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.