1 To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
2 As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid
to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, until he has mercy upon us.
3 Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt.
4 Our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.
I am ornery and cross-grained when I am in a good mood. Recently I have been having an argument with the statistics lady who blithely informs me that I must fill in this survey and must have a face to face interview because I have been chosen and this is the law. I keep on saying that the day that the statistics department complies with the standard methods of research, which include peer review and consent, I will fill in her forms. About a decade ago I was involved in big survey work and the statistics department wanted the field work but insisted that they (a) revise the methodology to meet their standards and (b) that there be no consent, but that filling the form in was compulsory. All 17 regional ethics committees, individually and collectively, quite correctly, told them to piss up a rope. One year later we sacked the statistics department and got a commercial firm to do the work: we had to PAY the statistic department to get the data back and we had to then debug the survey (which had to be internationally compatible) because they had made it incompatible with the multi-national tool we were using, which was the point of using that tool.
SO when it comes to the household workforce survey, I comply partially, but face to face interview and coming into my house? No. Bullying. And I learned on the playing fields of Papatoetoe and Otahuhu schools to, when bullied, push back hard.
Within the church this kind of bullying occurs all too often in the guise of equality or egalitarianism. The structures in place within the church are broken, and people do not obey the clear word of God.
Something married men should bear in mind. I have never been to any of the many “marriage encounter / seminar / retreat” weekends that are promoted in various ways, both in and out of churches. But based on what I’ve been told, in some debriefs by men who have attended these events, the wife is going to be surrounded by women such as SSM has highlighted in this posting. Women who recoil at the word “submission” except when it is preceded by the word “mutual”. Don’t be surprised if the word “crockpot” shows up. It should be no surprise if the women’s session leader for such a retreat is even more concerned about proper respect for women – maybe along the lines of Sheila Gregoire, of the web site “To Love, Honor and Vacuum”. Careful readers can compare that title with the traditional marriage vow, and spot the missing word. ”
The one Mychael and I went to (which the priest required us to attend before performing our convalidation–or I would have not have gone) was like this. In fact, when they got to the part on what the Bible teaches about how husbands and wives should treat each other, it basically looked like this: They had a slide show, going verse by verse through Ephesians 5, and vs 21 was in VERY LARGE RED LETTTERS as if to highlight the “warning” for men that they perceive it as. Then the (deacon) giving that part of the talk proceeded to use very broad generalities about how terrible at communication men are, how uncooperative men are and unable to compromise we are. We need the woman to basically do the real leading. It is the mans job to make sure every body is ready for church on time–you know–be the spiritual leader and stuff. They go out of their way to avoid the ocean of admonition the Bible has on Biblical marriage–to focus on one verse (which is probably the end of the previous section, rather than the start of a section in which it makes no sense.)
“We men [fill in the blank insults about men]” Was his basic way of doing this, while his wife sat in the audience giving him the look that can only be interpreted as “correct. And don’t you dare say anything about the natural state of the sisters.”
Well, yeah, right. Women are moral agents, and Christ himself had quite a bit to say about people who would not obey his word.
7In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; 9and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, 10having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
11About this we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. 12For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; 13for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. 14But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
16“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
17“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
This teaching gets us all, for if we have an active conscience we know that we do not obey God — even if we do obey man. And most of us know that we do not obey men well.
But there are consequences of this. We end up with a society where no one can trust anyone else.
One of the reasons I’m so nitpicky about dating and marriage is that if things go wrong, I leave myself wide open for litigation that could literally drain my finances till they ship me off to the nursing home (or the looney bin, whichever comes first). I simply have no defense for it (unless I was possibly rolling in tons of money and had a private jet that could take me to a country with a no-extradition treaty). It also underscores the dangers of dating single moms, where men not only expose themselves to the risks of lifetime alimony, but also to paying decades of child support for children that are not theirs.I’m still amazed at how I continue to be accused of being selfish for my reluctance to put my head on the chopping block at the behest of women who enjoy the benefits of a legal system that favor them at least 7 times out of 10. I don’t believe I’m being selfish here, but I do believe I have a very healthy sense of self-preservation.
The reality of modern marriage has forced a cultural expansion of men who have become noncommittal, not because they’re ALL unwilling to be faithful and settle down, but because the risks have now absurdly outweighed the benefits. One has to use razor-sharp intuition and top-notch vetting to avoid those women who at first might seem sweet as sugar and harmless as doves, only to morph into demonic hellspawn that will rain down nuclear fire on men for the most trivial or nonsensical of reasons. (Our marriage just isn’t exciting anymore!)
As I contemplate the merits of marriage I wonder if I’ll ever be able to completely trust whoever I’m with. Is it really possible to experience true love in a world where a loaded gun is perpetually pointed at my head?
The geek in the wilderness is giving standard North American figures: locally the laws were rewritten about five years ago to remove any language about mothers and fathers and any maternal preference. And the cases before the court are now running close to 50:50 as to which parent gets the day to day care of the child when this is in dispute.
Given no regulation, no rules we devolve into tribalism with young men patrolling patches and ongoing, bloody gang war. (Iraq was run by a brutal dictator. But it’s now devolved into a tribal and sectarian hellhole, where ordinary Iraqis are fleeing simply because the risk they will be shot or blown up while crossing the street is too great. No sane person wants to live in Afghanistan for the same reason).
The only answer I can see is to trust God. For we are by nature unfaithful and disobedient. In our society, this requires a spine of steel, for it is shown in obedience — to God and to the elders of the church, one’s husband, and if a child one’s parents.
Pragmatically, you cannot do this discernment if you are bonding with the person physically. Discernment goes out the window. Lurrve and lust rule. As they should: you are bonding. But each day, each morning, we need to aim to glorify God in our words and actions and help those of our family and of the faith. We need to keep to the rules of society and practice civil disobedience when the laws are flagrantly evil.
And, for young couples, this requires a huge degree of discretion, because otherwise the social workers will come into your house with their feminist agenda and the joy and love in your home will desiccate.
