As Richard Mitchell was pointing out in Graves of Academe 30 years ago or more, they have been to public school and are putting into practice the lessons they learned there, as did their parents.

And in the news today:

The vast majority of the 1,430 education programs that prepare the nation’s K-12 teachers are mediocre, according to a first-ever ranking that immediately touched off a firestorm.

One section looked just at programs for training elementary school teachers, out of nearly 600 such programs, only 53 scored better than mediocre. None of them got a 4, which is the top rating. Only one got a 3.5.   Overall:

Programs at Furman, Lipscomb, Ohio State and Vanderbilt universities received the only “four-star” ratings, while some programs, including at George Washington University, received no stars, eliciting a warning from the council for prospective students to avoid them.

While debate swirls about the validity of the ratings of individual schools, there is broad agreement among educators and public officials — from U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to governors to unions — that the country is failing to adequately train the 200,000 people who become teachers each year.

Richard Mitchell read the writings of these academics and called foul, over and over again.  Sometimes he did more than that:

“…It would be a polite euphemism to call the writer of that barbarous nonsense an illiterate. The word just doesn’t do the job. The writer, however, is a university professor supported by taxpayers. He has degrees in education, and has satisfied others of that clan that he is worthy to sit in their company. What did they ask of him? How did they decide that he was, indeed, worthy to profess? Was it his vast knowledge of his subject? Obviously not; his “subject” is a non-discipline. Was it his power to communicate the nonexistent knowledge of his non-discipline? Well, yes. In a way, yes, that is. It must have been his power to sound as though he might well be communicating some unknowledge in a non-discipline. They must have thought that he could, indeed, call spirits from the vasty deep. His prose, like the thinking it reveals, is full of cloudy suggestions of something beyond the range of mere cognition. He has been given power, if not over the entities and dyads, certainly over the ignorant and superstitious.”

Richard Mitchell, Less Than Words Can Say

In another post where I quoted Mitchell (I really wish I could make everybody read him) as well the actual titles of several dissertations in the field of education, I was criticized for making fun of people who were only writing in the ‘established style of their profession.’

But that is the point.

It is ‘the established writing style of their profession’ that I object to. It’s mostly gibberish, a substitute for thoughtful work. Why is that the established writing style of their profession? How did it become the established mode of communicating about education and why? Who did it? What is the reason for it? Do you know that nearly every dissertation on education I could find has a colon in it? Why would that be? What does it tell us that this has become the established dialect of educationese?

In my younger years I was inclined to think that the passive voice and incomprensible jargon was indicative of eloquence. It’s mainly, though, a trick of the mind.

I got better when I read Richard Mitchell’s Learning Tower of Babel, and his Underground Grammarian series.

So I am not blaming these folks, the ones who wrote the dissertations above. But I do not find anything to admire in a discipline that mistakes this kind of writing for thoughtful discourse and research into the things that make for an educated person, and I really don’t believe that it’s accidental. Not a conspiracy, either, but not accidental. Somebody with power had to approve this sort of nonsense and perpetuate it and foist it upon other people for it to become the established mode of communication in this discipline.

This approach is harmful to children, and it’s harmful to the bright=eyed young hopefuls who go into education programs with high hopes and dreams of making a difference, and then are essentially thrown into a den of wolves without any adequate preparation. If they, and their students, are fortunate, there are skilled older teachers in the school who have not lost their drive and are able to share their know-how with their students.

I would remind those of our readers who are itching to take offense at what I am saying that my husband has actually been in a special needs classroom for the last year while he is also taking education courses for his Masters at a local Uni, and he has found very little in his courses that is meaningful or useful for his work in the classroom.

However, we must also acknowledge that academically, we do not select the cream of the crop for our education majors:

A 2007 McKinsey study found that 23 percent of U.S. teachers graduated in the top third of their class, while that figure was 100 percent in Singapore, Finland and other nations whose students lead the world on international exams.

On the other hand:

The review was funded by 62 organizations, led by the Carnegie Corporation and the Broad Foundation. The National Council on Teacher Quality analyzed admissions standards and inspected syllabuses, textbooks and course requirements and rated 1,430 programs on a scale of zero to four stars. The organization did not visit the schools or interview students and faculty.

“Take it with a salt shaker full of salt,” said Linda Darling Hammond, an expert on teacher education at Stanford University.

I am not a huge fan of Carnegie Institute.  The solutions proposed are generally related to the further federalizing of American education, which is unconstitutional and a bad idea on its own merits.

How can Federalizing education in this country be a genuine reform? Will the textbook publishers, text creators, profesors at the education schools and administrators then get out of the way and let teachers teach and children learn? Will teachers no longer be indoctrinated (or have to withstand said indoctrination) at education schools? Will Federalization somehow alter

the parents, themselves unthinking products of long years of values indoctrination and helpless against the random suggestions of any and all indoctrinators

and enable them to know what they did not know before? No, no reform can overcome the fact that a certain

ideology has so thoroughly seeped into American schooling at every level that it has become the ground of who can say how many rarely noticed and therefore rarely examined assumptions. Those assumptions are dangerous, and there can never be the education that Jefferson intended while they are the daily food and drink of the schools.

Richard Mitchell’s conclusion after years of teaching in an education school, teaching those who were training to be teachers and reading and writing about education was this:

After more than half a century of preparing children for life, our government education system has prepared a life for children.

Personally, I’m pessimistic.  I think the America most of us imagined existed hasn’t been reality for at least a hundred years, and the city on a hill as a beacon of freedom is gone.  At the same time, even though I don’t have any hopes of it being effective, I’ll just continue to be a Cassandra only believed by other Cassandras who have about as much power as I have.  But I see no reason to stop saying what I believe about the sorry state of our country and our public school system just because I’m preaching to a small choir of depressed friends and dear strangers.

and give us more money.

Much of so-called ‘school reform’ is about doing what is best for the institution of government schooling rather than what is best for the children. Isn’t it odd that no matter what the complaint, the solution is always to strengthen and centralize control of the institution?
You’re not teaching kids to read.
Give us more money and we’ll try to fix that.
You’re not teaching them math.
Give us more money and we’ll try to fix that.
You are giving diplomas to students who are, in fact, functionally illiterate.
Give us more money and we’ll try to fix that.
You’re spending too much money and not showing any academic improvement.
Give us more money and we’ll try to fix that.
You’re still not teaching kids to read, write, calculate, and they’re still getting diplomas they can’t even read.
It’s not our fault. It’s the parents. We can’t make up for bad parenting.
Then why are we giving YOU more money?
Because somebody has to help these children with bad parents, and so you need to give us more money so we can fix that.

I’ll keep saying it because at least I’ll have the small, personal satisfaction of knowing I was right and being able to say, “I told you so,” to anybody left listening.  Maybe we’ll be sitting around a campfire together some day in the future, like the final chapter in Fahrenheit 451.

“If there is a victim here, it is probably the Democratic Party,”

The HG notes~ actually, no, it’s Indiana voters who were defrauded. Party and county officials are responsible for transmitting and processing the electoral wishes of the people; these officials lied, cheated, and forged signatures for both Obama and Clinton during the 2008 primary. If they hadn’t done that, Obama probably wouldn’t have been on our primary ballot that year. We are not talking about a few signatures here and there; we are talking about multiple people falsifying over 200 signatures. The egotism of these actions floors me…when people start thinking their cause allows them to force the system, we’ve got a mob mentality on our hands. It may not be a mob in the street, but it *is* a mentality that will do anything they can to get what they want. It’s not the way any ordered society should be, and we should be outraged and concerned when these things happen.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/17/indiana-dem-official-sentenced-to-prison-for-08-ballot-fraud-in-obama-clinton/#ixzz2WZQqC1kW

Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads
This allegedly has some musical notation information as well, but I don’t know how it works on the actual Kindle. The lyrics alone are pretty fun. I could see this being used for poetry and copywork for some boys (along with the poems of Robert Service), and if you find some that they consider especially appealing, look them up on the internet to see if you can find the tunes to any of them. They’d be fun for folksongs, too.

A Short Essay Toward the Improvement of Psalmody Or, An Enquiry How the Psalms of David Ought to Be Translated into Christian Songs, and How Lawful and … Gospel, for the Use of the Christian Church.
by Isaac Watts. Not easy reading.

Bluebeard; a musical fantasy
by Kate Douglas Wiggin, who also wrote:
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Mother Carey’s Chickens, which I consider her best and the most indispensable of her works.

The Birds’ Christmas Carol, which is almost as wonderful as Mother Carey’s Chickens.

And too many others to list. Honestly, I just thought Bluebeard as a mysical fantasy sounded too charming to miss, and I do love the old tale of Bluebeard.

Beethoven

A biography published in the 1900s. One of the reviews complains:

It’s a Beethoven biography and it’s free – reason enough for me to get it. That said, I will eventually probably get a different one: I learned as much about early 1900s writing styles as about Beethoven (actual quote: “…like a true daughter of Eve, [she] took great pleasure in bantering him”

I have more faith in my readers than that. Rather than considering that a defect, we would recognize it as a mark of quality.

The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan

I am the very model of a modern major general
I’ve information vegitable animal and mineral
I know the kings of england
And i quote the facts historical
From marathon to waterlou in order catigorical
(huuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……)
I’m very well aquainted too with matters mathamatical
I understand equasions both the simple and quadratical
Of my binomial therom i am teaming with a lot of news….
(alot of news…let’s see……)
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotinuse
(with many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotinuse
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotinuse
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotinuse)
(Alright hod on……..)

A Kidnapped Santa Claus

There’s a reason that L. Frank Baum’s “A Kidnapped Santa Claus” has always been less than classic when it comes to Christmas tales: The mythology is too much to grasp in the span of a short story. The “daemons” that kidnap Santa go by the names of Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, and Repentance (a fifth, Malice, is not included in Robinson’s adaptation). As a way to teach children the perilousness of vices, “A Kidnapped Santa Claus” would seem to have a daunting task.

Baum goes several steps further, though, complicating matters with layers of original mythology. His Santa doesn’t live at the North Pole–instead, he lives in Laughing Valley on the border of the Forest of Burzee. Instead of elves, he’s assisted by knooks, ryls, fairies, and pixies. Over the course of Baum’s novel “The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus,” things are easier to understand. As a standalone tale, though, there’s too much going on….

Alexander the Great: The Macedonian Who Conquered the World

If you want to learn about one of history’s greatest military commanders and uncover some of his secrets of drive–drive that enabled him and his small army to first subdue all of Greece and then the mighty Persian Empire–then you want to read this book.

Some people like to think that geniuses are so inherently extraordinary that they navigate their journeys with clairvoyant ease.

This simply isn’t true.

Greatness does not come lightly. It requires that you make sacrifices of time, interests, and–sometimes–possessions. The further you move toward greatness, the more greatness demands from you.

But all barriers yield to one mythical quality: drive. The will to persist and overcome. To never give up. To never accept defeat.

Few stories better illustrate this better than the life of one of the most extraordinary warriors the world has even known; a man of legendary ambition, will, and grit: Alexander the Great.

In this book, you’ll be taken on a whirlwind journey through Alexander’s life and conquests, and not only learn about the successes and mistakes of one of history’s greatest conquerors, but also how to awaken a fire in your own life and adventures.

Read this book now and learn lessons from Alexander the Great on why drive is so vital to awakening your inner genius, and learn insights into the real power of purpose, how to defeat the insidious force of “Resistance” that holds us back, and more.

Saving Money This Summer: How to Be Frugal and Still Enjoy Family Fun (More for Less Guides)

Summer can be one of the most expensive times of the year if parents are not careful. With the children home from school and the temperatures soaring, the price of food, electricity, and gas can start to skyrocket out of control.

With the children home for so many weeks, childcare costs can also break the budget if you are not careful. Fun activities to keep the children entertained, parties, day camp, vacations, can all cost a great deal. Where is an ordinary family to find the money for all these things in these tough economic times?

925 Ideas to Help You Save Money, Get Out of Debt and Retire A Millionaire So You Can Leave Your Mark on the World

Bringing up Boys of Character: 12 Core Virtues Decoded for ages 4-9

What should every boy learn before he becomes a man? Within each boy, a core of character virtues must be developed. Decode these virtues while improving the relationship with your son and build his character through practical tips, lessons, activities, events, and spending time together.

Bringing up Boys of Character: 12 Core Virtues Decoded for ages 4-9 will give parents the tools needed to start building your son into a man before he enters the pre-teen and teen years.

Getting Out From Going Under: A Guide to Recovery for Compulsive Debtors and Spenders

Please note that you can download this book at no charge elsewhere. Please see details at the blog: http://gettingoutfromgoingunder.wordpress.com.

“Getting Out From Going Under” is just my small attempt to help other recovering debtors/compulsive spenders understand how the program of Debtors Anonymous works from my point of view. It is my effort to help spread the message because I have found so much healing in the Fellowship. This book began as a blog also called “Getting Out from Going Under.”

I’m using a pseudonym to stay true to Tradition 11 – which is to maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and TV. Next, please understand that this is not an official Debtors Anonymous (DA) blog. DA does not endorse any outside enterprise, which this is (Tradition 6). Therefore, the opinions expressed here are purely my own and do not represent the Fellowship of Debtors Anonymous as a whole. Finally, in keeping with Tradition 6, I do not receive any financial or material gain from this book other than on Amazon (.35/book), which doesn’t allow you to offer a free e-book….

How To Give Away Free Stuff & Make Money!

The ultimate guide on helping people to find freebies and savings, while making a nice income for yourself

Finally, a business…

1. That is simple to set-up
2. That cost’s nothing to get started
3. That you can run from anywhere in the world
4. That is extremely satisfying to be a part of, and one that will make you feel you are REALLY helping those people who need it most!
5. That will earn you money day after day, week after week, year after year
Finding and giving away free stuff is very rewarding. You are genuinely helping people to make ends meet.

This book will show you all you need to know, to get started in the amazing world of freebies!

It will teach you how to: Find free stuff, Build your membership, Earn an income from affiliate companies and advertisers, Promote your service, Get free marketing, and be up and running within a week!

How To Save Money On Groceries (Back To Basics: Recipes For the Savvy Shopper)

If you are looking to save money on your groceries (and these days who isn’t?) have you ever considered making your own basic ingredients from scratch rather than buying the pre-packaged versions in the supermarkets?

Using the recipes in this book will help you save money on groceries and be less reliant on pre-packaged foods. Next time you are at the grocery store ask yourself ‘can I make this instead of buying it?’ and you will be well on your way to enormous savings on your grocery bill.

Some of the recipes included in this book are as follows:-

Crumpets
Easy Bread
Fail-safe Recipe for Breadmaking Machine
Flour Tortillas
Irish Soda Bread
Drinking Chocolate
Fruit Cordial
Greek-style Yogurt
Home-made Margarine
Barbecue Sauce
Dijon-style Mustard
Home-made Worcestershire Sauce
Mango Chutney
Mint Sauce
Tomato Ketchup (Tomato Sauce)
Take-away Style Fried Chicken Seasoning
Corn Chips
Instant Soup-in-a-cup Mixture
Rice Crackers
Chocolate Nut Spread
Golden Syrup
Hummus
Sugar-free Jam
Chocolate Syrup
Easy Ice Cream

All together there are over 35 recipes in this book, all of which are easy to make and will save money on your groceries. Scroll up and click on “Buy Now” to deliver almost instantly to your Kindle or other reading device, and start saving money TODAY.

Life, Love and Vintage Housekeeping

Alison May created BrocanteHome on a cold November afternoon, eight years ago, when her little boy was just one year old and the home she had created with his Daddy was an oasis of domestic bliss she wanted to share with the world, never imagining, even for a moment, that eventually her little website would become the mainstay of her life, her means to financial support, an emotional prop she can now barely live without, and the link between herself and thousands of like-minded women from across the globe, happy to call themselves Vintage Housekeepers.

A lot has changed in eight years and blogging has been an astonishing way of documenting the unforeseen. When Finley was two and a half, his Daddy left Alison for another woman and life as she knew it was turned on its lavender scented head.
Where once there were routines and rituals she practiced in order to bond her family together with domestic glue, now there was a hole she needed to fill with a life of her own, a life less ordinary, a life that honored who she was and who she wanted to be, while simultaneously providing the stability and security she craved and her little boy desperately needed.

The stories here, much like life, swing between the hilarious and the absurd. Sometimes they are no more than snippets from Alison’s vintage housekeeping life, the trials and tribulations of single parenthood, or the calamities every woman finds herself doing battle with, but only Alison, it seems, see fit to share with the blogosphere.

Occasionally her stories are laugh out loud funny, sometimes tinged with the kind of loneliness that is palpable and once or twice so shamefully embarrassing she can hardly bear to read them again! But at its heart BrocanteHome is and always has been about making a home that thrills you right to your fingertips. A home you never want to leave.

There are now more than 2000 posts on BrocanteHome.Net touching upon an eclectic range of vintage-related subjects, but every one of the little essays in this collection, whether they be about single motherhood, the horror of dating in your thirties, or the scents that bring your childhood flooding back, are ultimately about the domestic rituals that shape our worlds, and hopefully show you, her readers, how, domesticity does indeed shore against our ruin.

And so here it is: the best of BrocanteHome. Eight years of Alison May’s life as a Vintage Housekeeper: the perfect companion to Alison’s earlier Kindle book, “Scrumptious Treats For Vintage Housekeepers”…

Grow your own food

Can you think of anything nicer than preparing a meal from produce grown in your own garden? Whether you own a window box or a meadow, every outdoor space can yield a fine crop of fruit or vegetables. Plant some delicious cut-and-come again salads in a window box, plan a ‘square foot’ garden on a four-foot square plot, or use your flowerbed to grow decorative vegetables and flowers together. Growing your own food doesn’t have to be time-consuming or expensive. A few packets of seeds and some basic tools – a spade, fork, hoe, rake, trowel and watering can – will provide you with all you need to fill a plot with vegetables. Whatever you choose to grow you’ll find nothing beats the satisfaction of serving up a home-cooked, home-grown meal to family or friends. Good luck and happy digging.

Stress Free Organization For Your Child: How To Get Your Child Involved In Cleaning And Organizing Their Spaces While Still Having Fun

A properly organized environment for your child and you will not only improve daily productivity but will reduce the amount of stress in all of your lives. Having your child wake up to a cluttered bedroom and/or playroom can take a toll on his or her physical and mental states as well as your own.

Nothing is more frustrating than spending precious time trying to find one of your child’s lost items, knowing that it is somewhere in your home. The goal of this book is to end this problem and provide you and your loved ones with a stress free family environment.

There are numerous benefits to organizing both your child’s bedroom and play area. Unfortunately, many parents never get to experience the benefits of proper organization. Most people are raised with poor organizational habits that carry over when they become adults. So the good news is that it’s never too early to help your child become organized.

This book will provide you with the following tips for success, combined with techniques to introduce organization into your child’s life

Why organization is so important for your child

How to help your child become a successful organizer

How to create an organizational game plan for your child

How to organize your child’s nursery

How to help your child keep a bedroom organized

How to help your child keep a closet and bathroom organized

How to help your child keep indoor play spaces organized

How to help your child keep outdoor play spaces organized

How to get your child to stay organized

This book includes organizational tips and techniques you can use to help your child become and stay organized for a lifetime. The hardest part of organization for your child is simply for you to help them get started. If your child is old enough, make him or her part of the game plan—it’s a great way to have some valuable family time together.

So now it is up to you to take some time out of your busy parenting day and download this book. Learn how to properly organize and remove the stress and frustration of your child living in a cluttered environment once and for all!

Death and Peppermint Sticks

Excerpt from Benny and the Bank Robber
Benny finds the drunken cart driver who killed his father on a rainy Philadelphia street. So why do they still have to leave city life for a frontier farm? When Benny’s mother is seriously injured, the man who saved them seems the perfect choice to see Benny safely to Missouri. But John Clancy gives Benny a bigger mystery to solve. Disguises, a fake Irish brogue and a determination to get what he wants and mock Benny’s trust in God could spell more trouble than Benny’s ever imagined!

The Better Country

What causes brother to rise up against brother? Can men, nations, and families ever experience true unity and peace? Will racism and hatred finally be eradicated? War often seems to be man’s answer for settling disputes and thwarting evil. Perhaps the best solution to our conflicts doesn’t reside in this world. When a Civil War chaplain finds himself dodging death-stamped mini balls and dismembering shrapnel, he realizes there is a better way, a final, lasting hope.

Home to My Father: A Knight’s Diary

Stand-alone short story excerpted from Hope and the Knight of the Black Lion –
Shipwrecked, disillusioned, forced to make a choice that would save him from execution but cut him off from his own people, this Crusader lives in turmoil and terror until he finds peace in his father’s “heretical” faith. His search for his lost Arab brother might end in slavery, torture, and death.

The Anvil of the Craftsman (Jon’s Trilogy)

A doctoral candidate in Theological Studies accepts recruitment by a friend in the U.S. State Department for an initiative to the most troublesome province in 2006 Iraq. The many challenges of nation building expand the mission from diplomacy to a survival situation as local and international interests position themselves to oppose a State Department initiative: one vital to progress in an uncertain theater.

Terrorism and counter-terror operations threaten to keep the team from leaving the relative safety of Baghdad. Until, that is, a former USAF Special Tactics operative hunting the men who want to kill them draws duty as their protector. The simple questions posed during a tribal council threaten provincial and regional stability; the conclusions reached explode into a clash of faith, loyalty, schism and betrayal that will help shape the future of two nations.

The Anvil of the Craftsman, the debut novel by author Dale Amidei, will be appreciated by fans of a broad range of fiction; from aficionados of the haunting themes of Ernest Hemingway to readers of the tightly woven plots of Tom Clancy and popular titles of authors like Vince Flynn, David Baldacci, W.E.B. Griffin and Richard Marcinko.

Mrs. Tuesday’s Departure: An Historical Family Saga of World War Two

When Natalie and Anna, sisters and life-long rivals, hide an abandoned child from the Nazis,
their struggle re-opens a star-crossed love triangle, threatening their safety and testing the bonds of their loyalty.

Hungary’s fragile alliance with Germany insured that Natalie, a best selling children’s book author, and her family would be safe as World War Two raged through Europe. The Holocaust that has only been whispered about until now becomes a terrible reality for every Jewish family or those who hide Jews.
Beautiful but troubled Anna, a poet and university professor is losing her tenuous hold on reality, re-igniting a dangerous sibling rivalry that began in childhood.

The streets of Budapest echo with the pounding boots of Nazi soldiers. Danger creeps to the doorstep where the sisters’ disintegrating relationship threatens to expose the child they are trying to protect. In one night, Anna’s rash behavior destroys their carefully made plans of escape, and Natalie is presented with a desperate choice.

Interwoven with Natalie and Anna’s story, is Mila’s. The abandoned child whose future Natalie lovingly imagines in a story about an old woman named Mrs. Tuesday.

Love Me If You Must (Patricia Amble Mystery Book #1)

Professional renovator Tish Amble decided long ago that staying in one place is about as exciting as peeling wallpaper from plaster. So before the paint in each newly transformed home is dry, Tish is researching her next move. This time she chooses a small town in Michigan with a dilapidated Victorian that challenges her imagination.
But Tish’s idyllic small-town dream fizzles when she finds more in the creepy basement than what was revealed on the seller’s disclosure-what looks like traces of foul play. With a hovering police officer living next door and a possible love interest just two doors down, Tish has her hands full. Will she discover the truth before it’s too late?

Comments from a couple facebook friends brought back a wave of nostalgia for the Sonoran Mexican food of my youth- rolled tacos, which are not flautas or taquitos, thanks, anyway, tostaditos (real nachos that are not just snack chips covered with slimy fake cheese), machaca burritos, I must stop now because my mouth is watering.

From there we got to talking about the interesting variations in food between cultures.  Dried legumes in America are pretty much only associated with savory flavors- salt and meat broths, chili, beans and ham, red beans and rice- never sweet.  It was quite a shock to my system the first time I had a red bean dessert- it was a Popsicle and I was expecting it to be boysenberry. I was unable to finish.  Fortunately, I’d purchased it for myself so there was nobody to be offended.   Now I like red bean paste over my ice-cream and I love it in sesame balls and pastry.

A Japanese friend told me the one food that neither she nor any of her friends could stomach in America is rice pudding, because they cannot get their taste-buds to accept rice as a sweet custard.  Yet in Mexico and the Philippines, it’s both a main dish and a dessert.

Flour and water might become udon noodles, the basis for macaroni and cheese or spaghetti, ramyun, dumplings, matzo, pie-crust, crackers, or tortillas, depending on which culture is doing the creating and serving.   What stays the same across the world is that people like to share their food and their feelings are hurt when that food is refused, rebuffed or even criticized.

In the front introduction of the book Extending the Table, Paul Longacre (husband to Doris, who wrote The More With Less Cookbook) tells the story of a time he and two other North American Mennonites were visiting with a local church leader in Argentina. They asked him how he would begin to share the gospel with other indigenous people who do not have churches. His response, after a moment of thought, was to say, “I would go and eat their food.”

Then, surprisingly,  he began to weep.

We recently met some exchange students from Hong Kong. They were visiting Shasta’s college for a short summThis connection between friendship and eating food is an ancient one- probably as old as human beings. Think of the story of Ali Baba, and how the refusal to share his host’s salt with him was the way young Morgiana knew that the thief pretending to be a friend of her master was a dark enemy.
When somebody has provided food for you, it is offensive to turn your nose up at it merely because you don’t like it or worse, merely think you won’t like it- it is a hurtful cold shoulder shoved betwixt you and your would-be hosts, particularly if this sharing of food is across cultures.*

This is one of the reasons it’s so important to teach your children to politely eat what’s on their plate (even if it’s just a mere, schmere, schmidgeon of a bite). I can’t even begin to guess how many international relations are spoiled because of some ill-bred American being served something he’s not familiar with and responding by making horrible faces and saying loudly that he doesn’t, for instance, ‘eat things that look back at me.’ True story.

Conversely, my feelings of friendship cooled rather quickly when a Morrocan friend openly, and with some vigor, spat a mouthful of mushroom out on his plate at a company dinner and loudly told me that “in my country this is fish bait.”

In the wonderful book Open Heart, Open Home: The Hospitable Way to Make Others Feel Welcome & Wanted, Karen Burton Mains writes:

“time and finitude, those human dimensions, have nothing to do with the spiritual world where past, present, and future- ‘the yesterday and today and for ever’- are all the same. In meditative prayer, in ministry, in hospitality, I have a sense of the weight of those others, the communion of that saintly fellowship.’

Some of the best and most meaningful saintly fellowship does occur around a table of shared food, including the simple fellowship of family meals. Eating is about much more than caloric and nutritional intake.  Most of life is like that, double layered, at least, nuanced, spiritually meaningful as well as physically.  We just need to see it through the right eyes.   Rod Dreher in his book Crunchy Cons:, calls this approach to life  a ‘fundamental stance toward reality’ that

“is sacramental. In religious language, a sacrament is a physical thing – an object or an action – through which holiness is transmitted. Christians who celebrate Holy Communion are participating in a sacrament, because they believe that the consecrated bread and wine contain, actually or symbolically, the essence of Jesus Christ. On a mundane level, you can grasp sacramentality by considering good manners. You might practice good manners because life is more pleasant when people do, or you might practice good manners because you believe it’s a matter of social obligation. A person thinking sacramentally may practice good manners because it’s pleasant and socially correct, but she will do so primarily because treating others with that kind of formal respect conveys her fundamental conviction about human dignity. Someone living by a sacramental vision would therefore treat someone with the same good manners even if it were somehow unpleasant, or if there were no social expectations to do so. Being good is not something you do because it works; being good is something you do because it’s the right thing to do, even if it costs you. At the risk of sounding pompously metaphysical, for people who adopt a sacramental way of being, everyday things, occurrences, and exchanges provide an opportunity to encounter ultimate reality – even, if you like, divinity.”

Karen Burton Mains  speaks of meals as a sacred time, where more than food is shared. Lives are shared.  Comfort. Friendship.   The Bible says God sets the lonely in families.  I think this is one of the ways He does this.

——————

*I really am exasperated by the fact that caveats like these are necessary, but obviously I’m not talking about needing to avoid certain foods for health reasons, although there are gracious and less than gracious ways to do this, too.

An eighth grade girl was raped and now pregnant. Her mother wanted her to abort. Her older sister was worried that this would be compounding one trauma with another, and asked Julia, a pro-life counselor, to talk to her little sister. The two talked on the phone, and Julia learned that the girl had already visited an abortion clinic:

She told Julia that she was at the abortion clinic for six hours, and that the clinic tested her for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and performed an ultrasound. However, they wouldn’t allow her to look at the ultrasound and didn’t inform her of the results of the STD tests. But that wasn’t the most astounding part.

The clinic informed her that she was 20 weeks pregnant, but that at 20 weeks, the baby wasn’t formed yet. That was lie number one. They went on to tell her that if she did have the baby, she wouldn’t survive labor because she was so young. That was lie number two. When the girl asked about adoption, the clinic told her that no one would want to adopt a “biracial, rapist’s baby.” That was lie number three.

Scared of dying while giving birth to a baby no one would want, the young girl and her mother consented to an abortion without being informed about the actual procedure. In addition, the price that had been quoted to her mother for the abortion included local anesthesia. Then the clinic discovered that the girl was 20 weeks along and would require a D&E (live dismemberment abortion)that would normally involve general anesthesia.

The mother hadn’t brought enough money to cover the additional fees, so the abortionist decided to proceed with the abortion using local anesthesia, leaving the girl awake for an abortion that would take about 20 minutes while she was dilated using metal rods (which can cause fertility problems).

“She was on the table, in stirrups and being dilated,” says Julia, “She was in so much pain and she was getting upset. She was so upset that the abortionist told the mother that the girl was making his job too difficult and advised the mother to come up with more money, reschedule, and come back so he could finish the abortion. In between the appointments is when I had the chance to talk to her.”

The girl had her baby and Julia adopted her. Thanks to that heartless and cold abortion attempt, the child does have several special needs, but she is a priceless gift. Her courageous birth mother was able to finish high school- but that’s not all. Click through to read the whole amazing story.

Incidentally, Planned Parenthood came to visit my high school when I was a senior in 1979/80. She also told us that adoption wasn’t really a viable option for teen pregnancy, because there were more unwanted babies than there were parents waiting to adopt them. That was a lie then, too, and I spoke up and said so. She also said that there were no children’s homes for children whose parents couldn’t care for them any more, and since our church supported one of them and my parents had once volunteered to be house parents at another, I knew that was wrong, and I said so. We argued. I did not back down- not so much because I am a brave or noble soul, but mostly because I am pigheaded and like a dog with a bone when I know I am right and like a pitbull with a bone when I know I’m being lied to. I got a D in that class, largely due to my refusal to let go of the truth.

Planned Parenthood and other proabortion advocates have been lying for a very long time, and those lies are harming women and children.