Charlotte Ostermann

I write, speak, invest, network, and question to stimulate fruitful conversation. Let's talk about human flourishing! It begins with freedom. Holy leisure is the key to human being, freedom and generativity.  Please join me in the adventure of realizing Christ!

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Talks for High School & College Students

 

Three-Dimensional Transcendentals
Truth, Beauty and Goodness must be realized in the forms we create in order to be communicated to others. We might have a great education, and a seriously Sacramental life, but we also need to get involved in the arts so that these ideals can be realized and attract others to Christ.

Balance in Three Dimensions
The difference between a 1-, 2- and 3-dimensional understanding of balance, and the danger of mis-understanding! This talk involves rubber bands, bouncing balls, and balloons – we have fun with this one! I hear college students at St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center are still discussing it. Teens at the 2011 Kansas Catholic Homeschooling Conference also enjoyed this talk.

Sabbath Simplified
A rapid-fire presentation of the key points from my book, Souls at Rest: An Exploration of the Idea of Sabbath – tailored to younger audiences with the promise, “How to get seven weeks more vacation in every year”!

You Are A Triangle
A simplified approach to self-awareness, spiritual growth, and freedom – very interesting presentation! I use this approach often in spiritual direction and mentorship, and find it helps immensely.

In Conversation With Islam
How can we love our Muslim neighbors, live at peace with all men, set aside religious differences to work for our common interests, promote religious freedom – all while holding fast to orthodox Catholic Faith? Evangelism as spiritual dialogue, and Mary’s message of unity.

Improving Your Research Papers
An intensive workshop for college students based on my experience helping with student papers and dissertations. I address the weaknesses I’ve observed, and give a structural model for the design of thesis papers. Adapted for use with high school students as “Constructing A Research Paper”.

Why Argue?
This talk was designed for a high school Rhetoric class – common reasons why people do not argue became the very reasons for good argument. (Contact me to request a recording.)

Seeing Through Words
A workshop on the basics of poetry – key terms, common forms, scansion, better reading aloud – with a very animated discussion of the spiritual reasons for developing the capacity for poetry.

Grow Up In All Things
What does it mean to ‘grow up unto Christ’, and how do we actually accomplish it? How do we deal with Scripture’s admonition to ‘become like little children’, while growing more mature? What does freedom look like, and why don’t more people desire it? How is the spiritual life connected with all the other things we must learn as we grow up? (Contact me to request a recording. This topic was covered in four one-hour seminars for an RCIA retreat at Most Pure Heart of Mary parish in Topeka, KS)

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Free for You: Motherheart Collection

Upschooling

Souls at Rest: An Exploration of the Eucharistic Sabbath

Souls At Work: An Invitation to Freedom

DARE YOUR SOMETHING!

JOY! JOY! JOY!

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Blogging About My Talks

Building the Bridge

This is my most-requested audio – about how we can educate our children well, despite our own inadequacies. The Problem – We must get kids from where they are, to where they need to be; from ‘uneducated’ to ‘educated’. Given the poverty of our own education, we feel asked to do the impossible: build a […]

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Putting Down Sabbath Roots

Some audiences want to cut right to the chase: “Give us practical applications of all your ideas about Sabbath-keeping.” OK – here you go: In this talk I do just that – give concrete, practical ways to dip into the kind of leisure that brings  interior equanimity and leaves you more whole, more human, more […]

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Women on the Way to Healing

I prepared this talk for the Heart of a Woman group, in Kansas City, shortly after the suicide of a Catholic mother of ten. It was a shock to me, but not entirely unexpected, as I had known her during the years she struggled with depression and disintegration, despite her devotion to the Church, Christ, […]

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High Resolution Beauty

For an Apostles of the Interior Life Women’s Retreat, where the theme was “The King Desires Your Beauty,”  I prepared this truly interesting talk. Will you believe me when I say that this is another of my favorites?!?! I know, I’ve said that about a  lot of these talks, but revisiting them to give a […]

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Sabbath is a Woman

I once asked a friend who calls herself a Jewish-Catholic if it had been hard for her to accept Mary’s role in Salvation History. She laughed and said, “Heck no! Every Sabbath was begun by a Jewish mama’s prayers! I’d have been suspicious if Lord Sabbaoth hadn’t come through a woman.” Jewish women welcomed Sabbath […]

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The Veiled Self

Differences between the original myth of Cupid and Psyche, and C.S. Lewis’ retelling of the myth in Till We Have Faces have the effect of revealing new dimensionality in the Christian understanding of both myth and of the human person. The pre-Christian myth, like the pre-Christian person, is veiled in a darkness that constitutes a […]

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About a Landscape

In “Stour Valley and Dedham Church”  Constable has painted the Vale of Dedham – a familiar and beloved area of his native England.

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A Merry Drinker

 “The Merry Drinker,” by Frans Hals This is a portrait of an unnamed man, called in the title only ‘a merry drinker’.

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A Wedding Feast

Giotto’s painting, The Wedding Feast at Cana, portrays the literal and spiritual senses of this story.

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St. Francis Altar

Berlinghieri’s St. Francis  appears behind the altar of San Francesco in Pescia, Italy. It is an excellent example of art ordered to divine worship.

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More Posts About Art

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Well Read Mom

The Table – Christian Writers in Conversation

A is for Atmosphere

A mom is the caretaker of a huge, wonderful, potentially beautiful, critically important place! She, herself, this actual, unique person, is the single most important ‘environment’ in the lives of her children. Like Mary, like the Church, she is an atmosphere. She is an atmosphere of affection. This is not just warm, fuzzy feelings, but […]

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Three-Dimensional Transcendentals

Benedictine College hosted a Symposium for Advancing the New Evangelization in 2014. The theme was Transcendentals as Preambles to Faith, and I got to propose my take on that as a paper. Anyone who knows me could probably have bet good money I’d do something ‘three dimensional’ with that, and they’d have won those bets. […]

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A Prayer, A Poem, A Person, A Place

I once got a chance to do an all-day retreat with one of the sister Apostles of the Interior Life. Naturally, I wanted to discuss the role of leisure in the formation of persons! As usual, I prayed about the upcoming event, and God brought together several threads of my contemplation to weave this talk. […]

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Living Poems

Did you know YOU are a poem? Check out Ephesians 2:10, where the Greek ‘poema’ is usually translated ‘workmanship’. I like ‘poema’ better, as it implies beauty and artistry, but ‘workmanship’ is nice. I’ve discussed the importance of poetry, poetic education, poetic imagination and poetic reading in many different venues (many of the talk topics […]

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More Posts About Education

  • Charlotte Ostermann on Creativity
  • What About Gaudi?
  • Enchanted Education
  • Poetry Workshops
  • Stratford Caldecott Bibliography
  • Welcome to Bright City

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