What Was I Thinking?

Oh, man. I feel like such a slacker. My last blog post was back in the doldrums of February. What have I been doing to neglect blogging for so long? There is no good excuse, except that the self-imposed pressure to be interesting and relevant sometimes makes me shy away from writing. I don't want to bore my readers with mundane details of school life, unless that is what you are all really interested in reading. I don't want my blog to be a journal or a diary, but something thoughtful and insightful. Let's see if I can produce something along those lines here today... The other day I was part of a discussion the included veteran elementary teachers. It was interesting to hear one of them say that she had noticed a change in her students over the past 10 or so years, in that some young children seem to have less of what the Bible calls  childlike faith . When asked why this might be true, other teachers talked about how their students are worried about things like the po...

So, it has been a while since I have blogged. There are some people who blog every day. I have so much other writing to do, that blogging is not at the top of my list of things to accomplish on most days. For example, I am thinking as I write this that I need to write this week's script for the elementary chapel skit. That can be time consuming. I also have recommendations to write, summaries of meetings, birthday cards, proposals... There are things that have to get done and then there are things that ought to be done. This blog is in the latter category. I was away last week for three days attending an ACSI conference for administrators. I wasn't super keen on going and it felt wrong to be driving north on Interstate 95 on Wednesday morning while staff and students were driving that same route south to GGCA. Fortunately, God had prepared some excellent speakers for those three days and I was given much to ponder in relation to our school and its future. I had an opportun...

WHAT? It is DECEMBER?  ALREADY? But it is going to be in the high 60s today... [Sigh.] I am sitting in my new office pondering. "Where did the time go? How is it that a month has passed since my last blog entry? Is it possible that we are having a kindergarten open house tonight for parents who would like their children in GGCA next year at this time?" When I was a boy, the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas were like the biblical "day as a thousand years," and filled with anticipation, excitement, and energy enough to light up a city block's worth of Christmas lights. Now the days are too short, and by the end of the day I feel like maybe I could light a votive candle. Thank God for the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Comforter is also the Quickener and He enables me to do what needs to be done and to find joy in it. He is always there to listen to the concerns of my heart and to provide a place of rest and peace in the midst of ...

A couple of weeks ago before the big storm you may have noticed that I was not standing out on the sidewalk on Monday and Tuesday morning. On those two days I was in Dallas, Texas at a conference sponsored by Summit Ministries, an organization that promotes teaching young people and teachers apologetics and biblical worldview. The conference began Sunday evening and ended Tuesday afternoon and featured speakers such as John Stonestreet, Jeff Myers, and Del Tackett among others. There were some big ideas that I took away from this conference. The world is flooding our culture with a myriad of non-biblical worldviews and aggressively promoting them through many avenues to our young people. You cannot shelter you child from the world's messages. We as believers have to be as aggressive as the world is in promoting our biblical worldview to our children. We do not want our message to be just one among many and to be drowned out. Children need to be taught our biblical worldview ea...

So, we are back in school after three days of Hurricane Sandy cancellations. I like knowing that God always has a purpose behind what He allows to happen in our lives. These days off were good for Mr. McFarland who has been under the weather with some sort of respiratory virus. Yesterday's extra day off helped us take care of some minor storm related water problems in some of our elementary classrooms where the wind drove rain under doors and, somehow, over windows, to create dampness. It was much easier to deal with these issues without the students in the classrooms, and the school is as good as new again today. Today I set foot into a classroom again as a math teacher, something I have not done for some time. I will be reviewing the three basic trigonometric ratios and teaching students how to solve real world problems using these ratios - How high is the tree, the building, the airplane? How far away is the airport? How long is the shadow? All that fun stuff. Mr. Neil Braganza,...

I love autumn. I love how the weather is warm in the daytime and cool in the nighttime. I love that my lawn grows more slowly so I can mow less often. I love that apples and pumpkins come in season and the foods that are made from them. I love the smell of something baking in the oven and sound of soft things tumbling in the clothes dryer since those two appliances warm my home as they work. I love adding another blanket on my bed and moving my sweaters to a higher, more accessible drawer in my bureau. I love the golds and rusts of the changing leaves and the crickets serenading me to sleep. Yes, I love autumn. We are well into the first quarter here at GGCA. I counted fourteen and a half school days until grades close, the half day a remnant from when Harvest Night was planned to be on a Friday; it is on Saturday now, October 27. We have begun meeting with parents about academic concerns now that progress reports are out. Athletes are on academic probation if their grades are too low ...

It has been so long since I have blogged here. I have been busy since my last posting, getting school up and running and teaching my Essentials of Teaching class on Friday nights at Maryland Bible College & Seminary. I have a blog going in that class too. September was a month of activity. We started off with a Back to School Night spaghetti dinner, and then followed it with Picture Day, Spirit Day, two Pizza Fridays, along with all the usual office planning work for outreaches, field trips, the annual Senior Retreat, and the special Institute for Creation Research seminar on October 12. I felt the stress of doing so much with just the four of us here in the office, popping ibuprofen caplets for the pain in my shoulders and praying the staff would not mutiny and set me adrift in a dinghy. October has arrived and I pray that the seas will be calm and the breezes mild so the Good Ship GGCA can sail along without fear of being capsized or driven upon some rocks. I look forward...