Just Another Blog in the Wheel

Evolution, of course.

Evolution, we are told, is the neutral, scientific, secular reality which accounts for our being, our here, our being here, and our being here now (not to mention everything else, seen or unseen, known or unknown).

Evolution is the spittoon of the Western classroom, placed in every room to collect the awkward questions and keep them separate from the answers. The wardens are confident that “natural” revulsion will keep away most who might be tempted to look and see if anything that was hawked up and in, was actually paired. “How do you account for…?” “Ach-tooie, uh, evolution.” “And what about…?” “Achtooie, evolution.”

It’s the silent butler, or the butler designed to silence, to catch the crumbs of unanswerable questions and remove them from sight, lest anyone be reminded of all that remains unaccounted for. You know, the incidentals, like meaning, purpose, sacrificial love, unexpected heroism, eyes that see, and informed consciences and mommies.

It’s the dumpster where the memories of oppressive expectations (like performance of duties and fulfilling of roles) are tossed. And despite the “DO NOT RECYCLE” painted prominently on the dumpster’s broad side, those oppressive expectations manage to show up again, often as politically correct slogans which, when uttered, must be greeted with, “Yeah, man,” the “Sieg Heil!” of the 21st Century. Must be greeted with a “yeah, man,” or else. In other days the response was “Amen,” but that has been scuttled lest someone perchance dream there was a defining Word uttered before ours.

This spittoon/butler/dumpster functions also as the reservoir and food pantry from which the raw stuff of all food served in the modern classroom has been retrieved. (So there is much recycling after all!) It’s where the teacher scavenges for an answer when confounded by the wisdom of a 5-year-old who asks, “Where do I come from?” It is said that the answer most used is a location. “You come from Baltimore, Cindy.”

I just want to know how it is that at all times and in all places, the ratio of males/females born ranges from 49/51 to 51/49. Why is that? And please don’t tell me “Baltimore.”

The allure of Evolution is that it promises to account (for the past) without an accounting (in the future).

Human beings are the crown of creation. If we honor the adage, save the best for last, woman is clearly the jewel in the crown. The relationship of man & woman is the most fascinating of all possible attractions. In sinning against the Lord in the Garden, our first parents did not escape from the roles they were created into, but they sure made their respective callings more difficult and complicated. Going to work for the man would no longer be the same pleasure as a walk in the park.

And birthing children would not be walk in a candy shop. Moreover, woman, given an edge in awareness as well as a compulsion to see relational conflicts resolved, was anointed “relationship manager.” Man was to stay at his calling, interfacing between the home and the world, and all its griefs, while woman would stay at hers, interfacing with and among her intimates. In finding her life in love, she would bear the added burdens caused by all the flotsam that proceeds from the hearts of men. Her life would be like the plate balancers on Ed Sullivan, doing 9 simultaneous keep-everything-going spins to a soundtrack of Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance. She would accomplish this with grace, foreshadowing/reflecting the Christ by freely taking upon herself the respective blames and sorrows of her loved ones, satisfied with nothing less than reconciliation.

The heart of wisdom, therefore, seeks understanding not in a hermitage but in the male-female relationship, the yin-yang of real life, solid and liquid, strength and strengthener, lover and lovee. This exciting, terrifying, challenging, irresistible relationship occupies the central place in society. All building is dependent upon its stability, coherence and permanence, for to the degree that these are shaky or unstable-or destroyed-so will the society be. There is no escape from this fact of lives. (Which is why, yes, homo-”marriage” marks the termination of Western Civilization; RIP.) The firmness of the male-female bond, the infallible barometer of a culture’s virility, is itself dependent upon laws, customs, mores and conventions, rooted in religion, which impel the members of that First Estate back upon one another, come what may. That is the reason a government interested in prosperity has laws favoring the faithful married, and why rulers indifferent to their own demise countenance any definition of the core institution that stands to gain a win in the next pander-poll.

So you are wise, and you are going to be married. And you wonder what you should know/do? Here, then, are some relationtips by which you ought to live. These are quickies, not deepies. I’ll give you the ingredients, you bake the cake. Relationtip #1: Beware that you do not smother each other. The two became one but it takes two to have fun. Though this piece of advice, if we were ranking each, would come in at #4, I’m treating it first because I don’t have time to deal with #1 (expectations) or #2 (no exit is the only way to enter), or #3a-b, (Everything in one word—for her, everything in one word—for him). Pray God keeps me alive and I’ll gladly return to those.

I speak to you men. Understand this: your wife caught you by the judicious use of information. That’s right. You must rid yourself of the notion that you were the initiator. No such thing. The proper cliché is, “He chased her until she caught him.” You were permitted to think you were the engineer because it was necessary that you think that. But if you are already married, it’s ok to wake up now. Women run the world. And thank God they do, or nothing important would ever get done. True, they run it indirectly. That is to say, men run the world. And women run the men. Figure it out.

In order to accomplish this massive task while looking pretty at the same time, women utterly depend on information. It is their life line. And they are very, very adept at getting it. Their methods are legion, every one of them fascinating, but for now just understand that knowledge is power, your wife knows it, and your wife has more knowledge than you. O, stop it with your silly ego. I don’t mean she’s (just) smarter than you. I mean she knows the information that counts. What counts? Relationships! You are not even in kindergarten compared to your double-PhD wife when it comes to knowing people.

Now here’s the tricky part. There needs to be the right balance between what she can accomplish by employing her gifts, your cooperation with those gifts, and (here comes the part to pay attention to) your perfect comfort in keeping her in the dark somewhat. This works both ways. The reason I’m talking to the guys is simple: all the women already know all this. It’s you who has the disadvantage.

Think about it. When you first met (by the way, if I asked you, you’d say you know each other 13 months; if I asked her, I’d get the truth: 16 months-during those three months she set the stage for your awakening), you were amazed at how wonderful it was to be with her. You couldn’t put your finger on it, but everything about being near her and with her was, hmmm, PLEASANT. Yes, that’s it. Do you know why? Because she had done recon work on you. She got the necessary information. She learned it by observation or discussion, usually both. She knew how you liked your coffee, and when. She knew your keenest interests and could speak about them at length. Actually, she had simply gotten YOU to speak about them, but she knew how to weave the silk of memory to make it appear that she had been a full partner in the talks rather than an enabler and guide.

Because, as the husband of one and the father of five females, I am an honorary member of the club, it is required that I make believe there’s not much more to say about this. It could upset the balance of power if you became truly aware of the way life works. Which leads me to my point. She nailed you, in part, by getting you to talk. Her receptivity was more than that of a co-football enthusiast, for example. The key part for her was the “co-”—you would fill in what came after and she was perfectly adaptable to any decent interest of yours. The point I’m making, if you are staying with me, is that she caught your interest, she became the object of your fascination, then the object of your devotion, by a number of elements, but never absent was her skill at gaining information about you, especially your likes and dislikes.

Men have always been and will always be too dull to see the webbing getting wrapped around them because their egos (the male ego is the woman’s greatest strategic advantage) have them believing that it is they who are doing the charming. A man will believe that a particular woman he happens to end up next to at church just happens to have the same level of interest in theology as he does, and—wonder of wonders!—a deep concern about the same theological subset, what a coincidence, OR he will believe that he has caused her to share the level and particulars by his overwhelming logic, enthusiasm and charisma. Go buy a coke, you silly head. You never stood a chance.

What is vital now is that you thoroughly reject the manners of the modern sensitive male. Just as you would have lost interest in her immediately if the only challenge to bedding her had been her making out your handwriting on a vulgar note you handed her, so too, she would lose interest if the information flow from you was available without an effort. I say this is a matter of balance, of proportion. Your physical superiority was almost certainly on her required list. She doesn’t feel slighted by looking up to you. On the contrary, it’s the only way she’ll get to feel your height-by being part of you. To make that happen, in addition to the grace of God and the provision of hormones, and certain seasons of the year, a woman’s aggression and competitiveness are engaged by a man who honors strict limits in disclosing himself to her. Just as you would be put off to find that the whole band knew her name when you took her to that nightclub, so she would be put off if you were no more of a challenge to get to the divulging stage than Oprah Winfrey.

Fortunately, there is a way to maintain the balance. But as in all things, it requires the cooperation of both parties. You might do well to re-read the story of Samson. There you may rediscover how the strongest man in the world was too weak to endure the whining of a determined female. “Tell me where your strength lies, if you please.” Information, daddy-o. It’s their lifeline. Trust me. So, the dilemma is: with no info, there’s no relationship (love IS revelation, self-disclosure). But with too much or too easy disclosure there is a certainty that she will be turned off, if not nauseated. From time to time, you will be tested for strength. You may not realize you are being tested. On rare occasions (like, say, about twice in 487,000 instances), even the Mrs. may be relatively unaware that she’s administering a test. But a woman’s NUMBER ONE need being security/safety, she is programmed by God to test the fire extinguisher at intervals. If you fail the strength test, you will discover what misery is. You’ll find yourself writing odes to Samson in the middle of the night.

The way to become secure in this delicate area is simple: Men, the only one on earth to whom you disclose yourself completely is the one who is simultaneously in heaven. That’s right. The Lord. You must maintain a tighter relationship with God than with your wife. In fact, because of all I’ve said above, the ONLY way to maintain the balance is to keep yourself in totality for God ALONE. If you do that, you are becoming like God more each day. By that, your attractiveness is increasing to your wife, not diminishing. We become like what we worship. Though some men think they can manipulate a woman by worshiping her, it will only backfire. For then, the law of worship (you become like that which you worship) will mean you are becoming like a woman. Since woman was made for MAN, that is not a happy eventuality.

So we are left with a happy solution to a thorny problem. There was no need for me to tell women to hold back in their revelation, because they would rather DIE than have you know them completely. Nothing on earth could compel the woman you love to “let it all hang out.” She will always, always withhold (while simultaneously delighting in your seeing through her, anyway; just not with her cooperation). But you, man, you are the one in danger of going transparent.

By declaring a wife off-limits during “the custom of women,” God maintains before us, husband and wife, a constant reminder of His prior and superior interest in your wife. By deferring to Him, you both acknowledge that you are not your own. This semi-sacramental claim of God is a reminder that your wife is NEVER fully your possession. She is a gift from God-given on God’s terms. The same is true for you. You must always have a consciousness that you are God’s man first. That is why you are willing to die to protect your wife—God has given you to her in part to provide that security. But there will only be enjoyment in her security in you if YOU find your security in God above all. No sane woman ever sought to break up a real man and his real God. She knows that you will be happy playing second to God. She has reserved so much of herself for you alone that you know for a fact that you are incalculably special to her. Provide her with the same. Let her know the real you. Be unafraid to share. But do not gush, do not effuse, do not obsess. Open yourself FULLY only, only to God. She will see His mark of ownership on you, and brother, I guarantee, no cologne, no aphrodisiac is more compelling for your wife than the imprint of Jehovah on your heart. He alone retains the right to exhaustive knowledge AND full disclosure and complete cooperation.

Responses to last week’s entry have made this one necessary. Many of you thought it was Sarah Palin in the cross hairs of my scope. It was not. Now that you mention it, of course, it is perfectly obvious why you drew that conclusion. I apologize. A qualifier was called for. Please understand, though, the reason I didn’t say she was not in view was that she was not in view. Y’know what I mean?

I haven’t the slightest worry about Sarah Palin’s hormonal fluctuations. The journal entry to which this serves as a footnote was meant to remind us, not of Sarah or any person in particular, but rather, of an abiding truth: gender roles are not perfectly interchangeable. Sarah Palin’s place in history, coming after Geraldine Fararro, might be thought to turn on whether she, unlike Geraldine, makes it into the #2 Office. But from where I sit, that is not the marker.

If I had been writing about Sarah, my approach would have been the same as that taken in my recent Lord’s Day sermons, all of which have included references to her. I point out that Sarah’s appearance as a veep candidate, and more particularly, the vitriolic response to her, serves as the most powerful vision enhancement the Christian community could hope for. Before Sarah, Christians had little excuse for needing a weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing. Post-Sarah, they have no excuse at all.

Sarah Palin, you see, is us. Sadly, American Christians still don’t get it. Her significance is NOT as the second female VP candidate of a major party. It is altogether as a Christian that her name has been despised, battered, whipped and abused. Sarah Palin’s gender is wholly immaterial. The stir is against her faith. Check that. The stir is against her God. The media hate her to the exact extent that our God–His existence and attributes–is revealed through her. She therefore serves as the perfect barometer of public sentiment toward Christ and Christianity. And since that public sentiment is wholly hostile, you might say she is a pretty, very unfrozen, sacrificial lamb.

Didn’t you notice? As soon as news got out that she is “pro-life,” Sarah was stripped of her gender. If you wait for a clearer example of politics trumping ontology, you’ll be waiting till long after Celine Dion’s heart stops (she said it would go on forever). The only parallel I can think of was on a radio talk show in New York. It was several years ago. A caller was asking why certain Black people are not prominently recognized. The surprising answer was forthcoming.

When the host asked for an example from the caller, he said, “Well, like Thomas Sowell,” the brilliant economist and social thinker. The host replied, “Thomas Sowell is not Black.” Coulda fooled me. And the caller. But in what must have been one of radio’s most honest and revealing moments, the radio host made it abundantly clear that race is politically defined. Since Sowell believes in personal responsibility, since he looks with justified hostility at quotas favoring Blacks, correctly arguing that to the degree they are adopted, to that degree you have permanently disenfranchised all who have used them to “get in,” that is, used a political loophole instead of their talent and test scores. Quotas mean making inescapable the brutally racist sentiment that Blacks are incapable of competing intellectually with Whites.

Since Mr. Sowell is opposed to the outstretched hand begging for favors, he lost entitlement to his race. He was assigned to the no-man’s-land of colorless, raceless souls (Sowells?). And the same was done to Sarah in regard to her gender. As a Christian who honors the God Who ALONE gives life, and Who ALONE dictates the terms governing its taking, Sarah has ripped the phony mask off the hypocritical faces of all those feminists who pretend to want “choice.” When presented with a woman who “chose” life, as Sarah did after learning that her youngest child would be a Downs baby, she is vilified.

Salon.com was probably the news source with the most to be embarrassed about when it comes to Palin-reaction. There she was brutally attacked for seeking to “deny to others the very choice which she herself employed.” DUH?! Wha? Huh? Sarah is seeking to prevent women from carrying their babies to term? Hardly! What they meant, of course, was that she is opposed to murdering unborn people. The time during which choice can be exercised without murder is before there is a new human being present. I don’t recall hearing Sarah say anything that would suggest she was against such choice (though I could speak against it in certain cases, without trepidation). What upset them is her failure to make the choice that THEY embrace: the choice to murder anyone who gets in your way.

The unrelenting, irrational, blatant scapegoating that is being practiced now with Sarah Palin is the target of choice can honestly be said to lack example in modern times, unless we go back to 1932 Germany. What we are witnessing is the warm-up of the pitchers who will dominate the game as America goes down the tubes in judgment before the holy God she has forsaken. They will be throwing out invective against Christians as Hitler did against Jews. Christians of the nominal, politically correct sort will be used as proof that there is no grudge against Christianity per se. No, it is only these extremists, these fundamentalists, these Sarah Palin-types who must, like the European Jews of the 1930’s and 40’s, be gotten rid of. All the economic (and other) ills of post WWI Germany were said to be generated by the Jews. Our recent glimpse of God’s ever-present ability to humble or destroy markets, or anything else man makes, give us also a glimpse into the various woes which denizens of the not-so-distant future will use to carry public sentiment against Christians to whatever extremes are within reach.

Judging by the ceaseless hatred being spewed toward my sister, Sarah Palin, and its lack of shame for lying, twisting, distorting, perverting the facts, Sarah’s significance seems to me to be a marker in our rush toward wrath. This little “hockey mom” has God in back of her. As long as she remains willing to let the fools show their folly, she is safe. The first time she bends to accommodate their demands, she–and we with her–are sunk.

In a manner of speaking.