Kirk states that these students between the ages of thirteen and eighteen ought to be treated as young adults (notice the non-use of the term *teenagers*- link to lecture on that issue) and actually or potentially capable of serious thought.

These books are calculated to wake the imagination and challenge the reason.  None ought to be too difficult for most young people to apprehend well enough -- provided that they are functionally literate.

Nineth-Grade Level

Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progess
Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables or The Marble Faun
Stevenson's Kidnapped
Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes or Dandelion Wine
Scott's Rob Roy or Old Mortality
Poems selected with an eye to the marvellous and the mysterious from Spenser, Burns, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Tennyson, Whittier, Longfellow, Chesterton, Kipling, Masefield, Yeats, Frost

Tenth-Grade Level

Defoe's Robinson Crusoe
Shakespeare's Macbeth or Julius Caesar
Parkman's The Oregon Trail or The Conspiracy of Pontiac
Twain's Huckleberry Finn or Life on the Mississippi
Franklin's Autobiography
Thackeray's The Virginians or Henry Esmond
Melville's Typee or Omoo or Whitejacket
Selected poetry of a biographical or historical cast.

Eleventh-Grade Level

Milton's Paradise Lost
Swift's Gulliver's Travels
Dickens' Great Expectations or David Copperfield
Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral
Orwell's Animal Farm
Shakespeare's As You Like It or The Merchant of Venice
Selected poems of a speculative cast

Twelfth-Grade Level

KJV Epistles of Paul
Johnson's Rasselas
M Aurelius' Meditations (Long's Translation)
Burke's Speech on Conciliation with the American Colonies
Lewis's The Screwtape Letters or The Great Divorce
Marlowe's Doctor Faustus
Santayana's The Last Puritan
Joseph Conrad short stories
Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Selected poems of Frost, Robinson, Masters, Eliot, Santayana, Chesterton and other 20th century poets

Well, there is no doubt that I have my own work cut out for me, as I have not read many of these.

That may account for my lack of imagination.

Which is why I'm reading a book about it with a bunch of people I dont know in real life.

I'm throwing a spark on that pile of dry wood in my head, hoping to light a fire that will keep me warm until the end of my days.

Genealogy:William Ferguson Smith

My maternal great-great grandfather was born on this date, September 16, one hundred forty five years ago (1845).

As you can see from the photo of the dust jacket, he is the author of of The Rival Lovers: a story of The War Between the States.

It is an authentic and original tale of a solider, citizen and public servant written in 1877, originally published in serial form in the Butts County Argus.


Even more interesting are the second and third parts of the book which contain first a biographical sketch entitled William, The Man; and then Essays: Other Writings of William Ferguson Smith.


He is mentioned in the New Georgia Encyclopedia as a *mover and shaker* of 19th century Butts County because of his overall leadership, most notably as editor of the newspaper and president of the railroad.

In his remarks when he took charge of the Flovilla and Indian Springs Railroad (1888?), he challenged his listeners to act their parts as patriots and save the Republic.

Now I leave you with his actual words which continue to be appropriate in the perennial task of cultural renewal.

Can we - will we - perpetuate this Republic for the benefit of the children of both races?  Or will we allow race prejudice and sectional hatred to rob us of reason, smother our patriotism, and engage us in factional strife, while our great Republic goes down under the grasp of financial despotism?

I present these questions for the thoughtful, prayerful consideration of the great middle class of the American people to consider, with the hope, the prayerful desire, and the sincere belief, that the great responsive heart will answer in the affirmative.

Take heart over these issues.

Remember our great Constitution, as tomorrow is Constitution Day.

Preserving that permanent thing...

maintains liberty and justice for all.




Many thanks to my cousin, Harriet Ann Stovall Kelley (Editor) who discovered WFS papers and took the time to preserve them for posterity.  Read one of her poems here.

US Constitution Day

"Great states with good constitutions develop when most people think of their duties and restrain their appetites.


"Great states sink toward their dissolution when most people think of their privileges and indulge their appetites freely. . . .







"And no matter how admirable a constitution may look upon paper, it will be ineffectual unless the written constitution, the web of custom and convention, affirms an enduring moral order of obligations and personal responsibility."


Quoting Russell Kirk's Rights and Duties: Reflections on Our Conservative Constitution, I'm reminding myself (and you) of the upcoming Constitution Day celebration.  Some begin as early as September 16th and continue through Saturday, the 18th, framing the actual signing date of September 17, 1787.

Read ~

First Principles, ISI's web journal,  houses a host of fine articles addressing constitutional liberty.

Brad Birzer's review of Kirk's Rights and Duties.

Then act ~

Contact your representative and learn how s/he feels about voting in line with the principles he swore to uphold.

Protect the future ~

Join in the fight to restore our Republic.

Fathers, Cars, and Dogs

Reviewing Jan Karon's latest book, Home to Holly Springs, caused me to ponder fathers, in general, and our relationships with them.

More specifically though, I began thinking about their cars and dogs... and what that says about them, if anything.

Uncharacteristically (at least in my mind) does Father Tim drive a red mustang convertible!  His mutt is no less than a Bouvier with a lot of Irish Wolfhound named Barnabas, nick-named Gentleman.

My father's dream car was a 1968 Pontiac GTO convertible. This army green antique is still in the family, in the predictible possession of my younger brother who was the last to drive it.

His dog?

My father's family dog was a white Sptiz named Snow. There is an hilarious story about a special encounter between Snow and the family cat, Saggy.  It's worthy of its own post.... another day ;-)

 As an adult, we had Weimaraners. Legend and Otto. Oh, the stories about those family pets.




.














So, join in.

Tell me about your father, his car, or his dog.

And if you dont know, invite him for dinner this week and ask him.

It's family history.

Better late than never.

Woman Holding A Balance

Between dark and light,
Between this world and the next,
Between maidenhood and motherhood
She pauses, held in balance
Like the balance she holds.

Her focus not the gold or
The weighing, but the justice
Of her scales, settling to their still
Point in a steady hand,
And she herself unadorned,
A lily that needs no gilding
But the points of light that lie
On her veil like jewels in a crown.

If she raised her eyes, she would see
This luminous beauty, drop the scales,
And, like a blushing Eve, break
The balance and forsake
The innocence of her task,
But she does not.

If she turned, she would see
The Last Judgment, saints and sinners,
Weighed in the final balance, and,
Called to think on ultimate things,
Lose this moment –
But she does not.

Trained on the object, undistracted,
Patient while the instrument swings
To its center and is still, she turns
This little task to prayer - if mindfulness is
Prayer – to an exercise of love – if it is love
To be attentive to the thing at hand.

Marilyn Chandler McEntyre
American poet/author


Sharing an article from Christianity today, my mother introduced me to Marilyn Chandler McEntyre.  The essay was a review of her book, Caring for Words in Culture of Lies, which is right up my alley as a word-lover.

I encourage you to search her out.

Here's a link to her website.



Her life lines are most enjoyable.

Eliot Introduces Leisure

After the first week of book club where we're focused on Josef Pieper's Basis of Culture, I felt the need to step back and re-read. Roger Scruton introduces my 1998 edition (translated by Malsbary).

Fortunately I discovered an online copy of the book and read T. S. Eliot's (pictured above) 1948 assessment.

BTW Happy Birthday, dear sir!



Basically, we book club participants are off and running with our insightful comments and words of wisdom, making us modern-day philosophers. Yeah, right?! Joking aside, I feel compelled to find my roots and confirm that my philosophical thoughts are growing in the right direction.

That confirmation came in Mr. Eliot's introduction to Leisure: The Basis of Culture.

He decries the 20th century divorce of philosophy from theology and hails Josef Pieper's clear attempt to restore this right relation in the two essays which make up the book. Furthermore, Eliot recognizes that Pieper's arguments contribute to the restoration of the importance of philosophy for every educated person.

By affirming the dependence of philosophy upon revelation, and a proper respect for the wisdom of the ancients, Pieper's philosophical influence has the potential to avert two dangers:
1)that philosophy would imitate exact science and
2)that one-man philosophies (worldviews) would abound.

In much the same way that every Christian must be a theologian, every educated person must be a philosopher. That gives me two reasons to finish reading Leisure.

The third is no less important.

As a mother rearing those in charge of the next generation, I aim to apprehend Pieper's insight and wisdom for rebuilding our house (culture), thereby fulfilling my role in the ritual of public sacrifice.

Sounds lofty?

Perhaps.

But it's necessary.

So, read with us..... Josef Pieper's Leisure: The Basis of Culture.

It's refreshing!

The Triumph of the Lamb

by Marguerite of Angouleme
11 April 1492 – 21 December 1549










Today is the 517th birthday of the author of this poem, and aside from noting that, I want to remember to study her. She was truly a Renaissance woman who not only carried out her political role at court but also devoted much of her energy and attention to spiritual matters. In 1521 she began a correspondence with Guillaume Briconnet, bishop of Meaux, who introduced her to the evangelist movement, the call for reform within the Catholic Church, and a return to the original purity of the Scriptures.

The following is only a small part of a larger poem.

Since my desire is now to celebrate
Thy triumphs, Word divine, impart to me
Such sweet accords and lofty harmonies
That no defect shall marr my song to Thee.
To sing Thy praises, Lord, is my intent
If by Thy Spirit Thou inspire my pen....
Thus, trusting, Lord, in Thy abundant grace
And knowing Thou wilt guide and lead me on,
I will begin to show the reason why
Thou first didst have compassion on mankind.



This is thought to be a portrait of Marguerite d'Angouleme,

Queen Consort to Henry II of Navarre and also the sister of Francis I, King of France.

Remember that Calvin addressed his Institutes of the Christian Religion to this king.

Oil on panel, 61.2 x 52.6cm
Jean Clouet, ca 1530
Court painter to Francis I

Walker Gallery
National Museums of Liverpool



This painting is full of symbols which may give clues to the painting's meaning. The sitter wears daisies in her hat. The French word for daisy is Marguerite. The parrot may symbolise eloquence and mean Marguerite was a good talker. The bird may also symbolise love, its green colour denoting passion.

Be sure and check out yesterday's Fine Art Friday post.

Zurbaran's painting is exquisite.

Snoring as a Fine Art














The Intellectual Life by Renee Radell
Oil on Canvas 30" x 50" completed in 1968


Last Fall I highlighted this painting for my weekly Fine Art Friday post. I'd been reading a lot of Russell Kirk and he liked the artist, so I perused her work.

This week I read an article by Albert Jay Nock, Snoring as A Fine Art, and this painting seemed like a fitting illustration for my summary. Here's a link to the short explanation.

Mr. Nock is the author of one of my absolute favorite essays, Isaiah's Job. If you havent read it, I recommend you read it before the one on snoring. Both are insightful.

In Snoring as a Fine Art, Nock begins the defense by comparing and contrasting the treatment of Field Marshall Kutusov in Tolstoy's War and Peace with Caulaincourt's (Napoleon's right-hand man) detailed journaling in his Memoirs. The two dovetail nicely much to the dismay of modern historians. But the better part of the article covers two character traits which struck the author with peculiar force. Both are exemplified in Kutusov.

The first is an uncanny ability to know what is going to happen: Kutusov seems to have known Napoleon's plans. This premonition-like gift is mysterious and fascinating and Nock cites three other examples: Anthony Trollope, Edward Fitzgerald, and Madame Mertens (contralto).

Secondly, with this peculiar knack Kusutov combined a complete quiescence toward *the something which he had*. Rather than running around planning and orchestrating the millions of details which accompany a sequence of events (battles), he preferred to keep himself as nearly as possible in a state of complete selflessness.

Now this is where the author really got my attention because I recognized an immediate application to my own life. Faced with an army bearing down upon him, Kutusov attended to routine, watching everything, putting everything in its place, holding everything up to the mark; but beyond that he kept his mind as far off the actual course of the campaign as he could.

He read, corresponded, meditated, and HE SLEPT WELL ----SNORING.

If you are complete confused by my essay, let me know and I will try and better explain myself. But basically it tickled my fancy to learn about this illustrious fellow who understood life, made up his mind about how to act, and then did it....quietly unmoved by the folly of others.

Could it be that snoring is a sovereign procedure?

Russell Kirk















Highlighted today is an author whom I first met in 1975. That Fall I headed off to college and took a seminar entitled The Roots of American Order, which is also the title of one of Kirk's book. Two years later, I took another seminar from him, The Adams Family, in which he chronicled the long and illustrious history of this family's influence on American life and culture. My research paper for that class (where all the authors were male) was on Abigail Adams, well-known in her own right.

Thirty years later, I am still chewing on the information Dr. Kirk presented. Off and on, I will pull one of his books off the shelf and read one of his essays. They are inspiring to me. They help keep my thinking in line (consistent) and my enthusiasm for the permanent things high.

Most recently I have been re-reading his works because Cindy keeps writing about the way she homeschools. After looking at her references, I realized that many of the people she's quoting have relied on Dr. Kirk's writings and influence.

You can find where I have mentioned Kirk on my Xanga site by clicking on the authors and/or books tags.

Much of his work is available at his own website.

I am posting this for Laura to encourage her to read more Kirk :)

Ruth Bell Graham
1920 - 2007













May she rest in peace.

Only lately have I been interested in Mrs. Graham. And not so much for her theological positions but as for her matriarchal status and the way she handled her family. Passing It On: Four Generations of Graham Traditions was the first book I acquired. It has great photos. Right now I am reading Footprints of a Pilgrim, which tells her life story in her own words through prose and poetry. Here's what I wrote about her last Fall.

Anne Graham Lotz is the only Graham I have heard in person. I am still on her mailing list, AnGeL Ministries. Be sure and read Anne's comments about her mother's death and the list of her mother's quips and quotes.

Do you have a story about the Graham Family?

Conservatives and Religious Faith

Not all religious people are conservatives; and not all conservatives are religious people. Christianity prescribes no especial form of politics. There have been famous radicals who were devout Christians -- theough most radicals have been nothing of the sort. All the same, there could be no conservatism without a religious foundation, and it is conservative people, by and large, who defend religion in our time.

This quote is taken from the second chapter of a book written by one of my college professors, Russell Kirk in The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Conservatism.

Today I am paying attention to and praying for the primary election contests in Alabama.

Mrs. Schaeffer

My blog is named after her wonderful book. And this week Ravi Zacharias's e-zine is honoring those who have gone before us. Take a moment to read this article and be inspired.