A Few Thoughts on Habits and Tea

A quick post, one of which I hope to explore more in the future, on what I've just begun to learn about myself and wish to impart to my children, that of the formation of habits. I am currently sitting in my living room (ALL ALONE! A rare occurrence, but purposefully bestowed upon me so I can prepare for this coming year of teaching my children their school lessons at home, which I am doing at this moment and this is an outpouring of my reflections on my current studies) and reading "Home Education" by Charlotte Mason, wondering why I have never wondered about these things before! Her methods of training children in "habits" are so far really intriguing me.

My husband and I began listening to another book this year called "Liturgy of the Ordinary" by Tish Harrison Warren, and it inspired us to begin changing some of the little things we do in daily life so that we may point ourselves with greater ease and intent to the blessings we have from God daily, especially that which we receive in Christ. Along with some little daily habits that we have begun to form in order to shape our thoughts and attitudes came a shift with how we decided to use our television for the moment. Now, I had the roughest year of my life health-wise recently and the TV was a blessing to our family during those many months of physical pain because it was hard for me to even read to our children some days (which is my favourite thing to do!) so I'm not TV bashing, I'm simply reflecting on how things like the television can shape us, more than we realize. Since earlier this year, after finding much relief physically, we decided to give it up for a time and form new habits. We began to sit with a cup of tea (EW TEA?!?!?! Never did I ever think I would drink that compost water, but I learned about some herbal varieties that were good for my health issues so I conceded........ and I must admit I really like tea now, to the elation of my husband as he has loved it forever) and we talked and played games and read together and read separately. Side note: to make one argument in favour of my case on the importance of habit formation, I'd like to share with you how A.D.D. I've gotten over the years. I realize A.D.D. is an actual problem people get diagnosed with and I do not believe I have it (I should know, as my husband does), but I never once in school had difficulty focusing- I rocked the socks off of school- yet after graduating I noticed a decline in my ability to focus for the first time. Along with reading less came more TV again after long work days and the introduction of social media and though it definitely cannot be tied to one reason, my ability to focus quickly diminished. Now, fast forward 10 years or so of going down this road and add children to the mix and you've got a girl who cannot read. I also can't ride a bike anymore (blush)........ Thankfully re-forming a habit is just like riding a bike! Oh wait........... well anyways, back to the removal of our TV and my realized lack of attention (can you tell I still jump from thought to thought a bit, that will hopefully get reigned in a little with these newfound habits forming)-- I began to read by myself. Not that I had completely stopped reading all these years, but I hadn't read through a book in a long time. This was extremely difficult to do at first as I found my mind wandering and had to go back and re-read a bunch of what I'd already read. I've always taken my time when I read but this was ridiculous. After only a few days of picking up a book instead of my phone or the remote, I began to read with greater ease and my attention span has lengthened immensely now these past few months. Once we had the option of bringing back the TV, after several weeks without, I didn't feel the need to turn to it daily or even weekly. When my parents have asked if they could babysit so we could go on a date, the last three times we have planned to go see a movie and then changed our minds last minute in favour of reading a short biography together at a cafe and having some wonderful discussions. Again, I don't want to TV bash, but it actually amazed me that I didn't realize what it and my phone were doing to me like the drip, drip, drip of water on rock over many years, and it definitely shaped me.

No one is immune to habits shaping us, but we do have a choice as to which habits we will give permission to make their mark upon our bodies and souls. Charlotte Mason says this: "we know that if a child accustom herself to stand on one foot, thus pushing up one shoulder, the habit will probably end in curvature of the spine...The physical consequences of bad habits of this sort are so evident, that we cannot blind ourselves to the relation of cause and effect...Yet when we consider that the brain, the physical brain, is the exceedingly delicate organ by means of which we think and feel and desire, love and hate and worship, it is not surprising that that organ should be modified by the work it has to do". This reminded me of a man who accompanied our choir in university. He would have been in his 70s and he was wonderfully talented but had such a slump due to sitting improperly at his instrument for, I assume, his whole life. How much more are we shaping our thoughts and attitudes by our daily habits, whose marks may not be so readily apparent to the eye?

I remember a story a friend visiting our church told me once about his grandfather setting a tea kettle on the table every morning at breakfast and after years and years of doing this an impression was left in the ceiling from where the evaporated water had settled over and over again. Habits leave their marks. Or the story I recently heard from the president of a Canadian seminary who spoke of his father's deterioration of mind due to the sad affliction of Alzheimers disease, who even though he could not recall what he read each day, still daily went to the same place in his home, opened his Bible to the same passage and took in God's word as that had been his habit. I feel like God has been speaking to me over and over (and OVER!) again this year on the importance of forming habits like this, ones that will shape me for my good and His glory, and I'm excited that He is giving my long-slumbering eyes the ability to see, my sometimes self-covered ears the ability to hear and a heart that longs to answer her Father in obedience.

This is what I hope to help my children form this year as part of our education. Not the habit of answering the call to feed themselves with a constant and immediate gratification of their desires, as I have so often done with the realm of media, but that slow drip, drip of new and healthful habits that will help to shape them into the vessels God has ultimately created them to be.