Come to Church This Weekend

Wanna experience something like never before?  Tonight at 7 at Two Rivers.  I think you will be shocked to NOT find what you expect.  Come and see.  Yes, it’s prayer and praise night at church, but I don’t think you’ve ever experienced such a “church” like this.  You love to stretch your mind regarding religion?

Dear G_____,

Thank you for the invitation to your praise and worship service tonight.  I don’t think we will be coming.  

I could tell you that I have been too busy for what my Hysterical Illness lets me do (have I told you about that?) or that this is our first free At-Home Day in three weeks (we usually try to keep one a week as a kind of Sabbath) or that with Thom out of town for the weekend we are going to keep everything very slow and low-key—and all those things are true.  But they really would only be excuses.

Although I have been doing a lot of work this last year reconciling my spiritual understanding of the Divine with the Christian God and figuring out who Jesus is for me, I still have enormous and unhealthy prejudices against anything that even sounds like Evangelical Christianity.  The thought of attending a Praise and Worship service make me a little sick to my stomach.

Your particular church may be none of the things I identify with evangelical church but I’m not in a place spiritually or psychologically where I am ready to risk it.  Not long ago I wrote a couple of blog posts about how I am keen to continue working to resolve my knee-jerk revulsion to Evangelicalism but that it is not something I can even attempt at this time.  I wrote about needing to step back from all my inner work of the last year and just rest alone with my God for another long while.

Even the fact that I feel compelled to write this very long explanation for declining your invitation instead of a simple “no, thank you” is indication that there are still huge issues for me to address.  But I can’t do it just now.  It may be months or years before I can face those particular demons.  I haven’t set foot inside a Protestant church in almost ten years.  It has only been this summer that I found I could read a Bible without physiological unpleasantness (after nearly two decades of being outside Christianity).

I do want you to know that I appreciate the invitation and the friendship that inspired the offer.  It is nothing personal to you, your family, or even your particular church that keeps me from accepting.  It’s not you; it’s me (weak chuckle).  Please try again in a few months.  Who knows the timing of God? I may be able to consider such invitations sooner than I think.

Thanks for understanding,

Sandra the Heretic

Homeschooling on a Shoestring

I don’t usually write about homeschooling on this blog (and it is an irony that I write now as half my student body has started public school this year) but I have been hearing a lot this month from my homeschooling connections about their plans for the year—what curriculum, what programs, what co-ops, what books/classes/materials, and oh how expensive it all is!  And I get a bit more than irked.  Homeschooling certainly can be expensive but it doesn’t have to be expensive at all. To imply, or believe, that homeschooling is of necessity an expensive endeavor is also to imply that homeschooling is an elitist activity—“look how much we spend on what we value!  We must be better than all you who can’t, don’t, or won’t do the same!”

I’ve been facilitating my daughters’ education for ten years and it was the rare year indeed that I spent as much on homeschooling as I have just spent to send my oldest daughter to public high school. Dedicated gym shoes, gym uniforms, two sports physicals (because the school lost the first one), notary fees for band and swim contracts, band uniform fittings and cleanings, swim team suits and caps, two backpacks (because they don’t give the kids hall lockers or athletic lockers anymore), required binders, folders and notebooks of the correct size and color, USB sticks, fees for swim team/band/lab class, activity passes and a yearbook—all above and beyond the pens, pencils, notebook computer, special foods and practice suits for swim, and other supplies we would have bought her anyway.  I estimate (because actually adding up the costs would be too depressing) that I’ve forked out over $600 directly related to her attendance at public school. 

When I homeschooled both my girls, the most I ever paid was the year we started first grade and I bought an all-inclusive boxed curriculum for $500 (really cheap as boxed curricula go, I’ve seen some that are $500 per subject and not reusable!).  Another year more recently, I felt the need to use textbooks and workbooks and spent $300 at Amazon on books that rarely even got their spines cracked.  This year, I might spring for a subscription to BrainPOP for another hundred bucks.  Other than that, our expenses have been almost entirely what we would pay for regardless of where the girls were educated—satellite television (my first daughter taught herself to read from the closed captioning), high speed internet, Netflix, quality art and craft supplies, music and dance lessons, swim club, and related gear.  And, of course, boxes and boxes of books that I slog home from the used bookstore where I buy primarily on book credit.

I bought a few math manipulatives early on but found that the girls learned more quickly with cheap bulk candy, or craft supplies we already owned, than with the base-10 blocks or Cuisenaire rods.  The same with phonics activities and dyslexia-remediation materials—free and cheap stuff worked so much better than the pricy specialty stuff (although even then, I bought quite inexpensively compared to what I see available for math or LD instruction).  I have no qualms at all about declaring that a library card and an internet connection can provide a quality education that rivals an expensive prep school.  Co-ops, special classes, and boxed curricula can add frosting to the cake but are not necessary.

I buy a $35 annual museum membership to a museum in Alabama that gets us into museums all over the world for free (or very cheaply) and for years I paid for a zoo membership that reciprocated all over the country.  We have paid for Junior Achievement programs a couple years when some homeschoolers got a group together, maybe $10/student/year. I get an educator discount at all the bookstores (although Amazon is usually still cheaper), the office supply stores, crafting stores, and of course the education supply stores. We get a few magazines—National Geographic, Science, and American Girl—but hardly the thousands of dollars that some homeschool families spend on Cricket subscriptions.  I know families whose magazine budget for a single year exceeds my entire expenses for the lifetime of our homeschooling!

The only caveat I might add to my “homeschooling is really cheap” declaration is that I have always lived in urban areas with access to decent (if not outstanding) museums and large free library systems.  When I found out that some public library districts make you pay annual fees, sometimes even if you live in-district, I was shocked.  I have free cards to five different library systems plus access to several university and college libraries should I want them.  If we lived where library-access was limited or there were a dearth of museums and zoos, I might have had to spend more money than I do.  If we lived really out in the boonies where there weren’t Costcos or Wal-Marts, I might have spent more on some supplies.  And I’d really be hurting if I were somewhere without high-speed internet access. 

I am also fortunate to have always lived in towns or cities with a university so there have always been cheap art supply stores, student-rates, and lots of fine arts productions.  Because there are so many homeschoolers here (and in the other places I’ve lived), there are always groups who organize field trips and other projects for low or no cost.  On the other hand, my children have no idea what it is like to be in a community that lives close to the land and interdependent on neighbors.  Those communities have opportunities that my family doesn’t have to learn lessons that I struggle to teach here in the suburbs.  Real people doing real work make better teachers than any field trip or manufactured lesson. 

What follows, in no particular order, are some of the great free online resources we use:

Free Rice http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Brain Pop Games http://www.brainpop.com/games/

Cool Math http://www.coolmath.com/

National Geographic for Kids http://www.nationalgeographic.com/kids/

Scholastic http://scholastic.com/

How Stuff Works http://www.howstuffworks.com/

Smithsonian Institution http://www.si.edu/

Incredible @rt Department http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/for-kids.htm

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives (visual math manipulations for preschool through high school) http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html

Time 4 Learning (subscription site for math, language, science and social studies for K-6grade) http://www.time4learning.com/

Steve Spangler Science (videos of experiments to do at home) http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiments

Beginning Latin for Homeschoolers (follows the book Getting Started with Latin) http://www.gettingstartedwithlatin.com/

http://www.exsedda.org/quizzes/

Minimus the Mouse (Latin) http://www.minimus-etc.co.uk/index.shtml

First 1000 Words in French (follows book) http://www.usborne-quicklinks.com/usa/usa_entity_pages/usa_select_page.asp?lvl=1&id=1210

CNN Student News (middle to high school) http://www.cnn.com/studentnews/

Science News for Kids http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/

Khan Academy (mostly math from basic addition to college math) http://www.khanacademy.org/

NOVA http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/

Discovery Channel Education (subscription but lots of free teacher resources) http://www.discoveryeducation.com/

LD Online (learning disabilities) http://www.ldonline.org/index.php

iTunes U (free podcasts from world class universities and museums) http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/whats-on.html

History Channel Classroom http://www.history.com/shows/classroom

http://www.history.com/images/media/pdf/Idea-Book-SignUp.pdf

Cast All Your Votes for Dancing

I know the voice of depression

Still calls to you.

I know those habits that can ruin your life

Still send their invitations.

But you are with the Friend now

And look so much stronger.

You can stay that way

And even bloom!

Keep squeezing drops of the Sun

From your prayers and work and music

And from your companions’ beautiful laughter.

Keep squeezing drops of the Sun

From the sacred hands and glance of your Beloved

And, my dear,

From the most insignificant movements

Of your own holy body.

Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins

That may buy you just a moment of pleasure,

But then drag you for days

Like a broken man

Behind a farting camel.

You are with the Friend now.

Learn what actions of yours delight Him.

What actions of your bring freedom

And Love.

Whenever you say God’s name, dear pilgrim,

My ears wish my head was missing

So they could finally kiss each other

And applaud all your nourishing wisdom!

O keep squeezing drops of the Sun

From your prayers and work and music

And from your companions’ beautiful laughter

And from the most insignificant movements

Of your own holy body.

Now, sweet one,

Be wise.

Cast all your votes for Dancing!

--Hafiz

30 Days

Thirty days ago ... I took to my bed. I only got dressed when going out of the house was imperative. I didn't often venture even so far as the couch. I only cooked when I felt like it and didn't shop at all; everyone had to fend for herself (I did share my meals when I made them but more often they shared with me). I watched cartoons and cooking shows, carried on conversations with people from across town, across the continent, and around the world. I read theology and Sufi poetry, WebMD and personal stories of chronic illness. I meditated and prayed, sought solace and slept. I skipped swim meets and music lessons, parties and family holidays.

A couple weeks into my sabbatical, when my body had rested enough that my mind started to come back online, I began to notice how little I was enjoying myself. I was finally able to do what I've said for two years that I needed to do to get a hold on recovery yet all I really was doing with myself was to lay here and fret: I castigated myself with shoulds and oughts and you reallys and why don't yous. My scourges were my assumptions of other people’s expectations. I compared myself to superwomen and saints and stories that I really didn't know the half of (you know that dark side that no one writes in their blogs). Look what they've done... see what you ought... a real woman/writer/healer/mother wouldn’t be so lazy/forgetful/emotional/incompetent.... And I thought, "goddammit! I can't even be sick without beating myself with the guilt-stick?"

I felt stomach-churning, muscle-aching, joint-burning, head-bursting pain every time one of these self-flagellating thoughts burst into my mind. Usually long before they ever became conscious thoughts, my body was punishing me on behalf of this guilt. Eventually I began to associate the pain with the punishing guilt and I could do a little in-the-moment therapy to relieve the worst of the symptoms. But I couldn't prevent those demon-voices from sermonizing again and again.

About the same time as I was making this pain-guilt connection, I went to lunch at a friend's. She is an astrologer and for an early birthday gift, she read my chart. As she listed for me the planets and their positions in my zodiacal houses (and interpreted that all into English because I am fairly illiterate in astrology), I was struck by the fact that the same things I beat myself up over are the very things that she proclaimed "my gift to offer the world". All the lazy, selfish navel-gazing, she called an ability to see deeply into myself and present it (myself) as a teaching story. The fact that I am neither a great scholar nor an outstanding psychic, leading me to feel incompetent in both fields, is, according to my chart, a stunning ability to synthesize nearly indigestible quantities of almost irreconcilable information from academic and intuitive sources into approachable and understandable ideas. (Who knew?)  

Everything about myself that Christian fundamentalism and my family told me was evil, conceived in wickedness, rebellious, bossy, an over-active imagination, too analytical, thinks too hard, lazy, crazy, or wrong was, in fact, divinely created uniquely to be me.  A gift from God, through me, to the whole rest of his creation. 

That shakes the very foundations of my soul.  I hope it breaks them into tiny little dust-mote fragments, suitable for rebuilding into the belief of my own beauty and worth.   That may take a little more lying around on the bed to accomplish, though; I hope my family continues to have patience and tolerance….

Reluctant Mystic

(driving to yet another lesson, practice, class, one of my children’s activities, someone made a comment about my hysterical illness, to which I made the following reply.  While I sat waiting for said kids to be done with their activities, I continued my rant to myself.)

I don't think you have any idea how much energy it takes to live in my body.

I drive around town with the AC on max. My right side is so cold that the bones in my shoulder and behind my ear ache but my left side is still red, rashy, and burnt from what sun and heat come through my tinted windows. The stark summer glare through my windshield gives me a migraine in about fifteen minutes. If I make more than three in-and-outs of my car (into a store, a meeting, an errand, the house) even using my special SPF clothing and a sun-umbrella, I will be queasy and I can't bear to be touched. Tomorrow my muscles will ache as if I'd worked out too hard. The hotter the weather, the quicker I reach my limit. Today was 115F/46C.

My good days feel like I had the flu last week; most days feel like I had the flu yesterday; bad days feel like I have the flu now.  Everyday I over-react to minor variations in heat and cold, drafts like the air conditioner exacerbate the over-reaction but being too hot makes me claustrophobic in my own body.

My ankles swell and feel like overstuffed sausages. The joints in my toes ache. My elbows feel like live electrical wires run through them. My knees crack and pop and feel like dull pins are stabbing from the inside out. Water burns my stomach but I am so thirsty. My face itches from the inside. My eyeballs feel like they are filled with heavy, too-dense jelly.

When I try to do just a little more, maybe pick up some dinner between picking up kids, I exhaust my body and my mind begins to suffer. I inadvertently cut people off in traffic. I miss my freeway exit or drive past my turn. I constantly have to check my calendar because I can't remember what the next stop in my day is—even though I've looked a dozen times already. I can't remember what is planned for tomorrow or if what we did was last week or the week before or last month. I forget between the car and the grocery store what it was I came to get, even if it was only one item.

When I'm tired, which is everyday from the moment I arise to the moment I pass out, I cry too easily. A commercial for allergy medicine chokes me up. A casual criticism from a self-absorbed teen or distracted husband can make me cry so hard I ought to pull out of traffic.

I read a book, listen to a lecture, watch a documentary and often can't put more than the main theme into words. I have a thought, draw some correlation between the new subject and something I've known but before I can pull up my phone or a notepad or my laptop, the connection fades leaving a weird twilight in my mind, a sense of brilliance remembered, the comfort of darkness unreached.

I have moments of clarity after I've crashed on my bed with my feet up and my head supported. I litter my friend's Facebook threads with wit and thought that I can't sustain in a blog post or even an email. I owe so many people responses but can't wrap my brain around what I wanted to tell them.

And then I feel guilty. Because I haven't cooked a meal in so long I don't know when it was. Because my house is overrun by small animals that spring to life from the accumulated dog hair, cat hair, and dust. Because I flinch when someone wants to hug me. Because I can be cogent occasionally for other people but pick fights and speak rudely to my family.

And I am angry that this is as good as I get. That it costs me hundreds of dollars a month in pills and drops and remedies to maintain more-or-less this state of unwellness but medical professionals look at my blood-work and say nothing is wrong, maybe a shrink? That people who agree that I'm unwell tell me it is my fault:

“Just suck it up, get on with things”

“Mind over matter”

“Have more willpower, just do it”

“Exercise more”

“Eat less”

“Follow this diet”

“Read less on the Internet”

“Take this curative I'm pushing”

“Quit thinking so hard, just let it go”

“If there weren't some payoff for you, you'd be well”

“Pray more, confess sin, give it to Jesus”

Okay. the last one hasn't been said to me personally but it has been the fix suggested in get-well articles I've read online.

I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. Yet, we are not entitled to exuberance and vigor. Bigger, faster, louder, brighter is not our birthright. Sometimes abundant life is deep and still and quiet and slow. And often it hurts.  A lot. In our New-York-minute, fax-it-yesterday, multi-tasking, texting-while-driving culture, maybe this condition is my divine gift to remember the timeless, the wordless, the boundless. The weaker my body, the more incoherent my nervous system, the more surely I meet God.  My visions come easier. My healings are stronger. My assurance of divine reality is more certain.

So then, why do I continue to fight against this thorn in my flesh? God wrote this destiny into my Being. Why can't I embrace the gift without counting the cost?  Why do I listen to the chatter and static instead of God's holy descant in my soul?  I long to be one with the Presence yet I fight it with everything I have. Was there ever a more reluctant mystic than I?

Sent from my iPhone

Confessions of a Book Junkie

(the following is a series of posts on my Facebook Wall today.  Oh, the truth in humor! And how the truth hurts.)

The Heretic:  Today's finds at the used bookstore.

The Heretic:  What am I thinking, buying more books? I haven't yet read all of the last several book hauls, or listened to the podcasts and iTunesU courses. So many ideas, so little time.

The Heretic:  Especially with these black holes in my brain that eat my thoughts, memories, connections, and executive function. And apparently my impulse control.

My cogent and comedic friend:  Hello, my name is John and I'm a bookaholic.

1. We admitted we were powerless over books—that our lives, bookshelves, and end tables had become unmanageable.

2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. We made a decision to turn our Kindles, iPods, and Nooks over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. We made a searching and fearless inventory of our homes looking for that one book we hid away for a rainy day.

5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to our blog readers the exact nature of the books we had already read.

6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these titles and sell them on eBay.

7. We humbly asked Him to remove our books, both hardcover and paperback.

8. We made a list of all persons we had ignored while reading, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would require putting a book down in the middle of a chapter.

10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we bought new books promptly read them.

11. We sought through bargain hunting and coupon clipping to improve our relationship with Barnes and Noble and Amazon as we understood them, asking only for knowledge of new releases and the time to read them all.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to bookaholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The End of the World Is at Hand

My very secular almost-13 and 14 year-old daughters were talking about why we said "two thousand-and-two" for 2002 but "twenty-ten" for 2010.

The 13yo: "saying the thousand makes it more duh-duh-duh…you know creepy-like…which sounds more dramatic: 'the world will end in twenty-twelve' or 'the world will end in the year two-thousand-and-twelve?'" (all the while speaking with the creepy voice).

I interrupted to remind them "2012? Nah, next weekend! May 21st" and the 14yo got a little freaked: "I don't like it when people start to talk about the End of the World."

The 13yo reassured her: "It's all right. The giant Jesus statue in Brazil will come to life and collect up all the good people and take them away somewhere cold so they'll be safe."

(for more info on this upcoming Rapture date:  an overview, and right from the horse's mouth... er... horse's something)

And Dawns the Morning After

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,

Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That, in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much

To mitigate the justice of thy plea;

Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice

Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

       (The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare)

The assassination of bin Laden is the kind of event that ought to make one pause for philosophical thought.  Perhaps now that the first blood-drunk frenzy is exhausting itself, the spiritual hangover will promote reflection (or self-indulgent ranting and whining for those who don’t want to do the harder work).  Such a moment forces the deeper questions to the forefront of the mind. 

What is vengeance?  How does it differ from justice?  Is justice punitive or redemptive? What is mercy? Is it different than justice? Which of the three—vengeance, justice, mercy—are compatible and which mutually exclusive? What are the immediate reflexive answers to these questions and do those answers change after reflection?

What does love do to the equation? Does compassion for one person or group necessitate a lack of compassion for an opposing person or group? Do mercy and justice look different when considered by an individual versus a state or a social system? What about whether the object of compassion is an individual versus a state or social system?  Does that change the outcome of the discussion?

Ought a state to have a conscience? Is the moral compass of a state a mere reflection of the individuals in positions of power or is there some external collective natural morality to which states ought to adhere?  What would it be?

Is justice blind? Should it be?  Can it be?

Is mercy ever strained to the breaking point?

The Death of a Man, the Death of a Myth

I have no pleasure in the death (execution? assassination? can we call a spade a spade?) of bin Laden but I am immensely grateful that he is no longer able to provoke the ruination of lives, families, social systems and countries. I still have hope that he can find the redemption of God, however that happens.

I feel a wary relief in the face of ongoing political realities. But, also I feel a clean, fierce joy for the resolution of a chapter of grief for those who lives were destroyed by bin Laden's megalomania. I regret that it was required of us (us in the collective humanity sense, not the political entity of the US) to kill him to protect, respect, and accept the people he threatened. But sometimes that is necessary—we cannot honor the holiness of humanity in the one at the expense of the holiness of humanity in the many.

I can have no room to gloat—that is as irresponsible for me as letting an abuser continue abusing, it makes me as spiritually abusive as the dead one—but neither will I feel guilt for my terrible gladness nor condone guilt for those unable to separate gloating from a deep-seated satisfaction at a horrible job finally accomplished. 



Someone pointed out the contrast between these two verses: 

 Proverbs 11:10 (New King James Version) “When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices; And when the wicked perish, there is jubilation” and 

Prov. 24:17 "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles lest the LORD see it and be displeased." I don't think there is necessarily a contradiction here. There can be jubilation at the cessation of the wicked one's evil machinations that is not a rejoicing in the degradation and humiliation of the enemy. Too often, I agree, the two are combined in one long, vicious scree of sadistic joy, but it is not inevitable.

I’m frustrated with both those who glory in the death of bin Laden, gloating at his assumed eternal torture in hell, and those who heap guilt on anyone not saddened and burdened by the death.   Those who gloat demonstrate that the line between good and evil runs right through each of us and that sometimes the good and the evil masquerade as the other.  Those who heap guilt make no distinction between gloaters and those who take grim satisfaction in a necessary gory responsibility to take life in order to preserve life.  When we preach about the sanctity of life of perpetrators of this magnitude (those who will not be socially redeemed by lesser means than death) and claim that it is not our place but God’s to order their death, we denigrate the sanctity of the lives he destroys.  When abusers are protected more than his victims, something is seriously wrong.

When, as is sometimes the case as it was here in bin Laden's, it is necessary to end a life in order to preserve, protect and cherish other lives, I am willing to accept responsibility for that killing—whether it requires my personal participation or my spiritual ownership. But along with that acceptance of responsibility—and no little satisfaction at its accomplishment—comes the responsibility to be creating a world where bin Ladens are universally unacceptable and unable to flourish and where the victims of bin Ladens (which all of humanity has been to some degree or another) are given the resources to grieve, to heal, to love. 



May this event be not only, as I heard someone report on National Public Radio, “the punctuation at the end of an old story”, the last gasping of a lust for reactionary radicalism, but also the end of an era marked by tribalism and parochial terror.  May we all channel our passions into compassion, love and service.