Invisible Crosses

Come to thyself, O man; be made new instead of old, and celebrate the renewal and consecration of thy soul. While there is time, let thy life be consecrated in all its endeavors. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are made new. Bring forth this fruit on the feast: be changed with the good change. Thus is a man consecrated; thus is the day of the consecration honored.

~ From the Orthros of the Forefeast of the Exaltation of the Cross

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This one’s for the homeschool moms who feel invisible.¹

The ones whose husbands don’t read story books to the kids, who never ask about school, who don’t understand the whole homeschooling thing but go along with it anyway because it’s so important to you. Maybe that husband doesn’t share your faith; maybe he doesn’t even want you to homeschool, but you’ve both swallowed a little pride and negotiated an uneasy peace. You’re doing this whole home education project on your own, and you’re doing more than your fair share of shadow work² on top of it.

It’s for the moms who are video game widows, whose husbands spend too many nights at the bar or too many afternoons glued to the sports on TV or the ponies on their phones. The ones who run a household on purses with holes in the bottom, where there’s barely enough to keep things going. The moms who have been cutting their own hair for years because a salon cut is an unnecessary expense.

It’s for the moms who’ve moved to a new town again, who don’t know their neighbors, who have no local support system. Whose in-laws don’t approve of homeschooling, or whose own parents are elderly and in need of care. Maybe they’ve all passed away. In any case, there’s no one to drop by and watch the kids. Ever.

This one is for the moms who are doing the work on themselves, day by day, piece by little piece. Who maybe are now, or have been, single mothers. Who take two steps forward, only to fall back not just one step, but what feels like miles. Who lay themselves at the foot of the Cross and kiss the bloodied feet there.

You know who you are, because usually when you speak up and try to vent some frustration, you’re met with questions like, “Why don’t you just put the kids in school and get a real job?” or “Why don’t you ask your husband to help?” or “Why don’t you get a divorce?” Often these questions even come from the bright, shiny people in the local church community. It’s complicated, you try to say, even as the shiny people tell you what the right thing they think you should do is.

Why are you homeschooling, anyway?

You don’t owe anyone that explanation. It’s enough for you to hide it in your heart and whisper it to Jesus.

Sometimes the secret answer is that you know the odds are stacked against your children, that the family systems are set up only to fail them. You know that there’s so much repair to be made that the only possible way to do it in one generation is to have more time than institutional schooling allows for. You need those precious hours, precious days, precious years, to not only heal your own traumas, but to continue to repair the damage your traumas have caused in rippling through the world around you.

You pray every day, “Thy Kingdom Come” and “God grant me the serenity…” You tell yourself to take deep breaths, to try to do right or be consistent one more time, even and especially when you know these thorns in the flesh are going to bite.

As Saint Sophrony said, “You may be certain that as long as someone is in hell, Christ will be there with him.” Christ is in our midst.

He is and ever shall be.

This post is for you. Because everyone knows that especially with the educational resources available today, anyone who wishes to can become a competent home educator. That’s not the issue. This post is for you because you feel alone and invisible in the home education world, which is just as susceptible to social media lies, distortions, and outright deceptions as anything else on the internet. In the digital world, happy homeschooling mothers have plenty of money, relatively happy marriages, and supportive families and friends, and those who don’t still seem to have the chutzpah to turn their own misfortune into some kind of successful online business.

Be kind to yourself. Everyone has their own battles to fight. You know what yours are; you probably don’t know what your neighbor’s are (even if you think you do).

Homeschooling mama, your home is your monastery. Your home is your spiritual arena. And because the work you are doing there is so powerful, spiritual forces will array themselves against you round about. Many are they who will trouble your soul, and you will ask, “Why are they multiplied that afflict me?” You will ask, “Who is there to help me?”

And you will say, “My help comes from Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”

Listen. My confessor once told me that complaining can easily remove the spiritual benefit from suffering. This is a hard saying. It doesn’t mean that you can never share your soul with a trusted friend.

But it does mean—and we learn this over and over again through experience if we haven’t already learned it by heart—that we must keep the energy of our suffering turned foremost to the Cross, to the Holy Mighty crucified there. The eyes of the handmaiden wait upon the mercy—the eleison, the oil of healing—of the Breath of Life.

Lonely homeschooling mom, I see you. More importantly, Jesus sees you. His grace is sufficient and His strength is made perfect in your weakness. If you have been called to home education, He will give you what you need. It’s true, sometimes our paths change and we have to explore other options. But repeat this to yourself: The way is difficult. It doesn’t mean the Way is wrong.

I’ll pray for you if you pray for me, too.

Come, O ye faithful, let us worship the life-creating Wood, whereon Christ, the King of Glory, stretching out His hands of His own will, lifted up to the ancient blessedness us whom the enemy had aforetime despoiled through pleasure, making us exiles from God. Come, O ye faithful, let us worship that Wood whereby we have been deemed worthy to crush the heads of our invisible enemies. Come, all ye kindreds of the nations, with hymns let us honor the Cross of the Lord.

Rejoice, O Cross, thou perfect redemption of fallen Adam. In thee do our most faithful sovereigns boast, since by thy power they have mightily subjected to themselves the Ishmaelite peoples. As we Christians now venerate thee with fear, we glorify God, Who was affixed to thee, and we say:

O Lord, Who wast nailed to the Cross, have mercy on us, since Thou art good and the Lover of mankind.

~Idiomelon for the Holy Cross in Tone Two

Finally, remember the glorious paradox of this wonderful feast: The Holy Cross of Christ is an instrument of victory, a guide to the lost, a haven of the winter-locked, the security of the universe. The vehicle which carries Christ into Hell is the Tree of Life. Therefore the crosses we pick up and carry each day, those things meant for our destruction, when joined to Him, become the vehicles for our salvation.

For the Exaltation of the Holy and Life-Giving Cross, 2024

1. For the sake of form, I’ve used the phrase “homeschool moms”-- but I know there are men out there who feel this way, too. I see you.

2. I’m using “shadow work” here in the way coined by the social commentator and intellectual Ivan Illich. For example: grocery shopping, managing kids’ medical appointments. It doesn’t include subsistence household labor. Among many other things, Ivan Illich was an early voice in the home education movement, a formidable mind, and an utterly fascinating read.