Green Hour Challenge #10

Barb’s Green Hour Challenge this week was to have a picnic.  Now this challenge was right up my kids alley.  As soon as the weather gets moderately tolerable, they start begging to have picnics.  Their first choice is to have a picnic at the park, but if I don’t go for that, they will settle for the back yard.  For this challenge, since it was our first “official” picnic of the year I wanted to go somewhere fun.  Thanks to one of Sonja’s blog posts, I had heard that Red Butte Gardens was having a free day for Arbor Day, so we decided to head up there to check it out.   I am so glad we did.  Spring is just barely starting to make itself evident in our neighborhood.  Our tulips have finally started to think about opening.  You can see the color around their closed heads, but we still don’t have much life here yet.  When we got to Red Butte Gardens, the first thing we came to was a patio area with this beautiful tree in full bloom and thousands of daffodils all around.  

We thought this would be the perfect spot for our picnic.

The kids hurried and ate and then got to the real business of the day, exploring.  As we headed down the paths, our first discovery was this butterfly.  

It sat there for a long time and let the kids get up pretty close to observe it.  Next, we found a neat path through the trees that the kids just had to take.

A neat surprise was that throughout the Gardens they had “Exploration Stations” set up for the kids to learn all about trees.  At the first station we came across we finally got to use the magnifying glass, since I never did find ours.  They had slices of different tree trunks that the kids could investigate.  They counted tree rings and saw the effects of fire and insect damage on trees.  This was probably the boys favorite station.

We learned about leaves, 

and seeds,

and all-in-all, had a wonderful day being out in the beauty of spring!

Doers of the Word

I have been thinking lately about how difficult it is sometimes to “live our religion.”  At times it is easy to feel like we know so much about what it means to be Christ-like, but if you ask yourself if you are really living a Christ-like life, or more to the point, am I living as Christ would live, the answer is almost always no.  At least it is for me.  I have had a scripture running through my head for the past couple of days and decided to look it up today and read it in context.  I was really surprised by what I found.  The part I had going through my head was this, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.”  I think that is how I usually hear it, but when I looked it up today there was more to the verse and I found it very revealing.  

It is in James 1:22

22 But be ye ^adoers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

  

Sometimes I think it is easy to be deceived by what we think we know.  But knowing and doing are two separate things.  It isn’t enough to study the scriptures, and go to church.  Those are necessary and important things, but those are only the means to an end, not the end in and of them selves.  They are some of the tools we need to use to gain the direction of the spirit which will, if we let it, lead us to the things we need to do to become more like Christ.  The rest of the first chapter of James was also very good and insightful.

23 For if any be a ^ahearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a ^bglass:

 24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

This is so beautiful.  I love the imagery of “the word” revealing our natural face.  When we see with “our spiritual eyes” we are able to see our true selves, the self that God sees when he looks at us.  That self is one with matchless potential, for we are His children.  As C.S. Lewis said, “we are Gods in embryo.”  There is such power in that view.  How sad to catch that glimpse, and then go our separate way and “forget what manner of man” we were.  I think that Heavenly Father is constantly trying to give us those glimpses of our true selves, and for that matter the true nature of everyone and everything around us.  But when we allow ourselves to become too busy and too distracted we loose the sustaining power of the spirit and we forget what we have seen.  Much of the answer to this problem lies in verse 25: 

25 But whoso looketh into the perfect ^alaw of ^bliberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

Again, this is so awesome.  I think that often the spirit touches us and gives us those glimpses of our true selves by telling us what we could be doing better.  We get those “pin pricks” to our soul that remind us where we have gone astray.  When we have those experiences we have two choices.  We can either “be a forgetful hearer” and continue in the comfort of our well-worn paths, or we can be “a doer of the work” and get to work to make the changes in our lives that we see are necessary.  The promise here is that if we take the harder road, we “shall be blessed in ‘our’ deed.”  We will be given the strength we need to do the things we have been prompted to do, but first we have to take the leap of faith and do it.  We have to be willing to get outside of our comfort zone and change.  No matter where we are in our lives, no matter how “good” or “bad” we feel we are, none of us is perfect, so we should all constantly be working to improve some aspect of our lives.  The last two verses are some good ideas to start with: 

  26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his ^atongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is ^bvain.

  27 Pure ^areligion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To ^bvisit the ^cfatherless and ^dwidows in their ^eaffliction, and to keep himself ^funspotted from ^gthe ^hworld.

These are areas I have felt the need to improve in.  I need to look more for the good in others and not find fault.  I worry a lot about my own family, but I know I need to reach out more to those around me who are in need.  I need to seek for, and respond to, opportunities to help others.  I need to remove myself more from the things of this world, and immerse myself more in the things that will have value in the world to come.  As I do these things, hopefully the spirit will add upon what I have been given and I will be able to do even more.  If we give our lives to God, and labor to become who He is trying to help us to become the promise is this:

Hebrews 4:9-11

9 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

11 Let us ^alabour therefore to enter into that rest...

I hope that I can be a doer, and not a hearer only, so that I can someday enter into that rest.

Green Hour Challenges #8 & 9

We did our green hour challenge last week, but I didn’t get a chance to post about it, so I thought I would combine the two today, before I got too far behind.  Last weeks challenge was “up close and personal”.  We were supposed to use a magnifying lens to examine things up close, but try as I might, I could not find ours.  As an alternative, we decided to go out to our back yard and try to observe the birds who have been feeding in our feeders, and nesting in our nest box a little closer if possible.  So far, we have only seen them in action from the windows of our house.  The kids and I “hid” under the trampoline and tried not to talk louder than a whisper to see if any would come for a visit while we were outside.  The kids waited and watched patiently.  We had some visitors in our neighbors trees, and had fun listening to their calls, but none would come to the feeders. 

  

It took quite a while, but as we were about to give up, we were rewarded by a visit from another finch.  We thought we were sure these were House Finches visiting us, but I have been learning that there are several varieties that are fairly similar, so I am not 100% sure.  We will keep observing, and hopefully we will know for certain soon.

For today’s nature study, we went in the back yard again, this time to see what we could discover in the ground.  Each child was given a one foot square to observe, and dig in, and see what he could find.  We used one of the square foot gardens that we still haven’t finished weeding yet.  It was getting chilly outside, but the kids had fun digging. 

They were hoping to find some really interesting bugs, but all they found were “potato bugs” and an earthworm.  

The thing that I was impressed with was their increased powers of observation.  Even though they have seen tons of potato bugs before, they sat looking at them and pointing out interesting things that they were noticing about them for quite a while.  Another breakthrough!  Barb was so inspired when she came up with these Green Hour Challenges!  They have been just what we needed to jump start our nature study.

Isaac Newton

This book was on my 888 list in my ‘Harrison’s Readings’ category. We finished it last week, so I thought I would post a review.   We read this book for Harrison’s ‘Knight’s of Freedom’ group.  It is a wonderful homeschool group for boys ages 8-12.  The boys read a biography each month and meet to discuss it and do activities based on the life of the person studied.  This month’s biography was Isaac Newton.  

If you have never read any of the Sower Series books, I highly recommend them.  What I love about these books is that they not only tell the stories about what the person did that made them famous, they also tell the stories about what made them great.  It tells about their devotion to God and the Christ-like character traits in their life that made them a great man.  

Harrison and I both thoroughly enjoyed this book.  The story was interesting, exciting, funny, touching, and above all, inspirational.  Isaac Newton was an amazingly humble man.  Despite his genius, he never wanted to be recognized or praised for his accomplishments.  He acknowledged God in everything.  

As a scientist he felt that all of his discoveries only strengthened his belief that there is a God.  I found this so revealing.  It is interesting to me that most scientists today say that science is opposed to the existence of a God, and yet, Isaac Newton, who is arguably the most intelligent man to ever live, believed the opposite.  Here is a man who established the fact that there is order in the universe, discovered how gravity holds the universe together, identified the three laws of motion which is what scientists use to this day to accurately calculate the path of a rocket to the moon, invented the reflecting telescope, invented calculus, wrote Optiks one of the most important books about light ever written, and so much more, and he said, “Atheism is so senseless.  When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light.  This did not happen by chance.”  It amazes me that men, who’s intelligence pales in comparison to Newton’s  can say that their “knowledge” of things prevents them from being able to believe that there is a God.  What arrogance!

  

Harrison and I were able to have many interesting and significant discussions because of this book.  This is one of my key measuring sticks of the worth of a book.  If you have any children who are interested in science, mathematics, or space, I highly recommend this book.  Be sure to read it too so that you can discuss the many wonderful insights it contains.

School/Life with Baby

One of my greatest fears when we started this school year was how I was ever going to be able to accomplish anything in school with a brand new baby.  Much to my surprise, things went much more smoothly this year than I had ever dared to hope.  Until now...  

Carol has been (and still is) a wonderful baby.  She is almost always happy and easily entertained.  However, her new favorite thing to do is to pull out anything and everything that she sees that is put away.  If I try to stop her, she gets very mad and starts to scream.  This means that if I want to accomplish anything I have to compromise.  I let her make her messes so that I can get done what I need to at the moment, knowing it means more work for me, and then I clean up her mess when she is distracted with something else.  This morning during our family read aloud, Carol started to pull everything off the school bookshelf.  (She does this a couple of times a day.)  I felt a little exasperated because I really didn’t feel up to another day of chaos control, but just before I lost it, the thought came into my mind that I am so going to miss this some day.  I decided to get out my camera instead and took a few pictures so that I can always remember the fun times we had when everyone was little, and our biggest worries were cleaning up the messes. I hope I can always remember to cherish every moment.  They go by way too fast.  

                       

And yes, we totally do school in our pajamas.  Isn’t homeschooling great?!

Green Hour Challenge #7

I am excited to report that our nature study is finally starting to catch on around here.  In past weeks, when I have told the boys that we were going for our nature walk I would get a lot of aw’s and do we have to’s.  But today, when I said we were going to do our nature walk all I heard was o.k.!  We headed back to the canal today because the kids have been wanting to see the ducks again, and as birds are our area of focus, I thought it would be appropriate.  It is obviously nesting time because there were a lot fewer ducks today and they were much more timid than last time.  

                       

We walked for a ways to see if we could find any other birds, but although I tried to convince the boys that they needed to be “quiet like spies” so we could find the birds I think they were still too noisy for us to have any good close encounters with them.  

                        

We did see several birds in these bushes across the canal, but they were too tiny to get a good picture of.

                        

When we came home however, there was a bird in our bird feeder.  We were fascinated by the red coloring on his breast.

                        

I thought I knew what kind it was, but wasn’t certain.  I asked Harrison if he wanted to help me try to look it up and he said o.k. (He said it rather reluctantly, but at least he didn’t say no.)  It turned out that it wasn’t what I thought it was at all.  It took quite a long time to find it, and I was worried that Harrison was going to loose interest before we did, but we were both having fun seeing all of the different varieties of birds that we had never seen before, and didn’t even know existed where we live.  Finally, we found it, and both let out a little cheer.  It was a house finch! It was surprisingly rewarding to have gone on our search and been rewarded with knowledge that we hadn’t had before.   

We took Barb’s suggestion for this week and made up two cards to start our field guide.  One was for the Mallard Duck, and the other was for the House Finch.

                            

The kids are even more excited about identifying additional birds so that we can add more birds to our field guide.  I am just happy that they are getting excited about nature study!  Thanks again Barb!

1984

I have another book checked off on my 888 list!  Actually, I finished 1984 a couple of weeks ago, but I have been waiting to do my review until after we met for book club so I didn’t give anything away.  Plus, I needed some time to process it.  My initial reaction was that I hated it and couldn’t believe it was considered a “classic”.   It was very disturbing.  I knew it would be dark, but I don’t think I was prepared for the yuckiness.  Sadly, I was the one who chose this book for book club.  I really didn’t know much about the book except that I kept hearing it referenced in a number of other works I was reading.  Most recently I read about it in Approaching Zion, by Hugh Nibley.  (That book is fabulous by the way.  I can’t wait to finnish it.  That review will be a much easier one to write...)  When I read about it there, I finally decided I needed to find out what all the fuss was about.  

This book is labeled as a “negative utopia”.  It was written in 1948 and was a, then, futuristic view of the year 1984.  In this world everything is controlled by “the party”.  All actions, emotions, relationships, everything, down to the minutest detail, is under the observation and careful scrutiny of “the thought police”.  Anything out of the ordinary is noticed, and those people who do not conform are “taken care of”.  The book is about one man’s plight to discover truth in a world where truth is almost impossible to find.  

The premise of the book, and the ideas it brings out are fascinating.  I loved the theme presented in the book of “the minority of one”.  The main character struggles with the question of ‘If you are the only one who believes something is true, but you are certain that it is, does that make you insane?’  It was a captivating idea, and one that I sometimes feel I can relate to, so I appreciated it all the more.  I also found the parallels to our day very compelling.  There was a device that everyone had in their homes and were unable to turn off called a “telescreen” (remember this was written in the 40’s...).  The telescreen filled their days and nights with information and told them what to think and believe about the party and the life the party was creating for them.  Sounds a lot like television doesn’t it?  We might have the ability to turn it off, but the statistics show that most people don’t most of the time.  Another parallel is the way the party uses doublespeak to describe its’ inner workings.  Basically, they call good evil, and evil good.  We see plenty of that happening in the world today...  

Most of the reviews I have read about this book either praise it or condemn it because of its warning against communism or totalitarianism.  While I think those warnings are clear and true, the greatest warning I saw in the book was against the “dumbing down” of society.  The party’s whole objective was to create an unthinking populace who did whatever they were told.  That was how they gained power over the people.  That was the scariest and most timely message in the book to me.  Scary, because that is where I see our society headed in a fast and seemingly unstoppable way.  We swallow what we’re fed, and rarely question if it is what is good for us or not.  From our public education system, to our “public policies” in most any form.

All of these ideas and several others were very poignant to me.   I just wish that Orwell could have left out the sex and violence.  It was probably tamer than most modern novelists would treat this subject matter, but there were many times when my spirit was offended.  I have been struggling to reconcile the relevance of the message with the questionable content and I’m not sure if I can.  Would I recommend this book to others?  I don’t know.  I think the story was very captivating, and the message was extremely significant, however I have a hard time recommending a book with shady material. 

Writing this review has been very therapeutic for me.  In fact, I wish now that I would have written it before our book club.  There are so many ideas that we didn’t discuss that I wish we would have.  I have to admit I actually like the book much more in retrospect than I did while I was reading it...