Tradition!

Let’s begin with a shout out for Tevye.  He rocks.

Next, another shout out for Simplicity Parenting.  It also rocks.  Kim John Payne, its author, brings home again and again the importance of letting your children know who they are by teaching them “what our family does.”

In addition to the daily and weekly rituals that anchor our family life, we have several yearly rhythms that remind us who we are.

• Each night of Advent, we use Godly Play materials to slowly unfurl the story of the King who was “not like the king they were expecting.”  We light candles and march around the house singing, “Soon and very soon, we are going to see the king.”
• We buy only Jesus gifts on his birthday, and go all out on each boy’s birthday.
• We spend the 4th of July with my college friends in Maine.
• We spend Thanksgiving with international students at Toah Nipi, the retreat center owned by Jeff’s ministry.

We also spend nearly a week with Debbie and Tom and their two kids at Toah Nipi every summer.  That’s where we are as I write tonight.  Toah Nipi is my children’s favorite place on the planet.  Zach was here first when he was a month old and Ezra was here by two months. 

This is where they see Daddy in action, loving students, reading the Bible with them, and talking to them about Jesus.  This is where they are free to roam the grounds without adult supervision.  Where they swim and kayak and hike in the summer and tobaggon down hills in the winter.  Where Mommy and Daddy unplug and pay attention to them.

On this last point, we are doing less well.  The camp is now within cell phone range, and our laptops plug in to the blue cord in the office.  I’ve checked email a few times, and Daddy is iPhone ready at all times. 

But I am going to fight the technological encroachment as best I can.  If traditions help our boys know who they are, then I want them to know that they are beings whose worth is not measured in how much writing they produce or consume.  That they are worth paying attention to.  That they, and their parents, need rest. 

So I join my brother Tevye in fighting to keep some things the same for just a little while longer.  No new posts until we are back in Cambridge on Friday. Tradition!