Even Judas got a chance to repent

Even Judas had the opportunity to do the right thing…despite the fact that this would have derailed God’s original intentions!

Let’s consider that Judas didn’t win some contest and weasel his way into a position as one of the twelve disciples. He was specifically chosen just as the others were. Yet when you take a look at his behavior even prior to his betrayal of Christ you have to wonder…good grief, why?!

1) Judas never referred to Jesus as “Lord”. He called him rabbi or teacher instead. He doesn’t seem to acknowledge His divinity or even His authority anywhere. The other apostles are noted to have done so but not he. In fact, he isn’t noted saying much at all. Judas never seemed to regard him as anything other than a teacher. I would argue that he never really believed he was the messiah at all and if he did he didn’t have much faith in that regard. Discovering that Christ intended to die rather than to overthrow the Roman occupation, as most expected the messiah to, was enough to drive him to betrayal. This fact may have grieved the other disciples but it didn’t drive them away.

2) The portrayal of Judas in the gospels is rather unflattering. At first this makes perfect sense but when you consider these accounts were written by fellow disciples who witnessed Judas’ betrayal firsthand you would expect some real vehemence. Instead you don’t see much of the sort, rather you see a fairly factual accounting of Judas. I would argue that it’s expected that the facts speak for themselves. One thing then stands out: the only accounts of Judas actually interacting with Christ at all concern his being rebuked by Christ for greed and Christ’s warning concerning his plans to betray Him.

John 12: 5-8
5Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?
6This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.
7Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.
8For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

Matthew 26: 24-25
24The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.
25Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said.

3) With it seeming that Judas lacked any real faith in Christ, even to the point of betraying Him, why in the world would Judas even follow him? Consider the point made of Judas’ greed. It colors one of the two only recorded instances of his interacting with Christ (John 12: 5-8). He also kept the moneybag for the group. Finally, he betrayed Christ for, again, money. He was greedy person and probably only stuck around in order to make use of the opportunity to make a buck or two. In fact, while he may have had little or no faith in Christ, he had to have been aware of the expectations of everyone else who did…that Jesus would overthrow the Roman occupation and that the disciples would probably end up in some position of authority in the end. Notably, it’s at the point where it’s made clear that Christ was to die, rather than lead an uprising, that Judas took it upon himself to fulfill the betrayal that Christ had just warned him of and make what profit he could while he could.

Now all this stuff is fairly well known. But there’s something I’ve only just become aware of myself and it’s startled me a bit. Naturally I feel compelled to share. Many Christians are probably already aware of this but if I never was, then there are surely others who aren’t.

The Old Testament points to Judas’ betrayal.

Psalms 41:9
9Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.

Now that one’s arguable but this one is pretty solid…

Zechariah 11:12-13
12And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.
13And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.

Now that’s a pretty cool but it illustrates an odd point when you think about it for a minute. First of all God knew of Judas’ betrayal long before it occurred. Before he was born even. Now I’m not of the “omniscient God” camp of Christianity. I believe God can know all that is knowable but there are some things that simply can’t be known. God can’t know what a man will do in any given situation. Being God He can, of course, make a frighteningly accurate educated guess, especially considering He can see into our hearts and knows us even in the womb.

1 Samuel 16:7
7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

Jeremiah 1:5
5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

So when Jesus chose Judas He clearly did so knowing the man for who he was. I’ll go so far to say that he was chosen specifically to betray Him. To fulfill Psalms 41:9 and Zechariah 11:12-13 Christ needed one of the disciples to betray Him to the authorities. God knew that Judas was exactly the sort of man to follow Christ yet having no faith in Him, or at least little enough that His impending death would be all that was required to motivate him to betray Him.

And yet, despite all that, Christ makes a point of calling him out right at the supper table. Now you can argue that this was done to illustrate that Christ knew of His betrayer. That’s all well and good, and for a Calvinist nothing more is required. But for those of us who know God for the merciful judge He is, this is pretty profound. Christ clearly states one of the men there will betray Him and when Judas asks, “Is it me?” He responds, “You said it.”

Now if we all truly have free will then Judas did as well. If there was any point in his life that Judas could have repented of his intentions to betray Christ (assuming he had intended that up to this point) then this is it. Even if that hadn’t been his intention until that night, it doesn’t necessarily follow that he would be compelled by Christ’s accusation to do what he’d just been accused of. Quite the opposite, one would think.

Being confronted with some secret conspiracy you’re plotting is enough to put most people off their plans. Being accused of something you haven’t done but are prone to doesn’t usually drive you to do that either, especially considering your accuser already expects it of you. They might take measures to prevent it! So why in the world did Judas go through with it? I’d bet it was because he was angry, greedy and disillusioned enough to behave irrationally.

But the fact remains that the decision to betray Christ was rather irrational, all the more for having had the whole plan laid out on the table by Christ in front of everyone else to begin with. Frankly, Judas had every reason in the world not to go through with it. He could have very easily walked away in shame and slunk off home. There wasn’t a thing preventing him from doing so.

So why did Christ open up that can of worms and provide him that opportunity? Why not make this point to the other disciples on the sly, where Judas couldn’t hear? Why at the supper table? If Judas had slunk off some other avenue would have had to be provided by which Christ fell into the hands of the authorities and was executed. Considering what Christ had accomplished up to this point, the huge stir He had made and all the enemies He’d gather by that point, it’s a very good bet this would have happened even without Judas’ betrayal. I doubt He would have had to do much else to bring this about. It was practically unavoidable.

In the end I contend that even Judas was given the opportunity to repent, even if that derailed Christ’s plans for him. He was certainly given every reason not to follow through with betraying Christ, which would have rendered Psalms 41:9 and Zechariah 11:12-13 devoid of any prophetic aspect.

Consider that, even at the end with his crucifixion imminent and facing betrayal from one of His own disciples, Christ was concerned enough for Judas that He rather politely accused him to his face before the other apostles. Not despite the fact that this might cause him to repent but clearly, to me anyway, quite aware of that. I’ll go further and say it’s perfectly in keeping with Christ’s character and all the things He’d done up to that point in relation to others that He very likely hoped he would.

[Edit: A friend of mine, "Random" from over on the TOL forum, added this, which I think is just amazing. Go Random!

"Just one more thing I would like to mention. Zachariah 11 does not point to Judas' betrayal. I believe this because it is not a prophecy, it is a historical event that happened to Zachariah. In my view God manipulated the 30 pieces of silver to prove a point to Israel and possibly to Judas. In Zachariah the prophet is believed to be worth 30 pieces of silver which shows that was how much God and his Word were worth to them. I believe God manipulated the events with Judas to make a point to show Israel that they had done the same thing again. They put a price on God's word and not a great one at that. Also it is possible that Judas may have known about the issue in Zachariah, for after he receives his blood money he realizes the horror of what he has done. Or it could simply be that when the money was in his hand the reality of it had struck. We are not sure of his educational background.

In Christ,
Random"

Random rocks!]

Wonder a while

The walls have nothing to say
and grieve

the windows only watch unaware
in pain

The clock keeps the time
with singular focus
denying it all

I am surrounded
by nothing that sees me
or knows me
but he beside me

I let my hand lay scarred
before my eyes
and wonder a while
amidst all of this

The sun set on his shoulder
and his hair did it’s best to distract me
but I listened to what he had said

He is my bones and my flesh
and surprise, I forgot
I am his

He said

The moon pulls at the sea
and waves beat at the earth
until it forms sand
to accommodate

accommodate me, the sea

So I wear his ring of laughter
the ghost of his kiss at my throat
and the gleam in his eye on my cheek

And that’s why it will all be okay

The interwebz is weird.

Okay, so check it out. This blog averages about forty or fifty hits a day, right? Which is cool, I don’t really want a huge audience or anything. I like having a blog I can tool around and post whatever whenever I want, not having to worry that there might be folks sitting around with nothing better to do than wait for the next little bit of something I dropped here. This is an entirely selfish endeavor. I know I have about a half dozen semi-regular readers already but this blog is hardly a work of art that all must admire. It’s a buncha crap. Probably vaguely entertaining crap perhaps but nonetheless self-indulgent crap.

Then my post “Atheists are morons” got hit hard to the tune of about 150 hits or so. Which really ain’t that many on the interwebz and all of that from the morons I was bitching about. So I endured their insistent defending of their moronic blatherings until they got bored and went away. No biggie.

Now one of my pages is getting hit out of the blue. “Jean Grey is whore” has 700 views so far, over 600 of them in the last twenty-four hours or so. Apparently this site stumbled across my little rant and thought referencing it would make a nice addition to their article. Which is cool, that’s part and parcel of putting this stuff on the net. People are going to sometimes stumble over your words and reference then with “Check this idiot out!” or “Hey, this is pretty cool!” That’s good stuff.

The thing is…well, here’s what was said: “Meanwhile, here’s a guy who thinks Jean was looking at Wolverine a little too much — and he’s really really really mad about it.”

I mean…am I that completely horrible at expressing myself, even in a rant, that this chick thought I was a guy? And how the heck did she come to that assumption anyway? Maybe I’m being unfair to men (wouldn’t be the first time) but isn’t it kinda counter-intuitive to assume someone angry at Jean Grey for being a ho’ is probably a guy? I would assume the opposite.

Yes, I know it’s unfair but I don’t get why a guy would have a problem with that. I have a problem with it for all the reasons I stated. Even if a guy felt the same way and agreed with me, I can’t see such a guy getting motivated enough about it for a good rant. So…what gives?

There are probably a dozen aspects of this that I could or should bitch about…but I don’t see them. I don’t really care and think it’s kinda funny. I noticed the only two comments I’ve gotten so far are from knuckleheads who were only offended that I dared call myself a Christian. Never mind that I called Jean Grey a whore. That’s just pretty hilarious to me.

But that “guy” thing…wow, that just doesn’t do much for my self-image. I think I’m going to have to go eat some ice cream now or something.

A mind is a terrible thing…

The human mind is a pretty screwy thing. I honestly marvel a little at people who make it their life’s work to try to figure it out or who make careers out of that sort of thing. I know my therapist boggles me pretty consistently.

Now I have to give credit to God before I start rambling on this topic. The human mind is most certainly a very remarkable thing. While it is indeed screwy, don’t let that suggest I don’t marvel at it as well. But it seems to me to be both ingeniously designed (way beyond ingenious really) and oddly inept in some areas. The area of most concern for me personally involves such things as defense mechanisms and those weird instinctive reactions we have. These are a constant source of frustration for me. The “fight or flight” response particularly.

That’s a pretty major one for me. I’ve got lots of other screwy issues, you understand. Lots of bad wiring, don’t get me wrong. While this one is actually probably the least of my concerns, it’s easy to recognize and crops up quite a lot, so I suppose that’s why it gets so much attention from me.

Now this is an elegantly simple defensive response, isn’t it? Lets say you witness some large man murder someone with an ax. From that day forward you’ll take an instinctive step or two backwards from any large man you see with an ax in his hands. That makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? We can’t know what kind of world we’re being born into in advance so it’s pretty awesome to have such self-programming instincts. Our minds can witness something like that and instantly drop “big guy with an ax” into the “bad things to run away from” category with no conscious input on our part. And because of that, when we meet a “big guy with an axe” who’s actually a danger, we get a free step or two in our flight response out of that. Which can make all the difference.
That’s pretty cool. I wouldn’t want to even hazard a guess as to how many lives this has saved.

But of course the flip side to that is that you can’t easily remove “big guy with an ax” from that category once it’s been put there. If you happen to live in a world where walking around with axes isn’t that uncommon then your “fight or flight” response is now going to cause you a lot of frustration and maybe even some trouble. I happen to know this personally because I now live with a sort of “big guy with an ax” and I tend to step back, even when I know there’s nothing to fear.

A lot of times stepping back even happens to be the absolute worst thing I should do at that moment.

Now learning that not all big guys with an ax are dangerous is one thing. In point of fact, that’s still a pretty wise reaction to have to big guys with axes, even if they aren’t all dangerous. Having a particular one at hand, trying to learn that this one in particular isn’t dangerous is another thing altogether.

Because, damn it, big men with axes are dangerous. There’s an inherent danger there. You can’t get around that. Maybe your reaction is unwarranted but the fact that there really is some degree of danger there, no matter how slight, makes it hard to unlearn that reaction. Trying to do that in regards to one individual while maintaining that reaction to all the other big guys running around with axes is just nearly impossible.

And then on top of all that, it’s not just that flight response. There are all these other things to deal with as well. Hell, I’ve gotten pretty good at not bolting like a little lamb every time my husband is suddenly standing a lot closer than I thought he was or when he’s angry or when he’s towering over me while I’m sitting on the couch. Sometimes he even puts his arm around me when I’m not focused on him at that moment and I don’t immediately freak out. I’m usually fine with all those things. I’ve gotten pretty darned good at that. I’m proud of it.

Of course I do other things instead and find out I’ve all these other reactions that are weird and get in the way. I remember being surprised at myself soon after he and I started “dating”. There was an evening on the couch just watching television when he complained that I was holding his hand too tightly. And I was. I was damned near crushing the poor thing.

And I realized right then that it wasn’t the first time I had done that. I’d been doing it just about every single time he sat close to me. I’d instantly grab his hand and hold it very tightly, both of them if I could reach them easily. My grip would get tighter if I wasn’t paying attention until he finally just had to say something. Then came the horrible flashback and I remember where I picked up that particular little trick and why. (And let’s just forget the embarrassing fact that I’d never done that before then. No, it wasn’t until we’d acknowledged the possibility of some of kind of romantic relationship that I started breaking his fingers.)

Which leads to the obvious question, “If it didn’t work then, why the hell am I still doing it?” Well because my mind is still convinced he’s a danger and since I’m not going along with the tried and true flight response it pulled that old trick out of the hat instead.

Now my therapist tells me this is a good sign that I’m healing. This is “working through your issues”, you know. And that’s all fine and dandy I suppose but the fact is that every time I do this I get to confront that old feeling that all my issues are so many and varied that the whole idea is overwhelming. I mean, let’s say someone gave you the task of conquering the whole world. Every nation on the planet. And let’s say you just conquered Grenada. And maybe Malta. After spending a year at war with them to do it. Would you feel especially positive about your prospects?

No, you’d probably be relieved that those two little countries fell off your list but now you’re awareness is free to take in the big picture and realize you really haven’t accomplished much. There are 195 countries in the world (and that’s counting Taiwan, which no one wants to recognize). Some of those you already know are going to be absolute killers when you get around to them. Heck, after defeating Grenada and spanking Malta the United States or the whole damned U.N. might come after you. And never mind there are probably guerrillas in the hills of Grenada that are going to cause you all kinds of grief in coming years.

And even if not, you just know you’re going to have to get around to dealing with China sooner or later. Defeating Grenada just makes you want to give up and run back to the hills.

Some days I totally get Hitler eating a bullet in a bunker. If anything I think he was stupid not to have seen all that coming. Nobody can defeat the whole world. I really don’t think it can be done.

I know full well I’m going to die someday in the midst of some battle or other. There was a time when I thought that was a grand idea. Noble even. Now, though…now I’d rather die in my sleep. But my little internal world is at war with me and that just isn’t an option. So it’s kind of hard to take any pleasure in the thought of dying in battle anymore.

I want to win, have peace and go live in the mountains somewhere. Hang my guns over the fireplace and be done with it. It just ain’t gonna happen. I just don’t have that kind of time. No one even lives long enough to conquer the whole world.

So how did I get on all this? Why is this coming up? Why, Mary, are you whining about this on your blog today? Well, I had a horrible fight with the guy about a week ago. And it’s a weird thing to relate really.

We were teasing each other about something (doesn’t matter what, so shut up). And so I threatened to kick his butt. And he laughed. He said flat out that he wasn’t afraid of me. And that really pissed me off. So I pushed the point and he just laughed it off again.
So I got serious. Then we argued. They he got angry. Then we fought.

About whether or not he’s afraid of me, you see. Because that was suddenly very important.

And hell, it wasn’t “suddenly” important to me. It had always been important. It’s pretty much colored my whole life and every relationship I’d ever had with anyone. I’d always taken pride in being intimidating. Everyone straighted up a bit when I walked into the room. I even cultivated a particularly threatening look and demeanor.

So it was insulting and shocking and more than a little frightening to suddenly confront what I suppose I’d always known. He wasn’t afraid of me. He knew me well enough to know not to be.

And moreover he’s aware of my little secret, whether he realizes it or not. That I really don’t think I would win if he and I were ever to get in a real fight. I even said something to the effect that if I had a knife and was coming after him, wouldn’t he be afraid? And he said no.

That scares the living crap out of me.

What the hell was I thinking marrying probably the only person in the whole world that isn’t afraid of me?

So we barely talked for a couple of days. Me because I was pretty scared and was mulling over my weird behavior during that fight. He probably because he knew I was in full blown crazy mode and that’s definately “stay the hell away from Mary” time. So then Wednesday finally came around and I dropped the whole thing in my therapist’s lap despite myself. And of course she pointed out the obvious that I’d been blinding myself to the whole while.

If he would probably win in a fight and he’s not afraid of you…what’s to stop him from hurting you if he had a mind to? So should you keep trying to make him fear you or should you somehow learn to accept living with the big guy and his ax?

Yes, Mary. Congratulations on conquering Grenada last week. That’s really very nice. But we’re invading Brazil today. Population 190 million, 8.5 million square kilometers to cover, standing army of almost 2 million.

Hope you packed a lunch.

The morality of gender leadership roles.

An interesting (horrifying actually) moral dilemma reared it’s ugly head Friday. It was an abstract, mind you. It wasn’t real. But it involved whether I should make the decision to leave a young boy to die to save my own life or stand and defend the boy, ending up with both of us most likely quite dead in the process. Not necessarily but most likely.

In the end I abandoned the boy and he died.

This took place during our unscheduled rpg game Friday night (which we usually have Saturdays). The game we’re currently involved in is a zombiegeddon kinda game, in which the undead are running (well, walking briskly) around eating people.
This session was run a little early because we were anxious to resolve what was supposed to be a simple run from a house to a church across the street, as that church was supposedly to provide better defense against the zombie hordes. There was also supposed to be a guy in there with another rifle and some ammo. Which we were almost out of. In the process we ended up getting the group split up into three little groups (and my character Charley was all alone for a bit). So naturally a few people got eaten.

It’s not a good idea to split up when you’re low on ammo and there are hordes of zombies around.

So anyway my character managed to get inside the church and take down the lunatic that was shooting at us all by herself. She’s a tough cookie, Charley is. I even got his rifle and the ammo we desperately needed. Charley then jumped out the window to help the others who were running around getting eaten. So right when I did one of the other characters, Alice (who Melissa plays) had been keeping the two unnamed characters (we still haven’t asked what their names are) across the yard to the back door of the church. Both were bruised up pretty bad from jumping out of a window earlier (my fault) so they weren’t moving very fast.
So the boy got grabbed (by a zombie deer, if you can believe it…but that’s another story). Charley shot the thing that took the boy down and ran over there to drag the unconscious boy away before he got eaten. Then she got jumped on by two zombies herself.

Now here I am with Charley having two zombies on her back and trying to pull a little boy away from four other ones. And there are more zombies across the yard coming still. So I figured I’d be smart and drop back, then shoot the zombies on the boy, since they’d all turn their attention to him when I stepped away (I hoped).
And it worked. Charley dodged and jumped back and the two that were on her turned to start eating the little boy. Then I realized there was no way I was going to be able to shoot all six of those zombies and kill all of them before the rest of those in the yard started piling on top of me and eating me too.

Now bear in mind something that you probably don’t know. Our previous campaign was largely characterized by the player characters being rather decidedly not very heroic. They were in fact bad people. So the players were definately in the mood to play heroes this time around. And even though I ran the last campaign and didn’t actually play in it, this had rubbed off on me as well. I was totally ready for Charley to be all heroic like.

So I decided…screw it. No way Charley is going to run away and live the rest of her days suffering crushing guilt for leaving a little boy to be eaten by zombies. Alice had just overcome her “coward” trait to save the little girl (by grabbing her physically and literally running with her). The GM hadn’t objected. So I figured I’d take my chances. There’s always the random unpredictable fluke of chance that I might get both of us out of this mess. And if not…well, at least Charley died doing the right thing.

Melissa and Ally thought that was a great idea. They cheered. They thought my character Charley was just the coolest thing since cheese in a can.

Johnny disagreed. He was very much not on board with the idea.

This led to about fifteen minutes of debate over the matter, out of character, with the GM wandering off to find some pizza while we hashed it out. The matter seemed pretty clear cut to me. Charley would never leave a little kid to be eaten by zombies. Period. She was a sheriff’s deputy and had a “duty” trait. What’s the argument?

But Johnny’s character was an old man with two different physical handicap traits “elderly” and “bad back”. He was sucking so far at physical stuff…and we’d since learned that ammo was in short supply. And he pointed out that Alice, despite her recent minor act of semi-heroism, had a “coward” trait. And Rita (Ally’s character) was slightly crazy.
Which left the whole group relying a good bit on Charley’s leadership traits and her ability to kick zombie butt. If she died then getting the rest of the group out of the mess would fall to Moses (Johnny’s character) alone.

Basically his argument is that the kid was dead already and it was not in the interests of the group’s survival for Charley to die heroically just that moment. So, in fact, this wouldn’t go with her “duty” trait very well after all.

I did not like Johnny’s reasoning at all. I was more of a mind that doing what was right (standing and defending an unconscious little boy against zombies) trumped everything else, even survival. The girls felt likewise. Johnny was of a mind that survival should be the overriding goal. Which led to all manner of disagreement right away. Putting survival as the ultimate, end all be all, trumps everything else goal would lead to all kinds of morally reprehensible decisions sooner or later and that was something we were all wanting to avoid.

Right about this time I realized what we were dealing with here. As I’ve mentioned I’d been debating male and female leadership roles recently in the contexts of both marriage and leadership in general. And here I had a pretty good example of what I’d been talking about. The girls (myself included) were all making decisions based solely on how they would feel about how they’d played their characters when the game was over. Johnny (the only guy in the player group) was making decisions, while in character, with the group’s survival in mind. He’d in fact based how he’d feel about how he played his character on how well that character had focused on the group’s survival.

Two approaches. Almost identical approaches but just different enough that you couldn’t quite grasp what the heck the difference was in the first darned place. And yet Johnny was dead set on leaving the kid and getting Charley back to the defend the group. The girls were all adamant that Charley would never leave a little boy to be eaten.

Now the goal in a roleplaying game is to try to make decisions based on what your character would do. It’s okay to bend this rule a little now and again for the sake of fun (which is the real overriding goal after all) but that’s generally what you do. So the question was, “What would Charley do in this situation”?
In the end I decided Johnny was right. Charley’s “duty” trait was to civilians as a whole. She’d make the logical decision to leave the boy and defend the group rather than the emotional decision of staying and defending the boy.

So Charley ran away and rejoined the group. And I hated that decision. A lot. Ally and Melissa hated it too. Johnny approved but thought the GM sucked for feeding little kids to zombies.

Now why did I agree with Johnny? Because his argument forced me to ask myself a simple question. If I were one of the people in the group would I want Charley to die out in the yard or run away and bring those two rifles and all that ammo to the group?

Well, there you go.

And I totally cheated. Charley would have never left that kid behind. She would have started shooting the zombies, got piled on by zombies herself and both she and the kid would have been eaten. Then the old man, the coward and the crazy girl would have been faced with trying to figure out how the heck to get those two rifles and the ammo from a yard full of zombies.
Her “duty” trait would indeed have led her to realize her greater duty was to the group. But Charley would have ignored that and stayed to fight anyway. So I cheated and let her make a logical decision over an emotional one, something I don’t think she really would have done.

So here I am thinking I’ve got the male/female leadership thing down pat. I’ve got a pretty good understanding of it. I even recognized the male response to this situation was, while rather ugly, the more rational one in this particular instance and went with that for the sake of the group. Even though I really, really wanted Charley to go down swinging.

So I make this point to Matthew later.

And he says, basically, “Hell no. If that’d been me I would have stayed and fought the zombies and you dumb asses should have all been running away in the opposite direction. If I survived, I’d catch up. If not, you got a head start. You can go find ammo somewhere else. Like where there aren’t a billion zombies hanging around.”

Well. Damn it.

That’ll teach me to listen to Johnny.

The point of this whole story is simply this. Men and women think differently. As differently as they think they are neither of them more or less likely to make the better decision. This has nothing to do with why men are generally better equipped for leadership roles.
I’ll say that again in the hopes that it sinks in with the knuckleheads: Neither male nor female is more apt to make the better decision.
Men are better leaders simply because they’re generally bigger, stronger and more aggressive. They inspire loyalty in those that follow them. They generally respond to that loyalty by taking their leadership roles all the more seriously.

Yet when all is said and done, when you’re faced with leaving a young boy to die at the hands of zombies…you do the right thing. Period. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says, even the leader.

As it happens my leader (my husband) agreed with the very emotional decision I had originally made and would have made that same decision himself. But even if he disagreed it would still been the right decision.

What is right trumps what is logical and what is emotional. It trumps gender leadership roles. It’s what keeps us safe from bad leaders.
It’s what makes it possible for a woman like me to cede authority to her husband in the first place. Because I know that even if I’ve made a bad decision and picked someone to lead me who isn’t morally upright, I don’t have to follow his directions when he’s morally wrong.

Brightwater Keep

Having mentioned role-playing games in my last post it occurs to me that I should point my website concerning that. I’m fairly sure I haven’t mentioned it here before. Mainly it comes to mind now because I finally just finished updating the one campaign section that’s set in a biblical era.

“Pangaea” is definately one of our more interesting campaigns, though the player characters were a little startling. We’re definately talking dark heroes here. But I’ll grant them the benefit of pointing out that they kinda sorta tried to be good guys toward the end.

Not quite good guys…but kinda sorta almost.

Still. Awesome campaign. And most awesome, I got to run this one and I designed the whole setting and the campaign itself. I’m ridiculously pleased that I was able to show our players such a great time and have such fun myself.

So anyways if you’re into that sort of thing check out our website. I update it as infrequently as I do this blog but if nothing else there’s some interesting reads there for your pleasure. Most specifically I hope any fellow gamers out there can make use of the material and the ideas we share there.

Brightwater Keep

By all means, enjoy!

On the other hand…the benefits of an empty nest.

It occurs to me that I rather whined a bit in my last post about Jeremiah being snatched away yet again. I consoled myself with memories of the fun we’ve had while he was here and waxed melodramatic a tad about the changes in my life. I utterly failed to highlight the benefits of having the kid out the house for a whole week.

I really feel I should do that. While it’s far better to have him here I can’t honestly say it’s utter misery while he’s gone. There’s plenty to make up for the short term loss, though I still shudder to think of being without him for any real stretch.

So. There are three major ones, in order of ascending admiration.

One: I can clean the house properly.
Not that I don’t keep a fairly clean house when he’s here but I wouldn’t suggest anyone try to eat off the floors even on the best days. Still, with one of the two males out of the cave it’s a lot easier to tidy up. He’s even mentioned how nice and orderly the house is when he returns from his mother’s house a couple of times.
I naturally stifled and didn’t point out it’s because he’s a little slob like his dad. Rather I simply accepted the praise and moved on. I made the “you’re a slob” point later, when I caught him leaving his shoes out in the hallway. Alongside his socks.

Two: Game time!
I’m a gamer. No, not talking about video games and such (though I am an admitted Playstation addict). I’m talking about role-playing games. And again, no. Not talking about those kinds of role-playing games. The other ones, I mean. The Dungeons and Dragons variety. It’s one of my favoritest things.
Me and my close circle of friends have been rpg fanatics for…well, a very long time. Now that we’re all living in the same town again we meet every Saturday to play. Though we rarely actually play Dungeons and Dragons we are geeks enough to have that game and play it now and again. Currently our favored game system is the Cortex system (Margaret Weiss Productions), most notably their Serenity and Battlestar Galactica games.
Right now we’re playing a homebrew using the Cortex rules. It’s a zombiegeddon kinda game. You know, the dead come to life to eat people and whatnot. My current character is named Charley and she’s a sheriff’s deputy caught up in all the madness. And yes, this diehard anti-feminist is actually playing a sheriff’s deputy named Charley. I’m such a hypocrite, huh?
But my zombie kill count is up to seven, I’ve escape being chewed up by the dead about three times so far and I’ve saved most of the other characters in the game a couple of times over. Charley’s kicking serious butt.
The fact is that since Matthew is GM’ing (administrating) the game it’s a lot easier to really get into it and cut loose with my friends without Jeremiah around. Not to mention we can have all the adult conversations freely that we don’t have in front of our kids while we’re playing. We can even deal with adult matters in the game without having to worry about the kids wandering in and being shocked.

Three: Sex.
Yes, you heard me. Now those of you who know me or even those who’ve read my testimony here on this blog may figure that’s an odd thing maybe for me to say. And while it’s true that intimacy and sex itself are often a problem for me I also have some periods where it is very seriously not a problem. I mean, at all.
I’m talking major overwhelming urges here. Total nymphomania.
Recently I’ve discovered these random bits of leftover haphazard reactions to childhood trauma have begun to occur more frequently when Matthew and I have the house to ourselves. Apparently there’s some twisted part of me that at least is still cognizant of Jeremiah’s presence and actually prefers not to get freaky when he’s in the house.
In short I often find after the depression and crushing sense of lose has eased up a bit (usually around Monday or Tuesday) something in me perks up and realizes there’s no one else in the house but the guy. Or perhaps I should say The Guy, as seems more appropriate at those times.
Might we perhaps consider sex? Lots of, in fact? Perhaps of the very loud, messy, furniture endangering variety?
Why, yes. That sounds quite lovely. Let’s do that.

In the end though it has to be said. I can list all the things that make having Jeremiah out of the house palatable to me. But after all is said and done, these things are all just consolation prizes. Nice, shiny bronze trophies and honorable mention ribbons for the runner up.
I’ve lost Jeremiah. For a whole week. It’s really nice having all these other things to ease that loss a bit but I’d just really rather have our whole family together under one roof all week. Much rather by far. I most certainly thank God for every good thing in my life, all those things mentioned above included, but I’ve no doubt He fully understands the loss of a child if even for a short time.

Now having said all that I should probably say something nice about having Matthew around more. It occurs to me I’ve hardly mentioned him around here recently. It’s odd but I think I may already be taking his presence for granted a little. The fact is I’m largely in his lap when there isn’t anything needs doing around here. For now though I’ll limit my comments to what preoccupies my mind and grieving for my step-son’s presence, as well as the startling realization that this is what I’m actually feeling, is enough.
You’ll just have to take me word that Matthew and I are getting along swimmingly.