PearlS | The Average Pearl

The teachers at the not-just-a-home

I am poking my head out of the ground less and less, scampering from hole to hole as one does when they homeschool. My phone is on silent. I clock six miles through my house on the average. Mac and cheese is the only viable hot lunch option. I pray that a math worksheet will take more than five minutes, enough time to maybe visit the bathroom. I need more treats in my cabinets, more friends to call when I get lonely and defeated.

I feel like I live in a factory. A lab. A cafeteria. An art studio. A theater. A hippy commune. A war reenactment.

Yes, we fold a hundred airplanes a day, and then we fly them. We stir up sweet tea and add kombucha, then swat fruit flies for three weeks while it turns into a bubbly elixir with a nasty film on top. Is it a scoby (good)? Is it mold (bad)? Let’s put it under the microscope and see if it wiggles.

We swab things around the house–the fish tank, dog’s mouth, knee scrape (Luke’s fitness wound, the label reads) and incubate the germs in petri dishes in the living room window seat, a tea towel covering the evidence.
One child rips brown paper bags into long strips and hot glues them to a cottage cheese container. It is Bunker Hill, he announces, then asks me if I have any popsicle sticks so he can fortify the post.

Cardboard boxes in the recycling bin are met with tears.
“Did you throw away my project?” they demand to know.
“No…” I lie, and tell them Daddy probably didn’t know it was special.

They have figured out how to play harpsichord and human voices simultaneously on the digital piano. Along with the preprogrammed player feature and metronome. The Entertainer blasts out, full volume, as a child ad libs, an eerie, annoying, medieval pounding vibrates the house.

Am I in a bad movie?

I look through the freezer and see a tea cup, full of water–ice now–and what is it? A cookie, solid in the middle of the mass.
“Who froze a cookie in a cup of water?” I holler through the house. Luke meekly claims the experiment.
“Well…I had a couple plans. Soak it all the way and then freeze it or just leave it and see what happens,” he shrugs. (At least they no longer pee in the basketball goal base in the driveway.)

My little girl is in the garden, picking ripe tomatoes and squash. She brings them in the house, the tomatoes to the counter for me to taste. The squash are soon wrapped in blankets. Her squash babies.

My writing languishes in bits and pieces, some pages in a folder, some chapters on google docs. It makes me terribly sad to watch it slip away, but I cannot sustain the focus when someone is describing, in great detail, how to fold a Jar Jar Binks origami puppet. Plus, bibliographies and editing–two huge mountains I can’t get over.

Tempus fugit, I texted a friend. Time is in no way flying, but it is what I tell myself. It’s what old ladies always tell young ladies like me with young kids (usually at the grocery store, when the blood pressure is high). You’ll miss this.
Maybe. I love my kids, but I unashamedly love silence. (Aaand, I’m already feeling guilty for saying it.) You are their best teacher, the homeschooling ghost of the school year present wags her finger. I’m pretty sure I am not. I was hoping this year or next might be the one where I’d get a job–but life is too absurd to counter.

Homeschool is here. I’ve never posted front porch, first day pictures of any kind of school. It’s a bit of the pride of life–that fleeting pleasure in what my kids are doing, what I am doing–and I’m ever aware of the hurt it unintentionally causes. I don’t love this world. If I need any more reason to not flaunt it, I need not look far: the struggle is all around. Our neighbor down the street will be remote learning in their rental with his fourteen year old sister while their single mom is at work. They’ll eat cold cereal again for lunch because they cannot get to the food distribution center for another meal.

Three hundred thousand people in Beirut lost their homes and schools three weeks ago in an explosion. They have been largely forgotten.
Friends of friends lost their kids–all of them–in a car crash caused by a drunk driver. They would give their soul for it not to be so quiet in their house. When do they get a fresh start, cute pictures on the front porch?

Nothing is fair. I’m grateful for my not-just-a-home, as crazy as it feels, as buggy as it makes me. Why me, God? Why are you so good to me? Can you teach me to look forward and not back, can you help me fix my eyes on the horizon and not on myself? Can you keep reminding me that the next hard thing doesn’t depend on my ability to do it but my willingness to trust you?

I’ve been intending to add some little interesting homeschool resources, but I kind of blanch at the idea of offering something that seems so subjective to the masses. Your kids are not my kids. I know that–you know that. Do what you think is best, right? Seize the day, because you aren’t guaranteed another one.

In the feeble hopes of inspiring my own learners (and perhaps pretending I’m confident when I’m not), I’ve been reading Susan Wise Bauer. She’s the writer with whom I have a love-hate relationship. She is so wise when she isn’t condescending. I love her philosophy as a post-homeschooler better than when she wrote The Well-Trained Mind.

Her more recent book, Rethinking School: How to take charge of your child’s education, had some excellent points. (She’s a grandma now, and can look back a little more objectively at her child-rearing and schooling years.)

The theme I picked up on was this: kids are different, so schooling should be, too. Wise Bauer’s new and improved view boils down to a more flexible approach to education at home. It includes how to avoid the “going global” terror I frequently sink into with homeschool–where one small, miniscule action by a child ends up with my hysterical, panic-ridden reaction.

You told me you finished your math problems, but I just found the crumpled paper shoved down next to the sofa cushion and it’s not even half done.
And then it escalates.
You didn’t do the work. I know it’s hard. But you just quit. You don’t know how to word hard.
And you lied to me! You didn’t tell me the truth. If you can’t tell the truth and work hard, you won’t be able to graduate from high school. And then what will you do? You’ll never be able to go to college and get a job.
And you’ll end up in a cardboard box.
Under a bridge.

With no health insurance.

Keep in mind that when you’re homeschooling, the opportunities for going global multiply. It’s related to fear. Fear that you’re not doing a good enough job to prepare them for life…
It’s just a math worksheet, not a referendum on the rest of his life. He’s not revealing a deep character flaw. He just doesn’t want to do his math.
Rethinking School, Susan Wise Bauer

This is the kind of encouragement I need to hear. We’re doing our best here. We’re not proud. Some days we won’t do math because I’d rather be just a mom.

My kids have turned our home into a grand experiment–one where I usually hypothesize the worst-case scenario…and they show me what gratitude and wonder looks like. They fold another plane. They marvel at the tiny hairs on the leg of a fly, magnified by their dinky microscope. They wrap up squash babies and sing them to sleep.

They are miracles, moment by moment by moment miracles.
It upends me.

They are my best teachers, under every circumstance. Thank you, Jesus, for letting them teach me.

Common Sense

Introduction: Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them to general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

I will translate, since this was written in 1776 by an Englishman:
I doubt what I’m going to say will be agreed with by everyone, and this is because my dear readers have become so used to a WRONG that they only see it as RIGHT. Understandably, it is one’s first reaction to defend tradition. But this eventually wears off, because
Time makes more converts than reason.

Judging by our fancy, important, dressed-up politicians who rely on the support of professional athletes and actors, you might think politics a noble pursuit. You might just think your freedoms needed faces, and the scrubbed up and shinier, the better. We call them our leaders, after all, as if they charge into battle on our behalf. It’s tradition, and we gladly defend it. Red, white, blue. Donkeys and elephants.
But who is being duped? Who runs a two trillion dollar deficit and gets to be in charge of anything? What is this bipartisan baloney, when all of us can see their goal is to discredit, malign, and undercut the other party?
We can’t defend this outrageous “custom” any longer. It isn’t cute or patriotic, more wrong than right. We’ve made a full circle, 244 years, to be exact. Where is our pamphlet? What can set us straight?
Back then, Thomas Paine was attempting to rally the troops. He was hoping to spark confidence with his little pamphlet, Common Sense–enough to send King George a breakup letter.

Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least.

Common Sense kicked the tails of some 150,000 Americans who bought Thomas Paine’s words. I think they were more tired of politics than we are now, far more ready to move than he gave them credit for. Within six months they’d penned the Declaration of Independence.

Here are my questions for the average to avid American political hobbyist:
How many hours have you spent worrying over an election? How many words have you gushed, how much talk radio have you consumed? How much of a fire have you fanned into flame over the exciting topic of politics?
Was it worth it?
How many Thanksgivings and Christmases have you tainted, trying to argue to your distant relatives the character of men and women who flex their power in D.C.?
Who wears a little I Voted! Sticker as a badge of honor, as if they are an exemplary citizen, devoted to the utmost degree? Who wears a necklace? Who changes their cute little profile picture to reflect their current political stance to their friends?

Hot air, all of us. We aren’t even self-controlled or peaceable enough to keep our mouths shut over mashed potatoes and gravy. We aren’t bold enough to sacrifice our freedom to defend our country because we’ve never known what real terrible, oppressive government is like.
How much more time do we need before we can smell something foul in the water? But now several of us are finally perceiving some wrongness in something we’ve always thought right.
Politics are becoming unpalatable, and it might surprise you to hear it:
Our government doesn’t exist for our life, liberty, and happiness–it exists to stomp on those who wish to take it from us. And when it fails (and it is failing, don’t let the lipstick fool you),
We furnish the means by which we suffer.

We aren’t just touting republicans, democrats, independents, conservatives, progressives as inspiring superhumans who speak on our behalf–we are actually letting this necessary evil dictate our society.

Let it sink in. Acknowledge your comfort level with this intrusion. We’ve become Sesame Street puppets, little idiots who turn on the TV and wait for the humans to explain what is going on and how we should feel about it. We sing songs along with celebrities, parodying evil, committing it to memory, and thinking it more American than saluting the flag. We invite politics into our social lives like it were just another silly diversion, and not a snake wanting to squeeze us to death.

What are we proud Americans so proud of now? The exciting feeling that comes every four years with “the election of our lifetime”? Pledging allegiance to a lifelong politician?
That Thomas Paine, what a pain.

Let it signal to our brains that there is an injury–let it force us to think before we act, vote, talk, potentially ruin relationships. It’s an old bandage, but I think it works–Common Sense.

As a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.
Common Sense, Thomas Paine, 1776

Stepping on Toes

I’ve been absent from the blog. A few weeks ago I had a run in with Romans 14 and had to sort things out again in my mind.

Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. (v.1)

None of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. (v.7)

Each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. (v.12)

Stop passing judgment on one another. Make up your mind not to put any stumbling block in the way of a brother or sister. (v.13)

Let us make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification. (v.19)

Is what I say useful in building people up, or am I crossing some invisible line where my freedom steps on the toes of others’ consciences? Have I said something about masks or social distancing or school that rips at the seams of someone else’s convictions?

It’s good to put the pen down and let the Spirit do some mind transformation.

Who ever declared it was instinct, simply “observation” to take to your nearest social media account to bleed out reactionary wounds, declarations, and anger? It has never made me feel anything but uneasy–probably because it falls into the category of whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. (Romans 14:22)
I apologize for adding toil and trouble to the cauldron. I guess I’m as human as they come.

Two ears, one mouth–if that isn’t symbolic of the proper ratio, listening to jabbering, I’m not sure what it could mean. Yet there is a need for thoughtful, reserved humans to communicate discernment, which is the only reason I ever return to this blog.

We’ve been catching bits of the Democratic convention in the evenings, and I want to listen and understand where these politicians are coming from. I truly do, I want to see where they derive their certainty, their belief that everything would get better in a nation where godless citizens demand justice while blaming everyone but themselves.

I had to turn the TV off. These are lifelong talkers, not listeners.

This week, I spent the day with an immigrant friend, arranging a doctor’s appointment, online job searching, explaining notarios publicos. She made arepas with my kids and hugged us when we left. The next day, a public school teacher showed up on my doorstep and visited with me for four hours. We talked about everything from her concern for students this fall to the miracles God has worked in our respective marriages. She ate a meal of chicken and rice with us on the front porch, my kids scooting up close to her to inhale the deliciousness of a kind soul.
I am trying to live the life of a good neighbor, not argue the character of some tweet-hemorrhaging talking head in Washington. They care about power, nothing more.
They don’t see the damage their policies cause, the racism and classism they so hopelessly try to eliminate–is made worse by their efforts. My local school will be doing remote learning for anywhere between two and eight weeks, foreseeable longer, whether or not families have access to internet. When they return to the physical building, they’ll be segregating the English and non-English speakers for cohort purposes–under the guise of keeping one another safe. It’s just an extension of what happened when school choice became the buzz word, meant to give disadvantaged folks the advantage of electing into a better school, but actually sparking a bigger segregation movement because only the most privileged of us had the cars to transport us to better schools.

Where can we find wisdom that transcends this nonsense, this talking head business? Where can we put a plug in the trickle down effect politics has on our faith? How can we keep some things between ourselves and God as a favor to our weaker friends (v.22) and at the same time “make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification” (v.19)?

Lord, do you want my mouth open or shut?
After I read Romans 14 over and over, it became more clear to me: we Christians worry a lot about offending one another–we take it to heart, we tiptoe around issues as to avoid them. But we don’t much think about offending God. We are non sequiturs, as hopeless as the politicians we support or scorn.

Sixteen years ago, we got married. At the wedding shower, a lady from the church gifted me a Republican Women’s Club cookbook. Inside the front cover was a note,
“Hope this gets you started off on the ‘right’ foot!” I cringed then, though I didn’t quite understand why. But now I know why it was so absurd:
The kingdom of God is not of eating or drinking, or of Republican or Democrat*,

But of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.

My two precious friends this week didn’t care one iota where I stood politically. And it wouldn’t have glorified anyone but myself if I’d have brought it up. We had fellowship, we glorified God because we didn’t indulge in petty remarks. My kids witnessed peace, mutual edification, love.

After I chewed on Romans 14, I returned to my Old Testament reading, where David has put up with King Saul’s abuse for years and years. He left. He turned off the TV and quit his social media accounts. He didn’t stay within a mile of the palace, fighting for his place in politics. He actually moved out of the country and lived as a foreigner.

David–the teenager who killed Goliath, the young man anointed by Samuel to become king–ended up behind enemy lines to preserve his soul. He lived with the Philistines for over a year, disappearing from the map for a while. He pulled a trick card, one that no one saw coming. He probably disappointed his own mother–for sure he disappointed his first wife, Michal. He had two chances to kill Saul, the man after his own life, but he didn’t do it.

He was not going to offend God.

There were people who had his back all along–they knew it was all a roundabout journey to glory. They didn’t question his motives or allegiance. He was a genuine guy. Anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval. (Romans 14:18)

And God made David king.

Friend, I hope you are staying the course.
I hope you’ve made up your mind to not cause a brother or sister to stumble.
But I also hope–I pray–that you are unwilling to offend God. I hope you stick your neck out for people whose voice does not carry. I hope you risk your life to love others and give them the hope Jesus offers. I hope you can toss your agenda and prestige in the garbage when He tells you it’s time to move on.

Be like David and surprise people with your relentless pursuit of Christ. Shock them–not by your words, but by ditching your Twitter account and disappearing into a distant, foreign land–perhaps to your very own neighborhood and family.

*added for my amusement. I think the apostle Paul would understand.

My heart is not proud, Lord,
My eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
Or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
Like a weaned child I am content.
Israel, put your hope in the Lord
Both now and forevermore.

Psalm 131, a psalm of David

No Consent

Our libraries finally opened. We’d been putting books on hold for four months. Once a week we’d pull into the parking space, call the hotline, relay our library card number, pop our trunk, and wait for a gloved and masked (G&M) librarian to deliver the goods.
So we were excited to get our summer reading rewards in person, the kids having logged a million minutes (or something like that). My kids love the library.
Those of us older than ten masked ourselves and we strode into the common area. Coincidentally, the library had been completely renovated and we were oohing and ahhing the remodel as we made our way to the front desk. A terse G&M librarian pointed us to the shelf where the treasure laid, kids’ eye level, labeled with a green tape: DO NOT TOUCH.

“Each child may pick two books for their prize, but don’t touch them. Make your selection and I’ll give you a copy,” she explained.
Well. If that isn’t a cool rain on our sunny, book-fanatic parade. Also, try and tell a four year old girl she can only look at, and not touch the Fancy Nancy book she has just earned for her summer trouble. It only took a fat second for my littlest kids to reach out and touch the shelf, to stroke the shiny surface of a paperback. It was as natural as, say, going to the library.
But the selection wasn’t even that good.

The G&M librarian swiftly descended.
“Ah, ah!” She tsked. “I’m going to have to quarantine those now!”

I quickly ushered my children back toward the front door.
“But we haven’t got our prizes yet!” they protested.
“We’ll get ice cream instead,” I said.

We piled into the van and I confessed to my kids I was a little angry.
“Why?” they sweetly asked.
“Because I think kids should be allowed to touch books in the library,” I told them.

In July, I began homeschooling in earnest.
Well, sort of.
I found a free “Bill of Rights for kids” printable online and made two copies for the big boys. It was a quickie, afternoon foray into worksheets post-Covid-shutdown. It was worth having them write just to see how much our poor penmanship has suffered from minimal use, but I needed a reminder for me and my kids: what, exactly, are our rights? Where, exactly, is the line drawn? Who had what in mind when these tenets were written two hundred years ago?
I wanted them to be reminded of what Jonathan Swift wrote and our forefathers echoed in the Declaration of Independence, that government without the consent of the governed is nothing more than slavery. Our Declaration boldly declares if “any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government…”

Thirteen states had to whittle down a Bill of Rights they could all agree on, and these are the most basic, collectively valued, human desires expressed by a baby nation.

They ring true today: I want to worship in a manner I see fit, I want to defend my family, I want a safe home, I want to send my kids to school, and dang it, I want to touch the library books.
You’re telling me I can go to the grocery store and handle all the apples, pull my germy cell phone from my back pocket to double check my list and coupons, touch the cart with my bare hands, pay with cash that’s been who-knows-where–but I can’t walk into my tax-supported library and pick up a book? Seems shady. It doesn’t get my consent.
Seems like we have grounds for terminating this sack of rotting modern policy.

Alas, this is what the world-turned-upside-down looks like today. I do believe we are 180 degrees from the direction we were headed in 1776. We are imploding, destroying ourselves. Consent of the governed, i.e. taxation without representation, is a nifty old phrase we’ve put away with yesterday’s knickers and powdered wigs. You and I–we cannot rely on the words penned by our forefathers, because haters would burn it in a moment if they could. We are held hostage, unable to defend our “consent of the governed”, unable to abolish the overreach of government, because the enemy has come from among us.

If I thought screaming and protesting would do it, I’d be right out there with the lot of them. But the colonial people were wiser: they simply refused to participate in Britain’s blatant disregard for their consent. They simmered, but they didn’t boil over. In the middle of the night they dumped the tea right off the ship.

We have to be just as calculating. Our surest, most defiant resistance will not come in the form of outrageous, disrespectful bursts of violence. Our best, most noble cause now is quietly educating our children. While the world is dark we are throwing seeds in the ground. We are raising the next generation of arrows in God’s quiver. We’ve got to train them to spot inconsistencies and defend what is true.

This focus, for me, is becoming sharp in my mind.

So I am not so hopeless when I think of homeschool. Circumstances are never outside of God’s control–I am just apt to whine and carry on when I don’t get what I want. But then I can usually come around to His point of view. This school year, I am spurred on to review as much civics as possible (hey, surprise, surprise, a state standard!–how much longer before citizenship is disparaged?) and indoctrinate (yep, you heard that right) my children into a higher way of living as the 4-Hers say, “for my community, my country, and my world.”

And as much as I feel at odds with our library system, for the moment I can get my books via car pick-up, as long as my children don’t dare breathe on the gloved and masked librarians.

We will eat ice cream as we read the pages. We will celebrate, because freedom is not so easily wrestled from those who give no consent to take it.

Blue

This weekend, we called the police.
Thankfully, they responded.
This isn’t a new problem we’ve had in our neighborhood. It simply doesn’t matter how responsibly we try to live our lives–in this world there are people who are trapped in cycles, drugs, alcohol, violence, power struggles–and our front porch faces the action. We call the police because it is our duty to report abuse, to subject the rule-breaker to the law–not because we are privileged, not because we subconsciously hate our neighbors and want to destroy them–but because we’d be neglectful to ignore it. And also (a big also)–because I care about my children. I care about where they grow up and who they become. I sincerely want the best for them–just as I want the best for the baby across the street who has to suffer the consequences of his own guardians.

I don’t tolerate the notion I am fragile because I rely on my tax dollars to stop the domestic abuse across the street. I’m not weak or extremist; I shouldn’t need to defend my right to summon the help of professionally trained, gun-toting, bullet-proof vest wearing civil servants. If neighbors need the threat of being arrested to jolt them from the dead end lifestyle of violence and addiction, God help me if I remain silent.

In the two years we have been here, we’ve become familiar with the Blue who has our back. When I say Blue, I refer to their uniform. Their place of birth, dialect, and skin pigmentation varies. But they’ve been in my house, they have even seen my basement and bedroom. I’ve offered them food, apologized for my messy kids, made jokes. They’ve been at our school, interviewing, advising, consoling, and bringing stability to kids who have none at home. Their authority is unquestionable, their very presence commands respect. The Blue uniform represents the Law–a firm boundary for what is acceptable and what is not.
But Blue is hated, because Blue testifies that actions have consequences.

I’m watching the very erosion of our community, five months and counting of changing rules that contradict every law our country has ever established.

It began with a virus. Or did it begin before the virus? Does the virus even matter? Did civil unrest come from being stuck in our homes to “keep us safe”? Was it the unlawful death of a man on drugs, the immediate, visceral, knee-jerk, media driven hysteria blaming it on his skin tone? Was it the bizarre incident of a man drunk-asleep in the Wendy’s drive-thru, a father who still had no business grabbing the taser from a cop?

I’m not sure what makes your hackles raise, but the Law isn’t supposed to bend. If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it. (Gen. 4:7)

Our Blue people are just people, trying to represent Law. They are men and women using their human senses to respond to lawlessness. They are not the Law. I’m watching my Blue friends crack, I’m watching the foundation crumble. I’m seeing people I love who represent Law be mocked, scorned, hated. I want justice for them, as I want justice for people who are wrongly slain–but throwing out the baby with the bathwater never solved a problem. Hold individuals accountable, but if you destroy the Law, you sentence us all to death.

You sentence the baby across the street, whose parents were high when they started screaming and beating each other in the front yard. You sentence the grandparents next door who cannot defend themselves when the thief breaks in their front door. You sentence yourself to the drug-fed, alcohol-induced, psychotic, rageful whims of the hopeless and lawless.

When Law is abolished, it bleeds into every area of life. Teachers unions are trying to strike a deal in some cities–demanding the dissolution of police force in trade for returning to school. If Law can be dissolved, if the education of our children can be politicized and pushed to the side for some “greater good”, we have no hope for a future generation. We have no hope for a society, no common ground, no peace. No action to take when safety is threatened.

No hope that the poor neighbors across the street can ever break the cycle of drugs and abuse.

She texted me in the middle of the night after the second beating. She’d gotten away this time, unlike the time I tried to coax her to a safe house and she instead returned to the brick house across the street where he’d threatened to kill her.

“I love you guys,” she wrote at 1:18 am.
I’m going to be a better person,” she promised.
I told her none of us are any good, not without Jesus. But the Law is where we begin to realize it–the rules we keep breaking, the consequences we face eventually lead us to a desperate prayer for help.

This is why Law is essential, so we can eventually get to the prayer: God, help me. The Law is for you, me, and my neighbor to understand that becoming a better person is beyond the Law. Abundant life isn’t about edging as close to the line as possible and getting away with it, but actually overcoming our old nature and pursuing holiness.

Blue is the shadow of hope–they are exactly who I need in my neighborhood, who you and I need responding to my 911 call when we witness abuse and lawlessness. We need Law because it is a solid foundation. We need people who do their best to represent it. These servants need encouragement.

We are not fragile. We are not bullied into apologizing for doing the right thing. Please don’t think you are valiant for degrading police. Dig deeper until the shovel meets some resistance. Where in your life does the rubber hit the road–are you just promulgating some theory from your safe home onto the internet, when you actually have no physical skin in the game? Are you holding a sign on the corner when you have never welcomed Blue into your home? Have you ever held the hand or cried with someone who is completely guilty, completely broken–in need of the law to point them to Jesus?

Consider where you stand. Our society–my precious neighbors–depend on it.

Reluctant Homeschool: How do I even begin?

Homeschool. Ah, how I loathe the word.
It’s back on the table, y’all, and I’m eyeing it like a weary barn cat with a surprise litter of babies to feed.
There are people who love it; there are people who mock it. But there is one thing for dang certain–some people take to it better than others.

They are the doers, no doubt, the kind that love family time and conquering projects with a good dose of teamwork. They are habit-happy, disciplined and discerning–weeding out the unnecessary and proud of their many accomplishments. They don’t waste time. Their houses are clean, because chores are assigned. They set the table and clean it off. Their kids do not wander through the galley kitchen, mindlessly grabbing a handful of Cheezits from the pantry and leaving the box tipped over. Their kids pick up and throw away the hundred zillion paper airplanes they crank out, assembly-line style. They don’t race in circles around the house or dismount the trampoline with bloody noses. They light candles and gather for cozy, marathon read-aloud sessions. They get along.

At least this is what I’ve always assumed, and therefore concluded I had no business ever pretending I could manage such a lifestyle. Yet here we are again, Fate spinning the Wheel of fortune and sticking a firm landing on Homeschool, Suckers!

I’d be lying if I said I’m thrilled.
In modern hipster-speak: I, an Enneagram 5, am married to Joe, an Enneagram 9, and we suffer the curse of being doing-repressed. Snicker all you want–it is categorically unfair. We are, by nature, sorely lacking in energy. We can barely get our kids to bed at night, let alone plan for the insurmountable task of implementing curriculum. We hide, rarely surface in public, ever cautious of overextending ourselves. Doing too much causes us major stress–it’s our biggest handicap. We manage life by scraping out a lowkey existence.
Our kids, if they are great kids (and I’m partial), are so because we love them, nothing more.

I don’t think it’s fair that people who are good at it constantly pin their homeschool badge to every bio, handle, resume, and “about the author” blurb. I’m terrible at schooling, but I’m not a failure of a mom for delegating it to the professionals.
The thing is, homeschooling doesn’t count a lick in the grand scheme of things. No one will ask you when you are eighty if you homeschooled your children. It is irrelevant and sort of conceited. It’s like making sure the world knows I hang my clothes on the line to dry instead of using the dryer (though imagine the energy savings). What matters is that I care enough about the clothes on my back to wash them once in a while. I take good care of what I’ve been given.

I say this to encourage you readers who find yourselves in the same unfortunate circumstances. This is for all of you who have never homeschooled before because your conscience never pestered you about it until now. You are not alone in this endeavor. Homeschool has only ever been the back-est of backup plans for us, too.

My husband, nearly forty years old, rolls his eyes if you ask him what he thought of being homeschooled as a child. My mother-in-law has birthday card-shamed me for making my kids go to public, where they “probably sit at a desk, staring longingly out the window, wishing they were free to play.”
Church people have offered remarks like aren’t you afraid for them? Too bad you’ll have to unteach them all the bad stuff they learn there. It’s a waste of time. They only teach to the middle. Do you really expect your kids to set a good example? Wouldn’t they do better at home?

This feels like a slap in the face to any parent who really, truly is just looking for an ally in the kid-raising business. Any schooling option has its pros and cons; the choice cannot be reduced to what-ifs. Of course we will still need to manage behavior and expectations: any conversation surrounding the viability of school ought not doom a parent to immediate failure.

Like millions of other parents, I’ve been scouring the internet since June for options. I’m not going private, for many personal reasons (but let’s be honest, money). I’m stumbling upon homeschool blogs who plug it as the only breeding ground for “family unity” and “Individualized learning”–but it seems like more of an excuse to homeschool for people who already love the lifestyle it offers.

My family is the opposite of a traditional, well-oiled machine. We are flounderers. We are imposters. I can’t even open the mail on a regular basis.

But here I am.
Public school is failing me. My governor is failing me. News outlets are propagating fear and dread.The world is terrified of breathing in a virus, and my only standing choice is to rely on the computer for remote learning. I could stand, yelling into the wind, hoping for some reason to catch on, but I’m a quick learner. I don’t want to send my kids into a vitriol panic at the local school, so I’m keeping them home.
For the foreseeable future.
Fortunately, I’ve done this before. Unfortunately, I’m doing it again.
Listen: I am not a legit homeschooler. I’m as reluctant as they come. But dang it, I’ve been drafted back into the service, and I’m going to give it all I’ve got until God discharges me with honorable merits.

So–for the uncertain, reluctant public schoolers out there commencing a tentative homeschool journey–I propose we stick together and buoy each other above the waves.

First, try to nail down the reasons you are taking this path.

Obviously, school is no guarantee, and right off the bat we are facing summer slide. Amid the politics and sickness going around, it is necessary to do whatever it takes to move forward in our education.
My family’s primary concerns at this point hover around the concept of computer-based learning. Public schools are worried about health and safety, but they are not coming up with a great alternative to being in class. The problem of computer learning for multiple young students at home is that it exceeds my ability to manage the situation. Something is funky about little boys and their brains on computers, and scheduled, hourly check-ins with various teachers is, for me, the worst ball and chain. What if I need to get groceries? What if I have an appointment? What if my four year old is throwing a huge screaming fit? It is too much to manage.

Therefore, this year my learning goal is excellent forward motion, minimal screen time, reasonable expectations.

(Note: it isn’t the goal that holds me up as “the best teacher for my kids”–a trap many fall into and sets parents up for failure and despair or on the flip side, pride and contempt for public education.)

Second, let your local school district know your plan to homeschool. I am still holding out till this week to see if, by some miracle, things will revert to normal. But many districts require fourteen days notice before the first day of school, so check into it.
Also, look up the your state’s standards on the Department of Education website, and jot down the core, primary standards and must-dos:
Is your child in a grade where state testing is mandatory? What are the expected areas of study? What does a family need to record? How many days of learning per year?

Hold these things lightly, because the world is a trainwreck right now, and sadly, chances are good there are many, many kids who will be far behind when we are all back in school eventually.

Excellent forward motion, reasonable expectations. I’ll try and post weekly some resources and ideas that are helping me stay relatively in the forward-motion–at least till things get back on track. We will get through it, and we will do it because we love our kids.

Encourage one another–from one reluctant homeschooler to another.