Early on in our 21 years of homeschooling I found that my style of learning and teaching was suited to doing unit studies. Someone has explained the concept like this: “Unit studies are collections of learning activities tied to a theme. They are popular with many homeschooling families because they provide a hands-on approach to learning that incorporates subjects such as math, science, language arts, and the social sciences.”

I think the first such curriculum we used was Konos, which centered the lessons on character qualities, starting with the quality of Attentiveness. The reasoning was that in order to learn anything, we must pay attention. One part of the nature/science study for this unit was Birds, because to notice them requires associated powers of patience and concentration. Pathfinder built a bird feeder on a post outside the dining room window and ever after, as long as we lived in that house, while we ate our meals we could watch the house finches enjoying theirs at the same time.

I thought of the word attentiveness when I was developing my idea for a series of blog posts to write over the next month or so. I wish I had some simple unifying theme that would tie together the recent myriad events and thoughts that seem to demand my reflective documentation. Ah, but I do – because my theology is also suited to Life as a big unit study, with one theme: Everything is a gift from God.

That still doesn’t help me to separate my material into short blog posts, especially at this season when I have less time to sit around thinking and writing. So I am going to use a kind of easy-reader (easy-writer!) system of The Alphabet. Every day or two I will try to write, going through the 26 letters in sequence. This post is my first, using the letter A, which does stand for Attentiveness.

And also for the Alpha and Omega, which is one of the names of God. He is the Beginning and the End, as those Greek letters are the first and last of that alphabet. He and his creation comprise the totality of what there is to study and know. All the rest has no substance.

Just last week we remembered the one-year anniversary of my husband’s falling asleep in the Lord. A dear friend gave me this candle as a memorial present, with the letters Alpha and Omega pressed into it.

I’ve still been thinking about kairos a lot. It is described as that time when everything happens at once, or as eternal time, when God gathers all time together. It’s the kind of time we experience in Divine Liturgy, and I think it is the reason for the idea that “Nothing is ever lost.”

I think that is a good beginning to my springtime storytelling. And with all of that material available, who can tell what each day, or post, might bring?