Skip to main content

Lovingkindness 2

            She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands.  She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it is still night; she provides food for her family and portions for her female servants. (Proverbs 31:13-15)

The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down. (Proverbs 14:1)

          The woman who demonstrates lovingkindness provides food that she has brought from afar to her family and her female servants. That brings us back to the  idea of lovingkindness as adding the topping to that piece of bread. She doesn’t provide the bare minimum, “bread and water” to those under her care and she doesn’t loll in bed waiting for her servants to bring her breakfast. She sounds remarkably like the woman one of the anchors on the Today Show maligned and mocked. Apparently, she posted something on social media about not going to bed until she had her family’s lunch made for the next day. Quite probably there was more to it than that, but I haven’t seen the post. The anchor waxed eloquent about going “back to the 50s.” Again, there was undoubtedly more to her commentary, but you get the idea from just that much.

          From what Solomon’s mother teaches in this treatise, the woman who makes the lunches is demonstrating lovingkindness. She’s also being an effective household manager. Why cook every night? Why get up in the morning with the stress of making breakfast and lunch, or enduring the chaos of two or more people in the kitchen trying to make their own breakfasts and lunches at the same time? When I’m at my best, the main course of dinner gets cooked so that I have meals for several weeks and only have to reheat it and add the sides. While I’m reheating and cooking the side dishes, I put together the next day’s lunch for at work. If I’m even more at my best, I put out the dishes and non-perishables required for the next day’s breakfast before I go to bed.

          Of course, I only have to oversee the care of a dog, the birds, a garden, and myself. I don’t have family or servants to add to the mix, but again, we’re talking about lovingkindness. It’s going that little extra to be more than just kind, more than just basic. It reminds me of a rather crudely put (and I apologize for the language) comment made by William Golding about women:

“I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men. They are far superior and always have been. Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she will give you a baby. If you give her a house, she will give you a home. If you give her groceries, she will give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she will give you her heart. She multiples and enlarges whatever is given to her…”

          He’s inaccurate. I don’t think all women make what she’s given greater, but the woman demonstrating lovingkindness certainly does. There are other women who can’t be bothered to care for their children or household and/or who mock and scorn other women instead of building them up. These are described in Scripture as foolish women.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more