Cousin Fun, Spelunking, Butterflies, Marriage
Amy’s brother and his family came up to the valley for a few days while they were on fall break. The timing was also good for Amy and the kids to take a break from school and for us to slowdown from work. While there is always plenty that can be done, this is one of our slower seasons on the farm.
On Monday cousins helped us catch and crate over 500 chickens to sell to another farm. Then on Tuesday they helped move the empty chicken shelters off the field and stow away feeders, waterers, and lids for the off season. Only 6 shelters remaining with meat birds. And only 5 more days of moving them until our last on-farm chicken harvest. But who’s counting?
On Wednesday Amy delivered over 1000 ORVF hamburger patties to Smyth County Schools for farm-to-school day. We hope the students and teachers enjoy their hamburgers today!
Our first baby fall calf of the year hit the ground this week. My brother and nephew helped get the bulls out from our spring calving bred heifer group.
More sorting chicken inventory and filling orders. Amy kept the broth pots simmering.
One of the highlights of fall break for me was going cave exploring about a mile up the road. Fascinating that such places exist below the surface. Also fascinating, Hallie and Hasten have been studying caterpillars and monarch butterflies. They caught a bunch of caterpillars and kept them in a netted enclosure, feeding them milkweed until building their cocoons. Then witnessing them come out of the cocoon transformed into butterflies. Truly miraculous. God has always been in the transformation business.
My farm chore listening has brought me back to BEYOND ORDER by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. It’s all good stuff, but “Rule X: Plan and Work Diligently to Maintain the Romance in Your Relationship” was the most notable to me. The foundation for family is the covenant of marriage. When addressing the concern for finding “the perfect person” Peterson writes:
“To begin with, there is not anyone out there who is perfect. There are just people out there who are damaged… Apart from that, if there was somebody out there who was perfect, they would take one look at you and run away screaming. Unless you are deceiving someone, why would you end up with anyone better than you?”
This is something Amy and I have talked about for years. Neither of us are under the impression that we happened to “find the right one” or that we were made perfect for each other and only each other. It’s not about finding the right one as much as it’s about becoming the right one. I’m still trying to become the right one for her as she is for me. We’ve both come a long ways, but we still have lots of “becoming” yet to do. Not just me becoming better and her becoming better, but her helping me grow while I try to help her likewise.
Just as that caterpillar transforms into a beautiful butterfly, marriage is not the final step in the two finding the right one, but the beginning of the two transforming into one. This was God’s design from the beginning. Genesis 2:24 - “and the two become one flesh.” Both Jesus and Paul stand by this verse in the New Testament. Or as JBP puts it, “And you start to transform the two of you into one reasonable person.”
“You might be tempted to conclude, ‘Well, how about we live together instead of getting married? We will try each other out. It is the sensible thing to do.’ But what exactly does it mean when you invite someone to live with you instead of committing yourself to each other? And let us be appropriately harsh and realistic about our appraisal… Here is what it means: ‘You will do, for now, and I presume you feel the same way about me. Otherwise, we would just get married. But in the name of a commonsense that neither of us possess, we are going to reserve the right to swap each other out for a better option at any point.’ And if you do not think that is what living together means as a fully articulated ethical statement, see if you can formulate something more plausible. You might think, ‘Look Doc, that is pretty cynical.’ So why not consider the stats… The breakup rate among people who are not married but are living together (so married in everything but the formal sense) is substantially higher than the divorce rate among married couples. And even if you do get married and make an honest person, so to speak, of the individual with whom you cohabited, you are still much more likely to get divorced than you would be had you never lived together initially. So, the idea of trying each other out sounds enticing but does not work.”
Concerning romance, “It is probably not sex 15 times a day. And it is probably not sex begrudgingly once a year. It is somewhere between extremes, and that is where you must begin to negotiate. My observation has been that the typical adult couple when they have a job, children, and the domestic economy we just discussed… might manage once or twice a week… I have observed that twice is better than once, but once is much better than zero. Zero is bad. If you go to zero, then one of you is tyrannizing the other and the other is submitting. If you go to zero, then one of you is going to have an affair — physical, emotional, fantastical, or some combination of the three. I do not say that lightly. Something has to give”
“People are often relieved when they get married because they do no have to make all that so often counterproductive effort anymore. But that does not at all mean that you are now off the hook… There is still plenty of effort required, unless you want the romance to vanish. You have to talk about it. You have to have the difficult and embarrassing conversation. ‘What is it going to be dear? Tuesday and Thursday? Wednesday and Friday?’… You think, ‘That is so cut and dried. That is so mundane and planned. That is so scheduled, predictable, anti-romantic, and robotic… Where is the fun? Where is the spontaneity?’… That is what you expect? Even unconsciously in your foolish fantasies?… You have to make space and time, and as far as I can tell, you have to do it consciously.”
Have a good week.
Will