There is a meme out there which has two sides.

The first is “All men are like that”. If a man has done wrong, all men are tarred with the same brush. Because a minority of men were cads and left without caring for their children, we now have a situation where ordinary men are hounded by the courts if they miss payments, particularly if they lose a job for the courts assume that income can be imputed, despite (in the real world, in a global economic crisis) it cannot be.

In short, I’m in trouble with DCS (child support), and this time it’s pretty serious. This is because I was unemployed and had my income imputed on divorce (this means that they force you to pay at a previous income whether you have it or not), which led to accumulation of arrears. If you haven’t read it before, here’s the background on the situation. I was working it down for a couple of years, but things have dried up lately, and I have to deal with it immediately if I want to see my kids for the holidays and stay out of the King County hotel.

Hopefully, I can come up with enough to do that and will be back to focusing on writing again soon. All in all, it’s just another day in the life of millions of non-custodial fathers, so it isn’t the end of the world. But it still sucks.

The child support system is oppressive. One of the (many) advantages of living in NZ is that you can opt out of this and the child support is linked to your actual, not imputed income. Which is another reason I counsel my sons not to marry or live within an North American Jurisdiction.

There are other examples out there. However, the other meme is the exact opposite. “Not all women are like that”. Even with the most obvious situation where things are unfair and a person has been taken to the cleaners… one exception disproves the rule. To make it fairly clear to any female readers, this is what many men see.

If you are in possession of a decent character, if you believe you have a right to keep the fruits of your labour, and that no-one has the right to stop you from spending time with your own children, then consider Western marriage an extremely high-risk project. Ignore the pressures and ridicule your family and women may throw at you. You are not a sacrificial lemming whose only option is to queue up on the cliff-top and jump, hoping for the best. In the current climate, women have no right whatsoever to lecture us on the need for us to marry. They are not the ones committing suicide en masse due to their kids being taken away and poisoned against them. They are not the ones divorced for no reason then kicked out of their house and forced to spend the rest of their lives labouring simply to meet the costs of a family that now hates them.

Most men know that or have lived that. If a man chooses to commit, he is indeed gambling that not all women are like that, and that the woman he has fallen in love with and has committed to is definately not like that.

But I want to say something else. We are all like that.

We all have the propensity to be like that. In general, men want to have exclusive relations with each women, but adding a younger and prettier version is a temptation. They want whoever the new Brittney is.

In general, women want to trade up. Given a choice of boring and being Mrs Rockstar, Mrs Rockstar they will be.

However, most of us do not act merely on our instincts. We think of those around us. We think of how to be great and good, and we put a civilized veneer over our farts, tolerate the prats, and understand that most men are not monsters, all women are not saints, and that we all fart.

And anyone who denies this is living an ideology, not a life.

PS.
I think Emma Thompson’s character in “Love Actually” is the most tragic one, and the one I have the most sympathy for: and her horrible son’s fart essay is golden.

I am quite aware, thank you very much, of the meme our there that we should not damn. We should not judge. We should instead accept and love. We should not ever engage in shaming, or say harsh things. If I was a liberal minister {and I praise God for sending me to medical school, and avoiding that fate) I would preach today, on Advent II, from the frist passage and how we should welcome all.

But the daily reading has the second passage. We cannot avoid the idea of judgment, and it will be terrible to behold. In fact, we all deserve that judgement of separation and damnation: we have all done things that would damn us.

Romans 15:4-13

⁴For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. ⁵May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, ⁶so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁷Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. ⁸For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, ⁹and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,
“Therefore I will confess you among the Gentiles,
and sing praises to your name”;
¹⁰and again he says,
“Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people”;
¹¹and again,
“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,
and let all the peoples praise him”;
¹²and again Isaiah says,
“The root of Jesse shall come,
the one who rises to rule the Gentiles;
in him the Gentiles shall hope.”
¹³May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

2 Thessalonians 1:5-12

⁵This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, and is intended to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. ⁶For it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, ⁷and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels ⁸in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, ¹⁰when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at on that day among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. ¹¹To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, ¹²so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I can hear people mutter that I posted yesterday including a research slide on psychosis — that you are a trained therapist, how can you say such harmful things? Well, you can sit with someone where they are and understand their pain while they horrify you and scare you. Been there, done that. In prisons, with felons.

Moreover, if you do not say some pretty harsh things about for example, their use of high potency artificial cannabis, or their tendency to hit people when stressed (or take overdoses) you are not doing your job, which includes showing alternate ways.

Because helping people is not nice and it is not about raising self-esteem but finding ways for people ro relearn habits and cope.

Which drags me back to the passages. The Bible was given so we could learn from it. The histories are there for our instruction, and there is direct teaching here. About supporting each other and encouraging good.

Not backbiting, playing politics, causing destruction, and making people fearful of giving hospitality in case they cause offence and get snitched to the rights commissioners.

For we do not want to face a charge that we did not correct when we could have, particularly within our families and within the church. Telling the Muslim evangelist group who took over a street corner and were shoving pamphlets at people yesterday they were damned felt like bad tactics. Within the church, however, this is needed and essential.