Always Learning?

I have to tell you, one of my pet peeves in the world is “Godly wife” marriage bloggers, red pill gals, and Proverbs 31 wives. Don’t get me wrong here,  I’m quite fond of Christian women in general, most of them anyway.  What I’m not so fond of is the  judgemental lady marriage bloggers who just have a special way of hissing and spitting their virtue all over you and getting it all wrong in the process. Religiosity, I don’t care for it much.

So, Lori Alexander at “Always Learning” has put a bee in my bonnet in a post called, “Should Women with No Children Be Keepers at Home?”

A woman without kids writes  to her wanting to quit her job and stay home, but hubby is not in agreement. In the course of the letter the lady also reveals, “My husband does almost ALL of the cooking, dishes, grocery shopping, and his own laundry. … He views it as helping me out and doesn’t understand my resentment and discontent. But I view it as he is taking over my job as the housewife (and neglecting his job of being provider)…. I can see so many ways he is not doing things (housework) efficiently. He wastes things; he doesn’t get them clean enough, he doesn’t organize things well…”

Okay, right off the bat I can recognize several issues, because I have them within me too!  First off hubby doesn’t agree with you about quitting your job, so let’s consult an expert blogger who knows better and will set him straight? That’s kind of funny, but it is not quite submission, or healthy communication, for that matter. Not really biblical either.

So why is submission so valuable, so helpful for wives? Because it provides us with focus. Freedom, not oppression. We submit to husbands, not to Lori Alexander, not to a Betty Crocker commercial, not to the opinions of our friends, not to other wives, not to a myriad of unrealistic expectations placed on women…..often by other women, or even by ourselves. Nobody’s expectations, opinions  matter here,  except your husband’s and your own. He’s the one you have to talk to.

So we have a hubby who is cooking, cleaning, doing laundry…and creating resentment and discontent. The existence of resentment and discontent speaks to the wife’s need for control, territorial issues, and competitiveness. Hubby is usurping her perceived authority. She then proceeds to run hubby down, he’s doing it all wrong. I could do it so much better. I so empathize there, “he’s doing it all wrong” is my line, but I always bite it back. That is all about me and my need for control. Anytime a husband is pitching in and you are feeling resentful, encroached upon, you are wrestling with control issues, self, ego. Rather than gratitude, appreciation, you’re mad. That’s pride.

Lori says none of these things. She says, “I encourage you to memorize 1 Peter 3:1-6. This is God’s prescription for women with disobedient husbands.”

Woah, hold up here! Disobedient husbands? Disobedient to whom? You can’t pig pile on a man you don’t even know, a man who is guilty of …doing the laundry! What the heck? In fact, you shouldn’t even be calling him disobedient, that’s not even your place. To make matters worse she says, “I believe all women should be keepers at home since there aren’t any career women in the Bible who left their homes all day long and God never commands women to be the providers.”

Lori, you seem to have forgotten about our Proverbs 31 wife or Lydia with the purple cloth. There are a myriad of women in the bible engaging in commerce. Paul, while building the early church is often meeting in women’s homes, women he met in the market place because they were merchants. The 1950’s western stereotype of the idle housewife is not representative of biblical times. Regardless, what YOU believe is completely irrelevant. What scripture says matters, what God says matters, and  what that woman’s husband believes matters.

You simply cannot lecture women about submission, fail to address the wife’s own pride issues that are causing  her distress,  while labeling her husband disobedient and than proceeding to insist you know better. Just no.

Here’s the key to one problem, “Plus with him waiting on me hand and foot, it makes me view him as less of a man.” All hubby is really guilty of in this case is helping to kill attraction, attraction built on a narrative that wives actually write ourselves. You view him as less of a man…..because you are viewing him as less of a man.

No, just no

How The Manosphere Is Filling A Void Left By Feminized Modern Churches

Don’t read the above article, I’m compelled to link simply out of common courtesy. I cannot really give a proper wail over the stupidity of it all if I do not at least reference what I am talking about.

No, just no, the manosphere does not “fill a void left behind by the feminized church”, or perhaps it does in the same way that drugs, alcohol, money and unlimited sex might fill a void, a God sized hole in people’s spirits that can only be satisfied with a God sized relationship.

Why does the manosphere not serve as a good substitute? Well, there is the unbelievable hatred and bitterness expressed by many, the unrelenting hostility towards women, the bad theology, the cult like behavior, the attempts to replace inconvenient Christian values with ideology and clever catch phrases like hypergamy and AWALT, there is the pride, the arrogance, the evolutionary psych theories, the bad psychology, the relentless talk of sexual conquest….

By their fruits you shall know them, that is why! Your fruits are flat out rotten, people. You drive more people away from Christianity then your animal baptizing rainbow flag flying believers do.

All in good humor here, but anybody ever hear And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone….. It is so not good! Like, hello people! Maybe God did not design an exclusively male world run something like the Lord of the Flies?

I do not mean to be so critical, to paint everyone with the same brush, there are a few good manopsherians that actually take their theology very seriously, that actually do recognize what Christ taught, but oh there are others, others who use scripture to promote false things, to justify assorted sins, to promote male dominance in all things, to present women as only partially human and it doesn’t stop there, there are so called Christian manospherians that double down on the racial hatred as well. You have Vox Day actually calling himself the voice of God and his dread ilk with their so called Social Justice Campaign, and Dalrock who deletes all dissent, while promoting this idea that all women are spawns of satan.

It is not church people. It is so not Christ either. It is validation and justification for every feminist ideal ever dreamed up, no matter how harebrained and foolish.

The ostracizing, the bullying, the doxing, the harassment, the threats, I know, I know, it is the internet, we cannot control what everyone does and says, but those are the fruits of such foolishness and I have seen them. These are real things, ugly things. Just stop it already.

Oh, I could carry on and on bemoaning the perversion of such beautiful theology, the mangling of the very image of Christ himself, the never ending bits of stupidity being presented as so called “sound religious reasoning” in the hearts of such bitter and wounded men.

The author of this bit of nonsense says, I haven’t been to church in 20 years. But I vicariously live through other Christian bloggers…

Yeah, so called Christian bloggers who tell you to stay away from church because it’s been feminized. Bloggers who continuously promote hatred in Christ’s name, bloggers who wouldn’t know the bible if it bit them on the behind.

I really don’t know why I care, why I cannot let it go, why my whole spirit is consumed with despair and fury when I see this sort of thing going on, but it is true. I am driven to speak out against this over and over again.

Honestly, I don’t think the enemy himself could have written a better line than this,

“….because whether you realize it or not, ROK, Tom Leykis, Dalrock, and the hundreds of others sites that have evolved over the past 10 years to reconstitute the wisdom that was lost since the 1960’s, are a perfect, dare I say, superior substitute.  We are the new “church.”

A superior substitute? Oh dear Lord. It is Christ’s church people, there are no substitutes! It has always been Christ’s church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Then he says, “Of course, we are not preaching salvation…”

You don’t say?? Of course not. Christ without salvation, why am I not surprised? We’re going to provide you with everything you might find in faith, in church, in religion, except the ENTIRE HEART OF THE MESSAGE!

Ai yi yi, let me whack my head on my desk a few times.

The Lost Art of Being a Lady

First let me confess here, I definitely grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and in some dark places, and never concerned myself too much with decorum. Survival yes, decorum not so much.

Okay, so there was one incident where I may even have chewed tobacco on a dare. It was the most hideous thing ever, but it sure did wipe the smirk off of someone’s face and earn me 20 bucks. The dare was simply that girls couldn’t chew tobacco. I settled that, oh yes we can. Why in the heck we would ever want to is another question entirely, but we can.

We can do a lot of things we probably shouldn’t. Just because we can, doesn’t always mean we should. In fact, doing things just because you can is often a bad idea.

So, I really must declare myself to be a self-professed expert on how to be both a lady and not a lady. Also, I simply have to lament the complete decline of western civilization and rant about the sad state of affairs we now find ourselves in. In our quest to promote the idea that girls can do anything, including completely rejecting anything that girls can do, we have really created a monster. Gone is anything that may be considered soft or feminine or heaven forbid, “pink.” Being a lady is apparently something only “old people” do, or so I have been told. Young girls tend to sneer at the very idea.

Yes, yes I know, “don’t judge me,” but I must because it is bad, very bad, out there in The Big World. Girls seem to have forgotten that being a lady is about who and what you are, how you define your own self, what you draw and attract towards yourself. It is really not about being oppressed at all, but rather about being fully empowered.

This was a fairly simple matter to teach my older children some 30 years ago, but the culture has just declined so rapidly that now such efforts fall on deaf ears, leaving me in complete despair over the state of young womanhood.  Oh, woe is me…I play to a rough crowd, indeed.

How rough, you may ask? Oh boy, so rough that we now think nothing of standing on a street corner having a spitting contest, competing to see who can hock up the most disgusting weaponry possible, while taunting passer-bys. It is enough to make me want to snap a few thongs that are so prominently displayed about six inches outside of our clothing.

Girls apparently do not understand older women and the danger that lurks there, the mental instability that can strike at any moment and send one out on a thong snapping tirade. I kid you not, do not be deceived by the meek and mild appearance, the gentle mannerisms that young girls so foolishly try to dismiss as “weakness” in older women. You delude yourselves indeed, having no idea what lurks beneath that soft veneer….. but I digress.

Alas, today femininity seems to be all about being as loud as possible, cursing vehemently, being outrageous and shocking, reveling in the sheer perversion of it all, and presenting the world with a hard and tough exterior as if to say, “don’t even mess with me.” I empathize deeply with those “don’t tread on me” sentiments, however it is far more powerful to hold them on the inside, to keep them incognito, so when you do strike, nobody sees it coming. To advertise how big and bad you actually perceive yourself to be, is simply foolishness. “Keep them guessing and they’ll never see you coming” is a far better approach and sure to gain you a much-needed advantage.

All those pocket knives and spikes and torn and shredded tights, simply scream “bring it on, I dare you!” But please just ask yourselves, what in the world are you demanding people “bring on” and why??

What The World really needs from you is what it has always needed from you, your soft heart, your gentleness, your capacity to empathize with others and to create beauty where none exists. To reflect and multiply the goodness that is within, to shine your light into the world, to transform what is ugly and unappealing and to create something beautiful. That is what women have done for centuries, the gifts we have brought to the world, a rare and fine resource indeed, one that has known its own worth and value so well, it has never felt the need to try to prove itself.

We may well love men or at least find boys to be curious and enchanting creatures indeed, but that does not mean we must suddenly start imitating the very worst of their behavior! This is not a competition, a race to the bottom, you are unique and special and different. It is that very difference that makes you special! Embrace it, accentuate it, celebrate it. Be proud of who and what you are and the job you have been given to do.

Do not envy boys and men for what they can do, because just like you, what they can do is not always what they should do. There is truly nothing particularly clever or desirable about chewing tobacco or spitting great wads of horror out on a public street. Such things take no special talent, nor are they the trappings of the affluent and so-called privileged. Like, hello, to seek what you perceive men to “have” is to fail to know the nature of your own self or the nature of men, and the saddest thing of all is you must erase all that is good and golden about your own self in the process.

Your softness, your sweet and gentle spirit, is what The World has always needed from you and it is what the world still needs from you. It is not an easy job, it is not a job for the faint of heart, it is by far the most challenging thing you will ever do, but for goodness sakes do it! When we do not step into those shoes, when we fail to rise to the occasion, The World gets thrown out of balance, the ugly things remain ugly, your light does not shine, and the hidden beauty does not get seen.

The World seeks to deceive you, The World has always sought to deceive women, to convince us to snuf out our own light, to deny our own femininity, to exchange it for all kinds of cheap imitations, ranging from a piece of fruit to some bizarre notion of sexual empowerfulness. It is a war, a war I tell you, one we did not chose but one we must fight with everything we’ve got. Failure is not an option.

Ask yourself why such a relentless war exists, why such an enemy persists all through time, and then you will come to know your true worth and value, your vital purpose in the world. That is what you must fight for, that is the enemy you must rebel against, and nothing irks him more then a girl with a sweet and gentle spirit, bound and determined to make some ugly things more beautiful.

Quite simply what “ladies” do is walk in the world with a keen awareness of their own worth and value, no easy task I assure you. It is not bold and arrogant, nor is it  narcissistic and entitled, but rather quietly filled with confidence and grace.

"Biblical submission is Not Passivity"

I promised another post on submission within marriage, but the Peaceful Wife has many lovely articles that address these issues even more thoroughly. Here is a link to one I enjoyed in which she dispels some misconceptions “Biblical Submission is Not Passivity.” Here is a key phrase I really liked, “from this position of great strength in Christ, we submit to our husbands.”

My own words often reflect that  idea too, submission is actually strength in Christ, it is not weakness before men. It is actually an empowering tool for women that allows you to have a more peaceful marriage, enables communication, and helps to facilitate more love and empathy between husbands and wives.

There are many misconceptions about wives being doormats or Stepford wives and marriages being dictatorships, prone to abuse. It’s kind of sad, biblical concepts of submission are so maligned and misunderstood, some people reject them out of hand, and some women reject faith entirely based simply on those misunderstandings.

Another way to look at the word “submit” is that it simply means “to yield.” The opposite of submit is actually “to engage in battle.” There’s nothing wrong with a bit of friendly competition between the genders, a good water fight or wrestling match, but to be “engaged in battle” as a way of life within marriage is exhausting and tends to make everyone miserable.

Submission plays well with natural biology, even outside of the context of faith, and it tends to bring out the best in men and women. There are two forces at work there, the male and female. All in good humor here, but those two forces play very well with each other when they are in harmony and working in a complimentary manner.

When a wife says something like “I will never, ever submit to his authority!” it kind of makes me laugh, because you already have, or at least you are halfway there if you have married someone! “Authority” however, is another word that tends to conjur up all kinds of resistance and negativity. Like it or not however, there is authority granted in marriage. Just from a legal perspective you have now granted a husband authority over your debts and finances, authority over your health care decisions, authority over many aspects of your health and well being. They are now responsible for those things simply from a legal perspective. From a Christian perspective, their responsibility extends even farther.

To grant somebody all of the responsibility and yet to deny them any authority, is actually somewhat cruel. I’ve been in that situation myself, where I have been expected to take on all of the responsibility for everything that can go wrong, but was granted none of the authority that might have enabled me to actually have some influence and say in the matter. It’s kind of an exploitative, unpleasant situation to find oneself in. I referred to my job title as scapegoat, because that is really what I become, someone  designated to take all of the blame with no power or influence.

It can be really beneficial for wives who resist the idea of submission within marriage to really explore what that means and what is going on within you. There can be great healing that comes from taking that journey, from facing our fears, from exploring our perceptions about authority, and from contemplating our trust issues. It not only can help us to get to know the nature of our own selves better and lead to happier marriages, it can strengthen our relationship with Christ Himself.