9-21-07 From Teri:

I got an email-forward today. The subject line was, "Funny!!" And yeah, it was funny...sort of...I guess. It was one of those all-too-familiar string of vignettes about what idiots men are. You know the schtick: "God may have created man before woman...but there is always a rough draft before the masterpiece!" ha...ha...ha.

What I realized as I skimmed through it is this: it's just not funny anymore. Maybe it never was. But somewhere along the way, I've realized that I don't want to laugh at man-bashing anymore. It doesn't entertain me.

Golly, what I need are notes & emails that encourage me to love my husband BETTER, not degrade him. Ouch. What a family heritage we have, in America, of expecting our men to screw up. What an odd cultural shift. I guess 50 years ago it was different...but these days, modern culture lambastes the man, paints him as this bumbling fool, and just waits expectantly for him to act like the jerk we keep convincing him that he is.

If I expect my son to be responsible & kind & helpful, and I frequently speak that he is, jumping to encourage the good things he does...then he becomes all that. And he is! What an amazing young man Caleb is becoming! Likewise, I want my husband to be responsible, kind, & helpful. Thus I ought to expect it to be so, speak that positive encouragement & expectation, shower him with thanks & respect for all the good things he does.

And yet...in modern American culture, we as women surround ourselves with jokes, sitcoms, articles, etc., that convince us men are idiots. We roll our eyes at their slightest mistake; we fail to honor them for the good things they do...and they disappoint us. They DO fail us. They ARE idiots. We have made them so.

And the thing that hurts is, we don't really like it. We want them to be strong & responsible, tender & caring. We want to be taken care of, cherished, sheltered, loved. We are desperate for them to be the men we long for...and yet we make them into the failures we expect them to be. We thought we were being funny, taking control, getting even, balancing the scales. But somehow, after all the power & equality & strength we've gained...we end up with the short end of the stick. We end up longing for things our men don't provide, starving for the tenderness & cherishing we think we deserve. And so we divorce, and have affairs, and get our empty-cups filled with work & kids & shopping & face-lifts.... When really all we want is to be loved. To be cared for. To be pursued and cherished and respected and adored. By the very man we have so laughingly, unwittingly, blithely & yet harshly castrated. The very manhood we long to be loved by...we have destroyed.

And so I'm going to boycott the man-bashing. No more sitcoms about bumbling-idiot-husbands; no more commercials showcasing slovenly-sports-watching-lazy-boy-men. Click! No more articles or stories about divorces & the trials of come-back third-marriages. Rip! No more funny emails that supposedly empower women, while castrating the men they secretly long to be loved by...it just doesn't seem so funny anymore. Delete!

I choose to speak and believe and expect that men can be great! I choose to hold up the icons of Lancelot, of Charles Ingalls, of William Wallace, of John Walton! I choose to believe that Adam & Eve were created side-by-side; he cherishing & loving her, and her honoring & respecting him. I choose to believe that even after Original Sin and the Fall, that Adam & Eve walked arm-in-arm out of the garden, weeping together, supporting each other, clinging to one another in their agonizing separation from God. I choose to believe that in the wilderness & cold & pain of losing their Abba's presence, that Adam sheltered Eve and held her close, that she rested in his strength; that they discovered pieces of God's loving touch in each others arms.

I know, I know...it doesn't always work out that way. Because the reality is, in this world, men have the power. Statistically, historically, realistically, men create the systems, men rule the systems, and women mold themselves to fit into those systems. Biblically speaking, that power works beautifully for both men and women: "husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church," and "women, give your husbands the honor that they are due." So women are to honor their husbands as they would Jesus: serving, loving, praising, respecting, submitting to the authority of. (I know, as a part of current American culture, you are choking on the word "submit"...but stick with me here!) And men are supposed to love their wives as Christ loved the church: as an absolutely self-less, servant-leader...giving, serving, loving, protecting, even unto horrific suffering and death. I mean, with that kind of system in place, I'm thinking I have the cushy role! I sure don't want to trade jobs with my husband...

So men have the power, but who has the harder spousal job??? When men wield their power as they should, marriage is a beautiful, glorious reflection of God's plan, exemplifying Christ's love and pursuit of us! But, golly, what a calling men have. What a daunting responsibility. And so yes, many men fail to wield their power as they should, and they abuse that power, and they ignore that power, and their wives and children fall by the wayside. Perhaps that is why our culture has so turned on men, with such bitterness and scorn and ferocity. Perhaps it is because in past generations too many men misused and abused their power. Too many wives were left powerless and scarred; too many children were left longing for a tender Daddy. And so women retaliated: Equality! Women's Rights! Balance the Scale! Settle the Score! But we've gone too far. The scale didn't balance, and the score doesn't feel settled, and we'd rather be taken care of than be equal, and its so exhausting to have to be right all the time, and mostly we just want to be loved.

Even as we strive to restore our men to a place of honor & respect, there will be exceptions. There always are. "There's nothing like a mother's love," right? But sometimes a mother drowns her own children, or beats them, or leaves them locked in a basement to die. These are the exceptions, and we don't need to outlaw basements because of them. Well, there are going to be men that we try to respect, that we strive to honor...and they are going to misuse their power, and they are going to be jerks. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We don't need to label all men according to the exceptions. What if, just for one month, we all expected the best of our husbands? What if we looked past their occasional bumbling-idiot moments, and warmly praised their efforts? What if we disciplined our mouths to only speak the positive things about them? What if on that first day we could only think of one positive thing to say...but what if by day thirty we were speaking a page-full of greatness into the lives of our husbands? What if we gradually felt more cared for, and more secure, and more pursued...what if we found that responsible, kind, helpful love right there inside the man we married?

So I can't speak for anyone else's husband. I can't tell you how it will be, or what to do with the men in your life. But I wonder...what might change in America if we stopped castrating our men? And so I'm choosing to do something different. I can speak for the man in my life: he is the kind of man that knows how to wield his power well. He doesn't do it all the time; sometimes he even denies that he has such power. But I've seen Christ's love in him...for me, for our children, for friends. The kind of love that puts us first, that protects, that serves. If I expect it in him, and look for it, and honor him when I feel it...I will become the beautiful beneficiary of the love that I long for. I choose to believe in him. I choose to honor his hard work and efforts. I choose to look past his mistakes. I choose to expect him to love me well, and to receive his love with glad, open, welcoming arms. I choose to knock down this wall of disrespect that American culture and my own baggage have built between us.

And so, my Kevin, can you forgive me? Can you forgive my laughter, my doubts, my expectations of your failure? Can you help me prove to myself that you are the man of my dreams, that you are the man of power and servant-hood and Christ-like love that God created you to be? I know that you are. And what a fool I've been to doubt you. What a fool I've been to try to catch you being some bumbling-idiot from a TV sitcom. I choose to believe it, and speak it, and expect it: you are my Lancelot, my John Walton, my William Wallace, my Charles Ingalls. You are my Kevin; you are my husband, and I love you.