Be a MAN! Not a Weenie!

I am on a roll, today. I have a rare bit of time and solitude since the kids have gone with my wife to town. I chose to stay home and piddle a little. So here’s the third in the series of posts for today. It is entirely different from the other two. It’s a very personal post about something that makes me crazy.

My wife likes to watch HGTV. I think it’s purt’near the most boring channel on TV besides the sports channels but she likes it. Sometimes when there’s no Law and Order on and nothing else noteworthy she’ll watch people get their houses redone or some such. Last night a couple had some guy redo their home. They’d been living in a house that was not finished. The fixer-upper guy did a nice job. It is a teeny bit interesting to learn of construction techniques since I dabble around the house so the show wasn’t too bad. Not until the scene when the couple came back home and saw the beautiful makeover. Then I wanted to barf. Why? The HUSBAND CRIED!

John Wayne really is dead, isn’t he?

Sure, I’m more old fashioned than manual typewriters. Still, the weenie world of men I am stuck in these days really makes me want to puke. John Wayne stoicism is over the top but good grief, when did it become acceptable for a guy to be so sissy that he cries over a redecorated room? I mean, come on, people!

I am not falling back on the absurd debate of whether or not God is “masculine” either. God is spirit. Spirit is NOT human. Humans have genitals. Spirit beings don’t. Duh. At least, everything we’ve ever learned about spirit beings indicate there’s no such thing as gender over there. Human writers give God and angels and devils gender. It’s convenient. And it’d be hard to get used to referring to God as “IT” rather than HE but the fact of the matter is that God defined himself in Jewish writing (and that’s where all good Christians get their stuff) as “I AM,” not “I AM HE.” So forget the “masculine” argument for God, I refuse to go there.

Where I am going is that as HUMANS we DO have gender. Our genders are different. Don’t go looking upon me as a male chauvinist, either. I believe in absolute equality of treatment no matter what gender (or anything else, for that matter). I have no qualms with a “woman president” or a woman boss. I’ve had a few of the latter, some of which were great and some that were horrible. Nevertheless, over the history of humanity there have been certain traits, abilities, and responsibilities that are not shared by both genders.

The law and society does, in deed, recognize differences and adjusts itself accordingly. Men can’t have babies so all the hooplah over abortions only apply to women. Many men are indeed chauvinists and unfairly mistreat women. When my wife and I dine out I am always, without exception, presented with the check. But I don’t ever pay it! Almost never. Of all the guys in the world to talk about being a girlyboy I’m one to talk. I’m the homemaker and kid-keeper and teacher of homeschool. My wife works. It’s humbling. It’s not humiliating. Why? Because there’s a difference between sharing responsibilities, working as a team, being practical and dealing with situations, being a “different” and non-traditional family and me surrendering my masculinity.

I am old fashioned enough to believe that God has established a hierarchy in the home. It is a functional hierarchy based upon the way men and women are made. Though quite a bit of what Paul the Apostle said is skewed and often misconstrued his explanation that Jesus is head of the Church as the man is head of the household is right on. God is not masculine in the human sense but he does present masculine traits. Jesus, too, was very masculine. He was loving, caring, sensitive, kind, forgiving. But he was not a pansy. Men these days too often throw away the whole idea of being masculine and chase their selfish drives and desires. Being sissy is trendy. God help us all!

In my household, I am the leader. It is an accepted fact. My wife does make the money, most of it, she does take care of our finances, and I interfere very little. Our finances are her responsibility because she wants it and it is not a hill worth dying on. In all other matters we talk, we discuss, but I decide. In matters of morality and faith sometimes my wife and I disagree. It is I who decides what the children are taught. Chauvinistic as this sounds, it isn’t. I am neither mean nor cruel nor domineering. There’s plenty of opportunities for discussion and input. But my wife respects my ability to make decisions and she respects my place in our home. I accept my responsibility with humility and with constant attention to all of my family, their needs and what is best for them, often at the expense of anything I might want. It is my responsibility to lead and my duty to love my family absolutely. These things I do to the best of my ability.

Screw political correctness. Some things men do these days is just wrong. It’s wrong for mankind, it’s wrong for manhood, and it’s disgusting to the few of us (if any besides myself are left) who believe there is a reason we men are what we are. It is important for men to be men. When men stop being men we have a big problem. And folks, we have a big problem.

Men these days whine about their graying hair or spend all kinds of dough to make themselves “bigger” or to be able to “last longer.” (Need I be more graphic?) They fret over their wardrobe. They act like, well, women. For some reason it’s perfectly OK for women to exhibit feminine traits—both good and bad—but men who “act like men” are condemned. Just for writing this little post I’ll be dismissed as a chauvinist. It’s PC gone crazy. It’s not who “wears the pants” but what’s beneath that should matter. No doubt some would say my wife “wears the pants” in my family. But it’s not jeans but genes that determine who is the leader in our home. This is as it should be.

One of my favorite movies is “Six Days and Seven Nights.” In it the man’s man gets stuck on an island with a feminist New York woman. They are pursued by modern day pirates. The guy starts to crack a bit, worried about t heir situation. The woman objects. He says, “I thought that’s what you women wanted these days, for us to be in tune with our feminine side?” She replied, “no, not when faced with pirates. Then we want them mean and armed!”

I’ve said it before, God is not stupid. Neither was Jesus nor Paul. Men are men because they have a duty within society. Women are women because they have a duty, too. There are always exceptions and contradictions but in general men and women are made differently, have different ways of doing things, and think differently. It is thus to maintain balance and help our species survive. Men are protectors. They’re built to be that. Women are caretakers. They’re built that way. Women might not want to have to squeeze emotion out of their guy. But when push comes to shove the proper order of protector and protected is clear.

Men who hide behind skirts in times of crises are still, fortunately, seen as the cowards they are. But men who choose to discard their masculine traits and act like weenies and sissies outside of a crisis are most likely to hand the girl the sword and run like hell when a crisis arises. It is himself he is thinking of. Selfishness is the antithesis of true manhood. God was a spirit but Jesus was a man when he walked among us. I don’t think anyone who has the slightest faith in Jesus at all will deny that. Had he abandoned his masculinity and been a coward we all really would be screwed.

I really appreciate the differences between men and women. I’m disgusted when someone tries to blur the lines or when some person has no respect for him or herself and their gender. I’m especially grossed out when men forget what it means to be a man.

Back to the HGTV show. There was a time when a guy who bawled like a baby over something so ridiculous as new furniture and wall covering would have been laughed off the stage and terribly ridiculed in public. Maybe that kind of treatment would not be fair but I still wanted the bawl-bag’s wife or somebody to walk up and say, “hey, pinhead, it’s just a room. Act like a man!”

I teach my son that he has a responsibility to be a guy. I do not teach him to be mean nor cruel. I am very affectionate in an appropriate way. My kids have seen me suffer heartache and physical pain and they’ve seen me cry. They’ve seen me cry just because I love them. It’s not the crying I object to, it’s the subject. A male who cries over a redecorated room is the ultimate betrayer of manhood. I believe this and if you don’t like it, too bad. Moreover, I don’t believe women want men to be a pansy. Emotional or honest or kind, sure, but not a wuss. After all, still in modern culture it’s the “men’s men” actors and politicians that attract the women, not the sniveling coward bawlbag weeniefied girly-man.

I will admit that there is within us all a bit of prejudice that we just can’t shake. The one little area where I have this attitude is with men who act like wusses. I can’t take guys who are cowards nor guys who throw bravado around to hide their insecurities. I can’t stand men who do not have the courage to admit they have weaknesses. Neither can I tolerate sissies and complainers, guys who fret over ridiculous things and whine like babies when they are the least bit injured. I am disgusted by men who color their hair, strut vainly in front of a crowd, inhale articles from GQ but are all jelly beneath the belly button. Glorying in war and battles and slapping each other around is a bit stupid and not what God expects of men. Real men are not the hot-headed brainless twits on wrestling shows. Real men are those who quietly go about their lives loving their family, protecting their nation, serving others and most of all taking a stand for righteousness when necessary.

Jesus said our duty is to love all people. I do, by choice. I would give my life and surrender all my things for any man, weenie or not. I cannot, however, give respect to any man who spits in the face of our Creator by disregarding everything he is and should be as a man.

I am a man of peace. I do not glorify war. I believe in absolute love from our Creator and for all others. But whatever else I am, I am a man. Men are given the role of being men because it fits with the natural structure of the universe. God made men men for a reason. Our nation is going to hell in a handbasket. Why? Because there are so few real men, selfless men, men of courage and conviction, men who will lead and will lead us to do the right thing rather than the expedient thing, the cowardly thing, or the profitable thing. I sit quietly and spend my days alone (except for my kids) because I have too often challenged men I knew to stop being chickens and stand up for what is right. I stood. The other men ran.

Our nation is suffering because men have stopped being men. Men have surrendered their responsibility and sank into a morass of self-indulgence, selfishness, and sissified conduct. Men in America are more worried about football scores or scoring in the bedroom than they are about how their nation scores in world opinion or the eyes of God. They want what they want. They no longer have the drive, the will, nor the masculinity to put aside personal wishes and desires so as to lead this nation as it should be led. Lord knows if our Founding Fathers had been the sissy cowards people in office today are (with few exceptions) we’d still be a bunch of British colonies.

Maybe I’m over reacting about the crying man on TV. After all, it’s just a show. Maybe to you. To me it represents how totally out of sync my thinking and America’s thinking really is. Viagra commercials, the smiling “Bob,” weenie-looking boys promoting a five-dollar razor, sissy cowboys singing about sexy tractors, “Hair Club for Men” advertisements, these disgust me. Life is not about sexual performance, gray hair, sexy tractors or over-priced gadgets that are smooth to one’s face. Get real, men. Life is about courage to do what is right, guts to stand up in the face of whatever comes, determination to serve God and love your family, perseverance to keep the faith and protect the weak at all costs. Be a man. Grow a skin. Do the right thing. And for heaven’t sake stop being a bawl-bag sissified wussie girly-man and don’t cry over a redecorated room or I’m never going to be able to hold down a good meal again!

Maybe I am stupid.

Maybe I am stupid.

I have a problem with overthinking. Not with doing it but with others who do it. (see previous post “Shut up and listen.”) I’m stupid. Or maybe stubborn. Or maybe I’m too busy to spend countless hours sinking in a morass of theology. Probably I’m just lazy. It is true that I consider myself a “thinker” but I still want something simple and straight-forward to live by. Religious people everywhere make their religion or faith so complicated and convoluted nobody understands any of it. Religionists of all ilks overthink the subject and then demand “followers” just follow without thinking.

But thinking is what I do. I just can’t “follow.” When I look at theology from any angle I always see flaws in the theologian’s logic. Always. Theologians are horribly adept at overthinking. It clouds their judgment and screws up their conclusions. It’s just so obvious to me. I am not one of those who believe the human race is, as a rule, merely sheep. I believe sheepness (is that a word?) in humans is a choice, not a genetic trait. It’s a choice of convenience. It’s a choice most people make because idiot religious people over complicate every aspect of faith and religion and then through fear and/or intimidation and/or manipulation convince others that theirs is the only true path and not to follow it will spell their doom.

People have choices. A lot of people just don’t make them. First, they have to accept or reject the great learnedness (is that a word too?) of overthinkers. When a person has been raised in a culture that says particular overthinkers are God Inspired it’s hard to easily dismiss their words. So, somewhat forced by their culture to accept the God Inpiredness of Great and Wise overthinkers that dominate their culture they are then confronted with the overthinkers’ words. But the words are confusing, accusatory, sometimes frightening. Often hard to understand. Overthinkers write book after book. Ordinary folk write little more than a few letters during their lifetime. They’re too busy living life. No time to analyze it.

They (those called sheep by the cynical overthinkers) pick up on the simple stuff and incorporate it into their lives and hope that’s enough. Such is the greatest tragedy of American Evangelical Christianity. Evangelical Overthinkers blather away with book after book that flies over the head of most church people but they always boil their words down to a few pat phrases. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and Thou Shalt Be Saved.” (Hear those words echo off the cathedral ceiling?) This phrase never has been sufficient but it works to help people define themselves as Christians. “I believe.” It becomes the hook that Evangelical overthinkers use to reel in assorted evangelical “sheep” to their own way of doing things.

Using books, tapes, seminars, websites, sermons and etc., Evangelical overthinkers “reach out” to “believers” and convince them of all kinds of ridiculous ideas. People let themselves be indoctrinated in overthink because it is easier than taking the time to consider the words logically. The overthinkers always say they know best, they know the right thing, they say “listen to me” and “God told me to say this” and “one dark stormy night Jesus came to me” and/or “the Bible says…..” Bunk. Most of it is bunk. But since people choose not to think or don’t have time or are afraid that their brain is not as big as those overthinker brains they must take the Great Evangelical overthinker’s words. Sad. Very sad.

The truth is that the most common phrase among overthinkers, “the Bible says,” is the least reliable and almost never true. It’s least reliable because “The Bible” rarely does say what they claim it says and almost without exception the phrases gleaned from Biblical verses are taken entirely out of context.

An aside: I am not saying the Bible is unreliable or that it is not worthy of great respect, admiration, or even reverence in some way. The Bible is a great resource. But it is not God and it did not fall from the sky intact like Evangelicals imply it did. They will never, ever tell you the truth about the Bible itself. But the Bible isn’t the object of this lesson, overthinking on its contents is.

Evangelical overthinkers rarely use the Bible as their only source. They go right to the Spirit. They claim God told them, they were inspired, the Spirit moved on them. How can one argue with that? Well, I can, but then I’m stubborn. I’m a Thomas. I think a spirit might have moved on them but the spirit that did does not deserve a capitol “s.” Unlike most who suck up the words of overthinkers as if they’re gospel I refuse to accept their words without corroboration from other sources. I’m just stubborn that way. Or stupid?

But I have begun to overthink myself, haven’t I? The point of this ramble is that I don’t want to have to analyze religion or learn a book from cover to cover or keep abreast of every new idea in Christian Overthink or even memorize the Bible from Genesis to Revelations just to know how I should live. I don’t want to be stuck with pat phrases like “just believe” either. I don’t want to know WHAT to do, I want to know HOW and WHY. Overthinkers fill up bookshelves with explanations. I don’t want bookshelves. I want a one-page brochure.

Of course there’s no way to make a fine living by publishing a single page. Books make money. The greater the Overthinker the more money he makes from books, tapes, CD’s, DVD’s, and all that stuff. The Bible might be given away freely by some but all the volumes that tell people how to “interpret” it cost a fortune. One must pay nineteen-ninety-five for a hard-bound volume (usually several to choose from) conveniently available on a table outside the auditorium where the Great Overthinker is speaking and earning considerably more than twenty bucks for the effort. If I sound cynical it’s only because I am.

Cloistered monks wrote volumes few ever read and lived in poverty because they didn’t have the option of dropping their manuscript onto the desk of a mega-publisher who spends mega-bucks marketing mega-bull. Evangelical Overthinkers, however, are not monks. They don’t hide their words under a bushel. Not at all, they market them to death. Here I sit at a home-made computer desk tapping away in the backwoods doing much the same as the monks. My words are not colored by my self-righteousness nor published in high-dollar volumes so I can feed my greed. These are unkind words. Hey, I call’s them like I see’s them. But I digress.

I want something simple. There is no doubt that this universe is a complicated place. It’s confusing. It’s contradictory. There’s no way we can ever know or understand it all or even very much of it while we live in this finite existence. Some, like me, will forever wonder about it, study it, try to figure things out. Most people, though, don’t have the time nor the desire. They, more than I, want something simple. But they want something that makes sense and is practical in the real world. They don’t want pat phrases and absurd statements that are obviously not true. In a world where everything is extremely complicated they, and I, want simple. Give me simple!

Jesus saves. Sounds good but what does it mean? God loves me. Sounds good but what does it mean? God always answers prayer. Sounds good but in my experience it is not true. Jesus died for our sins and those who accept him shall be saved. I keep hearing that but what is “sins” and what does it mean by “accept?” And what about people who live lives that are better, more moral, more righteous than any Christian but who have not heard of Jesus or who are of another religion? Evangelical Overthinkers say simple minded things but the slightest bit of analysis will reveal that their simplistic statements don’t make sense and often don’t hold water.

What happens if we recognize the fallacy of their words? They tell us not to question. They tell us the “sin” is questioning. Since most don’t have the time, the training, or the courage to contradict the Great Overthinkers they just go along, bang their head on the proverbial wall a bit when confronted with a contradiction, and struggle. Some just toss the baby and the bath water out the window. They reject Jesus instead of rejecting the Talking Head Overthinkers who are telling them ridiculous stuff. This is the saddest thing of all.

I want simple. There is simple. Of course, it won’t make anybody a fortune. I’ll give it to you. The Simple Way, in the words of one of the few learned overthinkers in the past that I admire (Charles Finney), is “the Law of Benevolence.” Finney was a thinker. It was his curse. He managed to crawl out of his Calvinistic theology long enough to recognize that Jesus gave us the way to live in the simplest of terms. Jesus said, “Love God with all your heart/mind/soul, and love others instead of yourself.” Do that and you will, by default, live precisely as God intends for you to live. Period.

One point. Bible translations interpret the word between “others” and “of yourself” to be “as.” I believe and some translations of the Greek word will agree that the word should be “instead of.” “As” means an equal measure. “Instead of” is far more in alignment with the way Jesus taught and lived. But this is a bit of my own overthinking so I move on.

Think about it. If we love God with our whole heart we will not ever do anything we know he is unlikely to disapprove of. We won’t do it not because the doing of a thing is a “sin” but because we do not want to hurt or offend. Likewise, if we love others above and beyond or “instead of” ourselves we will never mistreat, lie to, or disrespect others not because hurting, lying or disrespecting are “sins” but because we care about the other one and choose not to do them harm. Simple. Effective. Functional.

The Law of Benevolence, or Law of Love if you please, makes everything clear. Jesus gave himself for us. He said he did, we accept his word because we love him as we do every other person. And we love him as God’s son. We accept not out of fear that denying will send us to hell but because we love and believe him. It does not matter if it seems to us God does not answer every prayer. In fact, most prayers are prayed for selfish reasons and God has good reasons to keep silent. If we’re living according to the two commandments of Love God and Love others we will not even ask for selfish stuff. I could go on but you get the point.

So maybe I am stupid. I’m just stupid enough to believe that Jesus’ words mean more in all their simplicity than anything any Talking Head Wise and Wonderful Overthinker could ever write in their many over-priced hard-back books. I’m stupid enough to believe God does love me but not really worry about that because I love God. I’m stupid enough to believe that in loving others I will fulfill “the law and the prophets” in spite of the fact that there’s not a Jewish gene in my body. I’m stupid enough to make the choice of placing myself last and others first. I just take Jesus at his word. Stupid, huh?

Shut up and listen!

OK, so maybe that was just a little rude. But it was necessary.

Know the difference between a Buddhist and an Evangelical Christian?

Buddhists know they don’t know so they seek. Evangelical Christians think they know everything so they preach.

By that definition I am far, far more Buddhist than I am Christian.

I have not returned to this blog (I still hate that word!) of late because I have been working on our homeschool effort. It is a real challenge and very time consuming to develop a school program for three kids, one that will speak to all of them and help them understand each subject. But that’s not the subject today, so I go on (as opposed to shutting up myself!).

Shut up and listen!

That’s what I have to say quite often to my boy. He is my pride and joy, a brilliant just-turned-eight year old whose brain runs faster than mine. He’s always thinking. He’s always talking. His problem–like mine sometimes–is that he doesn’t stop long enough to listen. In order to get his thinker in tuned with the thought at hand I have to cut it off and re-direct it sometimes.

I used to be just like him. I still am, too, on occasion. I have learned, however, that listening and learning is far more conducive to understanding than constantly talking. Maybe you need to learn the same thing.

My return to blabber-blog on this beautiful Sunday morning was spurred on by conversations with a friend via email and an introduction to a movement I somehow missed. Living in the backwoods is a bit isolating. The movement, called Emergent or Emerging, is encouraging. But there I find a lot of overthink.

Definition:

overthink noun. 1. Thinking more than necessary. 2. Attempting to discover the unknown merely by stressing out one’s brain. 3. Exercising one’s limited human faculties in a vain attempt to understand the nature of God and the Universe. 4. Putting too much effort in analysis of flawed or incomplete data and drawing erroneous, unsubstantiated or unreliable conclusions from said data.

Shut up and listen.

Evangelicalism and Buddhism are at the opposite ends of the intellectual spectrum. I was born an Evangelical. But I was born retarded. I had a brain defect. I was born a thinker. And a doubter. Maybe Thomas is a distant relative of mine. Or Socrates. There is one word in the English language I never could unlearn even though it is the nastiest and ugliest word in Evangelical circles. That word is why.

Evangelical theology says there ARE reasons but follows that up with the phrase “God’s ways are not our ways.” I will completely agree with the phrase but absolutely and vehemently disagree with the way it is used. God’s “ways” may not be our ways but God is not stupid and neither am I. One thing I’ve said for decades, long before my thinking drug me out of Evangelical circles, was that if God didn’t want us to think he should not have given us a brain.

That does not mean we CAN figure out the meaning of the universe. It isn’t that God’s ways are not our ways but that God’s ways are above our ways. To be honest I am not happy that God has not given us more insight than he has but I must assume there is a purpose. In private and to myself and even to others I might speculate what the purpose is but I will not ever presume to know absolutely what that purpose is. I can never, ever be so convinced as Evangelical (or many other) theologians. That would be overthinking.

Buddhists are taught and firmly believe that they are not “enlightened.” They don’t know diddle and they know it. Buddha had to search for a lifetime and though he reached “enlightenment” he still never professed to knowing everything. The enlightenment he claimed wasn’t one of explanation, it was one of direction.

Isn’t it ironic that Jesus said much the same thing as Buddha. Christians always freak when they hear such a statement but it is true. Jesus said to seek and you’d find, knock and the door would be opened, ask and you would receive. “But Ted, he meant blessings….” No he didn’t. Stop being so selfish and so naive. And stop taking Jesus’ words out of context. Jesus would never tell people to ask for “things” or “blessings” because his entire life and ministry and message taught against such selfishness and self-indulgence. He meant to ask, seek, knock for TRUTH. Duh. He said, more or less, “shut up and listen.”

I have to admit that I have been remiss in meditation for quite some time but meditating is a far more effective tool to discover God than sitting in a pew listening to some self-convinced religious person try to convince everyone of something he’s not so convinced of himself. Trust me, I’ve been on the “inside” of church ministries enough to know that the people on the podium are not saints.

Shut up and listen.

I keep saying that, don’t I? I say it to myself, too. Shut up and listen to others. Shut up and listen to your heart. Shut up and listen to the words of Jesus. Shut up and listen to the Spirit who is a very still and very small voice in a very loud universe. It doesn’t matter as much if you listen to me but you might be inspired to learn something if you do. Not because I’m a sage or prophet but because I have begun to shut up and listen myself and I really, really wish you would try it.

Stop listening to the Talking Heads of the Christian Right and listen to the words of Jesus. Stop listening to your gut and start listening to your heart. Stop listening to theological speeches. Stop thinking you know it all. In fact, stop thinking. (That’s the hardest thing for me to do!) Start listening. Go out in the woods, sit under a tree, and do what Jesus said to do, ask, seek, knock. Hang there long enough and you might just discover something worth talking about.

When you do get a bit of insight come on back and tell me to shut up. I will listen. None of us will ever figure out everything but together we might be able to clue in on the true message of Jesus and figure out not so much what “it” is all about but what we’re supposed to do about “it.”