Private Duties--Elisha and the Shunammite Woman

 This commentary in 2 Kings 4 about Elisha and the Woman of Shunem.  I'm thankful for this account---that it affirms that God cares for and recognizes the heart of an everywoman.  It seems to me that this commentator is a bit overly romantic in his perspective on this particular woman's domesticity...but again...I fight my own demons within that resist over romanticizing the home life.  Is there a way that we can resist over idealizing it yet not degrade it either?  Where is the reasonable middle ground?

Yes; this woman of my text was great in her domesticity. When this prophet wanted to reward her for her hospitality by asking some preferment from the king, what did she say? She declined it. She said, “I dwell among my own people”—as much as to say, “I am satisfied with my lot; all I want is my family and my friends around me—I dwell among my own people.” Oh, what a rebuke to the strife for precedence in all ages!"    T. De Witt Talmage, via The Biblical Illustrator

I've been sifting through this idea of private life vs. public life for about  a year now.  This article got me started on my journey.  And, this one has shaped my thoughts a bit more.  Why is the private home so undervalued?  We give lip service to it, but diminish and undermine those women who choose to make homemaking their full time ministry.  We value it in the abstract, but not in the immediate.  We value it if we go overseas to care for orphans but diminish the ordinary call to service in the lives of those around us.

There is a piece of me that feels like I should either be on a rustic farm wearing an apron and teaching my children to care for livestock or I less than enough as a domestic servant.  What if I serve my family in lesser ways--perhaps the less bucolic ministry of encouraging my son to do his math for the third time that morning.
And why don't I just send my kids to school like everyone else does?  I suffer secret debasement for this as well.  Even the 2nd article above---why does it make it more significant that it's a man defending his wife in her duties?  Why is it his "amazing" response--why just not his appropriate response?

I am completely at a loss as to how women let themselves be hoodwinked into working outside the home, seeking a greater wealth and prestige from the outside---more money, more keeping up with the latest in consumer technology--more accolades and respect---as useful and rightfully "contributing" bread winners, as if domestic contributions weren't really contributions enough.  And somehow this empowers a woman--to work outside the home, to receive public praise.  It all troubles me.  It worries me.  It vexes my own choices and self-esteem.  


And let me clarify that each path must be forged for that individual and for that family circumstance.  I dare not suggest that I know the perfect formula to make it all work.  I just wish that my own choices did not always feel so undervalued and freakish....that I didn't always have to begin in the ditch and have to dig myself out through explanations and justifications.  Women who work outside the home don't seem to have the opposite problem and how dare someone suggest that they don't need to work outside the home.  They are providing income and using their talents!

I don't know that elevating any particular choice of a woman is the answer--it's more about restoring value to homelife and homemaking that seems key to me.  Ordinary homemaking is increasingly archaic.  We cook less at home.  We run--even and perhaps especially in homeschooling homes---our children around to be well-rounded as they participate in all kinds of extracurricular activities among virtual strangers.  We value this above dinner and conversation at home among each other--and we sacrifice those things, we trade them off--for the "public" class and the "special" skill.  

I think this thread has been brewing in me for some time....and I certainly haven't come to the bottom of it. Where does bringing wholeness to women end and the dirty word, Feminism, begin?  To me, Feminism is mostly an angry and misguided attempt toward wholeness.  It tears down one false idol only to set up another, when I'd rather keep the idols at bay.

 "This woman was great in her application to domestic duties. Every picture is a home picture, whether she is entertaining an Elisha, or whether she is giving careful attention to her sick boy, or whether she is appealing for the restoration of her property. Every picture in her case is a home picture. Those are not disciples of this Shunammite woman who, going out to attend to outside charities, neglect the duty of home—the duty of wife, of mother, of daughter. No faithfulness in public benefaction can ever atone for domestic negligence. There has been many a mother who, by indefatigable toll, has reared a large family of children, equipping them for the duties of life with good manners and large intelligence and Christian principle, starting them out, who has done more for the world than many a woman whose name has sounded through all the lands and through the centuries."  

This story is also a good reminder to me that the Lord is not anti-wealth.  This was a wealthy woman.

Certainly not done here---more to come back to (note to self)

1. C.S. Lewis and his decision to reply to individual letters.  Also the comment that some view this as the final book he never published.  His decision to put time into this entirely private enterprise is telling of the importance he placed on speaking into individual's lives.

2. The article I read about Facebook and how Facebook is a means of broadcasting in the true sense of the word.  I see the value and function in this...however it is not a replacement for the more individual comments back that are interesting a mix of private/public conversation.

3. Steve Harris' strength and the note I need to write to him thanking him for his ministry is along these lines.  One-on-one evagelism and the way that he touched others' lives is strongest in the private realm as opposed to some other preachers that prefer to ONLY broadcast and would prefer not to tangle themselves with the individual and personal if they had their way.

4. Was Jesus' ministry mostly private or broadcasting?  It seems to me he limited the broadcasting element of his ministry as much as he could and chose to bring along a group of men that he spoke with and taught in very individual ways.

5. This also to me is some of the difference between good homeschooling (notice the qualifier there) and bad public schooling.   There can be a good in between that happens in smaller settings..the broadcasting combined with individual speaking into student's lives.

Lots to ponder indeed.