In January of 2008, the Jugendamt (Germany’s youth welfare office) and police officials surrounded the Gorber family’s Uberlingen home in a surprise raid. Mr. Gorber was away from home at the time of the raid, visiting his wife at a local hospital where she had been admitted, due to complications from her pregnancy with their ninth child. Despite the children’s repeated protests, all but the oldest son, age 21, and a daughter, age 20, were taken into custody by the authorities.
The siblings reported that the 7-year-old was gripped around the waist by a youth home music teacher, dragged kicking and screaming across the courtyard, and thrown into a van. The terrified 3-year-old clung to his 20-year-old sister so tightly that even the police and Jugendamt official could not separate them. Both had to be taken to the youth home, where at last the little fellow’s strength gave out and he was taken into custody. [ . . . ]
[ . . . ] This is especially out of the ordinary when nearly all other western European democracies allow for homeschooling by either constitution, law, or practice. Even formerly communist eastern European countries are loosening up their laws and regulations to allow homeschoolers freedom. Far from escaping the rigidly uniformitarian ideas about society that prevailed in Hitler’s Germany, today’s authorities seem to be perpetuating it through their treatment of German homeschoolers. [ . . . ]
An antique tractor – A very early, hand-built gasoline powered tractor. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I had some fun yesterday! My tutoring job was canceled because my student had testing, instead, so I made use of the time by making a run to town.
Or trying to make a run to town.
I got as far as the discount store and my Ford truck wouldn’t go. If I tried to let it idle, it sounded like a Ford tractor, instead. Are tractors only 2-cylinder? Let’s just say it was missing a bit. And it would die, not idle.
This truck is really new — still under warranty.
I’m no race car driver, but somehow I managed to manipulate the gas, gears, and brakes enough to get the thing across the street to our favorite tire guy. We don’t have any engine-repair places, and this guy knows all anyone needs to know, anyway.
Of course, being in the tire business, he has no diagnostic computers for engines, but never mind. Even his young assistant knew what the procedure should be. As our tire friend sat in the cab of my truck and manipulated the keys in the ignition, the young assistant ducked, unbidden, under the truck to listen.
Then our friend asked, “Do you hear it humming?”
The young assistant nodded “yes.”
Whatever that was about, it was not about tires. I felt myself in good hands.
However, this first responder triage diagnosis was: water in the gas. As I tried to remember aloud where we had recently bought gas, he kept saying, “I buy gas there all the time. That shouldn’t be a problem place to get it.” He said ‘sorry’ and he couldn’t really help me, that I should take it to the dealership, but I was welcome to park in his lot.
I’m so thankful for small-town friendliness!
I called hubs and he said to bring it on home after I got groceries.
I was scared.
But I did it.
I don’t know how.
It kept wanting to die when it coasted down hill. If I did not keep it revved, it chugged and jerked a lot, as if I were just learning to drive a manual shift. It kept trying to die whenever it idled, and succeeded a couple of times, so I prayed a lot for clear intersections so I would not have to come to a full stop. I hardly had any brakes, anyway, as they were power brakes and there was not much power, or something.
I slipped through several stop signs with a promise to stop twice next time.
Although the speed limit going home is 55 mph, I kept it to 40 or so, except for downhill, since I had to give it gas at all times to keep it from dying.
It was a very blessed feeling finally to arrive home and coast the last 50 yards, since it had died but we have a parking spot that is downhill from the road.
Have you ever studied how sugars give us quick energy? I did, in 7th grade, which happened several decades ago, for me.
Several decades.
I had to memorize the benefits of various components of normal foods and other things we might eat that are not normal foods, to pass a homemaking test.
Back then, almost all girls studied homemaking. We each wanted to make a home — to turn a house that housed two strangers into a safe and welcoming nest for two who acted as one entity — and to welcome the regular appearance of new, tiny, perfect strangers joining the melee.
Things changed. Boys who desired to be professional chefs felt they should take homemaking. Girls who wanted to know how to fix their own stopped sinks felt they should take shop. Besides, the gender mix was fun. But I digress.
While learning to make a home, we learned good nutrition. All the diets recommending eliminating carbs to lose weight find their basis in pure science, quoted in our homemaking textbooks from the late sixties, and it was old news even then.
You cannot have bonbons unless you get a-movin’. Or else, you will grow fat.
They taught us. We learned it and passed tests. Sugars are for quick energy. Consume sugars and you must burn them or else you will grow fat.
We also learned:
Too much sugar consumption could lead to diabetes. Fact.
Honey, although it can have a similar effect, is not as bad. Fact.
Protein is for long-lasting energy. Fact.
Salad before a meal improves digestion. Fact.
Educated people knew these nutrition facts back then. So before a basketball game, players received instructions to eat protein and sugar. Coaches often kept Snickers and other rich candies on hand to rejuvenate a team member, if needed. Players often had a double cheeseburger for lunch and a double chocolate malted for a pre-game treat. Cheerleaders ate like that, too. Such athletic types could actually feel the added boost, they told us.
We envied them.
Today I do not. Today I work from several more facts, not known to science back then:
All these facts, in famous research, such as the Nurses’ Study, form the basis for much of the health protocol at the Mayo Clinic and for Dr. Atkins’ work, not to mention the “come latelies” such as “South Beach” and “Lose the Wheat Lose the Weight”.
But one more fact that spurs this post, a fact no one could have possibly known before: I woke up with a sore throat today. A bit achy and too tired for cheerleading, I’ve decided to post about good healthuntil I again possess it.
“But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” Mark 16:7
Galilee – Israël (Photo credit: Emmanuel Dyan)
Gone to Galilee? But He just died Friday! We saw Him die on the cross. We watched them bury Him.
Gone to Galilee?
Why Galilee, an out-of-the way sort of place, about 60 miles (over a day’s walk) north of the gravesite?
It’s where Jesus grew up and ministered, but that’s about it. He had always been preparing to leave Galilee, to go Jerusalem, the Capital, where all the powerful and influential world-changers were.
Since they just crucified Him, if He truly was risen from the dead, seems He’d march straight to the palace or the temple and SHOW them He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Messiah of God Almighty!
Galilee? Nobody there but His followers.
Us.
He Came back to show Himself to us.
To the very same ragtag group of people who denied Him, misunderstood Him, forsook Him, and fled, He returned; to deserters.
Especially mentioned by name, to Peter, who had denied even knowing Him, He returned.
He came back for us as well. He has a message, is calling us, to travel to our “Galilee” to go back to the place where we fellowshiped with Jesus and to begin again. To follow Him all over again.
He will meet us there. In fact, He has gone on ahead and is already there.
The Disciples did not witness Him rising from the dead. They were gone. Out of it.
It is incredible enough to think that He could just decide to rise again, and to return to anyone. But he came back for us, to those who did believe and needed to know that He is alive, needed to believe again, and more.
The proof of the Resurrection is not the absence of Jesus’ body from the tomb. No, it is the presence of Jesus with His followers. The greatest promise of the Resurrection is not that we shall live forever, although that is great, indeed. No, the greatest message is that though we are still sinners, weak, and faithless like the Disciples, Jesus returned to US.
The Bible is not a book telling mostly how men kept seeking God. It is a record of how God keeps seeking US, despite our lack of faith.
And why?
The risen Christ has come back to change us from doubters to ambassadors. Jesus came back to us because He loves us.
I look back over my life at all the mistakes I’ve made, all the times I’ve failed, gone my own way, strayed, and each time, He came for me. He found a way to get to me even when I tried not to be found.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. I Corinthians 15:3-8
Here, Paul is writing to the poor struggling Corinthians, who were failing badly at being the Church. To those backsliding, sinful, divisive, faithless Christians, Paul preaches the Resurrection. He reminds them, and us, that the risen Christ chooses to return, to strengthen Christians.
How will we respond?
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. John 14:1-4
Home's Cool! 