what draws the heart

I think while I work. It's unintentional, really. It just seems that as my hands and body are busy, my heart finds time to wander and explore. Suddenly, I find myself contemplating ideas I don't remember actively pulling forward. As I puttered around the house this morning, doing things which needed done, I found myself contemplating some of the literature I've navigated this year. I was struck with how compelling are the stories which include the oppressed, the tyrannical, the rise of a hero, and redemption. I remembered Ivanhoe, and Robin Hood, and Ben Hur, who I am walking beside right now. As cheesy as it may sound, my heart swelled with the Galileans last night as Ben Hur defeated a Roman soldier and rose to hero status. I have always been a sucker for the underdog.


Then I thought about how real life doesn't veer too far from these story-lines. There is a weaving of relations to be felt. How complex life and character and choice truly are! And how important it is to guard what I allow to influence my mind, my character, my heart.


Which, in turn, reminded me about ideas I'm gleaning from my Charlotte Mason readings. She wrote...

"But the one achievement possible and necessary for every man is character; and character is as finely wrought metal beaten into shape and beauty by the repeated and accustomed action of will. We who teach should make it clear to ourselves that our aim in education is less conduct than character; conduct may be arrived at, as we have seen, by indirect routes, but is of value to the world only as it has its source in character." Towards a Philosophy of Education

"Every assault upon the flesh and spirit of man is an attack however insidious upon his personality, his will." Towards a Philosophy of Education

"For right thinking is by no means a matter of self-expression. Right thought flows upon the stimulus of an idea, and ideas are stored as we have seen, in books and pictures and the lives of men and nations; these instruct the conscience and stimulate the will, and man or child 'chooses'." Towards a Philosophy of Education

"The will has only one mode of action, its function is to 'choose', and with every choice we make we grow in force of character." Towards a Philosophy of Education

These ideas swirled through my mind, and then I considered real life situations playing out right now which include the vulnerable and the tyrannical. Some much larger than myself and some extremely personal.


I could not but contemplate the spiritual implications and applications.


It was then I noticed the washcloth in my hand, dripping on the floor. Chuckled at myself for being so introspective this early in the morning. And before carrying on, wondered if, perhaps, this, this idea that real life intersects with imaginative, is why our hearts are drawn to epic stories of heroism and redemption. I am no hero. I am just a mom, living beside a child who is far more hero than I will ever be.