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Composed: A timeless way of living. A podcast for women exploring living patterns of virtue, craft, community, and delight, that carry enduring wisdom into modern life.
This is Christine Perrin, host of A Timeless Way of Living, a podcast of the Humanitas Institute that explores living patterns of virtue, craft, community, and delight, and draws the classical tradition into contemporary times. Hello. This is Composed, and I'm Christine Perrin. I'm interviewing Maddie Madeline Hewitt. Maddie is the assistant head of school at Cleritas Classical Christian Academy.
Speaker 1:She taught at Great Hearts after attending Templeton as an undergraduate at Eastern, the Templeton Honors College. She, is a graduate also of the master's program in masters in arts and teaching. She has four children, and she's thought really deeply about, I think, institutions and also being part of a community and what it means to live as part of a community. So, thank you, Maddie, so much for joining me today. Of course.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. Here.
Speaker 1:I wanna just get started with you. I mean, I gave a very brief bio, but give us a little bit about your history that would help us to know you a little better.
Speaker 2:Sure. I was born and raised in Colorado in in a suburb of Denver and loved growing up in Colorado and still really miss the mountains. I know that you have some connections out there, Christine, and are able to get out there occasionally. Yeah. I after graduating high school, I moved to Pennsylvania, actually coming to call Eastern University, the Templeton Honors College there.
Speaker 2:And that was actually my first time even visiting the East Coast. So it was a big change. What
Speaker 1:a change.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It was a big change for me, but I, at this point in my life, have been on the East Coast for about half of my life. So it's been, I'm pretty well rooted here now and miss the mountains, but love the beauty here. I after, spending time at the Honors College, I graduated and then, as you mentioned, spent some time in Arizona teaching at one of the Great Hearts Academies, and I'm so grateful for my time there and the ways that I was steeped in that kind of culture and just getting to see what the classical model could look like at the k to 12 level was really unique and really special. And at that point, it was pretty new, especially in, the charter schools.
Speaker 2:And so getting to be kind of in the midst of that movement as it was growing was really exciting. And after, during that time, I was getting to know my now husband, and we were dating long distance. He was out here on the East Coast. And then, we decided to get married, and I moved back to the East Coast. And we, shortly after that, started a family.
Speaker 2:And then I needed to navigate and figure out, okay. I know that I my heart is still in education, and I still feel called to be in it, but I also feel called to be, you know, a mother. And so trying to navigate that has been a theme over the last years. But at this point, we have, as you mentioned, four children, three boys, and a girl, and ranging from eight to six months. So that's our range, and they are they all attend the school, the university model, hybrid model academy that I teach and administrate at.
Speaker 2:And so that's a really beautiful integration. There's a nursery on-site, a pre k on-site. So we're there two days a week, and then I homeschool on the other days. And we attend sister parish to Saint Philip's Orthodox Church in Souderton, Pennsylvania. And they, a group of us together with the blessing of our priest started a little mission parish that has grown over the past four years, and we are a part of that exciting effort as well.
Speaker 2:So the I would say those are the broad strokes.
Speaker 1:Those are broad strokes, and they also strike me as sort of rocks in the stream that give
Speaker 2:shape
Speaker 1:to your life. Yes. Very demanding to have four children, to administer a school, to start a a a church. I I'm interested in some of the things. I mean, I I think of you as someone who knew at a very young age that you were going to stick with people that were important to you, and you did.
Speaker 1:You went out to Great Hearts and taught with friends, also teaching at Great Hearts. You came back and lived with, friends that you had attended college with. Could you tell me a little bit about, what where that instinct came from and what it was like to follow that instinct and how it shaped you?
Speaker 2:Of course. Particularly living in community after
Speaker 1:Yes. And sort of setting your sights on that being a priority?
Speaker 2:So after we graduated college and after I had spent some time at Great Hearts, we, of course, were newly married and looking for a place to live. We ended up living in just a small apartment for roughly our first year of marriage. And, in that first year, we also had our for our first child, Abraham, and, it came to the point where we had outgrown our apartment, and we needed something else. And it was actually a really it was really interesting timing because the year that we my group of friends, our cohort graduated college, many of us, most of us dispersed across the country. So I went to Arizona.
Speaker 2:I had several other friends actually, some of whom you know who also went to Arizona. One went to Wyoming. We had some other friends moved to Boston. Everyone just kind of spread apart. And then within a matter of a few years, we had all moved back together into the same area through a fortuitous providential series of events.
Speaker 2:And so we had this kind of opportunity to think about intentionally, okay. We have, at this point, a rich friendship that has developed not over not only over time, but over a series of extremely formative years. And we had come around these formative texts and these formative ideas and had very similar visions for life. And many of us were or had recently become or were on the path to becoming Orthodox or Catholic. And so that was all very much we were thinking about, okay.
Speaker 2:What you know, where which parish is going to become our home? And all of those questions, we were asking at the same time together. And so we with one other couple ended up actually living with them. We had a shared home for a couple of years, and that was when we had our first child, and then they had their first child in the midst of those years. And, that was honestly motivated by kind of a why not.
Speaker 2:You know, we we we love each other, and we share a common vision for life. And we're also both strapped for cash, and it'd be nice to save some money. And so we did that, and it worked really well. And, you know, our friendship was better by the end of it, which I don't think everyone can say after attempting something So like that's a real gift. We're very much still in their lives, and they are in ours.
Speaker 2:And, honestly so well, after that, we then had several other people that ended up living with us in that home. Several of them were students at the honors college at the college we graduated from. One young man stayed with us for a number of months while he was waiting to get married. And then we had, a high schooler at our church that stayed with us and finished out her senior year. So we had a number of different people kind of come in our lives and in our home, and those were in our very early years of raising a family that we had our first two children through those years.
Speaker 2:And, honestly, Evan and I talk about this all the time that one of the things we really miss about no longer living with another family in our home is just, what it did for our kids, that it was this sense of normalcy around people that love me and that I love that are outside of my family that are in my day to day and checking in on me and calling me nicknames and reading books to me and, you know, whatever it is, and that those people still have real bonds with our children, which is so beautiful. And the other thing that we miss is just the accountability that you
Speaker 1:aren't going
Speaker 2:to say certain things to your spouse in front of someone else. Right? And that that helped kind of keep it keep us in check-in certain moments, and that that was a gift as well. But we also, in that golden little season, had several other families that lived in the same town. And so we were regularly going to their house for dinner.
Speaker 2:Were coming to our house for dinner. We were meeting up at the local park or walking the local trail. We were seeing each other at church on Sunday. We ended up several of us ended up moving to this to Claritas, to the academy and and are still there and schooling our children there. So it I would say it happened pretty organically.
Speaker 2:And at the same time, it's the at this point, the fruits of over a decade of Mhmm. Relationship, well over a decade, actually, and of effort and of change too. It's really interesting to be bonded around ideas and texts and then need to expand beyond that. Not to outgrow it, but to move from that very academic sitting setting to how do we engage and converse about motherhood and fatherhood and parenthood and what it means to be a Christian in the world and how to raise children well and down to the nitty gritty. What kind of diapers do we use?
Speaker 2:And what books do we read to our kids? And all of those questions, being able to do that in community and with one another is, at this point, feels so normal to me. And I think it's easy to forget what an incredibly rare gift it is. You know,
Speaker 1:it really strikes me that, what you're describing is a culture, layers of a civilization in a sense that you've built together that began by all of you being drawn to Templeton, which is a great books program that really focuses on a faculty of friends and Yeah. That that spills out in concentric circles from there. So that that faculty of friends includes you among them. Then you become you befriend each other and you have these things that you've all read together. You've thought about the ordinary life.
Speaker 1:You've thought about the good life. You thought about holiness, and then you go out and try to live it. I I teach a course where we talk about, you know, we talk about, the the blessed life, you know, the architecture of happiness. And and we start with philosophy. You know, we start with Aristotle, but we end with Marilyn Robinson because Mhmm.
Speaker 1:It's messy. It's not this abstraction. You need the abstraction. You really need it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You you have to understand the principles, and then you really have to understand how complicated it is to make it work. But I love what you've described. I've always been very admiring of you all and and curious too about how where it would go. You know? So that's what we're talking about now.
Speaker 1:But, maybe we could shift to Claritas and your work there and your sense of, providing for others. You know, you don't just attend and have your own needs met, but there's something in you that desires to shape the institution. And I I'd love to hear about what how that rewards you, what drives you towards that, what intuitions you've had that caused you to do that work.
Speaker 2:So my involvement in Claritas also, I would say, through a very beautiful series of events that you can just see the hand of God in, I was able to, when I was pregnant with my first child, I was working an office job at the John Templeton Foundation. And it was a very good job, and I enjoyed aspects of it. And at the same time, I felt very much called to be in the classroom still, but wasn't sure how to do that while also expecting this child and thinking, I I don't know that I can financially or otherwise justify putting my child in in childcare for five days a week so that I can go teach. And so that was weighing on me. And in around the same time, my husband, Evan, met someone who was at Claritas, and he said, you know, you should talk with my wife about about this academy that she's a part of and that our kids are a part of, and so he did.
Speaker 2:And then it turned out that they that very semester suddenly had a teacher, a literature teacher high in high school leave because he moved or something. And so they had this opening. And so in the last couple months of the school year, I jumped in. And my baby was due in September the following year. And so I assumed, oh, this is so nice.
Speaker 2:I really like it here, but they're not going to ask me back because I have this new baby due in the fall. And at the end of the semester, they said, we would love to have you back. Plea you know, please seriously consider it, and you can go on maternity leave, and we have this nursery. And you know? And so, anyway, so it seemed like a no brainer.
Speaker 2:And so I did, and it's it's really amazing. Just as a quick side note, I was talking with a a mom who has three young children at Claritas, and her oldest is in kindergarten. And she was saying, you know, our weeks look so different because we have this community, because we have this. If we didn't have this, I would be home alone with three children, yet very young, every day, all day. And I am instead able to be a part of this community, and it's so rich and so life giving.
Speaker 2:And I thought to myself, I never had to do that. I never had a year where where I was alone at home with my babies, which I know that some feel drawn to that. I was very happy to be in the midst of community from the start and to be surrounded by other moms that were further along in the journey than me. And the friend that I referenced who, was kind of our entry point to Claritas, She quickly became a mentor for me and is now the head of school and the one that I work the, most closely with. And, coincidentally, her husband is my husband's boss.
Speaker 2:So we have that kind of funny connection as well. But it has been such a rich blessing and just the gift that keeps on giving. And I started teaching literature, just one class, and then they suddenly needed a history teacher as well. And so I started teaching history and literature, and we shaped it on the model, the Great Hearts model of a humane letters course. And so now I was teaching humane letters and literature in middle school as well.
Speaker 2:And then a few years in, I became the dean of students, and I was that for several years and then slowly moved into the role that I am now. So and then started homeschooling my oldest a couple of years ago, and now I'm homeschooling my oldest too while also doing this job. So, that is my kind of entry point. And I will say that as much as I was shaped by great hearts and have been able to carry so much of that into my approach to teaching and my faculty development and all of that, I didn't know what it was like to teach in the context of moms having their babies strapped to them while they're teaching, which I do every day now because I have a six month old. Or, you know, moms being able to eat lunch with their kids and then go and teach their class.
Speaker 2:And so that integration was very new to me. I had never seen anything like it. No. And now it to be able to be in the midst of that and to be shaped by it, informed by it, and to be in a culture that is constantly elevating, constantly calling you as an educator and as a mother and as a Christian up and up and up with all the support. It's high expectations and high support for the teachers, for the students, for everyone.
Speaker 2:And that is just it's unique. I haven't encountered it anywhere else. So I'm really grateful to be a part of it, and it's been really interesting coming in, having a brand new baby, and having these ideas about education. And now homeschooling my own children and my ideas being adapted and changed and realizing the pitfalls of idealism and in certain senses and all of those things. So it's it's really amazing.
Speaker 2:And there hasn't been a year being there that I haven't felt challenged to become better. And it's either as a teacher or a mom or a human or a Christian or whatever role you may want to say, but it this might sound a little bit dramatic, but being able to be there has kept me alive in myself in a way that I don't think would have been true. Otherwise, I wouldn't have felt called
Speaker 1:in
Speaker 2:the same way to keep lifting my gaze, lifting my gaze, lifting my gaze, keep looking out, keep looking up. What how can I improve? How can I change? How can I serve this group of students better? How can I be a better mom?
Speaker 2:All of those questions, I think, would be dulled in inside of me if were it not for this community.
Speaker 1:I love the things you're saying. First of all, that phrase alive in myself. That's really beautiful. I wanna write it down. That's something that I think we all are created to desire.
Speaker 1:But I really love hearing you say it, and I love this context that you're building for us of, first of all well, first, this elevation, lifting of the gaze, high support, being with other people. Also, integration, a life that's integrated. I think that we, one of the privileges perhaps of your generation that I think our generation didn't really experience as much Mhmm. Is that hope for an integrated life, you know, for a life where you're not talking about work life balance, but rather you're talking about these domains that can fit together more or less, but much, much more as you're describing than I've ever seen. And, you know, I remember as a young mother wishing that there were a great museum near me.
Speaker 1:Because I I went to college in Baltimore, and then I was living in Harrisburg, and and there really wasn't. You know? And I thought, if we could just go to a museum every day. I know that's crazy, but I just wanted to be in a place that was doing the kinds of things that you were doing. And that was my instinct for how I could find it.
Speaker 1:But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would be able to teach and be with others, doing the same things alongside mothering. So I I do really think that you're perhaps on the edge of an experiment that is very fresh, and very there's a kind of vanguard that I'm excited about. And I like I I knew that. I knew I wanted to talk to you about it, but hearing you say that it that you're not alone and that it keeps raising you. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You also mentioned, though, that you're learning about idealism because whenever you've lived in a place where you've read these texts and you've lived with these people and you have this sense of how you want life to be, there's always that that, I don't know, push for purity or something.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And so has there been something about community that has helped you to outgrow that as well or to nuance that? Mhmm. You're striving alongside what? What's the element that's been introduced?
Speaker 2:Yes. Absolutely. I can think of a few examples. I remember having a conversation with a colleague a couple of years in where I was trying to take all of these practices that I had learned in great hearts that served that community well and kind of import them into Claritas. And I remember we were our at Claritas, have uniforms, and we were struggling to enforce the uniform policy.
Speaker 2:And so I think in my first year of being dean of students, I said, well, we just need to implement an infraction policy. And this mom just laughed, and she said, we're not going to do that. You know? And and now looking back, like, that was so silly. You know, this is a small tight knit community, and that may have worked in a in a school where you have 500 students, and that's, you know, the sort of formality that you need to fall back on.
Speaker 2:But it didn't work in this context, in this community, and I had to learn those things over the course of time. And I think the real thing I learned through it is that you can't take shortcuts, that you need to build relationship. And building those relationships is where you're able to hold those expectations. And if you if the relationship is not there and it's not strong, any any expectation you have for the student is going to be held with resentment. And that took a few years for me to learn.
Speaker 2:And I've been able to have the sorts of deep relationships with my students in this place that I wasn't able to have in former context just because of the size and the common ground that we share in a number of different factors and also relationships with their parents, which one of the things that's really unique about Claritas is that the parents are so involved and that, especially with the younger children, there are parents on-site all the time sitting in on their kids' classes. Many of them teach. And so having that deep bond with the parent then also helps to bolster the relationship with the student and vice versa. So that's one thing that I learned. And then, honestly, the real crash course that I've had in helping a unhelpful idealism die is just having my own kids in the program.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. It it never have I been so humbled, you know, to be to be the disciplined person and then have my own child being the one making trouble in the classroom is so humbling, and it also gives me an inroad and a deeper understanding and compassion for other parents working through these things and also for the child and to understand really try to understand them in their own particular person and in their own particular context. And I frankly just don't think that I felt as motivated to do that, or maybe I didn't have the imagination that I needed for that until I had my own kids. And so now when I step into a meeting with a parent where we need to discuss something happening with their child, I am able to enter it with such humility.
Speaker 2:And, hopefully I mean, I've kind of earned my stripes in that way because I've had enough instances of needing to of being humbled myself by my own children and their struggles. So I think that and for those things to be able to dwell together for me to be able to be in that role and also be working through my own struggles as a parent, that is also a very unique gift. Mhmm. The fact that I'm able to do both things at the same time is pretty amazing, and I'm I'm really grateful to have colleagues that are both behind where I am in terms of season and a little bit ahead and very far ahead and being able to work through these things with them with a range of perspective and distance or closeness to certain situations.
Speaker 1:You know, it strikes me that some of the one of the ways I would talk about what the metaphors I would use for what you're all doing is almost like a biodynamic farm because Yeah. You you know, you have Templeton Honors College, and then you have sending you, you know, parents and teachers. Yep. And then you have students from Claritas going to Templeton. Yes.
Speaker 1:And then you have teachers going back to Templeton for master's degrees. And there's this kind of inter I mean, it's like the soil is being enriched, which we've learned, you know, it take a lot of time to enrich soil. And, you know, you use the I don't know. You use the manure and you use the, you know, all the all the parts are working together. The things you plant are kind of protecting each other.
Speaker 1:I'm wondering you know, I'm thinking about Benedict's rule. And Yeah. That's I'm wondering about maybe and and by rule, you know, I just mean, like, the measure, the standard, the the kinds of, lines, that he laid down for monastics to live together in community well. I'm wondering what maybe some of the aspects of your rule is. I'm I'm assuming it's tacit for the most part, but maybe even some explicit rules that either your community has for itself or even, that you would have for yourself in a day that have been super helpful.
Speaker 1:Also, I just wanna say that your school does pay its teachers, so this is not a volunteer I mean, obviously, people do volunteer, but it is a a paid position. And so there's a aspect of professionalism about it Yeah. That I'm imagining is part of the rule. Yes. Some of the things you've said.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So I've been so lucky to work with this woman, Kim, who has been such a friend and a mentor to me over this time. And we've worked together on coming up with different rules and also, crafting certain documents and that sort of thing that are kind of guideposts for us. So one of them is called the decorum primer, and it is a one page document that it starts with a statement, and it says something like it starts with a a belief, what we believe. You know?
Speaker 2:It it at Claritas, we believe that speech is formative and powerful, and then it has kind of subpoints under that. So for that reason, we don't gossip about one another. For that reason, we use kind words that lift one another up, and it gets more and more granular and specific. So that's one thing that we can return to easily and that we make it's not just a perfunctory thing for some people to sign at the beginning of the year and then forget about it. It really is our mirror.
Speaker 2:When we're navigating a situation, we say, okay. Are we upholding these beliefs and these tenets about students and about education? So that has been very helpful. A phrase, you mentioned Saint Benedict. One of our phrases that we often share with one another is is from Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, and he has this great quote where he says, notice all things, reprove some things, cherish the brethren.
Speaker 2:And that's something that we often refer to and remind each other of, and especially in stickier situations. Mhmm. So that would be one thing. We talk a lot
Speaker 1:interrupt one moment. Yeah. It strikes me that that one page first of all, I have been parts of organizations with, like,
Speaker 2:very big
Speaker 1:handbooks. So the one page I love. It also strikes me as a yes before the no. Like,
Speaker 2:a lot of these are
Speaker 1:the yeses of our community, almost your fiats.
Speaker 2:And absolutely. And it's something that we we lead with when we're talking with prospective families, and we ask them to read it and ask them for their response. And we ask them, is this is this a picture that you are does this document paint a picture that you're interested in being a part of and that you're excited about being a part of? Because there are things on there about cell phone usage and about the fact that we wear uniforms and, the fact that we smile at one another and greet one another by name in the halls, you know, those sorts of things. And that some people are immediately on board, and others think it's not for me.
Speaker 2:And so that's that's really helpful in that regard as well. But another thing we often say to one another is that we always seek to assume good intent on the part of one another, whether that's another teacher, whether that's a teacher of one of our students, whether that's another parent or an actual student. We always assume good intent to start. And then if there comes a point where we need to resolve a misunderstanding or a miscommunication or a conflict, we assume good intent, and then we ask a direct and kind question. So that is another one of our kind of rules that we come back to.
Speaker 2:And for me, you know, in my role, it's so helpful for me to have that in my mind. Okay. Am I assuming good intent? Okay. We need to move to the next step in this conversation.
Speaker 2:What is a kind and direct question that I can ask? So and and if others bring concerns to us, then we can turn back to them with that. Have you assumed good intent, and have you asked a direct and kind question to this person? So those are a few that I would name.
Speaker 1:How about in your day or in your week? How do you how does that translate into patterns that you aim for, when you're not at Claritas?
Speaker 2:Yes. So it's really helpful that we have the pattern of Tuesday, Thursday. Those are the days that we go to Claritas. And then we naturally have our Monday, Wednesday, Friday at home. And I would say Monday, Wednesday tend to be the kind of we're putting our hand to the plow, and we're, you know, digging into homeschooling.
Speaker 2:And I'm trying to, during nap time or in quiet moments, send a quick email or make a quick phone call or write something down for a lesson plan or whatever it is. So we also have extracurriculars on those days. So those tend to be the full full days. And then we have our Claritas days, Tuesday and Thursday. And then Friday, I tend to try to really focus on it's kind of my reordering day, bring order back to the home and deal with the odd pile of laundry that's been in the corner all week and the stack of books that's been on my desk all week and all those sorts of things and kind of prepare for rest to go into the weekend.
Speaker 2:And I've found that as time goes on and as I've had more children, rest can't usually just occur organically. You really do have to prepare for it and to be set up for it. And so I think of Friday and the first half of Saturday as my kind of, okay. I'm going to prepare to rest so that I can get have everything in order, do my grocery shopping, all of those things, and then be able to go into the second part of Saturday and Sunday for more rest. So that's kind of the the general flow of our week on a normal week.
Speaker 1:That strikes me as a very, Shabbat like, very Jewish, and it's you know, the Yeah. I interviewed a friend, who is Israeli, and I've known her for a long time. We went to graduate school together. And she, taught me how much, these rhythms and these narrowing of life, can open up rest. I I love what you say about rest being something you prepare for.
Speaker 1:I'm interested just in general in that idea of preparation and fulfillment. And perhaps in all these categories we're talking about, you know, what how that was a a dawning realization for you, in your life that you prepare for something in order for it to be fulfilled. You don't just arrive at it Mhmm. Expecting the world. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And what role has the church played in that understanding?
Speaker 2:Yes. So I guess I should have mentioned in the bio part that I became Orthodox. I joined the Orthodox Church when I was 16 as a teenager. So I was not raised in the Orthodox Church, and I was certainly not raised in anything liturgical. And liturgy was extremely, at least in the formal sense and in the context of a church, was totally foreign to me.
Speaker 2:So that was very new when I became Orthodox. And in the time since, it it's so deeply formed to me that it's it's hard to even really talk about because it's so close to me and my life and our family and the ways that it has shaped us, and I can't really imagine life without it at this point. I was thinking about this just earlier today, thinking about Advent. And, you know, right now, we're in the midst of Advent preparing for Christmas. And I was thinking a couple of things.
Speaker 2:I was thinking, first of all, about how when when you're generally living life, sometimes I step outside and I look around, and I know we're Wordsworth didn't mean it in this sense. At least I don't think he did, but that his poem, the world is too much with us. That often comes to mind just looking and think thinking, I I don't know how to bring all of this in to myself. There's so much here. I feel that when I read a good novel.
Speaker 2:I feel that when I have a good conversation with a friend. Just this kind of overwhelming sense of how boundless life is and how small our time and our capacity is to take it in. And I think the liturgical rhythms help us with that. They help us move deeper into what feels boundless. You know, thinking about, like, the mystery of the incarnation or the mystery of death and resurrection that we get to return to that every year and every week, really.
Speaker 2:The Sunday being the day of resurrection. And it's you know, a few a few lengths ago, I had a cousin. One of my sons is actually his middle name is after him, but he was just a little older than I am now. And he passed away, and he left five children. And that was, you know, weighing so heavily.
Speaker 2:And and it was Lent. And I was thinking about Christ coming to die for us and the resurrection. And I was thinking, you know, I moved through some Lent and some Pascas, Easters, and it just feels like kind of moving through the motions. And it's, okay. We fast, and we go to presanctified, and we go to liturgy, and we go to Holy Week and Pascha, and it's beautiful.
Speaker 2:But then there are other times where I almost just can't believe that I get to be that close to that mystery. And it it feels like such a gift, and then it's over. You know, that that feeling after of I wanna go back to that. You know? I I want Lent again.
Speaker 2:And but then it comes. It comes again and sooner than you think it does. And I think about that for my kids that they're able to move in and out and in and out and in and out of these mysteries. And that some years, it may not land in a profound way, but some years, it will. And they'll wish that they could move even deeper into it.
Speaker 2:And but, Lord willing, they will get the chance to, you know, the following year. It's not it's not as if moving through this life, we only get these spare, you know, transfiguration mount to board type types of moments. Sometimes we do get that, and it's I've had that in my own life, and it is such an incredible gift. But that we also have this platform in this format that we can move in and out of without relying on the kind of randomness of what goes into those moments. We can't really conjure them for ourselves.
Speaker 2:We just we need to be able to be in the context.
Speaker 1:It strikes me. You you're seeing so many beautiful things, so many helpful things. First of all, just the boundlessness of life and the privilege of it, the difficulty of absorbing it. We can never really absorb it in at any given time. We absorb it over time.
Speaker 1:And one of the gifts of liturgy is that you have time, and that time is it means that you're gonna have repeated touches or repeated encounters of a reality. But it also and I this is so helpful. It also means that you can't just pitch a tent and get stuck in one place. You can't make it. You can't sentimentalize one aspect or even the way you're feeling.
Speaker 1:You're both not responsible for conjuring up certain feelings, but nor are you allowed to sort of just stay in one place because you like it and have chosen it. And so I I feel I feel in your description just the beauty of of wholeness that is that we're externally moved through. You know, it doesn't depend on us. It's a path that we take steps on, but then it pulls us, you know, through itself, itself, through through its its system and, or deeper into the the cave or or, the underwater sea diving or whatever it is. That's lovely.
Speaker 1:I mean, it makes what you're saying renders my question about an early experience of beauty almost unnecessary because you've just told us about this beauty that's so complete in your life. But I wonder, I'm thinking of something that you did tell me once about your early experience as a student and as someone who was, worthy of investing in, worthy of talking to. I I'm not if I'm saying it quite right. But could you tell us about that? Because you had that, and it pushed you forward.
Speaker 1:And now you are giving that to others.
Speaker 2:And so it's it's profoundly important. So growing up, I you know, I don't need to go into all the details, but I really struggled in academically, in elementary and middle school, especially. And I had really poor vision that needed to be corrected, and that affected my you know, there was just a whole year of school that I couldn't read anything that was up on the board and was having trouble reading, and they didn't know. My teachers didn't know why, and then we eventually discovered it was a vision issue. And but it took time to catch up.
Speaker 2:So I kind of had this complex in my earlier life that I was not a good student and not a good learner and wasn't intelligent and all that. And then I I went into high school, and it's kind of interesting because the high school that I went to was a very small Christian high school. It's no longer around, but it I would describe it as pretty anti intellectual even though it's hard to imagine how a school could be that, but somehow this one was. And but then but strangely enough, there was a teacher there who I took a art and culture class with. That was the first class that I took with him.
Speaker 2:And he was a graduate of the Templeton or of Eastern. And he introduced me to now I would consider friends that I, you know, had never encountered before. Like, Hopkins is one of the main ones, Wendell Berry, different Dana Joya, different poets and artists, Michael O'Brien, diff different people that I had never heard of before and and ideas that I had never encountered before. And it just completely brought something alive in me, and I was suddenly just awake to my intellect and awake to these questions that I think had been stirring inside of me for all of that time. And, you know, I had always loved to read and was very full very much full of wonder as a kid, but I didn't really have a place or a context or a person to engage these ideas or work through them.
Speaker 2:And this teacher was that for me. And he, I then took went on to take a film class with him and just fell in love with film. And, he was the one that introduced me to photography, and I was into photography for a long time. He actually then became a professional photographer himself and photographed my wedding. So that was a beautiful thing as well.
Speaker 2:But he was the one that put Eastern and the Honors College on my radar. And I, at first, was like, I'm not going to Pennsylvania for college, but then ended up take doing an interview with them. And the interview was really what sold me, just hearing the way that they the sorts of questions that they were asking and the sorts of standards that they were calling their students to. That was just really attractive to me. So I have him to thank for that, and I owe him a huge debt because he really saw something in me that I didn't see in myself, and no one else was kind of calling out of me.
Speaker 2:And that was kind of the catalyst for the rest of what my life has become. And I never would have guessed that. I never would have predicted that. And I think he also gave me this sense of he kind of broke down the category of, quote, good student for me. He was able to show me that there are different kinds of ways to pursue learning and pursue ideas that are more than just acing your geometry quiz or whatever it happens to be.
Speaker 2:And that was so helpful to me as well. And I think really ultimately put me on the path to classical education to see, oh, there is this different kind of there's a different way to view education and students and the life of the mind that just so resonates with me and so speaks to my experience. So and then as you mentioned, his sister ended up becoming my college roommate, and we're still I saw her a couple weeks ago. We're still dear friends. So it, that also was another another gift from that relationship.
Speaker 1:Thank you for describing that. That's so helpful. I'm wondering, in the process of describing that, you've said this other way of learning, and you've mentioned classical education. Do you have a concise, description of that for people maybe who've never heard of that? How would you explain this other way that's that people are calling classical?
Speaker 2:Yes. It's a great question, and it's one that I think about a lot. And, of course, there it's a wide and rich and full tradition that is appropriated in multiple different ways. And so I think sometimes the conclusion from that, the fact that this wide tradition is applied in different ways is taken to as a kind of criticism of the tradition that, oh, it's not consistent. But my sense of that is that there's actually this real beauty that this very wide vast thing can be applied down to the particular and applied to a particular community and what and the people that are building that community.
Speaker 2:So but your original question, I would say that it is classical education is drawing from a rich tradition that has grown for thousands of years and is drawing out the things that that most make us human, and it asks the question, what is a flourishing human life? And classical education attempts to answer that question in its own context through the ages and drawing from the wisdom of all of this time that has come before us. And then it's able to take that large question, what is a flourishing human life? Two, what does it mean to flourish in the context of this school to what does it mean to flourish in the context of this classroom, this, and then all the way down to the particular student. And that is the thing that I have found most exciting about being a part of the tradition and a part of this movement is helping to come alongside burgeoning adults, young adults, and help them discover for themselves what it means for their life to be beautiful and to flourish.
Speaker 2:And that is such a privilege to be able to see that from up close and to help ask questions and to help put ideas and texts in front of them that help to shape and form them. But I think that is at the core of what this big thing we would call the classical education tradition is a flourishing human life and at the most particular level.
Speaker 1:It's interesting to hear you speak about it comprehensively and to speak about your role. And then also to hear that you encountered this for the first time in a place that you wouldn't call flourishing. Mhmm. You know, that it found you, and it found you through a particular person. And so what you say, you know, rings true.
Speaker 1:It that's been your experience as well as the thing that you're trying to reify in other people's lives. Yeah. I love that. I wonder if you would want to close us with a Hopkins poem. I do have I I have to say that I mean, I know we both love Hopkins, but I just had this intuition that I needed this for our this talk.
Speaker 1:And so if you don't have a book of Hopkins poems right next to you, I do. And you could tell me one to read, or you could grab one and read it for us
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:That you love.
Speaker 2:I I have mine down on my coffee table. But, for now so the poem, my kind of entry point into Hopkins was as kingfishers catch fire. And that was the first probably the first poem I ever memorized. And I it has a special place in my heart for another reason, actually. I studied abroad in Oxford during my time at the Honors College.
Speaker 2:And there was this twenty minute walk that we had to take each day from our flat to the Bodleian Library where we studied every day. And that was the time when a time when cell phones didn't work overseas. I mean, even smartphones were pretty new at that point. And so I would walk to this make this twenty minute walk every day. And I found that my mind was just such a poor friend to me at that point in my life that it was full of to do lists and things I was worried about, and I couldn't quite find a way to order my thoughts.
Speaker 2:And so I thought, I just need to memorize some poetry. And so I did, and I memorized several different poems. But I, of course, started with the one that I already knew as kingfishers catch fire. And so I can still feel this the pebbles on the path underneath my shoes,
Speaker 1:and
Speaker 2:I can picture the river right next to me and as I'm going through the lines. And that was such a formative experience to me. But That's lovely. Aside, the one that I have been most attached to recently and don't quite have it memorized yet, but have been working on it is spring and fall. I that's one that I think you actually introduced to me a few years ago.
Speaker 2:And for some reason, it has I don't know if it's my kids getting a little older or what it is, but it's just been really striking me lately. And, of course, coming just coming out of the fall season in such a beautiful and profound one.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that poem. It's so, tender. Mhmm. And and so much about the things that we're talking about too of, you know, an older voice speaking to a younger voice. I I wish you would read it because you love it so much, and you're full of it.
Speaker 1:I did just send it to you if you Okay. Let me pull it
Speaker 2:up. Okay.
Speaker 1:As you're doing this, I I do have one parting question, which is, would you say I mean, I love what you say. Your mind was a poor friend. If people wanted to begin on a path that you've been walking on, there are a lot of things that you've said that they could where they could start. But would memorizing poetry be one place to begin? Or where where would you say Yes.
Speaker 1:Start here.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I was actually just thinking about this because in my current season of life with lots of little children underfoot, I was thinking about this idea of asceticism and that in my current season, there are part of my asceticism, I would say, is not being able to surround myself with all of the beautiful things that before becoming a mother, I was used to being able to surround myself with, like reading lots of good novels just as one example. And I still try to do that, but it's much at a much slower pace. And most of my reading is in the context of my classes, which is beautiful in its own way, but it's it's different. And I was thinking, you know, one thing I'm so grateful for, even though I've gone through seasons of really lamenting, not being able to be as enriched by these great ideas and these texts is poet I wouldn't have encountered poetry in the same way were it not becoming a mother.
Speaker 2:Because when I, you know, have a baby and I'm nursing through the night, one of the best things to grab is a book of poems. And it's always, but oftentimes, they're kind of bite sized. And you can just read a few lines and just be rocking there with the baby and mulling over it and thinking about it. And maybe the baby swats the book out of your hand, but it doesn't matter because you already got those three lines in that can you can just mull on and chew on and think about. And then maybe you even start memorizing those lines.
Speaker 2:And then in another week, you have it memorized, and then you move on to the next one. So I I tend to read so much poetry when I have babies. And that is such a a gift. I I was talking with I love this. A very dear friend, your daughter, Zoe.
Speaker 2:And I'd said, you know, I think poetry is the language of postpartum after I had after I had my fourth child. And
Speaker 1:I love
Speaker 2:There was just there was something about having had a baby, and a novel didn't resonate with me in the right way. Certainly not like a TV show or a movie. Like, it was poetry. That's what I wanted right by my side and on my bed and on my nightstand and, I mean, just books of poetry everywhere and certain voices in poetry really Yes. Speaking to me.
Speaker 2:So I'm very grateful for that.
Speaker 1:The love I was part of. I love that.
Speaker 2:But I would say that, you know, if if someone is looking to begin on that journey, poetry is certainly a place to start. Psalms are a wonderful place to start. And especially for people that are in a season like mine where it's every day is just very consumed by very physical needs of lots of little people. It it's so helpful to have companions along the way that can like, we are talking about the beginning of the conversation, lift your gaze. And I love you know, one one practice that I have is I'm very lucky to have a sink that has a window and right above it.
Speaker 2:And so on my window, I put a little piece of tape, and I just tape the poem that I'm working on
Speaker 1:Oh, that's
Speaker 2:right in front of me. Yes. And that is such a helpful reminder as I'm doing this this menial task, but menial in one sense, but also an act of love and sacrifice for my family to be able to enrich and nourish my soul in a way in in the midst of that. Because without that framing and without that context, mother mothering tasks can feel, I would say, degrading at times. And in in cynical moments can feel like this is not worthy of my time.
Speaker 2:You
Speaker 1:know? Mhmm.
Speaker 2:This is not worthy of my mind. And having those things to anchor you through the day and to remind you that you are doing this in service of in love and service of these beautiful creatures that God has put in your life. Those have been like manna in the desert for me. You know? Little little things to call me up and say, these are souls that you are shaping and serving and feeding and clothing and all of those things.
Speaker 2:And that filling myself with those with that beauty is going to then, hopefully, by God's grace, overflow into the life of my children. And so in the midst of these menial tasks, having those things to be filling my cup, so to speak, so that it can then fill the lives of my children is really has been so such a helpful thing to me as a mom. So I would say start small. Start start with one poem. Start with one psalm.
Speaker 2:Start with a hymn. Whatever it may be. And sometimes it's really helpful to start with something that you can sing to your children because you are going to be hopefully singing to your children multiple times a day. And so, you know, ba ba black sheep is lovely, and that's fine. But you could also memorize a hymn in Latin and sing it to them.
Speaker 2:You know? And then that way, you're serving them and yourself and enriching both minds at the same time. So I would say just think about those ways that you know, how can you how can you stack those things in in your life so that you are you're you know, maybe you're vacuuming, and so you're serving your family, but you're also running through Psalm 50 in your mind or trying to remember that fourth stanza in the Dickinson poem or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Thank you. That's wonderful advice. Now read to us.
Speaker 2:Yes. Spring and fall. K. This is spring and fall by Gerard Manley Hopkins. It says to a young child.
Speaker 2:Margaret, are you grieving over Golden Grove? I'm leaving. Leaves like the things of man. You, with your fresh thoughts, care for. Can you?
Speaker 2:As the heart grows older, it will come to such sites colder by and by. Nor spare aside the worlds of when wood leafmeal lie. And yet you will weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name. Sorrow Springs are the same.
Speaker 2:Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed what a hardheard of ghost guessed. It is the blight man was born for. It is Margaret you born for.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Thank you for this memorable conversation. Thank you, Christine. You've been listening to Composed with Christine Perrin, podcast of the Humanitas Institute about composing well lived lives of virtue, craft, community, and delight.
