Popping the Phantom Mom

Abri (age 10) plays baritone and holds Noah (age -1)

 

The world tells us so many things we have to do to be good homeschool moms. It's so much easier to think of the things we DON'T have to do! Here is a list of them. Have a listen!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/74v648ntwYefAz6rcg15bA

Old-Fashioned Lessons that Never Go Out of Style - Silence

Time for a new series!

What has been growing on us in our family is that simple is best. In the "old days," they didn't have all the fancy bells-and-whistles curricula that are available now and they produced Shakespeare, Jane Austen, John Wesley, and Thomas Jefferson. How did they do it?

With simple lessons.

Fred Rogers --  yes: Mr. Rogers -- told his documentarian, Benjamin Wagner, "I feel so strongly that deep and simple is so much more essential than shallow and complex." He went on to say, "Spread the message."

I was looking for a unifying theme to my message and God gave it to me through Mr. Rogers.

The first lesson is Silence.

Depth does not come in noise. Simplicity is scattered by trivia like tossing a handful of pea gravel into a pond when the daily auditory clutter is swirling around us through voices, earbuds, and the sound of household machinery. Our current houses are rarely quiet. Even putting aside the sound of the heat or air conditioning coming on, the refrigerator hums, the computer hums, the light on the television NEVER goes off and the video game console seems impossible to turn off without unplugging it. I have to go looking for silence in my own house.

But, God speaks in silence: in Elijah's cave, in Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness, in Moses' isolation near the burning bush "at the back of the wilderness," in Philip's encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch in the desert, in the WWII concentration camp inmate who cleared the drain to the cesspool -- no one came near him for two years, not even the guards. He said he got to know God in the cesspool.

You may have read a post I shared awhile back about Uninterrupted Silent Reading in my public school. The entire school, janitor and secretary included, read from 1:05 to 1:25 every day. There was Silence, a hush over the entire school, a moment of blessed peace. In her video series, The Peaceful Home, Elisabeth Eliot told us about Quiet Time. For an hour every day, each of her eight grandchildren were in their beds, not talking. We adopted this and, to this day, over 20 years later, we still have quiet time after lunch. It is when we do our reading assignments. There is no music, no talking, no interrupting for one hour.

In Silence is where we think. We nap. We cogitate. We daydream. The thoughts we have received in our reading and math and Bible and family talking get sorted out and applied during that time. My second son, Mick has had major experiences with Silence.

As a four year old, he could decode words, but didn't know he could actually read until he was forced to sit for one hour with nothing but books to entertain him.

He took unbelievably long showers and worked calculus problems in his head to design a new style of compound bow. That bow is still in his head, but you know what I'm talking about.

He spent hours and hours out in the woods. His Bible is actually a waterproof Bible that has special paper that won't wrinkle when it gets wet because he spent so much time hunting -- which means, sitting in the woods. It was there  that he learned who God was as he overcame his fear of the dark, thought about what he had learned at Discipleship Jiu Jitsu, read through the entire Bible and prayed.

Depth of learning only comes when a person has had time to absorb what he has learned and fit it into his world view. That absorption only happens if there is nothing to distract. Only Silence allows that.

3 Ways to Get It All Done

What must get done, will get done. We know that. Kids get fed, husbands get clean socks, the mortgage gets paid because these things must be done. But, when you've had a crazy day, have not sat down till after lunch, have been beset from all sides, put out fires, making sure those necessary things get done and your husband comes home and asks, "So, what did you do today?" and you feel the only answer is, "Nothing" -- something's got to change.

If the things that must be done do get done and you still don't feel productive, then you need to make a point of doing the things that don't need to get done -- the Important things.

Stephen Covey took one of his 7 Habits of Highly Successful People and expounded on it in the book, First Things First. He divides our tasks into categories based on Urgency and Importance. Most of our lives are caught up in things that are Urgent with varying degrees of Importance and taking forays into Non-urgent, Unimportant activities like surfing the Internet or polishing the silver in August when there are no weddings or holidays to prepare for. Your most productive time, though, will be spent in activities that are Non-Urgent, but are Important -- things that improve relationships, refresh and strengthen you or develop your roles.

The first things everyone needs to do Covey calls "Sharpening the Saw." These are your Physical, Spiritual, Mental, and Social areas of your life that need refreshment, to strengthen you and fill up your gas tank. An example of a weekly list of these for me would be:

Physical -- Exercise 5 4 3 2 1 times. [I cross out a number each time I do it]
Spiritual -- Finish week 1 of Armor of God study
Mental -- Read "Sherlock Holmes"
Social -- Call Jen Tuesday

The next step is to identify your roles. For me, this is Wife, Mother, Christian, and Writer. I used to divide my roles into more categories, but I realized that all my roles at church fit into Christian and I didn't have to work on all of those roles every week: I'd just get overwhelmed. So, here is an example of my Roles list:

Wife -- Talk to Steve about that thing. [You don't need to know what it was]
Mother -- Exercise with Anna 5 4 3 2 1 times [notice how I doubled this up with my personal exercise time?]
Christian: Meeting with Becki about Cowboy Camp in 6 months
Writer: Write blog on First Things First

When I use this weekly guide as my to-do list, the Urgent things get done -- because they have to, right? -- but, sometimes in a more timely fashion than they would otherwise, and I get the Important things done, that wouldn't get done if I hadn't written them down. And, I feel satisfied that I have been productive.

So, 1) Identify your roles, 2) write a to-do list every week of Important, Non-Urgent things that improve your relationships or what Covey calls your "Production Capacity" and 3) do them! But, don't sweat it if something doesn't get done. You already got more done than you did last week!