I have spent much of my life in mild mockery of the Amish and their “backward” ways. I am repenting those views. The Amish can teach me and the rest of our country the power of RESTRAINT.   To choose to … Read More

The importance of simple living and choosing not to keep up with consumerist culture was discussed in the previous blog in this series. Exploring a similar subject of privilege, read the critique raised in the quote declaring the privileged life is not … Read More

Consumerism keeps us anxious and unsettled. The goal of modern marketing is literally to make us feel displeased and inadequate in our life. No matter how much we buy, and no matter the number of trinkets and opportunities our kids … Read More

Streaming live through our television sets, social media platforms, and lunchroom gossip trains provides an abundance of global news and information we are unable, and most of us not supposed, to do anything about. Alas, with this global awareness can come … Read More

In World Wars I and II, the United States adopted what was called Victory Gardens. Every citizen was encouraged, as their civic duty, to grow food with any and all possible ground. Doing so, America not only fed itself, but much … Read More

We have grown so used to the idea of work separated from normal life that we routinely use the phrase “work-life balance.”   The dysfunction of this way of living is exacerbated even more fully when we similarly segregate the learning … Read More

As a people, we have celebrated the mechanical and technological defeat of hard work. Releasing ourselves and our children into lives of physical leisure, we have also released ourselves into boredom, obesity, laziness, and a deep sense of purposelessness.

Community must be familiar, familial, and multi-generational.

Kids cannot form true attachments to large organizations, institutions, or social movements. Neither can they receive an education from them. A child can learn some things from large entities, but they can only receive an education from known mentors.

Our society dishonors the old because we have learned to look to popular culture and peers for the life direction and wisdom once provided by older generations.