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Clean Slates and enthusiasm!

Hello, January 1st!!!

I have a stack of books and notebooks ready to load into my backpack to make a short trek to a local coffee shop where I can think and imagine what to do in homeschool this coming quarter. Two quarters are under our belt and I find myself getting more excited about possibilities, more excited about what homeschool can mean for my kids.

One of the things homeschool can be is a place that fosters imagination and wonder. I know that there are many ‘real’ schools that are able to do this as well, but for the moment our kitchen table is our classroom. I have three very bright boys, but they are boys and they are not thrilled about school. My goal is to create some type of excitement of learning. They are progressing in their like…not quite love yet…of reading.  That is worth celebrating, and it is a start.  The next goal is getting them excited about “meeting” new people through their reading and the studies.

Being exposed to people who will challenge and encourage and inspire.  Because they are everywhere.

One of my favorite authors, and one who has challenged me immensely in the area of imagination and wonder is Madeleine L’Engle.  The other day I came across a blog post that was wonderful, and is part of what I am hoping to keep before the boys. The truth that those who have done amazing things are often those who were ignored when they were younger…check out the full blog post. The point of her short article is that L’Engle faced a number of obstacles and her childhood was far from what might be imagined as ideal for creating a writer. Those obstacles, those struggles, however, are exactly what created such an imaginative mind.

Not sitting in front of the television or the computer or the iPod or the XBox.  The boys like their “screens” and it is easy to let them veg and enjoy those things…but I am so aware of their need to get their minds engaged.

New Year’s Day.  Clean Slate. Lots of ideas floating around in my mind of what to put in place to engage the imagination and wonder and to challenge the ability to think well….excited to go make a plan!  There is something amazing about the New Year. We can start fresh at ay time, but there is something about starting a new calendar year that lifts hopes and spurs us a little more to try new things. The start of a New Year reminds us of the things we have gotten lazy about and gives us the reason to start again with discipline and enthusiasm.

Clean Slate. Spiritually as well. His mercies are new every morning…and sometimes that is easier to embrace on a whole New Year. There are so many things I have done lazily or without enthusiasm when it comes to my spiritual life this last year. This year, I hope to put things into place again to inspire the imagination and the wonder and the ability to think well spiritually.

Fresh and clean….and full of promise. I don’t know how long that feeling will last, I know in my frail human ability it will fade. While it is present, though, I hope to get the most out of this boost of a New Year!!! May 2013 be filled with wonder and imagination and thinking well!!!

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Listen Carefully and Write…More.

I have had little snatches of thoughts for this New Year.

2013.

There are things I know I want to be different about this year compared to years that have completed.  Read more. That is always at the top of the list. Listen more. That requires talking less.  Listen more carefully…that is closer to what is trying to form.

A few years ago I was going to shut down all internet activity for a year.  I lasted not very long, in fact I’m not sure I lasted a whole week. Prayer requests and life updates kept drawing me back, along with dialogs and blogs. Life today does seem to rely heavily on the internet for information and for community.  I’m still not positive I can completely withdraw, although listening more carefully is what is needed.

I can waste an enormous amount of time online. The end of the day reveals that most of the time has been spent in ways that do not feed my soul, and therefore do not feed the soul of my family.

So, 2013….let’s make a pact.  Listen more carefully.

Listen to voices that nourish and inform and spur thoughts and creativity and delight. Thoughts that challenge and bring wisdom and stretch thinking. Voices that encourage depth and strength and simplicity and worship.
Voices that draw me closer to God.

2013…let’s make another pact.  Write more often, and with more intention.

Yep. Listening to the voices that bring creativity and wonder and strength and thought leads to writing for me. Processing things tends to happen with words for me, and this spot on the internet is part of that. 2013…this will be the year that I focus more on my thinking than the last few years.  Writing, processing…chasing rabbit trails and finding where they lead.

2013.

I’m eager to see what this next year holds. I am eager to stretch a little more this year and live a little more intentionally. I’m not shutting down FaceBook or internet…but I am pulling the leash in a little more tightly.

Listening more carefully and write more.
Two resolutions I think I can keep.

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Enlarge That Imagination!!!!

I did not know that the sugar cookie recipe called for orange zest, so I had to run back to the store. Yep, that sugar cookie recipe that I mentioned the other day…we’re making Grandma’s sugar cookies tonight and the kids are decorating so they can take them in the morning the Children’s church workers. They are, well, children-decorated. You can tell the kiddos did the work. We’ll do some more that are a little more, well, less “sprinkly”

Back to the story, though. I didn’t know it called for orange zest, so I had to run quickly to the store. The show ‘This American Life’ was on NPR, telling stories of how people celebrate Christmas across our country. The story I caught made me stay in the car in the parking lot at the store…it was a story about parents who made Christmas amazingly magical. The children, now around 30, were telling the story. Telling of the elf that lived in the attic before Christmas: they could hear him working wood up there, hammering and sawing. They would go up and find wood chips after Christmas. Their uncles and Dad would tell of how this elf could do great mischief, sharing stories of the past.

Then, they told of Christmas morning when the rather bedraggled looking Kris Kringle showed up. One of the boys said it felt a bit like they were helping him out; that he had had a tough night and they were giving him a little bit of rest before he went on his way. Then, one year they were walking near the golf course by their house and they saw someone ahead of them hiding behind the trees. Their father encouraged them to go and catch him. They did, and found another of the Santas, this one Klaus. His clothes were a little worn and he had a bag of toys. Well, sort of. He pulled out vegetables and finally bones. Telling the children that the bones were from Rudolph and it was what he used to call the reindeer.

Then the children, who had been 2, 4 and I think 8, told how this Santa, Klaus, asked them if they wanted to go on a sleigh ride to the North Pole. Only, it could only be the kids…no adults. And all three kids told how they were scared to death, even though a part of them wanted to go. Only, that part didn’t happen. Turns out the “Santa” never invited them on a sleigh ride…it was a suggestion of their dad when they were talking late that night.

The story goes on, talking about when they finally found out that all of this was an elaborate…very elaborate…ruse that their parents had developed. It was part of the story of their childhood and led to many discussions and a myth that their childhood chased after.

I was completely caught up in the story…laughing out loud in the parking lot. I was completely caught up in the lengths they went to in the attempt to create something magical and filled with wonder and imagination and surprise. The capers of the Santas, because they believed there were several different ones working together, became part of the lore of the family. To the point that the oldest boy defended Santa to his Junior High class and got in trouble, and even later blamed his parents for his inability to trust. He laughed about it as well, though.

So, here is what struck me. As I sat and listened to this really delight-filled story, I watched the people coming and going from the store. Heads down, furrowed brows, heavy hearts. There was not much wonder or joy or delight.

It seems to me that children grab hold of stories of delight and wonder and they cling to those stories. I have friends who do the Elf on a Shelf, and I know their kids look forward to the antics. It is part of their lore. Our oldest just really came to grips with Santa not being real…but now he is excited about being in the lore himself and helping to keep it alive for his siblings.

In a world where terror is very real and where fear is easy to imagine, I think it is important to give our children a framework of fantasy and wonder and imagination. These stories, whether it be Santa or the Hobbit or Star Wars or Cinderella, they enlarge our children’s imaginations. They open their eyes to something beyond what is before their eyes. The create a lore for their childhood. When they hear their parents talking about the stress of some fiscal cliff, or they hear of children slaughtered in their classroom, or they hear of 9/11…they may not understand, but even the innocent little ones in our midst get the glimpse that there is something bad out there. These stories…they tell the children that there is also great good, and that that good is strong and creative and surprising.

“Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” G.K. Chesterton.

I do not think that the story of the Gospel, or the story of Creation, or the story of Easter is diminished because we played around at the stories of Santa and the dragons and the hobbit. Rather, I think the mark of our Maker is a great creativity and imagination…and as we create a framework for wonder and surprise our children find that the greatest surprise and the greatest wonder is that the most amazing story….

Is true.

We play at Santa and we play at fairy tales, but the reason we keep coming back to them is we have this itch we cannot scratch…this desire for there to be someone, something, that puts it all right. Someone who rescues or who simply knows that we are lonely and we are desperate to know someone cares and will save us.

And the Incarnation, the Gospel….Jesus…tells us that that itch can be scratched. That ache we have to be known and to be saved…it can be fulfilled. The fantasies keep our attention and keep us coming back because they hint at the truth. Santa is fun to play at, but ultimately the truth of the Incarnation brings us to our knees.

So, I hope that I can have an inkling of the creativity of the family I listened to today. I hope that I can live in a way that inspires imagination and fun and wonder and creativity….but I also hope that as we laugh and giggle and tell stories the children catch when the hush comes over our voice and we proclaim…Unto us is born this day….in the City of David…A Savior…who is Christ the Lord.

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The power of the Sugar Cookie

The box arrived yesterday, stacked with a few boxes from Amazon. This box was different, though, and it stood out. The address was hand-written, and the contents were able to evoke memories and emotions, a power the other boxes could not muster.

Even Chip the dog noticed. He kept walking over and sniffing the box, waiting for me to take it upstairs and open to see what was inside.

Little tiny stars that brought back so many memories. This year my dad, with the help of a long-time family friend who stays with mom during the day sometimes, sent out mom’s famous Christmas cookies. The recipe actually goes back to her mom, and possibly beyond that, although I’m not sure. Grandma was a great cook, and Christmas was filled with cookies and candies and fudge and divinity and, yes fruit cake. No, you are not allowed to make fruit cake jokes around me. Her fruitcake was made painstakingly…cutting each candied fruit to the same size and spending a full day in the kitchen working away. The result was a cake that even as a kid I enjoyed, but especially with a special warm lemon sauce poured over.

This year, though, it’s the cookies that bring back the memories. These do not quite compare to the cookies of my childhood, but they still carry in their little flour and sugar forms all the memories of Christmas. Christmas was not Christmas without the sugar cookies. We made hundreds. Literally. I mean, hundreds….500, 600, 700 cookies. We would watch them be made, help decorate with icing and red hots and sprinkles, then load them all up on plates with Saran Wrap and walk the neighborhood, delivering these cookies to all the neighbors. And the teachers. And the Sunday School teachers. And friends. And then we would munch on them happily for days.

It has been a lifetime, it seems, since we made those cookies. Dad has pictures somewhere, lots of pictures, of the kitchen filled with cookies.

Now, a little box came and let me know that it’s Christmas time.

christmascookie1

The cookies are not quite the same. They still taste great, but the decorations are simple when they used to be detailed. The activity was more of a distraction to keep a mind occupied that tends to be overwhelmed by how much it cannot figure out…constantly questioning and being frustrated. Still, there was a hesitation when I opened the box, a moment of not wanting to eat these cookies, because, well…what if they are the last ones?

I’m wired that way. I have books from favorite authors where I refuse to read the last chapter because I always want there to be something I have not read from them. I admit, though, it would be pretty silly to leave a sugar cookie uneaten, and I’m not sure I have that much discipline anyway.

Mom’s mind is a little more gone than it was last year. It is a little more difficult to keep her on the phone when I call and I feel the distance acutely this time of year. Mom used to always tell me that the house seemed to love Christmas time, that it came alive as we decorated and brought that wonder in that only belongs to this time of year. She made Christmas a magical time, a time of excitement and wonder and delicious tastes as well sounds and sights. All of these efforts were not wasted, and now at 42 a little sugar cookie can evoke a whole avalanche of memories and feelings and emotions.

So, as I get flustered trying to get it “all” done this season, this little box of cookies stopped me. I’ve got laundry that needs to be folded and dishes that need to be done, and floors that need to be mopped. I have a lot of ‘duties’ to do….but there will be sugar cookies made this weekend. A lot of them. Steve does a great job of getting the house decorated and pulling out all the stockings and candles and garlands and lights. The house twinkles with a special kind of wonder, and in the midst of a world that is so full of sorrow and fear and tragedy…I hope memories are being made for my kids.

More than that, though, I hope that a foundation of wonder is being formed. That is part of the heritage of my mom. There is an importance to the wonder and to the beauty. It is not merely decoration. It is a statement that these things matter and that it is important to feed our souls with beauty…with music and with images…and even with sugar cookies sometimes.

Thanks, Mom and Dad….

Grandmadriveway