On Self-Observed Boyishness: Tonka Trucks & Destruction vs. Death

[lhynard]

Sadly, I must confess that I spent at least 15 minutes today right after lunch watching a big, yellow, Caterpillar roll over a mount of crushed and broken brick, stone, and wood and rip and bash to shreds and bits yet another house on 3200 block of N. Charles & St. Paul. Mournfully, I must confess that I enjoyed watching this destruction.

Comments

I *love* demolition!

[anonymous]

dunno why either.

[sadeyedartist]

??? No clue. This is one that I have accepted but completely without understanding it. Its one of those "what the heck, God?" questions I probably asked repeatedly in childhood while watching my brothers. (Who, as I recall, had at least three Tonka trucks.) I wonder if this is a flipside of loving to build because of the fall or something. I can't tell whether this bent toward distruction is sin-related or somehow naturally good. (Not that I have any first-hand understanding.) When I destroy things, it usually is a. out of frustration (not that this happens often, and the thing being destroyed is generally something that needed to be destroyed anyway--such as excess paper.) or b. am preparing it to be rebuilt in some way/made into art

[shadewright]

In the same vein as my comment below:

Dressing up is mostly a girl thing because women were created to find great joy in their husbands' joy over them. (Before anyone cries chauvenist, read Genesis 3:16b. Also, the Song of Solomon.)

You were created to be a chaste seductress -- to find in your husband's attraction to you an echo of a holy God's desire for all of us.

The possible perversions of this God-given desire are too obvious to enummerate.

[sadeyedartist]

No idea of chauvanism crosses my mind. Being a girl, you see, I understand this personally from the flipside. One of my deepest desires is to fulfill a need in someone that only I can, and to please him in ways that only I know how to. I think that if I were to modify language, I would make two verbs for "to be beautiful". They would be: "to be beautiful" and "to be beautiful for". These are very different things. An objective beauty can be meaningless. Objectively, I would not consider myself beautiful. On the scale of hotness, I am average to slightly above on a good day. Ironically, though (and although I usually believe in the idea of objective beauty--my sixth graders semi-proved that during a critique. Art has fairly obvious standards when you are dealing with observational work), this does not have the capacity to bother me IF one person finds me specifically beautiful. What do I need with the whole world if I'm only in need of one pair of eyes? If I have "his", I don't need "theirs". I believe this is true of every woman. (

[shadewright]

Yes, there is a genuine void. For guys too.

Let me ask, though:

Would your life and self-perspective be different if you believed deeply that God takes delight and satisfaction in you, that He is inpsired even to song by your beauty? That your every breath gives Him pleasure more surely than it will your husband?

[shadewright]

I love demolition--and putting my fist through 1" pine planks! (Not done that for years.)

I think it has to do mostly with power over our immediate environment. We are created to be protectors, warriors and providers. We were designed to subdue the earth so that it could then be nurtured and to wreak havoc on the forces that would threaten our wives and families.

I mean, c'mon, it's even fun to say "Wreak havoc on those who threaten our wives." =)

Demolition is just an awesome exercise of power. Do a good job landscaping, and the feeling at the end is the same. It's just that the whole process of demolition is a lot easier and more obvious in it's use of power.

Like any godly desire, this part of us is twisted by sin. Most men do not have Christ's heart toward the innocent, let alone toward the guilty. Why is shooting bystanders fun? Because you can, and most men can't. Because it's power. The evil arises when that power is divorced from it's purpose, when it is used for it's own sake, and not for the sake of those who lack

[lhynard]

well said