I don't know how it happened

I don't know how it happened but when I moved to Prescott in August I was assigned a visiting teacher that I immediately liked. She is not perfect and she does not pretend to be. I can let out my true feelings and she nods or swears with me or gives me hugs or asks more questions. We exchange articles and parenting advice. She's still nursing her toddler and we laugh when our potty trained, speaking-in-full-sentences children interrupt our conversations to put their hand down our shirts. Both of our eldests are sensitive. She chose natural births (and a water birth with her last) and nods with a look of understanding when I say that I never ever ever ever want to be pregnant again. She babysits for me frequently and invited me over for pizza, cake, and ice cream on my birthday and we let the kids stay up too late running wild while we talked and talked.

A couple days ago I mentioned to said friend that I needed to go coat shopping because I'm being a crazy border girl and running around freezing my butt off wearing a sweatshirt jacket. Five minutes ago I heard a loud knock on the door and children giggling. When I opened the door I saw a gift bag on my doorstep and the backs of two little boys sprinting for a van yelling to each other, "HURRY! HURRY".

This is the note attached, and this is me crying like a baby in my new warm coat.

Oh my gosh, people are so funny!

http://www.deseretnews.com/user/comments/865606052/Saturdays-Warrior-returns-with-new-contemporized-40th-anniversary-show.html

Some reviews:

"The whitest musical I have ever seen."
--Brian Llewelyn, Scottsdale Courier

"The only non-high school musical playing in Gilbert this month."
--Sarah Evans, Gilbert Telegraph

"The 13/8 time signature of all the songs a perfect fit for the overall plot."
-- Martin Tinedale, Mexicali Messenger

A Sunday Sermon

from: http://bycommonconsent.com/2014/04/13/sunday-sermon-creation/

Author Lauren Winner writes in her book, Still:

My friend Ruth’s mother once told her, ‘Every ten years you have to remake everything.’ Reshape yourself. Reorient yourself. Remake everything. What struck Ruth about this was not just the insight, but the source: she had imagined that her mother, her steadfast, loving mother, was static, was always the same. She didn’t know that her mother had remade everything seven times, eight times. Sometimes the reshaping is not big, not audible; not a move, a marriage, a child, a heroic change of course. Sometimes it is only here inside, how you make sense of things. Sometimes it is only about who you know yourself to be. [6]

I don’t have any great insights on this rebuilding process. All I know is that it will require patience—with yourself, with others, even with God. Abraham 4:17-18 reads: “And the Gods set them [the lights] in the expanse of the heavens, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to cause to divide the light from the darkness. And the Gods watched those things which they had ordered until they obeyed” (emphasis added). Sometimes after we start the process of rebuilding something, we have to be patient and watch and wait for things to play out. Maybe it doesn’t work, and we have to start the process over again.

Lauren Winner’s book is about her journey through an ebb of faith. Toward the end she writes:

From this place now—not in the midst of the marital maelstrom; not in the middle of discovering God’s abstraction, but a little while later—in this clearing, I can begin to see those people and stories and words that held me to something resembling the Christian faith; that hold me still, if sometimes with a loose stitch.

It turns out the Christian story is a good story in which to learn to fail. As the ethicist Samuel Wells has written, some stories feature heroes and some stories feature saints and the difference between them matters: “Stories . . . told with . . . heroes at the centre of them . . . are told to laud the virtues of the heroes—for if the hero failed, all would be lost. By contrast, a saint can fail in a way that the hero can’t, because the failure of the saint reveals the forgiveness and the new possibilities made in God, and the saint is just a small character in a story that’s always fundamentally about God.”

I am not a saint. I am, however, beginning to learn that I am a small character in a story that is always fundamentally about God. (Winner, 193-94)

The Björk song “Unravel” poignantly describes a process of recreating:

While you are away
My heart comes undone

Slowly unravels
In a ball of yarn

The devil collects it
With a grin

Our love
In a ball of yarn

He’ll never return it

So when you come back
We’ll have to make new love

What we rebuild will never be the same as what has been torn down. The materials we have at hand might be different, or we might have to reassemble them in a new way—the thimble we used here may have to fit somewhere else, and we may have lost the hub cap altogether. But we can rebuild. May we have the courage and the patience with ourselves to create of our lives what the Lord would have us build, and may we help others along the way.

—

pg. 48

Grades suck

A comment I liked on an unschooling post:

"That's what we've noticed about minecraft, too -the amount of online learning kids do together without grown ups.

Collaborative learning, instead of instruction.

Is the learning invalid just because it's driven by kids who want to play a game? What I mean is, shouldn't learning like that "count?" Collaborative learning is a life skill, not really a school skill. In some school situations, collaboration is "cheating".

If kids only get graded on what the teacher thinks is important, how much do the teachers miss?

An adult asked one of my kids the other day how his grades were. My son kind of looked at me, at a loss. His "grades" are fine, except nobody grades him. About every four months, we write up something detailing our kids' activities, major accomplishments, and interests.

And sometimes the accomplishment is … personal. Spent six months with the neighbors on scooters and skateboards having an ongoing nerf war… That's phys ed, leadership, construction, persuasion, problem solving, financial management, and first aid. We don't really grade it, just make note of it and talk it over with him.

For other activities, the only grade is 100%. Rosetta Stone doesn't advance until your answer is correct. The piano teacher doesn't pass you until the piece is correct. You don't get the part unless your audition is good. Your robot either works or it does not work, and you fix it. Your basketball team wins or loses. The dog learns the new skill, or the child keeps training and practicing.

I try to validate the art of deliberate practice so my kids see the connection between training and results.

I would worry if they spent a lot of time thinking about "grades". Learning is what matters.

Posted by mh on November 19, 2014 at 9:04 am | permalink | Reply

"What sort of of gospel is only good news for the majority?"

from: http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/gender-binaries

"...But what sort of gospel is only good news for the majority? What sort of gospel leaves people behind just because they are different? 

The gospel of Jesus Christ is not so fragile as to be unpinned by the reality that variations in gender and sexuality exist, nor is it so narrow as to only be good news for people who look and live like Ward and June Cleaver. This glorification of gender binaries has become a dangerous idol in the Christian community, for it conflates cultural norms with Christian morality and elevates an ideal over actual people.  

No doubt some will argue that we cannot build our theologies around “exceptions” like Adrian. When I bring up intersex people in conversations about gender and sexuality, I am typically met with blank stares, shrugged shoulders, and dismissive platitudes about how most people fit neatly into male and female categories and generalities, so we shouldn’t worry about the outliers. 

But if Jesus started with the outliers, why we shouldn’t we? If Jesus started with the poor, the sick, the marginalized, and the minorities then why would we dismiss them as irrelevant to our theology of gender and sexuality? 

I can’t help but think of the Ethiopian eunuch from Acts 8. He was a sexual and ethnic minority, and it was considered “unbiblical” for him to even enter the assembly of God, much less be baptized (Leviticus 21:20; Deuteronomy 23:1).  But when the eunuch learned about the gospel through his reading of Isaiah and the witness of Philip, his response is profound: “Look! There is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?”

Philip could easily have responded by quoting Bible verses and appealing to tradition.  He could have dismissed the eunuch as an anomaly, not worth the time and effort to fight for his inclusion in this new family of God. But instead, Philip baptized the eunuch in the first body of water the two could find. He remembered that what makes the gospel offensive isn’t who it keeps out, but who it lets in….starting with you and me. 

Now, I’m not suggesting we abandon conversations about the Bible and sexual ethics, nor am I interested in promoting a “genderless society” (as some have bizarrely claimed, somehow supposing that acknowledging the existence of gray requires dismissing the existence of black and white). I am suggesting, however, that Jesus didn’t die on the cross to preserve gender complementarity. Jesus didn’t die on the cross to ensure that little girls wear pink and little boys wear blue. Jesus lived, taught, died, and rose again to start a new family in which Jew and gentile, slave and free, male and female are all part of one holy Body. Certainly there will be those who reject the gospel because of the cost of discipleship, but let it be because of the cost of discipleship, not the cost of false fundamentals, not because they've been required to change something they cannot change. 

There is this tendency within certain sectors of Christianity to assume that if our theology “works” for relatively privileged (often for straight, upper-middle-class, Western men), then it should work well enough for everyone else, and the rest of the world should conform to it. But if our theology doesn’t “work” for the least of these to whom Jesus first brought the gospel and through whom Jesus still presents himself today, then it doesn’t work at all. 

If the gospel’s not good news for Adrian, then it’s not good news."

My friend just posted this on FaceBook.

I wonder when I'll learn to let this lesson in when it comes knocking, as it does every few years, instead of fighting the inevitable:

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” James A. Baldwin

I commented, "Now THAT is some deep ****. Why are we not neighbors again??"

I love the FaceBook. So much.

An uncomfortable time to be a child

I loved this! http://lauragraceweldon.com/2014/10/08/response-to-kids-misbehavior-good-old-days-vs-now/

And from the comment section:

HomeschoolDad says:

October 9, 2014 at 8:04 am

I don’t know Laura….I see a lot of problems today related to parents letting their kids run roughshod over them. I have no comment on how “schools” discipline kids because I don’t think schools should exist in the first place – at least not government schools. At least back in the old days they would send the brats to bed “without dinner”. I have asked many parents (mostly moms) if they could or would consider inflicting the pangs of hunger on their child….and not one yet has answered affirmatively. I received a lot of , “God NO! I would never…”

Laura says:

Kids riding roughshod over parents isn’t the same thing at all. Adults have made kids the focus of their ambition, weirdly over-empowering children while at the same time depriving them of a childhood. So many kids today have very little time for imaginative and active play of their own devising. They have minimal freedom to form multi-age friendships and to exist in a realm apart from adults. They rarely contribute in a purposeful way to the running of the household or family business, let alone other responsibilities meaningful to them. Their lives are over-structured by adults and yet at the same time there are too few firm rules. This is a very uncomfortable time to be a child, as I see it.

What I really mean

This is one for my fridge. I really have (usually in more subtle ways) told my children to grow up and act their age, when what I really mean is, "I'm overwhelmed and not taking care of myself."

This made me cry

http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2014/11/05/10-things-i-wish-everyone-knew-about-believing-in-god/34916

This was lovely

"Together makes us braver.

I am surrounded by interesting and dangerous women. Sometimes this is wonderful, other times it’s exhausting, it is always challenging. Because they push me. They push me to think harder, to be more honest, to read more widely, to listen more broadly, to get my hands dirty, to stop compartmentalizing my life, to live more seamlessly. They make me examine my choices and my priorities. They question me, they pray for me. When I grow weary, they hold my arms up and growl “don’t you dare sit down.” These women have stretched my opinions, my theology, my mind, and my heart until I hardly know my own shape anymore. The funny thing is that they do this just by getting on with it – no sermons, no programs, no big manifestos, just a company of women being brave in ordinary ways, each so different from the other.

They are being brave with their own lives and so, because I am alongside of them, I am learning to be brave, too.

....I believe that bravery is born in the quiet and ordinary moments long before it’s seen by anyone else. Sometimes it’s as simple and devastating as the moments no one else will ever see – the moments of daring to be honest with our own self, of laying down our excuses or justifications or disguises, of asking ourselves what we really want, of forgiveness, of honesty, of choosing the hard daily work of restoration, of staying resolutely alive when every one else is just numbing themselves against life. These are why our friends matter so deeply: they are witness to the sacred secrets. Not all secrets are terrifying things, some of them are beautiful and transformative."

http://sarahbessey.com/being-brave-together/…

"How are you?"

from: http://www.onbeing.org/blog/the-disease-of-being-busy/7023

"In many Muslim cultures, when you want to ask them how they’re doing, you ask: in Arabic, Kayf haal-ik? or, in Persian, Haal-e shomaa chetoreh? How is yourhaal?

What is this haal that you inquire about? It is the transient state of one’s heart. In reality, we ask, “How is your heart doing at this very moment, at this breath?” When I ask, “How are you?” that is really what I want to know.

I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad, tell me your heart craves a human touch. Examine your own heart, explore your soul, and then tell me something about your heart and your soul.

Tell me you remember you are still a human being, not just a human doing. Tell me you’re more than just a machine, checking off items from your to-do list. Have that conversation, that glance, that touch. Be a healing conversation, one filled with grace and presence.

Put your hand on my arm, look me in the eye, and connect with me for one second. Tell me something about your heart, and awaken my heart. Help me remember that I too am a full and complete human being, a human being who also craves a human touch.

I teach at a university where many students pride themselves on the “study hard, party hard” lifestyle. This might be a reflection of many of our lifestyles and our busy-ness — that even our means of relaxation is itself a reflection of that same world of overstimulation. Our relaxation often takes the form of action-filled (yetmindless) films, or violent and face-paced sports.

I don’t have any magical solutions. All I know is that we are losing the ability to live a truly human life.

We need a different relationship to work, to technology. We know what we want: a meaningful life, a sense of community, a balanced existence. It’s not just about “leaning in” or faster iPhones. We want to be truly human.

W. B. Yeats once wrote:

“It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on a battlefield.”

How exactly are we supposed to examine the dark corners of our soul when we are so busy? How are we supposed to live the examined life?

I am always a prisoner of hope, but I wonder if we are willing to have the structural conversation necessary about how to do that, how to live like that. Somehow we need a different model of organizing our lives, our societies, our families, our communities.

I want my kids to be dirty, messy, even bored — learning to become human. I want us to have a kind of existence where we can pause, look each other in the eye, touch one another, and inquire together: Here is how my heart is doing? I am taking the time to reflect on my own existence; I am in touch enough with my own heart and soul to know how I fare, and I know how to express the state of my heart.

How is the state of your heart today?

Let us insist on a type of human-to-human connection where when one of us responds by saying, “I am just so busy,” we can follow up by saying, “I know, love. We all are. But I want to know how your heart is doing.”