one of the gifts i received for my birthday this year was a copy of Laurie Bestvater’s book The Living Page: Keeping Notebooks with Charlotte Mason. reviews that i had read made me interested in the book, but i was afraid there wouldn’t be any new ground covered. i was wrong! Bestvater’s elliptical, reflective, associative style drew me in immediately. i choose to read the book straight through–without copying down or even marking quotes. i wanted to just take it all in the first time. i am only now beginning to re-read and have only made through the preface! Bestvater (and Mason behind her) put names to ideas that have been percolating in me. i’ve been seeing shadows and hints of Mason’s glorious large room. listen:
Mason had shown me that the notebooks can be forms of vitality, literally the shape and outline, the liturgy of the attentive life.
They nurture the science of relations and the art of mindfulness.
They teach us to see the very brief beauty of now, to know the landscape of here, to be present in all our pleasures and pains.
Through them we, haltingly dwell in a world of ideas and connections with an ever-higher opinion of God and his works and as truer students of Divinity.
–from the Preface, xv.
more goodness can be found over at Dawn’s place…
Oh, wow! I got that book along with The Liberal Arts Tradition for Christmas last year (it’s easy to get what you want when you give pre-bpught gifts to your husband to wrap). It is next on my list, and this only increases my anticipation. Thanks for sharing!
highly recommended! i think, as a keeper of words + quotes, you will really enjoy this book , Dawn.
peace keep you.