Unschooling: The Little Way

Written by Sue Elvis

I would like to tell you a story of Suzie Andres and St Therese and homeschooling. But first I must start with a tale of grief. Grief? Yes, it was through grief I first met St Therese and her Little Way.

Our son Thomas died as a baby and I grieved for a long time. But one day the pain lifted slightly and I felt pure joy and was glad to be suffering for God. Love overflowed my heart and I suddenly had the urge to suffer anything for God. I wanted to be a saint. And not just a little saint but a big one. I felt I could follow in the footsteps of St Teresa of Avila or St John of the Cross, whose books I was reading at the time. But this worthy thought lasted only a moment. With the next wave of grief came the plea, “I’ve had enough. Please help me, Lord.”

I had a prayer card. I can’t remember exactly what was on it but I knew I was a bit afraid of it. The words said something like “I offer my whole life to suffer greatly for the souls of my family and friends.” Perhaps there was something about how this life on earth is so short and we should suffer as much as possible while here. And there is nothing better we can do than to ask for suffering that will win the eternal souls of our loved ones.

I agreed entirely with the thoughts on the prayer card but I couldn’t pray the words. I’d pick up the card and read the words but I always made sure God knew I wasn’t really praying them. I was frightened. I knew what suffering was. I was right in the middle of it. How could I suffer this for the rest of my life? Some days I just begged God to take away the pain. No, I wasn’t made of the right stuff to be a big saint. However much I wanted to be big, I knew I was really just a little soul. I just wanted God to lift me right up in His arms and take care of me and make things right.

Then I discovered St Therese of Liseaux. Of course, I’d heard about her but I’d been avoiding her. I remember a friend telling me that she’d chosen Teresa of Avila as her patron saint and not Therese of Liseaux. The reason? The friend had always had this idea since childhood that The Little Flower was a sickly sweet saint, a saint without substance. I needed big help from a big inspiring strong saint. So I turned to St Teresa of Avila. I knew she’d suffered greatly. What was that famous quote? Something like “God if this is how You treat Your friends, it’s no wonder You don’t have many of them.” I was going to be one of God’s few friends. So I read The Complete Works of St Teresa of Avila and then went onto The Complete Works of St John of the Cross. And I tried to follow in their footsteps. But it was too difficult.  I wasn’t brave. I didn’t really want to suffer. I wasn’t a saint.

Then somehow I came into contact with St Therese of Liseaux regardless of my belief she couldn’t help me. I read The Story of a Soul, and later, I Believe in Love and I discovered The Little Way. Suddenly I realised that maybe I could still become a saint after all. Not a big saint but a little one, a little one supported by God’s arms. I could be a full little cup instead of a full big cup.  Or perhaps, as Suzie Andres would say, I could become a great saint through the little way of love. I started taking life one day at a time, not asking for suffering, but asking God instead to help me accept and bear whatever came my way.

But what has grief got to do with homeschooling? Just as I wanted to be a big saint so I wanted to be the perfect mother and educator of my children. I made big plans, bought the right resources, did my research. How could I fail? But some days I suffered. There were times when I just wanted to lie down and never get up again. “I can’t do this God. It’s too big a task. I can’t give my children all they need. I don’t have the inner resources to give them the perfect education. I am not enjoying this at all. It was never meant to be this way.” How would I teach my children everything I thought they needed to know? Some days they seemed to learn nothing. Other things got in the way or they were uncooperative, not fitting in with my grand plan. Were my children getting ‘behind’? Was I jeopardizing their futures?

I thought about the alternatives, about sending my children to school and I realised I didn’t have a choice. The educating job was mine and mine alone.

Gradually I changed my style of teaching my children. I stopped making plans we never got around to using. I stopped writing timetables that we were unable to keep up with. I didn’t worry about completing particular curricula. I decided to just enjoy my children and trust that they would learn as we spent our days sharing and doing things together and just being a family. We had discovered unschooling. In public, I called our homeschooling method ‘doing our own thing’. I’d vaguely refer to good books, enjoying our interests, music, writing… But to myself I called it ‘my lazy way’. Yes, there was a bit of guilt. Should we enjoy homeschooling together so much? Shouldn’t homeschooling be a bit more difficult? Perhaps we were just being lazy.  Maybe I’d just given up.

Then I discovered Suzie Andres’ book A Little Way of Homeschooling. I jumped up and down with excitement. It all made perfect sense. We were following St Therese’s Little Way while we were homeschooling. I’d given up trying to be the big saint, that perfect mother and homeschooling parent. Instead of trying to educate my children on my own, I was listening to God and to my children. I trust they will learn what they need to know. I no longer worry about that endless list of absolutely essential knowledge I thought I should stuff into my children. I am now living each day, one day at a time. I don’t believe God means homeschooling to be difficult. I don’t see homeschooling as a sacrifice and a suffering that I am just meant to endure and offer up. I think God wants us to delight in our children. And to trust in Him.

There are so many wonderful excerpts I could quote from A Little Way of Homeschooling. Here are just a few, written by Suzie, I hope you will enjoy and find helpful.

Therese was a realist, and knew there was work to be done, but she decided to do whatever came here way without fear without worrying about the outcome, without the false notion that it depended on her…

… I think that one of our methods for multiplying worries is telling ourselves that our job in educating our children is to do our best, to pack as much knowledge into them as possible. How much more profitable to us to begin from Therese’s reminder, “It’s only in Heaven that we’ll see the whole truth about everything. This is impossible on earth.”

God will give each of us the time that we need to learn everything He wants us to know; this applies to both ourselves and our children. Why do we expect we must teach it all to our children in our homeschool? And why do we automatically assume that this burden of prospective learning will be painful for them, arduous for us? There is a less frightening way….

… In the spirit of St Therese, we as Catholics ought to realise that Jesus has set us free. If we believe His words, if we strive to believe Him more and more, we will start by living one day at a time, letting tomorrow take care of itself. Already we will have made progress if we refuse to see the whole future of a child contained in today’s accomplishments, successes and failures…

…Spend time listening to Him, and let Him tell you what He desires for your family. It may be unschooling… Whatever it is, you will recognise it by the peace it brings to you and your children. Do not settle for anything else.

Yes, peace.

Eventually I felt peace despite my grief as I started living one day at a time: “I accept how I feel. You allow this grief. But I need You to help me through the day.” I began to trust God. He was looking after me. And peace followed.

In the same way, I know God is looking after our homeschooling family. When I started listening, He led us to unschooling. And I know this is what He desires for us. I can feel it. No longer do I feel guilty. Instead I can feel peace… real peace.

A Little Way of Homeschooling is available both as a paperback book, and an ebook as epub and Kindle editions. I thoroughly recommend Suzie’s book.


Please share more of my posts on my blog Sue Elvis Writes

Stories of Grief, Love and Hope

By Sue Elvis

Some years ago, I used to say, “I’m ready to do Your Will, Lord but please don’t send me any suffering.” Perhaps this wasn’t much of an offering. I knew suffering would involve much pain and I was afraid.

Often when I try to push fears to the back of my mind, God arranges matters so that I have to face whatever I feel I can’t deal with. And this was the case in 1999 when, for the first time in my life, I was plunged into a sea of suffering like nothing I’d ever experienced before. One day I was in full control of my life, the next, my world was in pieces and I was choked with the feeling that I wouldn’t survive. Finding out that our unborn baby was unlikely to survive after birth was a very frightening, distressing feeling and I was full of panic as I looked ahead to what should have been a happy event in our lives.

The next five months were a mixture of calm as I tried to place my trust in God, and despair as I contemplated holding our dead child in my arms. How could a mother be expected to survive the death of her own child? I prayed so much during those months asking God for a miracle of healing for our child.

Thomas was born and it was soon obvious that God had not healed him. There are not enough words to describe our pain and suffering. We watched Thomas been wheeled away to the intensive care unit, seconds after his birth, and our first look at him came hours later: a tiny body hooked up to a life support machine. Thomas lived 28 hours and that time seemed like months. We arrived back home 48 hours after setting off for the hospital and it was inconceivable that we had been away for such a short time. Our lives had been changed forever and it was difficult to come home and pick up the threads of everyday life…

This is the start to one of my Thomas stories. It comes from my book Grief, Love and Hope.

I started writing my Thomas Stories quite a few years ago. At first I just wanted to record our son’s life. He lived for only a fleeting moment and I wanted to say, “I have a son. His name is Thomas. He didn’t live very long but his life was valuable. And we love him so very much.”

Later a friend suggested I share my stories so that I could connect with other bereaved parents. Grieving is such a lonely existence. Sometimes we feel we are going crazy. Does anyone else feel like we do? And does anyone survive the deep sorrow of losing a child? By sharing we can encourage each other, give hope and lessen that feeling of isolation.

I wrote my first Thomas Stories for a homeschooling newsletter. Then I gathered these stories together, and added some more: my book Grief, Love and Hope came into existence.

After the publication of the book, I was very surprised to find I had still more to say about Thomas. He might have lived only for one day but he has affected our lives forever. I am continually amazed how our son works his way into my writing. So more Thomas Stories were written and I have been posting them on my blog Sue Elvis Writes, as well as on The Apostolate of Hannah’s Tears blog.

But now I feel my stories need a home of their own, a blog just for Thomas. So I have created Stories of Grief, Love and Hope.

I will be gathering all my Thomas stories together and posting them on this new blog. Some you will find in my book Grief, Love and Hope. And some have been published on other blogs. I am sure Thomas will keep on inspiring new stories so there will probably be entirely new posts too.

I would also like to write about the experience of miscarriage after losing seven little souls much too early.

Maybe you have experienced the sorrow of losing a child yourself, or you might be supporting the bereaved, or maybe you’d just like to learn more about the experience of grief.

If you would like to share my stories of our precious son, please visit my new blog, Stories of Grief, Love and Hope. I would feel very honoured if you read my posts.

And if you know of anyone who is suffering and might want to connect with another bereaved parent, I would be grateful if you told them about my blog.

Please visit Sue Elvis Writes and Stories of Grief, Love and Hope

A Mother, a Child: a Special Love

By Sue Elvis

Cooperating with God and creating another human life is miraculous. I have loved the child forming within me from the moment I have become aware of his existence. And when that child has died, I have been devastated.

How can we love a child that has been with us for so little time? Surely our grief and sorrow, when we have to say goodbye to a life barely started, is excessive? After a miscarriage people may say, “You weren’t pregnant for very long. You’ll have another baby. Pull yourself together.” After the death of a newborn child: “At least you didn’t get to know him well. He didn’t become part of your life. It’s not as if one of your other children has died.” But these babies have become part of our lives despite their short time with us.

My feelings of love towards Thomas surprise me at times. My love for him has not faded as the years pass by. In fact it grows stronger. This is all rather a mystery: how can a mother grow in love for a child she no longer has with her?

When you love you open yourself up to sorrow as well as joy. If a loved one dies such an empty feeling results. What is the answer? Not to love in the first place? Could I have prevented myself loving Thomas? No. I had no choice.

The other day I read the following in The Education of Little Tree, the story of a Cherokee childhood by Forrest Carter. Little Tree’s dog had died and he said, “I felt total bad about it, and empty. Granpa said he knew how I felt, for he was feeling the same way. But Granpa said everything you lost which you had loved give you that feeling. He said the only way round it was not to love anything, which was worse because you would feel empty all the time.”

The love between mother and child is not a one way love. It is returned. A baby can recognise his mother immediately after birth. After nine months of living tucked beneath her heart, he has come to know his mother’s voice, her touch, her actions, her heart-beat. He knows where he is secure and who loves him. Thomas never saw me but did he listen to and know my voice? Did he know I was his special person, his mother? Did he know it was my touch he felt as he slipped away from life? Did he love me?

Sometimes it is only when we become parents ourselves that we really appreciate and understand our own parents’ love for us. I think of my mother. Did she look at me with amazement when I was born? Did she marvel at the gift she’d been given? I know she made many sacrifices for me. She didn’t lose me like I lost Thomas but did she still discover that there was sadness mingled in with the joy of motherhood? I moved away from her, I took my place in the world, concerned with myself and my own affairs and often it seems like I never appreciate or return her love.

I often think about being reunited with Thomas in heaven. I will have to wait until then to hear Thomas say, “I love you, Mum.” In the meantime, I can say to my own mother, “Mum, I really love you. Thank you for giving me the gift of life. Thank you for all the sacrifices you made for me. Because of you, I grew up capable of experiencing the special love of a child of my own.”

Please visit my blog Sue Elvis Writes to share more of my stories 

Miriam

By Gerard and Lisa

This article is about our daughter, Miriam, who was miscarried 8 years ago and what we did. We are writing this in response to the many people who have said to us ‘I wish I knew I could have done that’.

On Tuesday evening the 8th of April 2003 we were 12 weeks pregnant when Lisa started to spot. It stopped within half an hour. This does not always mean that there are problems but we were worried. We had an appointment to see an obstetrician that was still three weeks away. When the spotting began again in the early hours of Wednesday morning Lisa rang our G.P. He suggested ringing the obstetrician to get an earlier appointment. He also told us that Lisa would probably go on to have a miscarriage and there was nothing we could do. The obstetrician was unable to see Lisa but gave us a referral to have an ultrasound.

We had to wait until Friday morning before we could be fitted in for the ultrasound. The news was not good. Miriam had no heartbeat and judging by her size had probably died three weeks earlier. The obstetrician saw us and gave us the option of going to the hospital for a curette or going home to wait for things to happen naturally. We took the second option.

After the ultrasound Gerard went to see our parish priest, Fr Albert, to discuss funeral options. We knew from friends that we could have some kind of memorial service and burial. Upon reading the rubrics for the Requiem Mass Fr Albert, who never had experienced a case like ours before, found that there were prayers within the ritual for an unbaptised child. That afternoon we chose readings and prayers for Miriam’s Requiem Mass.

The next morning, at 4:45am, nature took its course and Miriam was ‘born’. After a conditional baptism we gathered her remains and wrapped them in a white hand towel, placed the towel in an ice-cream container and put it in the fridge.

Saturday was a busy day. We told the children as they awoke about their little sister and  answered the questions they asked as best we could. The funeral arrangements were finalised with Father and  it was set down for Monday. He also organised a child’s plot at our local Catholic cemetery.

Gerard went to the shops to buy a ‘coffin’ for Miriam. Where do you go to buy a coffin for such a small child? He finally found an appropriate box in a kitchen shop. It was a wooden box intended to sit on a kitchen bench. He then went to a hardware store and bought some nails. Flowers were also ordered.

Sunday was Passion Sunday and we spent it with friends performing in a Passion play. It was good to have the support. Afterwards friends helped us to dig the grave.

Monday morning consisted of getting everything ready for the funeral. We picked up the flowers and prepared the coffin. We placed Miriam in her white hand towel into the box with Lisa’s rosary beads. A Miraculous Medal and crucifix, which Gerard usually wore, were nailed to the top and a wooden crucifix glued onto the side. We then each hammered some nails into the lid to close the coffin. This was a very difficult and healing thing to do.

The Requiem Mass was beautiful with friends supplying the music and family and friends supporting us. Miriam was laid to rest in the adjoining cemetery with each of our other children participating by throwing dirt and flowers onto the coffin as it was buried.

Each time we drive past the cemetery, which is every workday for Gerard, we remember our daughter and sister.

We often say to each other that while what happened to us was sad, God was good to us in the way it happened. We don’t know why it happened but we continue to trust in God’s plan for our lives.

Each family will cope with a miscarriage in their own way. We hope that by sharing our story, others will learn of what may be some of their options.

Today is Miriam's birthday. Please pray for Gerard, Lisa and family