Follow After Peace
Sometimes the only way to have peace is to say nothing. I learned this early on when dealing with my mother. If for example she said the moon was blue, it was in my best interest to agree with her, no matter what I might believe.
I can be sociable, but sometimes it's best if I'm careful with my circumstance. What ever people do they should not ask my opinion unless they want the truth. I'm not sure, but I wonder, can a person be too honest?
We were at a meeting, discussing an outreach program when someone said, 'we tried that before and it didn't work.' The thing we had tried had ended up with my family and one other person that showed up and that was the 'we' of the participants.
When that statement was made I kind of woke up, and quietly, as I am sitting by my husband, I say to myself, 'we?', then I repeated it a bit louder, 'we?', as I said it one more time my husband begins nudging me. "Shhh, shh," he says. But I have to repeat it one more time before I'm finished. We indeed.
Adorable calls and wants me to go to listen to a speaker at the library. No, I say I can't I've got this list of things I need to do. We talk for a bit more, and she tries to influence me, but I really do need to get stuff done. Well, alright she says, disappointed.
I've just started lunch, an hour and a half late, and she calls again. I'll come out and get you, but I need you to come with me...
We're listening to the speaker telling us historical things, and then she draws her conclusions. Some of her facts are interesting. I'm kind of a history studier. Her conclusions, however, I do not agree so much.
A few years ago I watched a film that documented the lives of two families, husbands and wives. If I remember correctly they were to live as the homesteaders would have lived (in Canada) for a space of time, perhaps close to a year. They began in the spring trying to raise their gardens, build their cabins, and live off the few supplies they had brought as well as what their animals supplied until they could live off the land.
The one couple was middle aged and the other couple were young, maybe even newly married. Neither couple were allowed very much contact with the outside world.
One of the observations of the young wife was that she had hoped to be able to spend much more time outside helping than than she got. Partially because the outside work required more strength, stamina, and ability than she was capable of coupled with the food preparation and daily chores required of her in the division of labor.
According to the historian speaker we listened to this division of labor was because that's the way men set it up. But according to our young wife from the above paragraph, it wouldn't make sense for her to try doing something that even if she could do it, it would take her much longer to do than her husband.
They call it traditional. The men ran the outside work and the women ran the household work. There is nothing demeaning about that set up. Women give birth and nurture the babes, and traditionally excel in that domain.
Life is difficult, now time travel back a few thousand years. Or maybe just 500 years, but you know it is going to be much more difficult in those times. I've heard it said that earlier societies had a strict set of etiquette that helped them navigate a difficult, sometimes unpredictable world.
As in Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof explained it, 'because of our traditions everyone knows who they are and what is expected of them'. It is not an attempt to control everyone's body/life. We could use a return of moral and ethical etiquette. And sometimes we all could or can use some help and direction.
