Fill the Stage

Daniel Dignan

Fill The Stage

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Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior

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I reread George Washington’s Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior, which a young Washington copied for personal use. According to Wikipedia, the instructions date back to the 16th century. Most of the maxims, except for two or three, apply today.

 

Some are quite clearly true: “In the presence of others sing not to yourself with a humming noise, nor drum with your fingers or feet.”

Some are humorous: “Do not laugh too much or too loud in public.”

Others are consequential, and for those who desire to lead. “Let your countenance be pleasant, but in serious matters somewhat grave.” “Let thy carriage be such as becomes a man: grave, settled, and attentive to that which is spoken. Contradict not at every turn what others say.” And “Think before you speak; pronounce not imperfectly nor bring out your words too hastily, but orderly & distinctly.”

Toward the end, the maxims help make others comfortable in your presence. This has the added benefit of giving one confidence in social settings. “Be not forward but friendly and courteous; be the first to salute, hear, and answer; & be not pensive when it’s time to converse.”

The most critical maxims deal with justice toward others. “Detract not from others; neither be excessive in commanding.” “Strive not with superiors in argument, but always submit your judgment to others with modesty.”

While behavior like this has become a lost art, it is of timeless importance. The behavior requires acting with kindness and grace. I recommend the book to high school students. The maxims can be read in a single sitting. Their brevity and proverb-like construction make them memorable and enjoyable.

Teaching the Virtues

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Have you ever wondered whether virtues can be taught and how to do so? David Hein’s book Teaching the Virtues is a good place to start. Hein defines essential virtues, such as faith, love, honor, and gratitude, and explains how to help students acquire them. He believes virtues are necessary for happiness, writing: “The virtues are what enable human beings to achieve their good ends….” (24)

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Hein begins by focusing on schools and learning communities. To improve, schools need to self-assess, learn from better schools, and determine if their students are becoming more virtuous. Schools cannot rely solely on passive learning methods; they must find ways to help students actively acquire virtues.

Next, Hein turns to writing. He believes it’s an active method for students to develop virtue. He argues that to become a good writer, one must build virtue. It requires diligence and patience. (Hein shares the writing advice he gives to college students (e.g., importance of rewriting.)

Honor is the topic of the next chapter. He describes two types of honor: the type motivated by personal glory and the type that comes from self-denial. While a student at the University of Virginia, he was struck by the meaning and significance of the honor code. He shares how it helped him develop integrity.

Descriptions of the theological and natural virtues, beginning with faith, are the core of the book. According to Hein, one’s values influence one’s decisions and behaviors. For example, one who values the God of the Bible tends to respect human dignity. On the other hand, a person who values personal autonomy over all would tend to regard personal desire and will.)

To see virtue in concrete human experience, Hein encourages the study of biographies. The book features short character sketches of George Washington, Hannah More, and Booker T. Washington. He underlines ways one might use them to discuss virtue.

In closing, Hein, a Christian, believes in the importance of piety—enjoying God and gratitude for His work (Genesis 1:1; John 1:1-5; John 3:16). Hein points out that many people demonstrate virtues like courage in the service of evil. The truth and piety orient virtue toward what is good.

Teaching the Virtues sharpens the reader’s understanding of virtues and methods for helping students acquire them. For continued study, Hein shares additional resources.

Easter Book

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During the rise of Christianity, a pagan spring festival became a Christian celebration of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. The four gospels–Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John–contain the story of the event that changed the world.

Did Christ, a Jewish carpenter in first century Rome, really rise again from the dead three days after he was crucified? Or is this story a fairy tale? If a fairy tale, Christianity is a lie and not worth bothering about. If the resurrection happened, there is hope beyond the grave.

In Did the Resurrection Really Happen? theologian and seminary professor Timothy Paul Jones, argues briefly that the first-century Christian leaders believed the resurrection happened, not against all evidence, but because of the evidence.

The author shares his own youthful doubts, the quality of the eye-witness testimonies, and the hope Christ’s resurrection offers. This is a short book suitable for high school students and readable in one sitting.

Jones counters major claims that Christ’s resurrection is a mere spin-off of ancient myths of dying and rising gods, that the Jews expected Christ to rise from the dead, that Christ’s followers hallucinated, and more. He shows how the New Testament record, eye-witness accounts, the empty tomb, and the martyrdom of Christian leaders makes claims against the resurrection challenging to believe.

Lastly, the author provides recommended books for those interested in learning more.

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The Aeneid

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According to Mortimer Adler, a great American educator, the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, the Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost (the epics), and the Bible constitute the most serious reading program. Great thinkers and writers read them carefully and repeatedly.

Serious readers have to focus on the great books of their field or related fields. They should try to select the best books as time is limited. Adler recognized that reading well is more about quality than quantity. He argued that reading one great book well is better than reading many great books poorly. Reading a great book well can seriously increase one’s understanding of the human condition, life’s big questions, and the good life.

The Aeneid is one of the great books (or poems). Written during the reign of Caesar Augustus at the beginning of the Roman Empire, it seeks to convey something important. Virgil, the author, extended the Iliad and the Odyssey, the great Greek epic poems, casting Aeneas, a Trojan hero who fights to save his city as the Roman Empire’s father and symbol.

The book begins with heartbreak as Aeneas is forced to flee his burning city, his father on his shoulders. Leading his people and journeying to North Africa, the land of Carthage, he falls in love with a queen, but this ends in tragedy as he’s confronted with his calling to found a new civilization.

Robert Fitzgerald, the translator, provides a really good reading experience. He makes the reader experience Troy’s destruction, Aeneas’ journey, danger, love, regret, sacrifice, an epic battle, and Aeneas’ passion. At the end, he provides a helpful synopsis of Rome’s early history and the themes of the Aeneid.

During my teenage years, I was assigned chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, and 12 for a classics camp. Those chapters should not be skipped. The most memorable is chapter two, which is about Troy’s fall: an unforgettable reading experience. The imagery and verse offer the reader a movie-like experience, making him feel like he is there, seeing the walls fall and the city burn.

The description of hell and judgment in Chapter 6 is terrifying. Chapter 9 is the story of a secret military mission. Knowing the danger involved, one young man asks:

“This urge to action, do the gods instill it, Or is each man’s desire a god to him, Euryalus? For all these hours I’ve longed To engage in battle, or to try some great Adventure.”

If you want a helpful podcast conversation about what is happening in the Aeneid, I recommend First Things episode What Virgil Teaches America.

Teen Leadership Camps

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Last week, I attended the 25th anniversary celebration of Patrick Henry College, a top liberal arts college located in Purcellville, Virginia. Started by Mike Farris, constitutional attorney and Homeschool Legal Defense founder, it champions Christian, conservative, and classical education.

Patrick Henry College

While I did not attend the college, as a teenager, I participated in their Teen Leadership Camps, in particular, the spy and literature camps. They combined rigorous learning and instruction opportunities with evening games.

I am a believer in summer camps like these for teenagers. They help kids get out of their comfort zones, open new horizons, and help kids develop socially, spiritually, and intellectually.

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Drama and Theater Camps for Kids

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I recently attended my second production of Logos Theater at Washington, D.C.’s Museum of the Bible. The production, costuming, and staging of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe were well done. I especially enjoyed seeing the props change quickly between scenes and the actors move from room to room as the setting changed.

Logos Theater does more than provide first-class theater. They give elementary, middle, and high school students immersive opportunities to learn acting, filmmaking, drama, and theater production in summer camps, co-ops, and traveling drama seminars. Moreover, they offer college-level acting classes and credit.

Acting was never my forte, but in college, I enrolled in several public speaking courses, including an acting course, to get out of my comfort zone. I have never forgotten my acting professor telling the class that we had better get our heads examined if we thought we could make it as professional actors. I think he said it in love, and all of us got the point. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the experience and became braver in public.

Even if your kid doesn’t want to become a professional actor, I recommend the experience. Theater can help kids develop self-awareness and friendships and open their artistic horizons. It’s also a lot of fun—no business is like show business!

Another benefit to Logos Theater is that it introduces students to classic and best-selling books like Narnia and Pilgrim’s Progress.

On Second Readings

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I completed a second reading of C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (LWW). Leland Ryken and Marjorie Lamp Mead’s A Reader’s Guide Through the Wardrobe: Exploring C.S. Lewis’s Classic Story enriched the second beyond my initial expectations. The guide explains the storyteller’s craft and the purpose and meaning of story types (genres) like fairy tales and romance literature. Moreover, Ryken is exceptionally well-versed in C. S. Lewis.

At the end of his guide, Ryken quotes Lewis regarding the importance of reading great books more than once. Lewis believed that one could do well without reading some of the greatest writers, but he did not think that a reader of great books should be satisfied with a single read. This is because great books, by definition, offer more than a first reading can provide. Books like Homer’s Odyssey require many readings.

This is also true of modern works, such as Shakespeare’s tragedies and comedies, which can be read repeatedly for enjoyment and benefit. The great classics educator Mortimer Adler said as much in his book How to Read a Book: the best books cannot be fully mastered; they are over us and require more than a single reading to gain rich dividends of wisdom and insight.

The LWW is a classic, one that should be and is often read more than once. The ancient story type of the quest in pursuit of a noble goal, the journey, the coming of age story, the fight against evil, the nature of the good, the reality of a supernatural world, and ancient archetypes that picture these realities all make this classic a memorable and thought-provoking reread.

The most significant part of the LWW is its insight into human experience and the beautiful ways that it relates this to students, young and old.

A Reader’s Guide Through the Wardrobe

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Through the Wardrobe is an enlightening guide to C.S. Lewis’s classic fairy tale The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Literature expert Leland Ryken provides readers with a chapter-by-chapter account of the story. Elements such as characterization, plot, story world, and archetypes are explained in an engaging and accessible manner. Throughout each chapter, he includes discussion and reflection questions that aid personal reading and group teaching. After reading the guide, the reader will be a more informed reader of fiction and will be greatly helped in understanding the truth and beauty Lewis conveys.

Ryken studied Lewis’s life and work in detail. (His suggested reading list at the end of the book is extensive.) Ryken also taught literature to college students and wrote over 60 books. In this book, he guides the reader through the ancient story types that Lewis enjoyed, studied, and drew upon in The Chronicles of Narnia, including romance literature, fairy tales, and myth. All of this is presented in concise chapters that are accessible to high school students.

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I enjoyed every chapter. In particular, the chapters on the White Witch and Edmund’s temptation, Peter’s first battle and romance literature, fairy tales, and Aslan were profound and educational. The final part of the book explains the origins of the Narnia books, their reception, their Christian vision, and biographical information about Lewis.

The guide will help your student enjoy the best literature and gain a deeper understanding of the Bible and human experience.

Guides to The Odyssey

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Leland Ryken, one of the great literary minds of the 20th and 21st centuries, wrote a helpful short guide to The Odyssey. His great contribution is making the famous Greek narrative epic understandable and applicable to modern readers. The guide provides short summaries of the plot and profound commentaries of the important ideas in the epic. Ryken also provides helpful questions and thoughts for reflection, conversation, and study.

Ryken emphasizes the presence of the domestic code that governs the story of The Odyssey and helps one understand why the epic’s content is timeless and matters today. He points out Homer’s literary achievements, explains the essential parts of Odysseus’ adventures, trials, and tests during his journey home after the Trojan War, and underlines the significance of encounters and conversations that are difficult to pick up unless one carefully studies the book.

If you want a short guide to help your kid understand why The Odyssey matters and what lessons it teaches, I highly recommend the book.

Another enlightening and helpful resource is a talk Ryken gave a few years ago about Greek classics and The Odyssey in particular. In this talk he explains his approach to teaching the epic to college students, and what is true, good, and helpful about it.

The Odyssey

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No book has had a more significant impact on the Western world and literature outside of the Bible than Homer’s Odyssey. The great literary philosopher Leland Ryken noted that it (along with Homer’s prequel, The Iliad) was a kind of bible for the ancient Greeks. One of the five great Western epics, it has influenced generations of thinkers and leaders with its captivating story, message, and lessons.

This adventure story follows the travels of the Greek hero Odysseus as he endeavors to return home after the Trojan War. Twelve temptations require various virtues to overcome. The hero’s son and wife also play prominent roles: Telemachus in his search for his father, and Penelope in her struggle against the evil suitors at home.

Who can forget the hero’s adventures? His struggle against the deadly witch, outsmarting the cyclops, leadership at sea, the Siren’s Call, faithfulness to his family and home, and patient planning to right wrongs all factor into an epic of endurance. He faced grave danger, overt temptation, and subtle dangers that require careful reading.

If read carefully and with help, a teenager can benefit from witnessing the virtues displayed in the face of temptations. I recommend Emily Wilson’s poetic translation; it was a joy to read.

The Odyssey might be the best entry point if your son or daughter has never read Homer. The Iliad is fascinating but focuses on war and can be tiring. The Odyssey offers more variety, and the lessons are more apparent.