An April Compendium
When the World Hates Your Daughter, Mother/Daughter Q&A, Public Theology: to prep or not to prep, Book recommendations, Beauty in my home, the Marketplace, Listening links, and more.
Featured Essay
When the World Hates Your Daughter
Once again, I am glad that I don’t waste any of my time caring about who sings what and when and the corresponding financial and cultural accolades appropriated to said singing. Well, that is not quite true. I do care a whole lot about singing and performing, but primarily as it relates to the four singers and musicians whom I am homeschooling. But all those non-clothing wearers who are on the radio and appear on late night talk shows? Don’t give a wit about their tunes.
However, now that every annual televised event (SuperBowl, Grammys, etc.) has become a golden opportunity for flaunting and propagating more wickedness and the basest of fleshly sins on prime time television, the atrocities do eventually get back even to me, the chief ignorer of pop culture.
So earlier this week, I watched a 2-minute wrap-up of the recent spectacle called the Grammys. [I absolutely love the Babylon Bee and its satire. And watching this wrap-up made me *wish* it was a Bee spoof. Sadly, it was not.]
On one level, I can’t really blame the women for their absence of clothing and their profanity and vulgarity and the shameful representation they are of our fair sex. Because, after all, what is a woman these days? It’s hard to know if, by asking this question, I’d be verbally assaulting a man who thinks he’s a woman or used to be a woman, or a female who was actually born with a uterus, or some strange combination thereof. Truly, we are forced into the position of gingerly constructing sentences that align with Pilate and his provocative, what is truth?
Here is what we do know from the Grammys: that our culture celebrates and rewards the sleaziest of the sleaze. That what was verboten two years ago is now almost right-wing nuttiness worthy of cancellation. That the gift of our female personhood has been so wildly and thoroughly absconded by The Enemy that millions of schoolchildren regularly consume music, movies, and books that even 50 years ago would have been considered pornographic imagery. Now, porn was certainly consumed 50 years ago, but a badge of shame was still affixed to it, and thus some secrecy was required in order to keep up appearances. How did we get from the 1968 presidential commission on obscenity and pornography to the zeitgeist of 2021, when pornography is as mainstream and widely used as debit cards?
So, what to do with our daughters in such a cesspool as this? Well, my approach to raising godly girls into godly womanhood doesn’t meander off the narrow path when a new piece of filth is produced, nor when a formerly outrageous standard of attire is now mainstream, nor when a girl cannot be sure the other girl in the women’s restroom is actually a girl. The world and the devil hate my daughters, and that has been true from Satan’s conversation with Eve. One significant change now, however, is that all the cultural restraints have been loosed, and so the assaults against females are unhindered.
As mothers, we need to understand our girls are no longer protected by anyone except the exceptional: the godly men who see the damsels in distress and act, unhindered by the scourge of pornography that has tainted the majority of our male population. We need to give thanks for those godly younger men and those godly older men - and pray for a harvest of millions more. We need to use words like “gentleman, “lady,” and “godly” when talking with our sons and our daughters. We need to draw sharp lines when the worlds uses a smudge eraser for everything: Either that guy is your husband or he is somebody else’s. Since he is very likely not yours, then treat him as a brother and expect him to treat you like a sister. And likewise to your sons: that girl is either your future wife or someone else’s. Treat her with the respect and protection that designation demands. Don’t buy your daughter t-shirts that says “girls rule” or “girl power” or “girl boss” and all that claptrap. Now, those t-shirts are certainly not in league with having your daughter watch Cuties while listening to a Beyonce soundtrack and scrolling through TikTok, but it’s just as off-track from a biblical understanding of who she is and what she is created to do.
Speaking of which, therein lies one of the greatest ironies of how this current wave of feminism has gone so far astray. Second wave feminism insisted on, among other things, equal financial, marketplace, and legal rights for women - because women ought to be able to go out and do big things and be important people and not merely objects to be petted by a condescending husband. And now the narrative has changed. Women ought to be able to parade themselves naked in front of as many people as possible so that they can be seen as objects to be desired. If you’re confused by the whiplash-inducing paradigm shift, you should be. Either my daughter is a woman of substance and worthy of your time and attention because of her character and inner beauty and creative power — or she is a piece of trash on the curb, one amongst many, to be used and abused as is seen fit by the more culturally powerful man who gets to set the terms of just how trashy the trash ought to be. Which is more enticing, more life-giving, more eschatologically accurate, more soul-shaping? Not a hard choice for a domestic theologian committed to raising culturally powerful women, as defined by the Bible rather than by Hollywood.
Here are some questions to ponder when considering how to set the narrative when talking with daughters about identity.
For anyone who missed part 1 of this series, you can watch that right here.
Public Theology
To Prep or Not to Prep; That is the Question.
In light of the questions I have recently received regarding prepping, I will briefly share our position here. Do I think the apocalypse is coming, and is my basement full of cans of tomato soup?
Well, I don’t know about the former exactly, and no, we aren’t hoarding canned goods. But I do know that Biden is Bad for our country in every conceivable way - economically, philosophically, spiritually, educationally, financially, culturally, and so on. I do know that the current administration was clear during its (non)campaign about its catastrophic fiscal goals (print more money and do it quick). I do know that the COVID crisis has been a way for statists to capitalize on restricting citizen liberties, and that compliance has been off the charts (government education has been very effective!). I do know that homeschoolers and conservative, Bible-believing Christians will be, and are already, in the crosshairs of cultural, technological, and governmental elites. I do know that the climate change nazis will not rest until we are all living in communal grass hut with a single shared bicycle and no cattle in sight.
Am I pessimistic about the future of America? Yes. But that’s because politics is downstream of culture, and culture is downstream of the American church. And the festering putrid cesspool that is western pop culture merely illuminates the pathetic and unbiblical teaching in many pulpits.
Do I think this will all end in God’s judgment? I learned years ago from John Piper that gay marriage in the church IS God’s judgment. Church acceptance of gay marriage doesn’t incur God’s judgment; it is merely God turning us over to our own sinful desires, as Paul clearly tells us in Romans. We have been experiencing God’s judgment in this nation for some time. And we deserve everything we are getting as a nation — from the raunchy Grammy awards to the leftist policies bent on destroying every last shred of the fabric that is America.
We cannot complain that we deserve better. Collectively speaking, we don’t. And individually speaking, what sinner can claim that God owes him more, that God has held out on him? That said, I am reformed in my theology from top to bottom, meaning I trust the Lord’s sovereignty even as the world crumbles around us. So, are we prepping? Not really, according to the precise definition. We do, however, make a very concerted efforts to shop locally, especially as it relates to food. For years we have bought all our meat, milk, eggs from our local farmer. I bake and barter and sell my sourdough bread locally. We are living out in the country now and will have an eye on how things progress. We have walkie-talkies and a Ham radio. But my husband and I also have smartphones, though I am continually telling my children that the Chinese must be enjoying watching all the data the Burrs are currently consuming via the sermons or podcasts we listen to in the van. If your children aren’t afraid of what a totalitarian state looks like, be sure to read Live Not By Lies, digest it, and then begin training your children to think and behave like prophetic Christians who know what happens on a human level when the pagans are in control.
Bottom line is, we try to steer clear from The Man as much as we possibly can, both for philosophical and political reasons and because I think Wendell Berry is right and we ought to love and live locally as much as we can, and be rooted to real people in a real place. If the government ever comes rolling down our country road, I want to have people nearby who care. I want the people we meet to know we are Christians and homeschoolers, and by golly, we are smart and informed and kind and witty and engaging, thank you very much. I think Christians ought to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves and believe nothing that is printed in the New York Times or shown on CNN. Ever. I think Christians ought to live boldly as people who love their God and their children - and love the lost, because they were once lost themselves. There is much to be angry about right now, but perpetual anger leads to hard hearts. And hard hearts conveniently forget the power of indwelling sin.
Better to have a soft heart and an empty pantry than a hard heart with a stockpile of guns and butter. Perhaps even better to have the former of the first and the latter of the second.
Literarium
FICTION
Green Dolphin Street (Elizabeth Goudge). This book falls in my annual re-read category. Every year I think I will find that I am more like Margeurite but this year more than ever, I find I am Marianne through and through. Marianne’s character illumines both the driven-ness part of my nature and also the hyper-critical part of my nature. It is a sorry state, indeed! I love Goudge as an author and have read her novels for over a decade now. In both The Pilgrim’s Inn and Green Dolphin Street, she peered deep into my soul from her cottage in the English countryside and wrote about who I am and who I long to be, about 75 years before my birth in rural North Dakota. This is indeed the mark of a classic.
Stepping Heavenward (Elizabeth Prentiss). This is another annual re-read, and it must be read in the leather-bound Lamplighter edition. And like Green Dolphin Street, I find myself hardly inching past the character flaws of Katherine Elliott as the novel tracks her spiritual maturity from a girl to a much older, wiser Christian woman. I handed the novel to my 16-year-old after I completed it this time, and my 14-year-old will read it next. This book a true gem with unusual insight into the female struggle with contentment and sanctification in the home and marriage.
Great Expectations (Charles Dickens). I re-read this novel every year, and I just get twitchy in general when it’s been several months since I last spent time with Dickens. Pip is a character often in my mind, and Magwitch, a villain-turned-benefactor, has been the source of endless amounts of humor in our home. At the end of the day, I can always rely on threats of a galley ship to Australia or to clamp leg irons on someone who doesn’t empty the dishwasher with glee.
NON-FICTION
Ideas Have Consequences (Richard Weaver). I have heard about this book for at least a decade now, and I have skimmed through it a few times looking for quotes. But for the first time I am actually giving it a proper read. It is well worth your time and money - even if you don’t agree with every single point. I have often told my children: why are you surprised that so-and-so did such-and-such? If they believe [insert the doctrine], it’s going to come out in their behavior. This is in a nutshell what Weaver argues: what we think comes out in our behavior. Everyone knows it; it’s just unpopular to say it. Except in my house! :)
Ore From the Puritans’ Mine (compiled by Dale W. Smith). This was a gift from my daughter Madeleine for Christmas. She knows how much I love Puritan writings and am always looking for Puritan quotes, and so she ordered this weighty tomb for me, so that I may have a fully indexed 600+ page collection of Puritan quotations when I need encouragement, rebuking, or a good quote while writing.
The Complete John Ploughman (Charles Spurgeon). I am an avid Spurgeon collector and have been since discovering him about 12 years ago. This book has sat on my shelf for quite some time, and when I recently heard Doug Wilson recommend it as a family devotional read-aloud, I ran to the shelf, handed it to my husband, and said, aha! now is the time! And let me tell you, this book is GOLD. Every one of my four children loves the laugh-out loud stories and the proverbial sayings. Just the other day, one of my children said to me, “there were two anecdotes in John Ploughman that are exactly the same things you always say to us!” Spurgeon is at his best here: pithy, clever, earthy, and theologically spot on. Highly recommend this book for family read-alouds and/or family devotions.
The Christian World of C.S. Lewis (Clyde Kilby). I am a bit of an amateur C.S. Lewis buff and have a stack of biographies in our library, though I haven’t read this particular one until this month. This Kilby volume is a good foundational starter for anyone wanting an introduction and overview of the themes of Lewis’ most popular writings. Kilby’s biographical chapter of Lewis is worth the price of admission. Here is what I have always loved about Lewis: he was bit of a curmudgeon and I’m a bit of a curmudgeon. He was a man in love with the imagination, and I am a mother in love with the imagination and have spent 16 years considering how it is formed in the context of my children. He loved solitude, books, and walks, and I love solitudes, books, and walks. Identifying with a portly, middle-aged, smoking and drinking academic who exists largely in the ivory tower and world of ideas is the greatest of all ironies, since I am a frenetically wired, teetotaling, non-smoking, homeschooling mother who lives in the world of the minutiae and rarely gets the treat of the ivory tower world. And so I love Lewis’ intellect and imagination from another century, positioned from a lifestyle he would never relate to - and I cannot wait to meet him in heaven and tell him how God used his writings to sanctify me.
Here are some of the gems that made my daughter laugh out loud with me, because I say or feel these very same things:
I like monotony, [Lewis] once said. He had small respect for the automobiles. ‘The truest and most horrible claim made for modern transport is that it ‘annihilates space.’ It does. It annihilates one of the most glorious gifts we have been given.”
Lewis was a lover of nature and solitude.
He had little use for newspapers, which he believed create a taste for vulgarity, sensationalism, untruth, and the habit of fluttering from subject to subject without discrimination.
Our world is starved for solitude, silence, and privacy: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.
Talking blots out the sounds and silences of the outdoor world. If a friend went along [on a walk], it must be a case of two bodies with but one soul.
Beauty
There are only 2 spots left in my 6-week course! I expect those last spots to fill this week, so please respond to this email ASAP if you are interested. Here are all the details:
Okay, to get really nitty-gritty on the beauty side, I am asked ALL.THE.TIME where I buy my dresses.
In the early days of my regular dress wearing (8 years ago), I bought my dresses from Land’s End. My daughters basically grew up in Land’s End dresses. Those things are childhood workhorses, and each dress made it successfully through 3 different daughters who spent much of their childhood outdoors and climbing trees. As I figured out what styles I preferred, I fell in love with Anthropologie sales/clearance rack, then the online boutique Roolee, and when we moved to Franklin, TN, I found there are many adorable, local shops that carried both casual and dressy dresses that I adored — so now I always have my eye out for things on clearance. I know what fabrics feel good to me and what styles feel flattering for a 43-year-old mother of 4. What I wear now bears little resemblance to what I wore for the bulk of my raising-toddler-years, mind you!
Below are some photos of my most frequently worn dresses.
First photo: dress on uber-clearance from Anthropologie last fall ($28); the earrings are from Cracker Barrell ($10) and the shoes are my favorite dress shoes - from a thrift store of all places ($15).
Second photo: dress from local Franklin boutique ($55).
Third photo: This cozy maxi is a workhorse. I have it in two colors and wear one of them at least once a week, 6 months out of the year. Purchased from Amazon 3 years ago.
Marketplace
There are some things that I stake my domestic world upon, and I want to share them with you each newsletter. Affiliate links are given, though I have promoted these companies and products for years without any compensation.
Azure Standard
Azure is an amazing company run by believers (situated on a farm in the northwest and with a heart for healthy whole foods and thriving families). I have ordered from Azure on and off for 6 years now, and recently become a drop coordinator for my little town. While I now order a good chunk of our groceries from Azure each month, customers are free to order as frequently as they like and in large or small quantities. If you want to give it a try and support family-friendly company offering vast quantities of organic foods and bulk food options like you won’t find anywhere else, all the while avoiding the big box stores, I cannot recommend Azure highly enough!
Branch Basics
I have used Branch Basics EXCLUSIVELY to clean my home for over 9 years now! I have recommended it hundreds of times for its gentle, all-natural cleaning method, its amazing versatility, and the economy of using the concentrate for virtually everything. Start with Branch Basics and you will never go back to any other type of cleaner.
ChiliPad
The ChiliPad is relatively new to me, but it has been LIFE-CHANGING. I have struggled with insomnia since the spring of 2015. For a few years I was unable to sleep more than 2 1/2 hours at night, which led to all sorts of physical and emotional breakdowns along the way. And yes, I have tried every supplement known to mankind. Two years ago, I began soaking in epsom-salt baths at night and that helped quite a bit, allowing me to sleep 3 or 4 nights per week. I had been stuck in that pattern until last fall - rejoicing when I would be able to sleep for 2 nights in a row, knowing I would be zombie-like when insomnia visited again that evening or the next. Then I came across ChiliPad. This is a luxury item for most folks, me included. But the physical, emotional, spiritual and financial cost of me not sleeping all these years meant that another $1400 (we have the Ooler system for King-sized beds) was literally a drop in the bucket. I knew from my research that cold sleep is the best sleep. Enter ChiliPad, and enter the best, most restorative sleep I have ever experienced as an adult. I set my side of the bed for 55 to 58 degrees, and I literally freeze getting into bed after my warm bath. And then I get used to it, and I am cocooned in this frigid zone all night long, and it just glorious. The heavier the blanket I have on top of me, the better it is. This, dear readers, is how Allison Burr was designed to sleep! I would HIGHLY recommend the Chilipad for anyone who has ever had any difficulty with sleeping at all - whether that is insomnia or night sweats or just disagreeing with your spouse on the overnight thermostat setting. It has been a means of grace to me! *my referral link will give you 20-25% off, depending on the item you purchase.
YNAB - You Need a Budget
I am not a financial guru nor do I like to spend more than 32 seconds per month thinking about a budget. But the fact is, we have tried a few different software tools over the last 10 years and YNAB is the one that makes the most sense. I do not like downloading or using apps in general, but one of my few exceptions is the YNAB app. Entering purchases right after I make them helps me so much, especially since I generally run all the errands and make all the purchases one day a week. Then I am set up knowing what I have left for this budget cycle. It is easy to use, doesn’t diminish my brain cells by ridiculous graphics, and removes so much of the stress about how much there is left to spend this cycle on any category. Highly, highly recommend it.
Listening and Learning
Each month in this space I will share audio or video resources that have helped teach me something or helped me remember something I never should have forgotten in the first place:
The Triumph of the Modern Self: A Conversation with Theologian Carl Trueman — Thinking in Public (Albert Mohler)
Christians and the Future of Marriage: A Conversation with Mark Regnerus - Thinking in Public
Critical Theory and the Cynical Transformation of Society: a Conversation with James Lindsay - Thinking in Public
* I have listened to several interviews with James Lindsay this past year and am helped each time by the insight of this brilliant, non-believing scholar who has the worldview instincts I wish every Christian had.
Critical Race Theory - Just Thinking Podcast
I hope this compendium of Truth, Beauty and Goodness has been a blessing, a help, and a shot of adrenaline for you. Down the road I will be setting up a subscription-based model for the newsletter. Until then, please share the newsletter with your fellow domestic theologians - and feel free to contribute if you are in a position to sow into this ministry. And if you have ideas or suggestions for future newsletters, please hit reply and let me know.
Until next month, remember with me that the Lord is my light and my song —
Allison