With the Fall, we have left the realm of the safely abstract, and have now to consider the things of Earth. This is the sphere of confusion of mind and heart and life-and-death contention between brothers, of un-blissful ignorance and fog of the intellect, of woe and pain, strife and division.
_______________________________________________
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." Obviously, we are not talking of two different species here, the division of the sexes comes after the ordinal creation of Man. God did not create Eve also independently out of dust, but rather, as it were, divided Adam's own being. So we have two entities springing from a single source, each with a different spin, positively and negatively charged particles, the yin and yang, difference in union exerting influence upon one another, repulsive forces held in proximity by overwhelmingly powerful attraction, in order that they might act as a single entity.
Nevertheless, Men and Women often seem like alien creatures to one another. Feminists (male and female) even speak as if men and women are different species, with differing interests and not a whole lot of reasons to interact, besides sexual attraction and procreation, but these little difficulties are being addressed through homosex and artificial insemination. Men, it seems, are being "phased out" just as the Bull has already been phased out of the farm; as any farmer knows, geldings and mares is what one wants to work with, not these nasty, snorting bulls.
But properly speaking, men and women are more to one another than just fleeting sexual encounters and childbearing. Now, when it comes to considering what men and women are to each other, I can, of course, speak only as a man. I realize there are those who will unreflectively discount anything I say about women on that account, but I do not consider my perspective to be thereby invalidated; we are all like people who have lived in a house their entire lives, and have never once been outside it. No matter how intimately we know the interior aspect of the house, we can have no idea what the appearance of the outside of the house is like; that we may learn only by consulting our neighbors.
Much is made of the overwhelming power of the masculine sex drive, and no woman knows what it is to have to struggle with that intense pressure, but I consider woman's sexuality to have an equally powerful effect on her person. I do in fact believe that, in comparison, a man's sexuality is more or less superficial; female sexuality is inextricably wound through all the fibers of her being, whereas a man can, at times, be somewhat detached from his sexuality.
Despite the power of male sexual responses, I do not believe that, at root, it is an entirely carnal response, unless it has been made so by the singleminded pursuit of sexual stimulation. At least I know that for me, the attraction I feel for a woman does not initially have anything to do with her sexual characteristics, but is more something that reaches out from the essential femininity of her person, touching me emotionally, though the other reactions are not slow to subsequently assert themselves. Also, women often seem to feel that a man's interest in a sexual encounter is solely physical, whereas she is most interested in the emotional aspect of the relationship. I think we have here a confusion based on the differing nature of the experience; I believe women divide the physical from the emotional in a way that men don't. Women experience both physical and emotional aspects of the event, both of which needs need to be met, whereas men experience a single physical/emotional event; it is here that a man most clearly experiences the love of his wife, and feels that he most intimately communicates love to her. It confuses him somewhat to discover that she regards it almost as incidental. Even to have a feminine presence in his environment can be emotionally sustaining to a man; perhaps the clearest articulation of this would be just to say that in many respects, a woman is to a man like water. To one without female companionship, even a smile from a girl is like a drop of water on the tongue of one perishing from thirst in the desert; conversely, the experience of a man in a marriage relationship can sometimes be compared to that of someone being waterboarded in a cell in Guantanamo.
Masculinity and Femininity model different things; this is seen clearly in most mythologies. Masculinity is of the sky, femininity is of the earth; the earth is watered and brought to fecundity by that which falls from the heavens. The masculine is the initiatory, the feminine the receptive principle, the masculine the disciplining, the feminine the nurturing, the masculine the outward moving, the feminine the inward turning; all of life unfolds in the interaction between the two influences of masculine rigor and feminine softness, is a dance of the complementary natures of masculine virility and feminine grace. Modernity rails against these things, and denies them where it can, but traditional human society has always said "vive le difference".
These things are generalities; it is especially difficult to speak of gender in a way that does not seem to falsify to some extent, because we are all really the same kind of creature, all have the same capacities, but use them differently. Also, any single statement that can be made of men and women generally will find many that fall on the wrong side of the definition; we are circles which largely overlap. Even so, when we attempt to say that a man and a woman share a particular characteristic, there will usually be found a subtle difference in the mode of approach. These things are understood best by the imagination rather than the intellect, I think; masculine and feminine characteristics have such an entirely different flavor, even when they seem to be the same type of thing.
Chesterton, writing toward the beginning of the political upheavals of his day concerning the relations of the sexes, said that no issue had any importance at all compared to the supreme importance of men continuing to be men, and women continuing to be women; in our day, we have difficulty understanding this. After all, how could men and women cease to be Men and Women? Sex is, after all, only a matter of biology, isn't it? The problem is that we have largely lost the knowledge of what Gender is in its essence; it is possible for a woman to become unfeminine, and thereby loose one of the most valuable characteristics of her soul as it was created to be. A man may become unmasculine, thereby becoming a psychological gelding, fit only to be a slave of the modern industrial complex.
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." Obviously, we are not talking of two different species here, the division of the sexes comes after the ordinal creation of Man. God did not create Eve also independently out of dust, but rather, as it were, divided Adam's own being. So we have two entities springing from a single source, each with a different spin, positively and negatively charged particles, the yin and yang, difference in union exerting influence upon one another, repulsive forces held in proximity by overwhelmingly powerful attraction, in order that they might act as a single entity.
Nevertheless, Men and Women often seem like alien creatures to one another. Feminists (male and female) even speak as if men and women are different species, with differing interests and not a whole lot of reasons to interact, besides sexual attraction and procreation, but these little difficulties are being addressed through homosex and artificial insemination. Men, it seems, are being "phased out" just as the Bull has already been phased out of the farm; as any farmer knows, geldings and mares is what one wants to work with, not these nasty, snorting bulls.
But properly speaking, men and women are more to one another than just fleeting sexual encounters and childbearing. Now, when it comes to considering what men and women are to each other, I can, of course, speak only as a man. I realize there are those who will unreflectively discount anything I say about women on that account, but I do not consider my perspective to be thereby invalidated; we are all like people who have lived in a house their entire lives, and have never once been outside it. No matter how intimately we know the interior aspect of the house, we can have no idea what the appearance of the outside of the house is like; that we may learn only by consulting our neighbors.
Much is made of the overwhelming power of the masculine sex drive, and no woman knows what it is to have to struggle with that intense pressure, but I consider woman's sexuality to have an equally powerful effect on her person. I do in fact believe that, in comparison, a man's sexuality is more or less superficial; female sexuality is inextricably wound through all the fibers of her being, whereas a man can, at times, be somewhat detached from his sexuality.
Despite the power of male sexual responses, I do not believe that, at root, it is an entirely carnal response, unless it has been made so by the singleminded pursuit of sexual stimulation. At least I know that for me, the attraction I feel for a woman does not initially have anything to do with her sexual characteristics, but is more something that reaches out from the essential femininity of her person, touching me emotionally, though the other reactions are not slow to subsequently assert themselves. Also, women often seem to feel that a man's interest in a sexual encounter is solely physical, whereas she is most interested in the emotional aspect of the relationship. I think we have here a confusion based on the differing nature of the experience; I believe women divide the physical from the emotional in a way that men don't. Women experience both physical and emotional aspects of the event, both of which needs need to be met, whereas men experience a single physical/emotional event; it is here that a man most clearly experiences the love of his wife, and feels that he most intimately communicates love to her. It confuses him somewhat to discover that she regards it almost as incidental. Even to have a feminine presence in his environment can be emotionally sustaining to a man; perhaps the clearest articulation of this would be just to say that in many respects, a woman is to a man like water. To one without female companionship, even a smile from a girl is like a drop of water on the tongue of one perishing from thirst in the desert; conversely, the experience of a man in a marriage relationship can sometimes be compared to that of someone being waterboarded in a cell in Guantanamo.
Masculinity and Femininity model different things; this is seen clearly in most mythologies. Masculinity is of the sky, femininity is of the earth; the earth is watered and brought to fecundity by that which falls from the heavens. The masculine is the initiatory, the feminine the receptive principle, the masculine the disciplining, the feminine the nurturing, the masculine the outward moving, the feminine the inward turning; all of life unfolds in the interaction between the two influences of masculine rigor and feminine softness, is a dance of the complementary natures of masculine virility and feminine grace. Modernity rails against these things, and denies them where it can, but traditional human society has always said "vive le difference".
These things are generalities; it is especially difficult to speak of gender in a way that does not seem to falsify to some extent, because we are all really the same kind of creature, all have the same capacities, but use them differently. Also, any single statement that can be made of men and women generally will find many that fall on the wrong side of the definition; we are circles which largely overlap. Even so, when we attempt to say that a man and a woman share a particular characteristic, there will usually be found a subtle difference in the mode of approach. These things are understood best by the imagination rather than the intellect, I think; masculine and feminine characteristics have such an entirely different flavor, even when they seem to be the same type of thing.
Chesterton, writing toward the beginning of the political upheavals of his day concerning the relations of the sexes, said that no issue had any importance at all compared to the supreme importance of men continuing to be men, and women continuing to be women; in our day, we have difficulty understanding this. After all, how could men and women cease to be Men and Women? Sex is, after all, only a matter of biology, isn't it? The problem is that we have largely lost the knowledge of what Gender is in its essence; it is possible for a woman to become unfeminine, and thereby loose one of the most valuable characteristics of her soul as it was created to be. A man may become unmasculine, thereby becoming a psychological gelding, fit only to be a slave of the modern industrial complex.
12 comments:
Ok, I've been looking at this post long enough...time to put a few things into words.
Two points: (since they are both a bit lengthy, Ill put them in separate comments)
First, and probably just a misunderstanding from not having full access to interior of the feminine "house".
QUOTE:
"I think we have here a confusion based on the differing nature of the experience;
I believe women divide the physical from the emotional in a way that men don't. Women experience both physical and emotional aspects of the event, both of which needs need to be met, whereas men experience a single physical/emotional event; it is here that a man most clearly experiences the love of his wife, and feels that he most intimately communicates love to her.
It confuses him somewhat to discover that she regards it almost as incidental."
As a women, and discussing these issues with other women, I can tell you-You are mistaken in your assumption. There is not the compartmentalizing between the physical and emotion when it comes to the way a woman experiences sex.
And there is no blindness on woman's part that she sees it as almost "incidental" in just how much a man expression of love is inextricably tied into the physical...and the more spiritually mature, especially in the Orthodox Faith where there no invisible line between the visible and invisible, this is even more true.
But then that is also tied into something you did discern correctly, but I think went off the rails in how it affects the relationship between the men and women....
QUOTE:
"Much is made of the overwhelming power of the masculine sex drive,
and no woman knows what it is to have to struggle with that intense
pressure, but I consider woman's sexuality to have an equally powerful
effect on her person"
Because of this biology.....and I am speaking not speaking of the stereotype of man's overwhelming sex drive.....women have a pretty strong one, too; but biology, culture, economics, yada yada yada, offers many women (many more than you think) very little in the way of self-defense.....we may have come a long way baby, ...
but bottom line, physically, emotionally, socially and even spiritually, many women are still under pressure of any number/combination of those and other issues, and not have the freedom to chose with whom, when, or even feel her personal feelings, hopes, talents, are allowed to even enter (or if they do, they are at the bottom of the list) when a marriage is made.
And those pressures that are so strong in men?
well, women feel the same "needs" and I speak of both physical and emotional and trying to balance those needs with who you are as a unique person, in God's likeness and image, is a real like walking a tightrope across the ceiling of the Hagia Sophia
Before you get up all your arguments on why women no longer have to settle, REMEMBER- whose house you have lived in and that you still have not, nor ever will see the inside of that other house...and as a spiritual man, consider the what a good orthodox girl hears about her "role" from the time she is a child...if fact, if you have daughters, what have you told them?
What some men may see as women compartmentalizing the physical and the emotional may be just her last vestige of self-defense to protect her person-hood....
Maybe I'll let that sit before I make my second observation...which may even be a bit more prickly for Orthodox ears.
Oh, Hello! So someone still is reading! Are you the same as that "Mehitabel" that sent me a batch of poems awhile ago? I really liked that John Ciardi poem.
Thank you for commenting; what I really need on this strand is input from women. I have seen some helpful material on other blogs; for some reason there seems to be a lot of discussion on these issues in blogdom lately.
I realize that many women have a strong sex drive, and that it is entirely possible to overgeneralize. I read somewhere that it is testosterone levels which govern sex drive in both men and women, and those who have lower levels of testosterone have correspondingly weaker sex drives. I have heard from several sources that there are some women that regard the physical aspect of sex more or less as a nuisance, and I read a study once which said that a small majority of women would be O.K. with foregoing physical sex entirely, as long as the emotional relationship were preserved. Beyond that, I understand that a woman's sex drive is more or less connected with the monthly cycle, whereas men tend to be "on" all the time.
Obviously, there is going to be a wide field of individual variations, including men that aren't interested in sex at all, but what I'm interested in is Gender as a general phenomenon, and I do believe that there are substantial differences in how men and women experience sexuality; believe me, I do feel intensely the handicap of not being able to peer into the other house (peeping tom that I am) when writing of an issue such as this. Thank you for your help in that regard; I look forward to seeing your next comment on the issue, prickly though it may be.
I am almost done writing a post on the nature of the marriage relationship itself, handicapped as I am currently by only having access to a computer that has eight other users; I think it might address some of your other questions. Yes, I have a 21-year old daughter; she has been a Novice for three years at St. Paisius Monastery in Safford, Arizona. I raised her to be comfortable with being a woman, and to stay far away from the pansexualist environment which is the modern substitute for marriage and family.
Yes, I did send you the Ciardi Poem. That was me.
This is not part 2 of my original comment, but came about due to a couple of recent incidents and then started to give a little clarity to something I just couldn't put my finger on... something I read over at The Ochlophobist' blog helped, though he doesn't mention gender. (http://ochlophobist.blogspot.com/2009/06/mississippi-of-heart.html) but it helped me crystalize something that I have been trying to wrap words around for some time...
words that I rearranged/changed/tried a million times, soft words, hard words, loud words, but could not and still cannot get a certain man to even try to understand;
The more I try the wider the abyss grows,it's the crack in the Golden Bowl that if dwelled on long enough, would make it into something ugly and worthless instead of something beautiful, but flawed.
(forgive the allusion to the James story if you haven't read it, but the plot of that story is a textbook on gender and I could write and write and still not say a fraction of what it says -but such is the nature of story)
The "thing" that makes me, a woman seem like an alien a man, especially a husband, and I know it is so common it is almost cliche, a big thing masquerading as a trivial thing-and THAT would drive a wedge of distrust, a feeling of betrayal, and create a rift that cannot be crossed because I think it goes to the very heart of the feminine Gender.
It is the dismissal, of woman's heart as sentimental, oversensitive, irrational, and superficial (broken, bleeding hearts sometimes are just that...and to have it dismissed as a mood, hormones, or just plain run roughshod over is to take the first step in destroying the most valuable, but dangerous part of the feminine Gender.
Forgive me if this seems rambling; It's still in it's fuzzy stage and I hope to gain a bit more clarity as I look at it from different angles.
And I am tired of being told to that taking my Faith, Salvation and, my own and everybody else's (not because I'm a busybody, but because, how did Dickens put it..."Mankind is my business"...and somehow it takes more work to figure out where I end and someone else begins, and not only in relationships, but in our spiritual life-just where the wires of another's salvation cross the wires of my own; connections that cannot be ignored, should not be, though life would be easier if they could.
Language is not arbitrary and there is a reason the cliche goes "every man for himself" and not every person for themselves or some such thing.
Connections...yes it's messy, but (in the wisdom of LOL cats) I can't unsee what I saw.
I can pretend it's not my problem...that just working out my own salvation with fear and trembling is all or enough...and it is this that drew me deeper and deeper into orthodoxy.....salvation, life is never a solo act
Once you see the light, most of what you see is not pretty...it can be downright depressing, overwhelming and the cries of those who still sit in darkness can be unbearable...to many woman
It would be a relief to be told, dogmatically, in the end, it's just all about you...get all your i's dotted, your t's crossed, get inside the boat, stay inside the boat. Period.
And if your eye catches someone who is tossed by the waves, struggling to stay afloat, your only responsibility is to throw them a lifeline. The rest is up to them.
It's not your business(your fault that every lifeline they have been thrown up to this point has frayed and broken, or every boat they climbed aboard turned out to manned by pirates, or they had been pulled aboard boats so full of holes, that they don't know that there is a difference from sailing and baling water with every ounce of strength and fiber of your being, concluding that drowning would seem more in line with Mercy, than a slow painful death in a boat that has no hope of making harbor. They have to have faith and just get on board.
cont'd
...cont'd from above
II am with Och when he says that the more run ins you have with Christ, the harder it is to keep a low profile and just coast into the harbor....
He writes (but go read the whole thing).....
"I know I have never had much in the way of faith, and maybe that's it. In my life, every time I've had a come to Jesus meetin' of any sort, every time I have tried a bit harder to be a Christian, I have found that my general problems in life have increased, and that I start to screw up more than I did when just coasting.
Grant you, I have not tried all that often. In part because I came to wonder if laying low wasn't a more careful route to go. But that's just me."
What in the heck does this have to do with Gender.
I myself was almost ready to write it off as just a girly girl thing until I read those words and the rest of the entry...the ethos of care and love that gets labeled as sentimentality or worse is central to who we are as the image of God, but the trouble comes in because of this Gender difference that is so misunderstood...and I just may be muddying the waters even further.....I don't know.
It's a human thing to care, to give, to empathize, to not be able to turn away from the brokeness in another-but unless it is approached with the strength of both Genders, healing broken people, broken bonds, broken trusts, broken relationships is futile (NOTE-I DID NOT SAY THE BROKENESS OF THE WORLD-that's God's starting point, we get to do the detail work.)
I THINK IT IS A MALE THING TO WANT TO DIAGNOSE THE PROBLEM AND FIND THE MOST EXPEDIENT WAY TO SOLVE IT-BUT ISN'T THAT WHAT GOT US INTO THIS WHOLE MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE...TAKING SHORTCUTS -TO CUT THROUGH ALL THE RED TAPE, ALL THAT HARD STUFF THAT IT TAKES TO GROW INTO THE IMAGE IN WHICH WE WERE CREATED..LET'S JUST SKIP ALL THIS INTERPERSONAL STUFF--JUST READ THE BOOK, LEARN THE RIGHT ANSWERS ABOUT WHAT IS GOOD AND AND WHAT IS EVIL, PUT IT IN A ONE SIZE FITS ALL FORMULA, HAND IT OUT AND THEN SWAGER RIGHT UP AND SIT DOWN NEXT TO GOD.
Here is where the Gender thing comes into play, and the need for both Genders are absolutely necessary for the salvation of the world.
I am just generalizing here, but 50+ years of being a woman, knowing women, and how they approach relationships. A woman leads with her heart, the more truly feminine (and I am talking the imperfect feminine, broken, from the perfect image of God, which is a perfect bond of male and female); there is a Love, an empathy, an inability at times to cut and run from those pitiful crying voices, those lost children...every woman walks the edge of a knife...toward Christ, toward salvation. The passions that would destroy are ones that tempt us to turn our gaze away from the light, toward all those wounded souls, and be swallowed up by despair and spend eternity, a Rachel, weeping for her children, so blinded by tears, and lost trust in God and despairing of of Mercy.
I think the most feminine woman in the bible, (again the broken feminine), is the image of Lot's wife(I think there is a reason we only know her as "wife", and not by name), who couldn't not muffle the cries of the suffering and dying, who couldn't numb the sympathetic vibrations of her own scars with the scars of those who could not find the strength to walk away from what was killing them body and soul, who couldn't keep her gaze toward God, toward the promise-the fate of the Christian, the salt of the world that became nothing but salt, all life giving water that she needed to nourish her soul gone dry, with nothing to protect her from the desert heat, unflinching sun and loss of faith that in such a barren land, that streams of life-giving water would pour from from a rock and transform hopelessness into hope.
conclusion-finally
Woman can and do fall in the other direction, and the opposite of feminine is not masculine; the non-feminine is almost demonic...in mythology you can see her type in medusa; she is transformed by the thing experience has taught me can turn any woman into a monster, a golem, betrayal by one most loved and trusted...in Media's case it was her husband who left her to marry another. Grief and loss are just the first blow. Being told by her husband that he married someone more "worthy", a royal princess, and Medea, only a barbarian; and another as Jason conveniently forgets she is a barbarian because she forsook her own people and killed he only lived because she had slain a dragon to slay him.
She first kills the usurper, but even that is not enough, all she wants to do is cause her husband pain
it's like the dark, inside out mirror image of the same passions that leaves Rachel eternally weeping or Lot's wife dried, drained and lifeless.
ps...the thing about women being satisfied with no sex if the emotional needs are met(old wives tale....meaning wives who get old before their time for many reasons).
It may have as much to with THE MAN as the the woman (hormones affect but they DON'T run the whole show....
Men are not born good lovers, even the ones who think they are...and some are loathe to learn...
And another factor--men don't realize the effect fatigue has on a woman's sex drive, especially a young mother, and men may blame hormones when all a woman needs is a couple nights of uninterrupted sleep....8+ hours of sleep can be the best aphrodisiac
What to say.....It seems like when one fully sees the brokenness of sexuality, it should cause one to go towards abstinence; all human relations are going to be disappointing in the end. We want someone who knows us to the bottom of our being, and cares tenderly for us even in our foibles, who loves us as much as they love themselves, and of course no human meets that description. It is true, we are islands to each other, and many of the communicating bridges are fragile, and others are entirely illusory. A Monk or a Nun places no reliance on the sustenance offered by any human relationship, but seeks their life entirely from God. It seems sometimes to me like that is the way to go.
We want to help the hurting, but we cannot heal; maybe we can offer a little encouragement, that is all. Words we speak trying to help sometimes only cause more pain and confusion, sometimes a word or gesture we think nothing of can be used of God to bring clarity to the heart of another. His doing, not ours.
I actually value sentiment; I know it has a bad name these days, and some of what is called sentiment is just syrupy hypocrasy, wallowing in the froth of the emotions without living the truth of them. I think the sentimentality is part of the value of the feminine soul.
It seems like when one fully sees the brokenness of sexuality, it should cause one to go towards abstinence;
all human relations are going to be disappointing in the end
That is ABSOLUTELY NOT anywhere near what where I was going.
The Incarnation was all about restoration of broken-ness, of every kind...its healing, like everything else in a work in progress that cannot be accomplished without the healing
that Christ accomplished and continues to accomplish in us; We are always going to hurt and disappoint one another, but we are no longer held captive to that futility. Christ lived, loved and leads the way out of that darkness. We need one another more than ever...if we cannot love the one right before our eyes, a capacity that is possible with the indwelling of Love Himself,
There is no get out of learning to Love, Trust, forgive, bear with one another in this life...
You wanted to talk about Gender...and I admire your courage to describe femininity...in a world, that wants no part of gender differences. Entire denominations, with hundreds of years of history, and enough remnants of the Faith have been toppled within one or two generations...and it always begins with this "christian egalitarianism" in the realm of gender.
Your description of femininity and woman went straight to my core, almost made me feel transparent...and that kind of transparency can only be sustained, accepted when it clearly comes from the Rock solid foundation of Love, Christly Love; that must be the basis to heal any relationship, and so much more when you are talking about men and women-the feminine and the masculine Gender.
There is no doubt you know much about women, and I suspect many men know more, but than they feel comfortable saying.
I admire your courage...and I in no way felt patronized, diminished, or misunderstood in your observations;
Flattered (not in a prideful way, but in a thankful way), and respected, and hopeful...and also a bit of trepidation;
The tenderness, sentimentality (I value that too, but when it's seen as a weakness that we need to overcome, or has been exhausted when what our eyes and hearts see is constantly dismissed, shields go up) and leaning into all that it means to be a woman is when the work of salvation, growing into Christ seems to bypass so many useless struggles, but again, it's also a road that is fraught with more dangers; And when I spoke of balance and wholeness, it is traveling that road in which both genders are fully whom they were meant to be. Speaking tenderly and with care and encouragement to the "weeping Rachel" or speaking to the fears, the wounds of loss, the scars of abandonment to a "lot's wife", who is leaving everything known for the unknown, even if they are words that need to be re-spoken day after day, is hard work...for both genders....we are all in this together, and we all have gifts that are given for the sole purpose of helping one another on this journey.....NO ISLANDS, NO RUNNING AWAY TO AVOID STEPPING ON GENDER TOES, NO "WAYFARIN STRANGER" STUFF. TRAVELING THIS ROAD ALONE AND LONELY...it is a Holy and Sacred thing that we become what God created us to be...male and female...whole, healed in union with Christ and one another.
cont'd
And though there are these gender differences, WE SHARE A COMMON HUMANITY...we see in each other what we lack, what we need, what we long for...and admitting that need takes humility, risk, and Grace.
There are men (and women) who will do anything to continue in a kind of self deception/self-sufficiency must deny/devalue the same traits exist in them, to some degree...tenderness, sentimentality, empathy, inability to remain strong and unmoved in situations that would break the strongest of hearts...I've seen men kill that part of themselves or bury it so deep, that when they see it in a woman, they must either steel themselves even more or risk facing what is the hardest task for anyone, of either gender, looking straight into the truth of who you are.
One of the hardest things for me to find the right balance, because it is not "traditionally" feminine...and that is to speak out against those who hold so much power over me and others; how much can/should be to risk to keep the peace, not fall into pride, overstep boundaries of obedience and not upset the status quo when I see ingrained injustice that has become so acceptable, it is invisible, just part of the landscape; protecting the most vulnerable I tend to see a man's job (and yeah, it's acceptable for both men and women to stand up for ones like the unborn) there are other injustices that people would rather ignore, usually because it hits closer to home...most of us are not abortionists, but most of us are bystanders/or even profiteers when it comes to glossing over the abuses of power that inflict unspeakable damage on men, women and children-spiritually, physically and economically...how far does my femininity, my place in the body of Christ let me go before I cross a line...there are some things that brings out the warrior in me and I would go to the last drop to speak the unspeakable for those who cannot do it for themselves...maybe that is where we need to work on things...
There is that part of the masculine gender that gives me heart and hope and joy and makes me smile...it's not so rare, but you have to watch...to see that there is very little that gets by them, the smallest tender moment you may catch the STRENGTH of tenderness in a word or gesture, a touch, a joke, a smile (that is getting far to rare because we have become so worried about offending, or having a gesture misread) things that reminds me of my True Father, always watching, caring, and giving what is best (though I may not always agree), masculinity that some may label sentiment, but it is those very gestures that show just how much love a man's heart can hold....
it's how I am learning to trust God as a loving Father, Creator, and believe the words we speak so often... the Lover of Mankind.
Where'd the post on "Marriage" go? I thought it was good.
I thought of an amendment I wanted to make, but didn't have time to do it at the moment, so tried to just make a note at the bottom of the editing text. I thought the post would stay up in it's original form, but it didn't; it will be back when I am able to amend it.
Oh, Mehitabel; I didn't mean to imply that we should give up on anyone, ever, but that when confronted by the enormity of the tangled confusion of human issues of all kinds, (through which, for most of them, the strand of sexuality runs) the only thing ultimately that we can do is pray. That's what Monasticism is about, not a giving up on and retreat from human problems, but a perpetual bringing of all these things to God in prayer, attempting to ever more deeply purify their own being, to be more suited to help those who come to them for counsel; it's a kind of directedness which knows, however much we may wish to help the troubled people around us, that if we take our eyes off Christ for an instant, we're sunk.
Regarding the masculine tendency to want to "fix" things, I think this is related to the masculine power of Rule, which is counterpoised with the feminine power of Nurture; both of these powers run amok in any number of ways, and makes us quite ridiculous in one another's eyes. I think if men and women aren't allowed to laugh at each other, they end by hating each other; that's part of the damage that Feminism has done to gender relations. They have made the whole issue too serious to smile at, and the consequence is war.
We don't know what the spiritual condition of Lot's wife was; while contemporary poets such as Scott Cairns have suggested that her turning back was a gesture of sympathy and grief for suffering Humanity, it's hard for me to imagine that the judgment of God would have been so harsh in that case. It may be that she was grieving mainly for the luxuries she was leaving behind; in any case, she was transformed into an image of absolute sterility. I think you are right in suggesting that if we cannot find the strength to walk away from those who are killing themselves, body and soul, that we will probably share their fate.
It's been a while since I read much mythology; is there some tradition associating Medusa with Media, or was that a mistake? Have you read the version of Media by Robinson Jeffers? It surpasses the original in horror; of course, Jeffers, being an emancipated Modern, makes Media his hero.
I think one of the reasons Men are not good lovers is that sexual fulfillment for a man is easy; for women, it's more complicated, and it takes some time to acquire sensitivity to this difference. It is one of those confusing things a young couple has to get through in their relationship.
It's our awareness of our common humanity that we have to struggle to maintain, despite our differences; "male and female created he him". This is the understanding that is so eroded in our time; we seek to minimize the differences between men and women, and then think of the two as different races instead of as inheritors of the same humanity, which each must struggle to maintain in their own characteristic fashion.
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