OK. I'm a bit surprised no one has yet commented, so I'll resume . . . and now that I've completed proofreading this to the point of it being my 8th draft, maybe it's time to just hit 'Post Reply' . . .
I woke up this morning after just 4 hours of deep sleep determined to throw that punk Satan back out beyond the fence where he belongs -- relegated to pulling the strings of the Old Man Types who get sucked into believing their flavor of religion trumps all others. I invited him in, but it really wasn't so much to let him trick me into questioning what is going on here; it was much more that I invited him into my heart to make me
doubt myself. Well, the invitation has been rescinded. If I learned anything at all from the magnificent post by
@WifeOfHisYouth in another thread yesterday, and I learned so much it will take me some time to adequately participate in the wake of her beatific words, I certainly learned that it is
always a mistake when good men back off, so get ready for a different approach on my part.
I believe some of you have been guilty of looking gift horses in the mouth, thinking you have somehow attained some status that allows you to hold judgment over other men in regard to whether you have the right or the authority or the expertise or street cred or whatever to come
close to assessing whether your fellow men qualify as being
worthy of polygamy or of being good fathers or of being adequate interpreters of Scripture or of whatever. When stark evidence to the contrary of any of those qualities about someone is right in front of you, you'll ignore it, but then you deign to cast aspersions in all the wrong directions, as if it's
you who occupies the seat at the right hand of God. As such, perched on your self-erected statues of self-worship, you don't even glean the real gold among you. Along those lines, I will assert this, paraphrasing Neil Young (the rock god of knowing when
not to introduce a guitar lick -- not one of my strengths), "Old Man, take a look at my life; I'm a lot like you only
wish you could have been!" [I'm not singling myself out here, but I can only speak from my own personal vantage point; there is a personal credo I live by: "You may be right; I may just be a legend in my own mind, but at least I have the résumé to back up the legend." We all have our talents and contributions to make, but there are some among us who have more to contribute than most can comprehend. Am I such a man?; well, that's for you to wrestle with, but you can set me aside if you want. There are others here whose value couldn't possibly be exaggerated, and at least one of those is now gone into what one individual alluded to as hibernation. The shame of that is palpable.
To all of you men who've established yourselves as patriarchs in your families and have wives who already do demonstrate or come close to demonstrating the wisdom and devotion of
@Asforme&myhouse's spouse,
@WifeOfHisYouth , I am monumentally proud of you (some among you are to whom I refer in the previous paragraph) -- but neither you nor I has the right to judge anyone else's worthiness in the eyes of God or anyone else's interpretation of Scripture, for that matter. If you're gonna throw around terms like "unBiblical" or "in accordance with His will," then I'm coming right back at you, right up until the moment that you throw me off this forum. And please don't think you can hide behind your sacred cows and so-called 'triggers' (the Adversary surely must have a special thrill up his leg for examples of swallowing whole postmodern feminist tropes) or oversensibility about not being fully appreciated for being the True Disciples or Lost Tribes. I've had it. I don't care what religious club one belongs to -- secret handshakes don't provide a Get Out Of Jail Free card. Our God is far too awesome to get boxed into a matched set.
And I'm going to start right here by confronting my own self:
@rustywest4, I hereby very formally, and
literally down on my knees before Christ our Lord, publicly beg your forgiveness for having called you out publicly. I'm not asserting that my assessment of your situation was off-base; in fact, the warning in the previous paragraph applies to you just as it does to anyone else (including to me, because what some may not realize is how incredibly tough I am on myself; one couldn't possibly lay a glove on me compared to it): if you don't back off on knibbling around my ankles like a mutt no one else wants to admit they don't want around, I'm gonna start responding directly as I probably should have been doing all along, but, hey, better late than never, and my sincere offer to help you actually navigate some solutions to what you're going through stands in full.
By now it's reasonable to wonder if there's anything genuine about my apology, but I can assure anyone that there is: here's what I'm ashamed of, Rusty: that I mistakenly assessed that I was calling you out in the context of a community of men that could stand tall for not only the
idea of patriarchy when it's convenient but for doing exactly what needs to be
done when a brother is in as much trouble as you're clearly in. My heart weeps for you, actually daily, and that has been what has stayed my hand when I've wanted to come back at you for your petty snide comments, win/lose scorecards and childish hashtags. I've been through something similar enough to what you're going through that my heart cries out for the shame that it is that I haven't established enough credibility with you to give you the benefit of the wisdom I have from having charted a path that got me out on the other side. I'm taking 100% responsibility for the failure of our relationship to flower. If you choose, you can just join me in that failure; if you choose otherwise, I promise to join your commitment to charting your way up and out of your predicament.
And part of taking that responsibility is to acknowledge that I misjudged the environment in which I called you out. I'm now convinced that, if this is ever to become the kind of rock solid fortress of marriage ministry support we
say we stand for, we men are going to have to acknowledge that too many among us are far, far too concerned with approval from the world than we are with standing for each other. I let you down, Rusty, because I called you out in an atmosphere in which, instead of being rock solid committed to you not just surviving but
prevailing, too many were instead more worried about being cool. And that means
I left you out there hanging to dry. I'm deeply ashamed, but I'm thankful now that, when I requested from one of the moderators that he be a witness to me thrashing through this with you in private, he gave me enough of a lukewarm reception that I recognized that what was eventually required was for me to just as publicly apologize as I did call you out.
For my part, I believe it's time to stop acquiescing to the feminine impulse to smooth things over and avoid conflict. I am at this moment, on top of being
angry that Zec is gone, far more heartbroken about the disappearance of @JamesA (and my own failure in that regard) than I will
ever be about a whole bushel basket of women or their pansy-ass husbands who show up here promoting sensitivity over the male headship value that I
thought was inherent in Biblical Families. And, hear me clearly, I'm asserting in no uncertain terms that failure to stand up to antagonistic progressivist sensibilities -- much less
bowing down to them for the
illusion that we're ministering to them instead of being taken to the cleaners on the altar of virtue signalling for the purpose of being those who might be instrumental in leading the Twittersphere into the glorious polygamous future -- is a
failure on our part as men, which by definition entails being a failure for our women. We may be able to create our own little fiefdoms of male patriarchy on some patch of land all by ourselves, but true
men would not allow their supposedly-dedicated-to-patriarchy organization be manipulated by women
pretending to want some feel-good counseling. The government already provides that teat; what makes us think we can outdo
that?
Why am I suddenly reminded of
Braveheart?
The Biblical Families Forums are starting to remind me of the cosplay that people have legitimately been making fun of lately -- or civil war reenactments ad nauseam. At least those people
know that they're playing dress-up. Here it can sometimes seem like it's just people playing patriarch, my apologies to the
many men who are indeed the exception to what I'm saying. Not coincidentally, the true patriarchs among us may be the first to wonder if I'm talking about them, whereas the posers and self-righteous prigs will start off assuming I couldn't possibly be pointing fingers in their direction.
If anyone knows how to successfully reach out to JamesA, I give you permission to give him any and all of my contact information, so I can resume our conversations and apologize to
him as well.
