Feeding the Beast – Toxic Masculinity and God the Father

It’s been a few thousand years now that we’ve been worshiping at the altar of the Father God. The creator, who through an act of his will  brought everything we know and all that we don’t into being. The One God to rule them all binds our Abrahamic religions like a cock ring, too small for pleasure, primed for pain. This beastly preoccupation with might and right leaves us awash in toxic masculinity, embroiled in never-ending wars both at home and abroad.

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Neanderthal family

They say Neanderthals were the barbarians
So where are they now?
If this is the 21st Century
why does it feel
like the Wild West?
Wake up my brothers
before you drag your sisters down
into a cold, dark grave

Insisting on believing in a creator described only as He presents some pretty formidable challenges to our experience of life and reality.  What to do about those pesky women? Eve, as we are told, was an afterthought, yanked from Adam’s sleeping form and apparently born to raise Cain.  Puns aside, we all know she made trouble, right from the beginning.   Martin Luther knew what to do about her:

10462425-Beautiful-young-pregnant-woman-sitting-on-chair-Stock-Photo-pregnant-pregnancy-belly“The rule remains with the husband, and the wife is compelled to obey him by God’s command.  He rules the home and the state, wages war; defends his possessions, tills the soil, builds, plants, etc.  The woman on the other hand Is like a nail driven Into the wall …so the wife should stay at home and look after the affairs of the household, as one who has been deprived of the ability of administering those affairs that are outside and that concern the state.  She does not go beyond her most personal duties.”

We had God the Son for a time, preaching a gospel of kindness and peace. We saw where that got him and in these apocryphal times his word seems but a whisper. imagesMaybe it’s the Antichrist’s fault.  The Beast, evil personified and projected outward, because it’s not something that lurks within.  Hitler gained a lot of power through the mass projections of the people of the Third Reich.  While many of us don’t understand the rage that drove the German people to war, we need to recognize how our projections make it easier for us to be controlled.  All because we can no sooner admit the beast than we can admit our divine nature.  Sex and death drive the news.  If we’re not looking at boobs we’re hearing about natural disasters, mayhem and murder. When women are not fully and fairly represented, neither is life.  Nurturing professions are undervalued, teachers are unsupported and pornography and child abuse proliferates.  True intimacy can only occur when love abides, between people and within each of us.

It’s time to withdraw our misguided projections and honor the divine and the animal aspects of our nature.  We create the world we live in every day of our lives. Perhaps God is not so very distant, after all.

Whose Eyes?

Whose eyes are these,
blinking the world into being?
From the ground, to the air
From the ocean and deep below
Whose eyes are those?
That dog, love shining in his eyes,
Grandma chasing her little girl
Street eyes, turned inside
Eyes, searching mine
to see a friend or a foe?
So many eyes, pouring
thoughts and feelings into each other
like pitchers of light
mingling laughter and tears
Streaming through the cosmos
There’s a soul of kindness inside
each and every pair.
Smile the next time you look
into someone’s eyes.
God will see you.

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