Honest Eva

I have very seldom, if ever, written here about myself, personally. And the reason is that the purpose of this blog has been to record my family's lives, stuff we do, not necessarily my personal thoughts. Any photos that I take I like to write about about so we don't forget them. However, I don't usually take photos when my kids are fighting, when I snap at them or when I'm stressed out, feeling lonely or bitter. Those things happen a lot but they don't make it into the blog. I mostly take photos of happy things and I think that's how most people are. You don't take a photo of a fight. 

Recently, however, I have felt convicted about something very important to me:  Honesty.

I very much value honesty, sincerity, frankness, truthfulness, openness and straightforwardness. I don't know if it's a part of my DNA, if it's been crafted into me through my upbringing and experiences or a combination of the two. I am a very honest and transparent person. Very much like Candor in the Divergent series (3 books I recently consumed), if people could be more vulnerable with each other, every one would be better off. How many interpersonal problems could be solved by honesty: "You hurt my feelings when you said that. Oh I did? I'm so sorry! Please forgive me." Bam, done. Honesty is one of my core values and something I genuinely like about myself. Terry likes this about me too. I like to think my friends like that about me but I don't know. I have a hard time with friends.

The thing is, I think I have been holding back lately. Factors involved in that could be primarily insecurity, having a baby and being more stay at home, homeschooling and therefore being more stay at home, and again, insecurity.

I like to think that I'm not insecure. But if I really look deeper at any problem or unpleasant emotion that I have, insecurity has a lot to do with it. And that seems odd to me because I also like to think that I don't care what people think. I had a very bad experience right before I went into high school where all of my friends ditched me and said very awful, appalling, horrible things to me. Did you read where I said when this happened? Yeah, I went into high school with no friends. I had to start over. And this sort of thing (bullying) is regrettably, pretty normal anymore, but it doesn't make it any less devastating. So right there, when that happened to me, I made some promises to myself. 

#1 I wasn't going to care what anyone thought about me anymore. That had been part of my problem. I changed who I was to fit in. Turned out it didn't work and I was becoming a genuinely terrible person. Therefore, I thank God for taking me out of that group. 

#2 Another thing I wanted was to be even more honest, though I think I still had been up until that point (my family just doesn't beat around the bush about things). I was going to be who I honestly was and not try to be like who others thought I should be. I like that.

#3 One other thing I changed about myself, unknowingly, was that I was going to trust people less. And that change was bad. I thought that I didn't need anyone if that's how they treated you. I am still working on this one. It's difficult. 

So, I still value not caring who people think I should be and honesty, but to be honest (tired of that word yet?), I have been failing a little. In my own mind I have begun to care about what people think of me. I'm always thinking I "should be" this or that. Or I "should be" like her or them. Or that I "shouldn't be" like how I am. And some of those things are true, but most of them are not. Most of them are lies. And I have been swallowing those lies. I am an absolute sucker for some of those lies. And then for good measure, I project those lies onto other people and then all of the sudden, they are the ones telling me who I should be. And then I'm angry with them for having unrealistic expectations of me, all without them saying a word. Works good right?

If I could just be honest it would be a lot easier. So that's what I'm doing here. All over again in my life, I'm going to try not to care about who I think I should be and who you think I should be. If I have let you down, I am genuinely very sorry indeed. I never want to hurt anyone. But I am who I am and I will let people down unknowingly. Paul was all things to all men, but I have a hard time with that. 

So who am I? 

I am shy! I am an introvert. I would prefer most of the time to be alone. When I'm around too many people or have too much going on, I get really stressed out.

 Going to youth group every week is very difficult for me. The wall of sound hits me and I want to turn right back around and go stand in a corner and observe. But I don't. I push myself all the time (if you think I don't, I do). I go stand in a group of people and try to think of something to say or ask. Terry makes it look so easy. He tells me all of these questions I could ask. It's not that easy for me. Literally, when I'm standing in front of you not saying anything, it's because there is absolutely nothing in my mind to say. I'm completely blank. Seriously. I have thoughts flying through my head all the day long but somehow when I have to talk to someone I don't know well (which is anyone I'm not married to) I have nothing to say.

I don't like being too busy. 

If I don't have an appropriate amount of downtime, I am a mess. I get more emotional and needy with Terry and cranky with the kids and all around unpleasant. I need alone time. I am totally not a party planning or party attending or large groups kind of person at all. I am not the life of the party. I am not all fun all the time. I am probably not even all that friendly, but I do try. If you knew how hard all of this people stuff was for me, you would know how hard I do try. My husband is a youth pastor forgoodnesssakes! I'm supposed to be "friendly" and "loving" and "giving" and "nice" and "outgoing"  and all that kind of stuff. Well, if you didn't already notice, I'm not very good at any of it. 

I am who I am and I don't need to be like someone else. I'm doing the best I can and am attempting to trust and obey God where I'm at. God loves me right where I'm at but He doesn't leave me there. He works on me every day. I'm not the same person day in and day out, whether or not you or I see the change. His grace is sufficient and He is transforming me. He is faithful to accomplish His will in me. I am not the one that has to change me. HE changes me. He is the one who made me an introvert in the first place. Will He now turn around and say, "That's not good enough. You have to be an extrovert so everyone, including me, will love you." NO! And yet, those are the lies I believe.

So that's why I'm writing this post. I want to say sorry for letting people down and ask for their forgiveness and grace. I have not arrived and will never arrive until the day I die and can finally go to that city. I cannot wait. I hate all these lies and expectations and unspoken thoughts and feelings. Why can't we all just be honest? If I hurt you, tell me. If you hurt me, I'll try to be brave and tell you. 

Common Core presentation

On Friday, August 22, 2014, Terry and I attended "a Common Core presentation by one of our nation's leading experts on Common Core, Dr. Duke Pesta from the Freedom Project Education USA." 

I was interested in learning more about Common Core (CC) since I've heard many conflicting stories. "It's a government takeover." "No, it's just standards. It will improve critical thinking skills." "But Common Core is being put into all the available curriculums, even private and homeschool ones" (which is true - I looked up our math curriculum, Math-U-See, which advertises that it aligns with Common Core standards). "No, they don't want to create a monopoly."

Where was the truth in all of this? Terry and I attended this presentation to find out more. 

Dr. Duke Pesta is a Conservative Catholic, but all of the sources he uses to describe, define and reject Common Core came from the liberal left. He did not use a single source from the conservative right. So don't reject this before you even read it.

My objection in writing this post is to share what we learned, to post our notes. Since this is taken from our notes, it might be a little disjointed. It was difficult to keep up and write everything down.

Myth #1: Common Core is a State-led effort.

This is false. It comes from the top down.

The full name of Common Core is "Common Core State Standards." Dr. Pesta showed us from their website who these people are and a simple google search informed me too. Turns out the the CCSS has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the states.

 The states never saw this curriculum. In fact, no one did until it arrived at the schools. 

It's language manipulation. If they put "State Standards" in there, it appears legitimate and makes the public think their state was involved in it's creation.

When Dr. Pesta discusses CC with pro-CC folks, they have no backing. All they do is call him a right wing lunatic. They cannot provide evidence to back themselves up. So they name call. 

Myth #2: Copyright owned by the government

This is very purposeful. If elected members wrote the curriculum and voters didn't like it, the elected can by voted out. But if an outside source writes the material the blame can be shifted. The creators of CC cannot be voted out. Also, it is much harder to change since the government does not own the copyright.

Again from CCSS's website, it states that:

"NGA Center/CCSSO shall be acknowledged as the sole owners and developers of the Common Core State Standards, and no claims to the contrary shall be made.

Any publication or public display shall include the following notice: “© Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.”

It says right there who made the Common Core: The National Governor's Association and Council of Chief State School Officers." Who are the NGA and the CCSSO? Lobbyist groups.

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallen has just this summer pulled her state out of Common Core. That linked article states that South Carolina did as well and that Florida was considering it. 

Dr. Pesta showed us the money trail of Common Core. The Gates Foundation spent 4 billion of Common Core. 

Joy Pullman traced the authorship of Common Core to only 5 authors. David Coleman, a psychologist, was one of the writers and contributed to it. He has NO teaching education and has never taught. He was the friend of Education Secretary Arne Duncan. I found this article which expounds where our notes couldn't keep up, "standards’ lead writers: David Coleman and Susan Pimentel in English, and Jason Zimba, Phil Daro, and William McCallum in math. Coleman and Zimba did not have previous experience writing standards." In fact, Coleman is busily rewriting college SATs to conform to the "standards." This means the tests are written first, and then the curriculum. Common Core is Test-driven. Dr. Pesta told how teachers initially try to teach outside of the CC curriculum to balance out what they think is lacking, or methods they don't agree with, but come test time, students do poorly on the tests, forcing teachers to teach only the CC curriculum. 

That's another myth that you hear all the time: "They're just standards." If you don't like CC people may ask "what do you have against standards?" Nothing. But it's word trickery. The "standards" phrasing makes it sound like we've never had educational standards before CC> We've had standards before CC. We want standards. But CC is more than just "standards."

They are standards that require you to use the CC curriculum to achieve the standards.

The government wants CC there.

The U.S. Dept. of Education created a program called "Race to the Top" giving away 6 billion dollars to any state willing to use CC. The catch was the money was given before CC was written or reviewed by states or schools. So it was like bribe money. Once CC arrives, states who refuse to use it will then lose Federal finances, which is like blackmail. So for a state to step away would mean a loss of income.

CC was described to us as a 3-legged stool:

leg 1-  CC creators/writers/financial investors (investors because Bill Gates, a main financial contributor, will likely sell to all school the computers/software for all of the tests).

leg 2 - Fed government (who handed off the task of creating national standards to someone else, because in 1965 legislation was passed prohibiting the government from creating national standards)

leg 3 - Publishers (who get paid to write the tests and curriculum, and then get paid again when they sell newly created curriculum and tests to states/schools).

Pearson Publishing is the publisher of Common Core. And they are a monopoly. They are the largest publisher in the world, publishing 80% of the textbooks in the U.S. Reminds me of The Lego Movie and how President Business had a monopoly on everything (including history books :). Also, Pearson has been purchasing many smaller publishers, though continuing to print with the original publisher name - meaning, even if the publisher isn't Pearson, they may very well own the publisher listed.

Myth #3: Nature of how the standards were written.

Our notes are definitely incomplete under this myth, but basically when it came to the group that reviewed and basically gave their "stamp of approval" to the standards, there were only 2 that had experience and expertise in creating standards, a math professor who had done most of the calculations in an Apollo mission and one other female professional. They both rejected the new standards staying it would set our country back 2 years behind the 2 years we were already behind. Their comments were ignored and they were removed or at least written out of the group and the minutes. 

As far as teacher training to implement the new curriculum, there is not training except for the textbooks. 

2 democrats (can't remember if they were involved in legislation is passing it or creating it or what) resigned after the implementation of CC saying it was a "complete takeover of American education." The federal government owns the tests. And he who controls the tests controls everything - what each individual state MUST teach, what each principal and school and teacher must teach. The states become administrative agents of the federal government. States don't create, control, or have a say in their educational standards, they simply administer curriculum given by the Federal government.

CC is high stakes for teachers and principals. They are under a gag order to not say anything bad about Common Core (ok, they can talk about it, but can't talk about it). If principals don't implement it, they lose funding. If teachers don't have enough students perform well on the tests, they can lose their funding (jobs). 

2 large teachers' unions, the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) and Chicago Teachers Union, are opposed to CC. Karen Lewis, the President of CTU, states CC is about ranking and sorting. 

Michael Mazenko from Salon.com, a leftist writer opposes Common Core essentially saying the standards are the curriculum.

40% now oppose Common Core, whereas 12% did in 2013.

46% now back Common Core, whereas 70% did in 2013.

Dr. Pesta cited this article by T. Rees Shapiro dated August 20, 2014.

Joshua Katz, a high school teacher from Orange County, FL likens the toxic corporate interests to a The Incredibles super villan Syndrome. First he creates a monster that only he can control. The Common Core is the monster that only their curriculum can handle. Dr. Pesta says this teacher only gets it partly right when he comes down on the textbook companies. The fact is that the feds want this to happen. They are the ones behind it and enabling it. The government wants more/total control of education because if you teach/indoctrinate the children, you reshape a society in a short amount of time. A generation or two. The publishers are all for new standards because that means new curriculum and tests which means more $. (It's not good if students are doing "well," because the "standards" have been achieved which is bad business for a textbook publisher. They want new standards that will take time to be met so they can sell new materials.)

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CC is more than just "standards" (which again, we've had standards before CC). CC is a complete change of how education is done. These standards are written, and then a whole new way of how the government wants children to learn is implemented. So teachers can no longer teach, but simply administer a "one-size-fits-all" curriculum to conform students to a national set of standards.
Bill Gates said in 2009 that "identifying common standards is not enough. We’ll know we’ve succeeded when the curriculum and the tests are aligned to these standards." 

Dr. Pesta said we here in SD have not hardly experienced the effects of CC, but the spring tests will wake us up. That is when we will get a fuller taste of what they really dictate.

We don't remember why, but we had the Brown Center report on American Education inserted here.

CC is No Child Left Behind on steroids.

Steven Colbert and two other comedians even make fun of Common Core, describing it as fitting for teaching about adulthood, how it's pointless stress and confusion.

Michael Mulgrew said standards belong to teachers, and I would add PARENTS.

ELA's new and controversial requirements contain more informational texts (only 450) with more indoctrination within those texts. There is less classic literature (such as Huckleberry Finn b/c it's too racist since it uses the N word) and less discussion of a character's morals and ethics.

Washington Post Sept 13 Gates Interview where he states it would be 10 years until we know the outcome of Common Core. There is no benchmark. We won't know if we achieved a goal, because there ins't a goal. The main goal is government control. And honestly, in 10 years we'll forget life before CC because we just go with the flow so easily.

Only 450 books approved for reading, including Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye with graphic sex descriptions.

Why is there so much sex in Common Core? Why is it so politically one-sided?

Math is dumbed down so all kids can feel good about doing a little math. A kid answered 6x7=42 and got it wrong because his other two classmates in his group agreed on a different, wrong answer. So they are being graded on whether they can all come to the same conclusion, even if it is a wrong conclusion. It is much more of being a lemming than being a "critical" thinker. It may not be popular to go against the flow now, to stand up for what is right when no one else will, but any kind of "divergent" thinking will be punished with a failing grade. (With CC to "think critically" means you have to agree with them on all issues or be failed/punished).

We watched this video of a girl having to teach her math professor mother how to add 3 numbers together using cubes of 1000s and squares of 100s and rows of 10s and dots for 1s. Ridiculous. The point of it is to keep the parents in the dark. Only teachers know how to do this stuff. Only teachers can help with math problems, not mom and dad, hence, government control. Thanks for your kid/future product of the State mom and dad. We were encouraged to Google "Goofy Common Core Examples."
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Dr. Pesta mentioned Irvine United School District but we can't remember what he was referring to.

Math is not meant to advance you. It's meant to hold you back. Also, to make students "successfully" reach the new CC standards, upper levels of math are removed from high school so more kids, those who struggle with advanced math, can tackle any math available in high school. I don't remember who's quote this is, but it was basically: "CC, standards so high anyone can get under them." When they say it prepares you for college, they mean some 2 year schools.

Concerning math, this clip with Jason Zimba and Sandi Stotski captures part of the problem with CC math.

This is Statism (socialism, communism). Kids belong to the State.

Data mining. Dr. Pesta talked about a huge data center in UT that is very "green," only using 1.7 million gallons of water per day to keep the servers cool. We found an article about it here. The states must report their kids information to the Fed where it is to be stored forever - permanently. Future employers could see everything from grade school up.

Come critical factors for success in 21st century by CC proponents include: Grit, tenacity, perseverance. No joy of learning. Just grit your teeth and get through it.

We also learned about Student Affective sensors, devices to monitor students reactions through facial expressions, body positioning, blood pressure, etc (easy to tell when a student is lying). Also, all of this technology benefits Bill Gates. The schools need his laptops, software, etc. Every time the kid opens a laptop, the webcam records the student's face and what's in the background, which goes into their permanent record.

Dr. Pesta told a story of a student who came home with a bruise on her wrist from where they had placed the blood pressure cuff while they asked her questions about her family. Questions such as who her parents voted for, if there were guns in her house, etc. And this information is to be stored permanently...

Back to the question, "Why is there so much sex in Common Core?"
This the worst part...

The National Sexuality Education Standard Tests, which the Fed owns, require the teaching of core content and skills to K-12th grade students. This includes teaching masturbation to kindergardeners.
This poster resides in the hallway of a middle school because it is part of the curriculum. When parents complained school administration responded that they could not take it down because it was required curriculum (this is in states where CC is further along than it is here in SD).

Sex is spread throughout all aspects of CC (Math, English, etc). It's pure sociology that passes as science.

Dr. May Calamia, a New York State Assembly Forum on Common Core (New York-who's one of like 5 states who's had CC the longest, wants out) made me ready to cry. Her practice is to help kids struggling in school and since CC came out, kids are so stressed they are cutting and throwing tantrums, refusing to go to school. They can't take the pressure. If the students don't perform well, the teachers and principles will look bad and lose funding.
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Dr. Pesta's website is Freedom Project Education: www.FPEUSA.org

In order to remove CC from SD we must work on state and local guys because the federal level cannot help. The state legislator must fix this.

Our take away is we need to get out of it! Remove school board members who want to keep CC. Get new school board members who oppose it. We need to be vilagent (even if CC is removed, it will return repackaged as "Happy Happy, Joy Joy" in 5-10 years...how could anyone not like "standards?" or "Joy?") We need to keep things simmering (keep the discussion going, bring in more speakers)  until spring tests arrive - those will ignite the issue, and hopefully the opposition to CC.

Audience Questions:

Information for which curriculums are common core: Tina Hollenbeck from Greenbay, WI, surveyed over 2000 curriculum.

"Would CC result in the banning of homeschooling?" Absolutely. If students are all to attain to the same standard then they need the same curriculum. There has to be control. Concerning colleges, Obama has stated in the past he'd like to make 28 elite schools where kids are not accepted based on merit. They are chosen based on towing the line ideologically.

Critical thinking = "correct" ideological thinking.

"Next Generation" is the name of the new Science Common Core. They've realized the name is a turn off so they changed it (cause Star Trek is cool!).

Teachers are meant to be facilitators, equals. Abandon letter grades because it makes some kids feel too bad for failing.

Terry and I were talking this morning about how all this control is like The Matrix, Swing Kids and The Lego Movie.


The matrix is about control. So is Common Core.


They want us to spy on our own parents!



And even Hollywood understand it's bad for one company to make all the books, from the epically awesome Lego Movie:
Bad Cop: I believe you too. You see the quotations I'm making with my claw hands? It means I don't believe you! Why else would you show up with that thing on your back just three days before President Business is going to use the Kragle to end the world?
Emmet Brickowoski: President Business is gonna end the world? But he's such a good guy! And Octan, they make good stuff; music, dairy products, coffee, TV shows, surveillance systems, all history books, voting machines... Wait a minute.

Pretty much!

Mount Rushmore cones

The dumbest part of the government shutdown:

These are coned off public viewing areas of Mount Rushmore. I was so bored of being at home after the blizzard that I took all four kids on a drive up there to see for myself. It was true. They had public areas coned off. 

a guilt complex

I gotta say, motherhood is hard.

Don't get me wrong, I like being a mommy. I love my kids.

But motherhood is way harder than I thought it would be. And for me, it's not because of the work and sacrifices involved. It's because of the guilt that comes along with it. I may not be speaking for everyone, but I'm certainly speaking for myself. (And FYI: I don't have any particular person in mind in my rant below. It's all in my own mind.)

I'm a sucker for guilt. I fall for it every single day even though I "know" it's a lie. My human nature tends to look around myself and compare to those around me. And I'm not the type of pride that sets myself above everyone else. I set myself below everyone else, well below.

Lately the guilt has surrounded a lack of busy-ness. I read this article last week which brought all these thoughts to the surface and I so I wanted to write about it.

We home school and so I'm home with the kids a lot. Furthermore, I'm introverted and it takes some work for me to call someone to hang out which in itself is difficult when you have to work around naps, etc.. So me and the kids end up just hanging out most days. My kids entertain themselves a lot. But every time I catch Noah day-dreaming, I feel a big surge of guilt. The kid has an active imagination and has done a lot of day-dreaming ever since he was itty bitty. I worry people will tease him and that it's proof that I don't keep him busy enough.

I "should be" keeping him busy. He "should be" involved in something more. He "shouldn't" day-dream so much. I "should be" more creative and crafty. He "shouldn't" ever be (gasp) bored, because that's like a mortal sin or something.

Can't we ever just be ourselves? It's always "should, ought, do, don't." Does everything have to be my fault? Isn't it okay and natural for Noah to be a little quirky? Is that my fault? Isn't it okay for me to be shy? Isn't it okay for Noah to day-dream and be himself? Isn't okay for us to not be busy?

But here's the thing. It's all a lie. I think it's okay to have time on our hands. I think it's okay for my kids to find ways to entertain themselves and not rely on me as if I'm the party planner. I think it's okay not to have play dates and events scheduled every day. I think it's okay not to please everyone. I like life a little slower. I like peace. Perhaps that makes me lazy. Okay. I like being lazy if that's what you must call it. I like being not busy.

I like being a mom. I love my kids a ton. I just think it would be great if there wasn't so much guilt. I sincerely hope I don't guilt other people by setting up high expectations for them. Though I probably do so, unknowingly, since I set those same unrealistic, ungraceful expectations for myself. Well, poop on that. It's all crap.

Either God loves me the way I am, or He doesn't. He either accepts me the way I am without changing a darn thing, or He doesn't. Either I'm forgiven for my sins, shortcomings and mistakes, or I'm not. He's either disappointed, or He's not. Jesus was enough, or He wasn't. It can't be both ways.

He does love me the way I am. He does accept me the way I am. He has forgiven me - even the sins I'm probably doing right now. He is not disappointed. Jesus is enough.

Darn tootin. If only the guilt complex would shut up now.

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And since the author of that article said it all so much better than me, I copied and pasted it here because I think you should read it.

If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.”

It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this; it’s something we collectively force one another to do.

Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.

Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work. They schedule in time with friends the way students with 4.0 G.P.A.’s make sure to sign up for community service because it looks good on their college applications. I recently wrote a friend to ask if he wanted to do something this week, and he answered that he didn’t have a lot of time but if something was going on to let him know and maybe he could ditch work for a few hours. I wanted to clarify that my question had not been a preliminary heads-up to some future invitation; thiswas the invitation. But his busyness was like some vast churning noise through which he was shouting out at me, and I gave up trying to shout back over it.

Even children are busy now, scheduled down to the half-hour with classes and extracurricular activities. They come home at the end of the day as tired as grown-ups. I was a member of the latchkey generation and had three hours of totally unstructured, largely unsupervised time every afternoon, time I used to do everything from surfing the World Book Encyclopedia to making animated films to getting together with friends in the woods to chuck dirt clods directly into one another’s eyes, all of which provided me with important skills and insights that remain valuable to this day. Those free hours became the model for how I wanted to live the rest of my life.

The present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it. Not long ago I Skyped with a friend who was driven out of the city by high rent and now has an artist’s residency in a small town in the south of France. She described herself as happy and relaxed for the first time in years. She still gets her work done, but it doesn’t consume her entire day and brain. She says it feels like college — she has a big circle of friends who all go out to the cafe together every night. She has a boyfriend again. (She once ruefully summarized dating in New York: “Everyone’s too busy and everyone thinks they can do better.”) What she had mistakenly assumed was her personality — driven, cranky, anxious and sad — turned out to be a deformative effect of her environment. It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this, any more than any one person wants to be part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school — it’s something we collectively force one another to do.

Our frantic days are really just a hedge against emptiness.

Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day. I once knew a woman who interned at a magazine where she wasn’t allowed to take lunch hours out, lest she be urgently needed for some reason. This was an entertainment magazine whose raison d’être was obviated when “menu” buttons appeared on remotes, so it’s hard to see this pretense of indispensability as anything other than a form of institutional self-delusion. More and more people in this country no longer make or do anything tangible; if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary. I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter.

I am not busy. I am the laziest ambitious person I know. Like most writers, I feel like a reprobate who does not deserve to live on any day that I do not write, but I also feel that four or five hours is enough to earn my stay on the planet for one more day. On the best ordinary days of my life, I write in the morning, go for a long bike ride and run errands in the afternoon, and in the evening I see friends, read or watch a movie. This, it seems to me, is a sane and pleasant pace for a day. And if you call me up and ask whether I won’t maybe blow off work and check out the new American Wing at the Met or ogle girls in Central Park or just drink chilled pink minty cocktails all day long, I will say, what time?

But just in the last few months, I’ve insidiously started, because of professional obligations, to become busy. For the first time I was able to tell people, with a straight face, that I was “too busy” to do this or that thing they wanted me to do. I could see why people enjoy this complaint; it makes you feel important, sought-after and put-upon. Except that I hate actually being busy. Every morning my in-box was full of e-mails asking me to do things I did not want to do or presenting me with problems that I now had to solve. It got more and more intolerable until finally I fled town to the Undisclosed Location from which I’m writing this.

Here I am largely unmolested by obligations. There is no TV. To check e-mail I have to drive to the library. I go a week at a time without seeing anyone I know. I’ve remembered about buttercups, stink bugs and the stars. I read. And I’m finally getting some real writing done for the first time in months. It’s hard to find anything to say about life without immersing yourself in the world, but it’s also just about impossible to figure out what it might be, or how best to say it, without getting the hell out of it again.

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More From Anxiety

Read previous contributions to this series.

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done. “Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do,” wrote Thomas Pynchon in his essay on sloth. Archimedes’ “Eureka” in the bath, Newton’s apple, Jekyll & Hyde and the benzene ring: history is full of stories of inspirations that come in idle moments and dreams. It almost makes you wonder whether loafers, goldbricks and no-accounts aren’t responsible for more of the world’s great ideas, inventions and masterpieces than the hardworking.

“The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That’s why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system.” This may sound like the pronouncement of some bong-smoking anarchist, but it was actually Arthur C. Clarke, who found time between scuba diving and pinball games to write “Childhood’s End” and think up communications satellites. My old colleague Ted Rall recently wrote a column proposing that we divorce income from work and give each citizen a guaranteed paycheck, which sounds like the kind of lunatic notion that’ll be considered a basic human right in about a century, like abolition, universal suffrage and eight-hour workdays. The Puritans turned work into a virtue, evidently forgetting that God invented it as a punishment.

Perhaps the world would soon slide to ruin if everyone behaved as I do. But I would suggest that an ideal human life lies somewhere between my own defiant indolence and the rest of the world’s endless frenetic hustle. My role is just to be a bad influence, the kid standing outside the classroom window making faces at you at your desk, urging you to just this once make some excuse and get out of there, come outside and play. My own resolute idleness has mostly been a luxury rather than a virtue, but I did make a conscious decision, a long time ago, to choose time over money, since I’ve always understood that the best investment of my limited time on earth was to spend it with people I love. I suppose it’s possible I’ll lie on my deathbed regretting that I didn’t work harder and say everything I had to say, but I think what I’ll really wish is that I could have one more beer with Chris, another long talk with Megan, one last good hard laugh with Boyd. Life is too short to be busy.

compassion and judgment

I unexpectedly learned something important today about compassion (at least I hope I did). When the same message comes up three times in one day, I realize I need to pay attention.

While I was eating breakfast before arriving to MOPS late, I read an article from Christianity Today titled A Pro Life Plea. I read it and bustled my three kids out the door and the message didn't sink in until I heard the same thing twice more later.

So I went on with my day. Once at MOPS while talking with two very wise women, Shelli and Kristin. It seems every time I talk to Kristin the Spirit makes something she says really stick out. It was like that today. I can't remember the whole conversation but she mentioned how if life had gone her way, she would have been a very prideful, self-righteous person. But as it turned out, she is able to have much more compassion for people who have made mistakes in their lives.

I heard the message of compassion when Kristin said it. But did I listen? No. I went in to discussion group and was too free with my opinion (even if it was mostly in my own mind). I can be so self-righteous and I really do detest it. I long to have more compassion.

So even though I learned from Kristin to be compassionate, I put myself above another women (or more!). When I came home I read a blog post about this very message. I seriously love her blog.

She says, "Sadly, this form of mother-on-mother attack [berating mothers for not breastfeeding] isn’t an isolated occurrence. I have seen this happen time and time again, both on the internet with venomous persistence and in real life with sugary coated condescension. Whether it’s about breastfeeding or schooling choices or vaccinations or medicated birthing or any other one of the myriad of decisions that we have to make as mothers, our culture has bred an environment of judgment and derision."

Ouch. How right is she? How often to I set myself above others for my "superior" choices and preferences? And I'm not talking about life and death, black and white, sin and righteousness choices like murder. I'm talking about stuff like child-rearing which looks different for different families - different house rules.

She went on to say, "My husband has learned well what I want from him when discussing a problem or issue. “I don’t need you to problem solve right now. I just need you to listen.” This should apply to mother-to-mother communication as well. Sure, sometimes we actually want advice. But what we all need more of is to feel true camaraderie and support from other mothers, the only other people who can really understand the myriad of choices that we’re forced to make every day."

Ouch. I was hit again. I offer my "advice" when it's most likely not wanted or needed and might actually do more harm than good!

After I finished the article I read some of the comments and was particularly struck by this one: "I heard Chuck Colson give a great sermon on judging that I have tried to apply recently. In order for a judge to be good at their job they need to be presented with all the facts otherwise they are just ruling based on their own preferences. Because we cannot possibly know anothers thoughts, reasonings, etc… all the time, God is the only one capable of passing a fair judgment on others."

I don't have all the facts so I need to listen more than I talk.

So then I couldn't get the message out of my mind and apologized to the woman I offered unsolicited advice to (she said it was okay) and realized that I had read about this message earlier in the day in the Christianity Today article:

"I understand that fear [of unplanned pregnancy]. And I think local church culture bears at least some responsibility. We've so spiritualized the fight for life, we may be losing lives because of it. We know God is the maker of every human being. We know that premarital and extramarital sex is contrary to God's Word. Our beliefs on this front are passionate and unbending, and they should be. But I fear that our conviction and certainty can lead to lack of compassion when women make mistakes.

"I attended a church a few years ago whose (male) leaders would not support a church-sponsored baby shower for a pregnant teen unless she repented of her sin - publicly. If there is no room for error, no message of grace, women in crisis will continue to drive out of church all the way to abortion clinics, their Bibles on the front seat, scared toward death."

Enough said, except for these last two comments that I thought were really good as well.

debi Blaising January 16, 2012 at 9:41 am

Thanks for getting on my soapbox with me, Rachel! This is the “message” I try to convey to young mothers. Basically, there is no easy way to raise/school/feed your children. There is a big difference in using biblical principles for parenting and using self righteous, “we’ve chosen the higher path” principles. If you feel the Lord has led you to breastfeed, have a natural birth, and home school your children, follow Him. But don’t look down on your friend who had a c-section, bottle feed her baby, and sent her to preschool. I can’t imagine Jesus blasting someone for not breastfeeding. I am the home school mom of four children (one with significant special needs), who had four epidurals, breast fed all four, sent them to preschool and vaccinated them. I think James 2 is a great place to go in regard to this issue. We are basically putting moms in “classes” and showing partiality. As Christians, we should excel in this area, and I fear we are failing. Galatians 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. Thanks again, Rachel, for bringing a delicate subject to light.

McKt January 16, 2012 at 6:14 pm

It is a distraction and a work of the flesh to make us so passionate about worldly things that in light of eternity do not matter. Ultimately, I care if my kids know Jesus. I care if your kids know Jesus, and how they are birthed, fed, educated, and sleep are preferences and an easy way to get bogged down in stuff that isn’t eternal. Thanks for having the clarity of thought to put this together. It is a really great piece.

clean inside

As I've mentioned before, Terry's dad brought the kids pumpkins for halloween. We decided to carve them up today. Noah didn't want to touch the insides of the pumpkin and so he tried a rubber glove. It was too big on his hand to do any good though.

He was way freaked out by the guts.

Terry shared with the kids how carving a pumpkin is a lot like salvation.

Just like the inside of a pumpkin is icky and gross, so the inside of every human is sinful. And even worse than that, we are born sinful. So even if we could somehow be "good enough" to get to God, to heaven, we'd still be out of luck b/c we are born sinful - sinners. I never had to teach my kids to be naughty. It comes naturally. We are sinners and we sin.

So Jesus comes as a real man. By living a perfect life and dying as an innocent man for all of human kind, God made him who knew no sin (Jesus) to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God, in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus took all of the punishment that we deserved. But only if we choose to believe that Jesus did all of this and trust Him to save us through what He did, can we be saved from being separated from God. And if we do believe God and rely on Jesus for our salvation, Jesus cleans us out just like Terry cleaned out the pumpkin.

Jesus makes us clean. He makes us saints, holy and righteous in Christ, and we are no longer sinners.

And then we get an unhappy face? Well, no. That's just what Noah wanted his pumpkin to look like.

Jesus cleans us up, makes us new and puts His light inside of us.

His light shines brighter in the dark.

Evie wanted her pumpkin to have ears.

a touchy subject

As I listen to Rimrock's pod casts, I find that I want to write about the things I'm learning. Because, well, this is a blog, after all.

I listened to this sermon about a week ago but a part of it came back to my mind today that was so insightful. So I pulled the podcast (here) back up and transcribed the part that particularly interested me.

He's going to be referring to Rob Bell, his book Love Wins and the controversy therein.

The Dividing Line of Eternity

Pat Karn, 7/5/11

Mat 25: 31-46

12:46

We could have talked about eternal judgement and hell and all those. And by the way, lest you have been reading, considering the news in Time magazine and by some of the religious leaders now-a-days. Hell really does exist. It really does exist. And what hell is, is it’s a separation, a continued state of existence apart from God - who is the bread of life [John 6:35], the fount of living water [John 7:38], and is the light of the world [John 8:12]. And so that’s why hell is the place no one wants to go b/c it is a place of hunger. It is a place of thirst. It is a place of total blackness and isolation. It is everything that the human being is not designed to experience. Everything that we look for - light, food, life, water. Everything that we are wired for, everything that we need is in the person of Jesus Christ. And those who put their faith in Jesus will be with Him for all of eternity. Those who do not will receive the consequence of their choice. Their choice being - I don’t need a Savior. I don’t want a Savior. I don’t want to know that there’s a God. I don’t believe that there’s a God. I don’t think anybody needs to pay my debt for me, if I owe one. I don’t want to be with God. And God will honor their decision. And they will be separated for all of eternity from God. By their choice, not His.

If that freaks you out, listen to the whole sermon b/c there is hope.

I've always known Jesus was all of those things, but I had never realized that of course those things are absent from hell. And in this context, it makes so much more sense to me how Jesus said he was bread, water, light, life. He really IS those things.

Also, while I was reading this morning another verse stuck out to me. It was for me. But since it could relate to this subject, I'll include it:

John 6:37

"All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out."

I WILL NEVER CAST OUT.

That was very encouraging to me.

faith like one of these

We have learned that God seems to take Noah's prayers seriously. Very often we have him pray about various things and he gets a response. If we need an answer to something, we have Noah pray. For real.

Examples of Noah's answered prayers:

1. Samuel

2. Lots of lost toys, found

3. Owies healed

4. Monsters fleeing

5. Snap dog found many, many times

Today Terry took the kids and Snap to the building to print just a few shirts. They neglected to let Snap inside. (This happened a few weeks ago at the building and someone else found Snap in town and gave us a call [after we prayed].)

Noah suggested right away that they pray for Snap to return to the building. Terry thought perhaps that might be asking a little much since he had clearly taken off and last time he was not found near the building. So Terry suggested they pray to find him in town or at the building. No, Noah was insistent on praying for Snap to return to the building. So that's what they prayed for.

Then they went ahead and finished the shirts, ran a couple errands and then drove around town looking for Snap - to no avail. Terry was just about to give up when he thought they'd better check up at the building since Noah prayed specifically for that and was quite insistent about it. And there was Snap.

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe you have received it, and it will be yours." Matthew 11:24

"'Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly truly I say to you whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.'"

I exist for such a time as this

I was listening to a sermon podcast from my parent's church yesterday and something he said really struck me. I thought I would share it. Perhaps others think in the same messed up way that I do.

Esther 4:14

"For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

Designed for Service

Bill Ewing 7/12/11, 28min in

"I want you to think about this. There was a Godly woman in the Bible. Her name was Esther. Esther was put into a tough situation. And in the midst of her situation, we’re not going to go into the story, she had an opportunity to go before a king and plead for her people. She makes a comment. And I want this to be kind of a comment of your life for this week, at least this day. I exist for such a time as this. Think of that. I want you to be able to say it to yourself. I exist for such a time as this. Now how was this made to put flesh on it in light of what we just did? #1 I understand what God did and lives in me and as God comes in me and inhabits me and lives through me then I am called for this purpose. Why am I here? I am here to love and to serve. I exist for such a time as this. You’re on your way home from work. Rough day. People didn’t appreciate you. You're coming home and you’ve just got a text from your wife. Things aren’t too good at home. Things aren’t happening well with the kids. There’s just been a fight. This is where the rubber hits the road. You pull over to the side of the road and you stop and you say, I exist for such a time as this. I was born to serve my wife. I was born to love her. This is why I live on this planet. You can make that true for every single time of your life. Every time something happens you’ve got now the opportunity to forgive because your spouse or your friend has just harmed you. People you were born for this moment. This is why you exist. I exist for such a moment as this: that I will be the loving extension of forgiveness to my spouse. This is the secret of serving. This is why you live. If you live in this, I promise you something by my own experience, occasionally, but by what I see in people’s lives, when you live fully aware of who you are, fully aware that you only have whatever God’s given you, and now you live to serve and now you live to love, you will live free, you will become all that you were intended to be, and you will live in your element."

I exist for just such a time as what's happening right now...

Esther did not have over-whelming proof of God's purpose for her and neither do I. I do not hear God's audible voice telling me just exactly what I should do and neither did she. She simply found herself in those circumstances. And she acted because it was God who put her there.

He is sovereign, after all. Even over me.

God has put me in this place. He brought Terry to me purposefully. He meant to give us the children we have. He meant for us to be living here, working here. He meant for me to be where I am in this day, right now. His will is now. I exist for such a time as right now in this very moment.

I have always thought pretty much the opposite: That I am not where God wills for me. That I have no purpose. That His will is a mystery, complicated and hard to find or figure out. That I will have no purpose until I can figure it out. Well, what if God's will for me is NOW? How freeing is that? I don't have to look further than what's happening in my life at this moment, even if it's not grandiose, like I always thought it had to be.

This gives more meaning to these verses that I've always loved, but had a hard time with since I didn't know what His plans and purposes were for me.

Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you..."

Ephesians 2:10

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

Proverbs 16:9

"The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps."