Getting Involved

The topic on my mind today is Political Involvement, in two respects.

1) A woman shared in our homeschool moms' meeting last night about how she got started getting involved in the political process. She had been living in Pennsylvania and started homeschooling after seeing some great models of families doing that. (This was back when Pennsylvania was an easy state to homeschool in -- no longer that.) When they moved back to Iowa, homeschooling was illegal. Thus began their venture into the political realm.

She gave us all a Ron Paul pamphet -- not necessarily to promote Ron Paul, she said -- but to point out that one generation ago, people in Iowa were being arrested for homeschooling . . . and today, presidential candidates are specifically promoting themselves as "homeschooling champions". What a turn-around! And it's families like this, who were willing to sacrifice so much to fight for what they knew were their constitutional rights, who paved the way for the rest of us. I'm very grateful for them.

And I'm convicted of the need to make similar sacrifices myself today. I'm very concerned about the direction our country is headed. And I suppose the only way anything will change is if individuals like me all across the country step up and do something. That's one of the things that makes America great -- an insignificant housewife in Iowa can actually make a difference in the governing of the nation.

2) Is anyone else just appalled at Congress these days? Just appalled??? How is it possible that a group of 500-some reasonable, intelligent people are incapable of being financially responsible? For that matter, how is it possible that 500-some reasonable, intelligent people managed to get our country into this outrageous debt situation in the first place?? Trillions of dollars in debt! TRILLIONS, people!! We've heard the numbers tossed around so much, they simply have no meaning for us anymore.

The tipping point for me was when I realized that this Super Committee who failed so miserably wasn't even, if they succeeded, going to reduce spending. They were just going to reduce projected increases in spending. Are you kidding me??? This has gone beyond all reason.

My husband rants that the whole body, and everyone who served on the body for the last couple decades, should be tried for treason and thrown in jail. The damage they've done to the country is incalculable. I'm starting to agree. This simply has to be fixed . . . but how . . .

Decking the Halls

I've been decorating the house for the holidays this weekend. This is one of those holiday activities that I don't have a problem with. For one thing, I don't let it stress me out. I give myself plenty of time so I can afford to take my time. I don't feel obligated to put out every decoration I have every year. When I start getting tired or grouchy about it, I take a break.

But also, my Christmas decorations add to the meaning of the holidays for me. I've learned to decorate with the mantra, "If it isn't beautiful, useful, or meaningful, I don't need it." And most everything I have now fits that criteria.

I have a small collection of Nutcrackers I put out. These are meaningful to me -- I took ballet for about 8 years and was in the Nutcracker all but one of those years. The Nutcracker is a significant part of the holidays for me.

I also have a collection of small tomtes I set up around a Swedish Christmas tree on the dining room tables. Tomtes are Swedish elves that are said to live in the barns -- the kids put out food for the tomtes on Christmas to bribe them into not playing pranks on the family the next year. These are a connection with my own Swedish background and my husband's upbringing in Lindsborg, Kansas.

We also have a Christmas in Lindsborg collection of ceramic buildings from his hometown. Again, a connection to our past -- and they're beautiful.

I have a small tabletop tree that I decorate with several sets of felt ornaments that my mother made, a different set every year. There's also a nativity set in almost every room of the house.

And of course, just about every ornament we put on the tree has a story behind it.

There are a few things I would get rid of -- and I weed something out probably every year. But the house decorating is a holiday tradition that passes my Scrooginess test and stays.

Brightening a Blackened Holiday Season

Is it just me, or has Black Friday reached a new level of insanity this year? My husband was heading to Walmart at midnight last night hoping to snag an inexpensive laptop (we need another now that his work computer is gone). But I told him an FB friend said something about getting "tickets" earlier in the evening for something, so he headed over at 11 to see what that was about. He was grumbling this morning about Walmart not making things clear . . . what a madhouse . . . lines up and down aisles, out doors . . .

That FB friend described fist fights over the xbox games she wanted. Insane. Do you remember the craziness over Cabbage Patch Kids one Christmas way back? Seriously, what is wrong with people?

Readers who've read my blog for a while will probably roll their eyes at my Scrooginess cropping up again this year, but here it is. I really don't like what Christmas has become. The stress, the craziness, the checklist of celebratory duties that we force ourselves through with no sense of meaning behind any of it. The stupid, formulaic Christmas movies on every night. The countdown TO the 25-day countdown to Christmas on the now inappropriately named ABC Family channel.

My family was way late this year getting our Christmas lists to family. I really wish we could give up writing out Christmas lists altogether. A friend just commented, "If you want your kids to focus on giving at Christmas, stop asking them what they want." Duh. It seems ridiculous to me that every year, we make our kids write up a list of stuff they want someone to give them. And when they can't think of enough things (as is the case with my kids sometimes), we get out catalogs, have them search the internet, watch more TV commercials . . . to have them beef up their list of wants. Ridiculous!!

I may just completely rebel next year. Refuse to do Christmas as usual. If we move and are doing Christmas in a new place, that may make it easier. It's time to redeem the holiday season.

Thanksgiving Rest

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Our family is staying here in Sioux City, just us. I'm not cooking; we'll eat out somewhere. We have absolutely nothing special or significant planned other than relaxing and enjoying each other's company. And I am thrilled.

I realize that sounds kind of bad to say I'm happy to not be spending Thanksgiving with extended family. I feel a little bit guilty saying it. Really, it's not a statement about my family and how much I love or enjoy them. It's just a statement about Thanksgiving.

The ten years we lived in New Jersey, we were never with family for Thanksgiving. Because we were going to be traveling back to Kansas a month later for Christmas and staying for a while, we couldn't justify spending the money for Thanksgiving, too. The first year, I think I tried making a traditional dinner and quickly realized the silliness of that -- neither Keith nor I are crazy about turkey and interested in eating the leftovers for weeks, and Leslie being only two didn't make much of her own dent in the feast.

So, we started our own Thanksgiving traditions. We'd hang around in our pjs all morning long, watching the parades on TV. (Yes, we did actually take the train up to NYC to see the parade live . . . once.) I made a leisurely breakfast of waffles or pancakes or something and then we just hung around until we got hungry for lunch. Then we'd usually head over to Cracker Barrel for our feast, come back home and be lazy the rest of the day, maybe ending the evening with a Christmas movie on TV.

We always spend time casually talking about all the things we are thankful for. One year, when Creative Memories had just come out with a paper punch in the shape of a leaf, we punched lots of little red, orange and yellow leaves, wrote on them things we were thankful for, strung them up and hung them on the fireplace for a couple months.

Thanksgiving became one of my favorite holidays in New Jersey. No stress. No expectations. Just a quiet day with me, my family and God, truly taking the time to appreciate our blessings. It was a great way to prepare for the crazy holiday season that I refuse to allow to start until the next day. I wish I could find a way to redeem ALL of the holidays like this and make them something that adds joy and meaning to my life more than stress and hassle.

Evil. Really.

I'm not sure why, but I read the Grand Jury report from the Jerry Sandusky hearings. It was horrible. I was particularly haunted by the testimony of the then-graduate assistant who walked in on Sandusky performing an unspeakable act on a 10-year-old boy in the showers at night and was so disturbed by it that he . . . left and called his father.

Really. My first thought was just that: really?? You saw this happening, you saw that they saw you seeing them, and you didn't stomp in there and pull that monster off of this child? But then I thought about it more. I put myself in the man's situation. And I'm stunningly afraid that I might have done the same thing.

I've never been exposed to violence and abuse like that. I can imagine walking around the empty locker rooms at night, hearing the noises, turning the corner and seeing that sight -- honestly, it had to have felt absolutely surreal. I can imagine doubting my senses, even my sanity. I'm sure I would have needed to step away and pull myself together, question whether I had actually seen what I thought I saw . . . and by that point, it would have been over, my word against his, and my word based on my shaky perception of the reality of it all. I might not have had it in me to step into the situation either.

I knew a man once who was a former Satanist, and he talked about how so many of us sheltered, comfortable Christians really only conceive of evil in the abstract. We'll say, "Yeah, I know there's evil and there's a Satan," and he'll tell them emphatically, "No, no -- you don't understand -- there is EVIL . . . there is SATAN . . ."

I know there is evil. But do I know it enough and believe it enough to recognize evil when it's staring me in the face? Or do I question my senses, my instincts, the Spirit within me, and call it something more benign? Or walk away altogether, not wanting to test whether or not He that is in me is really greater than he that is in the world?

I'm not sure I wouldn't have responded the same way this graduate assistant did in that situation. But I am sure I would have been haunted by my response for the rest of my life.

The Skill and the Art

There are the skills of acting, and then there is the art of acting. Likewise, there is the skill of writing and the art of writing. I find that I'm pretty good at teaching skill but pretty clueless about how to teach the art. There's probably a way to do it, but I don't know the way.

That's why I think, if I go back to teaching, I want to teach at the middle school level and/or teach lower level students. When I taught the honors kids, I had many kids I just didn't know how to help progress any further. They were enjoyable students to work with, but I didn't feel like I was doing them much of a service.

My first year of teaching in Blue Springs, Missouri, I had three classes of "regular" Junior English and three classes of kids who were all having to repeat Sophomore English. It was a challenging assignment for a first year teacher right out of college, and I think I did pretty well for a first year teacher right out of college. But I'd love to have another shot at those kids now, with the experience I have today.

In fact, if I could just create my own job in the schools, I would say, "Give me 30 students -- in two different classes. 30 kids who try hard but consistently struggle in English class. Give me the freedom to teach them whatever and however I want to, and let me see if I can get them to a point of being able to function successfully in a "regular" English class . . . and function even better in their other classes."

I would love that challenge today. I'm just not sure the school system has the flexibility to let me do something like that. My principal in Hutchinson, Mike Wortman, awesome administrator that he was -- he would have found a way. But not all administrators are that awesome.

Someone told me yesterday I should just start my own school. Right.....

Blind to Sin

Some Pharisees . . . asked, "What? Are we blind, too?"

Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim to see, your guilt remains." -- John 9

A good friend in junior high attended an Apostolic Pentacostal Church for a while where not only were they not allowed to dance, watch movies, or listen to rock music, but the women were not allowed to wear pants, cut their hair or wear makeup. Her mom thought she was in a cult and forbid her to go, and she started going to church with me and ultimately cut ties with the other church and its beliefs.

We had some interesting conversations, though, about that church and its people. If a woman in this congregation genuinely believed that cutting her hair was sin, an act of rebellion against God, and she cut her hair . . . did she sin? We concluded that she did -- she was choosing wrong over right, rebellion over trust. It was a matter of the condition of her heart toward God.

Of course, this then begs the question . . . if someone has a right heart toward God and commits a sin not knowing that it is a sin, did they sin? The passage I quoted earlier from John 9 seems to imply not. I remember a woman in Bible study in NJ very innocently telling us all how couples really do need to have sex before they get married to be sure they are "physically compatable". A new believer, and quite apparently ignorant that the traditional Christian stance against sex outside of marriage was not a matter of tradition but a command from God in scripture. (An easy mistake, actually, for one who doesn't know the Bible well -- there are many church traditions that have come to have the weight of scriptural mandate in some communities.)

Then, of course, this begs the question . . . why tell people that they're sinning if, in their ignorance, they are also innocent? A valid question, and a tough one to answer in the abstract. I actually do think there are situations where we are probably better off keeping our mouth shut and allowing the Holy Spirit himself to convict a person of their sin. As Pharisaic as my tendencies are, I would rather trust the Spirit to do his job there than overstep my bounds and condemn another of a "sin" that I'm mistaken about.

But the fact about most sins in the Bible is, the reason God tells us not to do these things is because he knows how they will hurt us. He made us and really does have the right to tell us how we should live our lives if we want to be happy. He knows that saving sex for marriage makes the sex thing so much better and our marriages so much stronger -- and he knows the "physical compatability" thing all works out in the end.

So, confronting someone regarding sin in their life (something we are instructed to do with fellow believers) is a delicate thing. Something to be done with humility, love, discernment . . . with the right condition of the heart. And once again, the condition of our heart will determine whether our confrontation is an act of sin or an act of compassion.