7 Quick Takes to Insanity

If you have to homeschool this year, I recommend purchasing a large stuffed duck.

It’s Friday. It really really is.

One

Matt wrote a piece for the print edition of the Christian Research Journal, which means that you have to pay real money to read it (which you should totally do) and then did a podcast with Melanie Cogdill. I listened to it this week with one eye lazily going over this piece—Andy Stanley explaining why he can’t hold real live church. This is the money line:

As a local church, we have limited time, limited staff, and limited resources; it makes no sense to focus our staff time and resources on creating a subpar environment on Sunday morning for a nine and 11 o’clock service that only 20% of the people may attend.

I love that—“it makes no sense.” I mean, I must sit here and chuckle to myself for a long while. That and “creating a subpar environment” are enough to get me through this whole day. So anyway, if you want to know why that is bad, listen to Melanie interview Matt. Meanwhile, I’m going to go on with my whole subpar life—environment forsooth.

Two

Now that you’ve settled in and are all comfortable and have a nice big hot drink in your hand as you lean over your keyboard (it’s gotta be a keyboard so if you’re on a phone, put it down and go find a big screen), check this out (make sure and scroll down)….if you spit everywhere I won’t be able to pay for the damages to your technology so swallow first.

“My gosh what is that thing?” you choke backing away in horror.

It’s someone’s memoir, that’s what it is. As I’ve said before, the world needs fewer and better memoirs. And also, Jesus needs to come back about two hours before I myself clicked that link.

Three

We’re taking the month of August off and I’ve already started down that insane path of making a list of all the things I can do with the time “off.” Like, we’ll repaint the house and turn the garage into a tiny house and dig up half the garden and replant it, and tear down the kitchen ceiling. I shouldn’t say “like.” That was actually my list. Then I started in all the books I’ve been waiting to read and extra stuff I could finally write. Looking at it all, I actually think I should just sit around and do nothing, which is what will happen anyway.

Four

My feed is full to the brim of half the people crying “Schools Should Open” and the other half crying “That’s Insane.” Everyone is quoting science. Honestly, I think both options are terrible. Sending children to school with all the regulations in place is obviously insane. But also, keeping them home is also insane. I think we need a third way. I have no idea what that is, but I’m sure that comet flying by right now will tell us the answer. That or SMOD.

Five

I mean, people do nod at me and my many many many years of homeschooling with a sort of bitter acknowledgment—‘At least your life isn’t going to be more of a living hell than usual. It will just be the Usual Nightmare of trying to get your children out of their intellectual darkness and into some kind of functional light. It’s been all on you as the years go by, but that was your choice, and I nod in your direction that even though it was a very very questionable choice, for two years at least, it has totally paid off.’ And I nod back and silently whisper, ‘I feel you.’

Six

I mean, if you wanted to go back and find those first few fissures that indicated a society cracking up, a culture where no common identity could possibly hold everyone together, I feel like you could go all the way back to those moments when communities stopped organizing their own schools and gave those decisions into the hands of people farther away. It probably made sense at the time, but a little bit more thought would have shown it was going to be a bad idea. The unhinging (to quote Andy Stanly) of the education of children from the communities to whom those very children should ultimately be accountable is rather like Americans loving to buy cheap plastic from a country that is busy, at this very moment, working out some kind of ethnic and religious genocide. It’s doing something insane and hoping for sparkly trinkets as a reward. So, of course, there are no good options for the education of children. America sold that option down the river almost a hundred years ago.

Seven

And now I must make my own school plan for next year, which only takes me half an hour but is painful because at the end I slip a piece of paper to Matt which he glances at, scowls, and mutters unspeakable things before unshipping his wallet and handing me his credit card. It’s going to be a great day! Go check out more takes!