You may have noticed that I love English idioms, clichés, and expressions. I’ve also been known to scramble them, as in, “I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday,” or “I killed two birds in one bush!” Well, here’s an idiom we’ve all butchered anytime we claim to have succeeded without outside assistance. It was originally used with irony; literally speaking, it is impossible to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps. When you’re down, you’re down, and without some kind of help, you’re not getting up.

This is a humbling time. People are sick. They are lonely. They are dying without the comfort of other human beings, and their loved ones are grieving in isolation. Those caring for the sick and dying are putting their own lives on the line. Many people have lost their jobs. People who were struggling with addiction or trying to deal with an abusive relationship have lost their support systems. Children have lost the structure of school and are facing new challenges. We, the lucky ones who are merely stuck at home, are worried and care-worn. We are collectively, as a species, grieving a loss of normalcy. And it’s too early to talk about recovery.

I keep hearing another expression: “look for the silver lining.” For every ominous cloud, there is some light that escapes, but it doesn’t negate the darkness. I hope I have not trivialized what is obviously a serious crisis. My encouraging words are meant to cheer, yes, but not to make light of a heavy situation. I am merely hoping for thoughtful introspection, peace amid chaos, suffering with a purpose, and that we learn to care for each other as best we can. Mostly, I hope we don’t lose hope.

We will all have to “walk in the valley of the shadow of death,” (Psalm 23) whether now or later, whether mourning a loved one or saying good-bye ourselves. But a shadow assumes a light source, and the psalm quoted above assumes that we don’t have to walk alone through the darkness. Somewhere, in all of this, there is light, and hope, and a future. But it may not look at all like we imagined it.

We have all heard (at least during my lifetime) that how we are living is not sustainable. Our environment cannot sustain our consumption and waste, our economy cannot sustain the debts we accrue, our health cannot sustain our careless lifestyle, our systems of education and healthcare cannot continue in their current courses…and need I mention the war machine? Well, maybe we’ve finally reached a pivotal moment. Can humanity take a collective breath and think about what comes next? If we’re too eager to “return to normal” we may miss a cathartic opportunity.

Humans are resourceful. We are intelligent. We have dreams and visions that guide us toward the future. We are capable of hard work. We are sometimes motivated by something besides fear and greed. We are capable of love and rational decision-making. We are also capable of spiritual connection: if we want it, we can have a relationship with their Creator that offers forgiveness for past mistakes, peace now, and wisdom for the future. But we are also selfish, proud, and independent. And we are arrogant—thinking we can somehow lift ourselves out of the mire.

But if we can’t pull ourselves up who can?

We will have to pull each other out of the muck—lift each other up, dig each other out. Even if you believe in the power of prayer and are seeking help from a Higher Power, prayer is useful not so much as a way to get God to do what you want Him to do, as to get your heart in agreement with what He wants. And He wants us (according to pretty much any world religion I can name, but certainly the Christian faith I claim) to love each other. We are the hands and feet of God, and we have a responsibility to each other to think of someone besides ourselves. This is not the time for apathy, argument, dogma, or hypocrisy.

We must do what we can right now—stop socializing so we don’t put others at risk, refocus our care for those in our homes, reach out to hurting loved ones by phone or video, pray for those on the front lines fighting a war against an invisible enemy, give when we can to those who have lost livelihoods and may not be able to feed and care for themselves.

My heart is heavy. I’m seeing suffering I’ve never seen before, and positive self-talk assumes that my inner dialogue has something nice to say. Hope from outside is the only thing buoying my spirits. Lord knows, I don’t have the power to dig myself out by my bootstraps.

Jay and I recently read Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. It has not yet changed our lives, but it has motivated us to lighten our load, clean out lockers, throw/give things away that we have been storing for no apparent reason, and enjoy a less-cluttered living space. Now that we’re suddenly all at home all the time, we’re continuing to tidy and clean, to see dirt and clutter that we had learned to ignore.

Since we came back to the United States last July, we have been so busy that we could barely keep up with household chores. The three oldest kids were taking in-seat college classes and working at new jobs, the youngest two were playing basketball, everyone was enjoying social activities, and in between pick-ups and drop-offs, I was trying to write a book in one-hour increments in various coffee shops around town. All that came to a screeching halt a few weeks ago, and we realized that, as my friend Amy so eloquently put it, “we have been wallowing in our own dirt.” Perhaps you too have been wallowing, and suddenly find yourself with time and motivation to clean house.

Cleaning is important right now especially—for disease prevention. Between disinfecting surfaces, wiping down things brought into homes, and vigilant hand-washing, people are more focused on cleanliness than ever before. Beyond the physical, cleaning also makes humans feel better mentally and emotionally. As we clear our space, we clear our minds. I need a clean kitchen before I can cook. I need a clean workspace before I can paint. I need a clean desk before I can write. Maybe that makes me neurotic, but there is something freeing about a tidy area. It allows me to fill the physical and creative space with something new.

And since I’m talking about deep-cleaning, I’m going to peel back another layer, look under the rug in my soul where I’m apt to sweep the dirt. No amount of obsessive cleaning can scrub away the imperfections in my own human nature. I am daily faced with the consequences of my mistakes past and present, and sometimes I suffer the negative effects of the mistakes of others. The more time I have on my hands and the fewer the distractions, the more I am aware of my own failures. The more time I spend with my family, the more I realize how imperfectly I show my love for the people closest to me.

So now is as good a time as any, while I’m cleaning all the nooks and crannies, to get my heart right with God, too. These are the words that come to mind when I need a fresh start (which, I’m sorry to report, is pretty much every day): “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit” (New King James Version of the Bible, Psalm 51, verses 10-12).

Even though I “come clean” about my faults, sometimes self-condemnation remains, like a stubborn stain. Positive self-talk leaves me feeling like I only took a swipe at the surface. I need the firm reminder that because Jesus accepted the eternal consequences for humanity’s imperfection, I’m offered a guarantee: “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (New King James version of the Bible, 1 John chapter 1, verse 9). Being forgiven frees me up to forgive others.

I don’t know where you stand—whether you were raised with religion that left a bad taste in your mouth, or with authentic faith-hope-and-love, or with no faith at all. I only know that without my belief in a caring God, without hope that pain can serve a purpose, my fears and my faults would overwhelm me right now and all the cleaning in the world wouldn’t be enough to bring me peace of mind. I pray that you too will find peace amid the chaos.

What does it mean to be a homemaker? Can you be one if you have a 9-5 outside the home? Can you be one if you have no training, if your mother wasn’t a Donna Reed or June Cleaver type? Have you found yourself suddenly surrounded by children and/or a spouse with needs you are struggling to meet? Are you trying to figure out what you’re supposed to be doing at home during an extended quarantine, when all the things on which you depend are disrupted?

Even we on the homeschool front, the ones who chose this lifestyle, are challenged right now. Just because we homeschool does not mean we were at home 24-7. In fact, usually, we find it hard to juggle curriculum and academics with all the other aspects of life: activities and sports, household chores and meal preparation, family obligations, social engagements, and making a living.

But here we are, as a nation, as a species, brought to our knees by something as small as a virus and as large as our worst fear. We are in our houses, but are we at home? What’s the difference?

I suggest that a house is a dwelling where people share space, while a home is a safe and productive environment created by people who love each other. My husband and I chose to live unconventionally—to homeschool our five kids on a sailboat—and we prepared for it by changing the way we lived over a long period of time. We learned how to live off-grid, how to work from home (wherever the home traveled), how to cook creatively and how to teach our kids what they need to know (sometimes with limited internet access), how entertain ourselves when we are isolated or bored, and how to resolve conflict peacefully.

Perhaps you are beginning to make some of the same adjustments—but you may be doing it suddenly and involuntarily, without the necessary mental, emotional, and financial preparation. Stocking up on toilet paper does not prepare you for being at home all the time with your family. The learning curve is steep, but it’s sink-or-swim, so you’d better start doggie-paddling. Here are ten ideas for making your house a home:

1. Accept the situation. We may have to accept that this is going to last a while (not a storm cloud that is going to “blow over”), which means hunkering down and toughening up. You might have to accept an old-fashioned view of family (think Little House on the Prairie) because it’s what will help everyone make it through this tough time. Or you may have to do something unconventional that takes both parents out of their comfort zones. Accept that some sacrifices will be necessary: that’s what love costs.
2. Ask for help. I start my day with prayer and a devotional reading…and coffee, lots of coffee. I do this because otherwise I am the Wicked Witch of the West. I call a friend when I’m in over my head, and I answer the cry for help when a friend needs me. I have homeschool heroes—moms who have done this before—that help me figure things out. I read books. And, of course, I use the internet, but I often find it overwhelming, so I’m choosy about my searches—I usually go looking for something specific.
3. Develop a routine. Not necessarily a rigid schedule, but an order of operations. It provides stability for the whole family and sanity for you. It should include regular mealtimes, chores, school subjects, free time, exercise, and work. Try to do the same things in the same order, accepting disruptions, but always going back to the next thing on the list. Get the family involved. Make a plan. Write it down. Tape it to the wall. And stick to it.
4. Focus on one thing each day. This is something I learned while living aboard my boat. Trying to do too much results in doing nothing well. So, Monday I do the shopping. Tuesday I do laundry. Wednesday I have an early morning Bible Study (now on Zoom). Thursday is music practice. Friday is cleaning day. You get the idea. Of course, this “one thing” is in addition to the daily routines of homeschool, work, and chores.
5. Make a meal plan/menu for the week. It helps with shopping, meal preparation, and managing expectations. Get everyone to make suggestions, learn recipes, and take turns with cooking and cleaning. My eight-year-old can make homemade tortillas by herself. Our kids are capable of so much more than we usually ask of them.
6. Create an orderly space. If your kids are home all the time, they are like tornadoes leaving messes in their wakes. Try to create a zone of peace in at least one room, a place where order exists within the chaos. Maybe it’s your private retreat, maybe it’s the living room sofa. Clean something—it will make you feel better. At the end of the day, enforce a 20-minute tidy-up. Many hands make light work.
7. Enjoy time with your kids. This is a special time—stressful, yes—but also amazing. Someone pushed the PAUSE button and we have a moment to enjoy all the things we’ve been working for. Go outside. Play a board game. Play cars. Play Barbies. Read aloud. One of the reasons we homeschooled in the beginning is because we wanted to enjoy the kids we made. Yes, being at home all the time together is hard, but it is also fun and rewarding.
8. Be creative. Weave art into your daily life: music, dance, drawing, cooking, poetry, home décor—whatever floats your boat. See if you can spruce up the academic curriculum your kids are using with kitchen chemistry, musical parodies, or homemade games.
9. Establish discipline. Without some semblance of order and mutual respect, all this advice is pointless. Your home will be in chaos. You and your spouse will be pitted against each other. Your kids will fight constantly. Making a house a home requires fortitude and teamwork. We just use good-old-fashioned rules, complete with rewards and consequences. And consistency.
10. Offer grace. To yourself, to your spouse, to your kids. I don’t know your specific situation or challenges, but we all have this in common: we need to forgive ourselves and others for mistakes and failures, pick ourselves up, and try again.

I had a strange dream about ten days ago. Now, I am not a mystic or a prophet, but I am a believer in the miraculous, the existence of a loving God, and the meaning of life (and the answer is not 42!). I am occasionally (when I am paying attention), offered a word of comfort or advice, either through something I read, a song I hear, a conversation with a friend, a circumstance, or, in this case, a dream. It was so significant, and clear, that I got up at 4 in the morning to write it in my journal. Here it is, as best as I can tell it from memory and bad handwriting:

I am trapped in a burning building, somewhere near the top floor, six or seven stories up. Rachel is there with me (my 8-year-old daughter) and a group of strangers of all ages. I smell smoke, see the glow of flames, and look for an exit—blocked by fire. I feel the immediate sense of panic and doom: we are going to die in this burning building. But then I stop and pray out loud, “Lord, help us find a way out.” Despite my fear, I suddenly feel a sense of calm determination. I go out a door and find myself on a balcony, which is still wrapped in sheet plastic from recent construction. I walk to the end of the balcony and find some wooden scaffolding, descending like a spiral staircase—a way out! I know what I have to do.

I go back in the building, where people are beginning to panic, each in his or her own way. Some are screaming, someone is calling 9-1-1, some older ladies are sitting in the middle of the room, frozen in terror. I announce to the room that the building is on fire, that the main exit is blocked, but that I found a way out on the balcony. I tell someone to get everyone out on the balcony, and then I go to the people who aren’t moving, one by one, and speak to them individually: “What’s your name? Doris? Get up, Doris! There’s a fire! Get out of your chair and walk to that door! Go out on the balcony!” I do this for everyone left in the room, and then I go out on the balcony. I wake up as the first of the children, including my own daughter, are climbing down the scaffolding and to safety.

It took me a few days to process the dream and its images. What has stayed with me is the sense of calm-despite-fear. We are living in fearful times, trapped, if you will, in our own kind of burning building. The threat is real—of illness and death, economic disaster, societal breakdown. As a culture, we’ve watched too many horror movies and our imaginations are running wild.

But we do not have to let our emotions run our lives. We can tell them who’s boss and we can tell ourselves the truth. It’s okay to feel fear, but not always helpful to act on fearful feelings. In a dark alley, panic and adrenaline can save your life, but in a protracted emergency, keeping your cool may be a better survival strategy.

If you can calm your mind, breathe deeply, and slow your racing heart, then remember where your help comes from (the encouraging word of a friend, your family, a comforting sacred text, prayer, meditation, yoga, maybe God Himself!), you will be ready for whatever comes next. Perhaps you will be able to offer help instead of feeling helpless. All around you are people feeling panic in their own ways: who can you reach out to individually? Who is in your sphere of influence that might need a pep talk? It’s a good time to reach out by phone, by video chat, or even over the backyard fence, sidewalk, porch, or balcony (as long as the neighbor is 6 feet away!). If you’ve received comfort or encouragement in these tough times, don’t hoard it like toilet paper…pass it on!

*Advice from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

People are beginning to freak out here in Florida. Spring break was rudely interrupted by a global pandemic and vacationers have gone home in droves, leaving things here empty…including the shelves in the toilet-paper aisle. Unless they are facing a hurricane, people here are unaccustomed to seeing empty shelves at the grocery store, and the fear of want becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m hoping we look back at this and laugh at what we thought were emergency provisions, but it’s still too early to tell.

We were not always comfortable and complacent, fragile and fearful. All of us have immigrants in our ancestry—our forebears came to America with little more than the shirts on their backs. Our ancestors were used to discomfort, disease, and death. Faith in God, hard work, and community sustained them and helped them survive—not just the physical hardships of their lives, but the social and emotional ones, too. During many hard times in the last few centuries, people have relied on each other for survival, neighbor helping neighbor—sometimes in the form of churches and charities, but often person-to-person.

I am thinking a lot these days of those who are feeling isolated at home during this time of “social distancing” and quarantines. Aside from the economic repercussions of businesses closing, the cascading effect on families with thousands of children suddenly without the structure of school and extracurricular activities staggers the mind.

I am a homeschool mom of five, living on a sailboat. We make our own power, we desalinate water for drinking. I grind my own grain, I bake my own bread. We have an unusual kind of self-sufficiency in the modern world. I have a unique perspective on what it means to get cabin fever—and I feel sympathetic to all the parents out there who suddenly find themselves in my shoes—at home all day with stir-crazy kids. I chose the hard life of teaching my own children to read and do long-division, of cooking from scratch, of being in a small space with my family. Many of you have been thrust unprepared into this social situation. But you can do it. You can rise to the occasion. You can help your family survive this hard time. And you might even come out better and stronger.

I’m writing a series of pep talks, which you will find here. When you need a reminder to hang in there, or a word of sympathy, because I’ve been where you are (or will be)—crying and calling  a friend from behind the closed bathroom door—I’ll be here. When life gives you lemons, it’s okay to pucker up initially, but eventually you’re going to have to sweeten the sour in order to drink it down.