Spaghetti Down the Drain

 I speak of Teddy Spaghetti, “Vox Day,” also known as Theodore Beale who has finally been shut down by Blogger. Night Wind has done a fabulous job of telling the story here in, “VOX DAY BITES THE DIRT.” I wouldn’t grieve VD too much, sadly he is well connected and will soon probably return to praising Anders Breivik, promoting rabid antisemitism, luring broken young men into foolishness, all while totally mangling evangelism and misrepresenting my Lord.

My Lord. Mine. He can be yours too, I am just saying I claim His name and so I take some dominion over His affairs, not unlike a mom takes some authority over her own neighborhood. I’m an epic fail at it too, if you look about the world. Somebody smart once told me, we can at least aim to be like a 13 yr old Jesus. What was he doing at the temple when his parents misplaced Him? Being about the Father’s business.

We all need to be about the Father’s business.

I really like what Night Wind said here, “One of Vox’ only truly amazing accomplishments was to unite people of widely different political and social beliefs to join together and put a stop to what he was doing.” Right? I have spent a good decade among the red pills, the manosphere, the far right, meeting some interesting characters, many who I am rather fond off, some not so much. Some really still need a good spiritual epiphany right upside the head.

How encouraging it is to know that we really can soften our hearts, set aside our differences, and work together to speak up and stand against evil. And by “work” I simply mean speaking to one another, dialoguing, networking, and praying. Roosh has found the Lord and become an orthodox Christian. Dalrock felt led to shut down his blog. Milo has rejected homosexuality and returned to his Catholic roots. Heartiste, well just keep praying. There are many, many others whom the Lord loves, who the Lord is calling to.

One reason why we all need Jesus is that besides personal salvation, mercy, grace, and healing, He is a unifying force. He provides us with the standard for what is good. Ten people are going to have ten different ideas about censorship. The obvious and somewhat well reasoned answer to why Blogger finally shut down Vox Day is because he has been posting a lot of anti vaxx stuff lately. That’s the material world’s evidence, but in the spiritual? He was exploiting broken and wounded men, leading them in the wrong direction, and attaching the Lord’s name to some potential wrong doing. That’s a huge no. Not okay. Before we speak His name we need to make sure our heart (and mind) is right and not use His name to manipulate vulnerable and hurting people.

The Bible says, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

His little ones, His, are a lot of lost young men trying to navigate their way in a broken world, looking for guidance, looking for a father figure and a mentor. The last thing they need is someone exploiting them financially, misrepresenting the Lord, and teaching them to hate. My heart has just been broken watching this evil go on for so long. It’s like a form of spiritual and emotional prostitution or something. At least with the literal kind, you get something out of the deal. With Vox you’re just going to get fleeced, rejected, doxxed, and bullied.

Moira's Story....

I speak of Moira Greyland who wrote “The Last Closet: The Dark Side of Avalon.” Moira’s story is an important one, one Christians especially need to hear, and it’s not a pleasant story at all, it’s a story of horrific child abuse, psychological, emotional, sexual, that has left lasting scars. It’s an important story because it shatters some myths, demolishes some narratives about the LGBT community and it reveals the downside of tribalism, the way morality can become totally subjective, right or wrong being defined not by what you do, but by who you are.

It is a dark abyss of moral ambiguity, a  really challenging swamp to fight your way out of.

Moira is not alone either, there are literally hundreds of thousands of us who grew up in some really abusive, emotionally devastating situations, situations fueled by the sexual revolution, by narcissistic parents, and by extreme liberalism or by what some would call the far left. The culture we created by throwing out all tradition, all morality, all standards, did some major harm, damaged some real live people and left lasting scars.

I have a memorial to those who did not survive, a number of children whose lives ended in suicide, addiction, or devastating health issues caused by extreme stress, PTSD.

I watch the #Metoo movement, the #churchtoo movement,  one might even say I am well pleased by the Great Shaking going on, but in the back of my mind, or rather burned into my very soul, is this keen awareness that faith does not cause child abuse, that “patriarchy,” is a false flag, that there are thousands of hurting, broken people who barely survived the sexual revolution, feminism, our attempts to redesign society into this utopian vision of sexual freedom.

Moira like me, found the Lord, even in the midst of abuse, of moral ambiguity, of cultural genocide, even in the midst of extreme atheism. Perhaps a better way to say that is, the Lord found us. 

It’s hard to put a positive spin on such darkness, such horrific evil, and there’s this need to make people understand how awful the damage really is, how painful, how it was literally the theft of a child’s mind, body, and spirit, impacting every area of your life. There is no nook or cranny of your very being left untouched.

I don’t want to gloss over that, I don’t want to minimize the harm, but I do want to celebrate a couple of things,  I want to praise the Lord, I want to infuse this darkness with hope, hope that I often see lacking when Moira’s story is being retold. Life is short, there are huge celebrations that should not be missed, a full inheritance from the Lord waiting to be claimed. Chaos, confusion, shame, the remnants of PTSD, need not define you anymore. Jesus Christ came to set the captives free and He restores, He redeems, He replaces what has been stolen, ten times over. But that is a promise that must be claimed. We have not because we ask not.

It’s a message that needs to be shouted from the rooftops until life and life abundant is just pouring into every nook and cranny of every abuse victim anywhere. You are not what has happened to you, you are not your past, your identity need not live there within the dark places anymore. The harm done is real enough, but complete healing can be just as real.

Sometimes I fear that as our culture exposes victimization, toxic secrets, and begins to speak the truth, we often leave out the part about how the Lord can rewrite the whole story, surprise us with His many plot twists, that the broken parts are actually beautful to Him, that they can rise up to Him like fragrant poetry. There is beauty lurking in our suffering, it is part of what makes us human. Our humanness is beautful because we are made in His image and He is beautful. He is more beautful, more powerful than we can even imagine, and we have been fashioned in His likeness.

Today I haven’t got scars, instead I have a melody of poetic praise that lifts His name on high, a flair for the melodramatic, a sharp wit and the strength of some real gallows humor. That is the kind of beauty He can hand us for our ashes. Don’t forget the hope, the hope in Him is real, it has an evidence and a substance that is tangible.

I going to post the entirety of Psalm 91,  and speak life over anyone who fears their scars are too big, who has not yet claimed freedom, claimed their full inheritance of resoration and healing that the Lord promises.

“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.  I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.  Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.  He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.  A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.  Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.  Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;  There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.  For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.  They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.  Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.  Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.  He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.  With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.”

“Jubilee Theonomy”

“Jubilee theonomy,” I totally snagged that from Pastor Wilson, a timely phrase indeed because I was just thinking of writing about jubilee and what I call the Great Divide between alleged liberals and conservatives.

Jubilee for those who don’t know is, “a special year of remission of sins and universal pardon. In the Book of Leviticus, a Jubilee year  is mentioned to occur every fiftieth year, during which slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest.”

Now in my way of thinking we are living in perpetual jubilee, Jesus Christ is our jubilee. As prisoners we have been set free, no longer slaves to fear, our debts forgiven, and the mercies of God are now particularly manifest. Praise the Lord!

Why then do we not relate to one another in this same spirit? Why are we still taking hostages, making wage slaves out of people, and burdening them with excessive debt? Why are we living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world and yet the top 3% hold all the wealth? Why do we as conservative Christians so often dismiss the poor as lazy, ignore the cries of women who have been abused, and mock those who try to speak of racism?

Why are we so blind to the fact that all things are not equal, that people do not all have the same opportunity, and that toilet water tends to always flow downhill? That is to say,  government policies often create poverty. Drugs for example, never enter a community without permission from somebody’s corrupt or incompetent leadership. Look at Indian reservations, some of the poorest place in the country. That’s what excessive Gov often creates.

Why then do we blame the poor? If a man doesn’t work he shouldn’t eat. Guess those people, unlike me, just made really bad life choices. Too bad you don’t have the Lord’s favor like I do with my private jet and prosperity ministry…..funded off the backs of lonely widow’s social security checks.

Theonomy for those who don’t know,  “posits that the Biblical Law is applicable to civil law, and theonomists propose Biblical law as the standard by which the laws of nations may be measured, and to which they ought to be conformed.”

That’s all very well and good, but traditionally evangelists, fundamentalists, conservatives, have been quick to condemn sexual sin, especially the sexual sins of the little people, because when it comes to their own, they have nasty habit of denying it, justifying it, or covering it up. Why do we not apply our theonomy to other sins like usury? Theft? Abuse? Corruption? Racism? Pharmakeia?

Seriously, inquiring minds want to know, why? I mean, all in good humor here, but I myself would much prefer to speak of sexual sin too, rather than Mexican drug cartels, predatory lending, organized crime, and the staggering number of women who have been abused in the churchian world and not heard or protected. The horrific number of raped children, both boys and girls, the desperation that can send people running towards both homosexuality and abortion.

Yes, that’s some ugly stuff! Taking responsibility as Christian conservatives for the collective misery we have enabled and created in the world ain’t so easy. You have to humble yourself, lean into grace, realize you aren’t perfect. No plea bargains either, like trying to declare the other side is worse. Flat out, they often are! This boondoggle they created between Obamacare, pharmaceutical companies, and the opioid crisis, the biggest public health threat to hit us in a hundred years, is quite a sight to behold.

A sight to behold. A totally preventable, completely predictable, tragedy of epic proportions.

Believe it or not, I tend to lean very conservative in my politics, opinions, my theonomy. However, my loyalty, my heart, is not to a political party or an ideology, it is actually resides with those at the bottom of the food chain, those Jesus Christ would call the “least of these.” Yes indeed, there are some issues there, too. Sin does not curve around victims of abuse, drug addicts, the homeless, placing them in this magical zone of sin-lessness. People at the bottom of the swamp aren’t all fuzzy kittens of purity and grace.

However, they are often victims of grave injustices, of the unacknowledged sin of all that toilet water that came downhill and washed them right off the beaten path.

“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. “

Excuse me for stating the obvious here, but the world is plumb full of law breakers who failed to love and the collateral damage of that truth is strewn all over the place. To sit up all high and mighty, as many do, weilding a little sword of truth, claiming to be in possession of biblical thenomy with a giant log in our own eye, just doesn’t cut it for me. It smells like axe body spray, I mean hypocrisy.

As I have written before, my heart is with the least of these, it always has been, likely it always will be. The reason why I like many conservative ideas and ideals is becasue I can see the benefit many of those ideas bring down to those who struggle.

So why than are conservatives, especially conservative Christians, not leading the way when it comes to social justice? Why have conservatives so often ignored the cries of those who are hurting? Why are we not leading the anti poverty initatives, the racial reconciliation, the #Metoo movement?

The undeniable truth to me is that far too often the theonomy of the conservative heart is built around pride, predjudice, and privilege. Jubilee for me and not for thee.

Joy Juice

Somebody on the intertoobz said, “the Holy Spirit is not joy juice.” It kind of ticked me off. Who sez He isn’t? “God didn’t put you here to be happy,” is another one that sticks in my craw. That’s all wrongheaded.

It’s also often used as justification for people staying stuck in whatever situation they are in that is making them miserable. “Oh well, God didn’t put you here to be happy.”  “It’s my cross to bear.” “Maybe if I just stay trapped in this horrible place, the Lord will see how much I suffer for Him.” Rubbish! 95% of our own suffering is self inflicted. God did not create us to be miserable.

When did joy and happiness become perceived as a sin? I am of the mindset that salvation should put an extra skip in your step, a smile on your face. “Rejoice,” Paul says, “and again I say, rejoice,” in case we missed it the first time. It’s a commandment. Rejoice, be of good cheer, love one another.

3 John 1:12 declares the Father’s heart for us,  “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” John 16:33 says, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

So let me state flat out, as someone who is often bitter, cynical, sarcastic, and prone to melancholy, but the Holy Spirit is indeed, “joy juice.” If we are not feeling the joy the error is totally on our end. We often create our own misery, like the way I often land myself in a patch of bitter Christians who seem to perceive joy and happiness as sinful things. And then they proceed to share.

God does not do that to me, I do that to me.

Imagine if I did it and than said, yep, God just wants me to suffer. Yep, the Holy Spirit isn’t joy juice.  Alas, in the world you’ll have tribulation. Someday we’ll escape this vale of tears. I’ll never see joy this side of heaven.Reminds me of Eeyore from Winnie the Poo. Let’s all have a big pity party……and claim it’s just our lot in life. Worse, it’s allegedly what God wants for us. Nonsense.

So, there’s a wide range of emotions in the world, different circumstances call for a different response, nobody is called to be a ball of sunshine 24/7, and in the world we will have tribulation. Just the same, the Holy Spirit really is “joy juice” and some people are in desperate need of an infusion.

Making Sandwiches

There’s a real spiritual war going on within our culture right now that some may be blissfully unaware of, the battle of the sandwiches. I too was unaware of it until it began to encroach upon my life. The meme about “making sandwiches” is about far more than the superficial, it is an outright attack on women, on marriage, on gender relations, a shaming tactic of feminism.

This little meme I’ve posted is a somewhat humorous look at the nature of the problem and the social engineering underway hoping to redesign culture and relationships between men and women.

Suzanne Venker recently wrote an article,  “Are you weak if you make your man a sandwich?” In it she tells the tale of Maddie, an Australian woman who asked a facebook group for ideas about making her husband’s lunch. The internet response was pretty brutal as it often is, everything from accusing her of being “weak” to being “a 1950’s housewife setting women back for generations.” While this is an extreme example, such shaming tactics are a real thing in the world.

Along with an attack against marriage itself, there is also an attack against the nature of women, against our nurturing capabilities, anything feminine being perceived as an affront, an offense and an avid endorsement of all things evil, oppressive, and patriarchal.

At first glance this can appear kind of dumb, just another bit of the world’s stupidity, until you start to  also read 10-15 articles about domestic violence and abuse, articles in which EVERY woman would fit the bill of victimhood, EVERY woman is an abuse victim of her own husband. I realize this is Domestic Violence Awareness month and IB did spend several years working at a shelter, so it is not as if I am not keenly aware that abuse is a real thing in the world.

I must say however, some of these articles I am reading are not designed to raise awareness at all, they are not designed to help women escape dangerous relationships, they are flat out designed to mess with women’s heads. To convince ALL women that they are victims of oppression and abuse simply by the nature of institutional patriarchy, and the very institution of marriage itself. ALL women.

I’m not going to link to all these articles and take them down point by point, perhaps another day when I have more time, but my point being, there is an agenda going on here that is not interested in supporting and empowering women at all, it is interested in attacking marriage, shaming men and women for being men and women, and redesigning culture. It grieves me to see this, and to see it lurking beneath domestic violence awareness is ugly. Women face a lot of emotional and spiritual attacks from the world already, we have targets on our backs so to speak,  and so to bear witness to this farther exploitation is really frustrating.

Ironically, while reading some of this stuff,  I had the thought that what I was reading is actually a form of gaslighting, emotional and psychological abuse, fear mongering designed to cause her to doubt herself, to doubt her perceptions, to distrust her own observations about her own marriage or her relationship. It was flat out abuse under the guise of virtue signaling compassion for the well being of women.

I don’t have a solution really, but the first step is usually raising awareness, shining a light on the nature of the problem and bringing it to people’s attention. One way I can discern the difference between genuine love for women and a self serving agenda, is the heart behind the words. Is she a beautiful creature made in the image of God, powerful, having innate worth and value, or is she a powerless victim who should be ashamed of her “inherent” weakness and robbed of her confidence, her ability to perceive reality hijacked by those who claim to know better?

The moment I see women being shamed for who and what we are as women, I can usually find an agenda lurking beneath the surface, and that goes for the secular world as well as the Christian one.

Not Everyone Should Be Gotten Along With...

“You just need to get along better with people.” Boy, them there are some real trigger words for most victims of abuse, exploitation, or for the people pleasers and co-dependents among us. I’ve heard them a few times in my life too, at very inappropriate times, totally victim blaming and out of context.

They are words devoid of justice, devoid of protection, that reveal a complete lack of awareness over power differentials. Bit like telling the victim of a robbery they just need to learn how to get along with burglars better.

Sometimes very liberal people will say things like, “can’t we all just get along” and Christians will say things like, “we have to love our enemies and turn the other cheek.” While those are sweet words and quite appropriate in context, they are not the answer to  every given conflict. Not all spats are conflicts between equals and not all conflicts are bad. In fact, conflict can be very healthy and necessary.

You probably can’t tell from my blogging, which can sound strident sometimes, but IB was born a co-dependent extraordinaire. That’s no joke, a “lay down in the railroad tracks and die for you” co-dependent. A, “sure I’ll be happy to sit in the car and keep the engine going while you run into the bank with a mask on,” co-dependent. A “my very existence is all about you and my only regret is that I now seem to have no self to lay down anymore”co-dependent.

I am extremely lucky to still be alive.  I come from some dark and dangerous places. It took the Lord some 20 years to pry me out of that bondage, to free me of those chains, and He is right there should I ever slip back into those old patterns of behavior.

A co-dependent extraordinaire.

God bless my husband too, he knows me well. He has never suggested I “just need to get along with people better.” All in good humor here, but he has often suggested I need cut some people loose and to punch a few others in the head. He’s almost always right, too. I have come to trust his wisdom and to realize that he sometimes sees things I cannot.

I mention this because I want people to know there is a huge difference between dying to self for the Lord and dying to self for another person. Dying to self for another person is actually a form of idolatry, of people worship. I have seen cultians, New Age spiritualists, and even a handful of Christians, pervert this concept in order to manipulate, abuse, and control people.

It’s a sticky wicket because it can get all convoluted. Basically if anyone ever suggests you need to die to self, change who you are, relinquish yourself in order to be worthy of being friends with them, you got an issue and you need some new friends, stat. Real friends will accept you as you are. Real leaders will always point you to Jesus Christ and not to themselves.

A couple of bible verses that have really helped me, Exodus 20:3, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”Including thy drunken uncle, thy dysfunctional relatives, thy abusive spouse, thy exploitative employer.

Luke 9:60, “Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.” We have a calling, a job to do. It can be painful to walk away, in fact, I’m really bad at it, but there is a time to just let the dead bury the dead.

Matthew 10:27, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Those are some hard words, some strong meat, but nothing and nobody should ever come before our own relationship with the Lord.

Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” All in good humor here, but that would be HIS cross or YOUR cross and not a cross belonging to someone else. We are not called to forever carry someone else’s cross for them. Jesus is the One who paid their ransom and they can take up His burden, it is light.

I realize there probably are a few people in the world who are not givers, not people pleasers, not co-dependents, people who genuinely need to soften their heart, show a little kindness, exchange some ego for some empathy. However, it’s not arrogance, ego, or pride that suggests I am so rarely one of those people, it is praise for the Lord’s good work, it is rejoicing because He has taught me so well where I end and another begins, it is the sheer delight that comes from having been rescued, redeemed, from being so lovingly led to take the next exit off what could have so clearly been the highway to hell.

It is dying to self for Him, that has left me totally, delightfully, cheerfully imperfect.

"Red Pill Fallacies"

Pam has decided to start a blog called “Red Pill Fallacies-A Christian Woman’s Response.” She welcomes comments and discussion. She too is a Christian woman who has done a great deal of research into the Red Pill, the manosphere, Tomassi, Dalrock, Day, Heartiste, et all. Check it out, her first post is called,  “The wisdom of God’s spirit.”

I struggle sometimes to explain my own interest in the red pill, the compelling need I have to speak up about it, the sadness I feel when people get caught up in it.

What started my excursion into the gamers and pick up artists was actually caring for this guy at the end of his days who had spent his whole life pouring women into the abyss of his soul, never able to have the intimacy he so clearly craved. The guy was so full of regret, grief, bitterness, that he broke my heart. I’d leave him and have to go sit in my car and cry before I could even drive home.

He was all alone, estranged from his kids who resented him, dealing with a slew of ex-wives who had all rejected him, and he had such a torment for relationship, connection, but everything he did drove people away. Once his good looks, wealth, and even his health began to fail him, he had nothing left to “game” anyone with. He longed for intimacy and yet he had exploited everyone, shut everyone out, prided himself on his ability to remain aloof and avoid any vulnerability, always the top dog. He was trapped in this hell of his own making and full of regret.

The guy really needed a relationship with his heavenly Father but he hated God almost as much as he hated himself. There was no happy ending, he simply  died, bitter, angry, and alone, but he left me with a lot of questions, riddles I needed to solve, questions about faith, about men and their struggles with intimacy, about the lure and seduction of cultian ideologies like the red pill, about things that are all wrong with our culture.

God has been faithful in helping me to answer those questions, in guiding and leading me through riddles and deceptions that have confused me. God is good that way, He always puts my mind at ease, answers my questions, and fills me with His peace.

One thing that has been really hard for me in my life is survivor’s guilt, why me? God has been very good to me and yet I have watched so many others I care about completely destroy themselves with this keen awareness of, “but for the grace of God there go I.”

I empathized with my dying pick up artist, I saw aspects of myself reflected in him, I recognized his choices as some of the choices I had faced, and at the end of the day I realized that the only difference between him and I was my saving faith in Jesus Christ.

What makes the red pill so dangerous in my mind, besides the obvious perversions of scripture, is that we all have a hunger for intimacy, a God sized hole in our spirits that calls us to relationship, and the red pills mislead people into severing that connection, into squashing and suppressing that hunger with falsehoods and deceptions. It is like watching people starve to death eating sawdust, having no awareness that the nutrients they need are missing.

Men, even the most manly ones, even the alleged alpha ones, have a desperate need for intimacy and spiritual connection with their heavenly Father, and with the women in their lives, too. The red pill robs them of that and lures them into a false belief system, one that is often cloaked in pseudo-Christianity and promises you the kingdoms of the world.

“Humans Love Dogs More Than Other People,”

“Humans Love Dogs More Than Other People,” or so says this study to be found in the New York Post.

This has long been a concern of mine, because once people start perceiving dogs and other animals as superior to ourselves, as having more worth and value than our fellow human beings, we’re on a downhill path to destruction.

This is a very unpopular discussion and often gets me into a great deal of trouble. Don’t even think of suggesting dogs don’t actually have souls and a full range of human emotions and human thought patterns. People will chase you out-of-town with torches and pitchforks for disrespecting the human fur babies.

First off, I love dogs and I am probably one of those very people who would happily live on a planet full of dogs, rather than people. However, I’ve got just enough reason left to recognize there is something immoral about that, something self-centered, something not quite right. Just because I much prefer dogs to most people does not mean I should prefer dogs to most people.

The fact that we are now spending more money on doggy acupuncture, therapy, grooming, dressing, housing than we are on actual human beings who are genuinely suffering, is not a good sign. The fact that we would rather hang out with an animal rather than one another is not a good sign. The fact that we empathize with animals more than people is not a good sign.

This is a path, a trajectory we have been on for a long, long time. Our concern, our modern laws regarding for child abuse, domestic violence victims, actually stemmed from our laws against animal cruelty. Our concern for animals has often superseded our concern for one another. Where I live abortion is legal, protected, and often free, but if you break an eagle’s egg, you are in serious trouble. Federal crime territory, if you live long enough to face charges.

I don’t know what we can do to shift our thinking or to start asking ourselves questions, but I think we should. It is not that dogs are the enemy or anything, it is that we are now turning to our dogs for the things that humans should be giving to one another, but obviously are not. Things like loyalty, companionship, cheerfulness, gratitude, genuine excitement when we see one another. Trust. Affection. Encouragement.

It’s not the fault of dogs, dogs have simply slipped in to fill an emotional and spiritual void within people, but the fact that there is such a void there speaks to our issues around struggling to build an intimate relationship with the Lord, and with one another.

In defense of Mary Kassian..

Who is Mary Kassian? I don’t really know, I just know she wrote a good blog post differentiating abuse from authority atGirlsGoneWise called, “Does a husband have the authority?” She says, “I believe that the Bible teaches that a husband’s position as head of the home does not give him the right to rule, but rather the responsibility to provide loving oversight. A husband is not imparted with privilege; he is entrusted with obligation—the obligation to love, cherish and shepherd, in emulation of Christ.”

Fabulous! She than proceeds to explain, “Culture upholds authority as the right to rule and lord it over others, but Scripture paints a radically different picture about the true nature of authority.”

That is one of my favorite issues, the way the world defines things (read lies), versus the way God defines things. God often defines things in a way that can feel very backwards, but that is only because we are so used to hanging upside down. So I see authority the way God does and I picture safety, protection, responsibility, power within. The world teaches us authority is about having external power over others, which can very quickly translate into abuse. One of my favorite sayings is,”he who is under authority, has authority.” That is because when you are under authority yourself, your power is internalized. Bullies who rely on power over others are actually weak, insecure, powerless people who must abuse others to feel significant.

So naturally Dalrock, who never met a Christian woman he didn’t want to attack and accuse, nor an abuse he didn’t want to attempt to twist scripture to defend, tries to mock and ridicule Mary Kassian in a post called, Who is she teaching?

Sigh. Dalrock knows perfectly well that the things Mary was declaring are not okay are some pretty obvious signs of abuse. Does a husband have the right to take his wife’s money, car keys, phone, personal possessions and lock her out of the house? Like duh, no, those are all the actions of a bully. That is abuse. That is the behavior of a weak and insecure man with issues around power and control. A bully that makes men look small minded and weak. Men are called to love their wives like Christ loved the church.

Dalrock doesn’t like the Deluth model of domestic violence, the power and control wheel, the continuum of violence. Here’s the deal however, until enough Christian men within the church lead on domestic violence issues, the secular world holds the moral upper hand and will continue to be the far superior approach for those seeking help. I would like to see that change. It won’t change however, until the Dalrockians are purged from our midst.

Of Meat and Prepackaged Miracles

“Mankind is so far removed from seeing the daily miracles in this thing called life, while asking for ‘proof’ of divinity that is seen in a thousand ways a minute, that it must be embarrassing to the peanut which isn’t quite as nutty.”-Colorstorm over at The Lion’s Den

I grew up with sustenance living, hunting, fishing, gathering. It’s somewhat amusing, today a big fad is learning how to live off the grid, how to produce your own food. I’ve spent an entire lifetime trying to figure out how to get back  ON the grid. I have an affection for hot running water and electricity. I’m also fond of mangoes in the midst of winter and fancy imported coffee.

“Mankind is so far removed from seeing the daily miracles in this thing called life,” Yes, precisely, and so we go to the grocery store and buy our prepackaged steak, wrapped in cellophane, completely removed from the animal it came from, the butcher that prepared it, or the Creator that made it. There is no God, our dinner just miraculously arrived on the shelf, having spontaneously sprung forth from nothingness after a random series of events that magically caused it to be wrapped in cellophane and prepared for us.

Something changes inside of you when you have to kill your own food, and awareness of life and death perhaps, a connection to the Source that gives us our being, a keen understanding that life itself is really quite miraculous, and fragile, too. Perhaps an awareness that life is not all there is, that even in our absence existence continues, it marches on without us. Reality is not defined by our awareness of it, it can exist outside of us, beyond our being.

I’ve slaughtered perhaps a thousand fish, a few dozen chickens and rabbits, and helped to dress deer and elk. Not to gross anyone out, but it takes about two seconds of observing the inner workings of animals to realize there is no way this creature just randomly evolved from nothingness. This is not just pointless coincidence going on internally, anatomically, this is elaborate, deliberate, and delicate, design.

If you have evidence of a design, you have evidence of a Designer. Contrary to what it feels like to us in the grocery store, nothing just spontaneously and magically arrived on those shelves for our good pleasure.

In the modern world, especially the West,  we can become very disconnected from seeing the daily miracles in this thing called life. I myself frequently turn on a hot water faucet and think, magic! But then I remind myself that hot running water in my life is  actually miraculous and that behind the scenes there is a whole slew of somewhat invisible labor that went into producing such a wonder. It would be very silly indeed, to become so entitled that we think hot water is natural, normal, devoid of a Creator, something that just appears when we turn on a faucet and yet that is precisely what most of us do. The same is true of electricity. I am deeply offended when I plug something in and nothing happens. Where’s my magic?

We are somewhat disconnected from our own biology here in the West, comfortable, insulated from the truth and reality of our existence. It can be very challenging to see the daily miracles in this thing called life. Whether you are directly connected to plants or animals as the source of your food, such awareness often changes your perceptions of things. There is life and death in living things, there is this whole plane of existence going on beyond ourselves and our ability to perceive it.

There are daily miracles to be found in this thing called life and where there is evidence of miracles there is also evidence of  a Miracle maker. He is strong meat, an unpackaged miracle, the Bread of Life. To not understand this truly would embarrass our nutty little peanut, if a peanut had the eyes to see and still refused to use them.

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.