My dilemma

I have a dilemma. I am disturbed by the the stigma and connotations frequently associated with the word "home maker" or "house wife". This is illustrated in an extreme manner by the popular TV series Desperate Housewives . What was once an accurate term for my calling, now conjures negative images in this post-modern culture. Images of discontent, Oprah watching, chocolate craving, intellect-less, Martha worshipping females rush to mind. The generation of God fearing women before me fought long and hard to earn respect for their decision to advance God's kingdom through their homes, and I am grateful for the battle they waged to re-confer dignity to the term "homemaker". Yet, somehow, a lingering whiff of disdain often clings to these terms.

Why do I still use a stigmatized term to define my calling when it no longer accurately depicts what I am to the culture in which I belong? English morphs and alters with the changes in culture, and I am obligated before God to communicate as accurately and relevantly as I can to the culture in which He has placed me. Therefore, it is time for to redefine my job title.

At first, I thought of "Home Economist", but that retains potent connotations as well. Besides, I am more than a home manager. So, I checked the etymological definition of "ecology" as well as reading up on "Social Ecology" in Wikipidia.
"Now," I thought, "we are on to something"!

Social Ecology : (as defined on Wikipidia)

"Social ecology is, in the words of its leading exponents, "a coherent radical critique of current social, political, and anti-ecological trends" as well as "a reconstructive, ecological, communitarian, and ethical approach to society". Social Ecology is a radical view of ecology and of social/political systems."

Yes, I am radical. Yes I am a re constructionist. Yes, I am concerned by materialistic consumerism. But alas, I am not a socialist or an anarchist! Hmmm...so, can I claim to be a "Biblical Social Ecologist". Ecology means literally "to study environments". That is my calling... to study the enviroments in which my family operates, to study the enviroment of my home, to study my cultural, spiritual, and physical enviroments. So, is that an accurate definition? This is my delimma.


I suppose before I can refer to myself as a "Biblical Social Ecologist", I must first determine my economic philosophy (as economic theory is bound up in the term). As I am painfully deficient in this field of study, I want to study economics this year. I want to know how to repent of materialism and consumerism in the personal arena as well as the practical. I want to know what God says about economics. I want to know why despite its immense blessings, I am concerned by some of capitalism's fruits. Is there a bibical economics? Or, am I just economically illiterate? Is my lack of understanding the problem? But then, why do these problems exist, and how are they biblically resolved? I want to know.

In the mean time, I will be mulling over how to accurately represent my calling in a post-modern world.

Redeemer of my body

There is nothing like sickness to humble one. It displays the effects of the fall in tangible, inescapable ways... flaunting my helplessness before my face. It rivets my attention to the devastating physical consequences of rebellion against creation's Designer.

In health, I begin to feel capable, competent, and independent. But sickness leaves me helpless, incompetent, and dependent. Unexpectedly, and without preparation, I am stripped of my physical resources and made acutely aware of my finite mortality.

I have no recourse but to turn to the Redeemer of my body and soul, and cry out for compassion. Compassion, because he knows my weaknesses. Compassion, because He took on flesh and became fully Man. He entered in to my limitations, my physicality, my subjection to the reality of the curse. He knows. He is not an abstract idea. He is the Redeemer who has felt abject pain... The King of creation who cried out in bloody beaten despair," My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?".

So, I am thankful for sickness which keeps me abiding in Him who is my Life.

Mental Atrophy

Mental atrophy...my only excuse. Thoughts have tumbled through my head. I have read voraciously. Yet writing has seemed a lead weighted endeavor. It refuses to come. Or, (more to the truth) I have not wanted to apply myself. Capturing my thoughts, and caging them within the constraints of letters and syntax requires effort, and I have been tired.

Over Christmas, I devoured several books which reshaped my process of thinking about life, reality, and culture. My mind is still wrestling with the practical implication of these books in my daily life. But, if anyone is interested, I listed their Amazon links below:

1) Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From its Cultural Captivity by Nancy Pearcy

2) Modern Art and the Death of a Culture by H.R. Rookmaaker

3) Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in an Age of Show Business by Neil Postman

4) Discourse on Method by Rene Descartes

Seeing that this post has morphed into a kind of "state of my mind address", I will go ahead and include the books on my soon to be read list as well...just to give a sketch of my mental itinerary for the next while.

1) Various modern philosophers...passages from Hobbes, Pascal, Racine, and Locke

2) Economics: THE AMERICAN ECONOMY from a Christian Perspective by Tom Rose

3) Logic by Issac Watts

Thus, the state of my mind. Hopefully, with a little dilligence this year, I may craft some coherent thought from these presently rambled jumblings (or did I mean jumbled ramblings? )!