Make Up Your Mind: A newsletter for those who want to read, think, and listen better
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Welcome! This newsletter lays out the current "why, what, and how" of my own pursuit to read, think, and listen better. I hope you find it useful.
WHY
“Anger is the deepest form of compassion, for another, for the world, for the self, for a life, for the body, for a family and for all our ideals, all vulnerable and all, possibly about to be hurt.” David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
I’m not fully convinced by Whyte’s definition yet—that anger is the deepest form of compassion—but it has me thinking. When Jesus saw the multitudes like sheep with no shepherd, uncared for, unseen, he was moved with compassion for them (Mat. 9:36). The fact that he was moved with compassion hints that there is action involved and we know how far Jesus went in his compassion. I can see how that compassion is tied to justice, and anger, and action. Yet we are warned about sinning in our anger, and this is often the action we see: I get mad; I yell; I react violently and sin. Even if my “violent reaction” is only with my words, it’s still violent, still a damaging effect of the anger I’m feeling. Somehow, somewhere, our anger can cross a line.
When my kids were younger and had their verbal disputes, I would often tell the one pleading their case to me, “Be silent, knowing you are right.” It was a short mantra meant to convey the message that you will not always be able to convince another person of the rightness of your words or your convictions or your version of the story, and that’s ok. Sometimes making peace means letting someone be wrong, even if you suffer a small injustice because of it.
But if anger is the deepest form of compassion, as Whyte claims, there is a time to push your point, to let compassion—that sense of suffering alongside another—produce a passionate action from you, with the goal of bringing justice, or at least relief, to the one suffering.
If you are the one suffering, it gets sticky. Compassion for your self can be mixed up with pride and ego and all the things that bring a snare, the things that Jesus points us away from in his instruction to love our enemies. But can anger be a godly form of compassion for another, for the world, for ideals (even your own), for the vulnerable and all possibly about to be hurt?
I’m fairly easy-going and don’t get too fired up, but there have been times my anger has shown up as the easily recognized fury it is, and it has come lately over the dispute about words—actual spoken or written words. When someone’s words are twisted out of their intent, not heard or read with a goal of understanding the one communicating, or just lazily accepted or denied with no thought, I get angry. I am not perfect in my understanding—I know I’ve misread or misheard people before and hastily formed opinions because of it. I’ve occasionally been accused of quick assumptions at home with my children, and it’s always humbling to be corrected on your own test. But words provoke my compassion because they stand for so much.
Words are the medium we use to paint the world a picture of us, the real, inside-us person. We can weigh too heavily on either side of "careful" with them, calculating the picture we paint too precisely or lamely slopping words around without thought, but the way we listen to words is just as important. The way we interpret plain speech, the way we infer meaning, the way we define terms and seek to understand, or dominate, with words is important. When we misinterpret someone’s words, we misrepresent them, and this is extremely unjust.
I have not often fought for my spoken words to be heard. In a group setting, I rarely interrupt to "have my say” and I would always prefer to be asked my opinion rather than to offer it unsolicited (unless I can be funny—I’m always willing to interrupt with sarcasm, unfortunately). The last several years, though, my fury over words has shown up as anger, expressed in words, and this is what has made me consider what might be valid in Whyte’s definition. My anger is over the injustice of misrepresentation that happens when we’re lazy with words, and that, I suppose, is the essence of this newsletter—the “why” of my learning.
I want to read better, think better, listen better. I want to handle words with intention and have discussions that promote understanding—and agreement is not always necessary.
This quote from an article at Morning by Morning, by Tommy Welty, sums it up: "When reading lines of poetry, I am equipped to enter the world of another, to learn how to understand them, and care for them as Jesus does. Poetry, with its repetition and figurative language, instructs me to pay special attention to the words on the page and to feel something. This helps me obey Jesus’ instruction to, 'Love your neighbor as yourself' (Mark 12:30-31 NIV). Loving my neighbors requires inhabiting their world, reading and rereading their stories, to let my heart be moved to compassion like Jesus."
I hope the links and thoughts I share in this newsletter will be an aid to you as you seek to make up your mind with things that matter—like compassion and justice.
WHAT
Here’s the current link to my Homeschool MFA plans in Evernote. What's a Homeschool MFA? Read more by clicking here.
READING::
How to Think by Alan Jacobs
"You have to be a certain kind of person to make this book work for you: the kind of person who, at least some of the time, cares more about working toward the truth than about one’s current social position.”
Great read. Jacobs highlights the hard work that it actually takes to think well and points out some of the influences on how we think and why. One of my takeaways is his point about “thinking for yourself”: you can’t. He says that everything you think is a response to what someone else has thought and said. I think he’s right.
Life of the Beloved by Henri J. Nouwen
This book came at the right time for me. I finished it on the plane ride home from Refine {the retreat} at the end of March and it reiterated so many things God was showing me over that weekend, and I’m so happy to have finally given Nouwen a read. My copy is probably 75% underlined or bracketed, which makes it hard to choose a quote to share here.
“I believe deeply that all the good things our world has to offer are yours to enjoy. But you can enjoy them truly only when you can acknowledge them as affirmations of the truth that you are the Beloved of God. That truth will set you free to receive the beauty of nature and culture in gratitude, as a sign of your Belovedness. That truth will allow you to receive the gifts you receive from your society and celebrate life. But that truth will also allow you to let go of what distracts you, confuses you, and puts in jeopardy the life of the Spirit within you.”
At the end of this short book Nouwen writes about how he failed in writing it. He set out to write something for a secular friend that would help him to hear and understand the Spirit, that would lead him to a spiritual life. What he realized in the end was that God does indeed use “his secular friends to instruct his disciples”, and he published it, not because he succeeded in his goal, but because an unintended audience of Christian readers was so blessed by it.
This feels “old” in internet time but it was only 21/2 months ago. In her article, Claire Potter illustrates why we should not get our information from viral videos. I’m refraining from using all capital letters here, but it’s also the VERY REASON I get worked up about words—and images, in this case. Read carefully. Watch carefully. Be thoughtful, for goodness’ sake. (Reminds me of this post about words.)
"Learning isn’t confined to primary school and the youthful days of university — which is a good thing, considering how much time college kids spend socializing, partying and generally not learning.
Instead, learning should be a never-ending pursuit.”
7 Ways to Retain More of Every Book You Read by James Clear
Super helpful article by the author of Atomic Habits, which is on my list to read.
LISTENING::
Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
I’m discovering that I love a good memoir in audiobook-format, read by the author. This story is similar to Tara Westover’s Educated, which I listened to last year—both are stories of growing up in the midst of complete dysfunction and mental illness. Family loyalties are strong, though, and Jeanette’s story honors those loyalties. (There is “language” in the story, and several events that may trigger painful memories for some listeners.)
I stumbled on this through an IG rabbit-hole. Baggott’s done a six-week audio series on efficient creativity and offered the first one for free. She says, basically, that innovation requires boldness and boldness means you’re prepared, emotionally, to fail:
Laziness is fear in disguise.
Lack of time, fear, and laziness can all be conquered by mastering your creative process and habits.
Writing while not writing is essential.
Someone Stole My Socrates at Schole Sisters podcast
This one is all about the Socratic Method of discussion, which we use a lot in the group I tutor on Mondays. The ladies discuss what true Socratic dialogue is and some of the spin-offs that don’t quite meet the requirements. (This may only be of interest to teachers, but Socrates’ ideas about how we learn and how we teach are helpful to us all—most notably, his belief that a true student has to come to a place of not knowing, or of realizing that they don’t know or understand something, before they can move forward in their learning.)
WATCHING::
We watched this live performance by David Payne at the end of March and I was fascinated by his memory! The link above is to a YouTube video of the performance in 2008.
"The year is 1962 and C.S. Lewis, the famous British author, is hosting a group of American writers at his home near Oxford. They are about to experience a captivating evening with a man whose engaging conversation and spontaneous humor made him one of the great raconteurs of his day. Seated in his living room, he recalls the people and events that inspired his thoughts and shaped his life; of his friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien, why he nearly abandoned the Narnia Chronicles, how he came to embrace Christianity and of the American woman who turned his life upside down.”
Why We Should Read Flannery O’Connor at Open Culture
This is a short TED Ed video, but you’ll also want to read the article below it.
This is an inspiring little video about inspiration. Books, movies, art, images, nature. It’s all fuel. WRITING::
This post is about a dead cow that is slowing decomposing along the highway, but it's not just about the cow.
We were out of power for eleven days and I had some feelings about it.
This one. This post is all the things God is teaching me right now, all the hurdles I'm crossing, all the truths I'm remembering, all the small things that are huge.
I'm always micro-blogging on Instagram, as well. These pictures are from my trip to Ohio for Refine {the retreat} and I shared a little about that on my IG. It was the best.
HOW
I’ve written a little bit before about how I use Evernote (I’m typing in it right now) but there is a new feature that popped-up recently that is making me love it even more. I say “popped-up” because I’m not actually sure when this feature came about—maybe it was there all along? But I’ve only recently noticed it and it’s great.
The feature is “context” and it shows up at the bottom of the note I am working in. Basically, it’s like a google search of all my own personal Evernote content. It searches key words in what I’m writing and finds other things I’ve written or saved in Evernote (I save online articles I read, draft my blog posts and newsletters, and organize some meeting notes in Evernote), and links to them. Voila. It connects my thoughts for me.
I use Evernote to take a picture of all my handwritten notes from my reading, and I also send all my kindle highlights to Evernote. This means the context feature will always lead me to pertinent quotes from things I’ve read. And because I draft my blog posts in it, it’s like a continuing search of related material I’ve written about already, and will hopefully keep me from repeating myself.
If you need to expand your Evernote prowess there are two good places to look: Michael Hyatt and Mystie Winkler are both experts—he is a productivity and business guru; she is a homeschooling mom and very smart lady. I’m going to brush up a little and see how I can streamline my notes even more.
That’s all for this month’s newsletter. Thanks for reading. Thanks for sticking around as I go through phases ; ) And thank you for letting me know what is helpful and what has left you with questions. I love to hear and learn from you!
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