Yesterday our wood floor for the new “parlor” was delivered, in several boxes. After acclimatising for a few days, it will be installed. On Monday, fifteen of our new library bookshelves will be delivered. We are so close to finishing our addition, and we’ll be moving into it before the end of the year!

I’ve always thought that books make a dandy decorating scheme, but I probably won’t resort to building furniture out of them for our new rooms. Well, {{popup table.jpg table 320×240}}this table might be an exception, though it’s not made out of real books (notice the boxes of books in the background, waiting for new homes).

Thanks to Tim and Kristin for the suggestion for this entry:

35) This society worships rugged individualists, and lone ranger Christians are often the rule rather than the exception. While we know that it is becoming more difficult to find family-friendly and biblically-based churches, Prairie Muffins reject the notion that commitment to a local church is optional. We affirm the importance of the church in our families’ lives, and we willingly submit to its leaders. It is our desire to raise children who are life-long worshipers in the pew and future leaders of strong churches.

Only 60 more to go!

My friend Cindy has written about something that is one of my theme songs when reminding others (as well as myself) about the ebb and flow of life. There are times it is right to go against the flow (i.e. cultural issues, educating our children, submitting to our husbands, etc.) but other times it is imperative to go with the flow (i.e. the providence of God).

Without further ado, here are Cindy’s wise words:

Do you ever feel that things are going really great in the homeschool department but then you look up one day and notice everything else is falling apart? I guess that is just the nature of home education and homemaking. It’s not that I think they are incompatible, it’s just the nature of the beast that something is always being left undone.

Learn to accept that as part of life. Stop every once in a while and catch up on the things that are nagging. Stop every once in a while just to relax, too. A day of reading and sipping tea goes a long way toward restoring the spirit. Make sure you aren’t missing all the joys in the journey. Pray. If all else fails don’t forget to read God’s Word every day, especially The Psalms.

Joanna asked about favorite Christmas movies, particularly older ones. I thought I would have a game of tag to give her some suggestions. In tag, you may name one title, then it’s someone else’s turn. You may have another turn after someone else has played.

My first suggestion is The Bishop’s Wife. You can read a review of it at Ladies Against Feminism (found at Parenting With Purpose), written by Lisa Winton, Buried Treasure reader and wife of the new dude at the Highlands Study Center.

And I’m pleased as punch that I got to mention so many of my favorite folks in that last paragraph .

I’m not big on shopping, unless it’s for used books. You won’t find me willingly subjecting myself to the frenzied crowds competing for bargains on the busiest shopping day of the year. My little sister has a mean streak—she told me that in the past she’s had a date with a friend to go out the day after Thanksgiving to mingle with the masses, and that she doesn’t really care about the hot deals but she sometimes likes to have fun by carelessly picking up a desirable item and watching the desperate shoppers squirm while they wait for her to decide whether she’s a serious buyer or not.

My sister is also much more organized than I. I think her Christmas shopping was finished last summer, but I am a procrastinator, and I am starting to feel the pressure. We keep it pretty low-key as far as presents go, but we do celebrate with gift-giving and with our large clan plus family far away, it’s still an organizational coup d’etat to make it work. That’s why I spent some time yesterday shopping—online.

I have a pretty good idea of the presents I intend to give everyone this year. So I went to some websites that I thought would have as many of those items in one place as possible: Target and Walmart. Several times we have debated whether or not we should patronize Walmart at all. With the amount of socks and underwear we consume (so to speak), Walmart can be a very appealing one-stop shopping place. Yet the unappealing corporate shenanigans and the way it overruns communities with its cheap imported goods, make us have a twinge of guilt when we give our money to the box-store behemoth. Last night, perusing its website, made me have more than a twinge…it was a spasm of angry indignation.

It wasn’t long ago that Walmart engaged in some “family-friendly” responses to concerns about explicit music and inappropriate magazine covers in checkout lines. Imagine my shock and disgust when I looked for some books on their website and found that they have a special category for “Gay and Lesbian” books. It lists “hot new titles” and “talked-about titles,” including a children’s book and a book about why “gay” marriage is good for America. If you click on a title, it will take you to a description of the book with recommendations of other books.

I clicked on the children’s book, The Boy Who Cried Fabulous, and read the description. It didn’t give me any clues as to why it was included in that section, so I decided to read more about it at Amazon. There I found that it is a story about a “gentle” boy, which must be why it would be appealing to homosexuals, since it’s about a male who is in touch with his feminine side. At Amazon, there is a feature where patrons can make book lists for others. On the page with this book there was a list called “Rainbow Families: Picture Books About LGBTQ Families” from an “elementary teacher.” Okay. I looked at the list and many were obvious propaganda pieces to pervert the thinking of small children about family and relationships (i.e. Gloria Goes to Gay Pride). More insidious, however, were the books which are not so overt, but have subtle and subversive touches. For example, Everywhere Babies appears to be a cute picture book which celebrates the joy of babies. One of the online reviewers had this to say about the book:

I love how inclusive this book is. We all love the illustrations. My daughter seems to love the rhythym to the words, because she always asks for “more” when I read it to her, even if she’s half asleep and not paying too much attention to the pictures.

I’m hoping my daughter DOES eventually notice in the pictures that not all these families look like hers. A little more tolerance of our differences would make this world a better place.

I think the shame is that this children’s book is a tool being used to promote a perverse, self-destructive and God-hating lifestyle. I have another picture book from the same illustrator, which I really like, The Seven Silly Eaters. It’s a sweet story about a big family with a loving mother and father in traditional roles. If I had seen this baby book in the library (and our county system has four copies of it), I probably would have checked it out unwittingly, based on my opinion of the illustrator’s other book.

We are being bombarded with images, movies, books and propaganda from many sources, trying to break down the natural repugnance people feel toward the unnatural idea of same-sex intimacy. Rather than becoming complacent about this perversion, we need to be on guard from these assaults on the family. Having a proper view of the seriousness of all sin, starting with our own, is crucial, but the Bible makes clear that homosexuality is the last stop on the downhill slide for one who persists in rejecting God. It is also a sin for which there is forgiveness, but only following repentance, which means that it cannot ever be accepted as normal and good if there is to be forgiveness and healing.

Target was even worse than Walmart, with a feature on the front page of the movie section (where I was looking for DVDs) for its “Gay and Lesbian” films. If places like Walmart and Target, two of the biggest retailers to families, boldly promote this filth, then Otto Scott was right when he told some friends a few years ago that our country is “in the chute.”

Keep fighting the good fight by protecting, strengthening and training those children in righteousness, because they will be facing even bigger battles than we do now.