The Healing Love of Community: Spotlight on Godly Men

“We must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing.” ― Hélène Cixous

I feel like Helene Cixous would probably tell me I'm  fool for writing this post... She would be furious that I've taken her feminist philosophy and made it about humanity instead of only about women. I know men have oppressed and hurt women throughout history, but I know women are also powerful, and we also injure and ignore and have our own way of oppressing...

Studies show that men usually don't talk about things when they're upset. They let things fester. They hold things in, and it can cause some serious issues in their hearts, in their minds, and in their relationships. It ends up being bad for everyone really... and I know loads of women would say "well then just TALK about it then!"... But methinks it probably isn't that simple.

Regardless, this post isn't really about the problems between men and women (of which there are plenty)... This post is about the blessings men have been in my life the past few weeks.

You see, I've been making friends with some guys at church, and I've always had guy friends, so this is nothing new... but... God's love is just so imbued into these men that it's really healing some hurting places in my heart... and before you go there, NO... I'm not falling in love with any of them. I'm pretty sure none of them are falling in love with me.

This is bigger than romantic love.

It's God's love.

When I try to explain it, it sounds like and looks like romantic love... but it feels so much deeper and purer and smoother than all that...

It happens in things as simple as a look... these men look at my face, and it seems like pure light comes from their eyes--I actually blush sometimes and stare at my shoes, because it's powerful, as if they can see into me.

Living in London where I've encountered a lot of cat calls and men staring at me like that shark stared at the surfer girl... this is so refreshing. I don't feel like I'm going to be judged or devoured or anything. I feel like I can be an innocent girl with them... I can be free because there is nothing predatorial in the interaction. It's simple and light and lovely. So many times I either feel ignored or as though I'm the subject of a bemused hunger, but not with these fellas...

It happens with them listening, remembering things, asking me about things... knowing my life--not to get anything from me, not to come at me with romantic love, but just to know me as a sister, as a friend...

It happens with a soft word... an idea spoken so gently that I feel impelled to obey them. They aren't commanding me. They aren't putting their will on me, or even asserting an opinion or anything... these words are offered so gently, so impartially, so calmly, and I just feel the Holy Spirit in them that I just stop dead in my tracks... something in my soul seems to perk up and listen, again, not in romantic love, just in this "I know you are thinking of me and I'll listen to you" way... Similar to the way I feel the Navi in Avatar would say "I see you"...

I don't think these interactions are a me-specific thing... I think these men just have God's Spirit in them and God is letting me see glimpses of this... how His Spirit changes the way we do community and relationships. It changes how we listen to people, how we see people, how we consider things--it changes our community. It brings freedom, letting us put aside our "false" selves, and airing out the live one... I feel more like a "real" woman... more like I can be free to be a woman, more like I am accepted as a woman in society, more like I fit into the world because I'm being loved into the community there with these wonderful guys...

I think a lot of men I meet feel powerless... it's a tool used to enslave them... but men seem to have such influence over people's lives (not that women don't, but that's another post). Men are so strong--physically, emotionally, spiritually... and they can either use that strength to bless the people in their lives (and they will be so blessed indeed), or they can withhold it, or use it against them, and then, what are we to do?

All of us with our hurts and our messiness... God's love in us helps us to love each other into wholeness... so we can better be ourselves, and become better selves in the process... men and women together. Whether or not it's easy or we like it, in the beginning it was created male and female--we've been in it together since then, and there's no getting out of that community now.