In Memory

I have not had much energy or ability to post this past week. FMS is the culprit.

Still, I've summoned up at least enough to put up a post to remember those who have died for our country and our freedom, as well as those who serve, both past and present. I am always thankful for their service. For me, Memorial Day is much more than a three-day weekend.

Uncle Jack and Grandpa...thank you.

Irreplacable

I think God lets us be parents so we can see a little of His perspective.

Tonight was a very special night. My eldest daughter received a surprise I had promised earlier today when we were driving to the hospital for her scheduled surgery. She felt anxious about the procedure, but arming herself with knowledge, she faced her fears. That is why I felt that she was mature enough to receive my gift: a hand-written journal that I started when she was two years old. Nine years have passed. Entire years have passed between some entries. Yet, when I gave it to her tonight, it was as if I had given her something more precious than all the rare earth you can buy. I guess that in a way, I have.

In the movie Pretty Woman, Richard Gere plays Edward Lewis, a bachelor who is rich beyond most people's dreams. The funny thing is that he's not happy. Part of the reason he's not happy is because of his rejection by his father by leaving him and his mother for another woman, precipitating his mother's death. He deadpans that it cost him thousands of dollars of therapy just to say that he "was very angry with his father." His own efforts as a businessman allowed him to acquire his father's company and sell it off piece by piece, destroying his father's professional legacy.

Hundreds, if not thousands or millions of Edward Lewises have discovered that the emptiness of wealth is a poor substitute for the love of a father. By giving my children the love of their father and some regular personal investment, I hope to lead them past that particular snare that traps so many. Life is hard enough, don't you think?

Tonight as never before, the meaning of 1 John 3:1a is fresh and real to me.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

If you've had a good relationship with your father, you are blessed. If you haven't, you're never too old--or too young--to start fresh and redeem the lost years with your father or with your children. But the most important part is to let your heavenly Father love you first. After all, you can't give what you don't have.

Guns -- Fox Two, Or Fox And Hen?

You know, it's kind of interesting that both of my other posts today involved guns, one showing the damage from using one and the other advocating an armed populace. For some folks, that might be a non sequitur. The problem is that they focus in on the gun, not the user of it. In Hamoody's case, the gun that did the damage to that little boy was wielded by a homicidal zealot. In Idaho, guns are carried out in the open by young men who probably wear it while they're mowing a neighbor's lawn and loading a van with groceries. When you compare the Muslim zealots to the Idahoan boys on how they value human life, who do you think comes out ahead?

Power will always exist. Who has it and who wants it determines the future of nations. If someone is empowered, pray that they are moral and just, and do your best to instill these traits in those around you. Our military retains those traits, Abu Ghraib notwithstanding. Our police officers, at least those near us retain those traits. It is a much different story in other countries.

I will finish with a quote just in from Mike Evans,

The same ideologues who fought to destroy the soul of America with the “God is dead” movement in the ‘60s are now running the arts, the universities, the media, the State Department, Congress, and Senate, determined more than ever to kill the soul of America while the East attempts to kill the body.

Idaho Homeschoolers Take Second Amendment Seriously

Fox News just did a piece on two Idaho homeschool students who are doing what it takes to help people remember that an armed, moral society is better than a relatively disarmed, immoral one. One student has a rifle in the back of his pickup. The other packs a pistol. They both know what it means to defend law and order and how an immediate deterrant is more effective than all the gas chambers and electric chairs in the world.

Back in the 80s, I remember a very good slogan, and its logic and honesty helped preserved the US Constitution's Second Amendment. It said, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." Would shootings still happen? Maybe, but because the odds are evened up by an armed populace, a shooting would involve far fewer victims and more citizens protecting themselves. I'm not saying the Second Amendment will save our society. It simply provides a framework that empowers the individual and allows them to do as they see fit.

We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.

-- John Adams

For America to be truly great once again, this "religious and moral people" needs to return to it's roots and it's religion. Then we will be worthy of our freedoms.

Rebuilding a Face, and a Life

Somewhere in Iraq two years ago, a 2 year-old little boy was with his family, who are Shiites, when they were ambushed by Sunni terrorists. Muhammad Hussein, or Hamoody, has spent the last two years--half of his life--with doctors trying to restore as much as possible from what a shotgun blast at close range took from him: a face. He had a surgery by doctors in Everett, Washington that has undone what Iranian doctors tried to do and reformed his face with bone, screws and other hardware. Thankfully, doctors were able to re-form his nasal passages, allowing him to breathe while he sleeps.

Young, blind Hamoody has a face permanently disfigured by terrorists who think it's a brave and honorable thing to shoot 2 year-old boys. His is a face that will be one of many if we continue to allow Syria and Iran to destabilize Iraq. Worse, Americans might be numbered among those similarly injured if we pull the plug on Iraq and allow terrorism to flourish.

Sleep well, Hamoody. You're safe here.

HT:MM

Weekend Viewing

Michelle Malkin at Hot Air shines the light on the Planned Parenthood underage scandal. Truly, some journalists are more equal than others.

No Guarantees

I was reading an article from Fox News about the "Barbie Bandits." The teens admit to making poor choices and at least one of the moms made a ver sobering observation.

Johnston's mother, Lisa Johnston, wept as she told ABC how she had hoped to instill positive values in her children by doing something special with them every day.

"I hoped that would instill and pretty much guarantee me wonderful adults," she said. "But I guess there's no guarantee."

There really is no guarantee, even if you homeschool your children. But there are always things you can do to change the odds.

Video: Public Schools - Do They Crush Creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson gave a speech at TED 2006, a conference on Technology, Entertainment and Design. While I'm unaware of his politics, Sir Robinson has an amazing ability to engage his audience and convey his point of view. His thoughts on whether the public education system kills creativity are much along the lines of my own. I believe we would diverge in how to foster better creativity, but I would encourage every homeschooling parent to watch this 20 minute video. I will come back below the video with some concluding thoughts. Please, take the time to watch it.



Sir Robinson is right. The public education model was designed to meet the needs of the industrial revolution. It was not designed to create great poets, artists, dancers or playwrights. What amazes me is the quantity of entrepreneurs and other creative thinkers that are coming out of homeschooling. Could it be the individualized education opportunities, the self-motivated learning, or the student to teacher ratio? In a word, yes. Homeschool students are among the first to be able to work in a flexible education environment in over a century in America. Creativity is embraced and parents have the option of teaching them dance, pottery and music on an equal footing with math, language, and science. While Sir Robinson is on a quest to see this change in the public schools, it is happening already in homeschools across the nation. I believe homeschooled children will be better equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century because, in part, they are more creative and capable of articulating their ideas.

Father Returns Home

A friend sent me this video. This little boy's reaction touched me on so many levels. Words fail me.

Falwell and Christianity

So, Jerry Falwell is dead. God alone is his judge, but I wonder what kind of reception he will have when he arrives in heaven. I will say this about the man. He went to his dying day doing what he believed was right. Anyone who’s done that for a period of time will find that he has fewer friends than enemies. He wanted to fight moral decay in America. Perhaps his greatest legacy is the thousands of young minds that pass through the doors of Liberty University. I know at least one classmate who graduated from there. Still, I have always been put off by his particular brand of Christianity. Perhaps I never gave it a close enough look, but I think I understand why God did not let me follow in the footsteps of Falwell.

It may be a strange coincidence, but I found a quotation of Rich Mullins taken from a concert only a short time before his death in 1999. For those who don’t know, Rich has been a formative influence on my faith and my worldview. He was on a wonderful journey, and it was something I wanted for myself.

Jesus said whatever you do to the least of these my brothers you’ve done it to me. And this is what I’ve come to think. That if I want to identify fully with Jesus Christ, who I claim to be my savior and Lord, the best way that I can do that is to identify with the poor. This I know will go against the teachings of all the popular evangelical preachers. But they’re just wrong. They’re not bad, they’re just wrong. Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in a beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.

I didn’t go searching for this quotation. Believe what you want, but I believe God caused me to come across this. It’s starting to bring a lot of my last few years into focus. Depending on what God has called them to, people who commit to following him will voluntarily place themselves in positions where they love the poor, and they love the broken. Some who would not choose this for themselves—people like me—have it thrust upon them. I do not believe that God would take away all of our possessions. Yet, what has God called us to? He has called us most importantly to love him and to love each other as we love ourselves. It’s difficult to profess to love someone without identifying with them.

In 1987, I spent another week of summer vacation at a small Christian camp outside of Denver. I had just come out of a school where I was not exactly the most popular. I had come with the desire to make a fresh start and enjoy my time there. You wouldn’t believe it, but it happened. I had a great time. People were looking to me as one of the more popular kids. It was intoxicating, really. It was actually my first test of power, so to speak. I was being myself and I was having a great time. Friday morning rolled around and before we all went off to activities, I was cornered by three girls. They asked me if I knew Audrey from their cabin. When I wasn’t sure, they said that she was the one with the artificial arm. Instantly, I knew her. She was one I noticed often in the cafeteria. I had contemplated how much harder everything would be at camp if I had the same handicap. I wondered how often she got teased. When I nodded, they told me quite bluntly that she liked me and wanted to go with me to the Friday night formal, but she was too afraid I’d reject her.

I knew how things worked, that my popularity could be ruined by being seen with her at the formal. The shoe was now on the other foot. Would I return the cruelty I had learned from so many years of living on the outside? I couldn’t do that to her. I knew her experiences in form, if not the specifics. I told them I would think about it, but I already knew my decision. That evening, while we walked under the stars, I put my arm around her, knowing that I had done some good by giving her an evening with a simple wish fulfilled. If anything, I knew that she would have one experience that wouldn’t pull her into the dark hole of rejection that I had known for years. I can’t claim that I romantically loved her, but I took some steps in her world and sacrificed whatever prestige I had to let her know that she was just as worthwhile as I was.

What I did was love her enough to care about her heart. God raised me from inferiority to superiority for that week just to let me bless His beautiful, worthy daughter. It wasn’t me, though. Jesus was walking with her under the stars. He’s the one that changed me enough to have compassion with those who have been cast aside and left alone. If I had never felt rejection, my heart would likely have been indifferent to her. Jesus loved the poor and the broken because he knew people’s hearts and the pain they felt at each rejection. He had compassion. Through His working in my heart and through His loving me, I was able to love her in the way we’re supposed to love each other. It shouldn’t be unusual for people to do this, but it is.

“Love one another as I have loved you.”

Living With ADHD

My wife told me that she had recently seen an episode of Super Nanny where the nanny, Jo Frost, had to familiarize a mother with her son’s world. Her son, you see, suffered under attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She handed the mother a magazine article and asked her to read it. Once she started, Jo had all the other kids come into the room and begin making messes. Next, the nanny turned up the TV to its loudest setting. A few minutes later, Jo came into the room and asked her what the article was about. The mom, understandably, had no clue about the article’s content. Jo said, “that’s exactly what your son has to deal with every day.”

In addition to my physical limitations, I have been “gifted” with the diagnosis of ADHD. Couple that with a visual learning disorder, and you have a kid that barely made it through school. The visual disorder was difficult to detect. I could read just like every other student, but I couldn’t retain much of the information I had read. So, for example, if we had a test and the review had been a reading assignment or a study guide, I would have trouble passing that test. On the other hand, if we would review in class with a question and answer format for some other review involving my ears rather than my eyes, I found it easy to get a an A. We didn’t really catch on to my learning disability until I was in seventh grade. Once we discovered and corrected the problem, all of my grades improved significantly.

Likewise, my ADHD changed a lot as I continued to work on improving my concentration. I learned, with quite a bit of difficulty, how to direct my mind through little exercises as I looked to extend my attention span. As a result, most people don’t realize they’re dealing with a former student who was once recommended for special education classes.

I still have the ability to allow my brain the freedom it needs. For example, my wife asked me earlier tonight what was on my mind. That was a big mistake! I quickly rattled off four or five things completely unrelated to each other. For example, I was wondering how to build a racing sled using belt sanders and how to distribute the power safely but effectively. In the next moment, I was contemplating a new dessert topping: chocolate syrup with chocolate sprinkles already in the syrup. At almost the same time, however, I was wondering if the director of the remake version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory made the right decision by using Deep Roy as the Oompa-Loompa or if they should have used Verne Troyer or a digitally-reduced Jim Carrey. In the end, I concluded that the casting for this role was probably correct in the first place. I guess I like the Jimmy Durante look about him.

All of this was enough to set my wife’s head spinning. She obviously was expecting me to make a logical graduation from one thought to another. That doesn’t always happen. I channel surf my brain sometimes as an alternative to simply letting it wander. Speaking of, if we had an “invisible fence” to keep our mind from wandering, what would that look like?

Brokeback Mountain Didn't Play Well In Chicago

Readers' Note: I try not to hit too many "Can you believe this?" stories. Too many web readers suffer from what I call "outrage fatigue." There is just so much indignation we can muster before we concede and surrender. This one just really sticks out to me, even more than the recent sixth grade teacher gun scare farce. I warn you that I rant a little in this post.

Parents must be involved in their child's education if they have any hope of raising a capable and stable individual. As such, they have a right to question what is going on in their child's school or district. Some even have the ability to level a lawsuit because of a lapse of judgement. Such is the case in Chicago where the Board of Education has been named in a lawsuit by an eighth grader and her parents. They have also sued the principal, a Ms. Jewel Diaz, and a subtitute teacher named Ms. Buford. What did they do? Ms. Buford showed the class a movie called Brokeback Mountain.

Those who have seen the film or read the reviews don't need to be told that the film confronts sexual issues that would best be tackled by parents, the legal guardians of their children. Did that stop Ms. Buford? Of course not. She had the class for that period and they were going to learn what she wanted them to learn. According to the article,

The substitute asked a student to shut the classroom door at the West Side school, saying: "What happens in Ms. Buford's class stays in Ms. Buford's class," according to the lawsuit.

I wonder where she got such a catchy phrase. It sounds akin to what so many internet predators say to their victims, "Don't tell your parents." Such abuses depend on secrecy and shame, and the only way to defeat the abuse is to expose it. If what the suit alleges is true, it's obvious that Buford knew what she was doing. Whether the child was truly traumatized is immaterial to the fact that the parents' rights (in her case, her guardians' rights) were violated. Parents have a right to know what their children are learning in school.

Unfortunately, they don't have a whole lot of control, unlike most homeschooling families. This is what it's broken down to. Unless you want your children exposed to same sex kissing in the halls, Darwinian evolution taught as gospel, and pet projects that involve raising your children to be Marxists, you don't want your kids in public school. I have a feeling a lot of parents don't want all three. Even more parents probably don't want teachers molesting or raping their children, I would wager. Yet this is what happens there. Is the NEA concerned? Nope, they're leading the charge. One education analyst put it to me very bluntly: The NEA is looking to turn the children in their schools into little liberal Democrats. I would add that they're getting paid with our tax money to do it.

I will say it again: Parents have a right to question what is going on in their child's education. Even better, I hope and pray that more parents will take such an interest in their child's education that they begin to educate them from their point of view. Maybe a few will even end up homeschooling.

This World Is Not My Home

Every day, I see that this world is not my home. I may live here, but I am about as alien as they come. I’m a Christian, a father, a husband and over age 25. It seems as if everything this world and in particular its media Is making fun of me, trying to tempt me or scare me, get me to judge other people or appeal to my baser instincts.

For example, I walked into a Blockbuster today. I recalled when I went in that I hadn't gone inside one in at least five years. Immediately, I also remembered why I had not done so. No, it wasn’t a mountain of late fees, although I’m as guilty as the rest of us in earning those fees. Instead, I was confronted with the wasteland our entertainment industry has become in the last twenty years. My children were looking just to spend a gift card, and they got an eyeful of raunchy, gross, disgusting DVD jackets. And that was just the children’s section. OK, I was kidding about that last part, but I think any person over the age of 30 can attest to that decline. I understand that tastes change and new subject matter must be generated or the content gets stale. But that doesn’t justify the wholesale slide we have taken into the muck. If I need to cite examples, I can, but I don’t think most people would have trouble believing my point. I was glad to leave the Blockbuster as soon as we could with a newly purchased, previously abused DVD that I knew was okay for my family to watch.

But I don’t need to look at movies alone to see that this world isn’t my home. I find it odd that a government would restrict children from praying in public schools because it might possibly be construed as an endorsement of a particular sect, and yet, when students shoot up a school cafeteria, the first thing any public official says as consolation seems to be a variation of, “Our prayers are with you.”

I am mystified when it’s announced that some corporation’s employees will spend hours in sensitization classes discussing how to make our Muslim co-workers more comfortable, when another employee is reprimanded for having a Bible on their desk. I almost wonder what one has to do to get their religion some respect in the workplace.

Christians are constantly insulted, put down and flat-out lied about in the media, but when Christians in Sudan are massacred wholesale, the media doesn’t lift a finger. I’m amazed when Don Imus gets fired for calling a girls basketball team “nappy-headed hos” (words borrowed from rap artists themselves) and yet other artists and celebrities insult Christianity and make their bread and butter by it.

Why, when pregnant women are murdered, does the criminal face two counts of homicide, yet a doctor can perform a "procedure" in nearly any public hospital, take that fetus’s life in cold blood, and be paid to do it? It doesn’t make sense to me.

I’m not a huge Anne Coulter fan, but I think she has it right when she ridicules schools for handing students condoms and telling them to "be safer" and in the next breath students are told that it’s immoral to litter or fail to recycle. The school system stigmatizes one thing and not the other. It could be a moral choice to recycle, but I know that abstaining from sex is also a moral choice. How can we fail to teach them about abstinence and yet insist they pick up the trash? Ms. Coulter was right: Maybe we should teach them “safe littering” instead, because it seems to be more practical.

Pornography, lewd and lascivious behavior and sexual entertainment are available so readily in our society and the Ten Commandments are ripped out of courthouse lawns as fast as the ACLU can file a suit. This also doesn’t make any sense to me. Incidentally, God wasn’t joking when he said, “Do not covet your neighbor’s wife.” Men have enough trouble with that one already, and we are making it more difficult. I say "we," because we as a society allow it to remain available from every cable jack, internet connection and, just in case we missed anyone, pay-per-view satellite. Again, this place is not my home.

If it were, I would be a native, absorbing and contributing to the “culture of death,” as Pope John Paul called it. Instead, the summer I turned 18 years old was the summer I embraced my faith wholeheartedly, deciding that I was going to worship God with my life, no matter what my peers thought of me. In fact, I can remember the specific worship service I chose to do so. It was while we were at a Christian school competition nearly 16 years ago. That experience was one of the most memorable of my life, and it was because I chose God before everything else. This world is not my home, and I'm homesick.

---

For more on the double standards of Conservatives vs. Liberals, here's a good op-ed.

Reasons To Homeschool #4

Reason To Home School #4
Teachers Specialize In Subjects While Parents Specialize In Children

The graduated primary school environment dictates that one teacher take one class for one year, because the teacher specializes in the material for that grade or that subject. They don’t specialize in the student, however. They have less than a year to successfully teach each child the subject matter, yet they have no history or familiarity with the way each student learns.

As a result, the curricula attempts to compensate for this by teaching the same things over and over in different presentations so that visual, audible, and tactile learners can all get something out of the lesson. This is a waste of time for the student, and it's usually why most of us remember being bored in school.

The parent, by contrast, provides the continuity necessary for their children to grow and thrive. For five years or more, the parent spends time with their child , builds a relationship with their child, understands their child and has worked with their child long enough to know their strengths and their weaknesses. While they may not know all there is to know about the subject being taught, they specialize in their child. The concept of homeschooling is based on the fact that expertise in one subject or age group is not as important as expertise in one child.

FamilyMan: Listen To the Tingle

Todd Wilson, the FamilyMan, has a special ministry to homeschooling parents and especially to dads. Here's his latest report from the road...

Hey Dad,

In RV-ing, as in life, God often causes a little tingle to creep up the back of the neck that should NOT be ignored, informing you that what you’re about to attempt is NOT a good idea---especially when you’re behind the wheel of an RV.

I experienced the tingle from God a couple of days ago as I looked at the steep incline into the Denny’s parking lot. The tingle definitely said, “I wouldn’t try that if I were you---yep, looks like a mighty steep angle---your hitch is going to drag big time.”

I heard every word, but we were hungry and Denny’s was looking good, so I went for it!

A few seconds later, I was stuck solid and my wheels spun like I was on ice. I tried backing up---no good. Rocking---nope.

Quickly, I jumped from my seat, pushed open the RV door, and ran to the rear of the RV to see the foot of the trailer buried 4 inches in the asphalt.

“Oh, man, I should have listened to the tingle,” I thought.

Just then a police officer walked up to me and said in a very perturbed tone, “You just had to pick the busiest time of day and the busiest street in Pittsburgh to get stuck.”

I looked up and saw three lanes of traffic both ways---and I was blocking at least three of them. All the faces I could see had the look of - what an idiot!!

Already a couple of Pittsburghians had squeezed by and shouted out a welcome to their fine city---but I can’t repeat their kind words.

The policeman wanted to call a tow truck, but I was already hacking at the asphalt with a hammer and screwdriver. Hey, if I could get a mama raccoon and her babies out of my ceiling---I could get this trailer unburied.

It took about 20 minutes, but (by God’s mercy) we got the trailer separated from the RV, the pin pulled from the hitch (which was also below grade), and the RV up the ramp and free from the asphalt’s evil grip.

That was close. It could have been bad---and expensive.

As it turned out, nothing was damaged, and I learned a valuable lesson: listen to the tingle.

I also feel it when I’m about to lose my cool and say something to my wife or children that I shouldn’t, look at things that men shouldn’t look at, or go certain places that men shouldn’t go.

The tingle is a gift from God to stupid dads to save them a heap of hurt.

So take it from this RV-ing dad…listen to the tingle.

You ‘da Dad,
Todd

Ah, if only I had listened to the tingle a few nights ago. I was so upset that I didn't care. I fired away at my wife when I should have gone to cool off or prayed or...something else. That cost me an hour or so of working things out and a big apology to boot. Guys, do not ignore the tingle, that little check that says, "Are you sure you want to do this?" Do not click Ok on that little button in your heart. Click cancel and slowly back off. It's so much better than digging your trailer hitch out of the asphalt or rebuilding your relationship with your family.

Gianna Jessen - A Blessing In Disguise

On May 8, 2006, one year ago today, a lie was confronted on the floor of the Colorado State Legislature by Ted Harvey, then a state representative and now a state senator. He confronted that lie in a very unique way that God himself seems to have orchestrated. It's worth remembering today. In Sen. Harvey's own words...

I want to share with you an awesome experience I recently had in the Colorado House of Representatives. It is a humbling experience to look back and realize that God used me to play a role in His divine orchestration.

I was leaving the House chambers for the weekend when our Democrat Speaker of the House announced that the coming Monday would be the final day of this year’s General Assembly. He went on to state that there were still numerous resolutions on the calendar which we would need to be addressed prior to the summer adjournment. Interestingly, he specifically mentioned that one of the resolutions we would be hearing was being carried by the House Majority Leader Alice Madden, honoring the 90th anniversary of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

As a strong pro-life legislator I was disgusted by the idea that we would pass a resolution honoring this 90 year legacy of genocide. I drove home that night wondering what I could say that might pierce the darkness during the debate on this heinous resolution.

On Saturday morning I took my eight-year-old son up to the mountains to go white water rafting. The trip lasted all day. As we were driving home, exhausted and hungry, I remembered that I had accepted an invitation to attend a fundraising dinner that night for a local pro-life organization. One of my most respected mentors had personally called me several weeks earlier and asked me to attend, so I knew I’d have to clean up and head over.

After our meal, the executive director of the organization introduced the keynote speaker. I looked up and saw walking to the stage a handicapped young lady being assisted to the microphone by a young man holding a guitar.

Her name was Gianna Jessen.

Gianna said “Hello,” welcomed everyone, and then sang three of the most beautiful Christian songs that I have ever heard.

She then began to give her testimony. When her biological mother was 17 years old and 7 ½ months pregnant she went to a Planned Parenthood clinic to have an abortion. As God would have it, the abortion failed and a beautiful two-pound baby girl was brought into the world. Unfortunately, she was born with cerebral palsy and the doctors thought that she would never survive. The doctors were wrong.

Imagine the timing! A survivor of a Planned Parenthood abortion arrived in town just days before the Colorado House of Representatives was to celebrate Planned Parenthood’s “wonderful” work.

As I listened to Gianna’s amazing testimony the Lord inspired me to ask her if she could stay in Denver until Monday morning so that I could introduce her on the floor of the House and tell her story. Perhaps she could even begin the final day’s session by singing our country’s national anthem!

To my surprise she said she would seriously consider it. If she were to agree, she wanted her accompanying guitarist to stay as well. A lady standing in line behind me waiting to meet Gianna overheard our conversation and said that she would be willing to pay for the guitarist’s room. Gianna then said that she would think about it.

As I was driving home from the banquet my cell phone rang. It was Gianna and she immediately said, “I’m in, let’s ruin this celebration.” Praise God!

When Monday morning came, I awoke at 6:00 to write my speech before heading to the Capitol. As I wrote down the words I could sense God’s help and I knew that this was going to be a powerful moment for the pro-life movement.

Following a committee hearing, I rushed into the House Chambers just as the opening morning prayer was about to be given. Between the prayer and the pledge of allegiance I wrote a quick note to the Speaker of the House explaining that Gianna is an advocate for cerebral palsy. I took the note to the Speaker and asked if I could have my friend open the last day of session by singing the national anthem. Without any hesitation the Speaker took the microphone and said, “Before we begin, Representative Harvey has made available for us Gianna Jessen to sing the National Anthem.”

Gianna sang the most amazing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner that you could possibly imagine. Every person in the entire chamber was completely still, quiet, and in awe of this frail young lady’s voice.

Due to her cerebral palsy, Gianna often loses her balance, and shortly after starting to sing she grabbed my arm to stabilize herself, and I could tell that she was shaking. Suddenly, midway through the song, she forgot the words and began to hum and then said, “Please forgive me I am so nervous.” She then immediately began singing again and every House member and every guest throughout the chambers began to sing along with her to give her encouragement and to lift her up.

As I looked around the huge hall I listened to the unbelievable melody of Gianna’s voice being accompanied by a choir of over 100 voices. I had chills running all over my body and I knew that I had just witnessed an act of God.

As the song concluded the Speaker of the House explained that Gianna has cerebral palsy and is an activist to bring awareness to the disease. “Let us give her a hand not only for her performance today but also for her advocacy work,” he said. The chamber immediately exploded into applause…she had them all in the palm of her hand.

The Speaker then called the House to order and we proceeded as usual to allow members to make any announcements or introductions of guests. For dramatic effect, I waited until I was the last person remaining before I introduced Gianna.

As I waited for my turn, I nervously paced back and forth praying to God that he would give me the peace, confidence and the courage necessary to pull off what I knew would be one of the most dramatic and controversial moments of my political career.

While I waited, a prominent reporter from one of the major Denver newspapers walked over to Gianna and told her that her rendition captured the spirit of the national anthem more powerfully than any she had ever heard before.

Finally, I was the last person remaining, so I proceeded to the microphone and began my speech:

“Members, I would like to introduce you to a new friend and hero of mine-- her name is Gianna Jessen. She is visiting us today from Nashville, Tennessee where she is an accomplished recording artist.

She has cerebral palsy and was raised in foster homes before being adopted at the age of four.

She was born prematurely and weighed only two pounds at birth. She remained in the hospital for almost three months. A doctor once said she had a great will to live and that she fought for her life. Eventually she was able to leave the hospital and be placed in foster care.

Because of her cerebral palsy her foster mother was told that it was doubtful that she would ever crawl or walk. She could not sit up independently. Through the prayers and dedication of her foster mother, she eventually learned to sit up, crawl, then stand. Shortly before her fourth birthday she began to walk with leg braces and a walker.

She continued in physical therapy and after a total of four surgeries, she was able to walk without assistance.

She still falls sometimes, but she says she has learned how to fall gracefully after falling for 29 years.

Two years ago she walked into a local health club and said she wanted a private trainer. At the time her legs could not lift 30 pounds. Today she can leg press 200 pounds.

She became so physically fit that she began running marathons to raise money and awareness for cerebral palsy. She just returned last week from England where she ran in the London Marathon. It took her over 8 ½ hrs to complete. They were taking down the course by the time she made it to the finish line. But she made it none the less. With bloody feet and aching joints she finished the race.

Members would you help me recognize a modern day hero…Gianna Jessen?

At this point the chamber exploded into applause which lasted for 15 to 20 seconds…Gianna had touched their souls…

Ironically, Alice Madden the Majority Leader and sponsor of the Planned Parenthood Resolution walked over to Gianna and congratulated her.

As the applause began to die down I raised my hand to be recognized one more time…

“Mr. Speaker, members, if you would allow me just a few more moments I would appreciate your time.

My name is Ted Harvey not Paul Harvey but please let me tell you the rest of the story.

The cause of Gianna’s cerebral palsy is not because of some biological freak of nature, but rather the choice of her mother.

You see when her biological mother was 17 years old and 7 ½ months pregnant she went to a Planned Parenthood clinic to seek a late term abortion. The abortionist performed a saline abortion on this 17-year-old girl. This procedure requires the injection of a high concentration of saline into the mother’s womb which the fetus is then bathed in and swallows which results in the fetus being burned to death, inside and out. Within 24 hrs the results are normally an induced still-born abortion.

As Gianna can testify the procedure is not always 100% effective. Gianna is an aborted late term fetus that was born alive. The high concentration of saline in the womb for 24 hrs resulted in a lack of oxygen to her brain and is the cause of her cerebral palsy.

Members, today we are going to recognize the 90th anniversary of Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood,”

BANG! The gavel came down.

Just as I was finishing the last sentence of my speech…The climax of the morning…The Speaker of the House gaveled me down and said, “Representative Harvey, I will allow you to continue your introduction but not for the purposes of debating a measure now pending before the House.”

At which point I said,

“Mr. Speaker I understand, I just wanted to put a face to what we are celebrating today”.

Silence…Deafening silence.

I then walked back to my chair shaking like a leaf. The Democrats wouldn’t look at me…they were fuming. It was beautiful. I have been in the legislature for five tough years and this made it all worthwhile.

The House Majority Leader wouldn’t talk to me the rest of the day.

Was it because I introduced an abortion survivor, or was it because we touched her soul? She could congratulate an inspirational cerebral palsy victim and advocate, but was outraged when she discovered that the person she congratulated was also an abortion survivor.

The headline in the Denver Post the next day read Abortion Jab Earns Rebuke. The Majority Leader is quoted as saying "I think it was amazingly rude to use a human being as an example of his personal politics,"

Yes Representative Madden, Gianna Jessen is a human being. She was when she was in her mother’s womb and she was when she sang the National Anthem on the Floor of the Colorado House of Representatives.

The paper went on to quote Gianna Jessen, stating she was glad Harvey told her story.
"We need to discuss the humanity of it. I'm glad to be able to speak up for children in the womb," she said. "If abortion is about women's rights, where were my rights?"

Leslie Hanks, one of the matriarchs of the pro-life movement in Colorado, was in the House Chamber that morning and told me that it was the single greatest moment she had witnessed in the State Legislature in the 20 years that she’d been lobbying in the Capitol.

All I can say is, “Glory to God!” He orchestrated it all, every minute of it, and I was so honored to have been chosen to play a part. May we all continue to be filled with and to fight for the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ!

In His service,

Ted Harvey
Assistant Minority Leader
Colorado House of Representatives

If Colorado legislators were going to blindly support Planned Parenthood, an organization founded on the failed and reprehensible ambitions of Margaret Sanger and her delusions of Malthusian eugenics, then I think it's only fitting that Gianna Jessen was there to represent their legacy of abortion and destruction of mankind. Today on the anniversary of the confrontation, I choose to celebrate Ms. Jessen's life and the richness of heart and spirit that God has blessed her with. As someone who also struggles with a disability, I find that her story fills me with hope that God will use me too.

Other thoughts and links on abortion:

• Walden's Wits - Sanctity of Human Life
• Gianna Jessen's homepage (office alert: music plays automatically)
• CNS News article
• Truth of Fiction confirmation
• www.AbortionFacts.com
  

17 Homeschoolers, 2 Parents, 1 Home

A very positive story about the Duggars from Little Rock, Arkansas. When I saw that the mom was having baby number 17, I thought that they might be homeschoolers. Sure enough, they are!

Now just watch the leftist neo-freaks go nuts about this. Sigh...

Reasons To Homeschool #3

Reason To Homeschool #3
Placing a Child in a Classroom Usurps the Role Of the Parent

A vandal broke into a school recently and broke several things in a classroom. The teacher based in that classroom was interviewed by a member of the media. During her short interview, she touched an issue that is universal to education models based outside the home. She said that she was distraught after finding the vandalism because the room “is my kids’ home, or their home-away-from-home.” She spoke more truth than she probably intended. She calls her students her kids. She identifies her classroom as her kids’ home. In practice, class-based schooling replaces the home and its members with its own model. The teacher is the parent or authority figure, the class members the siblings, the lunchroom the kitchen, and so on. This has far-reaching implications.

The first day of school for most young children is usually exciting and also a little scary. Questions abound. Will they still have the same friends? Will they get to sit next to them? Will the teacher like them? That last question is perhaps one of the most significant. Students will bond each year with their teacher to some extent, sometimes forming a lifetime bond. Whether or not this is appropriate is not so significant until you contemplate whose bond is this replacing. The parent is no longer the person with whom the child spends time. Instead, the child spends most of their time with a teacher, someone the parents know little about. Has the teacher come from a balanced, healthy environment? Do they have similar beliefs and lifestyles? Even in an interview, parents always have the chance of being duped by a teacher, who knows what the parents want to hear. I'm not saying that all teachers have a rotten worldview or that they all intend to pass on a view to the student that's inconsistent with their parents. But the odds of 13 teachers all matching the same worldview and intent are far too remote to even consider.

This brings up another problem. With 13 years education, the child bonds with each teacher for the school year and then separates from the teacher at year end. While this may be acceptable as the child gets older, young children experience an expected yet sometimes traumatic loss, particularly in the first few years. Over time, however, the child learns to anticipate these losses and prepares for them. Why should they face that loss? Only in the most dysfunctional environment does a worker find themselves working under a new boss every year. What purpose does it serve by forming bonds and then institutionally breaking them each year? It’s not natural to do this. How does that trauma help the child? It is a wound, not a blessing. Even if the specialization of grades were a fact, do we exchange primary doctors in the same way? Not usually, and not if the goal is giving the best care.

Children were designed to bond with their parents as a natural pattern. Indeed, at age 5, they are not usually standing at the door begging to be set free from their parental bonds. Fewer still are ready at age 4, an age that falls under the brackets of universal pre-school, a promise made by liberal congressmen and women. Their goal seems to be to get teachers with the children as early as possible. The question must be asked: Why?

More reading on bonding with parents:

• NIH 1997 Study of Parental Bonding (Abstract)
  
• Early Parental Support And Adult Health, APA (pdf)
• Edutopia - The Home [&] School Team
  

If Knowledge Is Power, Homeschoolers Traffic In Both

How much of your Junior High history do you recall? Do you remember the Hindenburg disaster? How about where it happened or how many died? Do you remember ever seeing the film of the disaster?

A different version with audio

The Hindenburg zeppelin crash 70 years ago today led to the widespread abandoning of lighter-than-air ships as a method of transportation, even though helium, a non-flamable gas was and is used to fill the few modern blimps that exist today. It was a watershed event that shaped the future of aviation. It was that significant, yet few today remember the Hindenburg or what its demise meant.

The fact that so few remember it today tells me that this and other events both major and minor are discarded in the memory of the American people. It's not all that important to remember who we are or what we were or what we've become, is it?

Parents, especially homeschooling parents, need to help their children understand why history is so important, why the path behind us helps us interpret today and forecast tomorrow. Few today know Iran used to be called Persia, much less why Iran is now a Islamic theocracy. I doubt even if the majority of the people in America know why we need to pay attention to Iran and what they are doing with their uranium. They are likely clueless about the teaching of Dar el-Islam that says any territory once conquered by Islam belongs to Islam in perpetuity, or what that implies for the rest of the world. I would welcome being proved wrong.

Sir Francis Bacon said, "Knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect."¹ It's critical to the future of humanity that the knowledge of the past does not falter in the human mind. Past generations of the great American experiment understood this. An educated populace is despised by tyrants and power seekers. It makes them more difficult to control. This is why some people don't like homeschooling. It removes the possibility of one entity to control the flow of knowledge and the perspective on history. I am concerned that as homeschooling grows more popular, such people may possibly ramp up their efforts to neutralize such movements. I would welcome being proved wrong on this as well.

Thankfully, homeschoolers are fiercely independent. Efforts by homeschooling pioneers and activists like Treon Goossen to keep homeschoolers informed are paying off, although with the current legislative bodies for the state and nation are very resistant to certain ideas and very open to certain organizations like the NEA. Homeschooling parents are compelled by such bodies to remain part activist, part teacher, not unlike their publicly-funded contemporaries. It's unfortunate, but it is the price of freedom to homeschool without the state dictating what they can and can't do.

It's easy at the end of the school year for homeschooling parents to forget that they wield enormous power in their children's lives. They just want to get to summer and take some time off. We must remember how important our jobs are and what we are accomplishing every day. Our students will impact the world in small and large ways. It may take years to see this, but even now, results are encouraging.

Tony Snow On Cancer And His Faith

I just received the best quote in a long time that restores perspective for our lives. It comes from White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, who is battling a recurrance of his colon cancer. When answering impromtu questions from the media about how he has been doing, he said, "I am actually enjoying everything more than I ever have." And then he said, "God hasn't promised us tomorrow, but he has promised us eternity."

How can you top that? Perhaps it speaks more to me because of my having to cope with a disability, but really, abled or disabled, that's what it all comes down to.

Inspiring.

Child Sacrifice vs. Stay-At-Home Moms

It’s amazing to me how liberals will defend foreign cultures, even when it comes to child sacrifice (see comments), and yet criticize their own culture when it runs contrary to their own lifestyle choices. Such is the case today when MSNBC--that bastion of conservatism--uncharacteristically published an analysis on what mothers should earn for all they do in the home. The comments, especially the first few, are appalling. You’ve got to wonder if their moms are reading what they write. My guess is probably not. The irony is that with all the “advances” that the feminists have brought modern society, they have cheapened the role of motherhood.

School Administrator Sends Error-Filled Memo Home to Parents

As a homeschooling parent, you don't have to look far to find the holes in the sinking ship of public schooling. Sometimes it just shows up in your daily reading. If I were a parent in that district, I would already be pulling my eighth grader out of class and bringing them home for the year. Our first areas of study would be English and spelling. And the NEA is concerned about "well-meaning amateurs?" It appears the NEA itself needs some summer school.