My personal George MacDonald unit study continues

Not long after my previous post about John C. Wright's review of Phantastes, I stumbled across two more local resources on George MacDonald.  The first was a mis-shelved copy of one of his novels that I hadn't read yet, in a church library.  It is one of the abridged and de-dialect-ized editions from the 1980s, but still much better than nothing.  MacDonald's fantasy novels for adults came at the very beginning and end of his career:  Phantastes at the start, and Lilith at the close.  The ones in between, besides his short stories and children's books, were almost all set in the everyday Victorian society of the time, and MacDonald attempted to bring spiritual truth very close to home for his readers.

I also finally got around to looking at the latest issue of Christian History magazine, and while the theme this time is the artist and missionary Lilias Trotter, there is quite a bit about MacDonald because he was a famous friend of a famous friend of hers, John Ruskin.

Trotter had a great deal of potential as a young artist, and Ruskin offered to train her and launch her into the uppermost level of the Victorian artist scene, but she chose instead to follow God, ending up in long-term missions work in Algiers.

An unexpected review

John C. Wright reviews George MacDonald's book Phantastes, and then follows it up with another post to analyze it.

The book is best known for being the book that was involved in awakening C.S. Lewis to a new level of spiritual and creative possibilities.

I gave up my copy of the book in the downsizing for the last move, but I remember a lot of it, after multiple readings.  It's the kind of book that needs to be read more than once.

It is a remarkably mature work, and it was MacDonald's first novel, published when he was in his early twenties, I believe.

Finally fall...

 ...after almost five months of August:  May was August, June was August, July was August, August was August, most of September was August, and even some of October has been August.

We didn't have the air conditioning on at all this year, so fall weather is a reprieve and a chance to really get moving on projects again.

In particular, dealing with all the things that have piled up all over the house.

I don't even have a craft project going on at the moment, except that I delegated one experiment to some bored children by having them draw on fabric with scraps of soap.  I will iron the fabric, wash it, and see if any grease stains from the soap survive the washing.  I'm looking for a way to give plain fabric a subtle pattern.

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Myquillyn Smith, "The Nester", is putting up transcripts with her podcasts now; an example.

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Locally, I'm watching the school board election and the referendums for funding that they have on the ballot.  The school board candidates are unimpressive.  The information from the school board on the referendums managed to outdo our last school district, by putting a lie on the first page instead of the second:  "This publication is not circulated on behalf of any candidate or ballot question."  That was at the bottom of the page, but it says "IT'S TIME TO RENEW" at the top, in much larger letters, and then they go on to do everything but fill in the "YES" ovals in the sample ballot questions.

They're trying to push through a big increase in their operating levy and have it increase with inflation.  Also, they're trying to trying to renew the technology levy, which is actually larger than the current operating levy.

A school district in one of the Twin Cities inner-ring suburbs recently called off in-person school for a day for the upper grades with only two hours notice, after some sort of threat.  I expect there will be much more of that in the future.

Homeschool moms' group, Twin Cities

I've been in a Discovery Bible Study group for the past couple of years with some wonderful women, and now it is time for me to start a new one!

My homeschooling journey has been long, but lonely--even now I can count the number of local homeschooling mothers I've met on one hand--so I am making an effort to seek out and find other homeschool moms, as well as teenage girls who want to be homeschool moms, to help foster connections and community.

No previous Bible knowledge is required, and non-Christian women and young women are welcome.

The meetings will be from 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm on the first and third Wednesdays of the month, beginning with October 18, and running through April 18, 2024, so it is not a long-term commitment.

Location:  Community of Nations Church, 2025 Skillman Ave. W, Roseville, MN  55113; room TBD, I will put signs at the entrances.

Put-together

I spent some time this morning butchering a worn-out sheet.  Some of the better parts I am saving for sewing projects, and the rest became kitchen wipes.

Last week I pulled out my old wardrobe planning booklets that I had made, which were very helpful in figuring out what I need to do next wardrobe-wise.

Among the books we've acquired over the last few months was a very interesting one:  The Doll's Dressmaker, by Venus Dodge, which has lots of ideas and patterns for dolls' clothing.  Most of them can be scaled up for human clothing.

The children are of course thinking ahead to Halloween and what their costumes will be.  One of the older ones has put together a very impressive cardboard Stars Wars stormtrooper helmet, and is now looking for a source of EVA foam floor tiles for some other part of the costume.

Sabbatical revelation

In my book on sabbaticals, I showed how God had on several Biblical occasions used times of rest to establish covenants with people:  Noah after the Flood, Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai after their liberation from the Egyptians, and Nehemiah and the Israelites after the Exile.

I was shown another one today:  God's covenant with David in II Samuel 7--also mentioned in Psalm 89--after "the LORD had given him rest round about from all his enemies".

  

Heritage

Child is home from the hospital, much improved.

Inheritance these days is mostly nonlinear/nonlineage.  I made it to an estate sale over the weekend.  Husband reported that their sign said they would be charging half-price in the afternoon.  I got there just as they were changing their sign to "Everything free".  Clearly the old person's children didn't want to deal with it any more than they had to.  Most of what was left at that point was furniture, not of interest to me at this stage, but I found a couple of bags of useful items, a desk lamp that a child needed, and a large wooden drying rack.  

I also found a vintage wooden sewing machine case at a yard sale; no machine, just the case.  I bought it for the hinges that the machine slides onto, to replace one for my great-grandmother's machine that was lost sometime after the last move.

The hinges turned out to not be the right depth for the sewing machine cabinet, but the case was a close enough fit for the sewing machine, and now it will be a lot easier to store it somewhere besides on the library desk.  I think I can make the hinges work for the cabinet later on by putting in a new piece of oak where they meet.