I've muttered things under my breath before.

In fact, I think I did that just yesterday.

And this morning, I responded to one of my dad's posts and, after submitting my comment, I began to wonder: Should I have said what I did in the way that I did? I think what I said is accurate, fair, and insightful--like most of what I write <cough>--but would I say it Swanson's face? Would I post such a comment on his blog--assuming he ever enabled comments?

Probably not.

Similarly, how I talk to Amber or Justin about our MathTacular projects is very different from what I would say to my mom. Does that mean that I'm lying to either party? Am I disingenuous?

I don't think so.

I am, however, hopefully responding in such a way that makes sense to my audience. I'm attempting to speak to them in a way they understand. My words change, not because my message is different, but because my audience is. Blogging, however, makes this much harder because anyone can come across my words. That's scary.

And when we are critiquing the ideas of another, how do we apply Psalm 19:14? I want my words and thoughts to be pleasing to God, and part of that is watching my doctrine which often means working through what appear to be errors in others' ideas.

Hmm... now I wish more than ever that Swanson would post his ideas and allow people to comment. Then I could say these things to his face, and I think it be helpful. As it is now, I fear that my words are not as gracious or uplifting as they should be. But I don't know, Jesus wasn't particularly mild when it came to urging for correction...

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

I stumbled across the following quote today, and I liked it, so I'm sharing it with you:

All half-decent parents home-educate their children, in effect, until children learn to educate themselves.

I also read an interesting article about HR 1966, based on some comments by Sebastian which alerted me to its existence.

Here's what I perceive as the dilemma: No one thinks bullying is a good thing--much like hate crimes or other maladies--but in our effort to eradicate them we create much bigger problems. In both of these instances, free speech is eliminated under the guise hope of stopping evil.

And so we take a few more steps toward the world portrayed in V for Vendetta: A world where we give up our liberties for "safety." ...which reminds me of that quote: They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

My guess is that all half-decent people don't partake in hate crimes or cyberbullying, and legislation isn't going to stop the real instances of it happening. And, really, what have the "zero-tolerance" policies of our local schools done to end violence and bullying in the real world, where it is easier to monitor?

May our children learn to be gracious, kind, and loving in a world that is quickly clamping down around them. And may we have the wisdom to know how best to speak in a world that is slowly trying to censor us.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

Sonlight's homeschool experience is based on Core programs. These packages include History, Geography, and Literature (as well as Bible in the upper grades). To this you can add other subject options that fit your family: Math, Spelling...

Here's what I learned today: Sometimes customers swing by our site and want to purchase just our History... and they are so excited that they buy it without even reading the description of the package which alerts them to the fact that it's just a package of books and you need the Instructor's Guide for it to be a complete history program... and if you're going to shell out the money for that, a Core would be a great option for you!

They totally don't see any of that.

The same is true for our Literature packages as well.

So, lesson learned. Now we're working on making that clearer. And, honestly, I was super confused for a couple hours while I tried to sort all of this out. Thankfully, I work with great people who very patiently talked me through the steps and everything that goes into this. And, hopefully, I'll be able to do the same for you now too <smile>.

But it's going to take a little time. There's so much to be done.

And if you come across anything that is confusing to you, please let us know. I can't fix everything instantly--wish I could--but I'm always looking for ways to make it even easier to use Sonlight and our site. Thanks!

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

A subjective ramble
In my travels around the blogosphere this morning, I ran into a comment by "bob" about objective thinking. He states that "it is absolutely imperative that today’s children be exposed to as many different ideas as possible so they can again- learn how to be objective members of society," among other things.

"bob" is not alone in this thinking.

And, honestly, who of us would say, "Oh, please, may my children be subjective in their thinking so as to avoid all objective thought!"?

I see that hand.

Ignoring the person waving their hand in the third row, none of us want our thoughts to be purely subjective. We want to be based in reality, in truth, in how things really are. But can we get to pure objective thought merely by bombarding ourselves with every idea that is out there? Is mere exposure going to get us anywhere?

Nope.

I once talked with a guy who said he was very interested in religion now that he had taken a religious studies course at his college.

"Oh?" I asked. "What'd you like about it?"

"It was amazing to see how all religions are exactly the same," he replied. "Every religion teaches basically the same thing and there aren't any real differences between them. Isn't that incredible?"

Incredible may have been exactly the word to use. I tried to get more out of him, but he had been exposed to an "objective" position from a professor who had been exposed to the sun too long, or had spent so much time exposed to all the religious ideas in the world he could only look at them at a primitive surface level.

Just like we must not cling to the Bible as the only source of information in the world, we must not throw ourselves into the universe and scream: Teach me!

I don't think we can ever be free from our prejudices/presuppositions. But if we admit our bias to ourselves and then consider the other side, I think we have the highest chance of arriving at an understanding of reality.

Which brings me back to two quotes my dad shared with me back in the day:

The problem with an open mind is that all your brains fall out.

The purpose of an open mind is to close it again on something solid.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

Sonlight's curriculum is based around stories. Fantastic literature. Wonderful books. Incredible tales.

On the flip side, I've seen several instances where people are calling us to return to the Bible--and the Bible only. One example would be the Boundless commenter who said:

why do you bother giving away books that keep poeple from concentrating on the only book that they need to read to answer every single problem they have: the Bible? [errors in original]

Jason

I think the Ted Slater does a good job of responding to this particular accusation. And while that individual went overboard, others are beating a similar drum.

On Friday, I read a post by Daniel Abbey about hip pastors who miss the point in their message: Scripture. He's not alone in his complaint. I know families who now refuse to attend church because they can't find a pastor who preaches "enough" from the Bible. And my dad just blogged about a particularly pathetic message we endured this Sunday. And I remember some illustrations but have forgotten the point as well. So, in that sense, Dan's right.

On the other hand, Dan goes on to ask: Why not just preach the Word of God?

Why try to spice up Sunday mornings with fleshly gimmicks and theatrical eye candy? [We don't need] clever devices or secular technique in reaching the lost and edifying believers. ...I can’t tell you how much I loathe the idea that we need some sort of program or technique to grab people’s attention.

My answer: The Bible shows us why we use these "gimmicks."

Jesus constantly uses stories deeply rooted in the culture and surrounding in which He was speaking. His messages were directly tied to parties going on, the locale, and the other events that had just happened. While, yes, we must not get so caught up in looking trendy and cool, there is nothing wrong with engaging our culture with the culture. In fact, Paul is very famous for using Athenian lore to preach the Gospel.

As we consider our options for teaching our children and raising them to be ambassadors for Christ in this world, I think great literature of all kinds--including the Bible--provide the best foundation.

But I think it is unwise, and counter to what we see in Scripture, to push for a new kind of sola scriptura that restricts our teaching aids to the Bible and a handful of "approved" Christian authors.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father