DUDES! Get in touch with your feminine side.

This post is for guys.  Dudes.  The macho ones.  The ones who must be THE MAN.  You know who you are.  It strikes me that much of who you are is defined by what you don’t do.  You don’t read sappy books or watch sappy movies (and if you happen to by accident, you roll your eyes), you don’t write or read poetry, you don’t dance, you don’t go shopping for clothes, you don’t use hand lotion or exfoliate.  Sure there are manly things you do.  You hunt, fish, drive big loud cars, and try to speak in an unnaturally low voice.  But, hey, girls can do those things too (other than the voice thing), so big deal.

Well, I’ll stop the description of the total stereotypical dude right there and turn my attention to the broader principle: that every man, woman, and child is ultimately feminine.  Masculine and feminine is rather defined by degrees as far as we are usually concerned.  Men are only “masculine” because they are more masculine than women.  Some men are more masculine than others.  But on a purely objective scale, all may be defined as feminine.

What is masculine and feminine?  Well, first what is it not?  It does not refer specifically to the biological.  Men are men, and women are women, and there is a clear definition there.  Rather, the masculine and the feminine is a function of speech.  It does not describe anatomy, primarily.  Rather, it describes function of action.  The masculine acts.  The feminine is acted upon.  The masculine is initiates and the feminine responds.  This is common to virtually every language.

And that is why we may rightly say that ultimately all mankind is feminine.  Because we are, and are to be responsive.

C.S. Lewis says, in the context of a discussion of the priestly role of men:

Only one wearing the masculine uniform can (provisionally, and till the Parousia) represent the Lord to the Church: for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him.

There is definitely something to be said for this.  The reason why all the human race is ultimately feminine is because God initiates.  Man responds.  When God breaths life into dust and speaks the imperative: live, man lives.

Likewise, Christ initiates His covenant with us, His people, and we respond, receiving Him in faith.  Each one of us as an individual received the call of God and responded to Christ’s sacrifice.  Corporately, we, the Church, are the Bride.  Christ initiated this relationship on the cosmic scale as well, taking on our humanity and coming to redeem his beloved.

We were lost.  Dead.  He revived us, and we responded by living.  Jesus’ Bride receives Him in faith and in love.  The Church is forever “she” to Him.

So what does that mean for us guys?  Well, first, be masculine in relation to those who are properly feminine (women).  Masculinity initiates and leads, protects, guards, and courts.  That is the picture God has painted in His creation of humankind.  That is why men are to take the commission and to represent Christ to the Church corporate, as Lewis suggests.

Second, get in touch with the feminine.  By this I mean: submit to God’s ordained authority of Church, family and government.  Don’t be so caught up in your masculinity that you forget that you are feminine as well—that you refuse to receive and respond, insisting on always being the initiator.  For we all must receive and respond to Christ.

Therefore, cultivate responsiveness.  If that means watching a sappy movie or two, taking a dance class (which actually is an exercise of a man’s masculine, which I might write about at a later date), or reading and actually feeling poetry, so be it.

. . . we are dealing with male and female not merely as facts of nature but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge. Or rather, we are not dealing with them but (as we shall soon learn if we meddle) they are dealing with us.

Further reading:

C.S. Lewis on Priestesses

Origin of Speech, by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy