Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast. I'm Sonia Schaefer.

When I was growing up, we had play clothes and we had church clothes.

They were two separate things. You did not wear your play clothes to church, and you did not wear your church clothes to play.

Sometimes it's easy to take that mindset when we think

about educating our children. You have sacred studies, like Bible and Scripture memory,

and you have secular studies, like history and math, and the two stay separate. But Charlotte Mason was quick to point out that no such separation

should exist. She held that, we allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and

spiritual life of children, but teach them that the divine spirit has constant access to their spirits, and

is their continual helper in all the interests, duties, and joys of life."

A Philosophy of Education introductory, page 31.

Charlotte did not want us to separate life into sacred and secular. Rather, we need to teach

our children that their hearts can and should be turned toward God no matter what they are

doing. Their schoolwork, their hobbies, their chores, their leisure activities, and their relationships,

everything offers an opportunity for continual dependence on God the Spirit as our helper.

In other words, all of life should move us toward God.

All of the things we've talked about in this series, our own personhood, living ideas, the

way of the reason, the way of the will, the relations we form with God, the universe,

and other people, and ourselves, our habits, all of it.

Our worship and praise may look different according to what we are experiencing

or learning. For instance, when we read about a tragedy, we reflect on God's sorrow over the

effects of sin. When our wills need to make a hard choice, our hearts turn to God for help.

When we're puzzling over the reasonableness of an idea, we rely on God's wisdom.

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