One woman who wishes to marry someday, but not too soon and another young woman whom recently married and is utterly grateful for everything her husband has ever done for her (my sincere congratulations and very best wishes to you Allamagoosa and Night Sky Radio).
Contrived happiness vs. true peace and contentment. There is no comparison. Many women today will read Allamagoosa’s post and think she is meek, weak and losing herself. First, she very likely does not care what these women think. There’s no reason for her to. Second, her strength is astounding. Some women can’t see it, or they refuse to see it. But the strength to put someone else before you in life and the happiness it can bring is beyond my ability to describe. It’s time for women to wake up to this fact again.
On the surface, the first woman seems strong and daring to young ladies today. Seeking to fulfill your every want is not strength, it’s reckless. It might feel like freedom, until you are no longer able to find the things in life you wanted because of the past choices you have made. Might she marry? Sure, she might. But the chances of it being to a man whom she will adore are slim. The happiness she seeks will slip through her fingers because she puts her wants first (there are no needs in what she speaks of). The anxiety that she speaks of, that something might be wrong with her, these feelings are often not a bad thing. Do not dismiss them out of hand because they are uncomfortable. Follow them to the end as they will help you to improve.
Happiness and peace are possible, but they won’t just come because you want them to. These require effort. They require gratitude, and they require not only the ability to see what a man has done, is doing and will do for you but what you have done, are doing and will do for him. If it’s not enough, it’s time to change.
**UPDATE: I just read this from Elspeth. Beautiful, poignant, and very relevant.
“If the only prayer you ever said in your life was ‘thank you’ it would be enough.” – Meister Eckhart.
Thanks for sharing both this and Elspeths post.
Thanks for the linkage, Stingray.
And yes, the differences between these two young women are stark.
The contrast is indeed stark. Alla wrote about family and love and giving oneself to another. The other is all about the self and giving nothing beyond as it relates to taking more in return. I know which has my respect.
The Shadowed Knight
Bob Wallace,
That’s beautiful!
Leap,
You’re welcome.
Elspeth,
I loved your post. Thank you for sharing it. It couldn’t have been very easy to write.
The Shadowed Knight,
More women need to learn that being vulnerable is an admiral trait for a woman. Vulnerable does not mean stupid and careless as so many of them think it does.
Though, if they can wear what they want wherever they want and not expect and repercussions, then . . . . .
Thanks Stingray.
The hardest part was committing to write it, honestly.
The memory of our little niece was at both painful and beautiful and it reminded me of what I’m doing and why so it was worth it. Especially if someone else was blessed by it.
“Freedom is the disciplining of desires so as to make the achievement of the greatest good first possible and then effortless.” — Fr. Robert Barron
The disciplining of desires. Not the tweeted laundry list of two dozen immature, soul-deadening notions of Fun! With! A! Capital! F!
The tools of self-discipline are acquired in youth or not at all.
“This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign shall be given to it…” (Luke 11:29).
I say scuttle Gomorrah and leave them to their proudly chosen doom. Let them exhaust and consume themselves, let us offer refuge to the righteous stranger, and let us begin anew with children who have not been tainted by foul air.
Or, put in a more modern idiom: “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”
A baptism of fire.
Matt
Stingray, women are vulnerable. I am not sure how many women I could beat in a fight, but it is a lot of them. Ignoring that vulnerability is just stupid. Being vulnerable is the opposite of stupid and careless, because then they accept that they have to be smart and careful if they do not want to suffer. Being sweet, kind, and helpful attracts men, and men will protect their women. Then she only has to worry about one man, and not every single man, ever. Since they have decided not to accept their vulnerability to a single man, now they are consumed with fear at the possibilities that any man might hurt them.
Submission is not giving in to weakness, it is being given the strength of another.
The Shadowed Knight
@ Stingray
This explains why so many women can no longer love these days. Whenever you love someone you are vulnerable. You have to have to open yourself to give of yourself (because love is action, not feeling), and that means risking emotional or physical harm if someone decides to take advantage of your opening. Women are conditioned against giving of themselves because they are constantly warned of the danger of being vulnerable, of the necessity of putting themselves first.
Women talk about love a great deal because they value it, but on in the way they pretend to. Oh, they want to be loved, to receive the benefits of love… but all without having to give anything themselves.
Oh, and I am with Matt. The salt has gone out in most of those who inhabit the West. It is fit for nothing but to be tossed away. Let the dead bury the dead. Those living in Christ must focus on the Lord, and on preparing to rebuild from the ashes of what is to come. Assuming, of course, that the Final Judgment is not upon us.
Elspeth,
I’ve very sorry for your loss.
Others are blessed by it and it helps us to remember what we are doing and why as well. With the tidal wave of what we face so huge and overwhelming it can be easy to lose sight of what we are trying to do sometimes and your reminder is stellar.
The disciplining of desires.
For the uninitiated or lazy, a concept so very difficult to understand.
I say scuttle Gomorrah and leave them to their proudly chosen doom.
You mentioned pity in SSM’s thread. Why no more? Or is it that one can feel pity for the individual and not the group? I’ve noticed this is myself a lot.
Stingray, women are vulnerable.
Of course. It’s our very basic biology, but there are so many women who cannot even see this. They’ve been kowtowed their whole lives and the men around them let them believe it. It’s such a disservice.
Ignoring that vulnerability is just stupid.
And the height of arrogance. What’s worse, there is absolutely nothing to back this up.
Being vulnerable is the opposite of stupid and careless, because then they accept that they have to be smart and careful if they do not want to suffer.
Absolutely, but there is more to it than that (and unfortunately, I’m struggling to describe it right now). In a way, vulnerability lends it’s own strengths. A vulnerable women will often times find that she is not so brittle.
Submission is not giving in to weakness, it is being given the strength of another.
Beautifully said. What’s more, through her submission, she may just find that this man becomes stronger as well.
Women are conditioned against giving of themselves because they are constantly warned of the danger of being vulnerable,
And yet . . . they are so unhappy. And they are brittle. A single comment or post on the internet can throw them into hysterics.
You have to have to open yourself to give of yourself (because love is action, not feeling), and that means risking emotional or physical harm if someone decides to take advantage of your opening.
Exactly and this is a huge part of where I was coming from in my Trust post. And even though love is an action, we still crave the feeling. Being vulnerable, while it can be scary, will not only enhance the action of love, it will enhance the feeling as well. Is this a good reason to do it? On it’s own, no. But it is definitely a part of the letting go.
You know, when you get down to it, the only way to be able to truly appreciate love, and to experience it in full, is when you love another. Once you have made yourself vulnerable to another in order to express the most powerful of forces, then you can truly value the gift of love in all its majesty.
This is why they are so unhappy. In their unwillingness to love others, because it requires vulnerability, they are incapable of experiencing love as they should. Given this, we shouldn’t be surprised that they are so miserable.
This reminds me of the Prayer of St. Francis:
Stingray, there is so much more to vulnerability and submission than I can cover in a single comment. Some that I will never know, and some that you can never know. The feeling of power and benevolence that comes when she puts her trust in you. The feeling when all the best of Man rises up in you in response to her giving you her best. On your side, the peace that comes from letting him do the holding. The way that being powerless makes you tougher than anything else can make you. there is so much to know, and I only hope I can one day have the chance to learn about it myself. I do not know how hard it is to give it, but the few times I have experienced it, I know how hard it is to live without it.
The Shadowed Knight
This is why they are so unhappy. In their unwillingness to love others, because it requires vulnerability, they are incapable of experiencing love as they should. Given this, we shouldn’t be surprised that they are so miserable.
And this is great paradox and what is so very difficult for them to understand. They preach strength, independence, ambition. The strength they preach is about standing up for oneself, not taking any crap and, God forbid, never, ever be meek. They put a wall around themselves because that is the only way the great majority of women know how to not take any crap from anyone they disagree with. Not only does this keep them in a very child-like place (nothing other than themselves is ever allowed to penetrate and there can be no growth), but it keeps out all trust in others. Further, this wall is comprised of fear. Fear that is stamped down and never allowed to be felt. Therefore, they can never work past it. Another child-like place.
Independence; this is the very antithesis of real love.
Ambition: When this is focused on the self, again, it’s the antithesis of love.
These things and a relationship do NOT go hand in hand. They are for the individual. They think they see married men with these things and envy that and while a married man has a place for these things far more than a wife, if he is a loving husband his ambition is tied to furthering his family. Not himself. His strength is the same. Women cannot see what men are giving up when they enter a marriage, the places their husbands could have gone if they stayed single. Men make a choice to give those things up for the love of a woman and a family. When done well, what was sacrificed is but a blip but it is a sacrifice nonetheless. Further more, he continues to sacrifice everyday often times doing things that he hates because he knows that, without this sacrifice, his family cannot reach their goals without him.
Women have struggled to see this for ages. They see their men relaxing after work without realizing what he’s done for her that day. They see the men who do not love their wives and project that onto their own husbands. They see through their own eyes instead of his. This is why gratitude it so important. It puts her focus on him and, ideally, in all things (ideally, but that’s an impossibility). This focus on him, on others around her, is what love really is.
Donal,
That prayer is beautiful. To be able to bend and sway, to be able to withstand the earthquake. That is strength. One cannot crumble who does what St Francis asks us to pray for. Is the path light and free of pain? Of course not. But one must experience hardship to know peace and to experience true joy.
The feeling of power and benevolence that comes when she puts her trust in you. The feeling when all the best of Man rises up in you in response to her giving you her best.
Herein lies a woman’s power and just like a man’s strength can be used for good or evil.
On your side, the peace that comes from letting him do the holding. The way that being powerless makes you tougher than anything else can make you.
Herein lies our peace, if we only have the courage and the fortitude to let go.
I only hope I can one day have the chance to learn about it myself. I do not know how hard it is to give it, but the few times I have experienced it, I know how hard it is to live without it.
I pray that all of you may find this one day. I don’t think I can describe how hard it is to give it. A woman’s giving of it is so much different than a man’s, but the basis of it is gratitude and trust.
Stingray, what you might be looking for in describing vulnerability is the certain kind of strength that you need to be vulnerable but still stay standing, still be present.
To use a sports analogy, former NBA player Mark Jackson one time said in an interview that one of the hardest things to adjust to at the pro level was that one day you’re going to get smoked. No matter how good you are, the guys you’re going up against, it’s just going to happen. And you have to come back the next time and put your self out there and do everything again.
And that takes a unique kind of strength, to know that you can put forth your very best effort the exact same as when results came as desired, only to have results come as completely undesired. And without it, and I’ve seen it, a person can actually take a frame of mind to not put forth their best effort out of fear of facing an instance that they tried their best and it didn’t work. So they actually hold back.
In essence, they see a tall obstacle, fear that 100% may not work, so give 60% so that the actual unsuccessful result in a way makes it easier to deal with that impending unsuccessful result that was whispering to them before they attempted anything.
Add to that, other people depend on you, and you depend on them, in a team environment, whether actual team or relationship, you need everybody to understand that. When that day comes and it’s your turn, you can’t have anybody acting like it doesn’t or won’t happen to them.
Water Cannon Boy,
I definitely think that is part of it. What makes it so bad, is that women have masked this fear with a false strength so they can’t even face it.
when young women prattle on about “i’m gonna wait to get married”, i let them drone on about why, and how much she needs to “find herself” (aka- collecting dicks), i respond with, “yeah. proud of yah” then ignore her.
drives them up a wall.
tonights post kind of touches on this.
Mrs. Stingray wrote:
I do pity her wasted soul. And she is too old for much to be done, by human hands anyway. The Holy Spirit blows where it wills, I count no soul unsalvageable, for he “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4).
Though I do occasionally understand the limits of my persuasiveness, cast not my pearls before swine, and “shake off the dust from [my] feet as [I] leave” such obdurate company.
On the other hand, I frequently have gonzo success with just these kind of apparent enemies. The greatest zealots make the greatest converts. Whatever their errors, they are not slothful. They just need a little guidance to channel their massive store of energy toward productive ends. A drop of truth.
Our difficulty is not with girls like Vanessa Elizabeth who possess great verve for <something, anything, even the pursuits that destroy her. Our difficulty is with the indifferent, the “Last Men,” who cannot be bothered to be in awe of the miracle which is life.
Vanessa Elizabeth is thirsty for the living water, but she only knows to keep going back to the well that does not quench (John 4:4-30). The great challenge is resurrecting the spirit of those too dead to thirst. With God all things are possible, but with us, we may have to just look to the next generation.
Matt
Stingray, your Jan. 2 8:30 comment is simply beautiful. Puts the lie to the notion some have that a woman can’t know or express these things, let alone make them concise and knowable to everyone else. I wish I could get everyone to absorb this gentle wisdom, or at least listen to it for a while. Beautiful.
Submission is not giving in to weakness, it is being given the strength of another.
…and this one, sir knight, is one I’ll be quoting.
Danny,
Heheh. Brutal. No attention for you!
Peregrine John,
Thank you.
Matt,
I can’t remember where you left it, but you once made a comment about the power of beauty in transforming those very thirsty. Father Barron did a video on it that you left in the comment.
I think about that often.
You ALWAYS have big blog brother in the back of your head when you write about young women-
What would Danny do? Lol.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=barron+beauty
Pingback: Lightning Round – 2014/01/08 | Free Northerner