Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Knockin 'Em Down & Teaching Logs

Logs tonight.  No, I am not sszzzzawing logs, but, setting up
Academic Logs.  (Ah, I love it when a plan comes together.  So exciting.)
It works like this: Teacher-Mom sets up the pins (fills out their assigned work) and the kids get to knock 'em down (getter done!).  Most days that's how it works.
We use little check marks.  The logs are flat, paper notebooks with little squares and lots of tiny instructions.  They represent our lives, in part. They are diaries of what we do.  (Certainly not the whole of our lives or of their instruction.)
And, then, at the end of 180 days, we get to show off all the little logs "knocked" down, and everybody is happy that we've sawed the whole pile and stacked it neatly between the pages of three-ring binders.
Interpretation? Well, that's up to the creator of the logs.  On one level, it means we've learned how to play school in a state-approved-recognized kind of way, and we now are smart, another year down, and no one gets hauled away. Well, at least not the kids. Mom may need her straight jacket refitted by then, but, somehow, the kids seem fine.  On a more lofty plane, it means something entirely different than what the state recognizes or requires.  It means this:
Now to get Wisdom.
Proverbs 4:7 "Wisdom is the Principal Thing; therefore, get wisdom: and with all thy getting, get understanding."

Now, how do I write that down onto these logs?  (That is, when we do not teach logs.  At least, last time I checked, I do not teach logs.  I teach whole persons, or at least, persons who are becoming whole, complete.  And you cannot buy a degree in this Wisdom.  But it is the principal thing.  No wonder God's Word aptly reminds me, "Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways, acknowledge Him/God."  (Prov. 3)

Of Wisdom:  The best talk on Wisdom that ever I have heard is located here: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Pastor Tim Keller -  http://sermons.redeemer.com/store/index.cfm?product=18377 - talks one and two are the ones I have heard.  Well-worth your time. 
And if you have older kids, invite them to listen with you.  Enjoy!

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