We’ve been without service for three days now.  Since LightHusband works from home, we pay for a business account at $150 per month.  Supposedly this ensures rapid response when we go down.  Not so.  It simply means we pay more money per month to hope for rapid response when our service goes down.  Oh.  And we get to speak to someone who speaks English as a native language when we call for service.  That’s not particularly appealing to me since I have no problems listening to a heavy accent.

My biggest pet peeve is not being what one appears to be.  Or pretending to be something that one is not.  Essentially lying about one’s being.  So … Comcast stinks.  They are liars and cheats.  We’ve been waiting all day long while one customer service rep after another has lied and bs’ed to us.  We’ll be without the internet all weekend now.

In other news, I’ve been getting a lot of reading and quilting done.  I’m reading four books right now.  On the way out to Colorado, I picked up The Places In Between (you may recall that LightHusband read this awhile ago and I quoted from it).  I’m enjoying it too.  I came across this description of the British soldiers stationed at a crossroads town and thought it quite telling.  The Afghani men were describing the soldiers to Rory.  They thought very highly of the Brits, but were curious about some of their habits which did not make any sense at all to the wiry, desert-wise Afghani mountain men:

“British soldiers have chests as broad as horses.  We wish there were more of them to keep the peace.  Every morning they hook their feet over the bumper of their jeep, put their hands on the ground and push themselves up and down on their hands two hundred times without stopping.  I don’t know why.”

I thought about how strength has different requirements for different circumstances and different environments.  The wiry, small Afghani men are perfectly built for their environment.  They are strong and built for endurance in the arid, high altitude and high temperatures of the high desert.  The British soldiers, on the other hand, were building solid muscle mass which requires a lot of protein intake and water to maintain.  This is not easily accomplished in the terrain they were protecting.  So while they are large and strong by Western standards, they might not last so long in the wilds of Afghanistan.

I’ve also picked up Exiles:  Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture by Michael Frost.  I’m only one chapter into it yet, but it’s an excellent companion to Colossians Remixed.  I’d almost say it’s part 2, even though it’s written by a whole other person.

Then there is Parenting Teens with Love and Logic, by Foster Cline and Jim Fay.  Just opening this book in front of LightGirl is guaranteed to raise her hair and howls of rage.  She is determined to infer that this is about “bad” teens not all teens.  The authors have also written a general parenting book.  If it’s as good as this one, I’d highly recommend it.  They say there are several parenting methods. There’s the “helicopter” approach … where the parents hover and protect the children from everything bad, the children are never allowed to grow or own their own victories or defeats.  There’s the drill-sergeant approach where the parents bark out orders and the children are expected to obey them without question … again, children don’t learn how to listen to their own voice, they end up listening to an external voice.  There are laissez-faire parents who just let whatever happen and this also has fairly disastrous results.  Then there is the method which they recommend, the consultant approach.  In this approach, the parents ask questions about how the child will handle given situations and let them own their own victories and distasters (within reason).  It’s very good and has given me a lot of language to use that takes the heat out of aruguments and bickering with the LightChildren.

Last is a re-read of a book I read almost 20 years ago.  The Crone:  Woman of Age, Wisdom and Power, by Barbara G. Walker.  It’s fairly over the top feminist reading about Goddess worship.  But it is interesting from an anthropological and theological perspective to read about how the Trinity has been reflected in many different traditions from way before Christ (for example).  It’s also sad to read about how abuse of power and the patriarchal misuse of Church traditions took women out of their place of wisdom and healing in European villages and towns during the onslaught of the Roman Empire.  The unification of church and state under Constantine was more damaging than we can ever imagine.

So not having internet access is frustrating, but I’m getting alot of reading done!

The conversations I’ve had with BelleSon over the past week have been lively, interesting and reconnected me with a part of my past that I’d let go of. I thought I was done with it, but apparently not so. It’s been good for my heart and soul to be part of his reconnection to his family and the things that are good in life. He’s made some promises to me about his behaviour with his teachers and his parents. I know for fairly certain that he’ll break them; not out of malice or forethought, but because he forgets; gets caught up in a moment and can’t get out of it (to paraphrase a certain band).

One thing these conversations have reminded me of is a primary reason I homeschool my children. Some of the reasons he is having trouble in school is because he’s bored. He’s bored because the teachers have been locked in straightjackets are no longer allowed to teach anything but to the SOL tests. The pressure on the teachers to get their classes to measure up to the Virginia State Standards of Learning is incredible. I know teachers in the system and they are bored beyond belief; frustrated that paperwork has come to mean more to the administration in the school system and school boards than the students. Veteran teachers are leaving the system as soon as they possibly can, while the state is making it ever more difficult for young teachers to enter it. It now requires nearly as much education to become an entry level teacher as it does a lawyer without nearly the commensurate pay.

What are the children learning? Are they learning how to learn? No. They are learning factoids. They are learning how to successfully take tests. They are learning to answer questions, but never ask. Never question authority. Never step out of line. Don’t say it in your out loud voice. Just get through.

A classical education is based primarily three stages: grammar (primary), logic (middle), and rhetoric (high). The grammar stage encompasses the years of approximately ages 5 through 10, this is when children want to know what. They learn facts in the manner a sponge absorbs water. Give them facts and lots of them. Learn dates, math facts, historical data, scientific data (age appropriate), read stories, learn to read and spell, learn grammar rules, spelling rules, begin a foreign language (Latin because it’s a root language, but any language is good).

Sometime around 10, though it begins earlier (it’s a process not a breaking point) children begin to want to know why. Why did all these things happen? Why did Queen Elizabeth go after the Spanish Armada? Why did the English want to settle the Americas? Why was Copernicus put in jail? So you spend a lot of time dealing with why questions in the learning process. Taking all of the facts learned in the previous 4 or 5 years and helping the children answer why things happened the way that they did. Or why certain science rules are the way they are. Investigating different theories for why the dinosaurs are extinct, for example.

Then again around 14 or 15 another change occurs and the rhetoric stage begins. This is the stage where children take the what and the why and come up with how. They begin to synchronize the information they have accumulated over the years and put it together in new ways. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes they need a little (ahem) guidance. However, if the teacher is doing his/her job properly the student is making their own conclusions (regardless of the faith or politics of the teacher). The student is learning the valuable skill of being able to assimilate facts and draw their own conclusions without being told what to think by anyone else.

Lest you think this is what is happening in the American public education system, you might think again. It is not and has not been for quite some time. It is becoming a place of zero tolerance, where honors students are expelled for riding in a car with a paintball gun (I know the boy this happened to … it wasn’t his car, he was hitching a ride and it was a paintball gun, off of school property), other students are expelled for taking acetominophin for headaches, where students are suspended for declaring their dislike of a class outside of class time. In high school students who, because of their developmental level, ought to be using the “how” and assimilating their knowledge are still being taught at the “what” level. No wonder they and the teachers are bored.

Ever since the onset of the Industrial Revolution our culture has increasingly engaged in a mindset that items which are made in an efficient, factory atmosphere are better and higher quality than those which are handmade, individuals. Since the Great Depression we have even extended this idea to people. We think that we can factory process people in our schools, in our churches, in our factories, in our large corporations, in our health care systems, and in our farms. But people are glorious individuals, made in the image and likeness of God. They cannot be factory processed. That is the ultimate failure of our educational system. Until we reconcile to that, we will not be able to “fix” it.

Yesterday, Smaug roared. He didn’t just rumble or growl or roll over a bit. He sat up and roared. It made for a bad morning. I didn’t know where to turn or if I would be able to escape. Fortunately, I had an appointment for a med check with my psychiatrist in the afternoon.

My psychiatrist is truly wonderful. He’s not supposed to listen to me as much as he does, but he does. I told him about Smaug’s roar and how I’ve lost my way and I don’t know quite know who I am anymore. We talked for a while. He had a suggestion. Now I have a doctor’s note to quilt more. To define myself by the things I like to do rather than the things that I hate. But I have permission to have fun. Permission. I stole something from Smaug yesterday and he doesn’t realize it yet. I think I’ll get this one out of the cave too.

BlazingEwe and I were all set to go out to dinner.  The LightChildren and FlamingLambs were at the rink with LightHusband.  BlisteringSh33p has a mysterious fever so he was home in bed.  BlazingEwe got a phonecall from a mutual friend, TexasBlueBelle.  Her teenage son had disobeyed his father and had left their house when he’d been told not to.  Both parents were over an hour away and son has been having a troubling year.  Would we go pick him up?  He considers us his other mothers.  So, off we went on a mission of merciful chastisement.

It proved to be an interesting several hours long conversation.  BelleSon was completely and utterly honest with us.  Oh, he spun a few yarns and gave us a few lines that he thought we’d want to hear (and I will revisit those at another time).  But it was another gem I stole from Smaug’s pile to recover and build a relationship with a teenager last night.  I had forgotten how wonderful those interactions with teens are.  We laughed some and gave him some key things to work on.  He said he’d like to keep meeting with us.  A small miracle happened right in front of my eyes.

So I ended the day with 2 pearls in my pocket, two miracles that I do not deserve.  But I will keep these.  Somehow I will get out of the cave with these.

Since I left my church almost 2 months ago, I’ve begun working out regularly. I realized this morning that it’s become a place of worship for me. Is that possible? There is music. There are people. There are encouragers, exhorters, evangelists, prayers (spoken and unspoken). There is no sermon; not directly. A wonderful thing about my place of worship is that it is for women only. Women have voices here and women are heard. My voice is heard here. I do not choose to speak tho. I have nothing to say. I watch and listen and exercise.

On Saturdays when I go to my place of exercise/worship I drive past a set of low office buildings. They are mostly nondescript. I drive past them on weekdays too, but there is nothing noticeable about them on weekdays. I think that there must be a women’s health services clinic in one of the offices, because on Saturdays there is always a small group of people picketing against abortion on the side of the road. It’s almost always all men. I know that abortion is a tangential issue for men. But why don’t more women take up pickets against it? That’s interesting.

Hockey has now consumed our home. LightGirl has 2 sets of goalie gear and 2 of skater gear (in-line and ice) and LightBoy is working on 2 sets of gear. There are bags, sticks, skates and pads everywhere.

Missional is becoming trendy in Christian circles. Brother Maynard even has a cool graphic to show which way the trend is turning. It’s the latest watch word for Christian branders to run after and get while the money is to be made; WWJD for the 2000’s? The only problem is that actually being missional is important. Bro. M. posted his cool graphic because that’s where his heart is at. There are a lot of us following those numbers in a not so idle fashion because we want to see it catch on somewhere deep. We want it to be real … not trendy. Trendy would just break my heart one more time.

So missional means (to me) living a life that more and more comes to resemble that of Jesus. It means treating everyone who’s path I cross as individuals with gifts and needs and a life and a story to tell, even if all I will hear that day is a sentence. It means giving out of my abundance to those with less; not from a pedestal on high, but from a bridge across. For many people missional seems to mean living an urban lifestyle. Their desire is to live in and among the urban poor. I’ve been contemplating whether or not missional can be taken to the mountains successfully. Do rural folks need missionally minded people in their midst? Maybe an artistic quilter or something? I don’t think I’m cut out for many more years of this city living. It’s strangling my soul.

We had an interesting conversation over dinner this evening. LightHusband is reading The Places In Between, by Rory Stewart. We picked it up last summer. I was going to read it, but haven’t gotten around to it, so he’s reading it. Here’s the description on the back cover:

In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan–surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountain covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers’ floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also adopted by an unexpected companion–a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honor of Afghanistan’s first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair was following.

Through these encounters–by turns touching, confounding, surprising, and funny–Stewart makes tangible the forces of traidition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map’s countless places in between.

Stewart walked across Asia; Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India and Nepal, a journey of 6000 miles … according to the wiki on him. This book chronicles his journey through Afghanistan. He walked. This might not sound amazing. But he walked through places that have remained unchanged since Genghis Khan burned them out in the early Middle Ages. These are places that really haven’t made it onto GoogleMaps. Holiday Inn has not set up for business out there (to say the least). He was at the mercy of the hospitality of each local village that he came upon.

Fortunately for Stewart the practice of hospitality is considered a religious duty for Muslims. It is not one of the Five Pillars of Islam, but it’s the next step down. However, every once in a while the head man needed to be convinced that Mr. Stewart was indeed worthy of his hospitality:

After a cool reception, despite a letter of introduction, Babur is banished to the deepest cellar on a straw bed and Rory returned to the mosque to speak once again with Haji Nasir, who is exceedingly tight-lipped.

I reentered the mosque and took off my iced and soaking socks. Haji Nasir watched. He did not suggest I dry them on the stove; he did not offer tea. I clearly needed to persuade him I was worth speaking to. We were eleven days’ walk from Kamenj and had just reached a village that had not heard of Haji Mohsin Khan, so I dropped him from my introductory speech.

“I have walked here from Chaghcharan,” I said. “On the first night I stayed with Commandant Maududi in Baghdad, on the second with Abdul Rauf Ghafuri in Daulatyar, on the third with Bushire Khan in Sang-i-zard, and last night with the nephew of Mir Ali Hussein Beg in Katlish. They have treated me very well.”

Then I took out my notebook and showed him the pictures I had drawn of these men.

He looked at the pictures and said, “You can stay here tonight and someone will bring you some tea.” Then he walked into the inner room of the mosque to pray. (p. 209)

LightHusband went on to describe how Stewart had to remember the genealogy each night of who he had stayed with to establish his credentials for each village. Often he had teenage boys who would take him through the mountain passes. But they did not want money, they wanted to be sure that he told the story of the great honor they had done. They wanted credit. We talked some about that. About honor and credit in that culture.

LightBoy wondered where honor and credit are in our culture. The only place we could think of was in plastic cards. We find places to stay based on our plastic cards. And honor is based on how much money is backing up those plastic cards. Are we really more advanced?

I grew up in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Vermont. Here’s a photo of the house and surrounding grounds that I spent the 5 years from 1st through 5th grades in. Granted this photo was taken in about 1900 and though the LightChildren think I’m ancient, I’m not quite that old … yet.

Now the Belchers (handily indicated by the red dot) were an elderly couple who lived down the road from us. Aunt Jo(sephine) and Uncle Greg. I used to visit them every Thursday afternoon for tea. They were originally from Canada and very delightful. They taught me many skills. How to make the cross bars on peanutbutter cookies. How to tell the difference between “like” and “as” and when to use which. How to play cribbage. And most importantly how to beep the letter “R” in Morse code. R being Uncle Greg’s first initial. I used to walk down to their house after school and Uncle Greg would bring me home on his way to the post office to pick up the mail.

Now, if you also look carefully at the photo, you will see that facing “my house,” and a little to the left is a somewhat large-ish brick house with two chimneys. I’m not certain what that building was used for at the time this photo was taken. But by the time we lived here it had become a museum called the Kent Tavern Museum. The building had originally been built as a home and “… from 1837 to 1846 was a stagecoach stop on the road from Montpelier to Canada.” Since we were only about 15 miles from Montpelier, this tells you something about the length of time it took to get to Canada in those days.

So it was a museum with artifacts from its glory days as a tavern. My mother was the curator. This sounds far more grand than it was. She loves history as much as I and this wonderful old building was lying fallow. So she rounded up some of the elderly ladies in town to get it open a few hours a week. The best part (as far as I was concerned) was the gift store and the fudge! That was a magical fudge recipe that I have never been able to duplicate. It was all volunteer to the best of my knowledge and the old ladies in town gave of their time and their institutional knowledge of town history to run it.

I knew every single one of those ladies by first and last name. But I would get ferocious looks if I dared use their first names. They had earned the title Mrs. So and So and I’d best use it. Even my mother called them Mrs. So and So. They were wonderful farmers wives who knew the seasons (all five) and when they weren’t helping their husbands, they were helping their daughters. They taught me a little about sewing, knitting, crocheting, tatting, drawing and whatever else they’d brought to keep their hands busy. You see, I had free run of the place when it was open as long as I didn’t bother the visitors and stayed out of the way. And those old ladies were a magnet to me. They had stories to tell. And I might get a piece of fudge.

Now if you look further around to the left at the pond and go around the pond to the left you’ll a sawmill. That’s Robinson’s mill and it’s still there. It was there when I was a child too. We used to go and play in it. Gingerly, because it was a kind of creepy place and floor boards were a bit rotten. But there’s an open area next to the mill that’s used a couple of times a year for town potlucks and cookouts (that’s what we call barbeques up north). We roast corn on the cob in it’s husks. Several people bring homemade baked beans. There are lots of hamburgers and hotdogs. When we lived in the house marked “my house,” we could just walk. But people of all ages came to the cook outs. Almost all of the adults knew all of the children’s names. At the very least they knew who they belonged to. Even if we’d wanted to, my brothers and I couldn’t get into very much trouble. My brothers tried pretty hard too. But someone always knew what we were up to almost before we thought about it.

I know that when you get a “certain” age you begin to immortalize your upbringing. So, yeah, maybe there’s a little of that going on here. And, believe me, I know about the down side of growing up in small town New England. It can be ingrown, inbred, insular and just as horrid as any ivory tower. But my vision for a healthy church looks like these vignettes from my childhood. There are old people who are interested in young people. There are young people who are interested in old people. There are people from all generations who pause and have time for each other; to listen to each other’s stories, to value one another for the gifts they bring. To understand that some people bring baked beans and some people just bring chips. And all of the grownups look out for all of the kids in a community because they know them and love them. The children, by the same token, know that they are known and loved by all the grown ups. The boundaries on the community are porous enough that people can come and go without regret or animosity. There is healthy respect for all embraced by all. That this healthy church will have many generations where all people will be welcome and all stories will be heard and the journey will include good food along the way.

“I don’t think humans would be so afraid of death if they could know for certain what heaven would be like and that they could go there.” LightGirl – this morning as we continue to process the terrible incident at Virginia Tech.

We’re back to hockey. The ice season ended a few weeks ago and now we’re (or rather LightGirl and LightBoy) are playing in-line hockey.

LightGirl is playing on an all girls team called (are you ready?) the Pink Panthers. They wear black jerseys with pink lettering. She is playing in goal for half the games. Today was her first game in goal. She was cool headed and smooth. They still lost, but she stopped 35 shots. Her coach told her she played the best game he’d seen for a first time goalie. It astonishes me all the time that I have such a self-contained and self-assured daughter. I’m in awe of her and her potential.

LightBoy has taken up the sport as well. He is playing defense. He still looks a bit like a misplaced giraffe ended up in the midst of a hockey game. He got a few more shots off today and then took off after them, just like his coach told him to. LightGirl sees lots of big sister coaching potential and she was promptly warned off by the surrounding parents.

There was a game in played in between the two games. So we had a lull. LightHusband and another parent went out to get some lunch and brought it back for a few people. There was a Chick-Fil-A nearby so that was the spot of choice. When they came back there was some discussion of the company practice of staying closed on Sundays. One mom said, “Well, you know it’s a Christian company.” Another responded, “What if you have a Chick-Fil-A craving on Sunday?” “Well … you know … it’s a ridiculous policy.” “Speaking of Christians. My second cousins daughter goes to one of those Christian colleges and she just sent us a letter, because she has to go on a missions trip this summer or something.” “Well, I don’t know why those colleges need more money. George Bush signed that law that gave money to the Christian colleges.” “Well, I guess they have to raise their own money for these trips or something.” “Yeah, I could never be a Christian. They have too many rules.”

Well … how about that?  I just listened … there wasn’t much room for me in the conversation without being rude or defensive.  But it’s stuck with me all day.  I’ll be thinking about for quite some time to come.  By the way, I did a little sleuthing and found out the corporate policy behind Chick-fil-A’s decision to close on Sundays:

Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A, made the decision to close on Sunday in 1946 when he opened his original restaurant, the Dwarf House, in Hapeville, Georgia.  He has often shared that his decision was as much practical as spiritual.  Operating a 24-hour a day business left him exhausted.  Being closed on Sunday allowed him time to recover physically, emotionally and spiritually.  And, of course, being closed on Sunday aligns with his personal religious convictions and beliefs.

To explain this at our restaurants, a sign states, “Since 1946, it has been our nationwide policy to be closed on Sunday.  Thank for your patronage, adn we look forward to serving you Monday through Saturday.”

I am a Zen Mom …

this, according to a silly on-line test at chatterbean.com. The test was entitled “Are You a Slacker Mom?” I was pretty certain that the answer would be a resounding, “YES!” So I took it to laugh in it’s face (thus anthropomorphizing a computer test … not a productive use of my time). I found a lot of the questions difficult to answer because they didn’t have my precise answer as one of the choices. So I picked the closest one. And here I am, a Zen Mom:

How do you do it? Even when explosions are all around, you are able to take a deep cleansing breath and chant your mantra “this too shall pass.” You are a calming influence on your kids in a hectic world.

That just pretty much makes me laugh out loud.

… beggars would ride.

My grandmother used to look at me rather sternly and repeat that phrase when I was wishing for things a little too often. I know some children heard, “Stop wishing your life away.” I didn’t hear that one til I grew up. It took me a long time to figure my grandmother out.

When I was young we were expected to figure those things out on our own. When I hand obscure bits of wisdom to my children they do not hesitate to ask for clarification. They do not care to think for themselves. Lazy. 😉

I was thinking about that saying this morning for a while. I’ve always stopped on that one and pondered. Thought about being a beggar and wishing for a horse. If I were a beggar what sort of horse would I wish for. Would I stop with some spavined sway-backed old nag? Or (since it’s just wishing) would I wish for an Arab, graceful and beautiful?

Once I finally figured that out, I never knew whether to be jealous of the “beggars” or not. After all, beggars might one day be able to magically bring horses into being. I wanted a horse more than anything in those days, so if that’s what it took, I thought that being a beggar might not be so bad. I might be able to wish myself into having an Arab stallion in the process … that would be an adequate payback, or so I thought in my young mind. I often also had visions of beggars riding magnificent horses and knew what the result of that would be. They would be the butt of many jokes and derisive humor. Majestic fine horses are meant for majestic fine people … not dirty, dumpy people in filthy rags who don’t know how to ride them.

There was much “Kingdom” wisdom in my grandmother’s pithy saying. I find myself reflecting on it now. In essence we are all “beggars” here in this world. Jesus put it like this … “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.” We are all lacking the Spirit and needy when it comes to the vision and love that God wants for us. We are all left with that sense that there is a certain something missing. Something that would keep the peace, keep the love, regenerate grace and mercy. We are all beggars … what sort of horse are you wishing for?