The following quote is by Plato, he is referring to the art displayed in the city, but the application for today extends much further.

"We would not have our guardians (children), grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness, and sympathy with the beauty of reason."

I especially like the last line that the child's soul will insensibly be drawn into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason. I think children that are taught to appreciate the good influences of music, art, movies, as well as good and Godly counsel, will grow to naturally repel the corrupt, and have a far greater advantage in resisting soul corrupting influences. Parenting is a pro-active vocation. Bedtime stories, conversation, watching inspiring movies, exposing them to beauty in all its forms are simple investments into our children that will earn them great interest.

Photo by Paula Grenside

"The only way for a rich man to be healthy is by exercise and abstinence, to live as if he was poor; which are esteemed the worst parts of poverty." Sir W. Temple

Ha! that's ironic.

This picture of Scarlett Johannson imitating Kiera Knightley was done by 'Danger Mouse'. So sad.

People Watch

This unusual man was photographed by Manuel Libres Librodo Jr. He is a world class photographer.

Truth and Liberty

"Truth is compared in scripture to a streaming fountain: if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition.
We boast our light; but if we look not wisely on the sun itself, it smites us into darkness. The light which we have gained was given us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge.
To be still searching what we know not, by what we know, still closing up truth as we find it, this is the golden rule in theology as well as in arithmetic, and makes up the best harmony in church; not the forced and outward union of cold and natural and inwardly divided minds.
Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
The Temple of Janus with his two controversial faces might now not unsignificantly be set open. Let truth and falsehood grapple: who ever knew truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing."

John Milton, English Puritan Poet, author of Paradise Lost, 1608-1674 - Photo from the Vatican

I noticed my Neo-Counter hit 100 countries today. I have been waiting for that, nice round number and it represents a lot of different thoughts. Many of the visits are people that just happen across my blog and have different interests and don't return. But there are others of you from countries around the globe that visit regularly and I just want to invite you to leave a simple comment if you enjoy a post. We all hesitate to comment: something weird about it; but just let me know if you find a particular post inspiring. I think all bloggers appreciate that, and we are all in this thing together.

Fred

Photo by Banhup Teh, Day Dreaming.

In training our children and grandchildren, one way I present morality is as though it is a riddle and it is their task to interpret. They may discuss with one another and then, like a game show, offer their answer. Going through Proverbs or like the following post , are good challenges when age appropriate.

"Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thy self: if thou find any thing questionable there, use the commentary of a severe friend rather than the gloss of a sweetlipt flatter; there is more profit in a distasteful truth than deceitful sweetness.

If thou art rich, strive to command thy money, lest she command thee: if thou know who to use her, she is thy servant; if not, thou art her slave.

Be not censorious, for thou know'st not when thou judgest; it is a more dextrous error to speak well of an evil man than ill of a good man.

Hath any wronged thee? be bravely reveng'd: sleight it, and the work's begun; forgive it, and 'tis finished: he is below himself that is not above an injury.

Give not thy tongue too great a liberty, lest it take thee prisoner. A word unspoken is, like the sword in thy scabberd, thine; if vented, thy sword is in another's hand: if thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue.

Francis Quarles 1592-1644 Photo by Polixeni Papapetrou - Riddles

Demean thy self more warily in thy study than in the street. If thy public actions have a hundred witnesses, thy private actions have a thousand. The multitude looks but upon the actions: thy conscience looks into them."

"Beloved, the best, the wisest, the holiest, and the most mortified Christians on earth, do carry about with them a body of sin and death. Ro.7:22,23; they have in them a fountain of original corruption, and from this fountain sin will still be arising, bubbling and a-boiling up as the scum in a pot over fire. But mark, as in wine, or honey, or water, though scum and filth man arise, yet the wine, the honey, the water, will be still a-purging and purifying itself, and a working and casting it out; so though sin, though corruption, though spiritual filth may, and too often doth, arise in a gracious heart, yet there is a spring of grace, a spring of living water in him, there is a holy cleansing and purifying disposition in a regenerate person, that will still be a working and casting it out.
But now mark, in men of impure hearts and lives, the scum doth not only arise, but it seethes and boils in. Ezek. 24:12, 'She wearied herself with lies, and her great scum went not forth out of her;' notwithstanding all the threatenings of God, and all the judgments of God upon her, yet her scum and filthiness boiled in. Though God boiled Jerusalem in the pot of his judgments, yet her scum and filth stuck to every side of her. Wicked men's scum and filth doth not only arise, but it also seethes and boils in, and mingles together with their spirits; but so doth not the scum and filth that rises in a gracious heart. A sheep may fall into the mire, but a swine delights to wallow in the mire."

Thomas Brooks -Photo by William Kok

This is a little excerpt from “The Pilgrims Progress”, if you have never read it this will give you a taste of this great classic. Which was, by the way, required reading in public schools until the fifties.

“Now there was, not far from where they (Christian and Hopeful) lay, a castle, called Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair, and it was in his grounds they were now sleeping; wherefore he, getting up in the morning early and walking up and down in his fields, caught Christian and Hopeful asleep in his grounds. Then with a grim and surly voice he bid them awake and asked them whence they were, and what they did in his grounds. They told him they were pilgrims and that they had lost their way.
Then said the giant, “You have this night trespassed on me by trampling and lying on my grounds, and therefore you must go along with me.”
So they were forced to go, because he was stronger than they. They had also but little to say, for they knew themselves in a fault. The giant, therefore, drove them before him, and put them into his castle, into a very dark dungeon, nasty and stinking to the spirits of these two men. Here then they lay from Wednesday morning until Saturday night, with out one bit of bread or drop of drink, or light.
Well, on Saturday, about midnight, they began to pray, and continued in prayer till almost the break of day. Now, a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out into this passionate speech: “What a fool,” quoth he, “am I, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom called Promise that will I am persuaded open any lock in Doubting Castle.”
Then said Hopeful, “That is good news: good brother, pluck it out of thy bosom and try.”
Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom and began to try at the dungeon door, whose bolt as he turned the key gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle yard, and with his key opened that door also. After that he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened two; but that lock went desperately hard, yet the key did open it. They then thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed; but that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking that it waked Giant Despair, who hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail; for his fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the King’s highway.”
John Bunyan -- Photo by arjun das - Ray of Hope.

"The essence of all education is self-discovery and self-control. When education helps an individual to discover his own powers and limitations and shows him how to get out of his heredity its largest and best possibilities, it will fulfil its real function; when children are taught not merely to know things but particularly to know themselves, not merely how to do things, but especially how to compel themselves to do things, they may be said to be really educated. For this sort of education there is demanded rigorous discipline of the powers of observation, of the reason, and especially of the will." -- Edwin Grant Conklin 1863

I thought this was interesting but it left me hungering to know more of his ideas. Any insights, ideas and experiences are greedily accepted.

You may have seen this picture before, if you back up Einsteins face changes to Marylin Monroe's.

The following piece from the 1600's is quite a shift from today's thinking. His bias is a bit harsh, but in principle I think there is much to be gained. Now, my intentions are not to mock a mother's love, and this picture illustrates the loving care and concern of a loving mom. But the following provides balance, and hopefully historical context will allow you to read it mercifully.

“Fathers and mothers handle their children differently; mothers soften them with kisses and imperfect noises, with the pap and breast milk of soft endearments, they rescue them from Tutors, and snatch them from discipline, they desire to keep them fat and warm and their feet dry and their bellies full; and then the children govern, and cry, and prove fools, and troublesome, so long as the feminine republic does endure. But fathers, because they design to have their children wise and valiant, apt for counsel, or for arms, send them to severe governments, and tie them to study, to hard labor, and afflictive contingencies.
They rejoice when the bold boy strikes a lion with his hunting spear, and shrinks not when the beast comes to affright his early courage. Softness is for slaves and beasts, for minstrels and useless persons, for such who cannot ascend higher then the state of a fair ox, or a servant entertained for vainer offices: But the man that designs his son for noble employments, to honors, and to triumphs, to consular dignities and presidences of counsels, loves to see him pale with study or panting with labor, hardened with sufferance or eminent by dangers: and so God dresses us for heaven. He loves to see us struggling with a disease, and resisting the devil, and contesting against the weaknesses of nature, and against hope to believe in hope, resigning our selves to God’s will, praying him to choose for us, and dying in all things but faith and its blessed consequences.”

Jeremy Taylor - Photo by Judith Quinones

"Chastity is either abstinence or continence. Abstinence is that of Virgins or Widows: Continence of married persons. Chaste marriages are honorable and pleasing to God: Widowhood is pitiable in its solitariness and loss, but amiable and comely when it is adorned with gravity and purity, and not sullied with remembrances of the passed license, nor with present desires of returning to a second bed.

But Virginity is a life of Angels, the enamel of the soul, the huge advantage of religion, the great opportunity for the retirements of devotion: and being empty of cares, it is full of prayers: being unmingled with the world, it is apt to converse with God: and by not feeling the warmth of a too forward and indulgent nature, flames out with holy fires, till it be burning like the Cherubim and the most ecstasied order of holy and unpolluted Spirits."

Jeremy Taylor - Photo by Manuel Libres Librodo Jr.

War Dance

I watched 'War Dance' last night. I loved it. From the DVD jacket it says - "Set in war-ravaged N. Uganda,the Oscar nominated War Dance will touch your heart with a real-life story about a group of children whose love of music brings joy, excitement and hope back into their poverty stricken lives." This would be a gross understatement.
I highly recommend this film.
As I was at church this morning considering the children in the film, praying for them and horrified by what they suffered, and confused why the wicked prosper, the thought drifted into my mind "I am there." And He is. Not a religious movie, but where great sorrow is, there is Faith in God, and their faith couldn't be edited out, it is too much a part of their life. One day this will all be over and there will be no more tears........ I'm looking for that day.
Thank "ThinkFilms" for their noble use of film.