Why We Make Toys

 

            Play is a formative part of a child’s life.  It both directs and is directed by his interests. 

            There is an opinion out there that a child’s play should be exclusively self-directed and that everything, even the education of the child, should be formed around his or her interests.  While there may be some merit to this perspective, we have found from our experience, that our children often find themselves drawn – if left to themselves – to horribly cheesy books and toys that have no virtue of themselves but are attractive primarily due to flashy colors, obnoxious noises and ridiculous characters.

            Frankly, I regard Satan as the author of this unexplainable leaning toward the ugly, artificial, and mass-produced in many children (I’ve seen it in more children than just my own).  Beauty comes from the hand of God and is intrinsically linked to the truth, and it only makes sense that the father of lies would try to tempt people away from it.

            Maybe there was a time when parents could be completely “hands-off” and let their children’s play be self-directed…you know, like back when kids played with rocks and sticks, but we strongly believe that now is NOT that time.  The world is trying to get hold of our children early.  Flashy commercials and cartoons draw them in and whisper in their ear that they will be happier if they have this and this and this.  They instill in them the mindset that happiness can be purchased.  They lie to our children as they promise that material goods will satisfy their longing hearts.

            This is why we make the toys that we do – primarily for our own children.  I don’t want their heroes to be factory-made commercial figures out of the mind of some Japanese animator.  I want their heroes to be the unique masterpieces of God Himself as He wrought holiness by His grace in the souls of His Saints. 

             I don’t want my children to be lured by artificial, flashy colors and surrounded by synthetic plastics.  I want them to learn to love the colors and materials of the earth that came from the hand of God.  These toys are simple, wooden toys, handmade with love by caring parents – not plastic toys made in factories across the world that are designed by multi-million dollar corporations and made by abused women and children.

            The time is long past for status-quo parenting – for going with the flow.  It is time to swim upstream, to struggle against the current and work to protect our children from the clutching grasp of a commercial system that seeks to instill the deadly sins in them in order to make a profit. 

            If we and our handmade toys can be of service to you in this, we would be honored to help you.  Please let us know if you are interested in any of the toys that we have made or if you have something in mind that we might be able to make.

            We intentionally restrict our toy-making to simple, holy toys that revolve around the lives of the Saints and direct children’s imaginations to sanctity and simplicity.  We have found that storylines are particularly helpful as children play.  For instance, we have the cottage and barn of St. Isidore and St. Maria with which our sons can act out the beautiful stories of Isidore bringing home beggars for dinner, or of Isidore’s feeding the birds, or of Isidore’s plowing the field with angelic help.  With the church, they can enact Isidore and Maria’s daily attendance at Mass before work.

            These same sets can be used of many other saints as well.  It is a beautiful way to involve the whole family in the holy play of the children.  They need their parents to tell them the stories of the saints that can form the way they play and the way they grow.

            If we are going to raise saints, then let our children be surrounded by the Saints even as they play.  Because it is infinitely better to play “Mass” or “St. Francis” than it is to play “Pokemon.”

            I can tell you from the personal experience of my own childhood and from six years of parenting: If a child’s imagination is formed by video games, he will become dissatisfied with reality; if a child’s imagination is formed by the lives of the Saints, he will become dissatisfied with mediocrity.

            In His Heart,

                        Wes

            Sanctafamiliaapostolate@gmail.com

     

p.s. Unfortunately, we don’t make the horses that you see in the picture.  Someday I would like to get to whittling the animals for the children to play with, but I have not been able to do any of that yet.

The Hard Way: Brothers and Sisters of Reparation

            The question has often been asked of us, “Why do you do that?”  This question is asked primarily about our frequently choosing the “hard way” to do things.  Why do I cut hay with a scythe instead of a tractor?  Why do I cut down trees with an ax instead of using a chainsaw?  Why do I milk goats instead of just buying milk from the store?

            The answers to these questions and those like them are fourfold.

            First, we are poor.  I hate saying that, because I don’t feel like we’re poor – we just don’t have any money.  We have an abundance of nourishing goat milk at nearly all times in the fridge.  Occasionally we have other dairy confections in the fridge as well – yogurt, cheese, ice cream.  We have an abundance of eggs from our chickens.  We have fresh berries both wild and cultivated.  We have fresh orchard fruit on the way in a couple of years.  We have a big garden full of nutritious vegetables.  We have a warm and relatively dry house (although she needs a new roof). 

            Beyond this, we are immeasurably rich in immaterial goods.  Our family is healthy and loving.  Our boys are flourishing and our oldest is getting ready to make his first confession.  We have our fourth on the way and everything is going very well so far with the pregnancy.  We live next to and are friends with awesome Sisters.  And most importantly, we are profoundly blessed that we get to go to Eucharistic Adoration and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass every single day.  With this kind of wealth, we don’t consider ourselves poor.

            The fact remains, however, that we have very little money.  Jesus always gets us just enough to pay the bills, but rarely is there much left for extra expenditures.   

            For example, tractor implements cost way more money than we could ever afford to spend even if we wanted them (and we don’t).  My scythe and all the tools necessary to keep it in working condition cost under $300.  A scythe is pretty simple.  It has three parts, and sharpening the blade is the only regular maintenance required. 

            So, reason number one for why we do things the hard way is “Holy Simplicity” (which is our mitigated form of the Sisters’ Holy Poverty).  We are trying to live the poverty of Nazareth.  We don’t renounce all possessions as religious do, but we are trying to live simply so as not to be distracted from our love of God by love of money or comfort or distracting technology or things like that.

            Along with holy simplicity goes holy silence, both for us and for the Sisters.  The scythe is much quieter and less distracting to prayer than the tractor, which can be heard all across the property.

 

            Second, the hard way is usually much more in line with the Church’s teaching on subsidiarity – briefly, that production and consumption should be coterminus as far as possible - and therefore independence.  I can repair my scythe by myself (within reason) and I don’t need a bunch of factory made parts from who-knows-where to repair it.  And it would certainly be easier for a local blacksmith to make a scythe blade than any of the complex pieces required for modern farm machinery.

            And furthermore, regardless of how affordable (or unaffordable) government subsidies make gasoline, there is no way I could ever produce that on my own.  The scythe, the ax, and the bucksaw do not need an oil-refinery to function properly.

            The more we can do locally, smaller, or for ourselves, the better according to Church teaching and natural law… and common sense, which Chesterton rightly said, is the least common sense of all.

            Third, I want to spend as little time in Purgatory as possible.  I am a sinner who needs a LOT of penance and the “hard way” affords me many more opportunities to embrace this remedial penance.

            Fourth, and most important, the Sacred Eucharistic Heart of Jesus is so wounded by the sacrilege, indifference, and offense it receives from men.  The suffering caused by the “hard way” can be offered as a gift to console the Heart of Jesus, to show Him our love.  This reparation can also work for the salvation of the souls of those sinners who are so grievously wounding that Sacred Heart. 

           Our Lord told St Margaret Mary that He suffers more from the indifference and irreverence shown Him in the Blessed Sacrament than anything He suffered in the Passion. 

            Saint Francis of Assisi addressed his Third Order as the “Brothers and Sisters of Penance.

            It is my desire that we Lay Missionaries of the Children of Mary may be worthy of the title, “Brothers and Sisters of Reparation.”

            May many more souls join us on the “hard way” of penance and reparation.  Let us drown out the blasphemous noise rising all round our Eucharistic Lord with the chorus of our love for Him.  On the “hard way” we have chosen, that narrow way that leads to the Cross, let our song resound: “Jesus, Mary, I love you, save souls!” 

In His Heart,

Wes

Technology in the Home and Family Prayer

Hello everyone, just wanted to let you know that a good friend of the community's, Dan Jock, was able to upload the Technology in the Home talk online so that it can easily and freely be listened to.  If you look at the items to the right side of the blog, just below the "follow by email" button there is a link posted.  Click on that and you can hear it for free.

We also have numerous hard copies available on request for a miniscule suggested donation (but don't let money keep you from asking us for them!)

In His Heart,
Wes

Great Simplicity and Wise Ignorance

“To live in great simplicity and wise ignorance is exceeding wise.”

St. Pachomius

           

            This is something that does not resonate with modern American culture.  We use the words “simple” and “ignorant” as insulting words that are synonymous to “stupid.” 

            And yet, this proverb by an incredible Saint encapsulates what we are trying to do here with the apostolate.  Holy Simplicity is something very dear to us in the midst of an increasingly complex and anxiety ridden world.  We live holy simplicity in many ways.  There are no televisions here.  Internet access is greatly restricted.  We don’t leave home much except for Mass.  We dream of horses and buggies and life without electricity.  We are content with the infinite variability of life on a peasant farm.  Our children get excited to find Sassafras stems to chew on or wood violets to eat.  They get excited about finding new eggs in the chicken coop or seeing new kids born in the goat barn.  They get excited about the creamy milk we get from the goats.  They get excited about the sprouts coming up in the garden and the fruit trees we are planting and the simple wooden toys we make for them. 

            Honestly, we get excited about those things, too!  I am saddened to see so many loved ones and so many of my fellow men who are ensnared by the spectacle of gadgets and who are unaware of the pure joy that comes with simplicity.

            “Wise ignorance” caught my attention.  A young woman who has lived a “sheltered” life is seeking entrance to the Children of Mary currently, and a psychologist suggested that she wait a while, spend some time in the “real” world and see it’s messiness. 

            Mother Margaret Mary wisely posited that in days gone by, women went right from their parents’ homes to either the convent or to start a family of their own.  There was no opinion that a person ought to go into the “real” world before they settled down. 

            We have heard this kind of opinion expressed about the way we are raising our children.  The word, “sheltered” has been used.  They need more “socialization” and more exposure to the “real” world.  At the same time, people remark about the exemplary behavior of our children (certainly not without their flaws), how well they behave at Mass (most of the time), how personable and talkative they are and how quickly they make friends with other children… poor sheltered little waifs.

            This may be the idealist in me, but I must say that I reject the use of the phrase “real world” as if the convent or the simple, farm family is somehow not the “real world.”  That young woman is going to be exposed to the “messiness” of the world as she goes with the Sisters to work in the soup kitchen in a rough neighborhood in Columbus.  But she will have a vantage point that many do not have.  Those who “expose” themselves to the “real” world often get sucked into it and live the rest of their lives in the midst of its messiness.  This kind of person has a hard time imagining how things could be any different than they are in the messy, “real” world.  But this young woman, and the Sisters in general can see the disorder of the world from a vantage point of an ordered life and not only can they imagine how much better things could be, they have concrete ideas of how to make things better.

            Furthermore, to say that the life of prayer is not the “real” world is to align yourself with the heresy of materialism.  Often the spiritual world is treated as if it were a figment of the imagination.  But this is not so.  The spiritual is as “real” as it gets.  The life of prayer is very much the real world.  The Sisters have simply chosen to deal primarily with those parts of real life that are eternal instead of those things that are passing.

            My children, on our simple farm deal with “real” things all the time.  They work in the dirt to raise real food for our family.  They work with real chickens that lay real eggs that we can eat and sell.  They work with real goats that give real, delicious milk that feeds our family and our chickens.  They play on real grass, in real fresh air, in real sunshine, climb real trees, get real grass stains and scrapes.  And most of all, they have real joy in their life.

            Most children in the “real” world will never do most of these things.  They will learn about them in books or worse, on computers – if they learn about them at all.  There is less and less reality for the modern child in the “real” world to come in contact with.  They don’t hold books anymore, they don’t produce their own food, they don’t have real work to do.  It seems to me that the “real” world is becoming more and more “virtual.”  Furthermore, we have come to associate the “real” world with disorder and sin. 

            If living in a convent where peace and order reign in a difficult life of silence, penance, prayer and love of God is not the real world, if a simple farm where children (and adults) learn virtue and are faced daily with the beauty and awe of God and His creation is not the real world, then, frankly, I don’t want anything to do with the real world. 

            We are not ignorant of the evils present in the world today.  We may be ignorant of specific current events, be we are very much aware of the disorder, darkness, and sin in the world and we are working awfully hard to do something about it. 

            So, you can call us simple and ignorant if you like, and we, in our twisted little world, will take it as a compliment. 

Independence and the Machine

            There are a great many folks in this age that are grasping for self-sufficiency.  Some want it for the health of the earth.  Some want it for the health of their family.  Some want it for security against an ominous collapse they see on the near horizon of our society.  Some want it for the sheer freedom that it gives.

            The majority who seek self-sufficiency do so in a strange manner.  They seem to think that the machine can give them independence.  “If only I could afford a tractor, then I could really farm,” they seem to say.   

            To seek self-sufficiency through the machine is self-refuting.  Unless a man’s land has both oil and ore underneath, and unless he has the skills to obtain and refine the oil, mine the ore and forge it into cogs and pistons and all the plethora that go into a tractor, he has not made much of a step toward self-sufficiency.  

            To rely on the machine is not to rely on self, but on a complex web-work of commerce that can only exist under the current, rotten, global economic system.

            This is true of so many forms of luxury technology that we have come to depend on.  “Green energy” requires at the very least a rather complex battery wall system that must be replaced every few years.  Unless you can make your own deep-cycle batteries, transformers, generators, wind turbines, and solar panels, you are dependent.  The car that we take for granted as we drive to the store to purchase the necessary tools for our self-reliance is itself a complex system of parts that we can neither produce nor maintain without that complex economic system that has caught the whole world in its net. 

            To be truly self-reliant would require tremendous changes in our way of life. 

            The car and the tractor would have to be replaced with draft animals or human labor – many farmers of the past and present have not the resources to acquire or maintain animals to work for them and must subsist solely by the sweat of their own brow. 

            The forced air furnace or outdoor boiler would have to be replaced by open fireplaces, woodstoves, or masonry heaters.  Such radiant heat sources would drastically change the way we plan our houses – not to mention their size.  And there would be no chainsaws to cut all that wood with…

            The electric lights would have to be replaced with oil lamps or candles – unless you have the means to build and maintain a natural gas well and line and a way to pressurize it without electricity.

            Indoor plumbing with pressurized and heated water would have to go.  The computer, internet, telephone, television and radio would all have to go.  Let us not go into all the factory-made materials that make up our houses, furniture, clothing and the like. 

            Lest you think this is the abstract rambling of a disinterested philosopher, it would mean saying goodbye to my electric potter’s wheel, kiln, and factory-mixed clay and glazes.  Clay would have to be dug from the yard (we do have clay enough for this, but it is likely less than ideal for throwing on the wheel) and slaked and wedged and all the labor-intensive process that goes into preparing dirt to become pottery.  I would have to build either a pit kiln or a wood-fired kiln and work either with more primitive forms of sealants like terrasigilatta or simpler wood ash glazes.  The woodshop would look drastically different.  All the power tools would have to be replaced by hand tools and skill and even the beloved sawmill would have to go as it runs on gas. 

           

            We are so far removed from independence that we don’t know what it would mean to be free.  And yet there is a longing in the depths of many a shackled soul for that freedom befitting man made in the image of God.  The longing does not count the cost.  It begins to pull at the yoke of slavery under which it has toiled without joy many long years.  It strains against that yoke in hope.  In the hope that the yoke can be broken by what strength is left in man. 

            I am no fool.  Well, time will only tell whether I am or am not a fool.  But I am not so foolish as to think that any of this can possibly be easy or can even be attained in the course of one man’s life.  I have little hope of gaining true independence for myself.  And yet I must labor in a hope that does not fail, that cannot fail.  For I have sons and I must toil in the hope that they and their children may have a greater hope for freedom than do I.  We must work for those who will come after.  It is the hard work of beginning.  It is the hard work of repentance, of conversion, of turning back.  We have traveled a long way down the path of slavery to comfort and pleasure.  We cannot hope to jump immediately to the path of the freedom that only comes with discipline.  We must turn about and begin to walk back the path we have journeyed so long until we find the fork in the road.  Then we will be faced with the haunting specter of freedom.  For, though it may sound nice as truth resonates in man’s soul, the vision of the thing is frightening to men who have become accustomed to ease and leisure and irresponsibility.  At that fork, we must choose between the life of hard freedom or easy slavery.  The former is befitting a true human nature that we have long neglected and rebelled against.  The latter is an atrocity against the Imago Dei, but one that we have become quite accustomed to.  Ought we to choose the austere freedom of the sons of God or the luxurious servitude of Mammon?

            There is no denying that the machine has been used by diabolical designs to achieve the enslavement of so many men.  As with all the plots of hell, lies have been promoted to cloud the intellect.  One of these I must address as it affects the use of the machine, especially on the farm.

            Those who have put some hope in achieving independence on the land by the use of the machine have given into an improper understanding of independence.  They have been made to forget that no man is an island.  The would-be self-sufficient homesteader finds himself in the midst of a society that highly esteems rugged individualism.  And yet, the members of this society find themselves horribly dependent on an inhuman economic system.  So at one and the same time, we pride ourselves in our independence and yet we are enslaved.

            The answer to this tangle of lies and injustice is not the collectivism of the Marxists.  That system has been tried many times and has every time failed to produce anything truly human or just.  It certainly does not liberate men from undignified slavery.

            No, the answer to both the rugged individualism of industrial capitalism and the rugged collectivism of industrial communism is human community founded in truth, founded in the social teaching of the Catholic Church.

            The ideal must not be the isolated homestead.  The ideal must be the village.  It is not good for man to be alone.  He is made in the image of the Triune God.  He needs the other so that he may be fully himself.  Interdependence is not slavery so long as every man is on equal footing and charity reigns.  The dairyman does not lose his freedom for being dependent on the weaver, for the weaver is also dependent on the dairyman.  So long as the dairyman could weave his own cloth and the weaver could get his own cow or goat, they are not enslaving each other, but allowing community to flourish.  The village needs its specialists, but even these specialists must be generalists.  The carpenter cannot leave off all knowledge of the soil as the farmer cannot leave off all knowledge of wood.  And yet, they both know that there is only so much time in a day, and in order to fulfill their more important duties to their family and their own souls, they allow themselves to become interdependent.  In a way, this interdependence is the fruit of charity as each knows that there are more important things in life than what the senses can perceive and that these unseen realities must be tended to – they must not be neglected. 

            If the farmer must make all his own furniture and build his own barns in addition to working his fields and tending his animals, there will be no time left over for his family and, though he will have accomplished much, he will have failed his family and his vocation – he will have failed life.  If the carpenter must produce all his own food and fiber in addition to his working with wood, he will be in the same predicament as the overtaxed farmer.  And if each member of society acts thus, all will be turned in on themselves and will give no thought to the other and will have no time for the other.

            This is the direction the machine points the would-be homesteader.  It seeks to turn him in on himself to the neglect of all others and to hide from him both the true and good need he has of others as well as his own horrible, hidden slavery. 

            When men were free, they freely gathered on each others’ farms to reap the harvest.  When men were free, they freely gathered together to thresh the grain and till the soil and raise barns.  When men were free, they knew their neighbors and depended on their neighbors.  When men were free, they took care of their own families and they took care of each other.  But with the machine, free men traded their freedom for isolation and slavery.

            I do not mean to say that the machine is necessarily evil, nor do I mean to say that it could not have turned out any way but thus.  But the reality is that it has turned out just thus and we must deal with things as they are.  I am reminded more and more of Christ’s teaching, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.  For it is better that you enter the kingdom of heaven with only one hand than to take both of them with you into hell.”