Undaunted Joy #190
The Joy of Feeling Protected
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This past weekend, I attended a beautiful funeral service. Mid-service, as any middle-aged woman might, I needed to slip out to use the facilities. When I returned to the foyer, an usher remembered which door I had exited from and walked to it to open it for me!
This kind gesture nearly brought me to tears.
I immediately remembered attending my aunt’s wedding when I was six. My mother was in the wedding, so my father, little sisters and myself, arrived without her a little before the service was to begin. My young uncle, brother of the bride was around twenty at the time and an usher. Since I was the oldest female in our party, he offered his arm to escort me to our seats.
Since I was six and didn’t understand the gesture, I hooked my arms on his and began to swing. He gently set me down and explained that I was a young lady to be escorted down the aisle in my fancy dress. When I finally understood the gesture, I felt like a princess.
When my husband and I started dating, he opened every. single. door for me. Ever car door. Our house door. A door to a building. So much that once, I went to visit an old male friend from grad school and simply stood by a door until he caught up with me. He thought it was locked.
Yes, I do know I am incredibly spoiled with my husband’s gestures but it is not wasted on me. I like and appreciate this pleasantry which is seen as old fashioned or dare I say sexist. I wouldn’t say that but I know other women who do. I like a gesture that makes me know who I can trust to protect me if something was about to threaten or harm me. In the last few years, there have been such moments from men who do not open doors or offer their arm.
Two years ago, there was a man who decided to park the car he was living in right across the street from my house. Then each time I left or arrived my house, he would get out of his car and yell at me—even if it was 4am, and I was leaving for the gym. In my city of Seattle, with police cutbacks and odd laws on the records, there wasn’t much the police could do to help me. I finally got clever with how to approach the issue (label it as stalking and get a restraining order.) But until then, my husband walked me to and from the car, even at 4 am.
My teen sons are now both over six feet tall. I see how instinctually they put their arm around me to guide and protect me as we walk on the sketchy sidewalks of Seattle. I notice how they look for women to help, carrying heavy loads without being asked, reaching for objects off high shelves and without thinking, often put themselves between women and danger.
I don’t care if someone thinks this is old fashioned or chauvinistic. It is kindness. And my sons will make fantastic husbands and fathers because of this. I pray for women who will appreciate it as much as I do.
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After a 6 month hiatus, I am bringing back my popular Generative Joy Zoom . If you have taken this workshop before, know this is ALL NEW CONTENT.
How do you even begin to get ideas on what to write: let alone something joyful?
In this generative workshop we will look at work from three joyful writers. Being in conversation with other writers help us develop our own pieces.
Details:
+ Monday March 23 4-6pm PST
+ Cost $60 (Paid via Venmo or Zelle Or PayPal)
+You will start the seeds of THREE joyful pieces to develop and sharpen in the days thereafter.
What I’m Reading: The Future of Love by John P These poems honoring a long marriage are not sentimental or nostalgic, but passionate and wild about the beautiful tensions one finds when facing distance, absence, longing, and the struggle of faith.
Upcoming Events
March 16 Choosing Joy: A Manifesto for Artful Living in an Age of Visual Noise
March 17 Stories of Morning Retreat at St Raphaela Haverford, PA
April 15-18 Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing Grand Rapids, MI
April 29-May 3 Retreat at National Shrine of St Therese, Juneau, AK
May 7-May 11 Bethesda/D.C.
June 19-July 2 London, Surrey, Dublin
July 15-19 Winona Christian Writers Conference, Winona Lake, IN
July 28 Whitworth University Spokane, WA
November 19-22 Writer’s Advance Workshop Eagle Creek, Oregon
December 5 Advent Retreat: A Christ Haunted Christmas Carol Bellevue, WA
Let me know if you’d like me to speak at your church, school, bookstore, bookclub while I am in your city.
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I do all those things for my wife (and daughter, when she's around), just hoping that they rub off on my sons and other future gentlemen.
I have experienced this many times in Flint. Complete strangers holding the door for me. Especially at gas stations!