Do not read this article unless you want to get really upset. Here we have one of the so-called experts who has decided that he and his group know better what your own children need than you do.

David Arnold has written this article, published on the website of the National Education Association, that is the absolute perfect example of what I wrote about in my previous post. I will not go into all the arguments again, but this man believes that you are an amateur when it comes to your own children. David Arnold, head custodian at Brownstown Elementary School in Southern Illinois, knows better. He’s an “expert” or at least is good friends with some.

The state, or more appropriately the unions, must approve you to teach your children. After all they have teachers who have been “at their profession for 10, 20, 30 years”. Nevermind the fact that you have lived with your children since they were born. You are not smart enough, you are not dedicated as much, you are not “expert” enough to teach.

I can tell you this article makes my blood boil. These people want to destroy American freedom. They want to rule your family for the “good of the masses”. Friends, as Jeff pointed out in a comment on my last post, this is fascism! This is the state overruling and deciding what freedoms it wants to grant instead of the people deciding what laws to enforce.

Do not be fooled. This is not about home schooling. It is about freedom. Freedom that Americans have fought and died for over the last 200+ years.

Can you tell I’m upset?

Juice

A whirling noise and constant voice
Is always saying I have a choice
To choose a step or take a fall
But the forward step hits the wall

What freedoms do I choose to lose
In the world around I hear the boos
No one seems to articulate
That freedom is not the same as hate

Those who desire to make a right
Are said to only be looking to fight
The answers are not without paradox
The doves to lie with the hawks

I do not speak of politics or election
I speak of a life of peace with conviction
A place, a nation, of rights…but also wrongs
Where freedom sounds the citizen’s songs

We look to masses and to convergence
To instruct us in emergence
Out of the womb of family life
Into the death of worldly strife

I love the Christmas season. I look forward to it all year. To me Christmas means cold weather in Northern California and a house full of extended family laughing together, playing games, and exchanging gifts. Laughter is what I really think of. A house full of teasing, loving, and laughter. Christmas time to me isn’t really about Jesus. I try to make everyday about Jesus and every moment of every Sunday is about God’s grace to us in Jesus.

Christmas is different. Certain Christmas songs will, indeed, cause me to really think about the incarnation of Christ and bring joy to my heart. O Holy Night is my favorite Christmas hymn (Fall on Your Knees!).

To me though, Christmas is also Bing Crosby’s Christmas album and my other 12+ hours of Christmas music on my computer. It is bright lights of red and green. It is classic movies, my perennial choices being “A Christmas Story”, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “Miracle on 34th Street”, “Christmas Vacation”, “A Christmas Carol” (almost any version) and “Elf”.

A particular memory sticks in my head and I don’t know why, but I think of it all the time. I remember riding with my dad in his truck many years ago. It was summer time, probably around July, and he saw a red light and said “That light reminds me of Christmas. I can’t wait for Christmas.” I remember thinking that my dad loves Christmas as much as I do and I knew it wasn’t about the presents. I didn’t even care that much about the presents. I cared about the love…and the laughter.

So that’s what Christmas means to me. I know this isn’t what it represents for many others. For many Christmastime can be a time of depression, broken families, or “religion”. I feel sad for these people and I know in my heart that Christmas isn’t that important. There’s a lot more to life than all these things, but what I can I say, I love Christmas…just love it.

Update: I just thought of something after re-reading this post. In the movie The Natural there is a scene where Roy Hobbs wants to say he misses his dad, but instead says “I love baseball”. When I say I love Christmas I’m really saying I love my dad (and my family)

Juice

I heard some good advice a few days ago. “Once you realize that life is hard it starts to get a little easier”. I think it only gets easier because you now know that life is, indeed, hard so in essence you’ve lowered your expectations for life.

Do you realize that when you get angry with someone it is because they haven’t lived up to your expectation of what you thought they should be like. Next time you get angry think to yourself “What expectation have I or someone else failed to meet that I was expecting?”. Then when you figure it out, lower your expectation.

I know in today’s world advising someone to lower their expectations sounds like “give up your dreams” or something similar. However, that’s not really what I’m talking about here at all. I’m talking about unfair or unrealistic expectations for yourself or others in even the little things.

If you find yourself getting upset with your kids because they don’t clean as well as you think they should or they don’t seem to be “getting” what you’re trying to teach them, the problem isn’t with your children. It’s with you. Lower your expectations. Same with your wife. Same with people you work with. Hey, same with your car or the strangers in the other cars around you. Are you angry because someone cut you off? Lower your expectations. People are selfish. Get over it.

Life is hard. It’s a fact. Hard doesn’t have to mean depressing. Hard doesn’t have to mean horrible. Hard doesn’t mean hopeless. It just means hard. Difficult. It isn’t easy. It requires work and discipline and love when you don’t feel like it.

“Once you realize life is hard it starts to get a little easier”.

Juice