Contact

Carl Sagan penned a brilliant, engaging book close to the end of his life entitled Contact. If you're at all familiar with Carl Sagan's work, you'll know that he spent a good deal of time exploring the idea that other worlds populated with extraterrestrial beings might exist beyond our solar system (Google SETI for more information. Fascinating.). You'll also know that, while he did not consider himself an atheist, his belief system did not appear to embrace Christianity or even the tenets of Intelligent Design.

As a person that tends to yawn a bit over scientific and mathematical minutia, you'd likely be surprised at how excited this same individual can get over string theory, wormholes, and abstract math. What overwhelms this reader is the revelation of the sheer volume of the human mind through all types of narratives, and its unrelenting attempts to assimilate everything outside of itself. It is nothing short of miraculous how all the authors throughout all of history have dealt so uniquely and yet so similarly with the universe. Many of them could never come to a place where they were ever willing to admit that it is, in fact, a created universe, even after a lifetime spent exploring and studying it.

I don't want to say too much about this book. I'd be interested to find out how many believers would actually be willing to read it. I will add this though. I have a very strong suspicion that Carl Sagan, nearing the final decade of his life at this book's publication, began to have his doubts about his life-long assertions concerning God and religion. I'd have to go back and re-read it to feel more sure about my own assertion here. I was in my mid 20s when I read Contact, but I had an undeniable instinct close to the end of the book that Mr. Sagan was actively seeking the One we call Lord. 

This God we worship... wow. These minds He gave us to engage with Him and with His creation...they're so astounding... an important part of the created order I believe... and, even in their shattered state, so reflective of the Image of their Creator. It's astounding that geniuses like Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Joseph Campbell could refute the existence of the Intelligence behind everything... and behind their ability to theorize about it all. If you read it, I'd love to know what you think. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

^"18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth ^[l]in unrighteousness, ¹⁹ because that which is known about God is evident ^[m]within them; for God made it evident to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. ²¹ For even though they knew God, they did not ^[n]honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. ²² Professing to be wise, they became fools" ~Romans 1:18-22

Offering Isaac

Of all the characters in J.R.R Tolkein's Ring Cycle, I most identify with Eowyn. A brother on the brink, a family under the influence of who knows what kind of oppression, and an epic fight to release that family from the control of some generational evil characterize this woman who feels intensely hopeless and weak, yet fights as if the salvation of everything she loved depended on her ability to overcome. While no information is given concerning Eowyn's childhood, I've always taken away the impression that it was a golden one; full of joy and wonder. Her devotion, even unto death, to her father and brother give her away. Yet, somewhere in her short life she was disappointed enough times to look with a cautious eye toward anything appearing too good; too wonderful; too beautiful. 

I don't want to give anything away in case you haven't read the books, but as is usually the case in epic fairy tales, a heroine falls in love with a hero. However in this story, initially the heroine is disappointed. And seriously, if you haven't read the books, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Just kidding. But really. You should carve out some time to read them. I promise, it will not be a hardship. You will want to flip back to the front of the very first book and read it all again (something that I must confess to doing with this series of books once or twice 😳).

While I am an enormous fan of Peter Jackson's theatrical rendition of the Lord of the Rings Cycle, I was pretty mortified that he left my absolute favorite part of the whole sweeping tale out of his movies! What?!?!?! Again, I can't go into great detail because it would give away what I believe to be the most beautiful and endearing part of the story. And I really don't want to ruin it for you. However, in the chapter "The Houses of Healing", Eowyn and a hero (Faramir) wounded in the same battle heal together. You can probably guess what happens next. 😊 That's the thing about this kind of story. It's the very predictability that makes it so beloved. And it's something that Tolkein does really, really well. While we always know good will win out and the ending will be wonderful, the mystery remains... how will the author bring it all about? How can this story be redeemed?

In a recent post, I touched on an issue that, for years and years, I didn't even know I had. I'd learned that I might be harboring some anger and bitterness, but I'd never really seen myself as a person with jealousy issues. I had friends that struggled with it in a big way, but, at least on the surface, I always felt glad for my friends with money, things, beauty, gifts and strengths.

One night when Jason and I were newly married, we sat in our living room in Fairfax, VA listening to another couple describe their family legacies. My friend literally glowed as she described her grandparents... people she deeply loved and admired. When I went to bed that night, I was upset, but I couldn't put my finger on the reason why. It took me a while to realize that I was extremely envious of my friend. In fact, whenever I hear people discuss the legacy of Godliness in their families, I get a little green. It's the truth; but if Godly legacy is a reality for you, don't hesitate to mention it in front of me now that you know about this area needing improvement in me. I want to hear how these generational legacies got started. Those stories are instructional, and I want/need to hear them.

^"14 Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵ See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; ~Hebrews 12:14-15

I've spent a good portion of my life taking the easy route... passing back the blame. In some pretty big ways, my parents had to protect me and my brothers from our grandparents. At times I've been angry with my mom and dad for sharing some really hard things with me about them... and sharing them early... for not letting me love them in the way I wanted to. But what kind of parents would they have been had they not put me on my guard?

This is what I've come to understand though. Jason and I aren't beginning a Godly legacy in the way I thought we were. We can build on a pretty solid foundation laid by our parents. We don't have to warn our children against their grandparents. We don't have any hesitation leaving our children alone with their grandparents. We don't have to share the junk. There's an absolute wealth of goodness to pass on. Our children have heroes, and four of those heroes are their grandparents. They can believe that they come from something really good... something rooted in Godliness and in an intention for redemption. 

My mom periodically woke me in the middle of the night to watch random classic movies. We never had cable television, so we had to wait until movies came to PBS Masterpiece Theater. The titles I remember were Splendor in the Grass, Gone with the Wind, The Canterville Ghost, and Raintree County. I'm certain  there were more. She'd lead me into the living room, bleary-eyed and yawning, sometime around midnight, to a palette with pillows and a big comforter. And we'd enjoy our own mother/daughter bonding time away from the guys. I remember the few times I stumbled upon mom standing in a corner with a sketch book in hand. She was always looking out from a certain vantage point, her head tilted slightly to one side, as she drew up a profile of one of my little brothers or a panoramic picture of one of the many corgi puppies trotting around our big back yard. I was always astounded by her artistic ability and her incredible knack for transforming each area of our home into something beautiful, warm, and homey on somewhat meager resources.

My dad took me gliding in a two-seater sail plane at least twice that I remember. Once, when I went along to the glider port that we frequented somewhere in Middle-of-Nothing (Midlothian), Texas, we arrived on a film set complete with bi-planes and pyrotechnics. What a riot! We were allowed to watch some filming from the balcony on the second floor of the tower. We've always shared a love for space, adventure, science, and music. I remember walking into my parents' bedroom one evening as my dad strummed a guitar and sang a song to my mother... a song he had composed in his head. I was spellbound. My daddy has never been able to read a lick of music, but he can hear a difficult run in a song and shortly afterwards mimic it with almost exact precision on his venerable Martin.

Fireflies are not as common in dry Texas summers as they are here in Virginia. But I remember one night down by the creek we frequented to go fishing... constellations of them swarmed around the boggy marshes on the edges of the water. We'd stayed to watch a meteor shower from the top of Dad's work van, but were treated to another kind of light show instead. One Easter, near that same creek, we had an egg hunt and picnic lunch among scads and scads of bluebonnets, primrose, bee blossom, coreopsis, Indian paintbrush, and Indian blankets. We encountered a couple of rattlesnakes too! My parents, in all their own struggle and hurt, did everything in their power to make childhood wonder-filled and beautiful for us. 

As I grew into my difficult middle school/ early high school years, my mom started to realize that she needed to deal with certain events from a childhood that still haunted her. She began seeing a Christian counselor who encouraged her to confront the people that had harmed her. Around that same time, my aunt and uncle's marriage began to crumble. All of the families but one lived within just a couple miles of each other, something psychology tells us is quite common in highly dysfunctional/abusive families. My aunt lived just around the corner from my grandparents. For an extremely quiet and sensitive child who still hadn't quite been able to wrap her mind around the severity of the accusations being hurled between family members... who was still trying to understand and process some of her own experiences within that family... the result was somewhat devastating.

I still wrestle with a tendency to withdraw into an insular fantasy world that I've created in my mind, or into the pages of a good book, when life gets a little difficult. It was, in fact, right about that time that I was introduced to Bilbo Baggins, Eowyn, Emily Starr, Anne Shirley, and Meg Murry. The fear, the yelling, the sobbing, and the devastation of relationships that had seemed okay most of my life made three households that had seemed safe and warm suddenly feel haunted by hatred and sadness. There was no safety net for those awkward years. I developed social anxiety so debilitating that I literally threw up every day the first six weeks or so before school in my 6th-9th grade years. I had coke-bottle glasses and horrible acne that I perpetuated by mutilating my own face, neck, and shoulders.  As I got older, I escaped the conflict in my own vehicle... taking long drives into the country, often to our fishing creek, with my favorite music blaring.

But when I look back, I can know that there was no best time for the bottom to fall out. My mom and my aunt needed healing. There was no rhyme or reason; no actual point at which a person can decide when a volcano of pent-up fear and anger is due to erupt. It happens when it happens. The harm was so serious that the crisis to heal it was destined to be intense. And there we were... kids in the big middle of it... with very little help to process what was happening to our family. But there also was Meg and Anne and Emily... Eowyn and Bilbo... ever faithful friends who wouldn't judge. There also were stories of redemption... full of the faults and flaws of human life... destined to end in the best way possible.

Age and distance almost always bring perspective. Now, I can be proud of my mom... both of my parents actually. They took it head on with no idea how it would shake out. They confronted it with prayer and Christian counsel. My mom took me to counseling when they realized how deeply everything had begun to affect me.

We all suffer as a result of sin. We sin against others, and others sin against us. There's no denying it. That's just a part, albeit a hard part, of living in our "bent" world. Just yesterday, I woke to a fraud alert on one of our credit card accounts. We're careful not to carry a balance on any credit card, and we use them to collect the perks and keep a good credit rating. Jason was working a very long day. The kids and I were scheduled to go on an outing with another family early that morning. And I had to make a flurry of phone calls before we could even start getting ready. I accidentally cut someone off in the traffic circle yesterday too. It was definitely unintentional, but it was still my fault. No major harm came of the event, but I'm sure I made the other driver's blood pressure spike. I spoke harshly to my son this morning... less because his behavior was annoying me and more because I couldn't get our current audio book to play in the van on the long-ish drive to Charlestown, WV for our Aldi and Wal Mart run. I'm a sinner. Therefore, I cannot hold another sinner's feet to the fire. I cannot, in good faith, stay angry and bitter toward people who loved me enough to put aside an ocean of pain to make my childhood exceptionally beautiful until they buckled under the weight of their own difficult pasts.

"Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered." ~Hebrews 5:8

I used an object lesson from the book, Good and Angry (Turansky and Miller),  with my kids the other morning. It likely had a deeper effect on helping me deal with the anger in my own heart than it did with my kids. I blew up two balloons: one almost to bursting and the other just about 1/3rd of the way full. The instructions were to let the kiddos feel how the air moved within each balloon. In the smaller balloon, the rubber was pliable. There was room for the air to move about when the balloon was squeezed. The other balloon popped pretty quickly. And that was the idea. A heart so full of bitterness and anger can only explode all over everyone else. Forgiveness mingled with the memory of a hurt can minister to others who have not quite learned to let their pain rest with God and forgive in the way He's forgiven us. People who are able to accept forgiveness are pliable and forgiving of others.

At some point, perhaps earlier than I realized, I began to harbor anger and bitterness toward God. I wanted to be angry at my parents, but I wanted to love them too. At some point, I decided that it was my job to help them; to hear them and counsel them. I needed to feel like I could somehow protect them. On reading a few articles here and there about the familial roles that eldest daughters tend to occupy, I've come to realize that this impulse is not all that uncommon. There are likely a lot of women out there with stories like mine... other Eowyns who try, with great difficulty, to take on the responsibility of everyone else's pain. While I can see now that all of those jobs were way beyond me, that the only Person equipped to help anyone involved in that situation was God, I tried hard to serve in all those roles in some lame attempt to restore a harmony that never actually existed in our family. I could not understand how or why a loving God could allow my parents to endure under so much stress and pain and abuse as children. I also could not understand how two such incredibly talented and brilliant artists could have so little confidence in their God-given skill... so little, in fact, that they, quite often, either refused or were too afraid to use those gifts. That's been especially true for my mom. Another truth I've come to understand; people who have survived abuse often cope with it by espousing a belief that they actually deserved that treatment. They begin to believe that nothing good could come from or of them.

When I graduated high school and entered college, the hits just kept on coming. After college, and a long sabbatical from dating, I found myself breaking off relationships before they even got started because I couldn't deal with the inevitability that they would end abruptly... maybe even tragically. I became a conflict and pain-avoider, and as a result, a relationship-avoider. Even into the early years of our marriage, as we prayed for children, I continued to doubt that God wanted to bless me... and because Jason had united his life with mine, I believed that he was somehow doomed too.

Somewhere along the way,  I began to read a lot of Elisabeth Elliot. She was the mentor I needed through years that felt terribly lonely and difficult. She had lost so much. There was so much to keep her heart rooted in bitterness and anger, yet she used the memory of her pain and her ability to forgive to minister to my heart and the hearts of millions of women all over the world. I'd become so weary from fighting what felt like epic battles with the world and with myself. One day I read a short chapter, most likely in Keep a Quiet Heart, concerning the story of Abraham and Isaac. I realized something that day. It was time to start offering all my Isaacs to God. It was time to take each desire of my heart, right along with the fuel and the fire, all the way up the long mountain trail. It was time to lay them all down on the altar, ready and willing to sacrifice, but all the time waiting for God's provision to appear. Even if that provision was merely the strength and patience to endure, it was provision nonetheless.

 "And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me." ~2 Corinthians 12:9

A few days before I turned 40, and against the advice of several specialists who had just diagnosed me with multiple auto-immune diseases, I ran a half marathon. We happened to live in an area just on the edge of the Texas Hill Country. My training ground was brutal. I never timed my runs, but I drove them off so I'd know that I was completing my distance goals. I ran on pavement and I ran on trails. I threw out water bottles at intervals and made note of beginnings and endings. Some evenings I just rode miles and miles on my mountain bike to build up my quads. By the time I was ready to race, I was completing 4-5 mile short runs during the week and 7-8 mile long runs on the weekends. A few days before the race, I ran 10 miles straight for the first time ever... and I timed myself. It was a hot afternoon, so I didn't pay much attention to my completion time on that run. I tried to stay elated over the fact that I'd actually run 10 miles non-stop.  The race took place in Downtown San Antonio. While it's still slightly hilly there, it's nothing to where I'd trained. The morning started off chilly for a South Texas spring. It was pretty windy too. Aside from the big hill at the beginning, I moved along pretty well and passed a lot of runners, even though I was trying to pace myself. At the end of the race, I turned a corner into the final straightaway. I could see the finish line and a very large digital clock mounted there. Focusing in on the numbers on the clock through the sweat that kept seeping into my eyes, I blinked several times in disbelief. I'd set a goal time for my finish. I was just yards from the finish line and a full THIRTY MINUTES ahead of my goal time. I was tired. I was thirsty. But seeing the numbers on that clock gave wings to my feet. I was over that finish line before ten more seconds had elapsed and I was elated as a young, muscular race coordinator enthusiastically high-fived me and placed a medal around my neck.

Wow. What an experience. And while I hadn't entered to compete against anyone, I was overwhelmed by my finish time. Adversity was my trainer. Those hills that about killed me on my day to day slogs won for me a confidence that I still maintain.... a 112 pound weakling finishing a race she never thought she'd enter and certainly never imagined she could complete... trained on adversity and a good Father's discipline, and carried through by a Grace she still cannot see or completely understand.

"Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us..." ~Hebrews 12:1

"And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." ~James 1:4

I still cannot pretend to understand why my life has played out the way it has, but I have a very firm conviction that there's a purpose for it all because a Great and Sovereign God has it all well in hand. We know how it ends, we just don't know exactly how this, the Greatest Author, will bring it all about. I've had many, many opportunities to combine memory with forgiveness and counsel students through grief and abuse. I've had the opportunity to lead some of them to Christ. I've been able to hear a friend's struggle without judgement. What a beautiful thing. Hard won maybe, yet something I would never trade for all the perfect stories in the world. And there are none really. Eventually, maybe I'll learn to be completely content with the story God is writing for me and Jason and Jonathan and Melanie, and not be even slightly envious of someone else. It's certainly not the story I would have written. I keep offering that story up with all my other Isaacs, editing and revising it in such a way as I hope will please Him, bringing to it the knife and the fire, and accepting instead provision and redemption. And I believe that, as we slowly approach the end of all things and the beginning of a happily ever after, I will be ever more vocal in my gratitude for God's authorship of these stories. 

Sheldon Vanauken described it better than anyone when he explained his understanding of the Trinity in a letter to C.S. Lewis. It was a concept that he and his wife, Davy, came up with as new believers through discussions with fellow Oxford students.


"I am incarnate in my book. I am out here writing it, so I'm like god the Father. But it's really me in the book, too, isn't it? so that's Jesus, the Son, right? The me in the book speaks my words-and yet they are speeches that I've probably never made in real life, not being in those situations. And yet can't you see that it's really me?' 

There's something else, though,' said Davy. 'The other characters-made up ones. Invented ones. If Van invents characters, they'll all, even the bad ones, have something of Van in them, won't they? So, you see? We all have something of God in us-God's spirit-but only the One, Jesus, Is God Incarnate. But God's Spirit in us...Well, that makes the Trinity, doesn't it? God the Father, God the Son, And God the Holy Spirit. Actually, I've never seen it so clearly myself."

 ~From A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken

So I'll end the way I've been beginning lately -- with a book review. 😊 If you have not read the book I just quoted, well, you should read it too. It is beautiful, heart-wrenching (so be prepared to mop a few tears from your eyes), and all about the sovereignty of a good and gracious God. 


 

C.S. Lewis in a Time of War

Bear with me here. It's been well over a year since I read this one, but scrolling through documentaries on Prime this afternoon put me face to face with one that I'd watched a while back on the subject of C. S. Lewis' great work, Mere Christianity. Geek that I am, I started watching it again... and promptly fell asleep. 

When I woke, the documentary was over and a kiddo was standing over me with his face right at three inches from mine. He was holding a red beetle encased in hardened hot glue in one hand while poking me with the other. After explaining to my son that God's creatures were not intended for torture and that presentations on specific beetle species could wait if the presentee was trying to get some much-needed shut-eye, the book C.S. Lewis in a Time of War came to mind.

I had picked up the book in our Purcellville Public Library, determined on that day to choose something for myself after loading up several bags with the children's picks. While admittedly dry in some sections, C.S. Lewis in a Time of War was difficult for me to put down. I had never read Mere Christianity at that point. I had only recently read The Weight of Glory, written right around the same time, during a visit to the E.R. Those have been less frequent for me over the last 18 months or so, but at the time, I was plagued with odd, severe aches and heart palpitations that had both me and my husband rather concerned. I happened to have The Weight of Glory in my purse and I read while I waited for a sonographer to arrive. The wait was so long, and the book so short, that I managed to finish the book during that stay. I read this one on a follow up visit and series of lengthy diagnostic tests in the weeks that followed. 

Around this same time, I listened to a podcast given by a professor at some New England college on "reading around" certain authors before enjoying their actual works. While I hadn't intended to do that with this book, that's exactly what happened. What a gift it was! Ingesting this book just before reading Mere Christianity opened whole worlds of ancillary information and formulated a backdrop which allowed me to understand and enjoy the book at a much deeper level.

In case you're not aware, the book, Mere Christianity, began as a series of BBC broadcasts written and delivered by C.S. Lewis to war-torn England and Europe. His goal was to bring words of faith and hope through a decidedly non-denominational message to millions suffering under German occupation. One of the highlights for me was the detailed information given on the editing of these talks and also on the language and delivery methods allowing for tight national security. In fact, Phillips was so meticulous that he even included information on how Lewis chose to spend earnings received for those talks. 

Within the pages of C.S. Lewis in a Time of War, not only is the reader transported to WWII-era London and Oxford, s/he is introduced to the very minds and hearts of Lewis and BBC religious producers of that era. Justin Phillips gives a detailed account of the founding of the BBC as well; a history that certainly appealed to the curiosity of this reader.

Since reading this book, I read a recently-published biography on Joy Davidman (Lewis' wife) simply entitled Joy (Purcellville library) and the Lewis biography, Jack (BRBC library), written by George Sayer. Both are fascinating and well worth reading, but nothing prepared me for a deep study of Mere Christianity more than Phillip's well-researched and enjoyable book.

Good and Angry + Bitterness

 I am making some serious room in my book bag this week! I finished Good and Angry (Turansky & Miller) tonight. This one has been a life-changer... HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! I got an opportunity to hear both Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller speak at a home school conference in Ft. Worth, Texas almost five years ago. I was able to meet Scott later at his booth down on the exhibition floor. While not the most engaging orators, they have a pure message that doesn't need any angst, comedy, or fluff to make it effective. We're born sinners into a broken world and we have a Guidebook (the Bible) and relationships to help us lead obedient, Godly lives. That message doesn't need any help. I was so moved and learned so much in the first session that I attended a second session hosted by this team later on in the day.

For me it was so helpful to meet Scott.  I can be pretty shy, but when I get excited about a message like this one, I can get assertive. Something about this man's general demeanor is warm, kind, and refreshing. His passion to help point families to abundant lives in Christ is as evident within his person and it is the pages of this book. 

If you go through some of the books on my shelves and actually open them, you might see something like this. The above picture is a side view of my copy of Good and Angry... all the evidence you'd need to know that this book really spoke to me. Growing up in a home with parents who were trying hard to do it right... parenting through a fine mesh of hurt and bitterness brought about through extreme abuse and neglect... they couldn't help but pay forward some of the hurt they lived. No encouragement was forthcoming... little, if any guidance was offered to them.  In fact, they often experienced the opposite of guidance and encouragement. Even still, they worked hard to offer us what they did not receive. This book addresses the root of anger and bitterness that we as parents deal with in our relationships with our children. It also encourages us to keep trying, even when we fail and fall back on old routines and habits that threaten our family relationships.

Within the pages of Good and Angry, sound advice is offered straight from Bible wisdom. At the end of each chapter are Bible passages and object lessons to help your whole family understand the ramifications of anger and bitterness. I used one today before we headed out to our first day of Vacation Bible School. I plan to use one each day at our breakfast devotions this week. While I can't tell you if today's lesson hit home or not, my son did make an exceptionally mature statement on the way home, verifying to me that he is listening and learning, at least in some areas, how to be sensitive to the needs of others. We all still have a lot of work to do. 

Just a couple years ago, I realized that I was not being obedient to God in one of the major points of the Ten Commandments. 

"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you." ~Exodus 20:12

It doesn't add, "if they deserve it." I think it took becoming a parent to realize that none of us deserve honor. But we are still required to honor each other, especially our parents, even as adults. I realized then how angry I'd been at my parents. In some areas, I had reason to be angry. My children will have reason to harbor anger and bitterness toward me as well if they don't choose to take to heart the lesson of obedience and forgiveness. 

When I decided to review Good and Angry, this little booklet came to my mind. My sweet friend, Catherine, gave me it to me right after I became a mother. Somehow she detected a deep-seated bitterness in me and a tendency to become easily offended. I learned then that the two are related. I will be forever grateful for her willingness to gently direct me in those areas. It still took me till a couple years ago to get to the end of this little booklet. It was the final two chapters that I needed most, but for some reason, I stopped before I got there. What I found in those chapters mirrored my own heart attitude so completely that it startled me at first. It sent me to my knees first and then to God's Word. While I still get offended occasionally and I still yell at my kids from time to time, things are improving. Good and Angry reinforced the lessons learned through Catherine and this little booklet. 

I'm not exactly sure, but I think Catherine received the booklet from a pastor friend. There may be many of these booklets covering many topics. If you're interested in it, you might be able to receive it from your pastor as a part of his counseling ministry.

Good and Angry in a nutshell (without giving too much away 😃): God created anger. Anger is good. It's a very helpful indicator that something's not quite right. However, anger is never a way to solve a problem, especially in a relationship. While the object lessons and examples mostly deal in parent/child relationships, they can be applied to any area of your life. 

Karen Andreola

 Karen Andreola is another lady I'd love to meet. I wish I could sit with both her and Jamie Martin in a little corner of a Barnes & Noble somewhere and spend an entire afternoon just soaking in the wisdom. I've heard Karen's work described as unrealistic, sentimental, syrupy, corny, and saccharine. I disagree. This lady writes with a fleshed-out wisdom and winsomeness. Her books are founded on the truth of the Bible and in the common-sense philosophy of Charlotte Mason's volumes and Parent's Review articles.

What I appreciate most about the two books I've pictured here is that you don't have to read the books all the way through. The information is highly accessible to a busy mom who just needs a quick blurb on how to implement something in her school day. That's worth gold! The chapters are ordered by subject. If you need info. on how to teach Shakespeare, go to the chapter with that subject heading. If you need info. on how to make nature study or habit training happen, leaf over to those chapters.

I'm more of a "global thinker" so it's hard for me to approach any book in segments. I read both of these books cover to cover. In fact, the purple book up top was one of the very first books I read on home-educating our children. I was so thankful that I didn't have to read all of Charlotte Mason's six volumes before implementing the philosophy in our home. This book made that happen for us. We're approaching year 4 and I'm only half way through volume three. Here's hoping I'll get done reading the primary source material about the philosophy we're using before the kids actually graduate!

Having read both books now, it's easier for me to pick a chapter and go with it when I need refreshers in certain areas of our home school life. It makes this way of life not only more appealing, but also more doable. 

The Charlotte Mason Companion obviously centers more on philosophical ideas and practical approaches to a Charlotte Mason-style education. Even if you're not a purist (I'm not.), you could easily use this book to pick and choose which aspects of CM you want to use.

As far as subject matter is concerned, Mother Culture is a bit different. This is Karen's most recent offering. I finished reading it a couple days ago. Mother Culture is formatted almost exactly the same way as the Charlotte Mason Companion making it just as user-friendly. There's no need to read cover-to-cover unless you just want to. Using Scripture, Parables, and her own real-life examples, Karen Andreola encourages mothers (especially home school mamas) to find margin in their lives for pursuits that are enriching to them as mothers and wives. While this seems counter-intuitive (and maybe a little selfish too), it actually encourages us in our homemaking endeavors and encourages our children and husbands to use their gifts of creativity and ingenuity as well. We become examples to them as good stewards of the gifts God has provided.

A little background information on Karen Andreola: She and her husband, Dean, were responsible for rediscovering and publishing the highly sought after "pink" Charlotte Mason volumes. They also located and began re-publishing the Parent's Review periodical that circulated in Charlotte's day. Those periodicals can be ordered through the Andreola's website. Karen would tell you that she began her home-education career without knowing where to start. Her desire to be obedient and diligent in her learning and teaching led her and her husband to this wealth of information and this lovely "discipline, atmosphere, and life."  I'm so thankful that she and her husband were willing to share what they uncovered with the rest of us! 

Karen has several other books out as well. I've read one of them, but I'd prefer to reveiw it when I can combine that review with another book of similar subject matter. Karen is affiliated with Simply Charlotte Mason. I lean more toward Ambleside Online to plan the activities in our home school, but I use several resources from Simply Charlotte Mason to make our lives easier. You can find more of Karen's work there as well.

Introverted Mom Review

 Less than a week ago I wrote a very long post in the midst of some weirdness I tend to experience a few times a year when I run up against a schedule that, over a period of many months, doesn't allow for enough down time to write and process in quiet and solitude. I glanced over that post again tonight after the kiddos were in their beds and I could hardly believe what I read. It was actually decent writing, but I had to concede that it wasn't ready to post, even with the tiny audience this little blog attracts.  I wound up pulling that post down a few hours after writing it because it contained a lot of soul-wrenching language leading to some definitive decision-making for our family that was long overdue. When those loose ends are left dangling in my heart, it can have a very negative effect over time.  I'm slowly learning that when I don't give myself margin to get my thoughts out into a place where I can visualize and order them, I get a bit emotionally unstable, I start to feel freighted with anxiety, and I very definitely start experiencing strange and unpleasant physical symptoms. My journal is getting worn out this month, and a couple of my friends have received emails too long to read (much less process). To those friends, "Thank you, and I apologize." 😳

The book, Introverted Mom,  came to me close to the end of the busiest part of the busy season we're still occupying around here. While I continue to wrestle with its message, I do believe that when something this specifically relevant becomes available in such a timely fashion, when it offers hope and relief after months of prayerfully asking for hope and relief,  it is most likely a gift from God. I finished it today. I loved it. I wish I could have coffee with the author because I've learned to love her through her words, and I want/need/crave more of her wisdom. I feel strongly though that, although Jamie Martin has pointed me down a correct path, my reliance should be on the Holy Spirit to direct me over the rocky places and through the snarls that still await.

Here's where I'm still struggling. Where do we separate what is our natural bent (our sinful, natural man) from what is intended as a gift to bring gifts to others? Is introversion a natural/sinful inclination? I think it could be like any character quality that is misused, misguided, and misdirected. I can completely understand why the ascetics were able to cloister themselves on rocky islands and in caves for years on end. I have an undeniable yearning to pack a suitcase full of books, paper, pens, and pencils and find a distant cave right now. I get it. However, I think that's taking introversion to sinful extremes... except that some historians credit those same men with the salvation of western civilization and the preservation of the Gospel through the period between the fall of Rome and the beginning of the medieval period. I'm sorry. I can't help myself. Read How the Irish Saved Civilization to get a broader explanation/interpretation on that subject (Thomas Cahill - I think?). Men with those same tendencies were responsible for all those scrolls in the caves at Qumran. I could cite a veritable library on that one. I've got a near-complete master's thesis sitting in my attic on that very subject. And man, oh man does it excite me.

Clearly I've been doing some soul searching on this. I don't mean to make it an overwhelming preoccupation with self, but I do feel the need to tease this out and find ways to create margin for those giftings. If I don't, how can I help my kiddos find theirs? If I'm lost and alone on the path, how do I point the ones who depend on me in the right direction? If this is a gift to be used to the glory of my Creator and the edification of others He created, then I want to stop despising that gift and start fine-tuning it for Him.

The place where I struggle most is in mothering an extrovert. While I tend to be a sensitive soul, I can be selfish and highly insensitive in my need for a quiet space to think. This is where the struggle happens. This is where I'm tempted to sin. And there's a chapter or two discussing just this problem, and some possible solutions, within the pages of Introverted Mom.

We're all called to step beyond what's comfortable. You don't have to read too far into the Bible to encounter characters doing just that. Keep reading and you find it over and over and over and over and over again. Stepping out onto the choppiness of the sea of life, our eyes laser-focused on Jesus, is a requirement of all believers. But to be mamas with quieter gifts... gifts of writing, creating, deep conversation, and one-on-one encouragement through notes and small gatherings, it's important to feed a need for margin, or we will struggle to function... to join in creation... a thing we must do, in my opinion, as believing children of God.

The above is my attempt at taking a few minutes each day to get some thoughts out in writing... a little experiment to see if I start feeling like a more balanced individual. Guess what? It's working! Getting the opportunity to harmonize with others on Tuesday evenings is another big boost to my mental and emotional health. In most cases, social gatherings flatten me. Tuesday-night rehearsals leave me energized to the point that I have trouble settling to sleep on the nights I attend. Finding opportunities to serve the Body while quenching our own thirst for joy is a "win-win" as Jamie Martin puts it. I have to agree.

A Perpetual Misfit

I don't know where the phrase "introvert hangover" originated, but Jen Hatmaker used it once a few years ago in an article I read over lunch one day. Actually finding myself in an "introvert hangover" in that particular moment, I had complete understanding of what she meant by that statement. Before I continue, Jen Hatmaker makes me laugh, and I can identify with her quips concerning motherhood (and introversion, obviously), but that's about it. I do not follow her, and I don't agree with her theology. However, if she actually came up with that phrase all on her own, I have to give her credit for hitting the nail right square on the head. 

Confession: I have actually had a hangover. Once. And before you judge me, read the whole story. Here's the backdrop. I was in a cute little pub in Western Ireland and completely (COMPLETELY) naive. I'd turned 21 in March, several months before I'd entered that pub, so if I'd wanted to get legally drunk prior to that night, I'd already had ample opportunity to do it. I thought the apple cider on the chalkboard menu over the bar (where you also order your pub food) was the same kind of apple cider I'd had at many Southern Baptist fall festivals back in Texas. About six pints in (I guess I was thirsty.), my Botany professor bought me a cup of coffee. I still remember what he said. "You're a little more lively and uninhibited than usual tonight." 😂 Then he explained about the alcohol content in hard cider. Only, the word "hard" wasn't on the menu, so I didn't even have that information before ordering something completely foreign to me. In fact, I was so naive, I'd never even heard the phrase hard cider. And I was in a foreign country after all, so I assumed things would taste a bit, well, foreign. Having never tasted anything with any alcohol content other than some prescription cough syrup here and there in my childhood, I had zero context... nothing to compare to my first experience with hard apple cider. When I finally started to feel the full effects of six pints of hard cider, I laid my head down on the table, and he bought me another cup of coffee. I weighed all of about 100 pounds, so you can imagine. The really fun part of that whole story is that we had to board a ferry the very next day to cross an incredibly choppy part of the Atlantic in a thunderstorm. 😳

I sat with Dr. Vertrees (my Botany professor) on the boat the next morning. Much older than me and considerably well-versed in the immaturity of the average college student, he was intrigued by the fact that, at 21, I had never experienced a hangover before that morning. I'm not saying I wasn't immature. I'm immature now. I'm just saying I didn't partake of alcoholic beverages in college. As a college student, I worked full time and carried a full class load. I didn't have time to party. So, in the midst of the tossing of the boat and the churning of my stomach, we had our first conversation about God. In all honesty, I think he was just trying to help me keep my mind off my aching head. He was an introvert too and probably would have welcomed a quiet morning on the boat. But his empathy won out.

In the eight weeks or so that we spent in the UK, Dr. Vertrees and I talked about God a lot, and I did not have any more hangovers of the alcoholic kind. 😊

Botany completely fascinated me. Even on holiday in the UK, I was a good student. And I think that Dr. Vertrees was thankful to have someone in his class that wasn't just trying to fulfill a requirement for a science credit. Someone was actually eager to learn about something that he was passionate about.

He was also an atheist.

One of the few photos of me from that summer in the UK. I spent a good deal of time sightseeing alone or with my professors and their wives. I didn't have a lot in common with the kids around my age on the trip. The lovely lady in the photo with me is Catherine, wife of my political science professor, Walter Toxey. We were just about to see Romeo & Juliet together at the Globe Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England. 

There was never any evidence that any of our conversations made a dent with Dr. Vertrees, except that he usually brought up the topic of God with me at pubs and on our travels from points a to b, as if he were genuinely intrigued and wanted to know more. I believe we both enjoyed our talks together, and I still pray that those conversations at least planted a seed that ultimately grew into a genuine faith for him. I took two more classes with Dr. Vertrees back in Texas, but we had no more opportunities to talk of God. We still got to talk a lot about trees and wildflowers though, and I hope those chats brought back to his memory my utter conviction that a loving God made them on purpose, for His personal pleasure and for our physical well-being and enjoyment... that He gave us eyes, minds, and hearts to enjoy their beauty and complexity.

I passed up lots of social opportunities (not all that hard for me as it turns out), wore old clothes, tried to conserve gas, and worked lots of overtime to save the money I needed to make that trip. I tried hard to be a good worker at my job so that I could take a leave of absence that summer from what I considered a desirable position in the commercial branch of a bank that handled large cash deposits. I wanted/needed them to save my position so that I could return to it, and they did. Maybe that incubation period set me up with the social energy to take a trip like that. I spent a lot of time alone in those days just hanging out with a piano in a campus practice room, studying, reading, writing, and working. I'm still kind of amazed that I summoned the courage to go. I didn't even try to drum up any close friends to go with me. I'm convinced that on some subconscious level, I really wanted to be mostly alone and anonymous there.

Those conversations with Dr. V. didn't drain me. Those conversations inspired me. They sent me to my knees in prayer and to my Bible for coherent answers to his questions.  They were deep conversations full of personal stories. He spent time instructing me outside of the classroom environment on the finer elements of his favorite subject. He told me all about his wife and their home and how he came to love the study of plants... stories about his time as a student and his early days as a professor. After a day all alone on a rented bicycle by a wind-swept Irish shore, I returned to dinner with the group full of life and conversation. I was able to completely ignore the gals that were upset with me for disappearing at the shops downtown and revel in the fact that I'd biked a 21-mile coastline in just a few hours, stopping off for a stroll through the ruins of a fort dating back several thousand years. 

What drained me were conversations about how others on my trip were planning to get their purchases from Harrod's home (I put myself on a bus and spent another day in the British Museum while everyone else went shopping.). One evening, I spent almost an entire night singing with a group of Irishmen in a pub. No problem. But put me on the incredibly noisy Tube with a bunch of folks that have nothing to talk about but the cute waiters and waitresses at Hard Rock Cafe, and I come away completely deflated.  

It's not that I took myself that seriously. It's not that there was never a time to talk about the cute waiter. It's just that right about that time in my life, I couldn't find the will to care about those things. When you've just lost a close friend and you've gone away for a while to deal with it, you suddenly face up to the fact that your time with the people you care about might be a lot shorter that you thought. Everything comes into laser focus around those events... and it's impossible to ever go back to being the person you were before. I'd learned that a person can be simultaneously naive about hard cider, and a little too well-schooled in the finality of death. Suddenly, time became way too precious for mindless blather. Suddenly, the eternal destination of your atheist Botany professor is just about the most important thing there is.

I was an introvert before I went to the UK. But right about that time, I'd begun to embrace my introversion in a big way. Nobody I knew then had already found and lost a potential soul mate. Lots of close friends found that they couldn't handle my grief, so they slowly drifted out of my life. My time overseas was convenient for everyone, including me. 

But the same character quality that distanced me from some people in my life also allowed me to seek out and learn from people who'd actually lived long enough to have some wisdom for what I was experiencing. I don't think I told a single person about what I was going through on that trip, but I still felt some relief in the presence of those teachers... some of whom were traveling with their wives. They actually seemed to want me around and to discuss important things with me. Something in my personality allowed me to be taken seriously by an aged, atheist professor.

And I know exactly what I'm doing here. I'm making excuses, because I've never been completely comfortable with this aspect of my personality. It makes me weird to some people. And honest to goodness, even people who perpetually feel weird never get completely used to feeling that way. It's so much easier to just fit.

But I try. Even now, in my mid-40s, I try to be normal and chatter and have lots of surface-level conversations. I say "yes" over and over again while my mind and body resist. I bring a book with me everywhere so I can sit nonchalantly in a corner, minding my own business, hiding out behind its covers. Then I hit a wall and I can hardly function for weeks. The covers of the books aren't nearly big enough to hide me adequately. I can't feel comfortable anywhere. 

I was helping out at a curriculum sale the other day and thinking to myself, "You're such a fake." Everyone can see right through you. I could hear myself talking as if I were listening from outside myself. "Oh, look! I LOVE Elisabeth Elliot! I didn't see this one!" Gush, gush. Pretend like you're what you've always wanted to be, and maybe you'll convince someone. I can hear myself telling a friend who is sharing some real heartache and suffering intensely, "You be you. Don't change to make someone else happy. Don't turn yourself inside out to please people. Be the best version of the person God made you to be so that you can please Him and Him only. The important people will love you for you." And when I put myself in the car to go home, tears immediately drop into my lap. I'm so good at giving that advice and so incapable of taking it. I kept the facade up long enough to convince her, I think, but I come away feeling like a complete idiot. 

It's nausea and head aches and soul ache after soul ache. It's just like that hangover followed by a trip over a storm-tossed sea. It's all these loose ends all knotted up and tangled together. But I can't get away long enough to put them all right again except late at night or early in the morning. In fact, this morning, I woke up under the extreme extrovert I'm mothering at about 6 a.m. Trying to extricate my arms and legs as quietly as possible from that uncomfortable position while partially hanging off the edge of a king-sized bed, I naturally woke him. Tired as he was, he would not stay asleep because that would mean being alone in that part of the house. Many mornings I hear him wake with my husband who ushers him into bed with me and I want to scream bloody murder. "He's almost nine! He can finish the morning in his own bed." But I don't. My extroverted husband instinctively understands that our extroverted son desperately needs to be with someone after he leaves for work. And my empathy wins over my need. I don't know how to feed my own need except to fall into this same "hangover" every few weeks, to pray to the only One who can possibly meet my needs, and to wait impatiently for my head to clear. 

I'm reading to my daughter a book that I read only a few months ago to my son. George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind is an allegorical story that I'm still struggling to completely understand. But if I were asked to explain what I think it means, this is what I would tell someone. I think it's an allegory for the character and nature of God. I think George MacDonald is trying to get to the heart of our misunderstanding of God and instruct us on His inability to be anything but good, even when all we can see is all bad and all hard.

Here are a few of the words I read tonight.

"Diamond, dear," she said, "be a man. What is fearful to you is not the least fearful to me." 

"But it can't hurt you," murmured Diamond, "for you're it."

"Then if I'm it, and I have you in my arms, how can it hurt you?" 

So often I feel so frustrated with Him for making me so awkward and backward and anxious and introverted. I want to be angry that despite the fact that I need to be alone... I really need people and relationships. And aside from all that I need, I have a husband and two kiddos that need me to at least appear balanced and whole. And that's the lie I tell myself. Because I know I'll never be able to be everything to them... not in the way I want to be. If I were able to be that for them or for me, we'd never experience the Everything that is Jesus.  

Planning Year 3 & 4

I am a planner by nature. The earlier I can get something planned, the better, in most cases. I have learned, over the years, that sometimes early planning equals extra work and re-planning. I try to decipher what should be planned early and what should be left to the last minute. I'm still tweaking that, but, all-in-all, our family life is easier if there's a plan to consult and follow, even when a plan B or a more creative and spontaneous plan C has to trump the overall plan because of illness, travel, etc.

I also happen to be a slow, deep, and broad thinker. Writing these things out, either into a journal or into the blogosphere, is helpful to me. Taking the time to get it out into a place where I can see and evaluate what's in my head really makes things less complicated. The winter months are typically used to plan next year's school, activities, and garden. A complete plan instills hope and excitement for the warmer days to come.

Since I'd be writing out our school plan in long form anyway, I thought I'd post it with the hopes that it would be helpful to someone else. With just two kiddos, I admit, it's got to be a lot easier for me to plan a school year. I keep my plans filed away too, just in case, for some reason, we add to our family in the years to come.

***

I follow a philosophy, but not a boxed or set curriculum. I provide the structure to the philosophy, and, geek that I am, I enjoy making the plan, picking the pieces based on my children's personalities and learning styles, and putting them together. I am also a big-picture person. If something doesn't fit the color scheme or style within that big picture, I tend to reject it. As a result, I'm not a fan of most of the co-op and boxed-curriculum situations available. If I had more children, they might appeal to me. But I am not in that situation. That said, I am ALL FOR and very supportive of everyone doing what they've gotta do to make things work for their families, their personalities, and their preferences as the teachers in their homes (because mama's mental health is very important!), and their children's personalities, preferences and learning styles. Please don't read this as an advertisement for a particular brand of home education. This works for me, but it's not for everyone.

For history, literature, artist, and composer studies, I use Ambleside Online almost exclusively. I typically choose not to abide by their art and composer rotation and I typically do not like their selections for science. While I use suggestions, I keep artists and composers to the time period we're studying in history. I like to watch the kiddos make connections even as I read the stories of the lives of our artists and composers. Ambleside is a curriculum based on the methods and philosophies of an English educator from the 19th century named Charlotte Mason. If you'd like to read more about her and her method, this is a good starting point.

We have used All About Reading and All About Spelling throughout the kid's first three/four years. Jonathan just completed the final level in All About Reading, but will continue studying and reviewing the homophones and spelling in the upper levels of AAS. The program utilizes the very same philosophy as Spell to Write and Read, but in short lessons that include games and readings associated with the skills recently learned. We have had GREAT success with this program and, most importantly, we've had a lot of fun with it.  Melanie is just a half level behind her brother and will likely finish the whole program within her second grade year. Jonathan is mourning his reading program. He told me just yesterday that he wished there was a level five. While the materials can be costly, I have been able to sell the materials quickly through used curriculum sales at near enough the same price. My boy is a reluctant reader, but he will sit and listen to someone else read all day long. My hope is that this year, reading will become more natural to him and more a part of our family culture. I'm hoping to implement a "Drop Everything and Read" half hour most school days this year. If I schedule it, it will most likely happen. I started with fifteen minutes this year and it is now a habit within our school day. Adding another ten to fifteen minutes shouldn't be too big a stretch.

This year, we'll be trying out the Cottage Press Language Arts Primers. I had been using a grammar program very similar to this called Language Lessons for Today, omitting the picture study and copy work because I already had those plugged into other places in our weekly schedule. However, I did not like the direction the curriculum took when I checked into year four. I intended to keep Melanie in LLFT in her third year, but when I received Jonathan's LA materials from Cottage Press, I felt compelled to purchase the materials for Melanie too. The only thing I'm finding that I don't really like about the Cottage Press materials is that I'm now having to purchase more books to utilize it. While that's not entirely necessary (The neat thing about Ambleside Online and Cottage Press is that you can access most of the readings and books online because they are almost all in the public domain, making the whole thing extremely inexpensive!), I really like to have hard copies to read from. One fun tip to share, if you happen to have Child-Craft or My Book House sets (I have two Child-Craft sets from different publication dates. One belonged to my Daddy, and one was a gift from my husband at the outset of our home-educating journey.), many of the stories are in those books. I'll be using a volume of fairy tales illustrated by Tasha Tudor as well (Thanks again, Amanda!). We've used these books quite a lot and if you're interested in purchasing the sets, check out ebay, Thrift books, and Abe books first. I will use Project Gutenburg for that first section of the Level Two Primer to supplement what I couldn't find already on our shelves. What appeals to me about the Cottage Press Primers is that they are beautiful and they encourage independent study habits in the child. My hope is that by mid-year, the kiddos will be opening those primers, completing them on their own, and then checking back with me to make sure everything is completed correctly while giving the necessary narrations to their readings. I purchased them on a recommendation from a trusted and very intelligent friend who loves this beautiful learning style as much as I do.

I love Apologia Science, mostly because the kids love it. They beg me (my boy especially) to continue reading from the book during our science studies. Each lesson includes easy-to-perform labs that mostly utilize items you'll have available in your house. Jonathan will begin helping me read some of our science selections and will also begin reading one of his history spines aloud to me daily now that he is through his reading program. I feel strongly that it is important for all kiddos to read aloud and silently every day, especially while they're still learning.

Over the last few years, I have incorporated a few activities from My Father's World into our studies. This year, that proved to be beneficial because it helped me to have some cute project ideas to accompany our history studies. Next year, I'm finally throwing it out. My hope is that we'll spend more time in nature, art, and composer study.

I have to admit, math is not a strong point for me. Number sense comes very naturally to my son, and he can often be found teaching himself his math lesson and coming up with correct answers all on his own. I know that will not always be the case as the math gets increasingly more difficult, so I'm hoping to purchase instructional videos through Bob Jones University Press this year. How did I pick Bob Jones? I found a teachers' manual for $5 at a used curriculum sale, and I consistently find the teachers' manuals for almost nothing at our used curriculum sales. My husband, who is a former math teacher (and math whiz) approved, and I've never looked back. One thing my kids like about Bob Jones is that there's a story incorporated with the lessons. As "story-formed" kiddos, this really appeals to them. The DVDs are very expensive, but it's worth it to me. Math is a weak area for me, so I'm willing to pay to make sure they're getting what they need. I imagine the little DVD break will be helpful to my sanity next year too.

We are using I Can Do All Things art by Barry Stebbing. I'm not crazy about this curriculum, but the kids love their Thursday morning art lesson with the DVD, and they are learning. My biggest complaint is the low quality of the DVDs. Next year, I hope to incorporate more art lessons utilizing John Muir Laws (free!) nature drawing instructional videos. We took a bit of a break from nature study this winter, but with our schedule lightening, as it usually does towards the end of a school year, we will likely pick this up again soon. That seems to be the way we roll every year, so I'm just going with it. Last year, I purchased a curriculum called Exploring Nature With Children.  It's an e-book that cost me $10. It utilizes many of the books we already own and comes complete with an entire year's worth of ideas for nature study. It would take me 3-4 years to implement all the ideas, so it's well worth the $10 in my opinion. There are so many great ideas in it and it comes with a subscription to the author's blog, which is also very helpful. In adding the link I found that the price has gone up, but she's offering 30% off right now, which would put the current price at $12.

As stated above, for reading suggestions, history, and literature, I follow Ambleside Online. Every time I consider moving away from this lovely curriculum, I come right back to my senses. It is strenuous, especially for folks with reluctant readers, but it is so beautiful and so complete. Probably the biggest hurdle for most folks is scheduling this lovely philosophy. But it is entirely doable. It is not something that can be contained in the first few hours of each morning. It is truly "an atmosphere and a life" as Charlotte Mason puts it. We read on Saturdays, at the supper table, in bed, on the couch, in front of the wood stove, on pallets in the yard, on the trampoline, in the fort, and on the swing. We listen to audio books on the way to Charles Town for groceries and to Winchester for a Cracker Barrel fix. One of the things I love most about it is that it encourages parents to read for their own enlightenment and pleasure, and to craft and create with their children. It forces us to turn off the television so we'll have time to complete our delightful studies. It doesn't feel like a burden when I begin to lose the idea that school should be confined to a few hours every morning. Yes. There's a lot of reading. Some of the reading is challenging, especially for parents. I have grown by leaps and bounds as a reader, even with a mind that seems to process things more slowly.

Probably another thing that detracts folk from using the method/philosophy, is what seems like the lack of formal language arts instruction. It seems informal at first, but in fact, it is very intentional. If you're unsure about this, good news! You don't have to do it that way! However, this book by Karen Glass is stunning and an excellent explanation of the logic behind the Charlotte Mason method. Charlotte Mason simply puts forth the idea that good authors begin more organically. Some students thrive with the study of grammar and diagramming. That is something you can determine for yourself as you determine your child's learning style. 

Our schedule is laid out on a grid that I created in a word document. I posted it below to give an idea of how it looks, although it's really become a basic framework for me and not something I follow to the letter or the minute. Rarely is anything done in the order listed there. I keep that posted each week on our fridge. You'd likely want to come up with something that fits your home and schedule, but feel free to copy and paste it if it gives you something to work off, change and tweak. I check that document, print it each week and then file it at the end of the week into a notebook that I keep for the year. By the start of the year, I typically have a page completed for each week with the readings and activities already scheduled. However, things change, so it's an easy way to keep things organized and easily tweaked. At the top are listed current free reads, the parable we're memorizing, our poet, and our poetry memorization selections. The days of the week are listed just below with categories for time slots over to the left. At the beginning of each year, I make selections on another grid for each 12-week term. I list Shakespearean plays, poets, poetry memorization selections, hymns (typically three per term), free reads, nature study topics, etc. This gives me a basic framework to draw from when I make the more specific schedule. While the home-education laws in Virginia are relatively lax, I tend to like to be prepared on the off chance we end up moving with Jason's job to a state that requires us to provide more information on our children's education.

Weekly Scheduling:

Each morning starts with the Doxology, prayer, hymn, Bible time, AWANA study, and poetry.  That sounds like a lot, but it goes pretty quickly. On Mondays we add geography, Spanish, and science. Tuesday is co-op day, so we only add Spanish review. History lessons are heard and narrated in the van to and from co-op. We have two history spines this year and both are completely recorded on Librivox, a free (amazing) app. Wednesday we hit Spanish, poetry and sometimes Lamb's Shakespeare or Trial and Triumph if it is scheduled. We will also review our geography concepts. Thursday is geography, and poetry with natural history added in. We also use Thursdays to complete our artist or composer study. We study an artist for six weeks and then rotate off into a composer for six weeks (In the schedule below, I have an artist listed. At the end of six weeks, a composer would be listed there.). Sometimes we will review Spanish if I feel the current words are not yet completely understood or memorized. Friday includes a poetry reading and timeline additions. Any new person or major event we've covered will be discussed and an image of that person or event will go into the appropriate spot on our family timeline on Friday. I put in a short write up next to the image based on the kids narrations that day. Friday is also dedicated to written narrations. I only require a few lines, but the kiddos write something they remember from the week's history lessons in a notebook on Fridays. The remainder of each day includes daily math facts, math lessons, reading instruction, grammar, spelling, copy work, handwriting instruction, music theory, piano practice, and often more mama-led read-alouds. Some of these subjects are only completed every other day. The kids are also required to read for a set period of time before turning on any electronics. That's the Book Basket entry you see on the schedule. I try to keep a basket with picture books and short chapter books that pertain to our current history and science topics ready so the kids can choose from that. However, they are not required to choose from the basket as long as they read. That idea came from My Father's World, and we have used it all the time the kiddos have been schooling.  Here's a copy of our current schedule from several weeks ago. There are several abbreviations for books here. HT = Hero Tales/ CB = Children's Bible/ T&T = Trial and Triumph/ TCOO = This Country of Ours (American History)/ OIS= Our Island Story (British History)/ AP&P = American Pioneer and Patriots/ Heroes is a book by Charles Kingsley/ EAH= Early American Heroes/ Secrets= Secrets of the Woods. The times really need to be tweaked over to the left side there. Free reads are typically read in the afternoon, over meals, or at bedtimes. Most lessons over breakfast last only 2-10 minutes each.

Daily Plan: Week One~Term Three (Y2 & Y3) Dates~__________25

Block	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
7-7:30 AM	Breakfast... Hymns,	*Free Read- Treasure Is.	Swiss Fam. Rob.	Grandma's Attic 2	Thimble Summer
7:30–8 AM	Bat. Hymn of Rep.	Mem:The Tyger	Poetry: Blake	Par: Dinner Guests	Luke 14:15-24
8–8:15 AM	AWANA & HT	AWANA & HT	AWANA & HT	AWANA & HT	AWANA & CB
8:20– 8:35 AM	Piano/Theory Lesson Geo. CM & Long	Piano Practice – J Piano Practice - M	Piano Practice – J Piano Practice - M	Piano Practice – J Piano Practice - M	Narration NB: Lincoln
8:40- 8:50 AM	AAR Level 4– M AAR Level 4– J	AAR Level 4– M AAR Level 4– J	AAR Level 4– M AAR Level 4– J	AAR Level 4– M AAR Level 4– J	AAR Level 4– M AAR Level 4– J
8:55- 9:05 AM	Spanish Lesson	Spanish Lesson	Spanish Lesson	Artist Study - John S. Copely	Exploring Nature with Children
9:10- 9:25 AM	BJU Math 3- J BJU Math 2 - M	BJU Math 3- J BJU Math 2 - M	BJU Math 3- J BJU Math 2 - M	BJU Math 3- J BJU Math 2 - M	BJU Math 3- J BJU Math 2 - M
9:30-10	PLAY!!	PLAY!!	PLAY!!	PLAY!!	PLAY!!
10:05- 10:20 AM	Copywork - M&J Book Basket-M&J	Copywork - M&J Book Basket-M&J	Copywork - M&J Book Basket-M&J	Copywork - M&J Book Basket-M&J	Copywork - M&J Book Basket-M&J
10:25- 10:45 AM	AAS 3 – J AAS 2 – M	TCOO: ch. 23 OIS: 83	AAS 3 – J AAS 2 – M	I Can Do... Art J & M	Timeline History & Bible
10:50- 11:05 AM	Heroes: Theseus I	Am. P&P: 121-136	Seabird: Chp.26-27 - M	Secrets: Chp. 6	Pilgrim's Progress 800 Words
11:10- 11:30 AM	T&T: Jeanne d'Albret	Apologia Sceince	Am. P&P: 121-136		Piano Practice – J Piano Practice - M
11:40-12			EAH: 253-261		State NB
12-12:15	Math Facts - J&M	Grammar - J & M	Math Facts – J & M	Grammar - J & M	Math Facts – J & M