Author Archives: PearlS

On Submission: Pruning the Vine

It was a year ago we make a birthday jaunt to the southwest to visit dear friends and spend another Fourth of July in the mountains. And a week later that the kids and Daddy cried on the car ride home…Well, mourned, I guess is the better word.
Why did we ever move away?

We moved, I calmly reminded them, because Dad had a big job opportunity and didn’t want to “wake up one day wondering how life might’ve been different if we’d only moved to a bigger place when we had the chance.”

Which we laugh about now. This is exactly the place we want to be—not regretting the move to the eastern slope or subsequent years spent introducing the kids to the Midwest, but so thankful to return to our home, the place where all my babies were born, the place I was sure we’d never see again once we pulled our U-Haul out of the driveway in southwest Colorado.

Since I think about tomatoes a lot, the pruning, especially—I do this daily to focus the plant’s energy on growing fruit—I see these gardening methods as they apply to our family decisions…the dividends paying out as we focused special energy on prioritizing Joe’s work and letting him blossom within his career.

Many years ago I had considered returning to work, the kids (ages one to seven) all driving me crazy at home surely had me eyeing any reprieve, even if it meant getting my master’s while teaching via a scholarship program. (What makes a person in our culture think spreading ourselves thinner might offer more peace? Why are there countless folks who applaud the working mother when it means saddling them with more worries?) This would’ve meant Joe would have to meet me in the middle, compromising his management career. He was so busy, and I was so busy—had no help at home, nobody to watch them so I could grab groceries or take a nap, etc.

But I didn’t really want anyone else raising my babies, didn’t want a babysitter or daycare to do my job, so if Joe couldn’t grant me reprieve, then we were each going to have to grind it out the way we’d already been doing it, me being the home-body, he, the work-body and bread-winner.

Snipping low leaves and suckers off the plant, the yellowing limbs.
I pruned back my ideas of a career. (I usually have lots of ideas…most of them I’ve pruned back…)
I won’t say this didn’t cause some pain in the moment; it certainly did. There was pleading and tears and hurt as I broke off whole branches. We followed his work, turning the focus toward his job…Which blossomed into a huge tomato of a blessing.

It’s not just about a paycheck, though by remaining loyal to his employer he has “climbed the ladder” with nothing more than a bachelor’s degree and an incredible work ethic. Because of his job we’ve been able to pay off our old college loans, buy houses, two cars, remain debt free, and give money and things generously and cheerfully to those in need. Because of his job we’ve learned not to hold tightly to things in this world (even the idea of calling one place a “home”). We’ve learned to depend on one another—he to be a strong worker, content with his employment; I, to love being home and find joy in some of the endeavors I would’ve never dreamed of pursuing without his stable career.

I’m so thankful we didn’t spread ourselves so thin. I’m glad I didn’t push to get that early teaching job and miss out on the raising babies work.

Not only have I seen tomatoes appear on the vine, but they are beginning ripen.

We love to cheer each other on in the things we are good at—and, here I’ll sneak in a little lesson about that (sometimes) rankling church word religious leaders like to toss around when mentioning marriage—submission.

Why is this word so cringey when a preacher-man yells it out over a silent congregation, as if to lasso women back into their proper, restrained place in the home? Men are to love their wife as they love their own body, which, to me, is far more noteworthy and difficult than a wife’s job to cheer on her husband. (As much as they love NFL on a Sunday afternoon? Fantasy football? Brisket? Paid time off? A whole Saturday on the golf course? Hunting season? A new motorized toy? Talk to me more about how much a man ought to love his wife…)

Submission is nothing scary or yell-worthy.
And this is what the spirit of submission is: the responsibility to prune the vine so you can confidently, lovingly, and faithfully tell your partner: You got this. Keep going.

You got this, Joe—you’re amazing at what you do. Don’t stop, I’m here for you.

Keep going, Joe—My favorite thing to do is watch you succeed.

Submission isn’t delicate restraint, it is intentional pruning paired with a deep desire to see our shared plant grow and produce a harvest.
We are focused on the tomatoes, the fruit of the vine, and we mercilessly whack off every part that doesn’t bear fruit so that the parts that can produce will be made more fruitful (John 15:2).

Submission isn’t explicitly about work, or a woman’s place, child rearing, or any of the arguing points a preacher man might like you to think. Submission itself is in black and white—it must be done, as all things go that come with a promise (Do not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time it will reap a harvest if we do not give up, Galatians 6:9)—but one must extend the brushstroke into the gray, private areas of her own life where the conscience makes it explicit.

Submit is action word, imperative, forward-motion, not a hovering, cowering act, as if a person ought to cave into herself with pity and self-abasement. Submission is doing, not retreating, and can only be performed with rock-solid faith that understands and trusts the words of Jesus— “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

What branches are you pruning? Tell me—what tomatoes are you growing?

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. Ephesians 5:21-22

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the body of believers and gave Himself up for her…Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Indeed, no one ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the body of believers. Ephesians 5:28-30

The Problem of Tech in Schools.

Next month will mark a year since I quit teaching public school. I miss it, I miss the teachers and the routine and the extracurriculars and moms and dads who come to every event tired on their feet because they’ve worked all day, but filled with love to see their kid do their thing.

I miss talking to kids everyday as a job. I miss how much fun it is to see them learn and feel proud of what they accomplish. I miss making music with them and for them.

Our family has done so much this year apart from school: music camps, youth orchestra, children’s chorale, private lessons, sports, theater, church youth programs, contests, academic events, festivals… Our time has been filled with great alternatives to public school education—especially enriched by our choice to move cross-country and integrate into a community of other home-educators.

Still I miss the bustle of public school and the cross section of folks who make a perfect microcosmic world for our kids to practice people skills at the intersection of education. I miss math teachers. And science teachers.

Some of my dearest friends still vehemently disagree with me in my attempts to re-enter the public school scene. I am more comfortable than ever with their discomfort, probably because every situation is still pretty far from perfect. I guess I’ve learned it’s just the way it’s going to be—my people are homeschool-minded; my school preference is public.

But let me tell you what I don’t miss: let me tell you why I almost register my kids for school down the road and then still talk myself out of it, even though we desperately need a better routine and homeschool is not my jam.

What I don’t miss in public school was reinforced to me when I listened to a recent Pantsuit Politics podcast. The hosts visited with a reporter about technology in schools these days and the Pandora’s box of issues it presents to kids, teachers, and parents.
When I talk to homeschooling friends, I can’t adequately articulate the issues of technology—how the era of Covid sent kids home, equipped them with “necessary” tech for at-home education, then crippled them forever with an addictive habit cleverly rebranded as “asynchronous learning.”

I (and millions of other parents) had a front row seat to the nonsense of kindergarten, second, and fourth grade students and their teachers trying to figure out new responsibilities and expectations with all the overreaching, complicating issues that came with it.
My own kids had never been handed a device in my home before without strict time limits earned from doing chores or practicing music. But now we were in a battle where my six year old was required to check inane tasks off (play this game, draw letters, circle puppies, Zoom!) hourly so his teacher could check off her own respective boxes.

Instead of taking time to play outside in the sunshine, I spent hours going from room to room, trying to redirect my eight and ten year olds to make a Google slides on apples and research renewable resources instead of sneaking over to poki.com to play whatever games their little brains desired.

The world was fighting a germ; we were inside fighting burgeoning addictions to technology.

And with the return to class and Covid monies being tossed at our schools, we saddled the kids with one-to-one devices and unmanageable behaviors and shortened attention spans.

No one did any research on the effects of this learning style before applying it to children. No one questioned the addictive screen time pull on kids or mental health and attention span ramifications. No one asked for parental consent before requiring kids to join google classrooms and other apps (and let these businesses gather kids’ information); it was blindly assumed this was the next step.

As a post-Covid public school teacher, I sat through many professional meetings where the administration instituted new testing, new curriculum, new methodology. Teachers (an adaptable bunch) tried to take on the new tech, but there was no allowance or accommodations offered. It was “we do it this way now” with the understanding that the greedy grab for Covid money was paving the way for a “better” future.

I regularly caught kids in the hallways on their way to reading and math intervention, cracking open their chromebooks to sneak a YouTube video or play games on a free website.
During reading time, or inside recess, or “free time”—kids, hunched over laptops, drinking up the internet. Schools where cell phones were banned now welcomed a new device to accompany students 24/7.
“Send them home!” the principal announced when we asked what to do with the laptops after school. “This is why we have them; to use them. They should be going home with the kids every night!”

Teachers who hadn’t asked for the tech, now responsible as a parent to try and monitor thirty kids all day long with a laptop sitting on each desk, but it didn’t stop there. They were responsible for having them charged and keeping them clean (and we all know the filthiest place in the world is a child’s backpack) all while the principal had ordered them sent home with the kids (I refused to let my own elementary kids bring their laptops/iPads home.)

Now, I don’t think every school is like this; at least I really hope not. And back to the homeschool crowd—certainly I know many that hand their child a device and don’t blink twice. No one these days is above the lure of technology, social media and the answer to every question at our fingertips.

But…what are we doing?

How do we responsibly integrate tech and still preserve our children and academics? How do we reach into the darkness and shine a light?

Listen to Pantsuit Politics’ most recent podcast, Tech in Schools with Jessica Grose. I’m so glad I’m not the only one thinking about this…Time for parents to speak up!

Modern Worship Recipe

Back on the church scene and wondering… Are all worship songs appropriate for worship?

It’s been eight Sundays–no misses–which has us back in the pew, learning the new songs that have been published in the two years we did our home church. We sing hymns, too, but I am talking about modern Christian worship. It’s the new stuff that has me curious. Because the songs are so foreign to me, I’ve taken to turning on Christian radio to fish for them–are they radio songs? Who sings them? What is the vibe?

Instead of the 7/11 choruses of the late 90s and early aughts (Seven words, eleven times= Yes, Lord, Yes Lord, Yes, Yes Lord. Yes, Lord, Yes, Lord, Yes, Yes, Lord! Yes, Lord, Yes, Lord, Yes, Yes, Lord, AMEN! <–which happens to be two words, ten times) and the 2010s’ renditions of reinvented hymns that evolve into chorus (Amazing Grace->My Chains are Gone, Because He Lives->Amen), this generation has evolved worship music into its own new recipe.

And I’m not saying it’s totally wrong, but I’m not certain it’s at all right. It has come hand in hand with stage worship, inspired, no doubt by the likes of stage masters Hillsong, Elevation, and other big church names that pay their own songwriters for new, original content.
But is it even original?
And is it something that glorifies God or something else?
Should it be a worship leader’s job to “guide” a worshipper into a certain feeling or space? Or is it manipulating true worship into an emotional state that can only be accessed in modern church where talented musicians and beautiful instrumentation evoke such feelings? (Honestly, I’ve never had more heightened emotions that when I had a cellist in the house–I am that sucker for strings)
And in this case, isn’t it setting believers up for disappointment when the expectation isn’t met?
Should we not be equally satisfied with less of an experience?
If the recipe isn’t followed–will the church lose congregants?
Are we too afraid to find out?
Afraid to lose the magnetism and hypnotic pull that is over the folks who equate spiritualism with emotionalism?

I wonder if I’m old-fashioned and nit-picky. But my concerns are for the dumbing down of believers–tethering our Hope to feelings instead of a Solid Rock.

I went to a concert just last night. The music was amazing; I enjoyed myself! I stood, clapped, chatted with friends, had a beer. I know where to go to catch a show. I know what to do to get a spike of serotonin.

But when I go to church, I want to enjoy God–and I feel a sense of urgency to make it more about Him. Less coffee for me. Less attention on what I’m wearing. Less fancy, less pride, less. I want my offering to be secret, not paraded in front. I want my communion to be holy, thoughtful, private. More study, more reverence. Praying quietly with my family. Soberness. No gimmicks, no light shows, no smoke. He must increase, I must decrease.

Where words are many, sin is not absent.

I‘m reminded that Jesus told his disciples not to blather on when they pray, like the heathen, but to offer simple prayers, because your Father in heaven already knows what you need before you ask it.

And this reminds me that I often need to bemaking sure I’m not getting caught up with the crowd, because the crowd tends to want to fit in with what the spirit of the world is doing. Call it heathen, proud, or knees that won‘t bend in reverence–this attitude is parroted when we make worship that mimics a rock concert or is more concerned with goosebumps than God’s holiness.

Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 5:18-20

Alpha-gal story: for people who need answers.

This story is a tiny bit about moving, but mostly about alpha-gal. Stick with me…

There was a time I swore I’d never uproot my children; that I’d of course raise them in the state and county they were born.

But here we are, once again in a different state, different home, different life than I’d expected.

It doesn’t surprise me anymore, but I smirk a little now when I hear people try to decipher “God’s will” or a certain “leading” through much prayer or soul searching.
I’ve told people this before: most of our life changes have been born of pain, either the discomfort-kind where the metaphorical shoe no longer fits because the foot has grown, or the kind where my very own physical body refuses to cooperate. This is a story of the latter.

Three years ago exactly I came home from a walk with the dog in the city park near our house. I’d developed hives—something I attributed to the early September snow and my brisk pace rounding the corners of the park loop. Hives are the worst kind of misery, because scratching never relieves the itch, and the itch itself is madness. During the early days of misery, I thought my immune system was breaking down. I cried at the doctor’s office and begged for help. She gave me a tiny prednisone pack and referred me to an allergist.

In the meantime, we went on a family camping trip. It was agony when it should have been exhilaration. We were leaving the city in the time of lockdown Covid, off to take cooling dips in Lake Powell, get sand between our toes, watercolor the sunsets. Instead the family dropped me off at another urgent care where I was given Hydroxyzine that knocked me out. I’d drowse off in the hatchback of the minivan or a deflated air mattress in the tent and awaken to kids laughing and roasting marshmallows without me.

By the time the allergist did his blood panel magic on me, it had been six weeks of chronic hives. The only thing he could find was that I had alpha-gal syndrome, a tick-borne disease. Did eating meat bother me? he wanted to know.
I didn’t think so—at least, I didn’t draw a strong connection between eating meat and having hives. I wasn’t sick to my stomach after eating a burger, and I don’t eat much meat anyway. He shrugged and told me to take two 24-hr Allegra per day, and more prednisone for flareups. If this didn’t work, he said, we’d try Xolair shots for chronic idiopathic (which means heck-if-I-know-what’s-causing-this) urticaria.

For two and a half years I did this, not knowing in any way how mammalian protein had any effect on my body. How could I be allergic to a food if the food caused me no immediate distress?
After so many years, I tested the waters of no Allegra. This was a total mind game, because the Allegra was my juju, my good luck charm. I swear I could get hives just by thinking them into existence at this point. It was the Allegra that worked as my calming cigarette, my tonic to appease the gods.

As I tried to wean off of the Allegra, I began doing some more research. I mostly didn’t even believe pork or beef affected me in any way, or that it had cause the hives. Up until very recently, I could not find much info on alpha-gal, so little studies have been done. But what I have found has been so eye-opening, so incredibly helpful, that I must share it:

Alpha-gal syndrome is an anomaly in the allergy world. What is known is that a tick must have been on an animal with alpha-gal in its system before it spreads it to humans. The tick that carries it mostly is the lone star variety, which is commonly found in the southeastern United States but is found in pockets throughout the country.

The tricky part of alpha-gal is that its symptoms do not present in the patient until many months after being bitten by the tick. It’s as if the protein builds up in one’s body until the immune system begins to attack it. Furthermore, once the body is poised to attack, the patient’s symptoms usually do not present until 2-6 hours after consuming mammalian meat. This delayed onset is why it usually presents in dramatic, unexpected fashion, and also why it is incredibly difficult to diagnose.

I had been in Missouri five months prior where I think I was bitten (ticks in April in southern MO are common). My onset of symptoms was in September. Some folks have gastrointestinal issues—mine was solely chronic urticaria. Hives present in 93% of alpha-gal patients. I also didn’t know that my symptoms weren’t caused only by pork and beef meat consumption, but also milk, cheese, gelatin, and other mammalian-derived products, including gel cap aspirin.

My allergist never suggested I stop eating pork or beef or mammal products because it seemed a non-issue during our honest office visit. Did those meats make me feel sick? Not at the time of consumption! How I wish now that he had given me a list of foods to avoid!

I have not had a recent blood test for alpha-gal markers. However, I have had other ongoing health issues I cannot help but wonder were triggered inside my body because of my immune response to alpha-gal. It is tricky—who will diagnose me? How can I be helped with something that is so unseen and unknown? Where and when will I find complete relief?

I don’t know the answers.

We moved out of Denver, and one not-so-small reason was because of a tick bite that messed with my health and complicated our pandemic experience. I’d thought the stress of homeschooling had brought on the hives, and Denver wasn’t looking like they had any plans for teachers and students to return swiftly to class. After we moved out of state, I began to heal and eventually teach school where my kids attended.

And now our family has moved again—and this story continues, and it will be told, too.

But to the hive sufferers: don’t discount a tick bite. If you cannot find a physician to run a blood panel, avoid mammalian meat and products to see if you get some relief. Take an Allegra. (Unsolicited advice, but the non-dangerous kind.) And move, if you have to—pain might very well lead to greener pastures.

Social Orphans

Years ago, friends of ours moved to Ukraine to serve children who lived in the state-run orphanage. They began by offering extracurricular programming and camp opportunities to the children. It was, essentially, respite services for state-employed caregivers.
While our friends were raising support for this endeavor, they explained they wanted to reach social orphans. This was the term they used to describe these children—kids, who, for the most part, actually had at least one living parent, but the parents were either alcoholic, abusive, unstable, etc. The biological parents had, more or less, given their children over to the state for care.

I’ve often thought about social orphans. Surely it’s a travesty—at least, I thought this over a dozen years ago when our friends left for Ukraine.

This summer we moved across the country. I left the teaching gig; we all left family and what had been normal for a couple years.

My teaching friends returned to school for active shooter training and de-escalation scenarios. I am not sorry to be there for that but I am sad we don’t get to revel in the back-to-school excitement. I guess schooling of a certain variety is very much engrained into our cells of what is right and acceptable. We began Saxon math (to my chagrin; I swore I’d never do that again—Still waiting for a Divine intervention) and even though each kid does thirty problems a day it doesn’t feel math-y enough.
I mused that teaching 360 kids elementary music is likely the same difficulty level as teaching four of my own a well-rounded curriculum.

I fought the good fight in public school, though, and was given an hour of plan time to scheme up fun music stuff—much more up my alley than your basic subjects. I have to pretend I’m not bored with Latin conjugations and IEW (sorry, Pudewa, but the magic is in the flow; I can’t be sitting and watching DVDs on how to write) and fractions. I tell Joe he has to help me have a good attitude. And also to not ever mention the H-word (homeschool). Shh!
The Venn diagram in my head works overtime debating the merits and downfalls of various schooling and I hate it. I also dislike the part of me that cannot be easy and rebels at the slightest indication that I should just go with it. I blame this character trait on my genes because I have a dad that loves to do the same. We two characters think we are presenting logic to the fools (shouldn’t they appreciate it?!) but deep down we might just looking for a way to be unique and thus patted on the head for our cleverness.


In PS (public school) what wore me down was the reliance on screens to teach (they called it asynchronous learning, but we all knew who was babysitting), the laziness that it inspired, poorly behaved children, and grownups who shrugged as if it were a cycle that couldn’t be stopped.
Students were no longer first priority. Less so in the elementary, from my vantage point.
And I hesitate to say that many educators were superb—excellent! But even our best are getting worn down by playing substitute parents for children who have no at-home training. They come to school ready to argue, to fight, to brawl. Imagine a fiery Facebook post but spoken by the mouths of eight and nine year old punks. On a small carpet, elbow to elbow. I had tiny kids announce to me on the first day that they couldn’t sit by so-and-so because, simply, they hate them.


Sorry, folks, that’s not how the world works!
More than one teaching friend from more than one PS told me it was the worst year they’d ever had teaching. When asked, they pointed at Covid and its mental and behavioral health implications. I don’t think Covid hurt the kids—I think it hurt the parents in a way that made them throw their hands up in the air and say, to heck with raising children. Why should I even try?


The nature of Covid and politics and social media at the time hit a crossroads where it felt Freedom might be lost. There was a demand by culture to place one’s stake in the sand. It beckoned—say it and say it out loud (on the internet in a public forum) or it doesn’t count:
Trump is an idiot. Let’s go Brandon! Wear a mask, you idiot! Masks are stupid. Black Lives Matter. All lives matter. (Funny how, even as I type this, my device autocorrects BLM to be capitalized. It won’t let it not be capitalized.)
The obsessing, the worry, the sickness and anger and stress reached a fever pitch, and we let it get to us.


When they weren’t distracted by their devices, our kids were watching. They were listening. They didn’t debate the merits of the conversations; they just quickly picked up that, in our culture, arguing is how we converse. People who disagree are idiots. Divisiveness is normal. Listening to the other side is stupid.
When they were distracted by their devices, they felt it natural to be entertained. Their dopamine went up, their blood pressure dropped. We created a special little addiction just for their stress issues. Little Johnny screams when I take away his tablet, so I let him stay on it. Keeps him quiet.

No wonder there was trouble brewing at school. The best a teacher can do is try to de-escalate Johnny while his blood pressure soars because his brain chemicals are out of whack. The best classroom management tool now is a federally subsidized, school-issued one-to-one device (one laptop/tablet per student). We can’t medicate them with pills, but we can do some therapeutic video games/YouTube videos and call it a Brain Break.
But it began in the home, back where social orphans first lost their parents to who-knows-what. Back when a mother or father somehow began to neglect their duty. When their own distractions began to outweigh the responsibilities of Love. To heck with intimate, familial interactions—let’s give all our children personal devices so we don’t have to make conversation at all!

It was because of the social orphans I needed my own respite. Raising my own kids takes almost all the effort and energy I can muster.
I quit teaching.

Funny how the American church sends missionaries and gushes over the saving of certain social orphans, as long as they are safely beyond our own borders. Yet the same church often vilifies American public education, where needy kiddos are just an arm’s length away.

Funny how our distractions outweigh our responsibilities.

A poor excuse.

I am constantly surprised friends continue to check this blog even when I abandon it for months at a time! So, thanks.

There’s been a lack of time and no keyboard-attached computer device for a long time, so I waited it out until I couldn’t anymore, then I bought what I needed and stayed up far too late into the night to eagerly return to the blank screen.

I’ve been thinking about writing about my schooling experience, teaching, and what I am up to now I’ve passed through another season of work and rest. Words are important—so important! But in a world where words are overused and watered down and reinvented—well, I didn’t feel it did much good to add to the noise.

The more I’m away from noise, the more I like it and it takes awhile to regain the nerve and grit to re-enter the scene. But a person with Truth must speak It, both for the hearer and for the goodness of the message. This is why I’m compelled to write.

I always shuddered at the evangelical trope of “door-knocking” as a girl. I think I have mentioned this before—and I would still almost rather swallow a bird (that sounds much nicer than “stab my eyeballs”) than make uninvited, potentially unwelcome small talk about Jesus with a stranger in the place they feel safest.
Jesus always postured his conversations with, “are you willing?”

I think we ought to do the same.

However, I am also the girl who just made a quick trip across states on American Airlines and definitely had a heart-to-heart with a fisherman on marriage, all my failings, and how God rescued and redeemed me to His glory. His first marriage had been abusive—he said he’d tolerated it till he was a shell of a man. Then he realized his life was no life at all and with the help of his parents, he escaped.
We both marveled at what twenty years and Jesus can do in a person’s life.

I like to think the fisherman was “willing” even though I had him cornered into a window seat and he was clearly terrified of flying. The flight ended with an invitation to go hog hunting on his property in Georgia, so I feel that overall things went well. Ha!

This little post is making me think of the most recent church sermons I’ve attended where the preacher goes on and on about theology and neglects the story/point in order to gratify his need for authority over the matter. So I will stop.

And I will write again soon.