Happy Easter!

Wishing everyone a fabulous Easter!

The Lord is Risen! Alleluia!

(and the proper response?--All together now...)

The Lord is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!

Meditation on Christ's Arrest

After Judas betrayed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was led away to the house of the high priest. The soldiers mocked him and beat him.
While it was still night, Jesus would have been held prisoner, waiting for his trial. This picture is of a hole in the basement of Caiaphas' house. It is just big enough for a man to be lowered into--it is too narrow to provide room to sit--one has to stand up inside.
This is probably where Jesus would have been held.

While at our Maundy Thursday vigil this morning, I read Psalm 88. I'll bet Jesus was quite familiar with the Psalms, as they were the hymnal of the Jews. I wonder if these words came to his mind as he waited in the darkness.

Oh Lord, the God who saves me, day and night I cry out before you; turn your ear to my cry.
For my soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave. I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength. I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care.

You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily on me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. You have taken from me my closest friends, and have made me repulsive to them. I am confined and cannot escape; my eyes are dim with grief.

But I cry to you for help, O Lord; in the morning my prayer comes before you.

I wonder if these words were on his lips, as he spent the remainder of the night in the pit.

Two, Two, Two Weeks in One!

(For those of you who remember the Certs commercial...)

We've had two pretty good weeks since the last report. Now we are on break, but here are some highlights.

In History, we are just finishing the stories of Marco Polo, and Genghis and Kublai Khan. We read some really wonderful books about them, and had fun mapping various journeys and territories. I find the Silk Road fascinating, and Nature Girl was intrigued by stories of Marco Polo opening the East to the Europeans. We are also reading Heidi. Just love this story.
We also went back thru the AG and picked up some map work and this game (Fox and Geese) from the Richard the Lionheart chapter. It gave us a chance to review.

Nature Girl is making a lapbook for Bible. Here is an example of one of the mini-books. The idea originally was to give her a Bible after completing the lapbook, but I'm going to put it in her Easter Basket instead. This is the mini-book for Exodus. I'll post more pics as we go along.


We did a scavenger hunt with our Home Science Adventures kit. The idea was to gather various plant materials, then view them thru the microscope. We found everything on the list except the leaf borer. We also dissected the daffodil to see the pistil, pollen, stamen, and other parts. Pretty cool! Loving this curriculum.


Here's another lapbook mini-book--sorry I didn't put the pics in order. This one has the flaps that open, for the child to take notes or write a verse. We may go back and do that, but I just wanted to move on. Nature Girl wrote very neatly, and I didn't want to overwhelm her. She also started Christian Liberty's Studying God's Word A. I had it laying around, and decided to let her do it. It's quite simple, just reading a story paraphrased from the Bible, then answering 4 or 5 simple questions (the answers are provided for copying). She is intrigued by some of the stories we haven't covered before.
That's it for now. I'll try to be better about posting more next week!

Enormous Grace

The short and sweet...
For so long, we've been dealing with the effects and consequences of addiction. Trust me, residential treatment is not fun. When needed, it's a Godsend, but it's never the ideal. (I suppose the ideal is not needing it in the first place!) And it's very, very hard on the family, at least in our case. So, there's this difficult place where we've been living--on one hand, we knew RT was necessary. On the other, we all felt incomplete--like missing a limb might be, like a small death had occurred (are there any small deaths?). Something needed to be done, but the sacrifice showed, in all of us. Then Sky bombed out of RT, went to JDC, and we waited to find out what the judge would do.

Sky is home.

It is not a perfect solution. We still have therapy to go to, meetings, work at home. We have a covenant to both live up to and uphold. There is risk. Great risk.

But there is something more, something so difficult to put into words, and something the professionals in our lives do not understand, or at least, do not dare embrace, because there is Great Risk.

It is Enormous Grace.

Grace--"unmerited favor" "getting what you don't deserve" "not getting what you do deserve"

Do you ever wonder what happened after the Father welcomed home the Prodigal? We know about the Older Brother. We know how the Father felt. But we don't get to see any further into the Prodigal's story. Perhaps it's because Jesus knows each of us is a prodigal, and we all will be able to finish the story for ourselves. We have all turned from home, gone our own way, thought we knew better...

Rebelled.

And those of us who have returned, have left again. And again.
Maybe the second and the third and the fourth times, we went less and less far away, or maybe we went even farther.

But at some point, we received
Enormous Grace.

The Father was waiting, for the son to return. He wrapped his cloak around him, called for the feast, welcomed his son home with a joyous proclamation.
I wonder, did the Enormous Grace the Father showed change the Prodigal? Did he finally understand just how much his Father loved him? Did he ever want to leave again?

Sky was stunned by the judge's decision. Sky was stunned we'd want him home. Sky is just beginning to remember what home is, and why he'd want to be here.

Enormous Grace.

How sweet the sound.

Music That Matters

One of my very favorite blogs is Stephanie in FL's Enduring with Grace.
What an incredible woman. She's been thru so much, but now things are looking up.
On her blog, she had a bunch of songs she handpicked--so I followed the link and made a list of my own. How fun!

One's musical choices say so much about one's personality, inner heart, inner self. I guess I'm pretty eclectic, faith-filled (by Grace alone), a searcher, a finder, joyful, irreverent...or maybe I just like guitar, piano, some clever lyrics and some humor now and again.

I need quiet in my life. I don't keep the radio on, unless I'm in the car, and I worry that I haven't exposed my kids to enough music. But when the time is right, music fills my heart with praise for Jesus, with a desire to reach beyond my own life to the life of God, with laughter and joy, and sometimes just with a deep appreciation of beauty and of the talent that can turn such deep emotions and the experiences we all share into these wonderful songs.

I was especially glad to find some Tom Lehrer to share with you LOL!
Now everybody go "genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!"

The Spring Purse

This is my blog, so I can post what I want to, right? I need to vent. I am feeling irritated with two homeschooling issues brought up by one of the wonderful boards I frequent.

First--Under the category of THEN WHY BOTHER?--
There was a recent post by someone who claims she wants to homeschool her child, but then goes on to say that she's looking for a way to do it that won't require anything from her. (and here I've edited something very uncharitable...) Oh. MY. What's up with that? I get the "I'm overwhelmed" feelings, and I really do empathize with wanting to give but feeling drained. But why do we let that be an excuse for such behaviour? I just want to scream, "COME ON!" Put the kid in a decent preschool and move on. A poor homeschool is NOT better than a good preschool. Some think it is, just by virtue of being at home. That's such crap.

Then--Under the category of RELAX, AND ALLOW YOUR CHILD TO BE A CHILD--
So many times, people are afraid to let their kids explore with art materials, or make messes in general. OOO, it's messy! OOOO, they might spill! OOO, MUD! OH HORRORS! Geez, Louise. Can't you clean up spills? Doesn't paint wipe off? Ever hear of a wet rag and some newspapers? Because of Mom's (or Dad's, or whatever adult--even teachers at school!) obsession with neatness and cleanliness, germophobia, or simple anxiety about product over process, the child never gets to DO anything that might create a tiny bit of chaos. Art has to be confined to coloring (and that better be with washable crayons and a coloring book, and it better be "within the lines..."), juice has to be poured for the child, outside can't be explored. I just want to shake these people. The kids sometimes survive intact (kids are quite resilient), but what do they miss?

The fact is, Creating and Exploring (and they do deserve Capital Letters) are the work of childhood. Neatness, orderliness and yes, even safety, are not what they are cracked up to be. When these get in the way too much, children become fearful of making mistakes, and of "looking ridiculous." Adults sometimes just need to step back and let the process reveal itself. Let the kid explore. Let the kid risk--
Risk. There is a fine balance here, between letting that risk happen and keeping our kids safe. Yes, we definitely have to provide safety, but my Goodness, can't we do so without squelching the heck out of every creative endeavor?

So, I guess my point is, get off your ass, stop thinking only of your own comfort level in raising your children, and see this time in both your life and the lives of your kids as precious and worth the investment. It goes FAST. It blazes by. One day, they will stop giving messy kisses. They will become so capable that you will be fazed out--just like that, you will become unnecessary for their survival. Instead of a wardrobe staple like black pants, you will become the Spring Purse. Nice, but not essential.

That's our job, isn't it? To become the Spring Purse. Nice to have around, full of good information, but if left behind, not crucial to one's day--because they've learned, you see. They've learned that mistakes are part of the process of becoming whole. That creativity doesn't fit within the lines, and that sometimes the paint spills, and that's OK.

Vent over.

Late! But Here's Our Weekly Report Feb.25-29

We've done lots of reading this week, and lots of Language Arts. Here are some highlights:


Nature Girl had a good week. We've read a lot of picture books about Judaism, as we are on the chapter about the Diaspora in History. I can't recommend Golem, but the Shabbat was quite good.

We made charoset and talked about the Jewish holidays. Passover usually coincides with Easter, but not this year. This was pointed out by a fellow WTM Boardie-- thank goodness people read this blog and correct me!
As you can see, Nature Girl is currently into Nancy Drew. She read these 3 over the last two weeks, as well as two in the Boxcar Children series. Susan Wise Bauer (of The Well-Trained Mind) says to be careful of allowing too many series books, because they can turn kids off to using their brains, as they are often not very well written. I'm ok with these two series, however, because they are wholesome, interesting, and Nature Girl reads plenty that stretches her.
We've also done some other reading aloud these past two weeks. (I'm sorry for the dark picture--I can't seem to edit it correctly on Adobe.) Coraline has got to be the creepiest book for kids EVER. Can't read it to dd at night! We are going through Mary Pope Osborne's 6 book version of the Odyssey again, and will finish that by Monday. Good read--for a younger audience than Sutcliff's Wanderings of Odysseus. We are enjoying comparing different "Cinderella" stories across cultures. Rough Faced Girl and Raisel's Riddle come from American Indian and Jewish cultures, respectively.

Nature Girl is currently curled up on the couch, on day 2 of a fever and cough. We are going to be out of town for a night, so we probably will just call it a sick day tomorrow.