Sweet quiet- journal # 41 8/31/2010

On my mind...
Patience to live according to God's time

CelebrAte...
Too many to number

Keeping a home...
On the road again but home soon

Deliciousness...
Organic peaches directly from the orchard


Apothecary news...
Identified barberry, yarrow, comfrey, mullien, and more at the family retreat

Bibliography Fix...
I brought Uncle Eric and his unveiled wisdom with me on this adventure...J and I are planning to go through them together with study guides and read the bibliography of each.

appearance...
I brought my new skirts with me on this trip...on a hike the other day I got covered in burrs so badly that I had to throw out a pair of leggings and an old pink peasant skirt...I am such a minimalist traveler that it has not been a problem at all...But I decided birkies are only good for trail hiking not exploring the deep woods...Going to get my hair layered when I get home...

Scripture meditations...
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life:no man cometh unto the Father but by me. John 14:6

Praying for...
Our sweet Lady Oakley (no pics while using this blasted IPad)...I pray that she will be safe, happy, and desire to do good.

Simple pleasures...
Green, trees, water, quiet.........

Study Notes From This Week...

A History of the American People-I'm not sure why I'm continually surprised by men who use religion to gain power over other people. I don't understand the need to dominate others. If it was up to me, everyone would find joy and happiness in their own homes, love and care for their families, and tend gardens and hearth. These are the things that matter most to me. So here I am reading history again, where some Maryland men, Ungle and Claiborne, uses the loving doctrines of Jesus to control the lives of those around him with intolerance and terror. It boggles my mind.

Although it's hard to believe, this tyranny led to good. The Toleration Act was the result of the above terror, which gave all Christians the right to worship how they wished. Unfortunately, this freedom didn't extend to Jews or others not of the Christian faith, but it was a step in the right direction of religious freedom.

One point brought out here by the author is the individuality and Utopian ideas of early settlers in North America that shaped the direction of our country.

Here's another group of people who practiced religious intolerance and heavy slavery in North Carolina, which was in effect turned into a British aristocracy. I need to remember not to judge these people by the standards of this day. Probably in a lot of ways they were largely better people than us moderns. Why cannot we all live with peace and charity? South
Carolinian ideas which were transplanted for Barbados, were a great factor in the American Civil war 200 years later.

Interestingly, the book compares and contrasts New England Puritain Work Ethic with Southern gentry class systems. From this point of view, it seems that the War between the states was inevitable, because the two different brands of liberty seeking colonists, the way the pursue religion, and their ideas about success would eventually clash.

Pennsylvania was called the holy experiment, because it was built on religious toleration. Later became know as the bread colony.

The attitudes of so many New Englanders were what really made the difference between the old world and the new. A gentleman or one of the gentry was not above working hard with his hands to get ahead. In England no man of means could work and hold his head up. And then there was the experimental political climate--first the English colonists had 1000 years of political history on which to base opinions. big changes in England proper occurred in 1640, which spurred these experiments.

Roots of American Order-Just as modern day prophets, the prophets of the Old Testament, the mouth pieces of God,  Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah, and Isaiah, called princes and peasants to repentance. The Law and the Prophets give order and meaning to society. They give standards for person and republic. Whether or not one believes in the Bible and its teachings, they were the basis for order in America.

"If God is purposeful, consciously willing , intelligent, just, and redeeming--why , then man is foolish if he does not seek to know this Being; to understand the human condition, one tries to know God."  "History becomes the life of a people in their search for or flight from God." "If one accepts the reality of a just and loving god...it must follow that a he suld enter into the order which God has designed for them." I love this book and all the classics it quotes. In this weeks' portion of the book, The Abolition of Man and The Old Testament are recommended reading. I've read both and have been studying the Old Testament in depth this year, but I think I'll pick up The Abolition of Man again this week.

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?-Some people really don't like study guides, and I used to be of this school. Nevertheless, after working with dozens of young people, I see the merit in a mentor in a book if that mentor is of compatible world view. Jane Williams wrote A Bluestocking Guide: Economics as a guide to Penny Candy, which I think supports and enhances the study of Free Market Economics brilliantly and with a world view I find acceptable. I called this woman once to ask a couple questions. She is passionate about Economics and how it links to history, which spurred me to buy the guide in the first place. I'm so glad I did and used them to teach my sons.

"Profit is the result of enterprise which builds for others as well as of the enterpriser." .

The Fallacy Detective-This book is good in that it helps us to recognize bad logic and such. It's bad because it teaches young people how to be smarter at reasoning than their parents. Since reading this book with Spencer years ago, I find myself saying, "Don't argue with your mother, and do what you are told. You are way too much smarter than me to reason about this. So just do what I ask." He laughs hysterically or simply smiles and says, "Yeeesss." He knows I don't really go in for the "I'm the parent and I say so card." It's a fun inside joke though.

One thing I noticed with politicians is the frequent use of the Red Herring. Even I can spot this one. "A Red Herring is the introduction of an irrelevant point into an argument. Someone may think (or may what us to think) it proves his side, bit it really doesn't...It is saying something true but irrelevant They are good arguments, but they don't prove the point being argued."


Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels-I've had so much fun following this man on his sometimes wild adventures around the world and learning about amazing places now for the fourth time. Sometimes I think I would like to travel and see all of the marvels. After so much travel last year, I'm now more content to stay home and read about them. Bridal Veil Falls in Yosemite is this week's adventure. Since it is so close, I might make it there some day. It is 2600 feet high, 16X higher than the Niagra, and the highest waterfall on earth.


The Five Thousand Year Leap-Here's another favorite that I learned so much from my first time through. Actually, I learn something new each time I read it. It's another book that has spurred my desire to read the classics. In this week's reading, Cicero is the most mentioned classical writer. While I've read a bit of his writings, I'll make it a point to read Laws and Republic again this week both of which paint a wonderful picture of Natural Law, the Creator's order of things, or the rules of "right conduct." Blackstone is another one mentioned that I've yet to tackle. Cicero was responsible for correcting the vision of the Greeks from the mistakes of Plato and Aristotle (of which I have read a fair amount. There are so many books that I want to read and so little time.) Cicero shared the fate of Gaius Julius Caesar; their common murderer was Markus Antonius.

Natural Law is enduring having been the creation of an infinite and eternal God. Natural Law lays out ones duty and prohibitions of society. Because it is eternal and universal, we cannot be free of its obligations or usurp another's rights, because someone else says we may. It is absolute reality.

Only God and man share intelligence and reason, which God hopes men will develop into godly wisdom.

The concepts of natural law closely harmonize with Christian beliefs. The first commandment, to love God means that we accept the covenant to live as Jesus lived. This makes us law abiding, justice loving, mercy embracing people. Likewise living the second great commandment, we wish to treat others fairly, not usurp their property or powers, and generally do what is right. This is basically natural law; do what you promise and don't bother other people. The concept of "love is a might social bond."

"The most foolish notion of all is the belief that everything is just which is found in the customs or laws of nations....What of the many deadly, the many pestilential statues which nations put in force? These no more deserve to be called laws that the rules a band of robbers might pass in their assembly. For if ignorant and unskillful men have prescribed deadly poisons instead of  healing drugs, these cannot possibly be called physicians' prescriptions; neither in a nation can a statue of any sort be called a law, even though the nation in spit of being a ruinous regulation has accepted it." Cicero

lawmakers and citizens must not allow laws which violate the laws of Nature or Nature's God, meaning we ought to measure each proposed legislation against the laws of God.

"But if the principles of Justice were founded on the decrees of peoples, the edicts of princes, or the decisions of judges, then Justice would sanction robbery and adultery and forgery of wills, in case these acts were approved by the votes of decrees of the populace. But if so great a power belongs to the decisions and decrees of fools that the laws of Nature can be changed by their votes, then why do they not ordain that what is bad and baneful shall be considered good or salutary? Or, if a law can make Justice Injustice, can it not also make good out of bad?" Cicero

Hmmmmm....did Cicero have a crystal ball giving him access to the star chamber and the Senate chamber?

Several concepts in our American system of government have their basis in natural law: unalienable rights, Habeas Corpus, unalienable duties, limited government, separation of powers, chicks and balances, self-preservation, contract, family, marriage, justice by reparation, bearing of arms, no taxation without representation. Sadly, many of these ideas of natural law are being eroded as I write.  Decrees of peoples, the edicts of princes, or the decisions of judges, have made murder, adultery, forgery, robbery, lying, and more seem good and necessary depending on the situation. This is statism, the sacred cow of Karl Marx. Cicero knew the beast even without its modern day mask and moniker.

The Story of Art- Like my love of music, I love to see beautiful things. Egyptian art is so interesting. The point behind their art is chasms away from our modernistic point of view. I guess after studying Gombrich, I understand that this is fine. We should seek to understand the ideas of different cultures and their art instead of judging it. First of all, Egyptians needed to learn how to make it realistic. Egyptians had not discovered this. Like mathematics and geography, they knew what they knew and made the most of it. For instance the Great Pyramids were built my men who forced subjects and slaves to toil away in the heat for years on end to build a place of death. But the subjects, slaves, and kings alike believed the kings were gods, who needed care in the afterlife. Thus, the elaborate death houses with slaves, furniture, treasure, food and such. After awhile, even the god kings realized that killing so many slaves weakened the strength of future kings. This gave birth to elaborate murals. These  murals are the strange are we know as Egyptian art, stylized to represent clearness and perfection in all things depicted. Maybe they don't look perfect to us, nevertheless, they represented helpmates for the other world. The art shows what the artist saw not with his physical eyes but with intellectual eyes. The only Egyptian ruler to vary the strict rules of Egyptian art order was Akhnaton, who was a rule breaker in every Egyptian sense. He didn't last too long.


The book doesn't speak much of the art of the Babylonians and Assyrians, because not much remains. However, it does talk about the monuments built to kings that are propagandus (My middle name is Shakespeare so I can make up my own words.) in nature. Funny...even thousands of years ago, political leaders misled the people to gain power. They used art. Ours use words.

Western Civilization + Study Guide- I like this book, even though it is not as interesting to read as the Bauer Books. I like the inclusion of bits of classic works throughout. It is the recommended text for Omnibus, which I love. Even though their culture includes elements of Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations, the Greeks emerge as the first "Western" civilization. The language, philosophy, and art of the Greeks are clearly visible in the West even today. Plato and Homer were not brought up in a vacuum but reflect a long tradition of cultural development. We can count the inhabitants of the Hellenic peninsula, coast of Asia-Minor, and the surrounding islands as peoples who contributed to the ontogeny of the Greek Golden Age of the 4th and 5th centuries BC-this process occurred between the failed Persian invasion in 479 and successful conquest by Philip II of Macedon in 338 BC. Even though the evens around Troy occurred approximately 1250 BC, Homer recorded them near 800 BC.

Sparta and Athens were polar opposites. At first they were not so antagonistic in their politics. Over the course of 300 years or so, they moved to opposite ends of the spectrum, totalitarian state and land of liberty.

Names to remember during this period are Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle for philosophy and Aschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes for dramatic literature. I've enjoyed reading much of their work, whose ideas have given me much food for thought over the years.

Religions of the World-This book can be both a wonderful starting point for studying religions of the world and incredibly deep. Mostly it serves as a wonderful way to understand all peoples of the world. What will I learn this time through? One thing I messed the previous times is that the word Hindu is really a geographic designation that means beyond the Indus. Nevertheless, over the centuries it has grown to mean something much more. In India the religious tradition we refer to as Hindu is called dharma, the way. Although this is a very individualistic tradition, most followers of dharma believe in reincarnation, karma, and the eventual release from the cycle of rebirth. Hindu look for truth in all places and, therefore, follow many belief systems. The first Hindu people were of Aryan origin.

Ancient Rome: How it Affects You Today- I know these books were written for 12-year-olds but I get so much out of them every time I re-read them. They remind me why I want to keep studying history, economics and law. They remind me why I want to grow my own food and medicine, why I want to be my own doctor, why I keep talking about home teaching, why I want to read classics, why I want to stand up and be counted, why I want to seek personal and public virtue, why I want to be frugal, why I want to be free.

Roman Law during the monarchy and empire was statism or the idea that no law is above that of the state-do whatever appears necessary.

Maybury calls socialism, legitimized covetousness.


The Anatomy Coloring Book, The Botany Coloring Book, Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish