Rejecting Passivity and Detachment

If you've not read the prior post, it is an introduction to this one and may be worth a read.

Two weekends ago, in simultaneous sermons at two different churches, Pastors Phil Knauer and Kelly Harrison spoke to tensions created in marriages from men detaching from their marriages to focus on the work of providing for their families and men being passive, respectively.  Though I am not married or in a relationship, I was reminded of instances in my own life and observations I’ve made which relate to this problem.

At some point in most every young man’s life, he dreams about being a hero to at least one woman.  I certainly dreamt about rescuing more than a few of my first crushes from dangerous situations in elementary school and that continued later in middle school and even into high school.  In elementary school, where my popularity in grade school peaked, I even had a group of boys who would run around the playground attempting to “rescue” women from other buys who were picking on them.  I should perhaps even admit that I’ve definitely imagined being a hero to women I’d hoped to impress as recently as this year.  

There is a point, however, for most men where reality sets in and we realize that we aren’t always going to be able to run in and rescue the woman of our dreams-or perhaps even the woman of our current interest. Perhaps we’ve finally learned that most of our childhood superheroes are just comic book creations or perhaps, like me, they’ve learned that the women they’d hoped to rescue have someone else in mind for that role!  Pastor Phil said that most women are looking for Prince Charming, and regardless of the veracity of that statement, I’d think that most men have lost their thoughts of being Prince Charming by their 30s.  We all fall short.  Sadly because of failed attempts at relationships, or perhaps worse, failure to even try due to lack of confidence or fear of failure many men lose hope that they will rescue anyone.  Too many of these men check out of the relationships in their lives, and many become detached or passive in the relationships that persist.

I should pause here for my female readers to address something I’ve hinted at above that greatly offends some independent, godly, women I’ve had the opportunity to know over the years.  When I speak of a man rescuing a woman, I am not implying that without that man’s help she would be lost.   I am certainly aware that there are many strong women and there is certainly Biblical precedent to women coming alongside other women and supporting them.  Furthermore, godly men I know have shared times of their wives’ strength and support in difficult times, which helped them get through.  Perhaps a better way of explaining what I am trying to say rather than coming to the rescue was that the man was able to put his strength to her service.  Whether that strength is physical, intellectual, emotional, or spiritual is not really the point.  

With that disclaimer behind me, I will attempt to get back on the topic of detachment and passivity.  Phil spoke of the biblical responsibility of men to provide for their families.  While I realize that in today’s society, this view is often misconstrued to say that men should be the primary breadwinners but let’s table that debate for now as this post is already becoming longer than planned.  Phil went on to explain how many men need to detach from their family and marriage relationships to focus on their careers and the demands of work.  As most would agree that men are not particularly adept at multi-tasking, it is a necessary detachment.  The problem, I would argue, arises when men put far too much of their strength into their work and become detached or passive in their relationships outside of work.  I don’t make any claim to be representative of my sex but in my own experience, I prefer to focus on my strengths.  Frankly, I’ve far more experience in my profession than I have in dating.  (Being single, I of course have no experience in marriage.)  Unfortunately, though it is too easy to focus on our work to the detriment of our other relationships.  Society tends to measure success for men more by their influence in the boardroom or their prowess in the bedroom than in their ability to serve and love their families and wives.  Meaningful, sacrificial, relationships may even be viewed as a distraction from their true purpose, which is ostensibly to work hard and make money to provide for their families and accrue lots of fancy toys so they can play hard when they aren’t working.

Not surprisingly, many hard-driving, career-minded men who are extraordinarily successful in their work are barely present in the lives of the people they’d profess to care about.  They leave early, come home late, and may even bring work home with them so they are rarely present even if they are physically with their families.   It may be accurate to describe them as married to their work.  They may be successful but at what cost?  Some become detached because they give their all at work and have nothing left, others detach because they come home to controlling wives and they aren’t willing or able to fight another battle. (more on this in a future blog.)  Some simply become passive, being present but never really engaging those they claim to love.  Love does not endure passivity.

As a single man, I can focus on my career without the struggle of balancing my work with a marriage or family.  (I am sometimes reminded of this by my married friends as part of well-intentioned advice.)  The reality is that I cannot allow my work to supplant healthy relationships with friends and family if I wish to have a wife and family of my own.  On a base level, I will not take the risks required to enter into a relationship that could result in marriage if my greatest risks are always in the workplace.  I cannot expect to have the type of relationship I hope for if I remain passive and wait for God to bring me the right woman.  (I do not hope she will fall from the sky because I’ve not been to the gym recently and I am doubtful I could catch her.)  All joking aside, if I detach and remain passive in my relationships, I forfeit the chance to demonstrate my strength and serve the people who are in my life. Engaging and taking risks may never be comfortable and it most certainly will result in failures that could leave greater scars than marketplace missteps.   

It is this realization, then, that forces all men to make a decision.  Do they wish to expend their lives to build themselves up or do they hope to have lasting, positive, impact on the lives of others?  Will they only carve their accomplishments into marble or be active participants in the formidable task of writing truth on hearts through love?  It is a decision with eternal significance but it must be made every day.

Post Valentine's Day Reflection (An introduction)

I had planned to write a Valentine’s Day post this year but was pretty tired for shoveling snow on Thursday and I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired. The blog posting scene on Valentine’s Day is typically more than a little oversaturated with material, whether it is comical, cynical, optimistic, pessimistic, hopeful, or bitter.

I was moving a bit slower than usual today and failed to get to church this AM so I watched an online sermon given by Pastor Kelly Harrison at Way of Life Church last week. Most years, around Valentine’s Day, pastors focus on messages of love and marriage-or perhaps it just seems that way to this perennially single guy. This year was no different with my church campuses focusing on a family and marriage-based series and Way of Life giving a series called “Mr. and Mrs. Betterhalf.”   

Admittedly, my first reaction to a relationships, marriage or family-focused series is usually to cringe and consider taking a hiatus to somewhere else until the series is on a topic I feel is more suitable to my needs. (We can unpack the attitude behind that statement some other time!)

My gut reaction to marriage series notwithstanding, I do hope to be married someday so I did my best to listen attentively. I was struck by the similarities between the key points of Kelly Harrison’s teaching and the key points that my church’s pastor, Phil Knauer, made at the same time last week.

The key points made by both pastors spoke to tension between the biblical gender roles described in Genesis and how those roles further break down when they are put into practice by imperfect people. Kelly spoke on women’s tendency to be controlling and men’s tendency to be passive, using the illustration of King Ahab and Jezebel.  Phil spoke to the tension between a man’s desire to serve his wife and a need to detach to focus on work so that he can provide for the family, and tied it back to Adam and Eve. He also mentioned that tension of a woman between the desire to submit to her husband and yet maintain control. 

Phil noted that Ephesians 5:21 & 23 basically say that a man is to love his wife and a wife is to respect her husband. That sounds pretty simple but since Adam and Eve chose a different path, it has been easier said than done.

As a single guy these messages helped me understand a bit of that disappointment and perhaps will help me improve some things in my singleness that will hopefully benefit a future marriage.  I’ll be trying to unpack of few of those things in my next few blog posts.  At present, I’m planning on wrestling with “rejecting passivity and detachment (men),” and “respect and the paradox of control (women),” and perhaps others depending on what thoughts come together.  I'll even take requests but I may authorize the right to decline to write on some topics!

Winning in Love

"To love and win is the best thing; to love and lose the next best." -fortune cookie

I posted the above quote to my Facebook page after a long day at work, a tough commute home, and an entertaining dinner. Frankly, loving anything other than the caramel chicken that had been, until very recently, on my plate wasn’t really on my mind when I read the fortune.  Even so, I appreciated the wisdom and it didn’t hurt that the cookie tasted pretty good too! 

I didn’t plan on giving it any more thought until a friend posted this introspective response: “Maybe someday I will believe the second part, instead of trying to protect myself from the prospect of losing and forfeit the chance of love (and win), although I'm not sure what "winning" in love looks like.”

I wanted to provide an encouraging response as quickly as possible but for all I don’t know about love, I have learned over time that matters of the heart are not best solved, or salved, with words alone.  If anything, the overwhelming number of cliched responses I’ve heard in the Church alone is enough to make someone pretend that everything is hunky-dory just to spare oneself from them!

Yet, there is part of my friend’s vulnerable statement that stuck out to me; the part about not really being sure what winning looks like when it comes to love.  I think we’ve all heard the expression that “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”  In reality, if you have loved and lost, over and over, it is hard to continue to believe that loving is worth the pain that begins to seem inevitable.  It is justifiable, then, to withdraw and protect your heart.  As the phrase I’ve oft-quoted from C. S. Lewis’ book, The Four Loves starts:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.”

Why would we make that choice, especially when past attempts and giving and receiving love have yielded nothing more than a broken heart?  It is a tough sell, but Lewis makes it clear that there is a greater loss that we risk if we attempt to protect ourselves fully from the pain that may come with love.  In the same passage, Lewis goes on to write:

“If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” 

More simply and less eloquently put, the walls I’ve built to protect myself from rejection, disappointment and heartbreak are a safe death.  In order to avoid being hurt by love, I need to shut off my heart entirely.  Otherwise I have to risk the pain that can come with being vulnerable, the prospect of which I am hardly enthusiastic!  

In my earthy experience, love can seem to be a bit of a twisted game really.  Like a higher-stakes version of grade school sports, there are some who make the key plays and win the game, there are some who drop the ball and lose, and there are some who never get off the bench.  Instead of a guy who yells a lot, our “coaches” may be friends and family telling us to “get back on the field,” “sit out a few plays,” or “go back to the locker room.”

But the simplicity of the sports love-game quickly breaks down.  As Jess Rothenberg writes in The Catastrophic History of You and Me, “Love is no game. People cut their ears off over this stuff. People jump off the Eiffel Tower and sell all their possessions and move to Alaska to live with the grizzly bears, and then they get eaten and nobody hears them when they scream for help. That’s right. Falling in love is pretty much the same thing as being eaten alive by a grizzly bear.”

 

Love sounds pretty serious (and pretty painful for that matter) but there are some who still try to play it as a game. There are the “relationship experts” who can sell you a foolproof set of steps to get the man or woman of your dreams (or perhaps just the one you want right now), the advertisers who promote this product or that as increasing your sex appeal, and the men and women who play with the emotions of others by giving or getting attention so they can get what they want.  The rules vary but when love becomes a game, there are no winners.

And so I return to the thought that was the genesis of this entire entry: What does it look like to win in love? With my limited experience, I have to say that I am not sure I can fully answer the question.  In my life thus far I have loved, but whether due to God’s hand protecting me from making worse mistakes or my own cowardice keeping me on the sidelines, I have not loved someone deeply enough to experience the deep loss experienced by many.  Sure, I have tried to love women who could not reciprocate and put demands on them which were rooted mostly in my own selfishness.  I’ve enjoyed the attention of women who loved me and hurt them by not being forthright in a timely fashion with how I felt (or didn't feel) toward them.  Those actions were certainly profound losses as I hurt the people I cared about.  Please do not think; however, that I am in any way equating them to the pain felt by those who have experienced the loss of someone they have loved deeply.  

But once again, I am slipping away from the original question.  For me, winning in love comes down to putting the needs of people I love above mine and reaching them where they are, on their terms.  There is a certain amount of recklessness involved, with which I am profoundly uncomfortable!  It is acceptable and appropriate to draw boundaries as there are those who counterfeit love for their own means, yet you cannot love without the risk that your heart will break over another-especially one who may not ever be able to reciprocate.  If I am honest, I only want to love people who can love me back, and what’s more, they need to love me back how I want to receive it.  Frankly, the least risk I have to take, the better, but that view of love cannot be further from how Christ loved others. 

It follows, then that my “wins” have been when my actions were rooted in Love that flowed from a source other than myself.  It seems to cheapen such profound opportunities to call them “wins” but for the sake of the original question, I’ll use the term.  For all the things I've got wrong and how imperfectly I have loved, I've had a lot of wins which I am more likely to be thankful for than regret.  I've had the opportunity to speak encouragement into the wounded heart of a woman whose heart I had selfishly ignored in past attempts to put to rest my own feelings of longing brings a kind of healing that is hard to explain.  I've had the chance to teach at least one woman, through example, how she deserved to be treated by the men in her life on whose approval she based far too much of her self-worth.  I've slowly gained the ability to be vulnerable with a woman when my feelings toward her made it easier (and safer) to erect walls to protect myself provided the opportunity to speak the truth in love to a heart that needed to hear it.  I've got a second, and even third, opportunity to love someone going through a rough patch where they are at, albeit not in the way I'd originally planned.  These were honors I don't feel I deserved but perhaps would not have experienced, had I not first fallen on my face.  Most importantly, my halting, imperfect attempts at love still made a positive impact in the people I loved-even when I didn't love them particularly well!  If it took the losses I’ve experienced to have those wins, they were worth it.

I’ve written quite a bit on a subject one which I have much to learn so in closing I’d like to share some responses I received when I put the question of what it means to win in love on Facebook.  (I’ve edited some slightly to make them more anonymous.)  Feel free to add your own comments following this post.

* Welp... I don't know if I like the term "winning" in love. I'm not sure it's a game or contest. But I think winning is finding someone with whom you share the same core beliefs and who adds to your life in all areas and you do the same. It shouldn't be stressful, but it should be worth working on.

* I agree with your considerations of the semantics involved in your initial postulation, but I have to jump in with a reply that generally "answers" your question. I have found myself thinking about how my life might look different without my wife and kids (Oh, let me count the ways!) how different I would be, and I can describe many ways that I have grown in patience, and peace, in faith, in hope, in joy - the list could go on. Winning in love is the only way I can describe success. No matter what I have worked for, I always return to a personal need for a home, and love to fill it.  And… love looks like me - it has made me what I am

* It looks like fulfilling God's will. Trust me; my personal testimony backs it up!

* The way I look at it is just like you said, as long as were able to show that said woman or in our cases women, that there really are respectable, loving, kind and genuine men left in this world, then at least we did our job. And the friendships that come about as a result can be more fulfilling than a relationship, even if they only last a season, or a lifetime. 

* I'll chime in. I'm currently dating someone who, hands down, has presented me with the clearest, most tangible picture of Christ's love for me. For everyone, really. Even if I wasn't dating him (and therefore his affections weren't aimed at me) but I had the opportunity to witness them- I would still be able to experience a small part of the way Jesus loves us all. My fella is a servant. His good mood never changes because his circumstances do not define his joy. I have never heard him complain. Seriously. He looks at everyone-not just me-and freely gives them friendship or love because, as he often tells me, 'I know Who we all belong to.' He had an encounter with Jesus and it forever changed his heart. But beyond that, he is disciplined. He reads the bible every single morning, without fail. I say that not to grant him Sainthood but to apply context. Love and reflecting Perfect Love takes discipline. He's not perfect. But he knows the One in whom he has believed and he doesn't keep it to himself. And if that's not winning at love, I don't know what is.

* Winning in love, for me, entails experiencing a love that is ferocious, willing to fight, and at the same time willing to be vulnerable in its pursuits. Love like that is brimming with confidence and allows no place for fear to reside. Being unafraid -- that is essential to winning in love.

Insecurely Confident

You’ve probably seen it:  A flaming building, a woman trapped on the second floor and screaming for help.  One fireman more brave than the rest runs into the building as it collapses around him.  He rescues the woman, a beautiful brunette, and you expect them to kiss when something else draws her attention.  She hands the fireman’s jacket back to him absentmindedly and runs toward the astronaut who is walking toward her.  “Nothing beats an astronaut,” the video narrator says. If my description didn’t paint a vivid enough picture, here is the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjzGaSQX0iU

So why do I mention a rather silly advertisement?  Both it, a different version in which a lifeguard wrestles a shark to save another model, and one where Neil Patrick Harris loses out to a man in a space suit illustrate a point I hear over and over: Women are attracted to confident men.  While I am not sure I agree that it takes more confidence to go into space than it does to run into a burning building or to wrestle (and punch) a shark, the point is well made.

Webster’s Dictionary defines trust as follows:

1. Trust or faith in a person or thing.

2. A trusting relationship

3. a. That which is confided; a secret  b. A feeling of assurance, especially of self-assurance.

Interestingly enough, in the dictionary I consulted for the above definition, the entry immediately following is “confidence game,” defined as “a swindle in which the victim is defrauded after her or her confidence has been won.”  So often our confidence is a counterfeit. We expend a tremendous amount of energy to appear confident, usually to earn the respect, indeed the confidence, of others.  We play a sort of “confidence game” with those around us and in the process defraud them and ourselves.  Or, perhaps knowing our own shortcomings all too well, we place our confidence in others who aren’t strong enough to keep it or perhaps have no right to it.

That is not to say that confidence, when appropriately placed, is a bad thing but when our confidence is borrowed from other insecure people or our own success it is built on a foundation that will eventually fail. The friends who have been at our side through thick and thin will not always come through.  A brave, well-trained firefighter may rescue a child from a burning building but other brave men have ran into buildings only to be carried out one last time.

Pride and confidence are often difficult to discern from each other.   To expound on the firefighter example, a firefighter may have the legitimate confidence built on training, experience, and specialized equipment but those things will not protect him if his respect for the power of fire is buried under a coat of bravado and he begins to act as if he cannot be burned simply due to his bravery.  Just as courage is not the absence of fear, confidence is not the absence of doubt or apprehension.  It is not coincidence that we are more willing to admit our doubts to those who have earned our confidence-those we trust.

Thus we come full circle to Webster’s definition of confidence: “Trust or faith in a person or thing.”  It is a critical clue in the confidence riddle.  Confidence that is not counterfeit can be founded only on trust.  Furthermore, our trust must be in something or someone that is trustworthy.  If I have confidence that the ladder is safe but it isn’t set up properly, I am going to fall. 

In scripture we see the actions of those whose confidence was rooted in the one who needs not the approval of any man or woman.  Many of them were often afraid.  Some, notably Elijah, Jonah, and David had to run away from things or people they feared.  God wasn’t particularly concerned with their confidence in their own ability.  In fact, Scripture seems to indicate that He got really tired of people taking credit for His work and giving him none.  Don’t get me wrong, He doesn’t need our approval but when we put our confidence, indeed out trust, in Him He may very well use us beyond our natural ability.  How else can you explain a drunkard (Noah) chosen to continue the lineage of man on the earth?  Or a stuttering murderer (Moses) leading God’s chosen people out of slavery?  How about the weakest man of the weakest tribe (Gideon) leading a force of 300 men against an army of thousands and winning?  Or a man who led his people around a fortified city for days before attacking it with trumpets and a shout? (Joshua)  If you prefer New Testament examples, Paul was so qualified that God had to throw him off a horse and make him temporarily blind to begin using him.  Peter denied he even knew Jesus yet spoke boldly when the Spirit descended on him.

So I suppose that the question we may need to ask is If you are lacking confidence, is it perhaps because your own confidence is built on a foundation of your own making?  Perhaps it is worth attracting a woman who wants a man whose confidence comes from a wellspring deeper and fuller than his own heart.