It’s been awhile…It seems that after a year of posting (almost) every week, I needed a breather. But so much has been going on lately, I think it’s past time for an update.

We spent Easter week outside of Asheville, NC with Craig’s family, where we enjoyed hiking, cooking, and yarn-shopping. It was a peaceful week, with beautiful weather and my first experience of dogwoods in bloom.

I then had the great blessing of spending most of the first week of May in Honesdale, PA at a Highlights Foundation. Rebecca Kai Dotlich and Georgia Heard taught a workshop entitled “The Craft and Heart of Writing Poetry for Children.” I learned a ton, met amazing people (children’s writers and illustrators are the BEST) and enjoyed the wonderful food and beautiful landscape. Even the gloomy, rainy weather was welcome when I considered the hot, dry Louisiana I’d be returning to. (Of course we poets (!) called it “good writing weather” and carried on.)

One (unexpected) lesson from the workshop: Georgia spent the whole week addressing us as “poets,” and I felt a little giddy every time. It drove home for me just how important the words we use, and especially the words we use for each other, really are.

When I did return to the Louisiana heat, I was pleasantly surprised to find almost three pounds of green beans and a bowl full of blackberries waiting for me—it’s that time of year again! 

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(I also found folded laundry and a remarkably clean house…my mother-in-law stayed with the kids, and she is wonderful.)

Another small triumph: an essay that I spent way too long writing and revising went up last month on the Dappled Things blog. If you have any interest in Dostoyevsky or Dorothy Day give it look: Reading Crime and Punishment with Dorothy Day Actually, even if you don’t have any interest in either, check it out anyway!

Isaac just turned eight, and May 14 is our anniversary– 17 years and still going!

Looking to the future, May and June will be filled with music and dance. Lucy has her violin recital next weekend, and then Samantha and Clare have their ballet recital the first weekend of June.

The week after the recital is Vacation Bible School, which does also include music, and usually something vaguely resembling dance. The big excitement there this year is that Lucy is volunteering with the snack ladies.

After VBS seems to be when our “real” summer begins, with some other camps, visits to Grandma, swimming and sprinklers, and laying in the air conditioning with a book to avoid Louisiana summer afternoons. And, if all goes well, I expect there will be more writing, art, and green beans.

Warning: this is another post about tea. And children’s books. And art. So basically the usual.

I read a lovely article this week by Amy Baik Lee about Beatrix Potter, china tea cups, and wonder. It was one of those situations that happen to me occasionally: that morning I had been reading The Tale of Peter Rabbit to Jacob, and marveling at Beatrix Potter’s intimate knowledge of the garden (cucumber frames and gooseberry nets and of course the amazing detail of her artwork) and that afternoon Ms. Lee’s essay, “A Child in a Fine China Shop,” was brought to my attention. So clearly it was time for me to think some more about Beatrix Potter.

Amy Baik Lee does a good job of laying out the salient details of Potter’s life, so I won’t go too much into that, but there were two points that her essay brought home to me: the importance of looking well, and of sharing what we see.

Looking well involves both patience and humility. We must first take the time to stop and notice the frills on the mushroom; then we must be humble – we must not think so highly of ourselves that we refuse to bend down, get our knees dirty, and wonder at God’s creation.

And then, to share our experience. Children do this naturally, of course. All day long it’s, “Come see! Look at this!” The challenge for us as adults is to turn off the tunnel vision that focuses so narrowly on our worries and our to-do lists and give wonder (and beauty) a chance slip in. In the end, Potter shared her many little discoveries widely – but before it was one of the best known children’s books of all time, Peter Rabbit was as an illustrated letter to the sick son of a friend. The size of the audience didn’t matter; sharing her joy did.

This was a great encouragement to me, of course, as I continue to write things that not very many people read. And if I were to judge my “success” by publications or clicks on this blog, it might suggest that it’s time to give up writing and do something more productive with my life.

But that isn’t God’s way, is it? The shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one lost sheep isn’t interested in how many retweets we rack up. He is interested, at least in my reading, in our offering what we have to each other, whether that be a bouquet of flowers, a watercolor sketch, a few words, a home-cooked meal, or a shoulder to cry on. We seek, as Amy Baik Lee puts it, a “willingness to love prodigally: to place bone china in the hands of elementary school students, to “squander” detailed line drawings on a letter that a single child would receive.” To make a gift of self when the opportunity arrises.

All this is really just riffing on Ms. Lee’s thoughts, so if you still need some encouraging to “waste” some time wondering at beauty today, you’ll want to read her essay. She also discusses the piece with Jonathan Rogers (to whom I owe thanks for pointing me to the article in the first place) on his podcast. I’m just grateful that she, and so many others, continue to share their wonder with the rest of us.

Our oldest daughter left our homeschool this year and started “real” high school. She’s been treking from class to class for about a month now, and this week her great secret was exposed: she doesn’t have a cell phone.

It came up in her debate class, while the teacher was apparently trying to draw the students’ attention to the seeming contradiction between considering “large corporations” “evil” and carrying iphones in their pockets. After a little while of this, Lucy raised her hand and ratted herself out. She didn’t even blame her parents for this ridiculous circumstance. Apparently the teacher was at a bit of a loss – who was this strange child who had been sitting quietly in his classroom all these weeks without a phone?

Her teacher did ask her why she didn’t have a cell phone – every other child in the class does, and presumably nearly every other child in the school. She didn’t have a well-thought-out answer ready, but by the time she made it to the car line, she had some thoughts. Among them, that she doesn’t want to waste so much of her time on screens.

One thing we learned quickly when she started “real” school was that while we had prepared her reasonably well for the academic work, she was not up to speed on the technology the modern student is expected to use. She had sent emails, but never had to deal with her own email account. Now there are Google Classrooms to be navigated. Powerpoints are an option for projects. And then she had to do an animation of mitosis for biology. After trying out three of four different programs, and spending hours trying to get all the pieces together, the project was still late. (So were several of her classmates’ projects, so apparently technology was not the only difficulty with that particular assignment.) She’s picking it all up quickly, but she’s also spending way more time on screens than ever before. And as much as she’s enjoying the school experience, she doesn’t love the screens.

We have our own reasons for not offering our kids cell phones, of course. My husband and I both taught in one-to-one high schools (where the school gives every student a laptop and expects every teacher to use it in their classroom) and we saw what unfettered access does. At best, it’s a distraction. At worst, it is a gateway to sin and self-loathing. (See any of the recent news reports on Facebook, Instagram, and teen body image, or this article from the Atlantic for a start.) Being a teen is hard enough – who needs constant reminders of how beautiful and perfect other people are (or seem to be) for constant comparison?

We don’t need the science to tell us how addictive screens and particularly social media are – we see it every day. My suspicion is that the reason Lucy’s school allows cell phone use by students during lunch and breaks is that they simply can’t stop it. To keep a semblance of order on a campus crawling with 2,000 teenagers, you can’t go out looking for trouble. Think about what happens to an addict when the drug is removed; now imagine students with that itch in the back (or front) of their minds trying to focus on Algebra. Good luck.

It’s too bad, really, because one of the first experiences Lucy reported to us when she started school was how strange lunch was. Not because the cafeteria hadn’t quite worked out getting all the students through the lunch line before the lunch period was over. Not because they eat in their fifth-period class because of Covid contract tracing guidelines. It was strange because everyone else in her class, except the teacher, spent the whole of their lunch period staring at their phones.

This is a world we haven’t prepared our children for.

I don’t regret this choice, or intend to do anything differently. I’m stubbornly convinced that it’s better for our kids (not to mention myself) to interact with an admittedly limited number of people and objects in the real world than with a larger number through a screen. My hope is that our kids will learn to use the technology as tools, because we aren’t on a Luddite farming commune with next to no need to contact the outside world. To some extent our kids will have to live with the technology that now infuses our society. But that doesn’t mean the technology has to infuse every moment of their lives, as well.

It’s a difficult line to walk. I’m on social media (you may have gotten to this blog that way, in fact) because it does have the power to connect. If I had to write out and mimeograph a newsletter every week instead of blogging…I probably wouldn’t. I’ve done numerous Zoom meetings and classes, and learned a lot that I wouldn’t have had an opportunity to otherwise. On the other hand, the amount of will-power it takes not to tumble into the social media time vortex is sometimes more than I possess. And if I can’t do it, why should I expect my children’s teenage brains, which are biologically less able to think long-term and correctly gauge risk, to be able to make better decisions than I can?

Our kids won’t be getting phones any time soon, at least not smart phones. Will it make their social lives harder? Absolutely, at least in how “connected” they will be able to be to their friends. On the other hand, maybe it will be easier to be able to walk away from a bully and not see their messages on the last thing most teens see before they go to bed at night.

There is a selfish motive behind all this, too. We happen to really, really like our kids. We like to see their faces. We like to talk to them. We don’t want them to have the blue zombie glow going on all the time. And while I understand the importance of peers to the teenager’s emotional development, I also think there can be too much of a good thing.

Especially now that our oldest spends so much of the day away from the family, those hours in the evenings and weekends that we have together are precious, and I intend to guard them jealously. Not just because Lucy is still my child and it is still my responsibility (and joy!) to form her into an adult, but because I want her to have that down time that allows for meandering thoughts, reading for pleasure, practicing calligraphy or drawing or baking. I know that she values these things, and I want to do what I can to help her have the time for them. Keeping her technology use to a minimum goes a long way towards that goal.

It feels a little ridiculous to be writing this alone in my room, the blue light from my laptop shining on my face. I spend more hours than I’d like on screens myself. But my hope is that it can stay in its proper place: a tool, useful for some things, but not a good in itself.

I couldn’t think of an exciting topic to discuss this week, so I thought I’d put together a list of a few resources that I’ve been enjoying lately, some for homeschooling, some for personal growth. In no particular order, here they are.

Home — Dante Splash Page

If you’ve ever wanted to read Dante’s Divine Comedy felt too intimidated, this site is ready to help you take the leap. Videos and commentary for all three books, plus the full text. The 100 Days of Dante series just started September 8, so now’s a great time to start.

Poetry Unbound

This is my favorite poetry podcast. I’ve fallen off of it lately, to be honest, but Pádraig Ó Tuama’s voice is unbelievably soothing, and his reflections are always insightful. It makes folding laundry a joy.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily-poem/id1433675871?i=1000485638872

The Daily Poem is my friend’s favorite poem podcast, which comes out every day and thus can satisfy your desire for beautiful language when you’ve listened to all the past episodes of Poetry Unbound (or if one poem a day isn’t enough for you!)

https://readaloudrevival.com/category/podcast/

Sarah Mackenzie does a great podcast on reading aloud with kids, and how to make it work in your home and/or homeschool. Her booklists are also fabulous. When I need to find something for one of my kids to read or for picture book ideas, I often turn here first.

And, speaking of books: last but not least, our dear public library. We hit the drive-thru at least once a week, and bring home stacks of books like the one above. (Also, if you haven’t read DANDY, right there in the middle of the photo, you should.) Our library’s millage (roughly 40% of its budget) is up for renewal in November. Rest assured, I’ll have more to say about that as the date gets closer.

That’s it! There are so many great resources out there these days to make life more interesting, I often find it overwhelming. But I hope one or two of these peaks your interest. Happy weekending!

I came across this passage in one of Dorothy Day’s monthly columns for the Catholic Worker paper the other day, written when she was staying with her daughter before the birth of her third grandchild:

“It has been a month of ‘ice, rains, snow and stormy winds,’ and every morning after the routine of fires, breakfasts and dressing has taken place, Becky, Susie and I rock in the wicker chair and sing, ‘All ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; oh ye ice and snow, oh ye cold and wind, oh ye winter and summer, oh ye trees in the woods, oh ye fire in the stove, oh ye Becky and Susie, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him forever.’ It is a song with infinite variations. You can include Mr. Clark’s cows, Leslie’s horses, the Hennessy goats, and all the human beings for miles around…What are we here for anyway except to praise Him, to adore Him and to thank Him? … and there is plenty to remind us of that in the country.”

-Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage (in the CW paper – not the book) March 1948

We have our own verses to add lately. (Because of course you don’t have to be in the country to come up with more.)

Swallowtails and zinnias, bless the Lord.

Sprouts and seedlings, bless the Lord.

And as Hurricane Ida gets here, it will be winds and rains, bless the Lord. Fortissimo.

It’s a good reminder: we aren’t on Earth just to work and to suffer, we are here to praise God. Last week our praise (besides morning prayer) included our school work and dance and play-doh and some spent-grain bread; next week I expect it will include fallen-limb removal.

The pre-hurricane preparations are finished, except for the boards for the picture window, which we’ll do tonight. And then comes the waiting. And we get to be reminded just how small and not in control we are.

Now that Lent is over and the Easter season is in full swing, I thought it would be a good time (!) to share two Lenten reflection books that I really enjoyed this year. Probably I should save this post for right around the beginning of February next year…but there is little chance I’ll remember at that point.

The first is No Unlikely Saints by Cameron Bellm. For each week of Lent, this book considers a different (mostly modern) saint or blessed who speaks to our current moment. I learned a lot about some holy people I knew as well as some I hadn’t met before from the reflections, and the prayer suggestions were really challenging and beautiful. I’m considering using it again next year because I know I still have plenty of growing left to do in many of the areas it addresses.

Second, my older girls and I read Letters for Pilgrimage by Sarah Lenora Gingrich and A. N. Tallent. This one is directed at Orthodox Christian young ladies, but as a Roman Catholic adult I still found the reflections helpful. (I also learned what Clean Monday is, and felt slightly guilty at how easy Roman Catholic Lent is compared to Orthodox Lent!) Again, beautiful, hopeful, challenging, and encouraging writing from women “who have survived the wilderness of life,” as their publisher puts it.

I especially love that both of these books are written by what Julian of Norwich calls our “even Christians” – women just like the rest of us, just living our lives and trying our best to follow Jesus. That means their words are both challenging and possible – exactly what my Lent needed this year.

I generally try to stay out of politics, especially online, but I guess the stress of the last year is getting to me…and I have accepted the challenge from Summer Kinard (the editor of Park End Books and Darkness is as Light) to blog more frequently in the New Year. So, since I had already written this letter to our illustrious senator John Neely Kennedy, I now share it with you, and check off “blog this week” from my to-do list.

If you’re wondering what I’m responding to, the statement Kennedy, Ted Cruz, and others posted can be read here.

Dear Senator Kennedy,

I am writing to you as one of your constituents from Lafayette. I was initially happy that you won election to be our senator, as I had heard you on Jim Engster’s show several times and found your ideas to be reasonable and generally in line with my own. Since your election, however, I have been repeatedly disappointed in your continual pandering to the whims of President Trump and the far right wing of the Republican party, sometimes even to the detriment of your own constituency. 

Up to this point, I have considered this the sort of “playing politics” that we can’t seem to escape in today’s political climate. While I wasn’t happy about some of your statements and votes, I have not felt compelled to contact you until today.

This morning it came to my attention that you intend to vote to reject the electors of states whose elections were decided by narrow margins. I think this is a terrible idea, and there are several reasons why. I will follow the format of your public statement to elucidate them.

First, your concern seems to be not that there actually was election fraud, but that many people BELIEVE there may have been election fraud. While I agree that it is vital in a democracy (or a republic) for the people to have faith in the public institutions, and the elections process in particular, I find it disingenuous for the very people who have stoked, if not created, this distrust with their own statements to now say that distrust is so rampant that we should not trust our elections. If you want people to have faith in the elections, please convince your fellow party members to stop lamenting (without evidence) how fraudulent they are.

Secondly, in the statement you suggest that if the Supreme Court had heard the two cases that were brought to it, this whole problem might somehow have been solved. The Supreme Court is not required to hear all cases brought to it; it is its prerogative to decline to hear a case that it finds to have been satisfactorily dealt with in the lower courts. It is telling that out of the dozens of voter fraud cases which were lodged after this election, only two even were worthy to be considered for a hearing by the Supreme Court. To claim that the election ought not to be certified because Republican lawyers brought a slew of unsubstantiated claims of fraud and the Supreme Court declined to waste their time any of them is ludicrous.

If your true motive is to shore up faith in our elections, it is unclear to me why Senator McConnell has not brought to the floor a request for a special commission prior to now. Why wait until two weeks before the inauguration, when he has had two months since the election to address this problem?

If you’ve read this far, Senator Kennedy, I commend you and thank you for taking the thoughts of your constituents seriously. I’d like to take just a moment more to express to you why I think that it is so vitally important that you vote to accept the electors of all the states on January 6. 

As you are well aware, we are in an extremely divisive political climate. We have had an election; all the evidence suggests that it was as free and fair as could be hoped. Undoubtedly, if there were actual evidence of the sort of wide-spread voter fraud that the Trump administration, for one, claims, they would have brought it out long before now. Yet this has simply not happened. Thus based on the evidence, to continue to claim that the elections were “rigged” is not only a lie, but is the very basis for the lack of faith in elections that you and your co-authors lament.

It is in your power, and the power of your Republican colleagues, to change the narrative. I understand that voting to reject the electors will play well with much of the staunchly conservative base here in Louisiana; I implore you to step above petty politics and look out for the good of the nation as a whole. Take a stand for the truth, Senator Kennedy. If there is no evidence, despite two months of searching by election officials and Republican supporters,  why drag our elections through the mud any longer? 

What our country needs to restore its faith in our elections is not more grandstanding, not more political theater, and not a 10-day commission. It is for men and women of good faith to tell the truth about the facts as they are, and to allow our political process to continue to work, as it has done for over two centuries now.

Thank you for your time, Senator Kennedy. May God bless you in your work on our behalf, and I wish you all the best in this new year.

Happy New Year, y’all.

“The whole purpose of reading – the whole purpose of everything – is for our kids to love God and love each other better.”

~Sarah Mackenzie

(If you’re not familiar with Sarah Mackenzie and the Read Aloud Revival, check it out!)

A friend recently asked me for recommendations of children’s novels where the day is saved…but not by lots of violence.  He has a ten-year-old son who loves Narnia and Middle Earth, but he doesn’t want his son to count on Glamdring to solve all his problems.  (I am aware that it is Aslan’s sacrifice, as well as Frodo and Sam’s sacrifices, that make things right.  But there are soooo many swords in the meantime!)  Anyway, here is my humble attempt at a list, with a few comments.

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt

I loved this one.  It’s an animal story – cats, dogs, snakes – but be warned – it is not for the faint of heart.  There are some heart-wrenching scenes, and a broodingly evil character who gives the White Witch a run for her money.  But the payoff at the end is worth it, and it’s beautifully written.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Time travel?  Yes.  School bullies?  Yes.  $20,000 Pyramid?  Yes!  And finally all the pieces come together in this middle-school mystery story.  Let’s just say, someone goes to incredible lengths to give up his life for a friend.  

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

This is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.  Lyrical, very magical, it sweeps you off your feet.  A magic little girl and her grandmother, the mother who went mad when she lost her, a young man trying to protect his family from an evil witch…plus a dragon, a swamp monster, and a volcano.  There is violence, and attempted violence, but it is love and forgiveness that win the day.

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

A modern-day fairy tale.  Again, this one is heart-wrenching, delving into the depression can bring into a family.  Hazel knows it is up to her to save her best friend Jack from the grip of an evil witch.

The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

Another story about forgiveness.  An orphan boy wonders if his sister is still alive.  A magician accidentally conjures an elephant – right into a woman’s lap.  And the snow just won’t stop… This one is a quick read, and it’s hard to beat Kate DiCamillo’s unique use of language.

A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door by Madeline L’Engle

These two are classics, but in both it is self-sacrifice, not violence, that wins the day.  Madeline L’Engle was my introduction to science fiction, though neither of these is too science-y to appeal to those who don’t care for the genre.  Actually, I thought it was amazing to read about a heroine, and physics, and a Christian worldview all in one book.

The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly

This is an amazing historical novel for its detail describing the Middle Ages – I highly recommend it for that alone.  The language is what you’d expect from a book from 1928: the vocabulary and syntax are both more challenging that what you find in most modern children’s literature.  But the characters are wonderful, and the story is gripping, and, of course, good triumphs over evil in the end.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

This was another one of my favorite books growing up.  Annemarie must use all her wits and bravery if she wants to save her best friend and her family – who are Jewish – from the Nazis.  Beautifully told, and edge-of-your-seat exciting, yet still appropriate for younger novel readers.

The Giver, Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son by Lois Lowry

I read The Giver in second grade, and I don’t think I ever recovered.  It wasn’t until a few years ago, however, that I realized there were three more books in the series!  That was a joyous day.  Each is wonderful on its own, but I recommend doing the whole set, because Son brings it all together so beautifully. 

The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz

This book blew me away, simply because I’ve found very few children’s novels which take faith seriously, and fewer that take a child’s faith seriously.  Three misfit children and a miraculous dog race to save Jewish books from being burned by a crusading prince.  With all the fun of the middle ages plus secret identities, The Inquisitor’s Tale is a thrilling ride.  (Violence-wise, there is one pretty harrowing scene early on, with William and some bandits, if you’re looking to avoid such things, but it’s not Williams’ strength that wins the day in the end.)

Whew.  So really this is also a short list of some of my favorite books ever.  Enjoy!  I’d love to discuss them if anyone is interested!

So I set this post to publish the morning of December 21…apparently something misfired.  And I have just now gotten around to checking on it.  So much irony.  But here it is anyway.

If you have a few minutes in the middle of pre-Christmas craziness, stop over at the Mudroom and check out my post:

Balancing Waiting, Anticipation, and Anxiety about the Future