Less is {possibly} more....?

 A letter to our friends and family (and whoever else cares):

Hi everyone,

We have been thinking of this, well, since last year.

In an effort to raise grateful, appreciative, thoughtful children we've given the upcoming Christmas season a LOT of thought and consideration.

While we are grateful for your (possibly) wanting to give them gifts (not to mention all of the wonderful and thoughtful gifts you've all given to them over the years! Each present has been special, remembered and appreciated), and while we also want to give fun, exciting gifts and memories to all of you, here are some of our thoughts and hopes for this year (and most likely years to come).

First – we aren't canning Christmas gifts per-se. :) Just re-thinking it all with this in mind:

We live in a culture that is bombarded with stuff.

Time is too precious and short to spend it looking for, organizing, sorting, cleaning, buying, desiring and managing our stuff. We've spent a lot of time this summer (and are currently still) de-cluttering our small living space. We already have so much, too much.

Less stuff means more room for people and life. More board games, more crazy forts, more room to dance and play.

We are trying to teach our children the difference between “needs” and “wants”. It becomes increasingly difficult to see the difference between our needs and our wants when we are surrounded by so much more than we need. Don't get us wrong, we LOVE buying our kids things that we know they will love. But it already doesn't take long before it's left on the floor and shuffled under a bed and forgotten. We can't help but think that it was a waste of hard-earned money for such temporary joy (if you can call it joy even).

In an effort to instill lasting values into little ones, we want to be an example to them that being the hands and feet of Jesus to a starving world costs something, and having less leaves us with so much more to give. We never want them to feel guilty for living in a land of plenty, but to learn that it is right to act responsibly when much is given. We know that much of the world cannot choose to live with just enough because they don't have enough to begin with. I've seen this first hand in Mexico – children anxiously waiting for the garbage truck to supply their next meal, or newest household item. We are attempting to choose to live simply so that others can simply live.

We also hope our children will see that the most beautiful things in life are simple, often intangible, and almost always nearly free. And that's where we offer this as possible ideas:

*(please please know that we do not ever expect any gifts, and if you choose to not give us or them anything, we are just as happy to spend some Holiday time with you!)

• please consider a gift of experience. Ie: Movie passes, tickets for Canada's Wonderland or the zoo, money towards horseback riding or a sport or art class or something that they can have fun at and create a memory with.
• a gift of quality time. All of us are big on this. A cheesy, homemade gift certificate for a date at Starbucks or something is special. Last year one of our friends did this and each kid really loved the one-on-one time that he gave them. To us, it's so precious that our friend is willing to invest in nurturing his relationship with our children.
• A homemade gift. Grandad's bunk beds, Daddy's dollhouses and furniture have proven WAY better than any store-bought toy. Seriously. And they proudly show all their friends!
• If you see something you think they would absolutely love that is NOT from China, please don't feel you aren't “allowed”. The point is that if we all supported local businesses.... well... we're trying to stick to that attempt this year anyways.

We hope we don't sound all hippy-crazy. We are just trying to find our way with our family re-thinking Christmas and all it's become. We hope it makes some sense to you and that you won't hate our gifts to you! Hahahaha

Love you all,

Nate, Paula and the kiddos

Check these out: This amazing store and project in Haiti The Apparent Project,  Gifts of Compassion,  The Advent Conspiracy,  A blog of a family of 8 living on less for the year http://www.theyearofless.blogspot.ca/  , Enough blog entry that got me really thinking and my friend Fly Lady

A Long Time Ago In A Galxy Far Far Away.....

Our introductory unity study of: Astronomy!

I love being able to do fun things like this: Starfruit and 

"moon cheese" (as Landon calls it), a.k.a Baby Belles

A space sensory bin for Landon with "moon dust",

which turned into a favorite for everyone!

            

Meteorites! (Tin foil and streamers) 

 

And of course, a couple of labooks. Because what's a fun unit study with a lapbook?  We're totally hooked on these. Here are some photos to see a bit of what they included in theirs.

 

 

Lining up the planets and reading all about them 

(because sometimes that is just more fun than listening to Mommy read).

  

This next one was great for Landon to match pictures and words to the mats that I made.  

Of course, his sisters wanted in on it, so they matched pictures and words with NO sheets.  

(I'm learning to improvise quick. Well, actually, it's more like my improvisational skills are working for me here)

 And who doesn't love making a rocket ship?

This turned into space monkeys, which turned into a space giraffe, cat, and dog.

 My littlest astronaut.

I have LOVED not only teaching this unit to the kids, but learning about it myself.  

The Universe is an incredible place.  What we don't know, about what we don't know could fill the sky! 

To understand our world in it's context, we found this video and the kids LOVE it. The girls said that they "had goosebumps" and that "it made me feel itchy because it's so amazing!"  

See it here 

And while I was wrapping it up this week, they told me that they refused to stop learning about space! 

Ok.

Let's go with that. 

Because we can. 

 

Freedom To Disagree

I'm the kind of girl who wears her heart on her sleeve. Take me or leave me, it's the way that I am.

As I grow and hopefully mature, I have learned (or am learning) not to bleed all over people. Nobody can be around a negative, winy, complaining person for very long, nor do I want to be that.

But I am hurt and angry and wrestling through it.

Someone who has called themselves a close friend to me, "precious and dear to her", has written me not just out of her life, but off of her Facebook. If you want to know where you stand in your relationship with someone, what says it more clearly than being defriended?

This has made me revisit what has caused "division".

At the end of the day, what it all boils down to is that even though she has never had a conversation with me about it, she thinks she knows what I believe about a religious topic and disagrees. We have never discussed it and her assumptions may in fact, be all wrong. Sad point #1.

However it is, I keep thinking about this simple question: Why should our differences poison the water?

It comes down to this: what do we do about our differences? As Christians, as people.

If we have to think alike, talk alike, act alike.... Well, have fun with yourself.

For the Christian who claims to follow the Resurrected Christ, is being a Body 1) tasking together or 2) doing life together?

Most of our relationships in the church have become task-based, not family-oriented.

The dynamics of relationship and freedom and safety and openness and honesty- if those are things that are really critical to the community, then it can't be first about a task and then hope relationships happen.

But if the relationship and caring about each other is first, even where we disagree, then we have a chance at being a family.

To be authentically myself. Wow. Imagine the freedom to live where you are in your journey, and allow others to live where they are in theirs... Weaknesses and all.... then we have a shot at some kind of relationship that is going to make a difference.

But if you are in friendship, a relationship or part of an institution where you can't have any kind of disagreement or different thought then, well, maybe that's why the avg. church in America splits every 6.9 years.
Maybe that's why the reality of the friendship can hurt so bad. One that you trust and feel safe in suddenly turns into friend who has publicly DEfriended you.

To those that believe you have "the Truth" on all things spiritual: Do you ever disagree with God?
(you can pause here or come back to it)

(your answer, you will find, is probably yes. You do, in fact, and realize that you don't have him all figured out.).
So now I will ask: Can you still walk in relationship with him?

Truthfully, I don't know how many people that I am in relationship with are safe people that I can be truly myself with. Relationships that I can live freely and authentically myself - weaknesses and all.

When did agreement become a necessary ingredient for relationship?

If its about people feeling safe and feeling loved, then what else is there?

From now on, I aim to do my part in living more freely and truly as I am, where I am at. When I can't be honest inside certain relationships, I need to look for the log in my own eye. What role am I playing? What about me isn't free enough to express what I need to express?

Instead of being so worried about being processed by others, I will remember how loved I am by God.
In that, and only in that I will find my security.
I don't need to pick fights. I don't need to engage in a sword fight.

And lastly, how can I create an environment for others to feel safe and free in?

I am so hungry for friendships and environments to question what I need to question, doubt what I need to doubt, disagree with what I need to disagree with and then demonstrate the same safety I seek.

And no, that doesn't make me a heretic, or someone who "is being tossed in the wind" (because I am sure someone holy will want to quote me Ephesians 4:14).

I know a lot of Christians who believe that the enemy's tactics are to divide and conquer. I couldn't agree more.
And then they preach doctrinal unity.

However, the craftiness of satan is that so many believers then believe that we all have to agree. That there is one Truth, and they know it.

Agree with them or be ex-communicated.

Imagine what it would be like to put theological differences aside and follow Gods leading in our own lives?

Many of us could use a little "Pharisectomy" me thinks.