Friday, February 22, 2013

Males, Females, and Faith

The Arts of Manhood
February 1, 2013 By  ://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithforward/2013/02/the-arts-of-manhood/

The author of this blog post posits a list of characteristics that define "real" men. This prompted a cry regarding the definition of "real" women from a man who had been abused. As the divorced mother of  grown children, both male and female, both with teen children of their own, I have this to offer:

Real men are built by real women who are not afraid to truly love the boy in the man, warts and all. Too many women allow their boys to raise themselves in the packs of male animals roaming our streets. Others deny and disrespect those qualities in boys that define them as male. So many boys are torn from their mothers because the mothers refuse to fight for their young men long enough for them to become "real" men. This includes sheltering our boys from the wiles of women who want to take advantage of their innocence to build themselves up in the eyes of their own societies, or to garner societal support through their production of progeny.

The building of "real" men and women is an almost impossible task when we have so much of our "godly" society following the paths of the gods of blood sacrifice and war, but it can be accomplished when we love our sons and daughters enough to protect them. Sadly, too many of their fathers promote disdain for the love of a woman and counterfeit ways for their daughters to seek support.

Too many men are taught to hide their vulnerabilities by exhibiting animal behaviors of territorial cruelty. Too many women are taught to use their sexuality as a trap for the unsuspecting male. Too many in our society who call themselves 'Christian" accept animal instinctual behaviors as "the way we are made." We may have been made as animals, but it is a part of our religious ethic that we teach our children to rise above animal instinct. We do this by example, as well as by our words.

In our feminist society, we have sought to diminish men. This is probably in retaliation for the diminishment of women, caused by fear of the power of procreation obvious in a woman's body, but less so in that of males. It is time that we realize that people are meant to seek balance in partnerships and that procreation is only sacred when we honor both sides of the seeds that create life. Even without procreation, all energy is meant to be expanded by balance of strengths and weaknesses and respect for all that is part of nature.

For those of a "Christian" culture, ask yourselves, "Why did your god desire a woman to create your savior?" If god is a male, he must have thought that the Y chromosome was important to balance in creation, but he did not create this new breed of man without a balance of the yin and yang. I am so very tired of the pendulum swings. It is time that we all stand for respect and balance in nature and the responsibility to guide this given only to the human animal.