On Minimalism and Socks

The last time I was pregnant I went through a violent nesting phase. This is not uncommon. But whereas most expectant mothers tend to hoard (food, diapers, blankets, etc), my “nesting” went in the opposite direction. I wanted to Get. Rid. Of. Everything.

This purging instinct was not always popular in my house. My husband and my toddler were prone to revolt, so that often I was forced to resort to subterfuge.

I started reading minimalist blogs when I should have been writing and making secret trips to Good Will when I was supposedly running to the grocery store. 

Much of this new minimalism was a reaction to a real and overwhelming glut of stuff in our home. 

You see, for the first five years of our marriage we didn’t have that much stuff. There were the books, of course. Okay, lots of books. But books aren’t “stuff” (right?). We moved to and from Scotland with two suitcases. (I shipped the books.) And when we bought our house I was overwhelmed with the vast and empty rooms, the cavernous basement. How, I wondered, would I ever fill up all this space? Ha. Ha. Just a few years later and I wonder at my own naiveté. During this time one of my grandmothers passed away and the other downsized. And then truckloads of furniture, books (more books!), linens, toys, and who knows what else descended upon us.

Don’t get me wrong. These are lovely things. Beautiful and meaningful things. But THINGS. Things that we must move, care for, clean, and (inevitably—we do have children after all) repair. Things are a burden!—who knew! Even getting RID of things is a huge task.

And this is just “grownup” things. The kids are a whole other universe of things.

I swear I don’t ever buy my kids toys, yet I pick up roughly one thousand small, brightly colored objects from the floor every day. And the socks. The sheer number of tiny mismatched socks is enough to give me a panic attack *right* *now.*

And if all of this is making my palms sweat now, just imagine how I felt when I was 9 months pregnant and roughly the size of a beached whale. I was tired of digging play-mobile people and single socks (socks!!) out from underneath the couch.

In addition to this not unreasonable pregnant frustration, I was also, in my new minimalism, keenly aware of the rampant consumerism and materialism that pervades our culture. I recognized that so often I was complicit, saw that my little daughter, when confronted with shining packages of Disney princesses, looked, hesitated not a moment--and was undone. Things, I thought, are an addiction, a drug. And I didn’t want that for myself or my family.  I wanted my home to be a place for people and not things. I wanted the things in my home to be either beautiful, useful—or both. Things that reflected and strengthened relationships, rather than crowding them out.

These were the better motives for my new minimalism.

But there were other motives, less noble.

Some nights I found myself frantically searching online for images of minimalist homes: homes with no toys, homes with hardly anything in sight. “There are no toys on the floor,” I said to myself gazing on in awe and (dare I say it?) something like lust. And then suddenly the observation changed. “There are no toys” became “there are no children.”

And this was the dangerous part. Because part of my minimalism was more than a mere rejection of “stuff” and the burden of “stuff,” it was, in its worst moments, a rejection of the people and relationships associated with the stuff. Because people are burdens. Relationships are messy.

Part of me wanted to get rid, not just of the things, but of the people attached to the things. “Why can’t you people just leave me alone?!” All I want is to be alone in a white room with nothing in it: no responsibilities, no emotions, no mess…and no socks.

I think it was the socks that finally got me to recognize the darker side of my “minimalism.” I was sorting socks. And there were a lot of socks. In a moment of frustration I declared to my husband (who happened to be passing) that I was going to throw away all of the socks. Then there would be no more socks to dig out from under the couch, no sweaty socks to wash, no single socks to match. Just think of it! No Socks! Devin looked down at the pile, skeptical. “But we need socks!” he said. And I knew he was right. We need socks: dry socks, clean socks, matching socks. The only way to get rid of the socks is to get rid of the people who need socks.

Minimalism can go wrong when it forgets that we are human and humans need things--because we *are* things: fleshy, physical, relational. We aren’t just souls, meant for contemplation and solitude. We are bodies and families and we need to eat and sleep and play. We need houses and food and beds and toys. And socks. 

This meditation is timely because (if you haven’t noticed) we are now deep in the Holiday season, when things (and things and things) are what everyone is doing and thinking about. Our consumer culture insists that “things” are what it’s all about: lots and lots of things under the tree and in the stocking so GET TO THE MALL! And I think we all can agree that this is a perversion of the Christmas spirit.

But no matter how we feel about materialism and greed, there is another kind of “thing” which comes with Christmas:

There is the advent wreath, lovingly decorated with greenery from the garden, the candles lit night by night as the family sings together (though sometimes out of tune). 

There is the tree, brought home with much pageantry, installed with wailing and gnashing of teeth (at least in my house), yet a thing of beauty, wonder; the children lie underneath it and look up through the lit branches. 

There are the ornaments, some passed down through several generations, some made with macaroni and glitter, but all meaningful, all embodying a memory, a person, a relationship.

Things are not evil. And sometimes things can be more than things: they can even be sacramental.

There are lots of stuff-objects-things to deal with at Christmas time, and I think it is an appropriate time to think about things, and the physical nature, the thingy-ness, of our own human reality. Because this is the time of Incarnation, when we celebrate the fact that God became a baby, that Spirit became…a thing. If God did not scorn “things” then neither should we. God became a child and played with toys. God became a carpenter and worked with tools. He made breakfast for his friends. He gave bread, wine. He rode a donkey. He wore sandals (if not socks).

Farmhouse Update

So just in case anyone had gotten the crazy idea that we have it all together (ha. ha.) here is a house update to disabuse you of such silly notions.

Renovation at Wise Road has reached the constructive stage, in other words, the demolition is finished and now “all” we have to do is put everything back. Anyone who has done any renovation knows that, of course, the constructive stage is almost infinitely more difficult than demolition. Demolition is fun.  It makes a lot of mess, and you fill a couple of dumpsters, and you feel like you have accomplished lots and lots. Then you realize… “Oh, I have no walls, and no sink, and no toilet.” And then you must argue and fight with your contractors about the walls, the sink, the toilet…and the siding, and the paint, and the trim, and the windows, and the electrical. You know the drill.

So this has what has been accomplished at Wise Road to date: the walls are framed, the drywall finished. The siding is on, but not painted. Apparently, “people in the country” don’t paint their siding. Or so say our contractors, to explain their surprise when we gave them our paint color of choice. Apparently this wasn’t included in the quote for the exterior.

Maybe you are getting the feeling (Devin and I certainly are) that our contractors *might* be trying to rip us off. As the project progresses more and more items (essential items, I would say) have become “extra.” Like exterior AND interior painting. Like insulation. And apparently the stain that *we* want on the floors is about $1000 extra. But not to worry, no extra charge on the Tang-colored stain the floor guys have in their van. Anyway, the $$$ have really started to stack up and we still have not spent a night in the house.

So we have started contracting for ourselves to save money. And we decided to paint ourselves. Painting is the one renovation task we feel confident enough to undertake. Wait. Did I say "feel"--present tense? Sorry, let me try this again: painting is one renovation task we *FELT* (past tense) confident to undertake. 

Here we are, still feeling confident.

So last weekend the kids went to stay with their (amazing) grandparents while we went up and painted for two days. Surely, we said to ourselves, we can paint one tiny little house one shade of white in one weekend? Not so. We worked like mad for two full days with hardly a break to use the toilet (oh wait, we don’t have a toilet…), and we didn’t finish.

This was very disappointing, mostly because the floor people were coming in the next day and painting is better before the floor is done, for obvious reasons.

They went on and sanded the floor. Then they got to the kids’ room, which, if you recall, used to be the kitchen. And there they stopped, because under all the dust and crap there is a solid sheet of asbestos. Not tiles, a sheet. We knew it was there, and we (mistakenly) assumed that our contractors, who we had just paid many dollars to rip up the old floor, would have taken up this mess as well. But no. They had not. And they did not plan to. They suggested that maybe Devin and I would like to tear it up ourselves.

So a couple days after our failed painting trip we farmed out the children yet again and headed back up to the house to try our hand at asbestos removal.

We had to go up there anyway because we had to meet our carpenter (the one *we* found. Apparently our contractors don’t know any carpenters). Now our carpenter was up there putting in The Doors.

The Doors… (Cue ominous music.)

Old Door.

There are only three doorways in the house. Three. Two bedrooms and a bathroom. We knew from experience that contractors *will* put in plastic, hollow core doors if you let them. So we had this brilliant idea that we would buy old doors from architectural salvage, with lovely brass hardware and heavy old nobs. There isn’t a lot of inherent character in the house (the previous owner saw to that), so we realized that the few details like this would be our way to restore a sense of history and integrity to the place. We had the doors up in the house for MONTHS while the contractors were doing other things. They knew from the BEGINNING that we were planning to use old doors.

So they day came when they went in to install the doors. We got a call. Apparently (I seem to be using this word a lot) they couldn’t do the job because “the doors are weird.” So they had brought in (you guessed it) plastic, hollow core doors. They were just going to put them in—in spite of my explicit instructions otherwise.

So we called up Mike, who is a carpenter.

Carpentry is a noble trade. Remember that Our Lord was a carpenter. And Mike is a good carpenter. We have so much respect for Mike. He is a craftsman and a man of integrity. I wish he could do *all* of the work on our house.

Mike drove more than an hour to Wise Road. When he got there the power was off. He problem solved and hooked up his tools to an exterior power-line (?!). Then he realized that we had gotten a door that opened on the wrong side. Then he realized that we had bought *one* hinge that was the wrong size. Then he realized that one of the doors we had brought was warped and unusable. An on and on. Basically everything that could possibly go wrong with the doors went wrong. And it was all our fault. But Mike powered through. Despite everything we have our (old) new doors installed.

While Mike was Getting It Done, Devin and I were madly scraping up asbestos.

Floor of Death.

We worked for a long time and maybe scraped up 5 square feet, not even a fourth of the room.  We don’t have time to do this job, and since cash is running short as well, I think we are going to have to carpet this room, at least for the time being. Maybe later we can go back and finish the job properly.

I hate that we are going to have to do this. I hate how we have failed over and over again: the painting, the doors, the floors, and many other aspects. Our own stupidity, ignorance, overconfidence have combined with lack of time, lack of energy, lack of funds to create some major issues.

So this wasn’t such a good week. Here’s hoping that the next update will bring some sunshine!!

I will say that I am excited about the floors. I am so happy that we were able to salvage the original wood, at least in most of the house.

I also like the painting I was able to finish. Here is a picture of what will be the living room:

There will be wallpaper to the left of the door.

House Tour: The Master Bedroom

Today is the first installment of my Deep Clean House Tour!

As I embarked upon my cleaning journey I was unsure where to begin. Which room was worthy to initiate this grand endeavor? I firmly believe that each house has a spiritual/emotional center, the location of its “soul.” This room should remain, in any home, impeccably clean, welcoming, etc. because the life-force of the home flows from it. My first task, I decided, was to find this “center” in my own house. 

Many would argue that, in most homes, this center of the home, and indeed the center of family life, is the kitchen. And indeed, as someone who places a high emphasis on physical nourishment and good fellowship in good feasting, I was tempted to start my Deep Clean in the kitchen. In fact, the great cleaning Authority over at FlyLady insists that a clean and happy home begins with an immaculate (polished!) sink.

However, I have been reading this book, written by my beloved Auntie Leila. She, wise woman that she is, locates the “center” of the home not in the kitchen but—in the Master Bedroom.

Why? Just think. We are Catholic after all, and we hold a very sacramental view of family life, and the family finds its source and strength in the sacrament of marriage—and more specifically, in the marriage bed!

(Are you blushing?)

But seriously. The marriage bed is *literally* the “source of life” in the family home. For if it weren’t for the sacrament of marriage which is, of course, enacted *in bed!* there would be no family at all. 

(Where did all these kids come from anyway?!?)

So if I believe this about marriage, shouldn’t I treat this room, of all rooms, with great reverence? Shouldn’t my CHILDREN treat this room, of all rooms, with great reverence? If it weren't for this room, they wouldn't exist. 

And the Bible says, if you recall, that children should “Honor their father and mother and not leave legos and tiny plastic people on the floor beside their bed, lest their hoary and revered parents step upon them  and injure themselves in the night and thus bring ruin and shame upon their descendants even unto the seventh generation,  Etc.”

I have thought it over and decided that, indeed, this room should be set aside. So. No toys are allowed in our bedroom. No iphones or computers cross the threshold. I make the bed (almost!) every day, and establish order in this place before I attempt to establish it anywhere else. After all this, it seems only logical to begin my deep clean here.

So without further ado here 'tis:

Now I will be all design-bloggy and give you sources:

The bedspread and bedskirt are from Anthropologie.

The pillows are made from vintage kimonos and purchased at Black Bamboo.

The “El Espiritu” print is from Hammer Press (purchased while I was in labor with Hattie).

The nativity scene is Mexican. I have had it since I can remember. (Used to have more shepherds!)

The painting on the mantle is an antique station of the cross salvaged from a church and purchased by Devin for our anniversary.

The Chinese horse Devin bought for me in China while we were dating.

The sketched portrait is by local artist Paulina Everett

The two small paintings of roses are by Devin’s grandmother.

The rug is also from Devin’s grandmother, purchased while she lived in Afghanistan in the fifties.

The English antique chest and pedestal table (bedside tables) were my grandmother’s.

House Tour, or, The Deep Clean

For years I have been meaning to take photos of our house here in Kansas City. The only ones I have are shots of the empty rooms right before we moved in (and before we had children). I am always planning to get out my camera in those rare moments when the children aren’t around, but something always stops me. I am waiting, I suppose, for the Perfect Moment when all the rooms are a.) clean, b.) toy-free, and c.) “finished,” i.e. “decorated.” Considering my life right now (and my lovely children) this “Perfect Moment” will never, ever, arrive.

Obviously.

But still, I should really take pictures of my house. Because I love my house. And though it is rarely perfectly clean and never perfectly neat, it has become, even in the few short years we have lived here, a home: a place of rest, good fellowship, and joy. It is filled with good food, good memories, beautiful and meaningful things, and—most importantly—beautiful people (two of whom possess more tiny plastic toys than I would have thought possible considering that their mother doesn’t “believe” in plastic toys. But I digress).

Anyway, this Autumn I decided to supply this lack of photos even as I undertake another major household task: the Deep Clean.

For though I have a (fairly) successful rhythm that keeps the house “reasonably” clean, I have noticed that  dust gathers in certain unused corners, that there is grime on the baseboards, that vast and untold riches lurk beneath the playroom sofa…

So now that Hattie goes to “school” a couple of mornings a week I hope to undertake a thorough room by room purge and clean. Then, once the room is “done,” I will take a picture—quickly, before anyone builds a playmobile town under the table or grinds cracker into the rug.

So stay tuned for the first installment of my Deep Clean House Tour, scheduled for tomorrow!

Front Door: What Color?

So the siding is up at Wise Road and we have chosen a paint color (Benjamin Moore's Swiss Coffee). I will post pictures as soon as it is painted. Meanwhile, the finances are a bit tighter than expected due to inevitable unexpecteds, so some less essential projects have been put on the back burner. We were planning to buy a new (old) door from our local architectural salvage, but we have decided to wait on this. The current door is new but cheep and unappealing. However, it will serve for a while. Since this door is only temporary I have leave to choose any paint color I want!

Here are some of my ideas.

1. Brilliant Blue. You see this color all the time in the UK. I love it. I've always sworn that I'll have a door like this some day. It looks so lovely with the ancient stone, yes? However, I'm not sure it will look as good with white clapboard. ???



2. Or there is Pale Blue.



3. And Smokey Sagey Blue like this classic Farrow and Ball color:



4. Or how about going toward the greener side of sage? (Fantastic wisteria included, of course.)



5. Or if we like green how about this?



6. And if we are thinking bright, what about classic Red?



7. Or less classic Yellow!



8. Though sometimes I find myself going in the opposite direction--towards monotone White on White.



9. Or this white, which is just Off White, White Towards Sage?



10. And then, to appease the four-year-old girls in the family, here are a few selections of Pink doors (which I must admit I like more than I thought I would!)



Any thoughts?

My conclusion after writing this post is that ANY color looks good if you add a historic home in England and some antique brass fittings. And a topiary. Don't forget the topiary.

Housekeeping for the Housewife?

There’s a sweet little poem that periodically makes the rounds on Facebook—usually when a fresh crop of babies arrive. You’ve probably read it, maybe you have even posted it? It goes like this:

     Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?

     She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

     The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow,

     But children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.

     So quiet down cobwebs; dust go to sleep!

     I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

I have read this time and time again, and always I nod my head. Yes, I say, how true--that a baby is for a moment, a precious moment, and then she is no longer a baby. She is a child, then an adult. Then she is gone. You will never hold her under your chin again. If you miss this moment now, you will miss it forever. How, in the face of this awesome and heartrending truth can I justify putting her down to—vacuum, dust, scour, cook, etc. etc.

This sentiment was echoed recently when Pope Francis encouraged parents to “waste time” with our children. Forget, for a moment, the to-do list, the “musts” and “shoulds.” Take a moment to gaze into your child’s eyes. To answer the 557^th question. To read a story. To run through a sprinkler. “Waste” time with your children—or rather spend time with them, even when no measurable result is achieved. This is, of course, the “better part” that Mary chose when Martha was so busy doing…housework.

But—

But—

But—I have noticed something troubling. I have noticed that, in my own life, I frequently use this very argument to justify my (dare I say it?) laziness in regards to housekeeping. Going back to our little poem. It seems to me that the sentiment contained within its lines has at least a hint of this idea: “I am an enlightened, modern woman. And though I might embrace the noble title of Mother, I absolutely reject the identity of Housewife. Mothering is a noble pursuit. Housework is—not. Not valuable, not empowering.”

Housework, we say to ourselves, might be necessary--but then again, it might not be necessary. We can, after all, live with dust-bunnies! We might even begin to feel a certain affection for dust-bunnies—especially if we consider them tangible proof that *we* are good mothers who truly love our children—unlike those other women who ignore their baby and (gasp!) get out the vacuum.

There are days when I ignore the housework. On these days I like to quote our little poem to myself. “I’m spending time with my precious babies,” I tell myself “I don’t have time to dust. Or do laundry.” But—in reality—more often than not I am *not* spending quality time with my children. More often than not I am online.

And what am I doing online? And this is the funny part. I am usually on home-design blogs. And I find this highly ironic.  

Because, even if I don’t want to do laundry/dust/sweep/cook/etc.  I *do* want—desperately--to create for my family a warm, beautiful, welcoming home. So I sit in my cluttered, dusty rooms staring at a screen, searching, searching—for the perfect toy (handmade, aesthetically pleasing, developmentally appropriate), or the right rug/chair/wallpaper… in order to make my house feel like home. And what’s funny is that I am ignoring my children AND my home in order to BUY STUFF. And this is, to put it mildly, not right.

Because more stuff won't make me feel more at home—obviously, right? But it is not so obvious to me, on those Pinterest days, on those DesignSponge days, on those Apartment Therapy days.

Count on the immortal Cheryl Mendelson to speak some sense into the situation: 

“It is not in goods that the contemporary household is poor,” she writes, “but in comfort and care.” 

Yes! That’s what I want—“comfort and care!” And again: 

“Many people lead deprived lives in houses filled with material luxury.”

Deprived lives! How can this be true?

Because order and beauty, comfort and care, calmness, peace and a sense of belonging are what we want, what comes to mind when we think of HOME. And we don’t get these things by purchasing more—things! But we *can* get these things, argues Mendelson, by practicing good housekeeping.

For “housekeeping creates cleanliness, order, regularity, beauty, the conditions for health and safety, and a good place to do and feel all the things you wish and need to do and feel in your home. …it is your housekeeping that makes your home alive, that turns it into a small society in its own right, a vital place with its own ways and rhythms, the place where you can be more yourself that you can be anywhere else.”

This is a high claim for housekeeping! And if this statement is true then something about our little poem is radically untrue. For the poem seems to suggest that if we are paying proper attention to those we love then we will not be *able* to take care of our home. “Leave me alone, I’m rocking my baby.” We EITHER gaze into the perfect face our precious one OR—we vacuum.

I am NOT saying that—at certain times and seasons—standards in housekeeping won’t suffer. The weeks after the arrival of a new baby, times of illness and transition. When there are many small children in a home it is impossible to finish cleaning the house. But the rhythm, the consistency, matter. And the children learn—sooner that I would have thought possible—to value order and cleanliness. Already my daughter—just four years old—has begun to appreciate neatness and beauty. She “makes” her bed (almost) every day. She takes joy in setting the table—complete with freshly picked flowers in a vase. She understands something that many of us educated, liberated women have forgotten: that housekeeping is not demeaning. It is not menial, not the work of a slave or a drudge. It is a joy, a tangible, concrete way that we can bring beauty into the world, a way to show love for those in our care. My daughter is beginning to understand about her home what I once learned about my own mother and her home:

“Her affection was in the soft sofa cushions, clean linens, and good meals; her memory in well-stocked storeroom cabinets and the pantry; her intelligence in the order and healthfulness of her home; her good humor in its light and air. She lived her life not only through her own body but through the house as an extension of her body; part of her relation to those she loved was embodied in the physical medium of the home she made.” (Mendelson again.)

Good housekeeping does not take us away from our family, rather it allows us to care for them in a concrete and physical way, to speak love into their lives in a language they can understand.

So, an orderly and clean home is something to strive for. Keeping house is a valuable and worthy pursuit. Of course, I have small children, so what I strive for is not the immaculate clean, not the everything-shining-no-toys-on-the-floor-dinner-on-the-table-by-five-o’clock-in-high-heels-served-with-a-smile kind of clean. Rather I strive for what Auntie Leila calls “the reasonablyclean house.” (And she raised seven children, so her reasonably clean is, well…reasonable!)

A reasonably clean house is one where you enjoy spending time. One with bright rooms, fresh air, clean towels and sheets, and regular meals (and therefore a clean and cheerful place to prepare and serve them).

I think that, when it comes to housekeeping, many of us are paralyzed by perfectionism. We have in our mind this vision of the Perfectly Clean (we’ve been hanging out on design blogs, after all.) We have in our mind this vague idea that cleaning requires hours of solitude and focused energy. I remember that when I was pregnant with baby #2 I spent hours scheming and stressing out over how I would get both kids to nap at the same time so that I could clean, cook, and do laundry. It seemed impossible that I might attempt to do housework when both babies were not asleep or otherwise absent. I remember voicing my anxiety to a friend who had three three-and-unders at home. “Well,” she said, “if you want your house to be clean, clean it,” she said. "Like when the kids are around?? "

Um, yes.

But they might interrupt me!

Um, yes.

But they might be in the way!

Let them help.

But then—then—the house won’t be…perfectly clean!!

Um, no. It won’t be perfectly clean. But it will be reasonably clean!

So this is what I have been trying to do lately, with varying degrees of success. I just clean my house. And always with a little troop of helpers (see above). And you know what? I’m spending quality time with my kids—and my house is not (too) “shocking’ after all!

Back to School

The last post was a bit much, I know.  “It took you long enough to get around to it,” I hear you say. “You asked one little question and yet it took you a good 1300 words to establish one conclusion. Couldn't you have skipped all that stuff in the middle?“

And I apologize for this extended meditation. But people, I find, sometimes balk at Catholics who quote pat answers from the Baltimore Catechism, so I decided that it might be prudent, illuminating, possibly inspiring, to journey the road that leads up to the simple (and true) answer.

Also, I wanted to explore the idea of the relational identity of the human person, because I have a feeling that “relation” and “relationship” and finally “communion” will be the watchwords of this blog, and a vital preoccupation of my home education endeavor.

But let’s get to it, shall we?

What have we learned?

That the end of education is:

to equip the individual to fulfill her end, namely 

“to know, to love, and to serve God.”

But how does education accomplish this end? If education is the “act or process of imparting or acquiring…knowledge,” then what knowledge should be taught? What must be learned? As I muse on these questions three types or rough categories of knowledge seem to suggest themselves: 

1. what I will call the “useful” knowledge,

2. “liberal” knowledge and

3. holiness, or the “knowledge” of virtue.

“Useful” education I define as the imparting of knowledge necessary for survival. For survival—life, existence itself—is the basic good, upon which all other goods depend. The end of man might be “to know, to love, and to serve God,” but he cannot know, love or serve unless he first exists. So a child must be taught to survive, and to survive independently, survive in the society in which she was born. This aspect of education then includes first and foremost imparting to the child the knowledge necessary to acquire  food and shelter, and therefore includes the development of skills (professional, etc.) aimed to accomplish this goal. It also, I would argue, includes what we would call “socialization,” in that the child must learn to speak the language of her native place and function in its structure.

Useful knowledge is necessary in the most basic sense, as we all can agree, but just because it flows from necessity does not mean that it cannot aspire to beauty in its own right. Humans possess the ability to turn necessity into art: culinary art, architecture, and gardening, to name but a few. Animals are perfectly able to procure food and shelter their young, but only people can make a meal a work of art, only people can create a home which is also, in its union of function and form, a thing of beauty.

“Art is the signature of man,” Chesterton argues.

But this ability suggests a further type of knowledge, a knowledge that is not only useful, that points beyond mere survival, and is able to inform our daily and necessary toil. This is the knowledge of “the good, the true, and the beautiful;” the philosophers call it “liberal.”

*NOTE: not technically knowledge in the sense that Newman uses it, but formation of heart and of will, it is the will working in cooperation with divine grace to use knowledge in service of God and man.