The Cosmic Dance

One of the things I've come to ponder and read about recently is the nature of masculinity and femininity...what are they actually? Is it as simple and disagreeable as something like "men have superiority over women" or "men are strong and women are soft," or "men are physical and women are emotional," or anything like that?  I intend to flush this all out in a much longer piece of writing once I get my thoughts together, but I would highly recommend Peter Kreeft's "Sex in Heaven" and Karl Stern's The Flight From Woman if you are like me and want to go into more depth about what it actually means to be a man or woman beyond the cheap, lazy answers culture usually gives us and find something that relates to a mature Christian perspective.

In Kreeft's "Sex in Heaven," one of the things that is discussed is the fact that sex is cosmic. Meaning, sexuality is seen all throughout creation. There is a saturation in the universe of a subtle paradigm of two things being complementary and human sexuality is at once only one iteration of this, and yet the most glorious iteration.

So, while I used to think costumes for couples at the Halloween store that were in the likeness of a lock and key or a plug and socket were downright gross (and while I would still probably not wear such a costume!), I no longer think it's silly or immature to draw connections between the world of things and human sexuality. In fact, I think it will help us understand the two participants in this dance of divine ordination if we take note of the many forms they take. It's worth noting that these are just archetypes, and as human beings we cannot act solely with masculine or feminine traits all the time, whether we are male or female; we all need to strike some sort of balance. Men need to "borrow" some characteristically feminine traits at times (or even often) and vice versa. So, here is my personal running list (I can be wrong in some of this--this stuff isn't in the Bible; it's an empirical study of God through his general revelation in creation) of symbols of The Cosmic Dance as played out in the world around me, which I intend to update as I think of more:

Male & Female

Key & Lock

Digital & Analog

Positive Charge & Negative Charge

Electricity & Magnetism

Scientific Knowledge & Poetic Knowledge

River & Ocean

Sun & Moon

Natural Constants (like gravity) vs. Natural Cycles (like tides and seasons)

Rhythm & Melody

The Destination & The Journey

Writing (as an art form) & Reading (as an art form)

Learning Something Entirely New & Deepening Existing Knowledge

Inspiration & Perspiration (or, Conception & Gestation, of an idea or of a baby)

Creativity as bending reality to your will & Creativity as working within a set of constraints

Justice & Mercy

(In Baseball) Big Inning & Small Ball

(In Baseball) Pitching & Batting