New Life, New Blog

 Hi all! I am blogging again at The Lighthearted Stoic. Please join me there!

Thank you,

Katie

Social Media

When I was a teenager, I read a book called The Keeping Days. It focuses on a deep, insightful girl named Tish who lives in Yonkers around the turn of the century. Keeping days are those days when everything aligns and you feel a strong awareness of unity and good.  This was a very important book for me.  So important that I bought it for my own girls.

I have keeping days too.  I had one at Christmas. One of the girls' friends came to stay with us a week. She is Jewish. It was Hanukkah. She asked if she could light the candles and pray, and we agreed. All evening, this makeshift menorah, a combination of tapers, votives, and tealights, sat on the dining room table. All of my children were home, Bradley was home, no one went anywhere. It was a rare moment.

It's hard to know what to do with those moments. Tish drank it in, recited it to herself, wrote it in her journal. I took a photo and put it on Instagram.

Funny thing about social media. We use it to be heard, to communicate, but our most meaningful thoughts tend to get lost in the flood of everything at once. Scroll, scroll, scroll.  It's a strange combination of loneliness and togetherness. Although, I suppose no one was reading Tish's journal, either.

Myself, I love social media. People are comfortable there, they reveal more, perhaps more than they intend. I learn a lot about a person's true nature by following them.  It's much easier than meeting them in person with all their noise and energy coming at me.  I take what I know of them in real life, pair it with what I see on social media, and gain a better idea what kind of human they are.

Plus, I find it easier to respond to people on social media. Real life conversations move so fast and only skim the surface. A lot of social media only skims the surface, too, but I tend to limit myself to people who go deep.  I've found good conversationalists online, and by that I mean people who listen as well as speak. Social media is a mixed bag, but if you edit your feeds and limit your time, it can be great.

I want to feel connected to others. I don't get that very often in real-life social settings. I connect when I'm one-on-one with a person, no one else there, they are focused on me and I on them and both of us on the task at hand.  A task is essential to good communication, seems like. For instance, in piano lessons. I learn so much about these individual souls that show up fierce and expectant.  Kids are such people. I love one-on-one teaching.

Group activities/tasks are a much bigger challenge for me. Needs and agendas clang against one another, it seems almost impossible to move forward without stepping on someone.  I hate stepping on people.  If we took enough time and went deep enough, I think we could negotiate outcomes that meet everyone's needs.  But people don't. They check off lists and go to the next thing, encouraged by the powers that be.  Stinking powers. I want a slower life. That's hard to find in a group.

I'm still deliberating about social media. I've thought all along that it simply magnifies what people already are. It remains to be seen if that magnification is healthy or destructive. Social media gives a voice to those who are trapped in real-life power structures.  There is a lot of pain in the world, beautiful rowdy people with something to say. We can learn a lot from those who are different. Lively online debate will certainly improve the accuracy of the picture, despite the false news that inflames peoples' fear and anger. If we exert ourselves to listen, we will hear the voice of the oppressed. This is a good thing.

Think of Martin Luther King, Jr. A lot of people wanted him to shut up. But fifty years later, we are so thankful for him and his ideas.  We realize, oh my goodness, he was right, and we couldn't see it. He said some very uncomfortable things. People told him to stop, he was making things worse. He upset the status quo, but in a good way. I hope we can use our social platforms the way he used his, with patience and grace and stalwart dedication to truth. For good.  He just kept speaking, not quiet, not shrill. He just kept speaking and would not go away, even when they arrested him.

There is beauty and there is truth. There is justice and there is mercy. Social media can magnify these things or it can diminish them. Depending on us. Me, I'm going to keep posting, praying my barbaric yawp is true enough, balanced enough, redemptive enough, and refining my choices as the picture becomes clear. Meet me there.

The Voice of the Dove

When we lived in our old house and I was alone most of the time with three small children, two doves came and sat on our back fence every morning. I heard their cooing as I changed diapers and fixed breakfast and got the wheels turning on the day.

Doves always remind me of God. It was a dove that brought news to Noah that he could leave the ark. After Jesus's baptism, God's Spirit alighted on him in the form of a dove. Christ and the church are compared to two doves devoted in the Song of Solomon. We are told to be wise as serpents... and gentle as doves.

Doves seem to me to be a symbol of the Holy Spirit which promises to come to us, to comfort us. I've always needed a lot of comfort. I'm usually fretting about something. As a young mom, I got to where I looked every morning to see if the doves were there. Every morning, there they were. Those two birds on the back fence comforted me.

We eventually moved from that house to a brand-new neighborhood. We built our home and watched other houses go up one by one. Lots of excitement for my 2, 5, and 8 year old children. I chose the bricks for this place, the carpet, the tile, the tree in the front yard. Bradley and I bought new furniture, the most important being a large dining room table which we placed in the center of the house. We used the front room for home school lessons, the front yard and bike trails for our playground. There was wildlife in this back country, but I didn't see doves. Perhaps the rough-and-tumble of building construction was too loud. I didn't notice their absence. I was busy making schedules and planning menus and reading to my children.

We've lived in the new house thirteen years, fourteen in September. This is no longer the new neighborhood. (I recently discovered it's not even considered the nice neighborhood.) The dust has settled, people have moved and left their homes to renters who don't pay HOA dues. But we're still here.

Our kids are mostly grown now, my baby is 16. The dining room table is as important as I thought it would be, the most important thing in our house. The finish is worn and sticky, but the leaves still work, extending the table into the walkway whenever we have company. We bought new chairs several years ago from an antique mall, sturdy cherry-finished chairs that stood the test of time, courthouse chairs. My grown children tilt back in these chairs and I haven't the heart to remind them to stop. They are telling me their dreams and adventures. Oh well, chairs. Sorry for you, but you are solid, I bet you can take it.

And the doves are back. I hear them in the early morning and late afternoon. I'm still home most of the time. It's harder to get the wheels turning in the morning without little ones needing something every other minute, but I work in the yard and walk the bike trails by myself. The front room is still for lessons, music students trooping through the afternoons and evenings, and for the ferreting out of books.

I don't see the doves; I see the renters' children chasing one another, so innocent; the teenagers who will do things they shouldn't; the parents driving fast to get to the next thing, outrunning failure. I hear reports of break-ins and shootings and the stupid politics of community. Then every morning the sun rises, and I hear a dove say, "I'm here, I'm here. It's not safe, but it's good." And I think, Okay. Okay, God. Thank you.

Proverbs 18:24

There are those who condemn and those who work things out. 

There are those who walk away and those who stay.

And there is One, only One, who remains through everything,
Who never leaves at all.

Open My Hands

I believe in a blessing I don't understand
I’ve seen rain fall on wicked and the just
Rain is no measure of his faithfulness
He withholds no good thing from us
No good thing from us, no good thing from us

I believe in a peace that flows deeper than pain
That broken find healing in love
Pain is no measure of his faithfulness
He withholds no good thing from us
No good thing from us, no good thing from us

I will open my hands, will open my heart
I will open my hands, will open my heart
I am nodding my head an emphatic yes
To all that You have for me

I believe in a fountain that will never dry
Though I've thirsted and didn't have enough
Thirst is no measure of his faithfulness
He withholds no good thing from us
No good thing from us, no good thing from us

I will open my hands, will open my heart
I will open my hands, will open my heart
I am nodding my head an emphatic yes
To all that You have for me

No good thing from us
No good thing from us
He withholds no good thing from us

I will open my hands, will open my heart
I will open my hands, will open my heart
I am nodding my head an emphatic yes
To all that You have for me

Written by Alli Rogers, Sara Groves • Copyright © Music Services, Inc

True Love

How risky it is to truly love. For the beloved, the true lover sacrifices wishes and hopes. It is not possession, no, the lover lets go, caring only for the beloved's good. It is the definition of longsuffering and crucifixion. And sometimes, like Christ resurrected, a phoenix rises from the ashes. The lover secures the beloved. Desire is purified and refined into love. There are no guarantees in this process.

The Maiden Phoenix

 This royal infant--heaven still move about her!--
 Though in her cradle, yet now promises
 Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings,
 Which time shall bring to ripeness: she shall be--
 But few now living can behold that goodness--
 A pattern to all princes living with her,
 And all that shall succeed: Saba was never
 More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue
 Than this pure soul shall be: all princely graces,
 That mould up such a mighty piece as this is,
 With all the virtues that attend the good,
 Shall still be doubled on her: truth shall nurse her,
 Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her:
 She shall be loved and fear'd: her own shall bless her;
 Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn,
 And hang their heads with sorrow: good grows with her:
 In her days every man shall eat in safety,
 Under his own vine, what he plants; and sing
 The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours:
 God shall be truly known; and those about her
 From her shall read the perfect ways of honour,
 And by those claim their greatness, not by blood.
 Nor shall this peace sleep with her: but as when
 The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,
 Her ashes new create another heir,
 As great in admiration as herself;
 So shall she leave her blessedness to one,
 When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness,
 Who from the sacred ashes of her honour
 Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was,
 And so stand fix'd: peace, plenty, love, truth, terror,
 That were the servants to this chosen infant,
 Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him:
 Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,
 His honour and the greatness of his name
 Shall be, and make new nations: he shall flourish,
 And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches
 To all the plains about him: our children's children
 Shall see this, and bless heaven.

William Shakespeare, Henry VIII

Five Thankful Things

1) The way the earth tilts, and us knowing about it. We can look at the autumn sky and think, "The sun is so different now than in summer, and that is because our part of the world is tilted away from it." I love thinking about stuff like that.

2) How we can see inside our own bodies with x-rays and ultrasounds and MRIs. A few years back one of my kids broke her elbow. Looking at the x-ray, I felt overwhelmed at the beautiful perfection of her bones (except in that one place, of course). Isn't it amazing that we are put together so exquisitely? Just think if we were put together in random ways. Now, that would be weird.

3) Number patterns. For instance, the way that 9x2=18 and 1+8=9 and 1 is one less than 2... 9x3=27 and 2+7=9 and 2 is one less than 3... that pattern keeps going through the 9 times table all the way to 9 (9x9= 81, 8+1=9, and 8 is one less than 9). Or the Fibonacci sequence, found throughout nature, in which the next number is found by adding together the previous two numbers in the sequence-- nature as a gorgeous afghan of numbers knotted together, woven through, and laced with color. Isn't the world wonderful?

4) How much there is to know. No matter how deep we go, there is something else to learn. Knowledge (like Shrek) is an onion. ;) In ancient times someone thought there must be molecules. Eventually, we discovered them. But that wasn't the end of the subject, because atoms. And after we found atoms, we learned to split them. What next? We are making strides in neuroscience, correcting errors in understanding the human brain, but also discovering the vast unknown that is the world of thought. And what about nutrition? Twenty years ago, although we understood that veggies are good for you, we knew nothing of micronutrients. More and more, I agree with Charles Kingsley-- man is simply playing with colored shells on the edge of a vast sea of knowledge. We will never know it all.

5) The Creator. I am amazed at the one who formed this world. He put it together and knows all about how it works. He knows the hidden health of breastmilk. He knows beyond a doubt what causes cancer. He knows of the worlds hidden in and out of our universe, what lies beyond life here on earth. And He is good. What if He had not been good? Whether our lives are good or bad, we do not understand Him. But He understands us, and he has created things for us we know nothing of. When the kids were smaller, we read a story about a little dragonfly grub that lived in a pond. His friends and relatives thought the pond was all there was to life. But the little dragonfly baby longed for more, to see the world that shone through the murky water above. He drove his friends distracted with his questions, research and speculations. Then one day he swam to the surface and opened himself to the upper world. They never saw him again in the water. He unfurled his wings and flew into the sky. Lovely. I say with Hamlet, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Telling Stories

Jane Eyre is the story of a young orphan who maintains her principles and honor in the midst of sustained hardship and even abuse.

 Jane is a child. She lives with her aunt and her cousins, a scapegoat for their capricious natures. She is passionate and brutally honest. Their dying father and husband asked them to love her, his little orphaned niece, as he has loved her, but they refuse. She is too strange and challenges their view of themselves. She is taunted, assaulted, imprisoned, and terrorized; falsely accused, and eventually sent away to a charity school.

 The school is a scene of more struggle and hardship, but also hope and love. The headmistress, Miss Temple, encourages her. She succeeds in studies and deportment. She makes a friend. Helen is ill. Helen is distractible. Helen is mistreated by one of the harsher teachers at the school, Miss Scatcherd. Jane is offended, impassioned, angry. She wants to tell off Miss Scatcherd, to throw things at her. Helen says that is not the way. Helen knows who she is outside of what happens to her. Helen's identity is Beloved. Miss Temple loves her, and so does Jane. This is what Helen embraces as her identity.

 One evening, Jane tells her friend about the abuse she endured at the hands of her family. Her telling is full of hatred and bitterness. Helen understands abuse. Helen understands hardship. But she also understands these are not a person's identity. These are things that happen. She gently chides Jane for the tone of her telling. Jane's identity is not to be, abused child, but something more.

 This puzzles Jane. Because she is thoughtful and admires Helen so much, she lets it sink into her soul.

 Jane's beloved Helen dies. The school is discovered to be a place of privation rather than of learning. The school board has believed a false thing about redemption, that it can be produced through manufactured struggle and punishment. Kinder leaders prevail. The school becomes what it should be, a place of opportunity. Jane grows to adulthood and eventually takes a position as governess in Mr. Rochester's home.

 Mr. Rochester is bitter, full of angry passion. Years earlier, betrayed by his family, he took on the identity of wounded soul. He seeks shelter in sensual pleasure, sniping remarks, and the demeaning of others. He will do as he has been done by. This is his world. But at heart, he is noble. He is not a scoundrel, and playing one is killing his soul.

 Enter Jane. Educated in magnanimity by two beautiful women at Lowood, skilled in accomplishments which illuminate her creative, independent, yet principled nature, she is a new creature. Mr. Rochester has never known anyone like her. He is fascinated. He asks for her story and she tells it. Her telling is balanced and unvarnished, with a nod to different perspectives. It is a thing that happened. She no longer identifies as an abused child. She is a woman, quick, talented, playful; fiercely independent, noble, strong.

 What happened in her childhood was terrible abuse. She was not to blame for it. It should never have happened, but it did. As she matures, informed by her loved ones, her story alters. She has now learned to understand others even when they do things she justly condemns. She has ceased to identify herself with her childhood experience. Her story has become more about what happened and less about how offended she is by it.

Mr. Rochester is puzzled, but because he is a thoughtful person and admires Jane so much, he lets her nature sink into his soul.

 Jane's healing and growth teaches Mr. Rochester to stop identifying himself as betrayed son and pursue his true identity. He is so far gone in his egotism that he has to lose Jane, lose his home, lose his strength, in order to realize his true identity. He loses his sight, but gains true vision. Stripped bare, he is finally able to embrace his life. He is redeemed to be who he truly is, a loving soul with the promise of magnanimity.

 “Reader, I married him.” Jane is a story of growth, of the strange paradox of becoming more real by discarding pride and ego. Jane, Mr. Rochester, Helen... they realize their true identities as they cease to identify with their stories of pain.

Resurrection

I read recently that forgiveness is a death, and the biggest forgiveness of all is Jesus's death on the cross. 

And I just want to say that before a person can forgive, that person has to grieve the loss of whatever it is-- a relationship, a dream, a position, a place. Maybe that is what the Man of Sorrows did here on earth with all his loving of us and healing of us and chastising of us, and with his praying in the Garden of Gethsemane when his friends couldn't even stay awake with him in his grief. They never understood his mission until after his resurrection, and they chastised people who did understand, for being wasteful and bothering the Master. The people closest to him for the most part were just like Job's miserable comforters. 

And I just want to say that grieving is a process and forgiveness is a process, and the greatest example of that process is Christ on the cross. He loved them, he shook his head, he kept dropping hints for those who had ears to hear, and, finally, he spread forth his hands, and he died. He also arose, and God will give us beauty for ashes if we wait long enough. He gave Job more than he had in the beginning, he gave Jesus ALL his people, and he will give us blessings, too. 

Wherever you are in the process, be comforted-- blessings in good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, will he give us.

Anxiety and Jesus

There is this amazing set of devotions in Reflections for Ragamuffins that speaks directly to the way Jesus dealt with anxiety and fear while he lived here. It feels strangely heretical to think of him as resisting fear and anxiety. But he was tempted in the desert with power, security, and sensation. The garden of Gethsemane demonstrated his resistance to anxiety and fear, and the strong hold he kept on his identity as Son-Servant-Beloved of his Father in the face of agonizing temptation.

I write that off, Lord forgive me. I write that off. He is God. How can he understand temptation the way a mere mortal does? But the writer of Hebrews says he is touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

(Interesting that it says he is touched with the feeling of our infirmities and not just that he understands them. He feels them. He sits inside them with us. He doesn't stand outside and say, “Wow, that's bad. You should... At least... Band-aid?” He absorbs them, he lives them with us. He lives with us in our messy, chaotic stuff that is bigger than some people's stuff and smaller than other people's stuff. He sits in there with us and GETS it. He's the ultimate empathizer.)

And Hebrews says the reason he knows our desert and garden temptations is because he had his own. He was tempted just as we are, yet without sin. When I get to this part, I always think, “Okay, yes. But He was God. That's different.”

Hebrews says it's not different. I can't fathom it, but somehow he is 100% human as well as 100% God. He did have temptations. He could have given in. But he didn't.

(That is amazing when you think of the enormity of his mission and the smallness of his physical goods and obscurity of his person. What poor, obscure, plain person wouldn't have jumped at the chance to have all worldly power, especially when his mission was to save humanity from itself and from the powers of evil in the world? Boromir demonstrated the seduction of this temptation when he succumbed to it in LoTR.)

It took gargantuan trust in the Father to stay true to his identity and not fall into the trap of worldly power, sensation, security. He identified with God and the topsy-turvy plan they made before the world began, and stayed with the downtrodden and discouraged-- the anxious and fearful people. He stayed true to his Self and his mission here on earth.

He spoke such gentle words to Martha, who was troubled about many things. He endorsed Mary's unusual, even counter-cultural choice to sit at his feet and soak in the supernatural comfort of his spirit and word-- even if that meant less physical ease for himself and others in the house. He allowed virtue and energy to go from himself to others in need. He depleted himself. In his humanity, he took intervals to refresh himself. He needed those intervals because he was 100% human.

100% human and 100% God. Is there a mathematical formula to explain this? That Jesus is all human, completely all human, suffered as a human being here on Earth (He suffered on the cross more than any other human being) and yet is all God, 100% God, fully God.

He gave up His divinity and took on flesh and blood. He could not have saved us without that component. I don't know why. Why did it have to be that way, Lord? Why couldn't You have just demanded Death give up its hold on us? There is some formula here. You followed some mysterious equation-- C.S. Lewis called it magic from before the dawn of time. There is some set of rules that needs be satisfied in order for us to righteously live with him in complete fellowship, and we are terrible at obedience. We couldn't do it. Jesus fulfilled it when he came as a man, lived as a man in the messy, beautiful, chaotic, ugly, fallen world, resisted so many agonizing temptations-- HE KEPT THE RULES when we wouldn't and couldn't-- and finally gave his life in the ultimate sacrifice of Self for those who did not deserve it.

Oh Lord. Oh Lord. What a Savior. How did he do that? And how can I dismiss his humanity because of his divinity? The Bible states clearly that he was tempted in all points just as we are. Somehow he experienced full humanity, including the anxiety and fear that comes with not knowing whether things will be okay, although he was at the same time God and knew the end from the beginning. How in the world did that work? I don't know. I trust it is true, but if I get an opportunity to ask him some things in Heaven, I hope I remember to ask him that question. 

Sir Walter Scott: on Cats

One reason I enjoy reading great literature is the gems of description often found interspersed throughout the story.  Here is one we found this week while reading Quentin Durward. I would say Scott pretty much nailed it. Our cat has done all these things, although for him, he pursues geckos and flies and crickets rather than mice. I would not trust a courtier who acted like a cat!

The aptest resemblance of his motion and manners might perhaps be to those of a domestic cat, which, while couching in apparent slumber, or gliding through the apartment with slow, stealthy, and timid steps, is now engaged in watching the hole of some unfortunate mouse, now in rubbing herself with apparent confidence and fondness against those by whom she desires to be caressed, and, presently after, is flying upon her prey, or scratching, perhaps, the very object of her former cajolements. 

Scott on Leaving Something to Imagination

"...he was startled by a strain of music which was suddenly waked by one of those doors, and which, at least in his imagination, was a combination of the same lute and voice by which he had been enchanted on the preceding day... These delightful sounds were but partially heard-- they languished, lingered, ceased entirely, and were from time to time renewed after certain intervals. But, besides that music, like beauty, is often most delightful, or at least most interesting, to the imagination when its charms are but partially displayed and the imagination is left to fill up what is from a distance but imperfectly detailed, Quentin had matter enough to fill up his reverie during the intervals of fascination."

--Sir Walter Scott, Quentin Durward

Psalm 146

Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, oh my soul! While I live I will praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. 

 Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man [human beings] in whom there is no help. 

 His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. 

 Happy is he who hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose help is in the Lord his God! Which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is; which keepeth truth forever! Which executeth judgement for the oppressed, which giveth food to the hungry. 

 The Lord looseth the prisoners! 

 The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind! 

 The Lord raiseth them that are bowed down; the Lord loveth the righteous; the Lord preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and the widow. 

 But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. 

 The Lord shall reign forever! Even thy God, O Zion! Unto all generations! 

 Praise ye the Lord!

Pro-life Action List

My 20yodd and I were talking the other day about some friends of ours who have a young baby and are also foster parents. We love watching them with their little foster boy and their baby girl.  The boy has a lot of struggles, because early on he missed out on some experiences important to development, but oh, the love showered on that little boy, and he is a treat and a half to be around.  Such bright eyes and so much life.

What our friends are doing is the work Christians should do if they care about the life of unborn children.  In that vein, here is my action list for pro-lifers who want to take the long, arduous road of compassionate love:

1. Stop vilifying women and girls who have babies out of wedlock.  I've seen the disgusted looks, heard the condemning comments. Yes, from Christians. Yes, in church. This has got to stop.  Abortion is blood on the hands of us as Christ-followers. The shame we heap on women who get pregnant outside of marriage often leads them to take the lives of their children. Yes, fornication is a sin. A haughty attitude is also a sin. Which does Jesus dislike more?  He hates both sins equally.  He died for people who commit both sins.  He loves them both. 
2. Teach your sons to take responsibility for their actions. Our sons' bodies and reputations will not be sacrificed for a child the way our daughters' will be.  This is a huge reason to teach young men not only to respect young women, but to honor them the way Christ honors the church.  I understand guys are wild at heart, but please. Teach your sons to honor women and take responsibility for their actions and not act like girls are overreacting when they try to protect themselves.  The conversation about rape culture has arisen because we do not teach our sons properly and well on this point.  
3. Welcome and serve single moms in your community without demonizing or "other-izing" them.
4. Volunteer for a reputable crisis pregnancy organization.
5. Work in foster care.
6. Adopt.

These are Christian responses to the abortion debate. The culture will do whatever.  We as Christ-followers have an obligation to respond with humility and compassion as well as truth.

Commonplace Book: A Working Philosophy of Education

"We want an education which shall nourish the mind while not neglecting either physical or vocational training. 

"...the mind of a child takes or rejects according to its needs... the mind, in fact, requires sustenance––as does the body, in order that it increase and be strong; but because the mind is not to be measured or weighed but is spiritual, so its sustenance must be spiritual too, must, in fact, be ideas (in the Platonic sense of images).

"...education is of the spirit and is not to be taken in by the eye or effected by the hand; mind appeals to mind and thought begets thought and that is how we become educated. For this reason we owe it to every child to put him in communication with great minds that he may get at great thoughts; with the minds, that is, of those who have left us great works; and the only vital method of education appears to be that children should read worthy books, many worthy books.

"...The teacher affords direction, sympathy in studies, a vivifying word here and there, help in the making of experiments, etc., as well as the usual teaching in languages, experimental science and mathematics."

--Charlotte Mason, Volume 6, Towards a Philosophy of Education

Blog Title Change

This is indeed the blog formerly known as "CM, Children, and Lots of Grace".  I've changed the title to "Lots of Grace" for several reasons:

1. The "CM" in the title may indicate more Charlotte Mason following than I actually do in real life. While I feel like I follow Charlotte Mason method in spirit, I'd rather not hold myself or my family up as ideal.   
2. My youngest child is fourteen.  The "Children" in my title seems to me to imply younger kids. They will always be my children, but at this point they are truly practicing adults-- or practicing-to-be-adults.
3. I want my blog title to reflect a broader focus than home schooling or a particular educational philosophy.  When I've posted lately, which hasn't been often, it's been mostly about us living and loving each other and trying to follow Jesus and making mistakes and trying again.  
4. I am keeping "Lots of Grace". I need lots of grace! I think all of us do. So the grace part remains.

Also, you may notice that I've rearranged the sidebar and added a list of links explaining our religious beliefs. I've been circumspect about sharing those beliefs in the past, as I think religion is something personal.  Also, a wise man once said the only statement of faith that matters is the one you live. But it seems to me time to put it out there. So there it is.

Thank you very much for reading this blog. I don't get many comments, but Blogger tells me I have followers and get page views.  I appreciate you, readers. As you look around, please comment if you feel led.

How Summer is Going, or Changing Expectations

I had all these good intentions of spending quality educational time together with Cornflower this summer. We were going to read poetry and essays and Shakespeare, practice dictation, do some writing, and finish the last four chapters of her biology textbook. So far, all we've done is kept up with biology. It's only mid-June, but I'm already thinking I may use my beautiful summer plans as a basis for our together work in the fall, and allow summer to be what it should be-- a relaxing of requirements so she can rest a bit. She's entering high school this fall. This may be her last restful summer for awhile.

I never feel like I do enough with Cornflower. She is my youngest, and I have this perpetual sense that she's gotten short shrift.  When I'm thinking rationally, I'm pretty sure that is not the case-- at least not anymore. But the guilt has become a habit that is hard to shake.

She has been painting her room this week.  She did some babysitting for a friend and earned some money which she used to buy paint in exactly the color she wanted. For the past five or six days, she's spent all her spare time thinking about her room and painting and arranging it.

And this is part of my insanity.  This girl has been painting her room all week and I'm fretting that we haven't read Shakespeare.  She is making exciting strides in piano practice, and I'm upset that we aren't working on writing.  She is volunteering at the library, and I'm sad we aren't having poetry teatime together.

The other day, I mentioned that it didn't look like we were going to follow the (beautifully laid-out and posted in the kitchen) summer schedule I had made.  She said consolingly, "Yeah, I'm really sorry you went to so much trouble to plan out stuff we aren't going to do."  Little stinker. ;)

So I've decided to switch gears and make new plans. I've been wandering the house this week like a lost soul, trying to figure out what to do whenever I'm not working in my music studio or tidying the house or making meals. Because I laid all these plans and we are not doing them and I don't feel right forcing them on my daughter.

Today is my day for starting over with new summer expectations.  I can't keep wandering the house picking up odd socks and wondering what I'm supposed to be doing.

It's weird having almost-grown kids.

Christ and Perfection

When I read the Bible, I sometimes get frustrated at the Israelites and the Apostles. I mean, the Israelites walked away from God over and over again. Throughout their long history, they get close to God, receive blessings, forget God, go into slavery, remember God, beseech Him to rescue them, are rescued, and the cycle begins again. Over and over this happens. And I think, “Come on, Israelites. Haven't you read your own history? Look at the pattern!” It's easy for me to think this because I'm reading what they lived. They lived it slow and messy, but I read it quick and tidy-- in a book.

The Apostles walked with God-on-Earth. Jesus, the Lord Incarnate. They admire him and love him and are in awe of him... and they think he is here to set the Romans straight, put them in their place. One more rescue from the God who is there. Jesus continually tells them they are on the wrong track, but they never get it until they see him rise from the dead. It takes him dying himself-- destroying their dreams of earthly power-- for them to realize something bigger is at work here.

Perhaps when Peter told the people, “You have with wicked hands crucified the Christ,” he was also thinking a little of himself-- how his expectations of Jesus had been so low. He wanted earthly justice, but Christ brought love. After he betrayed the Lord, watched him killed and saw him rise, he finally understood Jesus's perspective. This world is not our home. Then Peter stood fearless and meek-- can we be both?-- although persecuted and eventually killed by his earthly enemies. Because it's not about earthly control. It's about God's love.

This life's problems can seem so big. We don't have God's perspective. If there's one thing I've seen in the Bible, it's that life is complicated and messy and requires a God to put in order. Most of the time, that order is not revealed until later, that's why He says to trust Him and do good. As best you can, do good and love and live at peace with others, even if it seems like it won't “work”. What you think is the solution may not be what God intends at all. His ways are not our ways. They sure aren't. I would totally have gone after the Romans. But that was the wrong thing.

Remember this when you mess up. God doesn't expect us to live to perfection. That's what he was showing us with the Israelites-- he gave an entire nation so many opportunities to get things right, and they went in circles. None of us are any better. None of us. Some sin one way, and some another. If you think you are doing a pretty good job staying within the lines, be wary. The law is a continuum with sin on one side, and sin on the other, and a teeny little sweet spot of perfection in the center. And that's why Christ came. Christ is our perfection. We love him, and good comes of it. But it's all Him. Remember.

Wisdom and Joy in Trials (from James 1:2-6)

Lord Father in heaven, I try to be joyful, even when I am tempted.

I try to remember that when my faith is tried, I'm developing patience.

But many times I get upset, thinking it is a punishment to have to go through trials and temptations.

I am not like Psyche in _Til We Have Faces_. She faced her trials with calm curiosity and industry.

I want to be like that, Lord.  Help me be like that?

Give me wisdom, Lord. You are a God who loves to be asked.  I am asking for wisdom.  I need lots and lots of it. I need action-oriented wisdom and wisdom that knows when not to act.

I believe You will give it to me.  The only doubt I have is regarding my accepting of it.  Lord, please help me to want what You want.  Help my desires to match Yours.  If You say it, I go along.  

What is better than being in the center of Your will?  

What is worse than being outside of it?  

Shout Your will to me; etch it in stone; carve it in my heart, so I cannot ignore it.

Make me strong for you, Lord.  Make me strong and patient and wise for You.

In Jesus's Name,

Amen