Proverbs 31:10-31
Proper 20 (25)- Year B
This acrostic poem means there will be some forced artificiality to the content. It is similar to those forced rhymes by second-rate poets while the first-rate ones know how to sometimes come close and sometimes break the pattern.
For the moment, focus on verse 25 - "Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come."
May this be said of you and me and other progressives within whichever religious tradition they live and move and have their being.
Strength and dignity and laughter. What a wonderful combination. To only have any one of this trinity is to fail. To have even two of the three is to mightily stumble. To have all three at our disposal and to be able to play with them will lead to a life in all its fullness.
Be full - put on strength, wrap yourself in dignity, and let laughter bubble up from within as their limit.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/september2003.html
Proverbs 31:10-31 or Wisdom of Solomon 1:16-2:1, 12-22
Psalm 1 or Jeremiah 11:18-20 or Psalm 54
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37
A gentleness born of wisdom beckons us closer and closer that, with its small hands, our large desires might be unbuttoned and left to drop as a marker of a holy place - a burden was dropped here.
Those places where many burdens drop become our cathedrals, temples, churches in wildwoods, thin places. They are rightly revered. But no more so than where a single burden was laid to rest. Even as disciples have argued as to who was the greatest, so we struggle within and between various spiritual traditions as to loci of holiness.
Wisdom gentles us to appreciate the smallest of new beginnings as equal with the largest of sacraments. This goes beyond issues of right and wrong to a center-spot welcoming. Whether forgiven much or little we honor each forgiveness, each release.
- - -
flames signify
a release
a solid lets go
a puff of gas
upon an airy eddy
adds to an unpredictable
rising up
wavering light
strong enough
to attract moths
and hold bears at bay
we add our bodies
to the kindling
of a funeral pyre
honoring a past
past its time
in anticipation
of a new phoenix
for its moment
strong enough
to call us back
and send us forth
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
It takes 30 chapters of lecture snippets to aid a man to come to their essential conscience. It takes only 1 chapter to describe the virtues of a woman on that same journey. Do you think she was listening in and practicing what a man was being taught? Or is she just a naturally quick study more tuned into what her conscience says? Does this continue the inequality of the creation story with Adam coming first and formed entirely and directly from humus while Eve has just a part of Adam as a starting point?
The use of the word "conscience" here, instead of "fear of the Lord", comes from the Jewish Study Bible when it notes, "Fear of the Lord is the ground for wisdom to grow in; it is essentially conscience." What do you make of this understanding?
How's your conscience doing today? Helping you grow in wisdom or having to be stomped down lest a different tomorrow arrive?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html
A good and capable wife/woman is hard to find. This starting point makes it difficult to have any but a periodic female exemplar. It excuses much even as it is usually perceived as an accolade.
This proverb is testament to women having to work more than twice as hard to simply hold on to half the respect simply due any person.
Focus here on verses 23 and 31. Husbands/men can be counted among the public deciders simply because they are male. Wives/women show their competency and yet there is only a recommendation that they find personal praise sufficient, rather than public decision-making. Here it is recommended that she have a living wage for communal/household work (any work) and be electable/respected in the marketplace of ideas. Recommendations here are pats on the back rather than actual partnership in community affairs.
All the praises here heaped upon women turn out to be flattery, not serious participation in the decisions of life. And patriarchy, expressed today as capitalism, continues, co-opting women and children and poor men. G*D have mercy and help us see ourselves as we are seen so some modicum of hope might be held out for moving on from this stuck place.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/09/proverbs-3110-31.html