The Wolfiness of the Wolfe

Today I had a wonderful afternoon drinking Caribou Coolers while walking around a lake and talking with my son about deep biblical truths. 

As we chatted I was enjoying our conversation and asked Jake to expand upon the topic as guest post for all of you.  I will note that Jake references a book I have been talking about writing for so many years Jake and John actually thought it was a real book and only recently discovered that it is all in my head and I have in fact not even written the first line.

And a little biblical background.  I am reading the book, "Paul" by Charles Swindoll and today's chapter was on how the idea of independence isn't really a biblical concept.  In fact "God helps those who help themselves" is nowhere in the bible.  And my reading today talked about how Paul had to humble himself and rely on other people in his life and ministry after his conversion many times.  We are not the master's of our own destiny but in fact are dependant on God to direct our actions and the circumstances of our lives.

Jake's thoughts:

Hello! So, I'm not too bad at coming up with interesting thoughts, but what I am bad at is remembering them, so this might be pretty different from what Mom got out of me in the first place. But we'll see.

Anyway, so on our walk Mom was talking about how children bond with their mother until they are around two years old, and then boys will start to disengage with their mother and bond with their father, who is their same-sex parent. I then made a comment about girls of this era starting to disengage with their 'old-fashioned' mother because they're being taught to be their own person. Anyway, she then got on the topic of independence and it not being a biblical concept. I made the comparison to a scientific viewpoint, looking at a wolf pack.

Wolves are actually strikingly similar to humans in this field. Wolves, for those who are unaware, are pack-mentality animals, who mate for life, have an established male leader and his mate, or alpha pair, and have established and essential duties in the pack. Humans, which I will refer to as animals for comparison's sake, are community-based animals, who generally mate for life, generally have a family patriarch or matriarch of sorts and specialize in fields to advance the species. However, the political climate of late is discouraging many of those criteria.

Mating for life is being considered anywhere from inconvenient to suppression of women's rights, and the quest for independence of person is discouraging community of families and family heads. Scientifically, this makes little sense, much less biblically. Mom can elaborate more on the biblical basis for this, but looking at the human race, there is very little in the way of large-scale important accomplishment that is done by one person working entirely on their own.

Looking at a wolf pack's hunting strategy, one observes that each wolf has a specialized task in taking down the prey. There are slow and powerful wolves that stir up the herd and get them running. There are the sprinters, who identify the old, sick, or otherwise slower animals and catch up to attack and slow down the prey animal further for the final take down.

Similarly, humanity must work together to accomplish things. In Mom's New Family Farm (which is not already a book), an example of humanity doing so in the past is the old family farm, with the older men, the fathers and patriarchs, managing the farm, teaching, and organizing, the younger men, sons and hired hands, learning from the older and planting, harvesting, etc. and the women making sure the men have the energy to get these things done by feeding them, as well as making sure the house is prepared for the tired men to relax after the day's work is done. This is a little hard to translate to modern society, as currently family roles are children going to school or day care and both parents working a full time job. This is, I think, the purpose of Mom's book; reconciling the busy life of a modern family and the independent spirit of American culture to the interdependent nature of humanity.

Back to Me again:

I love how Jake has been able to define my book so concisely when I feel like I still don't even know how to define it.  I asked him if he could now write it for me as well.

Would have loved if he had given a shot at applying it to biblical principles but I guess that is for another day.

Actually my final thought on the topic is how my family of origin is the "wolfe" family and when you think through how a wolf pack works together and is inter dependant on each other for survival and then think about my family and the name as well as how we are such a bonded family that does work well together and how we are all very different people but how important each one of us is in the success of the family as a whole and of each individual.  None of us could succeed on our own.  It is a beautiful thing.