A Better Way than Unacceptable

Conviction comes at the strangest of times.  Brushing my teeth last night, thinking over the events of the day, I thought about how sometimes when my children misbehave I correct them with an clearly annunciated, "Unacceptable."  Usually, this utterance comes in the chaos of getting four children ready and out the door or in the midst of some other activity requiring order and concentration, not my two strongest points.  Of course, I do not mean that  they are unacceptable, but that their behavior at that particular moment is unacceptable and must therefore change immediately.  I trust they know and understand that truth, but nonetheless, conviction hit from two directions.

First came the realization that however much I might say a certain behavior is unacceptable, it sort of is acceptable.  What I mean may be explained like this:  Imagine the most annoying, frustrating, maddening person in your family, immediate or extended, that person you'd like to take aside and throttle till they come to their senses.  Got it?  Now, picture a family reunion five or ten years from now.  Is that person present at your hypothetical gathering?  Barring ex-spouses and extreme dysfunction, I'm betting that person is there, and everything is peachy.  In truth, family accepts a lot of so-called unacceptable behavior.

Why?  Because family is family, and you love them despite their flaws and stupidity.  Familial love extends  the sort of grace that bears the annoying, accepts the flawed, defends the weak, and wraps the sinner in unconditional love.  Families do not shun their members, or at least they ought not do so.  Instead, they suspend their personal feelings of disbelief, hurt, and frustration to enfold the black sheep in the warm, loving protection of the flock.  Yes, there are times to be stern and unyielding, but for the most part - without ignoring or excusing bad behavior - a family accepts, defends, and is ever hopeful for its own.

Kind of like... slap of conviction number two...  Jesus.  I've been a Christian for nearly thirty years (yes, I'm old now), and while I've experienced plenty of conviction and correction, my Savior has never shunned me.  Always, He has received me with love and gentleness.  This is not because I am acceptable, but because, thanks to the cross, I am part of the family of God.  When I am stupid, stubborn, or just plain sinful - in short, when I fall down - Jesus does not say, "Unacceptable."  He does not say, "On your feet!  Straighten up!" Rather, he suggests a better way.  "No, no.. don't walk that way.  Walk this way." And his Spirit provides the courage to stand and the grace to walk in Christ's better way.

I'm sure, being thick of head, I will again tell at least one of my children, "Unacceptable," but I hope that God's grace will keep in the forefront of my mind his better way of instruction - a way that enfolds the imperfect with love and offers the struggling child a better way.  This way is love that extends a helping hand and a gentle whisper, "This is the way... walk in it."  (Isaiah 30:21)  Because whatever else they or I may be, we are never unloved.

A perfectly fitting, absolutely beautiful song by Michael W. Smith to close this post...

What Should Our Home School Look Like?

This question has been bouncing around my head for the past several months.  That image of the picture perfect family snuggling on the couch, a warm fire blazing in the nearby hearth, taking turns reading aloud from a book published in 1804, is, I am fully convinced, just that - an image.  I have a house full of varying personalities and learning styles, and somewhere between one and four of those personalities (depending on the day) are not keen on reading aloud, let alone sharing a couch cushion.  Throw a fire into the mix, and pyromania breaks loose.  I know I'm not the only one.  No, that is not a scene I care to attempt.

Likewise, the picture of everyone sitting around the table, nose stuck in workbooks isn't happening.  It might work for one or two of my children some of the time, but others, eh, not so much.  One of the reasons we chose home schooling is because we don't believe children should sit all day.  Learning should be bigger than the space of a desk, bigger even than a classroom.  Learning should be liberating, not restrictive.  The world is our classroom and all that...

Still, there are things we need to do, things they need to learn, and I'm finding that some of those things have to get done between - or in the midst of - the more pressing business of living life.  This doesn't mean, of course, that we neglect those things they "need to learn." It simply means we can put off a grammar lesson to experience the sheer joy of working together to construct a dam, water and all, and we can spend Christmas break preparing for a Geography Bee and Fair.  It means the line between School and Life can be blurry to non-existent now and then.

Somewhere deep down, a little voice whispers, "Isn't that the point?"

I'm finding the answer to my original question elusive.  What should our home school look like?  I can't seem to snap a mental photo that rightly captures every day of our home schooling adventure.  There's no telling what it will look like in a month, but at this swiftly passing moment in time, it looks like books and paper all over the dining room, an open kitchen window, and muddy, muddy children laughing together while Mom cleans up the kitchen and gets lunch ready.  Overall, it looks a bit like Life - busy, jumbled, unpredictable, and somehow moving forward.

It looks, if I may say so, simply breathtaking.

P.S. This afternoon, we'll be studying personal hygiene (a.k.a. showering), followed by the proper use of brooms and mops!  :)

One Day...

One day...

This is the mother's near constant refrain.

One day.

I want one day.  One day without fighting, bickering, complaining, back-talking, sulking, pouting, and every other make-me-want-to-pull-out-my-hair-ing.  One day of a clean house, cheerful children, completed laundry, sparkling dishes, a luxurious bubble bath, a full night of sleep, and while we're at it, a perfectly romantic husband who cooks, cleans, puts the kids to bed, and asks, "Is there anything else I can do for you, my dear, beautiful, matchless wife?"

One day.


One day I will organize all of this clutter.  I will assemble baby books and photo albums.  I will get rid of clothes long outgrown and toys long neglected.  One day I will put candles and glass picture frames at normal level rather than "I don't see how he could possibly reach this" level.  One day I will write a novel or start a business or pursue a career or further education or...  or figure out what I want to do "after kids."  Because right now, I don't have the time or attention span to formulate a plan.

One day.


In the meantime, I will take life one day at a time.  I will cherish this one day, because I cannot know what even the next moment holds.  I will take the time to read a mind-numbingly stupid children's book or engage in a light-saber duel.  I will let my kids dig in the yard, watching them bury their hands and feet in warm earth without worrying what my tub will look like after their baths.  I will even take pictures of their dirty feet, because one day...

... One day I'll wish for this day again.

Preparations

We're having a little birthday party tomorrow, and in a couple short weeks, my family will descend upon my home.  As much as I'd like to tell you that I'm not stressing out at all...

I am.

Don't worry. I'll get over it.  See, I sometimes joke about my less-than-immaculate home being "a ministry of encouragement" to other women who don't have it all together, saying that after visiting my house, they'll feel like domestic divas - or at least know that they aren't alone in the battle against clutter and sticky fingerprints.  It's a joke, but it isn't.

A few years ago, a new friend visited my home for the first time.  As I offered the obligatory apology for the mess, she stopped me with a firm, kind, "Don't ever apologize about your home."  Her point was clear. She was here for friendship, not for scenery.  Since then, I have tried to welcome people to our home with a "come as you are" attitude.  This is a home.  Make yourself comfortable.  This isn't a showcase house.  We live here, and welcome you to do the same while you are here. Don't worry about what your child might break or mess up.  Chances are, we've broken or messed it up before, and if we haven't, it was only a matter of time.

Lest anyone think me just plain lazy and ungrateful for company, I do attempt to tidy up for visitors.  Sometimes, the best I can do is to make sure everyone's dirty underwear is in the hamper.  The clean underwear might get overlooked.  (True story, our pastor came to visit one morning.  Halfway through the visit, I noticed a pair of underwear in the middle of the living room floor.  Yeah, we're that classy.  My only consolation was they were Luke's, and since Luke doesn't actually wear those Diego undies yet – since he doesn’t wear ANY undies yet – the undies in question were unquestionably clean.  Plus, when you're consoling a woman upon the death of her father, I think you kind of have to overlook undies on the floor, whether they're clean or not).  Anyhow, I do clean.  I promise.  

I was thinking about hospitality as I swept the living room tonight, and my sister came to mind - not my Wise and Wonderful Sister, but the other one, for whom I have yet to concoct a catchy moniker.  This is the sister with whom I lived for the last five months of her life, and I haven't figured out how to refer to her with the right balance of reverence and realism.  

So she'll just be My Sister tonight.

My Sister once told me that she was so thankful to God for her home that she had determined to use it to offer hospitality to others.  When I moved in, she encouraged me to help decorate, to make her home our home.  Together, we found a church we loved, and as we made friends there, we invited them to join us for Friday Food, Fun, and Fellowship Nights - dinner, games, fellowship...  fun.  It was a lovely time.

In retrospect, our home was nothing to write home about.  (Pun completely intended).  Situated on six acres of sand and weeds, the old trailer boasted a living room furnished with wicker lawn chairs and a second bedroom barely large enough for a twin bed and dresser, let alone the saddle stored at the foot of my bed and the bridles hanging in my closet.  But it was home, and we opened the doors to any who would come.  We were too busy eating chili, playing board games, and dreaming of the future to worry about what we were sitting on or how tall the weeds were.  We did stop to question why a bull was roaming the neighborhood, but that's another story...  

By the time I mopped the hallway tonight, my belief that having company has nothing to do with showing off a house and everything to do with sharing life in all its mess and beauty was firmly fixed in my heart.  With My Sister's hospitality in mind, I am eager to welcome our friends and family into our home in the coming days and weeks, whether or not I finish all the cleaning.  Once the doors open, we won't have time to think about dust and drips of milk.  We'll be enjoying life.

A History of Cake Wrecks

One of my favorite websites of all time has to be Cake Wrecks.  Okay, I should probably be ashamed to admit that, but those cakes and the accompanying comments are hilarious.

And I have to admit, I've had my share of cake wrecks in my life.  Four times a year, I chuckle to myself as I frost a cake that's supposed to be Darth Vadar or a princess or a frog or...

That's right.  A Lego cake.  Unfortunately for John, there was an accident at the Lego factory - an accident involving super high temperatures causing all the cute little blocks to melt.

Going back to the princess cake...

This is what she looked like in the later hours of the evening, just after I discovered the bowl in which I baked the cake was not quite deep enough for Snow White's long legs.  Thankfully, I'm a resourceful little mama...

A tiny, quickly assembled cake baked in a ramekin cup and some amazing work with the very little frosting remaining in my bowl produced the final product.  (My Sweet and Beautiful Sister-in-Law can testify to the absurdity of that evening.  Suffice it to say, there was a lot of laughter in my kitchen).  I left the lower shelves of the fridge in the photo to share the full freaky effect of opening the fridge to find Snow White up to her hips in bright yellow cake.  I'm glad she didn't have to stay in there any longer than she did.  It really was unnerving to see her cold, smiling face every time I wanted some milk for my coffee.

So, my children might grow up scarred.  "Remember all those crazy, scary cakes Mom used to make us?"

Then again, maybe they'll appreciate that they never had THIS cake:

If you can't read that, it says, "Welcome Home, Brad.  Best Wishes, Amy."  I thought about scanning the photo, but decided a web cam shot, fingers included, would be more to the point.  Don't want to be too classy for the occasion, you know...

Now, if you don't know the occasion, the message might be a bit confusing.  Who are Brad and Amy, and why does Amy need "best wishes" upon Brad's homecoming?  This certainly does not sound like a happy, stable home in which Snow White is swaddled in Saran Wrap and thrust into a volcano shaped cake...  Poor Amy and Brad.  I hope they find a good marriage counselor.

But that's not the real story.  

The real story is that my cousin's husband had just been released from death row, and my Wise and Wonderful Sister was on her way to college.  I swear I'm not making this up.  Even I'm not that imaginative. It just so happened that the celebrations of Brad's homecoming and Amy's departure collided on one poor cake, whose picture would be unearthed years later by a woman who has spent too much time laughing her way through Cake Wreck articles.  

Somehow, I'm feeling a little better about my children's birthday cake(wreck)s.  Not only are we making our own family tradition of laughable cakes, we are carrying on a twenty year family tradition of absurdity.  Cake wrecks are, I must humbly accept, an inescapable part of my life.

At least they taste good...

Under the Weight of Lighter Burdens

Over the past several months, I've been reminded repeatedly to be thankful for my circumstances.  It began most pointedly with the good news of Andrew's endoscopy.  Coming after a day of observing other parents struggling under the weight of their children's illnesses, I keenly appreciated his health and the health of my entire family.  Reminders to be thankful continue, most recently, with photos I've seen this week depicting nearly starved children.  Intervening events and observances have reinforced the message:  My struggles are light.

Still - and here's where I may sound extremely self-centered and petty - they haven't always felt light.  At times, only a conscious choice to take several deep breaths, entrust everything from the actual situation to my exaggerated emotions to the care of Christ, and walk on in peace have kept me from doing the opposite, namely flailing in despair.  It's amazing how much lighter burdens are when operating in a condition of willful trust.

We probably all know that, at least on some level, it's all about perspective.  Perspective, however, is not what I really want to talk about today.  I know I should encourage all the average people out there who are fed, clothed, and loved to put on their big kid panties, look around, and see how great they have it.  Instead, I want to offer them sympathy.  (Though by all means, work on that perspective thing, for your own good!)

A right perspective is a choice, and one that generally does improve one's situation.  Almost always, it could be worse, and this is where a right perspective can really come in handy in making us thankful that it isn't.  But still, whatever it is, it IS.  Perspective may clear one's mind, but it doesn't necessarily remove one's problems (unless of course, the problems are all in one's head).  A right perspective gives us the courage to persevere and the hope that our perseverance will prove worthwhile, but when the clouds of discouragement disperse, we still must tend to the garden of life - pulling up weeds, nurturing tender shoots, chasing away hungry creatures...  Life is work, however good your circumstances may be.

So while I am thankful for God's many blessings - for the love and health of family and friends, for food to eat and a bed in which to sleep, and for the tools to carry my particular burdens with confidence in the giver of all good gifts - I wish to extend the hand of fellowship to others struggling with what we might call "lighter burdens," the every day struggles of every day people that don't make the news or stir the sympathy of the masses, the struggles we are a little ashamed to confess because we know that in the grand scheme of things, "it's not that bad."

None of this is intended to trivialize the heavier burdens of our world - sickness, starvation, homelessness, war, brutality, death, etc. - nor is it intended to elevate the lighter burdens.  My desire is simply to communicate sympathetic appreciation of those diligently tending sunny little gardens, wiping sweat from brows as they wonder just what this tangle of greenery will look like when their labor ends.

Grace, strength, and peace to you.

On a Completely Self-Absorbed Note... (Or, In Defense of The Blog)

Disclaimer:  No commenters on blogging are implicated in the writing of this blog post, nor do I harbor any bitterness toward any who have expressed the same negative thoughts I share regarding the act of blogging.  

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I blog.  Blogging is, as a few people have pointed out, somewhat self-absorbed, narcissistic, attention seeking...  Rarely does anyone say, "You blog?  Wow, that's excellent!"

I don't take offense because, truth be told, Geoff and I have shared the same views of blogging.  It is self-absorbed and narcissistic.  The very act of hitting the "publish" button suggests that one believes one has something of value to communicate to the world at large.  If you browse through a few blogs, you'll discover that some bloggers do have something of value to communicate and do so quite artfully, but some offer neither interest nor art.  (Although, interest and art are mostly subjective...)  Some are downright painful to read.

Lack of interest and art is a pity, but that's not the point of blogging.  The longer I've blogged, the more I've appreciated the process of blogging.  There is something therapeutic, something invigorating, something centering, something satisfying in translating jumbled thoughts into coherent sentences and paragraphs.  Do bloggers always achieve the goal of coherency?  No.  But we try, and I imagine the feeling of having created a solidly good blog post is akin to an artist's contentment upon finishing a painting or sculpture or - to put it the artistic context to which I most clearly relate - snapping the perfect photograph.  Blogging is, in a sense, short exercises in the art of language, completely independent of any desire for public approval.

Which brings me to the "publish" button...  Someone might ask, "Why not just keep a journal?  Why post it online?  That's where it becomes really self-absorbed."  Okay.  Granted.  But would the same question be asked of an artist displaying his work in an art gallery or, lest anyone accuse me of claiming greatness, of a child showing off his crayon drawing?  The desire to share art, whether in image or word, may be self-absorbed attention-seeking behavior, but I believe, overall, it enriches the human experience.  Trash abounds in either medium, but there are gems worth discovering in the wreckage of human creativity.

Additionally - to change the track of the argument - men and women engage in a multitude of self-absorbed activities.  We're vain little creatures, checking our looks in the mirror, tweaking our appearances here and there.  We love to talk about ourselves and can't get enough compliments.  We post blurry pictures of our dinners on Facebook, expecting others to comment on what looks to them like mush.  We do A LOT of self-absorbed things, secretly hoping to be noticed and affirmed.  Why pick on blogging?  If you don't like it, don't read it.  Just don't think you're completely innocent of the same sin as the blogger.

I'm getting to the point of not caring how self-absorbed blogging is.  I thoroughly enjoy the writing process, so until I have time to sit down and write that novel I've had in mind for the last several years, I will keep writing these little blog posts.  Whether well written or not (and I'll be the first to admit that I am perfectly capable of writing a painful mess of nonsense), it's fun, relaxing, and in the midst of piles of laundry, dishes, and children's papers (not that I'm neglecting those things, of course...  Believe me, they get plenty of my time...), my blog is mine.  Do I like positive feedback?  Of course.  Who wouldn't, and so what?  Writing a blog post is a mini-retreat, even with a kitchen band playing in the background, and if it encourages another human being in some small way, all the better.

So, yeah, I blog, and I'm not sorry.