Monday-Tuesday, 5/20-21 - Quo Vadis? Where are you going?

Quo Vadis, Domine?

• P&P

• We began the year asking the question "Quo Vadimus?" ("Where are we going?"), implying that we were planning on going somewhere as a class through the literature of one strand of our forefathers, the English peoples. We now ask the question "Quo Vadis?" ("Where are you going?"), implying a dispersion of the senior class to many places on the face of this earth. However, those of you who are connected to Christ and His Church, we still ask the question "Quo Vadimus?" since we are still united through His body, regardless of geographical dispersion. If we could encourage in three indivisible aspects of a healthy life as you disperse it would be these bits of wisdom: find a faithful imaginatively orthodox church, choose godly friends, and remain in the Word. This is what Lady Wisdom would say as you venture into these highly formative years of your life.

• See the post below to prepare for your final; all the instructions are there. And here is the schedule for the week.

 

Quo Vadis?

We began the year asking the question "Quo Vadimus?" ("Where are we going?"), implying that we were planning on going somewhere as a class through the literature of one strand of our forefathers, the English peoples. We now ask the question "Quo Vadis?" ("Where are you going?"), implying a dispersion of the senior class to many places on the face of this earth. However, those of you who are connected to Christ and His Church, we still ask the question "Quo Vadimus?" since we are still united through His body, regardless of geographical dispersion. If we could encourage in three indivisible aspects of a healthy life as you disperse it would be these bits of wisdom: find a faithful, imaginatively orthodox church, choose godly friends, and remain in the Word. This is what Lady Wisdom would say as you venture into these highly formative years of your life.

The Touchstone articles below have been intended to encourage you as you consider your impending collegiate future. We want you to be armed with wisdom so you are not led astray by the many smooth words you'll hear in many a lecture hall. As I was thinking about the Spirit of the Age (the World) vs God's Spirit, I remembered a touching yet heart-wrenching episode in the life of Flannery O'Connor, which I believe shows the gravity of what we've been discussing. I hope this following passage speaks warning and wisdom . . . winsomely, as it gets to the heart of the difference between moderns and Christians.

In addition to her literary insights, O’Connor was an insightful prophetess, capable of fingering the pulse of a dying western world, effectively diagnosing its religio-philosophic ills. In her day, secular humanism, what she termed “positivism” and therefore “nihilism,” was “the gas you breathe.” To her late tragic friend, Betty Hester (publicly known as “A”), O’Connor declared, “If I hadn’t had the Church to fight [nihilism] with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now” (CW 949).  In a touching appeal to help heal Hester’s overwhelming past—strewn with witnessing her mother’s suicide and receiving a dishonorable discharge from the Army for a sexual indiscretion— O’Connor wrote, “Where you are wrong is in saying that you ‘are a history of horror’; the meaning of the Redemption is precisely that we do not have to be our history” (qtd. in Enniss). Sadly, even with Hester’s brief communicative detour through the halls of the Catholic Church, it seems nihilism’s noxious gas eventually overwhelmed the oxygen supply of the Church, snuffing out Hester’s life by suicide in 1998. This heart-rending appeal for Hester to live in the light of a mystery larger than the small shadow of her past echoes O’Connor’s appeal to her audience in all her fiction. 


To further prepare for your Final Essay on modernism and to continue those echoes, begin reading this rather helpful piece on what the Faith means in response to Modernism/Postmodernism: "Imaginative Orthodoxy." Mills identifies so many modern/postmodern tenets and critiques of them, which will help you immensely on your final essay.

Modernism (20th Century) - link

Modern Stories 

• "The Destructors"  
• "Once upon a Time"
• "Eveline"  
• "The Open Window"
• "The Rocking-Horse Winner"
• "The Monkey's Paw" or this one, different link     

Quo Vadis? (critiques of modernism)

• On Jane Austen, voting, feminism, and Mr. Wickham - Chesterton
• "Austen's Powers" - on Mr. Darcy and Heathcliff
• (Schwager) "A Geography of Kind" - on subtle beauties  
• (Reno) "Over Our Dead Bodies" - on the glory of man
• "Polonius's Lie"
• "Imaginative Orthodoxy" 

  

Thursday, 5/16 - Imaginative Orthodoxy

• P&P

• Check J14 and discuss
• "Imaginative Orthodoxy"

HW: Study for your final

 

Wednesday, 5/15 - Does not Wisdom call in the streets . . . and on the beach?

• P&P

• Finish rolling in the deep articles we've been digesting and finish taking notes for tomorrow.

HW: 

1. (Reno) J14 - Notes on Two Articles
1. "Over Our Dead Bodies"
• Finish reading
• Try to figure out his overall point(s) he is making
• Write out three quotes that you believe best represent Esolen's article
• How is this article a critique of modern thought? 
1. "Polonius's Lie"
• As you read, identify Markos' conclusion (his thesis)
• Identify two or three premises (see your lit term notes)that support his conclusion
• Identify three quotes you believe represent Markos' article
• Identify any counter arguments you see
• Does he concede or refute them?
• How is this article a critique of modern thought?

2. Schwager's Ladies and Gentlemen

1. I will check your binder whilst you read the next essay and respond to your reading in your notes (this is not a journal for us, just notes to work from...and for you to use on your essay next week).  

• "A Geography of Kind"
• What are some delightful characteristics you see more often in boys than in girls?  In girls than in boys?
• What are some delightful characteristics of your local habitation?  
• What are some ways that modern society, planning, architecture, education, etc. actually flatten, truncate, ignore, or eradicate the beauty of the kinds that God has given us? 
• How does Esolen use "kind" in this piece?
• How is it even imaginatively conceivable that Esolen's grandfather made a hill more of a hill?  How can you do that in this world?
• Esolen says that there is no Levittown in the Bible except for Laodicea.  That is an allusion to Revelation 3:13 and following.  What does Esolen mean by that allusion?   
• Are all apparent differences equally valid? How can we distinguish between God-inspired difference that we should nurture and encourage...and difference that will ultimately flatten, deaden, and grey our souls?  Can you think of any modern examples?

• "Polonius's Lie"
• As you read, identify Markos' conclusion (his thesis)
• Identify two or three premises (see your lit term notes)that support his conclusion
• Identify three quotes you believe represent Markos' article
• Identify any counter arguments you see
• Does he concede or refute them?
• How is this article a critique of modern thought?

Tuesday 5/14: Essay On!

• P&P

• Today is an Extended Chapel Schedule since Greg Speck is here.

• Finish Esolen article we began

• Reno - 
• "Over Our Dead Bodies"
• Finish reading
• Try to figure out his overall point(s) he is making
• Write out three quotes that you believe best represent Esolen's article
• How is this article a critique of modern thought?

•  Reno and Schwager-- "Polonius's Lie"
• As you read, identify Markos' conclusion (his thesis)
• Identify two or three premises (see your lit term notes)that support his conclusion
• Identify three quotes you believe represent Markos' article
• Identify any counter arguments you see
• Does he concede or refute them?
• How is this article a critique of modern thought?

• Schwager -



Levittown, PA, named after the planner and father of American suburbia, William Levitt, is Esolen's physical example of what many modern trends in education seek to do to the beautiful distinctions God has creatively placed in, on, and around us. 

•  



Macadam...the old word for asphalt.  Esolen decries the flattening, desertification schemes of modern culture.

• "A Geography of Kind"
• What are some delightful characteristics you see more often in boys than in girls?  In girls than in boys?
• What are some delightful characteristics of your local habitation?  
• What are some ways that modern society, planning, architecture, education, etc. actually flatten, truncate, ignore, or eradicate the beauty of the kinds that God has given us? 
• How does Esolen use "kind" in this piece?
• How is it even imaginatively conceivable that Esolen's grandfather made a hill more of a hill?  How can you do that in this world?
• Esolen says that there is no Levittown in the Bible except for Laodicea.  That is an allusion to Revelation 3:13 and following.  What does Esolen mean by that allusion?   
• Are all apparent differences equally valid? How can we distinguish between God-inspired difference that we should nurture and encourage...and difference that will ultimately flatten, deaden, and grey our souls?  Can you think of any modern examples?

Monday, 5/13 -

• P&P

• Finish any remaining poetry recitations

• Finish Esolen article we began
• Reno - "Over Our Dead Bodies"
• Schwager - "A Geography of Kind"

• If there's time, let's check out this one: "Polonius's Lie"

HW: None 

Block, 5/9-10 - Poetry Resuscitation

• P&P

• Poetry Recitation (in which one recites, not resuscitates, a poem) ; )

•  Against (post)Modernism articles
• Finish "Austen's Powers" - on Mr. Darcy and Heathcliff
• "A Geography of Kind" (Esolen) - on subtle beauties  
• "Over Our Dead Bodies" (Esolen) - on men who give their bodies 

HW: None