men are human

I've lately been saying to any about to be married couple we come across that they shouldn't worry so much about roles and headship and submission. Certainly, they should worry enough to try to obey the scripture. The man should be a man and should love his wife. The woman should be a woman and should respect her husband unconditionally, even if he doesn't deserve it. That's the whole point. He imputes love to her that she doesn't deserve. She imputes respect to him that he doesn't deserve. And there you are, they should both seek Jesus and love him and obey him and not worry so much. 

But then it seems that sometimes young couples, and sometimes even older married ones, are confused and troubled and get into tussles and difficulties. And then I think the trouble is that neither of them knows how to be human. Try being a human being and letting the other person be human, I say, waving my arms around. That's one of the things that's being torn asunder and ruined in this declining civilization. So confused is the question of gender the very humanness of each person is actually obscured.

Last century Dorothy Sayers wrote so cleverly, "Indeed, it is my experience that both men and women are fundamentally human, and that there is very little mystery about either sex, except the exasperating mysteriousness of human beings in general. And though for certain purposes it may still be necessary, as it undoubtedly was in the immediate past, for women to band themselves together, as women, to secure recognition of their requirements as a sex, I am sure the time has now come to insist more strongly on each woman's--and indeed each man's-- requirements as an individual person."*

I would say that the time has far far past for women to band themselves together on that score. Sayers is quite right. The time has come to stop doing that. And having done it too too much, and for a century wallowed in a falsehood that being a woman is a great trial and every man must give way to the Woman, to the furthest possible extent that he even stops being a man, every woman should turn around and walk in the other direction and let the poor man be human. She has not loved him as she loves herself. She should repent. He is a human being and she should open her eyes and heart and see that he is one. Her life is not a great trial or burden. She does not suffer more than anyone has ever suffered because of her gender. He has not destroyed her by being a man, any more than the child she could or has born has destroyed her. 

It was a great shock, so long ago, for the west to discover that women are human. It will be a shock, now, a seismic shift, to learn that men are too.

*Are Women Human? Dorothy Sayers, 1938

the gentle idiot gardens

I have acquisitioned a plot in Good Shepherd's community garden. I plunked some seeds from a trusting and knowledgeable friend who never-the-less has seriously overestimated my abilities. Things like "swiss chard" and "peppers" went from her seed packets into my plot, and a tomato plant I acquired on Amazon (did you know you can buy plants on Amazon? Weird). Even so, it looks pretty dismal.

But then yesterday someone from church, let me rephrase that, lovely people from church brought vast amounts of tomato and squash plants and set them carefully next to my dead brown smear of earth. In the evening, as an act faith (the American kind, not the biblical kind) I tossed back a glass of wine and mucked them about into the soil. So now half my plot is alive and thriving (at least for the night) and the other half still looks rather dead. I'm going to give it three more days before I plow it under and move the squashes over.

And on Saturday I dug up a very sick rose bush and moved it gently and prayerfully to a different spot. And along the side of the house sunflowers are coming up where I didn't plant them. And I took a clipping from a bush in the front and plunked it in the ground in the back in the hopes that it will not die, but will live and grow.

Matt generally watches me messing around in the dirt with a tolerantly sarcastic air. Apparently he knows how to make plants stay alive. That being the case, he doesn't understand the terror and thrill of putting something in the ground and having it come up. He is nonchalant. He is breezy. He says lightly, "it will be fine." But also he doesn't know what a miraculous and tenuous occurrence it is, to have the wretched thing actually grow.

try to be reasonable

Alouicious can't find his binder with his writing assignment in it. And he's hungry. Very very very hungry. He keeps flopping himself over on me and gazing soulfully and manipulatively into my eyes and then when I ignore him he gently whines that he is hungry and he can't find his binder.

Marigold is putting all my makeup on, singing and trying to open a bottle of perfume.Why can't she sleep past 5? Why? Why? Why?

Matt has been up for hours already working and being amazing. Except that I wish he would go get his hand looked at.

But really, the great news is that my mom and dad are arriving today, well, this evening sometime. And, of course, I'd like to have the house thoroughly perfect and have done a full day of school by the time they arrive. And I would like to have made bread and rehung the shelf in the bathroom and cut fresh flowers for their room and touched up the chipped paint in the dining room and living room and baked a large cake and been gracious and kind to my wonderful children through the whole course of the day.

But because I have created a Sisyphean impossibility in my mind, I am destined to be frustrated all day. I will flutter like a scattered and insane chicken, flitting from room to room, shouting contradictory instructions at bewildered and bemused children, "take these shoes downstairs and put them on and then bring them up and put them on the shelf!" or something stupid like that.

Matt, on the other hand, intends to do the work that is most important and let everything else fall by the wayside and so he will come to the end of the day stressed about things he has no control over, but satisfied that he did actual work.

That is the difference between men and women.

'Her question made me remember that the word 'idiot' comes from a Greek root meaning private person. Idiocy is the female defect: intent on their private lives, women follow their fate through a darkness deep as that cast by the malformed cells in the brain. It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy: they are so obsessed with public affairs that they see the world as by moonlight, which shows the outline of every object but not the details indicative of their nature.'--Rebecca West, 'Prologue', Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

And now, to start the day out properly, I will get up and make breakfast and then sit around in my slippers till 10 when I realize the time, panic and assume the chicken routine.

Have a lovely Wednesday!

who saved a wretch like me

Finally finished the Tim Keller Marriage Book. I know that's not its name but that's what everyone calls it here. Pretty sure most all of the congregation is reading it, which is so good for us all. It is Really Good, and everyone should read it.

On a vaguely related note, although I hate to admit it, I still really like all Doug Wilson's endless marriage and family books. I love how mean and straight forward he is. I love that he doesn't shy away from telling the reader even how to arrange the living room furniture. I love how deeply and insanely Calvinist he is.

Anyway, as I was reading the Keller book, I was again relieved with gratitude about my own marriage. Matt and I are by no means perfect, how boring would that be, but God has saved us many times even before we knew we needed to be saved. For example, in the course of being engaged, without knowing anything about anything, we fought and fought about theology. We had some bitter brawls about the nature of election and free will, about what the word 'inclusive' does mean and should mean, about scripture and hell and how people are saved. Everything I've subsequently read suggests you do this on purpose before you get married.

This, among other things, has made married life a breeze (especially when you compare it with giving birth a whole bunch of times and extricating oneself from the Episcopal Church, which, incidentally, is totally befuddled by the continuing steep decline). And this also is a great gift, because if Matt and I were constantly having to work on our marriage, endlessly engaged in relationship evaluation, mired in miscommunication and trouble, we would not have the emotional where-with-all to do our job.

Being married is just like any other endeavor. If you leave the hard work aside and don't attend to it, it becomes very big hard work. If you don't teach your two year old that she may not say 'no' to you, nor run away when you say to 'come here', nor fulfill every evil and rebellious desire of her tiny black heart, you eventually have a big huge teenage toddler whose heart is just as black but now everyone can see it. In marriage, if you don't come to mutually hard won agreements on the meanings of words, if you do not work very hard to quickly forgive and let things go, if you do not practice constantly putting the other person ahead of yourself, eventually you will have a big mess on your hands and come limping into the church office.

And very often, the grace of salvation is extended to those who, like me, not only do not deserve it, but didn't know it was needed in the first place. And then you can look back over the pages of the Tim Keller marriage book and weep with joy at all the pitfalls and ugliness you appear to have missed out on because God, in his great merciful sovereign purposes had some other big problem for you to work on (like your nasty sarcastic tongue) and gave you a pass on this one.

And now I will go and begin to roll that great boulder up the hill of keeping my black-hearted two year old from fulfilling herself.

mawage. its what bwings us togethah today

I posted this

Nothing says "marital bliss" like trying to talk about money while you're both actually surfing the internet.

earlier in the day on facebook. The only use I generally aim to confer on facebook is sarcasm without bitterness, but I was So Tired this morning that I forsake both sarcasm and bitterness and posted something I really meant. Maybe it was the scare quotes around marital bliss that threw Matt off, causing him to say, "I don't think that was very nice".

But Really. We both hate coping with money. Its really nice sitting each with our own computer distracting ourselves as we cobble a budget into some kind of conciliarly agreed upon direction. How rotten if we had an actual focused meeting where we sat down and did only that. 

While we were budgeting I read this(heartbreaking), and this (helpful) and this (hysterical) and this and this.

Of course, we had to add it up three of four times because we, or rather I, got different numbers every time. But eventually it was twice the same thing. And the long morning bore the fruit of having enough to wander through the aisles of Wegmans buying fancy things for Thanksgiving dinner. Elphine, being too old to go in the play place, is turning out to be better company than I imagined. I do confess, I dreaded the time of having to shop with her for at least 6 months before she turned 9. Today she pushed a second cart through the chaos (I'm pretty sure the entire city of Binghamton was in Wegmans this afternoon) and weighed vegetables and she can't whistle, Bless the Lord, so there we are.

But the true moment of bliss, not only of today but of the last two weeks at least, was catching Matt's eye at the end of the cereal aisle as he took a package of hotdogs out of the mouth of Marigold and adjusted the hat of the baby so that she would fail at trying to hang herself and mouthing to him, "We don't have to make stuffing this year, do we?" and him mouthing back, "Oh absolutely."

I long for nothing else in this life. To be that unified in purpose, mission, heart, mind and soul, Well, I defy you to show me something more blissful. And I'm NOT being sarcastic. The sarcasm will be back another day, maybe, but don't count on it.

Online At Last

Trying not to binge on the internet after being offline since we arrived in Corpus on Tuesday. Not that I was up to anything like reading or swallowing or anything, being that I came down with strep again. The very nice barking doctor in San Antonio told me to have my tonsils out. Sounds reasonable, frankly, after being sick this much.

But I'm much better, so we will go out in celebration of being married 10 years today. How time does fly, as someone or other said. Six babies in ten years isn't too shabby. Nor having a pretty good job. Not to mention having a thoroughly uncomplicated and happy marriage. Been contemplating all week how easy married life has been. All the foul predictions of stress and bad communication and unhappiness culminating in divorce and general ghastliness have never materialized. I'm really grateful to have things so beautiful and easy. And also, "for there always being an eye to catch" (badly quoted from Mrs. Miniver whom I do not have on hand).

My sermon from this morning: Colossians 3:18

It’s a pleasure to be here with you this morning for this difficult and probably to some, deeply offensive passage of scripture. If you would all like to turn to Colossians 3 verse 18 you will see why all the men in leadership in this church turned into cowardly custards and refused to preach.

 To stand in the middle of a deep strong rushing river of cultural consensus and heartfelt belief and try to either face the opposite direction, or even just stand still, or even just ask a few questions is extremely uncomfortable and so I hope you will award me several truck loads of grace, your open ears and do your very very very best not to take offense because it is not my intention or desire to cause any. Let me also say that this topic is so fraught, so big, and so difficult for this day and age that this morning we will really only be dipping our toes in the water.

So, let’s start by just reading the verse and noticing some interesting things about the Greek and the translation that we have here.

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

First, Paul says, Wives. He’s not talking to any of you single ladies right now. He’s talking to women who are married. If you’re about to get married I encourage you to pay attention. If you are single and carrying on happily in that state you can listen and analyze all your married friends. Just kidding.

In other words, what Paul is saying is not directed to every woman in regards to every man. All women every where are not being told to be submissive to all men everywhere. We’re talking about a particular relationship—marriage, one person submitting to one other person—her own husband. Even if you are dating someone, ladies, you do not have to and ought not, I would say, submit to the guy until he puts a ring on it, just to quote Byonce.

So, wives, submit to your husbands. The greek here actually is better rendered, ‘be subject to’, which to my delicate ears sounds even worse. We’re probably most familiar with the word ‘subject’ as in being subjects of a King or Queen. The word is not ‘subjugation’ but of willingly being part of a country or kingdom with a head leader. It’s a little more passive than the word submit.

Now notice who Paul is talking to in this verse. Wives, you submit, he says, not, as he does in Ephesians, ‘wives ought to submit to their husbands’, it’s a direct appeal. I say appeal because this kind of direct address is an usual occurrence for literature of this time and place in history. Were he following cultural conventions he might rather have said, husbands make your wives submit to you as to the Lord, because why would they even be there to hear the letter? They wouldn’t. And yet, here, in the church, they are there, they are hearing the letter, and Paul is talking to them directly, appealing to them as full, equal members of the Colossian church, able to exercise their own will and volition towards a particular way of life.

Which really lets us get at the guts of this verse if you think about it. Paul is talking to women whose lives would have looked much much more like the average Muslim in the middle east woman’s life now, than like yours and mine. The Colossian woman would have probably worn a head covering, if she was from a decent family she wouldn’t have gone out to the market alone without a man with her, or might not have gone at all. She wouldn’t have ever ever spoken in a disrespectful or critical manner of her husband. As a married woman she wouldn’t have had tons of freedom to organize her own life or fulfill herself in the way that we value and expect. And yet here, Paul is 1. talking directly to the married women in the church and 2. telling them to be subject.

Which says to me that we are talking about something far more interesting and difficult than mere outward behavior. For Paul to require this of women who in every outward form would have met the requirement of ‘submission’ or ‘subjection’ says to me he’s talking about their hearts and minds, not only their actions.

So, wives submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

The 'is fitting' is used in other contexts in the New Testament in conjunction with 'rest' or 'comfort'. We might render it, 'as is comfortable or restful' in the Lord. By that I don't mean, so long as it makes you feel comfortable, but rather in doing the will of God, you will be in a place of rest. But the word 'fitting' also means 'right', if something is fitting, it is right and appropriate, and in this case holy and good. Why is it fitting? Because it is 'in the Lord'.

We might recall that in Ephesians, Paul likens Christian marriage to be a picture of the mystery of Christ and the church. The husband is supposed to be like Jesus and the wife is supposed to be like the church. In modeling himself on Jesus the husband is to look to the love of Jesus for the church, such a great love that he went unto death, even death on the cross, to save, protect and redeem his bride. The church is protected, guided, sustained, given life by Jesus and does his will, carries out his purpose and desire in the world. No marriage, of course, is a very good picture of this mysterious and holy relationship. Some give a vaguely better outline than others. When a Christian woman submits to her husband she is at the same time submitting to Jesus, she is 'in the Lord', and she is submitting to the picture of Jesus, her husband, whether he is a terrible picture or a fairly good one.

Now, before the hair on your necks stands up and the appalling things I've just said, remember with me the relationship between Jesus, who is the second person of the Trinity, that is, God the Son, and his Father, that is, God the Father. There is another member of the Trinity, the Godhead, and that's God the Holy Spirit. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are all God. As God they are ontologically the same, that is, they are of one substance, one being, one nature. And in this equality of substance, being and nature, the three members of the Godhead, the three Persons, to use a technical word, love one another perfectly and completely. The Son, in perfect love and obedience submits his will to the will of the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds, or goes out from both of them.

In other words, both the man and the woman, in marriage, are looking to Jesus for the perfect model of how to be.

Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count Equality with God a thing to be grasped but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:5 Jesus did not want to die. He wasn’t running happily to horrific death. He asked his Father if it could possibly be within his will to not die and his Father said no. And Jesus, in perfect obedience and submission, went up to death, even death on a cross.

Now, we know, that in his life and work on earth, Jesus was an incredibly strong, perfectly fulfilled, perfectly full person. There was nothing lacking in him. His obedience and submission to the Father was something full and holy and beautiful. It brought about the salvation of all of us who believe and trust in him. Obedience and submission to God is not an evil emptying desperate thing. Obedience to God the Father is the source of our life. When you give yourself to Jesus, he gives you everything that he has, himself. And part of that is the ability to trust him and do his will. When you submit yourself to another person, you do this in the power of Jesus and for love of Him.

You might now see why I think this is not just a set of actions but an attitude of the heart and mind. I’m not going to stand here and say, wives, submit to your husbands—do all the housework, cook all the dinners, do all the laundry, uncomplainingly put out your husbands slippers for him when he arrives home in the evening, look deeply into his eyes and say, ‘what now Oh Lord and Master’. For heaven’s sake, that is not the way we function as human beings, certainly not in this culture. But I do, ever so gently, suggest that the way we think of, talk about, talk to, consider, pray for, love, care for, and submit to our husbands should not come from this culture either. So far from submitting to a husband in love, as is fitting in the Lord, we have gone entirely the other direction. A husband is often not even considered an equal, a full human person deserving of respect and consideration. Stupid idiot men, if we didn’t marry them they would be nothing.

One of my all time favorite tv shows, which Matt hates, is Everybody Loves Raymond. Yeah, she stayed home with the kids and he brought home the bacon, but he was an idiot—so funny. So many things he did were wrong. She was always persecuted and over worked and he was always having to worry about what stupid thing he was about to do that was going to get him in trouble with her. Stupid men, can’t do anything right.

That’s not true, or helpful. Paul says so, up above, there is no slave, free, male, female, Jew or Greek. We are equal. Neither men nor women are ontologically superior to each other. When you set out honor, respect and, horror of horrors, obey another person, its not because they are better than you, it is because, in a mysterious, holy and lovely way, when you do the will of God the Father, it gives life. I am speaking, said Paul in Ephesians, about the mystery of Christ and the Church.

So what might this look like, practically?

Well, first of all, it does not include or allow for any any any kind of abuse whatsoever. If you are being misused and hurt by another person please please get some help and get out. If you are misusing this text to control and hurt another person, stop it.

For the rest of us, it means standing in a rushing current of a culture that tells us that we are all that and that our husbands should listen to us and be guided by us and attend to us and that we're persecuted and put upon.

That's just not true. The men here at Good Shepherd are honorable, interesting, knowledgeable, dedicated, strong, deserving of respect and capable of leadership--both here in the church but more importantly, in their homes. But even if they weren't, even if they were awful, it would still be possible to submit to them, as is fitting in the Lord, because it is always always always better to things God's way than our own.

I am so so loath to give even any advice or say anything more at all. This kind of leadership and submission, shocking as it may sound, has come very easily to me and Matt. Matt has a very strong personality. That's why I married him. He enjoys a good fight. He likes to be challenged and argued with, and, on occassion, yelled at when he is being foolish or insecure or something. He does most of the cooking and all of the laundry and changes diapers and moes the lawn and watches the kids All the Time so that I can pray and take a shower by myself or go on a walk. And he is also clear headed about where he thinks we should go as a family, spiritually. He leads us to worship and obey God. On occassion, he exercises headship over me by drawing lines when I've signed up to do much, by encouraging me in my work here at Good Shepherd, by causing our children to respect and honor me when they might rather run roughshod over my plans for the day.

But the way we live this out is one way among many. But we are not the model, Jesus is. Look to him to give you rest, to show you the way, to give you the strength to do his will.

We will both stay up here after the service if you want to get a cup of coffee and come back up and talk about this some more--argue, ask for clarification, just talk--but for now, let's pray.

Holy and Gracious God, you have so loved us, so poured yourself out in humility for us, that we might know you and serve you. Help us be a good and true reflection of your Son Jesus. In his holy name we pray, Amen.

Happy Anniversary to...

me
and Matt, since we got married nine years ago today. It wasn't a Wednesday, though. It was the inevitable Saturday, but not the evening. We got married at 10am in the morning which was already way too long to wait for such an occasion. I was ready to walk down the aisle at about 7:30 and had to sit around the whole morning watching my bridesmaids fuss over their hair and hideous pink sparkly dresses. One of the more satisfying moments of my life has been forcing five of my closest and most loved friends to wear pink at my very own wedding. This is possibly why I have never been invited to be in anyone else's wedding (or maybe because I'm always enormously pregnant when my friends are getting married).

The other more satisfying moments of my life was watching very partially hung over groomsmen realize that we were about to sing another hymn. We sang all the hymns you could sing. The service lasted an hour and 20 minutes only because my father preached such a short time. If we could have stretched it to two hours we would have. Not being Catholic we couldn't justify leaving a lovely offering in front of the statue of Mary (although  believe me, I really tried to justify it. What an excellent way to show off the dress!) Nor did we end up going with the 1662 Prayer Book Service, although we really really really wanted to. It just became too complicated. But we did sing I want to Walk as a Child of the Light and Lift High the Cross (I think) and King of Glory King of Peace. And I walked in to Not Here for High or Holy Things. Not yet being in submission to my excellent husband, I was able to fend off his great desire that we sing A Mighty Fortress NOT because its not an excellent hymn, but because the verse about Satan is so unsuitable for a wedding.

My father's sermon was chiefly about how he hoped we would have many many children and have a filthy and chaotic house as a result. This blessing, it seems, we are being blessed with abundantly. Six babies in nine years is nothing to sneeze at. However, our house is not chaotic nor filthy. So there.

And we are ridiculously happy, or at least I am. To be floating along through life, intending to devote oneself to the service of God in miserable sacrifice and instead happen, one evening over dinner in the refectory, to fall headlong in love with a strange and fascinating young man with piercing blue eyes and and an extremely quick mind and end up in the service of God without any misery at all, well, what other choice is there than happiness?

Walking and Other Matters

One of the great advantages to having more than two adults in the house is that I've been able to go walking with Matt for two mornings now. He is an extraordinarily disciplined person. I think he wakes up at 4 in the morning, although I could have sworn this morning that it was 3 or something, and he probably exercises and reads the Bible and stuff like that while I sleep. Back in the day when we just had one baby, I went walking with him at 6 am. I was so dedicated that I even went sometimes by myself, straight up the hill behind our house, pushing the running stroller and then sitting down to a healthy and appropriately sized breakfast. And I got nice and thin, of course. Now, three babies later, or four, I guess, being unwilling to walk outside in the winter, or to push a stroller with more than one child in it, or really to wake up early, the days of walking together are essentially over.

But this morning, and Tuesday morning, I drug myself out of bed and lugged myself up the hill, leaving all the children behind. It’s not winter, and there was no need to bring the children because of our friends being here, and, as Matt pointed out, I was up anyway because of the baby.

It takes me half the walk to wake up and be pleasant. Matt walks fast up and down the hill smiling obnoxiously while I walk slowly up it. Once at the top he’s allowed to speak on a neutral subject and then, towards the end, we discuss the state of the world and the church. And by the end I’m shattered. Despite being promised increased energy and an overall glow of well being, the whole fact of having to exercise puts me in a bad temper (here it is, three hours later, and I’m still on the couch unmotivated to accomplish anything—I’ve already done so much, just by walking up that wretched hill.)

I am, however, willing to do it out of a deep abiding sense of personal vanity. I want to be thin, not only because it’s healthy, but because I’m traveling this summer, first to GAFCON, and then to Texas. And even though I know nobody else is worrying about how I look and how well my clothes fit, I’m completely preoccupied by these unimportant concerns.

I posted this earlier today but it disappeared so here it is again.

Matt and I are embattled in Monday Morning Negotiations. I’ve got my calendar out and I’m trying to get out of some stuff.
Me: I’ll visit M, B and P if you take R to his well baby shots on Friday.
Matt: Friday’s not good for me, I have to write a sermon.
Me: I’ll write the sermon too. (I’m willing to do almost anything to get out of taking R to his shots.)
Matt: Well, I wanted to preach.
Me: I’ll make bread today.
Matt: Ok.
Me: And if you’ll clean the house today I’ll call M, T and C.
Matt: Ok. (He’ll do lots to get out of making calls).
Me: Ok, so Wednesday, I’ll take A to school and then do the noon Eucharist and do visits. And then Friday you’ll take R, for sure.
Matt: Sure.
Me: And you won’t back out, at the last minute?
Matt: Sure.
Me: Did you hear what I just said?
Matt: Sure.
Me: Are you listening to the sound of the ocean?
Matt: Sure.
Me: So this conversation is over?
Matt: Hmm?
Me: Shots. Do you absolutely agree about the shots?
Matt: Yes, I’ll take him. No problem.

I try always to think of what my husband would do, and do that

As usual my brain is jelly having spent all day chained to the kitchen and school table. However, I thought I might be able to engage in a spot of film criticism. Matt and I recently subscribed to Netflix in a desperate attempt to have at least one night a week of no church. So this week we watched Mrs. Brown with Judi Dench playing a bereaved (at the time of the movie it’s been 3 years since Prince Albert died) and reclusive Queen Victoria. Judi Dench, as always, is fabulous, even in horrible black Victorian fashion, the rest of the cast is fine, and the movie over all basically good.

But most particularly interesting, to me, was how unmoored Queen Victoria (or Judi Dench’s Queen Victoria) was without Prince Albert. Several times in the course of the film she said, ‘I tried always to be guided by my husband’ or ‘I try to think of what my husband would do, even though he is not here, and do that’. She was unable to cope, or rather refused to cope, with every day life. In other words, she was unable to govern herself. In an effort to bring her out of her grief, her staff brings one Mr. Brown on the scene to at least get her out of doors. Mr. Brown is Scottish and aggressive and essentially forces the Queen back into public life.

This rather surprised me. If anyone should have a hold of themselves, I would have thought it would be Queen Victoria (I shouldn’t really be writing, I haven’t read a thing about her, although now I’m going to). And probably in the recesses of my mind, I thought of her as the quintessential ‘feminist’, in the old sense of the word, as in, strong independent woman—after all, she got to be queen and her husband was never allowed to be king. And even more I would have expected a modern interpretation of her life to have skipped out lines like ‘I try always to think of what my husband would do, and do that’.

Modern feminism is really the opposite—find out what your husband wants to do and then do the opposite, or belittle him, or rule over him, or just generally be in charge of everything. The very idea of being guided by another person, particularly a man, is contrary to the modern woman, at least in her conscious mind. But I would wager, even a small amount of money, that if the man she rules would wake up one day and just not take it any more, she might, very much like Queen Victoria, make the best of it, and actually be a lot more relaxed and happy about life as a result. Knowing, of course, as I write this, that I’m liable to be disagreed with in the strongest of terms.