Not Necessarily Wacko: Even If You DO Homeschool and Pray

children or parents together into the culture of guns, god, and george(bush). I am in home therapist to autistic children, and one of the things I do is develop and implement teaching strategies and curriculum for the homeschooled autistic child. A few of my clients are typical children who for one reason or another, are being homeschooled. All of my clients' parents are well-edcuated, liberal, and a number of them don't do the "Little Red Hen" routine at all.

I also know a fair number of pagan parents who choose to unschool or homeschool their children. I understand from your post you attend a church, however, if you are looking for more egalitarian homeschool community which is accepting of all faiths,(pagans don't believe in proselytizing at all, in our view, each path or non-path is as valid as the one we have chosen) may suggest you do a web search for pagan parents who are homeschooling?

Good luck.

and that's best written privately and personally, not by committee and most certainly not by governmental or neighborhood condo committee.

I don't go to church myself, no -- that was the woman whose blogpost I was highlighting. I think my biggest draw is to the concept of "collective consciousness" and that will continue to fascinate me, trying to figure out more about it before I slip the mortal coil. Deep thought akin to meditation, feeling connected to other living creatures as beings -- did the word creatures come from "created" though, oh dear!

The idea of "worship" and "prayer" though, any sort of mysticism, or intercession by men for other men who otherwise are at odds with the divine, is something that never really fit me.

OTOH, I don't like being subject to nature all that much either, having survived some nasty hurricanes and tornados, etc. in my lifetime, a car crash and nearly losing a child to drowning . . .so paganism may not be for me. I'm actually more of a cerebral CS Lewis type; I can and do wax rhapsodic about spiritual academics, understand and see value in almost any faith's power of story. Just don't ask me to pick one and reject all the rest!

I was afraid I was going to have to start packing the kids up for church on Sunday. Or public school on Monday.

But we can be both heathens AND unschoolers? Fantastic!

Of course, this is a stereotype that many of us have struggled against. As a prominent unschooler recently posted, ". . . not all schoolkids are universally the same either."

Yep. Ruthlessly out of context. Sort of. It was in the context of a discussion about unschooling and teens and how nice her son is and how a lot of unschooled teens are nicer than we sometimes expect from teens and it was a concession that even some publicly schooled kids are decent human beings.

Wadda ya know. There's no magic wand no matter what choices a parent makes.

Maybe if we all became parents at about . . . what age, when do we think we've got a handle on being decent human beings ourselves? Age 60? 70? When do we finish sorting out how to be good enough people to be responsible for the well-being of another human being? To have enough self-discipline not to take our failings out on someone else in our care? To have enough self-respect to truly live with respect toward our own sometimes annoying and less-than-perfect children?

Nance

In many areas there are a lot of families who do homeschool for strong religious reasons, I know where I live all of the local groups are made of the kind of women described above. But that does not mean that all homeschoolers are like that, or even that all Christian homeschoolers are. One of the coolest homeschoolers I know is a pastor's wife, who certainly does not fit the stereotypical role at all. There are many homeschoolers out there from all kinds of backgrounds and walks of life.

http://www.nationalprayer.org/
and check out the NASCAR Prayer Car! (I blogged it at Snook as "Who Taught NASCAR Dads to Pray? They're a Quart Low!" The car lost bigtime.)

President Bush at least apparently has a rabbi with him, alongside his cabinet members, some Congressfolk and military figures. Here's the main part of his remarks as released by the White House newswire this morning:

Remarks by President Bush on the National Day of Prayer

WASHINGTON, May 3 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a
transcript of remarks by President Bush on the National Day of Prayer:
East Room

9:23 A.M. EDT

. . . since the days of our founding, our nation has been called to prayer. That's exactly what our first President did, George Washington. "It's the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of
Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and to humbly implore his protection and favor." It's interesting that the first
President said those words.
For two centuries, Americans have answered this call to prayer. We're a prayerful nation. I believe that makes us a strong nation. Each day, millions of our citizens approach our Maker. We pray as congregations in churches and in synagogues, and mosques, and in temples. We welcome people
of all faiths into the United States of America.
We pray as families, around the dinner table, and before we go to sleep. We pray alone in silence and solitude, withdrawing from the world to focus on the eternal, spending time in personal recollection with our Creator.
We pray for many reasons. First, we pray to give thanks for the blessings the Almighty has bestowed upon us. We pray to give thanks. We give thanks for our freedom. We give thanks for the brave men and women who risk their lives to defend it. We give thanks for our families who love and support us. We give thanks for our plenty. We give thanks for our nation.
Second, we pray for the strength to follow God's will in our lives, and for forgiveness when we fail to do so. Through prayer, each of us is reminded that we are fallen creatures in need of mercy, and in seeking the mercy and compassion of a loving God, we grow in mercy and compassion ourselves.
We feel the tug at our souls to reach out to the poor, the elderly, the stranger in distress. And by answering this call to care for our brothers and sisters in need, our hearts grow larger and we enter into a deeper relationship with God.
Third, we pray to acknowledge God's sovereignty in our lives and our complete dependence on Him. This is probably the toughest prayer of all, particularly for those of us in politics. In the humility of prayer we recognize the limits of human strength and human wisdom. We seek the strength and wisdom that comes from above. We ask for the grace to align
our hearts with His, echoing the words of Scripture, "Not my will, but thine be done." We ask the Almighty to remain near to us and guide us in all we do, and when He is near we are ready for all that may come to us.
Finally, we pray to offer petitions, because our Father in heaven knows our cares and our needs. We trust in the promise of a loving God: Ask and
it shall be given to you; seek and ye shall find. Inspired by this confidence we pray that the Almighty will pour out His blessings on those we love. We ask His healing for those who suffer from illness, for those who struggle in life. We ask His comfort for the victims of tragedy, and that the injured may be healed and the fallen may find comfort in the arms
of their Creator. We implore His protection for those who protect us here at home and in far away lands. We pray for the day when His peace will
reign in every nation and in every land until the ends of the earth.
The greatest gift we can offer anyone is the gift of our prayers, because our prayers have power beyond our imagining. The English poet Tennyson wrote, "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams
of." Prayer has the power to change lives and to change the course of history.

So on this National Day of Prayer, let us seek the Almighty with confidence and trust, because our Eternal Father inclines his ear to the voice of his children, and answers our needs with love.
May God bless America. (Applause.)

END

9:30 A.M. EDT

SOURCE White House Press Office