Real Men!!! Rawr!!!

The fact that you can pose with a chainsaw does not mitigate the fact that you are shaving.

 Yesterday my wife and I were video chatting with my parents to congratulate them on their 31st wedding anniversary. The conversation wandered, as conversations will, to gluten, autism spectrum disorders, the emerging links between ASD and autoimmune disorders, and the prevalence of hand sanitizer parents. We agreed that children probably need more dirt and less hand sanitizer in their lives to give their little immune systems more practice. Big, strong, barrel chested immune systems, that's what we need. This led my wife to tell a true story about her great-grandpa. 

One day, while he was working at the saw mill, a fan blade fell off of a scaffold and hit him in the head. It knocked him over and cut his scalp open. So he climbed down to the ground, picked up some dirt and stuck it in the wound to stop the bleeding, and then climbed back up to finish work. After the job was done they drove him four hours to Seattle, where the doctors opened and cleaned the wound and put in a steel plate to replace the missing piece of skull.

Of course both my wife told the story with gusto, pride and appreciation, and my Mom listened to it with the same feelings. How could you not? That is a Real Man! 

I looked at my Dad and said, "You see how they are both in awe of that? Just watch! What would happen if either you or I ever did anything like that?" 

My Dad laughed at the memories (he actually has things like that a time or two and so speaks from experience). "Oh, we would be dead! The fan wouldn't kill you. The wife would when you got home!"

As a case in point, when my dad got his leg caught in a grain auger, which miraculously broke and did not drag him in and chew him into sausage, he did not bother telling Mom because it was just a scratch. He only lost a few square inches of skin and muscle, and a pint or so of blood. Nothing to worry her about. He let my brother and sister know when he got home, expecting them to let Mom know when she got home. It wasn't his fault that they did not pass on the message, and her first clue was the blood soaked socks on the bathroom floor. Oddly enough, that did not go over so well.

It is part of the paradox of manhood, I suppose. I have written about it before, how women always want a "real man." They are attracted to men with strength, courage, determination, and a certain hardiness or indifference to physical hardship and danger. These virtues can take a lot of different forms, from soldiers, firefighters and rescue workers, to youth ministers, farmers, fishermen, mechanics, outdoorsmen, what have you. These virtues can also be found in men who work white collar jobs, although they may not be quite so obvious.
The point is that while these virtues may be attractive, they can also be inconvenient. Nearly every virtue is at some point. My wife doesn't like me to tell her about my Afghanistan days when I was digging up IED's with my field knife. She is all for having fewer IEDs in the world, but she doesn't want me to be the one doing it (I don't either. It was a pointless mission). A firefighter's wife might agree that someone should be putting out fires and rescuing the people trapped in them. She just doesn't want it to be her husband who has to do it.
That's why I love this picture. That is strength. The strength to be crucified. I have to remember that, but not only when endurance of pain, hardship or risk is required. I also have to remember it when the desire for these things comes. You see, if we are honest, I think we men admire stories like that, and sometimes we take the tough guy thing to an extreme because we want to be tough guys, and we want to be known as tough guys. I am not suggesting that Great Grandpa or my Dad was doing that, but I know that a lot of my crazier adventures, if I am honest about them, have not really been strictly speaking necessary. I did them to prove to myself that I could. A more enlightened manhood, I think, simply does what is necessary. If it is easy, he can live with that. If it is hard he can handle that too.

Occasionally he wrestles bears too. Just because it is fun.

Questions and Questions

I was talking with some guys today about Judges 13, the chapter where Samson's parents get the message from the angel that they are going to have a baby. It was interesting that the general consensus among the guys present was that the angel came to the wife first because she was more willing to trust, rather like Hannah, Elizabeth and Mary (although not like Sarah.) One guy even said that God might find it easier to work through women because they don't question as much.

Now to me, perhaps because I am a natural born questioner, that raises the question of what the purpose of the men is, then. Throughout the Church there seems to be this assumption that women are "more spiritual" and somehow more naturally "religious" than men, and that this somehow accounts for, or even excuses, the fact that most of the Catechism teachers, parish staff and pre-daily-Mass Rosary sayers are women. There seems to be a hidden attitude that the spiritual, naturally religious women are going to put up with the coarser, more cynical, more "questioning" men and coax, nag and all but drag them into heaven.

So what is the point of men? If you grant that men are more likely to ask questions and be pigheaded (which I may or may not grant) then what is the purpose of that? It was not intended to be an obstacle, but rather an aid to doing God's will. No trait that exists in any gender, personality type, or individual was designed by God as an unfortunate byproduct, but rather as a glory and a stairway to heaven, if used correctly.

So for myself, it helps if I remember that there are two kinds of questioning that I typically engage in. I question either rhetorically, "What do you think you are doing?" or I question wonderingly, "What are you doing, Lord?" The first is a challenge. I am expecting God to justify Himself to me, explain His actions so that I may judge and approve or disapprove them. The second is a request for education. I want Him to enlighten my mind so that I understand His ways, so that my thoughts become more like His thoughts and my ways more like His ways.

That typically masculine curiosity, and the desire simply to know things for their own sake, to understand ways and means, is not a bad thing. It is a good thing, if the attitude is one of humility, acknowledging that there are limits to what we can understand. If the fundamental attitude is one of trust that God has a reason and that His ways are good, then all the questioning in the world can never harm us or prevent us from doing His will. It can only draw us closer to Him, make us better students, better friends, and better sons (and daughters) of Him who delights to teach. I believe that God will eventually answer all such questions, and I certainly believe He means us to ask them, and to keep asking and asking, so long as we leave room our minds for His answers, not for what we expect His answers to be.

In this sense, that questioning attitude is a means of emptying the mind to make it more capable of holding the Word that made the Universe. Never give up your questions, or the fundamental trust that leads you to ask them in the first place.

Thai Women Part VIII

Part eight in a series of eight posts written back in April of 2012 during and after a trip to Thailand to teach advanced first aid. Parts one, two, three, four, five, six and seven are here.

So let’s take this back to the Thai women who inspired this whole series of reflections. Any Americans who thought they were going to sleep with some hot Thai police ladies simply because they flirted heavily through two weeks of class with them were disappointed (I hope) because they still didn’t have that emotional context. Those girls might have been giggly and girly, and they might have been sending all the signals. Some might even have been head over heels in whatever-you-want-to-call-it (I would be loath to use the word “love” for something that grows over a two week seminar). But regardless of any infatuation, there was something else at work. To put it into context I thought about what it would be like for a group of women in America to get a two week class from a bunch of foreign men (insert nationality of choice here) with great builds, exotic looks, and exciting accents, ready to flirt at the drop of a handkerchief. Don’t tell me there wouldn’t be a flutter of giggling, flirting, gossiping and a few scattered sighs. But I very much doubt the majority of these women would sleep with their foreign instructors, and I’m quite certain they would be the first to condemn any of their colleagues who did.

The women were not simply speaking another language (I am speaking of the language of their actions, not the Thai language.) They were speaking the same language with different meanings. When they shrieked and sighed over our white skin and muscles, they were speaking the same language as the guys when they commented approvingly on the women’s faces and shapes. But with the guys the thought process went something like: “Wow, she’s a hot, exotic looking Thai chick. Let’s have sex.” There requires no mental or emotional gymnastics, no process of consideration, just A à B. It makes sense to us. (Yes, despite my moral and mental and even emotional repugnance to that philosophy, I still speak it fluently. I follow it with no trouble at all.)

With the women the thought process was very different. “Wow, he’s a hot, exotic looking American guy,” yields a whole plethora of possible responses ranging from, “Wow, fluttery feelings!” to “I should get a picture with him and put it on facebook. My girlfriends would totally freak!” to “I bet I could get him to come over here just by batting my eyes.” Mixed in with all of that is the realization that, “Yeah, he’s cute, but I’m going back to my unit in two weeks and he is going back to America.”

Same language (laughing, giggling, flirting, showing off the body just a little) but with a totally different meaning. Some of the guys could at least observe that the meanings were different, and some simply continued to interpret everything based on their own assumptions.

The male model is a lot less work for sure. The female model requires, or at least assumes, that there will be time, and a lot of it. A lifetime in fact, is nearly always the hope, at least subconsciously. Trust is an intrinsic component of it, not just trust in the man that he won’t beat her or leave her, but trust that he will love her, trust in herself that she can love him, and trust in the relationship that it will be worth fighting for. Trust does not happen overnight. It takes time, and once established it isn’t permanent. It may take years of patience really to win a woman’s heart and then it can be lost in one act of betrayal. It has to be actively sought after and maintained for the duration of the relationship. This reality is so foreign to the male thought process that most men, I suspect, never learn it.

I believe it is worth it, though. Those who never learn it will never know what they missed by not learning to listen.

Thai Women, Part VII

Part seven in a series of eight posts written back in April of 2012 during and after a trip to Thailand to teach advanced first aid. Parts one, two, three, four, five and six are here.

I’ve been working on a new theory of the psychology of women. Don’t exit the page, please. Have a good laugh, and then read the rest of the post.

What the adolescent male of any age cannot understand is the need of the feminine mind for context. He understands it in the tactical sense, if he is smart, meaning that he observes the signs and patterns and can come up with strategies to manipulate or bypass those patterns. Essentially he views the particularly feminine part of female sexuality as an obstacle to be overcome, rather than as a complement and balance to his own sexuality.

Context is the word I am using right now to describe the complex psychological and emotional reality that I observe surrounding the behavior of women, sexually. To put it in the simplest terms, in order for a man to get a woman to agree to have sex with him he must create a context in which it makes sense to her, not simply intellectually, but emotionally and even subconsciously. Men don’t really need this. In the male brain, sexually attractive female (whatever he has been conditioned to believe that is) = all the context I need. Women are not naturally like that. This is not to say that they cannot become like that. In fact, a good number of men spend a lot of time and effort ensuring that women do become like that.

I believe this need for context springs from a natural sense of self-worth. To observe it, however, you usually have to go back a long ways, right to the beginning of womanhood, and even before. A little girl instinctively believes in her own worth. All little girls know that they are princesses. No one has to tell them this for them to act like it. It doesn’t matter whether she is a girly-girl or a tomboy, she believes instinctively in her own inherent value. Unfortunately this belief is a fragile thing. It can be affirmed, or it can be exaggerated and blown out of proportion, or it can be destroyed. Usually, however, a good portion of it remains into the teen years in all but the worst cases. With puberty it becomes entangled with overt sexual urges, especially in middle and high-schools in our society in which it is almost impossible for a girl to escape being judged primarily as a sexual object.

This inherent sense of worth, in its most natural state, tells the young woman that she is not an object to be used for someone else’s pleasure. She, of course, has her own urges and desires, but mixed with the purely physical desire (which I have no qualifications to judge) is that intuitive grasp of her own worth and the instinctive fear of being used, or of using someone else. Like it or not, for women self-image and sexuality are inescapably linked. In order for her to want to give herself physically there has to be a surrounding emotional context in which the man’s treatment of her squares with her own view of her own worth.

Now, that is a very important point. It explains how context works, both for the true use, and for those who abuse it by using it as a tactical advantage in a sex-war. A man can bring about this parity between his treatment and her self-image in one of two general ways:

1)    Either by affirming her worth and making her feel secure in the knowledge that he will guard her worth more fiercely and lovingly than she ever could.

2)    Or by degrading and tearing down her sense of her own worth until she feels that she deserves whatever kind of treatment he wants to dish out.

It is important to understand that either of these ways can achieve the end result of getting a woman in bed with you. All the man is doing is putting her self-image and his actions on the same level. It is also important to understand that #1 is not automatically virtuous. A man can lie in order to seem like he loves her and respects her, and then betray her. Or he might actually believe it, and then “fall out of love” with her later on. Either way his honesty is compromised, and the end result is likely to be a terrible blow to her self-esteem, but as regards method he still went by the affirmation route. In fact, I would say that is by far the most effective route, even for a total liar and scoundrel, simply because it bears some superficial, temporary resemblance to the real thing.

Thai Women, Part VI

Part six in a series of eight posts written back in April of 2012 during and after a trip to Thailand to teach advanced first aid. Parts one, two, three, four, and five are here.

There is insight to be had even in the abuse of a good thing. Those with most experience with that abuse should have the most insight, but it never works that way. You have to stand outside the abuse in order to understand it, which is precisely the opposite of virtue. You only really understand virtue from the inside.

But let’s think about that fantasy the “irresistible male” for a bit. What is really at the heart of it? Why is it so specifically a male fantasy? Well, it really is about projection. The man projects his own attitudes towards sex into the woman he is looking at, and then interprets her actions based on his attitude (women do the same thing). I mentioned in an earlier post the amount of work a high school jock has to do to overcome a girl’s natural resistance and get her to sleep with him. The only reason why this is surprising or frustrating to him is because he is assuming his own sexual instincts in a female body. (I am not, of course, trying to perpetuate the myth that women do not have sexual urges, or that they are not as strong as male sexual urges. In fact, the only reason this myth has come about is because we have interpreted “sexual urge” in overwhelmingly male terms.) If she really were a male mind in a female body there would be no problem. They would look at each other across the gym, nervously smile a few times, someone would break the ice, and then they would have sex.

The reality is that this does not happen. This should be all the evidence we need that women are wired differently than men, and yet we go on believing the myth of instant sexual gratification. The teenage jock, whether he is seventeen or seventy makes little difference, simply cannot understand this, because, never having told his genitals to shut up so he could listen, he still believes that women, deep down inside, really do think of sex the way he does. All he has to do is overcome all the guilt and hang-ups society has burdened her with and allow her inner slut to bloom forth and then she will be his for the taking. It may take a bit of effort, but not half as much effort as if he tried things on her terms. No matter how much work you have to put in to overcome a woman’s natural resistance to casual sex, it costs far less than love. Relationship is much more work.

Thai Women: Part V

Part five in a series of eight posts written back in April of 2012 during and after a trip to Thailand to teach advanced first aid. Parts One, Two, Three, and Four are here.

The truth is that women simply don’t operate like that, for the most part. The more of a libertine you are, the more blatantly obvious that truth should be. After all, it should have become obvious in high school. The captain of the football team who has all the local beauties fighting over him might seem to be the irresistible male of legend, but he of all people should know better. He still has to put in the work. He has to argue, cajole, flatter, tease and wear down the girl’s resistance before he can get into her pants. The fantasy on one hand is that sheer masculine perfection is enough to conquer any reasonable woman in a few easy lines, or at most one evening of food and drinks. The observable experience of most men contradicts this, and they all lament the amount of work it takes to get a woman in bed with them, and yet the fantasy is still stronger than reality.

Why?

I think the answer is that it is a cover up for inadequacy and emptiness. The fantasy defines manhood as the ability to conquer a woman with little or no effort. The fact that woman don’t usually play by the same rules is seen as proof that they are weird or uptight about it, but the fantasy is never called into question. No matter how many times it fails it is still believed, partly because it is so all-pervasive and partly because it is so flattering to our egos.

My strongest experience with this comes from Afghanistan. At this point I no longer remember what exactly was going on, but I remember that I was having a bad day. A combination of loneliness, physical exhaustion, lack of sleep and inability to sleep (I don’t recommend the combination), left me feeling empty and worthless more than a few nights. When a phone call home failed for some reason that was always the worst, so I would usually go to the gym to work off the angst. I never really felt like working out at times like that, but it works if you can get into it. At least you sleep better. At any rate, on this particular night I walked into the gym and the first thing that met my eye across the room was a girl working out near the weight benches. She wasn’t bad looking. It’s not easy to make Army PT gear look sexy, but she was doing her best. She was wearing her army PT shirt with the sleeves rolled up inside, which is unauthorized, uncomfortable, and not easy to do, but it drew the front of the shirt tight across her ample chest. The reason I noticed her, however, was because at the exact moment I walked in, she looked up and saw me through the mirror. She made eye contact with a cold, kind of appraising look, pushed out her chest a little more, and started stretching her arms behind her back, all the while looking me dead in the eye. Perhaps I misjudged her at the time, but it seemed to me then that all I had to do was walk across the room and say “Hi”, and she would have had sex with me that night. I might have been quite wrong about that, but that was my automatic read of her.

Part of me was a little intimidated and disgusted, but a good part of me at the time was also intensely attracted. The part that was feeling empty and worthless instantly felt filled and validated by the idea that she had picked me, out of every guy at the gym, to flirt with (which was probably not true, by the way.) I was more disgusted by this attraction than by her action, and I went to another part of the gym to work out. When even there she kept watching and I kept half wanting her to watch, I cut my workout short and left.

The attraction, while a real phenomenon that I really experienced, was not a happy emotion. There was nothing happy in her face, and nothing happy in that magnetic attraction that I felt. It was not wholesome at all, but black, ugly and disgusting. I don’t know for certain, of course, but if I had to make a guess I would guess that her mood at that moment was an exact mirror for mine, and she was looking for the same validation that I was. Again, maybe I read her wrong, but that was my assessment. Perhaps I was projecting my own feelings into her actions. It’s always a danger when dealing with women, to interpret her actions in light of my assumptions. Whatever her story was (I never saw her again) what was suggested in my mind was not any kind of personal connection, and certainly not love or even a desire for love, but simply two empty people using each other to fill the emptiness. As I said, part of me, perhaps the most dominant part emotionally, was intrigued and attracted by that idea. Thank God, logic is almost always stronger in me than emotion. The whole analysis I’ve written down in this post was present in my mind at that moment, in at least a basic form, and I chose what logic dictated and walked out of the gym into the dark. I believe someone, somewhere was praying for me at that exact moment.

I suspect that this is the strongest reason why the fantasy persists. Things always work the way they were designed to work, and in moments of emptiness nothing props up a man’s flagging sense of self like a beautiful woman’s affection. Failing that, simulated affection will work in the short term. That’s just the nature of beast. No matter the reality of sin and mutual dishonesty, it will still make the partners feel validated, even if only for a moment, before that wears away and leaves the emptiness worse than before. It takes years and years of abuse and perversion before there is no longer even a hint of that validation left in the act. By then, we will have forgotten that it was ever there in the first place.

Thai Women Part IV

Part four in a series of eight posts written back in April of 2012 during and after a trip to Thailand to teach advanced first aid.

Part One, Two and Three are here.

There is a fantasy that most SF guys have in which they are the stars of the show. They are confident, burly, suave sex-machines, oozing pure testosterone from every pore, deadly to women. The SF guy walks into a party, or a bar, or a classroom full of female students, and they all instantly want him. All he needs to do is lay down some of the never fail Special Forces charisma and she will be swooning in his arms. Then it’s off to the nearest room with a convenient horizontal surface, for a night he will probably not remember, and she will obviously never forget.

Of course this fantasy is not explicit (most of the time). I make it that way by describing it, but the reality is less a fantasy in the technical sense, than a general attitude. It shapes the way we treat women (I say “we” on purpose, because I acknowledge I am not immune from this fantasy). You see it in the tone of voice, the casually demeaning attitude, the mocking insults that are supposed to be accepted as backhanded compliments, simply because such a man deigned to notice her. Most of all it is evident in the dismissive “You’re no fun,” throwing off any girl who doesn’t follow the program. It is all in the attitude, which we call “Confidence,” or an “Alpha Male personality,” which is supposed to be irresistible to women. I have been examining this attitude, both in my peers and in myself and I have discovered two things about it. First, it has no basis in reality. Second, it comes from emptiness.

When I say that it has no basis in reality, I mean that it is a false view of women. That is not how real women behave. The fantasy of “irresistibility” is very powerful to both sexes, if I may be allowed to extrapolate from the covers of Cosmopolitan Magazine and other women’s magazines in supermarket checkouts. Both men and women are somewhat attracted to the idea of becoming “irresistible” to the opposite sex, but the fantasy of an “irresistible” man specifically is powerful to both sexes, I would say; more so than the irresistible woman, it seems. I don’t know many men who would really be interested in a woman who was truly irresistible. Most men would consider it incredibly damaging to their sense of manhood to be swept of their feet, while I know hardly any women who don’t desire to be swept away on some level. The irresistible man, therefore, is a powerful concept to both sexes. Men want to be him. Women want to be swept off their feet by him (if women’s novels and chick flicks are any indication.) But the fantasy has no basis in reality. Probably less than one man in a thousand has actually had the experience of walking into a room and automatically turning the heads of every woman in the place, and then having his pick of them sexually. Turn heads? Yes. Definitely possible. Sleep with them? Sorry, I just don’t buy it. That’s not how the vast majority of real women operate. Usually it is going to take at least some effort to win her favor, regardless of what the nature of that favor may be.

Yet the fantasy persists, and we men act as if we had that experience of magic sexual influence every day of our lives for years. We have never experienced it, yet we act as if we did. Hmm… Curious. And yet there is something familiar about the fantasy…

Of course! James Bond. Captain Kirk. Brad Pitt. That’s how women behave around them. They surrender to them with almost boring (yet Oh so enticing) predictability, especially Kirk. He only had forty-five minutes to get the babe, and he usually had her about half way through the episode. Then of course there are the pornos. That’s exactly how the girl in pornography behaves. She takes one look at the studly male character and that is all it takes. She instantly exists for no other purpose than to make all his dreams come true.

I have no research to back this up, but I’m willing to posit a direct causal relationship between media portrayals of female sexuality and the warped view of it that most men take for granted. We stick a male mind inside a female body, and call the result the norm. Any woman who doesn’t match up to that norm? Well, we have plenty of sneering names for her.

Thai Women: Part III

Part  in a series of eight posts written back in April of 2012 during and after a trip to Thailand to teach advanced first aid. Parts one and two.

 

The conflict between the ethical reality of the instructor/student relationship and the tension of a mixed group of healthy young people is more than half imagined, I think. The women never had any illusions about their relationship to us, regardless of the amount of flirting they did. I did a lot of people-watching over the time I was there and I think that the American men were often laboring under a false impression of these women, and a falsely exaggerated sense of their own charm. The last night the students threw a party for us, and when we were going out to buy the beer two of the guys were talking about the female students in the van. One of them said, speaking about two of the girls, “I’m going to get both of those chicks naked tonight.”

The other guy said, “Oh I can pretty much guarantee that won’t happen.”

“No?”

“Not going to happen. I guarantee it.”

In which he confirmed a theory of mine that I had been formulating (which I will explain in later posts). I don’t know whether he understood it the same way I did, but he came to the same conclusion, namely that no matter how much the girls giggled and batted their eyes and flirted and played coy, they had no intention of going any further than that. To think that they would was a serious error on the part of the American, an error to which all men, but sometimes it seems especially American men, are prone. We simply don’t listen.

Thai Women, Part II

Part two in a series of eight posts written back in April of 2012 during and after a trip to Thailand to teach advanced first aid. Part one is here.

There is a conflict of interests which is all but inevitable when you have a group of mid-to-late-twenties men teaching a class of pretty women, mostly in the same age category as their instructors. This is especially true if the men are all athletic, outgoing, stuffed to the gills with confidence bordering on arrogance (and usually ending up on the wrong side of the border) and very used to getting their own way. The Thai women, for their part, made no secret of the fact that they thought we were all handsome (there is a lot to be said for being a foreigner, in that regard. The man who would be just a face in a crowd in Tacoma is something exotic and mysterious in Thailand.) We are all larger and stronger than most Thai men, and our skin is white (for the Caucasians, at any rate). White skin is culturally prized in Thailand (and in a lot of other Asian cultures) in the same way that a smooth, perfect beach tan is prized in American culture.

The interactions between instructors and students were nearly always colored by this tension, even in my group to some extent. There was much veiled, and some not so veiled, flirting going on. The younger girls were the worst about it. They didn’t even bother to hide the fact that they were taking pictures of use, and trying to finagle pictures of themselves with us. Who knows how many Facebook albums we are stuck in now? (True story, one of my students posted a picture of herself moulaged up as the patient on Facebook, and that night one of her friends commented on it to ask if she was going to be alright. I guess I did a good job with the moulage.)

I wonder, though, whether these women knew how much and in what way their American instructors would speak about them behind their backs. Every detail of their persons was up for discussion, from relationship status, to personal hygiene, to what they would be like in bed. The girl who didn’t shave her legs was an especially frequent topic. None of this discussion was serious, it was all in a casual, flippant tone. Did anyone plan on sleeping with their students? No. Definitely not. But then again, you never know. Why would a team composed entirely of married men, or men in committed relationships (except for me, the only single man in the group) make such a point of bringing a tray of over 300 condoms to Thailand with us? Do we expect to cheat on our wives or girlfriends? No, certainly not, and that tray of condoms came back unopened. But just in case…

For their part, I know the women talked about us pretty freely. Taking refuge in the fact that none of us speak Thai they would discuss us to their hearts content right in front of us. (I may not speak Thai, but I read people pretty well and I got a pretty good idea of what they thought of us.) Sometimes the Americans would return the favor by speaking about them in English in front of them, forgetting that 1) most of the Thais speak at least a little broken English and 2) it only takes one word to clue listeners in. The word “Titties” for instance, even if it is the only word you understand in the sentence, can really color your impression of the persons speaking.

Thai Women

Part one in a series of eight posts written back in April of 2012 during and after a trip to Thailand to teach advanced first aid.

 So here I am, in Thailand, teaching first aid to Thai police officers. Probably the second most awesome assignment I have had in the military.

This last group of students that came through was about one third female. While a few of these women were older, (forties and up) most were in their early to mid-twenties and pretty. They ranged from girl-next-door look, to exotic willowy beauty, to sweetheart smiles and attitudes, all with Thai forms and faces. I must say, in general, Thai women are very good looking. There is the normal variation in shape and face that you would expect in any society, but in general they are a pretty pleasant looking bunch. Either that or I am easy to please. The other Americans tend to be a lot more critical than I am about looks. They notice things that I don’t, certainly. “That one’s eyes are too far apart” or “Her mouth is too wide” or “She doesn’t shave her legs.” It’s a curious spectrum. On one end there is the kind of guy who criticizes all of them and would sleep with any of them.  On the other end is me, who thinks they are all beautiful and wouldn’t sleep with any of them.

At any rate, the class had a very large population of young and attractive females. The four older ones sat in the first two rows, and all the rest sat further back in the classroom. For some reason when this class was divided up into groups, I got the first row and a half with the four older ladies, and the other two instructors got the rest. My interpreter noticed this change in format as well and pointed it out to me, to which I just shrugged. I’m here to teach, not find a girlfriend. Who knows if they even saw that when the class was broken into groups? It’s not like the other instructors assigned seats, they just divided up the class into blocks. Perhaps they saw it at the time, or perhaps they only saw it later. If they assumed I wouldn’t care they were quite correct. If they assumed I wouldn’t notice, though, they don’t know me.

This led to at least one hilarious day in class though. We had broken down into small groups for practice, and we were going to be like that all day. One of the primary instructors wasn’t able to be there that day, so my assistant took over his group for the day. Then the regular instructor’s assistant pitched in. Then the assistant from the other instructor went over to help. One of the women in my group said something in Thai that made all the other women laugh. When I asked my interpreter what she said he answered, “They say, ‘All the Americans go to that group because the girls are young and pretty. They not want to come here because we too old.” I laughed about it and went back to training, but not ten minutes later in walks our boss, A. You have to understand one thing about A. All the Asian women (and more than a few Asian men) think he is just gorgeous. It’s partly because he always dresses and speaks neatly and respectfully, and partly because he is a little over six feet tall, with an athletic build and long blond hair (always in a boy-scout part over his left temple). He has been likened to Tom Cruise, only not in midget size. He has also been likened to Captain America. He was even asked by two random teenage schoolgirls to pose with them for a photograph outside a Buddhist Temple in Bangkok. (I think they were actually asking all three of the Americans there, but I managed to skate smoothly out of that awkward situation and totally left him to the wolves.) So as he walked past my group all the ladies caught their breath and watched him with adoring eyes, but he did not even glance their way. He kept right on walking up the steps to the next group. All my female students let out a collective yell of mock anguish.

The best part was that A had not a single clue that any of this was going on. Being the consummate professional that he is, he had no intention of singling any group out or offending anyone, and had no idea of the conversation that had occurred prior to his entrance. He just knew that one of the groups was without its primary instructor so he walked directly over to it to see how they were doing, and in so doing, broke four hearts in one fell swoop.

Reply

Two weeks ago I wrote a blog about male/female relationships in our modern culture. I posted it here and on Ignitumtoday.com, and it generated more than a little controversy on IT. One of the most widespread criticisms was on my view of vocations, so I would like to quote the clearest and most cogent question I received about it, and answer it here.

I am a bit confused when you say “A true GCM will not belong entirely to his wife, he will have another life outside, this will be his life’s work.” If you mean that a man or woman should have as his or her primary vocation, loving God above all things (even his or her spouse) with his or her whole heart, mind, body, and soul…then okay I wholeheartedly agree. But how I understand your statement is that you think in the case of a man he will have other priorities that come before his role as a husband and father that will have a greater claim on his attention, and which he will not share with his little wife at home…this is where I do not agree. ..... If a man or woman is living the vocation of spouse & parent, then I think that vocation would be the primary focus, and would require the greatest claim on their time, and attention. This would of course necessitate them being a true man or woman in their own right. Which would be living fully as God created them to be, however in living as husband and wife, they would look to share everything they could to compliment the other, not seek to keep separate from their family qualities and gifts they are given.


Sorry it took so long to reply, I had to give it some thought and I have been busy. First of all you have to understand that that remark is colored by my experience in the military. I have seen too many women marry military men because they were attracted to their courage and dedication. Then within a few years they came to hate the military for the amount of time and energy it demanded from their men. Or worse, they came to hate their husbands for those very same qualities that they originally were attracted to. This goes back to Genesis when God said to the woman, "Your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you." When women fall in love they do so with a completeness that is beautiful but frightening. There is (it seems to me) always a temptation for her to want her man to belong to her as totally as she belongs to him, but that cannot always be. Some men work at their jobs for only one purpose, to support their wife and family. Other men, in my view the happiest and most fulfilled men, work at their jobs because they love them, or because they feel called to that particular mission. That mission will necessarily take time that a woman might want him to spend with her. In the case of some dangerous mission, like military, police, firefighters, deep sea fishers, miners, lumberjacks, farmers, etc. there is the added pressure of the knowledge that this job (this passion if it is a passion) could take her man away from her forever.

In such cases there is always a temptation to want the man to take the easy way out, let go of that mission, and just get a job as a plumber or a mailman, something that will get him home, unshot, at regular hours. A woman who enters into a relationship with a man on a mission, especially a dangerous one, is fooling herself if she does not take that into account.

However you should not take from that statement the notion that this mission is more important than his wife and children. It  is not. If a man gets married that becomes his number one responsibility, period. My point was that it will not be his only responsibility, and ultimately the choice of how to balance the various responsibilities in his life is his (just like the woman's choice of priorities, ultimately, is hers and no other's.)

Somehow or other she will have to deal with the fact that he has other priorities, which are not more important than her, but are not unimportant either. When I say she must "deal with it" I don't want you to think that I mean she must just get used to it and learn to go on living when her man isn't around. I mean that literally she must deal with it. It is a factor that she must take into account and find a way of working with. Some women I have met do this by cutting their men down in public, doscouraging them from their jobs, breaking down their self-esteem, all in an effort to bring them to heel where they will be safe. Wiser women simply accept that this is something their man needs and let him do what he needs to do, knowing that when he is done he will come back to her, because he needs her even more deeply. However there is another way still. It is rare, dangerous and very, very difficult, but it is beautiful and noble. She might embrace his mission, make it her own, and make his sacrifice her sacrifice (which includes many sacrifices he will never be able to make.) However, since I have already written about that, I will not make this reply any longer. You can read about my view of that way here.

Little Mother, Part II

This is Part 2 of a short story I wrote. You can read the first part here.

They slept in the cave of meeting at first until the young men of the tribe chased them out. She found a small cave further down the cliff, a little distance from the village, and set up her house there. Mother-of-the-idiot grew thin and Knows-nothing grew thin. She made her own garden and worked it with her own hands. At first her son would dig up the seeds as she planted them and ruin all her work, but over time she taught him to help instead of hinder. She suffered hunger and thirst, and for a time no one in the village would speak to her.

One morning she found the leg of a deer at the mouth of her cave. She could not imagine who had left it, but she was so hungry she didn’t wonder. She roasted it and she and her son ate it.

Winter came and they were cold and hungry. She foraged for roots, learned to trap squirrels and rabbits, and gnawed on bark when the stomach pains became too much. Knows-nothing became harder to manage as he became hungry, so even when she could find food she had to give most of it to him. But every so often throughout that winter she would find the leg of a deer lying at the mouth of the cave in the morning. Whoever left it was a clever hunter and woodsman because he left no tracks, no sign, and never woke her up though her sleep was always light and fitful because of the cold. She sometimes dreamed that Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow was still trying to provide for her in this way.

Spring came and she finally returned to the village for the first time since the winter had started. Most of the tribe were surprised to see her and Knows-nothing alive. She learned that much had changed in the winter. Looks-at-flowers had died, and Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow had married a new wife. All the girls her age were either married or promised to be married. The elder’s son was also married. He had been given the man name Shoots-three-legged-deer.

Time passed. Mother-of-the-idiot worked hard and harvested well. She learned to spin thread and weave cloth and began to trade blankets and clothes for food. The next winter she did not starve or freeze. And still, every few weeks, she found the leg of a deer at the mouth of her cave.

Many years passed. In time, Knows-nothing died. Mother-of-the-idiot found him one morning, lying in his bed with a smile on his beautiful face, squinting with pleasure like a child staring at the sun. His mother buried him alone and stared at the emptiness around her. She was too old now to be married. She had never been beautiful, but now she was so burned and worn and twisted by the years of hard work that she was downright ugly. She was also the village crazy woman, now. No one bothered her, but they all thought her an idiotic eccentric. She had a few fertile years left, but no man would want her. She would never have children of her own, so she began making clothes for the other children. She spoke with the midwife and learned which women were with child and made blankets for them and for their new infants. The midwife was now so old she could hardly walk from her hut to the caves so she took Mother-of-the-idiot as her apprentice. And now, every few weeks, the leg of the deer would turn up at the door of the midwife’s drafty bark hut.

In time Mother-of-the-idiot lost her name. She became known simply as The Midwife. She came when she was wanted, and left as soon as she was no longer needed. She grew old and gray and bent and frail. Her father died, his wives died, some of her siblings died. She had not been allowed to meet her nephews or nieces, but they allowed her to deliver their children. But still, every so often, the leg of a deer would be left on her doorstep.

Then one morning she died.

“Little daughter,” a Voice called to her.

She murmured, and left her eyes closed in the delicious warmth that surrounded her.

“Little daughter,” the Voice repeated. She could hear the Voice in her soul, almost as she could hear her mother’s voice when she was little, not simply with her ears but feeling the words vibrating through her mother’s chest into her little girl’s heart.

“Little daughter, arise. Wake up.” The Voice caressed her with terrifying strength and heartbreaking gentleness. She opened her eyes.

Instantly she wished she could shut them again, but was unable to. She had seen Him. He was too beautiful, too terrifying, too holy. He was completely strange to her, but at the same time there was something familiar about him. She felt as if He was killing her just by being who He was, but she no longer wanted to live.

“Welcome, my beloved daughter. Welcome. Welcome. I have been waiting for you for so long.”

Mother-of-the-idiot could not find a word to say in reply. The Voice continued. “You cared for me for so long and so well. I have been waiting all this time for you to be ready so that I could thank you for everything you did for me.”

Finally she cleared her throat and found her voice. “But Sir,” she said, humbly. “You must be mistaken. I do not know you. I have never served you. I am only a poor, wasted, dried out old woman. I have seen you and now I can die happy. But I swear I never saw you before now.”

“No?” the Voice answered with a gentle laugh. “Little Mother, don’t you recognize your own son?” And as she looked into the glory that was Him she saw another person. It was her son, Knows-nothing, smiling at her with his beautiful wise eyes. Knows-nothing was embracing Him, holding onto Him so tightly that she could not tell where one ended and the other began.

“Little Mother,” the Voice said, “My Mother, thank-you.”

Little Mother

This is half of a short story that I wrote today. Stay tuned for part II tomorrow.

When she was born she was a strong and healthy infant. So strong and healthy, in fact, that her father didn’t even mind that his first offspring was a girl. He looked the wrinkly red infant over, listened to her crying lustily and smiled tolerantly. The midwife pointed to the red birth mark on her neck and said, “She is marked by the gods. This is great good luck.” Her father said, “We will call her Little-Mother-who-brings-good-luck.” He gave the infant back to the midwife and patted his wife on the head. “She is large and vigorous. You will do better next time. Next time it will be a son,” he told her. Then he picked up his bow and quiver of white-fletched arrows and left to go hunting.

Her father was Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow, the greatest hunter in the tribe. He had the strongest arms, he bent the heaviest bow, and he always brought back the biggest deer. His wife was Looks-at-flowers, the most beautiful woman in the tribe. Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow had fought all the other men and beaten them, and claimed Looks-at-flowers as his own. Even now, no one dared mock him, despite the fact that his first child was only a girl.

And sure enough, Little-Mother-who-brings-good-luck brought good luck. Before she was five years old she had three little brothers, all strong, healthy boys. Looks-at-flowers was no longer the most beautiful woman in the village, but she was Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow’s favorite wife. Little-Mother-who-brings-good-luck was a very happy child. She remained healthy although she did not long stay as fat as she was when she was born. She learned to take care of her little brothers, and she learned to take care of the dolls her mother made for her out of bundles of grass and cloth. Sometimes she played with the other girls in the tribe. They would carry their grass dolls around on their backs, just like their mothers did with their younger siblings, and play at planting gardens or cleaning the cave.

Sometimes the other girls would lose their grass dolls, or break them through carelessness. When they did they would simply take the strings that held them together and find more grass to make new dolls with. Little-Mother-who-brings-good-luck would cry. Once she picked up the broken, worn out grass and took it back to the cave to Looks-at-Flowers. Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow thought this was incredibly funny and laughed at her. “It was just a doll, and now it is a bundle of grass. There is much grass out on the plains, one less bundle will make no difference. And you spend too much time playing with dolls. You are old enough to work.” He laughed his deep, manly laugh, and her brothers laughed their high-pitched, boyish laughs. Little-Mother-who-brings-good-luck did not burn the bundle of grass. Instead she had a funeral for it, and raised a little stone mound over it as the elders had done for grandma.

Her father did not forget this incident. When she was five years old, Little-Mother-who-brings-good-luck lost her baby name and received her child name. The name she was given was Little-Mother-of-broken-things.

When she was ten years old, Little-Mother-of-broken-things was not such a good luck charm anymore. Looks-at-flowers had lost three infants in childbirth, and was now the least favorite wife of Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow. Looks-at-flowers hardly spoke to anyone, and was no longer allowed her turn to share her husband’s bed. She was the cook, cleaner and mender for the whole family. From sunrise to sunset she worked in silence. Only Little-Mother-of-broken-things helped her. Every day they worked together in the fields, but even to her daughter, Looks-at-Flowers would not speak. Little-Mother-of-broken-things had no time to play with dolls anymore. She could only kiss them in the morning, and then again in the evening before she fell asleep.  In this way she turned thirteen and became a woman, but because no one spoke to her, no one knew or cared.

There was a little boy in the tribe who was an idiot. His father had been very pleased when he saw him as an infant, for it was a large baby with a beautiful face that smiled and squinted at everyone around him. He had been named, Beautiful-child-with-sun-on-his-face. But by the time he was three years old it became clear that he was an idiot. He did not speak properly, he could not understand anyone, and he was always knocking things over. He would burst into a terrible rage for no reason, screaming and crying with all his might and trying to hit anyone who came near him. When he became five years old his father named him Knows-nothing.

One day, when Little-Mother-of-broken-things was thirteen there was a council of elders. They came together around a fire in the center of the meeting cave to discuss what must be done with Knows-nothing. The boy was now seven years old and had become too much for his parents to handle. No matter how much his father beat him or threatened him he still could not learn anything and was only becoming more and more disruptive. That day he had fallen into the fire and burned himself, and then later had pushed his young sister into the fire and she was burned as well. His father had long since wanted to take the boy out onto the plains and leave him there for the gods to deal with, but his mother wouldn’t allow it. Now even his mother no longer wanted to keep him. She sat in the shadows with her burned baby daughter, crying, and refused to answer when the elders put the question to her. So her husband answered for her, “Let the boy be given to the gods for them to work their will. Let them destroy the evil spirits in him.”

The elders nodded gravely. “Is there anyone in the tribe who wishes otherwise?” they asked.

There was silence. Only the crackling of the fire and the happy, incoherent babbling of Knows-nothing from the corner where he sat. No one spoke. No one looked at anyone else. They all knew that sometimes the evil spirits took over a child and then there was nothing to do but leave him to the gods.

“I will take him.”

There was a start in the whole crowd as everyone looked around for the still, small voice that had spoken.

“Speak again,” the oldest of the elder’s commanded.

Little-Mother-of-broken-things stood forward, trembling in the shadow of so many eyes. “I will take care of him. I promise that he will not trouble anyone again.”

Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow stood forward and seized her by the hair to drag her away but the oldest of the elders raised his hand and told him to be still. “Child, your name suits you well. Wise was the man who named you for truly he saw into your heart. But it is against our laws for a child to adopt another child. You have not been given your woman name yet, and so you cannot adopt this boy.”

“But I am a woman, sir.” Little-Mother-of-broken things spoke timidly but clearly. “I had my flow of blood three moons ago.”

The midwife looked at Looks-at-flowers. “Is this true?”

Looks-at-flowers did not respond. She glanced like a trapped animal from her daughter’s imploring face to her husband’s glowering one. She nodded and looked away.

Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow roared with anger. “Why did you not tell me about this, woman? My own daughter becomes a woman and I must find this out in front of the entire tribe?”

The oldest of the elders again raised his hand for silence. “If this is true, then you must be given a woman name. Then, by the laws of the tribe you may adopt this boy if you wish. Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow, if you do not think that it is true, then you may postpone the decision for one moon. You must personally verify that she has not had her flow of blood. If she is lying then you may punish her as you wish. If she is not then you must give her a woman name.”

Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow was livid with rage. He had not let go of his daughter’s hair and tears of pain ran down her face as he gripped harder and harder and his hand shook in his anger. “Do you expect me to deal with women’s filthiness? Let her have a woman name for all I care, but this idiot boy shall never come into my cave. She will not adopt him.”

The midwife stood, slowly, stiff with age, leaning on her staff and stared at the two with her filmy eyes. “You, child. I remember you. You were marked by the gods when you were born. Beware how you thwart her, Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow. You may be a great warrior, but even you cannot resist the gods.”

The oldest of the elders spoke his final decision. “This is the way of our tribe. She has become a woman and so must be given her woman name. Since she is a woman and no longer a child she may now marry, and she may now adopt.”

“I will not have that idiot in my cave,” her father shouted. “I tell you I will wring his fat neck with my own hands, as you should have done from the start!” He pointed to Knows-nothing’s father.

“How was I to know the boy would be taken by evil spirits?” the other man leapt to his feet in anger.

“It was your diseased seed that spawned him. It is your fault. He is nothing but a burden to our tribe.”

The son of one of the elders blew a loud, shrill blast on his whistle. The oldest of the elders stood. “Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow, I said that she may adopt by our laws. I did not say that you must adopt the boy. She is now a woman. You no longer have any responsibility for her. She may marry or adopt as she pleases, but she may live in your cave only as you please.”

It took a few minutes for this to sink in. When Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow finally understood he released his daughter’s hair and let her fall to the ground. “If she chooses to adopt this rat she will never enter my cave again. As for her name, let her be called Mother-of-the-idiot.”

The midwife hobbled over to where Mother-of-the-idiot lay sobbing in the dirt. “Do you hear your father’s decision? What do you choose?”

Mother-of-the-idiot lay silent and shaking for several long, long heartbeats. Even Knows-nothing had fallen silent, frightened and confused by the yelling around him. All eyes watched, silent, impassive, unsupporting. Mother-of-the-idiot slowly raised her face out of the ash and dust of the council circle and looked around. She was alone.

“I will adopt him,” she said to the crowd of men and women and children, staring silently at her.

“Then you will not live in my cave.” Her father shoved her head back down as he turned and walked away. She did not fall, this time, but stayed half sitting, half-lying in the dirt, watching as her father collected his wives and other children and dragged them out into the darkness.

“It is very difficult for a woman to live alone, Mother-of-the-idiot,” one of the elders said. “Our midwife does it because she has a trade. All the men in the village provide for her in return for her service in bringing sons into the world. Without a husband or a trade you will not survive for long.”

The oldest of the elders raised his voice. “Who will marry this woman?”

There was no answer. Some of the families drew their sons back out of sight as if afraid she might suddenly seize them. The elder asked again, “Is there any man in this village who wishes this woman as his wife? She is unmarried and free to any who wish.”

Still there was no answer, but only subdued muttering. The midwife laughed a cackling laugh. “They will not marry her so long as she has adopted that idiot boy. No man wants such a son.”

The elder spoke to Mother-of-the-idiot. “There is still time to change your mind. We will not consider the adoption final until this council fire has grown cold. After that you will be responsible for the boy until he reaches manhood and kills his first deer. But until then you may change your mind and either return to your father or we will find you a husband. This council is closed.” He slowly walked away, leaning on his staff. The other elders followed him. The rest of the tribe drifted away to their own caves. Last to go was the elder’s son, the one who had blown the whistle, and then only Mother-of-the-idiot, Knows-nothing and the midwife were left.

“I have lived alone these many winters, little one.” The midwife spoke softly, as if to herself. “I have had no husband since I left my father’s cave. I brought your father and your mother into the world. I brought you into the world. I brought this boy into the world. I can tell you only about hunger, hard work and loneliness. May the gods watch over you. I certainly cannot.” And she hobbled away.

Mother-of-the-idiot was left alone with her son.

To be Continued...

When NCB meets NCG

In the last few months since I subscribed to Auntie Seraphic,* I have repeatedly seen the acronyms "NCB" and "NCG" plastered all over the single young adult Catholic blogosphere. I was mystified at first until slowly,  by examining the context and by repetition, I learned that they stand for "Nice Catholic Boy" and "Nice Catholic Girl" respectively. Once I learned this, it all became so clear, and a whole new social dimension was opened to my wondering eyes. Apparently, all around the Internet there are millions of NCG's who want to marry an NCB. Alas, NCB's are in short supply, or are just not that into you, so the NCG's pine in vain.

Oddly enough the real world is sort of like the Internet in that respect. In the real world you meet a significant number of NCG's, at Mass usually, or at Bible study, or perhaps (like me) you are related to all the best ones. If you pay attention you usually figure out that, sure enough, just like the Internet said, most of them would be quite happy to meet an NCG, settle down and get married. Or perhaps just get married, as they tend to be already a pretty settled down bunch on the whole.

The trouble is, however, that if you look around the venues in which one is likely to meet an NCG, you are likely to find that there is a decided shortage of NCB's. In other words, the girls outnumber the boys. The NCB's on their part, generally fall into three categories:
1) The Seminarians. Definitely the smallest category, and correlatively the most awesome.
2) The Taken Guys. These are either married (almost as rare as the seminarians. They tend to get whisked off to other realms.) Or the guys with girlfriends.
3) The unattached. These are the guys who are the enigma of the group. They seem to be NCB's. At least they are showing up to Mass or Bible study, or that Catholic group (or maybe they are only showing up to Mass and leaving immediately afterwards. But that's something isn't it?) They aren't running around with loose women or doing drugs. They seem to enjoy themselves when someone (and by someone I mean the girls) organizes some party or get-together. But they don't do  anything! There are all those NCG's just waiting for some guy to make a move so we can get on with the whole courtship/dating, engagement, marriage thing. And these guys aren't doing anything. Great guys, but what on earth can be keeping them?

It is a just question, but unfortunately one that can hardly be answered in the context in which it is asked. There is the easy answer, of course. Men just aren't as anxious as women usually are to get married and start a family, but in other ages this didn't seem to be much of an obstacle. If the only way a young man is going to have sex is to marry, this becomes a powerful incentive towards marriage. But in our present age we have the phenomenon of a whole generation of men who are (apparently) living the Church's teaching in this regard, but without the incentive to seek out a Catholic woman to marry. Why?

The answers are certainly many and varied. The preference for interacting on the Internet rather than in real life is one factor. (One can accomplish a great many things on the Internet. Procreation is not one of those things.) A general lack of maturity is certainly another (video games: all the fun of adventure, none of the risk). The amount of time, energy and money it takes to get a career started in our society accounts for some of the more motivated ones. Some have invested themselves in other work, or in hobbies, or (oh Horrors!) ministries! When your life is full of deeply rewarding work that eats up 90 hours of every week, while paying for only about 30 of those hours, it's not surprising that there might be no room for a relationship.

I humbly suggest, however, that the answer really comes down to a question of wisdom. I define wisdom very simply as the virtue of knowing and choosing the most valuable. This hobby is all very well and good. This job certainly sucks up much of my time and energy, but how valuable is it, really? What is its value in the transcendent realm? Will it make me holy and happy? Will it help anyone else become holy and happy? If not, then why should I waste any more of myself on it? When I am fifty, which will be more important to me? The ladder's I have climbed at work, or the relationships I have built?

Yes, the Church is full of NCB's. Not so full as she might be, unfortunately, but they are there. And yes, they are nice, and they are Catholic, but they are boys. What the NCG's are waiting for is for these NCB's to stand up and turn into GCM's. (That's Good Catholic Men. You see what I did there?)

But then, I humbly submit, we might just find the shoe on the other foot. Suddenly we might find that the NCG's had gotten more than they bargained for. I wonder sometimes, have you ever stopped to think what a GCM would really look like? I can tell you, he won't be a thing like your girlfriends, and that has nothing to do with whether or not he enjoys shopping. He will be a man. Male. Masculine. Other than you. The pursuit of holiness does not make men and women more similar. It certainly makes them more understanding, but in my experience it makes them unmistakeably more different. A holy man is more manly than a secular one. A holy woman is more feminine than a secular one. Have you ever really considered what a life completely dedicated to God would look like in the lay world? Have you ever pictured the intensity, the single-mindedness with which a man (as opposed to a boy) pursues that which he has chosen? A true GCM is never going to belong entirely to his wife. He will have another life outside. He will have a vocation that is not you, and it will be his life's work. That is a reality that you will have to deal with, on top of the other realities that go along with any man/woman relationship.

On top of that, you have the fact that any GCM is a person, an individual, unlike any other. He alone is the only one of him in all of history. His strengths and weaknesses, virtues and vices, are his alone. His preferences are his alone. The fact that he is striving to be a true man of God does not guarantee that he won't leave the toilet seat up. It does not mean that he won't find fart jokes hilarious. Some interpersonal drama that upsets your entire day may seem comically petty to him.

The problem with a GCM (as with any Man) is that he is another creature. He is unpredictable, untameable, himself. Not you. (This is something that men already know about women. We are more than prepared to shrug our shoulders and say, "She's in one of her moods," or "Women! Guess you never really understand them." We don't need to be encouraged not to worry our heads about it.)

So our NCG, upon finding that her long awaited NCB has up and decided to become a GCM, finds herself faced with the necessity of herself becoming a GCW. (Yes. That just happened. You're welcome.) Maturity calls for maturity, strength for strength, passion for passion, humor for humor, goofiness for goofiness. Imitate what you would admire. You will not regret it, whether or not that GCM ever does show up.



*I don't want anyone to think I am making fun of Auntie Seraphic. I'm not even making fun of her commenter's (which is a lot easier to do.) If you have never read any of her blogs, you should check her out. She is a wise, warm, witty and loving writer with a pen of steel and a heart of gold.