We’re the unschool crowd. Nope, not the uncool crowd; those extra letters are intentional. We don’t have to waste our time in car line or on the bus. We don’t have to follow dress code or wear uniforms. We don’t have to be confined to desks for hours or locked in one room. We don’t have to fill in bubbles to prove we know things. We definitely don’t have to raise hands and get hall passes to go to the bathroom!
We don’t have to wake up before dawn and rush to catch the schoolbus. We don’t have to go to bed before the sun goes down. We don’t have to walk in lines and we don’t get punished for running in halls. We don’t have to choke down cafeteria food in the five to ten minutes left after walking to and from a classroom and standing in line for a tray.
We don’t have to raise our hands to answer questions. We don’t have to complete extra busy work for a grade because the teacher has too many students to focus on one at a time. We don’t have to struggle to follow a lesson plan that doesn’t match our learning styles. We don’t have to be quiet and sit still.
We are the unschool crowd. We read every book we can find. We play every song, we paint every picture, we write every story. We watch the trees and the stars and the grasshoppers and invent new technology with what we observe. We play with computer codes in our living room and design complicated feats of architecture in our backyard. We run barefoot in the rain and harvest God’s bounty under the sun. We play games and watch tv, then create our own. We converse with the aged and cuddle the infants. We chase after dreams and make them goals. We trip over mistakes then use them as stairs. We are free to find out who we are as individuals and free to act on that knowledge. We are entrepreneurs and leaders, philanthropists and friends. We are the unschool crowd, and we are very cool.
This morning I found myself reflecting on my husband’s and my history. When I was a teenager my family attended an annual lecture series at the small college he attended. The students were responsible for a lot of logistics as part of their education, so we would have run into each other multiple times over the course of those weeks. He was 18-20, I was 14-16; we weren’t on each other’s radar and have no memory of meeting at all during that time. Ten years later, a mutual friend introduced us, and the rest is history.
There have been times I wished we had met earlier, had all that time to spend together. The truth is that if we had met as kids we probably wouldn’t be together now. Those ten years shaped the characteristics that drew us together, characteristics that we did not possess as teenagers. We both went through things: failed relationships, first jobs, successes and failures, and other challenges that helped us discover independently who we were. By the time we found each other’s orbit we both understood what we were looking for and how to recognize it.
It is a lesson I have worked very hard to take to heart. So often we try to rush life, demanding whatever we want in the moment as if the course of our lives depends upon it. We push harder and harder, younger and younger, and look back on our lives with regret and bitterness that our rushed decisions didn’t produce the fruit we wanted. My life would look very different now without those ten years. I would likely have ended up marrying one of those failed relationships I mentioned and it would still have failed, or chasing one of those challenges in a fruitless search for fulfillment. Even if a second opportunity to meet had arisen I would likely have rejected it based on first impressions, never realizing the change time could produce.
There is a right time for the right things to happen in our lives. We have to learn to appreciate the wait. Waiting is not wasted time; it’s growing time. What do you choose to learn from your experiences? What changes are you willing to make after your failures? What do you learn about yourself from relationship challenges, and what characteristics do you learn to pursue? No one knows what they really want until they have experienced all of those aspects of life. Celebrate the wait.
2000 years ago, the Romans possessed the skill to build aqueducts using stone blocks shaped by hand and stacked without mortar into columns and arches over thirty feet high, with more layers of arches on top. They laid roads of stone that spanned an empire stretching from India to Great Britain to Africa. Both were feats of engineering that still stand largely untouched and usable today, baffling and challenging modern architects. Yet humanity has come so far?
Five thousand years ago, the Egyptians built massive pyramidal monuments to their dead kings. Using methods we can only guess at, they carved and hauled multiton blocks of stone up an incline and set them together so closely that a sheet of paper can’t fit between them. The pyramids still stand as marvels of engineering, marked but far from disintegrated by time. Yet humanity has come so far?
Three thousand years ago, the Mayan people built stepped temples of stone that rose high above the rainforest canopy to celebrate the sun. They carved complex astronomical calenders into solid rock to order their lives. The people are long gone, along with all record of their lives except for those untouched temples and carvings. The stone still rises above the trees, perfect feats of architecture preserved from a hidden past. Yet humanity has come so far?
Roughly three or four thousand years ago, an ancient semitic nation carved their lives inch by inch out of the desert mountains. Slowly their rough cave settlements grew into vast cities, polished red sandstone walls gleaming and ornate gateways towering over grand entrances. The people with the dream to create these monumental dwellings had no fear of the desert; they also possessed the knowledge and technology to pipe water into the city through sophisticated systems from nearby springs and rainwater cisterns. This indomitable people faded into history, replaced by interlopers and usurpers, but their mountain cities still stand to awe modern travellers. Yet humanity has come so far?
Two thousand years ago, a tribal people in the Peruvian desert left their unique mark upon the face of the earth itself. With precise geometric knowledge and application, the Nazca etched stylized drawings of native animals into the rocky desert floor, along with a complex system of perfectly straight lines that stretched for miles. The drawings are so large they cannot be viewed in entirety from the desert floor; they must be viewed from the distant mountain peaks or from the air. No one now knows why the Nazca created their mathematically precise art, but despite millenia it is still visible and wondered at by modern civilization. Yet humanity has come so far?
Some thousands of years ago, knowledge was handed down through song. Children were apprenticed early to scholars, who painstakingly tutored them until they could recite every word and intonation perfectly. Religion, history, and science were all passed from generation to generation in complex rhymes and rhythms; tales of heros like Beowulf and Gilgamesh shared memory with medical instruction. Not a word was lost and much knowledge was added over centuries of time, without a word being written down. Yet humanity has come so far?
A little less than a thousand years ago, every book was created by hand. Tools were handmade and carefully customized by the artist, who then mixed his own pigments and meticulously painted every letter and line of every page. A single page represented days of work and incredible artistry, with intricate scripts enhanced by brilliantly detailed images and scrollwork. Yet humanity has come so far?
“Aren’t you on medication? I thought it was helping. Why do you feel so bad?”
If you have a chronic illness, you’ve probably heard some variation of this ad nauseum. We live in a culture that expects some version of Star Trek medicine, where every problem can be fixed, every ailment can be cured, with the pass of an instrument or the click of a button. Or the swallowing of a pill. When reality doesn’t live up to expectations, confusion and suspicion of the sufferers reigns.
Now, obviously, some of those who say such things have the best of intentions. They genuinely care that another person is hurting and they want the hurt to stop. Then there are those whose voice is just a little too sharp, whose smile is just a little too forced, whose eyebrows rise a little too high. They don’t understand why help us not helping according to their expectations.
The problem is the expectation, not the help. Humans don’t exist in cookie cutter shapes, and our lives are as unique as we are. There is no pill, no therapy, no trekkie fix that can make every person fit the same mold. When wiring goes wrong, when internal connections “leak” or don’t match, there is no quick fix. There may be no fix at all. What help exists may simply make symptoms easier to endure.
Until it doesn’t. A hot day, a disagreement, a small pain, a touch, a deadline. Maybe today the brain can’t communicate with the hands. Maybe every sensation is magnified. Maybe sensations are so muted that the brain doesn’t have the tools to make decisions. Without outside help, those things can result in brutal public meltdowns or complete functional paralysis. With help, those days may allow getting out of bed, being able to muster a smile, have a conversation. They may allow the ability to say, “I can’t fulfill obligations today because I feel horrible.”
When society forces a cookie cutter ideal on sufferers of invisible illnesses, a new illness grows. It’s called self-doubt. “Maybe there’s nothing really wrong with me. Maybe I’m just selfish. Maybe I’m making it up. Maybe I should stop using my help. Maybe I’m just stupid and worthless.” Charybdis yaws, drowning talents and hope and purpose in the depths of misery.
“Aren’t you on medication? I thought it was helping. Why do you feel so bad?”
It’s a bad word in our society, a lightning rod that attracts every social argument imaginable. Manual laborers view with contempt those who work with their minds, considering them lazy and out of touch with reality. Those in intellectually focused professions look down on manual laborers, certain that no one with ambition would waste time working with their hands. Both despise those who work in entertainment, considering them lazy, immoral, or both. Then, of course, there are those who receive public aid; whether or not due to true need seems irrelevant, whether they are exalted or despised.
Work as a concept is not that complicated. It is the process by which one contributes to one’s society. Every individual has a contribution to make, a way to work, that is unique to him or herself. That contribution may or may not be one that requires specialized knowledge. It may or may not include clocking in for a boss. It may or may not produce what are considered survival necessities. But it is still a necessary contribution.
Animals spend their lives chasing survival. They have little if any other motivation. They have no capacity for appreciation, for individuality, for true creativity. Only humans have such abilities, and as possessor of them, we are not meant merely to survive. We are meant not only to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves, but to learn, to imagine, to produce beauty and laughter, to touch hearts with language, to challenge each other in image or song.
The Creator declared the laborer worthy of his hire. What makes a farmer more entitled to compensation than a poet? What makes a doctor more entitled to compensation than an electrician? What makes a retail worker more entitled than a football player or actor more entitled than an entrepreneur? Does the poet do less work because it was mostly internal and not easily quantifiable? Does the entrepreneur not deserve the same recognition of talent and dedication to their dreams as the actor?
By the same token, because we are designed with such great potential, our lives should not be reduced to a daily grind. Our work should be drawn from our passions and character, and should encompass everything that is important to us as individuals. If we thought this way, the woman who chooses to balance time with her family as well as set hours performing a task for money would not be criticized. The man who pours all his resources into crafting products for sale and whose wife and children work alongside him would be heralded for his efforts instead of vilified for demanding fair pay for his efforts. The poet who poured her troubled soul into song to relieve another’s pain would never be expected to share her gift without pay. Every work would be understood to be essential, and would be compensated as essential.
We have officially started our homeschool summer. No more assignments. No more schedules. No more educational obligations. It’s wonderful and relaxing, and we are having so much fun!
When chores are finished the kids drag out my old violin lesson music and open the organ to pick out the little simple songs on the keyboard. Twinkle Little Star, Happy Birthday, and Frere Jacques ring from the walls in various key mixtures as they practice reading a staff and figure out which notes match which keys. But it isn’t a school day.
Legos and paper cover the floors in several rooms as parades of weapons, fantastic creatures, and marvels of engineering pass my workspace. The geometry of biology and architecture shape paper and form moving lego joints through the process of experiment and failure. Scenes and characters from books and history come alive in inspired creations from the tools of childhood. But it isn’t a school day.
My six year old clamors, “Read this book to me,” and I propose she help me read it instead. She sounds out every word on the first page, four whole lines full of syllables and digraphs and challenges. We high five at each hard word conquered, then I read the rest of the story about a hard working garden spider. One page has a picture of a moth, and she wants to know how moths eat, so we look it up. Two YouTube videos and twenty minutes later, we know not only how but what they eat, and can identify a full dozen different species of moths. But it isn’t a school day.
We record a regular podcast reading famous stories aloud, stories that exist in the public domain but are no longer favorites for entertainment. Today we neared the climax in a gripping tale of aliens, suspense, and danger, a story written in a time and culture long forgotten. They laughed, exclaimed, squealed, and held their breath, completely absorbed in a world they have never experienced. But it isn’t a school day.
The tantalizing smell of sausage and eggs wafts from the kitchen, where my daughter works blissfully alone. Eggs, milk, and cinnamon have been whisked to perfection for soaking soft bread to be browned. Meat had to be thawed and shaped, and the the pan kept to the perfect temperature for even cooking. Ingredients had to be measured and counted to ensure enough food for seven hungry stomachs. A platter fills with golden-brown slices of French toast beside perfect gray circles of sausage. But it isn’t a school day.
My seven year old is exploring the yard. A storm is blowing in, so he watches the cloud movements and waits for the first drops to fall. He scours the treeline for mushrooms and edible wild greens, bringing me handfuls that Daddy will need to identify when he gets home just in case he got it wrong. He picks a handful of bright flowers to put in water, delighted when I tell him their name and musing about what they remind him of. But it isn’t a school day.
Tonight as they drift to sleep we will read a chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring. The poetry of joyful hearts will create music to soothe them to sleep. Pictures of courage, love, and goodness will form the framework of their dreams. The simplicity of the triumph of good over evil will shape their souls to seek good things. But it isn’t a school day.
Tomorrow we will still be on summer break. We will have no assignments, schedules, or obligations. I wonder what we will learn; it’s sure to be exciting.
The world is full of wars, conflicts, political arguments, societal inequities, and many other unpleasant things we humans deem important. We fixate on everything that is wrong, twisting ourselves into knots trying to figure out who we are supposed to hate, who or what is the enemy. We bury our noses in news, gossip, and arguments while life goes on around us. This week has brought a particularly negative onslaught, but as loud as it has been, it’s really a very small part of life around the globe. Many seemingly tiny, insignificant events occurred to bring joy.
My last baby turned six years old. As mommy, every birthday observed is a little bittersweet, as pieces of myself grow to be more and more independent of me. For my big girl, every birthday is exhilarating. It means she is one year older, with new privileges and skills on the horizon. It means cake and decorations that she has chosen to reflect who she is in this moment. It means people she loves gathered around her focused entirely on her for at least a little while, a privilege often craved by a child in a large and busy family. For my little diva, one short party is just not enough, she’d like a few days! It means presents, all of which from ponytail holders and handmade pictures to a new doll are equally delightful. Because of all the joy it brings, my baby turning six was one of the most important events happening in the world.
My ten year old son lost his first molar. The tooth fairy has not had occasion to visit our house in some time, although several teeth are being subtly encouraged to invite her, so this was quite an event. We had to take pictures and make sure every family member knew about this momentous milestone. Notes had to be written with dubious spelling but painstaking care so that the tooth fairy would leave the tooth for the treasure box that every little boy stashes somewhere. The prize left alongside the hoarded tooth, a simple rubber chicken target game, brought hours of side-splitting entertainment for every kid in the house, since the chicken darts managed to stick and dangle from the oddest places though never from the intended target. Because of all its simple joy, my son’s lost tooth was one of the most important events happening in the world.
We live in the country and rarely mow our yard until well into spring. Every year it becomes a carpet and then a prairie of wild-growing things filled with happy pollinators. This year the clover has been especially abundant, and my little Irish-blooded crew loves to hunt treasure in the leaves. The finding of three four-leaf clovers in the space of half an hour caused an uproar to rival election day victory. These precious gems were displayed with aplomb and recorded on screen for the benefit of anyone not immediately present. All three have been carefully pressed in the big dictionary for posterity, in case such a rare find is never repeated, while the heralded searchers rest on their laurels. Because of the innocent joy it inspired, finding clover treasure was one of the most important events happening in the world.
These critical events of my everyday life leaves little room for me to worry about the hazards of politics and war. They leave me with little desire to fight over disagreements and hate my fellowman. I pity any who cannot bring their focus to even the simplest of blessings or appreciate even the smallest of celebrations. Where else can we find a way up and out of misery? Where else can we find the ingredients of peace? What could possibly be more important?
From the very beginning of the world, when Adam and Eve tried to deflect responsibility for their rebellion, humans have relied upon blame culture. Anything wrong is always someone or something else’s fault. Children do it to get out of trouble. Adults do it to avoid dealing with problems. Each generation blames whatever is unfamiliar or new for the failings of the next to avoid facing their own flaws.
Blame is easy. “It’s the company’s fault!” “It’s the phone’s fault!” “It’s my parent’s fault!” On and on it can go. I can’t be wrong because someone else did it. I can’t fix it because I didn’t do it. Why doesn’t someone fix the problem already?! You don’t understand my situation, which makes my problems your fault.
Sadly, blame culture creates side effects. Instead of looking for solutions, we begin looking for more problems. Instead of respecting innovation and hard work, we slaver for indifference or stagnation to feed our indignation. Instead of being strong we wallow in victimhood.
We are not and have never been victims of anything but our own selfishness and laziness. We scream about the dangers of and ban all use of technology that allows mass communication so that we never have to teach how to communicate properly. We bang our pitchforks against the doors of those with whom we disagree, ensuring that those doors remain barred, so that we never have to examine anyone’s motives or face disconcerting truths. We excoriate entire groups of people for the debauchery of our society so that we never have to sit down and answer our children’s hard questions. Despite having all the power and responsibility for change, we use it merely to bully others from a position of cowardice.
I refuse to participate in blame culture any longer. I refuse to leave my children vulnerable to victimhood by never teaching them how to rise. I refuse to consign my own or anyone else’s soul to eternal torment by avoiding the hard process of connection and understanding. God took responsibility for our salvation, knowing full well that we would never live up to His perfection, knowing that we would fight and rebel and take the easy way out over and over again. He placed His power in me and I am no victim; I have no one to blame but myself if I waste it, and neither does anyone else.
As many of you many have noticed, the blog has been a little neglected of late. Life comes in seasons, and my family has been experiencing a mildly difficult season. We needed time to work out some instabilities, and that has made writing difficult to accomplish. It also proved to be a time of refocusing and reevaluating.
My children are growing older and maturing into new interests and abilities. My oldest rapidly approaches the teen years and leaves any lingering babyhood behind. My baby at five embodies Megamind and can’t decide whether she wants to be a child or attempt world domination. More and more often our quiet time together involves the great stories of the ages rather than the delightful picture books of childhood.
Economic instability has made the need for better financial planning abundantly clear. Work that is dependent upon the good graces of employers is no longer reliable, and chronic health conditions make meeting imposed hours and standards increasingly difficult. We have begun to take steps toward owning our own businesses and becoming more economically independent.
Our church family is undergoing a period of upheaval as well as the passage of time and evolving needs change the shape of our fellowship. Adjustments are painful and time-consuming, and much more of our time is devoted to helping each other through than had been enjoyed in each other’s company for some time. This also leads to sleepless nights, hours of extra study and prayer, and an inability to schedule.
Because of all these developments and evolutions, there will be changes made here as well. You may find shorter but more frequent snippets of fiction, more spiritual/life reflections, and fewer but more mature book recommendations. Some weeks may be filled with content while others may be silent, depending on the needs of the time. Most importantly, throughout all these changes I will be here, sharing and writing and connecting to the best of my ability. And with book two of the Magicborn series in the works behind the scenes, you really don’t want to miss any updates or teasers that might come this way!
Recently I posted a series of questions on social media. I wanted, and received, feedback revealing how we as a society understand certain concepts that are central to a civilization. Need, work, and identity are necessary in order for a culture to thrive, but perception of what constitutes those things varies widely. When those varying perceptions clash in a battle of wills, a civilization teeters on the brink of collapse. Differences of opinion don’t have to be a death knell, however; if considered carefully without prejudice, they can become a stronger, more stable framework that incorporates every possibility.
As evidenced by many of the answers given, we often get stuck in one pattern of thinking, a pattern that applied to a particular society with particular tools at a particular time. We look back with disdain on past eras, talk with pride about progress, celebrate increased opportunity for prosperity, while at the same time treating everything that led to our current situation with contempt. New ideas, different opportunities, can’t be good ones because our grandparents didn’t have them. New tools must be luxuries because our grandparents didn’t need them. Little consideration is given to how new ideas, new opportunities, and new tools changed the civilization in which we live.
As little as a hundred years ago, the automobile was unaffordable by all but the wealthiest. Roads were narrow and unpaved, traveled by pedestrians or horse-drawn vehicles. Some of the bigger cities might have the convenience of streetcars or elevated trains, and long distance travel relied on the railroads, but even those were recent developments. Communities were smaller and more self-sufficient; schools were smaller, with their primary focus teaching basic literacy skills, as children entered the workforce early to contribute to the family’s support. The children were educated in the factories, the fields, the construction sites, or if they were very lucky, behind the counter of a store. The arts were expensive pursuits that the common citizen could not afford to pursue and that the wealthy, although they enjoyed the entertainment gleaned from artistic production, considered demeaning. The wealthy, focused on increasing their wealth and status, pursued a classical higher education and built careers in business or politics. Information about the world outside one’s immediate community was limited to rumors or newspapers, and arrived slowly if at all. Telephones existed but were expensive and often communal.
Now, a century forward, our nation would be unrecognizable to the people of the past. Not only are automobiles so common that roads, communities, and cities are built around access by car, but the train has been made obsolete by air travel, a possibility barely even imagined at that time. Schools are not only available to the average citizen, but require attendance of every child under a certain age. Not only does every citizen have access to higher education, but lack of a college degree has become a barrier to employment or advancement. Not only are telephones common, but the invention and development of computer technology has turned phones into handheld instant access to information and long distance communication. Improvements in transportation and communication opened up the world beyond the community, allowing the average citizen access to opportunities impossible in small communities. Family businesses can now become large corporations with worldwide customer bases in a relatively short amount of time thanks to the ability to network and market via the internet. Creative pursuits are now not only possible for the average citizen but often extremely profitable, even independent of established circles.
The world has changed, and with it the definitions of concepts. Bare subsistence by the definitions of a hundred years ago is now considered a moral standard to be achieved, as if barely avoiding starvation and exposure in a world of plenty makes one virtuous. The opportunity of exercising one’s God created individuality by using one’s God-given abilities to support oneself has expanded the definition of work and jobs, yet we cling to the outdated insistence that only doing manual labor in the employment of another is “real work.” Intellectual pursuits, although glorified in the form of insistence on college attendance, are still despised as leaching off of the “real workers” of the world. Those same opportunities only exist using the great connective powers of modern technology, making technology a necessity in our culture, yet we call it a luxury and religiously advocate to prevent the pursuit of our God-created identities.
A hundred years ago these opportunities did not exist. People didn’t have a choice. The average able-bodied citizen was forced to ignore and repress individuality in order to survive. Life was hard and the people who endured it often equally so. Those who possessed physical or mental disabilities couldn’t conceive of even the limited opportunities available to the able-bodied and able-minded. Most were institutionalized, tortured with experimental treatments for conditions that no one understood, and often died young. Some few with undeniable gifts in the arts found patrons who allowed them a semblance of a normal life, but even they were often ostracized by society for “scandalous” behavior and ended up self-destructing. Their lives held no value to other humans because as far as society was concerned they could not contribute a fair share.
In our age of information, understanding, and opportunity, attitudes haven’t changed. Oh, we talk a good game, but we still insist that everyone meet the same standards, perform the same work in the same way, rise to the same challenges, produce the same outcomes. In an age where individuality is so obvious and tools are so readily available, we despise differences and try to force uniformity. In an age of plenty, we try to force poverty. In an age of information, we try to force ignorance. In an age of opportunity, we try to force disadvantage.
In this incredible time and place, we have the greatest of opportunities. We can choose to value every life, every contribution, every ability, every effort, and every challenge without prejudice. We can support the intellectual and the manual laborer with equal respect to the different types of effort required. We can accept the vast amount of time and skill required to produce an artistic endeavor and take time to enjoy the result with respect that the artist cared to bring joy into our lives in the form of entertainment. We can provide relief for our loved ones who suffer from visible or invisible differences in ability, and ensure them the opportunity to contribute in their own equally valuable way. We can recognize that need is as individual as individuals, and support each other without disdain or dismissal. We can break away from conformity made unnecessary by opportunity, and choose to celebrate the designed individuality of every member of God’s creation.
The Word Worker 
