“Luther’s faith was simple enough to trust that after a conscientious day’s labor, a Christian father could come home and eat his sausage, drink his beer, play his flute, sing with his children, and make love to his wife — all to the glory of God!”
William Lazareth, Luther on the Christian Home: An Application of the Social Ethics of the Reformation
hat tip This Guy.
Gonzalo Camacho plays on the wing for Argentina’s national rugby side, the Pumas. He’s pictured here wearing the colors of Exeter Chiefs in England.
Camacho was on the pitch this past weekend for Argentina’s stunning tie with South Africa in the 4 Nations Rugby Championship (a tie South Africa were lucky to walk away with).
Here’s a cool little video about his rugby family. He’s the oldest of five brothers, all of them ruggers. None of them have reached his exalted heights yet, but the youngest has recently played for Argentina’s U18 side. Besides the five sons, the Camachos also have four daughters. Quite a family.
It might surprise some who know me to learn this, but I’m not a sold-out homeschool type. As much as wifey and I are enjoying homeschooling our kids, our preference would be for them to be in school. But that would only be under certain more ideal conditions, which we are not yet operating under, so we continue happily homeschooling away.
I mention this to let you know that this is not some sort of homeschool-or-die apologia.
I have a homeschooling pedigree, having been educated at home myself from the seventh grade on. I am part of the first generation of homeschoolers large enough to be noticed when they went to college, got married, had kids, and started educating them. I was only the second homeschooler to be accepted into the University of Florida. At the time, very few schools had any policies or standards for accepting us. UF decided that Robert (the first homeschooler accepted) and I should take a bunch of subject-specific SAT IIs, a very stop-gap policy that I’m sure has been changed by now. Within a few years I knew several other students who had been homeschooled, many of whom I had known when I was still in high school (my dad was a professor at UF, so I went to high school in the university’s home town).
So I’m part of the first mainstreamed generation. I’m also part of the last generation whose parents wondered and stressed about legalities, when homeschooling was very marginalized. Sure, today social workers still occasionally and usually illegally get in someone’s face, or homeschoolers deal with overregulation there or intrusive policies here. But there were still few enough of us out there back then that when a school board or social worker got offended that homeschoolers even existed, those people might think they could persecute and harass us without anybody important caring. The whole thing felt much more…guerrilla.
We moved from back alley to back alley, always pursued by the robots.
I don’t know what books my mom was reading in 1991, but they must have been pretty weird, since the year we started homeschooling was the same year we stopped eating wheat and moved to Berkeley. Strange times.
Like a lot of parents then, my parents were reacting. It’s a very positive thing that more and more parents are choosing to homeschool proactively. Although opting out is still a very large part of the culture today, opting in to homeschooling instead of opting out of state school is becoming the paradigm. And that’s helpful; it is always better to be formulating philosophies and making practical decisions based on positive frameworks.
My parents were Christians, but they did not believe I need a “Christian education”. They reacted to a dismaying experience, and since they had recently been exposed to the idea, the possibility, of homeschooling, they decided to give it a try.
I had attended school in Brazil from kindergarten to sixth grade. Most of those years I went to private schools, which would have been the norm for people in my class, with one year (I suspect my father was having a hard time financially) in state school. In 1989/90 we moved from Brazil to Edmonton, Alberta, a large city in western Canada. My parents were absolutely scandalized by the way the kids in our church treated their parents; it was common for Canadian parents to be held hostage by teenagers threatening to call social services, since their version of DSS would remove children at their own request with no questions asked. And they couldn’t believe the stories I told them of my first year in a North American junior high. I was as shocked as they, but even so, I liked the school. I learned to play football, joined chess club, and was on a basketball team for the first time in my life. I was very disoriented, but even then I could see that I had never been surrounded by as much depravity as I was in that seventh grade. Drugs, bullying, sex, suicides.
My parents reacted. When we moved the next year to Berkeley, California, they decided to homeschool us. They made the decision because they wanted to keep us away from bad stuff, from sin and sinful patterns. They knew we were vulnerable to be influenced, and they decided to put us in a safer place.
All of which was good and laudable. And those are reason enough for me not to let my kids into a state school, if the state schools I were around were like that. But here in the Bible belt they’re often not.
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I think that many of the homeschoolers who are homeschool-only-do-or-die are reacting. Yes, I’m generalizing. Don’t get your prairie petticoats in a twist, just keep reading.
Reactions can’t endure; they are at best short-term solutions. Positive otherness is what is needed when considering how most Americans view education and its problems.
Have you opted out of state school until it’s fixed? Until there’s less violence, or they permit the teaching of Creationism? Or have you opted out of state school because it’s wrong? Because there’s a better other?
Our decision to homeschool, even if homeschooling is not our top choice, is a proactive one. It’s a positive choice based on our resources and recourses.
Much of it is about legitimate authority. And on a deeper level, it’s about what it means to be human. Yes, it’s that fundamental, because raising and educating your child are the same thing. There’s no separating them. And when you raise a human, you’re making a human.
Education is teleological. It’s in the word, boys and girls. Educare. To lead out. To lead toward. To lead forth. If you’re educating a kid, you’re taking him somewhere, you’re making him something. If you’re the state you’re making him a citizen. A productive member of society. A worker. That is the state’s highest aspiration for your child. Surely that is not yours.
Of the three spheres of human authority, a Christian might argue about whether education fall under the purview of the church or of the family. All parents ought to be aware of what they’re doing and where they’re placing authority when they choose how to educate their kids. The family would attempt to lead a child to be a faithful son. The church would want to make citizens of heaven, of the City of God. But the City of Man makes Citizens of Man.
I have counseled against being reactionary instead of positive and constructive. But the state of educational philosophy and application is so debased that any path we take will be limited in the good it can do. Building a wall when you’re holding a spear in one hand and a trowel in the other will slow down work significantly.
I believe in community life. And I won’t punch you if you say “it takes a village”. I’ll only punch you if you say “it takes a village” and you mean “it takes the State”. I’m not giving up any of my joyous responsibility over my children, but just as I share my life with my brothers and sisters in Christ, I can share my children. We are a family. Which is why we would prefer to have our kids in a good Christian school, preferably one run by our church.
Alas, we haven’t the funds. Meanwhile, homeschooling is great. God has given us all the tools, starting with the little humans themselves, to make Big Humans. To make Men With Chests. He asked us to do the job. And by his grace, we will.
The question we must always have before us is: what are we doing? Whatever your choices in education might be, the answer should be, “Making children of God”.
From SMBC.
“We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.”
Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
We ate, we drank, we slept, we loved. If you can keep it that simple, thanks be to God.
The quote makes me think of my wonderful wife and our wonderful marriage. Of course, it sums up what we do so well, but it’s also reminiscent of my wife’s own motto for marriage. I also like that the quote includes the word “cheaply”, which is a key part of our marital glue.
My wife’s motto in marriage also puts it neatly. “Sex, eat, sleep.”
When I first got married a pastor who was mentoring me (a Baptist who made the mistake of introducing me to Calvin) gave me his most important piece of advice. “Keep the pantry full. No matter how hard things get, make sure you keep the pantry full.” And there is immense wisdom in this. When Christians run in to trouble in their marriages they often want a hyper-spiritual meta-solution, instead of humbling themselves and taking care of practical things, like eating well, and drinking well, and sleeping well and warm together.
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According to John Thrupp in The Anglo-Saxon Home: A History of the Domestic Institutions and Customs of England From the Fifth to the Eleventh Centuries, wives promised to be “bonny and buxom at bed and at board”.
Everything one needs to be bonny and buxom.
I’m going to talk about how awesome that is for husbands. If you don’t like that you can go read my moralizing for husbands while you suck on a lemon.
The bride’s vow, closely related to today’s traditional vows, is “I take thee John to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and health, to be bonny and buxom in bed and at board till death do us part, and thereto I plight thee my troth.”
A “troth”, by the way, is pledged loyalty and faithfulness, as in “betrothal”.
The groom’s vow was briefer, less beautiful, and less alliterative. “I take thee Alice to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold, at bed and at board, for fairer for fouler, for better or for worse, in sickness or in health, till death us do part.” It’s interesting to note as an aside here that the groom’s vow contains a promise to stay with her even if she gets old and wrinkly and ugly.
Just saying the words of the wife’s vow is a pleasure. They’re so bouncy! Try it, out loud: “Bonny and buxom in bed and at board.” Or maybe “Sassy and sweet in sack and at seat.” Sweet and bouncy…and bouncy goes so well with “buxom.” We all know what we think first when we hear the word “buxom”.
I’ll bet you don’t think “obedient and tractable”. Yep. That’s the first definition at Merriam-Webster, although it’s plainly labeled as obsolete. The word is from Middle English buxsum, from Old English būhsum; akin to Old English būgan to bend, or bow.
1. obsolete a: obedient, tractable b: offering little resistance : flexible <wing silently the buxom air — John Milton>2. archaic: full of gaiety3. vigorously or healthily plump; specifically: full-bosomed
Yes, every man reading this had already thought “full-bosomed”, but that’s the last thing mentioned by dictionary nerds, who are men we should all strive to be more like.
Every young man wants a wife who is flexible.
The oath the bride is giving is one of Christian submission to her husband. The most awesome thing about that is that we’re talking about cheerful obedience. You could even put a hyphen in there and turn that into one word. So we’re talking about cheerful-obedience, a much bally-hooed but seldom seen Christian quality. Buxom meant obedient and flexible, but it must have even then been a word charged with good cheer, since it followed “bonny” so closely, and since it evolved to mean “gaiety” and “bouncing big breasts”.
So Christian wives are called to cheerful obedience in bed and at the table. There are a lot of distractions, and lots of other work, but that’s the core of practical marriage. Thank God for this every day, o you husbands. And pray that you be made worthy.
The discussion began when I said, “There’s a wocket in my pocket.”
So Kimberly shouted throughout the house, “Bedtime for little bears!”
That being taken care of, I said, “Come on over, baby, and hop on pop!”
But she wanted to know, “Where’s walrus?”
So I told her, “Watch me grow, Kitten.”
She responded, “That is a very hungry caterpillar.”
That’s when I showed her the “Sweethearts of Rhythm”.
Kimberly announced she would recite aloud from “Falling Up”.
I said, “And that’s the wonderful way babies are made.”
To which she replied, “We’re having a home birth.”
And that was pretty much all the talking we did.
Battles and kerfuffles erupt all the time between Christians and pagans, and between Christians and Christians. When that happens, why do those who use terms in a historically confirmed and orthodox way keep giving away that advantage and repackaging themselves? Certainly holding to an old or traditional idea doesn’t make you right. But if you do hold such a position, why would you give away in debate the advantage of getting to set the terms of the fight?
In this video I discuss how that has happened in some discussions on sexuality and marriage.
Most dads are familiar with that classic daddy moment of having baby fall asleep on top of them while they drowsily nap along with him.
May I endorse to you the same moment, but with your toddler instead of your infant? The moment is harder to come by, but the payoff is very satisfying.
This little guy is almost four.
Every day he randomly declares “Snuggle time!”, usually when wifey and I are conferring alone in the bedroom. He’s been trained to yell “Snuggle time!” from the outside, without barging in. Once we allow him in, he jumps between us on the bed and swings one arm around each parent. He considers himself to be in charge of snuggling in this family.
Pastor Toby Sumpter hits the nail on the head by reminding Christian fathers that they ought to praise their sons. So often it seems that fathers are afraid that praise might cause sin, but aren’t afraid that criticism and harshness will.
Strange, that.
Ultimately Jesus is the answer to this problem, but dads play a huge role in communicating the answer to their kids. Sons in particular need dads who are affirming, who regularly, graciously tell their sons that they are proud of them, that they respect them. They need dads who praise them, ask them for advice, get their input and help on projects. This doesn’t mean ignoring sin or pretending that you like the blue mohawk or the nose ring or certain life choices, but wherever there is goodness, you jump up and down and praise it. You talk about your favorite things about your son, about his accomplishments, his goals, his gifts, and perhaps most importantly, the ways he’s different than you that you think are so cool.
God our Father doesn’t come to us with a list of infractions. He doesn’t come to us with his fingers crossed behind His back. He isn’t hiding secret thoughts about us. He isn’t pretending to like us on the outside but secretly deeply disappointed. God comes to us as a Father who is pleased with His Son, who rejoices over His Son, and invites us into that fellowship, that love by the Holy Spirit.
Read the entire post here, Dad-Shaped Holes.
Ah, Christian husbands. Sweet, sweet Christian husbands. Caught up in the carnival of oversexualization and shame that is our society, trying to navigate your marriages, your wives, your sexual sins and hangups, and your immense horndogginess, all at once.
That’s awkward. Also, I feel awkward about using the word “immense” just now.
May I suggest that your marriage could use a little more rock n’ roll? You know, from a Biblical perspective. And make that rock hard. Make that roll smooth.
Each of these songs can be your guide through different times and phases of your walk with wifey. Share these with her. These are for couples. Some are more directed toward husbands, some more toward wives. As always, there are no accusations, but mutual support and encouragement.
1. Keep Your Hands To Yourself, Georgia Satellites
During certain times you might want to keep your hands to yourself. For example, during the gentle phase many call “courtship”, and the less pious call “dating”, during which this song is clearly set.
No hugging, no kissing until you make her your wife.
Once she is your wife, this song can also be helpful during your brief times of mutual sexual abstention, as prescribed in 1 Corinthians 7:5, for devotion to prayer. Always remember, however, St. Paul’s admonition that this should only be for a brief time. It is always good to “come together again”. And I think you know what I mean.
Please don’t nag your woman. Men are always in peril of being sexual “drippers“, all the while believing that their wives are the only nag in the marriage. If you’ve memorized the “Can We ______?” in Mark Driscoll’s sex book, you might be in danger of being a dripper. Consider keeping your hands to yourself for a time.
2. Abracadabra, Steve Miller Band
Husband, let your woman know a) that you want her, b) that her deeds in the bedroom are appreciated, and that c) her deeds in the bedroom are effective.
Your wife should know that you want to reach out and grab her. Every wife wants that from her husband all the time. Obviously you both have other things to do besides grab each other, but a standard part of the Christian marriage package that a husband should give his wife is the confidence that he desires her. You know, like a burning flame full of desire. Appreciation and gratitude to God and wife are the order of the day if one wishes to let the fire get higher.
Once the wife knows she is wanted and appreciated, she is better able to make the husband say “you make me hot, you make me sigh. Keep me burning for your love…” Because it’s not about some sort of technique or ancient Eastern secret. It’s about love and enthusiasm. It’s about kindness and consideration. You know, mature married stuff.
3. I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl, Nina Simone
Okay, this isn’t really rock n’ roll. But it belongs here anyway.
O husbands, have you complaints about the wife of your youth? Pray to God for mercy and realize that everything is your responsibility. Yours. You aren’t to be your wife’s accuser before God; you’re to be her advocate. You can’t worry if she’s taking care of her end or looking after your “needs”. So…you better start giving.
Give her some sugar in her bowl. Give her some honey deep in her soul.
What’s the matter, daddy? Come on, save her soul. I ain’t fooling. Now that’s a theologically profound idea. It might even provide an insight into the always difficult 1 Timothy 2:15.
In your entire marriage, and in your chambers, o husband, you be the generous one. Give her some sugar. Right in her bowl.
4. Afternoon Delight, Starland Vocal Band
Why wait until the middle of the cold dark night?
Everything’s a little clearer in the light of day. Be open, be communicative, and make love all day. And those of you who know me know that I cannot have used the phrase “make love” casually, since I view its use as a euphemism as deplorable. “Make love” is still listed in Merriam-Webster as to “woo or court” before it’s listed as to “neck, pet, engage in sexual intercourse”.
So make love to your wife all day, send her texts, make phone calls, do favors, speak sweet nothings, whatever. Consider yourself to be in a never-ending state of wooing; win your wife every day.
Do this, and your sky rocket might be in flight afternoon, evening, and night. Maybe even in the morning, before you’ve had your coffee, which is difficult but worth doing.
5. Squeeze Box, The Who
There are principally two things that Christians can learn from this tune (I say “principally” because the rich lessons that can be extracted from this subtle work are surely myriad).
First, regularity and frequency must be an important part of any marriage. For the mommy and daddy in this song, that meant all night, every night. That, it seems, was what their marriage required to be healthy. That might not be the way for all couples, but each should find their own rhythm. Where Afternoon Delight reminded us that hubby should always be in woo mode, Squeeze Box might serve to remind wives not to make their husbands work too hard.
Second, in a non-creepy way, it’s a family affair. Squeeze Box is about a mommy and a daddy. I’m not saying that you should make it so that the kids can’t sleep or that the neighbors are kept awake by the “music”. Modesty is meet and right.
But modesty is a glorious and strong thing, very different from shame. Marriage is fundamentally a sexual relationship. That is what it is. It is the only Biblical sexual relationship (depending on how one uses the word “sexual” I here add distractingly). Your neighbors should know that you’re married. Your kids should be confident that mommy and daddy love each other. They may not understand it now, but when they’re older and trying to figure out how to play the squeeze box in their own marriages, they’ll look back and see how you made music, and whether or not you loved it. You’re teaching your kids about music right now, whether they hear you occasionally from the other side of the house or not.
So if nothing else, do it for the kids.
