first-drafter, part two

you may be wondering, if the technique is so good, why did she get any Bs at all?

well, i chose to take Bs in subjects i didn't care to expend my full energies on: statistics, astronomy lab (did you know it is all math, NOT stargazing, what a wake up call that was!), history (i've recently, just recently, developed an affinity for history, it was too linear for me, too abstract), government 201. in the subjects i either didn't really care about, or was saturated with and couldn't study any more (history), i opted for a B instead of belaboring the subject. it was a conscious choice. i didn't get any Bs in my major.

a brief aside about abstract teaching:

since i homeschool my kiddo, one brilliant parent said, to help your kid grasp history, string a line on the wall and attach a post-its or some note to the line for each corresponding event, so they can SEE how things have a place in time. this concept blew my doors off. i realized i can string a mental line to hang all "my historical notes" upon. before it was just a jumble of numbers and facts, i couldn't grasp it. i couldn't make sense of it all.

history was taught much the way math was taught to my generation: memorize facts and figures, regurgitate them onto a test, done. next subject. learning abstract concepts has never been that easy for me. i can know the facts and figures and still not have a clue how the process works.

it's like having a whole bunch of legos and they are all over the floor. teachers used to say, these are legos. you are now to construct a disney castle. but without any instructions or pattern to follow, i couldn't make the mental leap from a pile on the floor to a disney castle. (my artistic brother incidentally, built an entire sleeping beauty castle from legos, no pattern, nothin' but he is exceptional).

so when i teach my child, i teach tangibly. i move things from the absract to the concrete. visualizing a line where all the historical facts and figures are assigned a place makes more sense to me than a "time line." i knew what a timeline was, but i never saw one in 3D. until i did, i couldn't grasp history.

back to first-drafting:

deb commented on delving into the depths of the subconscious. i see why she would say that, but my technique is nothing more than using what you got.

it's like having a race car sitting in the driveway and only driving in 15mph zones. sometimes you've gotta go to the track and open her up. that is what i do. i no more delve into the subconscious, or labor over my process than a cook labors over the meal prepared in a crock pot. plop food in, go about your business, at the appointed time (you can usually smell it, in my case you can "hear" it), the meal is plated and served.

i don't try to "attain" any level of subconcious awareness or anything like that. i just pay attention to what is going on. i quiet myself and listen. i lie in bed a few moments longer just as i am waking up to see if there is anything my mind wants to say before i get up. i call this listening, because i am just tuning into the traffic of my brain. that is how i heard, "yellow corn maidens." this morning i heard the dealio about the crockpot. nothing scary about that.

it is just a foreign concept. pray about it. see what the Lord says, His blessing is all that matters anyway.

about other mythologies:

i was nervous when i took mythology. i was nervous when i took anthropology. i didn't want to hear about other "religions or beliefs" or God forbid, "evolution." my anthro prof, on the first day of class said, this is evolutionary theory. there is a place for creation theory, but this classroom is not it. we are learning about evolution. i understood at that point and learned so much about evolution and why people are so convinced. that professor won me over in that moment (even though i was a staunch creationist, my astronomy paper lauded God's flinging the stars across the sky, that'll win professors over!). but i got to learn a subject i would not have been exposed to, only because i prayerfully listened. i would walk in and bring my Bible and set it on my desk, and i was getting to know an athiest at the time, and he was mortified by the Bible on my desk. but it was a great learning adventure and God taught me a great many things.

we don't have to be afraid. our God is a mighty God. He can handle scrutiny. He can handle questions.

back to mythology:

i prayed through mythology as well. i was certain there would be blasphemy there. and perhaps there was, but i wasn't there to convert the teacher or the class. i was there to learn the mythologies of other cultures. and i agree with C.S. Lewis, there are types and shades of God in other mythologies. it all points to God. i couldn't decide about it though, it was a prayerful time for me, then i encountered a name of God in a cherokee prayer book, His name was Yohweh. it blew my doors off. the name of God was Yohweh. that is too much like GOD to be anything but God. so i stopped fearing, and asked the Lord to show me where He has hid Himself in the cultures of the world.

read this quote from brennan manning's book, the signature of jesus:

"One day Rabbi Barukh's son Yehiel was playing hide-and-seek with another boy. He hid himself well and waited for his playmate to find him...After waiting a very long time, he came out of his hiding place, but the other boy was nowhere to be seen. Then Yehiel realized that his playmate had not looked for him from the very beginning. Crying, he ran to his grandfather and complained of his faithless friend. Tears brimmed in Rabbi Barukh's eyes as he realized: God says the same thing: I hide but no one wants to seek me."

seek Him and He will be found.