Posted by Wilcox on 11/28/2013
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Homeschooling
E-mails, texts, Twitter, Facebook posts, and a multitude of other
social media options have all but eliminated an honorable, old-fashioned
form of writing: the handwritten thank you note. Or maybe we have just
become a nation of ungrateful, lazy people. There is something so
satisfying about writing a thank you note—rehearsing the things (whether
items or character qualities) for which one is thankful, thinking
through the best way to express one’s gratitude, and then hearing the
scratch of the pen on the card-stock as those thoughts pour forth. Yet,
how easy it is to get distracted by other duties, find other activities
to occupy us, and simply neglect this method of giving thanks. Shame on
us!
Posted by Wilcox on 11/25/2013
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Homeschooling
Kirk Cameron’s Monumental: In Search of America’s National Treasure
is our movie pick of the month. It is a documentary production, tracing
America’s history from the Pilgrims through the Founding Fathers, and
onto aspects of America’s decline in the 21st Century.
Cameron interviews experts from Scrooby, Leiden, Plymouth, and Boston.
He asks these experts why America succeeded as a nation of liberty and
prosperity in its formative years, and what has been lost in recent
years that has weakened her foundation so dramatically. Mr. Cameron’s
style is relaxed and informal, but his awe as he learns from each
historian is genuine and contagious. The experts’ proof of revisionism
in modern history texts is also very revealing.
Posted by Wilcox on 11/19/2013
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Homeschooling
2013 has been a year of uncertainty and unknowns for our family. We
have been seeking God’s will regarding full-time ministry, believing God
is calling Kris (the dad/husband of our clan) into church work of some
nature. For over a year now, we have been waiting for God’s direction to
be made plain to us. We sometimes feel like we’re getting indicators of
which way He is leading, but moments later we find ourselves back to
“Start” without passing “Go” and without collecting two hundred dollars.
We feel like God has started our sentence (the written kind, not the
prison kind), but He hasn’t placed the period. In fact, He keeps adding
lessons and truths for us to learn—parentheses within the sentence, if
you will. It’s living in the parenthesis (waiting for the period) that
is so humbling and exhausting.
Posted by Administrator on 11/18/2013
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Homeschooling
Our God is a God of music…and music appreciation. He ordained Jubal, one
of Cain’s great-great-great-great-grandsons, to be the “father of all
those who play the harp and flute” (Gen. 4:21). God gifted Moses, David,
Asaph, and others to write psalms and music for His glory and our
edification. Zephaniah proclaims our God is a singing God
(Zeph. 3:17). And we know Jesus sang with His disciples at the Passover
feast before going out to the Mount of Olives (Matt. 26:30). Bible
scholar Warren Wiersbie points out that Jesus also sang after His
triumphant resurrection from the dead (Ps. 22:22 and Heb. 2:12).
Moreover, today the Holy Spirit sings through the hearts and lips of
believers who praise God (Eph. 5:18-21).
Posted by Wilcox on 11/4/2013
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Critical Thinking
I will confess that there are times that I fall asleep during a movie….Okay, I will confess that most
of the time I fall asleep when I’m attempting to watch a movie.
Basically, if you let me sit down on a comfortable couch, in a quieted,
darkened room for any length of time, my breathing will change to
snoring in a matter of moments. So, I find myself awakening as the
closing credits are scrolling up the screen and I’ll ask, “Was it a good
movie?” Then I’ll politely listen to each child’s position on the
film’s merits or failures, and try to form some concept of how the film
handled its presentation of life. While it’s admirable that I want to
have a discussion with my children about what they just watched, I
really need to stay alert through the whole film so that I can interact
with them more than just a nodding of my head or a random “Oh?” So, I’ll
work on increasing my caffeine levels before family movie nights. More
importantly, however, I need to return to a series of questions that I
used when I was in college and was required to read some
less-than-stellar works of literature for my English education degree.
