Just a few years ago, because of my own issues coupled with events that occurred in my marriage, I came to the somewhat common feminist conclusion that men were all pigs and monsters. As I worked to heal my own heart, and to make the world a safe place for myself again, I set out find what it was I did like about men. I did not expect to find the depth of appreciation, respect, and admiration for this half of the race that I have since found.
As I healed myself, I stopped looking to men for validation of my worth, and from this place of security in my own power and worthiness, I was able to see men as just human beings. Unique ones, very different from women, and whose actions were simply a result of their make up, formation (received or not received), culture, and personal choices. When those actions no longer affected me emotionally I was able to take a different perspective. I tried to understand the origin of these actions, and to intentionally look for the heart and gifts unique to men, through and past the ways those gifts had been thwarted or abused.
The first thing I fell I love with is how men make make me laugh. So many men I know can literally make me roll on the floor laughing with a one liner out of nowhere. The first place I really encountered this is my older brothers – what a gift it was to grow up in house with a brother who basically was a part time joke (in the best possible way)! This willingness to be honest and open about life (instead of trying to make everything look tidy and hidden the way women do), to be absolutely outrageous for the sake of comedy, and to find humor in things many people are too timid to talk about, both helped heal me (laughter really is medicine) and gained me an incredible respect and appreciation for the quick wits and physical comedy I have witnessed so frequently from them. I have to say, watching a man pretend to be a woman for the sake of comedy is one of funniest things I have ever witnessed and it most definitely does NOT work the other way around! Humor is so basic to who we are as humans, and it seems that about 85% of laughter generators in history and in my life are men (even my sons make me laugh more often than my daughters).
On a deeper level, there is a power and magnificence to the masculine energy that affects me a way that is so far beyond words. I learned this first when carrying my son. His pregnancy was an immense opportunity for healing for me on so many levels. When I contemplated during his pregnancy that one of these huge, inimitable, powerful human beings was growing in my belly, I felt humbled and awed. During my daughter’s pregnancies I had felt a sense of connection and profound love, but during my son’s pregnancies I felt that I was a temple, holding a human with an otherness and power that was foreign to me, who would one day tower over me with that unique vitality and boundless energy, and go off to create his own family. After my first son was born I spent hours just contemplating this infant incarnation of man, marveling at what Mary must have felt to hold baby Jesus, and to be protected by a man as mighty as Joseph.
As I walked my own healing journey I have gained an even deeper appreciation of the masculine power and energy. My codependent marriage relationship fell apart and my husband and I had the opportunity to become separate individuals. With my husband no longer my emotional crutch I stepped back, and, over the years, began to see a man so strong, so resilient, so creative, so self sacrificing, but also with this enigmatic vulnerability as well. I became overwhelmed with gratitude for the very man I had been unable to look in the eye for years.
Around this time I developed a sexual drive for the first time in my life and came to appreciate the masculine sexuality and vulnerability for the first time ever. Instead of resenting or fearing male sexuality (as I had for my entire life previously), I started to look for ways I could serve and build up my husband in this way. It also dawned on me that I could use my feminine power to draw out the greatness I so longed to see in the men I interact with regularly. I began to appreciate the beauty in the way that men are often seen as so strong, gruff, and impenetrable, and yet feminine beauty can emotionally open a man and fill his innermost needs in such a simple and deep way – or leave him feeling devastated and abandoned if intentionally withheld. Really seeing this in a deep way increased this sense of respect and reverence I have for men. I developed a strong desire to treat the men in my life with both respect and tenderness, and to allow space for their masculinity to breathe.
This brings me to the place of appreciation for the work men do. I still remember sitting with my mouth gaping the first time my husband told me he was so absorbed in studying and going to class that he had forgotten to eat for most of the day. That has literally never occurred in my life. This ability to focus on one thing alone for hours, days, weeks, months, without interruption, until it is complete, boggled my mind (still does!). As does the fact that 99% of the structures (and many, many other things) in the world are the direct result of the labor and sweat of men. The innate masculine drive to provide and protect and create things with purpose and permanence inspires me. Their capacity to compartmentalize everything else in order to do this, to endure all kinds of physical lack and suffering, just to ensure that a job gets done is astounding. Thank you, men, for being builders, creators, inventors, and workers.
In the world of art and creativity, writing, music, painting, and film, we owe (and I personally) so much of who I am to the men who devote their life’s work to these things. C.S. Lewis’s books (of which I have read almost all of multiple times), St. John Paul II, countless music artists (I am a major music junkie), other authors, actors, comedians, film producers’ works have impacted me (and the entire world) on a soul level. I remember laughing my guts out to Screwtape Letters when I was 15, and spending hours lost in bliss listening to Switchfoot, U2, early Coldplay and countless others, or sitting in my oh so tolerant older brother’s room while he played guitar. From the depths of my being, thank you.
In closing, I have a request, almost a plea. Men, know that you are needed and wanted in this world. As a woman, I feel such joy and sense of security when I see men in their power – any man! That majestic, breathtaking silence and power, your unique vulnerability is so NECESSARY in our world. In a world where there is so much evil, we NEED the power, the voice, the action of men with chests (read the Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis if you don’t get the reference). Women need you. The world needs you. We want you. As you are. Within each human person is a potential to be a Nelson Mandela, a Martin Luther King, a hero. Honoring that truth is the beginning of allowing the space to it grow, to develop, to allow yourself to be taken over by greatness. Most of our flaws and insecurities as humans are simply a lack a knowing who we truly are. Once you know with absolute certainty that you possess a unique and unparalleled greatness, you can drop all the crutches and props of lust, arrogance, laziness, and smallness, and step into your true power. It becomes effortless, and the most fulfilling and pleasurable experience you can have.
I also have something to say, as a woman, and I really believe that most women have this desire somewhere underneath their own insecurities and fears. Dear men, we women long to be ravaged, melted, and utterly taken by your desire and power, when it is melded with gentleness and love. The kind that makes us weak all over, and unable to move for hours. On a soul level, a physical level, a spiritual level, and intellectual level this, this is what we desire from you.
In closing, I offer my gratitude, my respect, admiration, appreciation, desire and vulnerability as an invitation. Come out of hiding, and show the world your glory.
The Eye of the Needle 