As long as we have cable

There's fast approaching the day when our family will be giving up television altogether. We don't watch it now much anyway. Mainly it's me with my need for news and the occasional National Geographic documentary on tornado chasers, the Ark of the Covenant or some other intriguing topic. We're peeved by the coming mandatory switch to digital and not only are we too cheap to buy a new t.v. just for this reason we are also too cheap to try to outfit the postage-stamp sized analog set we now have. (Okay, it's a little bigger than a postage stamp, but not by much.)

Until the day we cancel our cable subscription and pull the plug -- February 2009 is when the analog world becomes extinct, I think -- I'll be tuning in after my brood is in bed to watch "Jon and Kate Plus 8" (The Learning Channel 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Monday)

I confess a growing morbid fascination with how these parents juggle life with a set of twins and a set of sextuplets. The sextuplets, three boys and three girls, were born just a few months before one of my children, so I delight in watching Jon and Kate Gosselin face off against a hoard of wild and wonderful three-year-olds.

I find myself listing to one side most evenings after keeping up with just one. :o)

Some folks think Kate is too demanding and Jon not demanding enough. Blogs abound with criticisms about the Gosselins' parenting style.

But with only half as many children as they have, my hat is off to them for surviving long enough to allow television cameras into their home.

An elephant walks into the room . . .

This may be possibly THE best piece of advice I've ever read. It comes from a new book I just bought titled, "The Homeschooler's Book of Lists."

List #99: Deadliest Animals includes suggestions for avoiding the most notorious beasts in the world.

Elephants are on the list with an estimated 300-500 human deaths per year to their credit.

How to reduce the risk of an attack?

"Stay away from elephants."

Uh, thanks.

My friend Rene

This is my first "shout out" sort of 'blog entry and it goes to my friend Rene. She's a fellow homeschooler who feels things deeply and lives life fully. She's teaching two of my children how to sing and they're doing great under her tutelage.

I like Rene because she thinks about things. She reads, she writes, she reaches out to others and tries to share with them what she has learned so that just maybe they won't have to reinvent the wheel for themselves.

But mostly I like Rene because she works hard to practice what she preaches and that's a rare quality these days.

Thanks, Rene, for helping me to keep things real without drowning in the cynicism that would surely take me down otherwise.

Even the manhole covers . . .

are imported.

Tonight I took a walk around our neighborhood with a couple of my children. As we went along I happened to glance down at a storm sewer cover (manhole cover, they used to call them) and was shocked to see boldly imprinted on the metal, "Made In India."

I am not kidding.

Apparently the City of Houston couldn't bring itself to buy American, not even when it comes to wastewater systems.

Prayer Against Indifference

A few posts back I promised to share one of my all-time favorite poems, "Prayer Against Indifference" by Joy Davidman. She was married to C.S. Lewis, author of the Chronicles of Narnia and various other works on Christianity. I committed this poem to memory many years ago. I think it should be required reading for everyone in the world.

Prayer Against Indifference

When wars and ruined men shall cease
To vex my body's house of peace,
And bloody children lying dead
Let me lie softly in my bed
To nurse a whole and sacred skin,
Break roof and let the bomb come in.

Knock music at the templed skull
And say the world is beautiful,
But never let the dweller lock
Its house against another knock;
Never shut out the gun, the scream,
Never lie blind within a dream.

Within these walls the brain shall sit
And chew on life surrounding it;
Eat the soft sunlight hour and then
The bitter taste of bleeding men;
But never underneath the sun
Shall it forget the scream, the gun.

Let me have eyes I need not shut;
Let me have truth at my tongu's root,
Let courage and the brain command
The honest fingers of my hand;
And when I wait to save my skin
Break roof and let my death come in.

When I learned about the Holocaust

I was in sixth grade the first time I heard about the Holocaust. Until then, my life as a child was pretty typical and, typical of the young in general, I figured every other kid lived as happily and securely as I did.

Starting middle school was an eye-opener in and of itself. But when our World History teacher began talking about the various events that made up WWII, I was in for a shock. Anti-semitism? New to me. Hitler? Work camps? Extermination of 6 million people? Was my teacher kidding? What WAS this all about really?

In my spare time as an aide in the school's library I combed the shelves of books on the war, checking out and reading literally everything there was to be read about the Holocaust. I just knew I could understand it all if only I read the right thing(s).

The book "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" is a collection of poems and artwork by children of the Terezin concentration camp where many Jewish intellectuals and artists were sent. Inmates were encouraged to be creative, to write, to play music, in spite of the terrible fate that would await the majority.

When I read "Butterfly" a big light bulb came on in my head and for the first time I found myself weeping, sobbing out loud as I turned each page. These were children just like me! And they suffered and died just because they were Jewish!

I asked my mother to explain this and she could not. So I asked my father, and he could not. Then I asked the school librarian and she could not.

And finally, like any child who is repeatedly told "I don't know," or "I can't help you," I quit asking, and all those questions rattled around unanswered for many years.

It wasn't until I was married and went with my husband to tour the Holocaust Museum of Houston that I realized I still carried those unanswered questions. Only now, with years of life under my belt, I knew there was nothing that would explain to my satisfaction what happened so long ago.

The day we toured the museum, an elderly man was sitting at the front desk. I figured he was some sort of volunteer or employee. It wasn't until we got ready to leave and he thanked us for coming that I noticed the number tattooed on his arm.


And now, here's the poem, "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" by Pavel Friedmann:

"The Butterfly"

The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing
against a white stone. . . .
Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly 'way up high.
It went away I'm sure because it wished to
kiss the world good-bye.
For seven weeks I've lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto.
But I have found what I love here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut branches in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.
That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don't live in here,
in the ghetto.

Lessons learned from Earth Day

Our neighborhood's Go Green committee hosted its first Earth Day festival this weekend and my children participated in the "junk art" competition. The rule was to make your work of art out of materials that would have otherwise been thrown away. In helping them decide what to make, I began to think more seriously than ever before about just how much we THROW AWAY. It's appalling, to say the least.

One child made a mother pig and piglet in a "trough" using plastic juice and water bottles (pigs) and a cardboard box filled with shredded catalog pages. "Even pigs need a clean planet" was the theme.

Another made a tea set complete with tea pot, cups, creamer and sugar on a tray using cardboard tubes of various sizes, an old grits canister and a plastic tray. The pieces were covered in colorful catalog pages.

My son made a mobile out of old banged up music CDs and wooden sticks.

More thought-provoking than the materials the kids did use was the large bin of odds and ends saved over the past month that weren't used. What to do with them????

My first inclination was to get all that trash out of my utility room. But on closer inspection I realize that several more arts and crafts projects are lurking.

Watching my children play with their plastic bottle pigs and cardboard tube tea set, I marvel at the joy they get from such simple and truly homemade toys. And I'm a little ashamed at the storebought toys scattered throughout my home. The kids would obviously be just as happy without the bulk of them.

What of all the children all over the world whose ONLY toys are the ones they either make themselves out of scrap or have made for them? Are they less happy because those toys don't blink, speak, blare or sparkle?

I remain skeptical about Al Gore's clarion call to reduce my carbon footprint. I'm not sure where I stand on global warming. But I do know this: Americans throw away far too many things. Our goods come to us overly packaged and our overflowing landfills are testimony enough.

My new goal for my children is to pay more attention to what I'm about to throw away and to instead consider a possible second life for it. Watching my son dance about in the "rainbows" made by the spinning CDs that make up his mobile reminds me that I can and must do a better job of practicing what I preach when it comes to taking care of the Creation.

Not as worried about FLDS children today

Reading a new article in the Houston Chronicle has left me feeling a little better about the situation involving the fundamentalist Mormon children who have been put in foster care all around the state, including two facilities here in the Houston area.

Bright spots? CPS will be arranging for mothers to visit their children, the children will be educated at their respective group homes either by employees from the local school district or via private schools -- no public school unles they remain in foster care a really long time, -- and their religious practices and dietary preferences will be respected. Also, sibling groups are being kept together so no one is assigned to individual foster homes. This last bit had me unduly worried because I think splitting up brothers and sisters after already taking them from their parents would be the final nail, so to speak.

The article also quotes CPS spokesman as saying they've now identified "several" underage mothers, bolstering the contention that forced intimacy with children has been the norm. Shame!!!!

The immoral acts of a few have caused the upheaval of many and from any angle it's the children who are paying the terrible price. Let's hope the state punishes the guilty thereby making it safe for the innocents to return home.

These are a few of my favorite things

It's nearly midnight and once again my brain won't shut down. Too much caffeine I suppose. I'm a tea drinker, all kinds, all temperatures and it has caught up with me again.

Some things I heartily recommend to anyone who asks (and even those who don't):

Dr. Bronner's liquid castile soaps -- Peppermint, Lavender, Unscented Super Mild for Babies

POM bottled tea with lychee and green tea in pomegranate juice

The facsimile of Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary of the English Language. It rocks because of its definitions. The word "omnipresent" is defined as being technically attributable only to God. It says that, no kidding.

Scrapbooking -- it's a hobby, it's a passion, it's an outlet for creativity in persons not otherwise deemed creative (like me).

Tempera paint -- it smells like kindergarten, when life was one big FUN.

Real maple syrup vs. Mrs. Butterworth's or somesuch. More expensive but much tastier.

Hanna Andersson clothes for kids. Buy 'em new or used, either way they hold their shape, their color and are well worth the extra you pay. I nearly tussled with a lady in a resale shop over some used Hanna shirts for one of my daughters. I won when she realized the size was wrong for her child. :o)

Toys that don't make noise. What's the point? Kids make enough of their own w/out adding battery-powered cacophony to the mix.

Books that don't sing or talk. You know, the old-fashioned kind that make no sound other than the sshhing as the page turns.

The poem "Prayer Against Indifference" by Joy Davidman. She was married to C.S. Lewis and this poem is the kick in the pants we all need from time to time. I'll post it in its entirety soon.

Books by Leo Lionni -- they're for children but similar to the Pooh stories by A.E. Milne I swear they contain life lessons for grownups if adults would bother to read them. My favorite is "Frederick" about a mouse who plans ahead for a hard winter by storing up more than just nuts and straw.

Is homeschooling a gamble?

It is, yes. But no more than sending my kids off to public school. Just ask the folks whose children never came home from Columbine High.

Can grace be inherited?

Awhile back I had the opportunity to talk with an aunt who filled in some gaps for me in the story of how her sister was killed when she was only 14. This aunt I never knew was named, like me, for her mother and was her right hand when it came to caring for three younger siblings. My father was about five when he saw this sister laid out on the kitchen floor after being accidentally shot in the stomach by a neighbor boy who'd come back from a hunt. His gun had discharged as the two young people stood at the front door talking.

The aunt whose memory I probed about the incident was only three when it happened and her only memory of the older sister is similar to my father's.

But it is the aftermath of that horrific day that intrigued me most, especially in the years since I've become a mother myself and come into a love for my own children like none I ever thought possible.

What happened in the days and months after Aunt Marjorie was killed, I wanted to know.

My aunt says my grandmother was quick to forgive the young man responsible for the tragedy.

You read that right. She forgave him. And at the funeral service she told that boy that Marjorie wasn't mad at him and neither was she, that they both knew it was an accident.

And at some point, my grandmother resumed visits with the boy's mother, despite their terrible shared experience. Or maybe because of it?

How could Grandma summon such grace, I asked. How could she forgive someone for taking away her precious daughter? My aunt says Grandma lived the teachings of Jesus, the part about loving and forgiving and all. And that's what saw her through and left her a better person than if she'd wallowed in pity and anger.

I should live long enough to be half as good as Grandma.

They may be weird, but they're smart?

Our resident religious curiosities received an inadvertant compliment in an Associated Press news story that focuses on all the cultural and dietary issues foster homes must consider as they begin caring for the more than 400 children confiscated from the FLDS compound. Quoting attorneys for the state, the article states, "The children have been educated in a schoolhouse, using a home-school curriculum, on the compound, and may actually be ahead of public-school students their ages."

Self-directed, aka non-government controlled education has its advantages, even in the hands of polygamists, or so it would seem. Wonder whether any state education agency bureaucrats picked up on this.

In related (no polygamy pun intended) matters, the Christian Science Monitor newspaper ran an article on its front page this past week titled "Schools fall short despite 25 years of reform."

Now there's a newsflash.

Those of you not living in Texas may not know about our state's fabulously high dropout rate, the various efforts to manipulate or excuse those numbers, and the many high school graduates who end up taking remedial courses their freshman year of college -- so they can then REALLY start college their second year.

The continued dumbing down of everything from preaching in the pulpits -- can't use the King James Version of the Bible because its language is just too tricky for today's young people to understand -- to the content of newspapers and many magazines is evidence enough that we are falling further behind when it comes to cultivating a learned citizenry.

When celebrity goings on pass for legitimate news -- think the Britney Spears custody hearings earlier this year -- while all around us the economy tanks, our country remains at war on at least two fronts, and health threats from shoddy products made in You Know Where come faster than federal inspectors can investigate them, me thinks our priorities as a culture are in need of review.

Back to the CS Monitor story: It notes that the original alert to the need for educational reform that sounded 25 years ago remains pertinent. "The original report warned that the 'educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.'"

Ah, that rising tide of mediocrity. The notion that "close enough" is good enough, that our almost good is great.

Is it too late to shift gears?

House toppled, cows confiscated . . .

So goes the threat reported by Chinese human rights advocates that was spotted painted on a building in a rural province. The rest of the slogan? " . . . if abortion demand rejected."

Nice. And this is the same country that will host the upcoming Olympics in a feigned spirit of brotherly love. I don't buy it.

Unfortunately I DO buy consumer goods that in most cases are made in China. I often wonder about forced labor and the past few years have found me paying more for the same items made somewhere else. If I can avoid Chinese-made goods, I do.

The Chinese one-child-per-family policy looks great until you dig a little deeper to find that it's not as easy as choosing to bear only one child. Accidents happen, some families in urban areas want more than one (two children have been allowed in rural provinces to help with agriculture), and at the end of the day it's really all about the very human desire to keep family size a private matter.

I won't quote it chapter and verse here, but the 'net is rife with stories of women who escaped China either before, or sadly, after enduring forced abortions.

Their testimonies are far more telling than anything I could spout here.

As for the Olympics? Lots of hype and not much else, IMO.

Oh the irony . . .

Learned tonight that our local school district is offering the controversial book "The DaVinci Code" as a fiction option for high school English III. It's okay to poke holes in the biblical account of the life of Christ, just don't confuse kids with the facts.

Whatever happened to good ol' Shakespeare?

All Those Mothers and Children . . .

I'm a mother. I have children. I struggle a lot lately with what has transpired at the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints compound in El Dorado, TX. I still can't figure out why so many very young children have been taken from their mothers, children who are nowhere near the age of whatever sort of marital union those folks deem acceptable. E'en with the revelation that the phone call that started the whole raid was likely a hoax, those children have been bused clear across the state to live in foster homes with total strangers and to face the prospect of enrollment in public schools. I'm no advocate of plural marriage, but I fail to see how living amongst adults who practice it is much worse than the gang violence, drug abuse, and overtly tacky social mores all too common in institutional education these days.

Child brides are, ostensibly, at the core of the raid and for that I say, "Godspeed and go get 'em." But what about all the children who are babes in arms, toddlers, adolescents? Why separate them from their mothers? Texas finds the money to build sports stadiums the size of small cities, and boasts the largest land mass of the Lower 48 and we can't find room to house those kids AND their mothers until this mess is sorted out?

And seeing as how the FLDS compound was constructed right under the noses of authorities who knew -- I promise you, they knew -- what that community was all about and how they had been living and would continue to live, a "raid" of any sort seems at best extremely heavyhanded. Were they just chomping at the bit all these years, waiting for the call that would give them legal entre? Maybe so.

I really appreciated the comment from our CPS spokesman who called the day of separation a "great day" for those kids. Really? Being torn from the only life you've ever known, your mom, your siblings, your sheltered private education, your faith and thrust into a world of television, androgenous clothing, video games and a general lack of respect for people of faith (whatever that faith might be) is somehow a "great day" if you're five or eight or ten?

My best guess is that even if/when underage marriage is proven, plenty of those FLDS folks are gonna have some solid fodder for a lawsuit based on all sorts of nasty details like religious freedom, reasonable search and seizure, and parental rights in the absence of obvious abuse.

Meanwhile, lots of little children are going to bed tonight in the company of strangers, far away from their moms and powerless to do anything about it.

In the beginning was the word . . .

What was once a mysterious and admittedly offputting environment for a die-hard pen and ink writer has now become my home.

I left print journalism several years ago to raise kids and figured a place for my "voice" was all but gone for good. But by the grace of God, my mother, and Dell I am a 'blogger, delighted to tackle this new frontier.

Those of you who take the time to read what I write in the days and months to come will be heartened to know that I say what I mean and I mean what I say. That's right, folks. No equivocating here!

See, I detest political correctness and I really get peeved with those who don't.

I think a spade ought to be called a spade and I think mincing words, skirting the issue, ignoring the proverbial elephant in the middle of the room, and just generally saying one thing while you do another is incredibly unattractive and possibly dangerous to the well-being of a constitutional republic.

Buoy my faith in mankind, will you, and bring on the high-spirited but reasoned debate, thoughtful observations, and informative dialogue.

There's something to be learned from just about everyone, and I look forward to learning from you!