For My Homeschooling Mamas...{which in 2020 might end up being ALL the mamas}
These are the covers of all the 2020 issues of the home education magazine called Commonplace Quarterly. I was delighted to be asked, this time last year, to paint all four quarter’s cover art for 2020.
Who knew what was coming?! And who knew that “just like that” {snap fingers} more than half of all families in the United States would, at some point, become home schooling families? I hear in New York, they are right back to learning from home. The entire city that never sleeps is now full of home educators.
Who flipping saw that coming?
I am coming in white hot on your screens today to let you know of a couple of nourishing resources, if you find yourself suddenly in the throes of learning from home. I home educated all my children, from birth to high school graduation, and I do not regret one moment. If you only home school from 2020 to some time in 2021, I can promise you…if you do it with all your heart…you will not regret a moment.
And you just may decide to do it full time.
It was difficult, way back in my time. (waaaaaay back in 1990)
And like many mothers right now today, I also had “side hustles” at various points in my teaching-from-home career. Being in full time ministry often meant that I “worked from home” while home schooling. I could have only wished for the internet.
Let that settle on you, for a moment. I do not care if it makes me sound ancient.
I could have wished I had the internet.
I could have connected visually with a whole, beautiful tribe of mamas doing what I was doing. I could have Zoomed with my people. Y’all, all we had was Yahoo Groups, back in the day. And it did not support pictures. Instagram was not yet thought of. I think the founders of Instagram may have still been in diapers.
And our magazines weren’t this beautiful (if I do say so myself).
Right now, Commonplace Quarterly is having a 25% off sale. They normally do not do that. So go grab yourself some back issues. I think all four of 2020’s issues would grace your coffee table in the most beautiful way, and feed your soul this winter as you endeavor this holy, sacred, sweet job of teaching your children at home.
And for your Advent season, may I also wholeheartedly recommend Cindy Rollins’ book, “Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions With Handel’s Messiah”.
Cindy is a friend of mine who I finally got the joy of meeting IRL in 2019, when I spoke at a home educating conference. She’s the real deal, and an absolute WELL of wisdom when it comes to home education. I would encourage anyone new to this gig (maybe COVID made you do it?) to follow her on IG. Ask her your questions.
I am here for you too, mama. If you have a question pertaining to home schooling, feel free to click that “contact me” button. Send me an email, and I will see what I can do. Home education is like riding a bike - once a home educating mama, always a home educating mama. I may not be up on the latest, greatest curriculum, but I can inspire you with foundational concepts with half my brain tied behind my back.
I believe in motherhood, and I believe in the profound value of a home education. Our public schools are full of amazing teachers, but the system itself is failing our children. I want to see this generation of young ones raised to read well, write well, function in this culture with integrity, learn to love, and encouraged to be creative.
Those objectives can be met fully, flourishingly….and from home.
May we all come back home. Whether you teach your children at home or not, may home have your heart! May that be one of the best things to come out of this hard, strange-strange year.
The Sabbath Life
I’ve expanded my description of wealth to include the things that flourish only in time…in whole, dedicated blocks of time. This short list would include a prayer practice, a painting practice, a playful passionate middle marriage, and a Sabbath rhythm of life.
“Planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God. In old age they will still bear fruit; healthy and green they will remain,”
I will invariably light a candle tonight, preparing my soul for tomorrow’s discipline of delight. For over 30 years, my Sunday mornings begin on Saturday night. Tomorrow is Sunday, and for decades, Sunday sunrises bring my Monday-Saturday life to a full stop. Everything changes. God and the gathering get the weight of my full attention, and God is no (wo)man’s debtor: He pays me back in riches of relationship, creative capital…and the weight of His full attention, aka “the weight of His glory”.
With all the money in the world, I cannot purchase one moment of His glory. I can’t put utilitarian value on this long obedience in one direction - the depth and heft of sweetness that comes only with delighting in the same spiritual community for a long, long time…even a lifetime. Whenever I have found the practice of Sabbath gathering to be less than a joy, the fault has always ever been mine. And I can return my soul to its rest with a few simple choices:
Choose to love what is mine. Acts 17:26 says this: “And He made from one man every nation of men, to dwell upon all the face of the earth, having determined the appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation”. Wow. God chose me for such a time as this. He determined (chose) my spiritual community just for me, and He chose me for my spiritual community. I belong to them, they belong to me. This is the life I have been given. This is what is mine. I can bloom only where I am planted with my whole heart.
Choose to sanctify my Sabbath and keep it holy by laying burdens down. This choice often looks like embracing simplicity and better planning on my part. Many years ago, before ministry ever called us, my husband and I, with two small babies, chose to remove the burden of all the other options. We cleared the deck, so to speak. It is amazing the clarity that comes when you limit your options. Not attending the gathering of the saints was not an option. Not contributing to the gathering was also not an option. Believe it or not, that left us with the sense of having made more room in our lives. Even when our commute to our church was 35-40 minutes, one way, that one choice (to limit our options) left us with the one option of getting creative enough to make the process beautiful.
And so we did.
Returning my soul to Sabbath rest also looks like doing the soul work it takes to choose to let go of offenses.
Creating space in my life for a gathering practice has brought great flourishing to my midlife. My Sabbath is this lifestyle where the day is “fenced off”, sanctified by the love I give it, as I withdraw from the endless choices I could be making with this small block of time.
What lavish luxury, that I can do that. What privilege. Every Sunday, I get to walk up the steps of Harvest Church, uncover what is most important, encounter God in my inheritance (my inheritance is His people), and treat the whole experience as sacred play.
post edit: Since March of 2020, until now, and for the foreseeable future, our gathering does include social distancing protocol. Masks are welcomed. Our rows are further apart, we have a color code system, we also have sections in the back for those who need more distance, and we have a dedicated space downstairs for immune compromised members, where no one is allowed to enter without a mask.