In Memoriam

Matishayahu "One Day"

It’s not about win or lose because we all lose when we feed on the souls of the innocent.

Diana Butler Bass, "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent"

There is, however, a difference between memory—the snapshots that stay in our minds always—and RE-membering.  Remembering means to “put back together” the pieces of the past, to rearrange the pictures of memory in order to make meaning, to heal, to forgive, or to inspire.

Brilliant at Breakfast. "Ten Years On and What Have We Learned"

Today is not for politicians fighting the culture wars. It is not for religious leaders to try to score converts or demonize those who believe differently. It is not for posturing for the 2012 election. Today is for those who were there, for those who made it home, and for the families of those who didn't. It's for heroes and victims alike, and the people they left behind. Today is THEIR day.

Halaina Hovitz, Salon.com, "The 9/11 Stories We've Never Told Anyone"

But "living in the shadow of 9/11" means something very different to at least 16 children who grew up in Lower Manhattan. It means being engulfed in the "shadow" of the dust cloud, then watching it hover over your home for months (if your home wasn't destroyed). It means standing in the "shadow" of your apartment building whose entire north side had been burned off, allowing you to look directly into people's apartments. It means living in the "shadow" of your health that's been compromised from breathing toxic fumes. It means living in the "shadow" of the person you could have been, which was more than just interrupted.

Michael Gould-Wartofsky, Common Dreams, "America the Amnesiac"

For ten years after 9/11, the Arab Spring is here, reminding us that the future need not look anything like the past. Yet the past hasn't gone anywhere. It still demands its day of reckoning. But first, let us say Kaddish for the dead.

Michael Spencer, internetMONK, "iMonk Classic: Michael Spencer's Early Response to 9/11"

Our innocence is over, and if we try to protect our children or the flying public or the nation in general, we are going to see the beginning of a new dark ages.

Scott Morizot, Faith and Food "Reflections from September 11, 2001"

From my perspective, sadly, we did allow the terrorists to win. I don’t think in their wildest dreams they ever though they could provoke such drastic and lasting change in our nation from a single attack. They successfully instilled fear in our nation and acting under the impetus of that fear, we changed in ways that would have been inconceivable before that attack.

Rainer Maria Rilke, A Year With Rilke, "Dear Darkening Ground"

in that hour of inconceivable terror

when you take back your name

from all things.

A Counterfeit Spirit

As I have become more comfortable in my own heretical skin this last year, embracing all of who and what I am as wholly Holy, I had begun to doubt how seriously I would have been spiritually annihilated as a child if I had come out of the mystical closet.  I castigated myself for hiding in that closet for 40 years.  I reprimanded my self with “See?  It hasn’t been that bad coming out! What were you so afraid of?” 

Well, … this: http://solasisters.blogspot.com/2009/12/mysticism-counterfeit-holy-spirit.html

The writing of someone who had embraced everything that I have spent a lifetime struggling to integrate before she threw it away on a limited, exclusionary, superstitious Christianity.  Her words are echoes, resounding gongs, screeching nails on the blackboard of my memory, of the teachings I heard over and over in my childhood.  Everything I was trying to convince myself was overblown, childish hyperbole is right there calmly damning me from my computer screen.

Even the calmly logical, condescendingly simple explanations of how Satan takes over the mind and will of the unsuspecting mystic who uses prayer beads, walks a labyrinth, prays with imagination, or meets with a spiritual mentor sounds like the patronizing, self-righteous, religious know-it-alls of my childhood.   Did I risk a verbal, emotional, if not literally physical, stoning as a witch, a dupe of Satan, evil incarnate, if I had freely shared my psychic knowledge, my awareness of mystical union with God?

Hell, yes.

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….