It’s like coming back from the dead

Sometimes it’s really not easy. I used to be a big sister. I used to be my sister’s partner in crime – always an open ear, a warm hug and all that. We used to have fun and giggle and dream of life and everything else. I used to have sisters who were my best friends.

My brother and his wife are expecting their first child. I talk to my family on the phone and sometimes I get emails with pictures.

I remember the first time I talked to my mom after I left. I could hear she missed me. I’m not saying she doesn’t miss me anymore, but this is not something she wouldn’t have had to deal with either way. Mothers kind of expect that their children won’t be home for the rest of their lives. But still.

I remember my sister’s funeral, and how things were kind of strange between me and everyone else. My siblings weren’t rejecting me, but it was noticeable that many things have changed.

My outlook on life and many things has changed, especially since I started University. I guess that’s just the natural consequence of it. And the more I change, the more I feel that my siblings, specifically my sisters, cannot see me the way I was hoping they would.

What I expected? I don’t know. I’m doing good in school, and I enjoy it. I recently talked to two of my sisters on the phone and things were… strange. They couldn’t relate to me. Everything I told them about my life seemed alien to them. They asked questions that were weird at some point, but understandable somehow. “Aren’t you depressed that you are all alone, that you have to care for everything by yourself?” “When will you marry?” “Do you have to sleep with your professor to get good grades?”. These are all things I believed to be true at one point in my life. That a woman by herself will end up severely ill because she’s not fit to care for herself. That Universities and colleges are places of rampant drug addiction and sex orgies. That a woman’s life cannot possibly be completely without a man.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell my family about minor changes in my life after hearing that. That a bought a suit to wear to interviews for the internships I want to do in summer. That, after growing my hair for the last year, I cut it very short again, because summer is coming and i cannot bear the stifling heat on my neck. And yes, because I do not want to spend so much time caring for my hair. That I eat out most of my days, and that I can afford to do so. That I work a lot and that I, when I have saved up some money, like to spend it on selfish things. That my roommate and I declared ourselves “H&M-Buddies for LIFE!” recently. That sometimes I listen to rap-music, when it’s on the radio, and sometimes I even sing along.

I realized just how terrible all of these things would look to them. I am THAT woman. The woman who selfishly spends her money on vain things instead of investing and sacrificing herself for an eternal reward. I am member of a group of women, the women who cry rape because they are vicious and likes to hurt men. Or the woman who aborts one child after another. That woman who does not know her place. That woman who acts like she’s a man – completely oblivious to the fact that no matter how hard she tries, she’ll never be as good. And if she is, then she’s probably a lesbian. That woman, who is everything patriarchy believes “feminists” to be.

Well. I cannot undo what has been done. I do not want to undo it. I am happy where I am. But I’m not happy that my family will always see me as an alien now. The lost daughter. Sometimes that just hits you right in the head, and you start wondering how it came to be. I cannot be someone others want me to be anymore. I guess I’ve just had enough freedom to know that everything else is a prison. It’s like realizing that you have been buried all your life, and you escaped your own grave. Do you think that, if you were actually freed from your grave, you would want to go back? No? I don’t think so either.

 

What about marital sex?

There is so much written about fundamentalists and premarital sex, purity and so on. There is also much about purity within marriage in the sense of “don’t read romance novels”, “be available” and so on. And recently I started to wonder… what about actual sex in marriage? What about that??

Now, I’ll admit that I have not been married to know about sex in fundamentalist marriages first hand. I was also not sat down by my parents to have “that talk” about what’s ok in bed once you’re married. I figured I would put together a little series of posts in which I want to look at some debated things in the conservative Christian marriage beds. Not to lecture you, but to ask you to think with me about some things. I hope, if you are not shy about it, you can share some ideas/input/experiences with effects of fundamentalist teachings on married sex/whatever comes to your mind!

My first interest in this issue was raised by “Meet Mr. Smith”. This is a Ludy book that I actually bought after I moved here. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know why it stuck out to me.

Now there is this one little note that got my attention. There’s a question and answer section, and one question was whether oral sex before marriage was ok. Of course it is not, but let me quote what they say about oral sex in general:

You will not find oral sex among the beautiful expressions of physical intimacy in God’s perfect pattern, as outlined in the Song of Solomon. So if you are wondering if oral sex even after marriage is appropriate, let that be your guide! We can never improve upon the way God designed a man and woman to express their love – our own methods will only warp and degrade it. (p. 184)

What the Ludys do here is basically formulating an overly lengthy euphemism for “no”. So, let’s get past that awkward moment of pity for both of the Ludys (cough) and into some serious questioning that passage.

First off, I call wrong theology on this one. Actually, I call a lack of proper reading skills. Song of Solomon 2:3: I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. I know there are more hints in it, but I do think this very clear example settles my case. Let’s be honest here: What else could the fruit possibly be? His tongue? Maybe. But considering the overall metaphorical language of the book, I highly doubt a relatively harmless formulation would find its way in.

Now besides oral sex being mentioned in the SoS, there’s another problem: They refer to it as “our own methods” which “warp and degrade” sex. And that is exactly where my train of thoughts comes in.

I figure that kissing is beautiful and God-intended (otherwise, what’s the fuzz about that first kiss?). You kiss people you love. Have you ever had a child? If yes, have you kissed the tiny little feet? The precious little fingers? Their noses when they sleep? Yes? Do you have a wife or a husband? Have you ever kissed him or her on the forehead? On the neck? Kissed his or her fingers, or even her breasts? Yes? I suppose none of that is sinful. So… where in the bible do I find that ominous passage which areas of a loved person’s body I may kiss, and which one are off-limits? Is there such a thing as a nono-area?

You might argue that kisses from love are different from kisses which cause lust (which is essentially what oral sex does). But then would French kisses in marriage which cause lust not be sinful? Kisses on the neck as foreplay? And again, you could possibly argue that oral sex is not just “kissing” but involves more “action”, well, do French kisses still not count?

Either way, the point I’m getting at is that I have a feeling which tells me that there is an imaginary red area on our bodies, and that is our genitals. Everything within that area counts as sinful if it is kissed. And here’s where the “warped” part comes in: Are you seriously, seriously and with a straight face, going to tell me that this pattern of a “red area” is not a warped view of sexuality? Do you want to make me believe that God designed us with non-kissable areas on our bodies?

On a side note: Oral sex is probably cleaner than touching an elevator button. Especially if you just showered. So don’t even try.

Just for the giggles: When I spell checked my post, I realized I had called the book “Meet Mr Sith”. Freudian slip? Maybe. But definitely worthy of a cookie for all the Star Wars fans among you!

Where am I (and how many?!)

I was shocked to see that my last post has been posted WEEKS ago! Well, I figured I’d update you. I am not sick or anything, and I have not lost interest in blogging! I actually try to follow my favourite blogs as much as I can.

I’ve taken a whole bunch of classes for this semester and I’m simply drowning in schoolwork! Turns out law is even more of word-for-word-studying than you would think. I mean seriously, I’m starting to get why people fail this by the bunch. It really is a lot of learning by heart and if that’s not the method for you, you’re doomed. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve sat and read something, trying to memorize it, and then realizing that “well, this refers to paragraph so and so, but that one refers to article 7 billion and if I include that, I’ll also have to read that other paragraph and… Oh well. Might as well memorize the whole book now! ARGH!”

Other issues I have encountered are, for example, my lack of Latin skills. Which are zero. I truly understand why this was demanded years ago. Especially in classes like history of law or philosophy of law, there are so many latin terms and it’s so tiring to look everything up when others who know latin consider that a walk in the park (same with greek!). Phew.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the challenge and I love seeing the rewards for my work. But I’ll have to admit: I didn’t think it was going to be easy, but I also didn’t think it was going to be THIS hard. I don’t get why people talk about “college life” and all those parties and stuff. WHO has time for that haha

Either way, I’ll be off to more memorizing, and I hope you’ll all have a great day and I’ll be back with more (and more interesting) posts as soon as I can. Until then, don’t forget to wish me luck for the next round of exams!

If you can’t be good enough, make others look bad.

D’you remember those times when you were a kid, playing with your friends and siblings, and you were really good at one thing but the other kid wasn’t, and then they did something to stop you from being so good at it? Like that one time where your sister got angry that you could ride your bike much faster, and pushed you off? Or when your sister said that the cake didn’t taste good when it was the best you ever made? Or even just when your little brother came and destroyed that lego building you made?

Well I remember those times (and the badly scraped knees!) and today, I can laugh about it. We were kids. That’s how we were. I did it too. One time, in my teens, my sister and I cooked marmalade and we put some ‘creative’ herbs into it. And it ended up tasting so good that Dad told us it was the best ever. And when my sister said that it was her idea (which it was), I jumped in and told her off for lying – it was supposedly our idea. She didn’t say a word, and I got some praise from Dad.

Yes, I lied. I made my sister’s efforts smaller than they really were in order to make myself look better.

That’s what kids do. And some adults. But when adults do it, we usually think it’s bad character.

Unless…

Well, unless they are the husbands of patriarchy. Then, of course, making others look smaller in order to appear stronger is normal behavior.

I recently posted about feminism and that it makes me an individual. Those ladies who are against feminism argue that this is exactly the point why feminism is to blame for everything that’s going wrong between men and women. Women trying to be good at something they’re not supposed to be good at.

You are not supposed to be good at anything men are supposed to do well. Because that, my friends, makes men act like silly crybabies. It makes them start lying, cheating and drinking, makes them treat you bad and leave you for that hot secretary (who, by the way, has a mischievous smile reserved just for him, Hi Debbi!).

Like Libby recently pointed out, feminism isn’t about being more powerful than men, it is, in its core, the claim that women are good at things they supposedly could naturally not be good at. It is the permission to develop the talents you have, no matter which area they’re in. It’s not about being better, it’s about being good at something, whatever it is.

As has been pointed out repeatedly, how can I consider a man a strong man when he feels threatened by the fact that I’m better at, say, fixing a car? For me, a strong man is not anymore a man who is only strong when I serve as his weak counterpart, a contrast figure, so to speak, which has no other purpose than proving that the man next to me is strong? No, I am not a contrast figure. I am not the natural anti-hero in the sense that I’m worse at everything my man wants to be good at.

Here’s the deal: I really am worse at things my boyfriend is good at. But that’s not because I act like it, that’s because it’s true. And the things he’s good at aren’t all ‘manly’ things. He has a much better sense for style and clothing. He is great at cleaning. He is better at fixing the car and he is better when it comes to socializing. I, on the other hand, am better at memorizing things. I am a better driver (he agrees with me on this one!). I am better at spending money and I am better at cooking. And I’m sure if you heard those things in a gender-neutral way, you couldn’t 100% decide who is the man.

A man isn’t a hero when I make him a hero. He doesn’t need me to glare with wet, empty-of-will eyes at him 24/7, he doesn’t need me to smile at him like a dork and praise him every time he manages to get dressed properly and completely on his own. A man is a hero because he can accept that I am one too (at least in his eyes). And he doesn’t automatically feel castrated when I’m good at things. Actually, I was recently called a heroine. For being good at something patriarchy tells me I shouldn’t be good at. A man who is a hero doesn’t hesitate to call others the same thing.

Guest-post: A man’s words on sexual attraction and failed courtship

One of my (male) readers recently left this comment on one of my posts on sexual attraction. I wrote about the fact that men are taught to fear sexual attraction – how the different notions of beauty and sexual attraction are taught in a way that causes men to flee from what is sexually attractive to them, and instead go for what (their environment tells them) is ‘beautiful’.

After asking for his permission, I wish to share this as a single post with the rest of you. I think his words are very important and very precious – they need to be heard. It is unfortunate that we have so few men among us when it’s a known fact that they suffer just as much from growing up in these destructive teachings, so I did not want to miss the chance to share that men are just as much devastated by the purity and courtship culture as women are.

“This was difficult for me to read, only because it hits me so close to home. I don’t even know where to begin. How about the “self blaming and guilt”?

But first, I appreciated reading a woman describing how we men learn to avoid attractive women like the plague… We’re taught to feel so guilty about sexual attraction that we really do avoid being around you… I was touched somehow by even reading that bit.

The Courtship movement, fundamentalism, submission to pastoral authority, allowing other people with the “right answer” tell me what God’s will is, as if they knew… well… I allowed myself to go with other people’s ideas of God’s will for my life in the choice of a wife.

Long story short, I married a woman 13 years ago to whom I’m not sexually attracted, and I’ve never lusted after.
I knew it before I married her. I knew it the day I married her. I’ve known it for 13 long years in a passionless marriage.

She’s a really nice girl, and I’m devesatingly ashamed that I’ve ruined the woman she could have turned out to be… I see her as the true victim in it all… lack of passion has done that to both of us.

Warped by church teachings, I literally convinced myself that God was going to bless me with sexual attraction for her, by being obedient to marry her… like some magic wand of his would tap me on the head and “poof” …. Happily Ever After.

And, no, I’m not gay… I can sense you all wondering.

I had cold feet right up until the wedding, but had convinced myself that it was “just lack of faith.” … so I suppressed it.

The night before the wedding, I got no sleep. I had no peace of mind. I don’t remember too much about that day…. and we left the reception early during the festivities… I was too tired to continue. But the full force of what I’d done hit me during the week… like a cold chill of death running down my spine… I was married… marriage is forever, and I’m unhappy…. forever … the exact opposite of what i’m supposed to be… I can’t get a divorce… divorced people go to hell in the express lane or the handbasket, or something. There may even be a reserved section in hell for divorced people, I thought… like maybe even a VIP entrance.

I felt so ashamed of myself. In a foreign country… surrounded by my new fundamentalist in-laws (still my neighbors today after all these years)… I vowed to just stuff it… all of it… just repress it and forget and go through the motions, and to never say a word to anyone. Too ashamed to admit what I’d done. Just put on a happy face… smile…. go to Church… and pray like hell.

Within two weeks I was being confronted by the father in law… something was wrong, since i was obviously not happy, not sleeping with his daughter…. emails were being sent back home to the pastors in the states… who also flew over eventually to meet me and my wife… I was ashamed, alone, and scared … I still believed that I needed to believe in the “right answer” … so I lied to them, and told them that my marriage was God’s will (besides, who wants to go to hell for divorce.) so I tried really hard to “do the right thing…” … and just stuff the negativity and the lack I was feeling….

My married life became one of fear, obligation and guilt.

Well, I don’t have to tell you, that women aren’t stupid. It’s been hard on both of us… and I didn’t become honest until several years and several children later.

I wish I’d never stepped foot in a Church.
I wish I’d never been so easily guided by other people. As a man, there’s nothing more debilitating than that.
I wish i’d never made my wife a victim. She doesn’t deserve this kind of a non-marriage.
I wish I’d stood up for myself, and just spoke the truth to the people pressuring me … Fear, Obligation, and guilt are no way to live.
I wish I’d known that I’m not “evil” or “damned.”
I wish I’d learned to be myself, rather than another cookie-cutter religious dude, prideful of beliefs that aren’t even my own.
I wish I’d learned to have a personal Relationship with MYSELF early in life, before it was too late… to really know myself such that other people’s opinions mattered less to me.
It wasn’t a personal Relationship with Jesus i needed. I needed to know myself… intimately.
I wish I’d learned to trust my intuition rather than to doubt it or repress it… as if it were sinful somehow.

My blood boils sometime with the desire blame others for their influence over me… but I know that I can only blame myself.
Wanting to “please God” led me to not trust my own heart… I allowed myself to believe the Bible literally when it says :”The heart is desperately wicked. Who can trust it.”…

I think that must make me the ultimate people pleaser, or passive aggressive, or something horrible like that.

So I threw my heart away a long time ago. Tragic that it should be the necessary ingredient to the rest of my life… to make me a “Real Boy.”

Your post just reinforces the feeling that everything you said with regards to sex… all these points you brought up about sexual attraction… is entirely beautiful. And entirely right.

I think deep down, I just wish that I had someone in my life that I was attracted to… someone I can’t stop thinking about, someone I would like to do things with, who I get along with, someone I can mutually fantasize with, … someone who is a safe haven for my ever-expanding imagination… not to mention sexual attraction at any age.

I only hope there’s another man actually lurking on the site who reads this, and can learn something from it for his own life.”

What is feminism to me?

I recently read a rage-filled fundamentalist post on women’s right to vote (and that women should not have that right) and I secretly thanked feminism for allowing me to be an individual in this society – or any society really.

So what does feminism mean to me? Does it mean “Yay I get to wear pants”? Sure, but that’s really just a side-joke.

It means my husband cannot quit MY job when he thinks I don’t do enough housework. He does not have the ability to cage me at the home and to rob me of my means to make money both for me and for my children (and potentially for him). It means that I will not suffer from the fact that I have no job experience, resulting in the fact that I have only two life choices: Divorce and poverty, or an unhappy marriage. It gives me the security that I have abilities which people are willing to pay money for.

It also means that I can get higher education. I can study at university in order to improve my market value and in order to improve my knowledge. It gives me a chance to decide what and who I want to be. It gives me the security that when everything is lost, my education will still be there.

It means that I can vote. I can vote for the candidate with the best program, the greatest vision, who shares my opinion or, yes, the candidate I find physically attractive. That’s how it is. It means that my opinion will count even if my justification for these opinions is based on superficial issues like looks. I’m not saying this is a good call, but that’s how it is: You cannot chose whether you like an opinion or not, you’ll have to live with others having them.

It means also that I can own things, buy things, make contracts and be a liable person by law. I do not disappear in the existence of my husband once I say “I do”. I am still allowed to exist as a person of my own. This is why I despise people who say things like “Mr and Mrs John Smith”. There is no Mrs John Smith. There might be Mrs Jane Smith.

Feminism means that my body is mine and nobody else’s. Not my husband’s. Not my child’s. MINE. I can do with it as I please. I can pierce it, draw on it, take it where ever I want. I can sleep with whom I want, at any time, or not. It protects me from being raped by my husband without appropriate punishment. It protects me from being forced to do things I do not want to do.

Feminism in its core gives me individuality at the core. It makes me a person with dreams, rights and a future. Feminism makes me human. It makes me – me, just as I want myself to be.

When the patriarchs express that feminism is evil, it is not the feminism they hate. It’s not the pants and the rights they hate. It is precisely the individuality.

Fundamentalist christianity cannot survive in an environment where there is individuality. Everybody must conform to rules and values for it to work. Everybody must submit, men and women alike. Those who do not submit are those who risk the system. Kids who talk back. Women who work. Men who have feelings. Individuals outside that perfect, Pearl-esque set of rules. Conform or be damned. Conform or suffer. Conform or die. Individuality? Uncheck that box as soon as possible. Die to yourself and move the remaining empty shell by the rules of the great puppet-master. Get on the stage and play your role, and by all means, hope it’s over soon.

I am here, reading, writing, thinking. Not because of anything the patriarchs did but because of something the feminists did. They made me what I am today. Thank you for that.

Bloggers!

I figured I’d rework some aspects of my blog and one part of that is updating my blogroll.

Now, I am very hesitant about adding blogs to my blogroll. I had one case where a blogger specifically asked not to be linked on blogrolls, so I do not want to go around adding people without asking them.

Now, if you are a member of a larger blog community (NQL, pantheos etc), please know that I will understand this as a “free to link to me” sign.

If your blog is a private single blog, I will link if I know for sure that you have been linked multiple times on larger blogs and are ok with it.

If I am not sure and your blog is a single private blog, I will go ahead and ask you. There are some people who I am very unsure whether they’re ok with being linked to due to past events a troubles with their blogs – I will try to make sure to ask before I add you. Depending on how I can reach you, I will contact you via Facebook, Email or blog comment.

If you do not want to be linked at all, please let me know via Email.

Spring and regret

The flu is going around right now and of course it feels like I caught it. I’m coughing, shivering and my ears feel somewhat infected. Oh well, I suppose it could be much worse, because I feel surprisingly fit. But because today is a “sick day”, I will try to catch up on some writing – something I really neglected lately.

Yesterday was somewhat of a down-day for me. I had talked to my mother and felt somehow weird after that. Not because she’d said anything mean really, we were chit-chatting for the most part. In fundamentalist circles, most news revolve around who’s courting, getting married, having a baby or opening a home business.

There are plenty of news really, the biggest being that my brother and his wife are expecting. This was only a mild surprise by now really, because they had gotten married last summer and that’s really a long time to wait for the good news in fundie-circles. His wife is only three months along, so there are no details as to gender etc! I’m excited for them – I know this was something specifically his wife had wished for and I think he’s very proud too (I didn’t talk to him personally yet).

There’s also a bunch of other news – You know the Wilfried’s oldest? He’s courting that Singer’s girl now. No, not the blonde, the red one. Anna, I think – and Max and Mary, old Smith’s daughter and the Brough’s boy, they’re having their second -  and so on.

I guess spring isn’t just a season of love in the normal world.

I don’t think Mom told me all these things to hurt me – to be honest, there really isn’t much else to talk about. She didn’t think any of it. She didn’t mean to rub anything in my face. She also asked a lot of questions about my studies – how it’s going, how I’m doing (grades not sent out yet! No idea!) and all that. She remarked that it would be good to have a lawyer in the family, in case they ever ran into problems. I smiled at that and remarked that the laws I study aren’t American laws, and while many are similar, I wouldn’t dare to help out in such a case because there are still very many laws that differ from our laws here. Just think of public nudity!

Afterwards I started thinking. You know. I’m sitting here, sipping my coffee, staring out the window. We had new snow just yesterday. My birthday’s coming up soon.

I don’t feel like I achieved much. To be honest, sometimes I doubt I’m in the right place. Sometimes I regret leaving. I think of the life ahead of me and wonder if that’s really what I wanted all along.

If you’re raised to believe that responsibility is not for women, it’s hard to imagine a life in which you’re fully responsible for everything you do. Every bad choice and decision can’t be blamed on your Dad, your husband or even God.

I keep wondering if it wouldn’t have been better to have married back then. Where would I be now? Would I sit with Anna and Mary, gossiping about diapers and housekeeping? Would I read recipes on the internet and pin crafty stuff on pintrest? Would I hug the little blonde girl who cries for me when she scraped her knee? Would I spend the evenings quiet and cosy, knitting stuff while my husband reads the bible to me? Wouldn’t I be happy to be cared for and live my life quietly until the day I die?

I think I would. Sometimes I feel that parallel universes really exist. It feels like there is only a thin veil through which I can sometimes get glimpses of the other side. But here’s the thing: You can’t change sides. Decisions made, your call. There’s no turning back now, only the responsibility you have to carry all by yourself.

Well. But then again – behind my occasional yearning for the known, the safe, that which I have been taught to believe in and considering good and honest – I remember TS Eliot:

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

Wouldn’t I be whimpering all the time? I think I would. Nope, I think I’m going to prove Eliot wrong. The world doesn’t have to end with a whimper – but you yourself have to make it bang.

Back to my coffee. Even if this doesn’t work out the way I wished, even if everything ends up completely different from I could expect, there’s still the certainty that people rarely regret the things they do, most often, they regret those which they didn’t do (that’s a quote too, but I don’t know by whom).

Emotionally abused men

I used to believe that men are generally free of any deeper emotions (apart from anger, feeling hungry and the need for sex). Men, in my mind, were almost incapable of connecting with their emotions, if they had any. No, men were rational beings, driving by the wish to win, to dominate, to be adventurous and to satisfy their sexual needs. Everything ‘emotional’ a man did, like buying his wife flowers, was behavior that he had to learn, to remember, not something he would do because he wanted to express emotions. That’s what I saw all around me. Men who just don’t have that many emotions. That’s also why women were so weak, ruled by their hearts and feelings.

As I said, for the longest time I believed that this was a natural thing. God made men this way and it wasn’t their fault. And if you weren’t this way, you were probably gay. Gay, abused and perverted. Mind you, you were gay BECAUSE you were sexually abused as a child. Because we all know that anal sex makes men feel feminine, and that these feelings of femininity are what causes men to ‘be gay’. But don’t worry, there are programs to cure your gay (or pray it away).

You see, I’m in a relationship with a man who has no issues expressing his emotions. More shocking, he HAS emotions beyond eat – sex – sleep to begin with. He can tell me when I say things that hurt his feelings. He can tell me when he doubts himself. He can tell me when he’s happy. He can tell me when I did something for him that makes him feel loved. By my fundamentalist definition, he’s not a real man. Actually, I’d worry that he’s gay (and sexually abused) right about now. But he is neither fully homosexual nor has he ever been abused. His parents didn’t even spank him apart from two occasions which he remembers, and which his parents apologized for. In fact, when I heard these two occasions, I was not surprised they lost it (not going into details but trust me, all of us would have a hard time not freaking out).

Going back to it – where do the men get the idea from that emotions and th expression thereof are off-limits?

I found a gem on No Greater Joy ministries, written by King Michael the Patriarch himself. Let me first quote the letter Michael is referring to:

She has absolutely no respect for me, is very rebellious toward me, and outwardly refuses to obey me in nearly every manner possible. She does not acknowledge that I have any authority over her. I have told her that she needs to obey me and leave it up to God to deal with me if I am wrong. I am heartbroken. I have been unable to make her happy in nearly everything for years. I feel that she needs a serious trial to bring her to her senses. I want God to do this, but… We have been married nearly 30 years. I don’t want a divorce, but I do want her to be my true Help Meet.

Now, I do not want to get into the question how spiteful this man is towards his wife by wishing trial would hit her. He is obviously torn between the idea of being a leader while at the same time genuinely wanting a happy relationship with his wife.

Here’s a part of Michael’s answer:

You sound like a 13-year-old boy, whining because his six-year-old sister won’t treat him with respect.

I bet that hit home. There’s nothing worse for a good ol’ Patriarch than being called a boy. But it gets better:

You said, “I am heartbroken.” Excuse me for not being sensitive like a psychologist, but my response to your broken heart is, “How pathetic.” Where is the man in you? As they say, “Get a life.” What woman respects or is attracted to a brokenheart? As I think about it, there are a few, but they pick up stray cats and sick dogs who don’t need them as badly as they need to be needed. They are also attracted to men who are whining losers. It gives them a sense of purpose to have the weak and broken depend upon them.

Well, I suppose I am one of these catwomen… Anyway, Michael clearly makes fun of a man who has emotions. A man who expresses emotions. He’s a pathetic wimp for being as weak as having his heart-broken by his wife. How dare he! Besides obviously aiming to put down a man who has emotions and shows them, he additionally manages to put down women who like emotional men by referring to them as catladies.

This basically sums up two ideas: If you’re an emotional man, you’re not right. And if you’re a woman who likes these men, you’re also not quite right in the head.

But what can a man do who is a pathetic, over-emotional wimp? Well, Michael has a solution – THE solution:

Become exuberant with creativity and adventure. Share the gospel with others. Minister in a rescue mission or homeless shelter. Get a speed boat or go wind surfing. Do some gardening or build a chopper (motorcycle) in your garage. Take up sky diving, or go on mission trips to the Kurds in Turkey or Iraq. Do all of it. Cram your life full of service to others and of daring adventure. In doing so, you will become attractive to everyone, including your wife.

Totally. Do something life threatening like going into a war area all by yourself. Get a speed boat without quite knowing how it works and risk getting eaten by sharks. Get one of the most dangerous vehicles known to mankind (motorcycle). Don’t be a wimp – instead, by a person who is so obviously tired of his own life that he just might risk being kidnapped by other religious fundamentalists. Because the people who actually work there as humanitary helpers, who KNOW the risks of getting kidnapped and have a training for such situations will be ecstatic to see a man messing things up because he want to be a “real man”. This post by Michael Pearl dates back to August 2007, just on a side note.

I am not surprised that men neither show their emotions nor fancy any “normal” hobbies. If this is what the elders teach men, it should not surprise anybody that fundamentalist men are raised to be utterly unable to develop a healthy psyche.

Good Bye 2012!

it is funny how views change. I remember, when I was younger, I did not really care about New Years. Not that I didn’t care at all, but it wasn’t as special to me as it is now. I guess I adopted a different view.

I used to sit during the time between Christmas and New Years and come up with dreams for the new year – things I was hoping to do, things I was hoping to see, things I was hoping that would happen. I never really looked back at the past year and in retrospective I have to say that there really wasn’t much to look back at. I was just waiting for great things to happen.

The last few New Years have been different. I don’t really look forward to the new year in a sense that I dream of what could be – I rather spend time thinking about what happened in the old year. And I think that’s a major shift in my world view. I’m not terribly nostalgic or anything, I’m not particularly sad that this year is over, but nevertheless it marks a few great events in my life. It is, for sure, a year I will not forget.

Patriarchs like to put pretty much everything into boxes, that’s what they’re best at. Well I have to admit I’m very much a box person. There’s a little box in my head which I have been putting all those great events of the past year into, hoping that I will never lose them. Finishing school is one of them. Starting university another. The many great days in which I felt like it would be the end of my life but turned out to be real good. The days with friends, laughing in the sun, coffee in the city, getting dressed up for date nights, wanting to scream out all that energy and wishing that we could live in those moments forever.

Recently, D and I sat on the couch, watching a movie, me just slightly asleep, I told him that I wouldn’t mind the least if the world stopping right now and things would be like this forever. He laughed and I asked him why. He said that I wouldn’t want that to happen. Again, I asked him why, and he replied that my butt would get real sore and I would wish that it would end soon. Sometimes this guy doesn’t realize how much to the point his ideas are. The beauty of a moment seems to be not necessarily defined by itself but rather by the collection of moments in each day, good and bad. A moment of relaxation doesn’t come without prior exhaustion, like everything, it’s the balance which makes something remarkable.

Tomorrow night will be a fun night with friends, and after that, a new year will begin. I think I can finally stop caring about the new year and instead treasure these last moments with the old one. Because, you know, very few things in life are for certain and I can promise you, one of them is the new year. It will come along, no matter how hard you wish to stop it, or push it in this or that direction. It will come and do whatever it will, and besides that, there’s nothing much you can change. So let’s all just try to remember one moment in our lives that we want to treasure for the rest of our lives and say goodbye to the old year.

Oh my, I kind of sound like an old lady on TV. Well, please try to see it instead as the thoughts of a 20 something year old who doesn’t know much about old and new years except that we’re all in it together