Links to articles that I’ve found compelling, convicting, or convivial, favorite quotes, a little food, a little music, a beautiful painting; here are just a few rabbit trails to follow…

Can You Say Separation Anxiety?  Here’s What Happens  When College Kids Have Their Smartphones Confiscated for an Hour:

“They  recruited 163 university students–with average age of 24–to a large lecture hall lacking windows, clocks, or other distractions. Upon their arrival, some of the test participants had to surrender their mobile phone, while others were allowed to keep it but had to silence it and put it away. For about the next hour, the device-deprived crowd completed a standard anxiety assessment every 20 minutes, three times in all, with nothing to do in between but sit quietly and wait.

This did not go over very well.”

Autumn is Scarf Time!  The Daughter always loves it when it gets cool enough to start wearing scarves!  Learn a few new ways to tie one on at 50 Ways to Wear Scares at The Frugal Homemaker.

With the holidays approaching, suggestions abound suggesting using honey, maple syrup, molasses and other healthier forms of sugar in seasonal confections.  Just so you don’t take your Nepalese Honey for granted:  A Raw Look Inside the Life of a Nepalese Honey Hunter. 

In my last Nunc Cognosco Ex Parte post I included two excellent posts on the physical act of writing. Since it’s fall, I’m including them again because they are really good.  The first, What Learning Cursive Does for Your Brain, is pretty interesting.  If you weren’t sure whether it was worth the agony to teach your child penmanship and cursive over their strenuous objections;  or to take the easier option and just teach them to type, well now you know!

The second, On Calligraphy and Repentance, makes a beautiful drawn connection between the hard work involved in learning calligraphy and the hard work involved in naming your sins, and striving to follow the Perfect Pattern.

There are also more and more articles on the staying power of information gleaned from reading books vs electronic devices.  Since so many of the books recommended by the Charlotte Mason curricula we pull from are classics, and several are out of print, it is a great temptation to just download free public domain versions on our Kindle. But, my personal preference and these articles have convinced me that paper is best, if I can find it:  Science Has Great News for People Who Read Actual Books,  Why Reading Physical Books Is Better For You Than E-Readers and Study Shows Readers Absorb Less Information When Reading on a Kindle. There are several other similar articles.  The studies are not yet considered conclusive.

The Daughter and I are slowly making our way through Mortimer Adler’s How to Read A Book:  The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading. Most of his suggestions for intelligently approaching a book, including inspecting a book, asking questions of the author, and making various types of notes in the margin are not as do-able with an electronic reader. For me, the inability to quickly estimate how much time to the end of the chapter, to check Notes or Index in the back, or the Table of Contents in the front (while keeping my place with my finger) or to  see my markings with a quick satisfying flip of paper pages provides enough frustration to assure a good relationship with AbeBooks.

The Demon Irony from Memoria Press discusses the influence of irony on our culture, in particular books and movies.

“Irony creates a privileged vantage point from which you can frame and stand aloof from a world you are too savvy to take at face value. Irony is the essence of the critical attitude, of the observer’s cool gaze; every reviewer who is not just a bourgeois cheerleader (and no reviewer will admit to being that) is an ironist.”

“The most obvious consequence of the dominance of modern irony is that there can no longer be a hero. This is why we no longer see epic stories being written today. The only epic hero story of any consequence written in the last 100 years is
J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and the only reason it exists in the modern world at all is because it is not modern. Although written in the twentieth century, it is of another time—a time in which greatness was acknowledged.”  Martin Cothran

Wondering how much it choked the NYT to swallow this pill…

Link:  New York Times  Discovers Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq
Link:  The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons 

“It then occurred to me that this is all news to liberals.  They spent a decade shrieking that there were no WMD in Iraq; it’s something close to a religious belief among them.  “NO WMD IN IRAQ!” and “BUSH LIED, PEOPLE DIED!” are comparable to the Islamic shahada among the modern Left, a ritual declaration of faith required of all members.  The rest of us heard reports of chemical weapons stockpiles over the years, and knowing that Saddam Hussein had a history of using such weapons, filed it away in our mental Of Course folders.  Liberals didn’t hear those reports at all.  The data just rolled through their brains without sticking to a single neuron.”  John Hayward at Human Events

Perhaps Ad Age writers aren’t aware of the school supply list addition of hand sanitizers and wipes for the classroom which would affect sales in late August and early September, still…Consumers Buying More Disinfectants and Hand Sanitizers Amid Ebola News

Finally, The Garners have been praying for Saeed Abedini now for two years.  He is the American Christian Pastor who is in an Iranian Prison.  His wife Naghmeh and his two children have been tireless in keeping his plight in the news and in front of our government officials. Recently his daughter celebrated her 8th birthday, and Saeed Abedini wrote her a letter from prison.  If you click on nothing else in this post, I urge you to read Pastor Saeed’s Letter to His Daughter Rebekka.  And while you’re visiting Samaritan’s Purse, consider helping with a donation for our brothers and sisters in Christ living in refugee camps.

“I know that you question why you have prayed so many times for my return and yet I am not home yet. Now there is a big WHY In your mind you are asking: WHY Jesus isn’t answering your prayers and the prayers of all of the people around the world praying for my release and for me to be home with you and our family.

The answer to the WHY is WHO. WHO is control? LORD JESUS CHRIST is in control.

I desire for you to learn important lessons during these trying times. Lessons that you carry now and for the rest of your life. The answer to the WHY is WHO. The confusion of “WHY has all of this happened?” and “WHY your prayers are not answered yet” is resolved with understanding WHO is in control…LORD JESUS CHRIST, our GOD!”   Pastor Saeed Abedini

Thank you for stopping by to visit Garner Goings On!  I really appreciate it!

**Post originally titled Nunc Cognosco Ex Parte 9.  The post title I’ve chosen for these sorts of posts is obscure on purpose.  Meaning “now I know in part,” the phrase is found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians towards the end of chapter 13.  It refers to the fact that our knowledge of God and His mysteries unfolds only in part during our human existence.  We must wait for full disclosure. I changed the title of this series of posts to Rabbit Trails because, Latin. I like it, others don’t.