Sufferagettes and Thoughts

Today, Karl handed me a folder and said, "Read this. You'll either laugh or get angry." The folder was full of articles from a certain journalist known for his feisty and often argumentative nature, and all were regarding the women's rights movements. It was interesting, if not slightly amusing to read his early statements of, "if women want to vote, then they should vote. But as it stands, they don't want to vote." As the movement strengthened, he seemed to no longer think they should vote if they wanted to, but rather trust in the gallantry of men to lead and be good and sensible staying indoors away from the poll booths. I found all of what I read interesting and some of it humorous ("I'm sure our enemies will tremble with fear when they hear the name of President Gertie and Governor Lulie..."), but as I was reading I thought of how the argument must have been in those days. There was mention of Susan B. Anthony speaking in one of the opera houses, crowds of people in attendance, with sound arguments for why women should vote (mostly that if a woman does not have a husband, if she is to earn her own bread, she should be able to vote). There were still threads of people trying to hold on to the idea of a Christian nation and the idea of woman picking the leaders was a warning flag for women leadership. Unfortunately, the gallantry of men, so far fallen, could only carry us so far. This thought is striking to me because we do not live in a Christian nation. We live in a land full of faulty humans (just like everywhere else), and in a nation that is not focused on Christ, really anything goes. This is not to say that women voting is wrong, not by any means (though feminism is ridiculous), but it makes me wonder what it would be like if everyone made decisions based on Christ, if women followed their husband's lead, and men loved their wives like Christ loved the church and took action out of their best interest. And really this is idealism talking...we live in a very broken world, so much so that even our churches don't resemble this sort of basic principle and it seems that for every step we take we take two steps back. This issue was intense in its day and it makes sense why... we are all in incredible darkness, bumping into things and trying to do the best we can without turning on the lights. It goes back to selfishness. It goes back to pride. It goes back to acting on one's own self-interest and thinking we can do anything without having to yield to God's will. We really like to run our own show...so it's no wonder why this country is where it is...this world.

Well, after I read the articles and was getting things in order to leave for the day, Donald came in. He said 'hi' to Karl and said, "Everyone's dying out there. Lots of people are dying. We gotta go back to the good ol' ways, like the Seventh Day Adventists and get everyone saved." Then he walked out the door.