A Wonka Way of Life

December 8, 2023/2 Comments/in Catholic Theme, Christian education of youth, Community, Devotionals, Faith, Family Life, Love, Mercy/by Maria Riley

A Wonka Way of Life

I love board games. I especially love them now that my kids have graduated from Candyland to (slightly) more advanced and strategic games. I find that playing board games with my kids is the easiest way for me to have them off screen time without them driving me insane or physically accosting each other. (Yes, my girls look adorable, but they’re feisty.)

Our current family favorite is Willy Wonka’s The Golden Ticket Game. Essentially, you play as one of the five children from the film, and collect Willy Wonka Bars through various actions. At the end of the game, when all the pretend candy bars have been collected, the players look inside their Wonka Bars to discover if they have won one of the coveted Golden Tickets. At least one player is left without a Golden Ticket, more if someone is lucky enough to have found more than one ticket in his or her own stock pile of candy bars.

Since they were itty bitty, I’ve never let my kids win at games. (Okay, maybe I skew the game a little bit, but I’ve never completely thrown one.) I believe that learning how to deal with losing is an absolutely fundamental skill that our kids need to learn as early as possible. We have a little song that the loser sings to the winner after a game, which goes, “You won, you won, but I had a lot of fun.” Then the winner has to clean up the game so there’s a tiny bit of retribution.

The original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie from 1971 still gets regular viewing around our house too. (The anticipation is already growing for the Willy Wonka origins story releasing later this fall.) In the original film, we meet the eccentric Willy Wonka, who lives in a realm that seems contrary to the rest of the world. His jovial spirit and quirky mannerisms can seem enticing and confusing at the same time. He delivers countless iconic lines; my favorite one is when, after he says that they have so little to do with so much time, he exclaims, “Wait. Strike that. Reverse it.”

I feel like Jesus says that to me too in my call to Christianity. He says, “The world is doing X, but you need to strike that and reverse it.”

The American cancel-culture is infectious these days. When a person makes a single mistake, we are not only permitted but encouraged to cut them out of our lives permanently. This goes for celebrities and family members alike. If someone doesn’t agree with our religious or political views, we simply unfollow and block all communication. If someone hurts us, we self-medicate with booze instead of searching for true peace through forgiveness. We justify and excuse our actions because the rest of the world behaves that way too.

As Christians, we are called to live an upside-down, Willy-Wonka-type life. Where others refuse to forgive, we are called to love all the more deeply. Where others seek worldly recognition, we are called to work lovingly from the shadows. Where others seek riches, we are called to generously share all that we have been given. When the world says, “Do X,” we have to wait, strike that, and reverse it.

Photo License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

Book Review: A new Catholic Chapter Book Series

November 18, 2022/0 Comments/in Adoption, Adventure, Book Review, Catholic Fiction, Catholic Writing and Publishing, Childrens' Books, Christian education of youth, Family Life, Fiction, fiction, Hope, Juvenile fiction, Reviews/by Kimberly Novak

Saint Joseph, The Foster-Father Saint, is the first in the Adventures with the Saints Series. Maria Riley takes the young reader on a journey into God’s word. Using honest and factual situational instances, Maria eloquently describes the foster care process through adoption. Throughout the story, the genuine love of family is highlighted between Joshua, the foster child, and his soon-to-be forever family. How Maria guides the young reader into this family is endearing and easily understood, appealing to a third-grade reading level.

Aside from the feelings of comfort Joshua receives once he joins this family in foster care are gems of inspiration and events which educate and enhance the knowledge of God and His love. Valuable lessons are woven throughout each chapter, which benefits not only Joshua but also his new siblings. These instances are portrayed in adventurous ways and have a powerful effect.

Many aspects of family life during the adoption process are depicted honestly and give the reader a look into the child’s heart. This is likely due to Maria’s deep love for all her children, even though they didn’t come to her the same way. Maria and her husband were foster parents and adopted three of her four daughters through foster care.

“You are a gift from God, and I thank God every day for giving me the precious gift of you.”

As the “adventure” unfolds, Maria brings the reader into the biblical story just after the birth of Jesus. It is in this endearing moment when the importance of God’s love for all His children is brought to the forefront. The many educational opportunities within this story are perfect for the intended reading level and beyond. As an adult, reading the story with child-like faith brought me deeper into the loving relationship between St. Joseph and baby Jesus.

The effects the adventure has on the three children differ depending on their ages, and this compares wonderfully to how God’s word affects us all in different ways. As a mom of three adult children, being reminded that my children are not only mine but belong to God was eye-opening. Children may outgrow the parent/child relationship; however, when a child is brought up in the love of God, spiritual growth is never-ending. This valuable lesson for parents is hidden within the creativity of Maria’s writing.

My favorite parent moment happens in the last chapter when Molly, their mom, enters the scene after the children have expressed their feelings to one another. Upon listening to the children honestly express what they had been up to that afternoon, Molly does not discount any of it. Instead, she responds with excitement, joy, and genuine interest in hearing about their conversations with the beloved saint.

As the first in the series, Saint Joseph, The Foster-Father Saint, is a blessing for all families, not only those involved in foster care! St. Joseph, The Foster-Father Saint, releases in November 2022, with more series installments in a few months.

You can purchase the book on Amazon or at MariaRileyAuthor.com.

Faith on the Edge of a Cliff – Thoughts of a Wyoming Catholic College Student – Episode 3

August 1, 2015/1 Comment/in Beauty, Catholic Theme, Catholic Writing and Publishing, Christian education of youth, Faith/by Mary Jessica Woods

Last month in my blog series on my journey to Wyoming Catholic College, I explained the purpose and benefit of a Great Books curriculum. This month, I offer a reflection on WCC’s outdoor program—one of the school’s most distinctive and essential elements.

Image courtesy of Wyoming Catholic College

Three years ago my family took a vacation to Yellowstone Park. That was one my first times out West, and the first time I’d been to Wyoming. During the road trip and our hikes through the park, I found myself stunned by the beauty of the land—a pristine, craggy, wild kind of beauty, totally new to my Chicago-suburb eyes. In short, I fell in love. On our last day in Yellowstone, this is what I wrote in my journal:

“Once God’s finger touched this land, and the earth still sings and trembles with that glory. It sings of open grass, of tumbled rocks and sagebrush, in thin gold-green tones as high as wind. It sings of rivers, lazy and brilliant among the meadows, rushing and deep foam-flecked green between the cliffs, in strains strong and ever-flowing. It sings of pines and pine-shadows with somber, tall, fragrant, mysterious notes. And last but reaching above all else is the song of the mountains—keen, stirring, cragged and snow-capped, draped in the pines and calling…calling in their great deep voices, stern and irresistible as distant bells. Tolling out a fell and beautiful song…this, this, this is the voice of the land. It is a song you must hear with all your being. So hear the song, and sing back a hymn, to complete the harmony of Creation, and its Supreme God.”

Little did I suspect that I would be returning to Wyoming for four years of college!

The mountains and rivers are an integral part of the curriculum at Wyoming Catholic College, just as much as the Great Books. Nature is “God’s First Book,” from which students learn the lessons of wonder, humility, and leadership. In fact, the freshman orientation is a 21-day backpacking trip in the Rocky Mountains.

Yes, it’s required. And yes, I am nervous. But more than that, I am looking forward to the challenge and the beauty and the experience. For I already know how well it works. Last year I attended a two-week summer program at the college, which included a weekend backpacking trip.

First of all, there’s nothing that tastes as good as a meal you’ve cooked yourself after hiking three or four (or more) miles on a rough mountain trail. And there aren’t many things cooler than standing around a bonfire under a starry summer sky in the middle of nowhere, singing folk songs and Gregorian chant with your friends.

To be serious, though, I had profound experiences of both wonder and humility during that summer camp. I found myself inspired, challenged, and changed—broken open, thrust into new horizons, discovering weaknesses I’d hidden and growing in new strengths. And that was just two weeks. Now I get to spend four years steeping myself in this life-changing beauty.

If I tried to list all the encounters with wonder I had during those weeks, this would be a very long blog post. Fortunately, I do have a favorite experience to share. One of the college chaplains came out with us on the weekend backpacking trip to celebrate Mass. Sunday morning found the forty of us kneeling on a massive rock which rose above the pines and the sagebrush, while the priest celebrated the liturgy from a boulder-turned-altar. The rock scraped my knees and the July sun glared in my eyes, but I felt more focused than I had during any of the Masses I’d attended in church that week. This rock was God’s altar, this brilliant sky His cathedral. I was saturated in delight and wonder.

My experiences of humility were not always as pleasant as my encounters with wonder, but they were equally valuable. I’m an introvert-perfectionist, so I hate acting stupid or admitting my flaws. But the wilderness exposes spiritual weaknesses just as it challenges physical ones. I will never forget the day my group went rappelling in Sinks Canyon. After teaching us the technique for traditional rappelling (climbing down a cliff backwards in a rope and harness), our instructors offered us the chance to try it “Australian style” (a.k.a., “defying every single human instinct relating to the law of gravity”).

Me (in orange) beginning to freak out! Photo by Grace Pfeifer.

I was either feeling very brave or very overconfident. I found myself walking down a cliff headfirst, with the harness pressing into my stomach so that I could barely breathe. More than once I panicked, slipped, and fell dangling against the cliff face. Only with the firm guidance of my ground team did I finally reach the bottom. I was exhausted, bruised, and rawly humiliated. But I was also extremely grateful for my ground team. I realized that if I relaxed and trusted my teachers and teammates, I could not only live through a terrifying experience like Australian rappelling, but I could also grow from it.

I have yet to learn leadership from WCC’s outdoor trips, but I will soon. At some point during the three weeks of the freshman orientation, I will be in charge of my group for at least one day—planning the route and making the decisions. The rest of the time, I’ll have to be a cooperative and active follower—which, for an introvert-perfectionist, may not always be easy, either!

The purpose of WCC’s freshman orientation, to my mind, is a sort of a baptism by fire. Right from the start, the students are challenged, thrust beyond their comfort zone, and taught the importance of virtue in a real-life situation. The lessons of wonder, humility, and leadership I’ll learn won’t be confined to the outdoors—I’ll bring them back to the classroom, my relationships, and my whole life.

I’ll see you in God’s country.

Faith on the Edge of a Cliff – Thoughts of a Wyoming Catholic College Student – Episode 2

July 4, 2015/7 Comments/in Catholic Writing and Publishing, Christian education of youth/by Mary Jessica Woods

Photo by clarita, morguefile.com

Last month, I introduced this blog series by describing my enthusiastic discovery of Great Books schools, specifically Wyoming Catholic College, which I will be attending in the fall. This month, I bring up some common doubts and challenges I’ve encountered in advocating a classical, Catholic, liberal education.

The Great Books—or a great waste of time?

Over the past year or so, I’ve had many peers, relatives and adult friends ask me what I want to study in college. When I would reply I wanted to attend a Great Books school, their faces would typically go blank. After I would try to explain, their expressions might shift to a mild concern. What was a “Great Books school,” they’d ask? Why didn’t it have any majors—only a liberal arts degree? Wasn’t I worried about not being able to choose my own courses? What did I expect to do for a career, once I finished with this…unusual method of education?

I’ve had trouble explaining my motives fully to my concerned acquaintances. For the full explanation requires a pouring out of my heart. My desire to go to a Great Books school is so wrapped up in my faith, my love of truth and beauty, and my poetic view of the world, that it isn’t reducible to a single sentence—or even a single conversation. But I do want to address these doubts and questions—not least because they have crossed my mind as well. So I will attempt to answer them here, briefly.

What is a Great Books school?

A Great Books college is one which presents an ordered, integrated curriculum, comprised of the reflective study of the works of the best writers, artists, philosophers and scientists of Western history. The purpose of this education is not only to teach the student about his cultural heritage, but to actually engage him in the conversation of his ancestors, on the perennial human questions: Why do we exist? Is there absolute truth? What is goodness? Who is God? And so on. From poetry to politics to metaphysics, a Great Books education nourishes the imagination, steels and disciplines the mind, and morally orders the soul.

There are a few secular institutions, such as St. John’s College in Annapolis, which still follow this purpose and curriculum. In the case of Wyoming Catholic College, of course, the traditional array of great authors is taught in the context of revealed Church doctrine. The ultimate purpose of the College is to set its students on the path to Heaven. That’s quite a mission statement.

Why does a Great Books school have no majors—only a liberal arts degree?

In higher education today, specialization is rampant. Colleges typically only prepare students for a particular task in society—doctor, lawyer, technician, scientist, etc. Even the traditional humanities have become fragmented disciplines for specialists, tending towards the analytic. (An example: once in a public high school library I saw a poster advertising the school’s digital research tools. The poster displayed a rather bewildered Shakespeare sitting in front of a computer, wondering, “What are they saying about me now?” Right—because the study of Shakespeare is no longer about what Shakespeare has to say, but what specialized literary critics have to say about him.)

The purpose of a Great Books education is general education. These are the principles, the faculties, the insights, the common experience of all humanity. For we are human beings before we are workers of any kind. Catholic liberal education through the Great Books nourishes our uniting essence as free, rational creatures of God. If that doesn’t deserve (at least!) four years of study, I don’t know what does.

Isn’t it troubling that Great Books students cannot choose their own courses?

Flannery O’Connor, writing on how literature classes ought to be taught, once quipped, “And if the student finds that this [teaching method] is not to his taste? Well, that is regrettable…His taste should not be consulted; it is being formed.”

In this light, the typical university’s lure of “self-directed education” is revealed as ridiculous. What right have I, the as-yet-uneducated student, to determine the form and content of my own learning? Humility is required for education—a joyful openness and zeal to wrestle with ideas one never would have considered on one’s own.

There is another advantage to taking the same exact same classes and reading the exact same books as every other student in the college. Common knowledge and interest form culture; when the common interest is the joyful pursuit of wisdom through the Great Books, a community of learners is born who really care about truth, beauty, and the practice of virtuous life. It is this kind of people who quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) change the world for the better.

How does a Great Books school prepare the student for a stable career?

The primary purpose of a Great Books school is general education, not vocational training. That said, of course we all need to make a living, and to serve our fellow men. Technical training has a place. It is a good and useful one. But unless firmly fixed in a society with a strong moral order, even useful disciplines lose their ultimate meaning, opening doors to greed, exploitation, evil and suffering. We do need skillful men and women in our society, but first we need them to be good men and women.

I maintain that a liberal education not only teaches that necessary virtue, but it also lays the foundation for any and all vocational training a student may undergo after he graduates. Any career—medicine, business, education, the fine arts—requires for success a keen, disciplined mind, clear problem solving and communication skills, and a patient and persevering spirit. These qualities a Great Books school cultivates; it develops a person’s innate human potential, before sending him or her to a particular task in society.

In conclusion, while I do not yet have an exact career plan after college, in all honesty, I’m not worried. I was more worried about studying for an unsatisfying career and being miserable in it. I simply wanted to learn—to know things—to humanly flourish. I will be doing that at Wyoming Catholic College.

Faith on the Edge of a Cliff: Thoughts of a Wyoming Catholic College Student – Episode 1

June 6, 2015/4 Comments/in Beauty, Christian education of youth, Faith/by Mary Jessica Woods

Introduction

He knew a path that wanted walking;

He knew a spring that wanted drinking;

A thought that wanted further thinking;

A love that wanted re-renewing.

~ Robert Frost, from “A Lone Striker”

In just two months, I will be striking out on my own. I will be leaving the Chicago area which I’ve called home for the entire eighteen years of my life. I’m shaking off these suburbs and skyscrapers. I’m headed westward, pioneer-style. Like the man in Frost’s poem above, I know a path that wants walking, a thought that wants thinking, a love that wants re-renewing.

In short, I’m going to Wyoming Catholic College.

I will be a freshman at Wyoming Catholic this August. But my journey to this new and unique Catholic school began long before that. Over the next couple of months, I’d like to share a few insights and reflections I’ve gained in my college search and preparation. It is my hope that this series will provide some timely thoughts on Catholic education, from the eyewitness viewpoint of a Catholic college student and aspiring writer. The Holy Spirit has truly led me to Wyoming Catholic. My only response can be to look back on the road so far, and praise Him.

The Calling

It was April 2013, the spring of my junior year of high school. The specter of college education had just begun to loom on my horizon, distant but still daunting—daunting, because, like many high school juniors and seniors, I had no clear idea what I wanted to do.

I had been given a quasi-classical, Catholic homeschool education since the age of four. What I had discovered over the years since then, was that I liked learning—especially the craft of words. I possessed a strong poetic streak and a penchant for weaving stories. I felt called to be an author.

My path should have been clear enough—go to a good liberal arts college, major in English or Creative Writing, land a job somewhere in the writing and publishing industry, and viola—my first novel would be right around the corner. Nevertheless, throughout high school I kept experiencing an odd, nagging feeling, that it wouldn’t be enough. As I fished through the growing pile of college brochures on my bedroom floor, nothing, not even the liberal arts schools, strongly attracted me. Something, among the ubiquitous boasts of the number of majors, the small class sizes, and the percentages of successful alumni—something was missing.

Meanwhile, during my junior year, I was enjoying my high school academics more than ever before. My parents, in the classical homeschool method, directed me towards the Great Books. I began to spend time with some of the greatest minds in Western history—Cervantes, Descartes, Milton, the American founding fathers, to name a very few. As I read their timeless works, I wrote summaries, asked questions, and reflected. I found that I loved finding the threads that connected these books to the absolutes of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. The wisdom of the Great Books—combined with the religious education I received from my parents—began nourishing not only my schoolwork, but my whole life and thought.

In April of 2013, a lightning-bolt of realization stunned me. I had to go to a Great Books college. There was no question about it. I needed to attend a school which primarily cultivated not what I would do for a job, but who I would be as a person. (Of course, the job aspect is important as well, but not one that I can address here in full. For now, let me put it this way: the discovery of the human essence comes first. Profession comes second.)

Enthused, I dove into my college search with a new vigor. Fortunately—considering the miniscule number of Great Books colleges in the country—it didn’t take me long to stumble across Wyoming Catholic College.

Wyoming Catholic is tiny. It’s less than ten years old. Enrollment, though growing, is currently fewer than 150 students. It does not yet have its own permanent campus, and it’s tucked in a little Western town called Lander at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. And yet, the day I explored their website, I became convinced that this was where I needed, wanted, desperately desired to go.

Wyoming Catholic possesses a unique, three-fold identity that might be outlined as Catholicism, Great Books, and Wilderness. The school’s mission statement attests:

“Wyoming Catholic College is a four-year college committed to offering a liberal arts education that steeps its students in the awesome beauty of our created, natural world and imbues them with the best that has been thought and said in Western civilization, including the moral and intellectual heritage of the Catholic Church. The College strives to promote a love of learning, an understanding of the natural order, and the quest for virtuous living so that its graduates will assume their responsibilities as citizens in a free society.”

This college spoke to my heart and soul in a way no school ever had before. I had discovered the path that wanted walking, the love that wanted re-renewing. My grand adventure had begun.

Further Links

For an introduction to the classical education method, read this essay by historian and classical homeschool teacher Susan Wise Bauer.

For readers interested in learning more about Wyoming Catholic, visit their website at www.wyomingcatholiccollege.com. Their short film, “Everything in Excellence”, is an especially beautiful introduction to their mission and method.

Editor’s Notes: In the past few months we have seen the writing and editing talent of Mary Woods blossom. Now we are losing her to Wyoming. BUT all is not going to be missing. As a young lady with a deep faith she will be checking in with a monthly commentary about her adventures. Her faith and talent are striking out into the real world. Her faith will be tested and stretched, her talent molded. She will be “on an edge” more likely every now and then. Part of the curriculum is actually rock climbing! We are lucky to be sharing this adventure with her and send her along with prayers and love. Thank you Mary for your generosity. KC