Did You Fall Off the Planet or Something?

No, actually I didn't.  Though with my last blog post being nearly six weeks old, I can understand how one may have come to that conclusion.

So what have I been doing?  Well, first off, my husband and I went into overdrive looking for a new home, so I was checking the MLS rental listings daily and Craigslist several times a day.  Not expecting much (good thing, too!) I also checked in to see what was for sale in southern New Hampshire, and only received further confirmation that the housing market is still delusional.  We went to look at several (rental) properties, most of which left us thinking, "Yeah, it could probably work," but pretty unenthusiastic overall.  However Craigslist did come through for us, and we found a beautiful home in Nashua that met all our requirements.  Office space for Tom, playroom for the kids, two-car garage for Tom, even space for me to have an office/craft room!  Walking through it with the then-tenants Tom quietly asked me what I thought of it, and I answered without hesitation, "I love it--I want this house!"  Tom apparently felt the same way, because he transmitted our already-filled-out-and-scanned rental application to the owner from his phone before we even left the house.  We were approved (cats and all), and then had to pack up the old house and plan our move here, which we accomplished nearly two weeks ago.  We're still moving the last of our crap valuable belongings here, and I think settling in is going to be a months-long process.  But we've got a home now, not just a house, and one with a fenced-in backyard which has enabled me to experience the joy of saying to my kids, "Just go out and play!"

On the writing side of things, I've been spending most of my time and effort keeping up with my Quiet Devotions blog, which is a daily devotional based on one of the lectionary readings for that day.  The key word is 'daily,' and, with the move especially, it's been all I can do to keep up with it.  I'm also planning on moving that blog over to the Quiet Publications website, which I'm still building and where I'll eventually be publishing other articles and selling bible studies, worship resources, and perhaps some books I've written (will write).  So yes, I've been spending time building the Quiet Publications website, too.

I'm also stealing some time here and there writing one of those bible studies that will eventually be offered for sale, but it's a priority right now because the idea for it came from the women's retreat I attended last November.  Some of the women and I were talking one day, and one of them went on a bit of a rant about John's gospel, which led to me making an offhand comment that they all found fascinating, which led to a brief conversation about why the gospels were written, which led to them informing me that I had to teach a bible study on that, which led to me writing a bible study called 'Gospel Agendas,' which I'll be teaching at my church sometime after Easter.

Oh yes, I've also been the primary caregiver for a two- and a three-year old.

Hopefully things will stabilize a bit here soon, and I'll get back to writing the next installment in my series on Christian Families, Motherhood, and Womanhood.  Until then, though, thanks for sticking with me, and watch for news about Quiet Publications.

Christian Families, Motherhood, and Womanhood Series, Part One: Government, Contraception, and the First Amendment

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately reflecting on what it means to be a Christian wife and mother in 21^st century America.  Partly this is because I am a Christian wife and mother in 21^st century America, and partly this is because I’ve been doing a lot of research on the Quiverfull movement for a novel I’m writing.  Watching the political battles unfold in the media have also contributed to this, as once again the candidates’ religious beliefs are being used to condemn, divide, and further alienate much of the electorate who seem to fall on the wrong side of something or the other.

As a result of all this reflecting, I’m going to be sharing several posts on the general subject of Christian families, motherhood, and womanhood, beginning today.  I hope you’ll stick with me, and as always I welcome your comments, whether you agree with my opinions or not, but I do ask you to keep it civil and respectful.  In return, I’m going to put considerable effort into keeping these posts as opinions rather than rants.  So without further ado, here is my Christian Families, Motherhood, and Womanhood Series, Part One:  Government, Contraception, and the First Amendment.

There has been a lot of outrage recently about the Affordable Care Act being managed by Health and Human Services (HHS).  (You can read the original press release announcing specifics of the Act here.)  Specifically the outrage is about the mandate that all employer-sponsored health insurance plans offer FDA-approved contraceptive services without cost-sharing, i.e. free of charge to the women who want them.  The Act does allow a narrow exemption for religious institutions to opt out of the contraceptive mandate, however that exemption did not originally include religious hospitals, universities, or other non-worship specific religious organizations.  At the time of this writing, the Obama Administration has indicated that it intends to recommend a compromise which would extend the exemption to those religious entities, and instead put the onus of free coverage on the insurance companies themselves, requiring them to contract with the covered individuals of exempted employers directly to provide contraceptive services for free.  (You can read the White House Fact Sheet on the compromise here.)

This article published by the National Catholic Register nicely summarizes many of the objections made not just by Catholics, but other Christians and even some Jewish groups.  This quote appears early in the article:  “But all see a major unifier in the mandate’s violation of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion and protection of conscience.”  Some other quotes are:

• “We … call upon HHS Secretary Sebelius and the Obama administration to rescind this unjust ruling and to respect the religious freedom guaranteed all Americans by the First Amendment,” [the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America] stated.
• [The National Association of Evangelicals] noted that freedom of conscience is a “sacred gift from God, not a grant from the state.” It also said, “No government has the right to compel its citizens to violate their conscience. The HHS rules trample on our most cherished freedoms and set a dangerous precedent.”
• The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s [Matthew] Harrison believes with this “secular assault on those of us who hold traditional Christian values … we have a responsibility to stand up and confess in the face of this opposition. It never has been more the time to stand up than now."

The first problem I see is with the appeal to the First Amendment.  Just as a point of reference, the text of the First Amendment reads as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  There is no mention in the First Amendment of “protection of conscience.”  In fact, there is quite a bit of precedent in the legal history of the United States that state (or Federal) laws that abide by a “neutral law of general applicability” (i.e. the law uniformly applies to everyone and does not single out a certain religion or religious practice) can interfere with the religious liberty of an individual if there is a compelling state interest.  (For an excellent discussion on this topic, read this summary by Richard S. Myers, Law Professor at Ave Maria School of Law.)  In this case the compelling state interest is equal access to medical care for women regardless of where they work.

In regards to the claim that this mandate violates the free exercise of religion (wording that is explicitly included in the First Amendment), this mandate does not require that women must obtain and use birth control that may be contrary to their faith.  To the Orthodox Bishops, HHS and the Obama Administration do respect the religious freedom of all Americans, including those who choose to refrain from birth control, and those who object to religious controls over their access to birth control.  To the National Association of Evangelicals, the government is not compelling its female citizens to violate their consciences (not-for-profit religious organizations do not qualify as citizens).  And to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, there is no secular assault on traditional Christian values; there are safeguards, however, to prevent a religious assault on non-Christian women who hold secular values.

I like the compromise that the Administration is recommending, because it achieves the public goal of providing free access to all women regardless of where they work, and it keeps religious organizations completely out of that arrangement.  The objection I’m anticipating to this compromise is the (probably correct) assumption that insurance companies will increase their rates across the board in order to pay for the women who contract directly with the insurance companies, thus making religious organizations pay for these services indirectly.

Yet the truth is that religious organizations pay for these services indirectly anyway, no matter what.  When a Catholic priest fills a prescription for the antibiotic Amoxicillin, he and his insurance company are giving profits to Teva Pharmaceuticals, the company that currently owns Plan B, which is considered by many conservatives to be an abortion-inducing pill.  Neither the Catholic Church nor any other church can dictate to Teva how they choose to use profits earned on products such as innocent antibiotics, nor can religious organizations dictate to insurance companies how those companies are to use the money they receive on insurance premiums, beyond providing the specific services required by their existing contracts.  So the ‘indirect payment’ argument is a nonstarter.

The fact is that while this country does respect the free exercise of religion, that freedom cannot come at the expense of public wellbeing, and at the moment, the availability of free birth control to women who have employer-sponsored health plans is considered necessary to public wellbeing.  (Whether it should be is a whole other debate, and will most likely be covered in a future blog post in this series.)

All that said, I do believe that there were some valid points made in the National Catholic Register article.  In particular I agree with John Stonestreet, national programs director of BreakPoint, a part of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, who said the following: “The language of (HHS Secretary Kathleen) Sebelius’ release treats pregnancy as a disease that needs to be prevented. That’s bad news. Despite different stances we (Catholics and evangelicals and Protestants) have on birth control, that language is unacceptable and opens the door to a whole bunch of evils.”

I agree.  Sebelius’ exact words in the HHS press release were “The Affordable Care Act helps stop health problems before they start.”  That quote came immediately after a list of benefits, ending with “contraception without charging a co-payment, co-insurance or a deductible.”  That combined with the title of the press release—Affordable Care Act Ensures Women Receive Preventive Services at No Additional Cost—leaves little doubt that HHS considers pregnancy a health problem that should be prevented.  Interpreting the language that way is not a stretch; what is a stretch is interpreting it any other way.

Clearly I’m in favor of providing free access to contraceptives, but I strongly oppose characterizing pregnancy as a health problem to be prevented.  Pregnancy may not always be a delightful, mystical bonding experience of a mother and her child (morning sickness, gestational diabetes, excessive swelling, back pain, etc. are all medical issues associated with pregnancy that often need to be addressed proactively), but categorizing pregnancy as a health problem that needs to be prevented is the same as categorizing aerobic exercise as a health problem because it results in increased heart rate.  Both pregnancy and aerobic exercise need to be done carefully and wisely, but neither is a health problem to be prevented.

Does the wording really matter?  Yes.  All words matter.  I teach that to my kids all the time.  If you tell a person that they’re ugly, stupid, and worthless, eventually they’re going to believe it.  If the major health service agency of the United States government characterizes pregnancy as a health problem that needs to be prevented, then that too will enter into the public consciousness.  (In some ways it already has, but again, that’s a whole other blog post.  See why I have to make this a series?)  I don’t mind contraception being part of the Affordable Care Act, but I’d really rather it not be included under ‘preventative’ services.

The other point well taken in the National Catholic Register article is the one made by Nathan Diament of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.  He stated, “Most troubling is the administration’s underlying rationale for its decision, which appears to be a view that if a religious entity is not insular, but engaged with broader society, it loses its ‘religious’ character and liberties. … The administration’s ruling makes the price of such an outward approach the violation of an organization’s religious principles.”  At the core of Christianity, Judaism, and (I believe) Islam is the understanding that the faithful must be actively engaged with the world, particularly in regards to charity.  Retreating into safe, private enclaves and ignoring the needs of your neighbors is simply not an option.  Yet the narrowly defined exemption requires exactly that.  (This is somewhat mitigated by the Administration’s compromise, which came about after the National Catholic Register’s article was written.)

In all, I think there’s overreaching by the Administration, and I think there’s overreaching by religious conservatives.  It’s going to take a lot of hard work and humility on both sides to recognize that the United States of America is not a theocracy, however it does need to respect that fact that it has a lot of people who live by strict religious principles.  Let’s try to figure out a way to respect both the religious and the non-religious, and not fight a Holy War over sexual morality.

Which is another topic I’ll be posting on soon.

Dear Real Estate Industry

You're mad at us, I know.  I can tell by the tone of the e-mail our realtor sent to my husband in response to our announcing that we're withdrawing our offer on the house we looked at last month.  Our realtor suggested (though never actually stated) that we were being unreasonable, and attempted to shame us into changing our mind by assuming that we were withdrawing our offer because we were not actually qualified for a mortgage and have "strung along the seller and the bank" all this time.

Here's the thing.  This house was a short sale.  It's been on the market for a year, and in that time has dropped its price by nearly $100K.  Even with that, the house was still overpriced, and we offered $15K less than the current asking price (a number which we still think is generous, considering that the house will need about $50K worth of repairs in the next five years).  But before we made the formal offer, we asked our realtor to find out from the seller if they would be willing to consider a low-ball offer, because we didn't want to waste anybody's time.  We were told to make the offer, and they would consider it.

This is my third time buying a home.  I've sold three already.  In every case, the initial offer was either accepted, countered, or rejected pretty quickly, and any acceptance was contingent upon the buyer securing their financing.  Yes, our offer was slightly higher than our pre-approval, but our mortgage broker didn't think that should be much of a problem and told us that once we had an accepted P&S he'd get to work at formally processing our mortgage for the entire amount.  He was operating under the same assumption I was: first comes the offer, then the acceptance, then the financing.  That's the way real estate transactions have worked for a long time, excepting some transactions where the sellers state up front that proof of funding must accompany all offers (this transaction was not advertised as such).

Our offer gave the sellers and their bank two weeks to approve our offer.  The sellers did their part in a day.  Their bank let the offer expire with no action.  We only found this out after we called our realtor on the day it was to expire to ask for an update.  He had nothing, because he hadn't been following up.  Acknowledging that those two weeks included Christmas, we extended the deadline on our offer until the middle of January.  This time our realtor called us on his own initiative the day the offer was to expire, to tell us that the bank hadn't done anything yet but that the sellers had hired an attorney to try to move things along.  The attorney called us a little while later and gave us a more detailed update: the bank wouldn't accept our offer until they'd appointed a negotiator, which he was optimistic would happen the following week.  After that, things should move much more quickly.  We decided not to formally extend the deadline of our offer, which gave us the option of pulling the plug at any time, or letting it ride and moving forward with it should the bank accept our offer later.  For the time being, we decided to let it ride.

A week later we got another call from the seller's attorney.  The bank still hadn't appointed a negotiator.  They needed more information before they would do so, and it could still be a few weeks.  An e-mail from our realtor informed us that some of what bank required was proof of financing and an addendum to the P&S stating that we would close within 60 days of approval.

We were fed up.  After failing to simply accept or decline an offer for a month and missing two contractual deadlines, the bank was demanding we guarantee a quick closing that would hinder our ability to fully inspect and assess the property, plus demanding proof of financing up front?  The whole thing reminded my husband of the scene in Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader tells Lando Calrissian, "I am altering the deal.  Pray I don't alter it any further." 

Our realtor was offended at our offense, and informed us that "the bank is and has been working in a timely fashion...it is corporate America and procedure."

Well, corporate America, you have stated your terms, and we choose not to accept them.  Like Lando Calrissian, we believe this deal is getting worse and worse all the time, so we're getting out while we still can.

I don't care if you're mad at me, Real Estate Industry.  It's a sad day when a seller has to hire an attorney to get the bank to act on processing an already-approved short-sale.  It's an even sadder day when a buyer trusts the seller's attorney more than she trusts her own real estate agent.

I believe in honor, diligence, and good faith adherence to contractual obligations.  We have shown that.  So have the actual sellers of the house.  Real Estate Industry, you have not.  Your attempts to shame us have failed, because we cannot be shamed by an entity that itself has none.  Send us back the deposit we made in good faith, and go play your games with someone else.  If the game can only be played by your rules, then we choose not to play.  Despite what you may think and what you may want, we actually do have that option.

Have a nice day, and may the Force be with you.

Refocusing for the New Year

Yes, I realize we're coming up on the second week of January, but the general tone of my life for the past few years (ever since I became a mom, come to think of it) has been that of constantly trying to 'catch up' and maybe even 'get ahead' of things, and never quite achieving it.  So it makes perfect sense that I'm just now getting around to thinking about how I want to approach this new year.

Going into 2010, my hope was simply that it would be better than 2009.  I think I can honestly say it turned out to be worse.  Going into 2011, my hope was that it would be better than 2010.  Some things were better, some things were worse, so overall I'd call it a net neutral, i.e. no change.  Going into 2012, initially I was just hoping that it would be better than 2011, and then I realized that that strategy hasn't been working out so well for me.  So this time I want to set some specific goals on how to make it better.

I've never been a big fan of New Year's Resolutions.  They've never worked for me, and they seem just too trite and faddish.  Who doesn't go into the new year wanting to lose weight, get their finances under control, and be a happier/nicer/better person overall?  Oh yes, and quit or cut down on [insert favorite vice here].  But it seems I do need to be a little more specific and intentional if I want 2012 to be better than 2009, 2010, or 2011.

A blog I follow (Introverted Church) recently posted about having a New Year's Rule of Life instead of New Year's Resolutions.  According to author Adam S. McHugh, "a rule of life is a way of arranging the rhythms of your life - all aspects of your life - so that you can best embrace God's gifts."  He then further breaks it down into the four categories listed in Jesus' greatest commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength."  He suggests that you create your rule of life so that you have elements in each category that are natural and desirable (and therefore more likely for you to keep) as well as some things that are a bit of a stretch.  If you regularly and consistently fail at your rule of life, then it's a bad rule and you need to revise it.

I particularly like this way of thinking about things because I want to live a Christ-centered life that takes into account my gifts, abilities, circumstances, and limitations.  As I see it, if I set a rule of life that I can't keep, then it's probably not really a rule of my life, but a rule of someone else's life.  I am who I am, not who I wish I was, not who someone else thinks I should be.  I can make some changes to improve myself, but I can only improve upon what's already there, and not be something that I'm not.

So when I think about what I want 2012 to look like according to these categories, I immediately run into a problem.  I'm perpetually worried about finances, and, since we're still recovering from our long stint of dual unemployment a few years ago, that concern is somewhat justified (even though my husband is working now, and we've got a concrete and realistic plan that we're in the process of executing to cut our current expenses).  But Jesus didn't address financial stability in the greatest commandment, so trying to prioritize it as a goal in its own right doesn't work.

And maybe that's a good thing.  Our lowest period in the last three years was indisputably the seven months we lived in rural Iowa when I was serving as pastor at a highly toxic and unhealthy church.  Why were we there?  Because we'd been living entirely off savings for eight months when I started that call, my husband's industry seemed to have fallen into a black hole never to be heard from again, and our best hope for survival was for me to find a job (acknowledging that I'd earn less than half of what he'd been making).  My most marketable skill was ministry.  I didn't look too closely at the red flags that came up during my interview process, and I believed the fiction that the congregation presented.  If I hadn't been so desperate for a paycheck, maybe I would have looked more closely, and avoided the whole nightmare.  But wanting financial security was my overwhelming priority, and we're still paying for that mistake two years later.

So as far as my goal of financial security is concerned, I'm just going to have to let it go, because it doesn't have a place in a Christ-centered rule of life.  That doesn't mean I should be stupid about money, but it does mean that it's not important enough to warrant a place of its own.  I preach and write all the time about the importance of trusting God; maybe it's time I try it myself (practicing what I preach?  What a concept!).

So what is important enough to warrant a place of its own in a Christ-centered, great commandment ordered rule of life?

Heart:  In 2012, I'm going to have regular date nights with my husband in which we will learn to just enjoy each other's company again, rather than using the time to strategize our survival.  I'm going to play with my children at least once a week.  (I'm philosophically opposed to being my kids' primary playmate--they can play alone, with each other, and make their own friends, but I'm always going to be MOMMY first.  That said, it doesn't mean we can't have fun together.)  I'm going to make friends with some of the women at my church, starting with attending their monthly events.

Soul:  I've known since I left Iowa that I'm spiritually wounded and in need of healing.  It seems I've found a safe church home at my current congregation (where I'm just a member and, when necessary, provide pulpit supply).  I'll continue worshiping there, plus contributing to the ministry of the congregation (I've already been asked by some of the women I went to the retreat with in November if I'd teach a bible study on a specific subject).  I also find that I'm benefiting spiritually from writing Quiet Devotions, so I'll continue doing that, and I'll try to write other spiritual and theological resources.  (This might actually someday contribute to financial stability, as my hope is to self-publish and sell some congregational resources, but for now I'm only setting my goal on writing that enriches my own spiritual health, and trusting that if God wants to use those resources to help others, then he will.)

Mind:  As much as I like the idea of getting a Ph.D, I know that now is not the time.  Instead, I'm going to continue reading both fiction (I'm on a 19th century kick right now, though will sometimes mix it up with fantasy or contemporary literary fiction) and non-fiction, usually theologically related.  While I'll continue to follow politics, economics, and current events, I want to make this blog a little less political and a little more personal, spiritual, and theological.  If I comment about politics or current events, I'm going to try to look at it from a theological perspective.  (I've just written a couple of devotions that emphasized the importance of keeping God in mind in all that we say and do, so this blog is probably a good place to try to put that in action.  Again, practicing what I preach--this is going to be hard!)

Strength:  Yes, this is the 'lose weight and get healthy' part of it.  Specifically I'm going to track what I eat in a logbook (something I've been doing on and off since August), weigh myself weekly, and make adjustments to my diet to try to keep it balanced, healthy, and results in my losing some poundage.  I'm also going to get on my recumbent bike for at least ten minutes a day, three times a week.  I know that's considerably less exercise than is recommended, but since quitting the gym two months ago I'm starting at zero.  I'll follow some advice I came across the other day and try to increase my exercise a little bit each month.  Even though my progress will be slow, I'll be establishing a habit with each increase, hopefully keeping it manageable and not getting discouraged.  When the weather improves I'll add some outdoor activities, but since I don't know exactly where I'll be living then, I'll reserve specifics until I have more information.  (Yes, we're moving again.  More on that later.)

So that's my Rule of Life for 2012.  I truly hope this will help make this year better than last year.  And the year before that.  And the year before that.  Wish me luck!

Housing Prices Still Not Making Sense

My husband and I are looking to buy a decent house in a decent neighborhood for a reasonable price, but we're having trouble finding such a thing.  There are decent houses in decent neighborhoods, but their prices are not reasonable.  For all that housing prices have fallen over the past few years, I believe that they still have further to go.

How can I say this when houses have already lost anywhere from 20 to 60% of their values?  Because they were inflated to more than that during the bubble, and incomes haven't risen significantly over the last decade.

Here's the thing.  According to the Wall Street Journal, a household shouldn't plan to spend more than 28% of its gross monthly income on mortgage/property taxes/maintenance/PMI.  (This is a fairly common rule of thumb.)  In 2000, the median household income in Nashua, NH (where we're looking) was $51,969.  Let's assume that household also had a monthly debt load of $500 (between car payments, student loans, and credit card minimum payments), and savings sufficient to put down 20% of the purchase price.  Using the Wall Street Journal's mortgage calculator, that household income would qualify to purchase a home that cost up to $141,365*.  In 2000, the median house in Nashua only cost $132,200, so the average household could purchase the average house, and then some.  In 2009 (the most recent year covered by city-data), the median household income in Nashua had risen to $58,789.  Using those same assumptions, that household could purchase a home that cost up to $181,942*.  That's a problem, since the average house in Nashua in 2009 cost $248,500.  In order for the average household to purchase the average house at that price, the median household income would need to be closer to $69,000.  Even assuming our household is completely debt free, the maximum house they could afford would be $205,997, still well below the median.  Neither housing prices nor incomes have changed much since 2009.

As much as sellers and realtors don't want to admit it, a house (or anything else, for that matter) is only worth what a purchaser will pay for it.  As long as the average house is out of reach for the average purchaser, it's overpriced.  Unless incomes go up significantly in the very near future, housing prices still have a ways to fall.  In Nashua, it's looking like another 27%.

Maybe my husband and I are better off continuing to rent for now.


* I assumed a 30 year fixed mortgage at 8% in 2000 and 5.5% in 2009, both of which are historically accurate.  The tax rate was roughly 2.1% in both years.

Merry Christmas!

Shortly after Thanksgiving, everyone in my house came down sick and stayed that way for several weeks.  Needless to say, that delayed our Christmas preparations.

Christmas shopping wasn't a problem; we don't go overboard with presents for our kids so we already had most of them purchased, with a few clicks online finishing up the job.  But we haven't been able to decorate until now.

Add to that the fact that we've moved so often over the past few years, and we haven't really decorated for Christmas since 2008.  We had a Christmas tree for our son's first Christmas (which, since he was only eight months old, he obviously doesn't remember), but our daughter's never seen one in her own house.  This year we decided to put one up, but we discovered over the weekend that our Christmas tree stand got left behind in one of the four moves we've had since we last used it.

Have you ever tried to find a Christmas tree stand the week before Christmas?  My husband went to several stores to discover that they were sold out, and called even more only to be told the same thing.  When I went out looking, I found more of the same, plus in some cases I had to walk around store employees removing Christmas decorations from the shelves to make room for their next wave of inventory (thankfully they're not yet putting out pink and red heart-shaped objects for Valentine's Day--that'll probably come in about two weeks).

Removing Christmas inventory the week before Christmas?  You know the classic song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas?"  Those twelve days start on December 25 and continue through January 5, the night before Epiphany.  That's the traditional celebration of Christmas, with Advent being the four weeks leading up to Christmas.  I realize that the stores have been selling Christmas since before Halloween, but some of us actually try to celebrate Advent, and keep Christmas for Christmas.  Even if we hadn't been sick, our decorating would have happened only a few days sooner than it did.  So while the stores may be tired of it, some of us are just getting started.

Fortunately the evening was saved by Home Depot.  They had a few tree stands left, so I was able to save my husband from having to try to 'build' something to hold up the tree that was dejectedly sitting on our porch.  Furthermore, the cashier at Home Depot actually wished me a "Merry Christmas."  Not "Happy Holidays," but a real "Merry Christmas."  It was so refreshing to hear!  And then I also got a "Merry Christmas" from the clerk at the store in the mall that sold me a lighted star tree topper (another item that's hard to come by a week before Christmas).

It's common and even expected for Christians and quasi-Christians to lament about the consumerism of Christmas, how early the stores start selling it, and the decline of the religious meaning of the holiday.  We hear so much about how people who aren't religious Christians get offended when wished a "Merry Christmas," insisting instead on "Happy Holidays," which supposedly honors Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Conspicuous Consumption Day, and whatever else people choose to celebrate around the end of December.  Now I agree that it's a bit foolish and insensitive for a sales clerk to wish a Merry Christmas to a customer purchasing a menorah, but in the absence of something so obvious, what's wrong with wishing a Merry Christmas to someone who is purchasing Christmas paraphernalia?

Chanukah has always been its own holiday, and should certainly be respected.  Kwanzaa was originally created "as an alternative to Christmas," and Conspicuous Consumption Day is clearly a secular hijacking of the religious holiday.  As such, I think it's perfectly appropriate to wish a "Merry Christmas" to anyone engaging in celebrating Christmas in any way, even if they've appropriated various aspects of the Christmas celebration for a holiday of their own creation.  Does this mean that every purchase between Thanksgiving and Christmas should automatically be met with a "Merry Christmas?"  Not necessarily.  But anyone buying Christmas decorations (trees, ornaments, yard lights, etc.), Christmas cards (any card that doesn't specifically call out Chanukah or Kwanzaa), a ton of toys, or anything featuring snowmen, Santa Claus, Thomas Kinkade artwork, or old-fashioned people skating or riding in horse-drawn sleighs is fair game.

So to the clerks who wished me a "Merry Christmas" last night--thank you!  Please keep up the good work!  You might slightly offend someone who wants to celebrate Christmas without acknowledging its origins as a religious holiday, but you also might bring some joy and hope to a Christian who is trying to remember that Christmas is the celebration of God's breaking into human history by sending his Son to achieve salvation for us all.  It's amazing how just calling the holiday by its right name can go such a long way towards helping with that.

Education, Standardized Tests, and Idiocy

In principle, I'm no fan of standardized tests as the be-all and end-all of measuring academic achievement and predicting future success.  I think they have their place, but at best they can only be one tool among many to gauge whether a student is progressing acceptably in school.  I believe that the current trend of schools 'teaching to the test' in order to 'prove' that they're good schools and thus receive necessary funding is a horrible disservice to students, teachers, and the future of this nation.

But I have to admit that that opinion is largely uninformed.

You see, I went through a Massachusetts public school system before the MCAS was introduced.  I vaguely recall taking something called the California Achievement Test (yes, in Massachusetts) every few years, but those scores were for informational purposes only.  Along with most of my peers I took the SAT as part of my college entrance efforts, and I'm embarrassed to admit that my combined score didn't even break 1000.  But that didn't matter because I was unmotivated, and ended up on the eight-year, work-my-way-through-night-school plan (see previous post), choosing schools more on affordability, geography, and convenience of schedule than prestige or quality.

So standardized tests have not been a significant part of my educational career.

But I read something yesterday that simply appalled me.

Earlier this week the Washington Post had a piece about a school board member in a major district who took the standardized tests for 10th grade math and reading.  It was later revealed that the district was in Florida, and the test in question was the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT).  This board member self-describes as having a bachelor of science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credits toward a doctorate.  He helps "oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities."  He admits that of the 60 questions in the math section, he didn't know the answer to a single one of them, and was only able to guess correctly on 10 of them.  On the reading section, he scored a mere 62%.  He dismissed the argument that the information would have been fresher in his mind had he currently been in high school, pointing out instead that "A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life.  I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took."

This seems to be a pretty compelling statement against the usefulness of the FCAT.  But as much as I'm predisposed against standardized testing, I had trouble believing that the test could be that disconnected from reality.  So I took it myself.

I can't say with certainty that I took exactly the same test this highly educated and highly successful school board member did.  But I went to the Florida Department of Education website where I was able to download the test booklets for the 10th grade math and reading tests from 2006.  The math section had 58 questions, and the reading had 45.  I answered (or tried to answer) all 58 of the math, but I disregarded the essay questions on the reading section because I had no way to objectively score them.  The test booklet failed to provide a couple of necessary readings (due to copyright permissions not being available for an electronic format), so I also disregarded the questions based on those.  (I later discovered that the necessary readings were reproduced in the answer booklet--I left them out anyway because I didn't want to risk seeing the correct answers in the course of my reading.)  So in the end I answered the 35 remaining multiple choice questions I could reasonably be expected to answer.

I have no idea how this school board member manages to enjoy the level of success he claims, because I think he must be an idiot.

I hated math in school.  I barely passed Algebra I and II, and only passed Geometry after I had to revisit it in summer school.  I took two accounting classes and one statistics class in college, back about 15 years ago.  Yes, I did deal with numbers in my first career in finance, but that was mostly arithmetic, and I left that field over 12 years ago.  Of the 58 questions in the test, I answered 43 of them correctly.  Very few were wild-ass guesses.  Most of them, if I didn't know the answer immediately, I was able to figure it out with the information provided.

Of the 35 reading questions, I answered 35 of them correctly.

With the exception of some of the geometry, most of the math problems could be solved through simple arithmetic and/or common sense.  Basic observation and problem-solving skills.  Someone like me, who doesn't remember a single formula from high school math and doesn't do unusual amounts of math in work life (I'm a stay-at-home mom of toddlers--we're still working on counting to 20!), was able to score 74%.  The school board member with his $3 billion budget scored 17%.  The skill I employed most frequently in solving these problems was determining what of the information provided was important to figuring out the solution, and what could be disregarded.  I don't care what line of work you're in, that is a necessary skill for functioning as an adult in today's world.

As far as the multiple-choice questions on the reading test are concerned, all you have to do is read the short piece and answer the questions.  There is no assumption that you are intimately familiar with obscure pieces of literature, or even that you know the technical jargon necessary to grammatically deconstruct a sentence.  All you have to do is demonstrate that you understand what you just read, both the content and the intent.  Why does intent matter?  It matters if you want to be able to tell the difference between an opinion piece and an instruction manual.  It matters if you expect to be able to understand the difference between the story of one person's success in entrepreneurship and a boiler-plate business plan.

Granted, I didn't answer the essay questions.  Let's assume I did, and let's assume I missed all four.  That would have dropped my 100% down to 89%.  The school board member, with all his advanced degrees, scored 62%.  He reasons that the test is unfair because “On the FCAT, [the students] are reading material they didn’t choose.  They are given four possible answers and three out of the four are pretty good.  One is the best answer but kids don’t get points for only a pretty good answer.  They get zero points, the same for the absolute wrong answer.  And then they are given an arbitrary time limit.  Those are a number of reasons that I think the test has to be suspect.”

First of all, I challenge his claim that three of the four answers are "pretty good," but let's put that aside for now.  In real life, can we expect that we'll only ever have to read and understand things that we choose to read?  (No, I don't feel like reading the Instruction Booklet for my 1040, so I just won't bother filing my taxes this year.)  In real life, can we expect that 'partial credit' will be given for an answer that's 'pretty good' but not necessarily the 'best'?  (Well, you've read the detailed job description and I've really enjoyed interviewing you.  You missed the mark a little bit on what skills we're looking for, but you were pretty close, so we'll give you this other job, instead.)  In real life, can we expect that we'll be given unlimited time to comprehend a set of instructions or absorb some basic information necessary for what we're doing?  (You need three months to understand the policies laid out in our employee handbook before you start work?  No problem; we'll keep you on full salary while you figure it out!)

I still don't think standardized tests should be given the level of importance they currently enjoy, but if the FCAT is indicative of what's being expected of 10th graders across the country, I think it's doing a pretty good job of measuring how well kids are learning how to learn.  Based on the two tests I took, students aren't being expected to memorize a bunch of trivia that they'll never use in adulthood; they're being expected to filter information, determine its value, and be able to understand written communication.  In adulthood you don't have to know everything, but you do need to know how to find whatever information you need.  And you can't do that if you can't determine what is relevant and what isn't, discern the difference between opinion, bias, and fact, or understand what a paragraph is even saying.

I'm not worried about students taking the FCAT.  I'm worried that we live in a world in which an adult who is unable to pass the FCAT is on the school board, and is able to function as a leader at a company with 22,000 employees and a capital and operating budget of $3 billion.  Are the expectations of functioning--even successful--adulthood really so low?

No wonder this country's in trouble.