Lift Up Your Hearts!

Thanks to a recently-renewed (and most welcome) acquaintance with a friend from some 15 years ago, I've been wandering through the darker days of the past and reading stories that make our own darkness seem like daylight.  I don't regret the reminders that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," even those who are otherwise doing good, or even great things, even churches.

But the point of that gloomy introduction is to point out how much I needed this homeschooling pick-me-up, this shining return to the bright, solid beauty that still clings to the human race, no matter how fallen it may be.

From Celebrating a Simple Life:

The pediatrician asked if Ivy [her four-year-old daughter] was start[ing] to learn her colors (she's known those for at least a year), if she could count (into the teens in two languages), and if she was able to ride a tricycle, etc. 

In the mean time, Ivy took out the magnadoodle that is in the exam room, and wrote her name.  Then she asked me if I could show her how to write her name. 

"But Ivy, you already know how to write your name.  You just did it!"
"No, mommy!  How do I write my name in GREEK?"

The pediatrician said, "So...  I guess you won't be putting her in school either?"

Nope.

It's been a while since I had one of those Happiness Moments.  Certainly with the birth of a new grandchild I've had plenty of times of gratitude and pleasure.  But the effervescent joy that I call a Happiness Moment had eluded me for almost two months.

Until yesterday.

It was a small moment, but oh, so welcome.  Thanks to being away from home (and sick, and exceedingly busy) for a month, plus some disruptions before that, my e-mail had gotten completely out of control.  Since returning, I've been chipping away at it, and doing some reorganization.

Late yesterday afternoon I realized that it is now under control.  Not that I no longer have a mountain of e-mails to deal with.  It's a much smaller mountain, true, but those that could be handled easily are gone, and what remains will command a lot of time.  So what was the cause of the champagne-bubble thrill?

All my e-mails are sorted and ordered and I know what needs to be done in a timely manner and what can wait.  The former have been sorted into "Action" folders, and I know to give them top priority.  But all the e-mails that now reside in various Project and Someday folders no longer trouble me, as I know there is no hurry, and I can get to them whenever I feel I have the time and energy to tackle them.  What's more, they are organized, so that if I decide to work on accumulated reading, or educational materials, or computer enhancements, I can navigate immediately to the relevant material.

When I used to do a lot of mountain climbing, I loved the moment when I doffed my heavy pack and walked free:  I felt lighter than air and every step was dancing.

Forgive me for not remembering where I got this link, and check out Dan Gilbert's TED talk on why paraplegics and lottery winners are equally happy a year after the event, why fixed choices lead to greater happiness than having the ability to back out of a decision (and the implications for marriages), and why Adam Smith was right in saying,

The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice.

A quick bit of inspiration, shared on Facebook by a long-time friend:

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he quieted down.

A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.

As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

The Spirit Well by Stephen R. Lawhead (Thomas Nelson, 2012)

I am now totally hooked on Lawhead's Bright Empires series, and the next book isn't due out until September of this year.  Keeping track of the action is a challenge, as the story jumps through multiple generations, eras, and places, but such dislocations are no more than the protagonists are expected to endure, and by this third book I've become an experienced traveller.  Roller coasters can be great fun if you don't expect your equilibrium to remain unchallenged.  (For one as face-blind as I am, it's actually easier than watching an ordinary movie.)

It's risky to praise a series from the middle—I thought Harry Potter had great potential, but grew more and more disappointed after the third book.  So far, however, Bright Empires just gets better and better.  This is probably because I like characters and mystery more than action, and this volume has a better thought-to-violence ratio than The Skin Map and The Bone House.

Is this the end of The Onion?  When it becomes impossible to tell the difference between serious news articles and satire, where's the humor?

You've probably heard the story enough times by now (except perhaps the overseas contingent):

A 7-year-old Anne Arundel County boy was suspended for two days for chewing a breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun and saying, “Bang, bang”— an offense the school described as a threat to other students, according to his family.

So help me, it gets worse.  I am so, so, so glad I no longer have anything to do directly with the public schools, and I'm beginning to feel guilty about the tax money I give them.  The following quotes are from a letter sent home to the parents following the incident:

Dear Parents and Guardians:

I am writing to let you know about an incident that occurred this morning in one of our classrooms and encourage you to discuss this matter with your child in a manner you deem most appropriate.

During breakfast this morning, one of our students used food to make inappropriate gestures that disrupted the class. While no physical threats were made and no one was harmed, the student had to be removed from the classroom.

...

If your children express that they are troubled by today’s incident, please talk with them and help them share their feelings. Our school counselor is available to meet with any students who have the need to do so next week.  In general, please remind them of the importance of making good choices.

I am completely without (even minimally polite) words to address the important subject here.  I will for now restrict myself to three comments:

What was a subsidized breakfast program (funded by my tax dollars again, no doubt) doing feeding children Pop-Tarts?  And fake Pop-Tarts at that?

Any reasonable teacher would have taken the child by the hand and said, firmly, "Jimmy, food is not a toy; eat your pastry or give it to me."  (And enforced the action if necessary.)

Under no circumstances should people like this be responsible for the safety, mental health, and above all the education of children.  This is not just insanity; it is downright abuse.

(I found this so unbelieveable I checked with Snopes.com, which doesn't mention the incident.  Here's a Washington Post news article, and the letter to parents on the school district's own website.)

Here in Hillsboro we sleep in an apartment-like section of the house that is separated from the kitchen by two doors and a flight of four stairs.  Dad-o usually works here, though due to the poor Internet signal, he will periodically wander through the better-connected part of the house on a "download break."

Except for one delightful morning when Noah knocked on the door to announce, "Jonathan and I have made eggs for you and they are ready," the other kids generally stay in the main part of the house. Joy, however, will periodically toddle up the steps, open the door, and question plaintively, "Dad-o?"  Much to his delight, of course.

During the first two weeks, when Heather was either ill or recovering from childbirth, I was Joy's favorite person.  She came to me when she needed something, and when she didn't; she clung to me when she was sad, she turned to me for everything she would normally have turned to Mom for.  But for two weeks I had no name.

Thanks to this nasty flu-or-whatever-it-is, I've been spending a lot of time in bed in the apartment, and one day I was rewarded with the pitter-patter of feet on the stairs, the slowly-opening door, and a plaintive, "Damma?  Damma?"

Now that Heather and Jon are more available, I'm no longer the favorite go-to adult.  But I am still Damma!

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, and Company, 2000)

I’ve enjoyed some of Malcolm Gladwell’s other books (Blink, and Outliers), and heard a lot about The Tipping Point, so I expected to like this one better than I did.  Certainly the story of how New York City cleaned up its subways and lowered its crime rate is encouraging, and well worth the whole book.  Mostly I found it terribly depressing, however.  As with the Heaths’ Switch and Made to Stick, I really don’t like learning that so many people in positions of trust are using every trick in the book and then some to manipulate us.  Worse, these authors seem less concerned with arming the public against such efforts and more with teaching the tricks to those with “good” motives.  But I say, if it’s wrong to manipulate a child to beg his parents for a toy, it’s still wrong to manipulate him to learn the alphabet.  And what you learn about Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues from Tipping Point is not going to make you happy about plunking your child in front of the television, for all Gladwell’s approbations.

Even more depressing is the book’s description of fashion, style, what’s “cool” and how it gets that way.  By contrast, Calvin’s views on Total Depravity are light and optimisitic.

Worst of all is the section on teen smoking, and other places where Gladwell reveals just how low his expectations are of teens, and how little he thinks parents can influence their children.  It’s peers that matter, and if you move into a bad neighborhood, or adopt troubled children, expecting that your family strength, love, and high values will protect your children from the negative influences of their environment, you are tragically mistaken.  A child is much better off in a bad family in a good neighborhood than the other way around.  It’s normal, and even right, for teens to admire troublemakers, reject anything suggested by an adult, and seek out stupid, life-threatening, risks.  There may be something to what he says—certainly no one should enter naïvely into a dangerous ministry—but such a hopeless, dystopian view is more than I can take, at least in my current fighting-the-remnants-of-the-flu state.  For a reality check, I stop and look at our wonderful nephews, and remember my own life, where it was God’s grace through my family and nothing else that saved me from getting into a lot of trouble in the 1960’s.

Depressing as much of it may be, The Tipping Point does have some interesting ideas.  One section I particularly enjoyed was “The Law of the Few,” in which Gladwell explains the unexpectedly great influence held by a few people, and not because they are rich or obviously powerful.  Those he calls Connectors, for example, are far above average in the number and variety of people they know.  They have mastered the art of the “weak connection,” a relation greater than mere acquaintance but far less than true friendship, and maintain this connection with a long list of folks from elementary school friends to college buddies, from fellow summer campers to people met on an airplane flight, from work colleagues to the people who mow their lawns.  These “weak” connections are actually very powerful, because breakthroughs in our lives often come, not from our own circle of friends, but from those whose knowledge and resources are not so similar to our own.

The Tipping Point was written in 2000; I’d love to see an update, because with all his analysis of connectedness, information, and influence, leaving out social media and the Internet is a glaring, even incomprehensible, omission in 2013.

Tomorrow our choir will be singing as the Presiding Bishop of the American Episcopal Church comes to our church.  Unfortunately, we will not be with them, as we are currently some 1300 miles away and are too sick to sing anyway.

It's true that the circumstances save me from the potential of actually meeting the PB and having to say, something like, "Pleased to meet you." I have some serious quarrels with this particular Presiding Bishop, thanks not only to her opinions and policies but to specific offenses given to dear people we know.

Still, I have problems with President Obama, too, and yet would consider it an honor to be asked to sing at the White House.  It's a matter of "saluting the uniform, not the man."

Resurrection Choir friends, we miss you, are sorry we're not with you, and wish you the best tomorrow!

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry; audiobook published by christianaudio Fiction and narrated by Susan Denaker

With Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry has half made me want to live in Kentucky, which—all my Kentucky ancestors notwithstanding—was not even on my places-to-visit list.  Susan Denaker doesn't so much narrate the book as become Hannah Coulter, telling the story of the people of rural Kentucky, who "keep on living" through the sorrows and changes brought by the 20th century.  I found it spell-binding.

Denaker's skill, I think, helps save Berry from the hubris of writing a first-person narrative as a woman.  He mostly succeeds, though there are places—most obvious when Hannah is talking about her children, or sex—when the point-of-view comes across more like a man trying to think like a woman and not quite getting it.

There is beauty here, and sorrow, and strength, along with places where I wished I could argue with Hannah:  it might be a good choice for a book club, because there are several interesting discussion points.

I'd heard about Wendell Berry, but this was for me the first of his novels.  There are several more about the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky that will probably be worth reading eventually.

Most of those who know me also know that I don’t like the government being involved in our health care, for too many reasons than I can go into now.  More than once I’ve asked, “Do you really want to trust your health to the same folks who are mangling public education?” 

Important note:  I support the public school system, much as I find fault with it.  There are many teachers among our family and friends.  Our own children attended the local schools for a number of years.  We pay school taxes, and have voted in favor of most requested tax increases, including last year’s. Everyone in the family has put countless hours into (public) school volunteer work.

Another important note:  I agree that our health care system is in a big mess, and big messes invite government interference whether we like it or not.  Personal experience of family and friends has shown me that public health care can work very well (France, Switzerland) and very badly (UK, Canada).  (I know there are readers of this blog who are happy with Canada’s health care, but I’m going by the experiences of those I know personally, which, alas, are negative.)  I don’t like the way in which our government is approaching health care reform, but that’s not the point here.

The point is consistency.

In the battle over health care, the faction I will loosely designate as “pro-government-social-program” (PSGP) wins for consistency:  The same people who are pushing national health insurance are ardent advocates of public education.  Viewing education as a fundamental, essential right of every child, they make it not only available but compulsory, and not only for the poor but for everyone, and expect everyone to participate.  They frequently oppose anything (private schools, home education, vouchers) that would allow students to opt out of monopoly government schooling.

Having concluded that the cost of a (possibly large) uneducated segment of the population is greater than the cost of providing “free” education to all, they are consistent in applying the same logic to health care.

I, on the other hand, am not consistent, and neither, it seems, are many with better conservative credentials than mine.  How can I support public education for all and not health care?  Why is it considered acceptable, even admirable, for everyone—including the rich—to take government assistance in the form of public education, but lower-class, even shameful to be on Medicaid, accept Food Stamps, or live in public housing?  What makes education so much more important than health care, food, or housing?

And maybe the PGSP’s are not as consistent as I thought, because I don’t see them pushing for compulsory soup-kitchen and housing project attendance.

Although … when our kids were in school, the school breakfast/lunch program, which served a useful purpose for poor children who otherwise would not eat, was pushed on everyone.  It wasn’t exactly mandatory, but the schools used plenty of promotions and advertisers’ tricks to get children to pressure their parents to send money for their lunches rather than pack them better food from home.  In the case of breakfast, they actually kept the other students trapped on the school bus until the breakfast-eaters were finished.  So who knows what's next in the minds of the PSGP's?

I don’t know where we’re going and what we’re in for with all this, and I don’t know how I’m going to rethink my attitude in regard to public education and/or health care.  But it certainly was a revelation to discover my own inconsistency.

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World:  An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children by John Wood (Collins, 2006)

I don't believe one gets closer to God simply by climbing physically higher, but there must be something special in the rarefied air of the Himalayas.  Greg Mortenson returns from a climbing expedition inspired to build schools for isolated, impoverished communities in Central Asia; John Wood visits Nepal, then quits his high-level, very highly paid job at Microsoft, and begins building libraries for poor children all over the world.

The organization Wood founded, Room to Read, has earned the highest Charity Navigator rating of four stars.  That it has grown explosively and yet responsibly is as much a tribute to Wood's business accumen as to his good heart.  His years at Microsoft were preparation for his life's mission, though he didn't know it at the time.

As for the book, it's fascinating to read, as much for the insights into Microsoft as for the larger story.  There is, perhaps, a bit too much of Wood himself.  I find him, like Mortenson, to be rather too much full of himself. John Wood does not seem like a pleasant person to live or to work with. I was particularly bothered by his abrupt decision to drop all previous commitments to get on with his mission.  He broke up with his girlfriend, whom he supposedly loved, and with whom he was apparently serious enough not only to live with but to follow when her job moved her to China.  He made (as far as I could see) no attempt to work things out, to give her time to adjust to the radical idea and catch his vision—just "my way or the highway" (never mind that his way was the highway). He quit his job abruptly, leaving his boss and coworkers in the lurch, not giving his employer a reasonable amount of time to find a replacement and make a smooth transition—just "Goodbye."

But one does not have to be good in all aspects of life to accomplish good things, even great things. And it may be said that full-of-yourself, aggressive personalities are much better at getting certain types of things done.  Wood (and Mortenson, recent problems notwithstanding) certainly have done and are doing amazing work.  Leaving Microsoft to Change the World is a great testimony to how important to a community it is to include members with different strengths and different personalities, even personalities we dislike.  Even more, it's a brilliant example of what can be accomplished—beginning with a single, inspired, hardworking, driven individual—when great vision and solid business sense come together.

Tomorrow, Joy will turn two years old.  (I almost said, "will celebrate her second birthday," but with so many sick folks around here, I suspect the celebration will occur a bit later.)

Except for her size, you wouldn't guess her age.  Trying to keep up with three older siblings is a powerful incentive to tackle projects beyond what most people expect of you.  I've written before about her unusual physical coordination at fourteen months; she continues to excel in both large- and small-motor skills.  She dresses herself completely with no difficulty, though it must be admitted that she hasn't figured out the matching socks thing yet.

Joy is a willing and able helper.  She can help set the table.  If she's thirsty, she can get a cup and fill it at the kid-sized sink in the kitchen—though at the moment she can only reach the hot water tap.  She can clear off her place at the table and put her dishes in the dishwasher.  If the dishwasher is full of clean dishes, she can unload all but the items in the middle of the top shelf, which she can't reach, and put them away (with the help of a chair for the higher shelves of the hutch).  When it's time to fold laundry, she's quite good at knowing whose clothes are whose, and very competently folds the cloth napkins and puts them away.

She doesn't talk much yet.  No, that's not true; she talks plenty, but we're not so great at understanding her yet.  She understands a lot, however, including such complicated instructions as, "Please put the dirty napkins in the basket in the laundry room."

Having been the baby of the family for almost two years, she needs to learn a bit more about self-control when her will is thwarted, a process that will no doubt come quickly now that she is a big sister.  She has adjusted amazingly well to her new rank, no doubt in part thanks to having a couple of extra adults to fill the gap in parental attention.  She's happy to let Grandma attend to her, even when sick, and has Dad-o wrapped around her little finger.  When she gets a chance she slips out of the kitchen and climbs the stairs to the apartment where he sits with his three computers.  "Dad-o?  Dad-o?  [Read] book?"

When she can't find an adult or a sibling to play with, Joy will entertain herself for hours:  looking at books, playing with dolls, building with Legos, "cooking" in her play kitchen, writing in her "school" notebooks.

No, she's not perfect.  She has a temper, and does not take well to being shut out of her siblings' play, which happens sometimes, as she's not gentle with her sister's cards and would rather take apart Legos than build, especially if the Legos in question are her brothers' special creations.  But she's very sweet, amazing, a true delight, and well worthy of her name.

Happy second birthday, Joy!

We seem to be going in the wrong direction.  The sick list now includes:  Jon, Heather, Porter, Jonathan, and Joy (relapse, though not as bad as the first time).  Jeremiah still has a snuffly nose, but unlike the others has not had a fever.  This is a Very Good Thing, because at his age the standard procedure for a fever is hospitalization.

Noah, Faith, and I are still more or less healthy, and they are a help well beyond their ages of six and four.  I'm not sure how I would have managed without Noah.  Faith keeps asking me to take her temperature, and each time I assure her she is still fine.  It think she may be feeling a little left out....

I slept reasonably well last night, considering that Porter was coughing next to me for most of it.  This morning I found Noah in a sleeping bag on the living room floor, where he had moved to get away from Jonathan's constant coughing.

I'm thankful for good weather, because I finally had to make a grocery store run.  I had not planned to drive in a New Hampshire winter, but someone had to, and even in the live-free-or-die state they don't issue driver's licenses to six-year-olds.  But the roads were completely clear, and it was not much different from going to the grocery store in Florida—except for the narrow streets and the piles of cold white stuff all around.

Later, my chief assistant and I lugged a pile of books to the library, and returned with a pile almost as large.  Small towns (and small libraries) do have their drawbacks, but I must say it's great to walk in the door and have the librarian greet Noah with, "Did you come to get these books [on reserve] for your brother?"

On the way home, we stopped by the "penny" candy store for a few chocolate-covered gummy bears: Something about kine and grain....

Jeremiah is such a pleasant baby!  I don't know how much is personality and how much is Heather's calm confidence in going through the newborn stage for the fifth time, but he sleeps well, eats well, and fusses just a little to say he's hungry or needs a change.  None of those long sessions of, "I've fed you, burped you, changed you, walked you, rocked you, sung to you, talked to you ... why are you still crying???"  He sometimes even gives Heather three hours of sleep straight.  (Note that only a new mother would be ecstatic over three hours of sleep.)  He has picked up a bit of a cold; it doesn't seem to bother him much, but we are watching him carefully, praying he will avoid the fevers that both Jon and Joy had.

On the negative side, for days I've been the only fully-functioning adult in this homeschooling household of nine.  Until last night, when she came down for dinner, Heather has stayed upstairs for her week of "babymoon." On Sunday morning, Jon got sick and has mostly been passed out on the couch or the bed, except for slowing his recovery by performing the most necessary duties, like keeping his business running, keeping the woodstove—which is responsible for most of the heat in the house—burning, and taking the boys to their final skiing lesson.  Not to mention taking care of all his own needs, which is a huge help.  Porter was healthy until yesterday, but was hit early on by a sudden crisis at work that has kept him working long hours and sometimes needing as much care as Heather. (Before the week officially started on Monday, he had already put in 23 official hours.)  I don't expect having to stay up all night last night for an installation to help his recovery any, and being mostly awake from 3:30 till now is not the best thing for me, either.  (The first time this happened was soon after Jeremiah's birth, and I was so exhausted I slept despite the fact that he works in our bedroom; this time that didn't work out so well.)

So you see that the fact that Heather can handle all of Jeremiah's needs with almost no help is a great blessing!  We are also thankful for the people who have provided some of our dinners, and that Jon had made a grocery run before getting sick.  Meals, if erratic, have been going on.  It's also important to mention how wonderful it is that the kids are so competent and independent.  But that's another post.

But things are looking up.  Joy still has cold symptoms, but only threw up once, and the fever that kept her down and needing extra attention only lasted a day.  Heather's doing great and will be taking over the organization of school time as her first after-babymoon duty, which will help enormously.  Jon looks to be on the mend, if he didn't set himself back by taking his parents to the airport at 4:15 this morning.  Porter occasionally manages to break loose to spent some time with the kids, or to get some work done around the house.  He, Jon, and Noah got the upstairs dryer working, which will make life easier, too.

And I have made good use of this time by getting an update written.  It's now officially past time to get up.