SortaCrunchy

hello, world!

 

From Dina, the school of home contributor, who wishes she too were more crunchy than not:

I've always wanted to travel the world. See new places, experience other cultures, taste exotic foods. Scratch the exotic foods thing...frog legs and jellied eyeballs just aren't my thing. So far I've seen much of America's beauty coast to coast, a few major cities in my adopted homeland of Canada, and a strip of beach in Cancun, Mexico. The latter was viewed and enjoyed more often from the bedroom than not. Somehow or another, the arrival of our firstborn came nine months to the day of our wedding. :}

Now, with four kids in tow, the airlines have grounded us. It used to be my husband and I could each bring two pieces of carry-on luggage but now it's reduced to one and we just can't choose between which kids to send back into cargo.

So, this year I've resorted to bringing the world to my family.

Recently my family became acquainted with the ambassador of Malaysia and were guests in their home on a few occasions. Sampling their foods, learning about their heritage, and being met at the front door by the king and queen really helped us acclimate to another culture. One thing I did notice though, the king and queen just stood there and stared, real silent like. Almost like they were but a photograph...

We met a woman in August who was preparing to move to Vietnam to teach and minister God's love to the children there. The kids and I are partnering with her to be her contact liaison to the rest of those supporting her. Having a personal connection to a place really heightens everyone's interest in learning as much as we can about it.

Not lucky enough to have stared down the queen of Malaysia or shared coffee with a missionary? Here are a few ways you and your family can welcome the world to your doorsteps:

1. Have an international dinner night at your house. Recently I hosted 12 friends and neighbors for an Indian night complete with butter chicken, biryani, and chickpea masala. Afterwards, we watched a Bollywood film which shed an amazing amount of light on the culture and it's people.

2. Read Ali's African Adventures at the dinner table. Ali is a pediatric nurse aboard the world's largest charity ship that drops anchor in West Africa to minister free medical care to the people there. Reading about the lives and challenges of people another world away has given my family a broader understanding of the needs of others and, by comparison, of our own wealth and privileges. Ali and her husband are now traveling around the world for six months so you can catch a ride on an elephant or ostrich (click here, you won't be disappointed!) or swim along with hippos through the lens of her stories. Currently, she is in India representing the needs of children to the many who read her blog.

3. Partner with Voices of the Martyrs and venture, if you dare, into the jungles of Colombia to deliver God's word to drug lords and paramilitary troops. Learn together about the topography and natural beauty of this country while working to make parachutes that will deliver radios and books to revolutionaries below.

4. Interview business owners and employees of the shops you frequent most. My husband's hair lady is from Iran and he has learned tons about this country through her stories and her flight for freedom. Our favorite pizza place is owned by a man with a ton of history from his own motherland and we hope to interview him while scouting out the secret to his delicious sauce. 

5. Already a globetrotter? The world seem too small for you? Why not undertake a study of another world, Heaven, with your family? Starting by asking my kids what they already knew about heaven, which according to my son is a big circle way, way up in the sky, I used this book as a reference to challenge them with and answer their many questions. Seeing as this world is not my (forever) home, I think it's not such a bad idea to start studying my TripTix on my future destination. I've already booked a flight on a pterodactyl and my son has King David in his basketball team line-up.  With these kind of all-inclusive benefits, I'd encourage you to confirm your name on heaven's log book asap.

6. Pack your bags and go somewhere! Sure, money's always a problem but after being married for ten years, don't I deserve a trip out of my own continent? Sorry, this one may be more about me than you but I need all the help I can get trying to convince my husband to take me to India, his land of origin, and Malaysia (this time, to see if I can't get a personal visit with my longtime friend, the queen!) for our upcoming anniversary. Donations are accepted.

a student of life, learning daily through the unconditional love of her God, her husband, and her four children. drinking lots of hot Egyptian licorice tea to keep her warm as, for now, she only dreams of travel to warmer climates.  Read more from Dina at A Worthy Life.

how to walk like a supermodel

From school-of-the-home contributor Dina:

My day started happily enough. Summer was being ushered in on the backs of warm, dry breezes and life was good. Until I came face to reflected face with every aging woman's kryptonite: your body in a swimsuit. I'm a generally optimistic person but this was one time I would rather take the cup half empty instead of filled up and bursting at the nylon seams. Milk does a body good. Having provided it to four eager babies, not so much.

During my recent physical, I bemoaned my mounting ailments and gravity-laden parts to my doctor, hoping perhaps that she had a prescription that could make everything better. She assured me that I looked quite good for my age, this while doing my semi-annual pap test. I guess the up side to being old enough to have birthed four children is bragging rights to a beautiful birthing canal. How's that for inner beauty...

Gravity-laden or not, I'm proud of who I am, how God made me, and what He created me to do and be.

It wasn't always this way. Growing up, my mother always warned me against my steady diet of fashion magazines, cautioning me that photos from a centerfold can lead to discontent in my center, my soul. I kept binging on the images until my own became too much a priority and my reality could never match my fantasy.

These days our children don't even need to open the pages of a magazine to feel physically inadequate. The top rated shows for kids are those with tweens bedecked in full make-up and hair extensions as their starlets. The grocery lines are full of magazines mocking the cellulite or the excess baggage of even the thinnest stars. Commercials during all the sporting events boast beautiful women, capitalizing on their beauty, mocking their supposed lack of brains.

This is the definition of beauty today? These are the role models for this generation?

I want something more for my kids. I want them to be someone more. I need a hero for hire. I need a role model who could show them how to walk worthy, a tall order only a super model could fill.

As I read my Bible one night, I found her. I found him.

I found the mother of Moses, who saw that hers was not an ordinary child. Seeing something special in the innocence of his baby eyes, she wanted something different for him. So, she hid him away. She sheltered him from death and then instilled in him a powerful sense of justice.

He, the remarkable son, refused to be but a child of this world, turning away from the privilege and the comfort that was his. He chose to suffer that he might bring justice to a hurting people.

I found Joshua who courageously believed that there could be more to life than what God's people were willing to settle for. He believed that God had bigger plans, better plans, a better land prepared for them.

There was Daniel, brilliant and handsome, who resolved not to defile himself in an environment toxic to his beliefs. He purposed in his heart to stand apart.

Ruth was a beautiful woman who didn't find humility and service below her. She looked to the needs of others over the pursuit of her own desires.

An oddball from the start, there was John. He didn't exactly dress to impress and his diet was, shall we say, unique? But his words, a voice crying out in the wilderness, drew people by the flocks. His message made others listen. His passion made them want the Truth that he shared.

This is who I want my children to emulate.

As Moses' mother did, I want to believe that my child in no ordinary child. That they are meant for more than what the world would offer them, more than what the world would have them settle for.

I want them to possess a justice that compels them to stand up for those without it. I want them to have a courage that turns away from apathy and lethargy, a courage that demands that they fight for what God desires for them.

I want them to understand that beauty and brilliance are gifts but they do not define you, they do not complete you. I want to warn them that following after solely those pursuits can lead to a slippery slope of conformity and arrogance. Instead, I would that they would humble themselves, that they would never believe themselves to be above any service. 

To be a voice of Truth, to be one pointing others to God, that would be a enviable future for my children.

My desire is that they would walk like David who, though he slipped up time and time again, knew the love of his God surpassed any other's. I hope that they can hold fast to the truth that forgiveness is only a call away and that they would never give up pursuing after God.

As a mom who can do little to shape their external features, I want to do all I can to shape their inner beauty. By providing them with alternative models to point them in the right direction, maybe it is possible for them to walk a different walk. Maybe one day they too could be super models to a generation of children desperate to know how they can love God and live in this world.

At the very least, they can always claim themselves as heirs to a legacy of people with inner beauty.

After all, their mother sure did have one good looking birthing canal.

a student of life, learning daily through the unconditional love of her God, her husband, and her four children. a lamb to her Good Shepherd and a shepherdess to her young ewes, all the while hoping that somehow, someway her life brings about change in the lives of others that will last for all eternity.  Read more from Dina at A Worthy Life.

the {me} in media

From SortaCrunchy school of the home contributor Dina, originally published at A Worthy Life

It's a dead on impersonation of Beyonce's "Single Ladies." She flips her hair and wiggles her ring finger while her face is all sass and serious attitude. "If you liked it than you shoulda put a ring on it . . . . UhuhohohohohUhuhohohohohUhuhOH . . . !!" She probably heard the song all of three times and yet the words sank deep into her cerebellum waiting to be conjured up again and again at the soonest silliest moment. 

The other one stumbled across a day time soap opera while searching for Treehouse, unattended and unauthorized to have the tv on. I came running when I heard the tell tale music that saunters into your ears to lure in your eyes, that soft melody that suggests an intimate and torrid scene. Her eyes were hooked and though they lingered only long enough for me to tear the remote from her frozen fingers, the images sank deep into her heart and affected her mind and body for months after. 

Their days are full of sensory overload, whether during school or in play or by the examples of those they come into contact with. They are learning by osmosis, picking up on the culture and social norms by the influences that are allowed access to the gates of their minds and hearts.

And I, the familykeeper, stand guard, allowing or rejecting the influences that take up residence in our home.

While online, watching tv, or playing with their friends, I stand close by, watching and listening, instructing and protecting. Thinking it is only there, in the outside world, that the greatest evil influences reside.

Then, I observe her declaring with gruff disapproval, "Dang DON it!" An (almost) spot on imitation of someone else's blatant frustration. I overhear another bossing the younger unmercifully with the same tone I myself am apt to use. When I tell them not to yell at each other, their ready defense is, "But sometimes you yell at papa..." I see rooms littered with clothes and toys, remnants of fun but forgotten times abandoned for the next thing. Funny how my room looks the same.

As many parents do, I worry about the influence of the media and peers on my children. Yet statistics show that of all the influences in a child's life, none is greater than their parents. Dang DON it, don't I wish I could blame it all on the media?!

The show my kids are tuned into most is the Mommy Channel and they are watching, they are learning. Are all my lessons to them given from behind lipstick on a pig, an obvious hypocrisy and double standard? Does all I say merely drip with honey while my life displays a sticky mess?

Gilda Radner, America's comic sweetheart, tells a story of a pregnant dog who was run over by a lawnmower. She lost her two hind legs but her babies survived. The mama soon adjusted to life with only front paws and found a new way of walking by taking two steps followed by a hop from her backside. When her pups were old enough to walk, they did just fine, following their mother's example of a two-stepping-bum-hopping gait.

I am teaching my children to walk by my own walk.

Are they learning a confident gait along the straight path, one walked with perseverance and no compromise? Or, are they mimicking a walk that is random and sporadic, steady on good days and then occasionally scooting off to my own desires, hopping on and off the path when it suits my whims?

Be careful little eyes what you see, be careful little ears what you hear, be careful little hands what you do, be careful little feet where you go, be careful little mouth what you say. For littler eyes and ears and hands and feet and mouths will watch and overhear and mimic and accompany and repeat their precious mamas.

Be careful, little mama.

a student of life, learning daily through the unconditional love of her God, her husband, and her four children. a lamb to her Good Shepherd and a shepherdess to her young ewes, all the while hoping that somehow, someway her life brings about change in the lives of others that will last for all eternity.  Read more from Dina at A Worthy Life.

 

 

sock monkey ink photo by katesheets

the death of supermama

I've seen it all over mommy-blogs for months. I've heard it from friends while discussing motherhood together. Shucks, even Megan - the sorta-supermama ;) - blogged about it yesterday! We're all trying to do the very best we can as mothers, nay, even pushing ourselves past our own abilities and resources in attempts to be like her and her, and even better than that mama. We've somehow believed the lie that says that our worth as a mother is only as valuable as the crafts we do, the green-ness we practice, the houses we transform into homes, the things we do for our children.

I'm over that. I'm totally over myself. Because as every good mother knows, it's not always about you. It's about our children, it's about our families. It's about how God is using this mama of this husband with these children to reflect His glory and His story in our lives.

If your reflection is telling you that you're not good enough, that you're not giving enough, that you're just not enough for your family, you are the prime candidate for the 12 Step Program for Supermama Wanna-be's...

Can't. Suck. In. My. Gut. Any. Longer.

My elusive attempts at becoming Supermama are hereby put to death.

Baby, these hips don't lie...they have now borne multiple children and that micro-mini leotard is no longer what to wear. When my first thought in the morning is "how will my booty look in Superwoman's bad-booty undies?", I think my illusions of one day morphing into her killer physique are more aptly stated as delusional. After all, it ain't easy for a four time suckling mother to keep that bold initial buoyant on a chest that has long since gone south.

So, I quit.

My name is ______ and I am a Supermama-wanna-be.

I admit that I am powerless over the desire to be-all and do-all, my life has become unmanageable.

I am done trying to fix myself and instead come to that Power greater than myself that alone can restore me to sanity amid the laundry and dirty dishes, tantrums of a toddler and chaos around me.

I choose to turn my desire to lead a perfect life on the arm of my perfect husband with my perfect kids in my perfect house over to the care of God.

Oh, how I wish I could skip this step: that searching moral inventory of myself that has led me to such fear of failure! (Deep breath...)

I admit to God, my husband, my children, my family, and friends that I have presented a facade of perfection that has slowly begun to crack, leaving me emotionally and mentally unstable and very nearly clinically insane!

I will continually make amends with my children when I am impatient, with my husband when I am selfish, and with all others when I am characteristically moody, mean, and menopause-ish.

I am ready for God to take over in His transforming work, to re-shape and re-mold me into a vessel that will only be devoid of defects on that day of presentation before my Creator.

God, take control.

I surrender to you my fantasy of having a phone-booth-morphing-moment in exchange for those quiet times with you, where You will teach me and speak to me, encourage and strengthen me, and answer my cries for help.

I will share my humiliating experiences and lessons in humility to other Supermama-wanna-be's and will practice honesty in all my shared life stories that together we might be transformed more and more into Your image and not settle for some hour-glass shaped caricature with a personality complex.

My name is now Mama. Just . . . mama.

a student of life, learning daily through the unconditional love of her God, her husband, and her four children. a lamb to her Good Shepherd and a shepherdess to her young ewes, all the while hoping that somehow, someway her life brings about change in the lives of others that will last for all eternity.  Read more from Dina at A Worthy Life.

whereby nobodies change the world

Hello. My name is Dina but I can pretty much guarantee you've never heard of me.

Which is fine, because it just so happens that I'm kind of a big deal back here where I live.

Where I'm from, I'm The Mama.

I married early, too early even to finish university and pregnant too soon and too often thereafter to entertain any idea about continuing my education. In the B.C. years (Before Children), I imagined that my contribution to the world would be fulfilled through an occupational pursuit, one that provided me with desired challenges and compensated me well. With my hands full with babies and days full of cleaning, cooking, and catching an occasional nap my impact on the world would have to wait.

Or would it?

As parents, as educators of the home, we have the ultimate responsibility: influencing the next generation that will, in turn, shape the world that we will grow old in. There is no sphere of influence, no position of authority, no occupational pursuit that holds such promise and such impact as our role with the young lives we hold in our hands and in our hearts.

For years after children, I struggled with identifying my occupation, though I had well learned the enormity of its privilege. Sure, I stayed home and did the laundry, cleaned the house, and even chose to educate my young children at home but I was more than any one of these, so what then was the sum of all of them?

Reading aloud recently with my older girls, I began to sputter and stumble as emotion spilled over through the words I read. The story was one that told of a past time, a time when life was simple though the days were long with hard work and your closest friends were those within your family. Nestled among the details of life on a mountain farm and the growth of a young shepherd boy and his pet lamb was this paragraph, the thoughts of his mother:

"Once the boy had come safely into the world, she realized how her prayers for him had changed. It was not for life and a strong body to hold its treasures she prayed, for he had these; he was a sturdy, shapely boy from the first. It was that he might be caring and useful in this world. Such a short way could she go with him on that path that was his life; only a few years she would have his hand in hers. For a few more years he would walk beside her; then he would be a man going his way alone, but if it were a way of kindness, the memory of that first day would always fill her with joy."

Parallel to this thought was the boy's own thought about his lamb. Just as he would shepherd and protect his pet, so too would his mother be that momentary shepherdess in his life.

That is what she and you and I share in common: we are shepherds and shepherdesses of the precious souls within our keep. For such a brief moment, we can walk beside our little ones, equipping and influencing them with the values and morals, ideas and characteristics that might better our world.

The necessities of reading, writing, and arithmetic are almost a certain guarantee that our children will possess. But what of kindness, what of humility, what of service, what of discipline, what of contentment? Who will be the models and educators of these essentials?

Whether through one life or four within the fold of our homes, it will be us in our role as parents that will impact the world. It will be through wisely understanding our calling as shepherds, as shepherdesses to instruct and model and develop the character of our children that we will reap the greatest rate of return on our investment.It will be by the age old truths of hard work and home grown values, through surrounding them with the friendship and love of family and good friends, that our children will navigate the ups and downs, the liberties and dangers of their journeys through life.

And by so lovingly and faithfully doing, we will have changed the world.

*the book mentioned here is Mountain Born, by Elizabeth Yates, one which this nobody highly recommends.

a student of life, learning daily through the unconditional love of her God, her husband, and her four children. a lamb to her Good Shepherd and a shepherdess to her young ewes, all the while hoping that somehow, someway her life brings about change in the lives of others that will last for all eternity.  Read more from Dina at A Worthy Life.