Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Preparing to Be a Help Meet: The Priest - Part Four

In the last installment on the Priestly Man, Debi makes marriage sound nice.  Her advice is actually pretty good in this section.

Your Priestly Mr. Steady will not expect you to cook, clean and serve him, but he might enjoy being in the kitchen cooking with you.  

*looks around for the horsemen of the Apocalypse*

A husband who won't expect his wife to be a domestic servant? A man who likes to cook?  Will the wonders never cease?

Welcome to the 20th century, Debi.  Perhaps you'd like to join the rest of us in the 21st century?  Egalitarianism is a good deal for both parties.


If he does, and if you are a perfectionist, unhappy with his contribution, then you will be stealing something precious from your marriage. 

Honestly, that's a fair warning, if heavy-handed.  

My husband and I both like to cook.  We did have to set up some informal cooking rules to keep our domestic peace.  

The main rule:  Never add spices to the other spouse's meal that is being cooked.  

We hadn't been married very long when Nico offered to help me with some dinner I was cooking.  I was happy for his help until he tasted my (finished) dish, walked over to the cabinet, grabbed a spice mix and added it to the main dish.  He said something like "Now it's just perfect!" in a happy, excited voice.

This was the beginning of our first married spat.

From Nico's point of view, he was simply adding a spice to round out the flavor palate of a dish that already tasted really good. 


 From my point of view, my version of the dish wasn't good enough with just the spices I had picked.

We argued.  We talked.  We thought about the other person's viewpoint.  We decided on the spice rule.

 A fine chef can be hired! He married you to be his help meet.

*puts some grain out for the horses of the Apocalypse*

Debi Pearl acknowledged that a woman's role in a marriage is more than domestic slave AND implied that hiring domestic help is a good thing.

My head is spinning.

He will be in a state of quiet contemplation much of the time.  He will want to share his deepest feelings and thoughts with you, so be still until he figures out how. 

Caveat: Be sure that he wants to talk about deep feelings before you decide to take that vow of silence.   Otherwise, I have a mental image of two people sitting in silence staring at each other for hours at a time.

 He will enjoy the company of others and be most comfortable spending time in small talk with anyone who drops in.  Of the three types, he is the one who will be most liked by everyone.

Since the other two types can be described as "untreated bipolar man" and "narcissistic tyrant", you have to admit the bar is set very, very low. 

Your Priest will always be in demand.  People everywhere need him to fix a car, build a house, set up their computer, figure out what's wrong with their phone, heal them of cancer, and the list goes on and on.  You begin to wonder if you will ever have him all to yourself.  The answer is, no.  He belongs to the people.  When you need that special time alone, take a vacation, and leave the cell phone at home.

That's great advice.  My husband and I are still working out how to balance enough time for the two of us with the demands of a farm.

This type of man does not focus on the eternal picture, nor is he looking through a microscope at the details, but he does respect both views as important.  His vision is as a man seeing life just as it is.  He can shift his sights to the sky and know there is more up there than he can see, and he wonders about it; or he can stare into a muddy pond and appreciate that there is a whole world in there that he knows nothing about. 

Debi has moments of wonderful writing.  I wish she'd be able to use this talent more and attack women less.

Building on that, your Priestly man stand at the muddy pond and snap a picture of turtle he picked up from the middle of a busy road.  Gently setting the turtle in the water, he'll smile as the turtle swims away into its new home.


We named this one "Little Snappy".


A Priestly man will not waste money nor take reckless chances.  If you marry this type of man he will never make you feel insecure, although, he might be tight fisted when you want to spend money.

A man who is responsible with money is a good partner.  I'm guessing with a "Steady" man who is tight-fisted a few talks about how each person views money would go a long way to smoothing over married life.

Debi spends the next few pages yammering on about the importance of wisdom.  To save you from some really bad writing, let me summarize her three step method - cribbed from the Bible, of course!

Step One: Read the Bible.
Step Two: Pray for wisdom.
Step Three: God gives you wisdom.

I doubt life is that simple.

Adieu to the tranquility of Steady/Priestly Men.  In the next post, we begin "How to Enable Your Abuser God's Way! Kingly Men."

AntiPearl:  Absurdly cute calf picture!  All of our calves are cute, but sometimes we get one that is ridiculously cute.




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