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Concussion Poetry

I fear days like today. In our two-parent life, we would have juggled a full summer Sunday from morning church to evening fireflies. In my single-parent life, my sons slept through church and got kicked out of a bookstore, then a concussion had them in bed early and me wondering how long I should stay awake. Not sure if I’ll get around to the poetry, but I know I can’t stare at this screen for too long.

This is when I question my capability to be a single parent. I still haven’t found a way to think of it as natural. Children are made in union together, shouldn’t they be raised that way? I never spent time thinking about any other way when I was married, we were going to raise our children together, it was assumed. Even at our rockiest times, we were committed to the union and to supporting each other. There was no reason to imagine one of us would be doing this alone.

Perhaps the worst part of the fear is that I have had a taste of co-parenting since my wife’s death. To see a woman care for my sons in a nurturing and loving way was bliss. But we made no promises and there was no union to work on, no commitment to each other’s children.

It was enough to lend heavy credence to my assumptions of the superiority of the two-parent life. It wasn’t enough to maintain them.

It’s certainly not just to have a motherly figure for my boys, I crave companionship as well. Especially when I’m sitting here with a likely concussion and no one to talk with.

So I’ll turn to my journal and see if I can’t crank out some Concussion Poetry.

God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason

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Glass Molasses

I’m moving in a clear miasma, so clear that the white of a lady’s dress aches my head. So clear that I can feel the pain of everyone who walks by.

I’m in a bookstore for hours at a fundraising event. It takes all my strength to be present or hold a conversation. I walk back and forth, avoiding too much interaction. All I hear, see, or feel is pain and fear.

I can only frame it in my understanding of the Highly Sensitive Person, or HSP. Generally, I run headlong into stimulating situations, our learning lifestyle is raucous and alive with boyish energy. Then there are times when I am overwhelmed by adjacent conversations or the sound of my son crunching an empty water bottle.

Today was like that from sun up to sun down. I ended up in bed on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, storing energy and isolating myself. I don’t know how else to cope right now. Fortunately, it worked well enough to prepare me for another late evening with my sons appearing in outdoor Shakespeare.

As I become more in touch with my empathy I find myself in increasingly intense states of mind. I struggle to discover a rhythm in which to dance with these heightened emotions. The waves crash before I can master them, yet I will again wade out into the surf and be called to the dance by enticing drums.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Ten Years To Get Here

“I’d be a proud father if my son serves in the armed forces.”

That’s where I was ten years ago when my first boy was born. Then I turned off the news. I didn’t want my baby to be exposed to all the negativity, violence, and intensity of the world. I still listened to Rush Limbaugh and read Drudge Report every day, I was an adult after all, I could handle all the negativity, violence, and intensity of the world. I relished in what I thought were intellectual battles around camp fires, on Twitter, and in blog comments. I thought that was how one tested his knowledge and sharpened his mind.

When I was alone with my son I was different. I listened to him and watched my speech for tone and content. I only wanted to share truth with him. I wanted it all to make sense, to be clear, and to help him become the best possible kind of man. I discovered contradictions in my arguments. How had they not been exposed in all those verbal battles? My wit was quicker than my brain. That’s plenty of fun when you’re at a bar and care more about in a social setting than actually getting things right.

Now I had two sons and it was well past time to get things right. War was my first stumbling block. I had supported a lot of violence through my writing and speech, I honored friends who served and died in combat, and one of my best friends was a Marine sniper. How could I now teach the Golden Rule to my sons and justify military interventions overseas?

A lot happened when I left my job as a proofreader to care for my sons full time. In a moment of curiosity about homeschooling I started listening to Tom Woods. He’s a homeschooling parent, Libertarian, and Catholic. I didn’t know this type of person existed. He introduced me to the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). From FEE.org: “One version of the NAP states that while it is legitimate to use physical violence in defense of one’s rights, initiating violence against another person is wrong and can be met with proportional violence in self-defense.”

I try to apply this principle to my politics, parenting, and approach to the world.

Through Woods I found other homeschool voices and my wife, Mary, and I started the conversation to begin our own home education journey. We slowly looked at our own pasts and realized how the school system had been, and remained, unsuited to us. I linked my years in school to my years watching cable news and began to uncover assumptions I had adsorbed over that time. It was this process of deschooling that would fundamentally change my life and save our family. “Deschooling” is exactly that, the process of analyzing internalized assumptions and separating what is useful and what is holding you back from learning. It was the birth of my self-improvement journey and taught me how to face circumstances that I had never imagined.

I reconnected with the inquisitive learner inside that had been neglected. Initially, this was simply to model an energetic learning environment for my children, but I soon found myself experiencing personal enrichment.

It was about this time that Mary questioned me about faith (I said a lot was happening). I had long been acting out and defending Christian ideals from a practical perspective. I saw them as a good set of rules to live by, a recipe for success. But I had not seriously considered what God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit meant to me. Mary embodied an easy faith and I was a hard nut to crack. She was patient as I began to study the Bible, listen to commentaries, and spend hours talking and thinking about Jordan Peterson’s Biblical lectures. I put assumptions aside and took a clean look at the Word. There was a quiet moment during a men’s Bible study meeting when I accepted Christ into my heart. I’m still working on what that means for me, but I began to find peace in that moment. I began to find that love trumps rules and that I didn’t need a prescriptive regimen, but a path towards loving more fully.

It was less than a year from that moment that my wife suddenly died. I had yet to learn how much self-love I was lacking. I had yet to become the man that Mary deserved. I was on my first steps toward realizing my potential. Seventeen months later, assumptions continue to be burned like deadwood, the smoke chokes and blinds me with tears. I feel God with me on this journey. I feel that He has called me for this, even if “this” remains obscured from me.

It has been quite the decade.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Opening Up In The Rain

Our magnolia had a spectacular blooming season, but, as July wore on, I thought it was over. Then, during another summer deluge, I noticed a lone bud appearing with no direct sunlight. It took longer than usual, but the flower began to open and even attracted pollinators in the rain.

This evergreen has continued to speak to me. Now, when my sunniest days have their showers and thunderstorms rush in to disrupt plans and sleep, it reminds me that one can bloom under unlikely conditions.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Everyone’s Pants Are On Fire

Question from a friend:

What if people were forthright and more honest with each other? I believe there would be so much less pain in the world. It could be done in love and with kindness. Sometimes it’s hard to trust people in this world.

Quick response:

We can only do this for ourselves, in our own relationships. It ain’t easy if you are really thinking about all the things you say to avoid conflict, keep your spouse happy, get that raise, quiet that kid…other people aren’t the problem, we’re all the problem. Trying to make the world sound nicer than it is, it’s manipulation and tears us from reality.

People will lie to you, sure. but what truth did you hide from them? It’s probably a truth that would have scared them off before they lied.

How the Universe manifested a couple hours later:

My sons lied to me about sneaking screen time behind my back and I’m left wondering how I invited this.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Another Terrific Tuesday

We always invite friends and family to explore Winterthur with us and often run into more friends while there. It’s not only a place of natural beauty for us, but a place where we are always made welcome. The staff have become genuine friends, some sending us personal condolences when Mary passed and all offering warm smiles when they see us.

Westen got a little extra care after his “shave” today.

The young volunteers embody the same ethic. Each Tuesday we get to know the high-school student helpers a little better and enjoy their enthusiasm.

As always, we came away with cool creations, stronger relationships, more knowledge, and wonderful memories.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Love Lessons Learned

I learned from MLK Jr. to love the oppressor as he is as much a victim of a broken system as the oppressed. I learned from Jordan Peterson that each of us has an oppressor inside. I learned from Louise Hay that I need to love all of myself, oppressor and oppressed. I learned from heartbreak that you can love someone and not be in their presence, but hold space for them in your heart and in your life. This goes for the broken, the deceased, and those who don’t want your love. Love does not promise reciprocity. Through the loss of my wife I learned that love is more powerful than death. That moment took God’s love out of the theoretical and put it in my heart.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Lego Zen and Sorting: Building With Technic Challenge

Through the sorting process I noticed that Technic elements give me the hardest time. I don’t have them in a centralized location and I don’t have a fluency in their functions. This is a symptom of having not spent much time building in this theme, which is generally geared toward vehicles and other machines.

Although I love problem solving, I have not become familiar with many of these pieces and how they can be used to create moving models.

As a personal challenge, I’m going to seek out models in this theme and pay attention to how they’re put together. I hope that I can share what I learn and maybe you can sharpen your Technic skills along with me.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Backstage with Delaware Shakespeare

A few minutes on stage, a few minutes in the “pit” with the audience, and the opportunity to stand alongside the cast as they receive well-earned ovations, a simple and smooth first night of several that my sons get to participate in Delaware Shakespeare‘s production of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

It’s been quite a week as they polished their lines for Pages Alive Theater‘s take on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and got an offer to be introduced to a film producer.

All of these connections have come through our learning lifestyle. Pages Alive is a homeschool organization and I was introduced to the Artistic Director of DelShakes as a representative of the homeschool community (I’ll address the futility of generalizing home educators in a future post).

Although I gave them the exposure, I never expected this much enthusiasm for the stage. It is one of the many wonderful surprises we’ve found with home education.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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BJJ Everyday

We are blessed by our relationship with Elevated Studios in Wilmington, Delaware.

In our travels we’ve visited ten or so grappling schools. Not once have I thought, “I wish Stephen did things more like this.” I have yet to see anywhere offer as many opportunities to train (six youth classes per week!), nor nearly the focus on the practicing and refining of technique.

My sons don’t train everyday and we rarely attend the six possible classes, but I see the benefits of the discipline many times a day. They move with intention and confidently own their space. If they fall, as they often do, they’re rarely hurt. When they are scraped, stung, or bruised, they recognize the pain as temporary and move through it. If they are confronted by an aggressive child, they know how to manage physical conflict and control themselves. I witnessed my elder son bitten during a a friendly wrestle and not lose his temper or use retaliatory techniques.

They’ve been taught that pain is a necessary component of life and, through regular matches and application of submission moves, learned how to respond to it.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason