The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
Thursday, a couple of my friends decided that their children needed to have a lesson on bees and beekeeping from The Chief, as well as a nature drawing session with Habou. (They decided this before, but they came on Thursday.)
It was a glorious and slightly cool day, which meant the bees were so very calm! Such a win! We all got up close and enjoyed the spectacle of feeding the ones in the regular (Langstroth) hives, and examining the thriving top bar hive.
It would have been fairly possible to do all this without a bee suit, the bees were so calm — except that Phil is careful because he found out that he's fairly highly allergic to bee stings! Yikes. In fact, he's gotten stung and nothing bad has happened (since getting a series of shots), but might as well play it safe, right??
On to our links!
- I was MIA last week — sorry! — because Phil and I were traveling in Michigan, visiting Hillsdale College and environs. We each gave talks there, and the lovely Sarah Schute interviewed us for a campus radio program. You can give a listen here (it's not too long!). I hope to be able to post my talks soon!
- Because I love the Anglican Ordinariate, I had to share this article on how it may fulfill the necessity for the “reform of the reform.”
- An excellent review of John Senior and the Restoration of Realism from Russell Hittenger. Senior on the issue of teaching “Great Books” and the intellectual tradition in college: “I realized… that the scholastic philosophical system, so effective in refuting the rational skepticism of my generation, had had no impact on students whose minds were disconnected from tangible and emotional realities.” As I am fond of saying here, things must develop according to their natures. Senior is one of the very few educators to recognize and remedy the defect in education that ignores this fundamental principle.
- A sweet essay on friendship: On Making Friends. A snippet: “The soul preaches humility to itself when it realizes, startled, that it has won a new friend. Knowing what a posset of contradictions we all are, it feels a symptom of shame at the thought that our friend knows all our frailties and yet thinks us worth affection.”
- At the end of the summer, Bridget had the amazing blessing of participating in the Thomas More College Oxford Program. One of the lectures was from Michael Ward, who readers know is a great favorite with us for bringing to light the organizing principle behind the Narnia stories as well as other writings of C. S. Lewis. His books Planet Narnia and The Narnia Code lucidly explain his theories, and his lectures are edifying as well, as Bridget reports! Here is a video series (all the videos are linked on this page) of interviews with Professor Ward — maybe your people will enjoy! (But — don't inflict the theories on very young people; instead, teach them slowly how the ancients viewed the cosmos. Teach them all the richness of the arts of the pre-modern periods. Then let them winkle it all out for themselves! Eventually you can let them read Ward.)
- A plea for chivalry to protect our maidens from dragon-culture, from Joseph Pearce.
- The Dies Irae chant in musical history. I bet you didn't know…
- In case you missed it, here is the link to my interview with Marcus Grodi about my conversion. I know, I know, I sound way different from what you thought I'd sound like — I sound way different to myself! I was tickled by the still they captured here, with my hands up around my head, a gesture I think I actually make a lot:
Deirdre said, “the frame is delightfully reminiscent of my favorite moment from the movie “Clue.” I'm loving imagining that Mom is on an EWTN show just venting rage about her archnemesis.” “Flames, flames on the side of my face… “
- Speaking of Deirdre, here's what she will be doing in about 60 years: an obsessed decorating grandma up on a scaffolding somewhere!
*I'm pretty proud of this pun!!
From the archives:
- Our favorite audiobooks!
- You need books.
- Me trying to tell you how to arrange furniture for family culture.
Today is the feast of St. Callistus I, Martyr.
While you’re sharing our links with your friends, why not tell them about Like Mother, Like Daughter too!
We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).
Carol says
I did feel a little neglected. But I will get over it. 🙂
James Anderson says
There are no links for Dies Irae article and the Marcus Grodi interview.
Amanda says
I just watched your interview on the Journey Home and I am astounded by the similarities in what you experienced growing up in the 60’s and 70’s and what I experienced growing up in the 80’s and 90’s! My parents were also very progressive in their mindset and my father had very strong secular humanist leanings as well (they divorced when I was 23). I also had the benefit of having a father who gave me good books to read (Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and books of fairy tales) as a young girl because he was an intellectual person and really valued these kinds of books. I never made the connection, until I heard you say it, between the ideas that we are who we make ourselves and we can be whoever and whatever we want (this was a constant theme in my upbringing) and my inner turmoil growing up and even my low sense of self worth as an adult on days when I am just not feeling my best. I also get headaches when the weather changes. Ha! It is so helpful to me that you articulated it so well and I can clearly see the same cause and effect relationship in my own psyche. As an aside, I was at your talk in Hillsdale (I was Dwija’s very pregnant looking friend in the blue dress) and it was really wonderful.Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with those of us who also feel like we had to start from the beginning as adults.
-Amanda
Leila says
Hi Amanda! Amazing similarities. I must say, C. S. Lewis must be in heaven just for the sake of all the converts he made!! What a blessing. Thank you so much for going all the way to Hillsdale and for your kind words! It means a lot!!
Jamie says
Dear Leila,
Thank you for posting the interview in which you spoke of your conversion. You are right: I never thought your voice sounded like that. I could take a lesson from you on modulation and enunciation! Joking aside, it was a wonderful interview and being a loooooooooooong time reader of LMLD it was a blessing to hear that part of your story.
I have been asked to speak at a young mother’s bible study in March. I don’t really want to. It seems I could just hit the play button on your blog and we could read through your posts on young children. Then I could say, “Alright, ladies. Go and do likewise.” Could you come out and speak to these 30 young mothers for me? I wish.
That being said, Auntie Leila’s archives will be read and reread as the March deadline approaches and I look to know what it is the Lord would have me say.
I also know, it will be necessary to ask my five children, ages 18-24, some of their thoughts. This could be painful and bring tears: mine. :/
May God continue to richly bless you and yours as you all seek to follow Him and bring up the next generation in your family in the way they should go.
Best Regards- Jamie
Leila says
Jamie, I know you will do great at your talk. (Don’t neglect to check out the day’s readings in the Divine Office – many a time I have been struck yet again that the Holy Spirit will tell me what to say, duh).
I bet your children will have very consoling things to say as well! Thanks for your kind words, and thanks for reading for so long!
Leila says
James, those are embedded videos. If you aren’t seeing them, you are likely not actually on our site. Click on the link in your email or wherever you are to get to the actual page with this post. Then you will see!
James Anderson says
Thanks, that did it. Both items were very interesting.
BridgetAnn says
Thank you for sharing your story! My husband & I enjoy watching “The Journey Home” & he teased me that I was watching it without him, so we started over to watch it together 🙂
From your writings, I would not have guessed the influences with which you were raised. I think (one of the reasons why) your blog is so attractive is that you are writing, not from a reactionary or bitter point-of-view but a realistic, down-to-earth one which springs from the well of the good, true and beautiful, which is self-promoting and accessible to everyone, despite their own particular background.
Leila says
Thank you, BridgetAnn. It means a lot for you to say all this!
Patty B says
Dear Leila,
I am so glad I watched the interview. It was not at all what I was expected. I am an evangelical Christian and really quite ignorant of the Catholic faith. (I hope that what I’m about to say does not come out as offensive. I mean it with all respect) I have been reading your blog for several years now, and love your practicality and down to earth advice, but as a non catholic christian, I never really understood the need for keeping the liturgical year and the emphasis on ritual. But as I heard your testimony, I realized that the complete lack of any liturgy pointing you towards God in your young life has had the effect of you embracing it and seeing it’s value. I think I now begin to see a catholic’s perspective on the celebration of all these things that I was not brought up with. My grandfather was a pastor of an Evangelical church in Mexico, and I grew up with a perspective that Catholics had lots of ritual with only a superficial knowledge of God, mainly because they didn’t read their bibles. I think I am beginning to understand that even if this is the case with some people, it is not the fault of the ritual or celebration. I don’t know if I’m making any sense. I just mean to thank you for helping me understand my Catholic brothers and sisters’ perspective. Your testimony truly blessed me and reminded me of God’s grace and how he seeks us out and reaches into our lives even when we are not seeking him.
I think that I will now read your blog with a new understanding and appreciation for the catholic traditions.
Leila says
Thank you, Patty. I do understand and I thank you for watching and for commenting — and for reading!! God bless!
Shari says
Wow, I’ve read LMLD for a long time (before weddings and grand babies) and this is one of my favorite posts. It was so neat to hear your conversion story. I couldn’t believe how it mimicked mine. In my freshman year of college, my liberal ideas were challenged, for the first time, by a dear Catholic friend who later became my husband. His certainty of Truth and Natural Law was so foreign, yet so fascinating to me. And that your post also mentions both Hillsdale College and the movie, Clue, well that’s just icing on the cake!
Laura says
Leila, I don’t wish to minimize the importance of the ideas of which you were speaking in that interview…but while watching it I kept thinking to myself, “What is her secret?” I mean, I know you are a grandmother but you don’t look it! Maybe it was fabulous lighting, but I seriously thought that you looked like someone in her 20s who just felt like dying her hair grey. Just saying! 🙂
Leila says
Aw, Laura, thank you — you are so sweet! Well, one secret is that I got married when I was 19! So I’m not as old as many grandmas. But with all this white hair, well, you made my day!
Maggie says
The friendship essay was interesting — I wonder if it was really true in his time that “we have never heard of a man saying that he did not have enough friends.“ Certainly not true today when so many people are isolated from community with others.
Leila says
Maggie, I agree and that was a point I made to the friend who sent the essay to me. I think that to have friends one must be a good friend, at least to some extent, and when our upbringing is almost universally conditioned for narcissism and selfishness, friendship is *impossible*. Many of us have to overcome these faults and really work hard at the opposite virtues to even begin to have friends.
And add to that the isolation many experience… well, it is hard.
But I thought that his points had a lot of merit…