She's Due Tomorrow

My dear sister is due tomorrow, but her first baby was over a week late, so we'll see...

Doesn't she look lovely?

My apologies for neglecting my blog lately.  We are in the middle of communion season now, and next week I am heading to the Midwest for a week to visit relatives there; so I will probably continue to neglect this poor blog until early next year, when I'll try to catch up on my backlog of "things to post."  And I do have things to post-- psalm recordings, photos, and more.



(In my absence, you might keep an eye on the "recent comments" gadget to the left, as we've had some interesting comments and links posted lately.  Though be forewarned--the gadget doesn't always update right away.)

FCC Psalm Recordings, and a Useful Link

The other day, I was sent the link to the Aberdeen Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) website.  The Aberdeen FCC site has midi files of *all* the psalm tunes from the psalter we use, which is the 1992 version of the split-leaf psalter published by the Free Church of Scotland.

Aberdeen Free Church Continuing--Online Media

I was very pleased to receive this link, as I've had trouble finding audio files of psalm tunes in the past.  I was also pleased to discover, on this site, a few recordings of the psalms being sung.  You'll find three recordings at the very bottom of the page linked above; and click on the "Psalmody CDs" link in the sidebar to find two more recordings, samples from CDs that this church has produced.

The recordings from the Aberdeen FCC site are excerpts from Psalms 36, 68, 85, 112, and 136.  I've added them to this post, which is an index of all the psalm recordings I have been able to find online.

Also, you might have noticed that I've added a "psalm singing" page to my blog (see the tabs at the top).  There's nothing new at this point--just a player with all of the psalms that we have recorded here at our monthly psalm singings, plus a link to the post with the index of psalm recordings; but I thought it might be useful to have that info quickly accessible at the top of the page for psalm-singing fans. :)

November Psalm Sing

After a few delays, we finally got around to hosting another psalm singing gathering last Saturday.
 
We had a really nice time of singing and visiting with our dear friends, some of whom we haven't seen in a while; Jett and Evelyn and their children were here, and Joseph and Carolyn and their children had just flown in from Colorado. After the singing and visiting we had dinner, dessert, and family worship together. 

We worked on three tunes: St. Lawrence, St. Mary, and St. Neot, which we sang to Psalm 72, Psalm 22, and Psalm 69, respectively.  As usual, we had lots of beautiful little children present :) and you'll hear them playing in the background.

We were missing two of our bass singers, so we had to shuffle some people to different parts, but Jesh (who always knows best) thinks that we blended pretty well with the new arrangement.  Still, I missed hearing Sam sing tenor.




As always, you can download these recordings to your own computer at www.archive.org/bookmarks/snikwad.

Why I Didn't Vote

I've always felt a little uneasy about voting for the "lesser of two evils" in our country's elections, but it wasn't until I went through a membership class at the RPCNA (Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America) that I finally became fully comfortable with abstaining from voting.  The RPCNA has a strong history of political dissent, and while their stance has changed slightly over the years, the RPCNA Testimony still has some interesting things to say about the Christian's responsibilities regarding voting.

Here is a blog post I came across the other day, by Rev. Eshelman of the RPCNA, that quotes the relevant portions of the Testimony.  I haven't done any exhaustive study on the topic of the establishment principle (though I intend to, someday, when I get the time), so I reserve the right to change my views in the future, but for the time being, I would say that I am in agreement with the portions of the RPCNA Testimony quoted in this blog post.

A Reformed Voter's Guide

Edited to add: see the comments section for a link to another article with similar conclusions, this one written by an FP.

Excellent Lecture on Christian Education

My brother Caleb, knowing that I would be interested, sent me the link to this lecture by Rev. David Silversides of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland.  Mr. Silversides argues for the necessity of a Christian education for our children.  I stayed up late after the children were in bed to have a listen, and it was worth it.

Do We Need Christian Schools?

Mr. Silversides made some excellent points.  Here is an outline of his lecture, copied and pasted from Sermon Audio:
______________________________________________

The argument and emphasis presented here is for the

consistent godly nurture of our children which

necessarily involves a strictly Christian education.

Positive and biblical reasons are given, and some

objections to an exclusively Christian education are

answered.

Some basic questions:

1. Who tells us what to do with our children?

2. Who does God hold responsible for the care of his

children?

3. Is the nurture of children ever neutral?

4. Does the bible say we must have schools?

5. If we have schools must they be Christian ones?

Some objections:

- The hot house objection. Are you not creating a

hot house for your children?

- Won't children rebel against such a stifling

stricture?

- Are we not in danger of doing the Holy Spirit's

work?

- State education didn't do me any harm.

______________________________________________

I especially appreciated Mr. Silversides' handling of his third point, and his responses to the objections (not all of which are listed in the above outline).

Let me know what you think!

Half an Hour of Unschooling

You may have heard me say that I'm "unschooling" my boys for the time being, except for our more structured studies in Bible and math.  Have you wondered what "unschooling" is?  I'll give you a hint--it's what most parents are already doing with their small children: talking to them and showing them things--only kicked up a notch or two.  Check out this post on our new homeschooling blog for an example.

Half an Hour of Unschooling

I hope you all have an excellent Monday!

New Homeschooling Blog

Hello friends,

A few homeschooling moms including myself have started a new blog about homeschooling. 

Our goal is to open a little window into the lives of several different homeschooling families, so that anyone who is interested can see what homeschooling is really like.

We do this for several reasons: firstly, in hopes of dispelling a few persistent and inaccurate stereotypes about homeschooling and homeschoolers; and secondly, in hopes of inspiring and encouraging those who are thinking about homeschooling, and those who (like me) are just getting started and could use some ideas.

The authors come from different sizes and sorts of families in the UK and US, and no doubt our homeschooling methods vary quite a bit, too.  But what we all have in common is our Reformed Christian faith, which motivates and colors all that we do.

I'm looking forward to reading the new posts, aren't you?  Go ahead and bookmark the link, or follow in your favorite reader.  I'll post the link on my "other blogs" page.

Training Up Our Children

Whenever I get around to writing up a "Why I Homeschool" type of post, I'll post that here as well as on the homeschooling blog.  But all the nitty-gritty details about homeschooling and its challenges will go on the other blog.

I hope you all have an excellent Friday.  I know we will; it's sunny, breezy, and cool (low 70's is the forecast).  And we're going to the library today!

Where did October go?

It's nearly the end of the month.  What happened to October?  I just looked at the date of my last post and realized that it's been almost two weeks.  And I haven't written a post of substance since the beginning of the month. 

I guess there are a few reasons I haven't posted much.  For one thing, comment reading/writing/re-writing/moderating has kept me busy.  The couple of posts that I have written have gone into my already-full "drafts" folder to be mulled over for a while.  And last but not least, I've been busy making things.

I made this

 and this

 and this

 and these.

 This one I sold in my Etsy shop to some guy in Finland.

I work exclusively with recycled materials.  The above items were made with yarn unraveled from old sweaters (great way to get quality yarns dirt cheap, by the way).  I have a blog about crafting with recycled materials, actually, but I haven't posted much yet; and besides, I haven't made up my mind whether I will keep it on Wordpress, or go back to Blogger where it was originally.  Once I make up my mind, I will add the link to my "other blogs" page.

In other news, we will finally be having another psalm sing next weekend.  All being well, we will have a few more recordings to post. :)

Must run get little boys ready for tonight's prayer meeting!

Three things

Firstly, I've been playing around with the design of the blog.  Do you love it?  Hate it?  I haven't made up my mind whether I like it or not.  I reserve the right to change it again without notice.  That header will probably change, for one thing (but isn't that a cool hawk photo?  My mom took it).  Sorry if the changes are disorienting, and I promise that within a few days, I will settle on a final design and then leave it alone for a while. :)

Secondly, on several occasions I've gotten comments that said, in part, "Feel free to edit this if you need to."  For the record, I can't edit comments.  I can only accept or reject them as is.  If I think something needs changing, I will have to e-mail you and invite you to re-write and re-submit it.  Sorry about that.

Thirdly, I've added a page entitled "Homeschooling Resources."  I will be linking to websites and books that I have found useful, and explaining why I like them.  I hope this page will be of interest to those of you who are homeschooling young children, or plan to.  I'll be listing more resources there soon, so stay tuned.

Education: Three Points to Consider

My wise brother has pointed out that there are really three separate questions to consider when thinking about the education of our children, and that when people discuss the subject, the three questions sometimes get muddled together, when they really ought to be kept separate.

So here are the three questions.  What do you think?


1. Should the education of our children be explicitly Christian?  As a sort of sub-question, one might consider, can an education really be neutral?
2.  Can a child be taught as well by his parents as by a professional teacher?
3.  The question of influence: does the child influence the school, or the school the child?

In case you couldn't guess, my answers would be:
1. Yes, and no.
2. Yes.
3. The school influences the child.


What do you think?