8:30 AM
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love
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A song by the Black Eyed Peas came out a few years ago. An instant big hit, awesome recording. It says it all. The disease of our society.
"Where Is The Love?"
What's wrong with the world mama?
People living like aint got no mamas
I think the whole worlds addicted to the drama
Only attracted to the things that bring you trauma
Overseas yeah we tryin to stop terrorism
But we still got terrorists here livin
In the USA the big CIA the Bloodz and the Crips and the KKK
But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And if you hatin you're bound to get irate
Yeah madness is what you demonstrate
And that's exactly how anger works and operates
You gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love y'all
People killing people dying
Children hurtin you hear them crying
Can you practice what you preach
Would you turn the other cheek?
Father Father Father help us
Send some guidance from above
Cause people got me got me questioning
Where is the love?(where is the lovex3)(the love2x)
It just ain't the same all ways have changed
New days are strange is the world the insane?
If love and peace so strong
Why are there pieces of love that don't belong
Nations dropping bombs
Chemical gases filling lungs of little ones
With ongoing suffering
As the youth die young
So ask yourself is the loving really strong?
So I can ask myself really what is going wrong
With this world that we living in
People keep on giving in
Makin wrong decisions
Only visions of them livin and
Not respecting each other
Deny thy brother
The wars' going on but the reasons' undercover
The truth is kept secret
Swept under the rug
If you never know truth
Then you never know love
Where's the love y'all?(I don't know)
Where's the truth y'all?(I don't know)
Where's the love y'all?
People killing people dying
Children hurtin you hear them crying
Can practice what you preach
Would you turn the other cheek?
Father father father help us
Send some guidance from above
Cause people got me got me questioning
Where is the love?(where is the lovex3)(the lovex2)
I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder
As I'm getting older y'all people get colder
Most of us only care about money makin
Selfishness got us followin the wrong direction
Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting their young minds faster than bacteria
Kids wanna act like what the see in the cinema
Whatever happened to the values of humanity
Whatever happened to the fairness and equality
Instead of spreading love, we're spreading animosity
Lack of understanding, leading us away from unity
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feeling under
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feeling down
It's no wonder why sometimes I'm feeling under
I gotta keep my faith alive, until love is found
People killing people dying
Children hurtin you hear them crying
Can you practice what you preach
Would you turn the other cheek?
Father Father Father help us
Send some guidance from above
Cause people got me got me questioning
Where is the love?(fade)
Low self-esteem is prevalant, if not the norm in our society nowadays. It is truly a lack of love in people that manifests itself in different ways. It doesn't happen the same way to everyone. It is hard to recover from but if you make a choice to heal it can happen. When you love yourself and love God and choose to let go, you can heal. You see it's effects everywhere. Maybe it's the child too afraid to raise his hand in class because he's learned that speaking his mind ends with him being hit. Or, maybe it's the teen who has turned to under aged drinking because thinking of all the hurts that they've had said to them just feels better thinking about it this way, or not thinking about it at all. Or, maybe the one you don't even think of. The young adult who has a great social life, parties and drinks every weekend and may add the chaser of drugs, is the life of the party, wears all the best clothes, jewellery, whatever money or credit can buy. They may not realize until years later, or may never will, that they too have hurts so deep from their childhood that they are scarred forever. They try their best to cover it up, but one day it will rear it's ugly head. At times, in the form of an abusive parent, doing to their children what was done to them. Will the cycle ever end? Perhaps in the form of a mental illness, shutting out the world and escaping to another one because those memories are just too painful to recall, they don't go away. Or perhaps in the popular life of that young partier. The one with the best of everything money can buy. The stronger ones who can bury it deep within themselves and live falsely in a world that looks perfect to onlookers. No one knows the turmoil the boils deep down. The hurts they have suffered, the pain inflicted by the tongue of a narcissistic parent. This continues on into adulthood. The drinking and partying continue. After all, 'what else is there to do' is the common thought of most adults who don't have the love of God in their lives. These hurts may stay buried for years but they never die. Sometimes healing can occur, with a lot of love and a lot of work. Sometimes healing will never happen for them. There are those few who cannot live with it and who cannot heal it. We read about it in the news almost daily now. The children who bully other children. The teens who torture and murder. And, the adults who surprise everyone and begin to repay the hurts they feel to society by crime and taking the innocent lives of others. How many times in your life do you hear that the person who just tortured and murdered one or more people was a nasty person, had a violent temper, one who everyone who knew them expected them to take a life one day? You don't. You hear how they were well liked by everyone, intelligent and all round nice person. No one ever expects those people to do the unspeakable, and, so often they are the ones who do the very worst things we read about. The one thing that Psychiatrists have learned and told us is that many of our society's ills today stem from the painful childhood these people experienced. There is a common thread among the unfortunate ones with this disease throughout our society. It's starts with our children and the way we parent or the lack of loving parenting they have had. Simply said, they didn't feel enough love.
Suffice to say that I believe and acknowledge that every parent does the best they can in the circumstances they are in with the faculties they have available to them. I cannot judge another man until I have walked a mile in his moccasins. I did not live their lives and I'm not living it now. I can only speak for myself as a parent and I am only able to live the one life God blessed me with and love and teach the children He entrusted me with to the best of my ability through Him. I have done the best I can. I would not change one thing. I am happy with that and I am at peace, I am well. Most of all I love myself and I am loved by God.
I am not perfect, not one man is. All I know is that I have chosen to live a life of love and to teach that to my children and show the people whose lives I touch that love is the way, love is the answer. God does tell us to 'not be conformed in the ways of the world'. Love is a conscience choice, every moment of every day. You can choose love or you can choose the world. The way the world lives entails everything else but God's love. The way people live is an example of the lack of love in their hearts and the lack of God in their souls. Ignorance, disrespect, inconsideration, lack of simple manners, choosing self over others, the list goes on. Go anywhere and you will see it, open your ears and you will hear it, read the news and you will feel it. Are you going to live like the world lives or are you going to choose to love yourself and love others? When you make the choice to love you are changing the world one person at a time. The virtues you live by show others in your everyday interactions the way of love, the way of God. It may be a word or a smile. You will never know what small gesture has changed the life of another for the better, and in turn the world. Sometimes, in the simple way of showing them how they are not that way. Some people won't see it this way because they are too far gone, disassociated from that love within or absorbed in the ways of the world. They will even go so far as to think you're strange, or not normal because you're too kind. The only thing you can do for those people is pray for them. Pray that someday they will open their eyes and their hearts to love. They will not be changed until they make the choice for themselves to choose love. Some will notice, some will care, some will think about that one thing that set you apart from the rest of the world in a good way and want to be more like that. Those are the ones that I hope will be changed by the love our family shows the world.
My blog is here to help you make that choice easier. I hope you join me weekly to see what a difference love has made in the lives of one family who moved to the country and homeschooled their children as a choice of choosing love over the world. Until next time. Simply. Marie
10:08 AM
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Have you ever wondered why people choose to homeschool their children? Some people have very evident reasons. The main group of people who choose to hometeach their children are those who are affiliated to 'religious' or 'faith-based' groups. To simplify that, I'm referring to one you may think of right away. People of "Christian" faith. We are Christians (so if you're faith-phobic you'd better grab your gear and run far from here, change the page, before you read something that might challenge your thoughts and beliefs-or lack thereof).
However, our initial reasons for making the decision to 'homeschool' was not based upon religious or faith beliefs way back 17 years ago. Nope, it was based on love. Or lack, of it in the school system. Not to mention some pretty inconsiderate power tripping teacher that made up our minds one day to homeschool. The rest as they say, is history. I'll share some of that history with you. When our son was just knee high to a grasshopper-nope, oak was more like it (he is now 6'3") he started kindergarten for all of a couple of weeks. He was pulled from my arms kicking and screaming (great first memory of school-and they wonder why adults have anxiety and separation issues that stem from early childhood memories, hmm). He adjusted and had a great time with the sandbox, paints and duplos. Just what the doctor ordered. Fun. Still a healthy thing to do at eighty might I remind you. Lawn bowling, well, not exactly my speed right now but some day who knows? Then grade one, uh-oh. The respiratory issues began. Smart, yes, he could multiply when the other kiddies were just beginning to add. He was and still is above average in intelligence and is light years ahead of his peers when it comes to the 'spirit'. That genuine part of ones' self that makes up the true person that starts in the womb. Well, when we were onto our second bottle of dimetapp (you know the one pulled off the shelf maybe 8 yrs ago because of it's damaging effects on children, yep that one) in a week we knew there was a problem. He couldn't sleep at night because he coughed and coughed until he threw up. The doctor wasn't all that helpful. When our young boy developed pneumonia in grade one and missed over a week of schoolwork we decided to let him go back to school with the doctors' recommendation of 'no physical activity' and 'plenty of rest in between'. If he overdid it the coughing would worsen and he would be hospitalized. We let him go back because we caved from the pressure of the teacher telling us he was going to have to miss his lunches for a while to catch up. The sitting still part was good, but the over working the mind of a young boy of 7 with pneumonia was not healthy. Even with a healthy child it's not healthy! But, he had to catch up, I mean college would be starting next week, he couldn't be left behind because of getting sick. We couldn't have that. Like I said, we caved. We sent him back to grade one with a note from the doctor that said "he was to refrain from all physical activity" so as not to worsen his healing respiratory system. It was our daughters meet the teacher day and we strolled in to meet with the junior kindergarten teacher. We walked by the gym and peeked in..to what to our wonderous eyes did appear but our young, not well little boy running around the gym with 25 other kiddies. Well, that night the coughing returned, this time codeine cough syrup from the doctor and no more school until he was completely well. Oh, my, he will miss his college entry exam next week! This is life or death, or was it? We were very upset with the teacher for playing doctor or God, not sure which one she was trying out for by flatly refusing to listen to the real Doctor's instructions. He has to go and catch up, he has to be in school with all the other children. This what society told us to do. We had to listen. There was no other choice. Not if we didn't want to fall out of the 'normal' category there wasn't. What were we to do? We weren't Christian, we couldn't homeschool our children. After all, at that point we thought they were the only people who did. Then the 'clincher' came. When our little boy told us "there's not enough love in school". It all fell into place. That was the missing part of the puzzle we were looking for. Love. After all, anything is possible with Love.
I shifted my gears from "I'm going to have my career when these children are both in school full time and make lots of money!" after all, isn't that what life is about? Money, stuff, travel and a 'name' for yourself, letters after your name, or is it? To, I'm --hmm, we (hubby wasn't on board right away until I read him the book "Dumbing Us Down" while he was installing an engine in his Camaro.) are going to give our children just what they need, what our little boy was able to verbalize for us at such a young age---LOVE.
So, that journey began. One of living life to the fullest, laughing at ourselves (so we wouldn't get mad when other people did it), and loving- to the max. When something is done with Love and out of Love it becomes easier. Our hometeaching journey certainly hasn't been 'easy' but is anything nowadays? The correct answer is...'anything worthwhile does take effort and hardwork' It was definitely worthwhile when we saw it through the eyes of love.
Here we sit 17 years later. Our daughter just started highschool and has found the next piece in her puzzle. She was well prepared for life and the school system. Armed with an Omnipotent God, the faith of a mustard seed, a family who loves her and the ability to Live, Love, and Laugh she was ready for the world and is doing marvellously. She is off to a fantastic start on her way to becoming a Speech and Language Pathologist. Our son is marching to a different drum, actually shredding one of his many guitars while he marches. He has a heart of gold and a soul for God. He has no desire to join the highschool institution. He is preparing himself for a great career in Psychology. He has another year or so of home highschool. Then it's off to join the ranks of higher education of his choosing with others of like mind. That's okay for him and it's okay for us. Above all, it's okay for God. Both our children are listening to their leader. They are both exactly where God needs them to be at this time in their lives. Huh, I guess that means we are too. "Right where we need to be, at this exact moment in time".
So, as I said in my first post, hometeaching is a labour of love that begins when our children take their first breath, it ends for us when we take our last breath and is filled with moments in between that take our breath away. I am talking about teaching to love. It is the most wonderful vocation because all the while you are teaching, you are actually learning. until next time Simply.Marie
