Time to Get Moving

Have you noticed the change in the season yet? It’s August, and here in the Northwest the crickets are beginning to make themselves heard each evening. In spite of some very warm days yet to come, the nights are becoming increasingly cooler. The sun is setting a minute or two earlier each day. School is scheduled to begin in just a few weeks, sooner for some.

Are you ready to start?

Are you kidding?

I think the hardest thing for many of us, at least for me, was that I expected covid to behave like most flu’s. Here for a while but peaking after a few weeks and then fading into the background. Pretty much gone by July so we could enjoy a summer without fear of catching it. Now that we’re approaching the end of summer, we know that’s not the way things played out, reopening’s notwithstanding.  We’re all facing an uncertain future and in spite of our own personal circumstances, we have to move forward. Our children’s education requires this.

I’m sure you’ve heard Newton’s First Law of Motion in one form or another. The  basic idea is that an object at rest stays at rest while an object in motion tends to stay in motion.

Ever have to push a car that has run out of gas to the side of the road? The hardest part is the initial boost needed to get the car moving. But once it’s moving, each successive push gets easier and easier. Eventually the car might even begin to coast.

Getting moving with home schooling in this era of covid 19 requires that we accept that things are far different from what we ever dreamed they would be. But the task is still the same. We commit to doing it, take that first step to creating and implementing a plan, and then follow it day after day.

Easy?

No!

Newton’s first law concludes with this insight: “unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” As horrible as the pandemic is that we find ourselves in, I wonder if it might serve as a “force” that calls out that something within us, that required act of the will, that needed decision and the subsequent follow through, to press forward. Again, our children’s education requires this. And frankly, with the civil liberties we’ve all conceded, home schooling still remains that educational platform that transcends academics. It is a means by which we can communicate and reinforce our faith and worldview to our children.

This year especially, extend a lot of grace to yourself, your spouse, and your children. We’re all going to need it.

Thanks for reading!

Curt Bumcrot, MRE

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