Me Too? Me Too!
I have watched the “Me too” movement rise and expand like many of you have also witnessed. It is quite a movement in more ways than I can express here. In fact, my addressing this issue will surely fall short in comparison to the importance that these women are bringing to our attention.
I watch the stories unfold, and I have enough self-awareness to feel saddened, ashamed, and convicted. I feel convicted as in the Spirit’s voice speaking inside of me. I am aware of such painful dehumanizing experiences of all kinds within the pages of my own story. I am a privileged white male living in the United States during the second half of the twentieth and the first half of the twenty first centuries. That says a lot. I grew up in a Protestant, sexist, racist home. Eventually I would claim responsibility for my own prejudices. I would and continue to know my responsibility in the process of dehumanization. I honestly do not know very many men who have not looked at a woman some time in their lives and haven’t seen them as objects. That’s what happens isn’t it?
It’s more than just men and men with power. I am not saying that all men are bad or all men are like me. This is the location I am writing from at this time in my life. This is my perspective. I don’t intend to say it is universal. But I have found that many times we look upon women or men as objects often time to see “what we can get” from them. “One night stands” we used to call them. We “used” people for advancements at work, for borrowing money, the list could be long. The point is we see them as objects for our use or gain. We objectify people. In this case sadly, it is about women. Once we objectify other people we have simply stopped loving them…as people. Once we objectify them, we can and do use them. Then, like the objects they are in our minds, we can discard them and move on. They are of no more use. We use them up.
Sadness, repentance- and not in some pious way to make ourselves feel better- is calling us. A turning; a trans formative process is needed here for many if not all of us.
In closing I would add, that there is one more “woman” who is crying out, “Me Too!” Metaphorically, she is our mother. Some call her Mother Earth. We are not just people on the earth but people of the earth. “From dust we were created to dust we shall return.” This is the phrase which accompanies the ashes placed upon our fore head. Sadly, we see her as object. We use and abuse her – daily. We have stopped loving her. She is love sick because she is love-starved. She needs a “Me too” voice. She needs her life partners’ love and respect once again.
Spring will soon be upon us...an invitation from our Mother to begin anew. Me too?!
Scott Jenkins, Creative Director for Celtic Way
read more about him here.
