I didn’t post anything the last couple days because the computer died. Well, to be more precise, the power cord died and I was unable to power-up the computer. This caused a slight hiccup in the daily routine, and I found myself a few times reaching for the computer when needing information and realizing I had to go through the arduous task of looking for the information in the phone book.

Yes we still have one.

Then I read this post from my friend Michael Newnham on FaceBook:

“We are an exceptional model of the human race. We no longer know how to produce food. We no longer can heal ourselves. We no longer raise our young. We have forgotten the names of the stars, fail to notice the phases of the moon. We do not know the plants and they no longer protect us. We tell ourselves we are the most powerful specimens of our kind who have ever lived. But when the lights are off we are helpless. We cannot move without traffic signals. We must attend classes in order to learn by rote numbered steps toward love or how to breast-feed our baby. We justify anything, anything at all by the need to maintain our way of life. And then we go to the doctor and tell the professionals we have no life. We have a simple test for making decisions: our way of life, which we cleverly call our standard of living, must not change except to grow yet more grand. We have a simple reality we live with each and every day: our way of life is killing us.” – Charles Bowden

I know that as I move through my day when I am simply focused on the tasks that have to be done I treat people differently. They are in my way, or they are a commodity to help finish my task. I do not notice the things around me, I am impatient and irritable. I am self-focused.

The comment above about how we no longer raise our young…that has sat with me over the last several hours since reading this. It comes on the heels of reading an article about raising our children to be spoiled or responsible. The fact is, often I find myself just existing with my kids and not raising them. I do too many things for them rather than teaching them to do the things, and they then expect me to simply do everything for them.

It goes deeper, though….not just teaching them to be responsible and be part of taking care of the home and the family, but teaching them about the stars and the phases of the moon. Teaching them that when the lights go off we are not helpless. To do too many things for them means stealing their wonder and their creativity and creating instead a mind that waits to be entertained rather than exploring and imagining.

Teaching them that there is wonder and imagination is as important as reading…although sometimes reading leads to imagination. Teaching them to live, not to simply exist.

In teaching them this, in raising them with a view that the world is to be watched and interacted with and participated with, we are teaching them as well that they are not alone and others are important. People are not commodities or annoyances, they are part of the Creation of a Creative and Loving God who has called us to participate in this life, not to simply consume.

Oh, and this morning I was greeted with this and it seems to tie in nicely:

Yep, growing things in the garden of our mind.

All of this is still percolating in my mind. It’s finding its way into the thoughts about homeschooling and about family and about life. I am not completely sure how it will all play out, but I am sure that these things were needed in my thinking this week. And I am sure that the computer going down sometimes is a good thing.