Do You Conform To The Norm - September 29th

“Nontheless, it should be frankly admitted that for many modern Christians and Jews, “the valorous woman” (of Proverb 31) is hard to appreciate. A (woman) student at a prestigious urban university observed, “This is not the kind of woman we’ve learned to admire!” It is indeed the case that women whose work is primarily at home are accorded little public admiration in our society. But the problem of appreciating this woman goes even deeper than that. It will not do to make facile comparisons between the biblical figure and the suburban housewife, or alternately between her and the modern career woman. The difficulty of appreciation lies in the profoundly different social structure and function of the home in modern technological culture, and it is a difference that encompasses men’s lifestyles and work as much as women’s. For virtually all of us, the home is primarily a place of consumption rather than production. Very few households in our highly industrialized culture aim at self-sufficiency or produce any significant portion of their own food or clothing.”

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs

Ellen F. Davis

Is your home a place of consumption or of production?

What have we made of our homes?

Why does the work have to be done outside of the home?

Why do we need to leave our family to be productive?

What really makes us happy or fulfills us with joy?

Conforming to the social norm?

Or finding our own destiny?