This is a lot of pictures, but it's a funny little progression that calls to mind a different ending to the Country Mouse's encounters in the city of Jan Brett's rendition of Town Mouse, Country Mouse. Shasta, so named for a sensitive hero in my favorite Chronicles of Narnia book, slowly awakens to find a small furball checking him out. Eventually, that furball, whose name is Tessie, makes herself comfortable right in Shasta's soft middle. She's happy because she found a furry friend. And he's happy to fall back asleep.
Following are some loose plans for confirmation prep.
Materials:
Boyhood and Beyond by Bob Schulz ~ we read and discuss two sections per day. (16 days ~ 4 weeks)
Created for Work by Bob Schulz ~ we read and discuss two sections per day. (17 days ~ 4 weeks one day)
Practical Happiness by Bob Schulz ~ we read and discuss two sections per day. (19 days ~ 5 weeks)
Catholic Christianity by Peter Kreeft (21 chapters ~ 5 weeks if we combine Holy Orders and Sacrament of the Sick)
We’re skipping the morality part of Catholic Christianity since it’s in this semester’s Didache book, Our Moral Life in Christ
Finding God’s Will for You by St. Francis De Sales (7 days ~ 2 weeks)
Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis De Sales (118 days ~ 29.5 weeks) we’ll be reading snippets of this throughout the year
An Easy Way to Become a Saint by Fr. Paul O’Sullivan (6 days ~ 1 week 1 day)
Method:
Most, if not all, of the class will be conducted as a read-aloud/discussion forum. There are tons of in-depth questions in the Didache book. The kids must write essay answers to two of those questions each (and each of the kids has different questions to answer) per chapter. We also discuss another question together.
Considering the vivid imagery in Finding God’s Will for You, I may have the more visually-oriented kids draw pictures of the images I evoke when I read St. Francis De Sales’ passages.
They will take notes or narrate (meaning retell the passage they read in their own words) in their Catechism notebooks on Catholic Christianity.
The top three books can be discussion only. I might intersperse them with the books that require more attention so that there are little breaks in the hard core stuff.
And Introduction to the Devout Life often has gems that absolutely, positively must be remembered. Again, it is St. Francis De Sales who writes, so there will be images to draw and passages to copy or take down from dictation.
Our rabbit, Carrots, had an out of hutch experience for a few days. I let him out in the cool morning to give him a bit of leg room. But he tunneled into the raspberry bushes. Several scratches and a twisted ankle later, we came up empty handed. He just lippidy lipped through open spaces until we closed in on him, then he dashed into the thick of the vines.
He overnighted in that little burrow for three nights, defying owls, snakes, and raccoons. I left carrots, bread, and lettuces out at the entry to his burrow. When he was spotted in the neighbor's yard across the street, I was more inclined to take action. It's one thing having a rabbit eat all the leaves off of your own pepper plant. It's another thing entirely to let him romp and chomp among the neighbor's plants. The morning after the first appearance in the neighbor's yard, Miss Responsibility and I spotted him among their rose bushes.
Miss R. crept up behind him. He was so tired, possibly from being on guard all night, possibly from more exercise than he's used to, that he didn't even budge when she put her hands on him. As he can be a bit of a menace with his hind feet, she gave him to me. Somehow, that rabbit is comforted when he's with me.
He seems to be comfortably ensconsed in his hutch. He slept the entire rest of the day.
I thought he had died by the third day. He's more resourceful than I imagined a tame rabbit to be. He seemed to know his limits. He'd had his fun and was now seeking forgiveness ... or at least safety and a predictable meal a day.
Zoo Keeper, my 10-year-old, had to write split quotations. Here's one in which a ship's captain speaks. "Man over bored," called the captain, "He'll drown if we don't hurry!"
Oh, yeah! I feel your pain, Zoo Keeper.
To become more holy, saints (our current read) have had to reach outside of themselves and become extraordinarily generous and humble. It must have been as difficult then as it is now. I can't fathom how one can go through life without some sense of pride. All these weeds of thoughts about how great we are have been instilled into us. "Be proud of your accomplishments." "You won the game; have some team pride." "Use this face cream and you'll look younger." "Go on this diet and you'll feel better about yourself." "Look at all the kids you have! You should be a saint!"
Oh, if only a certain number of children offered a person instant sainthood! But that would be too easy, wouldn't it? The funny thing is, God wants our focus to be on him. All of the comments above have to do with a focus on self. Pride causes all kinds of ills from divorce to the division of nations. Pride causes inordinate suffering between royalty and peasant, woman and man, child and adult. We've determined that division is evil. In that case, what must we do to break free from it? Multiply? I guess a certain number of kids *does* make a case for sainthood, then!
Little jokes aside, how do we mold ourselves to God's will when so often we walk through our lives ignorant of that will? Our family is starting to designate the rosary for the intention of humility. It's a gift that God has yet to endow on us. I believe with every fiber of my being that if we work hard toward our goal and with God's special graces, we will live happier with each other and love more freely.
But humility does not mean that we have to dress in rags and hang our heads. That, to me, is an ugly attempt for public sympathy. No, that would not follow the path to humility. Humility is doing small things and requiring no praise, no gratitude, not even notice. It is doing any job without complaint, no matter how self-effacing or repellant it may be. Humility is accepting criticism with grace and trying to improve oneself in God's eyes. Ultimately, humility is about giving over control of one's life to God.
And oh ... I have a long way to go to reach heaven! Please, pray for us.
So today, to play on the Game Cube, the boys had to fold and sort all the clean laundry. It was enlightening to listen to them discuss aloud how to organize it logically. Leave it to Compass Kid to lead the discussion. "Let's put all the clothes that belong to people who sleep upstairs in one basket. We can put the girls' clothes in another basket. And our clothes can be in a third basket." He's a child after my own heart. This is the way I had been sorting clothes since the girls moved downstairs.
We have so many opportunities for learning logic. For instance, our shoe closet has a fair mountain of shoes until someone, usually Princess gets this job, sorts all the shoes into neat pairs and puts little pairs in the shoe hanger. Big shoes are lined up on the closet floor below ... until the next mountain incident, which happens within a couple of days.
Fitting a dishwasher can be a test in logic, especially if there are ten people and you don't want to run the dishwasher three times a day. Placement is paramount to dishes fitting and actually getting clean.
There's a logic to filling drawers with clothes. Our system looks like this: pants in the bottom drawer, shirts in the middle, underwear in the top drawer. This is how I've organized my drawers since forever. And it works for everyone who remembers the system.
Now if only someone who is an ultra organized historian could organize my library ...