I’m not ready.

I like the lazy schedule of summer. I like the easiness of the schedule and being able to sleep in and let the boys relax and do as they please.

I want to begin with learning. I am excited about starting the school process. I am excited about beginning to open the books and I am excited about what we will discover. I have learned some last year and my expectations are more in place with reality.

I do not expect to do great crafts daily, or to follow pinterest, or to sing in harmonies each morning around a pancakes that look like smiley faces.

I would love to do those things, but I know my limitations. And I know my kids.

I do hope to learn.  I hope that I am able to establish an environment that brings peace and creativity and that in some way establishes hope and wonder.

I’m not completely sure how that will happen, or how to facilitate that, but I know that that is my hope.  I know that that is my desire…that my desire is they do not dread the beginning of school as the ending of the bliss of summer.

I desire that they learn to love learning and that they see it as the discovering of wonder and they see it as discovering the imprint of the Creator on the world around them rather than the drudgery of memorizing facts and necessities for getting by in life.

I know that I have to love the wonder and the imprint of the Creator in order for them to see it. I know that I have to wake up with a hint of that awareness and I have to allow myself the freedom to be the person He has created me to be rather than trying to force something. I am not a crafty person, and I am not good at some things I wish I were.

I love learning though.

So, on this Monday morning, with school about begin, there is a peace that settles in as I realize the expectations are simply this: we will learn. God will be present and He knows the desire of my heart is simply that my children know Him and know how amazing this creation is.  My desire is that they be filled with wonder and filled with hope…and I cannot do that, but He can.

There is the release.

Mondays do not have to be dreaded.  Prepared for, yes. I have to be diligent in my work and in my preparation. The environment has to be set and the material provided. The work of the heart is up to the Spirit, though, and I think this is part of what I hope for in homeschool.

It is also what is amazing about some of the teachers I have known in private and public schools. They have instilled this love of learning in a multitude of students, and I am the fruit of their labors.  I have no idea how this will end with my children, but the end is not up to me. And there is freedom in that. The work is up to me. The labor is up to me…but the fruit is truly in God’s hands.

So, Monday, Monday.  I’m ready for ya.

“From all that I said about our worried, overfilled lives, it is clear that we are usually surrounded by so much outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us. We have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us and unable to understand in which direction he calls us.

Thus our lives have become absurd. In the word absurd we find the Latin word surdus, which means “deaf”. A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear.

When, however, we learn to listen, our lives become obedient lives. The word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means “listening.” A spiritual discipline is necessary in order to move slowly from an absurd to an obedient life, from a life filled with noisy worries to a life in which there is some free inner space where we can listen to our god and follow his guidance. 

Jesus’ life was a life of obedience. He was always listening to the Father, always attentive to his voice, always alert for his directions. Jesus was “all ear.” That is true prayer: being all ear for God. The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God.”  – Henri Nouwen

Sunday evenings always find me slightly agitated. I feel as though I need to put things in order for the coming week, and yet I also don’t want the weekend to end. I want to be able to think more about what I heard on Sunday morning. I want to take more in and be able to soak just a little longer in what Sunday is…but Monday is sneaking up on me.

I’ve said in the last few posts that I am not the most disciplined person, and Nouwen talks about how if we are not disciplined our lives are absurd…they are so noisy we have become deaf. Sometimes for me, when things become so noisy like that it is difficult to put them back in order.

That agitation is creeping in and I just want to stamp my feet and be mad, rather than be obedient and listen.

Sometimes it helps to have something specific to put things in order. Something to focus upon that helps to quiet the noise.

Prayer requests help that sometimes. Draw us out of the noise of our own cluttered lives and help to focus. Or, if we need the support of those around us, they help us to know that we are part of the family of believers and there are others who are supporting us in prayer.

My friend Michael had a blog, and I am confident that it will be back soon, where he weekly posted prayers and drew us in as a community to pray with one another. I’m hosting that here until he is back up and running. There are folks from that blog, Phoenix Preacher, posting here, mixed with other friends from other places. I like that. A lot.

Post if you have a need. Post if you see a need…encourage someone in their need and let them know you are praying.

Focus a little.  Quiet the noise.

Discipline.

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

F. Buechner

Yes, I know I wrote a little about this the other day, but I need to say it again for my own good. I am not a very disciplined person.  I start things well and then fade out. Diets. Exercise. Reading programs.

Or I procrastinate and stay up all night and finish right before deadlines. Ask all my college suite mates.

This does not set me up well as a home school mom. A home school mom with a FaceBook account. I am too easily distracted.

I have been telling the boys that when we begin school next week it will be time to turn off our tech time. During the summer we have been lazy about it, but when school begins we will go back to limiting the time and there are already moans of dissatisfaction. Mostly from the oldest who has games that require certain resets at certain times.

I don’t like life being dictated by games.

And yet, I find myself checking in on my own “tech” driven devices all the time. I find my life dictated by those things often. And I find that I lack discipline in shutting them down when I need to. So, I thought about shutting down FaceBook altogether for the school year, disabling the account so it wouldn’t be a temptation.

That is just silly, though. That means that I am so weak-willed I have to toss the thing instead of being disciplined enough to ignore it when I need to, and that is just sad. And it sends a bad example to the boys.  And honestly, I love the connection to friends and finding out about babies and kids and goofy things.  There are moments when it helps me see life and connects me to articles like this  and this which make me think. Of course there are things I see my friends doing which inspire me to do similar activities with my kids, or which at least get me thinking about new ways to approach life with family.

So, no, I’m not going to de-activate my FaceBook. I’m going to grow up a little and turn it off. I’m going to listen to my life a little more and pay attention and follow the same rules I’ve set for the kids. I’m going to read more and type less. Scroll through the gossip faster and find the things that inspire me, or the people who need a word of encouragement or prayer.

Here’s the thing, there is no shortage of information around us. No shortage of distraction. I remember, and I know I’ve mentioned this before, reading Thomas Merton in one of his books on solitude. In a letter someone told him basically that it would be easy to seek God in a setting like Merton’s where there were not distractions, and Merton responded that if we cannot find silence and solitude in the room with the television we will go crazy in the cabin in the woods. When all the outside distractions are taken away we will be overcome by the distractions within.

We have to learn to listen to our lives, to listen to God. Simply to listen. We have to be disciplined. There is no short cut. There is no way around it. We have to grow up a little. We can groan and express our dissatisfaction at moving from the lazy pace of summer to the structure of school, but we still have to do it.

What to do? Turn off the noise and the distraction and focus our attention. Listen and hear.

Look and see.

Pay attention.

Be still and know.

Don’t just let it all happen around us, whether in the classroom or at home or at the workplace. Pay attention. Seek out that which inspires and stirs us and awakens us and draws us closer to God. We have to be intentional.

So…the shift is happening. A little FaceBook. A little X-Box for the kids. A whole lotta reading for me and the kids, and a disciplined paying attention. What will we see this year?

Several years ago there was a moment that terrified me.

We were in Florida for a family vacation. Steve had broken a bone in his foot, although at the moment we only knew he had hurt the foot. I was in the condo with Sammy who was still just a little one…maybe about the age Maddie is now. Steve had gone down to the beach with Nate and Zach and had been there for a few hours while I had let Sam take a nap.

It was that moment when you knew they had been gone too long and something just didn’t feel right. I walked out across the little boardwalk to find Zach and Nate walking back and Steve somewhat stumbling back. It was a terribly hot day.

Steve doesn’t stumble.

He sat down.

He doesn’t do that.

I walked with him and he said it was his foot bothering him. Other people were noticing. A woman came up quickly toward us. She had been watching from her condo on the 30 something-th floor and was a nurse and could tell something was wrong. While I was talking with her suddenly Steve was laying flat on his back on the board walk. Two men came rushing up and grabbed his legs and swept him up, after checking and saying he had no pulse and wasn’t breathing.

It was all of five minutes. I had all my kids in sight, and a wonderful woman had caught my eye and began keeping them occupied with the hose that you clean off the beach sand. Steve revived quickly and we found that he was in shock from breaking a bone in his foot and being dehydrated from being in the sun. In that five minutes though, I was very afraid of what I might be in the midst of.

What does this have to do with a prayer thread? I shuffled my startled boys back up to the condo as Steve was taken in the ambulance and I posted a prayer request on a thread on a blog. I was in a strange town where I didn’t know anyone and I was afraid and I needed to know I had some friends praying. Facebook was not as used then, or at least I was not as adept…and this blog kept me sane.

I came back from the hospital (without Steve who spent a little more time there to get checked out) and found a thread filled with encouragement and prayer. Community. Support. From people I had not met in person, but who were online and all over the world and were able to support me in a rather unique moment.

Most of our days will not be like that day. Thankfully. But some days are difficult, and some days are fantastic. Some days we just need to know that we have folks praying. The blog I posted that request on is on a bit of a hiatus which may become permanent or may not. In that season I’m going to post a thread each week here for prayer requests.

We may not get any, and that is fine. If you are feeling like you need to know someone is praying…feel free to ask. There may not be lots of responses, but I will pray and there are others who read without posting who will pray. We’ll see what happens.  It’s always good to have a place to come when we need to know someone is praying…

I may make this more structured as we continue, we’ll see, but for today I wanted to explain why it felt important to have a prayer thread.