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[bèlla]

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[Unofficial Reverand Alex]

@bèlla , I just want to say this is a very good thread. I have a little notebook with favorite quotations from A Canticle for Leibowitz, a sci-fi novel that centers around a fictional monestery that casts spiritual & cultural light on a variety of matters (technology, war, suffering, etc.). It's one of those great stories that has deep value as an enjoyable book, with a story & characters that relentlessly challenge my own worldview.

The only problem with my notebook of quotes is... I can't find it! But I will be sure to share it whenever I find it!

 

[bèlla]

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[Unofficial Reverand Alex]

Found it!



The last one here really hit me the first time I read it, and I'm glad you got me to find the notebook & read it again, because it's advice I need again. The situation was a monk being chosen to do something he was very uncertain of. While it wasn't certain that he would be chosen for this role, they asked him what he would do if they did choose him. If they chose him, he said, then he would be certain that it was God's will for him to do it. Searching for jobs in a few different fields & a few different areas, I could not ask for greater clarity of where God wants me to be done by following where I am chosen.

 

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[Unofficial Reverand Alex]

All of this is quite fascinating. I've read & listened to similar ideas from the masculine perspective, which all resonated quite deeply with me. The idea that male & female are part of an intentional, wise design of God is something I had never even considered until I was 19-ish, and it was the first that I began to understand how full of meaning every aspect of God's Creation truly is. This also saved me from the gender confusion I struggled with during a very low point of my teenage years; seeing that gender is no accident, but a true design with beautiful characteristics, pulled my mental & spiritual state up to a much better level than before I understood this. (In a way, I'm thankful that this happened, because I now have a very compassionate voice against the culture of "gender as a construct". I speak against transgenderism not out of hate, as any contrary voice to a tyrannical sense of personal freedom is often construed, but out of "I've been there, and it sucked--don't make the same mistake.")

Reading all of this from "Fascinating Womanhood" is hard to wrap my mind around; I'll have to go over it a few more times over a few more days to really get the hang of it. It's like learning a different language, a different culture. The premise is the same between male & female, English & French, American & European, but everything is processed in a different way.

God made man stronger but not necessarily more intelligent. He gave women intuition and femininity. And used properly, that combination easily jumbles the brain of any man I've ever met. —Farrah Fawcett

Very true!

 

[Unofficial Reverand Alex]

This is more what I've seen from the masculine perspective:

 

[bèlla]

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