Reaching for the Moon

"If you're wrong, do we get a cookie?" asked my helicopter team, weary of testing yet another rubber motor for yet another helicopter.
If only all I lost every time I was wrong was a cookie, I think I'd be more willing to be wrong. But if cookies were to be the motivation for my helicopter team to finish strong in the race to Science Olympiad gold, so be it. I thought about giving some sort of motivational speech, but decided cookies were easier to hand out than words at that point. The State Science Olympiad contest this weekend could not come a moment too soon. If it arrives after the sugar high wears off, we are doomed. We all want to win, but it has been a long season with many long hours and even perfectionists lose steam.

I reach for the moon alot. One who reaches for the moon is bound to come away at times empty handed. This is not in the Bible, but it should be.

I was very sad to read that NASA has informed its already depleted astronaut staff that the chance of them going on any more outer space flights to the moon is "slim to nil."  A paltry few will be allowed to tag along on the Russian shuttles to the International Space station, but the future of any shuttle program here is dim. What will happen to all the young boys and girls who want to grow up to be astronauts? What happens to their dreams?

We are reading about the incredible era in US history when President Kennedy who was elected because he was by  far the most handsome man in the race, challenged us to have a man on the moon before the Communists. This is because the entire Western world was fearful of the Outer Space Domino effect, which meant that if the moon became communistic, one by one other heavenly bodies would topple to that form of government, and eventually, the sun itself would have to be addressed as "Citizen Sun Comrade." Subsequently, the daylight hours would have to be evenly distributed equally to every single inch of  land on Earth. This of course would require that the earth be unrolled since it would be physically impossible for a sphere to have an equal allotment of Citizen Sun. This would have cataclysmic repercussions, not the least of which Columbus would be wrong, the world would indeed be flat, and all our geography books would need to be revised. Thus, President Kennedy, being an excellent motivator, besides being handsome, urged us to "Hie thee to the moon!" pronto.

Our nation's eager and intellectually gifted children complied, took their science class a little more seriously, and in the end prevented the entire universe from being engulfed behind the Iron Curtain, planting a US flag on lunar soil first. At that time, we collectively reached for the moon and grasped it. Sometimes I wonder if our nation is worn out, tired of being a beacon of hard working, sensible, reasonable, altruistic, and noble aspirations. I think we may all be crumbling into a bunch of whiners who just want a cookie.

This is not to imply that my helicopter team is whiney. They are weary, but they worked their patooties off for 3 hours on Easter Sunday reaching for the moon....and for cookies.

Deuteronomy 33: 13-15
  “May the LORD bless his land
   with the precious dew from heaven above
   and with the deep waters that lie below;
¹⁴ with the best the sun brings forth
   and the finest the moon can yield;
¹⁵ with the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains
   and the fruitfulness of the everlasting hills;

The contest

I read the fine print. ohoh.  The beautiful and very creative art work Asherel had spent 8 months producing might not fit exactly into the allowable materials. As she slept, unaware of the mounting despair in her mother, I emailed the contest organizers. The State organizer wrote back to say she interpreted the rules as allowing the material Asherel had chosen, but she could not promise the National organizers would, should Asherel advance beyond the state level.

I looked more carefully at the rules of the two other art contests Asherel is entering, and realized that the questionable technique in one contest was definitely allowable in the other. And the other had a bigger cash prize. The other was also a much more challenging contest, at the national level, and I am pretty sure it is adults, not children producing the past winning art in that contest. I know that as a  50 year professional artist (read: has sold at least one piece of art), the winners in that contest draw better than I do. Still, this piece Asherel was working on was one of the most creative techniques I have ever seen, all bias aside. The problem was the due date was in 4 days, and Asherel was not done with the piece that had already taken 8 months. She had anticipated another month of work.

"Can you finish it by tomorrow if I let you work on it all day?" I asked, when she awoke and I presented the options. She nodded.

Her all day art marathon was interupted frequently- Bible study, math, Gavel club, lunch, dinner, dog walking job, dog training for the upcoming agility contest......

Autumn is beginning to sparkle in Charlotte. I took the dogs on a walk, leaving Asherel bent over her art, and  noticed the leaves were suddenly riotously colorful. Out of nowhere, after a few days of glum, grey rain, the sun had made a brief appearance and I had dashed out to a world with splashes of orange, red, and yellow dotting my way. How beautiful, and how suddenly it all appeared out of the drabness! When I returned, Asherel was still bent over her artwork.

When Daddy walked in the door that night,  and asked if she wanted to play Mario Cart, she heaved a deep sigh and said, "I have to finish this. I have been working on it 10 hours straight."
Now while that is an exaggeration, it is not far off, and I heard many more deep sighs as I sat nearby reading, trying to give moral support by my presence. I will not tell you what the technique is because the element of creative surprise is crucial in this work, and I wouldn't want to spoil that for her til all her contests are over. However, suffice it to say that the process is exceedingly tedious and labor intensive.

Around 9:00, she lay down, the work propped on her knees. She continued working from this supine position. More heavy sighs.
"You don't have to enter this," I reminded her, "If it is just too much, we can enter it in the other contest and you will have another month to finish."
"No" she said, "I can be done by 11."
So I kissed her goodnight, and I went to bed, dubious.

This morning, though it was only 6 am, I couldn't sleep anymore. I had to get up and see if she had finished. I knew it was hardly possible given the difficulty of the process and how much she needed to do in so short a time. I dashed out. There it lay on the table, complete. Splashes of beautiful color and perfectly rendered form with exquisite detail, as lovingly and carefully completed as it had been started. I wished I could write the judges and tell them what monumental effort this art work had taken, the months of labor, and then the impossible spurt at the end. But it is not a character contest; it is an art contest and by artistic merit alone will it be judged.

I would not want the job of those judges- sorting through the gifts of so many young artistic souls. I could no more judge the beauty of one fall leaf over another than attempt to judge the lovely offering of one child over another, especially knowing what I know of how one child struggled to do her best. I know she may not win, and in some respects, it might then feel like it was all in vain. But excellence is its own reward and I am quite certain that the artist of the Autumn is smiling His approval.

 Colossians 3: 23-24
²³Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, ²⁴since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Duck, duck, goose

The burly young man quickly sketched in his goose and then began to apply the thick layer of pastel.
"Wait!" I called out, and my student stopped mid stroke.
"Before you apply the pastel, which can't be easily corrected, is your drawing as good as you can make it?"
He glanced at it.
"For example," I said in the silence of a teachable moment, "Right now you have drawn the body beautifully but look at your photo of a goose. See that long, snake like neck? You have drawn a duck neck."
"I like ducks," he said, and began to apply the pastels.
"Stop!" I begged, "You can do this. It is not a duck. It is a goose. Look at that long neck and correct your duck. Make him a goose."
The young man flipped to a clean sheet of paper.
"You don't need to start all over," I advised, "Look at the curve here. You  have made it an opposite curve. Do you see that?"
He did.
"And now just lengthen and skinny up that neck..... then you will have a goose."
He sighed, and I suspected he didn't believe me. Also, turning his duck into a goose would require some effort and he wasn't quite sure it was worth it. After all, he didn't have to tell a soul that what he was really trying to draw was a goose, not a duck. But I knew he could do it, and I knew every time he looked at his duck, he would see a failed goose if he didn't deal with it.

He made one of the changes and then began to color in with pastel again.
"Not yet!" I called, "It is still a duck neck!"
He again sighed and this time put aside the pastels, and one by one, began to apply the corrections.
A few minutes later I glanced over.
"That's it!" I exulted, "Now you have a goose!"
"Yes," he agreed, and smiled as he began to color it in with his pastels, finally.

I try to get away with ducks when what I really want is a goose too, so I understood his hesitancy.  Settling for less than what is our best or sometimes what we know is right is much easier than correcting and striving for excellence. It eeks into every moment of life if we let it, that tendency to settle for less than what we know we should. Yet in the back of my mind, every time I do that, there is a nagging conviction that I have let the fullness of what life could be slip past me.

In the book of Revelations, God chastises His people not for sin, but for being "lukewarm".  He would rather have us be hot or cold than just complaisant. It is true in faith, in worship, in relationships, and in drawing geese.

Revelation 3:15-17 (New International Version)

¹⁵I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! ¹⁶So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. ¹⁷You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.

Count it All Joy

A pervasive lesson in our homeschool, usually in the form of strong admonition, is that Asherel joyfully and willingly and completely obey and do what she is told. I have to constantly remind her that "partial obedience is NOT obedience", and "grudging compliance is not compliance."

Over and over again until I am blue in the tongue from all its wagging, I remind and beg that she endure the trials of school with joy, and contentment, and excellence. Lesson after lesson, story after story, I try to convict her lovely spirit that you reap what you sow, you get what you put in, you cast your net and gather the fish.
This morning, as in all mornings, I said, "Now I would like you to do your math."
This morning, as in all mornings, her jaw dropped open and her face registered horror as though I had just asked her to behead her dog.
This morning, as in all mornings, I then said,"Immediately and willingly, please."
But this morning she responded, "Oh I AM willing! Actually, my eyes were bulging with happiness."

I love the book of James, which I will paraphrase here:
Hey dude, if you dare call yourself a believer then why are you sitting back and so selfishly just trying to grab all the cookies in life? Life is tough, and it isn't about you, turkey. If you claim to love God, then do what He tells you. Love others, do good, and do it without complaining. I will be sending you alot of curve balls, and I don't expect you to just be standing around waiting for the pitch you like. Get in there and swing for all you are worth, and prove that you trust me. That is the only way to win the game.

So it may have been in jest, but I consider it progress, and my eyes are also bulging with happiness.