Adventures in Parenting

Today on the bus Elisabeth and I composed a story called Funny Frank following on the genre of Curious George.  As she made up the story, I realized just how fun and important it is to create stories and poetry together regularly. It encourages a creative use of language that doesn't otherwise happen.

No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own case the service due to his neighbor; nor has any man a right to be so immersed in active life as to neglect the contemplations of God (Augustine City of God p698)

Seth Bodin has written a very interesting article on creating stories that concludes with these words:

Start with the truth. Identify the worldview of the people you need to reach. Describe the truth through their worldview. That's your story. When you overreach, you always fail. Not today, but sooner or later, the truth wins out. Negative or positive, the challenge isn't just to tell the truth. It's to tell truth that resonates.

The challenge is not just to tell it slant, but to identify and understand the worldview of your audience. Yet I would go farther than Seth to say that great communicators not only know the worldview of their audience and speak the local dialect; they also know how to ask the questions that expose the worldview. They speak in a way that resonates with the worldview and in a way that exposes the dissonance of that worldview and calls for change.

And that is precisely the challenge that I feel on a daily basis.

Over the past week, I have been bringing our little size 1 soccer ball to the park every day when we go out to play. Over the week I have seen a dramatic improvement in Elisabeth's coordination and skills.

I shouldn't be surprised, because I know just how important nurture is in the development of age-appropriate skills, but it still amazed me how frequent practice advances development.

Elisabeth has a Monday morning music play date with several friends, guided by a friend's mom who is a music educator. In just a few weeks, I have watched Elisabeth come to consistently recognize a steady beat, and describe pitches as higher and lower.

Those experiences have been a telling reminder of how potent opportunity is at this stage of development: consistent opportunities to practice a skill foster normal (rapid) development.

This morning I was talking with a friend about the vision of tumblon, and the role of literature. Then I happened upon this passage from Honey for a Child's Heart:

"Good literature teaches more than we know. Example always speaks louder than precept, and books can do more to inspire honor and tenacity of purpose than all the chiding and exhortations in the world." (p53)

It is no wonder that I return to Honey again and again.

I picked up Augustine's City of God yesterday and came across a passage that I share on my old blog, which is worthy of being shared here as well:

But those who are true fathers of their households desire and endeavor that all the members of their household, equally with their own children, should worship and win God, and should come to that heavenly home in which the duty of ruling men is no longer necessary, because the duty of caring for their everlasting happiness has also ceased; but until they reach that home, masters ought to feel their position of authority a greater burden than servants in their house. And if any member of the family interrupts the domestic peace by disobedience, he is corrected either by word or blow, or some other kind of just and legitimate punishment, such as society permits, that he may himself be the better for it, and be readjusted to the family harmony from which had dislocated himself. For as it is not benevolent to give a man help at the expense of some greater benefit he might receive, so it is not innocent to spare a man at the risk of his falling into graver sin. To be innocent, we must not only do harm to no man, but also restrain him from sin or punish his sin, so that either the man himself who is punished may profit by his experience, or others be warned by his example. (Augustine City of God p695)

How should I spend my time?

As a full-time father, that is a pressing question. There are so many good things to do - and so little time to myself. How do I decide?

John Piper answers the question as wisely as I've heard it answered in this 6 minute clip.

Incidentally, I find that some of my most rewarding times (often while doing dishes or washing the floors) is listening to Piper's podcasts.

Ray Van Neste pulled a great statement from an interview with Don Carson about his recent book Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor:

“I’d be the first to insist that modeling Christian virtues, not least in the home, is of paramount importance. The worst sort of home to be brought up in is the one where spiritual pretensions are high and performance is low; the best sort of home is the one where spiritual pretensions are low and performance is high. That was the kind of home in which I was reared.”

That is a wonderful picture of "the best sort of home."

I cracked open Shepherding a Child's Heart this morning and was reminded of this helpful definition:

"Obedience is the willing submission of one person to the authority of another. It means more than a child doing what he is told. It means doing what he is told -
Without Challenge
Without Excuse
Without Delay (p134)

If you accept challenge, delay or excuses, you are not training in submission. You are, rather, training your children how to manipulate authorities and live on the ragged edge of disobedience." (p145)

I read that definition for the first time about two years ago, and it has shaped my practice of parenting - and I have seen its good fruit. I am learning not to repeat myself (although I notice myself lapsing now and again), and Elisabeth has learned that dispute, excuses and delay are not acceptable.

As a teacher, I desperately wish that my students had grown up with this understanding - and practice - of obedience at home. That alone would have created an environment in which learning could flourish.

I just stumbled across this quote from C.S. Lewis on The Children's Hour:

"I often wonder what the present generation of children will grow up like. . . . They have been treated with so much indulgence yet so little affection, with so much science and so little mother-wit. Not a fairy tale nor a nursery rhyme.”

- Quoted in Alan Jacobs, The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis, 217). (New York: HaperCollins, 2005), 234-35.

There is much to be said for the lavish use of great literature with children.

Reading can appear to be a very solitary action. I sit in a chair with a good book, not interacting with anyone - not even aware of anyone else around me. Yet I am convinced that reading is one of the most loving things that I can do.

How can reading, which appears so solitary, be loving? It can be loving when what I read makes me more human. When I read a book like When Invisible Children Sing, I am rebuked for my selfishness, and inspired to have compassion. When I read a children's book like The Story of Ruby Bridges, I am captivated by the courage of a little girl, and inspired to child-like simplicity in trusting Jesus. As usual, Gladys Hunt says it better than I can:

"That which is excellent has a certain spirit of literature present. The sensitivity of the reader says, 'This is true.' 'This is real.' And it sets in action something in the reader that has profound effects. It has been an experience - spiritual, imaginative, intellectual or social. A sense of permanent worthwhileness surrounds really great literature." (Honey for a Child's Heart p50)

When I have those sorts of experiences in literature, I am more able to love others. I have a greater depth of experience and wider sight of view. I see the subtle deceitfulness of my own heart more readily, and the tenderness of another's more perceptively. My heart is enlarged to love others in more authentic ways.

When I am in the habit of reading in the evenings, I notice the effect that it has on me. Perhaps I notice it yet more when I don't create time to read, and my world is diminished, and my vision blurry. My heart doesn't ring with those words, "This is true. This is real." Those are times, like now, when I see how important reading is to loving.

Reading good books has a wonderful way of putting me in my place and giving me perspective. Right now I'm in the midst of When Invisible Children Sing, the stories of Dr. Chi Huang of his time serving street children in Bolivia during his fourth year of medical school. He has opened my eyes, and my heart, to the plight of these children on the street.

In one chapter he recounts the story of Daniela, a young teen-ager and already a mother of two. Daniela's younger daughter, Maria, dies as a result of Daniela's neglect. When the author realizes that this he comes to a crossroads:

"What will I say to her? She helped kill Maria. Do I confront her with her failure as a mother? She already knows. The street children know the difference between wrong and right. They love their children and their street families.  .  . . There are times to be strong, and there are times to be gentle. This is a time to be caring. Daniela knows more than anyone else her wrongdoing; she has lost her daughter as a result. What she needs, like other street children, is the social tools to prevent tragedy from recurring. Hopefully, I can help her find a new way of living." (pp176-7)

What this passage exposed to me is a new way of living. The point is not whether people are guilty or not. Of course they are. But if there is going to be any change in those caught in the grip of poverty, we must help them find a new way of living by modeling that new way - a way of mercy and hope.

I am deeply thankful for literature - good literature - that challenges my paradigms, and pushes me toward mercy and love. I can't help but think that literature may play that same role in changing the paradigms of those stuck in poverty.

These words resonated in my soul as we prayed them together:

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom,
you know our necessities before we ask
and our ignorance in asking:
Have compassion on our weakness,
and mercifully give us those things
which for our unworthiness we dare not,
and for our blindness we cannot ask;
through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.