Well, we just got back from Dan, Sam, and Micah's basketball game. It is a fun way to spend a Friday night. I am convinced that we live in a small microcosm far removed from the rest of the world in this new millennium. Let me explain.
A few years ago, we had just lived through what seemed like the worst series of national tragedies that anyone could imagine. Waco, Columbine, the Gulf War, 9-11---it seemed like televised, hellish scenarios just kept coming at all of us faster than we could emotionally or intellectually process.
On a personal level, going through a divorce and being left with 3 little boys to raise alone did not make my world seem any more secure, either.
By early 2002, I had remarried, but I was one nervous person when it came to the upbringing of my kids. I had gotten to the point that I did not want to send the three boys to public school any more for a number of reasons. We had been wrestling with situations like drunken, irresponsible bus drivers, complacent and incapable teachers, and the attitudes of our own kids who were so dissatisfied with the public school system that it was affecting their grades and their health. No one in this house was happy.
One by one, we pulled our three boys out of the public school system. We decided to try our hand at home schooling. It was an experiment with mixed results. The kids eventually decided that they thought that they liked the socialization that came from being with other kids. (In other words, it was boring being home with old Mom all day.) We also found that each child had a different learning style, and we were having a hard time hitting on a curriculum that suited all three.
When I became pregnant with Hannah in 2003, things went from bad to worse, and I eventually had to have both a c-section and a bowel obstruction surgery within a week of each other. The combination left me close to dead. I surely was in no shape to teach 3 lively boys.
In the fall of 2003, we decided that we would try something new. We put the older two boys in a little private school in town that used the American Christian Education (A.C.E.) curriculum and was Bible-based, obviously. Micah, the youngest boy, returned to a public school that was given big kudos by other friends and members of our community. We figured that he should not have the pressures yet that the older kids had experienced in public school with things like sex education and evolution crammed down their throats by godless teachers with anger management problems. Luckily, he got the teacher of his dreams, and he sailed through the year with flying colors.
We anticipated that we might have some problems with the private school, since most of the students and the administrators and teachers were Baptists and we were not. We voiced our concerns early on that we wanted our kids not to have to participate in anything that would violate their conscience, as we generally find that our values are more conservative than nearly anyone's these days. What we had no way of knowing was how close the standards of the school were to our own personal convictions about the way that young people should be educated and raised. In some ways, their practices were more conservative than those of our own brethren!
We were delighted to find early on that this school held up the highest of standards in dress and behavior, among other things. Young men dressed in collared shirts and young ladies wore skirts and dresses. Our boys regularly were called upon to memorize blocks of scripture and recite it. They were a little baffled as to why they had to work from the King James version of the Bible only, but I told them that they would not die. I had memorized from that translation all my life until the NKJV came along. When I helped them get their homework, I found that the text of the books reinforced principles from the Bible. It was nice to diagram sentences with Daniel that spoke of characters in the Bible. It was wonderful to see Creation taught the way the Bible reveals it. Special lecturers were brought in to further reinforce that we live on a young Earth--one that was created in 6 days a few thousand years ago---not an Earth that just happened to fall out of the galaxy several million or billion years ago. Again, it was funny to see the Baptists be "right on" about something that we cannot even agree upon in the church.
(Just an aside here. The other day, as a boy at the school worked in his lesson books, he read that some people profess that we come from monkeys. He raised his hand and asked the teacher if we came from monkeys. She told him to open his Bible and read Genesis chapters 1 and 2. Now what do you think a public school teacher would have told him? And even if he had been told the right thing, he surely could not have opened his Bible in class and read about it anymore!)
Perhaps one of the most delightful discoveries at this little school came when our boys made the basketball team. As we began to attend games, we found that modest dress was carried into the gym at this school as well. Our boys played ball in long sports pants and modest jerseys. The cheerleaders wore the cutest little dresses that covered their thighs clear down to the knee, and when they cheered, they cheered---not dancing and gyrating like so many of their contemporaries. They looked like cute little girls--not street-walkers. They conveyed innocence and school spirit--not sexuality.
As the team warmed up, and throughout the game, theme songs from 50's and 60's t.v. shows were played. It had been forever since I had heard the theme from Gilligan's Island or Mayberry played in a setting like that. There was no hard rock with lyrics to make you blush. The smell of funnel cakes and popcorn and hotdogs and hamburgers further served to make the atmosphere warm and inviting. Games started with a prayer, and men removed their hats. Young men shook hands with each other, the refs, and the opposing coaches before a ball ever bounced.
Our team was o.k but not spectacular. We won some games, and sometimes we lost. But it was o.k. Our boys were learning sportsmanship and skills that would take them into this year as better young men. Somehow, against all odds, we fought our way clear to the State Tournament for private schools and won it in our single A division. A little school with less than 100 students in grades K-12 had made it all the way!
So this year, Dan and Sam returned for their second year, and Micah joined them. All three tried out for the basketball team. We warned Micah that he should not get his hopes up, as they only had room for 15 players, and being in 5th grade and only 4' 8" tall, he might not "measure up." When the roster was complete, all three boys were VBA players! I have never been so proud to see all three of them out there shooting layups before the game---little Micah heaving them up twice as high as he is to sink them right along with the big boys. Daniel and Sam are such good big brothers, respecting the "little guy" that stands waist level on them as a fellow teammate.
I hesitate to sum up tonight's game by saying "We lost," as that is not entirely accurate. Daniel got out there and played the whole game without being pulled once, despite the fact that he had the flu and was doing well not to pass out the entire game. He "sucked it up" and gave his all against a team that has beaten college teams. In fact, half the team had a virus, and there were a lot of sick-feeling boys out there who "sucked it up" for the team. I don't think I have ever been more proud of Daniel on the court, because I knew how much it was costing him to be out there. In the end, the other team was 15 points or so ahead of us, and a lot of parents were left wondering if things would have been different if the flu had not ravaged us tonight. But none of us can leave too disappointed, because we are blessed people to have sons like ours whose character was probably built a little bit more tonight by losing than it would have been built by winning.
We'll see this team again at State in two weeks. They will probably be expecting the team they played tonight. We will have a few surprises for them, hopefully. The competitor in me would love to see this team take State again in Daniel's senior year. It is doubtful if he will play college ball, so this is it for him. Whatever happens, I am just enjoying the ride life is providing right here, right now in our own little Mayberry. And as Andy would say to Opie, I can say to each of my boys---- "I'm proud of you, son!"
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