Now Serving Number One

Today is the first anniversary of my collaborative blog, The Shepherd's fish.  When I started it I hoped to reconnect with friends and to get better at blogging .  Both wishes have been granted.  As we have opened our lives to each other, we have found support and courage, facing together the trials of our lives.  We've also found humor, kindness, and a broader perspective on the work of God in the world.  We've talked about everything from runaway dogs to runaway kids and laughed and cried at both of them.  I'm so thankful to God for this godly gaggle and the way they've used this new strength to reach out and grow, touching other lives.  It's a beautiful ripple as we leap up to praise our Shepherd.

 I've been learning how to listen to Jesus, and this time I think I got it right.  The result has done good and brought new strength instead of new stress.  I am glad I obeyed.  The more I test the work in my life in this way, the more I realize how important it is to be sure my service is not for anyone else but Christ for his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

A Glorious Synthesis

God and art has long been one of my favorite intersections.  A few years ago I discovered Sister Wendy's videos and I am slowly becoming a Sister Wendy omnivore.  If you are a person of any kind of faith, you will find her uplifting. Her discussions of great art are very accessible which may be the best thing about her work.  Nowhere is this more obvious than in her book of prayers for children.  Each prayer grows out of a work of art.  The works chosen are the kind that reward prolonged study, and the prayers have the profundity of all things simple.  Get this book for the children you know.  It will be a blessing. 

A Tale of Five Iliads

Ok, it's six if you count The Children's Homer.  How does a woman end up with five copies of the Iliad?  It helps to be scatter-brained.  It all began when my mother-in-law downsized and gave us her set of The Great Books--the set I had envied since day one.  They are a reverend object not to be dragged around and read, but more to be admired from a distance.  Then my mother downsized her classroom and gave me a cheap, secondhand copy of The Iliad that sucked into our family book void, never to be seen until it was too late.  I wanted a copy I could write in, so I went to B&N and bought a copy of the Iliad, and--I thought-- a copy of The Odyssey.  When I got home I had two different translations of The Iliad.  One was much cheaper than the other, so I started that, intending to return the other one.  Came the day when I was in pressing need of reading material, so I grabbed the other version since it was close to hand.  Behold, sometimes, you get what you pay for and the Fagles translation is much better than the one I had started reading.  My legs were numb when I decided I could live with owning two, no three, no four copies of The Iliad.  You know how it is when you're a parent.  I wanted my kids to enjoy all the wealth I had just discovered so I bought them

The Children's Homer.  Still one short?  You are clever to keep up.  After watching it for months and encouraging others to buy it, I went into Love Inc, and they practically gave me a second set of The Great Books in a better binding and just loved enough that we don't feel bad about loving it some more.

Buying books is an adventure.  The great thing about the ancients is that they cost their publishers nothing, so you can get them in all kinds of modes, traditional bound, e-book, document file.  You can pay nothing, or next to nothing at thrift stores, or you can buy them in hand bound leather editions.  All of Shakespeare can be bought for the nook for about 6 bucks.  If you're comfortable with reading off your computer it's all there for free if you look.
So let my surplus inventory be a warning and a comfort.  If you end up with three copies of the Iliad, you're still two short of me.

PS. I have found Robert Fagles translations of The Odyssey and The Aeneid to be worth the extra dollars too.

Where I Come From

I have to admit as a homeschool mom I'm always hoping for a snow day so my older kids can stay home.  I miss them even though I know I've done the right thing sending them to school.  Tricky thing about snow days in Michigan, is living in Michigan.  We see a lot of snow.  It's always cold (try swimming in the lake in July).  We are tough and used to this, so school never seems to close.  Except for the last two days.  Wow, that's weather to make Alaskans shrug their shoulders enigmatically.  I don't care.  It meant two more days of having my big girls home.

Unlike wimpy Indiana where driving in such weather is illegal, Kurt went to work, and it really felt like the old days.  We slept in, but the big girls jumped in upping my homeschooling manpower so that we could finish the essential work in a couple hours.  It was fun, and I mean that non-homeschoolers.  It was really fun.  No such delight expected tomorrow.  We're back to the usual, well, as usual at it gets in a world where throwing boiling water out your back door is a science experiment.  If I didn't have such wonderful friends I'd be moving to Florida--then again, they didn't get a single day off.  

Hanging Up My Straight Jacket

There are things I've committed to doing in order to break free from the internal prison of fundamentalism.  

1.  I reserve my primary energy for my kids.

2.  I write both for my novel and for my personal blog.

3.  I take my friends wherever I find them.  I don't check ID, political affiliation, or theological preferences anymore.

4.  I make time and means for growing in my relationships, most importantly with my husband, but also on Shepherd's fish and in my local 3D life.

5.  I work on projects to make the world better, currently raising funds for St. Martin DePorres Orphanage in Tanzania.

6.  I read the Great Books for my own enrichment and to teach at the Homeschool Cooperative.

7.  Last but most important, I grow in my Catholic faith.

Over and Above My Wishlist

Earlier in the season, I posted a list of books I'd like and wished for the time to read them.  The books came and I'm making the time.  I started with Myths from Mesopotamia by Stephanie Dalley.  She includes so many details and end notes that my interest was stirred beyond the story of Adapa, and I found myself thinking of ancient stories in new ways.  Practical matters like missing bits and lost cultural assumptions.  I wanted the kids at our homeschool cooperative to have the same experience, but I knew it'd be difficult to acquire sufficient copies of the text.  "Ye have not because ye ask not" is a piece of ancient literature I was taught well.  On a whim I looked up Ms. Dalley and sent her an email asking if I might copy the pages for the kids.  To my great delight she replied the seven pages I needed were an allowed amount to copy.  It felt so good to send out those pages to my students.  It's going to be such a great class.  

Ms. Dalley also suggested we watch her documentary on finding the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.  You can see it HERE on YouTube.  It is exactly the kind of thing we want the kids to be watching.  The careful detective work, the critical contributions and leadership of a woman, and the terrible losses we are suffering because we'd rather fight instead of fight for peace, these are all values every kids should be exposed to.  Sometimes it's not just a book, sometime's it a new world or a new hero.  Sometimes it's all of the above.

Musical Toothbrush

There is always that one cool toy you buy your kids, but wish Santa had bought one for you.  This toothbrush is my secret wish this year.   Sure two minutes seems like forever, but you don't notice as much when the music is going straight into your brain.  The things they have for kids these days.

See it here.