Ambleside or Veritas?

I have to admit that despite never using Ambleside as written for more than 1 year, I don't think that I have ever gotten their ideals out of my head.

I like the idea of enjoying great literature, nature, artists and composers slowly and thoughtfully. I love the way that Ambleside manages to drop out the busywork and let us enjoy what is good.

 I miss that approach when it is gone really miss it. Any mention of Ambleside or Circle time sends me scurrying back and wondering how to put back what I am missing in my approach. And since combining two approaches is never really a good thing, that usually is enough to send us over the edge. Yet in the middle of a year that has become in many ways an uphill push I am back considering the Ambleside approach.

The only problem is considering it using the Veritas materials. Yep as much as I love the Ambleside and Charlotte Mason approach the book-lists used in Ambleside always send me hurrying back. There is along the way too much that pushed the boundaries of what we believe without explanation. Since its hard enough for my daughter to read the likes of Luther and have to think through his ideas in terms of her beloved, it really doesn't take much to have us all cringing that something is off, liberal, faith challenging. And while there are only a few books in the selections, a few music pieces they always leave me scrambling back to Veritas...safety.

Veritas takes the other approach. When something isn't of a reformed evangelical American persuasion you know about it. Which is good at least then you can disagree with them and move on. They do however manage to put the goodness or at least show why there is shadow in all of their books and that is soul filling and refreshing. (Ok yes they can also be repetitive, but we don't mind that again..."Been there done that!" move on.)

So my question comes back to am I about to take the CM philosophy as a framework and infill it with the Veritas selections and study guides. (Yes I realize that CM would object to the study guides - but somehow that search for background material seems to be the most frequent question of the Ambleside lists.)