Village Life (exact copy of a letter to my daughter and her husband regarding practicing religion in the home)

Humans are supposed to live in villages. Try to fashion a sort of "village life" for yourselves in the urban context that you find yourself within. Both of you need the village, and both of you will be destroyed, or will flourish, according to whether you are able to create some sort of "village life" for each other, for your children, and for others in your life. I write what follows in the spirit of a village elder, to help you see your own way through the confusion and chaos of life. This is not intended as any sort of intervention or meddling; just a "heads up".

The median male has 50x more testosterone than the median female. Male and female are specialized, and this specialization can be expressed in terms of my village model. Males hunt and occasionally fight the males of the neighboring village. Males do this to create the conditions for a village to exist, and then they protect it and provide for it. Males create the natural and social order needed for a village to survive. Females take that potential and turn it into reality. Females take the order and the provisions and create community life. Without the village, the life of a male has no purpose. Without the village, the life of the female has no possibility. Both male and female need the village and need each other.

This is just a model. It is a way to look at certain important things about life. It is a way for me to concisely express my advice as an elder in "your village".

Julia, your need as a woman to be among women in community "in the village" is not being met. Morgan has provided you with a magnificent hut. But it is only one hut. It is not a village. For a woman (as well as for a man), the village is not a hut or a collection of huts. The village is the community life that exists and can thrive among those huts. Within this community life, women have varying personalities and roles, just as men do when among themselves on a hunt or in battle. But the general pattern is that the men in community hunt and fight for the benefit of the village, and the women in community nurture and minister to the needs of everyone in the village. Men and women must strive to be worthy of the selfless service of the other.

In the press of life, myth is critically important. Julia, you will find your "village" only if Morgan allows you to attend church regularly; in America today, and especially in the South, that is the only place where you will be able to find the community life with other women (and with men) that I speak of. Myth is properly viewed as a matter of the village, rather than of the hunt or the battle, and so it is not really proper for Morgan to be prohibiting religion at home. However, he is right to fear the possibility that you might become a religious nut. Both of you must find a way to bring community and myth into your lives and into your children's formation so that you can receive the benefits of the wisdom of the stories and the warmth of the community life that those stories enables.

Find a Catholic or other Christian community that is focused on the love teaching rather than on the belief system. Morgan is right to abhor the threat of having you become a mindless adherent focused on the belief system. But he is unwise to bar you from bringing the love teaching into your home and to force you to live without the warmth and sense of belonging that you (and he) can find in community with others "in the name of Jesus".

To be clear, if you, Julia, start preaching that Jesus is God and that Morgan will burn in Hell unless he professes belief, you will certainly destroy your marriage! It is perfectly reasonable for you to embrace such beliefs; I choose to embrace them. But never lose the fact that it is all myth. Believe in God, love Him, and do His Will, because you choose to live such a life, not because you know the Truth and all who don't see it your way are damned unless you save them. We can choose to believe in God. But we can't prove that He is really there.

This is too long, but I can't take more time to condense it. I can advise you as an "elder in the village". But the two of you must work your way through this. The issue of the role of religious participation, practice, and community in your family life is properly primarily your decision, Julia. Morgan has a right to veto particular ministers or communities or practices, but he should not outright prohibit all religious practice in your family. His proper role is to be a good hunter and warrior; it is your province to decide the particulars of life in the village.

This is being sent using my published account so that this teaching can reach others. Replies of a personal nature should be sent using my private account (cc'd above).