The Autodidact

So here we are, on the last day of another year, and everyone is abuzz over what to do. We have to find just the right activity or party to attend (or host) with just the right people, because it's the last night of the year and it has to be special. Of course, one could argue the same for the following day; it's the first day of the new year, and we should find just the right party and just the right people to celebrate with, right? But what if, instead of celebrating because it's the last day or the first day of the year, we lived our days as if each one were our last? Maybe it's the last day we will see our friends or family members, or maybe it is the last day we will walk this earth. Not to be morbid, and expect to die any minute, but we do not know the number of our days, or those of our loved ones. What would the world be like if, instead of waiting for the big party at the end of the year, we chose to live and love everyday, as it if were the last? Not that we h...

     Most parents would readily admit they love their children and like them as well, as if they are the same thing. But I wonder. I think loving and liking are two different things, requiring two different skill sets, and may even be mutually exclusive at times.      Now, when I say 'love', I don't mean all that gushy stuff I felt when I gazed at my precious newborns, or my cute-as-a-button 2 year-old, or my precocious 5 year-old. No, I don't mean feelings when I speak of love, (sometimes they can be a hindrance, such as trying to love a porcupine-type of teenager, or a temper tantrum throwing toddler) but they can be helpful. I mean love as an action: purposeful action to benefit another person, regardless of anything received in return. A love shown regardless of feelings. Sometimes love in action, for parents, may mean doing something nice for their kids, or it may be discipline, or even a punishment, but it is always done with the best interest of th...

It's Christmas Eve again, and we just got back from church. All the way home I thought about how we mark time by Christmas. Although we also mark time with birthdays and anniversaries, no other time of year seems to be as much of a benchmark as Christmas. We delineate time as BC (before Christ) or AD (the year of our Lord), both recognizing that God Himself came into our world at a certain point in history, forever separating time. Even the politically correct B.C.E and C.E. are numerically equivalent to BC and AD. With all the 'war on Christmas' talk floating around and businesses and municipalities trying to not offend the Christians and the non-Christians, torn between wishing us all 'Merry Christmas' or 'Happy Holidays', I decided on the way home from church tonight that it really didn't matter. Christ is the reason for Christmas, whether the culture says so or not. As I reflected on the beauty of the candlelight and the image of my children raising...

I'm sitting near the Christmas tree, and the rest of the house is asleep and only the lights on the tree bathe the room. The rain is pouring, pouring in torrents. It's almost Christmas and the rain keeps coming and I think on how God has poured out blessing and mercy on me even when I didn't notice. Poured it on whether I deserved it or not, whether I thanked Him or not. The blessings keep coming even when all I see is trial and tedium and more work than I can ever tackle. Days when all I see are children misbehaving and fighting and crying and struggling to make the right choices. Days when I want to cry at the sight of 5 loads of laundry and a messy house and dinner to fix and sick children to care for. But now, it's almost midnight, and it's pouring rain and I remember a toddler climbing into my lap and telling me she loves me, a teenager mentioning that he had an opportunity to pray with his teammates before a swim meet, a young woman coming home from Christmas ...

Merry Christmas from the Marinos! Just a quick update on the kids: Ellie, 2, feels that Legos and rocks help make a well balanced diet. She loves purses, pretty dresses, and painting her face with lipstick. Overnight, she has changed from a baby to a little girl! Natty, 5, learned to ride a two wheeler and how to swim this summer. He wants to be Thor when he grows up. He spends much of his time playing chess with his dad, drawing and getting into trouble. Edith, 8, is writing her first novel. But when she's not working on that, she is reading, drawing, helping me with housework and the younger two kids, and growing up (too quickly). Jared, 10, wants to be an inventor or an engineer. He says he needs a laboratory stocked with electrical stuff, various liquids and some tools. When he is not daydreaming, he is drawing, reading and building space ships out of Legos.  Yep, I'm having a lot of fun with these younger kids... Margie, 13, started hig...

Who would you die for? Your spouse or kids? Maybe a sibling or your parents? Someone you love, for sure, right? But what if you were asked to die for someone who hated you, mocked and reviled your very name? What if you were asked to die for someone who wished you didn't even exist? I don't know about you, but I would not be willing to die for someone like that.                                 **** The Christmas season is in full swing at our house; the tree is up, cookies will be baked this weekend, presents are hidden away, the children eagerly open a new window in the advent calendar every evening. But many people dread this time of year. So much work and effort, so much money and time spent, and for what? A big mess to clean up, kids on a sugar high from all those cookies, and nothing but an endless, dark winter ahead and a feeling of emptiness and post-holiday let-down. Bleh. **** How would yo...

     Lately, I have read that telling little girls they are pretty is harmful to their self esteem. They will grow up, the theory goes, to think that their looks are all that matter, and their brains and capabilities are secondary or even useless. We should only compliment them on how smart they are and how capable and talented they are. We should only have intellectual discussions with them, lest they start dieting at age six, become totally self absorbed with how they look, and despair at ever measuring up to what society says they should look like. There seems to be far too many girls suffering from being told they are pretty and not being told they are smart. In one article I read, the author meets a lovely little girl and wants to tell her how cute she is, but squelches that impulse and launches into a discussion about books with the new little reader.      Is it wrong to tell girls they are pretty? Of course not! I took an informal poll at my house w...

                                                                   HAPPY THANKSGIVING! We wish you all a quiet, peaceful day as we all pause to give thanks for all the blessings in our lives, be they big or small. We are thankful for good health and a home; for God providing all we need and want; for family and friends; and for Christ. We are enjoying having Jay home for the week and a large amount of snow! We love you all- Jay, Katie, and the kids

A disturbing trend lately, or maybe I am just noticing, is the use of foul language in formal writing. I am starting to see it in the newspaper and in online articles more and more. Just today, I read a very articulate, engaging article written by a recent graduate of a Montessori school. Apparently, formal writing was not stressed enough during his high school career. Early on in his article he resorted to a tasteless word, instead of something more lofty. I mean, there must be hundreds (OK,tens) of words that you could substitute for "stuff!" Kids swear. I get that. They are trying out "new" and "cool" sounding words to add to their vocabulary to see what works for them. They think it makes them look hip and cutting-edge. But all it really does is make them look uneducated and vulgar. I usually stop reading an article after the first or second swear word because I can't concentrate on what the author is really trying to say. I am sidetracked by thei...

     I have a long list of things to do today, as usual, but as I rushed down the stairs, the 2 year old stopped me. "Mommy, I want to hold you. Let's sit in the rocket (rocking chair)." I groaned inwardly at this delay, but her sweet face was too much to resist. So we snuggled into the rocking recliner and proceeded to rock.  "Louder, Mommy, louder." She wanted me to rock fast enough so she could hear the squeak of the chair. Curled up tight in my lap, she rested her head on my chest and we whiled away the minutes. Crumbs on the breakfast table and the living room a mess; but who cared? Dishes in the sink and school needing to be started; but what of it?      That chair has about a million miles on it. We bought that chair when we had our first baby, and it has always been the nursing chair when there was a newborn in the house. It's the chair I used to soothe fussy children; I have slept in the chair many a long night with a new baby.  It's sti...

     Lately, I have been giving much thought to our prison system in general, and the lives of ex-offenders in particular. I didn't really seek out to gain knowledge about this topic as much as it sought me out. A book entitled "Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline" edited by Sophia Bahena et al kept popping up in articles so I checked it out of the library. I had never heard of such a pipeline and I wanted to know more. Then, a friend recommended I read "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander, a book that deals with our current prison system and the lives of ex-offenders. I'm not going to give a book review or a re-cap, but I do recommend both books, and that they be read together. However, I will say that before I read these two books, I gave little thought to ex-offenders and what their lives are like: shut out of opportunities because of their record, they never really stop repaying their debt to society. Ineligible to vote, unwanted by most employe...

Grow Old Let's grow old together, eyes pleading with mine. Let's grow old and not mind the time. Take my hand, come with me; Locked in your heart, throw away the key.  How long the journey would be, none could say. Where will this go? Will we love like we do today? Grow old with me,  hands tugging at mine. Let's cling to each other, and our hearts be twined. Take my name, take my all.  Love I give you freely, for you I have been called. We could not see: Tears, heartaches, joys and mystery that love can be. Growing old, growing grey, hearts full.  Time slips by, not enough days. Let's grow old together, until our time is done. Stay with me, and we will be one. For my husband, who has given me 21 years (and counting) of his life and love.

      It's been pouring rain all day and getting progressively colder and we're all home. It was a busy morning with cleaning and shopping and serious talks with some of the kids. But the day has slowed down. Dinner is in the oven, fresh bread is cooling on the counter. Music on the stereo, the 18 year-old reading by the fire. The other 2 teenagers are playing Monopoly at the kitchen table, while the 10 and 8 year-olds are playing in the basement. Jay is playing Stratego with the 5 and 2 year-olds while he tends to dinner. I'm walking through the house, taking this all in and I had to stop and breathe. Breathe it all in.      This life is hard and easy at the same time; sweet and bitter, rewarding and frustrating. Some days are downright unpleasant and I feel like crying or screaming. I spend a lot of time wondering if I am doing anything worth remembering. Am I doing the righ t thing? How will my life and decisions affect my kids? Too much time spent in ...

She was a scrawny, skinny little girl with white-blonde hair in need of a good brushing. I met her one summer afternoon when our church van pulled into the Kentucky holler where her house was. She ran out of the house with a bunch of other children, all blonde, all curious to see us city folks. We had come to clean up and repair and paint her house, and it was in sore need of more than that, but we only had a week to do the most basic work. Some of us worked on the roof, some repaired the steps up into the house;  a few floorboards needed replacing and I was on the paint crew. Poverty has a distinct smell. It's hard to describe: sewage, mold, unwashed bodies, mixed in with despair and hopelessness. I had never smelled anything like it before, but I knew instantly that it was the smell of poverty. It hung around and in the house on on its inhabitants. It got in my nose and my clothes and hung on me for a time after my week was over. But the little girl, for her tangled unwashed ha...

     About 7 months ago, we decided that our three teenagers needed their own rooms. With only 4 bedrooms, though, we had to get creative. The 18 year-old and the 13 year-old have their own bedrooms upstairs, and the 16 year-old has a man cave in the basement. That left one room for the younger 4 kids. Thankfully, I have several sets of bunk beds!      I like to go in their room and just sit with them while they play. Sometimes, I'm with just the baby, playing dollies or horses, or reading to her before bedtime. Or, other times, I am with the 4 year-old playing soldiers or pirates. The 8 year-old likes to do hair and organize the room and the 10 year-old likes to draw or read or play with his 4 year-old brother. Sometimes they are all together. Sometimes it's quiet, but sometimes it gets rowdy: pillow fights and toys thrown at the whirling ceiling fan to see where they land, and bunk beds turned into sailing ships or forts.  At night, they like to lis...

Yesterday my littlest boy turned five. He had breakfast with dad, opened his presents and spent the entire day happily playing with them. Of course, he had to take a break to allow his sisters to give him kisses. He was so excited about his birthday cake because it was decorated by his 10 year old brother. It was complete with a castle, a fire-breathing dragon, and a hero on horseback fighting the dragon. The only casualty was when the dragon caught fire. Happy Birthday Nathanael! You are such a fun kid.

     Since I injured my back a few months ago, I have relied on my kids a lot for help with housework and grocery shopping. I normally shop alone, undisturbed and undistracted, enjoying a bit of freedom. But starting about 6 weeks ago, when I was finally able to even go to the store, the little ones have tagged along. It's really become the highlight of my week: they load up the cart, unload it at the cash register, bag up the groceries and load up the car and unload it at home. They chatter and ask questions and work happily and diligently, for which they are rewarded with a big snack at home. We talk and laugh, they look at all the food in the cart with joy, we have fun. Without fail, someone stops me and comments on how sweet and well behaved my children are and I simply thank them, not wanting to spoil the moment by revealing they are not always so well-mannered.      But the more this happens, the more I wonder: why are people stopping me in the stor...

Last night, my husband's cousin came by to bring an old manual camera for my oldest daughter to play around with. You remember those, right? The ones you have to put film in. Not only does my daughter like to take pictures, but she wants to learn how to make all those adjustments herself in order to appreciate all that a digital camera does automatically. After our visitor left, my husband went into his workshop and brought up his dad's camera, and old Nikkon, for my daughter to look at. He opened the wooden case, and the entire downstairs was flooded with the smell of his dad's cigars, and I was immediately transported in back in time. The day was cold and a heavy snow began falling late morning and into the afternoon. I was two weeks away from giving birth to our third child and enjoying a quiet afternoon, snug and safe in my home, unaware of the horror playing out in another part of town. The phone rang. "Good," I thought. "the kids are still asleep and ...

I've been taking my kids for walks for years now, and I never tire of it. We've walked through neighborhoods and parks and stopped at numerous playgrounds. I listen to them talk as I take in the fresh air and scenery. "Mommy, can I have a doughnut for dessert after lunch?"  "Mom, I want to be an engineer or an artist or a photographer when I grow up."  "Mommy, look at these cool acorns!" "Mama, wait for me!" Their words and questions, mingle with the breezes and sounds of birds and cars and lawnmowers. They collect sticks and leaves, feathers and nuts and pine cones: treasures, all. I'm always refreshed after these outings; it's really hard to get frustrated or feel overwhelmed during these walks. No one ever comes back to the house grumpy. They flock around me, run ahead, wait for me to catch up.  I reach my hand out, and without fail, a small hand slips into mine. Today was such a day, one of many, but too few left. ...

The other day I picked all the apples that were on our little apple tree. They weren't perfect specimens, as you can see, but they were sweet and begging to be put in a pie. See the 'J' in the middle of the pie? That's for my husband, who planted the apple tree. Apple pie is one of his favorites, and though I don't like apple pie, I am happy to make it for him. The kids enjoyed it too, of course. Here's the recipe: 6 or 7 apples, cored and sliced thin. No need to peel. 1 cup sugar (I used a combination of Sucanat, stevia, sugar and xylitol, but use what you have) 2 tablespoons flour 1 teaspoon cinnamon dash each of cloves and nutmeg 5 pats of butter Mix the apples with the other ingredients except the butter. Pour into a pie crust and place the butter on top. Top with a second pie crust, and poke holes or make a pattern in the top crust. Bake at 400 for 45 minutes or so. You can brush the top crust with egg white ...

It was a rough night for me. The 4 year old had a bloody nose and woke us up for help. Then he was scared of his own room so we let him get in our bed, and he couldn't settle down right away, then his nose started up after I was asleep for a while: the night seemed to never end. I'm too old for nights of interrupted sleep, I told myself at 7 this morning. Maybe I'll just sleep in and start school later. Mornings like this I wish they could just march off to the local school and I could go back to bed. But no. So I got the day rolling, breakfast served and cleaned up, teeth brushed and beds made and school books (and students) at the table on time. I think I may have dozed off a couple of times, but we plugged away. We didn't have quite enough time to start anything else before lunch, as I had hoped, since Latin lessons went longer than usual. And then it happened. A question from the 8 year old: "Why do we study Latin grammar, and not just the words and how to sp...

A whole week all to myself. It passed much more quickly than I expected. Some reflections: Oddly, when the house was empty, I found it a bit harder to breathe than when it's full. I could hear the mantle clock ticking and chiming, the dog snoring, birds singing and cars from far away. I could even hear myself think. As much as I enjoy the hustle and noise of 7 kids, I really  enjoy quiet surroundings. I have more friends than I realized; I spent time with several of them over a meal or on the phone. I love my house, but with everyone gone, that's all it is. Home really is where the heart is, and mine was with my husband and kids all week. Reading C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man  was easier to understand without interruptions or any responsibilities distracting me. Not being touched or hugged for a week felt weird. It made me wonder how many people in this world go through much of their lives without touching or being touched. It was fun to be able to come a...

My family left at 5:09 am yesterday. I watched them drive off in the dark morning, feeling as though parts of my body were being torn from me. I had not slept much the night before, but I could not sleep after they left; weary and bereft, I could not get out of bed. I couldn't eat anything until dinner. I spent the day keeping busy, but longing with all of my heart to be with my family. My back injury was just not healed quite enough for me to join them and I was left behind in an empty house. The next day was better; a good night's sleep did a world of good. I have been busy today too, and feeling more like myself, but I am thinking of them almost all the time. My life is wrapped up in eight people, living with them, loving them, taking care of them. This house, as nice as it is, is really not much of a home without them. And it got me to thinking about my heavenly home as well, and how I do long to be there. But am I longing to be there as much as I long to be with my husba...