Both girls finished their essays, more or less.
Abby wrote about how her father and I put her at ease over theological concerns, and she started her essay last week, and finished it today. Pretty straightforward, well written essay.
Faith was just stuck. She couldn't think of any examples from her own life of a mentor-helper relationship to write about. That had her very upset after churning about it for a few hours. Then I suggested she write it from the perspective of her own characters. No dice. Then Sean (brilliantly) suggested she write it from some other fictional character. So she did. And then she dawdled on writing it, and then she finally got a rough draft in about an hour ago.
One of the points of this curriculum for us this year is letting them learn to hold to deadlines. So, so far, so good.
Here's Abby's essay, posted with permission.
I have been told I am ‘a tough crowd’, ‘deadpan’, or ‘Spock’. However, I hardly ever think of myself that way. I think of myself as, and am, someone who has suddenly gone into an existential panic in the middle of the night and had to come to my parents for help. Fortunately, my mother and father know how to comfort a Vulcan.
I think I was about ten when I first started really having philosophical thoughts. (I’m pretty sure my first was either ‘Why are managers in cartoons never women?’ or ‘Humans are weird.’) When I was about twelve, I started questioning God.(‘How do I know He has a plan?’ ‘How do I know He even exists?’ ‘I’m not really eating Him, am I?’) And when I was thirteen, I took an RE class to get these questions answered. In this class, our teacher was telling us about the afterlife. She told us that we really don’t know what Heaven will be like, but we do know that it is a place where we will be perfected. That sounds great, but it made me rather nervous. A few days later, it made me sitting-on-the-bathroom-floor-crying nervous. What’s ‘perfected’? Will I still be me? Will I be different from all the other souls? The ability to be vastly different from everyone else is one of my favorite parts of life. If I can’t have it in death, then...well, I didn’t know what I would do. That’s what scared me. I knew my parents were awake, but for reasons I can’t remember now, I was reluctant to ask them for help. Maybe I didn’t want to disturb them? Maybe my tired brain thought it could find the answer debating with itself? Heck, maybe it was pure Satanic influence. Anyway, I finally did go into their room, and I asked this question: “Will I still like writing stories in Heaven?” My mother told me to come sit down on the bed. She said that Heaven is a place where we will be happy, and if anything about it sounds terrible, then it won’t be the case, or it will be okay in ways we can’t perceive now. Then my father said that the ability to create worlds and people in our heads is a way we are like God, and in Heaven, we’ll become more like God, not less, so it wouldn't make sense to lose this.
I don’t remember what happened afterwards. I’m sure thanked them, and I hope I went straight to bed. This is not the only time my mother’s emotional support and my father’s logical reasoning have greatly helped solve a problem. I’m thankful for them, and I can very much see their logical purpose.
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