Mega Memory Month Comes to an End

Well, I had high hopes for the culminating activity for Mega Memory Month. The children and I recorded ourselves reciting the passage using the web-cam, and I was going to upload it to the blog. But, we don't have high speed, so the upload was taking FOREVER, and I needed to do other things, so we scrapped that idea. Instead I've typed my passage below. The video recording was unintentionally funny, as Brown Eyed Boy and Little Man were sitting on my lap and discovered that they could see themselves in real time on the computer monitor! So the silliness began, and as it went on, My Girl and I tried to keep on going with the recitation. I figure that it shows that you know a passage really well if you can make it to the end with little boys giggling, squirming, sticking out little fat tongues, pointing, making circles with heads, etc.! I call that a victory! Too bad you can't see the recording, too!

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, "You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right." So they went.

He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, "Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?"
"Because no one has hired us," they answered.
He said to them, "You also go and work in my vineyard."

When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, "Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first."

The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came, and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more,. bBut each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. "These men who were hired last worked only one hour," they said, "and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day."

But he answered one of them, "Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?"

So the last will be first, and the first will be last.

Matthew 20:1-16

This has been an interesting process for us. We've run the gamut of responses, from 'this is easy' to 'this is boring'; from 'I didn't want to do this parable' to finding application of it in our daily lives. We'll continue with our regular memorization, but won't be posting weekly anymore. And I still do want to try to finish Philippians. I'll keep you posted from time to time.

Visit Ann's blog where Mega Memory Month got started, and see what the other participants have been up to and how they celebrated the end to the challenge.

My Girl's Final Mega Memory Month Recitation

My Girl typed her passage into the computer, checked for spelling mistakes and such, and then showed me. What follows is her written recitation of the parable of the workers in the vineyard (with spelling and punctuation mistakes removed). Small blue letters are errors, regular sized orange letters are the correct version. She did a super job, and I'm so proud of her!

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in the vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

“He went out again About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the market-place. He said to them ‘You also go and work in my vineyard and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.

“He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out again and found still others standing around. doing nothing. He said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them there their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

So (when) The workers who where hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These men who were hired last only worked one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and heat of the day.’
But he answered one of them ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’”

So the last will be first, and the first will be last.


Matthew 20:1-16

Juncos are Back

We haven't seen these little birds for months. All summer we've had finches and sparrows, chickadees and crows, cardinals and blue jays, but the juncos were not to be seen. Now here they are, stocking up at the feeders for the cool weather.

At lunch, yesterday alone, we saw:

juncos (4)

blue jays (2)

(no photos today)

finches (5)

mourning doves (2)

crows (3)

(no photos today)

cardinal (female, 1)

(here she is flying off the fence - she was too quick for me!)

I hope there will be some who stick around for the winter. They give us something special to watch at mealtimes.

Oh yes, of course there were squirrels, too.

Sedum purpureum - 100 Species Challenge

5. Sedum purpureum. Sedum is found in many gardens in our community, but I've also seen it in the natural parkland (the photo at the bottom, with the bee, is from one of our nature walks, the other three are from our garden). It is a perennial that re-surfaces early in the spring and lasts well into the fall.

It has smooth, waxy leaves with almost invisible veins. The edges are serrated with large scallops, and the tip is slightly rounded. The stem is also smooth and waxy, very thick and sturdy.

The sedum flowers are clusters of tiny buds, giving the plant a pink broccoli-look. Buds are less than 1/4" and light green in colour when they first appear, gradually developing pink tips. The pink spreads as the flower grows, with full flowering coming in late summer and fall. Come late October, the flowers begin to dry on the stems.

Mega Memory Month Update

This is the last Monday for Mega Memory Month, but I have until Friday to work on this passage. I'm pleased with the progress I've made, and I'm even more pleased with the way the children are writing the Word on their hearts. Our only strategy for memorizing this passage has been to read it (almost) every morning a few times, and to try saying it once we thought we knew it - or parts of it. There was no drill of difficult sections, there was no constant repeating of phrases. There was simply abiding with the passage in its entirety for the whole time we were working on it. And it worked!

Now, I'm not sure that it would be as effective a strategy with a long passage (like the book of Philippians, for example), but maybe to break that long passage into several smaller, yet still significant parts would work. It was certainly more enjoyable for me to do it this way than to do one or two verses at a time and tack on new ones as we mastered them.

So, you can expect to see one more Mega Memory Month post on Friday(ish) when I'll give the final rundown on the project and what we do for a culminating activity.

But before I go, here's the Parable of the Vineyard as I was able to do it this morning:

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

About the third hour he went out and saw others standing around in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, "You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right." So they went.

He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, "Why have you been standing here in the marketplace all day long doing nothing?"

"Because no one has hired us," they answered.
He said to them, "You also go and work in my vineyard."

When evening came the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, "Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first."

The workers who were hired at the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. "These men who were hired last worked only one hour," they said, "and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day."

But he answered one of them, "Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?"

So the last will be first, and the first will be last.

Matthew 20:1-16

A Question to Follow-Up the Meeting from Cathy B. (who led the application portion of the meeting)

We were unable to get to Chapter 13 on Tuesday night....my how time does fly. (I can appreciate why a clock is often placed by the facilitator!)

After looking at my notes, there is one point that I thought I would still like to put forward to the group to ponder and maybe even respond via the WHHE site.

On page 108, I have taken the following quote:

"I've always been careful not to 'over-work' literature by picking it apart or by scheduling in very many suggested activities listed in those expensive study guides. One or two related activities, at most, have worked fine for us."

My question would have been, "What kind of activities have you found to work well or not so well when working with literature?"

On Praise

"Praise is cheap today. Everything is praised. Soap, beer, toothpaste, clothing, mouthwash, movie stars, all the latest gadgets which are supposed to make life more comfortable - everything is constantly being "praised". Praise is now so overdone that everybody is sick of it, and since everything is "praised" with the official hollow enthusiasm of the radio announcer, it turns out in the end that nothing is praised. Praise has become empty. Nobody really wants to use it.

"Are there any superlatives left for God? they have all been wasted on foods and quack medicines. There is no word left to express our adoration of Him who alone is Holy, who alone is Lord.

"So we go to Him to ask help and to get out of being punished, and to mumble that we need a better job, more money, more of the things that are praised by the advertisements. And we wonder why our prayer is so often dead - gaining its only life, borrowing its only urgency from the fact that we need these things so badly.

"But we do not really think we need God. Lease of all do we think we need to praise Him.

"It is quite possible that our lack of interest in the Psalms conceals a secret lack of interest in God. For if we have no real interest in praising Him, it shows that we have never realized who He is. For when one becomes conscious of who God really is, and when one realizes that He who is Almighty, and infinitely Holy, has "done great things to us," the only possible reaction is the cry of half-articulated exultation that bursts from the depths of our being in amazement at the tremendous, inexplicable goodness of God to men.... "

Thomas Merton, Praying the Psalms

Have all the good words been used on unworthy subjects? Is there anything left for the Father?

This week my Spiritual Formation Group is focusing on Praise, so naturally that's where my thoughts are today.

I've been paying more attention to my own words the past couple of days: What do I praise? Who do I praise? How do I do it? And I've begun to realize that I think of praising God as something I do to Him, not something I express to others. Praising Him to others in my everyday conversations is unusual, although it is getting more common to do it in my SFG. But to spread it beyond? I praise my children - to themselves and to others; my husband, my family...But my God? To others? Can I praise Him today? Out loud? To others? Today?