I have come to the conclusion that trying to live a normal and godly life is not normal in our society, and that the progressive elite who control the memes of mass media are actively contemptuous of men and women who live what used to be called “a normal life”. Who are not leaders, pioneers: but who are faithful. The celebrate the transgressive, the shocking, not realizing that this is now mainstream, boring. The real transgressive way to live in this fallen time is to live for Christ. This is not without costs.
We have come to a strange place in time where something that used to be considered a problem of the cloistered life is now very often a problem for SAHMs struggling to restore the hestia with little support even from other SAHMs. But these women are not lazy and those of us with energy enough to blog who also SAHM have to not succumb to cruelty born itself from despair and unacknowledged acedia. We must continue to pour out prayer, gentleness and care for the Christian SAHMs who are isolated and alone and who barely have energy or time for more than a hurried blog comment before they resume the struggle of managing kids and house with little in the way of money, resources or genuine support from family and community.
Beating them up doesn’t kill acedia. Charity does. I hope more blogging SAHMs can be charitable to their sisters in this domestic sphere who are battling a great spiritual evil and aren’t lazy wimps at all.
Yesterday I was talking with ED. All of her friends, from her old work, in urban China, were happily talking about how great their jobs were, how rich they are (As Deng said ‘To Be Rich is to be Glorious’ But they do not have kids. They do not have husbands[1]. They do not have boyfriends. I was thinking about where is the next generation coming from… and that ED wanting to travel is one of those things that will come in another season, but not right now. She and I both have children doing NCEA this year, and my oldest boy is applying for his student loans for he has just got into the intermediate year he wants, knowing that 80 –90% of people who start this course fail. For the next year we have to be for our children.
We have to be counter-cultural. We have to expect opposition. And this has always been the case.
10Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. 11For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 12What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” 13Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16(I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.
18For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. 2I went up in response to a revelation. Then I laid before them (though only in a private meeting with the acknowledged leaders) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain. 3But even Titus, who was with me, was not compelled to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. 4But because of false believers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might enslave us – 5we did not submit to them even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might always remain with you. 6And from those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders (what they actually were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality) – those leaders contributed nothing to me. 7On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised 8(for he who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles), 9and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. 10They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do.
Now, before I get on and discuss this, I need to add that ED, whom I love, and whom I am courting, is Chinese. Very Chinese, quite traditional. And the started the conversation by saying that China has changed. All men should take note the culture of hedonism, of feminism and matriarchy is everywhere . You cannot assume that if you leave North America, or Australasia, or the UK, you will find a righteous city, a holy hill. Those places do not exist in this world, (and when we have tried to make them, as in Geneva or Edinburgh, they became fascist hellholes). The world is against us if we are of Christ. It has always been against us, it will always be against us.
In addition, the Church has always had division and false believers within it. This is one reason a wise layman knows his church history: the current post-human or trans-human movement has the stench of Gnosticism throughout it, as does: the ideas of men going minimalistic and single as a survival mechanism reminds me of the Stylites. But… neither of these consider the poor, the children, the weak. For they are the duty of families: of the church when there is no family. The abandoned need to be adopted within holy and righteous homes. And the idea that you will marry when you are young, have children, raise them, be faithful, continue to meet each other’s needs and encourage each other in good works, and (horrors) the woman will obey the husband and follow him…. now is called abusive, slavery, a denial of potential, not the building of the last homely homes in the West.
[For building those homes is something that women are far better than men at. Any graceful and beautiful things in my house were generally put there or arranged by my Mum, or sisters (one of whom did a lot of the drawings in paintings I have), the musical instruments, Books, and electronics that clutter everything is me. This has been devalued in our society. Consider Lord of the Rings for a moment. In the book, Arwen Undomiel was acting as the Lady of Rivendell (for she was half elven) and managed that redoubt for Elrond. In the Movie, she was out fighting. Being the woman who ran a household of hundreds was not interesting enough or important enough, she had to be one of the boys].
Our society has poisoned the well for men, relegating them to lovers (at best) sperm donors and walking wallets at worst for (as ED’s friends told her repeatedly “You cannot trust them”)[2].
However, it has done the same thing for women. It has devalued those things that women are good at: the domestic arts, either making them jobs (from cleaner to early childhood education) or make it a performance art, making ‘perfect’ food or rooms. The ordinary, the homely, the loving… the mess of children and men… has been airbrushed away.
And this should not be in the Church. We disagree — a lot — but we should agree that living righteously is where we need to support each other. For we all need to preach the gospel with our lives, using words only when needed.
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1. ED is of the generation where women were only allowed one child in China: she was born at a time when families were larger. But the crude birth rate in china is now 12.3 babes per 1000 population per year: it has increased because the one child policy has just been lifted as the Party is worried about demographic decline. To give you context in Australia is also 12.3, Japan it is 8.3, New Zealand 13.6, Singapore 7.2, Ukraine 9.8 and USA 13.7.
2. I would also note that part of the “red pill” and one of those things that is leading to a relative decline in remarriage is that most men have decided you cannot trust women either. This is leading to a large number of women either traveling or getting cats. Or both.