This past summer we had to name our school (according to
North Carolina law).
What a joyful and fun experience! We so enjoyed coming up with
ideas and laughing over our silly suggestions ;)
Anyway, we did come up with a name that we both loved:
Mosaic Institute
Why? Here are some of the reasons behind our choice:
- I have always loved mosaics and found them mesmerizing. How all kinds of pieces of different shapes, colors and sizes can come together to compose a new and beautiful work of art. We want God to take the different shapes and sizes and "colors" of our kids and then nurture them into a coherent whole for his glory and purposes. At the same time, we want our kids to discover the multifaceted world around them, developing an appreciation for the truths of God in all the fields of learning and the beauty of God in all the people groups and natural wonders of the world. When all the various peoples in the world come together to worship and praise the Lord, it’s exquisite and glorious!
- The word "Mosaic" is derived from Moses. When you go to the House Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives, there upon the tops of the walls are marble relief portraits of famous lawgivers and rulers throughout the history of the world. All of them are depicted in profile, with their faces looking toward the same spot in the back of the room… all of them except one. The one they all look toward is the one whose face is not in profile, but whose face looks straight out toward the center of the room. That face is the face of Moses. He is the progenitor of much of civilization in the free world, civilization built upon the mores of Judeo-Christian foundations. Furthermore, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7). Moses, as the author of the Torah, the instruction of God, is in a sense a figurehead of that very fear, that very reverence, of the Lord, and as such he is someone who encapsulates wisdom. Finally, and somewhat controversially, there is even the theory that the development of the alphabet originated with Moses in writing the Ten Commandments and the Torah. The theory suggests that Moses streamlined Egyptian hieroglyphs into a system whereby unique sounds correspond to unique symbols in a one-to-one ratio -- not pictures symbolizing whole words as in hieroglyphic writing -- thus forming the concept of an alphabet, and it was from Israel that the Phoenicians then disseminated knowledge of an alphabet around the world. If this idea be true, then a school named in honor of Moses is all the more fitting, as literacy is one of the essential cornerstones for any development of knowledge.
- The Mosaic Institute = TMI = Too Much Information, just what we want for our school!
- Mosaic Institute = MI = Mission Impossible, exactly what we feel like we are attempting to do (me homeschooling as I am impatient, not a kid person, in a wheelchair, have a nerve disease and a speech impediment, cannot read aloud or write, unable to drive...), but God’s grace and strength are enough to cover all my shortcomings and inadequacies! Nothing is impossible with God (Mt. 19:26, Lk.1:37)!
