A Grain of Mustard Seed

• Jan. 17, 2008 - The eternal things

There is nothing so cheap and tawdry as a highly educated individual who lacks character.  I have had the unfortunate and trying experience of working with someone whose six years of higher education has entirely failed her in regard to business etiquette and treating co-workers with respect.

One reason homeschooling appealed so strongly to my husband and me was the fact that homeschooled children (for the most part) exhibited higher levels of social skills.  They were more polite, more attuned to the needs of others rather than themselves, and moved easily in a diverse population of young, old, etc.  Many homeschoolers also understand that their purpose in life is not primarily to please themselves, but to give of themselves and to glorify their Maker.

And being a homeschool parent, I am always in a learning mode myself.  What am I learning as I go about my short workday with an individual who expresses authority in inappropriate ways? Well, I'm learning patience, I'm more and more grateful for the magnificent decision to bring my children out of the culture at large to educate and raise them at home, and I'm learning that I can remain untouched (in my inner being) regardless of how others are viewing me or treating me.  That last one is a biggie...so many of us spend our lives in the attempt to please man and not God.  We bow down to living images of men and women as a way to win respect or love or to feel good about ourselves.  It is a deadly path.

So as I go off to work today I will be grateful that 10 years ago we felt compelled to bring our children home, to rescue them from a culture that values an education over moral character, and money and status over love for one's fellow man.  Life is eternal.  Our time here on earth is brief.  I pray that I've imparted to my children the important things, the eternal things that they will take with them when they leave here.  Love, wisdom, kindness, discernment, charity, a grasp of truth, the transcendent fact that man is Imago Dei (God's image), and as such, has a sacred duty to love his neighbor as himself.  I pray that I can remember that, too, as I work today with a highly-educated but very ignorant person.  Peace be with us both.

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• Jan. 17, 2008 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Lisa
I know of whom you speak, not personaly, but from your descriptions. Yes, He tells us there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. May we all seek wisdom and discernment above the over-inflated "knowledge" this life has to offer. We should seek both, for it is by knowledge of His creation we are better able to know Him and care for what He has placed in our care, but we must bear in mind in what order of importance knowledge and wisdom should fall.
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• Jan. 18, 2008 - Untitled Comment

Posted by CrossView
My Dad called them "educated idiots"...
I'm just sayin'...

Hope your day went well! =D
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About Me

Christian homeschoolers with an eclectic twist; my interests include parenting and relationships; the Christ walk; C. S. Lewis/Dorothy Sayers/George MacDonald (and other favorite authors); simple living, gardening, reading, and more!

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Curriculum 2007-2008


• Astronomy: Signs and Seasons
• Advanced Astronomy Project Pack from In the Hands of a Child
• Algebra
• Easy Grammar Plus
• Essay Architect
• ROMAN Reading at nicksenger.com
• The History of English Literature
• English Classics Study Guide
• Latin and Greek Study Words
• Arts and Art History at HomeschooleStore.com
• Creche in Focus Art Project
• Multisensory Immersion Diorama
• Christ the King: Lord of History
• A More Perfect Union at nccs.net
• SAT/ACT Power Prep at eknowledge.com
• SAT Vocabulary Builder

Favorites Quotes

"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions."

G. K. Chesterton

"The Family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself."

"The Home of the Unities", in The New Christian Witness, Jan. 17, 1919, G. K. Chesterton

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."

Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton

"The official Church wastes time and energy, and moreover, commits sacrilege, in demanding that secular workers should neglect their proper vocation in order to do Christian work--by which She means ecclesiastical work.  The only Christian work is good work well done."

Dorothy Sayers, Letters to a Diminished Church

"He who has God and everything has no more than he who has God alone."

C. S. Lewis

"And it is fatal to imagine that everybody knows quite well what Christianity is and needs only a little encouragement to practice it. The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ."

Dorothy Sayers, Letters to a Diminished Church

"All schools, both here [in England] and in America, ought to teach far fewer subjects and teach them far better."

C. S. Lewis, Letters to Children

"The thing that is in danger is the whole structure of society, and it is necessary to persuade thinking men and women of the vital and intimate connection between the structure of society and the theological doctrines of Christianity."

Dorothy Sayers, Letters to a Diminished Church

"One of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself. That is why an uneducated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book that has astonished the whole world."

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

"The name under which pride walks the world at this moment is the perfectibility of man, or the doctirne of progress; and its specialty is the making of blueprints for utiopia and establishing the kingdom of man on earth."

Dorothy Sayers, Letters to a Diminished Church

"All education is religious education--and never more than when it is irreligious education. It either teaches a definite doctrine about the universe, which is theology; or else it takes one for granted, which is mysticism. If it does not do that it does nothing at all, and means nothing at all, for everything must depend upon some first principles and refer to some causes, expressed or unexpressed."

The Illustrated London News, July 26, 1924, G. K. Chesterton

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

"The common people, indeed, 'heard him gladly'; but our leading authorities in Church and State considered that he talked too much and uttered too many disconcerting truths."

Dorothy Sayers, Letters to a Diminished Church

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Favorites on my Bookshelf

The Mind of the Maker
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