Bleak Theology: Hopeful Science
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Shelter and fruit.

When I was a child, NZ made cheese, butter and mutton. We exported these to Britain, where we provided cheap food for the masses. We were good at it, and it was a good living. Then Britain joined what was then called the common market, and is now called the EU.

This chained the geography of NZ. We started growing crops — at an artisanal level: the EU was busy demolishing microclimates and we were building shelter belts, allowing delicate crops such as the Chinese Gooseberry (Kiwifruit) to grow, and diversifying. We now have a foodie culture, with regional variation, and fairly intense use of our flat land.

But to do that we had to build shelter. The climate in NZ is relatively benign — but it is windy. That’s bad for most things. Decreasing the chill factor has a fairly useful effect.

I’m going to suggest that we have, as a society, decrease the amount of shelter that most people have. We used to have bulwarks — the church, the village, supervision of the young — who could flirt at the fiesta, the town square and at dances but were supervised there and back — and in having networks of aunts, grandmothers, cousins and nieces who would support young mothers during the time when their children were quite little and dependant.

(Along with the unspoken rules for men. The guy with the young family gets the overtime. The showboat who drinks and plays sport and does not contribute to the community does not. We have lost that. SV has posted a long post about how this has led to young men feeling useless and unwanted. Read the entire thing.

Trayvon Martin would have been a most valuable asset. To his family, he would represent the up and coming next generation of men to lead and serve and carry on his fathers name. To his community, he would fulfill the role of student or soldier or apprentice, learning what it takes to contribute meaningfully to society, and assume a vocation. To his friends, he would be part of the organic sorting out of the hierarchy of young people, establishing lifelong friendships (and rivalries, to be accurate) and wondering which young women might be suitable for courting, and if their fathers would let him get that close. As it happened, none of those things were true for Trayvon. His parents were divorced and his home broken, he was enough of a trouble maker at school that he found himself suspended for two weeks at a time*, and his social aspirations appeared to have consisted of thug-light/gang persona and the company of a very strange woman who could barely form a sentence. He appeared on the precipice of a life of less than savory pursuits, and no one seemed to much care. This would suggest that Trayvon Martin’s troubles weren’t the outcome of some Vast White Conspiracy to keep colored people down, nor “open season” on black teenagers, but rather that no one could be bothered to care that a young man was simply being dismissed as unimportant, long before he found himself face to face with George Zimmerman.

Had the patriarchal system been in place that fateful night, the likelihood is that George Zimmerman would have never had to wonder who Trayvon Martin was or what he was doing, because they would have been known to each other. As an appointed representative of his community, Zimmerman would have introduced himself to his neighbors, if he didn’t know them already, because in order to hold such a position he would have to be highly regarded. He would have known that Trayvon was Mr. Martin’s boy – he would know whether or not he’d been in trouble, whether or not he needed to be watched, whether or not Mr. Martin needed to know his son was perhaps somewhere he shouldn’t be. Needed to know, because a son, a young man in community, would be too valuable an asset to allow to fall into bad behavior or even be perceived as a potential problem. Zimmerman would have knocked on Martin’s door, advised him of the situation, and Martin would have acknowledged whether or not Trayvon had his permission to be out, and handled his own son accordingly.

The same thing has happened with women. They are a little more valued, but what they have to offer — including their bodies — is not being bought. The value of young women has dropped dramatically. Vanessa is back in Germany and she is stunned.

We need to teach young men and young women that the State is not a bulwark, and that you will not be able to rely on them to provide for you when you are ill, when you are broken. The idea of a lifelong covenant is that you build your life together.

Yes, it can go wrong. Yes there are risks. But two can protect young men and women from their urges. One parent has a much harder job. And the fruit of the marriage is in the children and the home that comes from it.

Consider Grerp. Grerp is back. Moreover, she’s now been married for 15 years. The fruit of that is:

Today is my 15th anniversary.  I’ve kept the house clean, made healthy meals, repaired things that broke, shuffled my kid to school and basketball and scouts.  I’ve taken the dogs to the vet and taught myself to cook and garden and make medicines, prayed for my husband when he was away and traveling unsafe roads, and listened to him when he was tired and discouraged and scared.

And all I have to show for it is: a clean house, a healthy family, rambunctious dogs, a happy and secure kid, a pretty little garden, shelves full of canned goods and herbs, and a loving and appreciative husband.  Poor me.

On that note, I better go and check dinner.

The family is supposed to be the shelter for the individual. Break the family, destroy the tribe, and the individuals will stop trusting each other. Then watch the culture implode, and people fight, beg, whore and steal for 1 kilo of bread.

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