Upward Spiral

Harmony and I continually find ourselves in an upward spiral these days. That would be the opposite of "downward spiral," which is a commonly used term in vernacular English. Our upward spiral means that we are becoming more and more traditional as time goes by. Want to know how "weird" we've become? Read on. For the short attention spans out there, I've bolded the continual steps of our upward spiral.

For a time in college, I thought that after Harmony and I got married, that she would work part-time. I have always wanted my wife staying home with my kids, I believe, so I would've been fine with her quitting when kids came along. But then Harmony presented me with some reasons why it could be a jarring adjustment to not have that extra income (etc.) anymore and I was quite easily won over. I think she had just begun reading conservative Christian blogs at this time. Somewhere in there we also decided against using birth control.

Not surprisingly, a short time afterwards, she brought up the subject of homeschooling. I'd not had much experience with homeschooling. I'd only known one person who'd been homeschooled, and she didn't seem any more weird than the rest of us. I think I did bring up the default question of "socialization" but I don't remember what came of it. All I know now is that I have no desire to socialize my kids in the Godless socialist environment that is tax payer funded child abuse (a.k.a. government/public schools). So you would think that I would naturally want to put my kids in private Christian schools, right? Well, not really. Contemporary classrooms still follow the age-segregated peer education model. I attended private school for a while and I can tell you that no majority of students are Bambi-eyed cherubs who espouse Christian virtues when presented with the opportunity to do evil. In general, I do not plan to practice age segregation, so this means that the only option left is either a one room schoolhouse or homeschooling. I think you know which one I intend to choose.

(Of course, I do not condemn you if, for whatever reason, choose/chose not to homeschool. Besides, humans have no power to condemn anyone. It's like trying to will the sun not to rise.)

Of course, age segregation is present in churches today. Youth groups, young adult ministries, teen ministries, this-and-that ministries. I have read reasons why some people choose not to put their kids in youth groups, and I must say that I agree with the reasons.

I've also become much more traditional in my preferred church music. Before I came to college, I was all into the contemporary styles of musical worship. But I started attending a quasi-church of Christ in college. Quasi- meaning it was a denomination split from the churches of Christ, which generally do not use instruments. Over the years I became accustomed to and developed affinity for non-instrumental 4 part a cappella hymns as my preferred method of musical worship. I do not believe this is a salvation issue and therefore do not condemn any who do use instruments in worship.

After many years of eating entirely unhealthy foods in college, we started getting more much "weird" about eating healthy foods. At first it started with Harmony trying to cut out extremely sugary foods from her diet. Then we somehow got to slowly cutting out trans fats from our diets. We started buying organic every now and then. Now, we try to make things from scratch whenever possible. We also try to substitute other things for sugar (like honey or Sucanat-which-is-painfully-expensive), since my dad has relatively recently developed diabetes, which means I might be susceptible as well.

Harmony has recently also been reading up on hybrid seed varieties and seed saving or whatnot. I think she's on a new quest to be a responsible gardener, which means not using pesticides and using "good" seeds only. (Pssst...Harmony might want to revise this paragraph later.)

One area which I've become much less strict on is the issue of salvation. Actually, I got considerably more strict before coming back down to what I think is a happy medium. The church I attended throughout college used to hold to a rather cult-ish belief that only those who held to their doctrines and every single one of their extra-Biblical beliefs would enter Heaven. There was lip service given to those select few outside the church that (theoretically) had come to the church's beliefs independently. However, most of their extra-Biblical beliefs were exclusively practiced in that church only, so in practice, no one but church members fit. To its own credit, many of these churches have reformed their beliefs and have become pleasantly progressive (relative to former positions), although there are still some who hold to such narrow and cult-ish beliefs. Old beliefs die hard among some. Anyways, I used to buy into the One True Church mindset, but do so no longer. Coincidentally or not, Harmony and I now attend a traditional church of Christ. Before college, I think I was too quick to label many people as being "Christian" without having the lifestyle to prove it. I no longer just assume that anyone is a Christian just because he/she says so, but also no longer believe that only people in my former church are the only ones who hold the keys to heaven (what would that mean for me, who no longer attends?)

...But don't let all this scare you off from talking to us. I think on the outside we still resemble normal people. I'm left wondering how much more traditional/conservative we'll become in the next decade.