I wrote this more than a decade ago for a blog I was writing called “Heartstrings.” It may not be as sensitive to gender issues as some might wish today, but I think the ideas still hold. So here it is.
Chivalry
Yesterday Sara and I went to Appleby’s for lunch. As is my custom, once we’d been guided to our table by the hostess I moved around behind Sara to hold her chair while she sat down. It was a little awkward at first, doing this, because the hostess didn’t understand what I was trying to do and we nearly bumped into each other once or twice.
But when she grasped my intention she said, “Awww, how chivalrous!” and I glowed with pleasure that this customary, simple act had drawn some attention. Sara demonstrated her pride in our relationship by telling the young lady, “Yes, he’s really good about that,” while she took her seat.
I was glad that what I do for Sara was noticed, but it came back to me in a time of meditation during the night that I am also sad that is considered unusual. I began to ponder the changes that had brought us to this place, where simple acts of chivalry, of masculine generosity towards women, are such a rarity. At first, I had cause to remember the women’s liberation movement of my youth and the way that some women made it an insult to hold a door or a chair for them. Not all, by any means. Not even most. I daresay it wasn’t even a large minority of women.
But somehow, it became something that rang in the heads of men like myself that it was an insult to women, even if they didn’t say it aloud or know enough to be insulted, to behave in a way that showed any kind of masculine generosity. Such behavior became emblematic of the way that women were treated as unequal and unworthy of respect by men in the culture.
Sadly, I suspect that there was some truth in it. Acts of generosity whose purpose could have been to demonstrate the way that women are worthy to be treasured (not owned, but seen as having immense value) were probably seen by some men as acts of condescension. And so I grew up not knowing how to value them at all, those acts or those women. At least not as I might have.
God has blessed me with a wife whose southern upbringing caused her to continue to value those gestures of generosity and so 33 years of marriage have taught me how to enjoy holding doors and chairs again. I take pleasure in using those places where God has made me stronger to demonstrate to Sara how precious she is to me. John Eldredge has taught me to read the first chapters of Genesis 2 differently. Eve wasn’t created just to keep Adam company. As God’s creation grew ever more elaborate and perfect up to the creation of man, so Eve becomes His crowning achievement, His most beautiful creation of all. I am blessed in the loving of my wife and in the moments I’m given to demonstrate her value to me.
None of this means that women have no place in church leadership or secular boardrooms. This is only a reflection on the way that I have recovered a way of valuing my wife as a treasure entrusted to my care (again, not my ownership – how sad that I have to keep saying that, but I do).
But I entitled this blog “Heartstrings” to remind me that if it wasn’t about the Father’s heart, it didn’t belong here. I could post a rant about the loss of etiquette and gentlemanly comportment somewhere else, but not here.
And so I went in prayer to God to ask, “This feels important Papa, but I don’t see You in it yet,” and He opened my eyes.
He showed me how the effort to assert the equal value of women in our culture had gone off track by making the same mistake Adam and Eve had made. Women fell victim to the same lie of the enemy that fooled our first parents. “If you eat of this, you will be *the same* as God.” The only way to be safe, the only way to be valuable was to be *the same.*
He showed me how His own heart had broken when humankind had decided that to be safe, to be valuable, we had to hold our own doors, make all our own decisions, have our own bank accounts. He showed me the way that humankind, the crowning gift of the Father to the Son, had veered off course by insisting on generating our own sense of self-worth through our accomplishments rather than from His adoration of us.
And I saw how difficult it is for us now to receive all the affection that He wants to pour out on us. It requires some effort on Sara’s part to receive a gesture of chivalry. She sometimes has to pause before a door if I’m unable to reach it before her. She has to position herself as we approach the car so that I can squeeze between ours and the next car in the parking lot before her. She has to wait again at the table until I can step behind her to pull out her chair.
In the same way, it is often difficult for us to wait to allow God to move on our behalf. It seems easier simply to open the door for ourselves or to grab the chair and move it so that we can sit down. And every time we do, we miss a chance to allow our heavenly Bridegroom to dote on us, to show us how precious we are.
Again he showed me how this relationship that we are all invited into by God was intended by Him to be reflected in this behavior between husband and wife. But not only that. I was concerned that only men appeared to enjoy that role and so I asked in prayer what I was missing. Again the Father opened my eyes to see that women are given the same opportunity to minister from strength as mothers. This isn’t only a biological role, as I know many instances of women who have “mothered” “children” not their own. I was reminded of Jesus’ cry over Jerusalem, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34 ESV) and the way that motherhood also speaks to us of God’s desire to relate to us in love through His greater strength.
God would really love to hold the door for us, which is a really difficult image for guys to wrap their heads around, I know. It can feel insulting to us in the way that it did to some feminists, but that’s just the problem.
Only men who have learned to receive from God’s greater strength before acting (which sometimes means waiting to see if this is a door we’re really supposed to go through or if the battle on the other side is not ours to fight), only these men can demonstrate the same generosity in their relationships with women without being at least a little condescending.
But if we’ll learn, both men and women, how to wait and position ourselves to receive from the Father’s hand then the world will look up in surprise at our God and say, “Oh, how chivalrous!” and we’ll be able to respond in pride, “Oh yes, He’s really good about that!”
