The first hints of spring are in the air, and we looking to warmer days and Spring Break just around the corner!
Ash Wednesday (March 2nd) marked the beginning of the penitential season of Lent. As we received the cross of ashes on our forehead and heard the words "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return," we were reminded of our sinfulness and the life and hope we have in the crucified and risen Savior.
In February, we very much enjoyed holding admissions meetings with families who applied to ILS for the 2022-2023 school year. It was wonderful to hear more about what attracted them to Immanuel, and so much of what they shared centered both on the type of culture and community we have here at ILS, as well as the emphasis we place on the role of parents in the education of their children. We are excited to welcome a number of new families to join our Immanuel community in the upcoming school year!
Every month, we compile a "What we're reading..." blog post with a selection of articles that we would like to share with our community as we think about shaping and nurturing our culture together at school and at home. These are pieces that our faculty and staff have found recently to be inspiring, intriguing, encouraging, or thought-provoking. Are there things that you have read that you think others in our community may enjoy reading? Please feel free to share a link in the comments to email us any time!
Thank you for your continued partnership, and for engaging with us!
‘A march behind the cross’: Lutherans advocate, teach, care for life - Roy Askins, The LCMS Reporter
“On Jan. 21, several hours prior to the start of the National March for Life in Washington, D.C., Lutherans preparing to march gathered for the Divine Service at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Alexandria, Va. As worshipers knelt in silent contemplation and confession of their sins, the cry of an infant broke the silence.
It is no coincidence that these marchers began at church. Deaconess Tiffany Manor, director of Life Ministry for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), explained the connection: “We like to start with a Divine Service in which we receive the forgiveness of sins, lament the lives lost to abortion, and are strengthened through the Word preached to us and the Sacraments received.”
Following the service, worshipers exited the church, led by the processional cross. “The liturgical statement of the crucifix leading us both toward the altar and, later, out of the church is a statement that in this alone is the good that overcomes the world’s evil,” preached the Rev. Christopher Esget, senior pastor of Immanuel and fifth vice-president of the LCMS. Esget continued, “The march for life is a march behind the cross.”
The sound of young children was not limited to the sanctuary at Immanuel. Despite the bitter cold, every age — from young child to seasoned adult — marched for life. Danele Otten, a member of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Hamel, Ill., who was participating in the march for the first time, said, “What struck me the most was how many of the participants seemed to be under the age of 30.”
Others also noted the youthfulness of the marchers. “There’s something very salutary about [confessing the truth] in front of people, especially for young people,” said the Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison, president of the LCMS. “This [march] is an act of confession before a hostile world that does not want the confession.””
Quinquagesima - Pastor Rogness, Rogness on Tap
“This past week, there was an image circulating the internet of a Ukrainian woman, eyes closed, grasping, and holding a crucifix in one hand against her forehead as she prayed for peace in her land.
Unfortunately, war has arisen again.
It wasn’t long ago the United States of America was still engaged in armed conflict, some of the most prolonged periods of fighting we had seen in our lifetime. For some of us, the images of these conflicts remain etched into our minds, seared into our hearts; we no longer require the physical vision of our eyes to re-experience the tragedy of war.
And neither do any of you. While the conflict has different manners of manifesting within one’s life, everyone experiences a war within their hearts.
Yes, it all began in the Garden, but it continues within you. The argument with your parents from years ago remains etched within your mind. The emails that have filled your inbox this week continue to fill your heart with rage and anger.
These memories that haunt and the present anger you experience send you into consuming darkness, a consuming battle of the heart – where will you go? Where will you turn for relief?
Where will you turn? A constant question for the Christian life, especially amid the turmoil.”
Music Education and Child Development - Mrs. Marie Greenway, Prelude to Postlude: CPH Music Blog
“The ancient Greeks recognized the importance of music as part of a complete education. In the Greek gymnasiums of ancient times, men sought physical fitness through training, but education in music was also essential. Greek philosophers argued that music was important because it refined the mind. Gymnastics (or physical training) and music together completed a man’s education.
Music Forms the Mind, Body, and Heart
I think there is an argument to be made that a musical education forms the mind, body, and heart of a student. After all, to learn music, a student must develop some academic prowess. He must know his letters and his numbers and learn note values and fingerings. His mind must be engaged whether he is reading sheet music or playing by ear.
Music is also an active pursuit involving the entire body. Musicians must focus on breathing and the movement of their arms, hands, fingers, legs, and feet. It also demands endurance, as concerts or church services often last an hour or longer. During this time, the musician must always be engaged both mentally and physically. An unfit or unhealthy musician would find it extremely difficult to last for that whole period.
Finally, playing music forms the heart, the seat of emotion. When learning a piece of music, a musician must not only have intelligence and physical fitness, but he must also be able to play with emotion. The emotion shown in music must be the right amount, though. Too little emotion and a piece becomes dull and mechanical. Too much emotion and a piece becomes sentimental and schmaltzy. Learning music requires that a student find the perfect middle ground.”
The Great Conversation: Love - Part IV - Matt McKeown, CLT Blog
“The fourth and last of the traditional loves is αγάπη (agapē), which is generally translated as something like “unconditional love” or “selfless love.” Through the Latin caritas, “charity” was for a long time the conventional term for this love in English—though in more recent years the word charity has tended more specifically to mean donating money to people or causes that need it. In the western tradition, this kind of love is specially associated with God, and tends to indicate a generous, provident care for the beloved that seeks no benefit for itself, not even the pleasure of the beloved’s company or reciprocal affection. A terminally ill person secretly making arrangements to provide for a friend after their death affords an example: the dying person is not seeking even the short-term benefit of gratitude, only the actual well-being of the friend.
It would not be quite accurate to identify this love with compassion; compassion is specifically for the suffering, and charity (in the old sense) can be extended to anyone, whether they are suffering or not. However, compassion is probably the commonest and most obvious example of charity, and this is probably how giving money to the needy—what used to be called “alms”—became the word’s primary meaning.
One of the things that makes compassion a useful shorthand for charity more generally is that it is given not because it is deserved, but simply because it is needed. This is particularly clear in the case of that type of compassion we call “forgiveness,” which is not only undeserved but, by its very nature, given to those who do not deserve it. Forgiveness has accordingly become a bit of a dirty word in some circles today; it is not hard to see how “Show love to those who do not deserve it” can be twisted into cover for emotional manipulation and abuse. Many of the great minds of our tradition have recognized this, and, more generally, recognized that truly unconditional love is an intimidating task. As Dostoevsky put it in The Brothers Karamazov, “I am sorry I can say nothing more to console you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.””
Genuine Education: Guiding the Rational Soul to Happiness - Philip Jeffery, The Imaginative Conservative
“Broadly speaking, liberal education is an educational program suitable for study by a free person, aiming at ‘happiness,’ ‘blessedness,’ and ‘human flourishing.’ While this definition is by no means comprehensive or unambiguous, it is an effectual premise by which to proceed in our inquiry. In the context of liberal education, freedom is in essence the so-called ‘free-born mind.’ Freedom in this context could also be defined in a Cartesian or Hegelian manner as a type of self-consciousness endemic to, and characteristic of, the truly thoughtful individual. Inherent in such a conception of freedom, is the notion that the process known as liberal education—which is undertaken via both the senses and mental faculties—leads to both self-knowledge and knowledge of the external world, so that individuals may direct their actions and love towards that which is worthy, as opposed to that which is expedient, useful, or otherwise fleeting and superfluous:
”For it seems to me that the first ideas which his mind should be made to absorb must be those that regulate his behavior and morals, that teach him to know himself, and to know how to die well and live well. Among the liberal arts, let us start with the one that makes us free. They are all of some service in teaching us how to live and employ our lives, as is everything else to a certain extent . . . Everyone should ask himself this question: ‘Beset as I am by ambition, avarice, temerity, and superstition, and having so many other enemies of life within me, shall I start speculating about the motions of the world?[3]”
In this passage, Montaigne implicitly suggests what has already been hinted at throughout this exposition, i.e. that genuine education is necessarily and inherently moral and poses the fundamental questions: “what is the proper function of a human being and how should we live in light of this?” Since man is the only rational animal, the answer to the aforementioned question about adapting means to ends seems to suggest that the proper function of man is a rational life in accordance with the natural order; or to formulate this another way: the proper function of the human being is to first deduce and apprehend—and then actualize via courageous and bold activity—the Universal Principles of Reason. Thus, it would seem the first step towards human flourishing is attaining some degree of wisdom, which Cicero defined as “the knowledge of everything divine and human, and of the causes which regulate them.””
Embracing Our Limits: Dedication in a World of Endless Choice - Nicole Penn, Public Discourse
“Millennials and Gen Zers have been subjected to decades of social messaging that the good life is predicated on fostering unbounded dreams, reaching for ever-towering heights of achievement, and “changing the world.” Two new books push back against this narrative, urging readers to make a stand against the chaos and vapidity of our world by delineating a small corner of it that will demand our care and attention, making choices that limit yet enrich our existence.”
Does Jesus Want Us to Pursue Beauty? - Hannah Carmichael, CIRCE
“Classical students should absolutely study and see clearly the human attempts all throughout history at capturing the glory and beauty of God as seen in creation and in His wonderous deeds. However, if they become an erudite scholar on Dante’s “Divine Comedy” or Renaissance realism or Bach’s counterpoint but continue to base their hope of Heaven on their good works or knowledge or accomplishments or purgatory, they have missed the point of beauty entirely. Their knowledge of art and poetry and music is like the pharisees’ flowy robes and verbose prayers: vain.
The spectrum of beauty in creation serves as a reminder that any beauty we possess or create or see in this world is an infinitesimal fraction of God’s beautiful character. The way people feel when they stare at the Grand Canyon, read a beautiful poem, see an attractive person, listen to a gorgeous song, or stare at an intricate building is but a modicum of how God feels when He thinks about His people (Psalm 139:17-18). Though they did nothing to deserve or secure His loving gaze, He adopts them, making them heirs with His Son, promising that nothing and no one can snatch them out of His hand (John 10:28).
That is the very essence of beauty…and it is worth pursuing. ”
What I Learned Teaching Eighth-Grade Boys - Kara Lee Griffith, CIRCE
“As a teacher, I have a particular body of knowledge that I would like my students to know. And more importantly, I have a particular set of skills that I would like them to develop. But most importantly, I want to foster within them curiosity, delight, joy, and perseverance in the face of something difficult, whether it be a book, a skill, or the shadows and valleys of this life that they will face outside of my classroom.
I want them to delight in stories because I believe that reading stories is a pathway to knowing God and knowing ourselves. In the books, poems, and epics that these young men will be exposed to, they will begin to understand something about themselves and God that they are not aware of. By reading these stories, they are being tricked in the best possible way. They think they are in a stuffy English class and are required to read a book for a grade, but really, they are embarking on a dark adventure to a deserted island full of boys who do not yet know themselves. And if they allow their imaginations to do the work, they will internalize something of what it means to be human.
The beauty of teaching literature is while they are reading, we are no longer in the stuffy classroom, and for some moments, I think they believe I am not there either. You see, good teachers know they must get out of the way. A good story isn’t about me; it’s about the story. I want the boys to think this story is theirs and not mine, because it is.”
On the Purity of Music - Michael De Sapio, The Imaginative Conservative
“Music is often claimed to be—and valued as—a “pure” art, one detached from the referents to the external world that we find in painting or literature. Music is thought to be abstract, dealing in patterns of sound that have a meaning independent of the meanings of verbal language.
True, when music is married to a text, the music is assumed to express and enhance the meaning of the text (how, exactly, it does this might again be hard to specify). But when it comes to instrumental music, and particularly instrumental music that has no “program” or descriptive intent, one can rarely if ever assign to it an exact meaning. There may be clues in the expressive or rhetorical shape of the music—everyone can tell that the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth is a drama, for instance—but these are no more than general emotional or psychological states that may be suggested by the notes. Music, at heart, deals in indefinable moods and states of the soul. Music’s “vagueness” and subjectivity are its very strength, allowing the listener to interpret or react to it as he wishes.
Being mysterious and hard to pin down, music is typically left alone by writers who deal in the “world of ideas”—general or intellectual history, sociopolitical matters, and the like. They find easier fodder in visual art and literature because those arts deal more or less with concrete things in the world. As a result, music is perhaps less filled with commentary and verbal clutter than other areas of intellectual life, and that is all to the better.”