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My Thoughts on Abraham and Feminists
These aren't related. At least I don't think they are.
Abraham: In my Lenten devotional (and the liturgical calendar), the Old Testament reading for yesterday, the second Sunday of Lent, was the story of Abraham and Isaac. Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling was recommended as a resource for pastors and is apparently on this topic. I think I should find it somewhere. Anyway, I am fascinated by this story, one that made me cry when I was little. (I was convinced God might tell my dad to kill me and it took my parents significant time to convince me otherwise.) This story presents a view of God that makes us uncomfortable. Why did God do that? How did this event affect Abraham's relationship with Isaac? Isn't trusting God supposed to be about having "signs" that we're in His will and feeling all nice and warm about believing? Apparently not. Apparently sometimes it is cold and harsh to be obedient. Sometimes we come breathtakingly close to abandoning everything we ever wanted and we have no assurance whatsoever that we might not be asked to give it up. Sometimes our hands (dare I say it?) DO come down with the axe on our Isaac. Sometimes we have to watch glum-faced while our sacrifice goes up in flames. Sometimes we don't know. And we don't see. And there simply are NO footprints in front of us. But I guess this isn't bad. I guess this is the way of faith - of trust in the unseen and unknown and unheard, because Isaiah 43 says, "Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength." He watches and He knows and we don't and somehow that kind of faith is important to Him. Trust in the dark and the light will come. I guess that's how it works.
And on feminists: Grandma and I watched the Today Show this morning and the author of The Mommy Wars was on, answering e-mails people had sent. Some of them were from stay-at-home moms asking for advice on how to answer their friends and others were from ladies who wanted to re-integrate into the workforce and needed advice. This lady was laid back and answered each according to their philosophy. I think it's good we're at least moving in the "I'm okay, you're okay" direction and I'm fascinated by the fact that these issues are coming again to the forefront of the public discussion, but I am still puzzled over the fact that most people are against any mention of duty. I can be a homemaker if I want to, but if I should dare to say I ought to, then I am in troubled waters. We can serve our husbands and fathers because we choose to do so, as long as we don't say we think it's our job. This is too bad. It reminds me of what I quoted earlier this week from the book I'm reading: duty and happiness are forever separated and it is incomprehensible to people how they could ever be anything but mutually exclusive. Grandma and I were discussing this morning the trend to days at the spa and the beauty parlor and the massage parlor and people's claims that we need time to do "girl things" away from home. We were musing on the question of whether doing dishes and sweeping floors and dusting and doing laundry would be just as therapeuticly "feminine" if only people would stay home and do them. We decided that to us, they are.
Posted by lilypress at March 14, 2006 10:57 PM
