Time Memorials, Part 2

Making Time speak to you of God's goodness. This is at the heart of why we mark any day above another. Though all days might speak to us of all God's works in us and for us (Ps 19), as finite creatures, we need to focus on a few things at a time in order to appreciate them properly.

Because Christmas Eve falls on Sunday this year, Advent begins this coming Sunday. So we still have time to consider what we will do to give this season its true voice.

Advent is celebrated for the four Sundays before Christmas Day. It is a time to look back, remembering how Jesus actually entered Time and Space and flesh before. And it is a time to look forward, longing for His final return. In between, we look for His fresh visitation in our own hearts. (There is an excellent summary of Advent's purpose and celebration at The Voice.)

Christian tradition has set forth a two-year cycle of readings to help Christians to focus on various aspects of Christ's work in the Incarnation. This year's readings can be found at Daily Readings, Advent 2006.

This year they begin with Jesus' parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids (Mt. 25:1-13). Remember that story? Ten bridesmaids all dressed up and ready for to escort the bridal party into the feast. Five brought extra oil for their lamps; five showed up with just what was in their lamps. It was a longer wait than anyone anticipated. The ladies drowsed and the lamps burned out before the midnight cry, "Here He comes!" roused them. Five were ready in a heartbeat, refilling their lamps from the extra they had brought. Five were unprepared, and finding that they couldn't mooch off of others, went on a wild hunt for a late-night oil merchant. Not only did they miss the procession; they missed the whole wedding. Jesus gives us the moral of the story: "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh."

Here is your mission (should you choose to accept it). Meditate on this Scripture and consider these questions:

1. Into what dark place in your life do you long to see Christ come with His joy and His healing?
2. How will you keep your 'lamp' alight with the Spirit's presence until Christ comes to you with power?
3. How will you encourage your family and those around you not to lose heart waiting in the dark? How will you draw others into the drama of waiting on the Lord?

Then come back on Friday for my new meme: Redeeming the Time. I will be using Mr Linky to help you (You can try it out today for fun!). Post on your own blog or in my comments section whatever meditations you can share with us, and your ideas for inviting others to "prepare the way of the Lord" in their own lives.

Be creative! Some of your ideas will be purely contemplative. Some should be concrete (Like deciding to read the Advent Scriptures together each day by the gathering light of Advent wreath candles, or learning to sing the parable as the hymn: "Soul, Adorn Thyself with Gladness"). We will all have time on Saturday to incorporate some of these new ideas into our own celebrations on Sunday and in the week following.

See you on Friday!

Recovering the Bard

We have forgotten how to read. We have even forgotten how to tell stories. We sit in front of a blue plasma screen, mezmerized by the latest string of inanities. But nothing touches us. Nothing there heals or challenges or strengthens.

The shocking thing is that we begin to approach every story, every event in our own lives in the same passive way that we approach television. Life is just the latest string of inanities. Entertaining but empty.

But the reality is: "God has delivered us, He has parted waters for us, He has made water gush forth from rocks and sent us our own manna from heaven. He has brought us into our own Promised Land. Will I miss the opportunity to tell the story to our children?"
~ Ann Voskamp, Holy Experience ~

We are working to recover the Bard at our house. We read the Scriptures and look for the ways that God has translated those stories into our own lives. When we learn to tell our own stories in those terms, we understand what those events mean, and how to proceed from here. We learn how to 'read' the events in others' lives too, when they tell us of the droughts and deserts and homelessness in their experience.

Our family is also looking for ways to make our everyday routines tell the stories of God's work on our behalf. That is why we love the Church calendar. It disciplines us to remember to tell the stories of the seasons and to give ordinary things like weather and time their true voices - the voices that speak to us of their Creator.

We are approaching Advent, the season when we prepare our hearts for a fresh Visitation of the Lord in a very personal sense, and look forward to His final coming when He will write us into the end of all Creation's stories, and like Scheherezade, will weave us into the next, more glorious tale of Eternity.

Come back tomorrow if you would like to join me in preparing Him room in your heart and entering into the world's joy at the coming of her King. I will be beginning a weekly meme on Advent.

Faith & Insanity

"Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time." ~ Oswald Chambers~

What is it that persuades someone to hope beyond the evidence of their experience? When everything around you tells you that the world is nothing more than a place of cruel torments and that God, if He exists, loves to mock His creatures, what gives you the audacity to declare that God is good? Or that life's horrors are the path to glory?

Your shrink will tell you that it's insanity (what color would you like your straightjacket?). Your pastor will tell you that it's faith.

But don't worry, you're in good company.

• Noah, that old fool, was a-building a huge boat for probably upwards of a century on a land-locked bit of ground while raving about escaping judgement by means of this mercy of God.
• Joseph continued in patient and excellent service, on the hope of a dream (literally!), after being betrayed by his own brothers, sold as a slave, falsely accused by his master's wife, and forgotten in prison by those he had helped.
• Mary maintained that God was her good and merciful savior even after He exposed her to the dangerous accusation of "unwed mother". She even heard voices and saw things that no one else saw.

I think I'll take my place among these raving lunatics. And there is a reason - even while the rest of it looks crazy. If God is not who He says He is; if life is not a training ground for something more; then nothing matters at all. There really is no difference between cruelty and non-cruelty, between good and evil, between "making a difference" and living for "all the gusto you can get".

So get the straighjacket ready, if you like. I'll just go on singing.

Holiday reading recommendations

For some leisure-time relaxation, try the blogs at Christian Women Online. My favorites include And I Shall Yet Praise Him, Deo Volente, Holy Experience, Whippoorwill Chronicles...

Not only are there some truly gifted writers there, but until tomorrow, you will have the opportunity to nominate your favorite reads for awards in several categories:

Best Friend Award
Someone that you deem as friendly--reaching out to those around her.

Most Joyful Among Us Award
Illuminates joy through her posts. Has a "glass-half-full" attitude.

Best Home Maker Award
Exhibits above average homemaking skills, with a love for the work she does in her home.

The Better Half Award
Shows a reverent respect for her husband, and delights in her marriage.

Most Humorous Award
Has a knack for wit, and the ability to find humor in her everyday life.

Best Group Blog
Has the best team of bloggers who inspire us with their words

Best Mommy Award
A mommy who joys in the job of raising little ones for the Lord.

Best Home School Award
Makes homeschooling something to be desired.

Best Scrapbooker Award
Designs and exhibits beautiful scrapbooking lo's.

Artistic Blog Skin Award
Has a blog design that stands out as unique from the rest.

And, our most favored award will be:

The Unified Heart Award
One who strives to unify the body of Christ through love, encouragement, and an always open heart. She is unto God a sweet savor of Christ.

There are 650 of us on the blog roll, but you can find the CWO blog roll by clicking here

Please send your nominations to:
editor@christianwomenonline.net

Scapegoats & Whipping Boys

The pundits have been chewing on the lessons of this election for a week now, and they don’t seem to have gotten the point yet. They have moved from analyzing rejected policies to blaming voting blocks. It appears that the Christian conservatives are traitors to the Republican Party.

Well, they are partly right. Christians have lost their faith in a party that will not stick to its principles. And that party has lost their votes.

In Colorado, you would have thought they could see it coming. In the last election cycle, the Republican Party dumped conservative workhorse Senate candidate, Bob Schaeffer, in favor of RINO millionaire Pete Coors. Disgruntled Colorado Republicans refused the bait. And in an election which saw massive Republican gains across the country, Colorado lost not only the US Senate seat, but lost control of the state house as well.

The Colorado Republican Party responded by fielding a whole slate of candidates more like Coors than like a real Republican, and now they’ve lost the whole enchilada. And if the national party had been paying attention, they might have taken a lesson from Colorado. We voted conservatively on the ballot issues, even though we refused to elect Republicans who only wore the button and not the values.

It might be profitable to the Republican Party to look at how Coloradoans voted on the issues, if they really want to learn the lessons of the election. Did Colorado actually vote for a liberal Democratic sea-change?

Well, we voted[1]
1) against giving homosexuals all the economic privileges of marriage
2) against requiring pre-school
3) for a traditional Christian definition of marriage
4) against educational spending targets that would likely result in increased taxation
5) against legalizing marijuana
6) for enforcing existing immigration laws
7) against usurping representative government with excessively lax petiton regulation
8) against politicizing the judiciary by limiting judges’ terms

On the issues, Colorado voted solidly conservative. It’s almost sky-writing huge. There are more registered Republicans in Colorado than Unaffiliated voters, and more Unaffilateds than registered Democrats, according to CBS news analysis on election night. The key to winning Colorado voters is putting up candidates who actually support the values the Party purports to champion.

As Capitol Hill FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey put it, "the toughest thing to realize is we did it to ourselves." Armey told a crowd of sixty congressional staffers at a post-election discussion, that Republicans lost because they have lost their way, and they need to return to their principles of limited government.

Do we really need a whipping boy? Look no further than the RINO next door.

---

[1] According to the Denver Post. http://www.denverpost.com/election/ci_4598747

The Perfect Gift

"No gift unrecognized as coming from God is at its own best... when in all gifts we find Him, then in Him we shall find all things."

~ George MacDonald~

"So tell us about your walk with God." The elders leaned into the membership interview. The organist was practicing in some far gallery, and the library shelves embraced them all with the wisdom of the ages.

"Well," she began, "I can't ever remember a time when I didn't know about God." (And how did that ever save you sorrow? she wondered. ) "But when I was three I had a problem with guilt…"

The afternoon sun dusted into the room where the tiny girl squirmed on her rose-crusted quilt, tears dry on her hot cheek. "It's not fair. I can't do it. I have to be perfect. I can't ever do it. They’ll never believe I'm really sorry. How will they ever forgive me?" She looked around desperately, raking long scratches down her arms, trying to shed the loathsome skin.

“My parents would discipline me – appropriately – and send me to my room to think about what I had done. But it never seemed enough to me.” (Why? What would drive a three-year-old to self-mutilation? A three-year-old who had never heard of such a thing?)

A dusky early morning. Her father with a suitcase and a business suit bending down, down to catch her as she danced to the fizzy hi-fi and to kiss her good-bye. “I’m going on a business trip. Don’t know when I’ll be back.” He paused, “Who do you love best, Mommy or me?” Suddenly, all the dance drained out of her. Hardly breathing, she remembered the shouting, the weeping in the night, something in a bad dream…but no. Surely what she said now would either bring her Daddy home again or never again. She would have to hold them together. All of them. Now there was a baby sister, too.

A perfect answer. It would have to be a perfect answer. No second chances.

“So in the interval for thinking, I would…hurt myself. Biting, bruising, scratching. It was best if I could bleed. My mother was beside herself with worry. She consulted with older women, who taught her to tell me the Gospel very simply. I remember asking Jesus to pay for my sins with His blood. And I never needed to hurt myself again.” (The abuses continued. Dad was …the pressure never let up, she realized. I would never be perfect enough to make life OK for Dad. But someone else had bled. Someone else had died, as I would have died. It was the perfect gift.)

Time Memorials (part 1)

"Like the proud mother who is thrilled to receive a wilted bouquet of dandelions from her child, so God celebrates our feeble expressions of gratitude." ~ Richard Foster~

My question is: Do we make the effort to celebrate our gratitude to God at all? Is it part of our spiritual disciplines?

Time was when Christians understood that we need special seasons of gratitute to help us to mark and remember the mighty works God has done for us. Not only was it part of a personal spiritual discipline, but it was part of a communal discipline of gratitude and cultural dominion.

The Church calendar is an amazing combination of marking God's wonderful works in the seasons when they probably happened, and of replacing pagan holy days with the memorials of the True God's interventions in time and space. The Christian holy days give those pagan time marks the meanings they ought to bear.

Two of the most famous replacements are just around the corner: Halloween and Christmas.

Halloween
For many pagan European cultures, October 31 or thereabouts represented a time when the realms of the living and the dead were open to each other, because it is the night when the day and the night are of equal length, but the night is lengthening. It has often been a night of real fear - and not merely a fear of roaming mischievous teenagers. Even today, Wicca adherents are warned not to despair on this night when they think of loved ones who have died.

The Christian Church replaced this Day of the Dead with All Saints' Day. On this day, Christians remember and honor the heroes of the Faith - the ones who bore many sorrows, who inspire and encourage us in our own sorrows, who resisted evil at their own peril, who were faithful unto death. There is not even the slightest danger of despair in this memorial, for these wonderful role models were sustained by the same God who upholds us.

We remember that even though it looks as though the Darkness will win, we have a mighty God who will light our way throught the darkest night, the longest winter of the soul. And we remember that our God has triumphed over the old gods and powers of darkness which terrified our forefathers.

The practice of sending children out to frolic dressed as those defeated powers is a mockery of those powers. It is God's people dancing on the graves of defeated and discredited gods. We have nothing to fear from those old powers. It is like Miriam and the women of Israel dancing on the heaving shores of the Red Sea, singing of the drowning of Pharaoh's armies as bits of the chariot harnesses washed up at their feet. Trick-or-treating may be viewed as a sort of 'plundering the pagans'.

Trick-or-treating may not be the best way, in our evil day, to celebrate this holy day. But the holiday will not have any beneficial effect unless we express it, unless we tell these tales to our children and teach them what this day means to those who love the LORD.

Many Christians remember the heroes of the Faith particularly in the historic movement to preserve a commitment to the truth of God's Word: the Reformation. October 31 is the day when Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg church, sparking the Reformation.

We celebrate Reformation Day by

• dressing as heroes of the Faith from every era and telling their stories in a Parade of Saints,
• letting the little ones play 'Nail the Theses' on the door,
• reflecting on our aspirations as families and creating Coats of Arms to express them,
• exploring the wonders of moveable type,
• feasting a la 16th century,
• treasure-hunting for 'contraband Bibles' while the Pope's men hunt for us,
• reinacting the trial of Luther at the Diet of Worms,
• and singing the great hymns that sustained the church through those dangerous times...

What will you offer in gratitude to your LORD for all His benefits? Will you refuse to celebrate at all? Or will you seize the day to make a memorial of God's goodness, a time to remember and to give thanks for christ's triumph over His (and our) enemies?
If you would like to pre-order a Reformation Day Celebration Kit with instructions, scripts, recipes, invitations, costume ideas and more, send me an email with "Reformation Day Kit" in the subject line.

Next time: Time Memorials (part 2)

Keeping Time

The music twirled and lifted under the spotlighted gaze of the audience in the twilight hall. Beside me, little Anne resonated, feet swinging gently, fingers twiddling tiny conductor’s patterns. Baby Winston bounced in time on my knee. Three rows down, a child who was big enough to know better set up a fuss, “It’s mine!” she whined.

God conducts the music of unfolding history every day for us. Will we pay attention? Will we resonate, keeping time to His patterns? Or will we with our own agendas and our beeper watches set up some other measure?

God’s Creation is set up especially to speak of Him, and the rhythms of time are no exception. The week is explicitly established as a pattern of seven with the cadences of work danced in demonstration by God Himself. Ever wonder who came up with a seven-day week? Why not a neat ten? Genesis 1 and 2. The first work week in history.

When God established a Sabbath day one day out of seven, He explained that this was intended to be our pattern in imitation of Him.

“Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work,…For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hollowed it.” (Ex 20:9-11)

And in so doing, He invites us to look carefully at the rest of His work week to discern other patterns of work that we should imitate in order to be effective. I discussed an example of these patterns in Liturgy of Learning.

Can we arrange our time so that our schedules reverberate with God’s messages to us? So that our work patterns remind us that there is a greater Work that we imitate? So that even washing dishes takes on a beautiful dignity? Oh yes!

James Jordan, in his book, Primeval Saints, has a wonderful study of the manner in which worship transforms our work and enables us in turn to transform the broken, ugly and unformed into something more and more glorious.

Jordan points out that God models for us again and again the six-fold pattern for our work.

1. We lay hold on the world.
2. We give thanks.
3. We break it up and restructure it.
4. We distribute it to others.
5. We evaluate it.
6. We enjoy it.

Does this look familiar? It is the pattern of the Creation Week, of the Old Testament sacrificial system, of the Communion service, and (except for the thanksgiving part) it is a pattern that we cannot help but follow. Jordan maintains that if we, as believers, discipline ourselves to give thanks, it is the pattern for dominion, for cultural revitalization. (from Liturgy of Learning)

This can be the pattern for daily life. As you sit down on a Sunday to imitate God in the arranging of your coming week,

1. Lay hold of your lists and calendars.
2. Give thanks for the time you have been given and for the help you have in your children (or co-workers)
3. Divide your work into manageable tasks.
4. Distribute them to the days and hours at your disposal, and to the small helpers at your knee.
5. Consider whether you can really do all that. Does something need to move or be re-assigned to another worker? Or maybe it just needs to be ditched. Leave room to be interrupted. Leave room for God to re-assign His work to you in the measure of the dance.
6. Enjoy the rest that knowing your work will be done decently and in order brings.

Your life will never be the same.

"Has someone seen the life I planned?
It seems it's been misplaced
I've looked in every corner
It's lost without a trace..."
~ Beth Moore~
From the poem: "The Life I Planned "

This week, I hope you dance...

Next time: Time Memorials

Read other great thoughts about plans and time at this week's meme:

What Time Is It?

Moderns have stripped this question to its most mechanistic, petty level. It is only about stopwatches and timetables, never about meaning: What is it time for?

The Christian Year asks us to consider the meaning of time. It asks us how we will "redeem the time....for the days are evil..." (Eph 5:16)

So it's not enough just to answer, 'I have a report due next week.' We really need to weigh, 'If I finish the report on time, what will I have accomplished, for whom and for what purpose?'

The Christian Year sets up seasons of contemplation, which focus in turn on the vast workings of God on our behalf throughout history. This is enormously different from the pagan calendars, which focus on the cycles of nature. There is no sense of progress in the natural cycles. Everything that will happen has already happened for thousands on thousands of years without significant variation.

But the Christian Year points us to the progress of Redemption, the cycle of Promise, Longing & Development, Passion & Atonement, Resurrection, and Contemplation/Kingdom-building. These are the patterns not only of a history that has a center and a climax; these are the patterns of our personal walks with God.

There are several ways to calculate the year, but whether you use the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Protestant version, the basic pattern is the same. Here in a nutshell is the Year:

Advent (four weeks leading up to Christmas)
Christmas (not just one day, but twelve!)
Epiphany (six weeks, beginning on Jan 6, the Twelfth Day of Christmas)
Ordinary Time (the weeks between Epiphany and Lent, which vary with the year, since Easter is a moveable feast)
Lent (six weeks leading up to Easter or Resurrection Day)
Easter (six weeks beginning with Easter Day)
Ascension (the Sunday before Pentecost)
Pentecost (the Sunday ending the Feast section of the year)
Trinity (all the rest of the year until Advent, encompassing most of June through November)
Note that in the United States, the last week of Trinity is Thanksgiving - very appropriate.

Next time: Keeping Time

It's About Time

Autumn is hard to miss. Spring is a study in false starts. Summer is a sticky realization that you’re always too hot. Winter makes successive night time raids snuffing out autumn’s embers.

But Autumn is hard to miss. Everything in the garden is ready to harvest – right down to the honey. Suddenly the world is full of golden light. Even the raw, dark rainy days are lit from below by the glow of leaves that have stored sunshine all summer to release it all in a final blaze. The world is full of the satisfied bustle of taking stock and taking care of the increase God has given.

It’s about time to take stock of the harvests of our inner lives as well. I am grateful for this cycle of long, contemplative evenings in anticipation of the holiday season.

What have I sown? What am I reaping? What will be the final value of these investments? Where has God intervened when my strength has failed? What ultimately is important? Why will I celebrate?

The cycle of one week is too short for these reckonings. It is too short to appreciate the large-scale work God is doing in us. But the cycle of a year is just enough. Too short to forget the special Providences we have received, but time enough begin to grasp what they mean.

The Church has appreciated the value of reminding us on a yearly basis of the great things God has done on a universal level. Modern evangelicals have largely forgotten the old Church Calendar. (Didn’t that go out with Indulgences?) But it gives Christians a joyful and disciplined way to remember, to reflect and to revive in hope and strength.

It’s about time we re-discovered time. It really is on our side.

Next time: Re-discovering the Church Calendar

Sacred and secular

"No distinction was made between the sacred and the everyday...their life was all one piece. It was all sacred and all ordinary." ` Sue Bender ~ author of Plain and Simple

There is, of course, a sense in which this sentiment is admirable. Surely every aspect of life should be brought joyfully under the lordship of Christ, every thought captive to His obedience. This attitude was one of the great strengths of the Puritans, and a legacy that we are still mining.

The basis of Western scientific inquiry is the insistence that God created and sustains the material world, not just the "spiritual", and that material things reflect His orderly and utterly faithful character. In other words, we can perform a scientific experiment and expect to be able to replicate it, to find consistency in the behavior of material things, because their being is sustained by a faithful, consistent Creator. So in some sense, a distinction between sacred and secular would hamper our secular inquiries into truth.

This removal of the distinction between sacred and secular has given us a respect for the value of every kind of work. We recognize the dignity of every calling, not just the calling to a specifically Christian vocation. In fact, one of the descriptions of the New Jerusalem is that ordinary work right down to cooking pots and horse harnesses will proclaim holiness to the Lord (Zech. 14:20-21). So our eternal destiny calls us to shape our daily work on the model of God's divine work.

But this removal of the sacred/secular distinction has its downside. If everything is sacred, is anything special? If everything is sanctified, can anything be properly used for common service? Or is it that nothing is sacred?

Certainly the modern trend in worship is to make everything casual, entertaining, accessible to anyone and everyone. In a word, secular. Throwing frisbees might be just as appropriate in one of these services as prayer. Come to think of it, it might BE a prayer.

Marriage isn't sacred anymore either. It is just another pleasant association like dozens of others you could name. It doesn't need special protection or consideration any more than your friendship with the waitress at the local diner or your rapport with your family doctor. Marriage is simply an ordinary contract offered and withdrawn at will.

On the other hand, everything in the natural world is becoming sacred. Animals, trees, oceans, you name it. Nothing can be touched or tampered with. It is holy. It cannot be used for ordinary purposes like food, clothing, shelter, and such.

We need to learn how to de-sanctify things to their primary purposes. And we need to remember how to hold the truly sacred things apart for their special uses.

It is interesting in this context to reflect on Abraham's custom during his wanderings in Canaan, after God had promised that land to Abraham's descendents. Wherever Abraham camped, he dug a well near a venerable tree and held worship there. Essentially, he was de-sanctifying that land from its pagan gods and establishing a holy space for the worship of YHWH. Centuries later, Abraham's descendents did inherit that land, worshipping YHWH in a sacred space that was a glorified oasis: pillars like tree trunks loaded with gold and tapestry fruit, and a huge laver so big it was called a "sea".

We need to become skilled in distinguishing what should remain distinctly sacred or secular in order to rightly understand how secular things can be elevated and ennobled in service to or in imitation of the sacred. But not AS sacred.

So find the Tree of Life and dig a well. Reclaim history and creation for its proper use. Let the streams of living water flow from that well to restore the world to its proclamation of its Creator's glory.

Socializing Homeschool Moms

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "What! You too? I thought I was the only one!"

~ C.S. Lewis ~

As a homeschooler, I am often asked whether I think my children are properly socialized. Ho hum! The more pressing question to a homeschool mom is whether I am (properly socialized, that is). Everyone has a considered rejoinder to "have you let your children out of the basement lately?" But I'll bet you'd stop us dead in our tracks if you asked, "have you let your mom out of the laundry room/kitchen/garden lately?"

Absolutely the best answer to that question is that the best friends I ever hope to have were found in the course of doing what homeschool moms do: feeding the neighborhood, schleping children to various lessons, colaborating on development of opportunities beyond those found in one's own backyard, researching the next unit-study...

I met Bev, technically, on a sleeping bag in my living room. She and her husband were schleping their daughters 600 miles to the nearest good speech tournament - and helping me run it. But Bev is the sort of person who will drive all day, fasting, in order to stay up all night keeping the Easter Vigil and anticipating the midnight feast that ends it. She is also the sort who arrives with sinful gluten-free cheescakes and craft supplies for impromptu joint projects. Now that we are both launching children to college and the larger world, we are kicking around plans to colaborate on a series of women's retreats.

Jeannette turned up at a Communicators for Christ conference far from home for both of us, where I was actually kitchen staff. Her children were such enthusiastic, interested, courteous, intriguing people (my children bonded with them instantly) that I had to get acquainted with their mother. Over the years we have solved bogus murder mysteries, made gorgeous photo albums and holiday memories. We have become a writing-critique group and entrepreneurs' support group of two, encouraging and inspiring each other to new heights of free expression and free enterprize. Jeannette can turn mountain drive in sleet to a non-existant Christmas parade into a cocoa and carols moveable feast.

Time fails to tell of Parveen, my Persian-cooking friend, whom I met at a homeschool conference on the receiving end of a hail of questions about our co-op group. Or of Coleen, my online auction tutor and farmer's market crony. Or Martine, who is game for the zaniest things: underwater aerobics, impromptu car concerts conducting us to wild urban detours, midnight ice creams and film editing. Or Kathy, the wackiest poet I know, professional-wardrobe consultant, and prayer partner.

Suffice it to say that I'll stay in my kitchen/laundry/garden, thank you, doing my homeschool mom thing. You meet the nicest people there.


Also visit the Carnival of Homeschooling. Next Carnival is at The Thinking Mother.

We Are NOT Amused

Dan at Cerulean Sanctum has a provocative article, titled "Spiritainment" about yet another effort to provide Christians with entertainment that will give Christians yet another way to justify spending more time indulging themselves.

Surely media that doesn't prompt us to get up off the couch and have real relationships, to do actual discipleship with living, breathing human beings or to seek God beyond the media hype leaves us suffocating in the ether with the rest of the great unwashed.

I just spent two days at Parent Orientation for our daughter's university, hearing ad nauseum that parents must not micromanage their adult children, must not hang on them, must not expect anything from them, must move on to find other sources of fulfillment. In other words, parents must not treat their children as just another source of entertainment.

And, indeed, the parents who shared their struggles with 'letting go' revealed that they were suffering from a sort of drug withdrawal. There was very little sense among the parents that they have been dealing for the last two decades with actual people rather than video game characters. Their children have been to them just another status symbol like their BMW, or a toy like their i-pod. That revelation was far more shocking than the radical (but expected) "hands-off" message from the university.

No wonder college freshmen are notorious for making destructive choices.

We may be not only "amusing ourselves to death" but amusing our children to death in the process.

Sea Change

Tonight my child will sleep under my roof, serene, unburdened. Tomorrow she'll shelter under a stranger's roof, available at Christ's behest to bear the burdens of many and to trade the serenity of innocence for the serenity of faith.

She says she doesn't want to think of this as leaving. And it's true she's only across the city. She can come home as often as she likes. But there's more of leaving in it than of comfort for a mother's heart.

Nineteen years I've worked toward this day, the day when a strong, shining soul would be loosed to the world she must change. What joy! What pain! Like the sea at the turn of the tide, I am paused shuddering.

Help me, Lord, to weather this birth; to launch her on my ebb to her glowing horizons.

Countdown to College Launch 1!

Apply for Rewards
Finally, you'll want to become familiar with the college application process. And as always, it begins with research. For instance, did you know that it is often easier to pay for an Ivy League education than a state university?

The 'sticker price' for the two is dramatically different, but those Ivy Leagues have deep-pocket endowments for scholarships, while the state university is primarily supported by your tax dollars. So if you can meet the entrance requirements for the highly-rated private college, your chance of getting full funding through scholarships is exponentially higher.

Finances aren't the only factors you need to consider. Your student will have better success both with an eventual degree program and with attracting scholarships if you begin by applying to a college that is a good fit for his ambitions and temperament.

The College Launch workbook contains a self-survey section to help you clarify what kind of college you will need: secular? Christian? technical? liberal arts? vocationally-focused? large? what else? It also includes resources to help you locate colleges that not only match your academic requirements, but your spiritual, social, and philosophical preferences as well.

While this research should begin as early as your student's freshman year, you won't complete it until his junior year, when you should plan to visit as many of your target schools as possible. A personal visit is especially important for homeschoolers for two reasons:

1. Because homeschools are by definition completely unique to each family, it is difficult for college admissions officers to envision your student. An in-person encounter normalizes the selection process for the college, putting a real live person forward rather than a stereotype.
2. Even the best on-paper analysis of a given college can't give you the feel of the place, the professors, the student body. You have spent the better part of the last two decades nurturing this young adult. Both you and your student need to know that your college choice will refine that early nurture rather than destroy it.

When your research is complete, you will want to apply for several colleges. You'll want to have three categories of applications: 1) those colleges that will be a challenge to gain admission to and to survive academically, 2) those colleges that will be a middle of the road challenge, an 3) those colleges that would be a sure thing.

The application process itself has basically four steps:

1. Assemble the student's application, the school counselor's pack and the letters of recommendation.
2. Send them all to each college before its application deadline date.
3. Apply for financial aid at each college.
4. Send midyear updates after the fall semester grades for the student's senior year have been given.

The College Launch Workbook directs you to actual college applications so that you can see exactly what kinds of records, essays and other information you will need to assemble for successful completion of these forms. It also links you to the most common financial aid forms, and helps you to sort out the various kinds of financial aid that could be offered to you.

If you would like to learn more, you can find the full Countdown to College Launch at my new Ebay store, Celebration Books and Gifts. The first ten buyers can receive a $10 discount by buying it at auction here.

Thought Control

"We don't need no education! We don't need no thought control!" Pink Floyd Thought control.

The real question is not whether our thoughts will be controlled, but by whom will they be controlled? And the irony of Pink Floyd's raw lyric is that those who have no education are the particular prey of those who have a thought control agenda.

As parents, we all want our children to be able to make up their own minds, to be thinkers who are independent of media and government agendas. If we are faithful stewards of our children, we spend a lot of time and money giving them enough background in history, literature, science, government, Bible and experience to form a stable vantage point from which to evaluate what life (and life's manipulators) throw at them.

The beauty of learning is that it will enable us to exercise control over our own thoughts and opinions. But I submit that being able to make up one's own mind isn't enough. Even the most sophisticated human mind can be fooled. If we fail to teach our children to "bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ", we will still have failed to protect them from perverse thought control.

Is it possible that there should be no thought control? No. Who should control our thoughts? Surely only the One who IS the truth.

Check Scribblings by Blair tomorrow for more thoughts on the Beauty of Learning at the Carnival of Beauty. And don't miss the Carnival of Homeschooling hosted this week by Category Five.

Inheritance

"I thought about the whole notion of "reproduction," and what it really means to replicate yourself. Is it merely about the passing on of eyes and chins and hair color? Or is it, rather, the replication of the heart? Do we leave a bigger mark by passing on our genes, or our thoughts?"~ Shannon Woodward, author of Inconceivable: Finding Peace in the Midst of Infertility ~

Christmas Eve 1986. The BMW pulled up at the front door of the exclusive Washington Montessori school. A perfectly-coiffed Mom in a designer suit unfolded from behind the wheel to free her three-year-old daughter from the car seat. She cooed promises of special time together tomorrow. The little girl did not meet her eyes.

"I'll be back for Ashley around 7:30 tonight. I have to do some shopping," she informed the directress who met them at the classroom door. "Mommy will be back soon!" She crouched, reaching for a hug.

But something snapped shut in Ashley's face, and she bent to rummage in her backpack. Brandishing a silver glove, she whirled into the classroom. "Look what I've got!" she squealed, "Michael Jackson's glove! And I've got his album too!"

Like mother, like daughter.

I was that directress, and after 6 childless years of marriage and one miscarriage, I wondered if I would ever hold children of my own. But if God granted me children, I resolved to give them something better than shiny stuff in a drop-off childhood.

In one week, I will leave my eldest at college across town, and I'm assessing what she will have to brandish to her companions, and whether she'll meet my eyes as we part.

I had thought to commission her with the passage of Scripture that has been the heritage of my family for three generations:

" Is not this the fast that I (God) have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppessed go free and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?...And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darkness be as the noonday: and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations: and thou shalt be called, the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in..." (Isa. 58:6, 7, 10-12)

But then I realized that she has not waited. None of my children have. In their Teen Court service, they have loosed bands of wickedness and let the oppressed go free. They have drawn out their souls to the hungry and afflicted, raising up the foundations of the next generations by saving babies from the abortionists' knife, raising money to help women in crisis pregnancies. They have broken yokes of gossip and mockery among their peers, and enlarged our house to include young people from across the nation. They have dealt the bread of wise teaching to those younger than they who are hungry to learn music, literature, communication, Scripture...

In large measure, they already are who they will be. Our eyes meet. Every day. And so do our hearts and our purposes. We have the same heritage. We have something shiny to brandish to the world. But it isn't stuff. It's Light itself.

Countdown to College Launch 2!

Account Assets

Most of us weary homeschool moms believe in our innocence that a transcript is all we need for our child's college entrance. The fact is that if your child were in a public or private school, his transcript would be interpreted in light of several other documents that make up the School Counselor's Pack.

In other words, don't feel singled out for persecution. Even public schools need a sort of outside verification of their work.

What's in a School Counselor's Pack?

1. Transcript (the document we love to hate)
2. School Profile (a document that describes your school compared to other schools)
3. School Counselor's Letter (a document that details the student's strengths and weaknesses compared to other students) and (possibly, though not ideally)
4. Letters of Recommendation (you know about these already, and hopefully your recommenders sent their letters directly to the colleges, not through you)

The Countdown Workbook contains detailed explanations of how to develop these documents. There are tips and pitfall warnings as well as sample documents.

The Countdown Workbook also gives tips on how your student can write sizzling college application essays and follow up his wonderful application and resume with dazzling interviews. There is even a section that will help you and your student to keep your recommenders organized and to give them a clear idea of what they need to address in their letters.

These documents directly impact the amount of money schools themselves will be able and willing to offer your students.

One college financial aid officer commented to me as he gleefully revealed a most generous scholarship package, "I've never seen such a well-documented home school program. Your documentation allowed us to give the most generous financial aid package that we have been able to offer anyone for the past five years!"

Next time: Learn how the scholarship application process works in 1! Apply for Rewards

Countdown to College Launch 3 1/2!

Acquiring Transcript & Resume Fuel

There are a few programs out there which will help you to do the things necessary to develop both the resume and the network - and will reward you with an internationally-recognized credential into the bargain. One is the Eagle Scout program, available to young men. The other is the Congressional Award program, which is available both to men and women.

The rank of Eagle Scout is respected world-wide, and continues to provide advantages like automatically advanced job-standing and salary increase, to your son throughout his life. Eagle Scout takes a good two and a half to four years to achieve, starting from Tenderfoot and working up.

The work involves a sustained record-keeping effort, which can become the springboard for your student's college entrance paperwork. The required merit badges can become career-path explorations and will develop adult level expertise across a wide spectrum of experience. The final project for Eagle is a community service effort, designed, managed and carried out by the young candidate in leadership over a group of other scouts. Each of the merit badges and the final Eagle project require the young man to connect with older men who have expertise in these fields, and who should become part of his network of mentors.

Do your best to find a scout troop with a large pool of leaders who are committed to Christian principles. These men will have a lasting impact on your young man. And they will be able to write recommendations complete with personal stories about your son, his struggles and accomplishments - exactly what scholarship committees need to see.

When your son has completed Eagle Scout, not only will he have the rank itself, but he will also have a number of critical resume pieces, which he can break out separately on his paperwork: community service, leadership (both kinds), and a variety of merit badge experiences and achievements.

The Congressional Award program is open to both men and women. It is the only award given by Congress outside of the military commendation, the Congressional Medal of Honor; and it is recognized world-wide. This program, too takes two to four years to complete, but it has six levels of recognition, which your child will be able to reference even if he is unable to complete the Gold Medal before graduation.

In order to get this award, your student will have to design and complete goals in four areas: Community Service, Physical Fitness, Personal Development and Exploration/Expedition. Progress is measured by time invested and by assessment of achievement by adult validators in each area and by their overall Advisor. Service in an elected official's office or campaign, or service in a religious capacity cannot be counted as community service, however the religious service could be counted as personal development.

The Gold Medal requires students to invest a total of 400 hours in Community Service, 200 hours in Physical Fitness and Personal Development, and a series of Exeditions culminating in a 4-day, 3-night exploration of an unfamiliar place or culture. This sounds like a daunting amount of time, but because you define the goals, you are probably already doing the things that the Congressional Award will validate and reward. The first level of recognition, the Bronze Certificate requires only 30 community service hours, 15 each in personal development and physical fitness, and a one-day expedition.

And once again, when you have earned any of the Congressional Award levels, you not only have the award itself, but you also have impressive experiences, mentors and validations that you can break out across your resume. By definition the Congressional Award activities may not be counted for school credit, so you wind up with a slate of interesting, consistent, coordinated extra-curricular activities, leadership and public service. The paperwork you do to validate these activities gives you a head start on everyone else when you come to apply for scholarships.
The Congressional Award Gold Medal opens the door to some unusual opportunities and scholarships unique to Gold Medalists. For instance, People to People offers Gold Medalists scholarships for the People to People international tour in the year that they recieve their Gold Medals.

So you have seen how to verify extra-curricular accomplishments, but how do you validate academic achievement when Mom was your primary teacher? Mentors, community college double-dip classes, testing, and your school counselors' pack for admissions/scholarship officials.

You didn't know about a School Counselor's pack? Most homeschoolers don't, but it is one of the most powerful tools for helping an overloaded application-reader decipher your records. Next time a sneak preview of the Launch Workshop's asset accounting tools.

Countdown to College Launch 3!

Acquire Credentials

Many admissions and scholarship officers will approach a homeschooler's application with a question like: "Did you ever let him out of the basement?" or "So Mom thinks Susan is a genius, eh?"

They aren't really trying to be rude. They just don't know any actual homeschoolers, and are running on stereotypes from the media or perhaps on experience with a few homeschoolers who didn't understand that you need to speak the officers' language.

So you'll want to acquire credentials that will combat the negative stereotypes and will communicate to scholarship committees in the language that allows them to evalutate your student using the same standards that they use for everyone else. They need to be able to compare apples and apples.

We aren't the only ones who have baggage. Every other identifiable sub-group faces the same problem. But what sort of expectations are unique to being a homeschooler?

• Parents are "poor judges of academic achievement"
• Students are unprepared for challenging curriculum,
• Unpracticed at following another's timetable,
• Impatient with inflexible academic requirements,
• Socially immature,
• Unskilled communicators,
• Unprepared to live and to learn with other students

The passport to a first-class seat in the scholarship airship is outside verification of achievement. No matter how wonderfully your student performs, if the only ones who saw it or can say so are Mom and Dad, no scholarship officer will be able to credit it. You need to be able to convince scholarship committees that other people - people who have nothing to gain by promoting your student - have noticed and approved your student's achievements.

You will need outside verification in each of the four areas that admissions officers scrutinize and in the specific areas in which your student excels. This means that you will need to begin connecting your student with mentors in these areas who will eventually be able to write recommendations or whose programs you can reference in your applications.

In other words, as you build your student's resume and transcript, you will also be developing his network of resource people. Frankly, this is what you need to be doing for your child with or without the scholarship search. A strong resume and a loyal network are simply what your child needs to do well in life.

Countdown to College Launch workbook includes sample resumes, transcripts and templates, as well as advice about how to avoid common pitfalls and how to create documents that will be impressive and memorable to scholarship committees.

Next time: How to build resume and transcript experiences and verifications.