Category: Digging for Courage

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Growth

Two years ago we started Allschoolers. Every homeschool group in Delaware had stopped meeting in accordance with government dictates and a small number of families insisted that our children needed to be outside with friends. We consisted of more than just homeschoolers. “Virtual, “crisis,” and “temporary” public and private schoolers joined us from the start. We chose the name “Allschoolers” to ensure that what we were providing was available to all families who felt the same needs.

I was poking around some of the admin tools on Facebook today and I’d like to share some of the exciting and illuminating statistics I found.

We’re nearly at 800 members! Most all them are Delaware residents and represent an entire family that participates in our meets.

I do not know how Facebook defines “active,” but we are regularly reaching hundreds of families with our posts and an increasing number of members are sharing events, pictures, and insights. Only one of the top posts was written by an administrator, another encouragement for me as I hope to steward a community full of leaders. Three of the top posts are turning into new in-person events arranged by members.

I didn’t have to cherry pick stats, every metric demonstrates an engaged, growing, and local community.

I’ve joked about being in the 1% of home educators as a dad at the head of our educational helm and it is great to see that I’m in more of the 5-6% range! These dads are super active and an important part of our group. Our focus is always on inclusion and being a place where dads step up and participate isn’t terribly common in homeschooling circles (anectodally speaking, that is).

“Diversity” can be a loaded term, but for our little state, it seems like we are attracting people from all over. It’s exciting to meet new people and learn about all the different approaches to home education that families are employing.

I was a naysayer from the start of this project, but it did seem worth a shot when everything had changed for the worse. I’m so glad that I was so wrong. We’ve created something special and each new member brings an important piece to our community.

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This Is Superstition

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/covid-by-county.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/11/-philadelphia-reinstates-indoor-mask-mandate.html

These things are happening at the same time.

The studies that denounce masks as protective far outnumber the ones that presume to promote their protective function. Nearly all the studies that support the narrative that masks work have been published since the Covid propaganda machine went into effect. Fauci and his public health bureaucrats have been caught pushing narrative over scientific exploration.

It’s just superstition now. Politicians and government functionaries are witch doctors more interested in protecting and increasing their power than protecting people. It is becoming more obvious every day.

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Establishment Arts Are Dividing Society

I am heartbroken that arts organizations are making it harder for people like Clifton Duncan and my sons to act and work in the arts.

These organizations are dividing people with their medical demands and promoting a segregated society.

And for those of us devoid of talent; yet who feel deeply when we sit down and experience humanity distilled into a moving performance, the arts are shutting out some of their most fervent supporters.

Masks? Who still has an argument for this? Fauci and his acolytes have been lying for two years and now they are caught out. Why are arts organizations so far behind the truth?

Vaccines? What does “fully vaccinated” mean? It changes depending on location and political climate, neither of which has any basis in truth. How can you continue to pressure your neighbors into medical decisions when there is so much uncertainty and more signs of deception from public health officials?

You are forcing the emergence of an alternative community that will supplant you. Those who respect human sovereignty are driven to create truly inclusive communities. We are celebrating the great works and producing our own without poking into each others political and personal lives.

You have taken the first step towards becoming a relic of superstition. To quote Duncan from another podcast, “There aren’t enough wealthy white theater goers…” to sustain the industry.

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Back to Normal, Just Like That?

Four months ago I wrote about the injustice of venues like Delaware Art Museum demanding their patrons receive an unapproved pharmaceutical product into their bodies that could never be removed.

Dear Delaware Art Museum,

Almost everyone is dropping these requirements now: the State of Delaware, Philly, museums, concert venues, etc. They coerced permanent health decisions upon their community and didn’t have the fortitude to last half a year in their resolve.

The public deserves assurances that we can trust these institutions to not be prey to the media’s winds of change. We deserve to hear how decisions of this magnitude will be made in the future. We deserve to have some knowledge of the process by which businesses, governments, and public spaces will again consider bullying the people they claim to serve.

I’m going to my first concert in two years tonight. When I bought my tickets there was no vax mandate, then there was, then there wasn’t. All of this in a few months. They wouldn’t refund my money when they changed the terms of the sale, so I will not be likely to trust them with my funds again. Same goes for Delaware Art Museum and all the places that chased a media narrative instead of making careful determinations as to whether they had the right to ask their patrons for this irreversible condition.

I lived happily without concerts for these two years. Living without museums was harder, but there are still many who did not press upon the health decisions of their visitors.

My priorities are clearer now, I know what I can do without. I’m prepared to withhold my support until I can feel trust towards the places that did not trust me to make my own health decisions.

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Quick Rant From An Exhausted Dad

The US backed slaughter and destruction in Yemen is bigger and crueler than anything the US media covers. And it is something we could change. Covid measures created more harm than good and attention to Ukraine is very conveniently covering the tracks of the US devils who wrecked the lives of so many.

I took Journalism and Education courses in college. Coming out of high school those were primary interests for me. I saw then the fantasy of those disciplines vs. the reality.

The media has been lying us into war and covering up US crimes my whole life. Madeline Albright said tens of thousands of dead children in Iraq were an acceptable cost. Condoleezza Rice just said invading a sovereign country was a war crime.

We can’t do shit about Putin, but these monsters are given prominence? The corporate media has blood on its hands.

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Arbitrary and Absurd

State of Emergency Ended

Two weeks ago there was a statewide mask mandate and state employees were being forced to choose between an experimental pharmaceutical product and the salaries they used to take care of their families.

Now, by decree, it’s all gone. No data is presented and the order comes on the same day the governor was facing a lawsuit over his illegal extension of his State of Emergency.

How many employees were forced into vaccinations they did not want? If this was so important, how can it be dropped so abruptly?

I hope this opens more eyes to see that public offcials, including those labeled “health,” do not have the interests of the governed in mind, nor heart.

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An Unfortunate Throwback

Two years ago I wrote a warning about the predictable effects of Lockdown. It didn’t seem like anyone was listening, but soon after I began to find my Lockdown tribe. We got our children together and shared woth each other the ways we were staying sane. Many of these women were homeschool moms, and more moms and dads joined the ranks as pressures exposed the failures of the system.

Digging For Courage: An Air of Toxic Masculinity

Out tribe is strong and the fight for sanity carries on. More families are deciding to home educate their children each day. The world is getting more sane as people free themselves from the systems government uses to keep us in line.

Disclosure:  The links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. 

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365 Devotionals: Grace and Forgiveness

Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you, so you must forgive others.
-Colossians 3:13

I am struggling with this one. I am trying to understand the supporters of Lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and masks. I want to forgive them, but it feels important to stop them first. They must be stopped from harming my family, vulnerable populations, and the very cooperative nature of our success as a species.

I will fight to protect the people I love and I will strive to always expand that circle to include as many as I can. I will keep forgiveness in my heart and welcome the authoritarians to my table, once they are defeated.

Disclosure: The links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. 

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The Devils Are Showing Their Horns

The church where my sons were baptized and attended youth groups for years has been aggressively pushing a fear narrative.

A church leader led an outdoor service that included no Scripture that I could recall immediately after (I may have missed something). She then required masks and distancing for future outdoor meetings.

Recently, they closed their doors again and went entirely “virtual.” Although youth groups are now meeting again, they are enforcing masks and social distancing and pushing vaccines, measures that have shown to be ineffective in making anyone healthier in spirit or body.

I asked the youth leader to remove us from that email list, as these restrictions violate my sons’ freedom to follow Christ as their hearts call them to. I stated that we feel abandoned by the church and copied the lead pastor, who was already aware of my feelings, on the email.

His response shocked me a little.

A member of his church feels abandoned, so he volunteers to erase me from the rolls?

Before Lockdown, we were in this building multiple times a week between services, Bible studies, volunteer work, and many other meetings and events. My late wife’s cremains rest in the inner courtyard. It was our spiritual home, the place we were Baptized into the Body of Christ.

There is relief in me as I see it as an unveiling of the true nature of this congregation. There is also deeply hurtful pain and a fear that there are other wolves in sheep’s clothing in my life.

We are blessed by those who exclude us, especially when they preach inclusion. It is the villianous Doublespeak of the devils of Orwell’s 1984: Freedom is Slavery, War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength…Exclusion is Inclusion.

I have new spiritual homes and I know that my relationship with Christ is in my heart, it needs no building, nor pastor.

Disclosure: The links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.