The Care and Keeping of a Self: Taking Responsibility for the Spiritual Life
Patterns for Life audiobook chapter 6
The biggest piece missing from Ourselves is the step which Orthodox Christians naturally take first. Whatever power of the soul is under discussion, the first thing we wonder is, “How do I heal it?”
~Patterns for Life, Chapter 6
The content below was originally paywalled.
Chapters 6 and 7 are where we examine Charlotte Mason’s 4th volume in her Home Education Series, called Ourselves. This is where she lays out her ideas for helping a person take responsibility for the spiritual life. If we keep our focus on sin as an illness in need of healing we are better able to understand where and how to begin the process of taking up that responsibility.
We see that the body is the place to begin because it is the “gateway” to the rest of the self. We perceive everything through our senses — even the ideas we encounter come into our minds through those gateways of sight, touch, and sound (can we smell and taste ideas? Maybe so — but whether we can or not, the other three senses are definitely regular ways by which we take in ideas). In order to cultivate an inward attitude of chastity we guard the body and exercise control over its desires so that those desires do not control us.
Similarly, the mind has vehicles for its desires, which Charlotte Mason lists as intellect, imagination, beauty sense, and reason.
1. Intellect: here we struggle with the passion of vainglory. As we train and cultivate our intellects we must be careful to do so with great humility — understanding that by cultivating the mind we are taking what God has given to us and increasing our talents in order to offer it back to Him with increase.
2. Imagination: This is a beneficial and God-given tool we have at our disposal. Where we have to be careful is in not allowing our imaginations to have free reign and picture whatever it thinks it wants to. We have to pray and be observant to see how we, and how each of our children, respond to various books and use our judgement accordingly.
3. Beauty Sense: Beauty is for the purpose of pointing us to the One who is all beauty. The danger comes when we use beauty to exclude others or to make ourselves superior to others. This is another area where we need humility.
4. Reason: Our reasoning power is important and has quite a big role to play in our lives. The problem with this one can come in if we allow our reason to rule in the place of the center of our being — the nous/heart. To correct this tendency toward allowing reason to rule we should check ourselves consistently against Holy Tradition and remember that we are the ones who need to conform ourselves to the wisdom of the Church, not the other way round.
Charlotte Mason highlights several passions of the mind, such as vainglory, power, society, reward, curiosity, etc. As we think about each of these we must continually direct ourselves and our children toward humility, which quickly puts the passions in check.
What were your thoughts as you read this chapter?
Why is it important to think about and understand the passions and teach our children to do so also?
How do we begin to help our children take responsibility for their own spiritual lives?