Another busy week. Still fighting with insurance for the home repairs, and I'm not gonna write any more on that because it makes me mad to think on it. Work was work, I've settled into a good rhythm with it. Every day I set aside my rebellion and my desire to pull an Uncle Ted, I muzzle myself up, and go earn my wages. And every day I meditate on how to make life better at their expense.
I'm enjoying learning about my father's name line. When I'm satisfied with that, I'll start learning more on my mother's name line. But I'm liking my old Huguenot ancestry. I think I might make my first tattoo a Huguenot Cross. I'm liking exploring antiquity to help define myself, though I know that what I'm made of doesn't necessarily rule my existence. Just an aid. The Huguenot cross isn't only relevant because of the faith of my 17th century ancestors, I was raised a Calvinist Protestant and still claim it myself. There's even at least one early colonial Presbyterian preacher man in my line. It's a deep heritage that I'm glad my parents chanced into as they raised my siblings and I. It worked out well for me, I'll say that.
(Source)
The Huguenot Cross is a symbol of religious loyalty - a religion so strong that it did not even fear the stake. Descendants of the Huguenots are not allowed to forget their origins nor to consider their religion as being something superficial. The Huguenot Cross is not only beautiful and symbolic, but possesses the added charm afforded by the romance of history and tradition. It recalls a period of valor, constancy, faithfulness and loyalty to truth. It is becoming more and more a sign among the descendants of the Huguenots throughout the entire world.
(Source)
Family drama of late has had me focusing on my failures as a parent and trying to do something about them. It's not easy recognizing my faults, and it's even harder to correct them. Not only do I have to fix myself, I have to repair any relational flaws in my relationship with my wife and three rambunctious spawn. It's daunting, and honestly I'm not sure where to start. But I'm working on it by reading a book called Tending the Heart of Virtue. It's a small book on how to use classic stories and fairy tales to instil virtue in your kiddos. I recommend it.
To go along with the book, I picked up a small book of Irish fairy tales. This one is printed for Barnes and Noble, and bound with leather. For $8, it's a really good quality book. They had much larger anthologies from Irish culture, Norse culture, Native American culture, and I think Greek culture as well that were $25 apiece. I'll be saving up for each of them. My mom gave me another book called The Moral Compass with similar stories that my parents used to read us as kids. I remember liking them a lot, and I intend to start reading the stories to the kiddos.
Here's a paragraph from Tending the Heart of Virtue that I really found relevant. I've always thought this, and only really was able to define it in similar phrasing in the last couple of years. There must be an objective true base, or else nothing matters, and I refuse to cede to nihilism. Relativity is a pit that I cannot abide. Yes, there are subjective aspects to life, but there also must be a solid truth. Many folks blend that talk with talk of the Divine, but I haven't developed that discussion enough to do so. I just know that morality (not morals), trumps ethics. Here's the paragraph:
The kiddos start homeschool next week. Melissa has spent this week preparing her lesson plan for the coming semester. I'm encouraged by everyone leaving the public education system in this time of crisis to get their kids learning in a constructive way. Our community has really stepped up to the plate for the kiddos here. The school co-op we're part of is really neat. The classes have a weekly meeting, and dues are charged monthly. Most classes are $20-30 a month. Any supply costs are paid at the start to cover books, art kits, or whatever materials are needed for the class. The church hosting has waived their building use fee for this year as the co-op gets started up, but it would come out to a few bucks a month when divided up in the group. This semester they're all elective and enrichment courses, no core classes like math or science. None of the few people willing to teach was comfortable with a core curriculum, which I kind of like because we've already picked a curriculum for our own kids. It's fun seeing free market replacements for public systems, and imagining how the new system can function. I'm thinking next semester about teaching a fairy tale class, but this semester my work schedule is prohibitive.
On the note of work, there's some really unheard of things happening. We're calling people back from layoffs. To my knowledge, that's never once happened in the months before a US presidential election. As a result of the increase in production, I'm hoping I can get back to my old position on the overnight shift. The money is better, the work is easier, and that shift was the next best thing to day shift, where I am now. I don't remember night shift being completely awful, especially with the considerations of much easier work and much more money (almost an extra day of pay per week). After taking a thousand dollars a month in pay cuts over the last year, I've realized how much that extra money can help - however crooked our society's relationship with money has become. With a different work schedule, if be more able to teach a class at the kids' co-op.
Speaking of co-ops, there's a fridge that plum full of milk. Man Scouts (what we call my men's group) has developed an interest in raw milk, so our small co-op has expanded to a few of the man scouts. Exciting, as more folks are getting in on it and improving the well being of the group. We've also started distributing pastured eggs that are raised by a fellow scout nearby, and another scout has started making homemade artisan bacon! In the group, were setting up special deals for the community so that we can all benefit and save money while increasing the quality of our lives. We're trying the best we can to get a community centric system like an old system. A way that supports abundance and resilience better than our current individual-centric system that even divides families. Working in our ability to repair our society. Y'know, so we're doing something about all that stuff we all like to complain about.
Now, how can I set up my life such that I can sit around and read books always? Cause someone wrote a book about okra, and I need to read it too. While I read about parenting. And read stories. And read to the kids. And read my Bible. And read blogs.
Any ideas? 😉
Love from Texas
Nate 💚