Article April 16, 2012 Issue

Free from the monster view of manhood

Heather Frederick Brown

A few years ago, I was plagued by a “monster” in my life. It took different shapes, but it was always there: a type of unsettling male behavior that began to plague me.

At times this behavior seemed unbelievably selfish. For example, I was asked out on a date by someone who, it turned out, was married. Other times this behavior was a bit frightening. Here is one example: I was driving on the freeway one day when a truck hedged me in toward the center divider. When I sped up, the driver did; when I slowed down, he did too—and there were some obscene gestures. I wasn’t afraid; I just ignored him and I eventually got away. A few weeks later, however, a similar freeway incident happened with a different man! They had both been driving “monster” trucks.

After that, it seemed like I would see this “monster” behavior everywhere. I started wondering what strangers were thinking, and I was becoming generally suspicious of men. A slow-building armor started to creep over me. I felt I was seeing a great disparity between the man of God’s creating—the perfect man that I read about in my study of Christian Science—and the actuality of these male behaviors confronting me. I longed to see the real man, the Christ-man, in my life.