AS THE heavy summer rains are here again, so are the Spadefoot frogs, Scaphiopus couchii. Last fall I wrote about the Spadefoots, and recently decided to follow up this year with some additional thoughts. What’s different this year, and a first for this blog, is the inclusion of some media files to chronicle an impromptu household project I’ve dubbed The Spadefoot Project. It should last about ten days, sometime after which I’ll post my latest God/humankind ramblings built around the Spadefoots.

Now, had I had the presence of mind, I would have recorded some video of this past Thursday night’s storm that brought out the Spadefoots. It was a real winner, and if you haven’t ever been in one of our desert monsoons, you’re missing a treat. The lightning is almost blinding, the thunder is startling enough to make you instinctively hunch your shoulders, and the rain comes down upon your roof so heavily that as you stand inside staring out the window, the downpour creates a literal roar upon your roof. Within minutes ponds have formed in any low-lying areas, and as the storm cell moves on its way, out come the frogs.

A ponding area outside our house became this week’s science project for myself and the kids. Well, mostly for me I suppose. I’ll provide some media and information for each day's progress available via link from here in the blog. And although I’m missing any coverage of the storm, to get things started I have some decent audio of two male Spadefoots in our ponding area shortly after the rain. You can find the daily (well, or so) progress in this pdf file.

I DON'T do this very often. Come to think of it, hardly ever. If at all. But I’m going to do it tonight. I’m going to say that a particular Bible passage is simple and straightforward. I’m cringing, and I don’t want to do it, but I feel compelled. I’ll start with an analogy, to which I’m sure many can relate.

You’re sitting in your chair, trying to get a moment’s repose from the day, and you hear one of your kids off in a back room. There’s an angry yell, followed immediately by crying. Seven seconds later, she comes running into you. Hot on her heels is another of your kids. They’re both trying to talk to you at the same time. Each has a story. They both have a reason. They’re both telling on the other. “She hit me!” says the first, crying. “Well she was teasing me and called me a name” angrily blurts the second. You stare silently at both for a moment and take stock. No blood, no obvious serious injury. Both stories sound plausible, even probable. “Okay,” you say. “You, you don’t hit your sister. We don’t do that. It’s not nice. And you, you don’t call your sister names. We don’t do that. It’s not nice either. Okay?” They both mumble their assent, and you conclude with, “Now, tell each other you’re sorry, and go play nice.”

Now, you and I know that your injunctions were provoked by the incident at hand. Your words addressed a situation at hand, with its incumbent attitudes and actions. And, you and I know something else: your words should in no way be taken to mean that telling one child not to hit and the other not to hurl insults is an implicit allowance for the former to hurl insults and the latter to throw a fist. It just so happens that the situation involved a particular shortcoming in each child at the time. Well…

The example just offered is my take on a Bible passage that, like many others, has been complicated and misused for a long, long time. And like I said at the beginning, I am loathe to say it, but I simply cannot comprehend why so many folks can’t see a simple motivation behind Colossians 3:18-19, which reads:

"Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly (NRSV)."

So I want to offer my take on this, with my analogy in mind, based upon what I’ve seen of how men and women in relationships treat each other. Let’s be honest. Women are horrible at submitting to their guys, and guys are horrible at loving their gals. By this I mean the average woman is really, really horrible when it comes to letting her guy do things his own way, without receiving bad attitude, manipulation, griping, or some subtle indication that she’s not happy about it. By this I also mean that the average guy is really, really horrible when it comes to truly loving his wife on her level, deeply, intimately, between his heart of hearts and hers. The basic problem is, women are selfish in that they want everybody to want things their way, and men are selfish in that well, they don’t really care about anybody as much as they care about themselves. Same issue. Same problem. Same disease. Different symptoms.

So the author in Colossians, it seems to me, is saying, “You, you submit to him. And you, you love her.” Why does the author say this? Because it is the lot in life of women to submit to men? No. Because only men are commanded to love their spouses? No. Because women stink at the first, men stink at the second, and they both need to change.

And I just have to note a couple of things. Most of us know that men have taken this passage and used it as some sort of proof text for the idea that women are supposed to be THE submissive partner in a relationship. Wrong idea. It’s not the point. Secondly, and this I hope blows you away: There’s a guy who several years ago wrote a little Bible-based book that became wildly successful. He went on to become a bit of an industry, to include a series of lectures on Bible-based marriage. In those lectures, he actually (I kid you not) makes the point that nowhere in the Bible are wives commanded to love their husbands; that only the husband is commanded to love his spouse. Technically accurate, I suppose, but to me the conclusion is off the mark. It is akin to our children swapping crimes, and then defending themselves with, "Well you didn't tell me not to hit, you only told her."

SO ANYWAY, here’s my thought: Ladies, get over yourselves and realize life isn’t about the way you think things need to be done. I mean, really, truly get over yourselves. Submit to your husbands. And gentlemen, get over yourselves and outside of yourselves, start living from the heart for the sake of another, and learn how to love somebody other than yourselves. Love your wives. Come to think of it, ladies take an honest retrospective look at your guys and learn from them what it means to submit to somebody, and gentlemen, take a retrospective look at your gals and learn from them what it means to love somebody. This is how it's supposed to work. We're supposed to help perfect one another in God.