She walks streets which do not belong to her. She knows them well. Every contour. Every detail. She knows the stones, the pavement, cracked bricks and muddy sidewalk. To the market she goes with her head bowed. She walks quickly, her steps revealing urgency. An urgency not dictated by time. She is not at a loss for time.
Healed, tan shoes, sides streaked with dried mud. Blue jeans. Tan overcoat. Red blouse covering to the knees what the coat fails to conceal. Matching red covering wrapped to conceal her hair, forehead, and neck. Blue eyes. Eyes that stop me cold. Beautiful blue eyes that I, as a man, may only glimpse as they return to the ground in shame.
Shame.
It is with shame she walks the streets, quickly managing her outside tasks to get home. Shamed when she looks into the eyes of a man. Shamed at the catcalls, whistles, sexual remarks with which she is barraged on the street. Shamed at being seen in a man's world. Shamed at not being home where she belongs.
And there is me. 23 years old. Single. Male. In the same way that marriage fails to cure the age old struggle, neither does living overseas as a worker. Lust. Sexual immorality. Every man deals with this struggle whether or not he is ready to admit it. Every impure thought on which I dwell makes me no better than the men I observe daily. It is here, in the midst of an idolatrous, pagan culture, that I find myself most profoundly confronted with the depths of my very own depravity.
God loves the Arab woman. His heart is broken for her as she lives these lies every day.
"You are nothing more than an object. An object only useful to stay the man's desires. And when it's over, you'll be replaced with 72 virgins. You probably won't even see paradise, because you are less than a man. Maybe tomorrow he'll divorce you. Maybe he'll send you away."
This is the message they hear. Every day. From the men. From the culture. From me.
God's heart breaks. He sees the beauty of what was created that sixth day. He sees the beauty that I corrupt with my mind. He loves the beauty that I and every other man has objectified at one time or another.
No more.
"Be holy, for I am holy" - God
"...we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ..." - Paul
Satan uses shame to propagate bondage. But "it was for freedom that Christ set us free." I have as my ambition to be holy as God is holy. To love justice. To love truth. To love beauty.
2 comments:
Have you ever read "the lost virtue of happiness"? I'm reading that right now and I continue to be confronted with how little we are pleased with and how much we are meant to delight. This is actually intrinsic to what your blog mssg. is about: meaning.
Cheerio,
Alex,
That's a great wrap-up. It is all about meaning. The value of women in this culture is very low. This culture has objectified its view of women and forced the entire gender into this role of pleasing men. Men are to be served by their wives before they die, go to paradise, and receive their 72 virgins to fund their eternal orgy.
We know that women are FAR MORE VALUABLE. In fact, in our book, husbands are commanded to love their wives sacrificially as Christ loved the church, even being willing to lay down their life for the wife.
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