The problem with slavery in the mid-19th-century South was not slavery.  It could be readily argued that slavery, in and of itself, is not wrong.  Now, if I’ve ruffled your feathers, please hear me out.  I may not be saying what you think I’m saying, but the whole post is necessary to convey the whole thought.  Throughout history, throughout the world, nations have conquered other nations and taken their people as slaves.  Even the ancient Israelites did so, with God’s blessing!  Even today, the Constitution does not forbid slavery in certain circumstances.  (Bet you didn’t know that!)  It permits slavery in instances of debt (for purposes of “working off” the debt, essentially).  Slavery was not the problem.

But there was a problem!  So, if it wasn’t slavery, what was it?  Wrong attitudes/wrong thinking.  See, the institution of slavery in the American South was not like slavery in, for instance, ancient Israel.  We did not have slaves by conquest.  (It could possibly be argued that the slaves held here were conquered by other nations within the continent of Africa, so it’s “still the same thing,” but if we argued that, we would still be missing the real point.)  We had (as a whole, at least) slaves by ethnicity, based on an incorrect understanding of personhood.

The general belief at that time was that those with “negroid” features were somehow less human than their more European counterparts.  Let me state unequivocally that this is absolutely, completely false!  This incorrect belief was the real problem with the institution of slavery in the American South.

Now, it may seem like a minor distinction to say that this was the root problem, rather than slavery itself, but it’s not.  This distinction has tremendous bearing upon the failure to properly integrate all members of society when emancipation actually did take place.  How?  Because we fixed the symptom, not the problem. We did away with slavery (apart from that debt clause), but not with the incorrect beliefs and wrong attitudes.  As a result, dark-skinned Americans had a hard time finding people who were willing to employ them, befriend them, or even live near them.  In the 1960’s, we still had separate water fountains, schools, and seats on buses – all because we never fixed the underlying attitude.  (I would venture to say that most people in the 1960’s wouldn’t say that darker-skinned individuals are inhuman, but there were still – and, in a few instances, still are – vestiges of this idea in the mistaken belief that we are fundamentally different.)

We need to all recognize that people are people, period.  The difference between your dark skin and my light skin is no greater a difference than the difference between my hazel eyes and my daughters’ blue eyes.  God made us all of one blood. There is only one human race – the human race.  To believe otherwise is the very definition of “racist.”  (So, Uncle Sam, stop asking me for my “race” on all of your forms.  If I’m filling out the form, it’s “human.”  Any further distinction is racist.)

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As I am getting old, my children are shooting up, as well.  It seems like just yesterday that they were nursing infants and now I feel like I am already running out of time to train up Ariel.  Sometimes time just seems to drag and drag, but our lives truly are just a vapor.  We really have to make every moment count – redeeming the time.

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Work should never be thought of as a chore, but as an activity that leads to a sense of order and completion.

(from How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way, by Tim Seldin – which, by the way, has a lot of good stuff in it, but also some typical-of-the-Montessori-community antibiblical views of child-rearing, especially where discipline and obedience are concerned)

I think that part of my difficulty is that I have a very goal-oriented personality, and it seems that none of the “activity” around the house ever does really lead to “order” or “completion.”  The house is always still a mess, nothing is ever finished, etc.  So it begins to feel pointless.  But even the difference in connotation between “chore” and “activity” is significant.  And maybe I need focus more on figuring out how we might actually be able to achieve the goals of order and/or completion.

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The education of the senses must be of the greatest pedagogical interest….The development of the senses indeed precedes that of superior intellectual activity and the child between three and seven years is in the period of formation….This sense training will prepare the ordered foundation upon which he may build up a clear and strong mentality.

A page or so later, she goes on to describe the basic concept of this sensory training, and the proper progression from sensory to theoretical.

We have always started from ideas, and have proceeded thence to motor activities; thus, for example, the method of education has always been to teach intellectually, and then to have the child follow the principles he has been taught.  In general, when we are teaching, we talk about the subject which interests us, and then we try to lead the scholar, when he has understood, to perform some kind of work with the object itself; but often the scholar who has understood the idea finds great difficulty in the execution of the work which we give him, because we have left out of his education a factor of the utmost importance, namely, the perfecting of the senses.  I may, perhaps, illustrate this statement with a few examples. We ask the cook to buy only ‘fresh fish.’  She understands the idea, and tries to follow it in her marketing, but, if the cook has not been trained to recognize through sight and smell the signs which indicate freshness in the fish, she will not know how to follow the order we have given her.

Such a lack will show itself much more plainly in culinary operations.  A cook may be trained in book matters, and may know exactly the recipes and the length of time advised in her cook book; she may be able to perform all the manipulations necessary to give the desired appearance to the dishes, but when it is a question of deciding from the odor of the dish the exact moment of its being properly cooked, or with the eye, or the taste, the time at which she must put in some given condiment, then she will make a mistake if her senses have not been sufficiently prepared.

She can only gain such ability through long practice, and such practice on the part of the cook is nothing else than a belated education of the senses — an education which often can never be properly attained by the adult.  That is one reason why it is so difficult to find good cooks.

Something of the same kind is true of the physician, the student of medicine who studies theoretically the character of the pulse, and sits down by the bed of the patient with the best will in the world to read the pulse, but, if his fingers do not know how to read the sensations his studies will have been in vain.  Before he can become a doctor, he must gain a capacity for discriminating between sense stimuli.

While many homeschoolers will recognize here the idea of progressing from concrete to abstract, rather than the other way around, something more specific jumped out at me, largely as a result of the wording used.  This idea of “training” or “preparing” the senses, of developing a capacity for discrimination, is not new!

Hebrews 5:14 says

But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

(Some translations render it “trained,” rather than “exercised.”  Apparently, the idea is that of being trained through exercise – that is, through use, or practice.)  I knew this verse (obviously, or it wouldn’t have come to mind!), but I hadn’t ever broken it down to the specifics of the individual phrases.  In relation to spiritual things, Hebrews is saying the exact same thing Montessori is saying:  until the senses are trained, the “superior intellectual” teaching is too much.

This is why it is beneficial to train our toddlers in obedience, even if they don’t fully understand the “theory” behind it yet.  It is enough that they are trained to recognize “good” and “evil.”  This ability to discriminate between good and evil prepares them to accept deeper, more abstract teaching later.

I wonder, though, if examining the Montessori method, and how this educational philosophy plays out in the natural, academic world, might give us some insight in how to better train those adult Christians who still lack the ability to discern good and evil.  What might this progression look like in the life of a physical adult who is a baby Christian?  What insights can Maria Montessori’s sensory training offer us?

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See, I tend to slip into feeling like everything is sort of aimless.  We raise our children to love the Lord and raise their children to love the Lord and raise their children to love the Lord, ad infinitum.  And of course that’s important.  But why?  Why keep producing new generations of people just to perpetuate this?  There must be more, right?  And there is – or at least there should be.  “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”  And here is the heart of my question.  How do we “enjoy” God?  It is important for us to trust Him, and to teach our children to trust Him, but as long as we (or our children) are only trusting Him, and not experiencing companionship with Him, we’re not really living.  But the question is, how do we do that?

God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day.  Noah walked with God.  Enoch walked with God and was not.  How?

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There is, of course, the obvious growth, where we can look back over the year and see the change. This is like seeing leaves on a tree, or big, juicy fruit, where before there was nothing but bare branches.

This same type of growth can be more subtle, too: obvious, external, but smaller in degree.  In this case, someone else may notice it more readily in us than we notice it in ourselves.  We almost certainly notice it more when looking back over a longer period of time than we do in the week-to-week or month-to-month.

There is also a restful sort of growth, like in a sabbath year for the land:

And the LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the LORD.  Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the LORD.  You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard…for it is a year of rest for the land.’”  (Lev. 25:1-5)

Okay, so maybe this can’t strictly be considered growth, but it’s a healthy non-growth; it isn’t a lack.  It’s a time of restoration, that growth might be more productive in the coming years than it would be without this time of rest and restoration of nutrients.  In the meantime, the trees/vines/plants still produced.

The last type of growth that came to mind for me, though, is the one I’ve given the most thought to, and been most encouraged by.  See, this is the kind of growth produced during those times of “just surviving,” and it’s the type of growth I have personally become most acquainted with in recent years.  We have had several years of a “just surviving,” desert time, from which we are just now beginning to emerge.  During this desert time, I often felt as though I was not growing at all.  I’m learning as “spring” is beginning to be restored for us, that that is just not true.

The last type of growth isn’t directly visible, because it’s underground – the growth of roots.  Now, I’m not saying that we can’t grow any roots in easier times!  But in these desert times, like trees, our roots have to plunge ever deeper in search of life-sustaining water.  The tree in drought may sometimes even appear to be dead, because every bit of energy it can muster is diverted to this quest for water.  The energy is thus exhausted, and there is nothing left for the production of fruit, or even leaves.

This growth, however, is significant!  It is what allows the tree to remain standing, remain living, until easier times.  It looks like nothing is happening; indeed, it may even look like its health is deteriorating, but below the surface the tree is growing ever stronger.  And, when more normal conditions are restored, the branches will begin to bud again, as green and fruitful as ever – and stronger than before the drought.

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BFS Assignment #100 – Oh What a Feeling!

Intro:  Oh What a Feeling!   (Marketing credit:  Toyota)
Wow!  As many of us enter into another school year, the feelings that we have permeate in setting the tone for the upcoming school year.  Box Day!– ahhh….the new books and the sound of cracking the binding and smelling the freshly printed pages….Can you FEEL the freshness? ….

Assignment: Take time this week to write about YOU and your feelings of trials and triumphs with homeschooling.  Touch on when you first heard about the concept of home schooling and whether you tip-toed into the idea or just jumped in and never looked back.  Share your schooling as a child and how you compare it to what your goals are for your children.

For me, my own schooling is closely tied to my decision to homeschool my children.  I was homeschooled myself!  Only from sixth grade on, though.  When I hear Christian parents talk about how school is harmless because their schools “are good,” or their “teachers don’t teach evolution,” or whatever, it grieves me.  What they don’t realize is that more is taught at school than that which is officially taught.  When I was in school, I learned to be a “strong” (read: “feminist”) woman.  I learned that feminine softness was a bad thing.  I learned that I needed to work even harder than the boys to “prove” myself, rather than just being who I was and excelling at being me.  I learned that my little sisters were pests to be brushed off or gotten rid of, rather than friends to love, relatives to honor, and younger Christians to mentor.  All of these are unGodly mindsets and attitudes that grieve the Lord – and, now that I know better, me.  This is not the worldview I want my children to learn.

Although we are not far into our “official” homeschooling journey (Ariel is only in first grade this year, and we haven’t started for the year because of the move), I am blessed by the very counter-cultural attitudes we see in her.  Granted, she is very young yet, and we will have to work hard to preserve these, but I believe we have started in the right direction.  Preserving is much easier than undoing!  (I know; it took me many years to overcome my own wrong thinking.)  Just yesterday, she told us that Sophia is her best, best friend.  This is what we want to encourage and develop in her, and in Sophia – a view of the world as God sees it, which includes a good relationship with her sister!

Michael and I knew before we were even married that we wanted to train our children ourselves.  It is our belief that discipleship cannot truly take place if we are sending them away for many hours of the day, even if the place they’re being sent away to is a “good” place.  (For this reason, even a private Christian school is not an option for us.)  It is our responsibility as parents to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” to “teach [God's words] diligently to [our] children,” talking of them when we sit in our house and when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up.  (Eph. 6:4; Deut. 6:7)  We don’t want to be like King David, who was known as a man after God’s own heart, and whose children were wicked.  Or Eli, who served the Lord but did not pass a true heart of worship onto his children.  We want our children to love and serve and follow Yahweh wholeheartedly for generations to come.

There are a few who “escape” public school unscathed. But we find our children too valuable to leave to chance* – and our assignment too clear to do so with clear conscience.

*Did you know that, according to the Center for Excellence in Education (as quoted by Considering Homeschooling), 98% of Christian homeschoolers maintain their faith, but 85% of Christian children in public school do not hold a Christian worldview by the time they graduate, and drop out of church?

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This confirms other things I have read, such as The Schwarzbein Principle, as well as what just plain makes sense to me. I also heard on the news the other night about a study someone did of very old, but healthy, individuals. This study has been going on, if I recall correctly, for several decades, and the man who is doing the study has not encountered a single vegetarian in this group yet!

As I pondered this, I got to thinking about Adam and Eve. Many Christian vegans (the Hallelujah Diet people, for example) claim that we are supposed to eat a vegan diet, because that’s what God originally instituted, in the Garden of Eden. My thinking trail started wandering along those lines, and I wondered why, if we need these animal products to be healthy (which I firmly believe to be true), Adam and Eve did not. Then it hit me.

Plant foods are largely carbohydrates. Animal foods are largely protein foods, and certain types of fat (including those that carry vitamins A and D). Generally speaking, carbohydrates are energy foods. Proteins, and fat-soluble vitamins, are building foods. That is, the body is constantly tearing down and rebuilding its various parts. Proteins and fat-soluble vitamins are the tools it uses for that rebuilding. Mankind has always required energy, but likely didn’t originally require rebuilding! Prior to the Fall, there was no death. With death comes degeneration, and the need for regeneration. Because of the Fall, we actually require nutrition we previously did not.

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-The ancients used to measure time with the sun and the shadows it cast (sundials, and miscellaneous variations). Today, many of us carry clocks around on our wrists (or in our pockets). From a cheap dollar-store watch to a “luxury” one like a Patek Nautilus, they all keep time at a much lighter weight than a sundial!  Mine is actually a fairly cheap watch I got at Wal-Mart for – I forget how much; about $7.95, I think – but I really, really like it, and it has lasted me several years already.

-Many of us say that we wish we had more time, but we each have the same 24 hours every day. Some of us simply make better use of it than others.

-The supposed reason for Daylight Savings Time is energy savings. The news recently stated, however, that we use more energy during DST than we do the rest of the year. (Personally, I hope that means the government will decide to do away with it altogether. It can’t be healthy to play with our circadian rhythms like that. And it’s a safety hazard. The Monday after DST begins has one of the highest motor-accident rates of the year.)

-There are multiple songs with the them of “time.” A few lines that come to mind are, “Time is ticking away…” “In His time, in His time; He makes all things beautiful in His time…” and “To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

-That, by the way, is from the Scripture. Ecclesiastes 3:1 -

“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to gain, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.

-Other quotes about time:

“There is always enough time to do the will of God.”
-Elisabeth Elliot

“When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder, a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.”
-Albert Einstein

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.”
-William Penn

“What may be done at any time will be done at no time.”
(Scottish proverb)

“Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first time or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”
-Betty Smith

-The Bible says that to God, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day. It also says that each of our lives are like a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

-Finally, let me leave you with this thought, from Ephesians 5:11-16-

See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

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