Dominion Family

With the departure of Timothy in the wee hours of the morning, our holidays officially ended. We spent the day trying to restore order and then since we had free movie tickets we took a few people to Fun With Dick and Jane, a movie that got bad reviews. Guess what? We liked it. I guess that was because the tickets were free and the expectations were low. We needed to laugh since we were all so sad that the older boys were gone.

We hope to see Number 2 in February when he graduates from the police academy but we don’t know when we will see Timothy again. He has a hard year ahead of him and that thought sobered us all.

The men are now listening to the terrible not-as-bad-as-it-looked-at-first Georgia game.

I have been chilling by listening to the country CD I bought for James for Christmas. It is just beautiful. Bluegrass with tight harmony.
Sometimes something just clicks. One day I heard a song on the radio in the car, came home looked it up on iTunes, listened to clips from the whole CD and liked every single clip. When I didn’t get the Cd for my birthday I made sure someone got it for Christmas.

Ok so what is it?
The song I heard was Boondocks,

I feel no shame
I’m proud of where I came from
I was born and raised in the boondocks
One thing I know
No matter where I go
I keep my heart and soul in the boondocks…

It’s where I learned about living
It’s where I learned about love
It’s where I learned about working hard
and getting by with just enough

It’s where I learned about Jesus
And knowing where I stand
You can take it or leave it, this is me
This is who I am

the group: Little Big Town
and the album The Road to Here.

Here are the lyrics to one of my favorite songs from the CD.
Kinda of a homeschool, large family anthem. I like the part about Mama’s temper.

Welcome to the Family

Welcome to the family
Hope you have a real good life
With my little sister
Yeah, she’ll make a real good wife

Hope you have lots of babies
Hope you get a real good job
Hope you don’t mind comp’ny
Cause we’ll be here a lot

Brother, here’s some brotherly advice:
If you know what’s good for you,
You’ll treat her right, cause…

Grandpa’s the local sheriff, yeah
He’s the judge and the jury, too
Uncle Bill’s the undertaker
Son, he’ll dig a hole for you
Cousin Jesse, he’s just crazy
He’ll fight you just for fun
Momma’s got a real bad temper
Daddy’s got a shotgun

Welcome to the family
From this side of the tracks
If you ever leave her
You ain’t comin’ back

My nephew is a hunter
He’s gonna hunt you down
Just like he did the last one
And he still ain’t been found

I like you just fine,
Don’t get me wrong
You’ll take care of her
Cause if you don’t…

Grandpa’s the local sheriff, yeah
He’s the judge and the jury, too
Uncle Bill’s the undertaker
Son, he’ll dig a hole for you
Cousin Jesse, he’s just crazy
He’ll fight you just for fun
Momma’s got a real bad temper
Daddy’s got a shotgun

Welcome to the family
Hope you have a real good life
With my little sister
Yeah, she’ll make a real good wife
Haha…

Welcome to the family
Momma’s got a real bad temper
Daddy’s got a shot gun

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I finally figured out why I liked Fun with Dick and Jane so much. It was the first positive portrayal of marriage I have seen in a long time. Dick and Jane loved each other and when hard times came they didn’t turn on each other or blame each other. When Dick did stupid things to earn money Jane didn’t lecture him.

There were two scenes that showed genuine tenderness. In one scene, After their lawn is repossesed and their yard bare for several months, Dick loses it, takes his junky car and steals sod from all over, a piece here and a piece there. Jane wakes up in the morning covered in dirt. She looks over to find the mud encrusted Dick sleeping beside her. He wakes up and tells her he got the lawn back. She looks out the window and says something like, “Oh, it is beautiful.” When the camera pans to the lawn we see clumps of sod here and there in a very messy manner.

In the other scene, really an extension of the sod scene, Jane is asleep in bed with a swollen face from trying to make money in an experimental drug test. Dick comes home from his sod trip looks down at the swollen, snoring Jane and says, “She’s even pretty in her sleep.” He doesn’t say it in Jim Carrey slapstick but with true tenderness.

You can tell Dick and Jane like each other. They don’t rebuke and nag each other. When Dick tells Jane to quit her job in the beginning, Jane doesn’t go on and on about how fulfilling her work is, how she couldn’t bear to be at home.

It has been a long time since I have seen a modern marriage portrayed without rancor or self-righteousness and I liked it.

And btw, I wore sandals to the movie because it was 75 degrees and breezy yesterday. Wearing sandals is on my top ten list of things I love to do so it might have affected my psyche.

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I would like to be profound, witty or homeschooly but instead we are sick. At least we got through the holidays without this nasty bug.

Two of my children have failed to learn one of the primary life lessons that I have taught them: how to make it to the bathroom when sick. I am threatening all sorts of evil punishments upon the next failure to comply.

To add to the cheerful atmosphere of our home we will be finishing up our reading of Othello with the Orson Welles movie this afternoon. At least it’s not King Lear.

PS Orson makes one weird Othello!

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I admit last year was not a good reading year although it had its moments. I have just this morning finished 2 more chapters in I’ll Take My Stand. Both chapters were a little over my head but they did get the philosophical wheels turning. The chapters were Lyle H Lanier’s A Critique of the Philosophy of Progress and Allen Tate’s Remarks on the Southern Religion.

One of the questions that arises is why defend the South as a separate entity at all. After all doesn’t the Bible say there is neither Jew nor Greek. Therefore I thought I would try to explain what it means to me to defend the South. Defending anything in these days is really just a blow against egalitarianism. Just try to defend any position at all and you will quickly see how uncomfortable people become. The South truly is one of the last places on earth where people will, rightly or wrongly, defend their opinions.

Even in the arena of sports, southerners will take their stand. When we lived in NJ you would never see anyone supporting a team in the workplace. Supporting your sports team publicly was almost as big a no-no as stating your religion. In Alabama and Texas you won’t find that at all. I mean, our bank decorates itself like the Crimson Tide come time for Alabama to play Auburn; no worry there about offending customers, the bank takes a stand.

I take my stand to defend the South. I am not at all offended that you might take your stand to defend Pennsylvania. I am far more offended when you think it doesn’t matter and why don’t we all just get along.

There is nothing racist about this. The number one thing I like about the South is that you can still have an opinion here. If I have an opinion and you have an opinion we are far healthier than if we both just pour our thinking into a big hole and stir. After all if we all have the same opinion there is nothing to defend when the enemy comes in aroarin’ like a flood, coveting the kingdom and hungering for blood. We can be sure he will know where he stands.

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So far only one person is sick this morning. Unfortunately this person was the first person sick, and then well again, last week. Not good news. All this is complicated by the fact that I am reading Doomsday by Connie Willis, a novel about the plague. Every time Connie mentions symptoms it sounds like what we have. So far no Buboes, though.

My goal this year is to read 2 books a week. This is a nearly impossible goal. One book a week at this point in time is nearly impossible but it has cut down on my computer time. I figure I will use my blog to make me accountable in the real world. Today is Thursday and I am halfway through 2 books. One, of course, I started last June. And we are having a light school week this week. Next week we return to our full schedule: Lord willing.

PS: It is 11:00 am here and my children just informed me it was Friday. Wow, I lost a whole day and I am even behind a day in my Psalm reading. I am feeling dizzy and confused and I am way behind on my reading.

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Having finished The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, my only hope of finishing 2 books this first week of January is to finish I’ll Take My Stand. So last night I plowed through Herman Clarence Nixon’s chapter Whither Southern Economy? and found it to be much clearer than the previous two chapters.

Basically, I came away with the idea that the Civil War took away the best chance America had for building an agrarian society not based on industrialism. This agararian society would have had to come to terms with and abolish slavery. Sadly, in the place of agarianism we have a society based on industrialism which by its nature destroys the soul of the society.

I don’t want to get into deep waters here but I have always firmly believed that we will not be able to retake our culture. We will not return to a soul uplifting society until the decay we are living in takes its full course. Therefore, I also do not believe that sending our children to Harvard is relevant. It is terribly irrelevant.

Reclaiming a culture is sometimes temporarily achieved by a group. I believe in some ways the Reagan years helped delay our cultural slide. But with any honest look at the last 25 years, you have to admit, despite minor victories and massive campaigns, the culture has continued to crash and burn. Hey, I have marched in Washington more than once and even met Randall Terry.

Historically speaking, this crash and burn is the way that good survives and evil is restrained. When a culture crashes only the good and strong rise up out of the ashes. The new society is built upon the better elements of the old.

A couple of days ago someone sent a quote through the Classed group that said homeschooling is the monastery of modern times (perhaps it should be homeschools are the monasteries), or something like that. We are preserving all that is good and right until such a time when those things are needed again. We should not feel that we have failed when our children do not infilterate the society, the arts, or the government. We should patiently remain faithful, doing what God has called us to do, recognizing it is His plan at work not our own.

Psalm 37: 7-11

Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.

Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.

For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.

For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.

But the meek shall inherit the earth ; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace

Go ahead and read the whole of Psalm 37 if you have time!

I hope you won’t read this as a bury your head in the sand post. It is really a post that says, “Hey, it looks like we are losing, but lift up your head and go forth in hope because we are really winning.”

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Take 2: I just lost my best post ever maybe
For those of you grasping for an understanding of agrarianism, read Andrew Nelson Lytle’s essay The Hind Tit. This essay, though long, paints a beautiful word picture that answers the question: Why agrarianism anyway? ( Try Googling it.)

Having lived in an 18th century (yes, I understand how to count centuries) farmhouse , I consider myself more of a failed agrarian. I have no intention of returning to heating the modern plumbing, chasing critters, cleaning chicken coops, having all the stresses of the modern world and the agrarian world. I am more like one of the people Francis Schaeffer decried, seeking personal peace and affluence. Oh, for a little affluence $

BUT

I do believe it is, oh, so, important to understand from whence we have fallen. And we have fallen. Even in the 25 short years that I have been married our culture has lost its ability to distinguish between needs and luxuries. You have to admit there is a huge gap between what your grandparents, parents, or even yourself as a child deemed neccessary to life and what our society now considers mundane.

I have personally made a salad that came completely from things I grew or found, including flowers. I love putting flowers in salad ! And yet tonight our salad came from a bag and I am happy it was just that easy.

Truthfully, clean sheets and shampoo are luxuries. Everyday more and more “things” move from the luxury column into the need column. You have to be counterculture these days to do the most ordinary things like read a book or say no to your child or get rid of the TV.

If I was one to implore you to exert yourself I would definitely say smash the TV. But I am struggling along just like you wondering, how we got here and where do we get off, and when does the next episode of 24 start.

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Perhaps I shouldn’t have tried to finish I’ll Take My Stand this week. Now my brain is reeling. Here is an extremely important article that I personally plan to print and give to my highschool students to discuss. It fits right into the agrarian prophesies. Prosperity and affluence lead to selfishness and barrenness and the death of the west.

If you can at all spare 30 minutes read this.

It goes right along with my old article: The Costs of Bearing Children.

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John Donald Wade’s The Life and Death of Cousin Lucius is another concrete story of the abstract principles discussed in I’ll Take My Stand. I had lots of random thoughts while reading, many of them not related at all to the aforementioned principles, but nevertheless, I thought I would just spit out a few bullets.

Cousin Lucius was born into a planter’s family right before the Civil War. His life took me back in my mind to other fictional books on the time period, namely Cold Sassy Tree and Penhally.
If you have a true interest in the South and agrarianism I highly recommend Penhally.

The chapter on Cousin Lucius reminded me of the perfect example of the agrarian attitude and vision: Almanzo Wilder, a New Yorker, no less. Almanzo lived an entirely agrarian life scaling things down until he was lord and master of a small holding in Missouri. (or was it Arkansas?)

This chapter reminded me that while our search for agrarianism is most likely a search for community, the agrarian aspect of that search must end in a free and independent community not a communistic-type community.

Unfortunately, almost every time someone sets up a Christian community it turns away from a group of free and independent believers joining for mutual benefit to a hierarchy of control.

25 years ago homeschooling was an agrarian movement; not because some homeschoolers had goats and baked bread but because most of the early homeschoolers had free and independent mindsets, something they have been criticized highly for.

Many of the newer homeschoolers are not of an agrarian mindset; not because they don’t grow their own vegetables and wear prairie skirts but because they are in a sense looking for a handout. They are public schooling at home. Just look at the rise of K-12 type government assisted homeschooling options for proof.

Free and independent thinking based on mutual respect for others is not a bad foundation for a church or a community.

I do not consider myself a prairie muffin, nor do I play one on the internet. For a few sad reasons I am not an agrarian nor a prairiemuffin but I do consider Carmon, the prairiemuffin manifester, to be a woman of wisdom and understanding.

I think I just made up a word, maybe I will grow up to be George Grant!

This is an incredibly overgeneralized post, which means I probably can’t defend myself at all in the comments, but I am sure I will make an utter fool of myself trying :rolleyes_ee:

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The Manifester has posted another manifesto point.

The internet can certainly be a dangerous place for emotional arguments to get out of hand.
While some women are excellent debaters ( I am not among them), many times debating becomes a sinful control issue.
Better to be safe than sorry when debating online and it never hurts to just be quiet.

Surely the internet has got to be the least likely place to find truth when fur is flying.

I truly welcome differing views on this blog and have rarely seen an ugly argument but they can spring up quickly in fertile soil.

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