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Archives for November 2021

November 22, 2021 by Dawn Rhymer Leave a Comment

Advent 2021

Advent is here.

Last year Advent caught me off guard. Unlike in 2020, this year my heart and my mind are better prepared for it, and I am looking forward to the beauty of the season. But with the season come new changes. This will be our first year of Advent with a son away at college, and I am thinking about how to keep him part of our time together in a way that will be a blessing to us all as he is entering a new phase of life. He will be here as we put up and decorate the tree this weekend and will return in the middle of December, so it is not quite a good-bye yet, but I know that time quickly approaches.

Handel’s Messiah

For many years (I don’t know when we actually began) our family’s Advent tradition has been to listen to Handel’s Messiah. We have been using Cindy Rollins’s 25 Days to Handel’s Messiah: An Advent Devotional Guide, and this year I bought Cindy’s book Hallelujah and look forward to incorporating ideas I find there.

The Guide

Cindy gave me permission to share the guide I made for my family to help with reading the scripture and getting to the right spot in the video. We have chosen to use Youtube for our music, and our favorite version is Stephen Cleobury conducting King’s College, Cambridge Choir.

I hook my laptop up to the TV and use the links for the scripture and music. We begin by reading the opening scripture. Then, we listen to the listed pieces. Over the years, we have found it more challenging to come together as a family each night, so usually we are only listening a few times a week and covering several days.

This year I have also found the MP3 of the performance. Each year I see if I can find it and have not been successful in the past. Perhaps this has always been there, but I’m grateful to have found it.

I hope our family’s simple tradition is a blessing for you as you contemplate this advent season.

Dawn Rhymer - Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat
Dawn Rhymer

You may learn more about Dawn on the CMER speaker page.

November 18, 2021 by CMER Team Leave a Comment

Far From the Madding Crowd

We will be offering a book discussion led by Niko Lewis as one of our evening activities this year. Please join us in a relaxed time of gathering to share our thoughts and discoveries together after reading Thomas Hardy’s 19th century novel Far From the Madding Crowd. This is the story of Gabriel Oak, a hardworking shepherd, and the independent, and sometimes impulsive, Bathsheba Everdene who comes to live at Weatherbury Farm. The path of their relationship through each of their differing aspirations in life, met with hardship at times, reveals their complex characters. Set in Hardy’s historically inspired but imaginary Wessex district in England, the landscape and farming community he brings to life create a rich environment in which all of their lives play out. We invite you to enter that world by reading this novel in time for our retreat and then join in our conversation together.

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