Unity in essentials, diversity in particulars
[Rod Dreher  03/16 03:40 PM]

Here’s a great letter from Krista in Ohio, a semi-crunchy traditionalist:

You are talking about a sensibility, which is another way of saying you should live your life deliberately, in full knowledge of the consequences for everyone, not just your own personal consequences. Does that mean you discount your own consequences? Do you beggar or endanger your children? Of course not, but you had better make sure you are doing as little damage as possible to others as well, AND DO THE BEST YOU CAN.

That is the message I take away. I consider my family to have extremely traditional ideas, even a few very crunchy ones, but our experience is very different from yours. You are merely using your life and experiences to show one path that leads to "the way".

Our family lives in a suburb of Cleveland, shops at Wal-mart, and uses public schools. On the surface we look terrible! But we have our reasons: The "suburb" we live in is full of McMansions, but we chose to live in a quirky old house on the edge of town with fixer upper problems because it has acreage. The reason we picked our particular part of town is because the nastiest/ seediest /most pornified places around here are the rural areas, so we chose to live in between rural and suburbia, and it works out nicely for us. My children have devastating illnesses which are in part caused by environmental issues and "modern" foods. So we shop at Wal-mart for their clothes and things so we can afford their medical care and to obtain the best, cleanest organic food for them. Would I shop at Wal-mart if I didn't have to? Of course not. It is a necessary evil.

Our children attend public school, but it is not a problem for us because the schools are the best in the state, my husband works there, and so we avoid most of the lefty teachers for our kids because he can request the good ones, and it is a small town, everyone knows everyone, and the social influence is not too bad. I feel we have had some good conversations with our children about learning to live in the world and not be of the world. When we are at a school function and all the other kids are running around like maniacs, we say, our family doesn't do that, and it is good for them to learn to be a good example to others and to learn to stand up for their beliefs. If the influence started to go the other way, and the culture was damaging them, would we pull them out? You bet, but I feel it is good for the community we live in for them to see us, and the way we live. I am always amazed when we have another little one start school, how shocked they are that my children never went to preschool- (I stay at home with them.) because they are sure that my kids will need lots of catching up, but then they are even more amazed that they can already read and are well on their way. I can see how others think we are only agreeing with each other and congratulating our selves, but we are really trying to show them that there is another way, a higher road.

You don't have to choose the mainstream if you are brave enough to take some criticism. Invariably, people ask me how did you teach them to read at such a young age? When I tell them my children never watch TV, only an occasional movie of our choosing, and they listen to me read aloud every day, they are dismayed. They want to hear about the particular brand of phonics flash cards we purchased, not the sacrifice, time and attention method. There is a right way to do things and an easy way. The crunchy way is choosing the higher road for your family and community whenever you can.