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A man strolled down the sidewalk of a suburban neighborhood. The street echoed with the occasional bark of a dog and the twitter of a bird in a tree. He remembered his childhood. Mornings on his street as a child practically sang with the sounds of sheets snapping in the breeze, vacuums buzzing through the houses, and the scent of bread, cakes, and cookies had punctuated the air.
As he neared the second house from the corner, he noticed a difference. Instead of the sparse manicured lawns and perfect landscaping, this home boasted a large tree with a baby swing hanging from the branches, a large flower garden, and a recently repaired fence, one board as yet unpainted. The windows were open allowing fresh air to flow through the house, and allow the scent of oatmeal cookies to waft through those windows to tantalize our gentleman.
Our gentleman was curious so he entered the home. Now don’t be alarmed, he isn’t going to hurt anyone, no one can see him, and this is just our way to be a fly on the wall in this home. I just had to reassure you. 
Inside, the woman of the house is removing sheets of cookies from a well used oven. While clean, this appliance shows evidence of consisent use. The corners are nicked, the handle has been glued with an epoxy that shows at the corners, and one of the knobs was laid too near a hot burner at some point.
As she scoops the cookies off of the baking sheet, she flips them upside down on layers of newspaper on the counter. (trapping moisture inside and keeping the cookies soft. They obviously are not a crispy cookie family! She slips a fresh sheet of cookies in the oven, and then carefully stacks her cooled cookies into storage containers. It is obviously an oft’ repeated routine.
A glance at the clock implies she has other things to consider. She looks into her batter bowl and then scoops more cookies onto the sheet. She has time to finish. Our gentleman wonders what is pressing upon her time. She’s home, apparently alone, and the house is clean. Why is time such an issue?
Our woman, let’s call her Martha for comic relief, immediately rinses her dishes and sorts them into the dishwasher. She clears away most of the newspaper and wipes down the counter. Her hands are busy as she waits for the timer to remind her to remove the cookies. They emerge from the oven perfect. She pulls three paper towels from the roll and puts a cookie on each towel. From a drawer she pulls a sippie cup, and from the cupboard she removes two mugs. Our gentleman realizes that there are children expected.
Just as she wipes the final crumbs from the counter and washes her hands, the faint sound of an alarm clock drifts in from the hallway. A little boy, around six or seven years old, races down the hallway. A cocked eyebrow from mom stops him dead in his tracks. He does an abrupt about face, and scuttles back to his doorway. Walking now, albeit quickly, the lad hustles as quickly as possible to the bar separating the kitchen from the living area and climbs up on the barstool.
The afternoon passes in a blur. The second eldest child is a girl of four and then there is a baby boy of sixteen months. Between settling scuffles, supervising toy clean ups, and getting dinner on the table, she barey has time to sit to hear her son practice his reading for ten minutes. It is a very busy time.
Our gentleman watches over the space of weeks. This homemaker is a loving wife. She isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. She gets frustrated by a tired husband and irritated that she must fix the broken faucet or wait until the weekend to have him do it. However, their relationship is generally mutually satisfying and encouraging. As a mother, she’s firm and loving at the same time. The children don’t get away with petty disobediences any more than they do overt defiance but all is handled with a calm matter-of-factness. The children don’t see her as she slips into her room to scream silently over yet another infraction. She doesn’t always enjoy this aspect of motherhood but already with her eldest, she is reaping the rewards of loving consistency.
The home is a well oiled machine. Occasionaly parts get squeaky, like when she extended an afternoon at the park with the children and fogot to do her weekly money transfer. Her husband found it impossible to withdraw his weekly allowance on the way home from work that Friday night. However, as a general rule, things work well.
Out of curiosity, our gentleman went into several other homes in the area for comparison and finally found another full time homemaker. The difference is startling. This woman spends her hours putting out fires and playing in between the fires. She reads a book, the subject and type of book is immaterial, until a child is hanging precariously from a bunk bed. She races to stop the child, administers some form of punishment, and then returns to her book. The sound of her husband’s car in the driveway reminds her that dinner is expected soon. She tosses the book aside and rushes to throw together something in order to avoid another emergency pizza meal.
Their checkbook hasn’t been balanced in months, their savings account is nearing the red, and several bills wait to be paid in a stack on the counter. They have house projects to do that they can’t due to lack of funding. Their income is sufficient but their usage is excessive. We won’t talk about the occasional bouts of credit card debt.
The gentleman returned to Martha’s home and wandered through the rooms. Martha’s children seem healthier and less antsy but happier. Martha takes time to ensure that she exercises, gets plenty of refreshing sleep, and eats a reasonable diet. She has time to pursue pleasant pasttimes but then with a job that is 24/7, you would hope that she would have some time off!
Our gentleman made a list of the things he saw this woman do. It was almost incalculable.
- Basic house cleaning
- Organization
- Child care
- Child training
- Child education
- Interior decoration
- Furniture repair/reupholstery
- Home maintenance
- Auto maintenance/scheduling
- Nutrition and meal planning
- Cooking
- Food storage and preservation
- Shopping (groceries, clothing, furniture, and personal care/household items primarily)
- Scheduling (dental, visual, and medical, and other similar appointments)
- Book keeping
- Bill paying
- Research
- Financial Growth
- Gardening/landscaping/lawn care
- Sewing
- Correspondence
- Goal planning
- Preparation for the future
The list grew until he couldn’t fathom the enormity of the tasks. It wasn’t until he realized that she didn’t do all of those things every day, or even every week, that he was able to understand how she could be such an energy filled and fulfilled person. His job as a former CPA seemed almost too easy and for the first time, he truly appreciated all his wife did.
“What is the difference,” he wondered as he compared the two homes, women, husbands, and families, “between this home and the other? Both women eventually do most of the same things yet Martha seems less haggard and harried than her neighor from several streets over. Why is this?”
Martha could tell him if she could see him. It’s really a very simple answer to give but not so simple to live. It’s not a carefully planned schedule. Contrary to appearances, very little of Martha’s life is scheduled. She has a few iron clad scheduled duties and a few routines in motion but most of her life is fairly well lived as it comes. She tried scheduling several times but found that either the schedule controlled their lives in a way that left little room for taking advantage of excellent opportunities, or she found herself enjoying opportunities and losing sight of the schedule all together. In doing that, she also lost sight of a few important activities. She knew she had to find a happy medium, and for her, the healthy balance of basic routines punctuated with occasional unmovable duties, worked.
However, her routines and lack of schedule aren’t the answer. Not really. They’re a by-product of the answer. The answer is simply that her home, family, children, and personal growth are her career. She approaches her life as one who considers her days to be filled with a job that must be done, not one that must be appeased in order to free time to do the “fun stuff”. Where her neighbor works in between bouts of free time resenting the fact that she must work at all, Martha takes her job as wife, mother, homemaker, and Christian very seriously.
Her career is a varied one, I grant you. She doesn’t make financial investment decisions daily, or even monthly. However, on her calendar she does have a notation of when to re-evaluate their decisions and make any changes. This is one of those non-flexible appointments with herself.
She doesn’t spend every day researching the best recipes at the lowest cost, but when she does her budget and sees that food has increased, before she increases the budget to meet the rising cost of food, she does look over their menu and sees if they’ve switched from eating to nourish the body and enjoy God’s blessing of food to possibly eating to enjoy and ignoring the necessity of nourishment. During those times, she might search for new recipes to see if there is a way to reduce expenses in the food department but this is a brief period in life and one reason why a strict schedule would never work in her home.
She does spend every day in general maintenance. It is this necessity of life that causes people to under value the calling and career of homemaker. When you watch what a homemaker does, on the surface it seems to be a lot of dusting, sweeping, mopping, toilet scrubbing, dishes, and laundry. Throw in a good bit of cooking and shopping, and you have a very accurate picture of the bulk of many homemaker’s days. This leaves the erroneous idea that you have an accurate picture of the bulk of a homemaker’s LIFE. This is simply untrue.
What most rarely see is the research into vehicles, medical plans, and househod appliances. Why is this valued in a Fortune 500 company but degraded in a home? Do we really think so little of a the great savings to family coffers when a wife spends time ensuring that they get the most from her husband’s hard earned dollars?
We don’t value she spends combing garage sales and thrift stores in order to save the family money. We don’t see that she finds things she knows she can’t use but resells them online at a healthy profit adding to the family’s financial worth. It doesn’t sound like a “real job” therefore it has no societal worth. How very sad.
She may have a means of earning money from the home or not. Some wives find this an easy thing to do while others prefer to find ways to save money rather than ways of procuring it. Both are an added bonus to any family’s budget.
What am I really trying to say by all of this? Why did I write this elaborate but simplistic tale of homemaking? Haven’t we heard it all at some time or another? We don’t need to be convinced of the validity of our choice? We don’t need to be told that there is so much more we could do if we only had the skills, resources, or knowledge to do it. It is no surprise to us to hear that colleges are once again offering degrees in Home Economics that encompass everything from finances, to basic medical care, to nutrition and more hands-on things like pattern drafting and food preservation. Society is finally recognizing what happened when women left the home in droves for the workforce. Skills necessary to the well running of a home were shoved to the side where they grew dusty and covered with cob webs.
Is the keeping of your home your career, or what you do to assuage the guilt between bouts of “doing your thing”?
Signing off. I need arnica cream for my toes. I’ve trampled them so thoroughly here that I can barely walk.
In popular children’s fantasy fiction, there is a fascinating item called a pensive. It looks like a typical tabletop bird bath but inside is a swirling mass of liquid silver “threads”. These threads are actually memories, preserved and stored in the pensive for our perusal at some later date. I think part of the point of the pensive was to give the person an accurate history of events. Time tends to blur them, rearrange facts, and sometimes leave out important parts of our memories. The pensive would have them all accurately stored for your remembrance.
When a person wanted to relive a memory, he’d put his face down into the liquid and “fall into” the memory. He’d be immersed in it so to speak. The sights, sounds, and feelings of the memory would be vivid and real. He couldn’t interact in the memory. This event has happened and is now over. However, in the pensive, one could “relive” the moment whether it was your memory or someone else’s.
I was sharing about this with a friend of mine this evening. She’d made the comment that she wished she could wrap her arms around someone we know to be struggling and just infuse them with the love of God. That somehow through the hug, she’d be able to let them see how God knows and loves them. She admitted it wasn’t possible but that it’d be nice. I immediately thought of the pensive. How wonderful it would be if, in a moment when our human frailty overtook us, if we could simply fall into the “pensive” and not only know God’s love for us, not only know God’s delight in us as His children, but feel it; infuse it into our hearts and lives because we are seeing it from His point of view.
Of course, that was a silly thing to say. As much as we tend to forget it, we do have a pensive. We have the Word. Our Father, Lord, and Intercessor has infused all the love and sacrifice for us into the Bible. It is all there. The Word is full of the Lord’s provision for His people. There are verses of stern admonition just as we all have memories of a father’s stern rebuke when we did what we knew was wrong. There are verses of delight. One such verse I missed as a young girl. We sang it at school.
Zephaniah 3:17:
KJV: The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.
I focused on the MIGHTYness of God. I also recoginzed the love. I didn’t notice the delight and the joy and the rejoicing over His people. This wasn’t made clear to me until the late nineties by Beverly Bradley of Family Ministries. He will… “rejoice over thee with joy” That’s like twice the joy there. ReJOYce… and then with JOY. WOAH. The Lord delights in us. That is just amazing.
Another song we sang was from Revelation 4:11
| KJV: | Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. |
We were created for His pleasure. At the end of creation, when God finished each thing, He said, “and it was good.” But when man finally stood living and breathing in the very image of God, He said, “And it was very good.” I don’t think that very was an extraneous word to keep the text from being too redundant. I do that in my writing but I really don’t think God needs to, do you?
Then, there is Song of Solomon. While I firmly believe this is intended to bless us as people who marry and commit ourselves physically, mentally, and emotionally to our spouses, I know that it is also symbolic. I understand the symbolism of Christ and his Bride. The delight that Solomon shows in the Shulamite woman is marvelous. It’s a little uncomfortable for my Western ears. I confess to finding the thought of teeth like sheep pretty disgusting as a romantic overture. After all, who wants fuzzy teeth! Brush those pearly whites!
Now, lest I appear to think we should walk about full of ourselves in our greatness, let me be clear. We’re worms. We’re but walking dust. Apart from Christ and His blood, we are like menstrual rags as Isaiah so vividly puts it. How gross can you get? However, thanks to another kind of blood… the sacrificial purifying blood of the Lamb of God, we are His chosen. His beloved. Isn’t that the most wonderful thing ever? It just amazes me.
It’s all in the “pensive” of the Bible. It’s all in there. Every last little bit. We can see the love and care that the Lord has for us. We can feel the everlasting arms around us as we grow weary. We can know from our minds to our hearts, to our feet that run to Him who receives all the cares we cast upon Him… we are beloved. He delights in us. He rejoices over us. He alone is worthy but we were created FOR His pleasure! Hallelujah! (That old pentecostal streak likes to try to escape every now and again!)
I think that sometimes we need to view the Bible with fresh eyes. Not because it lacks anything. It doesn’t. The Word of God is complete for every thing that we need. However, we’re weak. We’re fallen. And sometimes we need to view things from a different perspective before we can truly see how they are.
I think it’s time that I “fell into” the pensive of the Word. I could use an infusion of the Lord’s perspective. I think I’ve allowed my faulty one darken my perspective for too long. Once again. That is one habit I’d be happy to break. It is interesting to me to realize that in so much of my Christian walk, immersion into some part of Jesus is crucial.
Knights and castles. Ladies in waiting. Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot. The stories of romance and chivalry. I always hated them. I thought Guinevere was a spoiled shameless woman, Lancelot was a peacock masquerading as a man, and Arthur wasn’t worthy of his title of King.
Jousting didn’t thrill my soul. I’d rather watch baseball. (For my opinions on baseball, watch for my next blog) Honestly, I’m supposed to take two men in metal riding at each other with sticks seriously? At least the Scots threw poles with brute strength and tossed rocks with abandon! At least they danced! Honestly, Sir Modred seemed to have more gumption than the rest of the knights put together.
So how did I become a fan of a series of books like The Squire’s Tales? I happened to read a blurb about one (the eighth in the series I think) and it sounded funny. I was having a bad day and a funny book sounded delightful. I bought it. As you can see, this alone should have shown my mental state. I’m having bad day today, so I’ll buy a book today, and read it on a day when I’m probably having a marvelous day. After all, bad days don’t happen that often!
Well the book, The Lioness and Her Knight, arrived on an afternoon when the house was unusually empty. Lorna was snoozing in my bed, Ethan was buildiing masterpieces of Lego and the rest were off with friends racing around the desert practicing, I assume, for Jenna’s great head injury. To show why I was so eager to read the book, here is the publisher’s synopses and a couple of reviews.
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Luneta is tired of living in dull Orkney with her mother and father (who happens to be the most boring knight of King Arthur’s Round Table). She prides herself on always getting what she wants, so when the opportunity presents itself, she jumps at the chance to stay at a family friend’s castle near Camelot. Her handsome cousin, Sir Ywain —a young knight seeking adventure—arrives just in time to escort her to King Arthur’s court. Along the way they pick up a knight-turned-fool named Rhience, whose wit and audacity set many a puffed-up personality in its place. Before arriving at Lady Laudine’s castle, the trio stops at Camelot, where they hear the story of the Storm Stone, a magical object deep in the forest that soon sweeps everyone into a web of love, betrayal, and more than a bit of magic.
Filled with broken promises, powerful enchantresses, unconventional sword fights, fierce and friendly lionesses, mysterious knights, and damsels in and out of distress, The Lioness and Her Knight proves itself as witty and adventuresome as the rest of Gerald Morris’s tales from King Arthur’s court.
Review:
“”Adventure, magic, love, and knights of the realm collide in this delightfully witty tale from the legend of King Arthur. . . . With characters reminiscent of a Monty Python sketch and a knight with a Don Quixote complex, this romp through the land of King Arthur is a gem.” –School Library Journal
Review:
“Morris balances farce and drama with ease, and his main characters are memorable, sympathetic, and frequently hilarious.” —Horn Book
Who could resist?
Honestly, I laughed through the entire book. I rolled, I roared, I got more raised eyebrows from my kids than I can count. I read sections to my husband who dutifully smiled and snickered as the occasion warranted. He is so obliging.
I decided that it was worth a shot. Maybe, just maybe, the first book would be at least semi-enjoyable. It was. I read the second book. Loved it. I passed them on to friends. I kept buying. I’ve now read them all and am tapping toes, fingers, and nose hairs waiting with baited breath (and come on Mr. Morris, do you know how FOUL baited breath is? Give my family a break!) for the next book. Haven’t I bought enough of them to hold weight with you? I personally have purchased four complete sets!
I’ve never been a fan of the Arthurian Legends. These books do what someone should have done years ago. They take all of the stories, from all of the sources and languages, and pull the best from them into one great story.
A few of my favorite things in these books:
Lancelot: He’s shown for the philandering creep that he is without defiling my mind to do it. He also is later shown as a repentant and worthy man. What a concept. Repentance. What will they think of next?
Guinevere: She’s shown as the silly self-absorbed woman that she was. She isn’t romanticized and idolized as the epitome of femininity. It’s about time.
Arthur: He’s shown as a hurting husband. His wife’s mental infidelity is shown as the home-wrecking thing that it is. He’s shown as a loving and forgiving man but one who is strong and unyielding too.
Tristan and Isolde: A totally different take than the movie. I loved it.
The Hermits of the Wood: Oh boy. This was marvelous. So these knights are wandering through a wood and come across a few hermitages. The first was clearly a Calvinist. As I read it, not realizing there would be more and different hermits, I thought that Morris must be a Reformed Baptist. He captured the Reformed view perfectly with just a hint of, what I presumed to be self-, teasing.
Then you came to the next hermit. Oh boy was he funny. Charismatic or Pentecostal, I’m not quite sure which, this man tried desperately to bring them to grief and repentance over their sins. He pushed, he pleaded. He wanted them to weep for their lot. I regret to say that he failed.
The final hermit was a pleasant fellow but a bit non-descript. He was clearly pious but not in a way that could define his theology. I imagine there might be a smidge of Morris himself in this hermit. Mr. Hermit spoke of both of the other hermits and asked if they’d wept for the second. The knights admitted that they had not. Alas, the hermit was disappointed. “Oh it means so much to him if you cry.”
Talk about side splitting.
Get the books. Go to the library, eBay, whatever it takes but get the books. You won’t regret it and you just might learn to enjoy Arthur. Now that’s amazing!
Ok, if I haven’t convinced you yet… I could mention that Kaylene had a less than thrilled attitude about having to read the first book. While she knew better than to truly complain, she was not excited about it in the least. It took a reminder that there was a deadline. The shelf of eight more books wasn’t very encouraging either. However, I am pleased to say that she started on the second book without a word of encouragementand is talking about Terrance as though he was a dear friend. They’re THAT good.
Caveat: These books DO have the “other world” stories of Morgan le Fey and similar “magical” things that are in the original legends. If these things violate your conscience, I am afraid I’ve just wasted your reading time and for that, I apologize.
What do these have in common? I can’t stand any of them. Especially Baseball. I promised in this blog an expose of my opinions on baseball so here it is in all of its boring glory. Pun intended.
Ok, so you go to a ballgame. You order the nasty dogs, grab some salted peanuts which are only sold to convince you to purchase an overpriced drink, and you sit and wait.
And wait.
Shift in your seat.
And wait.
Then, someone who can’t sing, or who can but is possessed by the erroneous idea that our National Anthem must be sung as terribly as possible in order to stick to some unwritten law, stands and butchers the Star Spangled Banner. Add more vibratto here.
Then you sit again. At least your bum is circulating again. No worries, it’ll be numb again soon. I promise.
Finally, the first pitch is thrown. This is probably the most interesting thing that will happen for a long time. Make sure you don’t miss it. Then again, it’s only ceremonial so don’t get too excited.
So now they warm up. They stretch, they scratch, they pound their glove with a ball.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Finally a guy leaves the dugout. Oh boy. We might see some action. Please note that in a basketball game by this time, there has been at least a few points made. Probably by both sides. Yes, I have ADD. Baseball proves it.
So the guy grabs a bat. Tosses it aside and grabs another one. He then grabs another one. Apparently he can’t hit so he needs two to make sure he gets that ball. Like the umpire won’t stop him. Yep, he throws one aside. He looks mad. Can’t blame him. Two bats are better than one I always say. Maybe he’s got bad eyesight. Probably.
So, he stands at the plate. He shifts. He raises the bat. He shifts again. The catcher scratches himself. The pitcher nods. He winds. He spins. He throws to second base.
WHY DID HE DO THAT! The first ball hasn’t been hit yet! Sheesh!
Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Except for the second base part.
So then, finally… a ball passes plate. The guy didn’t swing.
“BALL”
Ok, at this point, we’ve been sitting in the stand 45 minutes at the very least, the first pitch was twenty minutes ago, and we still haven’t even had a hit or a strike!
Finally, after two more balls and a strike, the guy hits the ball.
“FOUL BALL”
Ok, so. This is why I hate baseball. It is the most tedious, boring, inane game to watch. However, I will say, it is more fun to play. Oh, and I love that seventh inning stretch!
Nelly Kelly the baseball dame
Knew the players knew all their names
You could see her there every day
Shout horray. while they play.
Her boyfriend by the name of Joe.
Said to Coney Isle dear we’ll go.
Nelly started to fret and pout,
And to him I heard her shout, HEY!
Take me out to the ballgame
Take me out to the crowd
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks (I thnk she was angling for a prize ring and a proposal myself)
I don’t care if I never get back
Let me root, root, root for the home team.
If they don’t win it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out
At the old, ball game!
I was looking at some of my kids clothes the other day. I’ve never been one to hang onto things for sentimental reasons. I’ve not been someone who passes hand me downs down until they are threadbare and just down right ugly. I’m a fresh and new kind of gal.
However, sometimes even in their closets I forget that just because I made it this season and I really like it, and it is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo cute doesn’t mean that it isn’t tatty. I see it as it looked the first time my child wore it. I see it in all the adorable glory that it once had. Have you ever done that? Your oldest daughter had a favorite dress. Maybe it was bubblegum pink sprinkled with little white flowers and yellow centers. There was a crisp white collar trimmed in pretty lace. She loved that dress. She’d have worn it every Sunday (and Monday through Saturday too) if you would have allowed her to. However, as all favorite dresses do, this one grew too short. It hit mid-knee cap and then the top of the knee. Fortunately winter was almost there so it worked to pack it away.
A second daughter grew tall enough to wear it a year or two later. How exciting it was to pull out that beloved dress. Big sis talked about how much she’d loved it and marvelled at how it now hit her thighs like a long shirt. Again, the daughter wore the dress as often as she could. She to loved the happy flowers and developed her own special memories of the dress. The day daddy took just her out for ice cream after church. The birthday party where she got to bust open the pinata. And after a while, mom realized that it was becoming a smidge worn and maybe could be worn for an “every day” dress now that there were other clothes to wear to church. As it did before, the dress eventually became too short as the daughter grew.
Another daughter grows tall enough for it. Maybe it’s been a year or two or maybe there was a brother or two in between those girls. The big sisters go though the clothin boxes with mom and pull out their favorite dress. They’re so excited to see that it finally fits their little sister. They put it on her. It’s so cute! She wears it. And wears it. And wears it. Mom and sisters see the dress through nostalgic glasses. They see a bubblegum pink dress with white daisies and yellow centers. They see a crisp white collar with pretty lace. It’s a perfect length just two inches below the knee. Long enough for modesty but short enough to make the style perfect.
Dad comes home from work one day and sees his precious little girl bound up to him. For the first time, he sees the dress on his daughter as others do. The pink is pale and dingy. The fabric is threadbare. The collar isn’t crisp and only faintly resembles the bright white it once did. The lace is tatty and torn in places. The pretty flowers look wilted and greyed. They aren’t so pretty anymore. He doesn’t remember the dress. Like many men, he doesn’t know what clothes his children have or don’t have. He knows his family just got home from an outing and wonders why his wife is allowing their child to run around town looking like a street urchin of days gone by. It takes the fresh eyes of someone who doesn’t have those rose (or bubble gum pink in this instance) colored glasses to show the ladies in his family exactly how worn and ugly the dress has become.
So much of our life is like that isn’t it? We don’t see that the wear and tear of the years has made our homes look abused or neglected. We don’t realize how limp our hair is from lack of attention. We don’t see the effect of cobwebs on our brains until we are faced with a real crisis in knowledge. We quit ironing years ago. Our clothes prove it. Maybe we quit takign care of our skin, our teeth, our wardrobe, or our heart. Is your heart suffering from neglect? Have you taken time to clothe it with the mantle of Scripture? Are your sheets holely or you curtains filthy? Is your white shower curtain orange?
Do we see life as it is, as we want it to be, or do we still see it as it once was? Is our bubble gum pink dress crisp and fresh, or have we let it get faded, threadbare, and limp? Is it time to let those old favorites go and find a few new favorites?
Blowing Dandilion pods. Swinging on a creaky backyard swingset until it rocked in the dirt. Slides. Mother May I. Olly olly oxen free. Can’t you hear it. Does a crisp fall evening tickle your memory? Can you hear the leaves crunch under your feet as you rake them into a huge pile? Do you anticipate the delightful feeling that comes when you sink into the “haystack” of leaves?
Bubbles. The dog snaps at each one as you blow it through the tiny little wand in your bottle of bubbles. Water balloons tossed through the air and lobbed hard at your ankles. Soaked. It’s a good feeling. The lazy summer evening air is still hot and the water feels good. Chlorine perfumes the air and mingles with the scent of sunscreen. Cicadas sing in the trees. Lemonade stands. Firecrackers. Roll out those lazy hazy crazy days of summer…
Damp earth. Red Light/Green Light. Jump rope.
Down by the ocean, down by the sea…
The green is so vivid! Baby animals are everywhere. Birds sing again. Bicycles down sidewalks and the wind in your hair as you fly past the mailboxes. Wagons bouncing over clod hills. Springtime afternoons after school hold dear memories…
Frost. Snow. Christmas carols and tree lots. Making snow angels and playing Red Rover bundled thick in heavy parkas. (they cushioned the fall too!) King of the Mountain. Men in Santa suits ringing bells in front of stores. Hot Chocolate. Paper Snowflakes. Real Snowflakes. Corncob pipes and ice skating. Mittens, one always lost or left behind. Heady spices of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Winter days squeeze the heart of my memories. I love them all.
I read This Blog today and the memories came flooding back. We did things that children today have never experienced. I rode a bicycle without a helmet. I felt the wind through my hair as I raced down streets with my arms crossed in front of me. No hands! I played Red Rover, Dodge Ball, King of the Mountain, and tackle football without “gear”. I rollerskated on four wheeled skates and the only one I ever saw injured outside of a scratch or a bruise here or there was me. Age fifteen. I broke my wrist in a roller rink. My kids don’t know what it is like to ride a bike down a street and have the wind whiste through their hair. I feel kind of sorry for them.
You know, the only thing I ever regretted for my children was the lack of games like Red Rover and Dodge Ball and King of the Mountain. You can’t play those games with just three or four kids. It’s kind of hard even if all nine were playing (with one being two and one not even home anymore, that takes away that idea!) to get up a good game. But now that I know they couldn’t anyway, I don’t feel so bad. I think we’ll have to try to find a way to alter the games just a bit so that we can play them. Just once even. Maybe some day they’ll tell their children about the day they played Steal the Flag and jumped rope with grandma.
I think we need that day to be soon. As it is, tomorrow I’ll buy bubbles. Lorna and I will sit on the back step and blow bubbles. I imagine Jenna, Andra, and Ethan will join us. Sergeant will certainly be there and will probably try to eat our bubbles as fast as we blow them. And maybe, just maybe, someday Lorna will be typing away on her own blog about how she remembers summer evenings blowing bubbles with mom and dad and giggling over Sergeant trying to keep up.
There is an article circulating amongst homeschoolers that discuss the rates in which some homeschooled children are ‘abandoning ship’. It makes some very good points. One of the points it makes is that many families are on their family ship and instead of having a destination, they’re just moored off shore. Yes, it is away from the temptations and evils of port but what kind of life and existence is it for the children? They need a destination. A goal. Life is about more than avoiding evil. Life is to be lived!
This made me think of the mid-life crises that men are well known for having. A man wakes up one morning, walks out on his wife and children, buys a sports car, and takes off on a cross-country road trip with a cute blonde bombshell. Meanwhile everyone is in shock. Now “godly homeschool fathers” may not do this. I’ve noticed that instead they sometimes become irritable, nervous about money, often becoming fascinated with online gaming with their big game systems, and similar things. They’re faithful to their wives and don’t break the bank but they stil do go to an extreme. Women lose weight, or get a part time job, start baking bread or quit baking bread. It seems like they want CHANGE with capital letters and many exclamation points.
I wonder, however, if it isn’t a similar problem across the board. Kids jump ship because they don’t see that their family is going anywhere. They don’t see a goal, a dream, or any reason to keep plugging along. They wake up in the morning and their goal for the day is simply not to be sullied by the world. Whoop-dee-doo. If you aren’t in a position where the world can sully you, this isn’t much of a job. Take pot shots at the occasional flounder that attempts to jump IN the ship and scrub off a bit of sea gull doo and your day is complete. What a glorious life. Blech.
Don’t get me wrong, days like that are BLESSINGS in the lives of people who are docked in the harbor and mingle in and out of the world on a daily basis. They need days where the worst they have to do is swab the deck or scrape a barnacle or two from the hull. As a diversion from a busy life full of work and striving toward whatever goal it is, occasional maintenance days are a reprieve.
But they have a goal. Whatever it is, they have a goal. It might be simple, or it could be complex. It doesn’t matter really, but if every day is just something to be survived and that alone is the success, ittwon’t work. Not in our country. Life isn’t about basic survival here in America. Life is about dominion in a different realm. We’re here to take the world for Christ. We’re here to be a balm on the hurting masses around us. We’re here to DO and BE. We’re not here to tread water.
And I think this is the problem. I think we’ve got families of water treaders. Sometimes the children get a vision. Whether it is for a business, a ministry, or hobby doesn’t really matter. Kids are resilient and adapatable. Many times, if given half a chance, they’ll create their own vision. I’m thinking of the moms right now. Yes, the original tale was about the droves of chidlren ‘jumping ship’. But what about moms? Why are moms burned out? Why are moms so very depressed? Why is it that so many wives and mothers are on a hampster wheel wearing out and never getting anywhere?
Is it because we’ve lost our vision? Do we need a reminder of the GOAL? Do we need something besides the here and now to get us through the here and now? Is it possible that in the middle of changing diapers, scrubbing toilets, doing dishes, and listening to the sputtering monotone of a beginning reader we need something more than just bed time to get us through the afternoon?
What is our goal? I’d say we all have different ones. Some might be a brighter future for their children. Some might be a heart for the lost or a haven amongst the lost of this worl. It can be a million different things but if another day under our belt is all we have going for us, we’ll eventually quit. Mentally, physically, or emotionally, we’ll quit. We can’t keep up an unsatisfying lifestyle forever. Eventually we have to rise above and do more.
What is the “more” that you need to do? Do you need to learn something new? Conquer an old habit? Remember the GOAL amid the trenches? What is it? I imagine that if you have bad days like the rest of us, there is probably something missing. Either you need to prune the extraneous to make time for the important, or you need to set goals so that you have tangible evidence for the finish line. Who wants to run a 500 mile race and not have a clue how many miles you’ve conquered! We need to feel the sweet victory that comes with success.
We all do. Even moms.
