Believe it or not! – Page 37

Believe it or not!, Home School, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Same Song, Second Verse; It’s Worse.

Posted on January 21, 2011January 21, 2011 by Katharine

Continued from the 18th.

The last time hopeless ideas about homeschool hit the legislature, anyone trained in logic could see: it was not logic. In fact, Arkansas lawyer, Dee Black, of Home School Legal Defense Association, dubbed it, “one of the most blatant . . . ever seen.” This new piece, hoping to take its place and succeed where it failed, is just as bad. It is “Big Brother” by definition, regardless of the home-school facet of it. It looks—and is—very much like the worst of Hitler or Marx. If he were alive today, you could just ask Einstein. He knew when it was time to leave the German schools and had to flee Germany to do it.

This proposal does not affect only bad schools or bad homes. Any school, however good or bad, can become a target for danger, these days, as Columbine and Nickel Mines proved. Any parent, however good or bad, could desperately need to override the notification date for removing children. The facts are: YOU, Dear Taxpayer, wherever and whoever YOU are, could find YOURSELF desperately and immediately needing to remove YOUR child from school on some date that does not correspond with the August or December deadlines.

When we do insert the home-school element, though, we realize a truth proposed by world-famous author, George Orwell: it seems some of us are more equal than others, aren’t we! Look: if you have the funds to access a private school situation for your child, you may withdraw your child at any time. You retain your freedoms. If you are short on discretionary funds—who isn’t these days?—then you will lose your freedom. And that fact, the fact that only the wealthy Arkansan may have permission to protect his children in Arkansas, is unconscionable.

It makes sense that as an Arkansas taxpayer and American citizen, I should demand equal protection for my school-aged children. It makes sense that a parent should demand the freedom to remove his child from a dangerous situation. It makes sense that the law should trust a parent’s word—how much more that of a psychiatrist, pediatrician, lawyer, or other neutral professional practicing in his own profession!

No decision regarding the safety of a child should depend upon the financial situation of the parent.

No decision regarding the safety of a child should depend upon the financial situation of the state school.

You know, it also makes a sort of perverted sense that a hireling, teacher-lobbyist group, would ask us not to trust the child’s medical, psychological, or legal professionals, but only the teachers.

It does NOT make sense for us to trust the word of a member of a tax-funded near-monopoly. Of course, they think their situation better than yours! Of course, they want more power over your home! Of course, they-and-only-they can know or care about what is best for your child.

But you pay their salaries.

The end.

Pleae forward the contents of this post to everyone you know living in Arkansas. Thanks.

Believe it or not!, Home School, Who's the mom here?

We Told Them so Many Times!

Posted on January 18, 2011August 11, 2014 by Katharine

Continued from yesterday:

They think you and I do not know when our children should come home. That’s what it’s about. Yes, Arkansas legislators are wasting time and money arguing with parents about whether or not we know anything, where we want our children to be all day, whether or not the idea of being at home is harmful to children.

A new piece of legislation, rebounding off a similar piece instigated in the past by David Cook, manages to insinuate that if the child wants to exit the school during a time of illness, stress, or danger, then the home must be bad, antagonistic, even hazardous. How insulting to all homeschoolers! How insulting to all parent, to all homes!

And if it should happen that the home is truly bad, they say, then we need more new laws to enlist the help of the public schools to protect the child from the home situation.

That is a lie.

Arkansas law already provides protection for such children, in that it provides the Department of Human Services (DHS). And the law, by providing mandated reporters, even provides that educators play a part in this protection.

Educators argue that the DHS never does anything, so, they do not want to call on them.

No, they do not want to call DHS. They want to be DHS. They want to be judge, jury, and jailer for any child who, in their opinion comes from an inappropriate home, regardless of—and by that I mean: completely disregarding—the inappropriateness of conditions inside the jail.

The teachers’ opinion, their judgment that the home is invalid, they tell us, finds its basis in innuendo and gossip from in-laws, only, and not in any type of home case study. Oh, and in the desire to homeschool.

Think for a moment! Forget homeschooling. Would YOU want your child’s future based on what your in-laws say about you? ME NEITHER!

But let’s back up a bit here. Do teachers actually want to do anything about the home situation, based upon fact, or upon existing laws? No, they are quite happy to leave things alone, quite happy to forget the home situation after 3:00 p.m., as long as they have that child (and I must add, the accompanying tax moneys) for a few hours.

Never mind where the bus takes the child afterward.

People who have qualms about allowing children to be in bad homes should become social workers, not teachers. Social service personnel who have qualms about entering or overseeing bad homes would make better teachers.

Or maybe, what we really need is law-abiding people who would mind—I mean, truly pay attention to—their own business, in both professions.

And, maybe, just maybe, if teachers, as mandated reporters, were upholding their end of the law, their students would not be so prone to breaking it. Now wouldn’t that make a difference!

Arkansas does not need one more law to give anyone any more power over our homes, our children’s homes, or our grandchildren’s homes. What Arkansas needs are effective penalties for dealing with public servants who refuse to obey the already-existing laws.

Any presumed problems this proposal might pretend to address would better find solution in complete reformation of public schools and complete reformation of the Department of Human Services.

Please forward this to everyone you know who lives in Arkansas.

Believe it or not!, Home School, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Arkansas Freedom

Posted on January 17, 2011July 7, 2016 by Katharine

Homeschool freedom or this? Americans want several things from their government. We expect freedom. We expect protection. We work hard for them.

Although most of the people in the entire world homeschooled at one time, the current, popular, en masse return to homeschooling began in America.

This is the do-by-self country. American parents have always grabbed any challenge that might improve things for their children.

Today’s homeschool is American, transcending all barriers, and the school choice of the parents of one-third of our presidents. It is one big expression of the American way. (Two million strong, now.)

Americans in Arkansas, however, have had to fight harder for this way. In some states, few raise an eyebrow at parents desiring to provide the education. In Arkansas, though, parents struggle to stay one step ahead of their legislators. It seems a case of the government attacking the citizens instead of protecting them.

We’re gearing up for battle again, beating back the legislators again (in spare time we want to spend on our kids.) A new proposal is poised to posture itself before the legislature, wasting yet more time and money on hopes for a bill no one wants. Again.

This proposal aims at curtailing our freedom and undermining the privileges and obligations inherent to parenthood.

Lest you think you should yawn at another homeschool gripe, this proposal, if enacted, would make the state the mom, even if you never plan to homeschool.

Especially if you never plan to homeschool.

The time to wake up is now.

Imagine, if you can, your small daughter blood-spattered and traumatized, from seeing classmates and teachers murdered at school, and forbidden to stay home because someone on the school payroll deemed the home (THE HOME!) an unsafe place.

And never mind the child’s own psychologist has prescribed removal from the school situation.

Our new proposal sets this scenario.

Or perhaps your son has refused to “do” a classmate in the locker room. He has been kicked in the lower back repeatedly with a steel-toed boot, is urinating blood, and forbidden to stay home because someone on the school payroll deemed it just not timely.

Never mind the child’s own pediatrician demands removal from school.

The new proposal sets these parameters.

Or try this idea: Your child tells you the most exciting thing he learned in school today is how to put a condom on a dead bird.

Or your mother is near death and your children want to be beside her as much as possible while they still can.

Or your child has MS and must nap daily and eat five times daily and it’s not happening when he’s at school. Not only that, but because his speech is difficult to understand, he is left to sit at his desk and educate himself by reading a dictionary all day, every day.

Or your daughter is receiving sexual threats and her only instructions from school staff?—to kick the bully between the legs.

These things all have occurred in Arkansas schools. Of course, children everywhere are molested, accosted, assaulted, threatened, harassed, or raped while at school. At almost every school. Even the “good” ones.

But in Arkansas schools we would have no recourse.

Even if the children in the above situations were to be excused from attending, in the future Arkansas that we discuss today, it could be after a three-week waiting period.

How can it be that a child could be forced to remain in such a dangerous and dehumanizing situation for three weeks, while grown-ups deliberate about whether or not to allow his removal?

How can the main questions be whether or not the parents need daytime supervision and what the date is!

How can this be happening to Arkansas’ children!

It simply must not be.

Please forward this post to everyone you know living in Arkansas.

More tomorrow.

Believe it or not!, Blessings of Habit, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

An Anatomy of Pain – Conclusion

Posted on December 24, 2010March 19, 2015 by Katharine

What then are we to make of suffering?

If we are The Called, in Christ Jesus, everything that happens to us is for some higher purpose, even when life DOES go our way. We can know for sure that the pain of suffering unfair treatment, like all other things, works for good. The Scriptures promise this.

Suffering at the hands of an enemy gives us rare opportunities to extend forgiveness to people in Jesus’ name.
It can draw His precious ones closer to Him, if that’s what we want, not like those who move farther away from Him when they face suffering.
It can quiet us from our boasting, give us peace within our limitations, and explain mourning to us in a way we can understand.
Suffering can make us open our Bibles with new earnestness, and oftener, too.
It can teach us new heights of patience with those who watch us and try to help us.
It can cause us to acknowledge God’s authority over us, and to accept His working in our lives as the highest good.
Finally, suffering can cause us to rest in our trust in God, full of His Holy Spirit, and to see His hand in everything that happens around us.

I pray these blessings on you all. They are the whole reason He came, anyway. Right?

Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom, Womanhood

An Anatomy of Pain – The Real Enemy

Posted on December 23, 2010April 6, 2015 by Katharine

: Chess pawn 0985.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Oh, if only forgiveness were the end of it!

But it’s just the beginning.

Suffering doesn’t stop just because we’ve been nice. Our real enemy (who is not a human enemy), knows how to move his pawns and which buttons to push. Sometimes forgiveness must become more like a motto than a choice. Once that choice is functioning, insight grows for us in amazing ways.

We notice patterns. Painful, uncanny coincidences just “pop up”. Ever wonder if it was just you, or if life actually takes a nosedive once a month? At the least timely time? Like clockwork? Mark your calendar; he’ll be back when you’re at your weakest. Why not? He’s the enemy!

For our family, he tries a trick or two every Thanksgiving. I think it’s because we actually celebrate the “thanks” part of it, unto the Lord. Our enemy hates that. So we’ve had four wrecks (none our fault), a baby dehydrating in a hospital, a surgically repaired broken arm, a best friend’s funeral, a small housefire, an emergency cleaning at our church’s parsonage, and a dead refrigerator on ten separate Thanksgivings. We know when to start praying.

But the thanksgiving part is the most essential. If we turn to God in our pain, weakness, and fear; if we cling to Him in trust; if we thank Him and praise Him in obedience to His Word; we come away from our temptations, trials, and tests on His side of the line between life and death. He waits to help and longs for us to choose life.

Oh, but there’s more. During times of great mental or emotional pain we still have our relationships. Precious ones still need us. Promises stand unfulfilled. We simply cannot cry all day because of a meeting tonight. We cannot go for a long drive because of the children. We cannot rent a cabin away from it all because Mom will need her cancer checkup. Or something.

Then there’s the Word. How impossible it is to pitch a good old-fashioned fit with the Word echoing in our brains! Blessed are ye . . .Who for the joy set before Him endured . . . ye have not yet endured to the shedding of your blood . . . Wives, also . . . We end at the ultimate word on suffering: My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? And we realize: He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one . . .

Could there possible be more? Yep. We always have helpers. People bring us food we aren’t supposed to eat. People comfort us with ungodly words. People say they love us and we know they lie. It is a call for the patience of the saints. Be a saint. After all, you do have needs. They mean no harm.

Eventually God takes you out, raises you above, gives you a plateau. The plateau has a name: Union with God. You realize it is not about you, was never about you. You realize your co-suffering with Jesus, your helping to fill what was lacking in His suffering, your place in the plan of salvation for someone else. It is heavenly. You see yourself through His eyes, as a warrior for Him, someone He trusts to do part of His work. It’s like a medals ceremony after a big battle.

Then you rest. Only then. Although He has held you tenderly by the hand through the whole nightmare, He now holds you IN His hand and you know you are, finally, safe.

Conclusion, tomorrow.

Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

An Anatomy of Pain – What in the World IS Forgiveness??

Posted on December 22, 2010July 13, 2018 by Katharine

What Is Forgiveness? – The Word often depicts forgiveness as one of the most important teachings. But WHAT is it? Well, let’s start with what it is not.

Forgiveness is NOT:

Saying, “Oh, it’s okay.” You can only say this if no one did you wrong, if you wouldn’t mind if they did it again. It is not okay with God for someone to do wrong. Don’t say it’s okay. That is not the truth. It is denial.
Forgetting. You will remember, even after you forgive. We have brains that make decisions based on remembering. Our memories help us be safe. We do not have delete buttons. You are not God; don’t think you have to forget. That opens the door for excuses.
Trusting. You do not have to trust an untrustworthy person, to prove you have forgiven him. The Bible often warns against trusting the untrustworthy. We must earn trust; no one can demand it. That is foolishness.

Now. Forgiveness IS:

Saying, “I forgive you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Your feelings may be screaming and you may have to pray hard to say these words and to make them true. It’s okay. That is what the throne of grace is for—to get grace to help us in time of need.
Refusing to remember the sin against the sinner. It is a contract. Yes, something bad happened, but it is forgiven. The debt is paid. If you wrote off a bad debt as a wedding gift to a young debtor, would you then hope for payment or send a bill? No. It is forgiven.
Actually, it is a lot like giving it to God. The word “forgive” means to give far. How far is far enough? The hands of God—leave it in His hands. That will do quite nicely.
Praying for the one who has hurt you. This is not optional. We are to love our enemies and do good to those who misuse us. It’s okay to do good from a distance, though. A card or phone call may be all you can manage. A secret pen pal note distances you even more, especially if you disguise your writing and mail from another town. Think hard—you can figure a safe way to bless the dangerous ones in your life.

We have to do this, Sisters. We must forgive, or we’re not forgiven, and who doesn’t need forgiving? We have to do this for our children’s sakes, too. When they see our ways with our enemies, when they see how we respond to our hurts, they will believe us more, about God.

And when God steps in and plants the forgiveness in your heart without any help from you, you’ll believe Him more, too.

More tomorrow.

Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

An Anatomy of Pain – Remember, the World Hurts, Like a Sledge Hammer

Posted on December 21, 2010January 29, 2019 by Katharine

Why it Hurts – Sticks and stones . . . you know names can hurt worse. A bruise from a stone heals in a week or two, but the pain from name calling can last as long as your memory. It can last as long as we let it.

We can let it hurt for ages.

Do we want it to hurt? Maybe there’s something inside us that does. Do we feel proud if we can get that lower lip to quiver one more time?

I mean, people, IT HURTS!

Right? People notice? They pet us some more? They feel sorry for us?

Maybe not.

It’s just the world – People! Them! It’s not my fault, remember! No, it’s just the world. We forget something: “In this world ye shall have tribulation.” It’s a promise from God, but not one of those promises we name and claim, is it?

Jesus told us. He warned us. We should know it. It’s part of being alive. Tribulation, from the Latin root meaning sledge-hammer. How appropriate. The alternative is leaving this old world behind. Being alive in this world includes getting hammered. Being alive in this world also includes being part of it. We are such sloppy communicators and such confused listeners, no one can help being part of the trouble.

God also told us, “The heart of man is desperately wicked. Who can know it?” I think that is part of the pain, too. We think we know so-and-so would never say that. We find out each person is capable of hammering on us. We think, finally, this relationship is secure.

Nope. Never.

As long as there are people, and that includes you and me, there will be hammerin’. People will hammer. They will hurt and not apologize. They will apologize and not sound sincere, not even know what they ought to have apologized for. It’s just the heart of man, including the women.

Sometimes, oh, I dunno, it seems, especially the women.

People don’t know what to apologize for because they have no idea they did anything. They truly have no idea what they are doing half the time, no idea what they’ve done. They say, “WHAT?!” and they mean it. What have I done? What is it THIS time? What?! They don’t know what they’re doing.

But we don’t remember something. The beloved voice that said, “In this world ye shall have tribulation,” also said, “Be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.” He did not mean He could lick any enemy of ours in a moment, although He could do that. No, He meant He has overcome the whole mess, you and me included. The whole world—He could lick it all in a moment, and He will.

The God who said, “The heart of man is desperately wicked,” also said that He knows our hearts. Oops. Scary business, that. On top of that, He told us to rejoice and look up when it got really bad, because He would be close on the heels of the Very Worst Day. When That Day comes, we’d better be ready.

We’d better be cheered up!

More tomorrow.