Today, Sarah starts with Adam and Eve.
Which is one of my favorite topics
because it's so misunderstood.
Start Quote
Many of us believe that if
Adam and Eve hadn't blown it in Paradise,
we wouldn't have had to work for a living
and we'd be on easy street in Eden.
Unfortunately, that biblical interpretation is fanciful.
For if you read Adam and Eve's story more carefully,
you'll discover that God always intended
for human beings to work and for work to be a joy.
Consider Adam's soulful occupations:
to name all living things after studying them
and to tend a beautiful garden.
[In A Wind in the Door, Meg has been called to be a Namer.
She has to Name things. At first she is confused,
what the heck does that even mean?
Her companion helps her understand that
to Name someone or something is to love them.
Interesting, don't you think?]
In the beginning, work was meant as a gift...
But then came the Fall...
Consider the daughters of Eve's daily round.
There are private works:
nurturing children, home caring, preparing meals,
chauffeuring, financial management, horticulture,
tending animals, and for some of us, husbandry.
Then there are public works:
employment, school and church activities,
youth groups, community and charitable volunteering.
[Back in 1995 Sarah gave these statistics.]
58 million American women have the
responsibilities of worldly employment;
almost half [29 million] of all employed women
have children under the age of 18.
70% of mothers with little ones 3 and under
aren't able to care for them during the day,
because they're taking care of the business of reality.
In real life we must take care of reality,
so that we can afford to take care of what's Real.
If you're employed outside of your home,
you're paid money for your efforts.
But the greatest portion of a woman's work
is gratis and largely unsung.
Because we spend so much of our earthly span working,
one way or another,
this deserves profound contemplation
and I'm not just referring to coping with the hassles of
commutes, day care, sick children, snow days,
teacher conferences, and deadlines.
Juggling swords, flaming torches,
and conflicting commitments
deserves its own meditation.
But so does the numinous nature of work.
Each of us was created to give
through our personal gifts.
Sharing our gifts with the world is our Great Work,
no matter what our job description might be
or how our resume reads...
"To live well is to work well."...
We need to acknowledge aloud the ancient enmity
between Real Life and work.
It exists.
It tears us to pieces every day.
We need to help each other understand it,
because we will never understand it on our own.
We can start by holding one another's hands,
by listening to one another's concerns,
by reassuring one another, today,
Somehow, together, we will figure it out.
End Quote
Modern day feminists have really torn women apart.
You can do anything you want,
except become a wife and mother.
Men are awful, lazy, inferior, and out to get you.
You can be any kind of woman you want,
but accepting your divine nature makes you anti woman.
You can't breastfeed in public,
(it is legal, I'm talking about discrimination)
but you can't give your baby formula or you're a bad mother.
If you're a stay at home mom
you don't do anything.
You don't work.
Raising your kids is not a worthwhile endeavor.
Women can and should do everything a man does...
so some women now don't get married, have casual sex,
and are completely un feminine.
But there is a new wave coming.
From the Dove Real Beauty campaign,
Try to be Christlike.
Try to stop judging.
Try to realize that everyone is different,
and try to appreciate those differences.
Try to understand each other.
Lets end not just the mommy wars,
but the war on women,
the war that we fight against each other.
Why do we fight so much?
Why is there so much hate?
The only way to get rid of that hate
and that judgment and misunderstanding
is by replacing it with love and understanding.
It starts with you.
And all you can do is change YOU.
But when you love someone,
they usually pay it forward and
it's easier for them to then love others...
You can do it.
Love is so much easier than hate.
***
Gratitude Journal
***
1) Love.
2) The love that my children have for me, how they forgive me so easily when I make mistakes...and don't we all make quite a few mistakes.
3) The love Jesus and God have for me, and for all of us. Sometimes it's completely unfathomable how after all I've done or after all others have done, they still love us. It's unconditional. Something I won't understand fully in this time, but I sure do appreciate.
4) Understanding. My patriarchal blessing tells me that I have the gift of understanding, so I guess I have a little bit of an easier time of it than others. But I'm grateful for all the trials that I've been given that have increased my understanding of others, especially mental illness and motherhood.
5) I'm almost done! I thought writing one blog post a day was hard, but man, writing three a day has been rough. I'm exhausted, and I still need to pack! I wonder how hard it will be when I come back after a few days of not doing it to do it again.
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