bits & pieces
Thanks so much for joining in on our virtual “Book Club” — a reading of Wendy Shalit’s A Return to Modesty!
Intro is found here
Part 1 is found here
Part 2 is found here
Part 3 is found here
Conclusion is found here
You can join in at any time — the comments are open. By the way, do be aware that if you try to submit a comment with a link, especially a video link, it might go directly to spam, not stopping at “pending for approval” — so do let me know and I will go dig it out. Presuming it’s not actually spam.
About That Subject That Is On Our Minds, I won’t say anything except this: I understand the consolation of streamed liturgies, but do be sure that you pray with your family without screens for the most part — even praying a “Mass without a priest.” The best thing would be for the father of the family to lead if this is at all possible. Your children won’t remember awkwardness; they will remember that the family prayed together.
Jesus has promised us, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Mt 18:20) Even when you are alone, make time to speak to the Lord in silence. Don’t make the screen the focus of your little oratory or your heart.
To some this might seem like swimming without a life vest, but now is the acceptable time to try it! I will post helpful links below.
bits & pieces
Here is the shorter method of praying a “dry Mass” (traditional form).Here is the Orthodox “dry liturgy.”
Beautiful Lenten music: William Byrd, Tristitia et Anxietas; Stabat Mater, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, one of the most beautiful motets ever composed in my humble opinion. (The first movement is the best known part of this work, but the whole is magnificent.)
How to make your own bagpipes, if the recorders weren’t grating enough. (Jk, learning the recorder is great!)
Teach your children to read music! Here’s one approach. Do you have a favorite method for teaching music theory? Solfège? Let us know in the comments!
The whole Abolition of Man, from CSLewisDoodle is on YouTube! These are gold. The first one is here.
I actually recommend pausing a lot or even maybe slowing it down a little, just because the concepts are a lot to absorb, even though the language is down to earth. So much that many dismiss AoM as lightweight, I suspect due to the simplicity of the vocabulary. This was a challenge Lewis set for himself: “Any fool can write learned language. The vernacular is the real test.” But the effort to uncover the important ideas he presents will reward the reader, because how a child is educated on a philosophical level makes all the difference to whether he will ultimately achieve the state of a free man or a slave.
I loved this video a reader sent me, of a beautiful Orthodox Jewish woman explaining the importance of setting standards for oneself in the area of modesty, and sticking to them.
Maybe watch this with your girls! The only thing I would say is that, while it is never right to judge a person’s soul for what she wears, it is indeed not only acceptable but a cornerstone of our life together to judge conduct. She is certainly right that standards can differ, and that each woman has to decide for herself what her own rules are. But there is definitely immodesty and we need not to relativize this truth.
Without this sort of judgement, society can’t help its weaker members and will find, without it, that they are prey to predatory forces (in this category I include perverted designers and greedy manufacturers). We have to be willing to protect those who have no one to help them.
Simply knowing that “people” will disapprove can help an uncertain person make the right choices. It’s a balance. We don’t want “human respect” to guide our every move — we always must do what is right, even if it goes against convention. But convention, backed up by virtue (in the simple form of the 10 Commandments, the cornerstone of any reasonable society), is a powerful incentive to stay on the right path when one is not very thoughtful.
Thus, I found it helpful with my own children to make comments about fashion choices that are not appropriate: “Poor thing, she will be cold and feel embarrassed.” “I wonder if no one told her that she may think she looks attractive but she is revealing too much.” “A strapless gown is the wrong choice.” (You might feel judged by such a statement, but if we are ever to return to modesty, we have to go there. It’s okay to regret a strapless gown, just as some of us might regret our absurd eyeglasses or big hair. It’s interesting that we can mock big hair but not revealing dresses! Why is that?)
We are influenced by the printed word, says Cardinal Meyer (Archbishop of Milwaukee when he wrote this pastoral letter, back in the day) — and today we are influenced by images everywhere, as regards chastity and modesty. For a different, more systematically theological approach to these virtues, read what he says.
The current crisis reveals that we made a mistake when we encouraged two-income families, from Tim Carney.
The birds are starting to twitter — a helpful guide for identifying them!
from the archives
It’s warming up in most places, but talking about modesty reminds me that my posts on dressing your child in cold weather (really, dressing your child appropriately) has long-term effects for their understanding of the concept of modesty. Don’t put off this aspect of formation for when your 16-year-old is heading out the door in a tank top and cut offs.
Time to learn to use those chicken livers in a delicious paté.
Sorry, I have to keep re-upping this, but you do not want to take your child to the ER if you can help it. (They don’t want to admit your sick person either — and will send you home with basically these instructions.) How to take care of your sick child.
liturgical living
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent.
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Filed Under: {bits and pieces} Tagged With: domestic church, modesty
March 14, 2020 By Leila 21 Comments
Book Club Part 3 with your {bits & pieces}
Continuing our Lenten book club with Part Three! (The previous discussion can be found in the last two posts. The bolded words are the chapter titles.) Against the Curing of Womanhood: We need to stop medicating women out of femininity (just as we need to stop “treating” little boys for being boys). Since the time that Shalit wrote this, the “cure” has stepped up considerably, and now includes the attempt to excise the girl right out of her body via puberty blockers and breast removal surgery. One thing I really want to say is that girls are far, far too stressed out in our culture. The push to achieve is too much. Most people are not meant to achieve in the ways we ask of our children — and the ones who are meant to, will. Another factor that Shalit just doesn’t address is the … [Read More…]
Filed Under: {bits and pieces} Tagged With: bank robbery, C. S. Lewis, Flannery O’Connor, sacred architecture
March 7, 2020 By Leila 36 Comments
Book Club Part 2 with your {bits & pieces}
Thanks for all your thoughts on my own book! I will keep you posted on how it’s going, including the number of volumes! Continuing with our reading of A Return to Modesty (affiliate link), let’s look at Part Two. (Part One is here — we can still continue the discussion in the comments!) Forgiving Modesty: Maybe modesty is a fine virtue, we can’t help thinking as we read the compilation of evidence in the book. Maybe, as Shalit says, there really are differences between the sexes, and when we women choose something to wear that is pretty and not provocative, we simply feel more comfortable. We feel more settled in ourselves and more able to cope with the outside world. I grew up in the miniskirt era. Truly, the sheer embarrassment of those days was so scarring. So much energy put … [Read More…]
Filed Under: {bits and pieces} Tagged With: abortion, chant, Communism, euthanasia, Fr. McTeigue, Fr. Pokorsky, God exists, Oregon engineer, secret passage
February 29, 2020 By Leila 109 Comments
Book club! {bits & pieces}
So my own book manuscript (the book is a compendium of all the work I’ve done here on the blog over the years) is at the publisher — and the question is, given its length, would people rather have one large tome (like Home Comforts — affiliate link — a 900 page book about housekeeping) or three volumes? Either way, carefully produced to be worthy of gift-giving (wouldn’t a boxed set be nice? Or for that matter, even the one volume could be boxed!). Any thoughts about that? There would be a pretty picture here but I have the flu… it’s probably not coronavirus because I live in a backwater and never go out, but it still has me laid low. So keep me company with your great thoughts on our book! book club Today we are looking at Part I of A Return to Modesty. In the … [Read More…]
Filed Under: {bits and pieces} Tagged With: chant, cuba, examination of conscience, LGBT, Our Lady of Walsingham, prayer, race theory, Return to Modesty
February 22, 2020 By Leila 16 Comments
Book club! {bits & pieces}
Book club? St. Greg Pocketbook? We on? Read Part One this week and we will talk about it next Saturday! We’ll aim to cover one part per week of Lent (and actually end on time!). A Return to Modesty (affiliate link — the new edition is not necessary)– I am planning to restrain myself and not write extensively, but just maybe pop up a post — or add on to {bits & pieces} — would that work? — and see if we can have a conversation about it! You be ready with your quotes and takes. Now, I have to warn you that this book is not at all appropriate for your teenage girl. It deals with Subjects. Auntie Leila cringed and she really hopes that your teenage girl is innocent of all these Subjects and that we will not be the means of introducing them to her. But if this girl is … [Read More…]
Filed Under: {bits and pieces} Tagged With: eugenics, fasting, Fr. Copenhagen, icons, parental rights, Russell Kirk, sacred art
February 15, 2020 By Leila 2 Comments
bits & pieces
My husband gave me a special bottle of mead for Valentine’s Day, and I had to tell you about it — if you are near Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, it’s worth the detour to the Honeybound Meadery! He has ordered bees from them before, and sometimes stops at the store to get some equipment on his way up to Thomas More College. Recently, as he was buying whatever it was, the owner asked him what he thought of mead. “The truth is I really don’t like mead,” was his answer. “I love it when people say that to me! Would you try some now?” Well, he tried it and Reader, he liked it a lot! I laughed at him for not making a purchase then and there (in a loving way of course — this is a running joke at our house that we have incredible sales resistance, sometimes against our own interest). … [Read More…]
Filed Under: {bits and pieces} Tagged With: architecture
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