Chapter four in Leisure, the Basis of Culture was one that connected a lot of dots for me back when I first read it. It was because of the ideas sparked by chapter 4 that I picked the word convivial for my blog title, because it summed up what I wanted for my home:
- feasting
- togetherness
- fellowship
- happiness, pleasantness, shared joy
Worship brings scholé
The deepest root, then, from which leisure draws its sustenance […] lies in worshipful celebration.
Sunday, the Lord’s Day, is to be our primary and chief pocket of leisure in our lives. It is the day God has told us to set aside as one for worship, for rest, for community – those needs that we have as humans that we can easily squeeze out when we get wrapped up in our own agendas. Sunday worship provides the model and pattern for what leisure, which is scholé, should look and feel like.
In our last Scholé in Your Home or Homeschool class, Dr. Perrin suggested we use the 1-in-7 pattern to think about setting up our days. If that is the ratio we should seek to build, then perhaps this is not so hard as we might think.
It is not that we should be trying to make every moment of our entire school day all contemplation, connection, and scholé, but that such times should receive their fair balance along with the work and labor of learning.
Our school day is typically about 4-5 hours long, and about 45 minutes of that time is Morning Time. So right there, our ratio is beyond 1/7. Add in some nature journalling, conversation time, classical music, a walk, and we realize that perhaps this whole homeschool-scholé thing is actually not intimidating, difficult, or time-consuming.
Then if there’s quiet time, time to have some peace and rest, perhaps while drawing and listening to an audio book, playing or reading outside, building with Legos or playing with playmobil or setting up a restaurant with the toy kitchen (play is scholé), our children’s daily hours might even be legitimately half scholé and half productive, useful work.
When separated from worship, leisure becomes toilsome, and work becomes inhuman.
But the ultimate leisure, the real scholé is a scholé that is not about quiet, but is about worship and connecting with what is really real, what is True Truth. Without worship, without honoring and glorifying God in the midst of our daily activities as well as during set aside times daily and weekly, we lose touch with our humanity because we lose touch with what we were created for in the first place: To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We glorify God when we take time to be still and pray and worship. We glorify God when we do our work well. We enjoy God when we notice His hand wherever we look. Whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we can do it for His glory.
It is doing all things being mindful of God’s presence that connects us with true scholé leisure.
“in festive consort with the gods,” man regains his true worth, and recovers his upright posture.
My Book Bag
- Theology: The Doctrine of Repentance by Thomas Watson
- Science: The Story of Science by Joy Hakim (pre-reading)
- Humanities: Reordered Loves, Reordered Lives by David Naugle
- Whim: The Liberal Arts Tradition and Leisure, the Basis of Culture for class
- Fiction/Memoir: Beowulf by J.R.R. Tolkien (Matt gave this to me for my birthday!) & The Odyssey alongside Hans (this will be my third time)
Get more great quotes & recommendations at ladydusk’s Wednesday with Words!
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