PMed you.

Yeah, no. My job as a parent is to give my children the best I possibly can. The system itself is broken. Sacrificing my child to that wont fix it. No, my kids don't deserve more than anyone else's kids. However, I can't take care of everyone else's kids, I can only petition for change, and in the meantime while change is not happening, I can only care for my kids, and do the best by them that I possibly can.

The issue of homosexuality is being really badly managed by the church right now. Yes, the bible is pretty clear that homosexuality is a sin, unnatural, etc. But the bible also makes clear that sex before marriage is a sin and divorce outside of a few particular cases is a sin. If you're going to refuse to associate with a homosexual, you must also refuse to associate with people living together unmarried and people who are divorced, as they are equally sinful, these are all misuses of sex and marriage. So, are we going to see churches banning people who live together and divorcees? Nope. The bible tells us it is a sin, but it also tells us how to treat sinners! And it's not like this. I do believe homosexuality is a sin just as I believe sex before marriage is a sin and divorce outside of particular reasons is a sin. But I still have my divorced father over for dinner, I still have my sister and her live-in boyfriend over for dinner. And I still have my gay friend over for dinner. I have other online friends who are gay as well, one of whom I have known for 12 years. Generally I don't offer my opinion on sexuality to acquaintances, just like I don't tell people I've just met that their divorce was wrong. Friends who know me well do know my position on homosexuality, they know I disagree with their choices and decisions. They also know I respect them and treat them as humans despite it. We even talk about their relationships sometimes, just as I'll talk about dating with a divorcee. They don't try to change my beliefs and I don't try to change them. I just love them, as I'm commanded to do. Maybe God will work through that love to lead them to Him, maybe He won't, but that's not my job, and I can make a better impact for Christianity by loving them than I can by hating them.

PMed you

MINECRAFT IS NOT A COMPLETE MATH AND ENGLISH CURRICULUM FOR GRADES 1-5!!! kthxbye Sorry.... I have been following these threads here and on gen ed this week, and then the facebook homeschooling community I made the mistake of joining in order to get a discount code had a thread, and.... *bashes head against wall*. I couldn't blast them all there, but, damnit, I had to say it to someone!!! Carry on with your serious academic discussions.

I heard of one of those here in southern suburbs of brisbane! It didn't last long, so far as I know.

To my understanding, the origins of Australian homeschoolers were generally more academic and less religious than American homeschoolers for a range of reasons. We had our religious element, but, the denim dress wearing large families were a fairly small subset, and I've never heard of a support group reject families based on religion, ever, except for the IBLP (Gothard) families which most homeschoolers never even came across unless they were already deeply religious themselves like DHs were. It has been my totally anecdotal experience that back in the 90s, Aussie reasons for homeschooling usually included academics, bullying/disability, and family lifestyle reasons (radical unschoolers), while American reasons were frequently religious in nature. Of course that's changing now, and I'd actually say the religious subset has become LARGER in Australia, not smaller as it seems to be in the US, from gauging trends in my local area. But the same problem of homeschooling now being easy and accepted, leading to people homeschooling now who never ever would have 20 years ago, and the lack of commitment, the changes in expectations, the lack of leaders and increase in 'consumers'.... that all still applies here, and I think has more to do with homeschooling now being more mainstream than it does with anything else.

As a kid, both my family and my husbands family finished by lunchtime most every day even with high schoolers (4 kids in mine, 8 kids in his). It was a philosophical thing, the afternoon free to develop as people, develop skills and interests and be productive. So even as mostly independent high schoolers we were expected to have a few hours each afternoon free for non-school stuff. BUT There was no sleeping in, we woke up at 7 at the latest. High schoolers began working over breakfast or sometimes before Children over 3rd or 4th grade were expected to begin their math lessons independently after breakfast, and school time began at 8 or 8:30 depending on mums schedule. Lunch was around 1, and there was only one break in those 5 hours, about 10:30 A large portion of older kids schoolwork was independent reading, which we often did for a couple of hours before bed rather than during the day (we didn't have a bunch of evening commitments). Big projects like art and science experiments happened on the weekends, not in the middle of a school day Now, I actually agree with those principles, it's about using time wisely, most people don't do much before school but still wait until 9 or 10 to begin, our families considered it better to begin first thing, because the same amount of time, after school, was far better utilised. Stuff like that. But, that sort of schedule wont work for a lot of homeschoolers. Some aren't willing to make the sacrifices listed, some disagree with the schedule philosophically. That's totally fine too, I get that. But, you can't finish before lunch AND have the thorough education you're looking for AND not make schedule sacrifices elsewhere or casually start 'when we're ready' in the morning. One of those things must slip. For most families it's finishing before lunch that drops. For our families, it was the freedom of casually starting when ready and not making schedule sacrifices. The ones who sleep in, finish before lunch and still make it to all the coops and park days and evening events and weekend catch ups, at least with older children, are slipping on education standards.

I admire and thank you ladies who create and lead opportunities for homeschoolers, you're doing an awesome job. I just can't/won't do it. I love Lori's timeline. As grads, DH and I both came out of the pioneering generation. We don't really... connect... with modern homeschoolers very well. Things have changed a lot since those times and not necessarily for the better. And I guess you could say we're still suffering from our parents burnout. I tried to get involved in some homeschool support groups, having happy memories of attending myself when I was a child. It's a completely different environment now. One groups special snowflakes made me want to poke my eyes out, and there was no adult interaction because the parents were too busy micromanaging the children's interactions. The other group... well my kid plus about 3 more were almost given concussions while mothers called out 'please stop doing that now' for the 100th time to their kids who had no intention of stopping. Yeah, two opposite extremes. When I heard a local homeschool group had been banned from a museum.... nope. nope. nope. I have homeschooling friends, but I wont get involved with the 'community'. I don't fit in there. It's not just child discipline, it's the parents. I did start a playgroup for families who intended to homeschool and thus didn't fit in with normal playgroup parents, and the flakeyness of the people attending drove me nuts. One particularly memorable day I ended up with all 4 families showing up, back to back, throughout the entire day for a 9am-11am meetup. Yes, one really did show up at 1pm 'just in case anyone was still here'. I ended up ending it and inviting the only reliable family over for weekly playdates. Unsurprisingly, I never heard from the other families again. And I saw a friend go to all the trouble of setting up a trip to a rail museum complete with tour guide. She invited about 6 families who said they would attend. On the day, my family was the only other one which showed up, and I think she still had to chase money from another family. I have a chronic mental illness, I have a limited number of 'spoons' for the day, and there's no way I'm spending those on this kind of flaky, high-demand, no commitment nonsense. The only things I organise are with genuine friends, and are closed events. Having said that... when my friend organised the rail museum trip, I asked what she needed, brought a box of fruit, offered carpool services., I followed up on a deal she was trying to get to help with pricing because my internet was better, there was never any question once I said I would be there that I would, indeed, show up, and 15 minutes early just to ensure we were on time. I may not be willing to organise things myself or engage with the community beyond actual friends, but, because I know exactly how unreliable modern homeschoolers can be, if I am invited or join in with something I will be the first to volunteer to help out beyond participating. Maybe that helps a little with the organisers burnout, I don't know, I like to hope it does, and makes up for the guilt I feel over not being more active myself (remember, pioneer generation)

Just to throw a different idea into the mix to think over.... I am VERY easily overwhelmed. I also prefer to delve deeply into something while the interest is high rather than doing a bit at a time every day or even every week. My kids appear to have followed suit, getting frustrated if we cut off a subject too early for another one, and getting 'tired' from the mental drain of switching subjects. Doing everything every day was never going to work here. Doing everything every week was pushing it too. We do 4 things each day. Math, English (spelling/handwriting/composition), Assigned Reading (plus narration) and our Intensive. The assigned reading is quite a lot of time, and includes a stack of non-fiction and content-fiction alongside literature, but, it's self contained and doesn't feel like a subject switch, child just grabs the next book whatever it happens to be when they finish one and keep going for a set amount of time on the timer (could also apply to read alouds and read aloud time if that is more your style), it feels like one cohesive 'subject. So they might spend a week reading a science book, then a few days reading a literature book, then a day reading a minor subject book like an art-focused book. However, it is my aim to cover most of our content subjects through this reading list. I had a list of what I wanted eldest to learn this year and checked off topics as books covered them. If nothing else got done but Math, English and Assigned Reading time, my goal was that that would be a 'good enough' school year. Not ideal or great, but a minimum goal. Eldest narrates these books to me as she finishes them (or finishes chapters, whichever makes more sense) and we discuss the topics/ideas, so it isn't just reading, but further discussion. Of course, Math, English and an hour or more of reading can be pretty boring. That's where the Intensives come in. I pick topics we want to cover in more detail, topics which would be fun to go further into, topics which are hard to cover with just a book, and turn them into mini 1-2 week 'unit studies'. They aren't unit studies in their truest sense, because while some are naturally cross curricular (looking at poems, songs and art from Australian History or designing and putting on a play) others are just a single subject intensive (creating a diorama of the Great Barrier Reef or a week spent discussing the body with a key focus on puberty, or the two week MindUP intensive I'm planning). I intend to do 20 of these intensives this year, with 12 pre planned and the rest open to topics of interest or topics eldest wants to get 'more' from than just the book, during the year. Obviously this doesn't seem entirely like what you're looking for, but, just wanted to throw it out there for an extreme 'cut back' schedule that goes even further again than 'just once a week', think outside the box, would a block schedule of some sort work for you?

That's exactly what my MIL says (not the same lady is it? lol, because, you know, all Australians know each other or something) I'm the polar opposite though. For me, that baby is already a life and a person even while still inside me, I guess for me the gift is conception, not birth, so there's no 'gift to open', birth is just the next stage, the gift was this baby coming into existence at all. So I want to know everything about it that I can, I want to bond with it and knowing the gender helps with that process for me because I can begin thinking names, and pronouns other than 'it', and preparing a little better, personalising my preparations for this child rather than this-or-that-neutural child. Second DD kept herself a surprise and it was not a happy thing at all. I felt far less bonded to her during the pregnancy, and far more anxiety over feeling unable to prepare. (not to mention wanting to punch in the fact the multiple women who, when I expressed my disappointed, responded with statements like 'Good! We aren't meant to know the gender anyway, I never found out with any of mine, it will help you in labour, just see' after having been personally offended that I found out my first baby's gender. Looking at you MIL!). I don't think either way is right or wrong, I suppose I see the appeal of the surprise, and the encouragement in labour (pushing isn't so much a problem in my labours... lol, stopping baby from shooting out in a single push is more our situation!) But I am absolutely 100% certain that the surprise isn't for me lol.

Lots of little bits, or reading 20 books concurrently! sorry CMers. But the idea of reading a few pages from a dozen books each day drives me insane, if I like the book I want to finish it, and if I don't like it, well, I want to be done with it. Plus, I am a block-scheduler at heart, even as a homeschooled high schooler I eventually worked myself into a schedule of doing one subject per day (yes, including math). This year we have four 'subjects', Math, English, Assigned Reading (literature, but also lots of non-fiction covering every other subject, from a master list I made) and our Unit Study. And no, my unit studies are not cross curricular masses of resources and 100 different parts. They are 1-2 week intensives (maybe I should use that term instead...) and single tasks/objectives. Some are naturally cross curricular (exploring early Australian songs and poetry, which covers english, history and art along with technology for our presentation of what we learned) and others are single subjects (crystal making kit, which is set up in such a way as to easily and thoroughly teach scientific theory, hypothesis, measurement, recording, analysis and comparison). I am SO happy thinking about my 4-task school day. Your schedules with 8 subjects, a morning basket covering 3 or 4 more, and a dozen read alouds, scare me :leaving:

The littlest one getting ignored or left behind because she isn't old enough to join in most things Perfectionism and getting upset at all the little things we miss or which don't go right

I'm so sorry. I've been silently following and praying. Thank you for sharing your beautiful baby with us all here. We're blessed to have 'known' him through your words. And on a more personal note... my mother lost a child in somewhat similar circumstances many years ago. She handled it very differently. She never recovered, and ultimately it destroyed her. Maybe it's wrong to say this right now, but I am mentioning this because I want to thank you wholeheartedly for sharing your journey, and showing us someone walking through this with grace and faith and love. It has made more of an impact on me than you'll ever know.

I have a friend who was diagnosed with brain cancer and months to live as a single mum of three boys. She threw a celebration party when she was diagnosed with MS instead. As bad things go, for the symptoms it presents, MS is often good news over it's alternatives.

The post isn't lost when it does that! It's still in the background code! Don't touch it. Open a new tab, use the new tab to refresh the forum until it comes back up, and only then click refresh on the error page (and tell it that, yes, you'd like it to resubmit information). The post should come through.

So, last year I had an Ectopic pregnancy that ended in the worst case scenario, a rupture 8 days after beginning medication. Thankfully I am fine, and recovered, and even ready to try for another baby this year. However, 4 weeks after the surgery, I had an outbreak of herpes. It was a classic first outbreak, textbook. I know the first thought is whether DH cheated, but, we didn't have sex for the three months previous to the initial outbreak (we'd had two miscarriages previous to the ectopic, so we stopped having sex as soon as I conceived) and the internet says if it came from him it should have led to a first outbreak within 6 weeks. He does not have herpes himself. I am convinced at this point that I have gotten it from the hospital or ultrasound clinic during the ectopic situation. I saw my doctor, and she denied that could be possible. Her theory? I got it when I was abused as a child, and it has lain dormant all this time until the surgery which triggered it to come forward. My research says this is impossible, that yes it can lie dormant, however if it does it comes forward with normal subsequent outbreaks and skips the 'first' outbreak (which is far more severe than any subsequent ones). My first outbreak was classic, complete with fever and total inability to walk due to the pain. Also, I've been in a weaker physical state than I was post-surgery in the past, when it should have been more likely to flare up. When I tried to tell her this, she said I could have given it to myself through touching a cold sore on my mouth and then touching elsewhere. Internet also indicates this is wrong. You can get genital herpes from a cold sore, but not from your OWN cold sore because your body recognises it or something. DH does not have cold cores btw, so again, not from him. My GP isn't an idiot, I actually liked her before this, so at this point I'm fairly certain she is covering her behind and the behinds of all the doctors who touched me, and is also avoiding the possibility of being dragged to court, rather than actually being this misguided. This is not actually the point of this post, but since I figure people will be as angry as I am, I have spoken to a lawyer friend about this situation and she says it sucks, but there's pretty much nothing I can do legally. There is only my word that we didn't have sex during the three months previous. There is only my word that I've never had any hint of a herpes symptom before now. And even if I could prove it was contracted during the correct timeframe and not from my husband, I couldn't hold anyone responsible, it could have come from any of two different hospitals, two different ultrasound clinics, and a GP office, all of which had access to my private areas during exams and surgery for the ectopic pregnancy. I have my beliefs where it came from, but absolutely no proof of that. Under Australian law, it would be a lot of pain and work and almost definitely no result. I'm trying to accept that. I'm not doing very well at it. Some of you know I came from a trauma background and was sexually abused by multiple people for years. Despite everything I lost because of that, including the ability to breastfeed and the ability to have sex (or, during bad days even walk) without pain, I could always say at least I never got an STD, I was spared that and never had to be careful of such things. Getting one now, from a hospital... I'm having a very, very hard time coming to a place of acceptance about it. Back to the original point of this post though. Most herpes flare up occasionally during times of stress. I couldn't possibly be that lucky. It has flared up every month coinciding with ovulation. my body has always been sensitive to hormone changes, so it doesn't surprise me but it is extremely upsetting. On top of that, despite taking lysine daily to see if I could prevent an outbreak that way, this month it had the ovulation flare up, then, after treatment, was fine for a week, but due to a very stressful week I've had another flare up this week, no more than 10 days after the last one cleared up. These are especially hard for me mentally, as any symptoms or issues down there put me in a very bad place with my PTSD, and trigger things. And the first day of the flare ups agitate other pre-existing issues and lead to a lot of pain. I can't do this. The internet indicates many people stop having subsequent outbreaks after a year, but I see no evidence of that happening yet. they're definitely not first-outbreak bad, but they don't seem to be improving or lessening. And to add insult to injury, we are trying for another baby, which means having unprotected sex during ovulation. But DH doesn't have herpes and I don't want to go giving it to him. So the outbreaks coinciding with it means we're at a standstill as far as conception goes. I know there's the medicine dropper method, but... that's how my first child was conceived due to injuries from past abuse. I never wanted to have to go back to that. There's a lot of baggage there. We conceived number two and three normally, and... it's like, I overcame something my abuse tried to deprive me of, and going back to that, it's like I lost, and... I don't like my body very much, seeing it incapable of doing yet one more thing again, it's a big deal for me mentally right now. I'm not sure I can explain it well, but, for me that's a last resort right now. So, now I've gotten past the venting part, Hive, does anyone have any knowledge I haven't found about controlling and dealing with herpes? I know there's some diet changes I'm supposed to be able to make, but... I guess I'm still in the denial phase, I feel like I shouldn't have to go without stuff because of morons at a hospital who can't sterilise their equipment properly (or worse...). But I suppose I have to accept it eventually, so anyone want to make it sound less horribly constraining than the internet does? Is there anything else I can do to help, perhaps something I can do for hormones to try and stop the ovulation outbreaks? I have tried lysine obviously, but noticed no significant differences. I am going back to my doctor today, and she may put me on a daily dose of anti-virals, but I don't want to take them forever if there's natural options and I'm not sure if they're pregnancy safe anyway. Anyone have a herpes pattern like this and find it went away eventually? Anything encouraging at all? I'm so upset over this situation that it has taken me three months to even make myself write this post. DH does all the researching for me because it upsets me far too much, so I haven't seen everything online first-hand, only what he thought was important or what I thought to ask, so if I've missed something obvious let me know.

'YAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!' (screamed at top of lungs) And then 'can I give sister1 and sister2 one too?' (they enjoy getting to be the giver rather than mummy handing them out, so, theyre not asking if those children will be allowed one, theyre asking if they, specifically, may take the cookie and give it to them)

I don't even usually read chat board, but, waiting for Kinsa too, been following her and her other sisters story since back when I was around regularly. Keep in mind that some older folk find bossyness, especially in little girls, a novelty. They may accentuate stories because that part appealed to them, especially if they were second class citizens as girls themselves. I have heard my 70-something grandma gushing to another lady about how Youngest knows where the candy cupboard is and that's her first stop when she arrives, or how Eldest knows exactly how things should be and will 'get mad' at grandma if she rearranges furniture, or how middle does not accept help and can scream bloody murder. Now, the truth is, youngest does know where the cupboard is, and she also knows never to take without asking and that they get one treat per visit. Eldest does recognise when furniture is moved, and her 'getting mad' is simply the bewildered 'grandma, you moved it!' because she seemed to think items in grandmas house were immobile or something and incapable of changing. And middle does have an independent streak and a temper, but the generalisation of a meltdown tantrum anytime someone helps her comes from a single incident on a very tired, long day a year and a half ago, not from a pattern or even a recent incident. Grandma doesn't say any of this to deride the children mind you, to her it's cute, complementary, she loves their headstrong attitudes, their lack of timidness, and it's such a contrast to her negative memories of growing up that she goes overboard. But her elaborated stories are far from the full truth and my kids are far from spoilt, though I can certainly see how stories about them would come across that way!

Eek, not sure I should venture in here, but, here it goes... I am not a universalist, but I no longer believe in an enternal fire hell either. I could never reconcile eternal fire for the african who never heard Jesus name with a loving merciful God. I believe that heaven and hell is the experience we have in the presence of God. The consuming fire of hell is also the refining light and glory of God, they're the same but how we experience them depends on our salvation. I believe the consuming fire actually, you know, consumes, and that these people die. No torture and everlasting pain, just death. Jesus died to give eternal life to the saved. If we all have eternal life whether it's eternal in heaven or hell, then why the emphasis on eternal life in the bible? Eternity in hell is still eternity, it makes no sense. Wouldn't the emphasis be on a good, happy life in your assumed eternity then? So, I don't believe the default is fiery eternal torment and a few lucky ones go to heaven, I just can't reconcile that with the God I know. I believe the default is death, simple, regular death, and a select few go to heaven and have eternal life with the God they served on earth, but those who didn't, well, they just die a regular mortal death. It's not a punishment, it's just the lack of a privilege, there's a difference. This article was my revelation regarding this topic. If you read it, you have to read it to the end, because the author ties everything together in the last section. Also, I do not endorse ANYTHING else on his website, this is crazy loon territory lol, but somehow he also wrote the most eloquent, well put together argument for hell not being eternal that I can find anywhere. All his points are backed up elsewhere, but I've never found anything as comprehensive and well said as this, even if the author is very wrong about a lot of other things. http://biblelight.net/hell.htm

That sucks, a lot. But it also indicates they've done their own research and wont be swayed by anything you present them. The schizophrenia link is one of the (very few) proven negatives for marijuana. But, having said that, it's not a guarantee everyone with the disposition will develop it, and iirc you're more likely to develop it in early adulthood, which is also when people are more likely to smoke marijuana for the first time. If he's in his 30s I would hesitantly say that he may be out of the 'danger zone', even with marijuana it's my understanding that developing it past the early/mid 20s is unusual. Either way, I don't think you have much hope of changing his mind on it. As for the oils, there is no proof that the negatives come from THC, which is what they take out and what gives the high. Taking the THC out makes conservatives who think altered states of conciousness are bad feel better about there being no high, but there's a LOT of compounds in it, and no proof that it isn't one of the others creating the issue. The oils haven't been around long enough to study. To be honest, for myself, I trust things in their natural state more than things altered and modified without understanding their chemistry fully. Some of the compounds effect other compounds and change them, a dose of THC does not produce the same effect as a dose of marijuana whole, the other compounds are not dormant, so changing the balance in them without knowing what it does and selling it without any long term testing as a 'safe' alternative is concerning to me.

Rosie is totally right about the schizophrenia thing, there is a risk to marijuana just like there's a risk to everything else, that's one of the big and medically proven ones that should be considered for this particular drug. As for the depression, alcohol is a depressant too, of a similar strength. So, on that argument you should to accept both or neither.

I just took a university level course on drugs across cultures and... sorry, I agree with the relative. It HAS been used for most of human history in various cultures without serious addiction issues because of the way it was used, the social rules around it, the personal 'rituals' (being any sort of regulation, good or bad, such as only smoking on weekends, only smoking when children are sleeping, through to always smoking with alcohol and other harmful ones). It has only been seen as overwhelmingly bad over the past 100 years and its original banning was because the poor immigrant mexican workers used it, and they were violent, so it was seen as a violent drug (as you can tell, a completely different set of 'dangers' than the ones it's claimed to have today, the public view of the dangers of marijuana changed completely when it's major demographic of users changed from poor mexicans to drop out middle class youth. Perhaps marijuana was never a cause in the first place, just a coinciding action). And, yes, he's also right about it's safety. Medically, objectively, it's much safer than smoking and on a similar level of safety to alcohol, both of which are legal. Our ideas about safe and unsafe drugs are socially derived, not objectively and medically assessed, and many many scare campaigns have been run because this one happened to be labelled bad, not good, because of who originally used it. Of course it has dangers, just like alcohol. But it sounds like this relative is looking to do the equivalent of drink a glass or two of wine regularly, not the equivalent of binge drink every weekend. I can find some of my readings from my university course for you if you're genuinely interested, PM me. I'm not technically allowed to share them so I wont post anything here, but I'm happy to send a single copy to someone, it's all PDFs.

Actually it's not so much a difference of opinion as it is that I would more clearly define something. The line 'faith alone, without works, is dead', I understand you're pulling from James, but I think it is easily misunderstood and commonly misused, and even here I'm not sure exactly what you define it as. I don't believe we need to actively pursue good works in addition to faith. Not that we shouldn't, but we don't need to for salvation. However, I believe true faith will result in good works by it's very nature. You cannot have faith and still lack goodness, the two go together. So the idea 'you will know them by their fruits', I believe those fruits are a natural manifestation and logical end of faith. But phrased the way you have, in my church experiences that would be easily taken to mean believers must 'prove' their faith by doing 'enough' good works and Christians begin to doubt themselves as Christians because they don't feel 'good' enough, and others begin to judge that person who didn't help out with the bake sale as having dead faith. I guess it's the difference between a natural manifestation or an active goal and proof. We should actively work towards good things as well but that is above and beyond our salvation, not part of it. The part that relates to our salvation will come forth from our faith whether or not we're aware of it because true faith will by it's nature result in believing in 'good' and turning toward it, and because the fruits of the spirit are just that, the result of the Holy Spirit within us, not our goals to achieve to prove our faith is not dead. Someone who claims faith but lacks the fruits and lacks good works does not have faith, they cannot, it is mutually exclusive. Part of actually having faith is genuinely believing they should turn to goodness, the very root of what God is, and at least some of that will inevitably show itself in their actions somewhere. Faith without a desire and some inevitable action toward goodness is impossible because God is Goodness and faith in him requires it. So, I suppose, to me, it's not that faith alone is not sufficient, it's that true faith will never be alone, and 'faith' without an outward manifestation of some kind is false. I'm not saying you meant it that way at all, btw. I suspect you probably agree with what I've said. But for new Christians or questioning Christians, that is such a loaded phrase and the verses afterwards slightly ambiguous without context, so I would want to define that a little more clearly if I sent it on to someone, that it's not something they have to do for salvation, but that it's something which will come naturally from faith and 'proves' faith but does not require active attention.

Wow, can I copy this for future use? This is pretty much exactly as I believe with one exception, but I've never seen it laid out so clearly for someone asking questions