Previous Post – Our Community Prayer

There seems to be more and more conversation online these days among Christians regarding gender roles, sexual identity and the like.  My own blog has been featuring several posts on the topic, such as:

-What A Godly Man Looks Like
-Authenticity: A Tale of Two Moose
-Deviant Sexuality
-Not What You’re Not: Resisting the Anti-Identity
-Intersections of Identity: Christ & Community

One sure fire way to set the blogosphere on fire with respect to these topics seems to be for men to give advice to women.  While it is not that men have no wisdom to offer women (as that would leave Jesus in a pretty awkward position), but rather that there are times where it would seem wiser for us to listen and learn than to presume to have the answers.  That being said, at the risk of violating my own rule here, I have something I want to say to the women reading here.  It can be summed up in three expressions: Forgive Me, Thank You & Please Help.

Forgive Me:

While I am still young, each year of my life seems to open my eyes (and heart) more and more to the realities of how the world treats women.  While we should never under-state the massive strides towards equality made, especially in the last century, neither should such victories distract from the critically important, remaining challenges ahead.  Even more so, I want to avoid the temptation to deal with these challenges in the abstraction.  That is why I used the expression “Forgive Me” and not “I’m Sorry”.  If your dog gets run over by a car, I can be sorry, but that doesn’t mean I’m responsible.

Therefore, to the women in my life, I’ve wronged you time and again.  I’ve used you as fodder for fantasy, then blamed you for tempting me.  I’ve taken advantage of any weakness or longing I could exploit in you, all in the hope to “cop a feel”.  Will you forgive me?

I’ve turned to your boyfriends, husbands, fathers and male colleagues before you for no other reason than it seemed natural to go to the men first.  I’ve called for equality while basking in the privilege of my gender.  I claim an enlightened egalitarianism, all the while maintaining systems, theologies and relationships that ensured your minimization and even exclusion.  I’ve too quickly dismissed the “angry bitch” while praising the “strong alpha male”.  Will you forgive me?

Time and again, I hurt you, failed you, exploited you, dismissed you.  It was wrong.  I was wrong.  I have no right to ask it, but again, will you please forgive me?

Thank You:

Looking back over my life, even a cursory glance reveals how deeply I am indebted to some amazing women.  In no way diminishing the important role of men in my life, when I consider the women who’ve shaped my life for the better against the credit they receive for such loving service, there is clearly an imbalance.  Be it my wife, mother or grandmothers, the women in my family have carried generations forward tirelessly (and all too often thanklessly).  Every church community I have been a part of has survived significantly (if not primarily) on the shoulder of women who functioned with little credit.  The world around me is filled with women- teachers, doctors, government official- to whom I owe more than I can ever repay.

Therefore, to the women in my life, thank you very much.  Thank you for teaching me what it means to be a good person.  Thank you for helping discover my true self in a culture that taught me that self was not “acceptable”.  Thank you for doing the dirty work of caring for me- through blood, sweat, puke and tears.  Thank you for loving me enough to say “wait”, “stop” and, above all, “no”.  Thank you for creating the culture of our family, carrying forward our stories and handing them down to me.

Thank you for your wisdom, your strength, your power and your leadership.  Thank you for you patience and grace, when I didn’t deserve it or acknowledge it.  Thank you for showing me God through a lens I am completely incapable of discovering without you.  Thank you.

Please Help:

I need you.  For the uniqueness of each individual and the uniqueness of the womanhood you carry as a reflection of the God in whose image we are made- we need you.  In a world where the abuse, neglect and minimization of women is bearing the fruit of violence, hate and inequality, we need you.  As the Church we have not only significantly cut ourselves off from the nature and character of God as reflected in women, but have we distorted our own masculinity as a result.  And so, please help me discover what it means to be a man, a person, a Christian.  I cannot do it without you.

Please help me see my own biases, subtle and explicit.  Please lead us through leadership of every kind.  Please help us become what God has called us to be together.  Please help me, because I cannot become the man God created me to be apart from the women He created you to be.  I need you, now more than ever.

And so, please forgive me.  Even this post is probably laced with assumptions, biases and missed issues.  Thank you for what you have done and will do for the kingdom.  Please help us move towards a future that better reflects the nature that God created man to display: Created in His image, both female and male.