Mary’s bio

I am a homeschooling mother, and a founding member of St. Margaret’s Fellowship in South Dakota.

For many years, I have belonged to this fellowship of homeschooling mothers who took St. Margaret of Scotland as our patron saint, because she was the mother of a large family and, not stopping there, became the mother of culture and faith for her entire nation, the nascent, wild, country of Scotland at the turn of the first millenium AD. Inasmuch as home education is a bid to renew culture in our own time and country, she is the perfect, tireless example.

I live in the countryside, in the same place where I raised five children and mostly taught them — or let them educate themselves — at home or among our friends. I have several grandchildren and am busy writing — for them and for others — some of the things that I would have found useful when I was starting out.

The essay which I am serializing was the fruit of a discussion within St. Margaret’s Fellowship. We read Holly Pierlot’s book, which many of us found helpful in some ways but threateningly burdensome in others. Afterwards, I wrote this piece, and we discussed and revised it, and I have revised it several times since.

It is not an official document of our fellowship; it is merely my personal thought — but I would like to give credit to the lovely Moms who were part of its writing, and I would like to offer it to everyone else to whom it might be helpful.

Indeed, I would like to propose to St. Margaret’s and to others as well that we reflect on the spirituality of motherhood, particularly the spirituality of a mother who is aware, within her spiritual calling, of the intellectual responsibilities of motherhood, in that we are the primary educators of our children. I would like for us to be on fire with a deep joy in this calling, to be aware of it for itself: to enter into it, not only as the general vocation of baptism and the practical work of education, but as the specific vocation of homechool mom.

Meg, is, of course, short for Margaret; so the title of the blog: Meg on fire. This is my goal: to set St. Margaret’s Fellowship on fire with a powerful the sense of vocation.

I have another blog on science and faith: http://marydaly.wordpress.com

And I have a website for some of the essays (free) and books (for sale) that I and other members of my family have written: www.hedgeschool.com