Spaghetti Down the Drain

 I speak of Teddy Spaghetti, “Vox Day,” also known as Theodore Beale who has finally been shut down by Blogger. Night Wind has done a fabulous job of telling the story here in, “VOX DAY BITES THE DIRT.” I wouldn’t grieve VD too much, sadly he is well connected and will soon probably return to praising Anders Breivik, promoting rabid antisemitism, luring broken young men into foolishness, all while totally mangling evangelism and misrepresenting my Lord.

My Lord. Mine. He can be yours too, I am just saying I claim His name and so I take some dominion over His affairs, not unlike a mom takes some authority over her own neighborhood. I’m an epic fail at it too, if you look about the world. Somebody smart once told me, we can at least aim to be like a 13 yr old Jesus. What was he doing at the temple when his parents misplaced Him? Being about the Father’s business.

We all need to be about the Father’s business.

I really like what Night Wind said here, “One of Vox’ only truly amazing accomplishments was to unite people of widely different political and social beliefs to join together and put a stop to what he was doing.” Right? I have spent a good decade among the red pills, the manosphere, the far right, meeting some interesting characters, many who I am rather fond off, some not so much. Some really still need a good spiritual epiphany right upside the head.

How encouraging it is to know that we really can soften our hearts, set aside our differences, and work together to speak up and stand against evil. And by “work” I simply mean speaking to one another, dialoguing, networking, and praying. Roosh has found the Lord and become an orthodox Christian. Dalrock felt led to shut down his blog. Milo has rejected homosexuality and returned to his Catholic roots. Heartiste, well just keep praying. There are many, many others whom the Lord loves, who the Lord is calling to.

One reason why we all need Jesus is that besides personal salvation, mercy, grace, and healing, He is a unifying force. He provides us with the standard for what is good. Ten people are going to have ten different ideas about censorship. The obvious and somewhat well reasoned answer to why Blogger finally shut down Vox Day is because he has been posting a lot of anti vaxx stuff lately. That’s the material world’s evidence, but in the spiritual? He was exploiting broken and wounded men, leading them in the wrong direction, and attaching the Lord’s name to some potential wrong doing. That’s a huge no. Not okay. Before we speak His name we need to make sure our heart (and mind) is right and not use His name to manipulate vulnerable and hurting people.

The Bible says, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

His little ones, His, are a lot of lost young men trying to navigate their way in a broken world, looking for guidance, looking for a father figure and a mentor. The last thing they need is someone exploiting them financially, misrepresenting the Lord, and teaching them to hate. My heart has just been broken watching this evil go on for so long. It’s like a form of spiritual and emotional prostitution or something. At least with the literal kind, you get something out of the deal. With Vox you’re just going to get fleeced, rejected, doxxed, and bullied.

Moira's Story....

I speak of Moira Greyland who wrote “The Last Closet: The Dark Side of Avalon.” Moira’s story is an important one, one Christians especially need to hear, and it’s not a pleasant story at all, it’s a story of horrific child abuse, psychological, emotional, sexual, that has left lasting scars. It’s an important story because it shatters some myths, demolishes some narratives about the LGBT community and it reveals the downside of tribalism, the way morality can become totally subjective, right or wrong being defined not by what you do, but by who you are.

It is a dark abyss of moral ambiguity, a  really challenging swamp to fight your way out of.

Moira is not alone either, there are literally hundreds of thousands of us who grew up in some really abusive, emotionally devastating situations, situations fueled by the sexual revolution, by narcissistic parents, and by extreme liberalism or by what some would call the far left. The culture we created by throwing out all tradition, all morality, all standards, did some major harm, damaged some real live people and left lasting scars.

I have a memorial to those who did not survive, a number of children whose lives ended in suicide, addiction, or devastating health issues caused by extreme stress, PTSD.

I watch the #Metoo movement, the #churchtoo movement,  one might even say I am well pleased by the Great Shaking going on, but in the back of my mind, or rather burned into my very soul, is this keen awareness that faith does not cause child abuse, that “patriarchy,” is a false flag, that there are thousands of hurting, broken people who barely survived the sexual revolution, feminism, our attempts to redesign society into this utopian vision of sexual freedom.

Moira like me, found the Lord, even in the midst of abuse, of moral ambiguity, of cultural genocide, even in the midst of extreme atheism. Perhaps a better way to say that is, the Lord found us. 

It’s hard to put a positive spin on such darkness, such horrific evil, and there’s this need to make people understand how awful the damage really is, how painful, how it was literally the theft of a child’s mind, body, and spirit, impacting every area of your life. There is no nook or cranny of your very being left untouched.

I don’t want to gloss over that, I don’t want to minimize the harm, but I do want to celebrate a couple of things,  I want to praise the Lord, I want to infuse this darkness with hope, hope that I often see lacking when Moira’s story is being retold. Life is short, there are huge celebrations that should not be missed, a full inheritance from the Lord waiting to be claimed. Chaos, confusion, shame, the remnants of PTSD, need not define you anymore. Jesus Christ came to set the captives free and He restores, He redeems, He replaces what has been stolen, ten times over. But that is a promise that must be claimed. We have not because we ask not.

It’s a message that needs to be shouted from the rooftops until life and life abundant is just pouring into every nook and cranny of every abuse victim anywhere. You are not what has happened to you, you are not your past, your identity need not live there within the dark places anymore. The harm done is real enough, but complete healing can be just as real.

Sometimes I fear that as our culture exposes victimization, toxic secrets, and begins to speak the truth, we often leave out the part about how the Lord can rewrite the whole story, surprise us with His many plot twists, that the broken parts are actually beautful to Him, that they can rise up to Him like fragrant poetry. There is beauty lurking in our suffering, it is part of what makes us human. Our humanness is beautful because we are made in His image and He is beautful. He is more beautful, more powerful than we can even imagine, and we have been fashioned in His likeness.

Today I haven’t got scars, instead I have a melody of poetic praise that lifts His name on high, a flair for the melodramatic, a sharp wit and the strength of some real gallows humor. That is the kind of beauty He can hand us for our ashes. Don’t forget the hope, the hope in Him is real, it has an evidence and a substance that is tangible.

I going to post the entirety of Psalm 91,  and speak life over anyone who fears their scars are too big, who has not yet claimed freedom, claimed their full inheritance of resoration and healing that the Lord promises.

“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.  I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.  Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.  He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.  A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.  Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.  Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;  There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.  For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.  They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.  Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.  Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.  He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.  With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.”

Church shootings-Domestic Violence

Yep.

I really appreciated this article in Christianity Today,

A Top Reason for Church Shootings: Domestic Abuse

“Year after year, domestic abuse spillover—when a fight at home comes to church—is one of the three most common killers at faith-based organizations.”

Yep. Year after year.

I get so frustrated, year after year, decade after decade, and it’s like no one ever wants to address it. Well, women just lie about abuse. Well, our church doesn’t have a problem. And than another incident  happens and another and it’s like, I don’t know what the world is coming to, this is just a sign of the times, a sign of religious persecution.

No. It is not. This is predictable. This is preventable. This what happens when people put their head in the sand and refuse to address domestic violence and toxic masculinity in our culture because nobody wants to feel uncomfortable, nobody wants to take responsibility, nobody wants to make decent men feel bad, and nobody wants to assign blame.

Joy Juice

Somebody on the intertoobz said, “the Holy Spirit is not joy juice.” It kind of ticked me off. Who sez He isn’t? “God didn’t put you here to be happy,” is another one that sticks in my craw. That’s all wrongheaded.

It’s also often used as justification for people staying stuck in whatever situation they are in that is making them miserable. “Oh well, God didn’t put you here to be happy.”  “It’s my cross to bear.” “Maybe if I just stay trapped in this horrible place, the Lord will see how much I suffer for Him.” Rubbish! 95% of our own suffering is self inflicted. God did not create us to be miserable.

When did joy and happiness become perceived as a sin? I am of the mindset that salvation should put an extra skip in your step, a smile on your face. “Rejoice,” Paul says, “and again I say, rejoice,” in case we missed it the first time. It’s a commandment. Rejoice, be of good cheer, love one another.

3 John 1:12 declares the Father’s heart for us,  “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” John 16:33 says, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

So let me state flat out, as someone who is often bitter, cynical, sarcastic, and prone to melancholy, but the Holy Spirit is indeed, “joy juice.” If we are not feeling the joy the error is totally on our end. We often create our own misery, like the way I often land myself in a patch of bitter Christians who seem to perceive joy and happiness as sinful things. And then they proceed to share.

God does not do that to me, I do that to me.

Imagine if I did it and than said, yep, God just wants me to suffer. Yep, the Holy Spirit isn’t joy juice.  Alas, in the world you’ll have tribulation. Someday we’ll escape this vale of tears. I’ll never see joy this side of heaven.Reminds me of Eeyore from Winnie the Poo. Let’s all have a big pity party……and claim it’s just our lot in life. Worse, it’s allegedly what God wants for us. Nonsense.

So, there’s a wide range of emotions in the world, different circumstances call for a different response, nobody is called to be a ball of sunshine 24/7, and in the world we will have tribulation. Just the same, the Holy Spirit really is “joy juice” and some people are in desperate need of an infusion.

Making Sandwiches

There’s a real spiritual war going on within our culture right now that some may be blissfully unaware of, the battle of the sandwiches. I too was unaware of it until it began to encroach upon my life. The meme about “making sandwiches” is about far more than the superficial, it is an outright attack on women, on marriage, on gender relations, a shaming tactic of feminism.

This little meme I’ve posted is a somewhat humorous look at the nature of the problem and the social engineering underway hoping to redesign culture and relationships between men and women.

Suzanne Venker recently wrote an article,  “Are you weak if you make your man a sandwich?” In it she tells the tale of Maddie, an Australian woman who asked a facebook group for ideas about making her husband’s lunch. The internet response was pretty brutal as it often is, everything from accusing her of being “weak” to being “a 1950’s housewife setting women back for generations.” While this is an extreme example, such shaming tactics are a real thing in the world.

Along with an attack against marriage itself, there is also an attack against the nature of women, against our nurturing capabilities, anything feminine being perceived as an affront, an offense and an avid endorsement of all things evil, oppressive, and patriarchal.

At first glance this can appear kind of dumb, just another bit of the world’s stupidity, until you start to  also read 10-15 articles about domestic violence and abuse, articles in which EVERY woman would fit the bill of victimhood, EVERY woman is an abuse victim of her own husband. I realize this is Domestic Violence Awareness month and IB did spend several years working at a shelter, so it is not as if I am not keenly aware that abuse is a real thing in the world.

I must say however, some of these articles I am reading are not designed to raise awareness at all, they are not designed to help women escape dangerous relationships, they are flat out designed to mess with women’s heads. To convince ALL women that they are victims of oppression and abuse simply by the nature of institutional patriarchy, and the very institution of marriage itself. ALL women.

I’m not going to link to all these articles and take them down point by point, perhaps another day when I have more time, but my point being, there is an agenda going on here that is not interested in supporting and empowering women at all, it is interested in attacking marriage, shaming men and women for being men and women, and redesigning culture. It grieves me to see this, and to see it lurking beneath domestic violence awareness is ugly. Women face a lot of emotional and spiritual attacks from the world already, we have targets on our backs so to speak,  and so to bear witness to this farther exploitation is really frustrating.

Ironically, while reading some of this stuff,  I had the thought that what I was reading is actually a form of gaslighting, emotional and psychological abuse, fear mongering designed to cause her to doubt herself, to doubt her perceptions, to distrust her own observations about her own marriage or her relationship. It was flat out abuse under the guise of virtue signaling compassion for the well being of women.

I don’t have a solution really, but the first step is usually raising awareness, shining a light on the nature of the problem and bringing it to people’s attention. One way I can discern the difference between genuine love for women and a self serving agenda, is the heart behind the words. Is she a beautiful creature made in the image of God, powerful, having innate worth and value, or is she a powerless victim who should be ashamed of her “inherent” weakness and robbed of her confidence, her ability to perceive reality hijacked by those who claim to know better?

The moment I see women being shamed for who and what we are as women, I can usually find an agenda lurking beneath the surface, and that goes for the secular world as well as the Christian one.

Not Everyone Should Be Gotten Along With...

“You just need to get along better with people.” Boy, them there are some real trigger words for most victims of abuse, exploitation, or for the people pleasers and co-dependents among us. I’ve heard them a few times in my life too, at very inappropriate times, totally victim blaming and out of context.

They are words devoid of justice, devoid of protection, that reveal a complete lack of awareness over power differentials. Bit like telling the victim of a robbery they just need to learn how to get along with burglars better.

Sometimes very liberal people will say things like, “can’t we all just get along” and Christians will say things like, “we have to love our enemies and turn the other cheek.” While those are sweet words and quite appropriate in context, they are not the answer to  every given conflict. Not all spats are conflicts between equals and not all conflicts are bad. In fact, conflict can be very healthy and necessary.

You probably can’t tell from my blogging, which can sound strident sometimes, but IB was born a co-dependent extraordinaire. That’s no joke, a “lay down in the railroad tracks and die for you” co-dependent. A, “sure I’ll be happy to sit in the car and keep the engine going while you run into the bank with a mask on,” co-dependent. A “my very existence is all about you and my only regret is that I now seem to have no self to lay down anymore”co-dependent.

I am extremely lucky to still be alive.  I come from some dark and dangerous places. It took the Lord some 20 years to pry me out of that bondage, to free me of those chains, and He is right there should I ever slip back into those old patterns of behavior.

A co-dependent extraordinaire.

God bless my husband too, he knows me well. He has never suggested I “just need to get along with people better.” All in good humor here, but he has often suggested I need cut some people loose and to punch a few others in the head. He’s almost always right, too. I have come to trust his wisdom and to realize that he sometimes sees things I cannot.

I mention this because I want people to know there is a huge difference between dying to self for the Lord and dying to self for another person. Dying to self for another person is actually a form of idolatry, of people worship. I have seen cultians, New Age spiritualists, and even a handful of Christians, pervert this concept in order to manipulate, abuse, and control people.

It’s a sticky wicket because it can get all convoluted. Basically if anyone ever suggests you need to die to self, change who you are, relinquish yourself in order to be worthy of being friends with them, you got an issue and you need some new friends, stat. Real friends will accept you as you are. Real leaders will always point you to Jesus Christ and not to themselves.

A couple of bible verses that have really helped me, Exodus 20:3, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”Including thy drunken uncle, thy dysfunctional relatives, thy abusive spouse, thy exploitative employer.

Luke 9:60, “Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.” We have a calling, a job to do. It can be painful to walk away, in fact, I’m really bad at it, but there is a time to just let the dead bury the dead.

Matthew 10:27, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Those are some hard words, some strong meat, but nothing and nobody should ever come before our own relationship with the Lord.

Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” All in good humor here, but that would be HIS cross or YOUR cross and not a cross belonging to someone else. We are not called to forever carry someone else’s cross for them. Jesus is the One who paid their ransom and they can take up His burden, it is light.

I realize there probably are a few people in the world who are not givers, not people pleasers, not co-dependents, people who genuinely need to soften their heart, show a little kindness, exchange some ego for some empathy. However, it’s not arrogance, ego, or pride that suggests I am so rarely one of those people, it is praise for the Lord’s good work, it is rejoicing because He has taught me so well where I end and another begins, it is the sheer delight that comes from having been rescued, redeemed, from being so lovingly led to take the next exit off what could have so clearly been the highway to hell.

It is dying to self for Him, that has left me totally, delightfully, cheerfully imperfect.

"Red Pill Fallacies"

Pam has decided to start a blog called “Red Pill Fallacies-A Christian Woman’s Response.” She welcomes comments and discussion. She too is a Christian woman who has done a great deal of research into the Red Pill, the manosphere, Tomassi, Dalrock, Day, Heartiste, et all. Check it out, her first post is called,  “The wisdom of God’s spirit.”

I struggle sometimes to explain my own interest in the red pill, the compelling need I have to speak up about it, the sadness I feel when people get caught up in it.

What started my excursion into the gamers and pick up artists was actually caring for this guy at the end of his days who had spent his whole life pouring women into the abyss of his soul, never able to have the intimacy he so clearly craved. The guy was so full of regret, grief, bitterness, that he broke my heart. I’d leave him and have to go sit in my car and cry before I could even drive home.

He was all alone, estranged from his kids who resented him, dealing with a slew of ex-wives who had all rejected him, and he had such a torment for relationship, connection, but everything he did drove people away. Once his good looks, wealth, and even his health began to fail him, he had nothing left to “game” anyone with. He longed for intimacy and yet he had exploited everyone, shut everyone out, prided himself on his ability to remain aloof and avoid any vulnerability, always the top dog. He was trapped in this hell of his own making and full of regret.

The guy really needed a relationship with his heavenly Father but he hated God almost as much as he hated himself. There was no happy ending, he simply  died, bitter, angry, and alone, but he left me with a lot of questions, riddles I needed to solve, questions about faith, about men and their struggles with intimacy, about the lure and seduction of cultian ideologies like the red pill, about things that are all wrong with our culture.

God has been faithful in helping me to answer those questions, in guiding and leading me through riddles and deceptions that have confused me. God is good that way, He always puts my mind at ease, answers my questions, and fills me with His peace.

One thing that has been really hard for me in my life is survivor’s guilt, why me? God has been very good to me and yet I have watched so many others I care about completely destroy themselves with this keen awareness of, “but for the grace of God there go I.”

I empathized with my dying pick up artist, I saw aspects of myself reflected in him, I recognized his choices as some of the choices I had faced, and at the end of the day I realized that the only difference between him and I was my saving faith in Jesus Christ.

What makes the red pill so dangerous in my mind, besides the obvious perversions of scripture, is that we all have a hunger for intimacy, a God sized hole in our spirits that calls us to relationship, and the red pills mislead people into severing that connection, into squashing and suppressing that hunger with falsehoods and deceptions. It is like watching people starve to death eating sawdust, having no awareness that the nutrients they need are missing.

Men, even the most manly ones, even the alleged alpha ones, have a desperate need for intimacy and spiritual connection with their heavenly Father, and with the women in their lives, too. The red pill robs them of that and lures them into a false belief system, one that is often cloaked in pseudo-Christianity and promises you the kingdoms of the world.

Vox Day, Zombies, and Buddhism

From the Department of Redundancy, I was going to title this post, “VD is wrong,” but some things are just such a given there really is no reason to repeat them. Never mind the man however, it is the subject matter of his post I wish to address because some of these concepts speak to a spirit in America that my patriotic little soul rejects vehemently.

The post is called What “Independence” Day  and begins, “I don’t celebrate the 4th of July. I don’t celebrate “Independence Day.” He proceeds to explain that the law is dead and America is a corpse. Allegedly one simply cannot resurrect a corpse.

He than proceeds to explain, “Tibetan religious tradition has it that when the Dalai Lama dies, the Buddha of Compassion leaves his body and incarnates in the body of a young child.”

Well, perhaps. He seems to have forgotten the part about the sky burial, where first we drag the body out to the farthest place in the wilderness and allow the carrion to pluck the flesh from its bones. Such a gentle phrase, “sky burial,”  a rather appalling and graphic  reality, but one that should please those who take their environmental issues and composting seriously.

Than he says, “For many years, conservatives and other freedom lovers have placed their trust in the Republican Party.”

Okay, so step one for  managing to locate America in the dark armed with nothing more than two hands and a flashlight,  America is not a corpse. She is alive and well in the spirit of her people, those who fight on amidst a great deal of abuse. Those who stand firm here on her soil. Those who are actually willing to engage with the culture.

Step two,  America in not a Tibetan monk. Nor is she a Buddhist at all. America is a Christian nation founded on Christian values. Yes, even the freedom to not believe is a Christian value. You cannot separate America from her Christian heritage and this is one of the issues that currently plagues us.

Step three, as a Christian nation, if we ever did place our hope and trust in the Republican party than we are fools indeed, because our eyes are always to be on Jesus Christ, our hope is to live in Him. I am not a member of the Republican kingdom, I am the daughter of a most high God, a heavenly kingdom, serving the King of Kings. The Republican party could implode, slide off the road,  and wind up in ditch, and it wouldn’t impact my values one bit.

Step four, the very heart and soul of Christian faith is all about Resurrection, life more abundant. “The thief comes not, but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.“-John 10:10

“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.“ As Christians we have absolutely no business declaring our country dead. We have been handed a sacred trust, we have an obligation here. One does not simply wash their hands of sacred honor, of that which men have died for.

To his credit, Vox does manage to eventually conclude that, “America is dead. Let us go, then, and find her.“

True indeed, but let us first make sure we are looking for her in the right place.

the Ghomeshi disaster

For those who don’t know the Ghomeshi disaster was/is a sexual assault trial in which Jian Ghomeshi has been acquitted creating a great deal of controversy and discussion. Men’s rights advocates are outraged, this poor, innocent man was allegedly framed, targeted, and very nearly had his life ruined. Many feminists are outraged too, there is no justice in the world, we must change the entire system, the law has failed, etc, etc.

I just keep thinking, sheesh, the rich and famous have such melodrama in their lives! How come sex scandals never happen to the little people? Well, for one nobody cares, but for another, we just aren’t this bloody stupid. Also, on the bottem there just isn’t this same investment in trying to protect our own perceived virtues.

Here’s the first article I wish to address,  “Lucy, the actress and Air Force captain speaks out about the crushing aftermath of the Jian Ghomeshi trial.” The jist of the story is that Lucy waited a decade before reporting that Jian allegedly choked her, an incident that was followed up by her sending him flowers and a love note of a sexual nature. Needless to say, her post incident response to him after the alleged assault did not go over well at trial becasue it tends to scream sexual confusion and a woman that does not even understand the nature of herself. In this interview she says things like “I don’t know what my motivation was, I don’t know. I’m doing pop psychology on myself, I don’t remember, I’ll never know why I wrote that letter. This is all a wild guess, right?  But it’s me guessing on my own psyche...“

I don’t wish to be unkind here, but women really need to not be in a position of trying to “guess” their own psyche. Know thy self! Seriously, one simply cannot be a victim of their own psyche, their own psychology, their own motivations, their own sexuality. Ghomeshi is a real lunkhead, but several of these women are clearly pursuing him, ….while expressing confusion over the fact that they are pursuing him.

The second article says “If you want the legal system to protect you, you better be a good victim” and proceeds to lament how “The message this ruling sends is unambiguous: if you want the legal system to protect you, be a good victim. Take detailed notes of your assault, ideally while it’s happening. Don’t laugh, don’t joke, don’t try to normalize the situation. Be consistent: don’t have complicated feelings, don’t contact your assaulter…”

Well, yes. Seems rather logical to me, but before we condemn a man, lunkhead or not, we must first make sure we have an actual victim. Laughing, joking, sending intimate emails, flowers, not quite being clear on how you feel or what actually happened, normalizing the situation, these are all problematic issues that should make anyone hesitant about revoking a man’s freedom.

It would be a bit like loaning your car to someone and a decade later deciding it had been stolen, so you send flowers to the thief….before turning him in for grand theft auto. So was you car stolen or not? I’m not really sure, I can’t be expected to know my own psyche, I don’t remember, etc etc, but this guy should go to jail becasue I have no idea what I’ve gone and done with my car.

People out in the culture like to speak of the rabid right, of alleged conservative Christian sexual repression and the opppression of women, and while there are pockets of this to be found in various places, we never speak of the harmful and repressive messages coming from feminists and progressives. For all their alleged language around sexual freedom and female sexual empowerment, the truth, the reality is quite a bit differant and it presents some genuine paradoxes that can truly mess with your head. Sometimes I think we have created this kind of cultural stockholm syndrome, where women have become so confused trying to rationalize two conflicting ideas at the same time that we no longer have any idea what is going on within us.

There is the paradox about how sexuality is something you are born with, written in stone, but also conversely, so flexible, such a social construct that your very gender can now be chosen at will. There is the paradox about the strong, empowered woman whose only path to womanly success is to imitate  and copy the perceived sexual behavior of men, completly denying her own femininty in the process. There is the paradox about how all sex with men is rape, about how men are tools of the patriarchy, so pursuing one is literally like sleeping with the enemy. There is the paradox of how we now possess full moral agency enabling us to make “choices,” which then leads us to have sex with people we don’t even like, for reasons we can’t even fathom, causing us to question our very moral agency itself.

Entwinned in all these crazy making paradoxes is also relentless feminist shaming, causing one’s very psyche to bounce about like a pinball trying to discern what is expected, what is normal, what is even going on? For example, one living in the midst of progressive feminism does not cheerfully announce, look at me, I aggressively pursued a complete thug who treated me poorly and than went back for more! Isn’t that fascinating? I wonder what that might say about the things lurking in the dark recesses of my heart? Perhaps I should explore my own motivations here, become acquainted with my own psyche, evaluate my own sexuality? But see, women cannot do that under this progress  system, becasue women must be far, far, more virtuous then the allegedly virtuousity imposed upon us by the far right, by the conservative Christian side of things. Women must never desire the enemy, women will never lie, not even to their own selves,  women are always right, women always perceive things correctly, etc, etc, this huge burden of virtuousity that is enforced and policed with a venegeance on the feminist side, on the progressive side. Also, I h0pe you don’t actually eat animals or use styrofoam cups, becasue those things are bad, too.

And so, under the guise of feminism, of progressivism, genuine rape victims are once again tossed under the bus in this trial that has made a disasterous mockery of sexual assault, and the message has been sent once again that women are not to really possess any moral sexual agency of their own or to own it themselves, and that one must stay in their feminist place, contemplating their perpetual victimhood. Now that will make you crazy.

It’s somewhat interesting to me, virtue, pride, and perpetual shame, are heavy burdens to bear and I don’t see that dumped on women so much from the non feminist, non progressive, more Christian side of things. There is something to to be said about being able to quip rather delightfully, what virtue? I’m a sinner! Ah yes, washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb for sure, but no longer forced to try to carry a burden of perpetual virtue signaling, endlessly trying to prove one’s own goodness, a never ending need to hide from one’s own shame…..

… and to attempt to off load all that shame on an innocent man, a lunkhead in this case, but one no more confused and disoriented than anyone else in this ugly little story.

Even “virtue” can be built on a house of cards, wrapped in layers of deception, choking off the very life within us.

Somebody Make Tomassi Some soup...

Seriously, the poor man is now building an entire philosophy around the fact that when men get sick they cannot get women to make them soup! All Women Are Like That, too.  AWALT alert! Obviously this is blatant evidence of  hypergamy in action and  how the Feminine Imperative has now taken over the world….

Reminds of of that Seinfeld episode, no soup for you! Dang soup Nazi’s.

You all should  be proud of me, I made it darn near 14 hours with no sarcasm or satire, but the Infamous Tomassi Soup Lament is just too much to resist.

He says, “No doubt the Jezebel set of the femosphere will either embrace the commercial’s message by parroting the trope that women hate to be men’s mothers, or they will decry it as portraying women as being heartless, careerist bi&%es – they just can’t win.”

Sadly no. No, what will happen is absolutely nothing. As in, not even Jezebel is going to care about Tomassi’s soup issues. Alas, sad but true. I care however, as in it made me laugh. Snorted coffee out my nose actually.

You can reverse the genders, but I’d probably still laugh.

Men going off to work and failing to stay home and make us soup when we’re sick is called…life. That’s what makes the commercial funny, Tomassi, it reverses gender roles. Yes, this great offense, this huge insult, where a man is forced to zap his own can of soup in the microwave…. is  just called daily life for most wives and moms. So routine, so mundane, we think nothing of it.

Now a man that actually makes your soup, that is so unusual and noteworthy one simply must assume that’s true love in action….

Of empathy, Tomassi says, “Women cannot bear to see a Man experiencing negative emotions such as extreme anger, rage, fear, despair, despondency or depression for extended periods of time…”

Well, not the ones we like anyway. The others that aren’t very nice to us? Well, heck I’ll make some popcorn……Let’s get this fear and despondency thing going on…..

Ruthless, I believe he called us. Darn women are all ruthless.

He goes on to speak of vulnerability and women’s lack of attraction, lack of empathy…..lack of providing  a steaming, hot bowl of soup…

“Yes ladies, I understand you’re not like this. I fully anticipate the “not in my experience” personalization each of you will attempt to adopt to placate any bad juju and your solipsistic mental point of origin.”

I’m attempting to concoct a proper “solipsistic mental place of origin” so as to “placate any bad juju” that might come my way.

Wait, juju??! As in a spell designed to create compliance? Like witchcraft? Like…..gaming foolish young women, taking advantage of their sexual inclinations, psychologically exploiting them into believing they are in love with you, deceiving them into having sex with you? Counting coup? Is not juju the entire nature of the red pill beast?

How about relentlessly bullying young men, calling them beta schmucks, labeling them gammas, applying assorted cultian tactics to control them, falsely leading them to believe there might be some kind of biblical backing for this sort of thing? Telling them that if they don’t swallow the red pill they’ll forever be trapped in the matrix? Convincing them that women hate them, have no souls,  and are only ruled by our superficial biological impulses?

That kind of juju? Red pill juju designed to force compliance?

Ai yi yi…

Tomassi continues, “Just remember that this is the messaging your gender’s imperative is fostering.”

Actually I was thinking more along the lines of baking you a batch of  brownies heavily laced with horse laxatives, but maybe that’s just me….

                                  

Loss of Identity in Marriage

A common theme among some ‘spherians this week is loss of identity in marriage, specifically wives, who allegedly should loose theirs in the name of elevating the status of their husbands and being godly women

Allow me to plainly state, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. In this tangled mess of vines, roots, trees, and who is the bigger stick, blech. Which than begs the question, why do I read this dross and try to understand? I suppose because I am curious about why the world is rejecting both marriage and Jesus Christ Himself, and also recoiling in horror, rejecting the very idea of men leading in anything, at anytime.

Somebody smart gave me a piece of armor to use when wading through this muck, keep your eyes on Christ, and look to your own husband as an example of the sweetness to be found in marriage, in the character of men, in love the way God designed it. Ahh, both of those concepts soften my well armed heart…..

Anyway, loss of identity in marriage can be a real challenge, for both men and women, and no it is nothing to dismiss, demean, or ignore. It happens sometimes for a season, sometimes in the midst of raising children and life’s chaos, you become somebody’s mother, somebody’s wife, until you are really no longer a person in your own right. Hubby and I frequently refer to each other as “mom” or “dad” and honest to goodness it is because I have gone and forgotten the poor man’s name. He is really no better, a few times he has told the children did you ask “that woman?” What woman? The one that lives here, the one you call mom. What the heck is her name again??

I am very blessed because my husband has always had some awareness of the danger that can come from completely losing yourself, your sense of identity and personhood. Who you are outside the definition of wife, mother, sister, daughter. We are not our work, we are not our families, we are actually people in our own right. People with needs of our own.

Marriage, one flesh is not actually about being absorbed, grafted in, erased, it is about becoming a better version of yourself. It is about being the kind of person that attracted your spouse to you in the first place, and then amplifying and improving on that. It is about coming together, the two parts becoming greater as a whole. Symbiosis. Marriage lifts us up, it elevates us, it does not erase us.

This is similar to the way Christ takes the essence of who we are and makes us better, calls us to our higher selves, fixes what is broken. The fragrance of who we are, the essence of our being is not erased in the process, although some of us may hardly recognize ourselves when He is finished.

Jack Nicholson has a great quote in a movie where he says, “so many men complain about how their wives are dead inside, cold, how they’ve changed….and they’re the ones that killed her!”

Oh such harsh words, but words of wisdom indeed. It is in the nature of women to start to take on the identity of our families, our husbands,  our children, and to risk losing ourselves in the process.

I sometimes think of Eve, she seems to have forgotten who she was, the daughter of a most high God, having an identity in Him, a lapse which made her really vulnerable to, did God really say that? In essence Eve is so busy feeding her husband, gathering fruit, and talking to serpents, she is ripe for the plucking. You have no identity Eve, let me give you one, hisses the serpent.

As I’ve said, I’ve been so very blessed. Hubby has always known that someday the kids will grow up and move on and it will be just him and I. There must be enough “him” and “I” left over to keep that attraction going.  That sweet fragrance of who we are, the essence that entwined us must be preserved, because that is what draws us towards one another.

It is so vitally important that men, rather than tamping down and squashing their wives, lift their own selves up higher and encourage her to do the same. Leadership is a launching pad, not a lid.

Psychologically Soft??

While lounging around on my fainting sofa this afternoon, alternating between doses of smelling salts and laudanum, imagine my surprise when I was rather rudely interrupted by a blog post that suggests, “Girls are Psychologically Soft.”

You don’t say??? Also, peel me a grape will you, and hand me the chocolate bon bons?

Obviously this is a matter that requires some serious thought, as I am somewhat torn between a desire to promote that very beneficial idea of how women are possessed by psychological softness, versus a faint twinge of guilt that seems to suggest it is my duty to rid the world of all its foolish deceptions. Every last one.

Alas, a rabbit hole has appeared here on Easy Street, one that has left me contemplating the nature of Steel Magnolias versus what should perhaps be called “Iron Poppies.” To tell you the truth, I rather favor the humble nasturtium that springs forth from the cracks in a baked California freeway or in my darker moments…. the parasitic nature of an orchid feasting off a rotted log.

Oh, speak to me of fragile flowers wilting in the sunlight…

If I thought for one moment that girls being smaller, weaker, and psychologically softer, would somehow translate into the idea that life (and men) should show us even greater kindness and charity, you have no idea how often I would play the girl-card. Sadly, it is seldom true however. Something always seems to get lost in translation. In some odd quirk of human nature, “small, soft and weak” tends to just register as, “oh look, perfectly legitimate and morally acceptable…….prey.”

Don’t ask me to explain it, human behavior just is what it is, and as this blogger so clearly implied, “girls are psychologically soft,” therefore…..feel free to exploit the crap out of them. He’s a charming specimen, let me tell you, as in some people have a screw loose, but this one done lost two bolts and Teh Stupid has come spilling out.

I am torn between a desire to mercifully try to scoop it up before anyone sees it….and the urge to look away politely, like one might do when someone’s zipper is down. You may not be embarrassed. I however, am embarrassed for you.

In my most gracious and charitable state however, I realize that there may be two different worlds going on here, that perhaps my hysterical cackling over the very suggestion of psychologically mushy females has something to do with the fact that that is just so not my world. My fainting couch and laudanum are not real, nor has it ever been real for anyone in my family. We are far more likely to have been slopping for the lady of the house….or for the pigs.

Somewhere in the midst of dying in childbirth, child sexual abuse, dead babies, heroin addictions, run away men, and indentured servitude, the women in my family all seem to have gotten their “psychologically soft card” revoked, not unlike our credit cards often are today.

I used to think this was a bad thing, that I somehow got dealt the short end of the stick. I don’t anymore, it turns out this was the very inoculation we all needed and not unlike a vaccine, it seems to have steered off that terrible contagion called, Teh Stupid.

Only one suffering from a terminal case of Teh Stupid would be so unobservant as to even suggest that girls are psychologically soft, although if you should wish to hold that view for the purposes of treating us with extra gentleness and charity, that would be most lovely.

If not, at least make yourself useful, pass the bon bons and peel me a grape.