Building the Bridge as We Cross It, by Charlotte Ostermann

A Review (email me if you can’t reconstruct these thoughts: charoster@yahoo.com)

 

Why isn’t the bridge the way to get our kids safely over the raging river of the culture of death?  How does that image pull us away from the ‘radical specificity’ that is the key to overcoming the world?

 

How are wonder, hope, poetry and the human person related by ‘betweenness’?

 

In what ways do we grow less able to bear our ‘betweenness’?

 

How has the human person grown from his pagan days, through the time of the Jews, to now – the time of the Risen Christ?

 

How can you say a person is a place?

 

What does it mean that “education is life-to-life transfer of what is real”?

 

How is ‘self’ given in the transfer we call education?

 

What is alive in you, what has taken shape, what are you passionate about, what do you want to learn?  How do you share these with your children?

 

How do you learn? What hurdles do you face when you try to remember facts or learn new skills? Is it safe to do what you really, truly want to do?

 

How does your leisure and the richness of the culture that is YOU affect your children?

What are some of the paradoxes that frustrate us, and how can we think through them creatively to resolve the tension they create?

 

What is the greatest self-education you can pursue?  Why?

 

What fears hold you in bondage?  How are fear and freedom related?  Are you teaching fear or trust to your children?

 

What are some practical ways to work your continuing education into the fabric of your life?