The review e-book that Dave and I started working on last year is finally live. Please click here to visit the page where the free PDF download is hosted.
Here’s a look at the table of contents:
Never been lonely, never been lied to
Never had to scuffle in fear, nothing denied to
Born at the instant the church bells chime
With the whole world whispering, ‘born at the right time…’
The text of Parenting in the Name of God is as finished as it’s going to be. With that, a year-long weight is almost dispensed with. David and I began writing about and investigating the Pearl method of “child-training” in March 2010, after hearing about the death of Lydia Schatz.
When a friend posted a link to a Paul Simon song, I indulged my tired brain and went YouTubing. This one left me in tears.
I used to have Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints album. It went well with studying poetry during my spare in senior year. I believed in nothing back then, but this song said something I could believe in. It connected with some qualitative observation within my heart–an observation one cannot escape if one looks in the eyes of a child.
I see them in the airport lounge upon their mothers’ breasts,
They follow me with open eyes, their uninvited guest.
Never been lonely, never been lied to…
I could not have told whether there was a God or anything definitively recognizable as “good” in the world. And it may be that the Schatz children are going through those thoughts. It may be that their parents are going through those thoughts. It’s not my place to tell cardboard lessons about having those thoughts.
But children can tell things, without even knowing how to speak.
There’s too many people on the bus from the airport,
too many holes in the crust of the earth–
The planet groans every time it registers another birth.
But down among the reeds and rushes, a baby girl was found:
Her eyes as clear as centuries, her silky hair was brown.Never been lonely, never been lied to…
Was Lydia born at the right time? The right time for what?
It’s not my story to tell. Not my song to write…some songs are of despair.
Some are of hope when despair seems to rule the world.
All I know is this: When I knew nothing certain about hope, I knew this song. I knew it spoke of something that does happen, somewhere. I had seen it in a child’s eyes.
And deep in my heart, secretly, I hoped the song sang about me, and that I was a singer of it. Even if, in fact, I sang it alone, even if it might be a lie.
If you’ve been around here for awhile, you might recall me writing about how my life plan was: Bachelor’s degree in music composition in my home province, Master’s in Montreal, PhD in New York. These songs coalesced that path. They reflected something that I couldn’t prove about life in any other way, only in music and lyric. I couldn’t prove to myself that it existed anywhere else. Even a child’s eyes become closed and guarded far too soon.
Still, though I never spoke of it, I hoped.
I planned my future around that hope. You know, I never realized that until right at this very minute. I told myself it was about the music. But in the most secret and fragile corners of thought and feeling, I hung my whole life on a single thread of hope that there is such a thing as an Acceptable Time. And that it’s not what we think.
Never been lonely, never been lied to
Never had to scuffle in fear, nothing denied to
It didn’t take years of study. Half a year in, the time found me. It’s something that does happen, somewhere. And it was not what I thought at all.
I laboured to learn how to write it into existence, but the song already had a life of its own. It welcomed me with open eyes, made me its uninvited guest. Even if, in fact, I sometimes sing it alone. Even if I sometimes wonder whether it might be a lie.
Its tune threads throughout my days, and my moments hang on its harmony and melody. It’s as clear as the centuries. The earth is a dark place, full of holes and overcrowded by desperate, aching need. Without a human heart to reside in, hope is just another ghost.
And so, for a song of hope, there is no wrong time.
Born at the instant the church bells chime
With the whole world whispering, ‘born at the right time…’
The woman of my earliest memory has no body. Just a round face with skin like a plum. Smooth and tight. Firm. A smiling plum with dimples. She is not my mama. I don’t remember my mama.
Many years later, now that I am nearly grown, there are other things I remember. They are only pieces, like torn bits of a blurred photo. Sometimes I don’t know what is real memory and what my mind has filled in for me, but I think most of our lives happen in our minds, so it doesn’t bother me.
And with that, I was captivated. I could, and I have, reread these opening lines again and again.
There are very few books that I want to reread. I read this one last fall, and it instantly became one of my all-time favourite novels to come out of the Christian publishing world. As I revisit it to post this review, it moves me to tears all over again.
Lydia Schatz is dead at her parents’ hands. The parents are going to jail. Their children’s hearts are broken. (archived)
I posted the news article archived at Why Not Train a Child to my Facebook, which resulted in an interesting discussion over Christian parenting materials and biblical vs. unbiblical defenses for methodologies. The following is the substance of my contribution to it. If you are an advocate for gentle/attached parenting, rest assured I mean this gently. If you’re an advocate for a favorite Christian parenting method that’s worked for you, likewise.
I was raised in a nonspanking, attached parenting family, myself. Because I don’t discuss my personal life in any detail online, I suppose it’s possible that pro-spankers “hear” me as anti-spanking, and non-spankers “hear” me as pro-spanking. I won’t be arguing that case, as I’ve said many times in the past.
via Holly Heisey.
