Eager Hands

             She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. (Proverbs 31:13-14)

As I noted yesterday, this passage is advice from the mother of the present or future king about what sort of wife to find. At the risk of dating myself, there’s a clip from Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century that I wish I could find. In response to Buck’s command to her, Princess Ardala announces, “Princesses don’t start engines.” This is the picture of one end of the spectrum of choices.

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s the picture more often seen as the Proverbs 31 woman, and an equally ancient advertisement that encapsulates it: the Enjoli Ad.  After all, the person being taught about this paragon of womanhood is – or will be – king. Is the king’s wife really expected to get excited about spinning, weaving, sewing, and grocery shopping? Is she really supposed to do it all?

And that’s the “all-or-nothing” take we might be tempted to do. The other thing we may be tempted to do is use “literalism” to claim that if we aren’t spinning, weaving, and sewing our own clothes from wool and flax, and bringing in food from all over the world, we’ve somehow failed.

Instead, I see in these verses an expression of interest. The Proverbs 31 woman has eager hands and doesn’t settle for what's convenient. She’s involved in her life, and her life doesn’t revolve around binge-watching TV or doom-scrolling on the internet. Not only that, but her interests include the basics. She doesn’t buy TV dinners or order takeout for every meal. She doesn’t think what she eats and wears isn’t important.

It would be easy, given my interest in gardening and DIY to see this passage as proof that God wants us to be competent.  But I admit, that’s my hobby horse. I don’t think it’s justified here, but I do think consciously and volitionally participating in our own lives and roles is.