Finally back....and CS Lewis "The Great Divorce"

I have missed sharing for the last several months. November was apparently the last time I both had time and could sit in my chair to write. December found me mostly in the bed with back problems. I am thankful to be able to sit and share once again!

I have had CS Lewis' The Great Divorce on my shelf for sometime in line to read. Recently, I felt led to pick it up. I am so very glad I was blessed with the chance to read it.

The story is a dream. Only a dream. Lewis makes clear that He is not "claiming knowledge of what no mortal man knows." (chapter 14)

Having understood that, the story begins as a young man from the Grey City enters the line for the bus. The bus takes air and carries them to "another" place. After disembarking from the bus, they are each met by "bright people". The man observes encounter after encounter of the passengers as they are offered the chance to climb the mountains and press on (to heaven). I see myself and/or others (saved and lost unfortunately) in each encounter.

The first encounter is of a "moral man" (in his own estimation) who's "bright person" was a murderer on earth. He cannot imagine how the murderer could possibly be there. Says the "bright" man to the moral,

"That is a little hard to understand at first. But it is all over now. You will be pleased about it presently. Till then there is no need to bother about it."

"No need to bother about it? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"No, Not as you mean. I do not look at myself, I have given up myself. I had to, you know, after the murder. That was what it did for me. And that was how everything began."

The "moral man" goes on and on about how good he was and how he deserves his rights because of it. The bright man responds:

"Oh no. It's not so bad as that. I haven't got my rights, or I should not be here. You will not get yours either. You'll get something far better. Never fear."

Another encounter deals with our thinking that as long as we live by our "honest opinions" all will be well in the end. Yet another just wants to "have a look around", our modern version of "try God" I suppose, expecting God to entertain him.

Our main character finally meets with his bright person (a rather famous one who had quite a mark on the salvation of CS Lewis). He explains that the visitor cannot understand heavenly things until he arrives there,

"That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say 'Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences': little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness..."

"There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery. There is always something they prefer to joy-that is, to reality."

Several quotes I love sum up so much of what I took away from this reading.

Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the things he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him.


'But of course!' said the Spirit, shining with love and mirth so that my eyes were dazzled. 'That's what we all find when we reach this country. We've all been wrong! That's the great joke. There's no need to go on pretending one was right! After that we begin to live.'


There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks at Him and bad when it turns from Him.


How very many ways we find to reject God as He is, not as we want to make Him out to be. When all along, He stands, with loving arms, ready to be all He is in us every hour of every day. I guess that is what I take away from this book. Lord, open my eyes. You are God alone!

Uncle Tom's Cabin/ Thanksgiving

I have just finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. On the eve of Thanksgiving, I haven't much time to write, but must put this down while it is all fresh.

The subject of slavery and the mark still carried by black people of African decent has always been a concern to me. Harriet Beecher Stowe did an amazing job of showing the evils and humanness of everyone involved, from the traders, to the owners and their children, to the abolitionists and the northerners who in their silence did nothing to the Christian slaves and the ones in more bondage than their physical bodies.

One of the many things that will stay with me about this book, is what an amazing job Stowe does of describing the sins done under the "protection" of "Christian" churches in total contrast to that of what she correctly understood a relationship with God Almighty to be.

I have marked many passages in this book and will carry them near to me. Not in anyway to diminish the message of the slavery of African's in our country and the subsequent treatment afterward to this day, but how many times over we see these scenes in the way we all think and treat others as less than what God created them to be.

This scene is from chapter eleven in a tavern where a notice has just been read of the running away of George.

"These yer knowin' boys is allers aggravatin' and sarcy," said a coarse-looking fellow, from the other side of the room; "that's why they gets cut up and marked so. If they behaved themselves, they wouldn't."

"That is to say, the Lord made 'em men, and it's a hard squeeze getting 'em down into beasts," said the drover, dryly.

(the previous man goes on the say that talents are wasted on them)

"Better send orders up to the Lord, to make you a set, and leave out their souls entirely," said the drover.

Said of Evangeline's mother who is always self-absorbed...

"Marie was one of those unfortunately constituted mortals, in whose eyes whatever is lost and gone assumes a value which it never had in possession. Whatever she had, she seemed to survey only to pick flaws in it; but, once fairly away, there was no end to her valuation of it."

Father, keep us all from this terrible sin. Help us love all you put around us while there is still life in them.

This one cuts to the heart of all our sin...

"...It is no more true of this race than of every oppressed race, the world over. The slave is always a tyrant, if he can get a chance to be one."

And to be sure we have a correct picture of how the Lord sees our suffering, Tom instructs us...

"Missis," said Tom, after a while, "I can see that, some how, you're quite 'bove me in everything; but there's one thing Missis might learn even from poor Tom. Ye said the Lord took sides against us, because he lets us be 'bused and knocked round; but ye see what come on his own Son,--the blessed Lord of Glory, --wan't he allays poor? and have we, any on us, yet come so low as he come? The Lord han't forgot us, --I'm sartin' o' that ar'. If we suffer with him, we shall also reign, Scripture says; but, if we deny Him, he also will deny us. Didn't they all suffer? --the Lord and all his? It tells how they was stoned and sawn asunder, and wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, and was destitute, afflicted, tormented. Sufferin' an't no reason to make us think the Lord's turned agin us; but jest the contrary, if only we hold on to him, and doesn't give up to sin."

I would love to listen to the sermons men like Uncle Tom could have preached. I leave now to spend time with my family, thankful, that despite suffering and loss, Jesus has endured all suffering such as is common to man and is well acquainted with all our sorrows and even endured the cross. We are free in Christ! Therefore do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery, but in love serve one another!

American Indians

We have been studying American Indians this week. I however have been sick and without a voice, so I asked around about movies to watch. I had read else where about the image that Holly Wood gave American of Indians...how most of them where ALL Good or All Bad....and how most of the roles in the movies were played by people from brown skinned countries (other than American Indians) or even white people with makeup.

Someone suggested I Will Fight No More Forever.
I think it is very well done. I also noticed in the credits that people of several different tribes were used for the key roles of the Nez Perce people. It is a very moving account of the removal of part of this tribe from their land. Below is a picture of Chief Joseph as well as the speech he gave when he finally surrendered.

Surrender Speech of Chief Joseph WebText by Mary Lou McCloskey, Ph.D. Chief Joseph's Land, by David Manuel I Will Fight No More Forever Surrender Speech by Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohulhulsote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led the young men is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are--perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.

Already Gone

I've been reading a very thought provoking book called "Already Gone" by Ken Ham.

Several things I've gleaned so far...by college age when we "think" we are loosing church kids, most of them were "already gone".

They say they are turning away because of "hypocrisy" in the church, pastors who preach one thing but live another and a myriad of other reasons.

Ken (Answers in Genesis) and Britt (America's Research Group) wanted deeper answers. From their survey they began to uncover patterns in the stats that showed a large number of these 20's returned for Holiday Services and/or planned to return when they married or had kids.

So, why did they leave? The survey also showed that these kids did not have solid beliefs about the Biblical account of Creation and it went down hill from there. Many of them attended Sunday School and/or Youth Group, but didn't gain a firm grasp of the historical accuracy and the real relationship they could have with a personal God. I would add that maybe parents still struggled with this and neglected, or just didn't know how to teach these things at home. (Not judging...something of which we've been personally convicted and are working to correct).

"They see a great discrepancy between what the people are saying and the way that they are living; they may have been torn by what they heard a preacher preaching and what they saw him doing. I believe it very likely they have heard the pastor compromise in some way on Genesis - and they see this as hypocrisy when the Church claims to believe the Bible as the Word of God. These people want authenticity. They want grace, truth and RELEVANCY in the Body of Christ. They're not going to come back unless something changes on this level."

Post Darwin, "The Church began to make a disconnection at this point. It was the beginning of the road to irrelevancy: the Church gave up the earthly things (e.g., the biological, anthropological, astronomical, geological history as recorded in Genesis 1-11) and focused on heavenly things (spiritual matters, relationships, the gospel). When it came to science, the Church gave in to human notions. It was now acceptable to use the Bible to judge man's ideas to re-interpret the Bible, rather than to use the Bible to judge man's ideas."

"Churches today in America are not a place where one talks about geology, dinosaurs, fossils, or the age of the earth - that is left up to the schools and colleges. Effectively, the Church basically hands over the history of the universe to the secular educational institutions, and concentrates on the spiritual and moral aspects of Christianity. The Church actually disconnects the Bible from the real world. The children (and everyone else, through Sunday School lessons, youth studies, ect.) in the churches are really taught that in church, one doesn't deal with geology, biology, and so on - that is for school. In church, we talk about Jesus - we deal with doctrines and we study moral and spiritual matters - but anything pertaining to understanding geology, biology, astronomy, anthropology, and so forth is left for school."



The point I glean so far in my reading is what a pastor recently said to us. He said he believes the problem is we have compartmentalized our "spiritual lives", or work lives, our home lives, our fun lives...ect, ect...But God, the Creator of the Universe and every intricate thing in it, has placed answers for all of these things in His Word. He is real! He longs to have a real and personal relationship with us! They must be told this...we must stand on the truth...on His Word! If they are not, the church buildings are irrelevant.

9.10.10 Becoming a Man of the Spirit

I am still working my way through Bob Beltz "Becoming a man of..." series. Half way through Becoming a Man of the Spirit today, I want to share a point he brings to light.

"Understanding the flesh leads us naturally to learning how to identify when we are operating out of it...The processing unit God has built into each of our lives to help us understand, identify and then decide which state we will respond to, is the mind....God has created us with the capacity to be self-conscious."

Romans 8:5 "Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires."

Colossians 3:2 "Set your minds on things above."

"Here is a simple reminder of the three steps we take to walk in the Spirit:

Step 1: Understand. Understand the feelings, desires, and behaviors that originate out of the Spirit and those that are products of the flesh. (Galatians 5)
Step 2: Identify: At any given moment, be able to identify which nature your promptings are coming from and which nature you are responding to.
Step 3: Decide. Choose to say no to the flesh and yes to the Spirit. Set your mind."



"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God." John 3:5

KONOS

It is WAY past time for me to talk about KONOS Character Based Unit Study Curriculum by Carole Thaxton and Jessica Hulcy. I guess I've been so busy preparing myself for this adventure that I have not blogged as much, must less shared about KONOS.

As you might be able to tell from this blog, I have been homeschooling my children the last few years using the principles of Charlotte Mason and following Ambleside Online. I still believe the principles are great. Last spring, I began to see that I needed help in taking my teaching to a new level.

I began to research KONOS and the unit study approach, especially for my younger two sons. The older of the two had thrived on the great literature we were reading to a point, but I felt he and his younger brother needed me to add more active and hands-on learning. I will admit, there are spurts of this in me, but I am not an original thinker but spurred on by other ideas to make my own.

I had known about and even looked at KONOS before, but was overwhelmed at the time. I decided it was time to give it a closer look. I could immediately see that the boys would get into it and the growth it would cause in them. I got volume 2, but soon decided that I might as well start with Vol. 1 (It doesn't matter which you use first, but they created Vol. 1 when they had younger children).

During the summer months, I collected books, watched Jessica's videos, tried her sample online co-op lessons and read everything I could!

Basically, the volumes are broken down into character traits. Under each character trait, we learn things from every field of study that might connect with that trait. For example: Attentiveness is 4 weeks. First, we talk about what it means to pay attention and concentrate (love the concentrated orange juice example!). We talk about examples in the Bible, like when God Called Samuel, Mary and Martha and how Jesus watched to follow the lead of the Father in his ministry. Then we study the ear, the eye, Helen Keller, Alexander Graham Bell, the orchestra and its parts and much, much more. We watch videos, read books, do copy work, do experiments, act out scenes and keep a notebook of our work.

That is just a brief account, there are WAY more things we have done and way more things available in the lists! But, I'm sure you get the picture.

The next post I will tell about our first two weeks doing Vol. Attentiveness and our co-op that we will have this afternoon!

Arise my soul Arise!