32: Courtship and Cadavers, Penguins and Peacocks.

As a disclaimer, I have negligible relationship experience. But today in my anatomy class, as we pulled back dissected muscle flaps from the back of a long dead corpse, still dripping formaldehyde from slowly rotting internal cavities, I mentally stumbled upon the perfect introduction that both disgusts and hooks the reader into wondering where this train of thought could possibly end up.

            So on to the first point.

            I probably have more relevant experience being a male as opposed to female, so I will address my gender first. When it comes to relationships, whether portrayed by media or simply acted out in a coffee shop or workplace, the emphasis that men tend to put forward is heavily set on being “Alpha”. This can range anywhere from having the requisite skills to fix the printer to being so completely dominant and knowledgeable as to delegate someone else to fix the printer. It can also manifest as happening to have the personal number of the worlds best printer fixer on speed dial and a personal jet idling in Vienna to fly that specialist directly to the frontage road outside the printer shop, or even  \to completely ignore the whole printer problem and don a slouch hat, go to an animal adoption agency, and then write a mandolin ballad about your new rescue chinchilla.

            All of these interpretations of the now vague term of “Alpha” hinge on confidence and imply that women will then flock to the most Alpha male based on the performance most recently displayed. I cite social media outlets in bulk, where there are countless males listing what they construe as the most impressive accomplishments, pictures, and whatever odds and ends we can cobble together to put bait on a hook with the intent of luring in females and then reeling them up to the surface of who we really are, largely to disappointment from the females perspective.

            Drawing an easy comparison would be to envision the average single modern male as these stupid things. 

Fun fact: Peacocks don’t stick around for the laying of the eggs, nor do they lend a claw to the raising of the young. Truth is, they have no interaction with the peahens (you learn something new every day) after the mating ritual is completed, even though the species can live up to 20 years.

It is essentially a dumbed down version of a dating reality show, except that the males gradually become outnumbered by their own illegitimate children (if animals could have a concept of legitimate offspring. Or legality… or courts…  Imagine sitting in on a peacock custody hearing… Probably for the best, I doubt peacocks could pay child support for 7ish offspring per mating season… plus a peacock will inseminate upwards of 5 peahens per mating season…….. carry the one…)

            Regardless of how many comical anthropomorphized situations that comparison brings up, it leads to the question of whether or not we as a species could actually follow suit. Theoretically, it could work. But similar to my theory that there may be a planet completely composed of Goldfish crackers (probability doesn’t prove me wrong), it breaks down in practicality.

 If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and the average male were to scorn approximately 5 women every May through July (and we know the average male is capable of an exponentially higher number than that), then life as we know it would never have been able to advance till today. Even if we only began implementing this new society today, we would die off a species at the end of the next born generation due to complete reproductive embargo enacted by the female population as a near nuclear form of “Oh No he Di’ent.”

           

            Even outside of the parody, this society would collapse upon itself. Yet we as men continue to parade ourselves like we aren’t lackluster frauds who can barely figure out how to put pizza rolls in the oven instead of pursuing what really matters, or possibly finding something worth pursuing wholeheartedly.

            Speaking of hearts and organs and all that, I can’t seem to shake the image of sticking a gloved hand directly into a long dead and preserved human body. It just… it sticks with you. That heart used to be a person. Strange.

Some people might expect the women to be complete opposite from men. I would argue that they are actually quite similar, just with slight differences in approach and tactics. It is actually quite easy to simplify all of this discussion into “Everyone wants to be wanted” and leave it at that. Women, just like men, want to be noticed and flocked to. They want to have their pick of whoever they deem to be the Alpha-est of the Alphas that parade in front of them, awaiting their nod and smile with what might be described as desperation mixed with utmost confidence. I like to call it “Utpost Desifidence.” 

Funny enough, this behavior is also best modeled by a bird. These little weirdos.

It’s basically a female’s dream relationship as far as my severely misinformed male brain can extrapolate from the limited interactions that I’ve had with the female gender. The male will see a female that he simply cannot live without for another moment, so enthralled with her very presence is he that he must outpour his love for her in the most perfect gift he can contrive:

                                                       A rock.

Isn’t it a little strange that a bird with the brain sized only slightly larger than your average cat turd managed to beat humans to the idea of presenting rocks to their bride to be? Is it also strange to be typing this while my internet window in the background is displaying the google image search results for “average sized cat turd”? I can answer one of those with a fair bit of certainty.

But getting back to penguins, the male (after swooning) will run about like a madman trying to get the best pebble possible. The smoother the better, and satan himself better get out of the way if he’s sitting on a nice looking rock. Male penguins will steal from others, beat down other bachelors, waddle tirelessly on the shore for hours just to find a pebble that will prove his love for the female. And no matter how many heinous crimes against penguin society or how sore his webbed walkers get, he knows it will be worth it in the end.

Unless she rejects him.

The female penguin can give the shaft to a male suitor if she doesn’t like his rock, his body, his attitude, or just the fact that he only works part time at the cannery. She has complete control over the situation as long as she is an attractive enough candidate.

This is the crux of the matter and where the crossover between species becomes a little less fun. Women spend far more time than is warranted or necessary to make themselves look attractive to men, so that they can get a long line of suitors, so that they can pick and choose, so that they can have this control, so that they can be wanted. And this goes far beyond just physical appearance. Having the right walk, the cute laugh, the good music sense, the quirky personality that hinges just between neurotic and nerdy without touching the dark side too much, but just a little to stay interesting. Women want to feel worthy of pursuit.

And here is where we veer from the lighthearted and into the more serious section. Those who were riding the words just for fun or because they took a wrong turn on the Internet: this is your cue to leave. Those who stay, stay because you want to think, and think through the lens of the gospel.

Men (self included): What is the purpose of gathering trophies and accolades, bright feathers and shiny pebbles? If we look at the example that Christ set for us through his relationship with the church, we see that he took no time to do a dance to impress or gathered presents to woo. Ephesians 5:25 shows that he chased hard after the hearts of the body of believers because he knew that he and Only he could bring about the satisfaction that we crave in community. He pursued the church to draw them closer to the one true source of meaning and purpose, emulating him would mean that, as you pursue a woman, you are bringing her closer to the person of Christ. What is a more worthy reason to pursue than that?

Women (self not included, I think): We could think of women as the church to be pursued, but I would like to take it a step further. Emulate Christ in this as well. Be so filled with grace and love and peace that, to pursue you would be to pursue the likeness and character of Christ himself. “Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face continually.” (1 Chronicles 16:11) The very act of chasing after you should bring a man closer to both of your creator and Lord. What is more worthy of pursuit than that?

To both: Pursue the image of Christ, and become more like his reflection through the person you date and marry. Find the person who you can see the light of the divine in, and pursue that instead of the housing around it. Ultimately, the housing falls to pieces, and not in a pretty or poetic way. The muscles that used to denote prowess or Alpha status become wooden and shred into thin ribbons. The eyes and the perfect facial bones rot away with no life in them, ground into dust and softening into sludge. The brain that knew so much fizzles out and fails, leaving its sharp-as-a-whip wit and earthly wisdom to bake inside the softening skull.

Everything that we perceive as a person with our earthly eyes will perish and pass. And all that will be left is a mirror. Some will be dirty, some will be warped, and some will be shattered into a thousand pieces. And when Christ walks by, he will look into each of our mirrors, hoping to see the one person who has paid for our salvation. Those who pursued the image of Christ in each other, though not perfect by any stretch, will be the ones to reflect his face. Those are the ones who will get to reflect him for eternity.

Hah, So that’s where that train of thought led.

31: Morning Mist

In the advanced age of my middling twenties, I've come to find that most of what I have to say isn't profound or new, but simply a new or profound way of saying what everyone already knows. We all have an understanding of the natural and the miraculous that supersedes our ability to paint it in words. The real trick is to come close.

This is fairly unlinked to the following ditty, but the words felt like they needed to be written. So there they are, and here is this: a goofy little prose about waking up in a swamp.


Flow and flows around my toes

Soft paddles in early light

Flat-disk of pond

Ringed with reed and frond

I gently churn to Life.


Silk strings of wave i have, delicate, made

To my left as to my right

slowly, prow forth

Just east of north

I stream in watery flight.


Silver glint, I spy with my water-trained eye

And dip my green head beneath wet

Calm as could be

I have killed for me

A scaled breakfast, my table is set.


Then flapping strong wings and these paddly things

I push off from a runway of glass

disturbing the Peace

I go join the geese

And quack loudly, serenity's past.




And that's why i've never liked ducks.

30: On Endings and Beginnings.

Beginning a work. Working toward completion. Completing what one has started. Starting another. In our finite and temporal perspective of life, everything has a beginning, middle, and end. The constructor sets out to pave a road from one point to another. After a good time of labor, he finds himself under the hot sun with fresh tar and gravel underfoot and his eyes set towards the destination, miles and months away. And when that happy day comes where the last swath of pavement overlap with the lot of land that the contract stipulates, the need for a road suddenly is met and the road builder becomes suddenly obsolete for that project.

Is this not how it should be? Should the doctor constantly be working on a patient, with no foreseeable cessation of care other than the inevitable flat line? Either way, the doctor’s work is done when the patient no longer needs the physicians touch, either through healing or death. And the author does not continuously pen the same page if he wants payment at some point. He must finish inking that chapter, so as to move onto the chapter next. The chapter already penned has no more need of his eye and quill than the authors last meal needs eating again.

We should all strive to work ourselves out of job, and then to pick up another.

Like a teacher who learns a child of reading the alphabet must find a stopping point at which the change to grammar is necessary or a friend who has helped another in overcoming a fear of a particular thought or thing must find a new way to better their buddy, we cannot hold so fast to one specific job that we hold up progress of the person we aim to help. The constructor of roads must find a new road to pave, else he hamper traffic on the road just made by the constant laying down of fresh asphalt where there is none needed. The doctor cannot continue to stitch the same wound, but must move on to treat the next. The author will die of starvation if one pages work keeps him from ever getting on to the next. The parent must, at some point, allow the child to take its own steps without the hovering hands to hold.

But I never put it to anyone to finish one task in their life and then to begin to dig their own grave. We have not been made as single-task robots of an assembly line, relegated to the junk heap when worn out or when the company begins a new product. We are multifaceted, multitalented, multientangled creatures that reflect a creator of infinite creativity and restorative power. To think of ourselves as one-trick ponies to be turned out to pasture after one showing is to deny a true reflection of the creator that we strive to imitate. We should not relegate ourselves to the junk heap or the porch swing, unless we know that a good work to begin, work through, and complete is to be found in said heap or swing.

Turning from a work finished to a work unstarted is by no means an easy task. It can be a thing of emotional drains and a severing of former attachment to the task behind and a transplant of time, energy, and heart to the new pavement, parchment, patient, protégé, or pupil. But we must do it. This world is for the working of good and the thwarting of evil, not for the resting of barely used bones. Our true rest is reserved for when the work that our Creator finally finishes in us. When we are finally allowed the porch swing of perfect restoration to the relationship we were meant for when life is simply a sweaty and tear stained memory. Then we will hear “Well DONE. My good and faithful worker.”

Beginning a work. Working toward completion. Completing what one has started. Starting another now.