Random Bits from Darren

I am on an e-mail list that sends out weekly meditations. Last Friday's e-mail, from Liane's dad, had an excellent observation on persistence that I thought was worth sharing.

"Consider the metaphor of the sledge hammer and the boulder. Probably many of you have tried to split a large boulder with a sledgehammer by bringing many blows to bear on it. I've tried it a few times. I can recall the sting of the hammer and it's quick rebound as I pounded on and on. To any critical observer the whole scene was an exercise in futility. It was as far away from a breakthrough as you could possibly get. I never kept a count of the blows, but I can still remember the pure astonishment I felt when at last the boulder split open with what appeared to be only one blow. The fact is however that every blow was of critical importance. You could never have arrived at blow number 89 (when the rock split) if you hadn't faithfully brought forth 88 blows before it. We think of breakthrough when we hit number 89, but if we act in faith God sees every blow as a breakthrough."

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A girl I knew when growing up is now running an NGO over in Kenya. Anna is an amazing writer, and I keep hoping that she will get a book deal. Check out her blog; you'll be glad you did.

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I recently got voice recognition software at work, so this post is half dictated and half typed. It's fun to use, and even more fun to see what the computer thinks I'm saying sometimes :-) Once I get used to it, I think it will really help my productivity, because I can talk a whole lot faster than I can type.

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There was an interesting article on homeschooling for Muslims in one of our local papers this weekend. in the article, Julia Duin (an awesome reporter on the religion scene) links to Kinza Academy out in California. According to Kinza's website, "Islamic educational philosophy rejects the idea of teaching a child before the age of seven and specifically tells us to let children play."

Last year, when my employer was engaged in a California lawsuit regarding homeschooling, there was an amicus brief filed by the Seventh-day Adventist church claiming that its founder, Ellen G. White, believes that children under the age of eight should be taught by their parents at home rather than being educated in a formal school setting. She believed that during the first six or seven years of the child's life, special attention should be given to his physical training, rather than the intellect. "Up to [age 8] children should be left, like little lambs, to roam around the house and in the yards, in the buoyancy of their spirits, skipping and jumping, free from care and trouble."

I am in some sympathy with these views, but I think both Addie and Stuart have benefited from the formal instruction we have given them already.

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And that's all from me. Happy Monday!

-- DJ