Pentecost Send-Offs

Considering Pentecost as a model for sending out adult children, we should take note of the particulars of how God set it up.

First and foremost, God initiated it. His people had just witnessed His unfathomable sacrifice for them at the Cross, and they were His, heart and soul. He gave them something mysterious to consider and time to think (but not much - remember there were only 10 days between Jesus' ascension and Pentecost. See Acts 1:1-3).

Pentecost was a notable event. There was no doubt that there had been some real ending and beginning. God did it with heavenly pomp and circumstance. His people were inspired, empowered & sent out.

Both of these characteristics of God's send-off should inform our send-offs. It is vitally important that parents initiate the send-off. There should be nothing of sons seizing power before their time, or usurping parental prerogatives. Release must not be a forbidden fruit; if it is, the road to healthy cooperation between the generations will continue to be a rocky one for many years.

You might want to compare the Fall with Pentecost. Scripture indicates that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was to be a sort of graduation present for when mankind had come to maturity. It wasn't going to be forbidden forever. The problem was that Adam seized it before both the maturity and the commissioning. Satan introduced the temptation long before Adam would have thought of it and long before he had enough experience to cope with it. So instead of a glorious commissioning, Adam received a curse in the very area where he sought independence and his relationship with God was broken past repair.

But Jesus makes everything new. He made a radically new relationship with us, and gave us a second chance to come into maturity and into full partnership with God. In fact we do see God at Pentecost sending out the young Church a little before her full maturity. At Pentecost, were those disciples able to face persecution and martyrdom? Did they really understand how to build a lasting organization? Or how to sculpt an appeal to the barbarians of Gaul or the philosophers of India? Probably not. But because of the ongoing relationship with the Spirit established at Pentecost, that group was able to succeed in all of those areas.

So we mustn't delay release indefinitely. Better far to send out a young adult a little before he is totally ready to whup the world, while he still maintains a good relationship with his parents, than to delay release until he has checked every box and has developed a resentment toward his parents that will cripple him in years to come. The relationship will supply the youth with the resources and perspectives that will help him fill out the deficits as he works. But a resentment leaves the youth only with the checked boxes and no ongoing inspiration.

So we release them. And it feels like we will lose most of our vital connections to them. Life will never be the same. It's true. But after they fly away, full of the joy of their youthful strength with the wind of our blessings under their wings, a mysterious new chemistry begins to operate.

At Pentecost, the disciples burst out of their prayer meeting aflame with the power and blessing of God's blessing, into the streets of Jerusalem. The result was an enormous ingathering of new sons. Not only did those 'children' who were sent out return, they continually, habitually, delightedly brought more into the family of God.

So it will be with us and ours. When our children know they have our blessing in their launch out, they return to us bringing many new sons. Not just in-laws. They bring fellow students, co-workers, Sunday school waifs, the isolated, the lonely. Your opportunities to influence and to help young people will greatly increase as your children leave.

So it's not time to sell the house and move to a 'sensible' apartment. It's time to enlarge the borders of your tent. God will be filling it with all kinds of new people, laughter, significance, relationship, usefulness. You will understand how deeply God rejoices when one of His sons brings others to Him. You will enter into His joy and a deeper partnership with Him as you (after all, one of His sons) join in filling His reunions with many new sons.

We will dream dreams. We will speak His words. We will dance.
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Hear Kim's lecture on transitional parenting on Quests & Homecomings
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Next time: Babel Reversed

Wind & Fire Parenting (part 3)

The Holy Spirit appears as fire often in the Scriptures. Pastor Sweeting reminded us of several sightings in his Pentecost sermon: the covenanting fire in Abraham's vision (Gen 15), the commissioning fire Moses encountered in the burning bush (Ex 3), the guiding fire of the pillar of fire and cloud that led Israel through the wilderness (Ex 13:21, 22 ) and signified God's presence with Israel in the Temple (2 Chron 7) and in exile (Eze 1).

Covenanting Fire
When Abraham saw the glory/fire, God appeared there to covenant with him, passing alone between the slaughtered halves of the sacrifices. The usual practice in the ancient world when forming a covenant relationship like this, was for the inferior or conquered party to pass through the halves, signifying that if he broke the stipulations of the covenant, he stood in danger of being laid open just like those sacrificed animals. God reversed this practice, promising to become the sacrifice Himself, regardless of how well Abraham and his descendants kept the covenant.

As parents, we make unconditional promises to our children (or we ought to do) to care for them, to train them, to shepherd and help them regardless of how well they behave. As they launch out, they particularly need to be reminded that we will stand by them no matter what success or failure they face. They need to know that no matter how far their calling takes them from us, they still have the privileges and the welcome of sons and daughters.

When our daughters graduated from high school, we presented them each with a silk shawl made from our family's tartan. We told them that wherever they went, they would always be wrapped in our love. And although a husband will someday wrap each of them in a new heritage as his bride, they will still have a sheltered place in their heritage as part of our family. It was our confirmation of covenant as they began pursuing their callings as adults.

Commissioning Fire
God's appearance in the burning bush signaled Moses' commissioning for his work of delivering Israel from slavery in Egypt. Remember, Moses had a passion for this work from at least forty years earlier and he had tried to step into that work without God's commission - with disastrous results (Ex. 2). In both Moses' case and in the case of the disciples at Pentecost, it was vitally important that their commissioning be initiated by God. And when God gave His commission, He also gave His people special tools and anointing for their work.

Our children need to be sent out to the work that stirs their passion with the best tool-up we can manage and bearing blessings initiated by us. This doesn't mean that we wait until our children have nothing more to learn about their calling. But it does mean that we send them out when both their passion and their skills will allow them to move forward in reliance on God. Both Moses and the disciples felt rather tentative about their ability to actually accomplish what God was sending them to do. They had moved beyond their immature enthusiasm, beyond Peter's sword-waving defense of his Master in the Garden of Gethsemane, beyond Moses' vigilante justice for abusive Egyptians. They had acquired a realistic sense of what it would take to step into that calling and in humility they were anticipating God's move.

In the case of our eldest child, she was sure of her calling and was eager to graduate with her older best friends and get on with it. But we asked her to wait a year to apply for scholarships. With some tears, she agreed, and it was during that year that God blessed her efforts with about half a million dollars in scholarship offers and a professional internship that gave her perspective, skills and networks that actually allowed her to accelerate her entrance into her calling. So when commencement came around the following spring, we were able to send her out with joy and power.

Guiding Fire
The activity we most often associate with the Holy Spirit is personal guidance. For infant Israel, He was the visible pillar of fire and shade. For the emerging Church, He became the invisible purpose shaper in the disciples' lives, the One who taught them what to say and where to go, their constant companion. But the Holy Spirit does not teach us in the same way that Jesus taught. The Spirit leads us to Jesus, urging us to consider what Jesus said and what Jesus does. It is indirect illumination rather than direct instruction. Jesus is the words on the page; the Spirit is the light by which we read.

So as our children are emerging into their callings, our influence needs to become more indirect. No longer are we principally teachers and boundary-givers for them. More and more we become coaches and companions, leading them to Jesus' instruction, to Jesus' example, and helping them to live with the choices they make.

And this work is absolutely vital to our children's progress. Jesus told His disciples that unless He went away, the Holy Spirit would not come to lead them into all truth. They would not come to maturity without the Holy Spirit's work. They would not have the fullest share in His glory. Just so our children will not come to full maturity unless we transform our work with them into this invitational, indirect influence. We are not to "push them out of the nest" and abandon them to their fate; neither are we to continue to direct them by visibly, presently pushing and hovering.
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Get the big picture on transitional parenting. Quests & Homecomings, an audio experience from Kim Anderson

Wind & Fire Parenting (part 2)

Is there a role for parents after their children's high school graduations? A role beyond "hands off!" and "get out your checkbook"? Yes! You are joining us in the midst of a series of posts exploring Pentecost as a model for parenting through the launching-out phase of family life. The thesis is that our role in our children's lives in their adulthood becomes more like the role of the Holy Spirit and less like a physically present Lord.

Caveat: The idea here is not that we take the place of the one, true Holy Spirit for our children, but that we can pattern our interactions with our adult children after the model of the Holy Spirit's work.

It is interesting to linger a moment considering the characteristics of fire, particularly if we are using it as a model.

• Fire is glorious. My mother often said that as an adult, what she desired and admired most in her parents was dignity. When our children become adults, they want to look back and see that they had glorious beginnings. You represent that beginning. And because they expect to be following you, your children will see your dignity, your glory as their future as well.
  
• Fire gives light. As such, it has been a symbol of truth, knowledge and wisdom. Your example, your teachings through the years and your wise perspective in the future all give light to your child as he ventures into the dusky unknown. Note that fire's light is not knowledge itself, but is that which shows what knowledge is. Fire is what illumines the page, but it is not the words on the page. As parents, we are no longer plain teachers; we are coaches who ask the questions that lead our youth to seize the truth for themselves.
• Fire is the first power source, our first incorporeal tool. Fire is heat, light, cooking, smelting, protection. As parents of adults, we move increasingly from being the initiators of projects with our children toward being the power source for the things they are called to do. Sometimes that does involve the checkbook, but it is so much more. They need encouragement if they are to slay the dragon. They need to be reminded of the heat of their passion to sustain them through the long, cold days slogging ahead to that glorious goal they set for themselves.

Next time: Biblical sightings and inspirations from the Spirit.

Wind & Fire Parenting (part 1)

I love our church! We have an energized liturgical worship and our pastors never miss celebrating milestones in redemptive history. Sunday Pastor Sweeting's sermon gave me plenty to consider concerning the events of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit's work in establishing, empowering and encouraging the Church.

Pastor Sweeting reminded us of a few characteristics of wind and fire as symbols of God's presence that we can mine as guidelines for our interactions with our older children. Remember though, as we look to the Lord for our inspiration, we are seeking to imitate His ways, not to replace Him in our children's lives. While we labor to work in the same patterns He uses, we do not labor to become the Holy Spirit to our children. It is a very dangerous thing indeed to try to take the place of God.

Wind is that original breath of creation, the Spirit hovering over the unformed earth, the voice of God speaking the world. For us as parents, our words of creation were mostly uttered to our children in their very early childhood. What did you tell your child about himself? about her potential? about the great things they would do together with God? about how you would work together when they grew up?

Careful the things you say! Children will listen! When my children were small, I told them that the Church needed to work to capture the imaginations of the world's people to bring them into obedience to Christ. My children heard that as a mission statement for our family and for themselves. My eldest is building a film company to train Christian storytellers to translate Christ's messages to challenge our culture. My second is studying music composition, writing for film and for worship to engage the hearts and imaginations of her hearers with the wonders of God. My youngest is still in preparation, but he loves humor. Already he works to show both the absurdity of life apart from God and His ways and the delight of life in Him.

But as our children gather themselves to leap into active service out in the world, we have another chance to breathe life into them. Blessings, commissions, commendations aren't just air. They are wind in the sails and under the wings. Wind is not the experienced captain of our children's ships, or even a steadying hand on the tiller of our children's lives. It's invisible. It's everywhere, but it's in the background. And wind does significantly effect the speed, direction and difficulty of those ships and lives.

So lift your face to the wind of the Holy Spirit. Feel how He is blowing in the lives of your children. Add your breath to that breeze, lest you create crushing turbulence for your child. Bless them and show them how to sense the Spirit's leading as they go.

Next time: Fire

Photo courtesy of http://www.bioneural.net/2007/02/12/at-sea-on-a-tall-ship/
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More resources for parenting through the transitions of life: Quests & Homecomings
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Celebrations that Sting

This month has been filled with graduations at our neck of the woods. Proud, tearful, hopeful reflections on achievement with a silent undertow of loss.

Appropriate that our commencement celebrations should roughly coincide with Pentecost. Pentecost was sort of commencement for God's people. Until then, His people had had a more physically present manifestation of God - the pillar of fire & cloud, the sacrifices, the Temple, Jesus the Incarnate Himself. Now they would have in invisible manifestation of His company, the Holy Spirit. Until then, they had a rigid, literally carved-in-stone Law. Now they would have it written in their hearts ready at hand to apply to every new situation. Until then, they had been concentrated in one place. Now they would be sent out to all those places whose tongues they spoke on that day - and beyond.

Just so with our fledgling children. No longer with they have us physically with them or hear us speaking the laws of our households. They will need to be able to carry those things in their hearts. They will need to seize that governance for themselves. No longer will our family be actually located in one place. Now our children will become outposts of our family in the cultures whose languages we have taught them.

It is a day when our children must come fully into their adult minds and responsibility, even if they still have a short season of preparation for a particular calling. Boot camp or college or even a professional internship are not places for children. Their minds must be mature; their determination to live out their convictions must be firm; especially if their skills need to be honed.

For the Church Pentecost was a day of great joy and empowerment, putting an end to the fear and loss of the crucifixion and those days of longing following Christ's ascension. Hopefully, we parents will find ways to imitate our Father as we send our children out into their tender maturity. They feel as unsure of themselves as the early Church on Pentecost. They need to leave the graduation experience sure that we will be wind and fire to them as they speak the breaking, healing Word into the worlds God brings them. They need to go out knowing, as Peter did speaking to thousands that first Pentecost day, that they can do things they never thought themselves capable of doing. They need to understand that the things they learned at Mother's knee and under Father's hand have greater power than they ever dreamed.

We easily identify with the Church at Pentecost, but perhaps, as we hope to do well at this end of our lives, we should try to see what Pentecost meant to the Father. Tomorrow...

Firey Harvest

I've been planting my kitchen garden with my darling, back-from-college daughter. While we are still settling the squash hills and refreshing the bachelor buttons, there is a tender harvest of rhubarb, mint and parsley, chives and lettuce. And don't forget the iris, the lilacs and the spirea fountaining over the fence to nourish the heart.

It's not the rich satisfaction of the full harvest; it is the earnest of things to come. It's the taste of hope, the poetry of promise. A chance to celebrate the day of small beginnings.

Sunday is Pentecost. 50 days after the Resurrection. The Feast of the firstfruits, when the early crops begin to come in. The day when Moses came down to the newly-freed slaves with the Law that would teach them to live as free men. The day when the Law was written not on stone but on hearts. The day when hundreds heard that Law and its Good News in blazing syllables of their mother-tongues. And such a young harvest it was! 3,000 souls, wasn't it?

In our family, we are looking for ways to enter together into the joys of what God has done for us, so we want to learn to celebrate Pentecost. We want our longings for home, for each other to be tied to our wonder at God's might and goodness.

So this Sunday, we will have the first barbecue of the season (fire!), and eat those first fruits (Tabbouleh, Rhubarb Crisp and ice cream) in the garden where the iris and lilacs are in riotous bloom. And we'll talk - even though we'll just be using the one tongue.

We'll read missionary stories to each other or tell of God's work in other cultures to translate His marvelous message of new beginnings for minds unused to such things. We'll talk of the dreams He has put in our hearts, and of the messages of His love that are burning in our mouths. And if He should send us guests that day, we trust they will hear His message in their own language.

Imitating the Perfect Father

As we are in search of a model for parenting, it's easy to dismiss God as a role model, because the Son He sent was perfect. We see in the relationship between the Father and the Son, perfect obedience, perfect mutual regard, perfect mutual respect, perfect joy, but we don't see how to get there.

However, God has another 'son', Israel. Throughout the Scriptures, God calls His people both son and daughter, and if we observe His dealings with them, we can see a pattern for parenting.

God brought His people out of Egypt as an infant. The first thing He did with them when they were clear of danger was to give them the Law and the Feasts - boundaries and celebrations. We understand the boundaries thing. We are continually clarifying and enforcing boundaries for our young children. They keep our children safe and train them in civilized behavior.

But celebrations are a striking innovation. What do regular celebrations accomplish in the life of a family? Well, in the case of Israel, celebrations reminded them of the good things God had done for them, of the adventures they had had together. Celebrations made being "at home" with God a place of rest, of feasting, of joy. When Israel was sent into exile in Babylon, it was the feasts' passing that made the people particularly homesick for both their land and their God.

Celebrations were God's recipe for homesickness. Hmmm...more about this next time.

Inevitable Goodbyes

Wherever I speak about homeschoolers, college prep and winning scholarships, at least 50% of the questions afterward are about the emotional reality of letting go of adult children. So I think this deserves study.

As I've looked around, the designations and descriptions of what comes after children launch are pretty grim: Empty Nest Syndrome, Helicopter Parents, Boomerang Children. Advice ranges from downright insulting

Just leave your student at college - hands off!... get out your checkbook... and try not to answer his phone calls too often. (Excerpted from an actual parent orientation at a prestigious private college which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent.)

to gleefully self-indulgent

Sell the house! See the world! Spend your children's inheritance!.

Even Christians don't do much better.

So I'll be ditching cultural norms and looking for Scriptural answers for this transitional time in families' lives.

First thing we'll need an operational label for what we are talking about. "Empty Nest" just won't cut it. Many of us won't actually have an empty nest before we have grandchildren. But we will have the sea change that happens when our children begin to launch out on their own, and we will experience our success in raising effective children as a loss.

Soooo... "Transitional Parenting"? "Age to Age Parenting"? "the Extending Family"? Any ideas from the peanut gallery? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Good Friday Visions of Hope

On this Good Friday, I have been struck by how firmly our hope for the future is rooted in the vision Jesus cast for His disciples as they shared their final meal together. As He was going to His death, He gave them a bright hope beyond that loss, a strong commission, something to hold in their coming grief and fear:

"You will remember when I rise, that I told you all about this."
"You have persevered with me in trials; you will sit with me in my Kingdom."
"I am preparing a place for you in my Father's house." 
"You must love one another as I have loved you."
"You are not of this world."
"I will send you a Comforter."
"You will do greater things than I have done."

Jesus' words that night not only sustained the disciples through that terrible, wonderful, world-wrenching weekend when Jesus conquered sin and death, but also helped them to endure, no, to triumph in the rest of their lives.

As we consider the endgame of parenting our children as children, as we prepare to send them into the dark world without us, we, too, must strengthen our youth to bear up under the troubles that will come their way because they belong to Our Lord. We must learn to cast a vision that will sustain them in their callings.  The strength of our vision-casting, the power of our blessing may be what will enable them to triumph over circumstances that would sink others.

Vision & Calling is the first of Countdown to College's new line of video presentations.  In it you will discover how to harness the power of blessing your children, and how to help them understand their callings as God's servants.  This one-hour DVD features a narrated PowerPoint presentation with hands-on explorations to do with your young people.  The presentation covers: personality, temperament, and gifts analyses; the special callings for men and for women; how to recognize God's leading for future direction and more! 

(Recommended companion resource: Countdown to College e-Forms Disk, which includes fill-able forms for the exercises in the PowerPoint presentation)

Transitional Parenting & the End of the World as We Know It

Our family is taking the Bible-in-90-Days challenge along with the rest of our church. The idea is to read twelve pages a day for 90 days and to get through the whole thing cover to cover by Resurrection Day. What a joy to be doing this all together! We are having great discussions at home and with church friends. It is the first time all the way through for our youngest.

We have reached the Gospels by now. This week, I was struck by the number of times Jesus had to tell His disciples that the Kingdom of Heaven would not be at all like people expected it would be. He compared the coming of the Kingdom to enormous natural disaster-type upheavals: earthquakes, the heavens rolled up like a scroll, mountains crumbling into the sea...Yet most of the time what He was describing wasn't the physical end of the world, but instead was the replacement of the strictly Jewish administration of God's covenant with men by the Church administration of that covenant. It was the end of the world as they knew it.

People must have been blinking and staggering. They could see Jesus and His gigantic capacity for everything they longed for in a leader. But they couldn't see this Kingdom. Rome wasn't falling at His feet. Well not even the Jewish leaders were falling at His feet. There was no army, no crown, no pomp. But there was something. Something so appealing, so poignantly satisfying, so invisibly magnetic. Something real but not yet really seen.

I can't help thinking that parenting young adults is a lot like that. The way they work out the principles parents have taught them doesn't look like we thought it would. So much of them is coming into dazzling focus, and so much is still hidden, still developing. They are as much potential as actual. It's like having double vision: sometimes they are all grown up; sometimes they are still children.

And our world is shifting under our feet. When our children were younger, we were responsible to cast a vision for them, to train them carefully. We had the privilege of creating opportunities for them to exercise their fledgling powers and for revealing their gifts as we saw fit. As they move into adulthood, that is less and less true. Increasingly, they take up the vision; they exercise their gifts in the places where they see needs. Sometimes when we direct them to apply themselves in a certain direction, we find they have already been there. Sometimes when we refrain from directing, we find they were oblivious to the problem.

It's hard to remember that they are already adults, but not yet. It's hard to keep in mind that it is no longer our job to keep them from stumbling, but to keep them learning from the skinned knees - with humble sympathy. The fact is that we are stumbling, too, in this phase of life. We are all experiencing the same earthquake. It really is the end of the world as we know it.

The best we can do - and it's not insignificant - is to make sure that their hand is in the hand of the One who is at the still center of our reeling world. Hang on and try to laugh together. When the new day is fully come, we will see the dawn together and be ready to build afresh together shoulder to shoulder. It is also the beginning of the new world.
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Find further expeditions into transitional parenting on Kim's new audio disk, Quests & Homecomings.
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The Ultimate Brain Boost

When I was pregnant, the joke was that, of course, I'd be addled. "The first thing to go is the brain," I'd chuckle with my friends. In fact, one of my friends just this week quipped that a mom loses one-third of her brain with every birth. Let's see...that would make me a complete airhead!

However, the Bible urges us to have children as a vital part of exercising dominion in a complex, dangerous, broken world. So - from a scientific point of view, does childbearing and child-rearing help or hinder in the work of dominion?

Certainly the introduction of a new, totally dependent being into a marriage relationship increases the demands on the parents and on the relationship exponentially. Our baby's physical survival is completely dependent on how well we notice, nurture and protect that child. So are we as new moms adjusting to radically elevated and emotionally charged levels of responsibility or are we really getting dumber?

According to a recent book, The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter, by Katherine Ellison, the possibility of getting dumber could not be farther from the truth. Ellison tracks changes in the female brain following pregnancy and the care-giving of early childhood. Her findings fly in the face of the conventional wisdom of feminism.

The Mommy Brain research shows that pregnant women actually gain brain cells - something thought to be impossible for human brains beyond the childhood growth curve. Those new cells tend to be in the sensory regions designated to hearing and smelling, which validates the older conventional wisdom marveling over the sensory acuity of moms. "Be careful, your mom has eyes in the back of her head," isn't far off. It's just that she has supercharged ears rather than a third eye.

Ellison also details an astonishing increase in hormones and neurotransmitters which promote hyper-awareness, altruism, emotional bonding, cheerfulness, empathy and social connectivity. This chemical cocktail is self-perpetuating. The more a person exercises the capabilities opened by these substances, the more the body makes. So the extra smarts become permanent.

Even more, the chemical changes are often echoed in an involved father. Science isn't certain how it happens, but it seems connected with pheromones given off by the mother, with skin-to-skin contact with the infant, and with exercising parental nurturing. So it seems parental smarts can be both contagious and cultivated!

Professor of neuroscience at the University of California, Michael Merzenich, contradicts me and my self-effacing friends. "I don't think there are a lot of better things you can do for your brain than have a child." Looks like God knows best, yet again. Parenting does indeed expand our capacity to exercise dominion.
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The Mommy Brain is part of my background research for Launch-Proof Legacy, a workshop and book combination about parenting during the transition from nuclear family to extending family, about letting go of children and maintaining vital intergenerational relationships. Preview the workshop in the audio lecture, Quests & Homecomings.

Cure for Winter Blahs: Laugh

Does it feel like nothing will ever change? Do you feel like you're going under with the basic drudgery and petty failures of life, of homeschooling?

Fight back! Laugh!

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine treats us to a spoof that's a sure pick-me-up on a dreary day. Click on the icon and hold on. You'll be through the looking glass...

No Waiting for Wonderful

Why does Christendom (if we can still speak of that concept) lose so many of our young people in their young adult stage? Jeff Meyers, author of Hand-off, says that one major reason is that young adults feel useless and marginalized. Yet another casualty of our addiction to the notion of adolescence as a time of self-indulgence and irresponsibility.

An increasing number of young people are refusing both the adolescent designation and the low expectations that go with it. They look on youth as a time to use their first strength to advance the cause of Christ and to lay a foundation for their future families. These young people are not waiting to become wonderful - and their stories are the real antidote to hard times and bleak forecasts!

Countdown to College, Mother-Lode's sister blog, is hosting a new award for teens: the Carpe Diem Cadre. The award recognizes the adult accomplishments of extraordinary teens with a feature article on Countdown to College, an invitation to speak at Countdown to College workshops, and an awards package of life-launch resources.

Click on over to read all about it. And while you're at it, nominate an extraordinary teen in your sphere!

New Year's Fresh Starts and Old Traditions

New Year's celebrations mark endings and new beginnings, so at our house we try to do something that connects us with old friends and treasured traditions as well as with something new.

This year we gathered some old friends for antelope roast (our family have traditionally been hunters), and tried a new more grown-up sort of fun with our mostly grown-up children: geo-caching. If you've never tried it, you'll want to give it some consideration. We thought it was a hoot!

There are many online sites that register geo-caches, which are weather-proof containers filled with a logbook and tiny unperishable treasures. Our favorite site is Geocaching.com - but we are newbies at this. On the website, you'll find lots of caches registered as hidden in parks, greenbelts, even on golf courses and back-alleys. There are coded hints and a GPS location. There are also Google maps that show the approximate locations and the best place to make a trailhead.

Print out your intended cache information and head out with a GPS unit that will register something besides roads. When (and sometimes, if) you find the cache, sign the register, take a souvenir and leave something for the next treasure-hunter. Then come home an record your adventures on the geo-cache site, so that the guardian of the cache can guage the health and safety of his cache.

We chose a cache that is designed to be hunted at night with bright flashlights. Pinned to the trees at the side of the stream-side trail are "swarms of fireflies", reflective tacks that blend into the countryside in the daytime, but flash at night, to show the way from point to point to the final cache. We had a crisp, starlit night with a bit of a moon.

Though we didn't see the fireflies, we did hear some coyotes and flushed some sleeping doves and timid rabbits. We frolicked on a frozen pond and spelunked through a drainage tunnel under the trail. We laughed and sang and surprized our slower sleuths around the bends of the trail. And we finally discovered the cache - even without the sparkly guides!

It was about midnight when we returned home to hot tea, homemade fudge (another tradition) and really decadent desserts. We toasted God's goodness to us in the old year and offered up prayer for the new. Our friends spend the night and have a leisurely brunch on New Year's day, discussing at length what God has done for and around us, and laying before Him some of our hopes.

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For the New Year: new resources for families with children approaching adulthood! See the Countdown to College Workshop (Denver) and the new Pre-Launch Challenge Denver - a contest to earn discounts to the workshop and a free personal college prep consultation with Kim.

Not Quite the Nutcracker

Well the invasion has begun. Mice are coming in from the cold - and finding they like it here. Ugh! Winston thinks they're cute, and wants one for a pet, but he's willing to set the traps anyway. I have been able to restrain myself from shrieking every time I see one. I try to limit my outbursts to sensible requests for help: "Clean-up on aisle 3!" or "Incoming!"

I'm not convinced that Winston's and Dear Hubby's hearts are really in the effort, however. Last night, for instance, DH brought home a whole bag full of traps - three different kinds. He and Winston set about baiting, arming and setting them, but there was clearly more of locker-room than man-against-nature about the whole process.

It all started when DH's trap went off in his hand. (No fingers were harmed- permanently - in the making of this story, so feel free to continue, dear reader) Winston, not to be out-done, baited his with peanut butter before trying his luck. Soon it was unclear whether the object was catching mice or competing for the bait-flinging trophy: prizes for Farthest-Flung, Largest Gob, and Widest Coverage.

There was also a good deal of shouting and swearing - at the traps, rather than at the mice. It seemed wrong-headed to me somehow. In the end, the bait-flingers were declared to be environmentally toxic and hopelessly design-flawed. All of those ended up in the trashcan without ever seeing the dark of the under-cupboard. Sigh!

The boys did manage to set all the other kinds, and I thoughtfully provided them with clean-up rags for their target-practice range. They plan to walk their trap line three times a day. So far no luck. Where are those magical toy soldiers and Nutcracker generals when you really need them?

I don't know....Christmas is coming. I'm locking down the marzipan and keeping a pair of large, clunky shoes close at hand.

An Award of our Own

As my children are launching out and the dynamics of our family life are rocking with the changes, I want to delight not only in the past, but in the future. It's hard making that hand-off, passing the baton to the next generation and really letting go of it. Surely the God who has smoothed the course of our race until now, will continue to pace our children and to lead us older folks to places of respite and dignity.

So here is a series of our very own Blog Awards for the Transitional Family:

Best Trail-Blazer: Chloe
Chloe never met a door she didn't want to open. As we speak, she is opening doors in Russia. And she never fails to hold it open for those coming behind her. People love to follow her: "Anything for Chloe!" is their battle-cry.


Best Fanfare: Petra
Need a boost for doing the next hard thing? Check with Petra; her music can make you proof against lions. Empathetic and insightful, Petra composes the sound track that leads you from mourning to dancing.

Best Comic Relief: Robert
Thank God that Robert is the last one at home! Self-pity absolutely withers as we laugh together. Robert has the dry wit and the bracing hug that helps you find terra firma in the changes of life.
Check out the other family blog awards on Homeschool Memoirs!
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Launch-proof your family with traditions that will call your adult children home. Start with Kim's Celebration Starters. This Christmas try the Magi Treasure Hunt: a Christmas Bible Study Game.

A Sense of Place

We are developing the life of the mind. Does it matter where we do it? I am a radical fan of the God-Man, Jesus Christ. The Word that deigned to become flesh. Oh yes, place, food....stuff matters. Place, like clothing, reminds us of who we are and what we are doing.

Now that my two eldest are studying in parts distant for the present - one in music conservatory in California, and one in St Petersburg, Russia - I am especially delighted that my at-home student wants to study wherever I am. Our favorite spots therefore, have to have room for at least two.

So, the kitchen table...Especially for the last couple of weeks, when I have been teaching, discussing and dispensing aid while stirring up fresh bruschetta, freezing green chili sauce, drying tomatoes and herbs, and baking zucchini herb bread. The harvest not only of garden gems, but of camaraderie has been bountiful.

Though our girls are gone, we are still a productive family.



And since autumn has come in with darkling rain and frosty mornings, we curl up with our books and cups of hot mocha before the fireplace. We revel in the delicious warmth of fellowship with great minds - some of them in our books, some of them right there by the fire in the flesh.



Our tech den is really more of a wired library. Desks tucked between bookshelves lit with Tiffany lamps and softened with a futon where we can both settle with laptops to get down to business. Witness to our labors are the beautiful paintings and photographs the children have created over the years. We remember there that the works of our hands will endure, so we should labor to craft them well.



And finally, we love to study with our speech and debate club, Counterpoint Cultural Alliance. We explore the interface between philosophy and theology and find ways to speak to those around us who are still lost in a closed universe where God doesn't burst through the brazen heavens. We make history come to life in documentary films and inspirational one-acts. We make opportunities to bring our book-learning into real world impact today. So our study spot might be the classroom, but it might just as easily be pounding the pavement promoting the Denver Rebelution Tour or questioning defendants in Teen Court, or jolting a jaded church youth group out of their rut with hilarious and searching dramatic presentations.

Most of all, we love to study wherever our Lord places us. We are everywhere He wants to be (apologies to VISA).

Alasandra's Homeschool Blog Awards: Don't miss your chance to nominate your favourite blog ~ The Nominees

Check out the 2008 Homeschool Blog Awards here: Alasandra's Homeschool Blog Awards: Don't miss your chance to nominate your favourite blog ~ The Nominees

You'll find lots of information and inspiration. And, naturally, if you like THIS blog, you can nominate it until Oct 17!

Is Capitalism to Blame?

Or is it something else? Thought you might appreciate this...


Capitalism isn't the culprit, but it might be the victim.

Friends on the Bailout

If you liked these last few posts, you might want to check out Joseph Farah's article on WorldNet Daily.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77272