This has been an interesting week. My church got a new Pope…He issued an incredible blessing few knew what to do with… and I had a disagreement…well about something called steadfast and lost an old friend.

When I examine my daily life with everything that comes into play, the word steadfast often pops into my scrutinizing mind. It’s a word I re-upped while writing an historical novel called, “Anne.” It means resolutely or dutifully firm and unwavering. It’s what I try to be about important things in my life. It’s what I encourage my students to adopt about school work and social issues.

One cannot be steadfast if one does not have a foundation. Foundations are also important to me because without  good life foundations, a person is likely to pop in and out of reality and growth with every trend and popular poison. People sucked into the importance of trivia every five minutes usually spend most of their lives in a tailspin about nonsense, and become undependable or frivolous friends. It’s not fun to be a sounding board for a constant stream of  nonsense and unimportant matters.

But if, on the other hand, you look at foundations as the beginning of adding to your life house, the building goes on all your life. Your hut as a child becomes a respectable house as a teen, and either a lovely home as an adult and mansion as an older person, or it stays a hut forever. People like the expression, “You’re in a rut,” I would say hut more than rut.

There are many foundations. Let’s talk about the language foundation. Henry Higgins could tell where any Englishman came from within a couple of blocks of his birthplace simply by his accent and use of English words. Americans are not quite that easy, but during an interview for a job, most of us cast off as many grammar mistakes as we can think to do on short notice.  Why?

Good grammar, we all know, says something about our communication skills. It means we care about appearing more or less educated to the public. It probably follows that caring about the way you communicate will also indicate that you care about the job you will do, the care you will give other employees and the company you work for. It’s a foundation…it doesn’t stand all by itself. It carries the structure…so when I correct a child’s grammar, I’m caring. I’m teaching. I’m helping a child master a good grammar foundation, which I think is important.

There are other foundations such as social foundations that include manners. Good manners begin with thinking about the needs and desires of other people. Putting self second or even last sometimes is part of creating a good manner foundation. Remembering that other people have their own points of view is important when entering a discussion. Children are wont to put anyone but self first. It’s natural for a child to be selfish, and unnatural to let someone else have the first bite of anything. Manners are learned, which means someone needs to teach.

There are education foundations such as arithmetic and history and grammar and literature and art, science and theology and philosophy and medicine…all important to build and all important to add to the life house we are building. When we stop reading books, articles and asking questions; when we stop looking at new things and trying to understand new things,  the education stops where it is and the life house stops growing. More than any other thing we do at the Garden School, that I think is important, is our ability to open new doors and ideas to children. It is at this wonderful preschool age that hope, dreams, interests and foundations begin to be built. The courage, the determination that defines a great life house is fostered here, and the responsibility is ours – parents and teachers to help the child build, build, build.

One of the foundations that is mostly avoided in this new age is discipline. Discipline has taken on a nasty connotation in the last few decades. It used to be a badge of courage…hence Lent…doing and fasting…and why discipline has gotten a bad rap eludes me about as much as steadfast eludes my sparing partner this past week. Discipline is a tool. It’s what makes one bounce out of bed in the morning rather than drag out of bed. It’s what makes chores get done NOW rather than later…it means always or nearly always having clean clothes to wear and a clean kitchen, bathroom, bed, cat box… It means never being late to work, late for a friend, late to church or other appointment.

When I review, with my scrutinizing mind, the incredibly disciplined and diligence I have witnessed by some of my parents this year regarding an enormously difficult reading project for our, and I say our with great love an affection, kids, I am elated beyond belief. So many of our incredible parents have, with great love and discipline, and I would throw in there steadfastness, worked on a daily basis with their very young children to help those children with a reading and writing foundation. I am speechless and filled with awe.

This not only demonstrates a real and deep love to the child, it shows the kind of commitment that teaches young children what it means to be fully in the world with command. This lesson in steadfastness will stay with each child given this wonderful gift.

I will probably lose lots of friends over the subject of being steadfast. I don’t think, however, that I have much of a choice…I have a job that is too critical to jellyfish over important things like foundations and life houses.