Goat, Deer, Llama, Lamb… they are all in the same family. Golly, Kris Price totally called down the Goat Police upon my head.
You will not believe this, but I have an actual real life serious
question that I'd like your true honest thoughts on. Yesterday we
got a letter into the office from a lady who said that while she
enjoyed The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, she wanted to cancel her
subscription on account of my critical, mean spirited, offensive and
vulgar articles (exact words). We are going to print the letter
in the Teachers Lounge section of the upcoming Winter issue (because we
want to represent the good and
critical that comes in about our publication) Anyhow, I do not want to
be a smart alek about this, I really do not desire to go around
offending people, nor do I want to write in a way that is
dishonoring. If you read the article, honestly, did any part of
it come across as mean spirited and offensive? your thoughts? your
suggestions? Here is the article she is referring to if you'd like to
read it first hand,
The Spinners:
There was always one of those
twerpy kids hanging around the playground when I was little. He
would hop on the Merry-Go-Round and
gleefully demand to be spun. He’d be
obliged, of course, (the following spectacle was great fun to witness)
and
without fail he’d start screaming like a cat caught in a washing
machine before
being flung off in a heap, where he’d promptly lose his lunch and start
crying
about “how everyone pushed too fast”.
Then the next day he’d be back again, wanting to jump back on.
The goofy little nerd refused to face the
fact that he didn’t spin well; he was always determined to have another
go at
it. It was almost admirable seeing him
being pitched off day after day, but after a while it was almost
nauseating at what a
twittering loaf he was. Me, on the other
hand, I was unflappable and could spin with the best of them. I
loved the Merry-Go-Round. Loved (past tense). It’s funny
how things change when you get
older. I no longer spin well. I think I’d die if I had to
endure a ride on
a Merry-Go-Round. Besides, I have other
sorts of Merry-Go-Rounds that keep me plenty busy spinning in circles.
I once heard someone say that the
definition of insanity is ‘a person doing the same thing over and over yet
expecting a different outcome’. It’s like
the twerpy spinner kid. He knew he was
going to puke, we knew he was going to puke, but he hopped back on every day
just the same. It’s a dreadful
realization that my life reflects the same track of lunacy of that weird kid.
With some things I just refuse to
face the facts. Fact: when I eat three
plates of chicken curry at one sitting I always feel unbearably ill. Do you think that stops me? Heavens no.
I’d eat three plates of curry right this minute if they were in arm’s
reach. Fact: when I cross over the
yellow line when I’m driving, other cars almost hit me. Think I drive any better? Nope.
I know the facts, but I don’t seem to learn. When I wear my husband socks outside they
always get really dirty; this causes him to get rather unhappy. You’d think I’d just stop wearing his socks,
right? Sometimes I stop. And it always happens that when I don’t clean
the tub, a slimy yellowish-orange coat appears all over it. I’ll wait weeks for it to go away. You’d think I’d get a clue, but I’m always shocked
that it only gets thicker and orangy-er. When I snap at my kids in anger, they
get gloomy. I know this, yet I still snap.
When I’m too busy with ‘life’ to play with them they grow resentful and
withdrawn. I know the outcome, yet I
will still let it happen. I’ll write
whole articles about the great things that happen when I’m sweet to my husband;
I know all about cause and effect, and occasionally I’ll actually do what’s
right and experience a great outcome.
And when that happens I become more secure in knowing my philosophies
are right. “Yep, this philosophy is good.
This is my philosophy. I believe
in such ‘n such philosophy” …But simply knowing
something is completely worthless without the will or faith to
live it consistently. It
surprises me that I so quickly jump back on that Merry-Go-Round and spin in
circles with disastrous success.
Knowing that I should
read my bible and pray daily gets me no closer to my Lord. Believing that submitting to my
husband ‘is good’ means nothing if I buck his authority when an opportunity
presents itself for me to practice what I preach. It’s in the doing that really means
anything.
You have no idea how much I can
relate to the Israelites who wandered in circles for forty years. However, I have no excuse because the fact is
*I* have a road map. The agonizing thing
is that I know what I’m supposed to be doing, but God help
me, sometimes it’s easier to simply spin in circles. I know the house does not run well when I
spend hours on the computer. Do I stop?
I get irritated and grouchy at the kids when they bother me while I’m busy. “What do you mean you want to eat? I fed you twice yesterday”. So do
I un-busy myself? It is not uncommon for them to stand next to me and say
‘mama’ fifteen times until they finally say ‘never mind’ and walk off. It shames me to write this, yet I will bring
it up as a valid example because I think it is common to many moms– moms who
would say they also share my own lofty philosophies of being a home-maker /
teacher.
We live in an age where ‘minding
the home’ is more avoidable than ever.
We have cars, the internet, email, job opportunities, good magazines and
books, telephones and televisions and daycare centers and all sorts of distractions
to keep us from our God, our husbands and our children. Yes, we homeschool and that is super
swell. And it is true that our kids are
not being polluted daily by a system we (perhaps) find repulsive. But simply keeping our children away from bad
peers and bad teachers does not automatically create loving, responsible,
educated human beings. And if we neglect
our great responsibility as ‘mama’ during the very short time we have, then it
really doesn’t matter much what our philosophies happen to be. Depressed yet? I don’t write this to make anyone feel like a
bucket of seaweed. I write this because
I believe that at the heart of most homeschoolers, we emphatically desire a
life that keeps us OFF that dreadful Merry-Go- Round. We have no desire to spin in circles. We chat about how sorry we are for those
women who aren’t ever around their families and then we go home and busy
ourselves in the home – not for the home – just in the home. Busy busy busy as we spin and spin and spin.
Well I, for one, will keep fighting against what hinders me. By golly, I
will pull myself up and make good things happen! I will create a schedule and go to
therapy. Right? Just give me another “To-Do List”. I need more laws governing my life. Is this true?
No… believe it or not, that thought pattern is just another cleverly
disguised contraption to keep you spinning.
It won’t achieve what’s really needed.
As a Christian, what I need is to look to things above. I need to look to my Lord, the One who knows
me and loves me despite my ridiculous bad habits and my constant
short-comings. Behaviour modification is
worthless without knowing Christ (not knowing of Him… but knowing Him directly). There is an answer to the Merry-Go-Round, and
the solution is certainly not ‘trying harder to be a better wife and
mother’. The answer is Him.
He does not have a list of things for you to do. He simply wants to see your face. Everything seems to fall into perfect place
when He comes into focus and the world grows dim. For those of us who know Christ, I pray that
we will seek to know Him as a person – not intellectually as an impersonal
far-off God, but a loving, actual real-life person who made a way for us to
truly live. How do you keep things from
spinning out of control? I can’t do
it. But He can. I pray that we can make it a practice to meet
with Him everyday. Worship Him
today. Worship Him with your
children. For those of you who do not
know Christ, I pray that you will consider the only one who is able to save;
Jesus Christ the Messiah. He is worth
knowing personally. And He’s the most
valuable truth I can teach my children.
Without Him everything else is empty and dull and will only make us
dizzy.
Ephesians
1:16-18 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my
prayers. I keep asking that the God of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom
and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may
be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you,
the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.
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