CMP Review 2025-09-09

September 9, 2025

I hear a lot of talk about preparation. I talk to parents and teachers who, rightly so, are concerned about how to prepare for lessons with their children and students. There are discussions about pre-reading and setting up time tables. There are concerns about getting the space ready, the materials ready, and the books out. And the parent or teacher of course wants to understand what is going to be taught and learned.

With all this interest in teacher preparation, wouldn’t it be helpful if we knew what Charlotte Mason herself said was the most important thing we should do?

Well, she told us. In 1906 she wrote that the “duty of devout meditation seems to me the most important part of the preparation of the mother or other teacher who would instruct children in the things of the Divine life.”

Nancy Kelly knew that Mason talked about meditation, but she wasn’t sure how to present the idea to others. So for ten years she contemplated the practice of Christian meditation and how it applies to the Mason method. She read books by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Richard Foster, and Eugene Peterson. She dug deeply into Mason’s own meditations on the Gospel of John. And she found precious insights in the writings of Susan Schaeffer Macaulay.

Finally in 2021 she was ready to share the fruit of her study. Her talk was entitled “Meditation: Narration of the Heart,” and it was recorded live. I want more people to hear this wonderful message. So we’ve remixed it and optimized it for podcast listening. Are you concerned about teacher preparation? Then take some time to listen about the most important practice. Find the recording here.

@artmiddlekauff