Public Schools: Virtual Village or Sinking Ship?

Our boys attended both public and private schools, and even did a couple of years of homeschooling. There were pros and cons to each choice, and specific reasons for choosing different schooling options at different times in their lives.

Back then, it didn’t occur to me that there was such festering resentment toward parents who do not take advantage of public school systems. After all–our taxes are still going there, aren’t they?

But with the advent of vouchers, my money can leave the public school. However, THE question in many minds is, “Should it?”

Invitations Aren’t Only for Easter

It’s one week later. If Easter was a mountaintop, this feels like a dark valley. Yet the invitation to come is still there. It wasn’t a one-time offer. And even if we’ve already held out hungry hands for the bread of life, we can still find ourselves weak again, and needing to heed that call once more.

Sonrise (Mark 16:1-8)

Too bad to be true.

That’s how it felt.  All a bad dream, a nightmare, and they’d wake soon.  But when two nights passed and they’d cried themselves dry, they got up and chose to be practical.  Feeling empty, needing something to do, they gathered up the spices.  On the road, with the first golden beams of sunrise in their faces, they worried about the stone.  “Is this trip for nothing?  What if we can’t get in?”

Looking up, they see the stone.  “That’s not the way it…is this a trick of the light?  It’s been moved already. Who’s been here so early?  Nicodemus, maybe?”  Slowly they peer into the dark interior and see a patch of white.  The body.  No!  It’s sitting upright.  Their hearts pound now. “Not more bad news.  They haven’t taken His body, have they?  Is there danger?  Should we run?” And yet their feet keep moving forward.

Malchus the Slave, a story for Holy Week (part 2)

Back in the high priest’s chamber, Malchus stands waiting for his next orders.  His head is bowed, eyes to the ground by law; his breathing is shallow still, his thoughts skimming along the surface of the sounds of accusation breaking over and around him.  Sounds he hears with two good ears.

Ridiculous, wild statements, outright lies, preposterous tales fall to the floor around Jesus, but don’t seem to touch him. That’s the carpenter’s name, then.  He’s heard stories about a Jesus. This is him? Finally one claim–”He said, ‘Destroy the temple and in three days I’ll rebuild it!’”–rang true.

Caiaphus standing in his weighty robe of authority, uses his most commanding, intimidating voice. “I order you, by the living God, to tell us the truth. Are you the Messiah, the son of God?”

Malchus the Slave, a story for Holy Week (part 1)

Rousted out of bed in the dank midnight, he fumbles into his robe and follows as he’s ordered.  He didn’t quite catch why it was that he was part of this group.  Now as they wind their way up the hill, the torchlight flickering on the path is not enough to prevent stubbed toes and stumbling over rocks.

They’ve been commanded to be silent, so any injury produces no more than a close-lipped grunt.  Some pebbles roll away from their passing, but there is no other sound. He tries to glance before and behind without tripping. It appears that all the household slaves are here, as well as Caiaphus’ armed guards, and some others he’s seen in the Temple courtyard.  A variety of swords and cudgels swing from beefy fists.  But not from his. He is not permitted to own a weapon.  Where are they going?  It  looks like a grove of olive trees.  He can see the outline of their twisted shapes against the moonlit sky.

“Jesus Stomping” Update

**NOTICE: this story has been updated for the final time, HERE…**

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This story has gotten quite a bit of national attention in the past few days, thanks to the internet. This blog has certainly had an uptick in traffic because of JTR’s own blog post on the subject last week.

I was curious this morning, and since we’re enjoying yet another Spring snowstorm here in the Midwest, I had nothing better to do than hunt for new information on the incident.

Palm Sunday Pondering

My granddaughter Lucy is 26 months old. On Saturday night when I tell her that tomorrow is “church day” she cheers, and not only because that means she’ll get to eat cookies that Auntie Sharon gives her in the Coffee Connection after the service. No, Lucy also loves the few minutes each week when Miss Susi comes into the nursery and sings “Jesus songs” with the toddlers.

Thanks to Miss Susi, Lucy knows that there is a story about Jesus riding on a donkey, and people singing “Hosanna! Hosanna to the King!” She doesn’t know what that means yet, but she knows it happened.

She hasn’t heard thirty sermons (or fifty) on the fact that the crowd who cried “Hosanna!” on Sunday were the same who cried, “Crucify him!” on Friday. She’s just at the beginning of absorbing all this.

I think I envy her.

On Faith and Friendship

This isn’t exactly a Lenten post, and we here at Two Heads have decided to keep the Midweek Meditation post as a regular Wednesday feature after Easter. Today I’d like to share a selection from a post by a friend of mine over at Letters From Heart’s Content on being transformed by the power of habit.

She begins with a quote that was unfamiliar to me, but I like it very much:

“I exhort you both so to esteem virtue (without which friendship cannot exist), that, excepting virtue, you will think nothing more excellent than friendship.” —Cicero, last sentence of “On Friendship”

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In Honor Of Patrick

Isn’t it sad that the last  lingering remnants of a feast commemorating the life of a brave and selfless man… are shamrocks and green beer?

The Feast of St. Patrick–a very early missionary who lived in the 5th century–is today. Patrick famously used the three-leaved shamrock plant to try to illustrate the mystery of the Trinity to the heathen tribes of Ireland. Shamrock  motifs are still synonymous with St. Paddy’s Day, though I dare say most folks have no idea why any more.

Lenten Thoughts, Week 5

Lent, like its cousin, Advent, is about waiting: forty days (more or less) of preparing for the biggest celebration of the Church year.  As with Advent, there is a strong element of anticipation, of longing for the joy of that celebration. For believers who live in personal relationship to Christ, this longing is not so much for an annual festivity but for its ultimate fulfillment.

I Need Thee EVERY Hour

It’s true…there is not an hour when I don’t need God…even the hour that was STOLEN from me while I slept last night.

That’s right, go ahead and laugh, especially if you live in Arizona or Hawaii. We Hoosiers used to have enough self-confidence  and rugged individualism to go against the flow and refuse to  change. We watched the slow and lovely shifts from winter to summer and back again, as the shadows gradually lengthen and shorten, and it was a beautiful cycle to behold.  But now, we’ve joined the lemming crowds who change their clocks back when it’s still WINTER for crying out loud, and do you realize that at this point we’re only on “regular” (aka REAL) time for FOUR MONTHS OUT OF THE YEAR???

Lenten Thoughts, week 4

The powers-that-be are naming winter storms now.  ”Saturn” is blowing and blustering fitfully outside my window as midnight approaches. It doesn’t appear to be the (gasp!) “super storm” that it was predicted to be yesterday. No surprise, really. Here in Indiana we seem to have a meteorological non-event every other week. But on Monday the grocery store check out lanes were all full of people stocking up on bread, milk, peanut butter, toilet paper and other essentials to ride out a blizzard…potato chips, soft drink, frozen pizza–you know, staple foods.

Taking no chances, I did the same (well, I bought milk). It got me thinking about preparedness in general…