Our Home: A home striving to live by God\’s principles.

You are probably wondering why another entry on observation. This seems to be a subject the Lord has me ruminating on quite a bit this year. I borrowed a book through inter-library loan at the suggestion of another educator. It, too, is a book on observation, but this one challenges you to focus even closer. Though I’ve only gotten the first 1/5^th read, I’m finding valuable quotes that speak to me. Here are a few, “The world is full of magic things waiting patiently for our senses to grow sharper”-John Keats; “Genius…is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.” –Ezra Pound; “Scientist themselves believe, at heart-that behind the diversity lies a unity.”-Horace Freeland Judson; “Individuality is the true beginning and end of all art.”-Goethe; “…begin now to study the little things in your own door yard, going from the known to the nearest related unknown…”-George Washington Carver. Do you notice the familiar Principle Approach vocabulary?: individuality, diversity, and unity. I don’t know if any of these people are professed Christians, but one thing that does not change are the universal laws of God with which they write about.

So what is the name of this book that hopefully I have intrigued you with? “Private Eye”, by Kerry Reuf. The name says it all. As I mentioned earlier, this book challenges you to narrow your focus. This is encouraged by using a jeweler’s loupe, first one, and then two put together, allowing you to hone in even more. Having a paper and pencil close by to draw or write observations is a must. During this process it is good to continually ask yourself questions that encourage analogy: “What else does it remind me of?, What else does it look like?, What else? and What else?.” Questions like these “sustain wonder and inquiry”. Then ask: “Why is it like that?, What’s going on here? If it reminds me of….I wonder if it might function or work like that….” The author continues, “close observation-mixed with wonder- is essential for the development of artist, scientist, writer, as well as mathematician, humorist, inventor, and more.”, but I add to this always remembering that God is the author.

I believe it is Providence that has put this book in my reading schedule. I continually go over scriptures of observation in my head, “O taste and see that the LORD is good:[1], “because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.”[2], and there are many more through out the Word. If I would narrow my observations more in all areas of life, would it just put me in awe of who the Lord is? When I read His Word, do I ask why and what else questions? God is good whether one chooses to believe it or not, but it is not until we taste and see, that then we are able to internalize that goodness. Our joy in the Lord, obtained through our wonder and inquiry, lived out in life, is the best teacher. I want my children to develop a close relationship with the Lord, as they should see in me. We are a superficial society. Even our educational efforts can be like that as we lack patience for our children to develop a relationship and ask why and what else, with what they are learning.

Without realizing it, my informal study on observation is going through the 4 R process, as I am developing a relationship with it. I am continually Researching (Bible & informal reading), Reasoning (allowing time for it to ruminate), Relating (making connections) and Recording (I take notes, write significant quotes, and blog entries, record on my heart), hopefully for the purpose to draw me closer to God.

I look forward to sharing more, as I continue on this journey of observation.

[1] Psalm 34:8

[2] Genesis 16:11

It had been 6 months since I had last seen the aisles of a Good Will store. Because of a recent accident I had, it required the emergency room nurse to cut the arm off my beloved black turtleneck. I happened to be driving past the store and committed myself to stop on the way home and look for a shirt to replace my ruined one. Two steps into the store I realized I was being pulled in the direction of the used books. In the past 15 years, I don’t know if I’ve ever passed up the opportunity to glance at the books on a used bookshelf. It’s not that often I find something that excites me, but there to my amazement, a writing book written by Lucy Calkins. From the suggestion of Bravewriter, Julie Bogart, I borrowed “The Art of Writing” from our local library. I gleaned so much from Lucy’s book, so I can’t tell you how excited I was to find this treasure, “Living Between the Lines” for only 99 cents.

Writing has long been a thorn in my side. I took a writing course back in my early 20’s and ended up quitting. Having home educated 4 children, I never felt adequate teaching children to write. Since joining Bravewriter, Julie has encouraged me to start writing a blog and also helped me do something with my children’s writing even if it was only freewriting once a week. Lucy’s book has come at the right time, a time that I needed to advance a step, but not quite sure how or what. I look at this next progression as a building block added to what we have already been doing. Though I knew these things, and they seem quite simple, Lucy has given me the courage to believe in what I know to be right.

Allowing our children and ourselves to live life in whatever season we are in is so important. James Howe writes, “My greatest worry for children today is that they are losing their capacity to play, to create a city out of blocks, to find a world in a backyard, to dream an adventure on a rainy afternoon. My greatest fear for children today is they are losing the capacity to play”. This quote started to resonate within me. We live in such a technological world, TV, Xbox, computer, etc…many things that want to draw our attention away from things that can bring purpose to our lives. I won’t say that these technological “toys” are bad, but if they are used to the extreme, will they squelch the creative individuality in each of us? Are my children living life to its fullest? Am I living life to its fullest? Now that my youngest is going to be 12 this year it is easy for me to see this. I’ve passed up some of my children’s lives and my own.

I’ve spent the years trying to find the right curriculum, the right tools to learn. Do my children look at me as being a slave driver, that all I care about is getting the house cleaned and getting our “school work” done? I see now those are all externals. Do my children trust me to tell me what their life is about? Do I listen to what they have to say without always having to instruct? These are ideas that build on the internal. Trusting and knowing you’re being loved is the setting that is needed to make learning happen. My children should be sharing their observations of life, which gives opportunities to communicate. What life am I living that I find important to communicate to my children. “Joy is the best teacher”, says Julie Bogart. It seems I stopped living life to educate, when education is life.

Literature is an important way to pass on one’s stories. Fill your children’s lives with these instead of the dry textbooks. My boys are reading books written by people who love to share their observations of nature. We read wonderful classics that bring an imagination out in a child to hopefully stir something inside them that they can relate, which in turn provides ideas that can be written in a journal and there starts the cycle again.

Is writing really my thorn, or is it the lack of patience thereof, the patience to wait upon the Lord to work His ideas in my children and in me? I think it quite providential that I found this treasure of Lucy Calkins, though I am still without a black turtleneck. It is through people like her that I am encouraged to live my life to it’s fullest.