On The Eve of the First Day after Christmas Break

So on Friday, the Feast of the Epiphany, the Three Magi safely made it to the fireplace mantle to deliver their gifts to the Baby Jesus, Miss Elizabeth found the quarter in her piece of the Galette des Rois, and just for good measure an ice storm topped off with a dusting of snow passed through.  But with all of that, Christmas break has ended.

 

 

 

Our Christmas break has been a delightful couple of weeks of gifting, and feasting, and reading, and friends, and crafting, and movies, and staying up late, and sleeping in, and playing in pajamas well into the morning and occasionally past lunchtime.

 

 

But tomorrow, things need to go back to 'normal'.  We will begin school again, picking back up the last few weeks of the term before exams and starting fresh with a new pile of books.  On Tuesday, the children resume their swimming lessons and choir practices, and on Wednesday we will meet with friends again for co-op.  We're not easing back in, we're diving back in.  

 

On the one hand, we're ready for it.   After two+ solid weeks off, preceded by the flu and a slow limp to the finish line, it feels like it's been a long time since we've had a day in which we followed a normal routine.   The crankiness that is creeping in around the edges is telling me it's time to reclaim it.  On the other hand, I feel overwhelmed by the thought of trying to get that ball rolling again.  Inertia.  An object at rest wants to stay at rest….   Oh how I want to stay at rest.  Sloth is a vice I wrestle with every.single.day.   I need a little something to kick-start me back into action, to help me to gladly go forth and resume the work He has given me to do.

 

Maybe I'm not the only one?  I suspect perhaps that I am not.   I can't offer you a package bundle of resources and checklists that guarantee to help you start the New Year with a bang.  I can't even offer you a blogpost in which I attempt to weave these wise words I have gleaned from others into a coherent whole.  That said, these are a few of the words that have been feeding my soul and strengthening my heart and helping me combat my propensity toward sloth this week as I prepare to shift gears and begin "normal" life again after the slower rhythm of these past weeks.

 

"…the real problem of Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it.  It comes that very moment you wake up each morning.  All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals.  And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.  And so on, all day."  (Pt. 4, Ch. 8)

 

"Every time you fall He will pick you up again.  And he knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection."  (Pt. 4, Ch, 9)

 

~CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

 

 

"MIDWINTER.  The commonest simile in connection with the new year is a book with blank pages.  Nature's year is also a book to be written.  This midwintertime represents a pause in the turning wheel of life.  It is, in northern lands, the year's low point, its nadir.  Life will swell, reach its zenith, before the next resting time. All the events of spring and summer and autumn, of sprouting and growth and seed time, the beginning and the end, lie ahead.  The whole circle of the seasons stretches away before us as we view the year from the cold plateau of January." (p.2)

 

~Edwin Way Teale, Circle of the Seasons

 

 

"Care is not passive – the word derives from an Indo-European word meaning 'to cry out', as in a lament. Care asserts that as difficult and painful as life can be, it is worth something to be in the present, alive, doing one's daily bit…combating sloth, being willing to care for oneself and others on a daily basis, is no small part of what constitutes basic human sanity, a faith in the everyday." (p.41-42)

 

~Kathleen Norris, The Quotidian Mysteries

 

 

A new year with all its possibility spreads out before me.  Tomorrow morning I will get up.  I will push back the voices that will whisper that it's just too hard, pray this prayer, and trust in His grace and goodness and strength to do my 'daily bit'.   Who's with me?

On the Eve of a New School Year

It's that time of year again.  My Facebook feed is starting to blow up with first day of school pictures from various places all around the country.  Around these parts some of the private schools have already begun, and the public schools are gearing up to do so next week (I think?  I'm not entirely sure.  I guess I'll find out when the big yellow bus starts circulating the neighborhood again…)  And tomorrow, our family will jump on the 'back-to-school' bandwagon too. (Back to homeschool that is. While I can't say I've never contemplated sending my children off on the big yellow bus, that bus comes through my neighborhood at 6:30 in the morning, so mostly I don't contemplate it too seriously.  I don't know about you, but we don't actually get up that early….)

 

I did a fair amount of reading this summer.  Included in that reading was Charlotte Mason's second volume Parents and Children, James KA Smith's You Are What You Love, and Cindy Rollins' brand new book Mere Motherhood.  The only one of those that I had planned on reading was Parents and Children.  The other two were new releases that I couldn't quite resist waiting on, despite the number of books still languishing in my to-be-read basket.  More about all of those books in the weeks to come, I hope.  In very brief summary, all of them talk about the importance of nourishing our children with good ideas, training them in good habits, and the way those ideas and habits form their affections and influence the people they become (although coming at that theme from different angles).   All of them gave me a great deal of food for thought.

 

Then, last weekend we were at our church's annual family-style retreat.   Our bishop came to deliver the teaching portion of the retreat – a study of 2 Timothy – and all of a sudden all of the ideas that had been floating about in my mind from my reading this summer started coming together.

 

Have you noticed in Second Timothy that more than once, Paul mentions the 'shaping influence' of Timothy's mother and grandmother?  It was their teaching and training in Timothy's formative years that equipped him to live out his calling in the world.  That 'shaping influence' is the Word of God – the Word that is powerful and effective for everything.  And our end (Smith would say our 'telos') is Jesus.  He is our goal.  The One around whom our affections should be ordered.  He is also the One who gives us sustaining grace – grace for every moment.  Grace to continue with patience and perseverance even in the face of severe trials and testing.  (Cindy's book is a memoir of how these ideas played out in her family.)

 

At the end of the final teaching session on Sunday morning, we had a communion service.  In the Anglican liturgy, at the end of the service, we are commissioned to go back out into the world with these words: And now Father, send us out into the world to do the work You have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord…

 

One of my children – the one who, if I'm honest, is the one that I find the most difficult to parent most of the time – was right there, snuggled up against me during that service.  This isn't the first time I've heard those words, as they are part of the liturgy week in and week out.  Nor is it the first time that I've had a child snuggled up in my lap at the point in the service.  But that day, with the words of 2 Timothy still ringing in my ears, and my nose resting against a child's head, I heard them in a new way.   That little one in my lap…and the other two who were scattered in other parts of the room with their friends – they are the work He has given me to do.  That is my mandate: to faithfully train these little ones God has placed in my care.  To nourish them with Good, True, and Beautiful ideas.  To guide them into good habits – liturgies if you will – that will guide their future lives.   To steep them in His Word and point them to Jesus.  To do all of this in cooperation with the Holy Spirit.

 

So tomorrow we embark on a new school year.  I have my books and lists ready to go – ready enough at least.  I'm excited about the new opportunities that the coming year will hold.  And I look forward to sharing some of those plans with you here in this space in the weeks ahead.  But in the midst of new books and new checklists and new supplies and new activities and new schedules….let us not forget the goal that we are aiming for.  The holy task we have been called to.   The sustaining grace we are given to carry it out – grace that is new every morning.  Let's love and serve Him as faithful witnesses right here in our homes.

 

 

From My Commonplace: Feed My Sheep

"We may not despise them, or hinder them, ('suffer little children'), or offend them by our brutish clumsiness of action and want of serious thought; while the one positive precept afforded is 'feed' (which should be rendered 'pasture') 'my lambs', place them in the midst of abundant food."  (p.81)

~Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education (Volume 6)

 

This quote comes from Chapter 5 of Charlotte Mason's sixth volume, on the Sacredness of Personality.  She spends much of this chapter exhorting parents and teachers to remember that children are *persons* and not to treat them in any way that might suggest otherwise.  We aren't to manipulate them or force-feed them or tease them or even merely entertain them.  We are to shepherd them.  We are to guide them to the green pastures of true knowledge and let them feed themselves in those pastures.  It is this steady diet of knowledge for its own sake that will help our children/students grow into fully-alive human beings.

 

This reference to feeding the lambs – shepherding – brought to mind the recent study our church women's group did on Margaret Feinberg's book Scouting the Divine.  In one section of that book, Feinberg observes and discusses the art of shepherding with an actual, modern day shepherd in an effort to better understand some of the references to shepherds and sheep in Scripture.  I flipped back through that section of the book and noted some of the characteristics of good shepherds discussed. 

 

The Shepherd:

            - is gentle, tender, and patient

 

            - knows her sheep individually – their unique personalities and quirks – and deals with them accordingly

 

            - is trusted by the sheep.  The sheep trust the shepherd not to lead them astray and to feed them that which is nourishing – to lead them to healthy, abundant, green pastures.

 

            - leads gently, without pushing.  "Pushing a sheep produces agitation.  But when I go ahead of the flock and call them by name, they follow me peacefully." (p.61)

 

So much food for thought there. 

 

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My Bookbag This Week:

Devotional: The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission

 The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost (Wright)

Theological: On The Incarnation (St. Athanasius, with introduction by CS Lewis)

AO Book Discussion Group: *Between Books*

Personal Choice: The Story of King Arthur and His Knights (Pyle) – Pre-reading for AO Year 5

With my Hubby: Emma (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: Little Britches (Moody)

 

*I am also reading Charlotte Mason's Volume 6 for a local CM book club, but these meetings are infrequent and so I just read the brief section assigned as our meetings come up.   

 

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Click Here for more Words

 

 

Reflections on Ivanhoe, Interruptions, and Personhood

Our current book discussion over on the AO Forum is Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe.  We are only about a third of the way through it, but thus far it is (to quote one of my dear book discussion friends) magnificent.  Scott really has a way with descriptions, both in his scenes as well as in his characters.   The insights we have gained into each character have been very thought provoking.   Consider the following interaction from chapter 16 between a waylaid knight lost in the woods as night draws near and a secretive friar (the 'anchorite') who is reluctant to let him in and seems to be trying to hide something:

"But how," replied the knight, "is it possible for me to find my way through such a wood as this, when darkness is coming on?  I pray you, reverend father, as you are a Christian, to undo your door, and at least point out to me my road."

"And I pray you, good Christian brother," replied the anchorite, "to disturb me no more.  You have already interrupted one pater, two aves, and a credo, which I, miserable sinner that I am, should, according to my vow, have said before moonrise."

 

~Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

This interaction immediately struck me because my gut instinct was to dislike the Friar - he obviously hiding something and skirting around it (although the knight very cleverly draws him out, as you discover as you continue to read the chapter).   And yet, how often do I respond in the same way that he does?  To my children?  To my husband?  How often do I get disgruntled when I am interrupted in what I want to do or called out on something, and justify my disgruntled response based on the "virtue" behind what I got disrupted from?  A child interrupts my devotional or prayer time to come sit in my lap and I push them away.  Or they get into an argument in the other room while I am trying to complete some 'important' task on the computer and I need to break my thought process and step away with the task incomplete yet again.  Or my husband wants to talk and I'd rather read my book.  Or whatever.  The list of 'interruptions' could go on.

 

But what if maybe that 'disruption' is something that God is calling me to in that moment?  Attending to the needs of my children.  Cultivating my relationship with my husband.  Taking time to help a friend.    I keep coming back to some of the presentations made at the AO Conference this summer.    My children - and my husband too - were born People.  I love them.  They are not just 'projects'.  As a mother, wife, homeschooler, and homemaker, I need to learn seize those 10 minutes here and there – whether that is 10 minutes to attend to a child or 10 minutes to attend to my husband or 10 minutes to attend to myself or my personal project – and not get disgruntled when I can't seem to get more than that.   And I need to continue to cultivate a habit of keeping a running conversation with God in the back of my mind, so that my communion with Him is uninterrupted even when my focused devotional time is.

 

I kinda think if I could remember those things - that my interruptions are People, that 10 minutes may be all I have, and that He is ever present with me – I would be less disgruntled when someone comes knocking at my door.

Burnout, Self-Denial, and Refreshment

So, word on the street is that February is homeschool burnout month.  I must've missed the memo on that one because we hit burnout here only a week back in after Christmas break.  I spent most of January fighting back against it.    I had a certain number of weeks I wanted to get through by the end of March when life will go topsy-turvy for our family for most of the spring and summer, and nothing – not stress, not sickness, not bad attitudes – was going to stop me.  The last week of January was absolutely miserable for us.  There was shouting and tears and school, which on a good day is easily finished by lunch, was stretching out until 4 or even 5 o'clock.  A major ongoing discipline issue with one of the children that needed some serious attention came to a head.  Something was going to have to give…but what?

 

What I came to realize was that *I* was the one that was going to have to give.  I've very jealously guarded our free afternoons ever since we started homeschooling, ostensibly for the children's sake – so *THEY* could be free to play with their school friends and pursue their interests.  This is a good thing and a worthy goal to shoot for.  But what I realized was that I was really jealously guarding that time for *ME*.  I wanted that free time for myself to work on my own personal projects and have the kids out of my hair for a bit while they played with their friends outside.

 

Ouch.

 

So, I thought through a few things tweaks to help our days run more smoothly:

I let go of my ideal of getting all of those boxes checked as quickly as I'd like.  We took a break for a few days, just to breathe.  Those boxes - they'll get checked when they get checked.  And it'll be OK.

 

I am limiting my time online.  Mama sitting in front of the computer is like an invitation to go do what you want rather than what you are supposed to be doing.   I've found that I need to restrict my online activity to the kids' free time in the afternoon and in the evening after they are in bed, and on the weekends when everything is a little more relaxed.

 

I deleted a couple of nonessential or overlapping items from Michelle's schedule – like dropping the formal grammar book in favor of discussing grammar and punctuation naturally in the context of our dictation passage each week, and dropping her individual French work for now until I can find different materials that will suit our needs better. (We still do French as a group each morning, so it's not being completely neglected.)  

I  drew up more of a time-based schedule (as described in Nicole's scheduling series here).  I'm not following it rigidly but using it as a monitor to keep myself on track and be aware of how we are using our time (who knew I was letting math lessons drag on far longer than I should have?).   I resisted this for a long time, but it has been quite helpful.

 

Lastly, I bit the bullet and added in another 45 minutes to an hour after rest time in the afternoon for handicrafts and 'keeping'.  We've been using this time for things like working on sewing felt bookmarks (our current handicraft project – more soon!), working in our nature journals, drawing, updating our maps (more on that soon, too) and adding pertinent bits from the week's reading to our timeline books.   Knowing that we have this time coming has helped our mornings to run more smoothly – we can keep moving along since we know we will have dedicated time for drawing and journaling and crafting later in the day.

 

Yes, I had to give up a little bit of my ideal of what our homeschool should look like.

 

Yes, I had to give up some of my online time.  I can't be as active here or over on the Forum as I'd like to be. 

 

Yes, I had to give up some of my personal time in the afternoon with the addition of the handicrafts-and-keeping hour.

 

But do you know what?  February has run a whole lot smoother than January did in our homeschool.  Not perfect, but better. 

 

That child who I am working with on a major discipline issue….well, it's too soon to say that it's been completely resolved, but I think we're headed in the right direction.  Not because I've done anything terribly drastic about it, but just because I have been more present and invested in that relationship.  The child feels validated, respected, and loved.  It's helping.

 

And, as ironic as it sounds, I have been refreshed.   Taking the time to do drawing and handicrafts and journaling WITH THEM means that I have had the time to do drawing and handicrafts and journaling too.  Because we are doing it all together, we're not at odds with each other.   I'm finding myself genuinely enjoying my children rather than being constantly irritated by them.   

 

I had to give up some of what I wanted - some of the 'personal time' that I thought I needed - but I have gained so much more.

 
Funny how that works sometimes, isn't it?

 

A Few More Thoughts on Imitation

A few more thoughts that crossed my mind as I continue to contemplate this idea of imitation.

 

Recently, I read 3 John and noticed particularly verse 11:

 

"Beloved do not imitate what is evil, but what is good.  The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God."

 

That word 'imitate' jumped out at me, given all the Circe lectures on this topic that I've been listening to and thinking about lately (these and these).  We learn by imitation – we are to imitate what is good and not what is evil.  Therefore, we need to hold what is good (and true, and beautiful) before our children and students – in ourselves, in our learning materials, in our media choices and so forth.   But then we need to stop and trust the Holy Spirit to work.  Charlotte Mason makes the remark that the virtue that is borne of the instructed conscience "…has come to him through his books and his prayers – not through books alone, and not through prayers alone." (Ourselves, Book 2, p.69).  Ultimately all this 'cultivating wisdom and virtue' isn't up to me.  Ultimately, it's up to Him.  Wisdom and virtue are the products of a changed heart, and only He can change hearts.  I plant the seeds, He brings forth the harvest.   I set the Good, the True, the Beautiful before them and then step aside to let Him work.  I can't actually 'cultivate wisdom and virtue' – but He can and He invites me to cooperate with Him.  

 

Humbling thought, that.

 

An Advent Reflection

This year's Advent season has been kind of different – unique – mostly in a good way.

 

Part of it is borne out of the fact that I decided to wait for most of the 'celebratory' aspects of Christmas – the decorating, the baking, the gift wrapping, the music, the guests -  until…well…Christmas. We are all off of work and school that week between Christmas and New Years and will actually have time to savor and enjoy those activities.   I find that now I'm actually looking forward it rather than dreading one (or two, or three, or four) more thing to cram in around my husband's busy work schedule, the kids' swimming lessons, and moving house (which is how we spent the first three weeks of December).

 

Part of it has been seeing the kids embrace our Advent devotional traditions as their own.  They asked for weeks ahead of time if we were going to listen to the Messiah again this year.  They are active participators in our nightly Jesse Tree readings.  They listen.  They ask questions.  All those years of trying to establish these traditions when they were all little and it seemed to be a waste of time because they were too wiggly and squirmy to get anything out of it?  That's totally paying off now that they are a little bit older.

 

Part of it has been that I have been taking the time to do my own personal reflections on Advent, using the devotional guide portion of Bobby Gross' book Living the Christian Year, meditations that have seamlessly tied together with my regular through-the-New-Testament readings, my personal literary reading, and what we've been reading with the children.  Those twin themes of Advent - waiting and patience -have been particularly meaningful to me this year.  This has been true both on a personal level in my daily battle against discouragement and on a grander level when one starts to think about all the hard, hard things going on all over the world – those things that sometimes make you start to wonder at times if God is still there.

 

Consider this from Isaiah 35:3-4, 10:

 

"Encourage the exhausted and strengthen the feeble.  Say to those with anxious heart, 'Take courage, fear not.  Behold your God will come with vengeance; the recompense of God will come, But He will save you…The ransomed of the Lord will return and come with joyful shouting to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads.  They will find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing with flee away." (NASB)

 

On the same day that I read that in the Advent devotional, my regularly-scheduled Bible reading was from 2 Peter 2.  The very same theme was echoed – waiting and hoping for the Savior who will mete out vengeance on the unrighteous and salvation to those who belong to Him.  The day is coming when all will be made right.   We've started reading the Narnia books out loud to the children, and even that story has tied right in to my reflections:

 

"Wrong will be right when Aslan comes in sight,

At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,

When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,

And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again."

(CS Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe)

 

The following day, I came to the story of the birth of John the Baptist in my Advent reflections.  The thought occurred to me about how very amazing these events must have been to Zechariah and Elizabeth and those around them after 400 years of "silence" - to see God stirring and working again…to see prophecies being fulfilled, to know that they were not forgotten.  This birth of John the Baptist was like that first thaw of spring after endless winter in Narnia....Aslan was on the move!  The promised Messiah was coming to rescue and to redeem and to save: "Because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." (Luke 1:78-79, NASB).

 

I saw the Advent theme again as I read the final few books of Homer's Odyssey this past weekend.  Penelope, Odysseus' wife, has been waiting for 20 long years for Odysseus to return home from the Trojan War - never knowing if he was dead or alive.  Talk about waiting - longing - hoping - hardly daring to believe that it might be true - and then the joy when she finally recognizes that it is him, alive and well and home again:

 

"Joy, warm as the joy that shipwrecked sailors feel when they catch sight of land - Poseidon has struck their well-rigged ship on the open sea with gale winds and crushing walls of  waves, and only a few escape swimming, struggling out of the frothing surf to reach the shore, their bodies crusted with salt but buoyed up with joy as they plant their feet on solid ground again, spared a deadly fate..."

(Homer, trans. Fagles, The Odyssey , Book 23 Lines 262-269

 

 

Waiting and patience…and the joy that comes when that long waiting is over and the thing sought for has come at last. He HAS come to save us, and WILL come again to take us home.  We can have hope in the waiting because we know that the joy will come.  It is sure and it is certain.

 

E'en so Lord Jesus, quickly come!

My Grandfather: A Reflection

 

In September, Michelle and I made a whirlwind trip (11 days total, 3 of which were spent in airports or on airplanes) all the way from Africa to the USA to attend my Grandfather's memorial service.  He passed away on August 31 this year at the age of 93.   It was a long way to go for such a short period of time, but it was totally and completely worth it.  In the 13+ years that I have lived overseas, I have missed numerous events in the lives of my family and close friends – weddings, reunions, births, funerals.   Because of that, it was so very precious to me to be able to be there this time – to spend a few days with my extended family all in one place and to celebrate the life of the man who was my hero.

 

 

Why was he my hero?  It all started when I was three years old and he and Grandma came to stay with me while my parents were at the hospital having my little sister.  They brought with them a set of "Magic Mary Ann" paper dolls.  (The 'magic'?  They were magnetic so the clothes would actually stay on!)  He sat down with me at my little tiny table-and-chairs and cut out all the clothes, taped the little metal bits on the back that would stick to the magnet, and even traced a blank dress for me to color myself.   I still remember it vividly now, over thirty years later. 

 

 

After he retired, he and Grandma bought a piece of property in the woods up in the Northern California mountains and built a house there.  The vast majority of my favorite childhood memories took place at that house.   Walks in the woods, game nights, watching Hercule Poirot on TV, camping in their trailer, playing in the snow at Christmas time (oh the travesty the year I was 10 and we didn't get any snow for Christmas!), driving down the mountain to go shopping and out for lunch at King's Table or the Westside Deli or to that place where you could get the twisty chocolate and vanilla soft-serve ice cream cones….little things really.  But precious to me all the same, the stuff that memories are made of.

 

 

When I left home and went away to college, we kept up a lively pen-and-paper correspondence.   This lasted for years – well beyond the advent of email -  many of the years that I lived in Papua New Guinea included.  It really only ended in the past 5 years or so as his mind really started to slip.    When I got married, he made a special trip and flew all the way from Washington to Florida at the age of 83 so that he could be there at my wedding.   And he was so very tickled that he got to meet all three of my little ones the last time we were back in the States.

 

 

My Grandpa led a pretty ordinary life.  He was a simple man who loved his Lord, loved his family, loved to work with his hands.  All these little things that I remember about him are really very simple little memories, things that in and of themselves were not that noteworthy or spectacular.  And yet, I considered him my hero.  I am realizing now it was because he took the time.  He sat with me when I was a little girl.   He and Grandma spent hours and days and weeks and months as I grew up spending time at their home in the mountains doing simple, ordinary things with me.   He took the time to write me letters regularly for years when I was a young woman.    He built a relationship with me.

 

 

Building a relationship with me didn't require any special talents, or a lot of money, or a lot of fuss and trouble.   It just took time…little moments here and there spread out over the years that added up over a lifetime.   If there is one thing that I want to remember about him - to learn from how he lived his life - it is this.

 

 

Take the time for the little things.  They matter more than you may ever know.