NaNoWriMo 2012 Update

Well, here we are, with nearly twenty days past us and ten more to go in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). And where am I? At barely 20,000 words.

At least I have all of this week off from homeschooling to write. Thank goodness!! :)

But writing isn't the only task on my blotter this week. I have comparison essays to grade for my high school writing course at Heritage Christian School, our home school Private Study Program (PSP), as we call umbrella schools here in California. Twice each month, our co-op Class Days are held at Del Cerro Baptist Church, and while my boys take classes in biology, chess, PE, Boys Adventure, and, yes, poor J is taking my Intermediate Writing course, I teach Intermediate Writing to sophomores, juniors, and seniors in which they write ten essays plus an MLA Research Essay. My writing class is based on the writing classes I taught as an adjunct instructor at Point Loma Nazarene University, and my feedback from former students indicates that my class is almost always more challenging and/or more difficult than the college composition classes they take from community colleges, SDSU, PLNU, and even UCSD. Every student who has taken an AP Writing exam after my class has received a 5, the highest mark possible.

However, I recently made a change to the class: all essays will be submitted via e-mail. Up until this time, there has been a regrettable lag between my receiving, grading, and returning the essay and the student receiving and applying the comments and suggestions I offer. Usually, I return their essays with my copious comments on the same day that they submit a new essay assignment, one that they have written without the benefit of my commentary and suggestions for improvement. But with e-mail grading, I can receive, download, grade, upload, and return the essays before the students submit their next assignment, thereby giving them time to read and apply my suggestions to the next assignment before it is due.

In addition to the comparison essays I need to grade by Monday, November 26, I also have the final MLA Research Essays for my online MLA course at Brave Writer to grade. I'm also grading these essays online: downloading, grading, uploading, and e-mailing the essays back to the respective families whose teens took my six-week course. The good news is that after I grade these essays, which require about two hours each to check formatting and sources, grade, and comment upon, I don't teach again until January. So in December I plan to complete the grammar e-book I've been working on with Julie and perhaps the MLA e-book as well, plus revise some older subscriptions for The Arrow, a monthly language arts subscription for grades 4-6.

Needless to say, I will be busy!!

But I do want to make some good progress in NaNoWriMo, even if I don't complete all 50,000 words. My primary goal is to complete a first draft of my second online novel; I just posted Chapter 49 online last Thursday, and I'm currently drafting Chapter 52. I think I'll end up with 55 chapters or so all together, perhaps with an epilogue. I'm grateful for the book's popularity; while my first novel (completed in 2011 NaNoWriMo) has garnered nearly three-quarters of a million "reads" (hits), my second novel, the one I hope to finish drafting this month, has passed 1.2 million "reads" on the main website on which I post a new chapter each week. I think I've done well among the teen girl readers thus far, and I have some plans for other short stories and novels to come after this one. We shall see.

Plus, in addition to drafting the chapters for my current novel, I have been going back over the drafts and editing them into publishable chapters for my readers who definitely start messaging me, asking for the next chapter if I'm as much as a day past my usual posting deadline. So I haven't merely been writing with the usual NaNo abandon; I've been refining and editing what I've been drafting in order to publish and post the past three chapters of my novel--and revising and editing is far more time-consuming than drafting. MUCH more so.

So I do hope to complete my primary NaNo goal of finishing the first draft of my current work-in-progress (WIP) this month, even if I do not complete NaNoWriMo's 50,000 word requirement for the month.

And thus...back to writing!!

All Saints' Day 2012

All Saints by Fra Angelico

Today, November 1, is the Feast of All Saints. On this day we remember all of the saints who have walked the pilgrim pathway before us, living the Christian life in a God-pleasing manner.

The Collect for All Saints from the 2011 Book of Common Prayer 

ALMIGHTY God, you have woven your disciples into one communion and fellowship in the mystical Body of your Son, Christ our Lord; Give us grace to follow your Saints in righteous and holy living, and to come to the joy beyond words which you have prepared for those who truly love you; Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and rules with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. 

From AmericanCatholic.org's Saint of the Day e-mail:

The earliest certain observance of a feast in honor of all the saints is an early fourth-century commemoration of "all the martyrs." In the early seventh century, after successive waves of invaders plundered the catacombs, Pope Boniface IV gathered up some 28 wagonloads of bones and reinterred them beneath the Pantheon, a Roman temple dedicated to all the gods. The pope rededicated the shrine as a Christian church. According to Venerable Bede, the pope intended "that the memory of all the saints might in the future be honored in the place which had formerly been dedicated to the worship not of gods but of demons" (On the Calculation of Time).

But the rededication of the Pantheon, like the earlier commemoration of all the martyrs, occurred in May. Many Eastern Churches still honor all the saints in the spring, either during the Easter season or immediately after Pentecost.

How the Western Church came to celebrate this feast, now recognized as a solemnity, in November is a puzzle to historians. The Anglo-Saxon theologian Alcuin observed the feast on November 1 in 800, as did his friend Arno, Bishop of Salzburg. Rome finally adopted that date in the ninth century.

Comment:This feast, first honored martyrs. Later, when Christians were free to worship according to their conscience, the Church acknowledged other paths to sanctity. In the early centuries the only criterion was popular acclaim, even when the bishop's approval became the final step in placing a commemoration on the calendar. The first papal canonization occurred in 993; the lengthy process now required to prove extraordinary sanctity took form in the last 500 years. Today's feast honors the obscure as well as the famous—the saints each of us have known.

Quote:“After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.... [One of the elders] said to me, ‘These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’” (Revelation 7:9,14). 

All Saints of Scotland Icon

And from The High Calling's Daily Reflection:

Today is All Saints Day, a holy day recognized by the Catholic Church and, in various ways, by various Protestant denominations. Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate the Sunday of All Saints on the week after Pentecost.

Some Christian traditions focus on remembering special Christians on All Saints Day or bringing to mind believers who have died and gone to be with the Lord. This day offers a fine opportunity to thank God for those whose lives have honored him and made a difference to us. Yet, it's important to remember that the biblical sense of "saint" includes all of God's people, not just those who have excelled in discipleship. I thought it might be helpful for us to review what we learned about saints from Ephesians 1:1.

In the opening verse of this letter, Paul addresses the letter's recipients as "God's holy people." Traditionally, the Greek word hagioi, translated here as "God's holy people," is rendered "saints." Thus, the King James version reads, "To the saints which are at Ephesus." In fact, the English word "saint" comes from the Latin sanctus, which means "holy." So, saints are holy people, by definition.

But what does it mean to be a holy person, a saint? From a biblical perspective, something is holy when it is set apart for God and God's purposes. So, an animal to be sacrificed to the Lord is holy because it is designated for this special function. In Exodus 19, God set apart the Israelites as his own "treasured possession" (19:5). They would be a "holy nation" (19:6) through which God would make himself known to the world. In the New Testament, believers in Jesus Christ are referred to as "saints" or "holy people" because they have inherited Israel's divinely conferred status as people set apart by God for him and for his saving purposes.

If you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, you are a saint. You are a holy person. This does not necessarily say anything about your worthiness to receive this title or your exemplary lifestyle, however. I wouldn't recommend that you go around putting "Saint" in front of your name. Rather, you are a saint because God has chosen you to belong to him and his people. He has set you apart so that you might participate in his redeeming work in the world.

Remember, you are not a solo saint. There is no such thing from a biblical perspective. Rather, as a saint, you have been joined to the family of all saints, including those who live around the world and those who have gone to be with the Lord. Therefore, on All Saints Day, it is a perfect time to remember that God has made you special for him and his purposes, and that he has joined you into the eternal, worldwide fellowship of all his saints. Moreover, it's a good day to take seriously the fact that God wants to make himself known in this world through you as a member of the family of all saints.

QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER REFLECTION: When you hear the word "saint" or "holy person," what do you envision? Do you believe that God has set you apart for himself and for his mission in the world? Who are some of the "saints" who have encouraged you in your faith? Why not thank God for them today?

PRAYER: Holy God, it is amazing to think that you have set me apart for you and for your mission. Thank you for choosing me to enter into a relationship with and to serve you in the world.Help me, dear Lord, to live out who I am as a saint. May I see my whole life in light of the fact that you have set me apart for you. May I live distinctively, reflecting your presence and values in all that I do. And may I do so as part of your family of saints.

Thank you, gracious God, for those saints who have meant so much to my discipleship. I thank you for those I have never met, like the Apostle Paul, or J. S. Bach, or C. S. Lewis. And I thank you for those who have nurtured me in a personal way, for my parents and grandparents, for my Sunday School teachers and youth leaders, for my pastors and mentors. Thank you, dear Lord, for these wonderful saints! Amen.

So as we focus on the amazing men and women of the Faith, those who are now the "great cloud of witnesses" who cheer us onward as we run the Race, may we look to His Holy Word which encourages and helps us:

Hebrews 12:1-2, ESV

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

May we indeed run the Race for God's glory as so many of his Saints have done for the past two thousand years!!

Wishing you a blessed remembrance of All Saints,

To NaNo or Not to NaNo...

I've taken part in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) several times in the past few years.  NaNoWriMo involves writing a 50,000-word novel during the month of November; the fun part is that NaNoWriMo is a global effort; participants do the challenge with over 300,000 other writers around the world. One can have Writing Buddies, and participants also receive encouraging e-mails from some fairly impressive authors; participants may update their progress daily. NaNoWriMo provides some fun bells & whistles that allow progress to be posted on blogs or websites.

With a bunch of my online friends, I joined up in 2008 and managed to write half of a highly-autobiographical novel called The Pilgrim Pathway that I doubt I'll go back to edit; it was a decent first attempt at writing fiction, but it isn't really interesting or publishable. In 2009 I completed the second half of  The Pilgrim Pathway. I took a break in 2010, participating in a poem-a-day challenge on the Writer's Market website, hosted by the editor of Poet's Market. I don't think writing a poem a day was much of a "break"; it was actually more taxing than writing the 1,667 words daily to complete NaNoWriMo.

In 2011 I returned to NaNoWriMo, challenging the students in my homeschool co-op expository writing class to join me for extra credit. Between teaching two co-op classes and an online course through Brave Writer, plus homeschooling the boys, it wasn't easy to find time to write 1,667 words per day...which I rounded to 2,000 words/day to keep it easier to track plus allowed me to take off Thanksgiving and a few other days (such as teaching days). But I still ended up posting 14,000 words on November 30, verifying the completion of 50,000 words with eight minutes to spare. Whew!

So, with only one co-op class to teach (but with more students than last year) and the same Brave Writer online class going, plus the three boys to teach, should I attempt NaNoWriMo this year or not?

Last year I completed one of the novels I was publishing online in weekly installments, and I managed to get several chapters ahead on another novel I was also publishing online. If I attempt NaNoWriMo 2012, I will be completing the second online novel and then either starting a new novel or completing several unfinished short stories. I would love to be that productive!!

However, the problem I ran into last year was that as I post a new chapter online each week, I have to go back and edit that chapter for publication. Yikes! That's a lot of extra writing!!

I am offering the same extra credit incentive to my co-op writing class as I did last year, so I will need to participate somewhat so that I can track their progress. Plus, at least one member of our small town's writing group is participating, and we meet once a week during NaNoWriMo to write together in the library.

In addition, a lot of writers in the online communities where I post my fiction are doing NaNoWriMo, and I've made two NaNoWriMo accounts, one under my real name for my students' benefit, and one under my pen name for chatting with my fellow fiction writers.

So, should I participate in NaNoWriMo or not? I'm hoping to, but I suppose we'll see if it's realistic to actually finish. So I suppose at this point that I will TRY, but know that I may not finish this year.

If anyone is doing NaNoWriMo and would like to become a Writing Buddy, you can find me under the user name of SusanneB--I love having writing buddies!! :)

Writing with you,

Poetry and Quotation of the Week

I have long been a fan of the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. I became a fan of his work in my literature classes at Point Loma Nazarene University as we studied his poetry in several classes. Hopkins is an admirable man as well as a talented poet (and history shows us that those two qualities do not often coalesce in the same person!).

As the Poem of the Day e-mail from the American Academy of Poets stated today: "...Gerard Manley Hopkins once gave up writing poetry for eight years while training to be ordained as a priest, though he later returned to the craft."

So with Hopkins we have a dual talent: poetry and the priesthood, a combination that birthed some of the most original worship poems ever published. Today's Poem of the Day celebrates Hopkins' most famous poem, the final lines of which are among my favorite lines of poetry of all time.

Please enjoy with me "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

God's Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-- Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. Have a blessed week, everyone!!

The Epitome of Busyness

Lots of stuff has been happening in the month since I last posted. First of all, I have a new laptop and have bequeathed my HP laptop, Sirius, to the boys. I really needed Windows 7/8 for some of its features which help greatly with my teaching online classes at Brave Writer. The side-by-side document feature is a huge help as is the built-in speech-to-text feature which saves my hands from typing when they get painful and swollen.

As I always name machines (my ancient Corolla is "Molly" after Molly Weasley in Harry Potter (she isn't pretty, but she works hard and gets the job done); my mom's Jetta which we use while they're in Hawaii and is covered with Hawaiian stickers, license plate covers, etc., I named "Lilo" after Lilo and Stitch; my first laptop was "Eeyore" (slow and gray); my former laptop was "Sirius Black" since it was shiny black and had a big "HP" on it...for Harry Potter, of course!!), this new laptop, with its appearance of brushed steel has been christened "Remington Steele" after my favorite old television program that Keith and I used to watch together when we were engaged, plus "Remington" was also an old typewriter brand used by many great writers of the 20th century (like William Faulkner, Stephen Vincent Benet, Agatha Christie, Allen Ginsberg, Rudyard Kipling, Margaret Mitchell, Flannery O'Connor, George Orwell, George Bernard Shaw, and Tennessee Williams); I can only hope that a spark of their brilliance will rub off on me, LOL! So "Remington Steele" it is. :D

In September I led the Boomerang Book Club discussion of Jane Eyre at Brave Writer. It was soooo wonderful to discuss my favorite novel of all time with this group of amazing students. Literary discussion classes are a load of fun, but they are also a load of work; I pulled a couple of all-nighters in keeping up with my eager students. It's a wonderful problem to have, but it is labor-intensive.

This past Monday I started teaching the MLA Research Essay class at Brave Writer as well. I've been teaching the MLA Research Essay for twenty years now, starting with my Writing 110 (Freshman Composition) courses at Point Loma Nazarene University in Fall 1992. I also taught Writing 116 (a two-unit research paper class for transfer students who enter with only a three-unit writing component when PLNU requires five units of writing) several times, and it quickly became my favorite class to teach at PLNU.

I have twice as many MLA students this fall at Brave Writer as I had last fall, so I'm quite happy with the class size. The topics are really intriguing, too, everything from reforestation, the benefits of raw milk, and the dangers of video games to King Tut's death, electric car emissions, and the "Paul McCartney is dead" urban legend. It should be an intriguing six weeks. :)

I'm also revising old Boomerangs (the monthly literature subscription for grades 7-9+) for my work at Brave Writer, so this weekend, I need to pull together, revise, and edit the old version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for publication in November. I was going to lead the discussion, but I haven't read the book and wasn't looking forward to overlapping a time-consuming literary discussion class with the end of the MLA course...which is the busiest time in dealing with "rough draft conferences" (in which I go over the students' rough drafts with a fine-toothed comb for them--and within a 24-hour turn-around for 10 essays!) and final grading. That would have been absolutely crazy! So I was thrilled when Julie's daughter offered to take over the discussion of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn which will leave me time to complete several other projects for Julie.

I'm also teaching the Intermediate/Advanced Writing Class at Heritage Christian School's East County II Class Days. It's a co-op of a homeroom plus three class periods, two before lunch and one after. We have child care for nursery through pre-school, then classes for Kindergarten, grades 1-3, grades 4-6, grades 7-9, and grades 10-12. My expository writing class is for grades 10-12, and I have 16 students, including Jonathan. I'll be grading their first five-paragraph essays for our next class on October 25.

I've also reached an incredible milestone with my online novel...which I'm writing under a pseudonym, with only a few people knowing me by both names. Anyway, I passed 1.1 million reads (hits) this week on one website, and I passed 1,000 reviews (reader reviews of individual chapters) on another website. So I'm quite happy with my novel. Writing a chapter a week is like writing those old serial novels as Dickens and so many Victorian writers did; I know that when I complete it, I'll need to go back to re-read it carefully and close up some of the plot gaps and such that occur when one writes a book over such a long time period. (I started this last novel in August 2011) and hope to finish it before December. But I just added a plot twist, so I'm not sure how many chapters are left. I write without an outline or set plan, allowing my characters to surprise me as we go. It makes for exciting writing, and I hope for good reading as well.

And I'm having to think about whether to tackle NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). During the month of November, over 100,000 writers around the world work on a common goal: write a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. No editing, no revising--just writing, writing, writing. I did it last year...barely. I had to write 14,000 words on the last day, finishing with eight minutes to spare. My problem is that I publish chapters weekly for my ongoing novel, so I do have to go back and revise/edit a chapter a week in order to keep up with my publishing schedule. I'm encouraging my Class Day students to join NaNoWriMo for extra credit, so I kind of need to set the example. While common sense tells me to not attempt NaNoWriMo this year, I really want to immerse myself in my current novel and complete it, then start on several shorter projects or a sequel to my first novel (which I completed during last year's NaNoWriMo). Writing for NaNoWriMo is such a "writer's high"---the words come so easily and I just love the feeling of producing so much. So we'll see.

So I've been teaching and writing, plus homeschooling Timothy (12th grade), Jonathan (10th grade), and Benjamin (7th grade) this fall. With all the writing I'm doing on Brave Writer and on my novel, my posts for this blog have fallen sadly behindhand. I hope to do better and post at least weekly from now on.

So thanks for reading my update and understanding my busy life!

Take care, all~

Quotation of the Week: On Writing

My life is all about writing.

I teach writing both online and at our homeschool co-op; this past week I just started two new classes: a discussion of my favorite novel, Jane Eyre, on Brave Writer, and my college-prep/honors expository writing class at Heritage Christian School's East County II Class Day.

And in order to teach writing at Brave Writer, I need to write informative posts, discussion questions, and respond to the students' replies to the discussion questions. So in order to teach online, I write and write.

Grading essays the old-fashioned way, scribbling notes in the margins of papers with my Waterman fountain pen filled with green ink cartridges, also involves a great deal of writing. The fountain pen allows me to write much longer without pain in my joints from rheumatoid arthritis because I don't have to press down while writing; the fountain pen skates along the surface of paper beautifully and easily.

Then I write lesson plans for my own kids once per week, besides writing to grade their work.

And of course there's the comfort of journal writing--which I love to do but seldom have time to devote to jotting down various thoughts and happenings. And blogging too--which obviously I have little time for lately as well.

I also write fictional stories that I publish online; I try to write, revise, and post one chapter per week. My most recent story is approaching one million "reads" (hits) on one website, so the stories are fairly popular. But fiction writing is my "break" from all the rest of my writing and responsibilities, but lately it's been feeling more like a chore than a welcome relief.

Plus the lost art of the handwritten epistle--how much more comforting and personal is it to receive a handwritten letter in the mail than it is to receive an e-mail--electronic mail. E-mail takes all the joy and personality out of writing to friends and family, even when one employs emoticons. A former neighbor and dear friend recently moved from our little village in Southern California around the world to the Philippines; when she left, she handed out self-addressed stamped blank cards for us to write to her. I haven't had time yet, but I do plan to get out a card to write and mail this week.

I'm reading a story online right now about a woman who wrote a soldier unknown to her during World War II as part of a letter writing campaign to boost morale. She had no idea who would receive her letter, but they bonded right away, writing letters often to each other. They had to wait nearly a month to receive a reply! In our present existence of instant gratification, waiting a month for a response to a letter would be torture. I'm sure it was torturous back then, too. But the gift of receiving such a letter: priceless.

So my life is writing, writing, writing. Writing is what I do nearly all day, and then I often stay up until the wee shall hours of the morning (it's nearly two o'clock in the morning right now!!) writing more.

And our tools of the trade: a laptop/computer if one is hi-tech, or a pencil/pen and a pad of paper if one is more old-fashioned and enjoy the ebb and flow of words through one's fingertips. And the most important tool: WORDS.

So for our Quotation of the Week, I pulled a lovely one on the power of words:

"Words--so innocent and powerless as they are, standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them."~Nathaniel Hawthorne

So enjoy the power and play of words this week whether you are reading or writing. Either way, words are powerful weapons for evil and beautiful songs of peace.

And God used words--He spoke, and the earth and everything on it was created. And He saw that it was good.... And then we cannot forget "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." God is the Word, and God's Word we hide in our hearts. 

There's no better place for it.

Have a lovely week, everyone!! God bless you!!

Quotations on the Value of Reading

Now that we've started our school year, more than ever I've come to value the art of reading. Teaching literature to my own boys, to my co-op writing classes, and especially online (I'm teaching a book discussion group on one of my favorite novels, Jane Eyre, starting this week) has shown me how important the reading of quality literature is.

Over the summer, the kids and I have watched a couple of seasons of the British comedy Jeeves and Wooster with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. Taken from the Jeeves series of novels and short stories by PG Wodehouse, watching literature come to life has been enjoyable, and even our 15 year old son begged us to wait until he finished dishes so that he could watch tonight's episode with us. 

Literature is life come to life. Well-known pastor and translator of The Message, Eugene Peterson, when speaking at the Writer's Symposium by the Sea several years ago, stated that he believes that every pastor should spend the first two years of seminary reading the classics. He explained how reading James Joyce's Ulysses helped him to better deal with his congregation as he read the day-in-a-life of a very ordinary man. He advocates at least the reading of several of Dickens' works for every seminary student as Dickens' realism moves his readers to true pity and compassion and teaches us to value each and every person, no matter their station in life.

Over the summer and into the fall I've been rereading the Anne of Green Gables series by Canadian author LM Montgomery ; currently I'm reading the seventh of the eight books. These books are delightful, and truly, I think they represent the very pinnacle of English prose writing. Ever. LM Montgomery simply writes beautifully and from the heart, and her descriptions of nature are unparalleled in literature. No matter that these books are considered "children's literature"; they are some of the most delightful and masterfully-written books in the history of the English language. And as a Literature major and after earning a Master of Arts in English, I do not state that lightly.

In my Quotation Journal, which I have been keeping for eleven years now, I have a few pages of quotations on the value of reading and literature. I'll share a few with you here:

"What is reading but silent conversation?" ~Walter Savage Landor

"I do not read a book; I hold a conversation with the author." ~Elbert Hubbard

"There are a lot of people like me, people who need books the way they need air." ~Richard Marek 

"Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love, and beauty." ~George Bernard Shaw

"Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore!" ~Henry Ward Beecher

"When I get a little money, I buy books, and if there is any left, I buy food and clothes." ~Erasmus

So enjoy reading, my friends!! I know that I do!

Happy Reading!!

The Book of Common Prayer and Quotation of the Week

Book of Common Prayer 2011

As our family begins our sixteenth year of home education, it is entirely necessary to bathe our plans, our children, myself, and our entire school year in prayer.

In the Book of Common Prayer 2011 which I helped to edit, a prayer "For Christians in Their Daily Life" seems extremely appropriate:

ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, whose glory is made known in your creation in heaven and on earth; In our vocations, may we not be distracted by that which is passing away, but may we do the work that you have given us to do in truth, in beauty, and in righteousness; So that, in our daily life, we might serve you in singleness of heart and for the benefit of others; For the sake of him who came among us as one who serves, your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.  

 This prayer reminds me of the teachings on the Tyranny of the Urgent which I first learned from Sue Edwards, the wife of our former pastor. So often we allow the things that seem urgent, but really are not, to gobble up the time that we could spend on eternal activities: encouraging a friend in crisis, having an earnest, one-on-one talk with one of our children, sharing Christ through word and/or deed, teaching God's Word to our children. But so often the telephone or e-mail or Facebook (not that we can't minister through Facebook, but we must be careful not to allow the fun but eternally worthless parts to swallow up the encouraging of and praying for friends and family which is the true value of social media for Christians) or other seemingly "urgent" activities tend to distract us from the work God has given us to do...which is so beautifully expressed in the above prayer.

So prayer needs to be our first and main ingredient in our home school. Since Day 1 of this home education adventure sixteen years ago, we start our day gathered together. I'm sitting either at the school table or on the hearth, and the kids are stretched out in the recliners, on the sofa, or on the floor as we start our family devotions. These devotions have changed over the years, but over the past five or more years, the Book of Common Prayer has been the centerpiece of our family time in God's Word.

Some evangelicals take issue with the Book of Common Prayer, our present evangelical pastor included. But for me, I find the repetition of God's Word soothing as each day it nestles more firmly into my mind, heart, and soul. The services of Morning Prayer and Family Prayers for Morning, especially in the new Book of Common Prayer 2011, is simply Scripture laid out to pray. We also follow the Lectionary which is an annual plan of Scripture reading laid out for Morning and Evening Prayer; the Old Testament is read through once and the New Testament twice each year.

In addition, the Psalter (Book of Psalms) is laid out in its entirety; in the BCP 2011, the English Standard Version (ESV) translation is used. A new translation (2001), it reads easily yet is accurate; the ESV is the translation of choice at both our EV Free Church and the Reformed Episcopal Church I attend on Friday mornings. So the 150 Psalms are laid out in sixty readings: 30 for Morning Prayer and thirty for Evening Prayer, and are arranged to be read/prayed each day of the month: Day 1 Morning Prayer, Day 1 Evening Prayer, Day 2 Morning Prayer, etc. Thus the entire Book of Psalms is read/prayed every month, in addition to the Lectionary readings which contain an Old Testament, a New Testament, and a Psalm or two, morning and evening, for each day of the year. If we are reading the Psalter as part of Morning and Evening Prayer, then we don't have to read the Psalm readings listed in the Lectionary.

We are warned against "vain repetition" in the Scriptures; for me, the key word here is "vain," as in useless, meaningless. But we are indeed called upon to repeat God's Word meaningfully; how else can we inscribe God's Word onto our hearts and minds? For me (and obviously not for everyone), God's Word is indeed inscribed in my heart and mind through the Book of Common Prayer. In our family devotions, we follow our time in the BCP with each of us taking time to pray aloud for the new day, asking for help and healing for those we know and love and asking for help to accomplish God's plan for us this day. So we aren't merely relying on the BCP for prayers; we also pray extemporaneously as part of our family devotions.

My quotation for this week is from a saint of the early church, and I've found it an excellent reminder of the value of prayer, not just to us but also to God:

"God accepts our desires as though they were a great value. He longs ardently for us to desire and love him. He accepts our petitions for benefits as though we were doing him a favor. His joy in giving is greater than ours in receiving. So let us not be apathetic in our asking, nor set too narrow bounds to our requests; nor ask for frivolous things unworthy of God's greatness."

~Saint Gregory of Nazianzen (329-390)  

I need this reminder that I'm not "bothering God" with my requests, but that He delights in my prayers to Him. I've always struggled with prayer lists and praying for myself and others because it always feels as if I'm bringing God a grocery list of demands rather than worshiping Him for Who He is. That's where the Book of Common Prayer helps me. After confessing our sins (which begins every service in the BCP), bathing ourselves in God's Word, and celebrating His majesty and sacrificial love for us, I feel that I can then bring my requests to Him in a right frame of mind. I'm not just praying to "get stuff" from God; I am confessing my sin, worshiping Him, and dwelling in His Word first, and then, filled with His Spirit, I can reveal the needs and desires of my heart more fully and completely.

So as we begin this sixteenth year of home education, I pray that God's glory will surround us as He assists each of us to become the people of His Heart, people who love and serve others in His Name, people who lead worshipful lives focused on Him, people who glorify Him and lead others into His eternal Kingdom.

May we indeed glorify God in all we think, speak, and do, this day, this year, and always.

Soli Deo Gloria, (to God alone be the glory)

2012-2013 Homeschooling Plans

I don't know where August went. I think it mostly was swallowed up in watching the Olympics and in finding my groove as I adjust to non-teaching work between classes at Brave Writer. And yes, some homeschooling plans....

On Tuesday we'll be starting Year #16 of home education. We've been with Heritage Christian School since we started Elizabeth in kindergarten. Heritage provides accountability with quarterly grades and progress reports due, plus they do the high school transcripts, keep the kids' cum files, deal with paperwork for the state, and provide annual academic testing for grades 4-11.

In addition, Heritage offers twice-monthly Class Days at several sites around the county. At East County II, we meet the second and fourth Thursdays at a large church facility for homeroom (elementary kids in one; junior high and high school in another). Then we have two 50-minute classes, a half-hour lunch break, then a final class that's an hour long, leaving us with an extra ten minutes to tidy our classrooms.

Class Days are set up like a co-op: one parent needs to be on a teaching team for two class periods, or they need to help set up, clean up, work at the lunch table, etc. This year I'll be teaching a combination class of Intermediate (college prep) and Advanced (honors) Writing, and my class is full at 15 students with a waiting list. Because I'm a one-woman team and need to spend so much time grading essays, I only have to teach one class to fulfill my co-op requirement.

The boys are looking forward to their classes which begin on September 13. Benjamin, now in 7th grade, will be taking PE (one semester volleyball, one semester basketball), Chess, and Boys' Adventure Class II which involves learning all kinds of boy-type activities. Jonathan, a high school sophomore, is taking double Biology Lab and my Intermediate Writing course. Timothy, a senior this year, has it easy at our Class Day, taking PE and Chess with Benjamin, and PE again. But Timothy will also be a drop-off student at  East County I for a double-period Physics Lab class with his former Biology teacher.

The boys will also be meeting with our wonderful tutor who has known them all their lives: "Auntie Jo" who will be helping Timothy with ACT prep, Jonathan with Geometry, and Benjamin with Pre-Algebra. Jo, a ten-year veteran of teaching high school English at a private school, is a God-send; when I was too ill to teach the kids many years ago when I was first diagnosed with several autoimmune diseases, she drove up the mountain 2-3 days per week to home school the kids for me. Now she's my sounding board regarding curriculum choices, Timothy's writing struggles, etc. I couldn't educate the kids without her.

We always have Family Devotions, usually Morning Prayer or Family Prayers with Scripture readings from the Lectionary of the Book of Common Prayer 2011 as part of our "Opening" each day, and have done Church History, Art History, Poetry, and other courses as part of Opening. This year, however, I think we'll study the Bible with Know Why You Believe: Connecting Faith and Reason by Little plus Family Devotions only.

Our plans for Benjamin (7th grade) are these:

Math: Saxon Algebra 1/2 with Auntie Jo
Reading: Bob Jones 7th grade reader
Grammar: Daily Grams for 7th Grade
Spelling: Tricks of the Trade and Any Child Can Spell
Writing: Various Brave Writer classes and freewrites
Science: ABeka 7th Grade Science
History: Sonlight 100 (American History over two years)
Typing/Keyboarding: Writing Skills: Keyboarding
PE: @Class Day & PV Park
Electives: Chess and Boys' Adventure @Class Day

Jonathan (10th grade) will be doing:

Math: Geometry--Saxon Algebra I and II with Auntie Jo
Literature: Bob Jones 10th grade reader & Brave Writer Shakespeare
Writing: My Intermediate Writing course @Class Day
Science: Apologia Biology and Biology Lab @Class Day
History: ABeka World History
PE: @Park with brothers
Electives: Free Teen Guitar Class in Alpine with Father Acker

Timothy (12th grade) will be finishing up with:

Math: Bob Jones Consumer Math with Auntie Jo
Literature: Sonlight British Literature & Brave Writer Shakespeare
Writing: Brave Writer MLA Research Essay; ACT Prep
Science: Apologia Physics and Physics Lab @Class Day (EC1)
History: ABeka Economics and American Government
PE: Double PE @Class Day & PV Park
Electives: Chess @Class Day; Art Class @Grossmont or Cuyamaca 

In addition to teaching Intermediate/Advanced Writing at Class Day, I'll be teaching various classes at Brave Writer this school year as well. I taught a Fan Fiction class over the summer, and in September I'll be leading the Boomerang Book Club in a discussion of Jane Eyre, one of my favorite novels. In November and early December I'll be teaching the MLA Research Essay, plus in November I'll be leading the Boomerang Book Club's discussion of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Then in the winter term, I'll be teaching the Groovy Grammar Workshop and the Playing with Poetry Workshop, followed by a Literary Analysis Class on Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, my favorite play. In the spring, all thoughts will turn to Shakespeare as I teach my favorite Shakespearean comedy, Much Ado About Nothing followed by the Shakespeare Family Workshop.

Whenever I'm not teaching, I'll be helping to edit and update older monthly subscriptions, expand some online classes into e-books, and other similar sorts of jobs for Brave Writer in my new position as Senior Teacher, Staff Writer, and Curriculum Developer.

And in between all of this, I'm still offering my essay grading service for homeschoolers through my website, SusanneBarrett.com. I'll make corrections and offer encouragement and ideas for improvement for $5 per double-spaced page (or part page) in 12 point font. It's a good deal; after all, it's not every day that a former university instructor grades essays for homeschoolers.

Obviously, with all this going on, it's not easy for me to find time to write myself, whether it be journaling, blogging, composing poetry, publishing fan fiction chapters online, etc. But I do try to write something each week to keep me honest and active as a writer. My doctor insists that we all need creative outlets, after all, and writing is definitely mine.

Have a lovely school year, everyone!!

The Feast of Transfiguration

(Image from dic.academic.ru)

Repost from Archives, 2009

August 6 marks the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, a feast celebrated on this day for only the past six hundred or so years but still an important Biblical event that should indeed be remembered by all Christians, no matter their mode of worship. This event is described in three of the four Gospels in the New Testament, revealing Christ for Who He truly is, to paraphrase Thomas: Our Lord and Our God.

A couple of years ago in our Sunday School at Lake Murray Community Church, our teacher, Bill (who has since left Lake Murray to return to the Catholic Church), passed around copies of The Transfiguration by Raphael, seen in the above image. We were slowly proceeding through the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, verse by verse, chewing on God's Word, savouring it, sucking the marrow out of it. At this time we were discussing the event of the Transfiguration and what was also happening while Christ and his chosen three were on the mountain as depicted in Raphael's painting: below the supernatural transfiguration of Christ is a scene of chaos in which the remaining disciples are unable to release a young boy from the demons possessing him. Using artwork to help us more fully understand the Scriptures was a new method for me, but then we can learn a great deal about the Bible and literature in general from the keen insight of artists.

Christian Art, in the Middle Ages and even far into the Renaissance, became "the poor man's Bible" in a way. The vast majority of the population was illiterate, so the artwork hanging in their churches told them the stories behind Biblical events like the Transfiguration as well as stories of the Saints. For example, parishioners who couldn't read would recognize a painting of Saint Sebastian by the arrow plunged into his side. So while they listened to sermons in church, their eyes would wander to the art in the church, linking the images to the Biblical and Saint stories they had learned. Art told the stories without words, a gift of beauty as well as education to an illiterate populace. And Raphael's "Transfiguration" is such a one as it relates two Biblical events occurring simultaneously: the heavenly vision of a transfigured Christ and the earthly battle against demonic possession, a battle only won when Christ Himself stepped in to assist His Disciples.

The Saint of the Day e-mails from AmericanCatholic.org describe the Transfiguration thus:

All three Synoptic Gospels tell the story of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-9; Luke 9:28-36). With remarkable agreement, all three place the event shortly after Peter’s confession of faith that Jesus is the Messiah and Jesus’ first prediction of his passion and death. Peter’s eagerness to erect tents or booths on the spot suggests it occurred during the Jewish weeklong, fall Feast of Booths.

Certainly Peter, James and John had a glimpse of Jesus’ divinity strong enough to strike fear into their hearts. Such an experience defies description. And certainly Jesus warned them that his glory and his suffering were to be inextricably connected—a theme John highlights throughout his Gospel.

Tradition names Mt. Tabor as the site of the revelation. A church first raised there in the fourth century was dedicated on August 6. A feast in honor of the Transfiguration was celebrated in the Eastern Church from about that time. Western observance began in some localities about the eighth century.

On July 22, 1456, Crusaders defeated the Turks at Belgrade. News of the victory reached Rome on August 6, and Pope Callistus III placed the feast on the Roman calendar the following year.

Comment:
One of the Transfiguration accounts is read on the second Sunday of Lent each year, proclaiming Christ’s divinity to catechumens and baptized alike. The Gospel for the first Sunday of Lent, by contrast, is the story of the temptation in the desert—affirmation of Jesus’ humanity. The two distinct but inseparable natures of the Lord were a subject of much theological argument at the beginning of the Church’s history; it remains hard for believers to grasp.

Quote:
“At his Transfiguration Christ showed his disciples the splendor of his beauty, to which he will shape and color those who are his: ‘He will reform our lowness configured to the body of his glory’” (Philippians 3:21) (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae).

The Collect for The Feast of the Transfiguration from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer:

O God, who on the mount didst reveal to chosen witnesses thine only-begotten Son wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistering; Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may be permitted to behold the King in his beauty, who with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.

So the Transfiguration shows us the divine side of Jesus, revealing His Power and Glory, while the chaos of humanity below cries out for His help -- a picture not just painted by Raphael hundreds of years ago but a picture of daily life for us as well. We have to look for those moments of Divine Revelation in our own lives on a daily basis. They are there, if only we choke back our fear and open our eyes to see them.