Hi. My Name is Zeke Allen. I have been sober for one minute but will return again very soon. I admit that I am powerless over my sins and I bare them with the hope that they will lose power over me and my life the more I speak and write of them. I have participated both consciously and to a greater extend subconsciously to the subjugation of women including but not limited to: my wife, all the women who are my family and friends, all women who are acquaintances, co-workers and the like.
Purposed goal-setting leaves little room for accommodation. We see from whence we stand and that is most often tunneled. Vision, as we in America say of one with great leadership, means also lack of vision. It is the yen with the yang. Let me expound. When a visionary sees that to which they are to be/ reach/ aspire to there is no peripheral view other than the avenues by which others can help attain that vision. Perspective is everything and nothing.
I have come to loath and awe at the concept of perspective. On one hand, perspective allows a human to be sensitized to the views, pains, and joy of another person. It can go so deep as to see with their eyes the world and thus gain yet another angle of life and its surrounding. It is a blessing such that a flat 2-D image can be given such life if it were made into 3-D.
On loathing, as we see with the eyes of others we also see and feel the pain of others and often the causality of that pain lay within something we personally or as a larger group have contributed toward bringing undisputed responsibility and consequential guilt. To see is to feel is to loath thyself.
Subjugation of women. One of the great unequals in the world throughout all cultures is male-dominance. People go to great lengths to preserve, grow, and deepen the human ideology that men are somehow supposed to lead all females. This is a LIE! I have been taught LIES! From my earliest years LIES!
A thought appears to me now in sobriety that screams- "On what floor of Hell itself did some great evil place this oppressive ideology into the minds of humanity and do so well to propagate its existence throughout history. I must admit that many women can outperform me in every aspect of my role as pastor, nurturer, care-giver, preacher, role model, parent, woodworker, musician, and healer.
I believe that most men seek to keep women oppressed: underpaid; overworked, unequal job placement, unequal advancement, enculturated idealism for the body; as the measure rather than mind and heart. After all it is more comfortable to have someone "under" you, that makes a person feel elevated and superior. Men oppress women for fear that they might get outclassed or even outworked by a woman- ego ego ego. Men oppress women to try to hold on to some sense of control. It is fear- the deepest most primal fear of men is that they can not be in some control of their destiny.
How have I participated? To all of these and much much more and unfortunately at many times in my life I have been a co-conspirator in oppression. My insensitivity to the cultural oppression of women, my unawareness of the powerlessness young females feel over their boyfriends and older women over their husbands. I have failed to be an advocacy for inequality. To say nothing is to approve and that is one of the greatest ills one can serve up. Silence is a cancer that spreads throughout humanity. For some reason I have believed that to be silent is better than speaking up- now I question "Better for Who?"
How have I come to see? Being a Christian- not the canned, institutionalized Christian who has been fed everything they believe but rather the Christian who thinks, prays, studies and reads. Secondly, my wife- a preacher within the United Methodist Church and graduate of OBU and Brite Divinity. I could write a significant book about the oppression, degradation, and sheer meanness she has experienced within the ministry setting alone as a female minister. These oppressive forces have come both from other persons in ministry and from congregants. Most people would be horrified to hear these stories but these are for her blog and not mine. It is through our marriage and beginning to see through her pain and experiences the real and active oppression of women in society and more specifically in ministry. I am ashamed to be a part of moral humanity that still finds it sinful to allow women in leadership positions. Andrea has helped me see and helped me learn how the subversive and flagrant oppressive forces towards women move and work.
Me. I am a recovering oppressor. I have abused my power as a male in relationships and ministry. From my first dating relationship, I was ignorantly insensitive. Even as my awareness grew my enculturation remained. When is it exactly men are taught that it is "normal" for guys to act superior to ladies? Regardless of when, it certainly happens. For this reality alone, I owe every lady I have ever been in relationship with from grade school on this message- "I am so sorry, if I ever made you feel bad, hurt you, or jaded you by acting superior to you. Please accept my apology as an act of true repentance and respect for you."
So now that we all know what a pompas rear I have been, where to from here. I have begun about two years ago seeking to right wrongs I have caused in peoples lives. I call them, facebook them, or write them and apologize and then pray blessing upon blessing in their life. I will continue to seek to act on my now wide-eyed awareness and stand up whenever and wherever injustice arises. I will act when injustice is out in the open and when it is subversive. I will seek to un-enculturate those I come into contact with. I will be a male who heralds the gifts and equality of women. I will be more sensitive to my actions, to my words, and to my life.
Lastly, "hope springs eternal". There is today, a gift indeed. I will choose today to purpose my actions, season my words, and live out my ideologies regardless of those that surround me.
Silence is worse than participation. Step up and be real men love and live equality.
Purposed goal-setting leaves little room for accommodation. We see from whence we stand and that is most often tunneled. Vision, as we in America say of one with great leadership, means also lack of vision. It is the yen with the yang. Let me expound. When a visionary sees that to which they are to be/ reach/ aspire to there is no peripheral view other than the avenues by which others can help attain that vision. Perspective is everything and nothing.
I have come to loath and awe at the concept of perspective. On one hand, perspective allows a human to be sensitized to the views, pains, and joy of another person. It can go so deep as to see with their eyes the world and thus gain yet another angle of life and its surrounding. It is a blessing such that a flat 2-D image can be given such life if it were made into 3-D.
On loathing, as we see with the eyes of others we also see and feel the pain of others and often the causality of that pain lay within something we personally or as a larger group have contributed toward bringing undisputed responsibility and consequential guilt. To see is to feel is to loath thyself.
Subjugation of women. One of the great unequals in the world throughout all cultures is male-dominance. People go to great lengths to preserve, grow, and deepen the human ideology that men are somehow supposed to lead all females. This is a LIE! I have been taught LIES! From my earliest years LIES!
A thought appears to me now in sobriety that screams- "On what floor of Hell itself did some great evil place this oppressive ideology into the minds of humanity and do so well to propagate its existence throughout history. I must admit that many women can outperform me in every aspect of my role as pastor, nurturer, care-giver, preacher, role model, parent, woodworker, musician, and healer.
I believe that most men seek to keep women oppressed: underpaid; overworked, unequal job placement, unequal advancement, enculturated idealism for the body; as the measure rather than mind and heart. After all it is more comfortable to have someone "under" you, that makes a person feel elevated and superior. Men oppress women for fear that they might get outclassed or even outworked by a woman- ego ego ego. Men oppress women to try to hold on to some sense of control. It is fear- the deepest most primal fear of men is that they can not be in some control of their destiny.
How have I participated? To all of these and much much more and unfortunately at many times in my life I have been a co-conspirator in oppression. My insensitivity to the cultural oppression of women, my unawareness of the powerlessness young females feel over their boyfriends and older women over their husbands. I have failed to be an advocacy for inequality. To say nothing is to approve and that is one of the greatest ills one can serve up. Silence is a cancer that spreads throughout humanity. For some reason I have believed that to be silent is better than speaking up- now I question "Better for Who?"
How have I come to see? Being a Christian- not the canned, institutionalized Christian who has been fed everything they believe but rather the Christian who thinks, prays, studies and reads. Secondly, my wife- a preacher within the United Methodist Church and graduate of OBU and Brite Divinity. I could write a significant book about the oppression, degradation, and sheer meanness she has experienced within the ministry setting alone as a female minister. These oppressive forces have come both from other persons in ministry and from congregants. Most people would be horrified to hear these stories but these are for her blog and not mine. It is through our marriage and beginning to see through her pain and experiences the real and active oppression of women in society and more specifically in ministry. I am ashamed to be a part of moral humanity that still finds it sinful to allow women in leadership positions. Andrea has helped me see and helped me learn how the subversive and flagrant oppressive forces towards women move and work.
Me. I am a recovering oppressor. I have abused my power as a male in relationships and ministry. From my first dating relationship, I was ignorantly insensitive. Even as my awareness grew my enculturation remained. When is it exactly men are taught that it is "normal" for guys to act superior to ladies? Regardless of when, it certainly happens. For this reality alone, I owe every lady I have ever been in relationship with from grade school on this message- "I am so sorry, if I ever made you feel bad, hurt you, or jaded you by acting superior to you. Please accept my apology as an act of true repentance and respect for you."
So now that we all know what a pompas rear I have been, where to from here. I have begun about two years ago seeking to right wrongs I have caused in peoples lives. I call them, facebook them, or write them and apologize and then pray blessing upon blessing in their life. I will continue to seek to act on my now wide-eyed awareness and stand up whenever and wherever injustice arises. I will act when injustice is out in the open and when it is subversive. I will seek to un-enculturate those I come into contact with. I will be a male who heralds the gifts and equality of women. I will be more sensitive to my actions, to my words, and to my life.
Lastly, "hope springs eternal". There is today, a gift indeed. I will choose today to purpose my actions, season my words, and live out my ideologies regardless of those that surround me.
Silence is worse than participation. Step up and be real men love and live equality.
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