Christmas Books & Homeschool Musings

Since we travel each Christmas, our family has gotten into a tradition of opening our gifts to each other sometime during the 12 days of Christmas after we return home. In recent years, we've tended to open gifts on New Year's Day, for the very practical reason that my husband has off from the office and we can have a relaxed and leisurely family morning.

Gifts are relatively few this year, but I suppose it's still possible I might have a book or two lying unopened beneath the tree (along with some socks, of course...) I've got a share in a family gift certificate to B&N thanks to a precious friend, and am pondering my endless list of books I'd love to read (there are many titles on my wishlist). Thanks to my very generous sister, however, I've already received two books, both from my Amazon wishlist, this Christmas: Alice Gunther's A Haystack Full of Needles, and Bob Hartman's Telling the Bible.

So tell me, what books did you get for Christmas?

It struck me, after I asked for these particular books, how much my reading tastes have changed in the past several years. For starters, both titles are non-fiction, something I used to read far more sparingly than I do now. These days I find myself far more drawn to the "new non-fiction" shelves at the library than the "new fiction" shelves, at least the adult fiction.

Secondly, the books represent deepening and ongoing passions in my life: my desire to build more community into our daily lives and homeschooling experience (hence the Gunther book) and my desire to be a better, more faithful and creative teller/writer/teacher of the Bible, at home and in other contexts (hence the Hartman).

It also dawned on me how much of my reading tastes are shaped by the internet. I would never have found Alice Gunther's book without having first read her blog and the blog of her friend Melissa Wiley. Those dear ladies, and a handful of other Catholic moms, writers, and homeschoolers, have no idea how much their blogs have meant to me in the past couple of years. As an Anglican homeschooler, I am in real awe of the richness of the Catholic homeschooling community and am so delighted I get to eavesdrop on their wonderful creativity. The way they share their lives with one another (and by extension with folks like me) is inspiring. My longing to build similar kinds of community and pockets of friendship is intensifying all the time. My desire to shape our homeschool experience by our observance of the church year and our unique traditions as Anglicans is also deepening.

The difficult thing, of course, is that most Anglicans don't homeschool...or at least relatively few of us in comparison to Catholics and non-Anglican evangelicals. Frankly I get lonely. The fact that I'm Anglican, that my family's life is shaped by urban mission and ministry, and that I only have one child can sometimes make me feel like an oddly shaped jigsaw piece trying to fit into a gorgeous puzzle. All the other pieces are shiny and well-cut and know where they're supposed to go. I'm the one that fell out of the box and got stuck under the sofa and then bent by the toddler. Whenever I start to feel that way though, I make myself stop. I think about the amazing diversity I have found among the homeschooling movement (where there seems to be no such thing as a "typical" homeschooling family, despite the abundant stereotypes). I laugh to think how some acquaintances of mine, who I'm pretty sure think homeschooling is only for crazy people, would marvel if they could see the depth and beauty of home learning in lives as diverse as the ones found at A Circle of Quiet, Karen Edmisten, and Mental Multivitamin.

Well, I've wandered far afield in these musings, which basically started out as "here are the books I got for Christmas"...but the point of good books is that they make me wander. And wonder. And ask questions. And think about who I am and who I'm still hoping to become.

All good things to ponder before opening presents on New Year's Day.

Parents, Kids and Jesus

Hat-tip to Janet at Quoth the Maven for putting me on to the very funny (and sometimes profound) blog "Stuff Christians Like." I clicked over there last night and read this wonderful post "Asking Our Kids to be a Mini Jesus." Does the daily walk of parenting teach us more about the love of God? Definitely worth a read if you're a parent, and maybe especially if you're not.

And oh, did it bring back memories of the toddler toothpaste wars...

Changes to the Blog Roll

Over on the left hand side-bar, I have a list of blogs I love to visit, which I titled "Resting Places for Heart and Mind." In general these are blogs I enjoy reading regularly or at least semi-regularly, whose content I find encouraging, funny, thought-provoking or simply beautiful. Lots of them (though not all) feature a love of God, a love of good books, and a love of children, families and parenting. Quite a few of them are blogs that discuss homeschooling as well.

I've just added the blog Semicolon to my list. I only recently discovered it and have been enjoying it a great deal. The woman who blogs there reads more than I would have thought humanly possible, and she often shares her passions in well-ordered lists of books and other resources. A great find.

On the other end of the spectrum, I've been contemplating taking the Austen Blog off my list. I do check it from time to time and find it a fun round-up of Austen-related "stuff." They're especially good at keeping track of all the Austen citings in popular culture -- books, stage, and screen. But I sometimes find the tone a bit too "inner-circle"ish, as though there are a lot of private jokes I'm just not in on. However, I enjoy it enough that I'm going to keep in on for now. If anyone has any recommendations of other good blogs engaging Austen, I'd love to hear about them. I know about some of the big websites, like Republic of Pemberley, but I'd be most interested in the personal, thoughtful musings of a passionate Austen reader. If they're engaging her work from a faith perspective, even better!