Ultralight Homeschooling: Breathing Room

In light of the catastrophic flooding in North Carolina and Tennessee, I have realized that the mention of rain in the following article requires a note of explanation. When I wrote this, Hurricane Helene still churned in the warm waters of the Gulf. I had already cleared my writing desk; I placed my most necessary books and notes for an academic project in plastic tubs near the door, ready for evacuation. I went from room to room in my home, praying and thanking God for the beautiful memories we have shared in this space. Tallahassee was expecting a direct and catastrophic strike. I assumed this would be the last thing I would post for a while.

Ten miles saved my city. Instead, destruction rained on the corner of the Earth most beloved to me. I wanted to write something about the storm, recognizing the devastating loss. But there are no words. Anything I might say would be guilty of presumption. All I can say is that I grieve with you. I did not write of rain in callous indifference. As I waited to face nature’s fury, it was my small act of hope that, come what may, I would still know gifts of time and place.

 We had just settled in to enjoy a final evening by the creek when the heavens opened. After racing back up the hill to the cabin, we sat on the covered front stoop to watch the summer shower take shape. While a whole mountain range rapidly vanished behind descending mist, I poured the Bordeaux I had been saving into the only wine glasses I could find. They were small and narrow, made of thick glass. I could tell it was a good Bordeaux but could taste little of what made it so – without air it was tight, constrained, only a shade of what it was. The essence of the wine was unaffected, of course. The lack of breathing room clouded our ability to experience the fullness of the essence.

Likewise, when any expression of beauty, goodness, and truth is suffocated, our ability to perceive and love the essence of the thing is hindered. Of course, not all expressions of the transcendentals require literal breathing room to unfold their beauty to us. But they do require some mental breathing room where we set aside our churning to know analytically and allow ourselves to know intuitively.

Throughout Western civilization, intuitive (or poetic) knowledge has been considered to be the foundation of all knowledge. This is knowledge gained through experiencing the particular and the concrete through the senses. In Poetic Knowledge, James Taylor states quite simply that all knowledge begins in the senses. I would add that it is beauty that draws and compels us in this search. In recent years, The Ethics of Beauty has prompted much discussion surrounding the role of beauty. When considering poetic knowledge, beauty is undoubtedly the starting place. It is easiest to pause, receive, and know what we already perceive to be beautiful.

Poetic experience, however, should not be confused with a transcendent emotional experience. Dominican theologian Thomas Gilby describes poetic experience, clarifying that it may not be “hushed or exalted”; instead, “it may just be the experience of a concrete thing, whole and close – an experience which cannot be explained as thought on the one hand or sincerely reduced to the level of emotion on the other.”[1]

If then, we are not trying to analyze on one hand or drum up an emotional experience on the other, how do we have poetic experience? But a poetic experience is not something you “have”, it is something you enter. It requires a posture of receptivity, allowing your senses to do the work of engaging before jumping to the pattern, the abstraction. This receptivity begins with silence.

In our homeschool this year, I decided to begin one day a week with five minutes of silence. On Friday, our “scholé day,” we gather on the back porch for our silent moments before we pray the morning office. First, I read the poem “Hatley St. George” by Malcolm Guite, which inspired me in this practice. The middle stanza, my favorite, begins:

Stand here awhile and drink the silence in.
You cannot stand as long and still as these;
This ancient beech and still more ancient church.
So let them stand, as they have stood, for you.

Our porch and yard are shaded not with ancient beech but with sprawling live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. As we sit roofed by porch and tree, I tell them to watch and listen. At the end, I ask them to tell me what they notice. Last week, one of my children heard a host of bird calls that I had missed. Instead, I was listening to the rain. I never noticed all the sounds that the rain can make at once – rain trickling into the nearby gutter, rain dripping on the lily leaves, rain broken by the passing cars.

Guite’s middle stanza continues:

Let them disclose their gifts of time and place,
A secret kept for you through all these years.
Open your eyes. This empty church is full,
Thronging with life and light your eyes have missed.[2]

Our silence prepares us for the mysterious collision of repentance and grace. It is not just a posture for knowing but also for metanoia, a changing of mind. Moments of silence can lead to a radical reorientation, seeing at last the gifts of time and place. With attention, beauty expands. Suddenly, there is more beauty than we thought. Suddenly, there is breathing room.

[1] Thomas Gilby, Poetic Experience: An Introduction to Thomist Aesthetic (New York: Sheed & Ward, Inc., 1934), 11.

[2] Hatley St. George; a poem for St. George’s Day | Malcolm Guite (wordpress.com)