Proverbs 31, Motherly Advice for Sons…

   Since Proverbs 31 starts off as advice given from a mother to her son, presumably Bathsheba to King Solomon, a man who would hold great influence in the world, I thought it would be fun to collect bits of advice some of my guy friends have received from their own sweet mommas. You will quickly see that not everyone took this assignment too seriously. But that’s okay; I appreciate every single submission greatly. Enjoy…

Brian:  “When you’re eighteen, you’re outta here!” Ha!! Thanks, Brian.

Fairo: “Be good. And if you can’t be good, be safe.” I just love this. I can totally hear my Grandma Dunaway saying it to my Uncle Chris and me as suntanned, barefoot kids. And she might be laughing as we run outside to play in the wasp-filled barn and hide in the trees from angry cows. Thanks Fairo!

Brad:  “Don’t kill your sister, because one day that might make you sad.” He claims this advice was often given during a regularly scheduled beat down session between him and his sister. That is a direct quote, folks. Thanks Brad!

Brandy:  “Go to church and always put God first.” This is my husband’s foremost memory of advice from his Mom, but I can assure you she has taught him thousands of wonderful things, from money management to overall stewardship of your blessings, hard work, and charity. What’s beautiful is that the foundation of putting God first kind of covers it all. Oh, and she also taught him all about hot rods and street racing… Ahem…

Pete: “Don’t leave fingerprints on the coffee table.” Okay. Pete’s lovely wife Tracy submitted this on his behalf, and I just want to say that teaching good habits for a clean home might be a skill more future wives would appreciate. Very cool.

Greg: “Please don’t put that milk in your ear. It only goes in your mouth.” This is my nephew. He is flat out adorable. And two years old. Also, when his Mom and I chat on the phone he likes to yell constantly in the background, “Love you Rie!! Love you Rie!! Love you Rie!!” This is what my siblings called when when they were small and adorable, a long long long time ago (well, Gen still does), and I think it’s so funny that he picked it up naturally. Okay, watch that milk, Greg!! xoxo I love you too!!

Bruce:  “Kill them with kindness.” This is advice given for dealing with jealousy or anger. I think it’s brilliant. Simple, age-old, and applicable to just about any relationship. Thanks to Bruce’s wife Serena for submitting this!

Doug:  “If you want to see how a man will treat a woman, watch how he treats his mother.”  Also, “Never hit a woman.” Have you guys ever heard this before, that a man will treat his wife the way he treats his mother? What are your thoughts?

Zane: “Don’t do anything you would be ashamed of or embarrassed to tell your future wife.” Ha!! This young man’s mom is my gorgeous, smart, and thoroughly lovable cousin Jen. I have spent a lot of energy in life pretending we were twin sisters, that’s how much I want to be like her. She’s giving you good advice, there, Zane!

Jon said that his sweet Mom gave him mostly practical advice: “Chew with your mouth closed, brush your teeth every night, and don’t eat your boogers.” I cannot help but wonder about the relationship between these three bits of wisdom… Thanks Jon!

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   And now, for a touch of the timeless, a few little scraps of wisdom from people we don’t know:

“When you teach your son, you teach your son’s son.” ~The Talmud

“I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.” ~Abraham Lincoln

“Giving your son a skill is better than giving him one thousand pieces of gold.” ~Chinese Proverb

“Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.” ~Napoleon Bonaparte

   That last one slays me. How beautiful! To me, this speaks directly to the notion that nourishing our hearts first will inevitably result in an outpouring of health, love, and growth, in all areas of life. We need good sons! So ladies, be good mothers.

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   Thanks for reading, everyone! I hope you have time to share your mother-son advice or thoughts on any of these here. Have a wonderful Friday, and if you’re in Oklahoma bundle up. We’re getting excited for the first truly blustery weekend of the season.

xoxoxoxo

Proverbs 31, Rebooting Alcohol Text

Hi there!! Thanks for stopping in!
Today is a wonky reboot from last October, 
some remarks on Proverbs 31, verses 3-7.
If you would like to read other entries, 
check out my tab up top.

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   I will try to mostly avoid the Grand Bossy Soapbox on the plain issue of alcohol consumption and just try to let the text (though it is slightly confusing) stand on its own. Alcoholism is real, that much I know. And it destroys lives. That much is immutable. But I do realize lots of people see a vast gray area here, which I will leave each person to explore on her own.
   We’ll just lay some stuff out today, okay? If you happen to have some insight or expertise, or really just an opinion, then as always you are 100% welcome and invited to post comments or email and share! That’s what this is all about!

   In the light studying I have done, it seems to be a generally agreed upon point that verse three is simply foreshadowing of events in King Solomon’s (Lemuel’s) reign. As most people know, Solomon was known for his wisdom. So the building of his character is pretty fascinating. The instruction given him by his mother is vital.
“Give not thy strength unto women,
nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.”
   Are there any take-aways here for us, the common people? Not sure. I will resist the temptation to extrapolate meanings where scholars have already explained something clearly and simply.  A King’s mother was giving her son advice which he would later need in his reign. I can accept that much and move on…
The Judgement of Solomon, where a mother sacrifices her child to keep him whole.  
A powerful story that is painfully close to my heart.

   The next four verses seem clear enough at first blush but have incited plenty of debate.  This is where I will step back a bit, quote the scripture and references, then keep my remarks brief.  For a change.  LOL.  
“It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink:
Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgement of any of the afflicted.
Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.
Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.”
Schofield References:
  • “Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!”  ~Ecclesiastes 10:17
  • “Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.”  ~Hosea 4:11
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   Okay.  Last October I felt free to give my personal opinions on alcohol and strong drink. Not so much this year. This seems to be part of an evolution in my heart, the distinction between gladdened and mocked. Please feel free to read my thoughts then or ignore me altogether, but mostly please share yours. This all is wildly interesting to me, and I love to hear how other people sort it out.

   Okay.  Thanks again for reading! Tune in either tomorrow or Saturday for something totally different!

“We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe;
the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible.
You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears
which were implanted in his imagination,
no matter how utterly his reason may reject them.”
~Sir Oliver Wendell Homes, Sr. 1872

xoxoxoo

Proverbs 31: Swept and Sprinkled, Ma Joad as a P 31 Woman

   As we sink into the warmth and wisdom of Proverbs 31 
as it applies to women, rather than to kings as in the first few verses, 
a lovely and demanding image comes into focus. 
We begin to see the heart and the habits of a woman who clearly makes her home a priority. 
The descriptions available to us go far beyond dull exteriors, too. 
They evoke purpose, joy, self discipline, industriousness,
and above all… love.
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   Always a sucker for characterization, I would like to propose a literary parallel. Earlier this summer our book club gobbled up a fairly modern classic, Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. If you’re interested, I wrote more on that book here, Trading Wrath for Gratitude and here, the full book review.

   One of the main characters in Grapes is of course Ma Joad. She is the matriarch of her growing and suffering family, and she leads them with great dignity and resourcefulness as they migrate westward and endure one devastation after another.

   Ma Joad cooks whatever food stuffs she can collect, and she does so with aching love. She feeds strangers with astonishing generosity. She washes her family’s dust-packed clothes in brutal circumstances. She keeps her adult children motivated and soothes her husband’s frayed nerves and bolsters his wilting ego. She honors her aging and sometimes difficult parents. (Actually, I think they are her in-laws.) She keeps house in every sense of the word, both physically and spiritually.

   One of the rituals Ma Joad maintains no matter where they camp, no matter who is with them or what is happening that day, seems to be cleaning the floors. Despite the Dust Bowl conditions of extreme dryness and wind-blown dirt that would permeate every crevice, she persists. She places high priority on refreshing her family’s state of mind by refreshing their physical surroundings.

Steinbeck frequently used the phrase, “swept and sprinkled” to describe Ma’s finished house.
And while she did special things for guests, she kept house for her family.

Photo Sourced from Google, original website unavailable.

 
   My husband’s grandparents lived in western Oklahoma during the infamous Dust Bowl. They farmed and raised their families and survived the incredible heat and drought. When I finished The Grapes of Wrath, no doubt still in that afterglow of having read something so excellent, I asked my wonderful father-in-law a few questions about his childhood memories and the stories he’d heard about his parents and grandparents. Among other stuff, I wanted to know more about “swept and sprinkled.” He nodded and smiled knowingly.

   Since the floors were all dirt, Harvey explained, any amount of foot traffic would stir up messy paths all day long. He said that people had a habit of sweeping the thresholds of their homes with a broom then sprinkling the smoothed earth with a little water to settle the dust. He said that this would beautify the home and also minimize the tracking in of dirt.

   So simple.

   And yet, would anyone now really blame Ma Joad had she ignored this task? I mean, the dust was blowing all day, every day. Relentless.

   Sweeping and sprinkling had to be done on a regular, perhaps almost constant basis because of their conditions.

   But she kept doing it. In addition to cooking and washing (by hand, not with a machine) and doctoring and tending, this not young woman made sure her family had a smooth, settled entry to their home. So simple. I find this absolutely beautiful and fascinating.

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   I am so full of wondering about this… Every family is different, every woman is different, and every home is different… But the drive to nest and nurture stretches across cultures and eras and personalities. I’d love some fresh input. Please join me!

  • What simple things can you think of that the modern woman might do just to improve her family’s state of mind, or their basic physical surroundings? 
  • What regular little rituals do you keep for these reasons? 
  • Is there something you do every day that makes you feel like your home is “ready” for your people? What makes you super comfy and might make you say, “We are swept and sprinkled and ready.”
  • How do you feel when you do this stuff? Are you radiating love, or obligation?
  • What tasks do we avoid, just because they are painfully monotonous or repetitive? 
  • What excuses do we offer ourselves for shirking duties?
  • Does not doing something accumulate anything adverse, either spiritual or physical? What are the consequences of this?
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   I hope this little theme was as enlightening to you as it has been to me. Internalizing the purpose of what we do at home and the true value of the seemingly mundane tasks that comprise home-keeping… these can prompt powerful shifts in attitude. 
   My personal wish is to be more like Ma Joad, for starters. To be more loving in the routine jobs I might prefer to ignore, and to always remember that repetitive tasks sometimes make the biggest difference.
   I wish the same and more for you!! 
   Thanks so much for reading.
“What’s this call, this sperit? An’ I says, ‘It’s love.
I love people so much I’m fit to bust, sometimes.'”
~Ma Joad
xoxoxoxo

Proverbs 31: Beginning to Dig

Good Morning Ladies! (and gentlemen? LOL Maybe…)

For the second day of Proverbs 31, I am rebooting 
the post I wrote on October 3rd of last year 
about the speaker of this chapter, 
a little bit of the historical context, 
and some possible ways to interpret the material.
As always, I hope you’ll join in the conversation!

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   First off, I would like to encourage you to read Perfect Imperfections’ thoughts on the entire book of Proverbs throughout the month (October 2011).  Proverbs is a juicy, meaty piece of text to read almost no matter who you are or what your exact personal condition at the moment, because, as Schofield puts it, “This collection of sententious sayings is divine wisdom applied to the earthly conditions of the people of God.”  

Sententious means, “Given to or abounding in aphoristic expression  Given to or abounding in excessive moralizing.”
Aphoristic means, “A concise statement of a principle.  A terse formulation of a truth or sentiment.” 

   
   I groove direct and timeless.  I groove applicable wisdom, and this is it baby.
   This is a flavor apart from law and parable; this is a rich assemblage of morals, rules of thumb, bits of wisdom, and (then) socially agreed upon objectives for us to digest and consider.
   The final part of the six parts of this book is chapter 31, which is my focus this month.  I did quite a bit of reading to learn about the speaker and context of these thirty one verses, only to discover a rare Biblical mystery.  Evidently some debate remains over the true identity of “Lemuel,” some people believing he is actually King Solomon (making the speaker’s mother Bathsheba), others understanding the translation to be almost symbolic, more of a general representation of God’s king, or a man dedicated to God. Still another camp suggests this is advice given to the church herself.
   I encourage you to read more on your own if the background feels vital to your acceptance or understanding of this book.  There is always Wikipedia, but I personally found Dr. Claude Mariottini to be clear and studious.  Also, this Bible study page was easy to read. As always, if you happen to have some insight on this topic PLEASE share!
“The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy 
that his mother taught him.
What, my son?  and what, the son of my womb?
and what, the son of my vows?”
~Proverbs 31:1-2

   So we begin the month ready to explore either advice given to an historical king by his trusted and beloved mother or just really good, deep down wisdom that applies to all of us.  Perhaps especially those in positions of authority.  Maybe both.

   I can hardly wait!

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   Tomorrow’s theme will be bit different, as will a few days this week. I have a couple of fun things planned, and one fabulous woman who curates Periphery has thrown her smart, well written hat into the ring for guest posting! 

   Wishing you all a really great Tuesday. I am off for a long and much needed run outside, some horse grooming and floor mopping, and then an afternoon filled with sewing projects. 

   See you tomorrow!

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.”
~Albert Einstein
xoxoxoxo