Another way my kids are growing up differently than I did.

I'm getting ready to run out to the library to pick up a copy of "The Sound of Music" to watch with Eleanor today.  I am not that interested in it but she is sickly and her brother is away at camp and this is what she would like to do.  We just got Netflix but it's not available to watch instantly; nothing in the vast queue we've accumulated seems interesting enough to her right now.  I know how that is, when a kid is sick.

But here is where my title comes in:  she won't want to watch it alone.  It struck me today that my kids rarely watch tv or a movie alone.  James will occasionally watch some military thing by himself.  I think he'd like the company but no one wants to join him.  I don't think Eleanor ever has, though.

They'd mostly rather not watch TV if they are going to be there alone.

I think about all hours I spent in front of the TV as a kid, alone and with my siblings and parents.  Or friends. But a lot alone.  When I was in junior high I even had my own tv in my room for a little while.  It only got the local channel, but it was good for my soaps after school.  "Dark Shadows!"  "One Life to Live."  Ah, stop me before I go googling Vikki and Nikki and Barnabas.

Anyway, this was just interesting to me this morning.  I'm glad my kids don't spend mindless hours in front of the television.  I don't spend that much time myself, and I can usually make it productive with knitting or mending or even folding laundry.  Maybe I would have liked it if my Mom had watched "Dark Shadows" with me sometimes.  I wonder what she was doing while I was watching all that TV?

More about worry

Some of my friends are worried about me since I posted about waking up worrying.

Worrying is an unhealthy, useless waste of time.  And, for those of us who (try to) follow Jesus and the teachings in the Bible, it is a sin.

But it is also not something that anyone (or I, at least) set out to do.  The worries come unbidden.  Who wakes up and decides to think, say, "what if we have to move and our house doesn't sell?"   Or "Gah!  We don't have a decent science project for our homeschool portfolio yet!"

Not I! I'd rather wake up with a feeling of happy anticipation for the day, thankful for a good night's sleep.

So we have to fight the worry with prayer. We can know that God is sovereign and still have those worries creep in.  We can understand that if God wants us to move He will work out such mundane details as selling a house.  He might not make it real easy, or as quick as we'd like.  But it'll happen. We can know that both intellectually and in our hearts.  We aren't worrying on purpose.

I think in general Christians are harder on people about worry than nonChristians.  (Broad generalization; don't assume I'm talking about you!)  So many times I've expressed a concern to someone - someone who asks how things are going or if there is any way they can pray for me, not just some random person I've decided to spill my guts to  - and they send me off with a breezy little platitude:  "Just trust and obey!"  "Oh, follow God's leading and you'll be fine!"  "As long as you're in God's will, He will take care of you!"    Well, OK then!  Thanks for asking.

One of the best Bible verses for worriers is John 14:1.  Let not your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God; believe also in me."  One of my Facebook friends had that up in her status yesterday and though it is a very familiar verse, it was good to see it.  It is the perfect verse for worriers - those who worry on purpose and those who have their worries thrust upon them, unwelcome, in the early hours of the morning.

Update:  After typing "worry" so many time, I've come to realize I should have titled this post "What, me worry?"  And I have this urge to read a Mad Magazine...

Five Minute Friday: Waking up

My friend Maria turned me on to Five Minute Friday at The Gypsy Mama.  It's a little writing prompt exercise - fun!  I am in great need of blogging inspiration and this is just the ticket.  Join us over there for some sweet baby pics and some fun reading on...

Waking up.

Lately my wakeups have been abrupt.  A cry of "Mommy" from a sick girl.  My son ringing his bell - that'll scare you, hearing a bell clanging in the middle of the night, till you realize what it is and go to comfort the child with a headache.  I tried to be nice when I asked that in the future he call rather than ring.   Sometimes it's the dog, nervous at some sound outside and wanting to get out to investigate  He did that the other morning, and was so insistent that I ended up taking him in the backyard on the leash, thinking he had some business to do out there.  Oh no. He just wanted to snuffle around for night creatures.  It was 5 am; the alarm goes off at 6:30, so I stayed up.

Sometimes the thoughts in my head wake me up.   Starting the day worrying isn't something I choose to do, but sometimes it happens.  Those are the mornings I alternate between worrying and praying for help to stop worrying.   With the seminarian graduating in May, there are plenty of unanswered questions about our near future, and thus plenty to worry about - whether I want to worry or not.   Please do not leave me a comment telling me it's a sin to worry, OK?  Other comments are welcome, of course.

I look forward to the day that I wake up feeling rested and relaxed, with happy anticipation for the day.   I am not sure when that will happen, though.


That was a fun five minutes!  Try it yourself.

Carnival of Homeschooling

It's the Green Edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling, and the photos are beautiful.  Good reading to, as always.  Check it out at The Homeschool Post.

Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands

Are you a counselor?   I don't mean a certified professional who gets paid to solve people's problems.  I mean, are you a regular person living in the world, who has people in your life who need help with problems?  Yes, of course you are.  We all are. So you should read Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands.

I love the subtitle:  "People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change."

I've had this book for a long time and had started it more than once. For some reason it took me a few tries to get into it and finish it.  I can only assume my timing was bad because this is a wonderful book.   The author, Paul David Tripp, is associated with the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation and has written other titles for the "Resources for Changing Lives" book series.

Dr. Tripp teaches the process - what we need to do - for counseling: Love,  Know, Speak, Do.  

If we are going to help people, we need to love them.  Yes, we need to love all these pesky, annoying people in our lives.  That includes the the young mother who doesn't seem to be able to discipline her children, the friend who is always complaining, the woman who worries that she's never doing enough. Sometimes they are hard to love, but they are made in God's image, so... we make the decision to love them.

We have to know them and know their problems - their real problems, not necessarily the troubles that they present to us - if we are going to help them.  We don't assume we know without asking a lot of questions and getting true understanding of what's really going on.

Then we have to speak up.  Kindly, in love. We don't avoid confrontation.  Sometimes this kind of speaking is hard.   But,

... I am afraid we have replaced love in our relationships with being "nice."  Being nice and acting out of love are not the same thing.  Our culture puts a high premium on being tolerant and polite.  We seek to avoid uncomfortable moments, so we see, but do not speak.  We go so far as to convince ourselves that we are not speaking because we love the other person, when in reality we fail to speak because we lack love.

Then, as if the speaking wasn't hard enough, there's more: we need to do what we can to help. This is the hardest part to accomplish and the hardest to summarize.

The final aspect of our model, do, teaches us how to apply truths we have learned, personal insights we have gained, and commitments we have made, to our daily lives.  Here we teach people to be dissatisfied with the gap between their confessional and functional theology.  We lead them to live out their identity as children of God, claiming the rights and privileges of the gospel.  Do trains people in the decisions, actions, relationships, and skills of Christ-centered, biblically informed living.  

This is not just theory.  There are many practical examples that helped me see exactly how to go about this process.  It's designed to equip, not just educate.

And it's not just for people planning to become professional counselors, though it is on the curriculum.  It's for people like me who seem to be placed in counseling sessions all the time.   People like you, too.

Click the link for more information or to read the first chapter of the book. If you read it, I'd love to know what you think of it.

The recurring aviary experience

We've been having a tough homeschooling season.  So tough we've even talked about school.  As in, going there next year.

This is hard to admit.  It's hard to let people know when there are difficulties, particularly when I know that some people would be silently saying "Yes!" at the prospect of us throwing in the homeschooling towel.  But, bad times happen.  Sometimes they last a day.  Sometimes they last a little longer.

So yesterday we decided to have a field trip to the zoo.  We hadn't been to the famous Philadelphia Zoo in the 3 1/2 years we've lived here.  Admission prices are high!  But thanks to one of those cool internet coupons sites, we scored some cheap tickets.  Yesterday  might not have been the best day to go - it was still cold, and rain threatened.  And, we hadn't finished some things that needed finishing. But, we needed the change in routine.

One of the best places in any zoo is the aviary.  We all love birds so that is one of the most important stops on any zoo visit.  Our zoo in Oregon had a wonderful aviary and we reminisced about it yesterday, on the way to our first Philadelphia experience.

One of our memories is very strong.  I don't think I'll ever forget it.  We had walked into the aviary and noticed how quiet it was.  Not a lot of bird action going on.  But we waited, and after a short time the birds became more active.  We sat on a bench and watched as the aviary came alive.  The birds had noticed our arrival but when we were quiet, they relaxed and went about their bird business.

Then, the door opened an a school group walked in.  Teachers, chaperones, kids.  Lots of kids!  All talking and stomping and making jokes and looking around, asking "where are the birds?"

It doesn't take birds long to disappear, you know.

So the adults marched the kids through and maybe they saw a bird or two.  But they didn't stop.  No one looked at the informational placards.  No one had a chance to listen.  Soon they were gone.

We sat still and waited.  Soon, the birds came back out.  It was one of those moments that validated our homeschooling for me:  schoolkids don't get to slow down and see the birds.

Of course to be fair, I must admit that I don't know if it was the teacher's intent to move through so quickly.  Maybe the class had spent so much time exploring other areas in detail that they didn't really have time for the birds.  Maybe they just popped in to give the kids a glimpse because the teacher loved the aviary and couldn't bear to have them miss it, even if they couldn't stop.

But the point was clear.  I wanted my kids to have time for the birds.  I didn't want them rushing through on a school field trip. 

So that was on my mind as we walked to the aviary at our new zoo.  I was enjoying a school day at the zoo while pondering taking a step that would put an end to days like this.

We walked in.  This one was set up differently from others, with separate rooms.  We spent time in each one.  The last was the best!  Full of birds we'd never seen before.  We walked around quietly, marveling at the different colors, beaks, feathers.  And then, it happened again.

In trooped a school group, a teacher in the lead, kids and chaperones behind, moving quickly through the room.  The birds disappeared, went silent and still.  We waited as the group passed.

When they were gone, a keeper came in to feed them.  She talked quietly to us about the food, and about some of the birds' habits.  Between the new silence in the room, and the promise of food, the birds came alive again.  She pointed out yellow-knobbed currasow who "doesn't seem to know how heavy she is.  She jumps onto branches that are too small and breaks them."  We watched a bit, and as the bird made her way toward the food, we could see how clumsily she moved.   The keeper then called the Victoria crowned pigeons over for their food, and they walked right past us on the way, just as close as that.  It was a wonderful experience.

And just like before, I knew that in good homeschooling times and bad, I always want my kids to have time for the birds.

No reading, no writing

I miss blogging.  I miss reading and commenting on blogs.   The best I have been able to do the past few weeks has been to scan a few blogs in my reader but I have rarely stopped into the real thing to say hello.

Sometimes life is just busy, and sometimes there are mental or emotional distractions that make it impossible to write a book review or think about home organization projects.   Sometimes there's just nothing to say, or so much it's too hard to figure out.

Maybe soon I'll write about our last robotics competition, or about the seminarian's upcoming graduation, or about the fantastic art projects my kids have been doing.  I've been reading, a little, and have some books I'd like to comment on.   I've been cleaning and getting rid of stuff so maybe I'll jump back into the 52-week challenge. 

I guess this is a placeholder post till I have some real content.

And a hello to the people who (I hope) still have me in their reader.  I'll be back to your place soon too!