Degrees in Idealism

exploring how we would live if we truly believed life was meaningful

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Summer Stillness Playlist

07.01.2018 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // Leave a Comment

I often say I have reverse seasonal affective disorder as Summer is my least favorite season. A simple explanation is that I live in Atlanta and I have autoimmune issues and the heat makes me feel bad. When October hits, I feel like a new person! I feel like the world has come to life […]

Categories // Beauty, Soul Tags // #folkpiano, #improv, #music, #piano, #summer, #sunshine

My Favorite Children’s Picture Books

03.24.2018 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // 4 Comments

“Read to your kids,” parents are told over and over again. Choosing books in favor of T.V. or other sorts of entertainment is surely a no-brainer. But does it matter what you read to them? With all the reading campaigning that goes on, it would seem like any combination of words and pictures bound together […]

Categories // Beauty, Family Tags // #beauty, #books, #charlottemason, #children, #homeschooling, #parenting

Homeschooling Preschool

02.26.2018 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // 2 Comments

Our oldest child is only 4.5 so we certainly don’t have a lot of homeschooling experience. But since I’m about to have a “homeschooled preschool” graduate, I thought I would share our general plan for these early years: When in doubt, do less (in terms of academics.) Every year since my oldest was a baby I’ve had […]

Categories // Beauty, Family Tags // #charlottemason, #children, #family, #homeschool, #koselig, #liturgicalliving, #parenting, #preschool

My Advent CD

11.27.2017 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // 2 Comments

Properly celebrating Advent can be tough in a society that typically starts Christmasing around Thanksgiving and promptly ceases merriment on December 26th. One thing that has always been particularly bothersome to me is the general lack of Advent music. I’ve got an Advent playlist I add to every year, but this year I wanted to do […]

Categories // Beauty Tags // #advent, #christmas, #folkpiano, #music, #piano

My new book is out!

05.24.2017 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // 2 Comments

My oldest son knows a lot about Jesus. He knows a lot about the Church and the sacraments and about grace and about God’s love. He doesn’t know very much about sin. For mostly good reasons, I believe, I’ve been putting off that topic for quite awhile. But I’ve been getting more and more questions […]

Categories // Beauty, Soul

Watch the New Beauty and the Beast– If Only For the Ending

04.24.2017 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // Leave a Comment

I went into Beauty and the Beast with somewhat low expectations. The cartoon version was always one of my favorite movies, and I hadn’t heard the best reviews of the remake. One of the reviews I found most striking argued that there was something forced, strange, and off-putting about the story being live-action in the first […]

Categories // Beauty, Culture Tags // #art, #beautyandthebeast, #fairytales, #love, #moviereview, #movies

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About Me

I'm Elizabeth. I'm a wife, a mother to three little boys, a writer, and a lover and seeker of the beautiful, the true, and the good. I am a believer in idealism-- that even amidst the chaos and the confusion, the exhaustion and the sadness of life there is always joy to be found, hope to be clung to, and a better path to be taken. I write my thoughts on this blog. A link to my fiction book is at the bottom of the page.

About The Name

“There are degrees in idealism. We learn first to play with it academically, as the magnet was once a toy. Then we see in the heyday of youth and poetry that it may be true, that it is true in gleams and fragments. Then, its countenance waxes stern and grand, and we see that it must be true.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

I found this quote well described my own experience– consistently reworking my idealism, being surprised by it, sometimes even losing it only to discover it all the more fully. I know we will never find all the answers, but how thrilling it is to find ourselves getting a little closer to the source and summit of things, a little closer, as we work our way through the “degrees.”

sons of God

sons of God

A short novella in which Lucifer talks about his dad.

View Book

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