Who's In Charge Here?

This is the worst part of modern Christian marriage. It is the hardest to bring up and speak of, even in Christian circumstances. The men cringe, suspecting that their easily annoyed, unthinking wife will let them know, shortly after this message is completed, how she, the Great She, does not agree with Evan or the Apostle Paul. And if you ever hope to have sex again, you might want to think twice before you choose to obey Jesus before her.

Merely approaching this subject is the governing of governments, and it is a topic for the big boys and the big girls. This is not a topic for wusses (who are willing to almost cut “it” off for the privilege of only occasionally using “it”), nor is this the topic for women who think marriage is a clique in Junior High, to the top of which they rise by manipulation, rejection and favors.

How do “we” approach the question in marriage of who obeys whom? Should we jump right in on the “wives be subject” verses? No, we gotta clear something up first.

At the beginning of the “dark passage” in Ephesians there is a verse to which the feminists cling and over which the conservatives skip.

I’m conservative, and I want to look at that passage. I want it to be THE passage by which we find ourselves governing the governments of marriage with tranquil happiness. So there! I don't think that St. Paul inadvertantly let slip an idea which trumped everything he was about to say regarding wives submitting. It is an idea of "how" he wants you to agree with what he is about to say regarding wives submitting. If you don't agree with what he is about to say, you don't have what it says in this verse.

Ephesians 5
21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Are you religious? If so, then you claim to revere. Something or someone is the object of your reverence. It has crossed my mind that the Christian unwillingness to be what the Apostle ordered later in the chapter (both men and women) was due to the impossibility of adopting such goodness and order without settling the religion question first.

Are you having trouble guiding your wife in holiness and love? Are you having trouble obeying your husband, let alone even wrapping your mind around just saying the phrase “obeying your husband”?

I suggest that your religion is wrong. Somehow you got into a place where you don’t reverence Christ, but you have a nice picture of the “church” reverencing Christ, and you go to church. Aren’t you nice.

Until you adjust to the idea of having a god, your governance of the marriage is going be some combination of the occasional marriage seminar, a Christian self-help book and all the the worldliness you can still allow.

How have you missed it? It could be that He has simply become the character called “God” in the narrative myth which tells a story about things you don’t find that important. Or you may be an emotionally disturbed woman who dearly clings to a “fuzzy warmth” with devotion and piety but it is there to serve you rather than vice versa. And there is the deeper walk club, which can manage to not love their wives or obey their husbands, even though they have a Tolkien fan level of interest in the “correct”schematic definition of the Whole Counsel of God. It could be something else, but it seems, from the passage we are stressing, that my and your reverence for Christ is the backbone, the inertia of wonderfully accepting the following instructions with joy. If you don’t joyfully follow, you can’t point to a reverence to Christ that isn’t somehow distant from Him.

Hebrews 10
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

My Pretty, My Precious

This last weekend The Amazing Missus and I drove to the Town of Hip and there forgathered with the one female descendant of Clan MacEvan.

And the bark was in bloom.

Complete Faith

I watched an attempt to gain more "heart" faith out of a congregation this last weekend. The assumption the pastor was making was a natural one, if flawed by the spirit of the age. The assent to a certain propositional truth is considered "head" faith and we have all witnessed both individuals and churches die in the swamp of "head" faith correctness. The spirit of the age suggests, with all of it postmodern subjectivism and its merely animal grasp of decision making, that for the heart to be engaged, the emotions regarding the truth claim need be engaged. "I believe in the Bible" becomes "YES! I KNOW (slight sob) That Jesus wrote the VERY words of LIFE! Glory!" (the latter preferably shouted). This is the St Valentines approach to the heart. In our society we consider the heart the seat of the emotions. In the Scriptures there is the sense of the center of a thing is its heart.

"Head" faith becomes "heart" faith when the truth claim made replaces the preexisting truth claims by which your life was run. In other words you look out your eyes with TRUTH A being held like Gravity is held in your next step. You don't think about it nor gauge its effectiveness. Your "head" faith must do more work than mere catechizing. It must discover and delete the earlier operating system.

Romans 10:8-10 But what does it say? The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved.

If in your heart you are still Lord, (or your mother, or your church, or the Age, or your habits) don't try to replace absence of "heart" with a more stringent "head" faith. But more to our topic, don't try to solve "heart" absence by exuberant sermons or worship-fully played background strummings by the soul patch wearing worship team leader. This sort of faux-heart faith is having a few beers too many and being convinced by your church that you are SOOOOOO in love with Jesus that for a couple of days you will forget you are really married to someone else.

Some will say that I (as usual) am stressing the head aspect. They would be correct. It isn't that we think too much about the Faith but that we think too little. We only ask that superficial assent be made as far as statements of the orthodox faith. There are inside us "head" conclusions we persist affirming. There are outright, contrary to the Scriptures, pure American, family-valued other "faiths" that you really have in your "heart". Like gravity, you can't imagine them not being true. They have to go if you want Jesus to be Lord in your heart.

What the Church recommends: 1) Assent to Truth A and for the deeper walk, 2) get really emotional about it.
What I recommend: 1) Convinced of A, root out all of its competition for your guiding thoughts. 2) Feel good about it.

Emotion answers what is. Do not depend on it to cause what should be.

Pay Attention

Marriages are funny on TV. Nothing like a stupid wife (like on I Love Lucy) for a laugh. Nothing like a stupid husband (on every other show) for even more laughs. We laugh because it is someone else. When it is in our relationship we want to cry.

I have seen marriages break up for this cause. I have seen wives outstrip their husbands in their interest in deeper things. Those husbands counted on the universally acknowledged fact that there is something manly about not knowing stuff.

I Samuel 25
3 Now the name of the man was Nabal [ed. the name means “fool”], and the name of his wife Ab'igail. The woman was of good understanding and beautiful, but the man was churlish and ill-behaved; he was a Calebite.

I have seen husbands living with the hell of the unteachable wife. Not that the woman is not bright. In some cases she is really smart, just uninterested in knowing or understanding. She uses her smarts to build what matters just to her.

Proverbs 11
22 Like a gold ring in a swine's snout
is a beautiful woman without discretion.

What would I recommend? A couple that mutually considers what they each retain from life’s observation will 1) find each other more interesting and 2) sidestep folly (since it lurks in ignorance) and 3) make gains in their standing in the broader community when their knowledge come to benefit others. As an extra, 4) the couple becomes better friends.

Each of these shore up a marriage. When you are not interesting to each other, when folly makes you both look stupid with some regularity, and when 20 years leaves you with no reputation worth remarking on, the word "tranquil" is replaced by the word "dull". Those closest to you, your spouse and your children, will think you dull first. Dull parents do not inspire the children to adopt the methods or beliefs of those parents. Dull Spouses may find that their partners will walk away because they have found another person, someone with a pulse. Or they may just want to get away from the room you are in before you revisit that limited inventory of ideas, or stories, or questions that you have used for years as your talking points.

If you seek to be tranquil and want it to be obviously not dull, realize that what you retain as knowledge in life will have at least four qualities.
1] the quality of the thing known.
2] the quality of that thing's known effect.
3] the quality of 1 and 2 relationship, in other words, why known and why efficacious.
4] the quality of increase.

Proverbs 4:7
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever you get, get insight.

For Philip and Patrick with abjectness and downcastness of visage

When an incorrect rationale seems to move you it is, many times, the illusion your passions provide to make you seem thoughtful. My father always said there is a difference between a reason and an excuse. Passions, if they move you, need an excuse. You know they do. It is evidence that we all understand that there is a correctness about the human animal that is moved by reason and principle. Why else would we provide faux reasons after the fact?

Love Losing or Losing Love

There is competition both formal and informal. In it all we are asking a question. It is "Who wins and why?" The very word "competition" announces to us our mutual interest in that which may be had by only one. Nations compete for territory and tribute. Corporations for trade routes and profits. And individuals for that brief whiff of social standing, the definition of the Self.

Games are great for the exercise of the latter. Point totals, rules and limited times and terrain all compound to make the winner able to cash in a quantifiable for his or her Self definition. Ah, yes, the winner. It is always the winner, darn his hide! But the loser, the sulky, angry, excuse-making, "second place is never good enough", sort of loser is a unacceptable problem to the spirit of grace incumbent on Christians. I guess they just did not like the answer to the question expressed earlier.

Who wins? The other guy.
Why? He was better than you.
What is your problem with that? You are not wise.

"First you call me a loser and then a fool?
You are not making friends, O Oracle. "

What else should I call you?

You are playing a game. You anticipate being able to win. The point totals at the end would verify your self assessment. You rise from the table torqued, affronted, and pouty. The point totals said other than what you anticipated. They rebuked your false definition of self and to pout is to be a fool. Rejoice for you have been reproved in a false notion of yourself. Love them who beat you, for they are your teacher. For do not the Scriptures say:

Proverbs 9:8 Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you;
reprove a wise man, and he will love you.
9 Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser;
teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning.

and
17:10 A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding
than a hundred blows into a fool.

My Humiliation

And so it came to pass that Ian Tracy, resident of the court and child to Darel and Karla, count and countess of Eagle and the South, did profess with gun and repeated ventures to the woodlands to kill something larger than a hedgehog. As the days of such venture increased in number, so did the mocking words of the Marquis of Mojo. He didst rail on the young man. In his humor, he offered to bow down to young Tracy if any blood be spilt. The days and nights of seeking continued apace. The Marquis words were forgotten except when another opportunity to joke at the lad's expense arose.

Then, one night, as the court sat robustly feasting on goodly victuals, the young Nimrod stood in the door. His hands dripped with the blood o f his prey. He pointed at the Marquis whose heart turned to stone within him. Courtiers and ladies in dumbstuck silence paraded their crushed overlord into the street . The weight of his vow pushed him to his knees and he did homage to the killer of stags and young women's hearts.

The moral of the story: It is better that you not vow, than vow and not pay.

Now is your Chance....

The Tao

On Saturday, October 24, 2009
at the Big Haus
325 N. Polk, Moscow, Idaho
beginning at 10:00 a.m.

Cost: $50 per person
for single or married women

Contact for PDF registration brochure:
ewilson@turbonet.com

This seminar is an event that provides both the substance and enjoyment of the strengths that God has given women. It is a day of information (five talks on the Biblical structure of the Christian lady) topped off with a delightful dinner and fellowship.
We hope for a lighthearted and thoughtful day in which the social, spiritual, and mental tasks for the Christian lady are pursued. You will probably hear things you don’t want to hear but you will suspect that you needed to hear them.
Each session is taught by Mr. Evan Wilson. (Yep, he’s a guy.) Mr. Wilson is the pastor of All Souls Christian Church, philosopher in his own mind and a frustrated artist who, over many years of discussion and practical counsel, has developed a systematic on the strength and dignity that is the Christian lady.
The cost is $50, which covers the classes, a notebook with essential documents, a light lunch, coffee breaks, dinner, and least importantly, a Certificate of Achievement. The seminar is limited in size, so prompt registration is encouraged. It is for women only (married or unmarried) who have reached a time where understanding these things is needful.
We cannot promise to make you a lady, or guarantee that you will understand men, but we will deliver a philosophy that will leave you without the excuse, “No one ever told me”.
And our motto is:
“It’s the Thought that Counts.”

Seminar Schedule: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
First Session: St. SOPHIA & THE ADVENTURESS
Wisdom and Folly are personified as women in the first 9 chapters of Proverbs.
Men are instructed to seek the one and avoid the other.
Which, Wisdom or Folly, is incarnated in you?
light lunch
Second Session: THE MARRIAGE OF THE MOJO AND THE MAID
What is the desire of men all about, and how should a Christian woman deal with it?
From dating to modesty to marriage, a knowledge of Reality informs the Maid
on which way she should go.
30 minute break
Third Session: THE DAUGHTERS OF SARAH
To accept the Biblical instruction for women, a woman must come to grips with the
nature of hierarchy and the demands of honor. The issue of security and fear finds
God’s gift of a husband understood properly and with satisfaction.
30 minute break
Fourth Session: THE WAY OF A LADY
This is an effort to “gentle our condition”, by suggesting less of what to do and more of how to think. The claim is that the Fifteen Rules are true within all societies, practicable regardless of any economy, and sufficiently corrective at any time in history. Be she a Hottentot or a Hohenstaufen, the gentled philosophette will be guided to successfully fill the current culture’s task requirements by the guide of her considered philosophic vantage.
30 minute break
Fifth Session: STRENGTH & DIGNITY
Proverbs 31 describes a rather muscular domesticity. This last session
looks at what qualities a young woman should obtain to be called “the Blessed”.
1 hour break
Dinner— 7:00
perhaps a reading of the short story
“The Father of All Courtship”
Attire: Casual

FIN — 10 p.m.

Contact for PDF registration brochure:
ewilson@turbonet.com

But Mentally Add One More Citizen to Evanistan

Hail to the Beauteous
Manisha Wilson!


also
pic by
Helen Schiebe

Unto To All I Survey

With the moment of Empire upon me,
The Legions would cry out in acclaim,
If I stood at the center of power,
But I went home alone once again.

(pause for a sublime sensation of lost causes)

And Helen Schiebe took a picture.

Of a New(ark) York Wedding

31

So the Amazing Missus and I have trod the rosy fields of bliss, lo, these 31 years today. It has not been all hand holding and baby talk but an insightful dissection of our happiness so that others would not be forced to guess.
What am I saying?
Keep your calendar free for November 6-7, 2009.
It is open to singles as well.

For Your Use

"It is good to be quoted."

Evan Bruce Wilson

Is this True?

Order is better than disorder.
Order within the Overorder is better that order without.
He who is able to order is better than he who can't.
And he who comprehends the functional relationship of his order and the Overorder, that man, he is a saint.


"Think about it, then pop off." John Barry

I Apologize

I am a loyal American citizen. I have served in our country's military. I like hot dogs and fireworks with the usual middle-aged verve of the chunkier portions of my generation. I put my hand over my heart at the appropriate occasions. So, on this day, this Fourth of July, I pass on one other aspect of acute, if Cassandra-like, mental precision.

We were wrong.
George the III was right and was the Lord's anointed.

So in the spirit of a Democrat Congress apologizing for the perfidy of others, I apologize to Her Majesty, Elizabeth the II for my country's sins.

I am perhaps alone in the metaphoric rending of garment. Mayhap it be only I for whom the potato salad turns to ashes upon consumption. But it is also I alone who will stand with eyes narrowed as the Great Unwashed gyrates through their patriotic fit.

I am loyal to America as she is, as I live in her. So it is of now I celebrate America thankful for the order and protection she provides.
Celebrate her founding? Pshaw!
I am big on King Solomon. Not so big on the adultery and murder that brought his mom and dad together.

Society for Classical Learning Conference

I been gone, just me, alone.
Gone away to San Antone.
"But, baby, baby," I moanin' phone,
"It's hot as sin. I'm comin' home."

Parents: A Five Ton Dumb Truck Filled with Ten Pound Sacks of Stupid

If all men seek peace, all men will notice those that have it. He who has it, Peace not merely placidity, has it for cause. Does he know the cause and did he craft, design, submit to, or recognize that cause? Could he communicate it to the curious among the rest of man? The rest all want that which he has and he both understands and can convey what brought his peace to be. The rest will learn from him and will follow in his Way.
Peace will be caused by an applied order and the quality and nature of the Peace will be the quality and nature of the order.
Peace with God means you have ordered, reconciled, ceased to rebel in your life before God. Domestic peace means the home (its schedule, furniture, cleanliness, etc) is in order. Relational peace means that your nearest and dearest have ordered their expression of relational emotion.
In whatever kind of peace men seek they will consider very seriously that kind of order that the peaceful example of such recommends.

In other words...
Your children, O Christian parent, want a Peace and have ample time to perceive it in you. If you have it, Peace not merely placidity, do you know why and can you communicate that why? If they want to be like you (does anyone want to be like you?), they will want to know and they will follow.


(As an aside: they don't want denominational/orthodox peace first and foremost so don't base the home order on catechizing. They need to see you satisfied by the Love of God, obedient by grace not Law, loving your neighbor as yourself, living by reason not passion).


But more than likely...
If you are not at peace, you are either boring (placid without cause) or a collection of chaotic moments. Who (since all men want peace) wishes to follow either example? In the dull they can't spot any cause which is transferable other than a commitment to abject soullessness run through a word generator of Christian terms and trends. In the chaotic parent, they, the children already have what you have, thank you very much. You live by impulse and passion and so do they. If you want them to "turn out" ought you not "turn out" first? Who would wish to believe that which you claim to believe when you cannot show that it caused any peace in you?

You are dull and thankfully can't blame Jesus or you are "swayed by various impulse" none of which produce peace or an understanding of the ordered life.

This is the answer to every parental concern.
When your "Jesus" didn't fix you, why would your children hope in Him.

The Lieutenants at Big Haus

At the Big Haus we have had tenants for almost thirty years. Our ministry has been to introduce them to the Christian mind on any subject that came up. These tenants got only an ad hoc experience but it seemed to bear fruit for the Kingdom of Heaven. This multi-decade commitment convinced us we might know what we were doing and it encouraged us to shape the ministry more consciously. This last year we added the role of a Big Haus lieutenancy. Our supporters endowed two rooms which we can offer to people, (rent free but they pay for food), who come to go through a structured program covering the most influential things that have shaped our own thought. This last year Andrew Knecht spent two semesters here and Travis Schnider one semester. I've asked them to write up a general impression. This post is what Andrew provided and Travis' will be posted when it arrives.

Andrew Knecht

The Big Haus offered a wonderful opportunity to me this past year. The Lieutenancy program offered through the Big Haus Society blessed me in many facets of my life. Mr. Evan Wilson's reading curriculum covered a wide area of topics from which to choose any number of discussion points, from education to metaphysical beings, the purpose and place for humor to a life in the Holy Spirit, from the dilemmas of espionage to what women and men really want. Each author provided aspects to better understand the Big Haus way of life, one of peace and understanding. Discussions both formally with Evan and around the house generally encouraged honing of my ideas and development of my philosophy. And although I was provided with Evan's theories on each subject, self-assurance and truth-seeking were the goal in all talks. The lifestyle of the Big Haus propagates love, honor and hospitality.

Through the Big Haus Lieutenancy, seeing and understanding how and why Evan and Leslie Wilson live as they do, I am seeking more fervently a life in tune with God's Word and Truth. I gained tools and ideas to catapult my thought to deeper and more practical areas. I enjoyed great authors and found others to read in the future. I ate like a king and praised God for the hospitality I and others enjoyed. I thank God for giving me the circumstance to grow and mature.

"A tranquil mind gives life to the flesh, but passion makes the bones rot."

Proverbs 14:30

The Oracle again:

We have just started a young lady named Kensington Baines on the program and we have one other open spot for a person whose interests match what we provide.

If you know anyone who might be interested in such, check us out here.

An application is here.

If you would like to share in supporting this work, our contacts are available at this link.

I am the Soul of Passion

I Peter 1:14-16 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy."

Passions. This is what moves you, gives you cause for the various effects you encounter when you are stupid. Yep, that's it folks. If you don't have a reason or habit for doing something (and reasons can be assessed and habits trained) you will use your passion for doing something. Then your life become "Stupid on Parade." The removal of ignorance is a great antidote for passionate foolishness. Have you ever wondered why, with all your religious protestations, you still sin like a fraternity brother? Try thinking about your life rather than waiting for Jesus to show up like a buxom blond.

Don't get me wrong. I am a fan of passion, at least those that involve the desires of the flesh and the eyes. Why seem I to be bashing them? I am not. I am entering your life today to suggest that you reposition passion. Heretofore you have used it as a cause. It has gotten you into sin, folly and dumb decisions. Occasionally it is positive, but trust me, that was only accidental. I would suggest that you place passion as "effect" rather than "cause", the punctuation of the sensible sentence of your life, thought, and wise/holy choices. Let wisdom and holiness take a wife for you "not in the passion of lust like the heathen who do not know God." Enjoy this well selected wife passionately. Let good sex be an effect of a good choice and good ideas. Pursuing your fleshy passions as a cause gets you a few nights of steam and a subsequent life of hell. Make up your mind first. A mind made up is examinable. Talking to the drunken ramblings of the passionately driven is not beneficial for they cannot understand. Their "cause" is passion and their life reflects that especial teenage brilliance. So many lives are proudly run this way that many ministries succumb to this method of life decisions and try to replace passions that cause sin with an uninformed "passion for Jesus." Such people and ministries are especially susceptible to false teachers.

II Timothy 3:6-7 For among them are those who make their way into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and swayed by various impulses, who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

The desires of the Spirit are in this way different from the desires of the flesh. Our possession of the Spirit rests on a response, belief, and conclusion regarding a Truth. This is an informed position on the Nature of Things. Wisely based passions, those existent as effects of truth, do function as future causes but they have been guided. They serve and harmonize with the truth that bred them. A wisely selected, passionately enjoyed wife (versus a passionately selected, wisely regretted one) does find her husband more enjoyably bound to the the marriage. When passion is an effect of a thoughtful good it can become a cause of good.

I Peter 1:13 says, "Therefore gird up your minds, be sober, set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. "