Commonplace Book: December

A commonplace is a traditional self-education tool: as you read, grab a notebook. Write down things that embody Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Write down notable quotes, with or without your own thoughts about them. Write down the questions you have as a result of the text you are reading. You will find the book becomes a record of your own growth, and it becomes a touchstone for memory of things you have studied in the past. This is what Mother Culture is all about: self-directed, conscious self-education. These are a selection of the passages that I've included in my commonplace book this month:




一万回分かり始まります。(10,000 times; then begins understanding.)



Repeptito mater memoriae. (Repetition is the mother of memory.)




All abuse of power is essentially a rejection of feelings too painful for the perpetrator. Each insult, each trespass helps him see the fear of these negative qualities outside of himself, once again proving that he is not the worthless one.

Attachment to status is based on fear.

Status serves as a fighting machine around a vulnerable, hurt part of the self. Empowermet brings that part to light, safely, by acceptance and nurturance. Power hides that part, perversely showing the world aggression instead of strength, control over others instead of self-control, and dehumanization instead of respect.

-Anneke Lukas, Why The Abused Don't Speak Up

I would remind you “walking bundles of habits” that there is a relationship between thoughts, actions, habits, and characters. After the language of the Bible we might well say: “Thought begat Action; and Action took unto himself Habit; and Character was born of Habit; and Character was expressed through Personality. And, Character and Personality lived after the manner of their parents.” A more conventional way of linking the above concepts is found in the words of C. A. Hill: “We sow our thoughts, and we reap our actions; we sow our actions, and we reap our habits; we sow our habits, and we reap our characters; we sow our characters, and we reap our destiny (Home Book of Quotations, p. 845)."
-Carlos E. Asay, Flaxen Threads



There is no reason why the child's winter walk should not gbe as fertile in observations as the poet's; indeed, in one way, it is possible to see more in winter, because thethings to be seen do not crowd each other out.
-Charlotte Mason, 1:86



Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not in just some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we subconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
-attributed to Marianne Williamson