Discernment

Two roads diverged in a wood...

If only it were so simple.

Because when we have problems finding our way through the wood, it's not usually two roads. It's four, or six, and then they divide another six times after half a mile.

That's when I need to turn to someone with a map.

Sometimes maps come in scripture. Sometimes they lay themselves out in perfect order after a conversation with a friend.

Sometimes I have to buy that map.

But after my years bumbling through the wood, I don't have the hubris to think I can find my way out by myself.

Not every situation in life has an easy answer that leads us in only one direction. The guiding precepts don't change: love God, love others. But sometimes discerning the actions that best fulfill those precepts is like spotting a will o' the wisp through the trees at night; I know there's a solution, but every time I try to grasp it, it flits away and dances just a little further off.

I'm glad I know about the maps.

Everybody Goes Swine Flu Shopping!

Have you done your swine flu shopping yet?

I have.



Laugh now. I'll have the last laugh when you're asking me pretty please for my bottled water and canned meat.

I have not yet acquired my chemical toilet, my water treatment pills, or my face masks. But soon, my pets, very soon...



And whatever you do, don't forget the can opener.




The best thing about having a six-year-old is how she lightens my outlook on life. My girl has a sinus infection right now. I've told her a little bit about swine flu, including how it changes your nose into a pig nose. (She's too smart to fall for that one.) She does think it's hysterical when I talk about her "swinus infection."

We can't control the world around us. But even when it's scary, it's good to keep laughing.

Found in Translation

I've been riding an emotional rollercoaster for the last six months because the three longtime families in our small group have all relocated out-of-state. Well, to be more exact, the third family is about to relocate in a few weeks, but the others are already gone.

The rollercoaster started out deceptively smooth, as they usually do. "This isn't so bad," I thought as a nice breeze ruffled my hair and I looked serenely out at the landscape. "I can handle it," as the first family departed in October.

Then right around January, things got rougher. The car started climbing up, up, up, and I knew I was in for some trouble. By the end of January it was down, down, down, all the way, with that sickening feeling in the pit of the stomach.

This past weekend, with the third family absent from our small group gathering, it was like hitting the loop-de-loop. Upside down, totally-disoriented, and bawling to be let off! (This may not make sense to those of you who love rollercoasters, but my fellow scaredy-cats will understand.)

I have to tell you that the new familes who have joined our small group are absolutely wonderful, and I am blessed to have the chance to get to know them better. I have some really awesome people to look forward to befriending.

The problem is that the departure of these other three families feels to me like the erasure of the last two-and-a-half years since our arrival in this city. These are the families who really knew us. They saw us every week as we broke bread. We all shared the minutiae of our daily lives. They knew our hearts. They were past the stage of trying to figure us out and had gone on to real friendship.

The urge to be known is powerful. Feeling unknown stinks. When I was younger, I used to wish that we could all open up our brains and souls and commune directly, getting rid of the intermediary flesh and deceptive voices that don't always convey who we really are.

When you're feeling as down as I was this weekend, it's good to look for comfort in the Bible. But where to look? Here's a good one:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

There's the promise. This state of murkiness, of veils and miscommunications and prejudice, is temporary. When all this mess is over, I shall know even as also I am known.

Some people wonder why it's worthwhile to examine different translations of the Bible. But sometimes, a slight change makes all the difference when you're hurt and looking for answers.

The first verse I quoted was from the King James. Here's the New American Standard version of the same verse. (The New American Standard is often called the most accurate, word-for-word translation.)

For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.

And in that slight change of verb tense, from "I am known" to "I was fully known" is a whole new understanding, and a greater comfort.

When The End comes, and we're all face to face with perfection, when there are no tears or sorrow, then both translations agree, "we shall know."

But as for being known, that happens long before the face-to-face meeting of The End. I am not known fully only in the end; I was already fully known as I lived this life.

Someone knows me fully now. Even if those memories of the last two years ride off into the sunset with our friends, even if we yet again face the intimidating prospect of starting over with people who don't yet know us and love us, someone knows me fully, and is always with me.

That person, the Holy Spirit, was sent to be my comforter in times of loss, even the losses that seem minor to others, like this one. I don't have to do or say the right things in order to be accepted by Him. I don't have to worry about who He thinks I am. I am now, and have always been, fully known by Him, my best friend who never leaves, but sits patiently and quietly waiting for me to remember.

My Heart's in the Highlands

Some obscure novel I read a long, long time ago put forth the following theory:

Each one of us responds to a special geographical place in which the outer terrain reflects our inner landscape.

Mine is the Scottish highlands. I traveled there as a young girl, and there's a wildness and starkness about the bens and the glens that satisfies me deeply.

We stayed in bed-and-breakfasts. I remember two in particular. Our host at the first was so kind. He took us out to wade in a wide, crystal-clear stream that flowed over giant flat pebbles worn so smooth we could wade barefoot.

At the second bed-and-breakfast, I slept in a tiny upstairs room where the gable of the house slanted down sharply over my bed while the rain pounded on the roof. The bed linens were worn--I've never felt so comfortable in a stranger's house. I read the Reader's Digest collected volumes in peace until I fell asleep.

In the morning, we found that this house backed up to a classic Scottish hill. The hillside was so steep and green. My sister and I climbed it as quickly as we could, straining against the slope, using our hands to help us up, following the sheep who moved nimbly away in the light mist. Then we ran down, legs cycling faster and faster, mist coating our faces as our rain hoods flew back. Just before our impossible speed would have sent us toppling down, the slope gentled and we regained control of our wayward legs, planting our heels heavily in the grass to slow ourselves.

That was it, my dream terrain, steep and misty, where we flew down hills and stretched out our hands to stroke the damp, parchment-colored wool of trotting sheep.

Do you have a dream place?

Words That Never Fail

I take comfort in words that never fail:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives,
And release from darkness for the prisoners;
To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
And the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion--
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of fainting.

So they will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of His splendor.

The River in Egypt

You know. Denial.

I think most of us have seen the mental phenomenon called "denial" by the time we reach adulthood.

If I'm in a state of denial, it means I have a problem that is obvious to everyone who knows me well, but not obvious to me.

I had a philosophical conversation with a friend tonight about denial. We agreed that the most frustrating of all denials is when denial appears in a friend whom one is trying to help.

From my armchair, I divide denial into two categories.

First, there's Denial Scary. My guess is that this is the clinical phenomenon called denial. I've only seen it a few times. In this case, there is a truth so fundamentally-unacceptable to the Denier that even approaching that truth causes a kind of psychic implosion. This is a tragic thing to witness. If you've ever watched someone's face get sucked into a black hole, you don't want to see it again. When I witness that kind of emotional collapse, my frustration about the denial immediately dissolves into compassion. Anyone walking around with a black hole inside her has my sympathy, no matter how obnoxious her behavior might be.

Then there's Denial Lite, which is run-of-the-mill refusal to examine oneself. Denial Lite is the default assumption that I am in the right and others are in the wrong. When I assume that my view of myself and others is always accurate, I'm at high risk for Denial Lite.

Denial Lite carries its own penalties. I'll give a few examples, with the understanding that recognizing Denial Lite in others is important chiefly as a reminder that we have our own blind spots for which we need to be constantly alert.

A very proud, stubborn man may wonder why people always seem to oppose him. "They're just too opinionated!" he thinks. "They're troublemakers!" The actual problem may be that the man is so unyielding that he refuses to engage in dialogue with others. This prevents any kind of teamwork or compromise and eventually creates serious conflict.

An envious, competitive woman may find many other women threatening. She is always comparing herself to others: is she prettier than I am? Smarter? Thinner? If she concludes that she is not as pretty, smart, or thin, she thinks the other woman will take what is hers: her husband, her job, or her place in the community. But she's in Denial Lite. Instead of admitting her heart problem to herself--that she is the one with the negative emotions, not the others--she "defends" herself against these threats by undermining others.

Perhaps our Denier is a major Party Bore. He talks about himself nonstop, including every painful detail in his anecdotes because he is "the life of the party." Is there anything that would make you run faster in the other direction than someone who proclaims himself the life of the party? LOL! Despite all evidence to the contrary--silence, quiet side conversations, trips to the bathroom--Mr. Party Bore never seems to notice how people are reacting to his conversation. Eventually, he is invited to very few parties and morphs into a House Bore.

Do you ever wonder if there's an area of denial in your own life that you can't see? If you explore the idea, that's a healthy thing!

Books of Influence

Continuing the blog chain begun by Kat, I'm listing here some books that shaped me when I was young.

Fantasy was huge. Huge. The two usual culprits, Tolkien and Lewis, made a tremendous impact on me. The Chronicles of Narnia affected me more than The Lord of the Rings when I was about nine, mostly because I was too young to understand some of the deeper spiritual aspects of TLOTR.

A third fantasy series that fired my imagination was Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence. The original novel version of The Dark Is Rising bears no relation whatsoever to the recent movie, which was an altered-beyond-recognition piece of Hollywood tripe.

During my years in England, I discovered Arthur Ransome's series about children who go on solo boating and camping adventures. Swallows and Amazons is one of the books. Ransome's work fosters an independent spirit and a love of nature.

Along similar lines is an obscure book authored by two children and titled The Far-Distant Oxus. Instead of boating and camping, the independent children in this story go on a pony-trekking/camping trip. This novel is an amazing achievement from such young authors: I remember it as a riveting book. I keep trying to buy a copy on ebay, but they always run close to one hundred dollars, and I haven't summoned the necessary extravagance yet.

Addendum: I'm so glad I blogged about this today! I just checked ebay again and found a copy of The Far-Distant Oxus for only about $30. Some books from childhood are very comforting to have on the shelves. I'm looking forward to reading it to my daughter.

Life is not a Multiple-Choice Test

Multiple-choice testing has ruined America's schools.

OK, not really. Widespread (but secretive) parental demand for lower standards is actually the chief cause of the collapse of traditional education. I witnessed the great decline during my time as a classroom teacher, and I've also heard many stories from my parents, both of whom are retired teachers.

But back to my original point. Today, I reviewed my daughter's science homework in order to prepare her for a quiz. During review, she could not name offhand the "system of sorting for living things," though she knew it began with a 't'.

When I gave her the multiple choice quiz, she immediately circled the correct answer: "taxonomy."

The problem is that she didn't know the answer, she only recognized it.

During my three years of schooling in England, I do not recall taking multiple-choice exams. We had to know things. In sixth and seventh grade, we had to open little test books and write our answers in sentence or paragraph format. There could be no guessing, no short-term cramming. There were no Kaplan courses to teach us how to beat the tests. We had to actually learn.

Testing can be a form of education, for the capable. My daughter now remembers the word "taxonomy" precisely because she had to find the answer on the quiz. But the quiz did not accurately test her true knowledge of the subject.

My standard for whether someone has mastered a topic is whether that person can re-teach it accurately.

Case study: Almost all of civilization disappears beneath a horde of rabid zombies. Only my daughter and twenty other humans survive. The zombies eat all the science textbooks to prevent humans from acquiring any more useful information about zombies.

Would my daughter be able to teach the embattled survivors a taxonomy of the undead? Would she be capable of explaining whether the zombies belonged to a new kingdom and phylum, or whether they had exited taxonomy completely? Perhaps she would need her knowledge of taxonomy to identify the edible plants in the now-wild landscape that was once a thriving suburb. Maybe she would need to teach the survivors classification skills to help them distinguish a tame half-coyote from a deadly real coyote.

She wouldn't be much good to her brave little band if she could only remember taxonomy with the help of a multiple-choice exam. The zombies ate all of those, remember?

Recognizing someone else's answer is not the same thing as having the answer yourself.

It's Angie Day!

Today's blog post is in honor of my friend Angie.

She's my age. We went to high school together and have seen each other through good times and bad. Angie is a humble, unassuming person whose considerable intellect lurks behind a dry, laidback sense of humor that endears her to everyone.

And she just won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. She shares that honor with four other full-time staffers of the website Politifact.com.

They won for their coverage of the 2008 election, and I can totally see why. Their mission was to report on the accuracy of candidate statements during the campaign. I found their coverage to be characterized by balance, painstaking research, and shrewd, well-written analysis.

(I think I have my facts correct, Angie, but you of all people know how to set the record straight if I don't!)

Having such a close, longtime friend win an honor of this magnitude is amazing. I love to see the blessing of a good person.

Ripples on the Pond

I've been lifted up this week by a number of happenings, but one of the best took place today in our Sunday service.

A man who is a member of our Wednesday night class stood up to give the communion talk. It was the best communion talk I've heard during my two years here. Except my husband's talks, of course. He reminded me to qualify that. :-)

First, the man thanked us from the bottom of his heart for the way our singing blesses him during worship. He referred to it as a foretaste of the peace and harmony we will experience in paradise. I feel just the same way about it, and his sincere emotion moved me very much.

But then, in a complete surprise to me, he brought up the central concept of our Wednesday night class and shared it with the entire congregation. I was thrilled.

I've co-taught two very challenging classes in a row now on Wednesday nights. I choose these subjects because I personally need to grow in the areas I'm addressing. I tackle the topics knowing full well that only the most spiritually-courageous people are willing to go into classes of such an introspective nature. Many people prefer not to be pushed in their areas of weakness.

Every now and then, a student will say: "Aren't we preaching to the choir in this class?"

Yes, I know that few real gossips will attend a class on how to stop gossip, just as few people with seriously-troubled relationships will seek help in a class that centers on our personal responsibility to work towards healing.

But that's not the point.

These classes aren't really about preaching to the choir. Instead, the classes are about equipping and encouraging the choir. Our little ten-person class just spoke to the entire congregation because one man was convinced that people needed to hear the message.

What did he say? He told husbands that they needed to attend to their most important relationship--the relationship they have with their wives--because if it is broken, they will be blocked from real communion with others and with God. He told everyone to heal the relationships close to them, and move out in ever-widening circles. If we do that, we will know what it is to have full communion with one another.

What he did was very visible, but classes that "preach to the choir" create many similar events that are invisible to most of us. The members of the choir go out singing a new song, touching lives in ways we can't predict.

As a teacher, I've come to understand that my role is not to control minds and change stubborn hearts by sheer eloquence.

I'm there to throw pebbles in the water. The rest is ripples on the pond.

Rock Steady

My father sent my daughter a present in the mail. She says it is the coolest present ever.



Though I'm not sure why I can't get this photo to align correctly, I hope you can see that it's a rock study kit.

It contains 15 rock samples of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rock. Included in the kit is a small magnifying glass.

At about 7:00pm tonight, my daughter asked me if she could study the rock kit.

"I'm too tired," I said. "We'll study it tomorrow."

A few minutes later, she walked up to me and spoke in her most reasonable voice. "Why can't I just study the rocks myself?"

"Because I have to explain the questions to you."

"Oh."

A few minutes passed. She wandered away. She wandered back.

"Mom, what if you go upstairs and relax, and I bring the kit up there and study it while you explain the questions?"

My little scholarly heart could not withstand this appeal. We studied the rocks.



The love of knowledge is so precious. I can't see it and not respond. It doesn't have to be my own child who asks me a question, either. I have friends whose eldest child is very bright and very curious. Whenever she asks me something, I drop everything to try to answer well. In our Sunday class one day, she asked me if I had committed major sins. (It would take too long to explain, but this was not a rude question--it was perfectly reasonable based on the class discussion.) I answered her with the same honesty and clarity that she had asked, and I felt privileged to be her educator at that moment. The light in her eyes was the timeless search for knowledge and understanding, and I was able to provide it to her in a frank but gentle way.

It's almost enough to make me miss my days in the high school classroom--almost. ;-)

Encouraged

Do you remember the little refrigerator magnet set that included a number of different cartoon faces portraying different emotions?



Today I feel ENCOURAGED.

It's a great feeling!

I was a little downcast two weeks ago after our first class session for the new adult class I'm co-teaching. It's a Wednesday night class, which means we have a smaller pool of students than the Sunday morning classes. Complicating the matter was the fact that several other classes had started a few weeks before ours, due to factors beyond our control. That meant that several people who told us they wished they could attend our class were already committed to other classes.

So for our first class session, we had to run around the hall begging for students after the evening meal. We ended up with four students that time, which is a lot better than none! Still, I really believe in the power of this material, and every teacher always wishes for more students in a discussion-based course. The more students, the better the discussion.

Then, one of the people who did attend that first class told me very nicely at the end of our session that it was not the kind of class (he/she) prefers, and so (he/she) would not be back. I absolutely understand this reaction: a class in which people talk about very personal aspects of their faith is bound to put off some people, for a variety of reasons. Some people have grown up in very emotionally-threatening environments, and they have great difficulty discussing personal topics. Others may be struggling with a relationship issue that is so overwhelming that they cannot speak openly in a class that focuses in part on healing ruptured relationships. However, despite my understanding that no class will satisfy every student need, our low attendance plus the one student's reaction worked together to take some of the wind out of my sails.

Previous experience helped me cling to my faith that the course would reach those it needed to reach. When we began teaching our "stop gossip" class last semester, we only had a handful of students. As the course progressed, we grew until we averaged thirteen or fourteen per session.

Last night, in our second meeting, our class grew to include nine students. And they are great people to have in the classroom! We had a wonderful discussion and lots of laughter, even though our topic is serious.

Best of all, it was plain from class comments that people enjoyed the class and found it valuable.

Have you ever seen a ministry start out shaky, but then blossom into something wonderful?

Effective Parenting and Rosemond

I'm indebted to my friend Barbara for today's post topic.

Today, she posted about self-esteem, based on the writings of John Rosemond. He's a common-sense, traditional parenting expert to whom I give credit for the smoothness of my daughter's development thus far.

I want to share John Rosemond's most important point, because it was so helpful to me. I also found out that my sister recently heard the same thing from him, and it completely clarified her understanding of how to parent:

The most common problem in contemporary parenting is that parents go on serving the desires of their children long past the age when serving a child is appropriate.

Rosemond points out that before the age of two, it's natural and good for the parent to serve a child's needs. The child is vulnerable and helpless, and deserves our protective care and vigilance for health problems and other physical needs.

After the age of two, the child must learn to serve the parents' desires. The parent's will becomes the governing force in the household, not the child's. The process of this reversal of roles is vital for the maintenance of order and harmony. The child's will matters, but she must be taught that her will is subordinate to the parents.

Training a child to control her own will begins even before the age of two, in very small ways, but at two it becomes crucial. When we see the all-too common phenomenon of children who won't obey direct commands from their parents by age three or four, it's usually because the parents have continued to serve them like two-year-olds instead of teaching obedience. Of course, it's unrealistic to expect that children will be perfectly obedient at all times, but if they often refuse a direct instruction at three or four, they are "out of control" at that point and not respectful of their parent's authority.

When my daughter was three, she might occasionally delay when I asked her to come to me, but when I started counting "one, two, three," she came running! She knew that there would be consequences for disobedience, and that refusing to come to me was disobedience.

It's consistency in the small things that trains a child to obey. If a parent tells a child to do one thing, but then lets her do another, the child learns that the parent doesn't expect to be obeyed--that the child's will is stronger than the parent's will. Yes, it's tiring to have to back up one's instructions every time, but it's a lot more tiring to end up with permanently-disobedient children!

I'm very grateful that I heard John Rosemond speak before my daughter turned one. It saved me a lot of trouble to know that I had to teach her to control her will and her emotional outbursts in small ways, starting very early. She did not have tantrums in any significant way, because she had already been taught at the age of two that if she went out-of-control, she would be put into her pack-and-play in a quiet room until she could calm herself. (I would check on her every two minutes and say "are you ready to be calm?" Usually, it took no more than five or six minutes for her to learn to calm herself.) Screaming was unacceptable as a way to get what she wanted, at any time. And anyone who knows my daughter knows that I didn't break her will. :-) She still has a pretty strong will of her own, but she has no doubt that the parents are the authority in our household, and that she must obey.

What John Rosemond teaches is that we must have high expectations of our children's behavior. Children are capable of learning to be polite and civilized when they are quite young, unless they have medical problems like autism or brain damage. If they aren't reasonably civilized, then we need to stop passing the buck and look at our parenting styles.

My daughter has occasional lapses in civility, like most children. When she does, I don't just say "that's the way she is" and throw up my hands. I do my best to correct it firmly. Sometimes it takes repeated correction before the behavior changes, but it will change, eventually. That's one of the reasons I started homeschooling. It's hard enough to train my child even when I am the primary influence on her life. When peers and other adults become a major influence, it becomes even more challenging. My daughter is pretty strong-willed, by nature. The homeschooling decision must vary for each family, but in our case, I wanted more years of character formation in which I could help her, before I send her out to face other influences.

Pretty on the Inside

"Being pretty on the inside is what matters," I told my daughter as I sat on her bed.

It's not the first time I've said it, and it surely won't be the last.

"Yeah," she said, her big green eyes very serious in the darkness.

"Being pretty on the inside makes you beautiful to other people, even if you don't have a pretty face," I said. "Like some people we know, who are so kind that they just shine with beauty."

"Some people start ugly on the inside but then get pretty," she said. "Like Scrooge."

"That's right. And when a person who was ugly on the inside turns pretty, the angels rejoice, because that's the best thing that can ever happen."

She smiled. "Yeah."

It's a simple lesson, but one that our country and our neighbors really need.

James Scott Bell, a well-known Christian author, comments on the increasing cruelty of our public humor here, as a guest on the blog of Brandilyn Collins.

The degeneration of our public culture is not a cause for hopelessness, but for action. We can make a difference by raising our children to be kind, by treating others with respect, and by standing up for civility and compassion at every opportunity.

One of my favorite authors and thinkers, William Dean Howells, wrote on this subject:

You can have a righteous public only by the slow process of having righteous men and women...

No one for good or for evil, for sorrow or joy, for sickness or health, stood apart from his fellows, but each was bound to the highest and the lowest by ties that centered in the hand of God.

No man sinned or suffered to himself alone; his error and his pain darkened and afflicted men who never heard of his name.

If a community was corrupt, if an age was immoral, it was not because of the vicious, but the virtuous who fancied themselves indifferent spectators.

I'm resolved not to be an indifferent spectator, immobilized by fear or apathy. When I feel worried or discouraged, I will remind myself that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness overcomes it not.

Beta Readers

Writers need two different types of readers during the composition process.

Critique partners read the novel as it emerges, chapter by chapter. It may take three to six months for them to read an entire first draft, depending on how quickly each author writes.

These chapter-by-chapter readers are crucial because they catch problems and inconsistencies early. They keep a novelist on the right track so the novel doesn't derail in mid-journey.

The second kind of reader is a beta reader. Beta readers get the entire first draft when it is complete. Their feedback will be closer to that of "real" readers because they will read the manuscript straight through in only a few sittings.

I decided recently that I had not heard from enough beta readers for my first novel, which is currently under submission by my agent. So now I've persuaded two more lucky (moo-ha-ha-ha!) readers to help me out.

It's strange to look back at my first novel now that I am knee-deep in the second. To me, the novels appear very different. As I told my critique partners the other day, the second novel is more technically proficient, but there will always be a special place in my heart for my first novel.

I don't know if any future novel of mine will move me as deeply in the writing process as the last third of my first novel. I cried until my eyes were red from both sorrow and happiness while writing a number of the scenes at the close of novel #1.

But maybe I speak too soon. I haven't written the last third of novel #2 yet. As one of my critique partners reminded me, we can't compare the intense feelings of writing the climax of one novel with the more analytical process of writing the opening of a later novel.

Breaking Bread

Tonight, we went to a supper at church in honor of what some call "Holy Thursday," the evening of the Last Supper.

I was really impressed by the thoughtfulness of the menu planner. We ate a vegetable soup with a hint of cinnamon that lent it a Middle Eastern twist. We also had great pita bread, hummus, and some other hummus-like thing that may have been flavored with sundried tomatoes. Then there was fruit for dessert, including dates. At the end of the meal, we celebrated communion by breaking bread and drinking juice.

Here's the odd thing: while we were drinking the juice, I was struck by how long it took to drink just half a glass of juice.

Communion as practiced by the early church was nothing like the sacrament as it is practiced by most Christians today. Early Christians ate a meal of bread and wine together, though it was a light meal and they were cautioned not to eat and drink to excess.

Our communion in an institutional setting is one bite of cracker, one sip of juice, passed around in trays. People don't face one another, nor do they speak to one another.

I doubt that early Christians preserved a reverent silence for the five or ten minutes it took to eat a piece of pita bread and drink a glass of wine. I wonder how their communion looked. What did they say? Did they talk about Christ the whole time, or just rejoice in one another's company in his memory? Was it sometimes like an Irish wake, but without the intoxication?

I don't mean these questions to be irreverent at all. Quite the opposite. I belong to a small group that meets for dinner every Sunday night. In a lot of ways, this group is much more like an early Christian community than the massive body of believers that meets in our church building on Sunday mornings. I do concede, however, that large churches do one thing very well: children's ministry. I'm always grateful for the joyous education my daughter receives at our church.

Nonetheless, I'm beginning to think that there's a lot of merit to the house church movement. I'm not content with some things about traditional church that show up very clearly when you contrast a church with a small group.

Easter Song

A friend's note inspired me to do my first-ever music slide show for YouTube.

This is my favorite song at Easter time.

Watch it and enjoy a few moments of peace.

The Joys of Homeschooling

I can't say enough positive things about our first month of homeschooling.

But I'll try to say a few of them.

1) My daughter's behavior has improved dramatically. Not that she was a terror beforehand, but she was beginning to develop a few undesirable habits. Now, instead of spending hours with kids who reinforce bad behavior by laughing at silliness and drama, she spends hours with me. Mucho behavioral teaching time. Lots of time to explain to her in a reasonable way why certain behaviors and habits are worth cultivating. Like many intelligent children, she responds very well to explanation and positive guidance.

2) My relationship with my daughter is much closer and richer. As her behavior deteriorated in the first months of this year, I spent too much of our after-school time correcting her. Now, we learn together, laugh at funny parts in our lessons (like the repeated misspelling of "chlorophyll" in our biology textbook), and share our random thoughts all day long. Practicing tap dance together is a blast.

3) She is becoming more aware of who she is, and more confident. I loved her absolute innocence and lack of self-consciousness before she entered kindergarten. Unfortunately, she was just too young, emotionally, for the rigors of teasing and cliquey girls. (These things are mild in kindergarten, but they do exist.) Now, she has the freedom to blossom into her own identity without self-imposed peer pressure.

4) She is learning at a tremendous rate. She's taking an excellent biology class for homeschoolers aged 6-10. I love the mixed-age learning environment. The concepts and materials of the class are really challenging: they already learned the six parts of the cell including my favorite, the Golgi apparatus. (It just sounds so weird and cool: "Mr. Spock, the engines are failing!" "Prepare the Golgi apparatus, Mr. Scott.")

She's also in a fantastic art class that my friend recommended. When the teacher showed me her first project last week, I almost boo-hooed like a baby. (This parental weepiness is very embarrassing and I do my best to get control over it, when it strikes!) The teacher is an admirable, warm woman as well as very gifted in her profession. She gave the students a brief explanation of shading, viewpoint, and contouring. So my daughter, who has until now been drawing spooky stick figures with googly eyes, produced a fully shaded and contoured still life in chalk.

I tend to be more struck by the results of other people's teaching than by my own. But when I think about what I've taught her in the last four weeks, I know that she is getting the best education I can give her. She has read a number of high-quality books, worked on spelling and sounding out four- and five-syllable words, memorized a fairly long rhymed and metered poem, and learned a number of abstract concepts in first-grade level math. And, best of all, she has enjoyed it far more than her previous studies in traditional kindergarten. I can pick books for her that I know she will like. The poem I asked her to memorize was about fairies. She learned it in about five minutes, total, and two weeks later can still recite all sixteen lines word for word.

Then there's the creative writing she's doing on her own initiative, and the Spanish language CD-Rom she loves to play.

5) I'm able to take care of her physical needs. My daughter is tiny and not the strongest creature on God's green earth. Even her kindergarten teachers commented that her "little body just gets worn out" by early afternoon, in a traditional school. I think she does get tired, but I think part of it is also her metabolism. Like me, she does best when she eats frequently and gets regular doses of protein. In traditional school, it's hard to monitor whether she's had enough to eat. At home, it's easy for me to fix her a snack or take a break if she's getting fatigued.

6) I am at peace, knowing that she is happy, healthy, and interested in learning.

I've probably lost everyone by now, but I feel pretty good!

Others

I spent last night doing a couple of things to bring some happiness to a few people I know.

They weren't major undertakings. They didn't take a lot of effort. Writing a few lines, addressing some envelopes. Indulging my little quirk of putting twice as many stamps as I need, whenever I have the slightest doubt about postage. (I'm sure these stamp-laden envelopes reveal far too much about my general aversion to risk!)

Doing these little things made me feel really calm and happy, myself. It's good to think about others.

In both Christian and Eastern faiths, "dying to self" is an important part of redemption or enlightenment. What happens after one dies to self differs radically from faith to faith, but I think most of us know that. :-)

WIthout exception, my happiest times are when I'm thinking of others; my lowest times happen when I think a lot about myself.

Let's hear it for Others! I wouldn't have much fun without them.

Good News, All the Time

This past week was the clincher in my long-running quandary about whether or not to keep my Yahoo email account. I'm ditching it.

The problem with Yahoo is that email is inseparable from Yahoo News. The log-in window for my email contains news headlines.

In the past seven days, Yahoo News has covered at least three multiple murders in painstaking detail, breathlessly spouting each meaningless discovery. Every time I opened my email, I had to read the tragic, sensationalistic headlines. I check my email pretty frequently, so reading these headlines several times a day is an involuntary violation of Phillippians 4:8.

Finally, friends, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

I take this passage seriously. This advice is intended for our welfare. People who spend a lot of time dwelling on negative events--even with the best intentions--don't do well psychologically, nor do they represent the spirit of Christ well to others.

Here are some links to sites that offer good news.

Good News Daily

Good News Network

Happy News

Wholesome Chapter Books for Advanced Readers

When a child is reading way above her grade level, finding good reading material becomes a challenge. These days, too much stuff written at the fourth-grade level is worldly and cynical. I don't want my six-year-old reading books about cliques and boys, and yet she needs to read books that increase her vocabulary and stimulate her imagination.

So the first InkhornBlue Ribbon for great children's books goes to:



FLOWER FAIRY FRIENDS, chapter books based on the Flower Fairies of Cecily Mary Barker.

My daughter is mesmerized by these books. The vocabulary is rich, and yet not so dense as to be frustrating for a good reader. Here are some sample words from the pages of these chapter books: fragrant, frothy, teetering, procession, bobbing, conversations, boundaries, chariot, melancholy, nimbly, intruders, gossamer, submerged.

Awesome! These are words that light up pages and make a child love reading, even if she doesn't always understand perfectly the meaning of melancholy. :-)

And here's another completely-unrelated but fetching thing about the books: some of the fairies look a little bit like someone I know.


If you can't see this little fairy well enough, just click on this cover and it will enlarge for you.

You Can Talk to Me

Have you ever seen someone from your church struggling in silence?

Have you ever wanted to say "It's OK! It will be all right. Tell me about it. Let me help. If I can't help, let me find someone for you who can."

Have you also known that the person won't tell you--and probably won't tell anyone--and that there may be serious trouble ahead as a result?

Let's get real. Let's help each other. Let's show our sisters and brothers that it's OK to be imperfect--that good people can have serious struggles with temptation, and sometimes even fall to it, and yet remain good people. Sometimes, in fact, those who have fallen are more admirable in their faith and determination than those who haven't. Without denying the strength of a temptation or its prevalence, let's talk about what kinds of fall are going to break our hearts and ruin our lives. Lies and masks are going to allow us to be gutted and emptied out in secret while we just smile, and smile, and mouth pleasantries at each other.

I love my friends and my extended church family. I ask for your prayers for all those who are silent when they should be speaking--when silence and closed doors have become the enemy's best weapon.