For whatever reason, the concept of being driven and motivated by fear has come up in conversation with both of my adult daughters lately. In trying to explain it, I keep coming back to homeschooling: fear drives many to homeschool. They may be trying to avoid vaccines and bullies, they may be terrified of school shootings and bomb threats, or they may be well aware of the consequences of the curriculum content coupled with the school culture.
No matter.
The issue is that fear is never enough. Fear leads to minimalism; it dictates what we want to avoid. Fear cuts back and cuts down — less of this and none of that.
Fear isn’t bad. In early childhood, especially, children really do need to be protected, incubated from the world, the flesh, and the devil as much as possible.
But fear doesn’t give us a positive vision. It never tells us what to do. It doesn’t create a drive toward a goal. Fear cowers rather than pushing on. It halts and looks around rather than marching into the fray.
Fear is impotent, and yet oh so potent. It’s power to paralyze us is notorious.
My children were quite young when I first read these words from Charlotte Mason:
“Thou hast set my feet in a large room,” should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. (School Education, p. 170)
A large room. What does this even mean? I wondered. She’s referencing Psalm 31:8 here, but you only catch it if you read the King James Version:
And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: thou hast set my feet in a large room.
Notice the contrast between fear and danger (the hand of the enemy) and what God has done (placed me in a large room). Somehow, a large room is the antidote to fear. We could give the Sunday School answer, of course. God and Jesus have done it. But how does a large room antidote fear?
Another verse comes to mind:
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (I John 4:18)
A large room only antidotes fear if it is built and established in love.
Education is a large room we fill with good things to know and love. This is maximalism at its best: so much to love. We read widely because there are so many things to love — so many things that God made, so many things He has done, and so many things His creatures have done and made. Plus there is Him Himself!
We add education by things — we learn to love to run and jump and triumph in a racing or sparring or dancing, we learn to make and rejoice in how simple materials like charcoal and paper or paints or threads or leather can become something else entirely.
And for a time, the fear leaves and the middle years of homeschooling can be a great rejoicing.
And then fear returns in different forms. Suddenly, you’re worried about the college they will (or won’t) go to, the job they will (or won’t) get, the spouses and friends they choose, the music they listen to, the books they select, the [shudder] YouTube videos they curate for themselves. How did it spin all out of our control? we wonder.
We start to look for other solutions to the fear. Personally, I throw the book at them. I keep buying the new book that will give them the direction they so obviously seem to need.
But what if the solution is always the same? What if maximalizing — growing in love — is still the answer?
Once upon a time, I had a conversation with Martin Cothran for a Scholé Sisters episode that really gave me pause. I don’t remember if he said it during the episode or just when we were chatting, but we were talking about parents’ fear of Harry Potter. Cothran said that the issue wasn’t really that Harry Potter was so dangerous — it was only dangerous if that was the sum total of a child’s experience of fantasy writing. I had an aha moment. My children had been raised on Narnia and Middle Earth. By the time they went to Hogwarts, they enjoyed the story, but it wasn’t an obsession. Their rooms were far too large for Hogwarts to be able to fill them.
What about music? As a teenager, I learned to love Metallica, but it wasn’t dangerous because I also loved Bach and Mozart. I was discerning enough to know only some of their songs were worth loving. I see this in my own children — their wide tastes have made room for orchestras and choirs and sea shanties and folk songs … and also their own rock music … and my rock music … and their grandparents’ rock music. They’ve found a lot to love while training the app algorithm to stop cursing. 😉
It turns out that when it comes to all the scary life decisions, maximalism holds true. They still need more to love, and then they will be okay. Specifically, they need more of God — more Scripture and more prayer and more church and more fellowship.
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By keeping it according to Your word. (Psalm 119:9)
There is a place for the books I want to buy — the book on dating, on choosing a career, on making your way in the world — but those only do their magic when placed in the largest room of all: the love of God.
“Thou hast set my feet in a large room,” should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking — the strain would be too great — but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest. We cannot give the children these interests; we prefer that they should never say they have learned botany or conchology, geology or astronomy. The question is not, — how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education — but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him? (School Education, pp. 170-171)
No Comments