Polka-ing Fun

In honor of a true visionary in the music field, I’d like to present this post as a tribute to Weird Al Yankovic.  His way with lyrics and musical talent has inspired me to come up with some soon-to-be hits (whether musical or blogging, I don’t know).

Presenting Homeschool’s Greatest Hits, featuring your all-time favorites; some new tunes, and some generational faves.

“Patriarchal Man” [my husband’s choice] by The Christian Village People (lyrics:  “Patriarchal Man .. I’ve got to be a Patriarch. Patriarchal Man .. I’ve got to be Patriarchal!”)

“Another Purity Ball” by Pink Bible Verses (lyrics: “Oh, no! It’s not another purity ball!”)

“Silly Doug Songs” by The Non-Normatives (lyrics: “You’d think that people would have had enough of silly Doug songs. I look around me and I see it isn’t so. Some people want to fill the world with silly Doug songs …”)

“If You’re Going to San Antonio” by Doug and the Traditionalists (lyrics: “If you’re going to San Antonio be sure to wear long hair and tan, long skirts”)

“My Betrothed’s Back” by the Josh-elles (lyrics: “My betrothed’s back and you’re gonna be in trouble”)

“I Homeschool, Babe” by Sono and Gregg (lyrics:  “I don’t know if all that’s true, all I know is baby,  I homeschool”)

“Da Do Do Do, Da Hard Hard Things” by The RighteousBros, from their album, “Teenchronicity” (lyrics: “Da Do Do Do, Da Hard Hard Things, that’s all I want to say to You”)

“The Leader of the PAC” by the Sham-gri-las (lyrics: “My friends were always voting him down.[down, down] They say he votes with the wrong side of town”)

“H-S-L-D-A“  by Ineedsome Franklins (lyrics: “H-S-L-D-A for me! Find out how to send money! H-S-L-D-A for me! Ooooh! Sock-it-to-me, sock-it-to-me, sock-it-to-me, sock-it-to-me! …”)

“Be-Homian Rhapsody” by The Queen’s Subjects (lyrics: “Is this the home life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality”)

“Helpmeet” by John Lenin (lyrics: “Helpmeet, I can hardly express my disappointment with your choice of dress. You’ve got to learn the meaning of submit/succe–ess.”)

“Make Your Own Banjo Music” by The Homeschool Mommas and Papas (lyrics: “You’ve got to make your own banjo music, sing your own special song, make your own banjo music — even if nobody else sings along!”)

“All the Way – Home” by MyOwn Pride (lyrics: “When somebody homeschools, it’s no good unless they homeschool — ALL THE WAY!”)

“Gregg, Brother Gregg, it’s Brother Gregg’s Travelling Salvation Show” by Delight Directives  (lyrics:  “So, pack up the babies, and grab the old ladies, ’cause everyone goes, everyone knows Brother Gregg’s shows …  Hallejuah, Brothers, I said, brothers …. “)

“I Will Survive Homeschooling” by Glorious Gaynore  (lyrics:  “Once I was afraid, I was petrified …. “)

“Homeschool Carpet Ride” by Scrappin’wife (”You. don’t. know what. we. can. find, why don’t you come with me little girl on a homeschool carpet ride?”)

“There’s No Business Like Home Business” by Ethel Homeman (lyrics: “There’s no business like home business, like no business I know! Everything about it is appealing ….”)

“Court Me” by Sixtimes None the Bridegroom (lyrics: “Court me, with elder oversight, Court me, under my father’s watchful eye …”)

“It’s the End of Homeschooling As We Know It” by MLM (lyrics: …. “It’s the end of homeschooling as we know it, and I feel fine ….”)

“Star Wars, Nothin’ But Star Wars” by the real Bill Murray (as performed on SNL)

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Stay tuned to this station for updates! 🙂

*Bonus Tracks:  “White-Washed-Feminist Wedding” by Billy IdleTalk (lyrics:  “Hey, Christian sister, what have you done?  It’s a nice day for a —  White-Washed-Feminist Wedding!”)

“Little Less Mathematician, Little More Adverb, Please” by Melvis (lyrics:  “All this aggravation aint satisfactioning me”)

“My Patriarch” by Ella Barbra Billie (lyrics:  “Two or three girls has he that he likes as well as me, but I love him ….  I don’t know why I should; he isn’t true  —  he beats me, too, what can I do?   Oh, my Patriarch, I love him so; he’ll never know, all my life is just despair, but I don’t care.  When he takes me in his arms the world is bright all right.  What’s the difference if I say, I’ll go away, when I know I’ll come back on my knees some day?  For whatever my Patriarch is, I am his forevermore.”)

“Modesty” by Mr. BillyJo (lyrics:  “Modesty is such a lonely word.  Everyone is so uncool.”)

“Walk Like a Puritan” by The Shackles (lyrics:  “All the kids in marketplace say, Ay oh, way oh, ay oh, way oh …. Walk like a puritan … Walk like a puritan.”)

“Sixteen Going On Seventeen” by the real Rodgers and Hammerstein (lyrics:  “[Rolfe]: You need someone older and wiser telling you what to do, I am 17 going on 18,  I’ll take care of you. [Liesl]: I am 16 going on 17, I know that  I’m naive; Fellows I meet may tell me I’m sweet, and willingly I believe …. Totally unprepared am I to face a world of men; Timid and shy and scared am I of things beyond my kin. I need someone older and wiser telling me what to do; You are 17 going on 18 I’ll depend on you.”)

Homeschool Nation: “Homier Than Thou”?

I’ve never been a member of HSLDA since we began homeschooling, and I don’t have an earth-friendly organic lifestyle.  Our family eats “whatever is in the shambles” :), which means that we eat from the 4 basic food groups, and get some of our food from a wonderful Christian gleaning organization.  This same organization was ridiculed by someone in the homeschooling community that chooses organic living.  He mentioned he got his food fresh from a local organic co-op instead of from cans sitting in some warehouse.  Nice attitude, but faulty.  We frequently get organic produce at our Christian Gleaning Warehouse and more than just food supplies there.  (I wonder how he feels about the truck driver who transports potato chips and sundry supplies for a National Grocery Store Chain?)

The Gleaning organization I belong to is very unique and is frequently praised by governmental officials for it’s handling of funds and volunteerism.  It’s been such a blessing to our family, and I made even close Christian friends there where we pray together every week.  Sometimes they have great produce and day-old bread, along with the packaged paper goods (not often recycled, earth-friendly materials, but never-the-less, a blessing to our family), books, clothing, dairy, some canned goods (really, not too many), toiletries and wonderful giftables, but for some Christians in my area of the country it seems that’s not good enough for healthy, responsible godly living.

Organic living has become a source of separation to some degree even among Christian homeschoolers.  Now, I don’t begrudge families choosing certain health choices to affect their own family’s health, but it’s become a near “badge of honor” to wear in order to prove their (homeschool parents, especially moms) dedication to their families.

It isn’t just organic, sustainable living subjects that divide brethren.  It’s homeschooling vs. formal schooling; it’s spending ungodly amounts of money and outside activity toward the homeschool educating of our children (outside classes that add up to the same amount as private-schooling them, — because, after all; they’re worth it) vs. keeping it simple; courting vs. dating, apprenticing our “young men” in family-run businesses vs. allowing teens to work in fast-food or other venues for job experience; it’s home-birth vs. hospital birth; unrestricted family sizes vs. a couple’s decision to limit how many children they have by non-abortive means; it’s women’s equal participation in the priesthood of believers vs. husband as earthly high-priest of his family before Jesus; and the list goes on.

One of my recent observations has been that the homeschool “movement” will probably suffer a backlash in the future.  With all the conflicting “teaching” going on as far as what is “biblical” when raising a family and what is “of the world” I predicted the legalistic and elitist attitudes will actually become less of a reason to homeschool.  People will still find the quaint return to the “Olde Times” to be a pull on their hearts, but in reality, it’s just a focus on man’s opinions.

I was surprised to find where the original quote, “homier than thou” came from.  It came from a 1994 article written by Mike Farris of HSLDA here.

A quote from the article:

“There are a myriad of bragging points that can be filled in this blank: really quality home schoolers do unit study, or use a certain brand of curriculum, or belong to a certain national or local training program, or study classical literature, or bake their own bread, or do home births, or refuse vaccinations, or refuse Social Security numbers, or do not participate in church youth groups, or do not own a television, or do not use birth control, or … The potential list is endless.”

So, 14 years ago one of the “leaders” in the homeschool “movement” was predicting exactly where we seem to be at, at least in the Sustainable Christian Region of the Northwest.  You should see the look on people’s faces when I tell them my husband supervises a fast-food restaurant chain.  One example was a woman I met for the first time at church, and she immediately started in on how evil fast-food was toward our environment and our bodies, etc.  This was a well-respected and sought-after for advice woman in the congregation who was so obviously overweight.  I wondered why.   (Clarification:  I’m not judging her body weight; I don’t care about that.  I just felt that her words about healthy foods and the fact that she venerated Wholesome Foods as pertaining to godly, responsible living and her physical representation were at odds.  Like Forrest Gump once said, “That’s all ah have to say ’bout thayat”.)   Food seemed to be her obsession.  She didn’t bother to ask me how I felt about my husband being gainfully employed to support his family at a fast-food restaurant.  It’s probably good that she didn’t.

That same snobby attitude showed up recently in a Sunday sermon, and even a few years ago from another one of our church leaders’ sermons.  The recent sermon focused on how in this young man’s experience, restaurant management was a dark environment where sin abounds and he, by his association in it, was being taken away from the more important things in his life: his family, his ethics.  He found a better way by quitting his subsequent well-paying restaurant job to attend Bible School.  I suppose he could blame his lack of ethics on his work environment, but I think that it was his sin-nature, really.  The other man’s sermon mentioned when raising our sons, we shouldn’t be sending them off to work in fast-food, but be raising them up to be entrepreneurs or in the family business.  Nothing wrong with that, unless the implication was that working in the “world” was not training them up in the admonition of the Lord somehow.

Why did I bring up those examples?  Because it seems it’s Open Season on those who don’t hold more godly professions, such as Christian Book Writer, Conference Speaker, Home-Based Business Owner, Christian Naturopath, Christian Homeschool Specialty Instructor, or Nourishing Natural Food Teacher.  No, if you work for a Corporation, you are shirking your Christian Duty to build up a more godly nation.

And, don’t get me started on the Full-Quiver (What Color is Your Quiver?) movement.  My tied tubes are repenting in sackcloth and ashes.  What’s an insulin-dependent diabetic Christian married woman to do with this movement?  Incidentally, I had 4 children while in  “mainstream” christianity (Foursquare, Lutheran Brethren, Nondenominational) and got funny looks from people because I had my hands full with children.  You can’t please everybody.

Another quote from the article:

“There is an attitude which I see a little too often in the home-schooling movement which I call the “homier than thou” attitude. There used to be few enough home schoolers that the mere fact that you were home schooling gave you the opportunity for spiritual bragging rights. There are now enough home schoolers out there for some spiritual one-upmanship to begin to take place.”

Do you see that happening now in the homeschool environments?  I do.  There are enough books written now on the proper way to raise your family in the homeschool arena to make your head spin.  Everybody has a paradigm to push.  Just look at the “Passionate Housewives, Desperate for God” genre of teachings.  It is pre-suppositionally promoting gender-specific duties for wives to perform to stroke our husband’s egos so that they can lead us properly.  I’d just rather read my Bible. How about the many homeschool momblogs out there like “Biblical Womanhood”, that, if I’m not mistaken, is hosted by a European woman (nothing wrong with that, it’s just got a very Earth-Sustainable bent to it at times). 

This quote is right on:

“Unfortunately, the “homier than thou” attitude is growing inside of the home-schooling movement. We simply have to do our best to squelch it in our own lives as individuals”…. “I am not saying that we should refrain from ever expressing an opinion on a controversial subject. If anyone wants to ask me why I am fully committed to courtship rather than dating, I will gladly and enthusiastically explain it. But I hope I do it in a way that is absent of pride and ultimately merciful.” 

“Really spiritual home schoolers refrain from being “homier than thou.” Let’s be gracious people. — Mike Farris from this article here.

So, my challenge to myself is when I see such attitudes in others towards those of us who are just trying to physically survive and share the Gospel of the Good News of Jesus rescuing us from sin, I am to have grace towards them.  It’s difficult for me, because it puts me on the outside of certain christian circles frequently because of “outward appearances” and the judging of meats (remember, it’s not what goes into a man that makes him unclean … ). 

Homeschool Happenings

Q:  How many homeschoolers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A:  Three.  One to hold the bulb, another to write a Unit Study on the history of light bulbs, and the third to host a conference seminar on the biblical way to screw it in correctly.

But seriously, folks. Read here about the recent ruling in the California courts, and here on homeschooling freedoms are being limited.

Already Doing Hard Things; MYOB

Okay, now I’m really going to rant.

I just lost an entire paragraphs-long post I wrote on for an hour. Heart-felt stuff I’ve been dealing with for some time and poof! it’s gone, thankyouverymuch wordpress piece of cr*p!

So, in regards to what I just wrote, suffice it to say, I’m really annoyed (that’s putting it mildly) at those who would lay burdens on so many people with their fast-track to success in homeschooling, patriarchy or what have you.

I’m sick to my stomach that everything I carefully laid out in my attempt to convey my frustration with the agenda-driven neo-conservatives (theonomic reconstructionists) in the church these days has now just vanished. I’m sick that those in the homeschool movement are ruining people’s lives by their heavy burdens. I’m tired of trying to convey my thoughts while being marginialized by those who “know what’s best for the Body”.

Get thee behind me, for I’m trying to focus on Christ, my Savior.

My earlier post was MUCH more graceful and even jovial, but now I’m just absolutely frustrated that I can’t put it quite as well as what was pouring out of my heart earlier. Maybe I’ll try an installment series later on, but for now — I just wish I had a Nice Cold Mike’s Hard Lemonade 6 pack.

That is all for now.