• Place: Central Baptist Church of Hixson (Old Sanctuary), 5208 Hixson Pike, Hixson, TN 37343
• Date: Friday, May 18, 2012
• Schedule
  • 6:00 – 6:50 PM Pictures Taken
  • 7:00 – 7:30 PM Full Banquet Admission (Meal, Drink, & Dessert)
  • 7:30 – 7:55 PM Dessert & Drink Only Admission
  • 7:55 PM Program Starts
• Admissions Policy
  • Minimum age: 13
  • Parents and Family & Friends (13 & over) Welcome
• Admissions Cost: (See reservation info below)
  • $20 for Full Banquet Admission
  • $9 for Dessert & Drink Only Admission
  • No unpaid admissions or payment at the door.
  • Deadline is May 12
  • Make checks payable to “CSTHEA”
    

Reservation Information

There are two options.

Full Banquet Admissions for the complete Meal, Drink, & Dessert are $20 per person, and these reservation holders are expected to arrive between 6 and 7 PM. There will be place cards at the tables to tell you where to sit.

Dessert & Drink Only Admissions can be made for $9 per person. These reservation holders will not be admitted before 7:30 pm. They will be on a list and their names will be checked at the door. Sorry, no reserved seating available for dessert and beverage reservation holders

If you are coming to the banquet for the full meal or for the dessert option, the 13 year old minimum age limit and dress code still apply.

Dress Code

Formal or semi-formal, no low cut, backless or otherwise immodest attire please. Be thoughtful because if you are not dressed appropriately, you may be asked to leave.

Banquet Seating And Requests

Banquet seating will be assigned “first come first served”, so get your payment in early and watch the newsletter or website for details. If both parties specify each other in the seating request, we will try to honor it. We cannot guarantee you will get your seat request, especially if both parties dont specify each other.

Emcee Info

Would you like to emcee the banquet?, We prefer to choose our emcees from the senior class but we are open to having other high-schoolers if no seniors apply. If you are interested in emceeing, we will contact you based on your interest expressed in the Graduation Registration Form.

Performance Information

We encourage everyone who would like to perform at the Banquet to do so. Both group and individual performances are welcome. The more we have the more fun the banquet! You do not have to be a senior to perform Any homeschool student or group of homeschool students may perform as long as they meet the deadline for sending in information, the content is deemed appropriate and is adequately described, time slots are available, and they have a prepaid reservation for the Banquet.

Those performing at the Banquet will still have to get their proposed performance reviewed & approved.

You must send an E-Mail to Mrs. Lynn Smith at tleca1@comcast.net & to Gary Hargraves at gary@csthea.org. The E-Mail must have “Banquet Performance Details” in the Subject Line. The deadline for submissions is May 7, 2012. Please include all of the following:

1. Theme
2. Content
3. Number, name, and current grade level of all individuals involved
4. Duration of performance
5. Name, e-mail, and phone number of contact individual for the proposed performance

Banquet Reservation Form ← Download PDF

A Used Book Sale will be held Saturday, June 9, at the spacious Camp Jordan Arena in East Ridge.

This is a great opportunity for homeschooling entrepreneurs to showcase their products to a large group of people. Young business people (children not yet graduated) will be allowed to set up at the individual price. Come on out, kids, and show us what you can sell.

Mom or dad also sell for no more than the admission price.

Businesses are welcome at the event for a $25 fee.

Saturday, June 9, times

• Sellers 8 a.m.
• Buyers 9 a.m.
• Sale ends at 1 p.m. We must be out of the build- ing by 2 p.m.
• Gary Hargraves will start setup at 7 a.m. Can you or a son volunteer?

Admission for all at door

• Free — children under 17
• $3 per adult
• $5 per couple
• $25 for a business
• Businesses and young entrepreneurs are asked to preregister at exhibitor.reg@csthea.org
• Table and chair rentals
  • No charge if you bring your own,
  • But if you want to rent, the cost is $6 per table and $1 per chair.

Tips for success

Make our book sale and entrepreneur day a memorable event for yourself and your children:

• Sell your own books and products
• Bring plenty of change
• Share a table with a friend; you can take turns shopping
• A map to Camp Jordan is on our web site

Contacts

• Businesses & entrepreneur questions & registration, Jan Bontekoe at exhibitor.reg@csthea.org
• General questions, Lisa Stewart, (423) 476-5520, lisabstewart@gmail.com.

Recently my blog book club has been reading through Russell Kirk’s The Roots of American Order. Many of us were daunted just looking at the 500-page tome, but we have been pleasantly surprised that this conservative classic is also highly readable. To tell the truth, I don’t always get all excited when I hear the word “order.” This in spite of the fact that I have named my blog Ordo Amoris which can be translated ‘the ordering of the affections.”

I think sometimes I think of order as a form of fascism, some great big helper is going to step in and help us order our Christianity, our homeschools and our lives.

While reading this chapter I realized that fascism is a reaction to perceived disorder, not order. If I feel that my homeschool is out of control, because maybe it is out of control, I tend to look for someone — anyone — to tell me what to do. The fact that there are plenty of people out there just waiting to take advantage of my disordered state of mind is natural.

This is why I get passionate about telling moms that they CAN homeschool and they CAN order their own homes and I get frustrated with catalogs and programs that use “order” as a tool of discouragement. When you get your home and school in order, you are better able to judge what kind of outside help you need. In the first chapter, Kirk says that: “Order is the first need of the soul. It is not possible to love what one ought to love, unless we recognize some principles of order by which to govern ourselves.” There it is, the “Ordo Amoris.”

Order is not an instrument of control but rather a tool which helps us have the things we want to have.

Some other helpful quotes from Kirk:

• “Order is the first need of the commonwealth. It is not possible for us to live in peace with one another, unless we recognize some principle of order by which to do justice.”
• “But also we must have permanence in some things, if change is to be improvement. Americans generally retain a respect for their old moral habits and their old political forms, because those habits and forms express their understanding of order. This attachment to certain enduring principles of order has done much to preserve America from the confused and violent change that plagues most modern nations.”
• “Permanence and progression are not enemies, for there can be no improvement except upon a sound foundation, and that foundation cannot endure unless it is progressively renewed.”

Kirk studies four cities to discover the United States’ orderly ‘roots’: Jerusalem, Athens, Rome and London. I like those cities. Each has contributed to the ideas that have had the consequence of creating our government, especially its founding.

In Jerusalem we find “the moral commandments revealed to Moses upon Mount Sinai were broken by the Israelites almost as soon as they were made known; the principles of order reaffirmed by Winthrop were violated by the settlers in New England not long after the landing in Massachusetts. Yet without knowledge of that moral order, the men of ancient Israel and Judah could not have lived in community.” You see even when we fail to fully live up to ideas they still change us and change history.

In Athens we find the Greeks but here we have a twist. Kirk uses this chapter to explain just how and what the colonial Americans knew about the Greeks. Unlike the French, the Americans took the Greek ideals of government with a grain of salt because they were looking for a more lasting Earthly city.

Kirk says that a great deal of what the Americans knew about Ancient Greece came from Plutarch. This is the same Plutarch that you and I can read to our children. Plutarch is preparation for reading Kirk too.

I found this chapter delightfully easy to understand because I was already familiar with the Greek names. Not just Socrates, Plato and Aristotle but Solon and Numa Pompilius. In fact, our family just studied Numa and had noted his political ideals.

Rome, because of its poets captured the moral imagination of the founding fathers. The Roman poets and rhetorician: Livy, Horace, Virgil, Cicero and Cato, promoted the Latin idea of virtue. Interestingly enough this word when translated literally means “energetic manhood.” Isn’t it interesting that today we often tie virtue to feminine qualities rather than masculine ones? This point is one we should ponder in our homeschool, where mom can sometimes interpret right and wrong from a very feminine perspective.

Cindy Rollins is a homeschool mom of 9 children who lives in Hixson and blogs at dominionfamily.blogspot.com. Email Cindy at dominionfamily@gmail.com.

Friday, May 11

• 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. (Gate opens at 10 a.m.)

No advanced registration this year. Just show up at the gate, look for the CSTHEA booth, and pay for your ticket.

$16 a ticket

• Customers must be in line at the CSTHEA gate before 10:30 a.m.
• CASH ONLY
• NO REFUNDS once you enter
• Youth/senior ride passes are $10 for people ages 1 to 2 and 65 and older
• Children under 1 are free.
• Why the 10:30 a.m. deadline? To get group rate, you must be part of the CSTHEA crowd when you enter the gate marked by our name. If you come later, you will pay Lake Winnie’s standard rate.

Picnic shelters are Nos. 5, 6, 7

One volunteer dad needed to help take payment and make change. Contact gary@csthea.org.

Many writers I admire often put together posts or columns that contain a hodgepodge of ideas. Usually I come up with a main idea for this space but I fear my life has been so scattered lately that I am fresh out of main ideas. So I am putting together this editorial and calling it Huzaren Sla after one of my favorite Dutch salads that consists of bits and pieces of meat, fruit, eggs and garden vegetables designed to travel well. The story behind this (you knew there had to be a story, right?) was that Huzaren Sla (salad) originated in the small garrison towns where the Hussars (mounted soldiers) were stationed. But because of the poor quality of the food in the barracks, the average Hussar was anxious to get one of the kitchen maids as a girlfriend — preferably one that served a rich family. After the familys dinner, the Hussar went over to his girlfriends kitchen to charm her into making him a salad out of the leftovers. Here is hoping you find something useful in the following mix of thoughts that I have hastily gathered up from my leftover musings.

• In Tabletalk (my daily devotional book) the current topic is a study of the Heidelberg Catechism. This Catechism contains questions about how the knowledge of doctrine might help us in our everyday lives. Last week the question of how the knowledge of creation and providence help us was discussed. The point was made that this knowledge gives us patience in our trials. “A patient response to suffering does not deny pain’s severity or the difficulty of seeing how the Lord is working for our good in some cases. Instead, patient sufferers acknowledge their troubles honestly before God. They realize that tragedy is not good in and of itself but that God uses it for good. And they continue to believe He is praiseworthy, even when they find it hard to worship Him. “ Furthermore we are told to give thanks in all circumstances. That means we have to believe that God sovereignly decreed those very circumstances, otherwise, how could we thank Him?

• “If the events and creaturely decisions that result in our good occur because God ordained they would occur, we can give Him all the praise and glory . Since the Lord’s sovereign decree is the foundation for everything that ever happens, we can be confident of God’s good purposes as He works all things according to His will (Eph. 1:11)”

• In our homeschool lessons with my middle son, we are reading through Modern Times: The World from the 20s to the 90s by Paul Johnson. This tome weighs in at a hefty 870 pages. We are currently about a third of the way through. As a child I scavenged the local rummage sales to find used history textbooks and I would read them cover to cover. Back then textbooks were still clothed in literary style and were the greatest stories instead of the mash up of facts and splashy eye catching twaddle of many textbooks today. I am really enjoying reading about what really went on in the world during this epoch of history covering the world wars and beyond. As I mentioned in last month’s editorial, I am covering this same period of American History with my youngest son in a history co-op I am teaching for first through third graders. This has given me the opportunity to study it in great depth with my nearly 16 year old son and in a distilled form using living history books with my 9 year old. It is always such a delight to be able to learn right alongside my children. My middle son has so often heard me say as I read Johnson aloud, “Wow, I never knew that!” Here is one choice bit from our reading. “The tragedy of interwar China illustrates the principle that when legitimacy yields to force and moral absolutes to relativism, a great darkness descends and angels become indistinguishable from devils.” (p. 201). This section on the gangs controlling China in the time of Mao and communist warlords read like the script of a gangster movie. It described a period of China history that opens one’s eyes to a world so very foreign to our American sensibilities. But that period was a cake walk compared to the Russian Revolution under Lenin and Stalin. Their dictatorship was so complete that every area of life was under their despotic control, and the intelligentsia of the west swallowed it hook line and sinker seeing as the new utopia. History is a cautionary tale.

• Recently I had a visit from my sister and one of her daughters, a niece who is the same age as my daughter. We have always been close. This niece is in her third year at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. Two years ago I visited her there and surmised this must be the college where all the sixties radicals and hippies send their children. I was appalled at the lack of responsibility, the names of the classes my niece was taking and the emphasis on saving the planet vs. saving one’s soul. After nearly three years at the college her re-education is nearly complete. As we shared a carmelicious brownie at the Blue Ribbon Café in Soddy-Daisy, she informed me she has no need for any spiritual life, at least not one of the orthodox kind.

  She is planning a summer at a Sufi Muslim organic farm called the Abode of the Message. Her boyfriend is a trust fund baby from the D.C. area. His mom worked for the EPA under Carol Browner in the Clinton administration. He now travels all over the world during his breaks rock climbing. Providentially he was in the Chattanooga area the week she was visiting me so we were able to share our family dinner with this supremely self-confident young man who knows exactly how things should be ordered.

  His senior thesis is on how the commonly accepted practice of completing one’s education, then getting a job, finding a wife and settling into marriage and children is all wrong. He does not believe in marriage. He thinks the way men have lived their lives in the western tradition is oppressive, especially to the disadvantaged. Of course he thinks one should have all the benefits of marriage without any of the responsibility and he is practicing this conviction with my niece.

  My husband put it well. “He is a cad.”

  I shudder for what these colleges are doing to the next generation. I can not help but think we must do all we can with God’s grace to equip our children to have a firm understanding of what they believe so that they will be able to strike at the strongholds of the enemy which has raised such towering edifices in the culture. My heart breaks for my niece who is so very lost and does not even recognize it. Hopefully we will stay in touch and God’s truth will be evident at some time in the future to her. That is my prayer.

• I posted on Facebook that I was feeling somewhat smug about the fact that I did not succumb to the Hunger Games books. I must confess that my daughter got me hooked on another wildly popular series which shall remain nameless to protect the guilty. So I have been wary of falling into another trap of sensational fiction even though I am tempted to read just the first book to see what all the fuss is about. I have, however, read a lot about the books, which is my mind is almost as enjoyable as reading the books. My take is that there has to be a better way to encourage our young people with noble and high-minded ideas than a narrative about kids killing kids. I understand the story is well crafted and has much to teach about totalitarian states and reality media. But it reminds me of a short story I was forced to read in high school, The Most Dangerous Game, about a man who slowly realizes that the hunter he just met has decided to hunt the most elusive and cunning of prey: him. I still feel the horror of that realization. The Hunger Games sounds very manipulative to me with impossible situation ethics in the vein of those popular lifeboat scenarios in high school social studies class. You know the one where you have only so much room in the lifeboat and you have to decide which person in the group is worthy of a spot and which is not. Horrid stuff which often forces one to jettison God’s truth in favor of pragmatics. That is never a good idea.

I am thinking there may be a theme in all of these bits and pieces of my Dutch salad of an editorial after all. Theology matters. What you believe or refuse to believe plays out in your actions. Your specific beliefs about God affect how you respond to circumstances in your life, whether or not you can offer heartfelt thanks, knowing that hard thing is from the hand of a loving Father God. A through study of history shows what happens when man rejects God and opens himself up to false doctrines. When universities no longer teach God’s truths, our young people will come up with a new truth, one that is more convenient, more earth friendly but will lead to a dangerous place where there is no sure foundation. When we are willing to accept premises in what we read that give no place to God and his commandments, we think we have to make impossible choices, and excuse one evil to prevent a worse evil. Let us arm ourselves and our children with God’s truth so that in the evil day, they can raise that standard with great confidence.

—JMT

Masquerade ball

• April 13, 2012
• 6:30-10:30 pm
• Where: Bessie Smith Hall, 200 East Martin Luther King Blvd., Chattanooga, TN 37421

“If you show too much skin, you won’t get in”

For more information, contact Theresa Jones tteachathome@yahoo.com

• Cost is $25 at the door
• Dress code guidelines for girls:
  • No shorter than 3 inches above the knee.
  • No cleavage, abdomen or lower back exposed.
• For men:
  • Tuxedo, suit and tie or sport coat and tie.
  • Formal or semi-formal attire only, please.

We reserve the right to deny entrance to anyone not meeting dress criteria or who declines to sign conduct agreement.

Tucker photography will be there for pictures. Will take cash or checks.

I once read a book that answered the question of what to do about sibling rivalry with the answer, “Do not allow it.” That was super discouraging because I didn’t ‘allow’ it but there it was. You try rearing eight sons out in the country while being pregnant or nursing most of the time.

Sometimes the boys acted exactly like a cross between the Pontipees (that wild family of brothers from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) and the crazy shoot-‘em-up Tennessee York brothers of Sgt. Alvin York fame.

Let us just say that at times bones were broken but since the boys were not tattletales, doctors were not called.

One famous incident occurred during a friendly, brotherly campfire. The boys were sitting around grilling a deer carcass after a hunting trip. They were literally cutting off hunks of carcass, putting it on sticks and grilling it. Periodically, they would come in the house and beg me to ‘just try it.”

You can see how I became impervious (save that word, you will need it later.) Suddenly, randomly during the cheery scene one brother jumped up walked over to another unsuspecting brother and punched him in the jaw yelling, “I can’t support your social life any longer.” I guess chawing on fresh deer had made him brave.

Apparently there was a lot more punching than that going on over the years but once I put on my imperviousness I didn’t notice.

The answer to the question what to do about sibling rivalry is the same as the answer as to what to do about toddlers. The answer in algebra is Prime. It cannot be factored. It does not have a rational answer. What is also not rational is trying to teach little poems such as this one:

Love between brothers and sisters

Whatever brawls disturb the street,
There should be peace at home;
Where sisters dwell and brothers meet
Quarrels should never come.

Birds in their little nests agree;
And ’tis a shameful sight,
When children of one family
Fall out, and chide, and fight.

Hard names at first, and threat’ning words
That are but noisy breath,
May grow to clubs and naked swords,
To murder and to death.

The devil tempts one mother’s son
To rage against another:
So wicked Cain was hurried on,
Till he had kill’d his brother.

The wise will let their anger cool,
At least before ’tis night;
But in the bosom of a fool
It burns till morning light.

Pardon, O Lord, our childish rage,
Our little brawls remove,
That, as we grow to riper age,
Our hearts may all be love!

Most boys will not appreciate the line about ‘birds in their little nests’ nor ‘our little brawls remove’ and they might even begin to admire Cain when pitched up against such dreadful sweetness. But moms, including me, love this poem and before we become impervious we hope that it will do some good especially if we can recite the verse about ‘wicked Cain’ with sufficient malice in our voices imagining that we are quite scaring the rivalry out of the siblings.

I don’t have the answer to sibling rivalry except maybe to not have siblings but since that is a little extreme I will give you a few things that might help:

• Don’t stress over it too much. It happens.
• Make each of your children feel as if they were an only child not a group. I have 9 favorite children and truthfully, I really do.
• Spanking is always more effective than spiritualizing. Don’t ask me what I mean by that. I don’t have time to answer.
• Become impervious.
• Don’t notice every little infraction of rivalry. Let them work it out.
• Watch out for bullies. In the above bonfire scene the punching brother was not being a bully.

Bonus Extravaganza Tip:

• Finally, when disciplining do not ask each person what the other person did wrong or to tell their side of the story. There goeth madness. Ask each child what THEY did wrong in the situation. And that is a very good tip, if I may so myself.

Cindy Rollins is a homeschool mom of 9 children who lives in Hixson and blogs at http://dominionfamily.blogspot.com/. Email Cindy at dominionfamily@gmail.com.

It’s been said that “history teaches us that mankind learns nothing from history,” and while this may often be the case, it does not have to be so. In the history of every individual, family, organization or nation, there are crossroads at which remembrance of the past is critical to protecting the future. Scripture speaks to this truth in Deuteronomy 6. The book of Deuteronomy records the instruction of Moses, the leader of the Israelite nation, at a pivotal point in Israel’s history. The Israelites had been wandering in the desert for forty years and the new generation was about to cross over the Jordan River to enter the land that God had promised to them, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In Chapter 6, Moses speaks these wellknown words to the people:

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

This passage captures what I believe was at the heart of the return to home education movement when our family began homeschooling in 1984. I say return to home education because before the industrial revolution in America — when public education became the norm, home education was the predominant method used to train children in this country.

Edge of legality

Even before we were married, my wife and I had been convicted by the Holy Spirit that we were called to live out our faith before our children on a daily basis, and that our children’s education was our God-ordained privilege and responsibility. We viewed the education process as a part of everyday life and character development. And so our family ventured into what at the time were the mostly uncharted waters of modern-day homeschooling.

In those early years, we lived on the edge of legality as battles were waged in the state legislature of Tennessee and other states that set the boundaries for what was and was not legal regarding a parent’s right to educate at home. It quickly became apparent that we needed protection from the potential threat of intervening authorities, such as truant officers and social workers. We also lived on the edge of social acceptability as family, friends and neighbors questioned us about whether our children would be properly socialized and/or adequately educated. It was obvious that we needed encouragement and support and we were attracted to other families who shared our heartfelt desire to home educate our children. We homeschoolers had the real sense that if we did not “hang together,” we would all hang separately. It was out of this environment that the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), the Tennessee Home Education Association (THEA), and the Smoky Mountain Home Education Association (SMHEA) were born.

As homeschooling developed and proved its merit, it gradually became more and more acceptable and even favorable in the eyes of the general populace, so much so that we now have a new law in Tennessee that is quite supportive of home education. We no longer have to fear a knock on the door from a truancy officer questioning us about violating mandatory attendance laws or from a social service worker asking about whether or not we are abusing our children. We can safely and legally teach our children in our own homes with a minimum of interference. And we are glad that this is so.

Taking blessings for granted

But herein lurks danger – one that Scripture also addresses in the verses immediately following the passage previously noted. The Holy Spirit, through Moses, warns the people of a day when their blessing would be taken for granted:

“Then it shall come about when the LORD your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, then watch yourself, that you do not forget the LORD who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

This passage has always sobered me, because I recognize that my situation is exactly this. I live in a great and splendid city that I did not build. I live in a house full of good things that I did not make with my own hands. I drink from water supplies that I did not create. I eat rich foods from fields and trees that I neither planted nor harvested. I am satisfied beyond my need. The very real danger for me at this point is that I will think to myself, “Man, I have it made. I don’t need anything and I’m not dependent on anybody!” The natural man in you and me is prone to forget that it is the Lord who has provided these blessings, that others have labored and sacrificed so that we may dwell securely, and that we are always dependent on one another for our true wellbeing. I realize that my “natural” tendency is to take these things for granted, to lazily enjoy the fruits of the labors of others, to become increasingly self-absorbed, and to let “someone else” do the work of maintenance and upkeep that is always necessary to preserve that which I have inherited and to which I have become accustomed.

This is a danger that is real, not only for us as individuals, but also for us collectively —as a movement and as people. And because the Lord knows our hearts in ways we do not, He graciously warns us well when He warned the Israelite nation of this danger even as they were preparing to go into the land of promise. This is a danger that the home education movement is just beginning to face as well. Because we now have wider freedom and more latitude to operate independently, our natural tendency will be to do precisely that: Be independent of one another.

This tendency will be compounded by the fact that, as a general characteristic, home educators are a rather independent lot anyway. Furthermore, because there is no clear and present danger, nor common peril, we do not sense the same urgent need for mutual protection and support that we felt in the pioneering days of the homeschooling movement.

We have begun to live in a house that some of us didn’t build, drink from a well that some of us didn’t dig, and eat from a vine that some of us didn’t plant. Thus, we are in danger of forgetting that the victory that the Lord has given came at a cost and that in order to preserve and further these freedoms we have inherited, we must continue to be diligent in our support and encouragement of one another in the broader homeschooling community.

Downside of independency

It is easy for us to take for granted the freedoms we enjoy in teaching our children at home. It is now easier for us to become increasingly isolated and to only be concerned about our immediate families. It is easy for us to let “someone else” lead a support group, coordinate a science fair, plan a field trip for a group, work on a graduation committee or be a resource for someone who is just beginning to homeschool. It is all too easy to lose sight of the big picture that there are others who need our experience, support, and encouragement so that they know that they are not alone in their efforts to make a difference as they raise the next generation.

As one who remembers firsthand the struggles and commensurate joys and fellowship of the early days of home education, I also realize, thanks to the warning of the Lord, that I must diligently bring to mind and recall the past to overcome my natural tendency toward independence and isolation. I must not become lazy and self-absorbed, but rather be vigilant and selfsacrificing in working hard to preserve what is and to cultivate what can be so that these blessings will remain for future generations to enjoy.

Likewise, all of us who are seasoned home educators have come to a crossroads in our movement’s history. If we fail to remember how we arrived at this place, what we have today may easily be lost over time as the fabric of the home education community weakens and we become increasingly vulnerable.

There are still threats to our freedom lurking, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the ratification of which could quickly undermine our freedoms. Yet, if we choose to remember our past and continue to work diligently against becoming self-absorbed and independent of one another, then we have hope that the freedoms we have today will be preserved into the future for as long as we protect what we have inherited.

The bottom line is this: As in the formative years, we must actively work together for the greater good and encourage one another across the spectrum of the homeschooling community to maintain vigilance in preserving our freedoms. We must continue to serve one another and to volunteer in the giving of our time, effort and energy to enrich and support the home education experience of ourselves and others.

This continues to be the work of the Tennessee Home Education Association and the Smoky Mountain Home Education Association. May we all faithfully participate in protecting the future by remembering our past.

Rich and Ruth Melton live in Knoxville and homeschooled all five of their children, four of whom have graduated. Rich Is pastor/teacher at Christ Chapel, treasurer of Smoky Mountain Home Education Association, a chapter of THEA.

“Let him (the student), on the contrary, linger pleasantly over the history of a single man, a short period, until he thinks the thoughts of that man, is at home in the ways of that period. Though he is reading and thinking of the lifetime of a single man, he is really getting intimately acquainted with the history of a whole nation for a whole age.” Vol. 1 p 281.

I fear that our students may be somewhat spoiled by fast paced lessons in multi-media format. To “linger pleasantly” is a foreign idea and has met with some resistance in my early elementary aged students. But I forge on nonetheless and cheerfully ignore their protestations!

My middle son is also studying the same period of history and I am listening to his high school lectures on CD. A recent one was on Theodore Roosevelt. So I have been immersed in his life. I have read or skimmed at least 4 books on him in the past weeks.

That may be why I was so taken last month with Downton Abbey as it too fit right into this period of history, at least that is what I tell myself in an attempt to redeem the hours spent watching and reading about this fabulous period drama!

But I digress — back to T.R.What impresses me about Theodore Roosevelt was his determination to be the best he could be despite some limitations.

As a boy he was thin, asthmatic, weak but his father had a talk with him that went like this. Keep in mind his father was a very strong Christian of the Dutch reformed tradition.

“ ‘Theodore, you have the mind but you have not the body. And without the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. You must make your body. It is hard drudgery to make one’s body but I know you will do it.’

“His mother later remembered his son’s reaction was the half grin, half snarl which later became world famous. Jerking his head back, Teedie set his jaw and replied, ‘I’ll make my body. By heaven I will.’ ” (page 30 of Carry A Big Stick by George Grant)

God gives all of us some limitations such as physical strength, size, health, intellect money, time, talents.

We can do our best to compensate for limitations. We can put ourselves on any number of self-improvement programs. Many times we can improve, we can work on our weaknesses. But sometimes our weaknesses remain and in that is another lesson.

For He also gives us His grace and lets us know that He has a plan for our lives. What always encourages me is that His plan takes into account our limitations. The fact that we can simply not do some things is no surprise to God. He can give us the means to improve some things about ourselves – Teddy’s dad built him a little gymnasium off his bedroom on an enclosed patio and encouraged him to get stronger. He also learned judo and became a college champion in boxing. This ability stood him in good stead as an adult when he was attacked by hired goons. As a young state legislator he had the audacity to try to institute reforms to break the political machine in Albany. His ability to fight off his attackers made him a very popular figure. After a family tragedy, he went out West to make a man out of himself in the wilds of God’s creation where he felt right at home due to his childhood interest in the natural world. Here he was able to live out his ideal of the strenuous life.

Here is a quote from the Kingsmeadow Modernity Curriculum lecture series:

“He had asthma the rest of his life, yet while campaigning in Milwaukee, an assassin shot him in the chest at point blank range. It knocked Teddy over, but he fought off his handlers and the police escort around him and said, “Bring that man to me.” So they brought this trembling guy to him, the smoking gun still on the ground, and Roosevelt said, “Is that really your best shot?” Then they were ready to take Teddy to the hospital, but he insisted on making his speech first. So he went in and with a rasping voice told his audience that he’d just been shot. They thought he was kidding until they saw the blood begin to expand. His speech notes were pierced with the bullet hole. His glasses were broken, but he spoke for an hour and a half. Then he went to the doctor where the physician said he’d never seen a human specimen quite like that. He had worked so hard all his life to overcome his natural limitations.”

God has a place for you in building His kingdom here on earth and He already knows limitations. Furthermore He knows how all this will fit into His plan for getting us where He wants us to be.

His Word assures us of His sovereignty in the details: the strengths and the weaknesses.

Jer. 29:11- 14 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

II Cor. 12:9 – 11 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Psalm 139:16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

Rom. 5:3-6 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

Eph. 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

It is so easy to let the limitations in our lives be a constant source of frustration. Of course we should try to change or improve what we are able, with God’s help. But take heart for He knows our frame, all our circumstances and will weave it all together in a tapestry for His glory.

I encourage you all to take the time to linger pleasantly in your lessons. There is so much that we and our children have to learn.

—JMT