The other
day Calvin posted this tweet: "I swear to god if Mike Pence tries to
regulate my uterus I will mail him a monthly bag of period blood." Wow!
OK, breathe. Yes of course in its very nature it is meant to be provocative and
shocking. For that end it works. But from a spiritual perspective is it really
accomplishing the higher loftier goal that this poor pained woman is trying to
achieve? I personally am not so sure. As grieved as I am by the "bad"
behavior that this election season has brought forth and the true pain that
many are feeling, I cannot help but come back to the same idea. Is the modality
for channeling the pain, frustration and outrage the most productive one in
achieving the very goal for which one is fighting?
All
people experience fear. It may come in different colors, varying degrees and shades.
We all face the age old existential dilemma and the very real concrete fear of
death. As for this particular blog post, and in regards to the election, people
are fearful on both sides, and rightly so, for good reason. We should fear
returning to outdated modes of thinking that degrade and suppress a woman's power.
We should be wary that if we let in hundreds of thousands of immigrants from
societies that do not value the same values we do – e.g., women's rights, or
freedom of speech – that there will be real repercussions.
Fear can
be a productive catalyst to stand up for what one deems to be right and good.
It can propel us to action to stand up for our deepest convictions and be an
agent for change. I have friends in Paris who just weeks before the terrorist
attacks were at the very restaurant that was hit. These same friends were planning
a dinner out that evening and discussed this same restaurant with other friends
of theirs (and mine) as a possible choice. Thankfully and perhaps a bit
selfishly for me, they chose to eat elsewhere and remained in lockdown behind the
closed bars until the wee hours of the morning. They were looking at social
media on their phones, monitoring human butchering outside their door steps,
for fear of leaving too hastily before the last acts were yet to be done.
I have
another set of friends from Paris. They are a gay couple. A few years ago they
bought a house in the Northern suburbs of Paris. They fixed up this house with
their own hands, making it uniquely their own and turning the house into a
home. Several years later this same gay couple told me they were moving. The
neighborhood had become populated with people that did not value their secular
French values of fraternity, liberty, and égalité. They were afraid for their lives,
literally, and chose to move.
I come to
see more and more, we are all fighting for the same values. We just prioritize what
that means and how it plays out. Things like election season force us to choose
between " the lesser of two evils" and so we reach down into the
bellies of our core and find what speaks to us the most? How has my walk on
this earth led me to the place I am now, why, and what does it all mean?
It just
so happens that all of these same friends above would not favor shutting out
immigrants, for fear of their own safety. Which is brave and noble indeed. As
one friend above put it: "This is about civil rights, rule of law".
This recent
Facebook post of this feminist’s tweet, and Calvin's reaction, stirred a
discussion among men of varying views and opinions on the subject. Some were
fighting for the life of the unborn child, others leaving the choice solely to
the woman. The rhetoric from those who wanted this to be only a woman's choice
said: “Stay out, this is not our place to say.” Another said: “I really don't
know, but I trust that she does.” In other words, our opinion does not matter,
for the woman has suffered and deserves to be "honored" at all costs,
even if that cost means killing a child. Others chimed back: “No, these are human
beings and they are being butchered, how can we make an arbitrary distinction
about when it is OK to kill a human being, fine thirty seconds before birth,
but not fine thirty seconds after?
Should we
not honor our women by protecting them, and caring? Does not this very
language
in this tweet say: “I have lost my way and am unable to be trusted?” (I will
explain below). They are all valid points, albeit very different. They all care
about their wives, sisters, daughters, and mothers.... a lot. These men are
discussing civil rights and fighting for them in their own way. Women do not
want to be shut down, and neither do men. It is a good and noble thing for a
man to want to protect the life and well-being of his unborn child. We as women
should not shut him up and down. It is also a good and noble thing for a man to
trust a woman with her own freewill, and believe she will do what is right for
her body and her life, in other words give her the benefit of the doubt and
empower her to "fend for herself".
We live
in society, a democracy with rules of law, everyone counts. I have one friend
who is a true anarchist, but most people do believe and fight for rule of law.
We all value our freewill, and well, we should – it is the gift that God has
given us, not only to make choices in our secular daily walk, but also should
we hear his call.
My
response to this woman's post is one of frustration, and disappointment, and
yes shock. In my view, we as women should not take that which is sacred, our
own deep feminine nature and unique gifts and abilities as a woman and turn it
into something vulgar to be used as a weapon against men who care. This is war,
a war of ideologies. And in war we pull out all the stops, we are willing to
die. We kill ourselves in order to attain what is deemed a loftier goal. Sometimes
we kill ourselves just to be right.
I say let
us stop the war and find peace. Let us confront our deepest darkest fears head
on. Let
us listen to that small soft voice that whispers our truth, and call out our
truths, and may those calls lead to right action. But let us follow Christ and
cast out our fear with perfect love. “There is no fear in love, but perfect
love casts out fear.” (I John 4.18)
Honor the
inner, but honor the outer. Honor to All. Sacrificing one for the other is
missing the mark, a literal translation of sin, and sin causes death, not life.
If we are fighting for our lives, let us fight a battle that can actually be
won, not one that is destined to fail at all costs. My pain, is your pain. Pain
is pain. Civil rights are civil rights.
Let us
not commit spiritual suicide. Let us not quench our deep inner thirsts with
vinegar. Rather, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all
these things will be added to you.” (Matt. 6.33)
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