As they tweaked equipment and went through “Rock of Ages,” I hummed a harmony. The worship leader asked me to join in, and I told him I wanted to be a back seat singer that night. I still had a blast humming harmony lines to old hymns.

Afterwards, I told the worship leader my parents were gospel musicians, and I learned those hymns in the womb. “They are in my bones,” I told him. He laughed.

Later, I shared this story with a friend who knows the not so happily ever after rest of my childhood. She told me, “God sent those songs to you before you were born to protect and save you.”

She was right, and I never before realized it. When I am happy, and when I am sad, I can haul into an Amazing Grace with every gospel inflection I ever heard or felt. My kids call it my song. I feel the rhythm of Miss Clark, my gospel-singing babysitter, who sang songs while she rolled my hair, as we broke beans on her porch, and while we sat drinking iced tea in swings in her yard while her peacocks strolled around us. We sang together.

Those are the happy memories. Other parts of the childhood are nightmares. It’s hard to trust a heavenly father when your own father betrays you. Unfortunately, a few parents willingly burn their children’s hearts alive on Moloch’s altar to greed, ambition, and power.

I was a child who survived. For years afterwards, I ran from God, afraid to trust Him or anyone else. There was a gaping hole where that heart had been, and I sought ways to fill it that were often destructive. Whenever God would inch towards me, I ran the other direction. The songs in my bones seemed dead, and I never, ever sang them.

Twenty years ago, that ended in a single evening, when I went on a blind date with a quiet artist who looked in my eyes and told me I had had a rough time but would be okay. It was my woman at the well moment, though I didn’t know that artist would become my husband two years later. I learned to trust first him and slowly to turn to the Lord.

When I turned back to the Lord, it was still a slow process. It took years to grow new wineskins and break old habits. Three years ago, I sang again. It was the first time in over 30 years that I had used my singing voice. After my first evening at church choir practice, I called a friend and sobbed the entire trip home.

I could sing again. Part of my soul, long dormant, once again awakened. The old songs, the ones in my bones, came back to life and again became part of who I am.

Now I see that God protected a small part of that childlike heart through music. With Amazing Grace, He knit hope into my bones that was my shield and protection when I was too young to understand it. God imprinted a Rock of Ages into my soul to carry me and give me strength when those terrible things happened. Then He used the years of suffering to turn my heart, so I would forever seek out the lost, wounded, and lonely and invite them to share the cup of His love.

My most important job is to pass those songs and His hope to my children. We none know the challenges our own children will face. Whatever challenges they meet, I can rest if they know and understand that there is always a Rock of Ages to which they can cling and find shelter.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee;et the water and the blood,
from thy wounded side which flowed,
be of sin the double cure;
save from wrath and make me pure.

Not the labors of my hands
can fulfill thy law’s commands;
could my zeal no respite know,
could my tears forever flow,
all for sin could not atone;
thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to the cross I cling;
naked, come to thee for dress;
helpless, look to thee for grace;
foul, I to the fountain fly;
wash me, Savior, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
when mine eyes shall close in death,
when I soar to worlds unknown,
see thee on thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” – Psalm 139:13-14.

When you learned to ride a trike and later a bike, we showed you how to use the pedals. We taught you safety rules – always wear a helmet, look both ways before you cross the street, stop at red, go at green, and more. When you learn to drive, we will sit in the passenger seat and coach you. We hope to share our knowledge, earned from decades of driving experiences, so we can help you stay safe. You are the lights of our world.

Please bear with me when those driving lessons begin. If I see a potential danger, I will probably be abrupt or curt when I tell you. I’ll do my best. But if I occasionally lose it, remember I’m saying what I say because I love you. We want you to have those first driving experiences under our supervision so you can make better decisions later.

We want to give you tools so you will be a good driver and stay safe. You may view joyriding as fun with friends. We see one bad choice ending in tragedy. Driving mistakes don’t always give us second chances.

We’re on a new trail together now with the Internet. I thought I was in the driver’s seat, but we are both passengers as the Information Superhighway takes us to places I never imagined. While you are at home, your father and I will sit in the passenger seat beside you and try to figure out how to keep us all safe. We don’t have decades of Internet experience on which to base our decisions. We want you to have these first Internet experiences under our supervision so you can make better decisions later.

We want to give you tools so you will be a good surfer and stay safe.

You learn new computer technology faster than we do. Please be patient as we ask you to explain — again and again — how something works. It takes me longer to learn to speak or think digital. Email has always been in your world. I didn’t use it in the first 2/3 of my life.

You think instant message. I think phone call. If I tell you I’m twittering, it’s time to call 911 because it won’t be a good thing. When you talk about coding, you think programming; when I talk about it, I’m thinking color-coding file stickers. Although you view punctuation, capitalization, and spelling as something for old people, I think of them as imperative for civilized society and the written word.

Our life experiences and our mistakes have given us wisdom about pitfalls we hope you will avoid. When we were your age, we lived in a land of second chances. If we made mistakes or were in bad company, we had more chances to start anew.

In your world of cell phones with cameras and digital exhibitionism, you do not have that luxury. Bad choices lead to bad comments, photos, or videos lead to embarrassment and worse. They can be archived and used against you for a lifetime. You may view this as a fun time with your friends. We see potential scholarships, employment offers, and security clearances fading because of a few bad choices.

You will not have our luxury of second chances. Your choices leave a digital trail for a lifetime.

You will never enjoy the level of privacy I did at your age. You have more online friends than there were students in my high school graduating class.

At times, when we move on this Internet trail, I may yell from the passenger’s seat we are on the wrong track, or something is a danger. Please bear with me when I do so, like when we work with you on driving.

It’s because you are precious to us. We see your talents, your potential, and we don’t want bad choices today to limit your options for a lifetime. We want you to know how to make the most of cyber opportunities and how to avoid pitfalls.

Just like with driving, we’ll sit beside you on these early days of your cyber-journey. We may be your online friends, but we’re also your parents, and we want to give you the best tools for a lifetime. Then, when you’re older, you will be prepared to drive your own car and discover worlds I never imagined.

By the way – what’s a tag and what are 25 things other than the number of undone items on my to do list?

Mom

]]> http://catholicexchange.com/our-new-driving-lessons/feed/ 1 http://catholicexchange.com/the-night-and-day-of-the-broken-branches/ http://catholicexchange.com/the-night-and-day-of-the-broken-branches/#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 07:03:23 +0000 Mary Biever http://catholicexchange.com/2009/02/03/115283/ Read More]]> We knew an ice storm was coming toward us but did not think it would be bad.  Our pantry was stocked.  At first, the storm was a regular sleet/ice storm.  We spent the early part of the evening watching an episode from the old miniseries, The Winds of War.  Since our home business is in the basement, we’d be okay.

First the ice was simply clicking on the ceiling.

Our power flickered.  Always game for a joke, I made up a song, “Hold up the Power Lines,” to the tune of the old hymn, “Throw Out the Lifeline.

I dozed as the storm continued.  Richard was restless, and I could hear him continually getting up.  Around 11, I woke as we started hearing crashes.  Tree limbs, overburdened with ice, began to crackle and crash.  They didn’t sound heavy.  We have two hundred-year-old maple trees in our front yard, one in back, and a 150 year old oak tree as well.  Richard watched which limbs fell where.

I grew nervous.  For awhile, I watched TV so I wouldn’t hear the crashes.  We turned the thermostat up to 72 in case we lost power.  The crashes hit more often, about once every 5 minutes.  We felt a few thud to the ground.  It started to get scary.

I went online to distract myself and saw that one of my daughter’s friends had posted that she was getting scared of trees falling in the ice storm.  I posted a message to her to remember that we were told, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of time.”  A friend in Sweden posted she was getting worried about people in our area.  I posted that the crashes were now happening every minute.  Then I turned off the computer, in case we lost power.

Nick, our almost-thirteen-year-old, got up and told us we needed to sleep in the basement.  He said trees could land on the house.  He moved to the basement.  I didn’t know what to do and asked our guardian angels to direct us.  Elizabeth, our fourteen-year-old, told us she would be fine and went back to bed.  The crashes grew louder.  Our front yard was filled with debris.

I asked all the saints and angels to pray that our home, garage, and cars would be spared from disaster.  Crash went another branch, and I added a prayer asking that our trees would also spare our neighbor’s home and car.  With a pound, a branch landed up front – we saw it should have hit our neighbor’s car, but somehow stayed at the last moment.

“Elizabeth, shouldn’t you go downstairs?”

“I’ll be fine.”

I prayed for her guardian angel to pull her out of that room if there were danger.  At first, she dozed.  Then she got up and told us, “I’ve got to go downstairs.”

Richard and I patrolled the windows, watching which limbs fell where.  Sometimes, the kids came up to check with us.  I grabbed a rosary and began praying as I walked.  For two hours, at least one branch per minute fell somewhere on our block.  We could see and hear them throughout the neighborhood.  The icy snow reflected like glass as each branch shattered on the ground.

Across the city skyline, we saw flares of transformers going out.  We had power until around 2:30 am.  Our area’s transformer blew with a flash of green, then blue, and finally red in the sky.  The limbs still crashed.  I went from window to window, praying for our family and home.  I implored the angels to hold up our trees and save our homes.

A swath of tree debris covered our driveway between our cars and the road.  All the trees on our block were crashing, the roads were covered with ice, and we couldn’t get out even if we wanted to escape the falling branches.

Our house shook as part of a tree hit our roof around 3:30 am.  Immediately, Richard went outside to survey the damage.  Elizabeth and I watched him from the kitchen window.  As he stood in the pelting, icy rain, we could easily see him in the snow as the sky filled with the sparks of more transformers blowing.  I prayed a host of angels upon him and a shield of protection to keep him safe.  Branches fell in front, behind, and to his sides while he was out there.  When he returned, he told us it was on the roof.  “I heard breaking glass and can’t see what caused it.”

None of the rest of us heard the breaking glass.  When the power went out, we had a new problem.  Our basement sump pump has a short battery backup.  But there was a pounding rain outside, and we were getting some water, despite the cold January temperatures.  Richard and Nick grabbed flashlights to begin bailing in the dark.  It was a manageable water flow if they kept up with it; they filled an ice cream bucket full of water every 30 minutes.  Because of flash floods and the rain, our sewer backup valve was up to prevent backup overflow.  There was nowhere for the water to go unless we bailed.

We struggled with what to do with the sump water.  With no power, we had no furnace.  Each time we opened the door, we would lose heat.  So we decided to dump the sump water down the kitchen sink, which was draining into the sewers.  It took two people to scoop the sump water, so Richard, Elizabeth, and Nick opted to take shifts.  Without heat, the basement rapidly cooled, and the utility room where the sump hole is already is our coldest room.

I still prayed rosaries nonstop and grabbed a bottle of holy water near that kitchen sink.  The branches still crashed outside.  I walked from room to room, sprinkling holy water.  Elizabeth stared at me and asked if holy water with rosaries was a little extreme.  I kept sprinkling and praying, from room, to room, praying a hedge of protection.  Sometimes, the crashes distracted me such that I forgot a prayer and instead just said, “Lord, I can’t remember what comes next so please fill in the gaps.”  As I helped warm up whoever was off shift from dumping, I kept losing rosaries and having to find new ones.  As I walked through the house, I closed off bedrooms with windows to help keep our heat in the living room.  Many times, I got distracted and lost my rosary.  So I grabbed another from our collection and continued praying.

The freezing rain began to slow and was replaced by snow.  By 5, fewer crashes were happening, and it took longer between sump runs.  Richard and Nick said they could handle it.  Elizabeth sat with me in the living room as I continued my rosaries, sprinkled with Divine Mercy chaplets.  She prayed with me.

By 6, the crashes had nearly stopped, as had the need for constant sump runs.  Finally, I concluded my prayers by saying, “All the saints and angels, please keep praying for us and our safety and our trees ’cause I’m just too tired to pray any longer.”  It had been 4 hours since the rosaries began.  We all collapsed and dozed in our living room until about 7, when a friend called to check on us.

We could survey our damage in the daylight.  Our front yard and driveway were covered with tree limbs, 5 feet deep, throughout the entire yard.  Our cars, our neighbor’s house and car, and the front of our house were safe.  We could see the limbs on the roof, but they did not look that bad.

The kids went to their bedrooms to get ready for a day of storm cleanup.  When Elizabeth opened her bedroom door, she screamed, ”There’s a tree in my room!”  When I went into her bedroom, a single branch stuck through her ceiling, looking like a javeline thrown from the sky.  It extended about 6 inches through the ceiling, directly over Elizabeth’s bed.  The limb had penetrated the ice, the roof, the decking, the attic, and her bedroom ceiling.  Her bedding was covered with debris and insulation from the ceiling.  We believe it was from the crash 30 minutes after Elizabeth left her room for the basement.  I did not want to think what could have happened had she stayed in her room.

With trees on the roof and a branch in the ceiling, our night of the broken branches was now  an insurance claim.  For the next hour, I sat on the phone with our insurance company and then looking for a tree trimmer.  After I started the claim and found a trimmer, I relaxed enough to focus on breakfast.  While I worked on those details, Richard and the kids carried the tree limbs from our driveway.

We had peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast.  I have a nervous stomach and sometimes when the going gets tough, my stomach gets going.  This was one of those times.  Two minutes after I finished eating, I was sick.  With that, I realized I had flunked the Caroline Ingalls Cool in Disasters for My Children Role Model Paradigm.  I had slept two hours at most, was startled every time a new branch fell, and was queasy.  But we were the grownups.

So I asked the Lord to guide me and my guardian angel to help me.

It was a long, hard day.  The tree trimmer reached our house at 10:30 and left a quote with us.  Richard and two other neighbors spent two hours getting one neighbor’s truck out of his driveway and onto the road.  One end of our street was closed with three collapsed trees.  There was only one way in or out.  Our landline phone worked, but the line itself rested in our driveway.

For lunch, we resorted to bologna and cheese sandwiches and chips.  Word from other friends trickled in slowly.  As we listened to a battery radio, we learned that half the people in our city had no power, shelters were opened, and there were transport pickup points for the shelters.

We divided our tasks.  I worked to keep heat in the house, decorating in a nomadic refugee motif, with towels and blankets on windows and under doors.  Elizabeth’s task was to put up blankets on towel rods on our living room doorways to keep heat in the room.  Our house which started the outage at 72 was slowly growing cooler.  By mid-afternoon, it was 68 degrees.  I went on a scavenger hunt to scrounge candles and flashlights.  Two years ago, I had bought a box of tapers for my 4-H club which were never used, and I had only discovered them in our closet last week; my guardian angel was even caring for us then.  It’s a challenge to find things by flashlight, and I couldn’t find candle holders.  So I pulled down Richard’s great-grandfather’s crucifix, which held two candles and a holy water font.  We put the tapers in it for light.  I also re-arranged furniture to fit our fold-out beds and furniture for a campout.  Elizabeth helped me collect every blanket, comforter, and sleeping bag in our home to prepare for our evening campout.

As we made our arrangements, I spoke with friends.  Six friends invited us to share their homes that had electricity, but we opted to stay at home as we didn’t think we could get out of our driveway.  Neighbors and friends brought us thermoses with hot coffee, hot water, hot chocolate, and brownies.

Nick helped Richard clean snow off our cars and then tackled the tree limb in the ceiling.  They climbed into the attic, pulled the limb out of the ceiling, pushed it back through the roof, and then made a temporary patch with extra shingles and wood scraps.  They pulled a camp stove out of garage storage to put it together.

I had never before cooked on a camp stove.  The week before, I had bought a giant can of ravioli on sale at the store.  We eat simple foods, and I buy a can of that stuff maybe once every five years.  It became our dinner feast and the first meal I ever cooked on a camp stove.

For dinner, we ate ravioli and brownies by candlelight in the living room.  Since we missed our regular Bible story at breakfast, we read it at dinner.  It was Mark’s story of Jesus with the loaves and the fish.

Jesus gave the crowd who followed Him the food they had needed.  He had given us what we needed to get through an impossible day.  Both kids had helped us meet nearly impossible tasks.  They hadn’t acted like kids but like young adults — the kind you would want on your team in a crisis.  As we got ready for bed, I discovered all the missing rosaries of the storm.  Each was in a different pocket of a different layer of clothing.  During that storm, I had temporarily misplaced 6 different rosaries in different pockets at different times.

As the evening’s darkness crept in, bringing cooler air with it, we had a movie night.  We watched the movie by candlelight, on laptops, covered in blankets.  Since it was challenging to cook, we ate cheese slices on crackers as a movie snack.

We debated experimenting with a never-opened kerosene heater for the evening and decided the room was warm enough without it.  Our strategy succeeded in keeping the room warm.  While we watched the movie, our exhaustion crept in with slowly cooling air.  The kids fell asleep when the movie ended.

Richard and I finished our night and day of the broken branches holding hands in our living room looking at our kids by candle-light, with a two foot high stack of extra blankets and covers in the corner, ready for whomever might need them.  Our nightmare had become a dream of a family working together as a team.

Our kitten played on the floor around us.  With each thump he made, we startled as it reminded us of the branches breaking.  To help the kids sleep and relax, I started a rosary.  Richard joined me, and we finished our night and day of the broken branches the way I started it – praying for our family.

And that made all the difference.

1. If 3 gifts was good enough for the first Christmas of Baby Jesus, then it’s good enough for you.

2. If the first bed of Baby Jesus was an animal manger, then secondhand furniture is good enough for you.

3. If Jesus knew enough about his faith to talk intelligently to priests and scribes when he was 12, then you can pay attention to your religious ed. lesson today.

4. If Jesus listened to his mama and did what she asked at the wedding of Cana, then you can do the same for me right here, right now.

5. If Jesus could share his loaves and fish to feed thousands, then you can share your food to feed the poor today.

6. If Jesus could wash the feet of his disciples, then you can wipe off your muddy shoes before you set foot on my kitchen floor.

7. If Jesus could ride a borrowed donkey into Jerusalem at the age of 33, then we can buy a used car and be thankful for it.

As I shared this with a wise old friend of mine, I was given number 8, “If Jesus could forgive Peter for denying him 3 times, then you can forgive your children when they don’t meet your expectations.”

End of list. Then I realized number 9: Instead of looking at the specks in my children’s eyes or the mud across their backsides, I needed to pull the plank from my own eyes. When I pray for God to change me, then He changes my whole family dynamic and can make the toughest spots cleaner.

Then I will better realize the truth – number 10.

If Jesus can suffer and die on a cross for our sins in general and my own in particular, the least I can do is follow Him.

“My family doesn’t do discount stores,” a girl told a friend of mine this week.  “We don’t shop in such stores, and I won’t go in.”

My children are well-educated in dollar menus and discount stores.

Each day, we learn of other friends or family who have lost jobs.  It’s harder to be the parent facing limited income and higher bills — and hungry kids who just outgrew their clothes.

We may not realize this is a blessing for our children.  In my childhood, I lived in two worlds.  The first had excess, privilege, and easy spending.  In the second, I had a paper route at age ten, bought all my own clothes in middle school, and left home at 18.  I was given the gift of living in vastly different circumstances.  Each had its own challenges.

In this downturn, we can teach our children to be frugal, self reliant, compassionate, and careful with dwindling resources.  Gardens may have more food than flowers this year.  We learn to celebrate the dollar menu when we have the chance to enjoy it.

We teach our children by our example.  They can learn lessons: don’t waste food, spend only money you have, buy used and secondhand items, and live within your means.  If we eat out less, we can eat in more.  The more often we eat meals as a family, with our kids, the less likely they will be to succumb to temptation as adults.  Our hard times now equip them for challenges tomorrow.

My husband and I have owned a small business the past 9 years.  We’ve known disasters and blessings.  God has been with us in all circumstances, most especially years ago when our home and business burned and we lost almost everything we owned.

Years after Almanzo and Laura Wilder lost their home in a fire, they had boxes for their table and chairs.   When they started their apple orchard, they had to work 5 years to turn a profit and took countless odd jobs.  Almanzo described their work:

I think that one thing that has made my orchard a success is that I took individual care of each tree. What that particular tree needed it got. Wife and I were so well acquainted with the trees that if I wished to mention one to her, I would say “that tree with the large branch to the south,” or “the tree that leans to the north,” etc. The tree that leaned was gently taught to stand straight so that the sun would not burn the bark… The trees came into bearing at seven years old, and the apples were extra well colored and smooth skinned. I have had apple buyers and nursery men tell me that my orchard was the prettiest they ever saw, and my Ben Davis are different from any I have ever seen in being better colored and flavored and in the texture of the flesh.

Twenty years after they bought Rocky Ridge Farm, the Wilders realized their dream of a self-sustaining farm with dairy, poultry, and fruit and a dream house.  Decades later, during the Depression, Laura used her tough childhood knowledge of gardening and food preservation to feed her friends and neighbors. 

The twentieth century was the Century of Stuff.  We spent money we didn’t have to get Stuff.  Then Stuff didn’t meet our needs, so we borrowed more to get new Stuff.  Our friends and neighbors got better Stuff, so we ditched what we had and got further in debt to buy more Stuff.  Our homes got too crowded because we had Stuff, so we needed to buy a bigger house, which needed to be filled with more Stuff.  The Stuff turned into shackles. 

Our world was built upon sand that has collapsed.

Our children can learn not to worship at the False Temple of Stuff.  They can learn to distinguish a want from a need.  They can honor and worship the one true God and His Son, our Savior.  The less distracted we are by Stuff, the more we can see, hear, and experience God.

They will also learn creative problem solving.  How do we fix the food chopper after it breaks instead of throwing it out to buy a new one?  Can we used milk that’s started to sour for baking?  How many meals can a single roast stretch to feed? 

Blessings can come from great crises.  This year, our kids helped earn the tuition for different classes they took.  They learned new skills in the process and suddenly wanted to make the most of their opportunities. 

We may face a lifetime of shifting circumstances.  God can take all of them and make good things happen.  Now’s our chance to show our kids how we can be richer with a simpler world.  We have centuries of examples of American ingenuity and tough pioneers. 

Less stuff and more God is a good thing.  Our struggles now — and our responses to them — can give our children a legacy of character and skills that can impact the world in ways we can’t imagine.

“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” — 1 Thessalonians 5:18.

The directions were in Spanish. No matter. The kids took Spanish, and they should figure it out. We went through the English book and determined that the parts chart on page 3 correlated with the parts names on page 4 that were used in the directions on page 10. So we got it put together.

I’ve never trussed a chicken. I assigned getting string to tie the chicken to my daughter. She found blue string. I had visions of blue string turning the whole chicken blue and drove to the Dollar Store to buy plain string. They offered to sell me clothesline. I declined and drove to the grocery store. Finally, I had string.

I’ve never trussed a chicken. I found directions online and got the bird tied. We got it on the skewer. The directions said to preheat the oven first. My son got the bird into the oven and earned a 2nd degree hand burn in the process. I turned on the timer and saw the bird starting to turn. One piece of string was dragging. Then I watched the chicken legs to a thigh to back shimmy every time the spit turned. This had to be fixed!

My daughter became family medic and tended to her brother’s war wounds while I saved the chicken.

I turned off the oven and quickly tied a square knot with more string as the bird went around the spit. I thought I would just tie the whole thing tighter together so it wouldn’t shimmy while it spun. When the whole bird was tighter together, I turned off the timer to stop it. Then the spit started rotating in the other direction. It spun backwards until all the string I had just done was undone.

I would not be conquered by a dead bird and a kitchen appliance! Off to Youtube I raced! They would not only tell me but SHOW me how to truss that bird! I watched 3 different videos on 3 different ways to truss the bird and get it on the spit. We retied the bird such that it had to be a hostage to that spit that wouldn’t move.

I didn’t want to get burned, so we took the top off the oven, and I recruited my daughter to help me get the spit in place. After a few moments of wrestling, we had won. The bird was in place. I turned on the timer, and the bird again began spinning.

No machine would master us. The thighs still shimmied a little, and the belly flopped, but the bird was more secure. We left the bird to roast.

Five minutes later, my daughter called, “Mom! There’s a problem!”

We hadn’t properly put the spit into place. One side of it was resting on the bottom of the oven, while the bird continued to rotate and shimmy. Off went the timer, but the spit no longer ran backwards. We took off the top again, determined to get that spit into place. That’s when I earned my 2nd degree hand burn. This time, my daughter tended to my war wounds.

This time, the spit was right. When we turned on the timer, the bird still shimmied, but it cooked.

That evening, we did enjoy our own rotisserie chicken. Never mind that the oven got so hot it melted the chocolate chips in the cabinet above it. We will save money by no longer buying roasted birds at the grocery store. We can do them ourselves.

My son and I nursed our burns, took some pain meds, and our family ate the wrestled chicken.

Never underestimate the power of a whole family against the complexities of a single household appliance.

Yesterday, the rotisserie. Today, the smoker.

I wonder if my family will ever buy me a turkey fryer……

Holy Simeon, a just and devout Jew survived that world.  He spent much of his life praying for the consolation of Israel, for God to send the Messiah.  We don’t know much else about him.  I imagine a humble, simple man of faith.  He was a man of prayer and was most likely kind to all he knew.  He did not complain about the conditions of Jerusalem but simply petitioned the Lord for a Messiah.  In his close walk with the Lord, Simeon knew in his bones he would one day see his Redeemer.

God honors the simple faith of humble men. 

It would have been a morning like so many others that he left to pray in Jerusalem’s temple.  Yet this time, a carpenter and his wife arrived, with their infant son and two pigeons.  The moment Simeon saw the young babe, he knew his decades of prayers had been answered.  The fulfillment was here.  He reached for the baby boy and held him.  Then Simeon proclaimed, “Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace: Because my eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples: a light to the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel.” (Luke 2:29-32)

Simeon’s walk with the Lord gave him more insight into the Messiah, whom he held in his arms.  Simeon continued telling Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed-and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

God gave Simeon the chance to recognize, see, and hold our Messiah.  God honors the simple faith of humble men.

God still honors our simple faith.  Though we need not fear for our lives as those in Jerusalem did 2,000 years ago, we still live in an uncertain era.  Our financial castles, some built on sand we didn’t realize, seem to collapse like dominoes.  For some, the financial storm is such that there are so many bailouts we search for places to put the water in which ships are sinking. 

Now it’s Christmas.  Many families worry about their jobs, homes, health, and meager pantries.   This year, we may identify with Bob Cratchit’s family from the Christmas Carol.  Nevertheless, we must remember how much the Cratchits loved one another.  Their Christmas feast came not from a heavily laden table with lots of presents but from their rich love for one another. 

This can be our year to reread, aloud, the Christmas celebrations from Little House books.  We may not have lots of money, presents, or food on the table.  We can rejoice at the Nativity where we, too, can behold our Savior.

And we can change the meaning of a song from Annie Get Your Gun.  We’ve got the son on Christmas morning and can celebrate him like Simeon did. 

Got no diamond, got no pearl,
Still I think I’m a lucky girl.
I’ve got the sun in the morning
And the moon at night.

Got no mansion, got no yacht,
Still I’m happy with what I got.
I’ve got the sun in the morning
And the moon at night

Sunshine gives me a lovely day,
Moonlight gives me the Milky Way.
Got no checkbooks, got no banks,
Still, I’d like to express my thanks.

Got no butler, got no maid.
Still I think I’ve been overpaid,
I’ve got the sun in the morning
And the moon at night.

Got no silver, got no gold,
What you’ve got can’t be bought or sold.
I’ve got the sun in the morning
And the moon at night.

Got no heirlooms for my kin,
Made no will but when I cash in
I’ll leave the sun in the morning

We’ve got the sun in the morning
And the moon at night.
And with the sun in the morning
And the moon in the evening
I’m alright!

We’ve got the son of God in the morning, on Christmas morning and every morning, and we’re all right.

God honors our simple faith.

A pencil is more than just a tool with which to write, at least in our home – uhh school.  It can be an instrument of torture for siblings.  When my back is turned, I suspect it is used as a weapon.  When kids get angry and write too hard on their papers, they can make pencil dents in tables.  If you ever plan a Pencil War Workshop, be sure to mention that if you school at the kitchen table, you had better use a table pad and vinyl tablecloths. 

Then there could be a workshop segue on making the most of those pencils.  One writer wrote that pencils make great math manipulatives.  They can be grouped in sets of ten and easily help teach skip counting by tens, etc.  So years ago, I bought a whole box of yellow number two pencils.  If there were an achievement test torture chamber where prisoners spend their time completing bubbles on test blanks, my children would be ready.

The problem with having all matching pencils – the industrial yellow – is that my kids didn’t want the yellow pencils that all looked the same.  They wanted the blue pencil.  Or the novelty pencil.  Or most often, the pencil currently in use by another sibling.  Over 10 years, we used up that box of yellow pencils.  My children are German like their father which means they breathe frugality.  A side battle in Pencil Wars is getting a child overly attached to that two-inch pencil to finally, finally throw it away.  “Just one more page, Mom.”  If a child gets attached to that one special pencil, you can schedule an extra hour into your week which will be spent looking for the pencil, dropping the pencil, accidentally tossing the pencil across the room, picking up the pencil, and then using it.

That does not include the hours spent sharpening pencils.  The pencil Pythagorean theorem should be that the complexity of the math formula to be solved is directly proportional to the time required to sharpen it to just the perfect tip.  For our first five years as a homeschool family, we had a hand crank sharpener.  I thought I had the Pencil Wars licked years ago when I asked for – and received – an electric pencil sharpener for Mother’s Day.  No longer would it take a child 5-15 minutes to sharpen a single pencil.

The electric pencil sharpener poses a new challenge.  It is so easy to use that the same pencil can be sharpened between every single subject.  That alone can add half an hour to your school day.  Then you can count that when it needs to emptied, that will kill at least another hour.

I have schooled my children ten years, and I will not concede defeat in the Pencil Wars.  Our local drugstore was selling 6 Christmas-themed pencils for $1 this weekend, so I bought 6.  They were put into our pencil jar. 

Last night, when the kids were asleep, I got one up on them.  I sharpened every single one of those new pencils and left them in a line on the counter.  My weapons of choice were sharpened, ready to do the battle of Schooling in December.  They were my surprise pre-dawn attack, ready to hit the troops at breakfast.

Update from the battlefront – December 1, 2008, may go down in history as a day of infamy.  It is the first time a morning of our school has passed without a single pencil skirmish.

If this battle is ever won, I will tackle erasers.  Then I’ll write a mystery novel on the case of the mysteriously vanishing textbook.

How I would love the homeschooled high school teens I’ve seen in recent weeks respond to Joy, a former schoolteacher.  The contrast between them and Joy would be immediately evident; the teens have manners and don’t interrupt people when they talk.  They are thoughtful, logical, and base their arguments on facts instead of bias.

In the last two weeks, I’ve seen countless instances of homeschooled families that work.  This morning, I saw a homeschool family whose father was off shift swimming at a local Y.  Their P.E. for the day was the whole family, from the preschooler to the school kids, playing in a pool with both their parents.  This afternoon, when we got our first snow of the season, my own kids dashed outside with their dad to savor the wonder of melting snow before Thanksgiving.

If we’re known by our fruits, I know lots of homeschool champions.  Some are seniors, many of whom are in dual enrollment with college classes and doing well.  There’s the senior boy who volunteers for inner city missions ½ day a week — while juggling a tough curriculum with advanced math and science plus college math this term.  There’s the senior girl juggling her senior year, college classes, and sitting when needed for a friend’s 98-year-old grandfather.  There’s the senior boy who makes time from his classes and scholarship applications to teach 2 middle school boys how to get started with HTML programming — before he heads to an aerospace program with the Civil Air Patrol.  Then there’s the high school junior I recently observed taking his 6 younger siblings to a church program — and managing all of them, with the help of his teen sisters.  He did a better job than some parents I’ve seen, and his younger siblings all knew how to behave.  Their parents taught them well.

All of these kids have worked hard, as have their parents, to ensure they are well educated. 

Unlike Behar’s fishwife shriek that they are scared of other children and are only exposed to mom and dad, these youths are engaged with their parents, siblings, friends, churches, and the community at large.  Studies show 88% of homeschool graduates are involved in civic organizations, as opposed to 50% of the general public.

My kids are now middle school and high school students, and my role has evolved from primary instructor to facilitator/mentor.  The biggest challenge most of the homeschooled families I know face is how to limit or moderate our outside activities so we have enough time to master academics too.

Besides church, my kids are in group swim classes, a homeschool co-op, a professional children’s choir, and multiple civic organizations.  My 14-year-old daughter, trained at the state level through 4-H in recreation leadership, served as a camp counselor trainee last summer.  This week, I watched her lead recreation for 20 kids, with total ease.  At the ages of 12 and 13, she went by herself to workshops at Purdue and sang with the state 4-H choir at our State Fair last summer. 

My 12-year-old son is currently learning web design so he can work with a team of kids to update web pages for not-for-profits for community service.  He’s competed on robotics teams that have won area contests.  I would pit his invented barbecue sauces he’s entered in contests against any adult chef, any time.  The last 2 years, the pumpkins from his garden have won awards for being among the best in our state.

Those activities are the gravy on their academic meat and potatoes, which take the bulk of their time and mental energy.  I am a product of public schools, as is my husband.  We both know our children’s curriculum assignments are more challenging than those we faced at their ages.  Their curricula meets them where they are — ahead in some areas, a little slower in others.  If a concept isn’t mastered, we work on it until it is and may reinvent how we approach it.

Does that mean homeschooled kids are perfect?  Of course not.  It means that, contrary to Ms. Behar’s assertion, that they are not “demented.”  Let her shriek and howl insults.  I’m too busy teaching my children to care.

Both are engaged with kids from a variety of home environments, faith traditions, and education experiences: home, public, parochial, private secular, and charter schools.  I know and love kids from all those different environments.

And I pray that my love and respect for those kids from many backgrounds will teach my children something Joy Behar never learned.  Generalizations that disparage groups are inaccurate and wrong.  I could call them an uninformed, narrow, uneducated “View.”

In my home, we call them prejudice.

First, they offered him armor that was too big and with which he was inexperienced.  David refused the armor and the weapons supposedly necessary to defeat that awful giant.  Instead, he chose five smooth rocks to use with his slingshot.  These were the tools he was most comfortable using.  Those around him must have thought he was nuts.

When his moment of courage came, David stood against the fierce giant, with only a slingshot and 5 stones, protected by the armor of the Lord. 

One of those five stones killed Goliath. 

One stone inspired the battle’s victory.

David’s real victory was not in vanquishing the giant.  He won when he chose to follow God’s call.  He followed that call even when it led him to an open field, standing alone against the giant, in front of two armies.  Once David followed the call, God did the rest.

Sometimes we each have David moments.  We feel ill-equipped and outmatched by those who oppose the Lord.  We look at our problems through worldly eyes instead of Godly vision.

When the moment comes for you to take a stand against evil, do it.  Rely upon the armor of God.  Use whatever weapons He has prepared you to use, and use them well.  When we obey, He takes care of the rest.

In the gospels, Jesus told us that the gates of hell will not prevail upon His church.   In ancient times, a city’s gates were a first line of defense from attack.  The gates of hell will not hold up to those who follow God’s call and attack those gates.

This is not a passive scenario.  We must listen for God’s call and obey it.  Once we do our part, God takes care of the rest.  Maybe we occasionally lose a skirmish or a battle.  We must neither lose focus nor forget that the battle against evil was already won 2,000 years ago.

Imagine giants threatening those you hold most dearly.  Perhaps there are lions or bears, prowling around the edges of your flock, ready to pounce on the most vulnerable and divide those who scatter in fear.  It could be a false shepherd hiding wolves beneath his cloak and misleading some of the flock.

Say a prayer, take heart, and make your stand.  If you’re given nothing but a rock to throw, take a deep breathe and heave your hardest.

God will take care of the rest.  One of five stones changed history.