Total: 57

Non-fiction

• Generation to Generation by Edwin Friedman – a detailed look at family therapy in the context of the clergy and churches. Helpful for any father or leader. Think in terms of systems and not individual atoms.
• Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child by Anthony Esolen – Esolen is a master: entertaining, convicting, and articulate. This is part treatise on childhood education and part prophecy against a decaying culture. Every parent should read it.
• Oeconomicus by Xenophon – a Socratic dialogue about ancient household management and farming. Many of the lessons in it might surprise you, like giving slaves a share of the profits. Includes a long section about training a wife.
• Thoughts for Young Men by J. C. Ryle – this book reads like was written 5 years ago, not 125 years ago. I’ll be keeping this one in my back pocket to go over with my boys as they grow older.
• Becoming Your Own Banker by R. Nelson Nash – If you want to re-wire your thinking on money and finance, get this book. You can read it in a weekend.
• Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff – recommended by a successful copywriter. Great for sales presentations and getting the proper mindset for writing sales copy.
• Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy – Ogilvy is a fun author to read. You’ll learn tips ranging from how to run a business to how to write headlines.
• The Paideia of God by Douglas Wilson – I thought this would be more about the concept of paideia specifically, and some of the essays are more relevant than others, but overall very helpful.
• A Landscape with Dragons by Michael D. O’Brien – About the importance of good children’s literature and the hidden dangers within. It gets a bit too Catholic in places, but worth the read. Includes a recommended reading list at the end for every age.
• Better Business Writing by Bryan A. Garner – Should be required reading for every college graduate.
• Something They Will Not Forget by Joshua Gibbs – On the benefit of catechisms in the classroom and at home. Full of wisdom about education in general, Gibbs writes in a way that is dense with insights, but is easy to chew on. It makes me want to read his other books.
• Titan by Ron Chernow – Another great biography from Chernow.
• The Writing Life by Annie Dillard – More of a short auto-biography, but a quick read and easy to swallow. Filled with great stories.
• State of the Arts by Gene Veith – How the arts reflect our culture and framed with a biblical defense of the arts.
• Principles of Biblical Interpretation by Louis Berkhof – this book cetainly gets the job done. More of a quick reference.
• The Poem’s Heartbeat by Alfred Corn – A book that assume no knowledge. If you want to know the basics of English poetry, this book is for you, though he starts to disect it so much that I started to get irritated.
• How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy – Practical tips cushioned with a philosophy on creativity. I would recommend this book to anyone.
• Saving Leonardo by Nancy Pearcey – A good summary of the bigger picture on how worldviews are totalizing and how Christians should get wiser. It lacks some meat when it comes to practicality, though.
• Reading Between the Lines by Gene Veith – not really a book on reading between the lines, but more of an introduction to literature and its importance.
• Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Age by Richard N. Longenecker
• Modern Art and the Death of a Culture by H. R. Rookmaaker – this got a bit long-winded and repetitive at the end, but its a good overview.
• Letters to Malcolm by C.S. Lewis – fictional letters about prayer.
• The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis – a series of essays on various topics ranging from heaven to pacifism.
• Suprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis – an autobiography with keen insights. Great for all fans of Lewis.
• The Conversations by Michael Ondaatje – if you are curious about film at all, this book will be eyeopening. Also great for any creative endeavor.
• The Discarded Image by C.S Lewis – an extended essay on the Medieval model of the universe. Fascinating. And it makes you long for something just as glorious.

Fiction

• Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson – Builds to the typical crescendo where Sanderson wraps everything up in neat yet surprising ways. Always enjoyable.
• The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw – I read this in preparation for my kids to read it as part of their literature/writing/history program. A powerful story about friendship and perseverance, with ancient Egypt as the backdrop.
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro – I’m not sure how to feel about this book, but it was masterfully done. A low-key dystopian alternate history. A very slow tragedy that gradually reveals a systemic horror.
• God King by Joanne Williamson – Another historical novel I read because my kids are supposed to read it for school. It came across as a 2nd draft. Some ideas were clearly undeveloped, but they were interesting ideas.
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis – On audiobook. Still great.
• Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis – A little dry but still great and full of interesting ideas that are explored further in the next two books.
• Perelandra by C.S. Lewis – My favorite when I first read this series, and I think it remains my favorite. Lewis’ vision of a pre-fallen world is captivating.
• That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis – A prophetic novel. We are still trying to construct Babel, only we are far dumber than the villains of this book.
• The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck – This is a slice-of-life novel where every character is painted with depth and understanding. Each one is vivid and different. There is no real plot. Just a bunch of characters interacting in various ways as they react to their shared predicament.
• Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie – first Christie mystery since middle school and I enjoyed it. A classic for a reason.
• Jeeves in the Offing by P.G. Wodehouse – one of my favorites. Fast-paced and streamlined.
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison – still relevant and powerful, though not for the reasons modern communists think.
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy – this is one I’ll revisit from time to time. Moving. Depressing. Hopeful. Aspirational.
• The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis – should be revisited often.
• The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis – another relfection on our sins and the ways we pretend to be rightousness. A great read.
• Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis – a great example of an unreliable narrator.

What I Read to the Kids

• Bambi: A Life in the Woods by Felix Salten – Forget everything you know about this story. The Disney movie does not do it justice. This is a fantastic, haunting, poetic book about the passing on of wisdom and tradition, and about one of the fundamental truths of the universe.
• The Adventures of Pinocchio by Collodi – Weird and random, but memorable. Nothing like the Disney movie and the lessons lean more heavily toward obedience to parents. My kids loved it.
• The Monster in the Hollows by Andrew Peterson – The promise of the series finally starts to be fulfilled. Lots of good stuff in this one, with better pacing.
• The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald – This has the feel of a story written specifically for the author’s daughter. Delightfully strange and beautiful. Vivid pictures of courage and faith.
• The Warden and the Wolf King by Andrew Peterson – A good conclusion, though it dragged in places. And the allegory was a bit too on the nose. This really could have been a trilogy, instead of a quadrilogy.
• Brave Ollie Possum by Ethan Nicolle – A fun story that my kids loved. It’s obviously a first novel and has some pacing issues, but the story and illustrations make up for it.
• Call it Courage by Armstrong Sperry – A short book packed with memorable moments. Great for boys, in particular. And if your kids love the movie Moana, this story is set in a similar culture, without Disneyfication.
• King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green – An accessible, and fun, collection of the stories of King Arthur. It organizes them into a more cohesive narrative/structure.
• Number the Stars by Lois Lowry – a good conversation starter about WW2 and courage. The appendix at the end had me tearing up.

Total: 40

Non-fiction

• The Household and the War for the Cosmos by C. R. Wiley – A follow-up to his other book on households, this one is also eyeopening. It introduces some passages from Xenophon’s Household Manager dialogue, which are relevant for a whole bunch of things.
• Clean Code by Robert C. Martin – A must-read for every professional programmer, and probably a must-own. Several things clicked into place for me while reading this book and working through its examples.
• Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel by Daniel Allen Butler – An even-handed treatment of the Desert Fox, and a fun read. Men of principle are never perfect, and can still get swept up in the spell of someone like Hitler.
• John for Everyone, Part 1 by N.T. Wright- I like commentaries that include the text itself, and this one is a quick read with some good insights.
• Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb – Not sure why it took me so long to read this one, as Anti-fragile is one of my favorite books. This one is also excellent and thought-provoking while being entertaining at the same time.
• Phaedo by Plato – An account of the last day in the life of Socrates, before he acquiesced gracefully to his own execution. The dialogue focuses on Socrates attempt to persuade these companions (and himself) of the immortality of the soul. One I will need to revisit from time to time.
• Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield – A decent “kick in the pants” of good advice, but mostly a rehash from The War of Art. It also doubles down on the mystic Neo-platonism, which was a bit of a turn-off.
• The Grace of Shame – An overview of how the church has failed homosexuals, usually as a result of cowardice in the face of cultural pressure. Some of the issues with modern translations around effeminacy were eye-opening.
• Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug – a good primer or refresher on basic UX.
• Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein – An enlightening book that doesn’t really have any hard lessons. The author presents you with examples and research and wants you to decide for yourself. I personally thought it was helpful, in terms of how people learn and how we harness creativity.
• Content Strategy at Work by Margot Bloomstein – A good, rubber-meets-the-road intro to content strategy and the value it can bring to a project.
• Impossible to Ignore by Carmen Simon – This should be required reading for anyone writing and presenting content. A dive into how memory works and how it persuades.
• Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts – The first biography of Churchill I’ve read, and this was a good portrait. Focused more on WW2 than any other time.
• Traffic Secrets by Russell Brunson – The title sounds spammy, but this book is a great overview of how to get attention online. Most of the tips are evergreen, though he does dive into some specifics on a few platforms. I would recommend this book to any beginner on the topic, with minor quibbles.
• A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman – A summation of Friedman’s experience and work, this book is like looking at the code of the Matrix. Leadership is not about tools, but about navigating emotional processes and maintaining your own presence.
• The Content Fuel Framework by Melanie Deziel – Better to skim. More of a lead generation for the author’s workshops, but some good prompts for brainstorming.
• Tending the Heart of Virtue by Vigen Guroian – You will never look at fairy tales and fantasy the same way again. And you will look at the Disneyfication of them with disgust. Recommended for any parent or teacher.
• Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson – All about storytelling and persuasion in selling. If you follow this, you will most certainly make money online. This is a resource to refer to often.

Fiction

• Starsight by Brandon Sanderson – The sequel to Skyward, and much better. Now that’s he gotten a lot of the clunky world-building out of the way, he can start having more fun expanding the universe. And it is a lot of fun.
• Emma by Jane Austen – This book had me chuckling from start to finish. Full of funny fools and great lessons.
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque – A powerful, fictionalized account of the trenches in World War 1. Depressing to read, and it doesn’t offer much hope, and in that way, it felt a bit too self-important and indulgent. Still, I would recommend everyone read it at least once.
• A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab – A fun read, but nothing groundbreaking. It didn’t make me want to rush out and read the sequel. Lilah Bard is grating at times, and she never seems to learn her lesson. Also, all of the really interesting minor characters are killed off way too quickly.
• The Punch Escrow by Tal M. Klein – Not bad for a first novel. It has a good voice and is pretty fun to read. However, the world-building is hit or miss, anemic in some places, and it gets some blatant facts wrong about some popular Bible stories. For a book labeled “hard sci-fi,” it didn’t really live up to the label.
• The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis – I can’t believe it has taken be this long to read this book, but of course I enjoyed it. Still relevant and insightful.
• Persuasion by Jane Austen – This was in the running for being my favorite Austen book…until the last third. Still very, very good. It felt more modern than the others I have read.
• Peace Talks by Jim Butcher – A fun read, as all Dresden Files books are, though this was one of the weaker installments. Some great scenes, but clearly a part 1, which is what we were told going in.
• Battle Ground by Jim Butcher – Non-stop action with some great character moments. Butcher knows how to earn his really big scenes, and there are several in this book that took my breath away. Looking forward to seeing where the series goes from here.
• Night Watch by Terry Pratchett – I’ve been wanting to read this one for a long time. It lived up to the hype. Some good metaphors to put in my commonplace book.

What I Read to the Kids

• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling – The kids loved the dragons. The climax, where Voldemort returns to power, contains some of Rowling’s best scenes, but the rest of the book shows some weakness. So…many…adverbs.
• The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall – Delightful. It captures the days of summer while young, and why those days always loom so large. Fun characters.
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling – We did this one on audiobook because I remember it being long and a slog. And my memories served me well. The movie is much better than the book because the screenplay did what a good editor should have done to the book. Still fun, but much more of a grind than it needed to be.
• The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis – This was my favorite of the Narnia books the first time I read them, and it remains my favorite.
• The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame – A short, fun book that plays with expected stereotypes.
• Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper – I had always heard good things about The Dark is Rising series, and we finally started it. Lots of promise, though this one does suffer from some extra padding. This was the author’s first novel, however, so it can be forgiven.
• The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper – This one fell a bit flat. The writing is evocative and beautiful, but it’s just a series of things that happens to Will, for no apparent rhyme or reason. He doesn’t seem to have any real agency and I almost never felt any tension.
• The Apple and the Arrow by Mary and Conrad Buff – This one is clunky and inelegant, but it gets the job done. How many other children’s books out there are about the founding of Switzerland?
• The Story of the Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit – Delightful, and very British. Some laugh out loud moments, good lessons, and a happy ending.
• On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson – Decent for a first novel, but not tightly plotted. And it plays with the old conceit of the grown-ups hiding a secret from the kids, and that’s what everything else swirls around, which I found a bit lazy. We’ll see if it gets better because the kids enjoyed it. It can trigger some good conversations.
• Give Me Liberty by L. M. Elliott – This book is a great conversation starter. It takes place on the cusp of the American Revolution with the viewpoint character being a 13-year old indentured servant. Thoroughly researched, tt raises good questions without demonizing the founders. A lot of the big names of the revolution make a cameo at some point.
• North! Or Be Eaten by Andrew Peterson – The second book in The Wingfeather Saga, and it was much better than the first book. Still some rough edges but the plotting was tighter, the author didn’t overwhelm with irrelevant footnotes, and the lore of the world has started to round out.

This is not meant to be a prescription. Homeschooling is personal and different for every family and child. That’s part of what makes it great. It’s flexible. But it can also be overwhelming. So take this post as a few signposts on the road that you can choose to follow or not, and even if you don’t arrive at the same destination as me, at least you won’t be completely lost.

Math

We currently use Math-U-See. The gentle approach, with rotating review and heavy use of manipulatives, seems to work well. Video lessons make it easy, even if you don’t understand how best to teach it yourself. A placement test on their website helps determine the best level your child should start at.

Time: 10-20 minutes per day, depending on if they are learning something new.

Reading/Literature

For younger kids, they work through How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, until they grasp reading. We also read aloud to them from recommendations from Memoria Press, and whatever books are our favorites.

For older kids, we also typically use the reading lists from Memoria Press. They have packages per grade level, with workbooks if you so desire. We used the workbooks at first, but now we just ask questions and talk about what they are reading instead.

Sometimes a chapter a day suffices, other times they read more. Depends on the book.

For copies of classics with great cover art and included worldview guides, check out Canon Press. They also have literature lists broken down for each grade, if you look in their homeschool bundles.

Time: 10 – 30 minutes per day.

I do reading time at the end of the day with all of the kids, where I read the Bible, work on a little memorization, and then read from another book. Some of these books are from Memoria Press’s supplemental read aloud lists, but others are just fun books I want to read to them. A good mix is important. This is usually 45 – 60 minutes per night, right before bed.

If you do nothing else but devote yourself to plenty of reading time, your kids will probably learn more than at their school. If it sounds exhausting, embrace audio books. I’d recommend you add some poetry in the mix, and A Child’s Book of Poems is a good one to have on your shelf.

You can see some of what I’ve read to my kids by looking at the the bottom of my reading list summary of the year.

Science

Our co-op (Classical Conversations) has weekly science experiments, coupled with science facts memorization. We haven’t supplemented much more than this since our kids are younger.

For other options, I’ve heard good things about Noeo Science (all ages) and Beginnings Publishing (junior and senior high school), both of which come with everything you need to do experiments at home.

History

Part of this is also included in Classical Conversations, where our kids memorize a timeline of the entire world, and then specific history sentences. We supplement this with additional reading. If you plan your read-aloud time out right, you can also overlap with History quite a bit.

Story of the World is a good overview curriculum for elementary and early middle school. You can go as involved as you want with workbooks and tests as well. Though even I find Story of the World riveting and interesting…and most ages will learn something from it.

There are a lot of young reader history books as well that focus on certain individuals, though I would tend to go with older books. The Landmark Books meet this criteria well.

For older kids, give them a good biography of someone they are interested in. Older biographies tend to be better, though that is not a hard and fast rule. They will learn not only about that person, but also a lot about the time period that person lived in.

You can also mix in some reading from Landmark Herodotus and Landmark Thucydides or others in the same series. These are full of maps on almost every page to help orient the reader, and filled with Appendices of historical context.

Time: 10 – 30 minutes.

Latin

We use Song School Latin and Latin for Children from Classical Academic Press. The videos fill in the gaps of a parent’s knowledge, and include chants to aid in memorizing relevant stuff.

If you don’t care about Latin, one less thing for you to worry about. But if you want to start introducing another language, they also have a Song School course for Spanish.

Time: 20 – 30 minutes per day.

Writing

Once they hit 3rd or 4th grade, we introduce the Writing & Rhetoric series. I really, really liked the first in the series: Fable. These will take you all the way through High School, if you so desire.

Our co-op uses courses from IEW for its writing curriculum, which we will start to integrate as well. It merges a bit with history and helps reinforce other things they are learning. You can mix and match your theme based on what is most important to you.

IEW also has handy “how to teach writing” courses that are popular with parents.

Time: 10 – 30 minutes per day.

Spelling

We currently use two courses. Our oldest uses an almost 100% self-directed program from IEW called Phonetic Zoo. It seems to work great, and any time you can shift something to be more self-directed, that is a huge plus.

For the younger ones, we are using Spelling-U-See, until we feel they can eventually make the shift to Phonetic Zoo.

Time: 10 minutes per day.

Handwriting

We teach our kids cursive, and have used a few resources in the past, including the Memoria Press track. But really, if they are doing enough writing during the other subjects, and you don’t care about cursive, your might not need any dedicated handwriting curriculum.

We also use The Rhythm of Handwriting.

I have my own handwriting/memorization workbook I put together, because I felt there was a gap.

Time: 10 – 20 minutes per day.

Bible

Besides the daily reading I do with them at night, when they hit the 3rd grade, they start on God’s Great Covenant, which I really, really like. A straightforward way for them to start working through the whole Bible.

Time: 10 – 20 minutes per day.

Extra

This is one of the beauties of homeschooling: you can do as much or as little as you feel necessary. We do piano/music and work slowly through a poetry course. I do a little kickboxing with the boys. We also do some art, and YouTube is great for tutorials that kids will tear through as if opening birthday presents. Art for Kids hub is regular go-to.

Embrace the flexibility. Go to a park just because you can. Go hiking. Whatever you want to do.

If you want a free, easy guide for music appreciation, sign up for Professor Carol’s Friday Performance Pick. She picks one piece of music per week (usually on youtube for easy viewing) and talks about the composer and history of the piece. The selections are wide and diverse.

Time: Varies

The Time it Takes

You’ll notice that all of this stuff together (outside of bedtime reading) takes anywhere from just 1.5 hours to 4 hours per day. This usually falls within the 2 to 3 hour range. Technically, this is per kid, but a lot of this time is work they are doing on their own, and so does not require your constant attention.

That’s really all it takes.

You don’t even have to do five days per week. Maybe you just want to do four days. Or maybe even three. Maybe you want to alternate subjects each day. Experiment. Do whatever you find works best.

As they reach the middle school years, I expect this time to increase a bit as they get more responsibilities and self-directed studies, but by that time, they have been nudged out of the nest, gliding on the strength of the their own wings, and hopefully require less of our direct attention.

Preschool/Kindergarten

You should not stress out over this. At all. Do as much as your child (and you) can take. With little boys especially, that might mean less than 10 minutes.

Do some reading. Do some number and letter recognition. And then print out stuff for them to color or something while you help the older kids. Or make sure they are otherwise occupied close by. Do not force yourself to be elaborate. Now, if that is your personality, and you enjoy your school time with your preschooler if it runs like a well-organized circus, with props and activities galore, more power to you.

The End (and Beginning) of the Matter

You are the parent. You were given the responsibility of raising a child, and part of that is seeing to their education. You can do this. You were equipped for it. It might look different than you expected, but that’s ok.

If you have any questions, just let me know in the comments.

Photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash

Pre-order page is here: https://gumroad.com/threefoldword#sCTLA

Why did I compile this book? Because I wanted something like it for my own kids, especially my boys. The proverbs are something everyone should learn at a young age, giving them time to seep and saturate their hearts.

The workbook includes:

• Daily repetition of the week’s proverb. Writing things by hand is a proven method for greater retention.
• An area for a daily thankfulness meditation. Help them start the day off right by encouraging them to think about how blessed they are.
• Supplemental reading. Related Scripture that can be read and talked about, if desired.
• Review section for a previous week’s proverb, to loop around and reinforce.
• Review pages that can be copied for multiple uses.

15 weeks. 15 proverbs. That may not seem like a lot at first, but it’s better than zero. And your child may need less time, or need less of the practice. Everyone is different.

Video overview of the book:

You can download a sample of the workbook here: https://mailchi.mp/63cf43564f10/t6mk24ypnh

The ebook version can be found here: https://gumroad.com/threefoldword#IxOSU

The above video is the livestream of the Eastland services for July 7th, 2020, but the video should start at the beginning of the sermon. Our normal camera got knocked out during a storm, and so the video is from a backup webcam.

God the Father has determined the times and seasons for every nation and has fixed their boundaries. And Jesus tells us, in Acts 1:7, that these things that God has decreed and determined, are not for us to know.

And brothers and sisters, that should be a great relief to all of us. And above all, we should not worry and fret about it.

I know these are uncertain times. We have a global pandemic where no one seems to know anything. We have mass protests and riots in the streets of our major cities. There is a general feeling of unrest, of a pot slowing reaching the boiling point.

And yet God is in control of it all. He will work everything for the praise of his glory. The church outlasted the Kingdom of Rome. The church will outlast the hegemony of the United States. And God has set the boundaries and times and seasons for both.

Are you worried that President Trump will be re-elected, and what that might mean? It is not for you to know the times and the seasons. The Most High Rules the Kingdom of Men, and gives it to whomever he pleases.

Are you worried what will happen if the Democrats take power?  It is not for you to know the times and the seasons. The Most High Rules the Kingdom of Men, and gives it to whomever he pleases.

As I posted elsewhere, wearing a mask does not make you a paragon of moral virtue. Get down off of your high horse. De-inflate your head.

Refusing to wear a mask doesn’t make you Patrick Henry. You are not actually rebelling against anything of consequence. It is rebellion cosplay.

When it comes to actual government mandates to wear masks, we get another factor altogether. Christians have a duty before God to honor those in authority and be submissive to them, and honest Christians can disagree on how far that is taken before we must “obey God rather than men.”

Personally, to draw the line at wearing masks seems a bit melodramatic. To choose this particular hill to make a stand, after all of the other abuses to which we have been subjected, feels like planting a flag in the playground sandbox. Sort of noble in its own way, I suppose, but it’s still just the playground sandbox, and sooner or later, you have to go home. It has all the gravitas of a two-year old pushing away his broccoli in disgust.

If it means some of my favorite businesses can stay open without persecution, I’ll play my part in the theater production. I just wish he had started with a mask mandate before we attempted our best impression of a post-apocalyptic movie.

But again, honest people can disagree on this issue. Below are some points and counterpoints for your perusal.

7 Reasons for Unmasking the Masks – If you are looking for justification on this point, you’ll probably find one in here. Doug Wilson writes with entertaining punch and bite, as usual.

COVID-19 Schismatics and COVID-19 and the Christian Conscience offer relevant counterpoints.

And finally, thoughts about Congregational Worship, Social Distancing, Submission to Caesar, and Obedience to God for a call to charity, to not judge those who abstain, and to not disparage or look down on those who decide to cover their face.

In terms of local church policy on whether masks should be a requirement, follow your elders. Period.

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Organized education in a society is a result of wealth and success, not the other way around. The school of hard knocks is a much better educator toward actual success, and the modern University system is more of a parasite than an engine. It is a massive wealth transfer from the middle class to bureaucrats and real estate developers.

Organized education is not the root from which springs progress and civilization, but rather one of the branches. And probably a branch that needs to be trimmed back.

Nothing is more annoying than a branch that thinks it’s the whole tree.

The series title is taken from Proverbs 8:6: “Hear, for I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right…”

Perfect for homeschoolers!

You can buy the ebook to print out yourself here. Unlimited copies, limited only by your paper and ink supply.

If you would like a week’s sample of the workbook, you can fill out this form.

Eventually, I will have physical copies you can buy that I can then mail to you in real life, but I am still working out some details.

Anyway, check out the sample. If you like it and want to wait for the printed copies, let me know in the comments below.

If this is helpful for enough people, I’ll put some more of these together.

First, you need to know what it feels like, and get more practice in creating that bubble for yourself, and in my experience, learning to draw is one of the best ways to accomplish this.

You don’t have to get great at drawing to benefit from it. The practice itself is the point. The journey matters more than the destination, at least in this instance.

Attempting to draw something is really about observation, and learning to look at things in a new way. As you focus on what you are drawing, you’ll often find the outside world blur, and suddenly it’s been 2 hours. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it is the most reliable way I have come across.

I recommend Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain for this. Follow the exercises and the author’s recommendations, and you’ll be amazed at how quickly your brain and hand begin to communicate.

This is a self-portrait I did before going through the book:

And this is one I did after completing the book:

It’s certainly not perfect, but it is a much better representation of reality. I stopped drawing symbols of what I thought I was seeing, and attempted to draw what I actually observed.

And while you learn to do that, you also get practice on how to focus.

As soon as a story is framed a certain way, usually via the headline, it has primed you to think that way regardless of what the actual story says. This is one of the biggest ways the media engages in fake news. They can then always point to story itself and shrug their shoulders in Edenic innocence.

The headline can highlight something that might only be tangential to the story. Or leave out important context. Fake news is as much as what is omitted. Sometimes the headline is pure editorializing. Sometimes it extends to the lede. The goal is to bias you toward a certain way of thinking before you even start to think about what you are reading.

Sometimes this priming is done by a photo next to the article, or above it. A photo is just a snapshot in time, and is always trying to convey a “correct” way to think about something. It always leaves something out, by design.

A recent framing example is the following headline and article.

“During coronavirus briefing Trump says he’ll consider pardon for Netflix star Joe Exotic”

Based on this headline (which is the only thing many people will read), what does the author want you to think about this story?

First, it makes it seem like Trump just volunteered this information without any prompting. It was part of his normal remarks and updates.

Second, it really wants you to think Trump is flippant about this crisis. Why would he be so callous and stupid? And in the middle of something that’s supposed to be serious!

Judging from the reactions to people sharing this article, most people bought the framing of the story exactly how the headline primed them to do it. Eye rolls and gleeful finger-pointing at how idiotic and inept Trump is.

They were a fiddle, and the author played them like a master violinist.

What really happened, however, as is clear from the video, is a journalist asked Trump a specific question about pardoning Joe, and the whole delivery was obviously intended to be a joke. Trump, who hadn’t seen the show, played along for a minute or two.

That’s it.

Other news outlets had more accurate headlines. Why was this one so different?

Remember, all media is narrative and rhetoric. They decide to report on some things and omit others. Every story is trying to get you to feel and think a certain way, and we should be wary before simply emoting about things. Especially Christians.

Be as shrewd as serpents (Matthew 10:16).

If you want a crash course in framing and its power, check out out this Periscope by Scott Adams. (language warning)

Photo by Prasad Panchakshari on Unsplash