The Continuum Concept

I was going to write a review of Jean Liedloff''s book, but I think I'll just stick to the questions it raised for me and some Helpful Information.

1) Do people really *believe* that as babies we have expectations inside of us, which are dependent on what our ancestors experienced over millions of years????
2) How can someone who has visited a couple of remote tribes five times (totalling about two years with them) speak with such authority about how they never do this or always do that?
3) Closely linked to number 2, and assuming she's not a linguistic genius, wouldn't a huge amount of everyday interaction have gone over her head because she simply didn't understand? Perhaps the apparent total absence of arguing was merely due to the fact that they argue differently to us - just like they greet people differently and have different mealtime customs. Who knows?
4) Has she overlooked the problems that do exist in that society? (I'll be upfront with my underlying beliefs: I do not believe there is a perfect society anywhere around - of course, some may do better than others and we could all learn from each other....but none are perfect. So when someone writes a totally glowing report I am inclined to think they are romaticising it a bit. Call me cynical; I'm OK with that!)
5) How would she, as someone who obviously believes it is detrimental for a young baby to be "not carried" during the first six or so months, describe my children? With the exception of the one who cried from pain for hours a day (and he yelled whether he was held or not), they have all happily slept in an old cane pram.



We didn't experience the agonising screaming described in the book as children are separated from their mother and their world turns upside-down. When our little ones would wake we would attend to their needs and they seemed genuinely secure - certainly no signs of despair at all.

A few of them needed to be close to us for the first few days, especially at night. But this didn't last long - the worst was ER, the one who got the most holding out of all of them!!!!! She was only content if being held from 6 to 11 each evening...and this went on for about seven or eight weeks. There she is at *that* time of night:


However, this didn't last for anywhere near as long as Liedloff suggests, and she was more than happy to be separated from me during the day. How would Jean explain this?
6)At the risk of sounding like a defensive parent who didn't do what Liedloff said, I will ask my final question. Will parents be left feeling guilty if they don't follow her formula? It's not rhetorical.


I read this book having had a background of parenting reading that erred more on the side of "parents doing stuff to their kids".
So this book was VERY different, and in many ways, in spite of the fantastical (IMHO) assertions about humanity, it was a breath of fresh air.

I loved:
*the value placed on the *relationship* between parent and child
*the value placed on the children themselves
*the description of what a baby experiences upon entering the world - it explained in part for me, why our little ones really do *need* to be so close at the beginning. This was something I had *worked out* for myself (in spite of reading that books that were pretty strong on needing to teach bubbas to sleep right from the start and Plunket warning otherwise)......so I had spent nights sleeping with babes in my arms, mainly in that first week.
*the acknowledgement that babies are social
*the encouragement to allow your children to co-operate with you.
*not so much in the book, but certainly on her website, Liedloff talks very convincingly about children needing to be included in the adult world - not being the centre of the world, but just being an active participant. This is one of my soapboxes, and I'm more than happy to move over on it and share it with her!
*again, on the website, discussion about children needing to know parents are in control.
*the article about two women sharing their lives intimately - I have to admit I tire a little too easily of the pervasive view that if it's "tribal" it must be better than what we as modern white men are doing. So the terminology of this piece gets to me a little - but the sentiment of working together in community is definitely worth noting, and something we need to be intentional about these days if we live in suburbia.

Funny thing is, these ideas are not new. And I don't even think Liefloff can lay claim to them. They are Biblical ideas (OK, not the inbuilt-expectations-handed-down-from-ancestors-over-millions-of-years-bit....I mean the "good" bits!) And quite frankly, I find a Biblical worldview reflects the reality I see around me far more consistently than Liedloff's wild claims about *evolutionary expectations*.

But all in all, an interesting read.

plagiarism

another "what I just read" post

this time by Lisa

You'll notice in this month's news, when life is fullest isn't always when as much gets "accomplished". The "things" that get completed usually aren't the most important things in life. We've had some accomplishments, but we've also just lived life in the fullest, and don't have anything to check off a list for that. Time playing with children, talking with teens, in God's throne room for friends and family, isn't the stuff that makes it on our "works" list. And neither really is time hearing the Word, searching the Word, and living the Word. Life, abundant life, really has very little to do with our works. Abundant Life is about something Someone else hasalready done for us, that we could not do for ourselves, and our humbly stepping into that and reverently living it for His Glory.

simply windswept

there's nothing like a morning on a windblown beach

* rest * exercise * family * creation *
* lions hiding in the bush * worship *

what's with that guy popping over the hill just as the camera on remote timer clicks??? sigh

Friday Favourites #4

My favourite four-year-old ;-)

It's coming up two years since you got sick. You were down for months, with fevers and headaches lack of appetite and taking yourself to bed for hours every day. Eventually it turned out you had had glandular fever (even though the first doctor we had seen had said that was not possible). But even when you were supposedly over that you still kept getting those fevers up to 41 degrees and dreadful lethargy for two or three days every two or three weeks. You contracted every little bug that was going round - when the other kids vomitted for 24 hours, you went on for five days. You got all mannner of rashes and spots and lumps and stomach hardness and enlarged lymph nodes and various swellings. You had blood tests and scans and more blood tests and more scans. We discovered you've got one oversized kidney - bonus! A stange growth appeared on your cheek and grew and grew - because of everything else going on, the doc wanted it removed. It turned out to be fine.

Then this summer you went for longer and longer stretches without any fevers or sickness at all.

A month or so ago you changed overnight.

You woke up *silly* one morning.

There was a new crazy boy running round the house. You were full of fun and laughter. It was so dramatic a change that people commented on it! I thought perhaps you were now just *well*, driving on all six cylinders. Then you got sick again this week. But it hasn't knocked you like in the past. And apart from a runny nose, you're fine already. This is more like a *normal* childhood ailment.

We thank God for your good health and your crazy nature. We love you.

what are the odds?

My very dear Father Bear made me smile yesterday when he said, “I’ve thought of something for you to blog”.

So to show my appreciation at his interest in my random postings, I’ll nab his idea.

It was prompted by listening to a guy share the story of his life. He was born in Iran into a Muslim family with a totally non-religious father and a doubly-religious mother. Throughout his whole life there were *miraculous* incidents that worked together to draw him to a knowledge of God, from his desire as a young lad to “meet God”, which his mother successfully scared him away from for many years, to his intense desire to learn English (which later enabled him to read the English Scriptures and Koran he was given) to unusual wake-up calls and being rescued from deportation and and and. His story was a long and interesting list of miracles of the grace of God.

Father Bear commented that our kids won’t have a story like that.
And he observed that we perhaps underestimate
the grace of God in their lives
that they have been born into a family
that loves, serves and honours God,
and saturates their lives with a *God-awareness*

“What are the odds,”
Father Bear questioned,
“of being born into a God-fearing family?”

Not that great actually.

normalLIFE

Following is a snippet (OK, so a fairly long snippet!!) of a piece I wrote over five years ago. What had started out as a response to the statement "Having experiences needs to be balanced with caring for the poor", turned into a treatise on travel, education, life purpose and the welfare state!!!!! I'll spare you the bulk of it

What is wrong with deciding you want to be inspired by people in the past and study their paintings ~ and so spend money going to art galleries on a Sunday afternoon?
What is wrong with wanting to learn about the origins of food (its life prior to arriving in a supermarket) ~ and so spending a year living with a farming/self-sufficient family?
What is wrong with taking a dead-end survival job (teaching English for no apparent purpose, for example – 24 hours a week) and thereby giving yourself, and your family, the opportunity to live in Mongolia or Madagascar?
What is wrong with understanding you connect with God when out of the city ~ and so take a hike through the bush on a Sunday morning?
Is there anything wrong (and this is not rhetorical) with doing something for a year and then doing something else? Should everyone have a longterm life mission that they relentlessly work towards?
Would it be wrong/bad/unwise to go and spend a year or just six months working in an orphanage simply *loving* children, if you didn’t intend to stay for the longterm? Is it better not to go at all?
Should we only spend what we absolutely *need* to survive and give all the rest away? We could look at “causes” to give to as a family, using the experience to teach the children. Could we decide to do that for a year, even if only to intentionally over a slightly prolonged period challenge our ideas of what is necessary and to make a conscious effort to consider the poor and our response to them (instead of just feeling a bit guilty every so often that we have so much and not actually doing a lot about that)???
Should we go and live in an apartment in New York or London and spend our days visiting science centres and museums and art galleries and old buildings and… “drink from a fire-hydrant of mind-blowing experiences” only available in the city? (quote John Anderson from unconventionalideas.com)
What about living with a nomadic tribe in a yurt for a year?

These things are all “education” in the broad sense of the word. Are they valid ways of learning? Or would flitting from one experience to another just produce shallow adults who cannot be faithfully committed to anything for any length of time, who have no roots and bail out when the going gets tough?
I tend to think not – not if we work hard together wherever we are, not if the children see parents committed to each other and them in spite of inevitable difficulties, not if their roots and identity are firmly planted in Christ, not if we all seek to serve whoever we come in contact with along the journey. No it needn’t be a selfish existence, even if it is very different to the “norm”.

Who said we have to be NORMAL?????????

Isn’t it a good idea to let children see different ways of doing things, different ways of living, different people who need God? Living in a time when travel is so fast and relatively cheap, is it not just living in the times to make use of such opportunities? Maybe the children will be inspired to set up a sustainable community when they get older, maybe they will make lots of money and have seen lots of projects/people to give it to, maybe they will design a system for purifying water that does not cost a lot to make or run, maybe they will adopt an orphan, maybe they will dream dreams and make visions a reality because of some of the experiences they have had as children.

Sure, you don’t *need* to travel to discover these experiences…you could simply turn on the computer and have the world at your fingertips. But reading internet articles, watching reality tv (not that there is much *real* about that!!!!), and dare I say it, even reading books is in part simply living vicariously.

What does it mean to really LIVE?

Idyllic setting, wonderful friends

Yesterday was Easter Sunday....and Annual Chocolate Easter Egg Hunt aside, it is always a day that calls for thankfulness as we remember the awesome gift lavished on us by our Creator and Sustainer.....*life* to be lived forever in the presence of God Himself.

And yesterday we were extra-aware of the blessings God bestows on us, even though we actually deserve nothing. We went out to Karekare, one of the rugged west coast black sand beaches and climbed a big cliff (well, it wasn't exactly Everest, but the first hour was straight up up up and the half hour return trip was an effort in bringing your upper torso down at the same rate as your feet!) J12 thought my toes were going to pop through my sandals as I scrambled down down down!


The view from the top was spectacular. We could hear the waterfall away in the distance on one side and the roar of the ocean rolling in on the other.



When we got back to the bottom we thanked God for giving us such a beautiful place to live and for the picture-perfect sunny autumn day.

If you want to know more about this adventure and see more pictures, there's a full account on the kids' blog.

Then we zoomed over to the Angove Seniors' new place for a delicious lunch, inspiring conversation and generally relaxing afternoon - thanks guys - we love you! Your hospitality, your interest in our family and your authentic openness constantly bless us.

a memory verse

over and over and over

T2 sang her version

of Psalm 139:13

yesterday afternoon

you knit with me

in my mother's room

It's not too dissimilar to the "real thing", is it?

"You knit me together in my mother's womb."

who said little kids can't memorise Scripture?

some things make me angry

and this is one of them

A small Canadian company with no experience in mining decides to take over a village in Romania and blast the place with dynamite, leaving cyanide polluting the air and waterways, with total disregard to the wishes of the approximately 2000 inhabitants, who are in the process of being relocated to an uninhabitable valley with no water. For goodness sake, these guys are subsistence farmers, they need water and arable land. Oh, and did I mention they are doing this illegally?

And why? For Money. Well, gold, to be precise, but ultimately it's greed. The churches and cemeteries, cultural and archaeological treasures, natural features are all of no worth. Five mountains will be blasted away. A massive dam containing the toxic waste will be constructed. All for the sake of money.

Well, it might not. There is huge resistance and I am hopeful for the people of this region that Rosia Montana will remain. I hope the young lad who bought some mountain bikes and is trying to set up a tourist venture offering mountain biking tours is successful. I'd like to think the people attempting to engage in agro-tourism will attract people to see their villages, which are essentially a live working museum - these people are living exactly as their forefathers lived 200 years ago.

Of course I am aware that this may be of absolutely no interest to anyone reading my blog, but just in case someone wants to know more, you can go to Rosia Montana itself and to no dirty gold and here is a detailed analysis of the situation including some hopeful alternatives for the people of the region, and a simple outline by Friends of the Earth, and this link takes you to a site devoted to "changing public policy and mining practices to ensure the health of individuals, communities and ecosystems in Canada and around the world".

Some old prophets had some sage advice:
"Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor" ~Zechariah 7:9-10

"What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" ~Micah 6:8

how do you fit everything in?

For as long as I can remember people have asked me how I get so much done. Whether it was *way back* when Father Bear and I were working 7am-noon, studying fulltime (lectures were in the afternoons and evenings) and tutoring refugees and running Children's Church....or more recently when people have seen through my blogs a bit more of my day-to-day life....the questions have not stopped. Maybe one of my problems is that I have so many things I want to do, crafts I want to try, places I want to visit, books I want to read, children I want to cuddle, things I want to think about......there's always something on the go.

So for those of you who have asked.....here's a *typical* day for me.

If I want to exercise or have some quiet time to myself, it needs to be over and done with by 7am when the troops file out of their bedrooms eager to start their own days.
We all start with breakfast and then before we get down from the table, we revise memory verses and sing songs together - and during this time I sneak in the first knitting or embroidery.
Then I supervise chores, checking up what's been done and lending a hand.
As jobs are almost being finished I get a snuggle with ER as I change her nappy, blow raspberries on her tummy and pop her into bed.
While she sleeps for a couple of hours I read aloud to everyone else. Usually someone is on my knee or slouched over my shoulders or braiding my hair - I do love this part of the day!
We all head down to the dining room and I play games with the little ones and supervise the writing of the bigger ones. While the biggest (who work independently) continue with their own work, I help the preschoolers set the table and the slightly bigger ones make lunch......this invariably means sitting in a chair and giving verbal directions (which means I can again pick up some knitting for quarter of an hour).
After lunch the big ones clear up and throw together dinner while I read picture books to the little ones (at the moment this is baby-6year old). Then it's naptime! And that means EVERYONE has to do something quiet for an hour or so. The big kids and I race upstairs to the computer and spend half an hour updating blogs before some silent reading (and on my part) sewing or scrapbooking or sorting out dinner if it wasn't done earlier. The afternoons are pretty laid back - when the little kids wake up everyone is more or less free to do whatever they like, but I will of course keep an eye on them. I usually manage to get some more *stuff* done - I'm always aware I could choose to wash windows or iron shirts, but I rarely do at this point!!!!
Late afternoon we all tidy up (although I am renowned for not tidying up whatever project I'm working on....it stays out for a week or more till I move on to something else), I supervise afternoon chores, baths and final dinner preparations.
After dinner I get little kids off to bed....then middle kids....hopefully all accomplished by 7:30ish. Then there are another three hours for me to potter. I don't watch television. I try to use this time doing things that need concentration and leave the more mindless parts of work to when I need my attention divided in the daylight hours. If I'm tired this is tricky and I'll just end up knitting or reading. We often have people over or go out with others - after reading about women throughout history getting together with their workbaskets, I decided it is a relatively new idea that you should sit together doing nothing but sip coffee and chitchat, so I now don't hesitate to pick up some embroidery or simple knitting (and having my hands busy helps me not eat the yummy chocolate cake that might be on offer for supper!)

Of course, not every day is like this. Some days we head out to the garden first thing and put in full morning's work...other days we go out...occasionally my arm is twisted to read "one more chapter" and "just one more chapter" and then "one really last chapter this time Mama"....or last Friday we got the wooden train set out and everyone spent hours putting it together while I read a book to myself - I was tired; tired of being a mother, tired of doing the same things every day, tired of the normalcy of life, tired of not seeing Father Bear (on average we're only managing two nights a week home together at the moment and then we're so had it we're not connecting), tired of cooking, tired from staying up late, tired of ideas racing round my head, tired of not accomplishing anything tangible....just plain tired. So I rejuvenated myself by letting the kids do something that almost always results in them playing nicely together while I snuggled up on my favourite chair beside them all. It worked. And now I'm way off on a tangent, but I'll leave it in here, coz It's The Way It Is.

do it anyway

After posting about big dreams, I spent the evening trying to work out where they all fit in to my life. Even if they *should*. I hardly slept a wink....thinking thinking thinking.

This morning I felt inclined to sadly throw them all away.....then tonight I went to "visit" MamaMonk....and she had posted these lyrics:

Do it Anyway: Martina McBride
You can spend your whole life building something from nothing
One storm can come and blow it all away

Build it anyway

You can chase a dream that seems so out of reach
and you know it might not ever come your way

Dream it anyway

God is great, but sometimes life ain’t good
And when I pray it doesn’t always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway, I do it anyway

This world’s gone crazy and it’s hard to believe
that tomorrow will be better than today

Believe it anyway

You can love someone with all your heart,
for all the right reasons,
and in a moment they can choose to walk away

Love ‘em anyway

God is great, but sometimes life ain’t good
And when I pray it doesn’t always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway, I do it anyway

You can pour your soul out singing a song you believe in
that tomorrow they’ll forget you ever sang
Sing it anyway, sing it anyway

I sing, I dream, I love, anyway

Thanks MM

on the move

I've just read Slice of Heaven in the past 24 hours.

A family from New Zealand with four kids under five (just like us....well, like we used to be) travel and live. This book introduces the parents and focusses on the family's time renovating and living in a schoolhouse in Italy and then establishing a semi-self-sufficient paradise in Nicaragua before returning to NZ for the birth of their fifth child. Next stop, next book, France.

I thought it would make my feet itch....and yes, it did.
The author's hope "that our story has served as some inspiration for you to pursue your dreams, no matter how 'wild' or 'wonderful'" was fulfilled!

So what am I dreaming?
*of visiting family in Malaysia again...and getting Chinese names for our last three children
*of spending a year living in a yurt with a community in outer Mongolia
*of travelling around England and Scotland with father-in-law too, seeing "where we came from"
*of taking a cycle tour through Holland (well a cycle tour anywhere would be good, but Holland is flat!)
*of visiting friends in Romania
*of settling in Poland again for some time
*of living for a year on every continent (you gotta dream big!)
*of setting up a website to record our journeys, document our philosophy, share photos and ideas and experiences and recipes and travelling with big families tips!
*of somehow making this all of benefit to *the poor and disadvantaged* SOMEHOW
*of making use of our quasi-famous status (they noticed it with four kids in the book - with twice as many children, we notice it EVERY time we go somewhere new)

And what are the children dreaming?
*well they want to come to Mongolia.....and horse trek down to the Great Wall of China (they are more adventurous than me!)
*they are keen for us to renovate a totally dilapidated 200 year old castle we've seen in Poland (as J12 said, "Well we've done up the houses and that was fun, this would just be bigger" - yeah about twenty times bigger!!!!)
*they want to live on a houseboat
*they want to live where it snows

And Father Bear?
*The England Trip was his idea
*he occasionally talks about "a trip across America"
*there is definitely a close connection between Malaysia and his stomach!


At one time we owned only what could fit in a backpack. We were so unencumbered.
Now we are loaded with stuff - in spite of consciously trying to live simply.
We might live off one income and eat beans three or four times a week - but we are rich. Just because we know people who have two incomes and eat meat every day, does not mean we are poor! We have an income - that's more than a lot of people. We have beans AND meat - that's more than lots more people. We have food EVERY DAY - three times a day. We have shelter. We have clothing. We have a motorised vehicle and pedalpower too. We have running water, hot and cold. We have a washing machine, a refrigerator, a kitchen mixer with all sorts of attachments, a lawnmower, a television. We have toys and books and tools and games. We have two toilets, two computers.

I am not ungrateful for these things. I don't feel guilty about them - though I do wonder *why me?* Why are we so blessed?

I just don't want to spend my life sitting here *enjoying* them. I want to use them. (Of course we lend out our books and people borrow our trailer and we give away excess produce from our garden and kitchen, we are able to have people stay with us....but I mean something more than that.)

I am keen to take the children to *experience* a different life - hence the Mongolian yurt.
I'd love to be self-sufficient....Eastern Europe is a cheap place to get the land to try that out! (crikey you can buy a castle on a few acres for next-to-nothing!)
I long to be unencumbered again!

Our wedding invitation talked about us being "gypsies for Jesus", and for the first dozen years of our married life we were continually on the go. For the past five we've been in one place, living in the same house. Not so much gypsy, but still for Jesus.
I wonder if we'll pack up again and be on the move.
We won't hitch-hike across Europe. We won't carry a tent to pitch wherever we can.
But we could adventure. We could journey.

BUT

I am not just me, an island in the ocean, disconnected from other people.
I have others to think about.
The things that I do with the children could be done anywhere in the world.
But it's not just about me and the kids either!
There's Father Bear.
Father Bear has a job.
He enjoys his job.....it's satisfying, it's the job he dreamed of doing, it pays the bills (and he wisely points out we would still need to eat wherever we were travelling), it's a job that wouldn't necesarilly wait for him if he traipsed around the globe.
He works with people who appreciate the input he has into their lives - he serves people who don't have others to turn to. So it's not just about Father Bear either. It's about the people he works with, the people he helps, people who have sometimes come from very traumatic situations and are trying to settle in NZ.
So while Father Bear would enjoy having more time with his own family and would certainly enjoy taking a break, he would miss out on an important part of his own life. He would also miss his friends, his church community, his extended family, his sports games.
And the reality is that right now we are so busy doing stuff here that we don't even have time to dream about doing anything different!


Now back to the book......I found it to be inspiring and interesting and totally fascinating. I was aware my kids would probably love "the island life", but I have no desire to do it myself. It painted such a picture of Italy that I have a never-before-felt desire to go and live there (but we'd live in a trullo!!!!!)
I loved the book - well, no, not the book really - it's the people - for their determination to bring up their children so intentionally. It was great to read of someone passionately living their beliefs.....daring to be different.
But at the same time, I came away with a feeling that *something* was a bit futile. I can't put my finger on it. It certainly wasn't their aspirations for their kids, it wasn't the great delight they take in good food, it wasn't the fact that they didn't *do* the work themselves....what was it? I really don't know.

Money doe$n't grow on tree$

We've been out all day and I won't have a moment to *write* anything (plus I bought some BRAND NEW fabric and I'm itching to cut it up...yeah, I know I wasn't meant to be buying anything *new*....at least now you know I'm not being legalistic about it!)....anyway, I took a squizz at my docs and found something that I wrote a while ago and can cut and paste (oh yeah, I have to cross out my hubby's name and replace it with Mr Bear too!!) For those of you who have requested a post on finances, here it is! It only just starts to scratch the surface, so if you have any questions, feel free to comment and if I can't answer them, I'll find someone wiser who can!

This is the text of a little chat I was asked to do at a Church Youth Group gathering one evening in 2005, the general topic for the night was stewardship, my Ten Minutes was to focus on stewardship of money:

My qualification for talking to you about stewardship of money tonight is that I am helping my husband bring up seven kids on one income – and a tutor’s salary at that! First piece of advice: if you want to get rich, don’t go into education.

Let me start by telling you a story.

Once upon a time a girl made a lot of money one summer holidays…and God challenged her to only keep 10% of it.
A boy had met this girl and realised it was no ordinary girl he was asking to marry him…and God challenged them both to sell everything they had and follow His leading to Europe. Two days after their wedding they left.
In Poland they learned to live simply. There was no car, no tv, no cellphone, no regular phone at all, no computer, no coke; in fact drinking water was collected from a well up the street and they slept on straw mattresses on the floor.
God showed them a different way of living.
They returned to New Zealand and had $30 to their name.
Six months and a lot of hard work later they were both enrolled in a post-graduate diploma at university – debt-free. Lectures were from 4-9pm so they were able to work from 7-12 in the mornings and study in the afternoons. Somehow they managed to tutor refugees as well.
They studied and worked for a couple of years, having their first baby just before final exams.
In spite of them giving away a lot of their money, God blessed them financially and the dollars started accumulating in the bank, so they asked God what to do with it.
BUY A HOUSE. But they didn’t WANT to settle down with a house, a 25-year- mortgage and 3 kids and become like those thirty-somethings they knew! They wondered why the Old Testament talked about seven year debts and decided to go for that! So with the maths worked out, the girl went to the local real estate office and asked what she could buy for $100,000. The agent smiled pleasantly and noted, “You must be looking for land?” You needed another $30,000 to buy a house. Boy and girl decided to build a house, so they purchased the cheapest section they could find in Nappy Valley the day after their second child was born.
They built for $95,000 all up.
They had a very tight budget. Every cent was accounted for, right down to the $2.36 spent on screws for the letterbox they made themselves. There were no Christmas presents that year.
As the boy’s salary increased, they basically retained the same budget. It got tweaked a little as more and more children joined the family. Seven of them in fact. But after eight years, the mortgage was gone. Now they have added a personal spending category to the budget - $10 a monthJ
And they are living happily ever after.


In Poland we had learnt the joy of living simply – taking walks in the park, having cherry stone spitting competitions in the summer, watching pigeons on our balcony, reading together, playing in the snow, cooking food from scratch……… back in New Zealand we have had to learn to be intentional about simple living. There are just so many choices here. It is no accident that we have one vehicle, make the children share bedrooms, use cloth nappies, grow most of our vegetables and have a home-based life. We are living simply by design within our means, treading gently on the earth (now there’s another stewardship topic) and are content doing so. As pilgrims, we know what we value as we journey together towards our eternal home.

When "R" asked me to talk about stewardship, Mr Bear and I brainstormed what we had learnt about it over the years. Here’s a very quick summary:

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” *Everything* we do has to stem from our love of Jesus – and that includes our stewardship of money. It’s not just about budgeting; it’s about LOVING AND HONOURING GOD.

And it’s about CONTENTMENT.
“When God gives any man wealth and possessions and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work – this is a gift of God.” I love this verse from Ecclesiastes. It reminds me that God is the giver. He is the owner and I am just to take good care of that which he has entrusted to me. God gives and Loreal is wrong – we don’t deserve it! But we will be blessed and experience true freedom if we can enjoy what He has given us and be happy in our work.

So it’s also about WORK.
“We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, to do good works” (Eph 2:10)
In a generation that seeks pleasure and is prepared only to work enough to pursue entertainment as much as possible, we will need to carefully consider God’s plan for work.

And there’s another point. We need to be AWARE. We’ve got to learn to think and be discerning. We need to recognise the trends in society and the tugs they have on us. We can be helped by reading such books as Marva Dawn’s “Unfettered Hope” and the Mennonite book “Living More With Less”

One of the trends today is instant gratification, but we need to learn to be PATIENT. How will we learn to wait on God if we can’t wait more than 60 seconds for our dinner to be made and served? And as far as money goes, advertisers tell us we can have things interest free and not pay till next year – but we need to say NO to these things and wait until we have the money. Save up instead of buying on credit.

Another trend is towards selfishness, each man doing what is right in his own eyes, and just looking out for himself. But God wants us to be GENEROUS and give to others. God loves a cheerful giver.

And look at the trend planned and built into our gadgets – perpetual obsolescence. We always need a newer, smaller, faster computer, cellphone, car. Do we even question these purchases? Do we ask how we will be better able to serve others through their purchase? Do we ask how we will better be able to serve God?

Finally, can I encourage you to be FANATICAL? Mr Bear and I spent the first dozen years of our marriage trying to convince ourselves that we weren’t extreme – we were normal, like everyone else. OK, so we knew we were a bit different, but not *that* different. Now we are reconciled with the fact that we are extreme and supposedly unbalanced, opinionated and intense. If you want to be hot for God you are going to be different. It doesn’t mean He’ll give you seven kids and require that you bake your own bread, but it will be a special plan that is far from mediocre and almost certainly counter-cultural. Will you be a good steward of your money for God’s sake?

Sunday Sentiments

I sat in church this morning, mind wandering....

could we make it more "participatory"?
could it be truly intergenerational (actually interactively intergenerational - not just that people of different ages sit in the same school hall!)??
could we *respond* to what we are hearing???

I wondered if perhaps "the Sunday morning service" *needs* to be more-or-less as it is each week....but if that's the case, then I want to do some of those other things at other times. Would our small group that meets alternate Tuesday nights be a good time? We have an older couple, a bunch of 30-somethings, some 20s and a gazillion kids from baby to old-enough-to-leave-home.
Then I thought if they're not game to try some of my wild and wacky ideas, what's to stop our family from giving them a go....

Some were really simple, like "Reflections"
On a table (or the floor even) place a large bowl full of water. Give everyone time to look into the bowl (perhaps while supper is being served or while we sing some songs together).
Discuss what we saw when we looked into the bowl - even the youngest children can take part in this.
Have someone read Proverbs 27:19 "As water reflects a face, so a man's heart reflects the man" *give time to digest and think*
Discuss some more. See where the conversation goes! Gee I'm postmodern ain't I!!!!!

And another that would require a bit more organisation: "John 15"
Read aloud the first seventeen verses of John 15. Yes seventeen whole verses!!!!
Then everyone gets a little terracotta pot and paints it with images from the reading that they would like to remember/think about some more (things like vines, branches, gardener, love, fruit etc)
While the pots are drying, share with each other what you painted and why.
Finally fill the plants with some potting mix and plant some seeds.

Again, the kids can be totally involved, but it's not something that an adult couldn't benefit from at the same time.

When we have one of our shared meals I thought we could all bring bread enough for our own family, but nothing spread on it.....I would provide a big pot of organic raw honey and some honeycomb too. We would slather our bread with this yummo treat and then discuss the following verses:

Proverbs 25:16
If you find honey, eat just enough - too much of it, and you will vomit.

Psalm 119:103
How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.

Psalm 19:10
The ordinances of the Lord are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.

Proverbs 25:27
It is not good to eat too much honey, nor is it honorable to seek one's own honor.

In my head, that one's called "Sweet as Honey"

Idea number 3: "One Body"
Get a hold of one of those cardboard models of a skeleton that you can put together....or a big lifesize puzzle....or even just a poster to look at (though *making* things would be much more interesting and also good to work together).....or draw around the outlines of the kids on big pieces of paper and let them fill in the bones and muscles and organs etc as we all talk.....then read either 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 or Romans 12:4-8 and let the conversation go! (for those of you blog-readers who are not Bible-readers, or who don't have a Bible, I'd be happy to type out those passages and send them your way - just leave a comment)

#4: "Blast (on the trumpets) from the Past"
Around the house, set up four music stations, probably in different rooms!
i) have musical instruments to play (or at least some craft supplies to make some shakers and bangers)
ii) have a selection of CDs and headphones (it's OK to do things individually!!!!!)
iii) have a pile of papers and pens (all sorts of different inspirational ones as well as plain ol' white!) for people to write their own song
iv) have a stack of hymn books and other music books (anyone remember "the blue book" and "the brown book" from the eighties?) for people to leaf through and find something inspirational or shocking and in need of critique!
Everyone would do their own thing for a time - either alone or in little groups or little kids going with an older person etc, and then you'd all come back together and share - worshipping God together.

"The Workers Are Few"
First of all everyone would draw a picture of someone they know who does not know and love Jesus. Then there could be a presentation (don't ask for details yet - DVD? photos? video? - there must be some promotional ones out there somewhere for various missions agencies!) of various "fields" around the world that are "ripe for harvest".
Read Matthew 9:35-38
Spend time in prayer for "the lost", for ourselves as harvesters, for other workers and as Jesus told us to, for *more* workers.
Is there anything there that the kids couldn't do? Is there anything that's too baby-ish for the adults? (OK so drawing might threaten some of us, me included, but I do like Pictionary!!!)

Are you still reading? I've got ideas for "A Running Race" and "Charades" and "You Are the Light of the World" and "Easter" too, but I think I've written enough!

BTW, I didn't think of them *all* during church; I came home and let my mind keep wandering. I asked God to help me think of ways to make the Bible memorable and ways to actively respond to Him beyond the moment-by-moment service.

Was that God talking to me?

Did you read about the streetlight that flickered off as I walked past it last week?

Well, this morning as I powered towards it I was not even thinking about it.
EXACTLY as I passed it, it went out AGAIN.
All the other lights were still on again.
I wondered to myself if God was actually talking to me!

Then a car came towards me with just its parking lights on.
It made me think of “a city set on a hill cannot be hid”…. men do not "light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house" ~ only today it was “a car coming down the road in darkness really needs its lights on”!
It made me think how we can sometimes live as if we just have parkers on and not on highbeam. Sometimes the culture around us seems more like early dawn than the blackest night and we switch our lights off, don’t stand out quite so much. We can become a bit complacent about the things we really want to be intentional about.
Well I do anyway.

Morning Meditation

As I walked one morning this week, one of the streetlights flickered OFF.
It made me think.....


God knew that light was going to go off at that moment.
God was aware.
God keeps the plants growing in my garden, in other gardens, all over the world, even when I'm not thinking about it.
God keeps the tides in order, the waves crashing in to shore, the swell surging.
He knows each droplet of water.
He knows when the sun will rise, how the shadows will fall.

He knows everything.

God is so un-understandable.
I'm glad I can't get my head around God.
I'm glad He's bigger than me.

God is both Creator and Sustainer.
In Him we live and move and have our being.

We are called to be lights in the darkness.
We reflect God's light.
Jesus is the light of the world.


As I walked through the streets of suburbia, I connected with God.
May I radiate His goodness to those I meet.

HerHymnPrayer

A couple of years ago I spent a few babysitting evenings with a hymn book in my lap. I was so inspired by the words of many of the hymns and deep inside worshipped God through the words, even when I didn't know the music.

About the same time we attended the funeral at which a hymn was sung - although familiar, it was unfamiliar, and at the same time extra-familiar! You see it had been rewritten into modern language.

I decided to do the same for some of the songs I was reading. One that we have just learnt as a family is "O Jesus, I have promised". It really is my prayer...

O Jesus, I have promised
To serve You to the end;
Please stay forever near me,
My Master and my Friend:
I will not fear the battle
If You are by my side,
Nor wander from the pathway,
If You will be my Guide.

O let me draw close to You;
The world is ever near;
I see the sights that dazzle,
The tempting sounds I hear;
My foes are ever near me,
Around me and within;
But Jesus, please draw nearer,
And shield my soul from sin.

O let me hear You speaking
Each day so clear and still,
Above the storms of passion,
The murmurs of self-will;
O speak to reassure me,
To chasten or control;
O speak and make me listen,
You’re the Guardian of my soul.

O Jesus, You have promised
To all who follow You,
That where You are in glory
Your servant will be too;
And, Jesus, I have promised
To serve You to the end:
O give me grace to follow,
My Master and My Friend.

John Ernest Bode, 1816-74
#526 The Methodist Hymn Book, 1933 ~ modernised June 2005