Overheard

"The wall is a very bad man. It hit me on the head."

Love

We've still been running the air-conditioner off and on, but suddenly it is heater weather. A simple flip of the switch, however, revealed that this means that it is going to be on and off jacket weather inside our house until the repairman comes out to fix the heater.

Texas, unlike California, actually has seasons, and this time of year, you can experience all four of them in the space of a week.

"Mama! You have ant bites, too?!"

Texas also has ants. Ants seem to be particularly fascinating to young blue-eyed boys, and Texas ants are the biting kind. Kai-kai, September, and Isaiah have always tended to stay clear of them, but Willie is enraptured with their swarming patterns, just like Nathan was at his age.

Stroking me sympathetically, Willie took a closer look at my arm.

"Oh, those aren't ant bites... you're just cold!"

He whipped his jacket off, and offered it to me. I thanked him for the sweet gesture, and told him that perhaps he could go fetch me my own jacket off the banister.

He immediately went scurrying off, and the moment he was back, and my jacket was safely in my hands, he picked up his own little black and red puffer.

"There. Now I'm going to put my coat back on. Because I'm freezing."

Song

It's the sort of day where you savor your mug of hot tea, as much for the warmth as for anything else.  Where you never bother to get out of your pajamas, but you do scrub the kitchen floor--or at least part of it--and it feels so good, if only in contrast to your stuffy nose and your thickly pounding head. The sort of day when your little boy grins at you with those melty-chocolate eyes, and somehow you feel the wonder all the more for being sick.

Or maybe it's just that like a snake swallowing its tail, all those voices of silence have choked themselves off.  They've dried up and blown away in the crisp November wind, and I feel so light and glad.

I can just taste the redemption that might be, that could be, and whatever stories there will be, I rejoice that it is offered.

Do they know? Do they know?

Those words have suffocated us all for so long, speaker and hearer alike, but now those words have crumbled into ashes. At the sound of the breaking pots, they've turned on themselves in the torchlight, and those words of darkness can never again drown out the words of light.

Do they know? Do they know?

They will say what they will say, and live the story of their choosing. I hope they come stand in the beautiful wind with arms wide open, and watch the ashes blow away, as far as the east is from the west.  But whatever words they choose to live, my heart overflows with gladness at the story that's been offered.

And as for me, I will play checkers with my daughter, pour another cup of tea, and sing the song of the redeemed.

My Sons.

I'm proud of 'em, and I get mamma-bear mad when folks have low expectations of 'em.

And then I take it as an opportunity to clarify my philosophy of education. In sonnet form, of course.

http://thereforeiambic.blogspot.com/2011/01/these-fine-strong-sons-of-mine-it-is.html

Plumb Line

One of the best things about having lots of kids is that you get to hear yourself reflected back--my interactions with them get played back over and over again in the way they talk to each other, and so I get to find out how I really sound.

And so it was that I was doubly pleased the other day, when I heard September speaking to Will with such gentle, loving firmness.

"Willie, I'll let you play with my football, but not in the bathroom, because I don't want you to flush it down the toilet. You shouldn't flush things down the toilet that don't belong to you."

Clutter

I’ve been reading the newspaper this afternoon—a rare indulgence. Newspapers are terribly messy and clutterful, and so I tend to get most of my news from the internet. With all the temptingly distracting hyperlinks, I suppose that the internet produces even more mental clutter, but at least it all stays contained in my head, rather than getting scattered about the house.

Of course, mental clutter is even more crazy-making than paper-clutter… until in finds its way out onto paper. It works just the same way as with the house—the more stuff you let in, the more of your life you have to spend organizing it all. There’s a richness in simplicity, and I’m trying to rid my life of extraneous junk. At the very least, I’m trying to count the cost for everything I bring into my life—not just the initial investment, but also the cumulative cost of constantly having to put it away, over and over again. It’s all too easy for the meaningless to crowd out the meaningful, for words to multiply, and dreams to crowd out their fulfillment.
Of the writing of books there is no end, but once they’ve been scattered all around the floor for the umpteenth time, they need to get put back into place so I can stop tripping on them. Yesterday, when I was trying to pick up the week’s accumulation of clutter, I found myself instead following my husband around while he cleaned, and chattering incessantly. I was explaining to him about why I really needed to write more, so that I wouldn’t drive him up the wall by talking his ear off quite so much. I stopped short as soon as I picked up on the irony, but he assured me that I wasn’t actually annoying him. He doesn’t mind when I talk about writing. It’s just when I talk about… certain things. He couldn’t remember what.

This afternoon, our beautiful, newly tidy room was strewn about with comics and economics and the weekly “Around the Area” column on local murderings and gristly accidents. I read aloud all the particularly infuriating snippets from editorial after editorial, and Andrew finally remembered what it is that always bugs him. Ah, yes. Politics. He can’t stand it when I talk about politics.

We’re pretty much on the same page, and though our views have evolved through the years, they’ve been changing in lockstep. But our attention spans are different, and Andrew is forever drawing me out of the endless round and round of the now, back to the slow, meticulous study of history that makes sense out of it all.

And of course, when I sat down to write, I had the intention of drawing some profound point out of all this.

It was terribly profound and wonderful, but it seems to be buried in a big pile with several pages of newspaper, some dirty dishes, and some unfolded laundry.

Poetry Blog, Take II

Okay, so I don't think, therefore I mess up the launching of my new blog, and then go get a puppy, and never make it onto the internet for a few weeks.

Here it is, for reals: thereforeiambic.blogspot.com

I'm starting out slow--expect weekly Saturday posts for now.

First up, a resurrection poem.

Because Christ is risen!

Hallelujah!

Oh, and in case you're wondering, she's a little white furball of a mini schnoodle, her name is Terpsichore, and although she's very cute, everything they've ever said about housebreaking small dogs is true.

Poetry Blog

I'm blogging in metered verse over at I Think, Therefore Iambic Pentameter.

First up, I've got a metaphysical sonnet about teabags, with sweetly innocent children's poetry, ruminations on fear of death, and even a little bit of cynical politics coming soon.

I'm also writing nonsense rhymes to supplement the wuggies' phonics lessons, and I may post some of that, too.

I hope you drop by soon.

Remember the Alamo!

We just got back from a little jaunt to San Antonio.

It's an inspiring bit of history, and we like being part of a state with an identity like that.

Along the way to the Alamo, we ended up traipsing through the backroads, and meandering through an old cemetery.

We like walking through graveyards, the skeletal outlines of lives long ago, a set of dates held together by a few lines of poetry. It is good to stand at a distance, to see what really matters after time has smoothed away most of the details, while magnifying others, as an ancient winding stream carves out the riverbed.

Remember the Alamo!

It's strange to think that after all these years, it really doesn't matter whether they won or lost, but it matters tremendously that they died and died valiantly.

We remember that they lost the battle, and we remember that their defeat was part of how the revolution was won.

But sooner or later, I'm sure it all would have turned out this way in the end, and it doesn't really matter how we got here.

But it matters that these brave men fought to the death against hopeless odds, and it matters that their comrades let them die alone and unsupported, and waited to bravely fight the battles that were theirs to fight and win.

All these years later, what matters is not how long their lives were, or even whether in the dying they accomplished their goals. What matters is that they chose wisesly, fought bravely, and died well.

The vic'try or defeat is but a token
of the glory spilled from lives valiantly broken.

Complicated Passages

I was reading a bit of Galatians to the wuggies this morning, simply because that's what I was reading to myself before they got up. Of course, this required a bit of context-building before we launched into the text. We looked up Galatia first on the map in the back of the Bible, then found the corresponding area on the globe, and discovered that it corresponds to modern-day Turkey.

After I explained to them how the people of Galatia had been led astray by bad teachers, September wondered if the Insulations ever got things straight again.

I didn't know the answer to that one.

Nathan, on the other hand, really just wanted to know why the area had changed names.

Another stumper.

But then, all on his own, he figured it out.

The land must have been invaded by chickens.

And there you have it.

Oot!

Paggles is talking! Vague-sounding complete sentences have been emerging for some time--it always sounds just like he must be saying something that makes perfect sense--but now his conversation is peppered with distinctly intelligible words. Like Mama, Da-ee, Timmo, Na-tin, Iyaya, and eat. Eat! Eat! That boy sure loves to eat, and to talk about eating whenever there's food in sight. But if there's one thing that he likes more than eating, it's goofing. There never was such a boy for goofing. And so his very favorite word of all--except maybe for "Mama," which to my great chagrin, is his word for any and all beverages... well, anyway, his second-favorite word of all is "Oot!" Which simply means that it is time to burst out into gales of laughter, because that's an awfully funny sound to make.

And since we're talking about Paggles and the meaning of nonsense words, I suppose I'd better explain how he came to be called Paggles.

It's really quite simple and rational. It should be fairly obvious why we took to calling him snufflupagus. But then we would jokingly shift around the emPHASes of the sylLAbles, and have protracted discussions as to whether he was really a snufflUPagus, or maybe actually a snuffloPAgus. In the end we concluded that he was definitely a snuffloPAgus, which slowly morphed into Pagus... Pags...

And that is how it came about that he is Paggles, and he says "Oot!"

I just realized...

...that I spent most of my writing time this evening trying to find somebody (anybody!) who had already said what I had to say, so maybe I wouldn't have to write it.

It was during the chunk of time when I was looking for a potential publisher for this half-written article, that I realized why nobody is saying it.

So for now, I'll just have to say it here, on my unfunded little blog.

Every word in the mainstream media is funded by big corporations.

Not something that mainstream media is likely to point out, and not something that you can really do much about, without making matters worse. It's simply a fact of modern life--our society has an awful lot of mighty effective megaphones available for purchase, and most of that purchasing happens in ways that are utterly untouchable by campaign finance laws.

Thank God that ordinary citizens are now permitted to pool their resources, and make their voices heard too.

Even if they aren't quite rich enough to buy the whole television network.

It's always bittersweet...

...to find a splendid library discard.

I remember...

...that little gold typewriter.

It was so very beautiful.

And I would sit there in my little yellow director's chair, at my little white desk, and while Daddy and Mommy clacked away, I'd do my "exegesis on Luke."

And now my very own little girl sits next to me at Starbucks, with her little purple notebook and her little blue pen. We like to go write together, her and me.

And it is very sweet indeed.

How We Homeschool

Emily wonders how we're going about the business of homeschooling.

The short answer would be: mostly incidentally.

See, school is about 90% socialization, 10% academics. I'm pretty sure I'm not saying anything controversial there. Most advocates of public school (or private school, for that matter) that I've talked to readily agree that most students can get through all the necessary academic coursework at home in anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. But school isn't just about academics; in fact, socialization--learning how to live well in community--is a much bigger, and much more important part of the education of a virtuous soul.

But there's some pretty intense disagreement among parents about how exactly they would like their children socialized, and thank God, America allows us the freedom to agree to disagree, and socialize our own children according to our own beliefs.

So, even in the states with the very strictest requirements for homeschoolers, the law only addresses the academic 10%.

There are a lot of great curricula out there that would enable us to give the kids the academic portion of a public school education, with a pretty minimal time investment, and others that would let us give them a much more intensive education with a bit more thought and work. I can respect either approach.

But for us, academics is just a way of life. We talk about number theory while setting the table, Plutarch and philosophy of history over the dinner. We listen to Cry the Beloved Country while we wash the dishes, and then we sit around the fire and read the Odyssey. I'm planning on periodically assessing, and making sure that we really are covering all the bases... but I'm not too worried about it. This is one of the perks of living in Texas; as long as I'm using some sort of written materials to teach my children the three R's, good citizenship, and Texas history, I can be as loosey-goosey about it as I please.

The kids really do have to learn to read, though. HAVE to. For my sake as much as theirs... I want them to start looking up their own history questions. (And mine, too!) I've found that they just aren't mature enough to pay attention to words when there are any pictures whatsoever on the page, so I'm just using the primer in the back of Why Johnny Can't Read. It's a bare-bones set of word lists, and we're grinding through, just a little bit of sounding-out and a little bit of dictation every day. It's amazing how important the dictation is--it turns out that spelling comes easier than reading, and it's through learning to spell that they're learning to read. Anyway, it's slow slogging, but there's a whole library full of history books at the end of the tunnel, and I read them fun books as a more immediate reward.

As for the 90%, I'm of the opinion that participation in a vibrant, healthy family (and church!) is the best socialization. Learning to navigate friendships with kids their own age, and also spending time with older kids, and godly grownups. And learning how to pull their own weight around the house. And camping, and spouting poetry, and building stuff--from tiny wooden boxes to grandiose universes, worlds in which Jim the Warrior was there to stop Alegdander of Jalon from stealing the whole world, and in which the Titanic was truly indestructible, but had enough lifeboats anyway.

All Done Being Angry

The Common Room is always a great place to go for fantastic discussions of philosophy of education.

The Deputy Headmistress is mad, mad, mad about Berkeley High School's proposal to try to address the racial achievement gap by cutting science labs.

I can see how one might be angry about this. Why, yes... it's quite maddening, isn't it? I can also see how the school might want to do this, though. Not because science is too "white," but because other resources might be more immediately beneficial to students who can't even read. First things first. Who shall we throw under the bus first? The struggling students or the students who are starting to get somewhere?

Round and round and round it goes, and never any answers, never any answers. And I'm tired of it. Tired of it being that way, but also just plain too tired to keep caring about it.

The post delves into lots of great discussion of Hirsch and Mason and Russeau.... good stuff, excellent stuff, marvelous food for thought. But round and round and round it goes, round and round some more. Shall we teach kids things, or shall we teach them how to learn? Hirsch is absolutely right--kids can never learn how to learn without things on which to learn. Children need the core knowledge which is the basis of cultural literacy.

So he went on to carefully devise a curriculum on that basis.

I have no doubt that it's a very fine curriculum indeed. (Really. I've heard fantastic things about it.)

But, oh, the years of high quality work put into adapting the great works of western civilization, making their important ideas compatible with the school setting.

Round and round and round it goes.

These questions and dilemmas are fascinating, and I'm sure I'll revisit them over and over again, like crosswords and sudoku puzzles, and probably I'll also revisit them to slightly more purpose as thinker, as a writer, as helpmate to a professional educator. But in my capacity as a mom... there's only one way out of this Gordian knot. I'm done with the endless puzzles, the endless dilemmas, round and round and round.

And I'm going downstairs, to read to my kids. Real books, books that matter, books that haven't been edited down to their level... or mine, for that matter. Books that challenge and change me, even as they challenge and change my little ones. Funny books, too, that delight and entertain me, even as they delight and entertain my little ones. And yes, the dull grunt-work of endless word-lists and dictation. But even that, we're doing straight-up, unadorned but for the promise that at the library downtown, they have more history books than would fit in our whole house, and if you'll just get through these few dull lessons, my child, you can read them all.

New Day, New Year, New Post

I write from Starbucks--our computer sort of died, and so that made for a nice opportunity for an internet fast.

I miss being able to instantly dash upstairs and get a kazillion answers to sift through, whenever I have the slightest question about anything.

The fruit of the tree of knowledge is intoxicating and addictive, but it's been good to stop the information flow for a while, and just figure out how to live according to the knowledge that I do have. To seek wisdom as hidden treasure.

But I do terribly miss writing.

My parents came for Christmas, and among the lovely and generous, carefully selected gifts they placed beneath our tree, was a bound copy of The Wuggy Chronicles. A touching gift, a valuable archive... and above all, a not-so-subtle hint.

And I came to the conclusion that I'm am in the wrong career.

As Aristotle would say, my proper function is my unique function. Nobody else can mother my children quite like I can, or educate them like I can. All this is most definitely my proper function.

But as for housekeeping,... well, actually, there are quite a few people who could do that part of my job considerably better than I can. And so, even though I have no intention of pursuing a career that will let me outsource my mothering responsibilities, I see no reason why I shouldn't work toward levering my strengths so I can hire somebody to clean my house for me.

And you know what? Proverbs 31 doesn't say a single thing about cleaning. The excellent wife is good with textiles, and she uses the profits from those skills to dabble in real estate, and she takes good care of her maids, and makes sure that they take good care of her house. I owe my husband a well-kept home... but maybe I don't have to be the one running the vacuum cleaner.

Of course it takes time to convert words into supplemental income, and I'm not quite sure how I will go about it. But I do know of at least one way that I can. I have a lovely plan for teaching flute lessons during naptime to leverage myself into some serious writing time--the time the housekeeper is cleaning the house would be sacred to the non-creative gruntwork of cover letters and queries and such. On the other hand, as I was flipping through my old (very out-of-date) Christian Writer's Market Guide, I realized that the whole process is much, much less intimidating than I had imagined it to be. I've never really worked up the nerve to seriously pursue publication, because I'd heard that it was impossible for the unpublished to get published... But while that is true for the big publications, there are plenty of small publications that really do read unsolicited manuscripts. There's a finite number of steps to take, and it's really not so complicated after all. No guaranteed outcome, of course... but no reason I can't give it a try. And if the family suffers from the time investment it requires, I'll go the flute-lessons-for-now route.

I'm excited. =)

And now, if you'll excuse me, a have a touchingly humorous grandparent/grandchild story to write for some small Christian seniors' magazine.

Deliver My Life

I finally heard back from Crossway, and got permission to use the ESV for my Psalm settings and scripture songs.

So... if you happened to be looking for an arrangement of Psalm 6, for solist(s) and congregation, shoot me an email!

Psalm 6 is one of those crazy, shocking Psalms--I always wondered how David had the audacity to pray such a thing.

"Turn O Lord, deliver my life.
Save me for the sake of Your steadfast love,
for in death there is no remembrance of you,
in Sheol who will give you praise?"


It was only through song that I was able to make any sense out of those words, through the strange process of trying to find a tune to which David could have sung such a thing.

And now it is one of the very dearest of Scriptures to me, speaks to me with a deep assurance of the bedrock foundation of our salvation.

God doesn't save me for my sake, but for His own sake. I don't deserve it, but I can be absolutely certain that God will rescue me, preserve me, sustain me, and make me ever more like Christ. Because He wants my life to be a testimony to His glory. If it was all about me, I'm pretty sure God would have changed His mind a long time ago. But it's not about me. God will be glorified, and so I know that He will be faithful.

Even though it's April

Sing a song of September,
of the richly red-gold ember
of the summer's blazing heat.
Of the velvet crinch-crunch soft beneath your feet
of the leaves all spent and tender,
but mostly, darling sweet,
of you.

Another collaboration between September and myself,

being about a rather poorly illustrated biography of Leonardo da Vinci. Perhaps there is a time and a place for crudely cartoonish illustrations, but at any rate, its proper place is certainly not in a biography of Leonardo. But of course, I didn't notice just how silly it was until September pointed it out, although I'm not quite sure that September's objections were the same as mine. In fact, I'm not 100% certain about the precise nature of her objections in the first place. But at any rate, here they are.

This book is a bad book.
It's a bad book, she said.
There's people who cover people--
And they don't like it.

She took another long look,
Took a long look, then she said
They're trying to take a horse--
And it's not good.

But cuddle up, sweet mama,
and fold me in the blanket
so we can be toasty.