The Song of a Good Man

It is a mournful sound when dogs howl in the middle of the night. Like a siren from a far-off mountain, the sound of a dog singing to other canine relatives on nearby farms is moving in a somewhat disarming way. Not terrifying like a tornado siren where your heart begins to race and you gather your children and huddle them in a closet or basement. But more similar to a church bell pealing during the old days to let the community know when someone had slipped through the veil to join the heavenly host cheering all of us on as we try to finish this race well. That beautiful, yet deeply melancholy feeling of loss and rejoicing is the essence left in the air when our dogs begin their song here on the farm. 

As the leaves begin to let go of their handhold on the branches that gave them life when spring found its way to the mountains and the nights are clear and crisp our dogs raise their voices to all of the celestial beings who have a moment to take notice. As they bellow the ancient lyrics that cry, "We are created dog and we will sing His praises to anyone willing to listen." Amen. We all have a song we sing, intentionally or accidentally. The lyrics can change along the way, but the melody is the one we are given from the moment our lungs fill with icy cold air and our first cry exits our body. 

I watch him from the fence in the morning when he is caring for his sheep. He loves them like a good shepherd, and they love him and while they want to trust him, they struggle worse than Eve in the garden. You could not pay me to be a shepherd. Give me forty goats or cows or even pigs to raise over a handful of sheep. Sheep are forever in need of a level of personal attention that leaves you thinking you have them stable and steady, ready for a full recovery from their lethargy or various ailment only to be back in the flock the next day wondering why they are now limping. Exhausting, sheep. But the good man I call my husband does love these needy animals and he talks to them as he applies more hoof rot ointment or docks the tail of a ram lamb. A sheep knows their shepherd's voice and they find comfort in its sound. Chris' song has always been built around the theme of connection. I've been his girl since he was fifteen and I am certain of this truth - he is happiest when he realizes his part in the story of connection between the Creator and the created. His is a beautiful song and he has taught his song to the good men we raised who make us proud.

I tell my children that I believe that God sang a song into the cosmos and creation began. Chris says this is called extrapolating the original meaning of the text, but I do not think God cares if I use the creativity He gave me. Life is what happens when God sings. 

In Genesis, it says that "God spoke..." and creation started its process of all living things, but I think He sang. Some parts of His song are hard for me. The part of the song where He formed the first man, Adam, is difficult for me as a 21st century woman. Why he did not make us both - male and female - at the same time, but from man's rib...it is a bit disappointing. I find myself disappointed in a lot of the biblical story, actually. Find myself feeling like it is too harsh or too permissible. But when I can lean back into the mystery of God, I find Peace that often does not make sense. 

As our culture began to find answers in science, the church thought she should also have all the answers and explanations for our story. Over time, the mystery of God was edited out and denominations began to form around The Answers. The church does follow culture, adapting to current thoughts and ideologies. This flow of culture can be beautiful and dangerous. When the current leads us to freedom within the boundaries of His song we find deep joy and satisfaction. Yet, when the current leads away from His mysterious, higher ways we find ourselves tossed around and some of us drowning. 

There have been multiple waves of feminism. I would call myself a First Wave Feminist. I could take up a lot of your time detailing the waves of women inviting men to honor that they too are created in the image of God, but you can Google "Waves of Feminism" better than I can for sure. Jesus was always there inviting us image bearers with wombs to the table where the men sat. He was often making us uncomfortable with how He promoted our value and our voice - even the value of children when the men were sure they were less than. Jesus seemed to enjoy making people rethink their closely held cultural practices. And He always seemed to keep reminding men who held traditional power that women made up half the church - half the everything, actually. "We are here, we are free and we are not going anywhere!" seemed to be the rewritten lyrics us women added into our sister song and I love it so much. What I do not love is the shift I see in our sisterhood. 

I am tired. To be fair, I am always tired here farming until my back feels like it will literally break in two. And I love it. :) But I am not talking about the physical weariness I feel, but a growing weariness of the low-level fever of hatred toward men in our culture from my sisters. I get it, it is the long backlash against the oppression of women over millennia. I have hosted various mom retreats through the years. At one of these retreats, the women there volunteered that all of them had been sexually assaulted by men at one point in their life. All of them. This did not include the hours they worked for less pay or were looked over for positions in their career because they did not have the right plumbing. It is easy to hate what pushes us down or what abuses us. 

What is breathtaking to me is how we – women – are becoming what we found made it hard to breathe for thousands of years. The arrogant, condescending, hateful, dehumanizing, toxic breath that escaped our brother's lungs over the centuries toward us as they added those lyrics to their song - I hear these very things in our feminine song today. The very same. And I get it. We refuse to go back to being oppressed and in the process, we are becoming the oppressor.

I text a dear friend of mine the other day. Her son likes my daughter and vice versa. I wanted to thank her for raising a son, a good man, that honored God first and then my daughter. He seeks Jesus first and then he leads out in the young relationship between my daughter and him. I love that and I love that my daughter pushes back on that leadership if something seems off. We raise strong people here in this house. Invitation to humble, yet strong leadership is what is being offered around here - step in, fill the void, and kick apathy or oppression to the curb; but do all of that with ultimate kindness and respect. My husband says it's like leading cats. True. But we are raising Helpers (both the boys and the girls - God calls Himself our Help, look it up) and that means we are raising them to think, to sense the Spirit, and to follow and be Good Leaders. 

With her permission, I am sharing a story of this young love. When celebrating his birthday, my strong daughter wanted to beat the boy she likes to the door of a store they were entering so that she could open it for him. She did and in the process, she unknowingly almost knocked an elderly woman to the ground. This young man who we are grateful for responded to our strong daughter, "Your politics are going to kill someone." Later, we laughed and discussed her drive to not accept his offer to lay his life down for her she realized that this small way of being cherished was something she actually longed for in a relationship. Sacrifice is the foundation leadership is built on while oppression is built on privilege and power. This young man is a good man learning to lead from that place of sacrifice and she is embracing the truth that she was created in part to be cherished and to embrace that truth takes a good dose of humility.

I think what I want to do in this small space is to remind us that we cannot become what we hate. In fact, we are not allowed to hate if we are followers of Jesus. We are asked to invite others to honor and love and value and we are called to lay our lives down for our brothers. It is honestly, another part of the story that I do not like and I for sure do not always understand this upside down way of living. But I do know this - there are GOOD MEN who love like He loved. They are out there inviting us to submit to the goodness of Him in them as they lay down their lives for us. They are.  

The superiority of how we communicate this essence of being "better" than the men we find ourselves interacting with daily is going to get us to a place we do not want to go...it will get us to the Garden where we decided we could not trust God and the men around us, too apathetic to intervene and later embracing their physical dominance to crush our femineity. 

But I hear Good Men singing their righteous song of Healing, Wholeness, and Sacrifice. I hear them asking forgiveness for the unimaginable things done to their sisters throughout the history of all oppression. I hear them saying that to lay their lives down for us may kill them, but Death, Burial, and Resurrection...it's where Life is found. Our song back to them can be one of Trust, Surrender and Hope as we practice His Goodness in the Land of the Living. Every story. Every time.