Sustainable Activism: The Indigenizing Paradigm

When Marc Lamont Hill spoke at the UN in November 2018 and made a case to protect Palestinian Human Rights, he concluded with: "... a free Palestine from the river to the sea." Immediately, his speech was misinterpreted and he was fired from CNN as a contributor and spokesperson. Deep beneath the surface of the politics and the media revolving around Israel and Palestine, regarding where we stand today, is the fear of a word that represents what anti-imperialist academic and activist conversations demand: DECOLONIZATION.

Colonization and decolonization are destructive forces. Although colonization is seen by the oppressor as "making," it is "erasure" for the oppressed. All of the mechanics and psychology of colonization, which are so eloquently characterized in Albert Memmi's book, "The Colonizer and The Colonized", construct a narrative that deceives even the victims into believing the point of view of the advancing nation, even to admire the power and success of the oppressor. The oppressed also erase themselves. Self-censorship is common among people who have been condensed into reservations, bantustans, and occupied territories or driven into diaspora. But to ask to "decolonize" is to threaten what the taker has taken. 

Finders keepers, losers weepers.

Perhaps fears of the concept of "decolonizing" stems from the interpretation that it calls for reversal and erasure. Can we undo civilization-scale, or further, global-level injustice?

Decolonization also demands of a weakened and defeated people to rise up, take a stand, and fight back to deconstruct what decades or even centuries took to establish, all the while in a system where the leadership and power structures are tipped in favor of the systemic injustices and maintaining advantages for the imperialistic program.

On my refrigerator in Chicago is a magnet with a photograph taken by Adam Sings in the Timber, Apsáalooke (Crow) photojournalist and filmmaker. He captured it at the opportune moment when Ojibwe dancer, Michelle Reed, posing in traditional regalia coincidentally walked past a woman shopping in the Loop wearing a Blackhawks t-shirt and carrying sports memorabilia. The contrasts in the image are captivating and provocative. His work is myth-busting. Native people live here, today. They are not cartoons of pioneer history and fetishized Halloween costumes. He calls this category on his Etsy page, "Indigenizing Colonized Spaces." Images like these are constructive, imprinting on the minds of the viewer a picture of modern people, living in this modern world while retaining and expressing their traditional culture. Colonized people can claim their place in today's world and envision a way forward without having to tear down the entire history or threaten the colonizers with removal. 

Further, when I think of the history of my family and the Nakba, it is excruciating and painful, which doesn't begin to compare to the challenges faced by those whose daily colonization story is still being violently written. I am diaspora, a generation-removed, and even for me to consider how to reverse the trajectory against it all is self-defeating. Before we can activate decolonization, the ongoing colonization must stop: the settler pograms and settlement development. This aligns with U.S. policy on Israel. 

Motivated by a reckless indigenizing fever dream, I asked, "Why can't Palestinians buy condos in the newly developed, planned communities in the Israeli settlements?" Can't Jewish and Palestinian residents reside next door like we do here in the 9th District of Chicago where Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky represents us in the House of Representatives? My mother always reminded me of how our family lived in harmony with their neighbors. They never designated Jewish, Christian or Muslim when it came to their life in Jerusalem before 1947. 

Faith-washing is a vehicle for colonization that collaborates hand-in-hand with racism. The Rabbi at Efrat Settlement near Bethlehem held back his anger as he answered my question in front of my large travel group of Evangelical Christians on tour with the Telos Group and Willow Creek Community Church in October 2014. He asserted that Judea and Samaria are the Biblical historic land of his people and that it cannot be shared by Palestinians. Absolutely not, he said, Palestinians cannot live in the Jewish settlements. He continued to express his pride in their community programs, private pools, and beautiful landscaping while ignoring the fact that the water and electricity of the neighboring Palestinian communities have been restricted and diverted to provide all these luxuries for Israeli settlers. For Palestinians, black water tanks purchased from Israel, filled with groundwater from underneath their own properties, are installed on the roofs of their homes to provide running water. It is a vicious cycle of municipal and environmental injustice.

Seated in a circle in a historic Edgewater neighborhood mansion, activists from around Chicago introduced themselves. A retired entrepreneurship consultant who coached business leaders in the West Bank, a member of the Episcopal Church and leader of the Poor People's Campaign, and an employment discrimination attorney who is a Black for Palestine solidarity spokesperson/Methodist-church-lady-extraordinaire describe a few of the voices that shared their background in Palestine social justice. In the room are Palestinian Americans who juggle working from home and raising their children while serving as executive directors and board members of justice organizations. In tears, one Palestinian American woman expressed admiration and necessity for the work being done by non-Arab activists. She couldn't stay in the work because she was too heartbroken. My chest tightened remembering a recent collaboration to organize a recognition event. Our best advocates at times communicate insensitively. Even among the most prized influencers of progressive movements, there are times when colonial myths still influence the way Palestinian Americans are treated within these circles and it can be hurtful. I confronted the group by e-mail and then checked out. Decolonization work exhausted me.

Not long after I thought I threw in the colloquial towel, a curly and dark-haired college coed posed a question in a webinar to a panel on "decolonization" about their thoughts on "indigenization" as a creative force. A shadow lifted.

How do we create a future-forward picture of our people that respects the losses endured? Will indigenizing allow the perpetrators of military and imperialist violence to get off without repudiation or consequence? Orthodox Christians hold forgiveness as a supernatural process. We entrust God with justice and release others from our right to vengeance. This may lead to coexistence, and for me it's a freeing and spiritually sustainable idea, but it's easily accessible for a privileged diaspora Palestinian American. As an Arab American born in the United States, I not only live side by side with colonizers, but I am a participant and beneficiary of colonization. Like many Palestinian Americans, I have no legal way to return, to indigenize our ancestral home in the realest sense. Moreover, the diaspora's extended family who stayed may discredit my right to return. There isn't enough room for us all, especially under the encroaching occupation forces. Under all these circumstances, indigenizing in the modern context demands a wild imagination with fantastic creativity, and incredible persistence. Indigenizing confronts normalized colonial mythology powerfully. Indigenization is rehumanizing work. It asserts a place in present society with clear vision of the role of the dispossessed people, whether internally displaced or as part of a diaspora society. It is creative resistance that gives life, validates, and galvanizes hope.

What a 17 Year Old Makes in America

Kenosha. 

A small town in Illinois with industrial plants, strip malls, a ULINE branch, corn fields, forest preserves and beautiful rivers is now the focal point of the racial disparities in America. For our family, it was where we would stop at Starbucks at 6:30am to fill up on caffeine for a long day at a swim meet in neighboring Pleasant Prairie at the RecPlex, a gorgeous facility with an olympic pool, fitness facilities and indoor ice rink. We could get to Kenosha from Chicago in an hour flying up I-94, the Edens Expressway.

Yesterday, a Chicagoland friend posted a picture of an armored military vehicle on the expressway through Illinois captioned, "Counted like 20 headed north on 294 - probably to Kenosha WI Praying for peaceful night."

Today, I walked into the room to wake up my girls. The 17 year old is asleep on her camping mat, twisted up with a sleeping bag, and the one who turns 16 next week is stretched out on the bed in blissful rest. Seeing their peaceful expressions eases my soul. I need this moment every morning, because being a parent today is a high anxiety job. In fact, so many of my daughters' Gen Z and Millennial friends know this; they know it so well that quite a number have already decided they don't want to raise children of their own. They refuse to raise children in the world that we are making.

Wise words from contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura come to mind as I think of what a 17 year old makes in America today. He writes from the perspective of an art teacher asking children in a classroom, "What do you want to make today?" His analysis of this question is critical for our world at this very moment - our world that has been concentrated through the lens of Kenosha, Wisconsin where a 17 year old took a military-like long gun and shot and killed Kenosha residents, 26 year old Anthony Huber and 36 year old Joseph Rosenbaum (donate towards his burial expenses). On August 26, 2020, this 17 year old, self-identified "Militia member" from Antioch, Illinois chose what he would make: tragedy.

In my classroom, when I asked five, 15-year-old girls what their ideal qualities would be in a future spouse, their top two comments were that the person would smell nice and wasn't addicted to video games. Priorities relating to being a good person or sharing their faith convictions came after that. Young people in our country are under attack, and when a 17-year-old in America cannot be a maker of creativity, they will become a maker of destruction. According to those who know him, the Kenosha shooter viewed himself as a helper of the police and a good citizen. The Militia Movement intentionally persuades young people towards these ideologies, calling them "public defenders". How many hours a day did this 17 year old young man spend firing a weapon virtually? Is it possible that my daughter's friends have played video games with this Illinois high schooler who is now facing criminal charges, including reckless and intentional homicide? 

Radicalization is the risk that our society faces when young people are not given ways to be makers of good. As Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries has claimed in his work with youth in gangs, "Nothing stops a bullet like a job." Narratives that demonize one group while elevating another dominate the Gen Z and Millenial social media themes, and it goes in many ways to extremes.

Everyday, my daughters engage in controversial conversations with their "followers" and "friends" about content in social media stories and the things that members of their generation are "making." The thread of hopelessness is increasingly woven through these digital platforms.

What used to be images of dance, art, food, the park, the lake, humor, music, and other joyous, young ventures are now frequently political, accusatory, and demanding posts: the demands of a generation who believes that they have been robbed. This sentiment might be the singular point of agreement for the fractured views of Generation Z: regardless of their ideology they feel the world has wronged them.

Art Professor Fujimura explains, "To ask 'what do you want to make today?' is not an idealist's escape from reality. To ask 'what do you want to make today?' is a quiet resistance against the destructive fears dominating our world; refusing to submit to the inevitability of corruption in our ideologies."

Parents, many of you are tirelessly guiding your children towards being makers of creativity. This is creative resistance and a powerful way of protest because it supports thriving in spite of our society's failures. My heart soars when I see videos posted of my family and friends' children making music, art, playing sports, writing, reading books, going hiking and camping, performing in theater and enjoying the greatest of pleasures in life, like friendship.

Gen Z, do not feel guilty if you are not posting what is trending! Justice is not a short-lived trend. We need to turn our culture upside down. Post the beauty that you are MAKING today! Make things that stand in the gap for those who are less privileged than ourselves. I am not asking you to ignore injustices, racism, gender violence and misogyny, or the mockery that is our media. No! I am calling upon MAKERS OF CREATIVITY to be the louder voices, louder than the makers of destruction.

Your Lebanon. My Lebanon.

We never visited, but we fell in love with our "Balad" through our Baba. We visited Lebanon through the music of Fairuz, Wadi El Safi, and Majida El Roumi. Their lyrics told the stories we longed to know.

Our minds imagined the cliffs on the sea at Rawsha, where Daddy saw an angel and it saved his life. Through his careful harvest of the olives in our backyard in California, we experienced his joy of his homeland. The American University of Beirut and his loyal best friend from his childhood village, together unlocked the opportunities that catapulted my father into a career as an organic chemist in the U.S.

Many people see Lebanon as just another Middle Eastern country, suffering from war, strife and conflict that every other one suffers. But, Lebanon is different to me. I have spoken my heart about Palestine, but right now, my father's Balad is breaking my heart.

In this moment of their devastation as a people and a country, perhaps you may discover a longing for Beirut, a city you never knew you dreamed to visit - the home of the Phoenicians.

Lebanese people are proud. They have held tightly to the long Christian heritage that dates back to the first churches. They speak "Lebanese", not "Arabic". It IS Arabic, but they want you to know they are proud, because they can boast of having the largest indigenous Christian population in the Middle East.

The earliest Biblical writings elaborate about Lebanon's breathtaking scenery: the famous Cedar of Lebanon, sites of pilgrimage and miracles, the temple of Baal in Baalbek, Tyre and Sidon.

"The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like the cedar in Lebanon" (Psalm 92:12) ... "The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted." (Psalm 104:16 NRSV)

In the woods of his village, Baba would spend time alone writing poetry and reading by a natural spring, Zoo' ee. Nature was his preferred place of worship, though he was a very religious Orthodox Christian. As a naturalized citizen of the United States, my dad still dreamed of his beautiful home. He grew up bil dai3ah - "the village". He had 9 siblings, and his mother nursed her own children and some of her grandchildren. During the civil war, their family was known to provide medical aid to the suffering, a tradition that has been renewed as Syrian refugees have been fleeing into Lebanon over these recent years. It was an Orthodox Christian village where his fondest memories were with two goats and his cow, Futna, that lived in their house. Her milk was used to make Shankleesh, strongly pungent fermented yogurt balls which they would roll in Zaatar, a mix of native thyme, sesame seeds and sumac. His village is famous for having the best Shankleesh in Lebanon!

You have your Lebanon and I have mine.

You have your Lebanon with her problems, 

and I have my Lebanon with her beauty.

You have your Lebanon with all her prejudices and struggles, 

and I have my Lebanon with all her dreams and securities.

Your Lebanon is a political knot, a national dilemma, a place of conflict and deception. 

My Lebanon is a place of beauty and dreams of enchanting valleys and splendid mountains.

Your Lebanon is inhabited by functionaries, officers, politicians, committees, and factions. 

My Lebanon is for peasants, shepherds, young boys and girls, parents and poets.

Your Lebanon is empty and fleeting, whereas My Lebanon will endure forever.

- Gibran Kahlil Gibran, "The Eye of the Prophet" 1920

Daddy loved Khalil Gibran. Poetry and nature were his heartbeat. One of his best friends encouraged me to read, "The Broken Wings". I wept. Lebanese writing, full of passion, spirit, and heartache moved me deeply. I felt like through Khalil Gibran, perhaps I could better understand my Dad. He was an introvert and held the highest standard for ethics and morality: honest to a fault. Some of the best advice and invented cliches in our family came from my Dad.

Truly, this crisis is a loss to us all. Beirut is the Newport Beach of the Middle East - some say the French Riviera: progressive, beautiful, strong and rich with culture. In the moment of an explosion, culture, families, history, stability, hope have been shattered.

The international community must hold the government accountable. An international investigation must be demanded. We can press our Congress people, the U.N. Yes, send support.

There are many links that may have come your way. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, many NGO's lost their support and their presence in Lebanon. A number of them were well established and already responding due to the flooding of Syrian refugees into Lebanon. Donating to a vetted organization with feet on the ground is important at this time. Here are a few that I am connected with personally.

Preemptive Love
Antiochian Orthodox Church
Caritas Lebanon/Catholic Charity Organization
Living With Power/Dr. Lina Abujamra Medical Teams

Bethlehem: a REAL place.

"Here...it's being discussed as something whether 'you believe in' or 'not believe in', and where I come from it's more like, 'It's a fact.'" --Greta Thunberg, Swedish climate activist. Her words resonated with me as I remembered a 4 year old boy from our homeschooling community who asked me about my mother being from the place where Jesus was born. His eyes crinkled with confusion as he enquired, "Did your mom live in a real place, on the real earth? I didn't know that Jesus was from a real place." When did the facts of our world become fairytales, and the historic Jesus become a fiction that we "believe in" or not?

The legacy of a faith built on tangible, living evidence is the one passed on to me as an American-born Christian with a mother who emigrated from Palestine. The facts reported to us began with her memories in the stone courtyard of the Nativity church, where she and her brother used to play marbles with pebbles as children, and where she rang the church bell by hanging from its cord in the steeple. Facts spoke to us of miraculous healings like a mute boy being healed on the spot after visiting a sacred place, and his shouts being heard by a bus full of pilgrims saying, "Mama, I see a dove! I see a dove!" Facts burned into our memory like the Holy Fire that appeared every year on Al Sabt il Noor, The Saturday of the Light, when the Orthodox church brings a miraculous flame out of the empty tomb of Jesus Christ. Facts lived under ground in the Nativity Church where to this day there is a grave full of children's bones, the crypt of the innocent infants who were executed by King Herod when the toddler Jesus became a refugee in Egypt with his mother, Mary, and his father, Joseph.

These facts also grieved violence, like the icon of Mary and Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that shed tears a short time before the Six Day War broke out in 1967. Today it still hangs in a small chapel there with a streak in the paint that runs from her eye. Facts were why after seeing "The Passion of the Christ" movie with my church group in 2004, my mom was the only dry eye in the house. Afterwards, she confidently challenged, "I don't understand why everyone is so shocked. This is the truth. This is how it was."

Growing up in an American home with a Palestinian parent, this confrontation between things people "believed in" and the "facts" defined my worldview. In 2002, over the month of Easter, the Church of the Nativity "fell under siege" by the Israeli Defense Forces. We cried and prayed as we spoke over the phone with our family who reported tanks on the street in front of their home and body bags being carried away, while the nightly television news spun an entirely different tale. In Bible studies, the Israel of the Old Testament was talked about as the same Israel of today, while to me the Israel of today was one that appeared in post World War II military uniforms with firearms, surrounded families while in their homes, and threatened children as they walked to school. Facts revealed that the Old Testament's Israel shared our Palestinian DNA, as the Holy Land Christians descend from the many people groups of the church of the first century, including the Hebrews, Romans, Arabs and others who received the Holy Spirit during the Pentecost. The stewards of the faith of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the living Son of God are to this day, the Palestinian Christians.

Today, that responsibility is mine. We are the diaspora Palestinian Christians. Regardless of where we live, we carry this legacy of truth-telling, remembrance, and a faith established on historic facts that defined the lives of our ancestors. Being stewards of the facts is all of our responsibility.

Jesus came and dwelt among us.
In a real place. 

May the confidence of that which is real bring joy and hope to you this Advent week and during Christmas this year.

Before you withdraw you're kid from school, read this.

It was a glittery, successful week when I last wrote that holy-grail review of homeschooling. Now, it's reality-check time! Homeschooling has a lot of downsides, and my last post didn't even hint at them.

After a school-related tragedy, when lives are lost and the schools feel especially unsafe, I always hear chatter about homeschooling. "You're so lucky you don't have to send your kids to a place where you don't know that they'll be okay." "If only I could homeschool my kids." Now, I'm seeing ads for bullet-proof backpacks.

I'm devastated for the families who lost their precious children as a result of senseless violence. My teen went back to her public high school after the Parkland, Florida shooting the one year we decided to enroll her in The Institution. It crossed my mind to check that they were using the metal detectors, and yes, I was more worried than usual, but I don't think homeschooling would guarantee my child's safety. Even more importantly, is trying to protect my children a sound reason to choose homeschooling?

Wisdom from a representative at the HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) has guided my thinking on this from the first year we decided to pursue this path. He explained that there are two types of homeschoolers: vision-driven and fear-driven. He opened his speech with a question:

"Who do you see standing in front of you when they turn 18?" 

Parents who were "vision-driven" could answer this with hopes, dreams, and plans for their son or daughter's education and future. "Fear-driven" parents were responding to tragedy, bullying, culture-wars, school system failures or abuse, but they didn't have direction. They were sheltering.

Confession: I started out as "fear-driven". 
Things were going so wrong at school. My older kid was getting a "D" in math because even though she could answer all the questions, she was too distracted to get work done. My younger one was exposed to an emotionally-disturbed child's bullying and it was devastating her self-confidence. Something had to change, but homeschooling was a big pill to swallow. We spent the first year floundering. I loved sitting and drinking hot cocoa on cold mornings watching the school buses and cars with kids passing by. We would read together and study passages and I would make up curriculum as we went. It helped that I had taught high school, but they were 1st and 2nd graders. I didn't know what to do with them!

Everyday is a day that I question myself, including today. There are many days when I want to quit. Every year we ask ourselves again, should we homeschool? We always wonder if we are doing enough, the right stuff, and if this is working for our kids. We fear that they won't get into college or achieve their dreams because we missed something.

Tomorrow is the first day of our homeschool community. My 16 year old will be in a class of three students learning Shakespeare and Formal Logic, Chemistry and U.S. history. She will be taking classes at the community college to bolster her way towards graduation. My almost 15 year old has spent her one week off this summer cleaning out her folders and gathering her courage for a school year of literature, dissections, and hours upon hours of ballet - her chosen career path. I've never been a first-hand witness to young people with such laser-focused commitment. They overwhelm me with their talent, intelligence and thoughtfulness and I have had the chance to watch them bloom before my own eyes.

But there are days when it seems so messed up. Days come when they say and do things that tell me that I screwed them up or that our curriculum has failed. Maybe school would have been just as right and I could have pursued my ambitions and provided a second income. Maybe they would have had opportunities to try studio arts or robotics or make different friends or join a club. Maybe they would have a varsity letter and prom pictures, a valedictorian tassel or at least a real, big commencement ceremony and a grad night.

So, here it is. An honest, 20/20 hindsight about why it isn't the best idea for every family. It's a list of things that we have stumbled over, cried about, and discussed ad nauseam with our homeschool communities. It's the downside of homeschool - the doubts and frustrations we overcome to do what is counter-cultural and non-conforming.

Reason #1: Homeschooling IS your job.

I was warned that one of the hardest parts of homeschooling will be that others will not recognize that you are not free - as in "available" during the day. They will ask if you can hang out, volunteer, work, talk on the phone, go shopping, work out. They will ask if you can visit during the school week, make a trip. The biggest problem is that I didn't accept this fact myself until years into it.

I tried to homeschool while running my own business. I was trying to manage my payed workers, my home, my kids, my clients, products, website, and accounting all the while doing history, science and literature lessons. It has been incredibly difficult for me to "just homeschool". My job description will still say "homemaker". Ultimately, I have had to drop my commitments (and my pride) and take my homeschooling on as a full-time job. Now I have found the joy in it and the opportunity to mend the gaps in my own personal education and enrichment as I learn alongside my students. They deserve and require an undivided commitment. You ARE the school.

Reason #2: Transiency of families in homeschool programs.

People who homeschool often do so for the flexibility which can lead to families coming and going. Whether it is the mobility to uproot and move for job opportunities, because the world is a classroom and they don't stay anchored, homeschooling burnout, the kids want to attend school, health or family crises, and so many more reasons, the dynamic enrollment in the co-ops and group/community programs creates instability for the homeschooler's relationships. There are few groups where a child can grow up together with other kids in a cohort. Making and losing friends every year is only a part of this grief. For the parents, there is always the question of whether or not their child will have a class the next year. Continuity is not guaranteed.

Reason #3: Your house is school.

Clearing our dining room table is a monumental task. We live in a 1925 brick bungalow that has a living room, dining room and small kitchen. I don't have my own office. Everywhere I turn there is a pile of some academic exercise, whether it is a book to read, a computer with a paper in progress, posters and art supplies, or a bin full of science supplies. I could probably organize it all and compartmentalize, but I'm too busy making lesson plans and reading the Latin text. Who has the time to set up a shelf and make bins for my paperwork?

Reason #4: Record-keeping.

I love teaching. I love learning. But paperwork is the bane of my homeschool existence. Documentation requires self-discipline and accountability on the part of the parent. The fantastic thing is that I do the lessons with my students everyday. I read their work. I listen to them think aloud. Assessment is on the spot. I don't have to run scantrons to determine if they have mastered something. I thought this subjective assessment was inaccurate, but the truth is that when my eldest entered school, her performance matched what I had graded on her transcript. In fact, she exceeded my assessment. My insecurities as the teacher made me grade her harder, setting a much higher standard than the school required to earn the "A". But don't audit me for their binders of work and the graded math assignments. It's a mess.

Reason #5: Parent/Child and Teacher/Student burnout.

There are no bells. There is no truancy officer. It's all you. Your alarm clock. Your integrity. November is a bugger. The energy is low, the assignments are hard, the reading is boring, and the weather is cold. Every week you pack the car, fight with the kids, unload your classroom into the meeting location, teach class, reload the car, crash at the end of the day. You wake up on Tuesday knowing that the rest of the week you have to get all the work done in the quiet of home. The refrigerator calls you out of boredom. The sofa is like a magnet for nap time. All the female hormones cycle together. There is drama at the extracurricular activities and nobody can concentrate. Every lesson gets on the nerves of the learner or the teacher. Tears fall and procrastination sets in. Deadlines come and more tears fall. It's all on you.

Reason #6: Algebra.
What can I say? People thought they only had to do this once in life. No offense, math teachers. Everyone's got their thing. Fill-in yours. (Actually, I love algebra. It's Latin that kills me.)

Reason #7: Limited worldview.
Indoctrination is bred in the confines of domesticated humanity. Curricula indoctrinate. Our schools indoctrinate. And yes, our homeschool program indoctrinates. It falls upon the parent to open wide the windows to the world and develop a conscience that transcends the narrow-mindedness of the untraveled, unread soul.

Reason #8: You are your own accountability.

Figure this one out for yourself.

Reason #9: Choosing curriculum.

The volumes with the options for curricula are larger than the largest printed phonebooks of the 1980s. Fate will guide you. But, you will always question it because how can you be an expert in everything? My conscience rests knowing that my job is to equip a lifelong learner, not teach them everything.

Reason #10: Your mother is your only teacher.

When I'm an introvert and my child is an extrovert. Tea is our peacemaker. Truth be told, we have tutors in our homeschool community and co-ops are out there. They are in sports and arts and take classes in other places where they get other leadership influences and teaching styles. However, most of the days of the week, months of the year, years upon years, it's us. We actually like each other most of the time. It works. We have learned to play together, eat together, vacation together, and yes, study together. But there are days. Those are the days when I start searching kayak.com for flights and the kids snapchat their friends in a corner at the back of the house. And then, they get a driver's license, a job, and can ride the train without me. We barely see each other. And in two years, one will likely go off to college and the other to a ballet company.

Anyone can homeschool, but not everyone should. As for me, I don't regret it one bit.

Homeschooling Just Isn't Normal.

"Mom, sometimes I just wonder if I am not a normal kid."
"You're not a normal kid."

We've hit that point. 13! We've homeschooled since 1st grade and she has finally found us out. We're weird...really weird! Of course, when we made the decision in the first place, weirdness was a big factor to consider. There were past impressions we had to overcome to be convinced that homeschooling wasn't a direct path to social exclusion. We had to be certain our girls wouldn't be like THOSE homeschoolers.

(Um, yeah. That's our family.)

Like, there was the extremely awkward, introverted girl who didn't fit in with the other high school girls in the church group I led 20 years ago. She was educated by computerized curriculum and lived in the sheltered environment of a home completely absent of any male presence - with her grandmother, single mother and enthusiastically happy sister. She gravitated to me, the adult, and told me she could care less about the kids who didn't already believe in Jesus. I guess when one of my small group girls told us that she had had an abortion, I could see the distance between their social orbits. She did go off to college - a small, Christian one - and I'm hoping the world opened her eyes and her heart.

Thankfully, when we hit speed bumps in the public school system and saw our daughters sinking into failure, it just happened that some "normal" homeschoolers came across our path - like in a musical, dancing and singing a song that related exactly to what we were thinking about at that moment. After a few years, we've come to learn that these individuals were only marginally normal, much like ourselves, which brings me to the point of this whole rant: We didn't choose to homeschool so that our kids would turn out like everyone else.

It isn't that "everyone else" isn't wonderful, amazing and successful. It's that we saw unique opportunities to do stuff with our kids that the school wasn't going to do. We took the alternate route and hoped that it was the best one for our girls.

This year, we doubted our decision. We had our eldest take the standardized tests and admissions exam and another admissions exam and turn in a report card (which I made up based on my subjective opinion of her ability as her primary teacher. When you sit there with your kids and read everything they do, you know if they've got it or not.) Anyway... Lo and behold! She got into the very selective high school ranked #5 in Illinois and #156 in the US by U.S. News. Are we happy now?!

And what you really want to know is, is she "normal"?

Frankly, NO! She's a fish out of water (Oddly, she is a freshman swimmer on their Varsity championship swim team, but I digress.) As a former educator observing my homeschooled child navigate the school experience, I have grown cringingly aware of a crippling defect in American education (And no, of course it's not my child. She's perfection, okay?):

Public education doesn't teach young people HOW to think. It teaches them WHAT to think. That is not education, it is indoctrination, and is a topic for a different blog post. (Please comment if you'd like me to post about it.) Thankfully, there are some exceptions, teachers who strive to educate and foster the love of learning, but they are sprinkled in between assessments, perfunctory homework assignments, and worksheets that reiterate the textbooks. Content is the goal, not thinking. The educational standards delineate this content: "Such and such content in 5th grade, such and such for 8th grade, etc." The kids who thrive, think, and achieve beyond the institutional standards have outside influences working in their favor, and often have families who invest in their character development and passion for learning.

But off the soapbox and back to weirdness. She's totally odd. She's been asked if she is a vegetarian, a Lutheran, and a lesbian all in the same week. She kindly answered that she's straight, loves meat, is not a Lutheran and just likes wearing long skirts and a pixie cut. They can't put her in a social "box" because homeschoolers don't usually brand themselves the way mainstream kids do. This child voluntarily closed her Snapchat account because it was annoying.

Are they socially awkward? Maybe. They shake hands with adults, look you in the eye, put their phones away during dinner (most of the time), play with babies, talk politics, listen to music from previous decades and make jokes about literature. I guess that's kind of awkward these days.

One of the girls is a social butterfly obsessed with 80s music, a blooming artist, a pre-professional ballerina, AND she's a natural at math and reading people. My other one prefers books to humans, can sing like a Broadway vocalist, writes like a college English professor and would live in an aquarium if given the choice, especially if the meal plan was all fish-based. Our family loves each other and to spend time together, learn together, goof off together, and travel together. As parents, we've been re-educated, by our kids and with our kids.

So, I guess we aren't normal, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Peacemaking: Paralysis in Analysis

View of the not-so-little town of Bethlehem.

Today I wrote a check. I put a stamp on a letter. It went into the mailbox.

A few days ago, I finally sent a card to my new friends, a Rabbi and his wife.

And today, at long last, I write.

Enough! Enough perseverating!

Hope versus Doubt
Peacemaking is hard because it's an internal battle between the inner voice of Hope and all of the voices of Doubt. The outside voices of Hope are quiet and few. When you come across them, the courage inside rises and it again becomes worthwhile to want to join the rumble of those who share your discontent with the world, its conflicts and violence.

All of this stirs, as the strings around the neck of the occupation in Israel are pulling in. Israelis and Palestinians are acting out of paranoid fear and anger. My Facebook newsfeed from those who live there have been eerily silent. What holds back their posts? Why are their cries silent?

Doubt held me captive. "It won't make a difference anyway." "Why risk your family?" "Who would listen to you anyway?" "Nothing you can do is enough, so why bother?" "Other people who are more important are already helping." "People don't want to hear about it." "Nobody else cares."

Hope spoke to me this morning. It was louder than Doubt because I'm sick of knowing I could have done something. Something! Anything!

This morning it didn't matter if what I do makes a difference or was the perfect thing, or if anyone hears about it. Only my conscience needed to know that I didn't leave the brochure in the pile, the thank you card unwritten, the words concealed in my heart.

And God knows that I brought to Him my basket of fishes and loaves.

In a few weeks, there will be a stack of 50 Advent devotionals** on my doorstep from the "Little Town of Bethlehem." It was written by those who have lived there, worshipped there, and who hunger to follow Jesus in our day. Then I have to figure out what to do with them. One step at a time, I guess.


**Each booklet provides support for magnifying the voices of Hope in the Holy Land through Bright Stars of Bethlehem. I'm happy to send one to you. It's on me.