Gender Wars: Sticks

By the age of three, boys are ecstatic about sticks. A stick is not just a stick; transfigured symbolically, but really, into a gun, sword, missile, it becomes an expression of power, energy, purpose, and victory. Mothers, on the other hand, hate sticks as they portend hostile, destructive penetration of the eye, the face or any other tender spot of the fragile body. It is hard to imagine two greater extremes! The gender wars have begun! Again, we see that the masculine body-psyche inexorably and dynamically moves to protrude, penetrate, and self-extend, preferably in combat. The feminine body-psyche is anxious and vigilant against just such aggression, experienced as violent and destructive. While the male is emotionally-somatically assertive; the female is receptive, open, and vulnerable. My grandsons love to play with a set of alligators which have sharp teeth; my oldest granddaughter, at that same age, was viscerally repulsed by the sight of the toy. This pattern continues into adult life with men cherishing their bats, guns, golf clubs and missile systems. In the face of such stark antimony, is any reconciliation of the sexes possible? Yes! At the foot of Calvary, we see our Lord Jesus grasping his stick, the Cross, and holding it to his heart. With this stick, he will absolutely destroy death, the devil, all sin and evil. At his side is his Mother who assents with him to the destiny willed by the Father. The Sacred Heart, the masculine heart of mercy, and the pierced Immaculate feminine Heart, are at one in the embrace of the Big Stick handed to his son by the Father. Son and Mother are finally in communion, with the Father, in the Holy Spirit.