The Feminine Sense of Time

So engaged in conversation with friends in a Hoboken pub was she, my daughter, that she allowed barely enough time to get to the Newark train station to pick up her boyfriend at 5 PM. Unexpected traffic delays caused her to be a half hour late. He was not happy. Women run late; men like to be on time. This womanly tardiness is rooted in two moral strengths. First, women are more deeply engaged in the moment, in the current task or conversation; they are more "incarnated" and surrendered to the flow of the "now." The male has a more pronounced tendency to abstraction and thus more easily distances himself, emotionally and cognitively, from the moment in order to relate to schedules, appointments and timetables. My wife normally runs late because she is so involved in the cooking, gardening, cleaning, shopping or child care that she loses track of the more abstract schedule and timeline. A second moral strength is that the female is more involved and invested in other people: getting the kids ready, cleaning and cooking for the family, shopping for presents, and so forth. The male is more selfish, isolated and individualistic. The father can't understand why the mother can't get herself and their four kids ready on time; he has no such problem. Feminine tardiness is rooted in two moral strength: a deeper, more intense involvement in the moment and a broader investment in the needs and concerns of others. The male is abstracted and self-centered and therefore gets to that meeting or mass on time, most of the time. And so, we have a more masculine and a more feminine sense of time. It is not that one is superior to the other: they are different and destined to compliment each other. But in our industrial, technological society, the masculine is privileged. Industrial or mechanical time is measured precisely by the clock, by numbers; more primitive societies work out of a more organic sense of time. The one privileges control and efficiency; other is more creative, nurturing, flexible, fluid and contemplative. Cultures, like individuals, differ on this spectrum: Hispanic cultures are notorious (among us Angolos) for their loose and light sense of time. UPS, my employer for many years, was the epitome of punctuality: you just did not arrive for a 9 O'clock meeting at 9:01; if the plane's wheels rolled one second after scheduled time there was hell to pay. President Bush once locked the door on Colin Powell who arrived a few minutes late for a cabinet meeting. Nor are all men punctual and all women late. In my own family of origin, for example, my father, who was born on a farm (organic), worked as a union organizer for the UAW, a very industrial setting. We ate dinner every night at 6:00 PM, not 5:59 or 6:01; he arrived at 8 O'Clock mass at 8:00, never 7:59 or 8:01. He was quietly inflexible on this and my mother was entirely deferential. My own sisters emulate this habit and are reliably punctual or masculine in their timing. I have not been successful in eliciting from my wife the deference my mom granted dad. My daughter's boyfriend stands even less chance than I did in winning this battle. Sometimes, the wiser course is to recognize and surrnder to the moral strength of the other.

Personal Vows

Outside of marriage and the religious life, we don't often think or speak of vows. But vows are very important and I think we make them all the time, if in a less than fully conscious, deliberate manner. Father Von Balthasar wisely observed that genuine love always has a "vow-like" quality to it. A true friendship, for example, endures in some form for a lifetime, and probably into the afterlife. He emphasized that Catholic-Christian identity inexorably expresses itself in a specific vow, normally to the married or evangelical life (poverty, chastity, obedience, community.)In contrast to such solemn vows, however, we make many more ordinary, simple vows: I will never have children, I will never trust a man, I won't fall in love again. Vows can be holy, in accord with the destiny God has planned, or unholy, contradictory of God's intentions but expressive of those of The Enemy. But even an evil vow has a grandeur about it in that it is absolute, final, permanent, unlike so much of modern life in its fickleness and impermanence. Think Javert (Russel Crowe) in Les Miserable, Henri Duchard (Liam Neelson) of the League of Shadows in Batman Begins, or all the vengenge-fueled villain-heros portrayed by Clint, Arnold,Sylvester and the like. Revenge may be the quintessential demonic vow. Lucifer himself must be respected for the finality of his "non serviam" in that he is vowed to resist God for eternity. Our own baptismal vow, renewed so frequently in the liturgy, is itself a renunciation of his renunciation. On the positive side, our journey into the Kingdom of God is marked by vows. Some consecrated groups make special vows, in additon to the normal three: service of the Holy Father (Jesuits), stability of place (Benedictines) or service of the very poor and suffering. At about the age of 8 or 9, I reacted with a serious sensitivity as I learned about how many people suffer poverty and need and at that time probably made an inchoate promise that my life would have to somehow respond to such suffering. Much later, my encounter with the delightful people in boarding homes gave this intention a more precise expression as I prayed that I might help them. A bad experience of a marihuana high at a party about 40 years ago left me with the resolution that I would never smoke again. The marital vow includes a pledge to regard every other woman as a sister-in-Christ and ennables a rich diversity of loving, reverent, trusting and even intimate if chaste relationships with women. Vows of abstinence in regard to chastity and alcohol are exemplary: think of the Nazarite Samson, Bathseba's husband Uriah, John the Baptist, and the chastity of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Even politics has a quasi-vow quality: my own allegiance to the legal protection of all human life largely precludes me from voting Democrat in national elections; most of my family and friends and just about everyone in Jersey City where I live, on the other hand, are unbendingly loyal to and collaborative with the regime of "choice." To say this is a source of tension and pain is an understatement. Our Lord and Savior gave Himself to us finally and absolutely on the cross and comes to us every day in the Eucharist; may all our smaller promises and pledges be expressive our responsive, Eucharistic devotion to Him.

In Retreat

We are in retreat. With Obama's re-election, the liberals are clearly winning the Culture War for our major institutions: government, law, media, entertainment and education. But that is alright. The war is far from over. And we know how to retreat. We love to retreat. Today's festal saint, Anthony of the desert, retreated into the Egyptian wilderness and his spiritual descendants were to create Western Culture. As Reno points out in this month's First Things: we have a place where we can retreat: our families, Church and associated institutions. We don't have to control society's institutions because we have our own. By contrast, the liberals have no such haven so they are absolutely desperate to prevail in law, politics and the broader culture; they are apoplectic about gay marriage, contraception, and "reproductive rights." By contrast, we conservatives view the state and law as subordinate, subsidiary institutions which are rooted in and contribute to the primary ones of family and Church. We can lose the battle because we know that in the long run we will win the war. We can retreat, regroup and revive ourselves in peace and hope.