Thus is the man blessed who fears the LORD. Your sons will be like olive shoots around your table. NIV Psalms 128:3-4

The kindergarten teachers along with Krista Allison put together a royal kindergarten graduation ceremony on Monday evening. Running a little late from the events of the day, I arrived to discover the auditorium filled with parents, siblings, and proud grandparents. It was hard to sneak in unobtrusively especially when you are taking part in the program.

The students did what they did best, looking “cuter than a puppy under a little red wagon on Sunday,” as Tennessee Ernie Ford used to say. As each student had their moment in the spotlight, I could hear the murmured sighs of joy coming from one family and then the next. The slide show was melting hearts right and left as images of innocence paraded by. Any number of tissues were consumed during the evening as all bore witness to a year of spectacular growth and change in these young children. If nothing else, the evening highlighted what a treasure each little life represented and how it was such an honor and privilege to have shared in one year’s life of a child. And to see your children awake from your dreams is a feeling only a parent knows. The cameras were rolling and a ton of digital images were preserving the moment.

Of course, these were the very same children that barely a few months ago had so provoked their parents that they were tempted to pinch their little heads off. Moms and dads were squaring off and telling each other to do something about THEIR offspring, blaming each others genes for any and all behavioral problems.

Now that is family life for you: proud as punch one day and ready to rip an arm off to beat someone over the head with it the next. But time has a way of smoothing out the bumps, and when we stand back and get a glimpse of the big picture, we are amazed at what God had done and is doing through it all. We are participating in the very act of creation, growth, life, and blessing. For every one inconvenience, late night sickness, broken lamp, or scene of public embarrassment our children bring, we stand amazed at the grace that takes us through it all. Growing up is not a neat and clean affair. But it is powerful as we see it bring into being a story all its own, one that has never been told before since the beginning of time. And we were there.

So it is looking back on this year as an administrator. Life in the CFC family was not always neat nor clean and sometimes even downright messy and painful. Yet there was life, pulsing, moving, growing, learning, and always riddled with some laughter along the way. As I reflect, I, too, will grasp and hold the beauty of it all as we participated in the mystery of one year in the life of a child, times 150. Yes, there were tears, scuffed knees, failed tests, notes home, and even a conference or two. But stepping back to sense the big picture, I celebrate on this day a year of school busting out with life and the promise of more growth to come. My cameras are rolling. I am murmuring pride at all that these students are becoming. And, yes, I am proud to know that I and all those who labor alongside of me had just a little something to do with it all. I will keep my tissues hidden, but you will see them if you look closely. Thanks for letting us participate in the lives of your children. What a privilege.

The Visual Part IV

“the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes,” KJV Genesis 3:6

I will attempt to close this series on the overwhelming “power of the visual” and try not to get too radical in my prescription. No promises, however. Up to now, I have attempted to convince the reader that we actually may have a problem that has real consequences for learning, for development, and for all that we know about us as our “humanness.” That is no small challenge. Many of us have drifted to where we are quite unaware or indifferent to the increasing power of the visual in our age. So what do we do about it?

As with any problem of abundance, whether it be food, wealth, time, or whatever, the answer is to find the joy and freedom of a disciplined lifestyle. Food is for the body. The body is not for food. Simple enough. Yet entering into a covenant with oneself to limit our intake to only what we need is such an ongoing problem for us all because of the smorgasbord of affordable possibilities that lie at every street corner. So, too, with the visual. It is everywhere and well within the reach of most every household. We can turn our living rooms into a totally captivating arcade at minimal cost. The question is, “Should we?” And if we do, how much of our weekly schedule should we allow it to consume? And at what age does it inhibit normal development?

The visual industry, when you reflect on it, is all about entertainment. Television, movies, games, and the internet are predominantly used to entertain. Yes, there are educational applications to all of the above, but that is not what draws teens and twenty-somethings into addiction. We need to ask ourselves just how much of our lives we will allow ourselves to be entertained. Have we set limits for ourselves and our families? To surfeit ourselves with entertainment is to stand with the ancient Romans crying out for more “bread and circus.” Creativity dies. Initiative dies. Any sense of mission dies.

Secondly, I believe we need to develop a keener sense of age appropriateness. A driver’s license is given into the hands of teens only upon a developed sense of maturity, an attained legal age, training and testing. I believe we need to start questioning the age at which we should entrust the powerful visual tools we have created. It wasn’t too long ago when parents debated the wisdom of allowing a telephone in the room of a teenager. We knew it was a gateway to private conversations into the nether world of the prevailing teen culture. And now we allow teens and pre-teens not only to have their own totally private cell phones but also unfettered access to the social websites. Social websites (and even email) are powerful tools. I question the maturity of teens and pre-teens to handle them responsibly without being drawn into a world of peer pressure, secret chatter, or mind numbing trivia. There is enough cruelty to be suffered at the hands of other teens without exposing them to on-line anonymity, taunts, and intimidation. If a child must be allowed to carry a cell phone, I would recommend the cheap and disposable types sold at drug and dollar stores with renewable minutes. It is all my wife has or needs. Picture phones are now being bent to the most abominable purposes in the hands of children. Time on video games needs to be carefully regulated and monitored. At any sign of flagging attention spans for the more mundane things of life (such as reading), I would recommend their removal altogether. Let’s stop using movies to babysit or pacify our children. It is the “soma”* of our age. Let them learn to entertain themselves. It is essential for creative development. Constant exposure to fast paced visual entertainment destroys attention spans in the youngest of children, much to the bane of teachers everywhere.

If you are uncertain as to how much the visual distractions of our age are affecting your home, I challenge you to go on a 30 day fast from all forms of electronic gadgets, games, and images. See and observe what happens in the life of your family. If you see little difference, all may be well and good. You are probably at a level that is appropriate and sustainable. But if you or your children experience the pains of withdrawal, not knowing what to do with yourselves, there is a problem you will need to address. A 30 day fast will, in and of itself, cause you to turn to one another for interaction, entertainment, and relationship building. Homework and chores may even take on new significance and meaning. And no telling what kind of hobbies may develop.

We may look at the Amish and laugh at their self-imposed exile from modern life, but secretly, we must all wonder if they don’t have something right. Indeed, they have had the courage to look modernity in the face and raise the question, “Just because we can, should we?”

* “soma” – a state supplied drug to pacify the general populace in Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD.