Shall We Dance?

When we first come to a relationship in Christ as an adult, whether that's through maturing in faith or through a conversion, we are on fire. There is no lukewarm, mediocre feeling. There is fire. There is an urge to shout for joy, to do His work, to join the choir and sing His praises from the rooftops. And then, we settle in. We commit. We live the Christian life day in and day out. We know joy, but sometimes, we grow weary and the fire grows a little cooler. Life happens. We are asked to take turns we didn't know were there and climb hills that seem steeper than we even knew possible. Calm confidence evades us and though we are joyful deep-down, we're not exactly dancing a happy dance.

Because we are committed to a life in Christ, our hearts are restless. We want to rest in Him. We want to feel joyful. Still, our souls are hungry and our spirits are weary.

I've been there.

The first time I was there, I had four young children and a major case of burnout. As I battled back, I kept notes. I shared those notes in a talk at a conference. While shopping at the conference, a lady who had heard my talk introduced me to a book. More importantly, she introduced me to a mentor. I went home, read Educating the WholeHearted Child and was forever changed. That was the weekend I "met" Sally Clarkson.

Sally Clarkson is a woman of vision. A woman of conviction.

I inhaled everything she'd written or spoken (this was back in the day of "just books" and audio cassette tapes--no blogs or podcasts:-). The following year, I wanted to talk about whole books education at that same conference. I took a chance, sent Sally some things I'd written, and asked her if I could have a WholeHearted table for her when I spoke. Then I forgot all about it.

One February day (exactly 11 years ago), when I was bringing my fifth baby home from the hospital, the phone rang as we walked in the door. Mike juggled the infant seat, I went for the couch, and  Michael headed for the phone. "Just tell whomever it is I'll call her back."

"Mom," he said, his hand over the receiver, "it's Sally Clarkson."

I took that call:-). Sally told me--briefly--about her time in Poland, her fondness for Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, and her vision for ministry.And then she told me to inhale deeply the sweetness of my baby.  Over the years, we have kept in touch sporadically and she has continued to mentor me through her many books. Recently, the blogosphere has blessed us with connection. So, it was with great pleasure that I agreed to read an advance copy of her new book Dancing with my Father.

And once again, her timing was perfect. She found me in a low place and like the best of mentors, lifted me up and challenged me onward. She equipped me with wisdom and example and inspiration-- and just a little bit of a kick in the pants.

This is a book of vision; a book of the joy that comes with loving well. It's a  breath of fresh air for weary travelers on the ministry road. Withcharacteristic grace and wisdom, Sally Clarkson acknowledges that even the most devoted Christian suffers discouragement, disappointment, and disillusionment. She meets us in our crashed idealism and burnout—but she doesn't leave us there. With God at her side, she leads us to the gentle peace and quiet trust of a mature Christian. Dancing with my Father will challenge you to think the thoughts, pray the prayers, and do the work that will bring you to a better understanding of the magnificent dance the Lord of Love has choreographed for you.

Can  you hear the music? He wants to have this dance...

Katherine Paterson and the Boy I Love

I recently read that Katherine Paterson was named National Ambassador of Young People's Literature and the announcement made me smile. And remember. It set me off on a bit of a rabbit trail.

My favorite class in college was Children's Literature. It was not taught by my favorite teacher (that would be Teaching Reading and Reading Disabilities). Children's Literature was wonderful because, well, it required that I read the best of the best of children's books all semester and spend hours sequestered with my best friends in the tiny section of the Ed School library that was devoted to Children's Lit.

It was autumn of my third year when I read Bridge to Terabithia. Page after page, a beautiful friendship unfolded. In the woods of a countryside that sounded very much like my beloved northern Virginia woods, Jess and Leslie became best friends. [My recent rabbit trail confirms that she was indeed inspired by the woods here in my county.]

Sitting in that tiny library, turning page after page until I read it one sitting, I remembered.

I remembered an early teen friendship that later became a romance of fits and starts. The romance part was too much, too soon. But the friendship part was precious and rare and so very much like that of Jess and Leslie. When Leslie died and Jess grieved, I felt so sorry for him that I picked up the phone.

I called that dear friend and we talked for hours. He invited me to come home one weekend very soon.

We walked those woods again.

We were married two years later.

I'm a big fan of Katherine Paterson:-)

*And no, I haven't seen the movie. Some books are just too dear to risk messing them up by watching the movie.

Details, details

We're back from the beach: tons of fun and oodles of pictures, but I'll have to journal that later. It's "G" week on the Alphabet Path for us, and some serious gardening is in the plans today (not to mention all the unpacking and reorganizing that comes with some time away from home).

My inbox is full of questions, so I'm hoping to answer here and be efficient:-).

Elizabethfoss.com is down. I'm not sure why. The webmaster for that site is Cindy Kelly's husband, who volunteers his time and expertise. His dad died yesterday. Please pray for Larry's soul and for the whole Kelly clan. Your patience and understanding with the web details are appreciated.

I know that navigating Serendipity is becoming tedious. I promise to look into other options and move it from blog format as soon as I can. I have no idea when that will be. Remember, it's free. ;-)

In the meantime, if you try the search bar on the lefthand side of this blog, it will search Serendipity for you. I had some success when I gave it a few trial searches.

There have been some questions about books for the Sunflower Basket. Here are my best answers:

Mary Beth is no longer using Botany in a Day. Instead we are using Apologia Botany and the Notebooking Journal. These, along with the other reading and the Botany Coloring Book make for a very complete course. The links I provided above give you a look at the samples of the book and journal. Sacred Heart Books and Gifts stock all the botany books we are using.

Sacred Heart also carries You Can Become a Saint and the workbook.

I've gotten some notes from people who are looking for my book. If you ordered from me in the last month, your book is on its way. I've now depleted my supply. Thanks for wanting it:-)!

My publisher tells me that Real Learning is out of print currently (and will be reprinted at a higher cost). A second edition is also in the works. Linda at Sacred Heart is the only one I know who has the first edition now and she has it for a great price.

Now, there are sandy jeans to shake and wash, weeds to pull, pansies to plant, and morning calling my name!

In Real Life...

We rarely follow the plans as written. In real life, my days look nothing like my iCal pages. Oh, I love the plans. They are like good recipes. I gather the ingredients, tinkering a bit to take advantage of what looks freshest and best at the grocery store. I glance through the directions and do what seems best at the time. And usually, whatever we're cooking comes out well. Cooking is an art, you know, with a little science sprinkled in with love. So, too, raising and educating children is an art. When it comes to our homeschooling days, I write the plans, but I don't become attached to them.

Because I do become attached to the children.

On Monday, iCal called for Outdoor Hour. Have you tried these? What absolutely wonderful gifts they are! We're on a roll with them this fall. Barb makes the Handbook of Nature Study come alive for us and graciously offers free guidance that is priceless. Everyone is enthusiastic.

We headed out to our new favorite, very local spot (we walked) and spent a pleasant time drawing. I had to drag the boys away because of an urgent girl potty issue. On  the walk home, the littlest girls each fell asleep in a stroller. We wheeled both strollers into the house and let them snooze. I seized the quiet opportunity to read William Shakespeare and the Globe to all children still awake. [Note to those who have followed my iCal plans previously: "School" didn't happen in any meaningful way on Friday of Birthday Week and I slid last Friday's plans to Monday. ]

My plans called for children to create a diorama of the Globe Theatre. Somehow, in my keeping room, those plans morphed. Big boys became team captains; teams were picked; cardboard, duct tape,  craft paint and glue guns were sequestered to opposite corners of the house. Daddy was named Judge. A deadline of three weeks hence was set. One child was frantically researching on his iPod Touch. Another was printing madly from the computer upstairs. A hush fell. And then the man arrived to deliver the dishwasher.

The man barely stepped from his truck before competing teams of children were begging for appliance boxes. Wise man, he gave them the box from our dishwasher and then stripped the box from another. More quiet.

Big boys left for soccer. I slipped out with a lone ballerina. I left her at dance and spent 33 minutes alone, in the quiet, at Adoration. Not that I was counting minutes or anything. What a beautiful gift quiet with Jesus is!

After I gathered my dancer and a week's worth of groceries for a family of eleven, I returned home. Globe Theatre construction resumed after dinner and continued well into the night. I went to sleep thinking what a perfect day it was: nature, Shakespeare, Adoration, soccer and dance. A good meal. A quiet night. What more could I have wanted?

Don't answer that. I know there was no math, no Latin, no grammar, no time whatsoever at a desk. But really, truly, it was perfect in my book. A day when seven children from 3-17 are meaningfully engaged and working together all day long? How often does that happen?

The next day, while I hustled three sick children to the doctor, the children at home ignored my plans and kept right on working on those Theatre dioramas. There was a brief skirmish over toothpicks that resulted in my emergency trip to the grocery store, but mostly, work was steady. I thought about the iCal plans. Tuesday is our heavy geography block day.  This Tuesday was about scale drawings, popsicle stick construction standards, and wee felt actors.

Truth is, my days rarely look like the pages of Serendipity. They are not that neat. They are not that beautiful. They are not that full. Well, maybe they are that full but not in the way they look there. We pick and choose from the plans and the books. I hope you do, too, as I think it would be near impossible to do them as written. We change things out and abandon things that don't work and add things that work better. We abandon the plans altogether to binge on a great project.

"Simplicity" seems to be a goaland a virtue in pockets of  the blogosphere. For some people, simplicity is next to godliness from what I can tell. Things aren't simple here. At least, when I put my head on the pillow at night, in the three seconds before I fall asleep, they don't seem simple. There's is a lot going on.

A few weeks ago I read an authoritative email that declared that the secret to homeschooling success was to never, ever deviate from the curriculum as written. This seems foolish advice to me. If you are using my curriculum, please, please consider it in light of your children and your home and your energy level. Please use your common sense and your mama-wisdom. Please don't attempt to do it all. And please, if you find a better way to do it, write and let me know. I might just do it that way, too. 

Along those lines, here are some tweaks I've not yet had time to tell you about:

• Mary Beth abandoned Botany in a Day for Apologia Botany. The new notebooks offered by Apologia are just amazing! She is creating a beautiful notebook and doing all the activities and experiments and thoroughly enjoying Jeannie Fulbright's style. With the addition of the other living books in the Young Ladies' Curriculum and nature study, this is a very full botany course. And yes, Jen has the Ivy Basket all written and ready for you. She's waiting on me to finish my pages before we  post. I'm getting to it, I promise. Pray I get the gift of writing time with Mary Beth.
• Patrick, Stephen, and Nicholas are using Apologia Astronomy. Patrick is reading from MacBeth's astronomy suggestions. And we will also add this very full Teaching Company course to the study. I hadn't planned on Astronomy at all. The boys asked for it when they were unable to answer a trivia question Mike posed at the dinner table just after the school year began.  
• We haven't forgotten about the Writer's Workshop. Esther Hershenhorn, the author of S is for Story, contacted me when she learned of our plans to use her book. She was very interested in our ideas to create workshops using S is for Story. The book arrived just a couple of days after Bryce died. The author, who is just lovely, suggested that I might find these mini-workshops (click on Young Writer Extras) helpful while I wait for Colleen to join me again in writing on Serendipity. I do! Maybe you will like them, too? It's really nice when people who believe in sharing the joy of teaching reach out to each other and help in a time of need. Colleen was touched by the kindness of this stranger and so was I.
• Our Alphabet Path travels this year are mainly focused upon the Author Studies and the Science Trails, since Katie has already traveled the Path twice. However, we are truly enjoying the inspiration of gifted teachers like Jessica and Blair this time around. It's fun to see how beautifully the plans come to life in the talented hands of those ladies. I find myself having to refrain from wanting to do it all;-).
• Speaking of Jessica, we're loving the Little Flowers notebook pages! We use Little Flowers here at home and these pages are just wonderful. We aren't such good Little Flowers crafters and I don't always get to the edible goodies, but I'm sure glad to have Jessica's ideas to add to our days.
• The big boys are doing our geography studies along with us. I can't handle three different high school programs to supervise. I need to keep my boys close. Works better that way. I'm way out of writing time now. Maybe another day, I'll share how it all looks. Basically, we're taking books from the Sonlight high school lists and matching them with the geographical regions we're studying. All the plans are there; it's a pretty simple thing to pull what works for each kid.

And now, I truly must go. Gosh, it was nice to blog again. I had no intention of writing so long this morning. God's good; it's happy to be here.  Thanks for listening.

Blessings on your day!

Note on "Teaching" Faith to Teens

Questions about the new curriculum:

I  noticed that your selections for Religion are different from Jen's in your teenage girls' curriculum. Can you tell me why you are using what you are using? And why don't you call it Religion?

Mary Beth is my fourth teenager.When I first started putting together programs of study for the late middle school and high school years, I bought into  the popularly propagated notion that because teenagers are naturally argumentative, we should give them something to argue about and so "Apologetics" is perfect for teenagers. Now, I've reconsidered that a bit.

When I consider my goals, particularly for the early teen years, I most want them to know their faith and integrate it into their being. While I might like them to be able to answer the Mormon at the door or a skeptical evangelical from our neighborhood homeschool group or even the many Hindus who play in our backyard, that is not my primary goal. My primary goal is for them to hear and answer Jesus with joy.

My primary goal is that they know their faith to the very core of their being and that they develop a habit of relationship with Jesus while they are still in myhome. I truly believe that we are all called to make believers of all nations. The most effective evangelists though, are not the ones who have memorized the answers and mastered the art of debate. Instead, they are the kids who have their  sharing spill out of the joy in Jesus those good habits of relationship have helped to cultivate. When they are totally in love with Jesus and happily living in His Church, the apologetics angle falls into place in a very genuine way.

In my house, I've found it to backfire to equip a child with all these tools to "argue his faith." I have hyper-competitive children who might just easily lose sight of the fact that we're standing for truth and defending our Best Friend Forever, thinking instead that the point is just to be right and to win the fight. When the focus is on winning the argument, the discourse sounds dangerously like a fight and is likely to slip into something angry. Mixing the natural inclination to argue with materials that underscore an "us versus them" air of superiority seems to feed a contentious attitude.

The overt focus on arguing the faith can result in a curriculum that encourages too many words on the part of the teen. By shifting the focus to relationship with the Lord and His Church, I am hoping to cultivate good listeners--faithful adults who both listen to the Lord and to each other.

"Religion" is a subject and that is how this component of the course would be recorded on a transcript, but the real goal is a deep, maturing faith. I want to guard against strident, sanctimonious superiority that sometimes comes with a teenage focus on apologetics.   Faith is gift. If we think about that truth, it humbles us.  By keeping "faith"  along that margin, I am constantly reminded that it's not knowledge about the Church that I want to drill into them. It's love for Christ I want to imbue and, ultimately, it's the Holy Spirit who will "teach" this "course."

First off, my children  read these books by Amy Welborn. These are fairly quickly read, basic cornerstones:

Prove It: God

Prove It: Church

Prove It: Jesus

Prove It: Prayer

Then there is a decided emphasis on Peter Kreeft. Peter Kreeft resonates with the people in our home. What isn't listed on the young lady's curriculum are the Peter Kreeft books we read and discussed last year, books that were particularly suited to young teens seeking some answers for themselves. You could say they are apologetics books, but the emphasis is not on winning an argument with someone else. The emphasis is on truly understanding the philosophical underpinnings of the faith for oneself. A family I admire greatly, where all nine children embrace the faith as adults, have shared with me that their father sat with them as teenagers and talked about philosophy and theology on a regular and frequent basis. That kind of practice is not something I can replicate on my own in my home. I don't have the education that father has. But, I can read these books with my children and have those important conversations. Peter Kreeft helps me with the education part. I can't speak more highly of these books:

• Your Questions, God's Answers
• Yes or No?
• Because God is Real
• Before I Go: Letters to Our Children About What Really Matters

You will only see two core books listed for this year for my teenagers (Mary Beth's "religion" class and Patrick's are the same). This "living books" decision is a distillation of what has been the most meaningful with my teens in the last eight years of parenting teenagers.

The first book is Kreeft's Catholic Christianity. Many years ago, Catholic Christianity was recommended to me by Nicholas' godmother. Linda is a brilliant woman who has done a masterful job with the academic education of her children. She's also a former Evangelical Protestant, who was passionate about Jesus and winning souls well before she converted to Catholicism. This is the volume that spoke to her--that made sense both intellectually and spiritually. She used it with her young teens before they left homeschooling for Catholic high schools because it best embodied the gift she had discovered in the Church combined with the joy of the Christ of her youth.This book is a careful, well-crafted, articulate walk through the faith in a style reminiscent of C. S. Lewis. It's a step-by-step explanation of what we believe and why we can believe it. It represents the active part of the "religion course." We'll discuss each individual article until the three of us understand it for ourselves.The goal in our discussions won't be winning an argument; it will be helping each other to better understand the treasure of the faith.  I will purchase my fourth and fifth copies of this book this fall. Michael, Christian, and I already have our own personal copies. The next two are for Mary Beth and Patrick to keep.

The second book is the private, personal component of the "religion course." You Can Become a Saint is a book of habit training. If the wisdom in the book is applied and integrated into the lives of my children, they will have habits of a morning offering, meditation and spiritual reading,  time management that is ordered towards the will of God,  examination of conscience and night prayer. The book is drawn from Opus Dei spiritually. My family is not an Opus Dei family, but the habits here are time-tested habits of saints throughout time. They are not unique to any particular movement or spirituality. My dearest hope for this "course" is that they will cultivate the habits of a life in constant dialogue with Christ. Those habits will nurture a genuine joy in the Savior that will be organically effusive and will naturally draw people to them so that they might share their joy. In my opinion, those habits will engender genuinely kindhearted young people who are great apologists because they exude joyful charity.

Finally, each of my teens has a stack of biographies of heroes of the faith. Reading stories of the saints offers them a look at the many, many spiritualities that are represented in the body of Christ. As they learn more about themselves through spiritual reading and meditation, they will begin to identify more closely with certain saints over others. In doing so, they will make lifelong friends and companions for this journey  of faith. Stories of the saints are built into every single year of our educational adventure.

These are a lot of words to explain two simple book choices. If, together, we can truly integrate the wisdom of those two choices into our lives this year, our education will be a huge success.