Education and Character: Learning to See Clearly, part 2

In part 1 of this series, I quoted C.S. Lewis’ essay, “Meditation in a Toolshed,” which illustrated the different between looking AT something and looking ALONG it to its source. There is flexibility and discernment required here. In some sense, it is the difference between objective and subjective seeing, or the difference between analysis and philosophy.

To understand anything–any subject in the natural world–fully,  we ask not only “What is it?” but “What can I infer from it?” and “Where did it come from?” and “What is its purpose?”

NEW DISCOVERY: It appears that one DOES, in fact, “Simply walk in…”

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(*Image credit to STIX Blog Backup)

Optimism in the Face of Adversity – (w/ VIDEO)

Earlier, I did my best to remain upbeat & positive despite Obama’s swearing-in ceremony, marking the start of another 4 years as dictator El Numero Uno POTUS.

Admittedly, it wasn’t easy.

Thankfully, my family and I are spending the week watching our Special Extended Cut version of ‘The Lord of the Rings‘ trilogy, and this particular quote helped put me in the proper frame of mind:

“It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Now don’t misunderstand me: I’m not being Pollyanna-ish about our current difficulties. Only a fool could be aware of any of the following issues and not fear for our country’s future:

The Hobbit: An Uninspiring Journey (a critical film review)

Note:  I am aware that at least one of our good friends, James over at Biltrix, is going to strongly disagree with me over this review. You should probably also go and read his reaction to the film in order to get a “fair and balanced” view of it.

I tried hard not to include many spoilers in this, but if you haven’t seen the film yet, you may want to skip to the last third of the post…I’ve marked it with an asterisk*.

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My husband and I don’t get many evenings to spend together without granddaughter in tow. So this past Saturday night we jumped at our opportunity to view The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. We’re both big fans of the original Lord of the Rings (LOTR) movies. [In fact, true confession: I saw The Fellowship of the Ring seven times in the movie theater. And we own all three extended versions.]

We’d been looking forward to seeing this new film, despite some misgivings about the wisdom of turning a relatively short book into three films equal in length to the three LOTR movies (which themselves are based on a book which is about four times as long).