Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real: At the Pumpkin Patch
My aunts were in favor of my continuing the pretty, happy, funny, real series. :)
Pretty
Happy
He’s happy he only has a foot to go to catch up to me.
Funny
Knox loves to make himself dizzy; it’s even better if it involves part of a vehicle. Click on it to see the short clip. I remembered just in time that I can take short videos on my camera.
Real
Four moms and 14 children 8 and under. Fifteen counting the next Miss Stewart. We managed pretty well, I think
Living with the End in Mind
My grandpa passed away two weeks ago today. My husband and I went to the funeral on Saturday. In his 90 years my grandpa was awarded a bronze star in World War II and was an engineer who built towns and cities all over the world. Hearing his life story at a funeral has turned my thoughts to consider what story might be told at my own funeral.
Whatever that story may be one thing is certain, I am living and writing that story right now. What sort of story is it?
What story do I want told at my funeral? Whatever it is, now is the time to start living it.
What commendation do I hope for at the end of my life? Is it not “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Master”? It is. Therefore, now is when I am to be a good and faithful steward.
What sort of life do I hope for as I age? The health choices I make now could very well determine my options when and if I reach 70, 80, and 90. Suddenly weight loss, diet, and exercise is not about losing pregnancy weight, but about instilling healthy habits and managing my energy, stamina, and strength potentials for when my age doubles and triples.
Last week I read 1 Timothy 5 in this light. What sort of woman is qualified to be supported by the church in her widowhood? One who has been the wife of one husband, one who is known for good works, one who has raised children, one who has shown hospitality, one who has cared for the saints’ physical needs, one who has been devoted to good works and service. These are the things I am to be doing now.
Do I want to be remembered for crankiness or for joy? For annoyance and stress or for love and kindness? What temperament dominates me now? What atmosphere dominates my home? If I died soon, would my children have more memories of discipline or of affection? Of frowns and distracted “uh-huh”s or of smiles and shared laughter?
And so with one momentous life shift, living in fellowship with my children, living life on purpose, living intentionally rather than idly, living for the long haul rather than the moment’s convenience and ease, becomes clearly needful rather than theoretically ideal.
Canon Press Fall Sale
Check out Canon Press’ 5-Day Fall Sale this week! They have a lot of downloadable audio sets on sale for $1-$4 each — and that means no shipping to pay, either.
A Pleasant Home, A Biblical Roadmap for Parenting, and Spring Cleaning are some of the titles on sale. Another interesting one I didn’t get was Welcome to the Reformed Faith. Women and Marriage was the Bible study Nancy held the year Matt and I were married and living in Moscow. The Wilson’s marriage advice set us on the right path, and we are so grateful for it.
Even some audiobooks, including an audio version of one of my favorites, Joy at the End of the Tether. You can even get the audiobook of Loving the Little Years for less than $2!
So, hop on and see if there’s a deal there waiting for you. I now have my laundry-folding playlist well stocked.
Dangerous Woman as Mother
At the Dangerous Women conference held by the Femina Girls, Rachel Jankovic spoke to mothers. The way I’ve summarized the notes might make it sound bossy and all “you, you, you,” but that wasn’t the tone at all — just the tone I used in writing it to myself. She was funny, but the humor didn’t make it into my notes much — is that telling? Oh dear. I do highly recommend the audio when it is made available.
Dangerous Woman as Mother
Mothers are a strategic target to build or destroy culture. We are easily discouraged in the day of small things and we spend too much time fussing with each other and with our children over petty things. The mothers are the glue that connects the father to the children. You create the atmosphere and opportunities for your children to be fathered as well as nurtured. Mothers turn the husband’s intangible or less tangible (provision, vision, love) into real, tangible connection (dinner on the table, food in the fridge, clean clothes in the drawers, time to talk). Your home is not where you have retreated, you are strategically placed. Making a home is making a dangerous family, not a warm and cozy feel-good neutral zone. You make the atmosphere, the environment FOR people, not for its own sake. Your role is facilitating fellowship. You aren’t making food because they need to eat, but because they need to sit around a table and be part of a people. You are giving your children their identity. So your home is one of the primary forces for cultural change, not through knowledge or lectures, but through table fellowship and identity-giving love. How you live preaches the gospel or lies about the gospel.
Fellowship is the central aspect of the home. It’s easy to allow yourself a little attitude because you’re doing the work, but that forgets that the real work is fellowship. It’s easy to see children as an obstacle to your work, but they are the work and the point. Your attitude makes or breaks fellowship in the home. Don’t let anything disrupt fellowship in your home; that’s your job. Your children look to you to find out who they are and where they belong. They are vacuums for love, and affection gives identity. When you break fellowship with your children, you are breaking them and their identity, tearing them down. Hospitality should always be extended to your own first, and not outward if it means fellowship is broken during clean up time an hour before. Your love, contentment, and happiness makes your children loyal and feel like they belong. Your happiness shines, and it will annoy and threaten some people, but it bestows life and love to your children. If the life you give is external and unhappy, they will defect, be disaffected.
Churches are like families in a big scale, and the same problems that happen there can happen in the home: 1) consumed with new growth while neglecting other stages, 2) hypocritical leadership, 3) consumed with either all squishy grace or all hard law, 4) teaching people they wish were there instead of the ones that actually are (not paying attention), 5) big on tithing & serving rather than on feeding and equipping the flock. Church is about unifying diverse people, binding them in fellowship, and it’s something only God can do. Churches and families and people are supposed to look radically different from one another, yet be unified together; do not compare and judge other’s homes — worry about your own.
Book Club: Abolition of Man | Irrigating with Our Assumptions
Cindy is hosting another book club, this time going through the thin but meaty Abolition of Man, the text of which is available free online. Free text online sure does make quoting a lot easier, let me tell you. :D
Please do join in! Abolition is short and accessible, but with many avenues to discuss.
Assumptions
In the first essay, Lewis considers a particular but unspecified textbook, and how the assumptions of the authors will create unconscious assumptions in the students:
It is not a theory they put into his mind, but an assumption, which ten years hence, its origin forgotten and its presence unconscious, will condition him to take one side in a controversy which he has never recognized as a controversy at all. The authors themselves, I suspect, hardly know what they are doing to the boy, and he cannot know what is being done to him.
Giving students assumptions is not necessarily a bad thing, I think; Lewis is condemning the assumptions that the textbook is offering, not the fact that it is giving assumptions. How we perceive the world, the assumptions and filters we function under, will determine the assumptions we pass on to our children. Before theory is simple perception. What Lewis says a few paragraphs later about ordo amoris returns to this thought:
Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought. When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in ‘ordinate affections’ or ‘just sentiments’ will easily find the first principles in Ethics; but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science. Plato before him had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting and hateful. In the Republic, the well-nurtured youth is one ‘who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he becomes a man of gentle heart. All this before he is of an age to reason; so that when Reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold out his hands in welcome and recognize her because of the affinity he bears to her.’
So, our own assumptions about the world and life, our home’s atmosphere, our manner of living and acting, or reacting, is giving our children entrenched filters and affections that they (and, usually, we) are not even aware of.
The way Lewis speaks here of Reason reminds me of the way Wisdom is personified and spoken of in Proverbs. She calls, and the well-trained son hears and responds; however, the foolish son cannot hear, or, hearing, rejects it.
I know all too often the atmosphere I create is one of harsh tones, hammering the gavel down on silliness, and, generally, keeping a piercing hawk eye for offenses — and what you look for, you can usually see. My own attitude and what I see and how I respond shapes what my children also see and how they respond. This is evidenced clearly by how well they can mimic my harsh frustration among themselves. This isn’t the atmosphere I want, but it is often the atmosphere I choose, because I stubbornly insist on my own way in my heart. In this, even, though, there is room for rejoicing, because there is room for repentance. If through my faults and failings, I can yet model repentance, suddenly the bad turns for good and the crooked is made straight. A sin becomes not something that condemns, but an opportunity to create an atmosphere of repentance and forgiveness and grace.
What we dish out is what will be dished back to us. What we sow, we will reap. Harshness or grace. Glares or smiles. Gavel-hammering or rejoicing. It is sown in our homes and multiplied in our children, shaping their perception of the world much more than any theory or lecture. How scary. How much we need God!
Cutting Down or Building Up
My very favoritest quote is right here near the beginning of the book. It is one of my top most education quotes of all:
[T]hey conclude that the best thing they can do is to fortify the minds of young people against emotion. My own experience as a teacher tells an opposite tale. For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.
I have always loved this quote and identified myself as a desert in need of irrigation, just like my own backyard. My own heart does tend toward hardness and cold vulgarity rather than weak excess. I have always looked down upon Maryanne Dashwood. Give me Eleanor, yes, and we shall feel mightily superior to the silly romantics. Give me cold logic and reason and I shall debate in my mind. And then I wonder why, after all this reading and thinking, my life remains untouched. I cringe and groan and protest when Piper emphasizes emotion, and I can only take the excessively poetic in small doses. But then my pride and my reason cannot deny that God commands certain emotions to characterize the lives of His people: joy, thanksgiving, abundance, rejoicing, gladness, contentment. And how come I don’t have them when I have affirmed that it is so? It is because I am a desert repulsed by jungles. Yet, I am called to fruitfulness, to growth, to being an ordered and lively jungle, and God promises to water — with living water — especially those who water others.
After all, it is only by being irrigated myself that I can in turn irrigate the children. “Get cheerful!” Mother snapped and Mother growled, “If you don’t change your attitude, you know what will happen.” Oh, wait. Is this what you meant by hypocrisy? Right. Oops. And again and again we repeat. Inculcating just sentiments comes not by the telling and the commanding, but by the living and the breathing. Easy to say and so, so painful and difficult to live. But if, with my manner of life and my own true affections evidencing themselves, I pull the rug from underneath my children and leave them believing this life is a fraud, then the famished nature and hard heart and soft head will seek a different story and leave them open to lies.
Conclusion
So, I’m here typing convicting things to myself, and my 3-year-old comes with her alphabet flashcards and says, “I want to play with these….for my own glory.” Um. That’s HIS own glory, child. But, yes, perhaps the atmosphere is too often MY own glory. It’s not what one says that matters so much as how one is actually living, what one is actually doing, and the assumptions that are actually governing rather than the theories and philosophies affirmed.
A child’s character is forming under a principle, not of choice, but of nurture. The spirit of the house is breathed into his nature, day by day. The anger and gentleness, the fretfulness and patience — the appetites, passions, and manners — all the variant moods of feeling exhibited round him, pass into him as impressions, and become seeds of character in him; not because the parents will it, but because it must be so, whether they will or not. — Horace Bushnell
~Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real~
Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life.
Pretty
We left the house at 6am on Saturday to see the hot air balloon rally about a 45 minute drive away. Knox spent the whole time pointing, especially after the first one lifted off. That is not what he expected.
Happy
The boys were very happy to begin Cadets, our church’s boys’ club, this week. Thrilled might be a more apt word.
Funny
My little handful.
Real
We went to the river for our nature study this week. I don’t know why we don’t do that more often; it’s only a couple miles away and the water is so pleasant.
My other little handful. This was before he plopped in the water, dirt-caked and without shoes. He didn’t mind, though.
Menu Pages: Soups
My only consolation as the first gray days of fall hit and as the temperatures drop is that at least it is almost soup season. Not infrequently do we have soup twice a week from October through April.
Here are 4 pages of my favorite soups, in my new format.
And, of course, the best pairing with a hot soup is a salad and Lahey’s No-Knead Bread. It might have been a passing trend that swept the nation 5 years ago, but we’re still in love. And I only just remembered one of my favorite variants: Whole-Wheat Cranberry Walnut
Do you have a favorite soup you’re looking forward to making?
Review: Face to Face by Steve Wilkins
Face to Face: Meditations on Friendship and Hospitality by Steve Wilkins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Wilkins divides this book into two parts: Part one is about the necessity of friendship, and part two is about the necessity of hospitality.
On friendship, Wilkins maintains that having one or two close friends is vital, not optional, not simply a nice thing if it works out. We are created finite, dependent, and social. Friendship is something to pray about, seek out, and invest in, not only for our children, but for ourselves as well. Friendships do not happen incidentally, they require an investment of time and of oneself — and it is worth it. Wilkins also develops that while we are to be friendly with everyone (loving our neighbor), we cannot be intimate friends with more than one or two people because of the time and investment involved. And, from a pastor’s vantage, he also gives a hard word about being friendly oneself rather than complaining about cliques and the unfriendliness of others.
On hospitality, Wilkins fleshes out Strauch’s Hospitality Commands a bit more, particularly the aspect that hospitality is always connected with showing love to the saints in the New Testament. He develops a bit more what hospitality is, what the benefits are, and finishes up with a chapter of practical tips for beginning to show hospitality.
—–
Quotes:
“The focus of hospitality is neither on the full table or the large room but on the open door. [...] The heart of hospitality is the encouragement of others.”
“I hope that all Christians can delight in the amazing beauty of the lawful variations that exist between us.”
“Joyful Christians laugh at the suggestion that the unbeliever’s licentiousness yields in any way a true and lasting happiness; but sadly many Christians fail to give, in their home life, a living refutation of the unbeliever. Our lives have failed to publish the joy of the gospel. Our houses should be a place of celebration.”
“So many dead churches believe themselves to be unified and full of love for the brethren, but that is only because they never see each other. It is easy to ‘love,’ in a vague, abstract way, someone you do not know. It is easy to be at peace with humanity in general, as long as you never have to reconcile with a real person. There is peace and unity in a graveyard; there are no arguments and no divisions. But that is not the peace of the living; it is the emptiness of the dead. In a real, living church, growing under the blessing of God, members are rubbing shoulders constantly, and so there are constant outbreaks of conflict that require forgiveness, forbearance, and patience — growth in sanctification becomes a necessity; it is sink or swim.”
Dangerous Woman as Wife
At the Dangerous Women conference held by the Femina Girls, Bekah Merkle spoke to wives.
Dangerous Woman as Wife
When the Bible speaks directly to and of wives, it speaks of two things we tend to see as unrelated: submission and fruitfulness. These are the two areas the curse addresses and the two things the world wars against. They are the two things we need to pay close attention to.
Submission: Submission is not “the husband gets the swing vote if we have a disagreement,” so that happy, compatible marriages never have to worry about submission. Submission is a wife’s character, demeanor, and her filter. Submission saves us from our endless comparisons. Our standard is not Suzie Q., nor is it our imagined ideal of “perfect wife,” our standard is our own husband. There is no elusive ideal to “how clean should I keep my house,” or “should we homeschool” or “should we have another baby” or “should I do mega couponing” or “should I weigh less or more.” There isn’t One Right Answer to these issues of daily practice that applies across the board to everyone. The way we find out the right answer for ourselves is to talk it through with our husbands and honor him through all these practices. It is not that he is infallible or that he is the Boss, but that God has ordained the family to work this way, and even if your husband is wrong (and it’s not a morality issue), you’ll also be wrong to subvert your head (unless, of course, he wants you to sin). If you don’t know if it’s a morality issue or not, talk with your pastor or an elder or a wiser woman — someone who can be part of a solution, not an ear to listen to complaints. Submission is a protection for the wives, because women tend to want to be in charge and direct their husbands (part of the curse, subverting of God’s order) and because women tend to compare sideways amongst themselves and get trapped in envy, guilt, or pride. We also tend to put our identity into our methods: mega couponing, homeschooling, bread-baking, cloth diapering, gardening, house cleaning, sewing, etc. etc. We should be doing what we’re doing to bless our own families, not to prove something to others. You can be confident in your choices if you are in line with your husband’s desires. You don’t have to be defensive or evangelistic about your practices if your answer is, “My husband wants me to _____.” You submit to your husband and you allow your girlfriends (or women online) to submit to theirs. Your role as wife is to put legs on your husband’s ideas for your family and make it happen. Of course husbands and wives discuss and work out their ideas together, but if you know your husband’s wishes, how are you reacting to it? Which is more important, your husband’s desires or your facebook status or your blog entry or what your friends will think? Whose vision are you making happen — yours or your husband’s? Are the visions at odds? Are you setting yourself above him or under him? Are you trying to lead him down the path you want? Submitting is following him down his path. Submitting to your husband is obeying God, and God will bless your submission. Don’t look sideways at other women, look to your own husband and your own God and trust and obey. Think: What would bless your husband? Submission is how godly women adorn themselves. It is lovely and it is our clothing, our character. If you don’t do what your husband would like simply because you don’t want to, you are worse than a feminist, you are a feminist calling herself a biblical woman, you are a hypocrite.
Fruitfulness: God sees fruitfulness differently than we do; it is not about numbers (widow’s mite) it is about faithfulness with what God has measured to us. Don’t compare your fruitfulness to other women’s, keep your eyes on your own business. God made all kinds of plants (people), fruit (deeds), and soil (conditions and circumstances). God delights in variety. You be fruitful where you are with what you have, and don’t cast sidelong glances to see how you are measuring up to other people or how they are measuring up to you — that’s not the way God measures. God makes straight, orderly wheat as well as runner beans, God makes tomato plants that pop up in unlikely and unfavorable places and tomato plants in well-composted and tended gardens. Don’t worry about what God made other people to be, worry about yourself and being faithful. Produce fruit and let God have the fruit — who knows where the seeds will fall or what will happen to them. That is God’s business, too. Your business is to produce the fruit and to glory in fruit of all kinds. Fruit (yours and other people’s) should make you rejoice, not wonder, not compare, not be guilty or envious or proud. Be grateful for all fruit.
Fruitfulness and submission are related. A seed has to go under (the literal meaning of submit) the ground and die. It gives itself up, it doesn’t seek glory, it goes into the dark, moist, hidden ground and dies. Then, and only then, is it resurrected and made something beautiful and glorious and far better than itself. Submission is letting go of your own ways and letting God do what He will and accepting what God brings. Then he resurrects and you bring forth fruit — primarily, first and always, the fruit of the Spirit. If the fruit of the Spirit aren’t a part of the fruit you’re bearing, your fruit is just fake styrofoam fruit you tied on so you look good. Genuine fruit is of the Spirit and is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. No genuine fruit can be born apart from these, apart from the Spirit. Tying fake fruit on your tree for appearance’s sake will get you nowhere and do you no good. The fruit of the Spirit abounds to more and more life, more and more fruit. But to get to this wisdom and this fruit, you have to go through the hard part, the dying part, the submission part, the letting go of your self-created identity.
Conclusion: Be willing to drop your pet thing if it would make your husband happy, drop your comparisons, and then you can be fruitful.
Dangerous Women
Although abandoned by my friend and would-be companion, and although I had to get up at 4:30am and leave just after 5am, I attended the Dangerous Women conference put on by the “Femina girls,” that is Nancy Wilson and daughters and daughter-in-law. This was a pre-conference before the Grace Agenda conference, but I just went for the morning, lunch, and early afternoon, stuck around for the NSA Disputatio with Mark Driscoll, then headed home and was home before the kids’ bedtime. And, since I didn’t drive with anyone, I had a whole 2 1/2 hours to think and pray about all the exhortations I’d just received. I think conversation might have been more pleasant. :) It was good.
So, I’ll share now the gist of my notes, which I hope will whet your appetite for the audio which will be available soon.
Nancy Wilson — Dangerous Women
All women are dangerous women. We are either building our house or tearing it down. You want to be dangerous to the enemy, not to your children. There is no neutrality. You need to know who your people are (your people are God’s people), where you fit in the story, and make choices based on long-term perspective, not based on anxiety or fretfulness. You need grace and you need to be a woman of the Word.
The Bible teaches that women are prone to deception; deception is our weakness, where the enemy (our sin, the world, and the devil) is most likely to attack us. We need to be aware of the thoughts playing in our head. If a lie or foolish thought pops into our head, it is a temptation that we need to reject, not consider, not converse with, just ignore and walk away from — replace it with a true thought. This is why we need to spend time in the Word — so we know the truth. A dangerous woman knows and believes God’s promises, and knows she can’t coast.
A dangerous woman has a strong sense of purpose, she’s paying attention and always reminding herself of the truth, she knows when she needs to hit the refresh button, to regroup and remember where she is and why she’s there. She thinks long-term; she knows that God works patiently and He’s not in a big hurry, so she is not either. She’s not afraid of work. She knows a clean house is not the victory line at the end of the day, it is only a means toward the end of loving her people and her God. The end is serving God and cheerfully and heartily doing the work He places in front of you. She keeps her eyes open, she has a backbone, and she is not an easy target for unbelief and deception.
Dangerous women not only build, but beautify & glorify what they touch — the woman’s touch. We are a glory, and we glorify. We are about the business of transformation, in tangible, real, daily ways. We love fruitfulness — not only children, but all abundance, taking something and making more of it, taking the fruit of the Spirit and manifesting it.
Home is where the action is. The enemy works to destroy homes. The home is where culture is born and bred and kept. All work outside the home comes back home daily. The home is a weapon and defense, a refuge and oasis. The table is the center of our home: who sits at our table? are people refreshed at our table? are souls as well as bodies fed? Remember that feeding is more than nutrition and bodily necessity; eating around a table is inherently symbolic. It is practice for heaven. Make it a priority. The table is potent and it is how we will rebuild culture.
Do not be threatened by rude comments people make about you or your family. They make such comments because they are threatened by your family and by your joy (which can only come from Christ, it is a light that shines). Let them feel threatened; don’t feel threatened yourself. Your security is in Christ.
Protect yourself from deception. How the serpent attacked Eve warns us about how we might be tempted. He blew the restriction out of proportion and closed her eyes to her blessings, he changed the command into a question and entangled her in a conversation, he questioned God’s motives and lied to sow doubt (a question can find an answer, a doubt is “what if” or a questioning that doesn’t want to find the answer), he minimized the consequences of disobedience and made her think it wasn’t a big deal to disobey, he got Eve to act unilaterally without her husband’s authority, he displaces authority. Thus she became a traitor and ate at Satan’s table. Pay attention to the thoughts in your head and flee temptation rather than debate with it. Keep your wits about you.
If you want to be blessed, you must obey. God will not bless disobedience. (We don’t earn that blessing, but God’s not going to bless us regardless of what we do). God gives us the means and the strength to obey; we need to be asking for His grace constantly. God reclaimed Eve, put emnity between her and the serpent, and he’s reclaimed us. Know how to get back on your game (know how to repent and move on) when you fall — gaining wisdom all the while.
~pretty, happy, funny, real~
I’m joining in on the “pretty, happy, funny, real” link-up at Like Mother, Like Daughter. The tagline is “capturing the context of contentment in everyday life.” I thought it’d be a more fun way to do the life catch-up post than my rambling Monday posts.
Pretty
Order restored is pretty. At the start of last week, this room — formerly a bathroom, turned a dark room, turned a storage room — was just a place where things were tossed at random. I turned it into our gift closet and established order last week, and it makes me happy whenever I peek in.
Happy
Matt did most of the work, but we turned the garden from a wasteland of five-foot weeds into a blank slate. Whew! The patch on the left is the strawberries. On the right by the fence I transplanted some strawberries to start another patch. We think we’ve solved the path dilemma: In this large area, we’ll have 4 4×4 planting areas, with 5-foot paths of grass all around so that Matt can just mow around the garden weekly and keep it under control. Then my weeding time can be concentrated on the planted areas rather than on keeping walkways clear. We have another patch of dirt on the other side of the strawberries that we’ll recruit, also, and have a 3×30 strip for planting.
In the area I roughly marked out in the front, there, I started a fall round of lettuce. I hope they have enough time to mature.
Funny
We needed a new table for our breakfast room, and Matt determined to make one — a hexagon one. Because he likes hexagons. Now, it is in and we are doing school around it instead of at the bar (yay!). Obviously, the children pointed out, we can no longer have Circle Time. We now have Hexagon Time.
Real
This little 18-month-old charmer has been waking up ready to begin his day at 2 or 3 am for a week. Not ok. However, he’s been taking a 2 1/2 hour nap in the afternoon. So, I experimented and woke him up after 1 hour in the afternoon. Sure enough, he slept soundly that night. Of course, he was also a little crank pot for an hour after I woke him up. Still, I suppose it’s worth it for a solid night’s sleep. I now only have him down 1 hour in the afternoon and I must bring myself to wake a sleeping child. Ah, the trade-offs life brings.
Review: Hospitality Commands by Alexander Strauch
Hospitality Commands by Alexander Strauch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a very brief book, much more a launching pad than a discussion. Strauch proves from Scripture that hospitality — opening up one’s house primarily to brothers and sisters in Christ, but also to the needy and one’s neighbors — is an essential to the Christian life and community. It is not a nice thing for some people, but it is a requirement for everyone.
The most interesting point he made, in my mind, was that each of the commands to pursue hospitality in the New Testament directly follow commands to love the saints. That is, hospitality is the way we are to love one another. We aren’t simply to feel a certain way toward fellow believers, we are to put it into practice and we are to make one another a part of our lives.
The back of the book lists discussion questions to explore the topic further in a group study setting. With only 5 short chapters and many potential avenues for discussion (rather than just “comprehension questions”), this would make a great small group study.
Review: The Organized Heart by Staci Eastin
The Organized Heart: A Woman’s Guide to Conquering Chaos by Staci Eastin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In this book, Staci Eastin attempts to diagnose why we have a hard time maintaining order — not by looking for techniques, but by examining our hearts. This is the right place to look, but also a tricky place to go.
While most books on household organization or cleaning presume that it is a lack of skill or knowledge that causes clutter and chaos, this book looks toward motivation. Instead of focussing on the doing, it provides a call to examine our hearts. She probes different sinful motivations: pride, fear, envy, self-indulgence.
The author takes a dangerous road and is bold enough to call our problem sin. While it is easy to agree that yes, we are sinful, it is much more difficult to actually see and admit that sin is actually affecting our daily lives. After all, once we admit a particular thing is sin, we have to deal with it. And that’s hard. She does hedge her bets and give disclaimers about those who are in difficult circumstances, but I believe she is correct that many of us don’t examine ourselves honestly enough, and we cut ourselves slack where we don’t need it. She very clearly points out, however, that the way we address sin is not through rules or self-help, but through repentance. Once you find out where your idolatry is, where you are placing your trust, you can repent and receive grace. I believe it was Luther who said both that our hearts are idol factories and that the Christian life is one characterized by repentance. If we agree theoretically that our hearts are idol factories but aren’t willing to expose potential idols to the light, then we are hardened in our sin. And, until we identify sin, we cannot repent — and cannot turn from it.
Personally, I am very much the type prone to self-justification and covering over my sins, saying, “Oh, really, that’s not so bad.” But I am finally beginning to learn this lesson myself, through this book and through other avenues (doesn’t God often work through synchronicity?) But identifying sin does not lead to despair when approached rightly. It results in admitting weakness and the need for God, the need for grace, the need for repentance. I am in the midst of learning what Mrs. Eastin writes about herself: “My attempts to get organized always failed because I tried to change my habits without letting the Holy Spirit change my heart.” Bad habits founded upon sinful, selfish motivations can only be broken through honest confession and repentance. Then we can be restored and rest — a rest in our hearts, while our hands work with joy. Once we are walking in the light and not hiding our pet sins, we are able walk in joy and peace, because we are walking in the Holy Spirit, who gives us His fruit.
Our goals need to be determined by Scripture — God appoints our tasks and we are to walk in them, working heartily for Him — not by comparisons or ideals. The work we have to do is a means of sanctification, not an end in itself. We need to look through the work itself to God at work through it in us, allowing Him to address our sin in this daily walk.
This book drives a hard point. Personally, as one who tends more toward the hard heart than the sensitive conscious, it was a breath of fresh air as well as a sledgehammer. I would not, however, recommend this book to a guilt-prone or sensitive spirit, despite the author’s caveats that make room for such types.
Favorite Quotes:
“Pages of practical suggestions will be of little help if your heart is flailing about in despair. By first reminding yourself to trust God, you can then move forward, knowing that He is in control.”
“One of the quickest routes to discontentment and discouragement is to compare your situation with that of others.”
“A habit of procrastination indicates a worship problem: an unwillingness to do the work that God has appointed for us, or an inability to discern what He has given us and what He has not. The procrastinator loves to hoard her time for herself rather than work diligently in it on the errands and tasks God gives her.”
“When we ignore the tasks we know we should do (which means that we understand that these tasks are assigned to us by God), we are essentially saying that our comfort and pleasure are more iportant than the needs of our families. When we do our chores sloppily and halfheartedly, we operate on the belief that God doesn’t really know what’s best for us. When we eschew our chores for our own hobbies, we show that God does not seem trustworthy to give us the rest we need, so we must take it for ourselves.”
“Commit to change, and prayerfully seek the Lord’s stregnth as you do so, but be prepared for discouraging days. Conquering sin takes time and effort, but the peace that you have aterwards is always worth it.”
Harvest Term 2011 Summary
Term’s Focus
Composer: Mendelssohn
Artist: Rubens
History: Greeks & Romans
Geography: Africa
Orderliness Habit: Keeping desks tidy
New Circle Time Content
Hymn: O, Come, My Soul, Bless Thou the Lord Thy Maker (Psalm 103)
Psalm: Psalm 115
(same as last term, but the boys have it 90% memorized, so I’m planning on hitting it twice a week and adding Psalm 139, which they didn’t get down well to our daily tab)
Passage: Ephesians 4:25-32
Creed: Heidelberg Lord’s Day 1
Mottos:
Leave it better than you found it.
Hustle to help out.
Soldier Stance (or, “Look sharp!”):
1. stand up straight
2. shoulders back
3. hands at sides
4. ready eyes
5. quick response
Bible Song: Apostles (12 Disciples, Jamie Soles)
Geography Songs: Africa songs
Hans’ Assigned Reading
Hans’ poem to memorize: Bilbo’s Walking Song
Jaeger’s Assigned Reading
Jaeger’s poem to memorize: Whole Duty of Children
My Assigned Reading
Preschool With Ilse
Alphabet Book: 
Picture Books: Frances
Mother Goose Book:
Bible Story Book:
Notes to Self for the Upcoming Term
Yeah, I think I need to repeat the last term. I only preread the boys’ books for the first two weeks, then let it slide. Sigh.
Make Friday teas a pleasant time for everyone.
Preread assigned books on Mondays.
Keep an eye on the goals.
I set the tone: stay cheerful, pleasant, and upbeat.
Summer Term 2011 — A Typical Day
The typical day this last term started with the alarm ringing at 5am, and a hand reaching over, turning it off, and cozying back under the pillow. If we’re going to cover the average and the typical rather than the planned or ideal or best day, that’s where we must begin.
The typical day opened with my reluctant rising at 6:50-7:10, dressing, addressing and dressing children, pulling out breakfast, starting my own eggs and coffee, and doing my best to stay cheerful rather than get nitpicky and critical with the kids. Spills wiped up, email checked, husband kissed and sent off with a solid lunch, corrections doled out, prayers made, the day begins. The children do not eat with their table manners; they poke each other, make faces, tell jokes, complain, or play “Guess what country I am thinking of” while staring at the map of the world on the wall in the dining room — RATHER than eat their breakfast. That sounds great, and I tell myself it’s great, but have you ever had to listen in for more than 2 minutes of a child-created and child-run guessing game? Oy. Well, anyway, they are supposed to be eating, not talking. Eating, not playing. Eating, not touching each other.
After breakfast ends either by finishing or by fiat, it is chore time. I turn on our composer music. Hans wipes down the bathrooms, Jaeger unloads the dishwasher, Ilse clears and wipes down the table, and I make my bed and start the laundry and put away breakfast stuff. And I check my email. And I check my Google Reader. And it’s usually 7:50 instead of 7:30 when this is all happening.
So, at 8:15 instead of 8 sharp, typically I am found ringing the bell to call the children from the four corners and printing off either a drill sheet or a Calculadder sheet or inserting the DVD for math, and as smoothly as I can, I get the boys started in on their math. Then I settle Ilse down with an activity or coloring page. Then I sigh and laugh and poke at Knox, wondering what in the world he’s going to do today. He is technically too heavy for the pack-n-play, and when he’s in it, he shakes, rattles, and rolls. He’ll end up breaking it for sure if I stuck with that plan. And at this point he’s already been in his booster for breakfast for 30 minutes and is not keen on getting back in. So I give him a children’s chair and the children’s table and try to get him enamored of blocks or letter magnets or tractors. He thinks that’s great until I start moving away. What he really wants is to be at the bar in the tall chairs with the big boys. With a pencil. Lead is tasty.
So I juggle Knox, manage Ilse, and keep the older boys on task. When they’ve finished their sheet, they hand it to me, I correct it with my red pencil. Any backwards numbers are circled and any wrong answers are checked. They have to then correct them and turn it back in to me. If they corrected it, I write a C over the check and a C at the top for “Corrected” and file it. If they had none wrong and none backwards, I write 100% at the top and file it. If they got 100% and did it in a timely fashion without using the blocks, they also get a “pass” to the next lesson. They usually finish math in 10-20 minutes, and I have 30 allocated. So, usually we’re back on schedule when math is over.
Then it’s Circle Time. What has worked best is to hold Knox on my lap and let Circle Time also be his cuddle time. After all, part of the point of Circle Time is for us all to enjoy it as a family. If he gets grabby-grabby and throws a fit over not being able to get into my markers or drink my coffee or tear my notebook pages, and a swat and a restoration doesn’t fix it, then he is banished to bed for Circle Time. Fussy babies go to bed. We start off by listening to a section of Psalm 119, then I pray. Then each child takes a turn praying, and Knox loves to be included. I give him his lines, he folds his hands and grunts, then grins when I say, “Amen!” The content of our prayers for school are primarily thanksgiving, that helps our attitude more than simply asking for a good attitude. Then we sing the Doxology and Gloria Patri — and Knox joins in with the tune but not words — then half the time we remember to say the Apostle’s Creed. Then I pull out our mottoes and we all chant them. Then I pull out Young Peacemakers and I read one page and we discuss it. Then we open our memory binders and sing our term’s hymn (I am sitting next to the computer and turn on our digital accompaniment), and then one review hymn (also with accompaniment). Then we go through our binder memory work, reading aloud together from the catechism, our term’s passage and Psalm, one review passage, and one review Psalm. Then I turn on our memory play list for the songs — Follow the Line (Christ’s genealogy set to music), a grammar chant (Shurley), two Geography Songs, and a Timeline song. Ending on the upbeat musical note has helped the kids enjoy this time much more; it has improved the mood substantially. Sometimes Jaeger and Ilse get out of their chairs and gallop around.
Next I pull out Covenantal Catechism. On Mondays we read the Bible passage, on Tuesdays we narrate the Bible reading then read the lesson, Wednesday we skip it, Thursday we go over the review and discussion questions, and Friday the boys draw a picture about the lesson.
Then I should pull out penmanship. When I do, I give them their sheet to trace (this is remedial penmanship), set the timer for 5 minutes, and see what they can do correctly for 5 minutes, putting myself on repeat: “Start at the top” “Down, up, and around” “Are you making the same shape?” “Start at the top” “Down, up, and around” “Start at the top.” The timer goes off and we are all relieved. Then I should pull out spelling. The boys get dry-erase boards, because it makes erasing easier (they have to immediately erase a wrong word and write it correctly) and it makes them happy. It doesn’t make me happy, but oh well. I give them both spelling words at the same time. It takes about 10-15 minutes to do half a lesson with one student, and about 15-20 to do them both at the same time. So doing them both at the same time makes me happy.
Then what I should do next is gather them all on the couch and read aloud, but I am always left feeling like I need a breather. So the typical day involved me sending the boys down to begin their independent work or sending them out for a 5-10 minute outdoor recess then to independent work. Then after moving the laundry to the dryer, chatting a bit online, or some other little change of activity, I sit with Ilse and read to her while Knox wonders around and on top of us.
By the time I’m done with Ilse, the boys are waiting in the wings and I listen to their narrations. Then they go back and I start some food prep or get on the computer or I set myself up on the couch with my crochet. I listen to another round of narrations. I field complaints and tell them to buck up. I call out, “Hey, where are you? Is your work done?” I say, “Can I see your work and your checklist?” I say, “Looks like you still need to ___.” I also handle interpersonal conflict about distracting noise-making, talking, not finding books, and the like. At some point I say, “Ok. Come sit, let’s read.” We read a chapter of history, then I ask one or both to tell me about something from the chapter, then we read a chapter of geography, and either I ask them to tell me about their favorite part or I ask them to ask a question. A few times we even looked up pictures and videos online to help us understand. Then Hans reads a few pages from The Big Book of Virtues, then Jaeger reads an Aesop’s fable. I whited out the morals on Aesop and so after Jaeger has read it I ask Hans what he thinks the lesson of the story is. Apparently the lesson from the boy and the nuts is that you should not try to grab nuts from a jar. Insightful. Then I read a poem or two or three, then a fairy tale or picture book, then I ask them what they remember from the previous episode of our current play (usually precious little), then I read a couple more pages from Nesbit’s Shakespeare. Knox is often loud or crying for half our reading time, and often I have to send Ilse to her room for whining, because it’s the boys’ turn next to me on the couch. The little ones do not generally appreciate this.
Then the boys finish up their independent work and I get a large drink of water and tell myself that’s refreshing enough, and that I don’t need to go hide in my room for half an hour. No, take a deep breath, I can handle lunch. I can. I can. I have a plan. Pull out tortillas and shredded cheese and make quesadillas and tell the children that this is lunch and if they complain about it they may have none.
And that is that.
Until it’s after lunch and I realize we didn’t do Latin. So after the fog has cleared and everyone is down for naps, I sigh, retrieve Hans, and we do Latin for 20-30 minutes. Then we’re done.
This, of course, is a typical day in which everything gets done, which was not actually typical. It’s a rare day that something — usually penmanship, spelling, and reading a fairy tale — doesn’t get cut. See that tactful use of the passive tense? I don’t know how it happens, personally.
It might not be how I would script the day, nor how I envision it when I am making the lists and dreaming, but it’s how we roll. My general principle is to handle correction immediately and get it righted rather than deferred, whether it be a math mistake, a spelling error, an attitude problem, a fussy baby, a disobedient action, or quarrelsome brothers. This makes for frequent interruptions, everyone having to make space and time for everyone else; it makes for loud mornings and it makes for a depleted feeling mommy. But it’s a good life. Life in the rock tumbler. Life in the pressure cooker. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out this reality is actually better than any script I could dream up.
