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A faithful presence of love in the absences of our city.

Me Too

Me Too

This week, more than 12 million women created Facebook posts, retweets, and comments as part of the ‘Me Too’ campaign.  These two words were shared to represent victims of sexual harassment and/or sexual assault.

At the same time, I was thinking about the relationship between man and woman, the intentional differences between us, and yet the way we image God as a whole, a collective.  We saw on Sunday that loneliness is man’s greatest downfall.  Everything in creation was good, until it was noted that it was not good for man to be alone.  Adam could not fulfill his full purpose on his own.  Adam could not bear God’s image on his own.  Eve was needed.  She was equal, taken from Adam’s side, his rib, not his head or his foot.  Eve was the strong helper, but not with the connotation that the word “help” has been given.  She was purposed to defend, to uphold, as if in battle.  We saw the picture of marriage; two different puzzle pieces fitting together, but a continual shaping occurring to keep them together.  And we saw that this union, although seemingly difficult because of extreme differences, was the very picture of the divine union of the trinity.  This was right.  This was good.

We were made for this interdependent community.  We were made to share those extreme differences in order to produce extreme growth.  We were made to be with one another in order to remove the possibility of the bad: loneliness.  

And here we are, scrolling through social media posts that say, “Me too”.  We’re living in a world where there is practically no unaffected woman.  When some participated in the campaign, they added their own perspective on the issue saying, “Ask a woman if she has ever been a target of sexual assault or harassment.  She’ll respond, ‘Which time?’”

This campaign gave women the chance to speak out on one of the many reasons we face loneliness.  Sexual harassment and assault is so blaringly different than what was intended in the garden.  It is obvious that it’s wrong, that it divides men and women, and that it breaks bonds of trust between us.  But maybe not so obvious is the way that it pushes toward loneliness.  We were made for interdependent community; we were made to image the trinity.  But these things don’t happen when we allow sin to enter in and alienate us from each other.  We don’t want to be a part of the interdependent community we so desperately need when the other half is pushing us into the corner and telling us to keep quiet about what they did.

But don’t forget, women have wronged men as well in ways that push them toward loneliness.  We aren’t living in the interdependent community that’s supposed to image the trinity when we expect men to be this way saying, “Boys will be boys.”  We aren’t allowing for their needed vulnerability when we claim that men are only physical and their emotions are nonexistent.  Or there’s something wrong with them if they are emotional.

Undoubtedly, our world is broken, and all the more, working hard to image the trinity in our marriages and relationships is needed.  Loneliness will not only damage, but can actually kill.  Jesus shows us the way in how we must serve one another.  “When we complement each other in marriage and in service, we give the world a moving picture of the Gospel.”

~ Emily Spare

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