I had just gulped in a Teaching Company Course on the High Middle Ages in which I learned about Frederick II Hohenstaufen [what a great name!] and here old Hohenstaufen “stupor mundi” (wonder of the world) makes an appearance in Dorothy Sayers’ introduction to The Inferno. It was like bumping into a guy in the Safeway produce section the day after a party where you first met.
Back in December, I determined to read a Charles Williams book this year but hadn’t a clue where to start. Charles Williams was a close friend and mentor to C.S. Lewis; my previous attempts to read Williams were DOA. In Sayer’s last paragraph of her introduction she acknowledges her debt to Charles Williams’ The Figure of Beatrice. Score! It’s in my Amazon shopping cart.
But the real tingles came reading the first 70 pages of Peter Leithart’s book Ascent to Love. In the first chapter Leithart takes a stroll through medieval literature and examines the treatment different writers give to the differences between pagan and Christian outlooks. It recapped our year of study in five gorgeous pages, referencing The Fairie Queene, Beowulf, The Song of Roland, Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight and the Canterbury Tales. I don’t knit, but it was like gathering up a flat piece of knitting into a recognizable sweater. Or perhaps it was more like putting the last piece into a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. [I have been known to hold on to a piece so I get that pleasure, she says with a reddening face.] It fits! It connects! It jives!
I. Get. It. !!!!! It is a glorious life.
Until this morning. My husband woke up very early and was bouncier than Tigger. He started a load of wash, walked around the house at a fast clip, opened and shut closet doors carelessly, and actually chuckled the second time I hit the snooze button. As I left on my walk, I tossed Ascent to Love in my 16 yr. old son’s direction. Read the first chapter, I instructed. It will pull the whole year together – it’s Just … Incredible. When I returned my son said, Mom, what was so great about this? It was Boring.
Sigh. We still have work to do.
A Living Pencil 
I’ve had many of those “aha” moments this year as our study of the Old Testament has intersected with our study of “The Story of the World: Ancient History.” I get so excited, but so far the kids haven’t been as thrilled. Don’t give up!
Oh, c’mon, Mom, surely you don’t expect a 17-year-old to share your enthusiasm for anything to do with the Middle Ages!?!? But I know that feeling when two seemingly different and/or opposite things collide in your mind and you need someone to share your excitement 🙂 I personally think that’s more of a female trait, actually. You know how the right side of the brain uses the abstract, right? Yup, it’s in there.
LOL!!!!!!! Maybe if it was HIS ah ha moment it would have been more interesting.
Thank you for the comment on my site.
(PS…..please never stop learning and posting because I am stowing away for future learning. Things are taking me awhile to plug through but I am enjoying them. I’m currently plugging away at the second Barchester book…….)
Loveit. Loveit. Loveit. !!Besides loving all this synthesis stuff (which I do, you know that!), this post is a terrific bit of writing. Very well articulated and phrased. You do this stuff so great, Carol!
That was Konrad’s response to my excitement over his getting a class with Dr.Veith at Mequon…He hated his presentation style…how much of that was Kon’s 19yo-ness, and how much was lack of interest…or perhaps already using Veith’s text at home.
ahh Kids.
I’m nearly done with the McWharter “Linguistics” course I ordered, and like you dear, I can’t say enough about these cds! I have learned so much about the nature of languages, language change and development and so forth. I get to school and just babble on and on! Vowel shifts, Indo-European, diglossia, triglossia, click languages and perhaps the most difficult language in the world to learn, I think it was called ‘Tsec’ (Caucusus Mountains, only 14,000 speakers, highly gutteral, many genders, of course so easy … all their kids can speak it)… I was relieved he didn’t say ,”Yes, indeed! The most difficult *is* Latin!” That would have confirmed my students’ assumptions… : )
Happy Mother’s Day, Carol!
A quick off-topic note to thank you for blogging amidst your “job”. I just revisited “He leads me beside still waters” and it helped again! Thank you!!