by Marty Coleman | May 31, 2018 | I Draw in Church, Marty Coleman |
“I’d rather be respected than loved.” – Eli Broad
This is my drawing of our preacher this past Sunday. Her name is Paula. She spoke on marriage from a woman’s perspective. Her husband, named Deron, also spoke about marriage, but from a man’s perspective. There was a bit of stereotyping, which she told us would be coming. It is true that stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason (sometimes) and in this case there is enough truth that I understood why she used them. She basically said that while most women want love, most men want respect. I can see that in my life. But it’s important to note that women, while wanting love, do also want respect.
The battle for equality on behalf of women for the last 150 years in this country is proof of that. The fact that it was a risky move to even have a female preacher up at the altar is also proof of that. They have had to fight for that equality even though their behavior and actions have proven they are worthy of it many times over. From talking to my wife, daughters and others, it’s a very frustrating position to be in, whether in career, education, home or social life. Women want their intellect respected, as well as their decision-making, emotions, insights, capabilities in the workplace and their creativity. And they want their bodies respected at all times.
Many men already get plenty of respect from society, but not all. Often times a man will suffer disrespect until they reach a boiling point, then explode in anger and resentment at not getting it. If they were able to ask for it, and explain how the lack of it truly hurts them, then perhaps they would get it before their blow up. But that would demand a vulnerability that most men aren’t comfortable with. To ask for something like that, or to explain their hurt, could open them up to ridicule or even put them in a dangerous position with other males. The male preacher brought up a good point however, and that is they have to deserve it. Asking for respect when their actions aren’t respectable or respectful is going to fall on deaf ears.
So, it seems to me there is a bit of a lopsided element to respect. Women often do more than enough to deserve respect and don’t get it. Men often do very little to deserve respect but get it anyway. Men often times will demand the respect and might get it out of intimidation or fear. Women will often not demand respect out of the same reasons.
How do we balance out this inequality? That is where the love comes in. Yes, it’s great to be respected, but at the root of respect is love. My wife and my song is ‘What a Wonderful World’. One of my favorite lines is this: “I see friends shaking hands, saying ‘how do you do’, they’re really saying ‘I love you’. And what is shaking hands but a show of respect, right? Well if the line is true (and I think it is) what lies behind that respect is love. Love is what allows the empathy needed to see the frustration on the part of women when they are not respected. Love is what allows the sensitivity needed to see the hurt behind the disrespect men sometimes get. Without love in your heart, respect is just an academic exercise you can dismiss at will. With love, it’s the mechanism by which you can love the whole world.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | May 17, 2018 | Digital Work |
This is a continuation of my digital drawings, the first batch of which I published earlier this year. I have gotten into the habit of drawing for 10-20 minutes after I get in bed each night and these drawing are the result. I use an iPad mini and the Sketchbook Pro app by Autodesk. I usually use my finger to draw or a digital pen. These are all about the artistic challenge of getting the most sophisticated emotion out of the least sophisticate technique. After I am done I usually post the image to my instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you want to connect with me at any of those social media platforms just search for ‘The Napkin Dad’ and you will find me.
click on any image to see a slide show of them all.
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by Marty Coleman | May 14, 2018 | Series |
Hello Everyone,
Have you missed me? Probably not considering my blog doesn’t reach that many people. But if you did, fret no longer, I am back. Are you wondering, ‘uh, I didn’t know you were gone.’? Then, don’t worry, I wasn’t gone long enough to worry you. But if you were wondering where I went, here’s the answer (actually, this is the answer even if you didn’t wonder.)
Shorter Version – I messed up my security settings, my hosting, my databases and other stuff and basically locked myself out of napkindad.
Longer Version – Two things happened, One, I let my SSL certificate lapse. I got an email for a company telling me it was about to expire but I thought it was a company trying to get me to switch by telling me that when it was still far off. But I was wrong, it actually was the company I was using. Duh. Once it expired I was toast, no longer able to access my administration area to do any updates. Because I didn’t renew in time I had to have my host renew for me and install the new certificate. The problem was he was not able to do it. I don’t want to go into too much detail out of respect for him but he’s been having physical, mental and financial issues and they came to a head this spring. Bottom line he was not able to work on getting my site back up and running in a timely manner.
Because of that and because of my lack of confidence that issues wouldn’t occur in the future that would cause more problems I decided to change hosts. The problem with that of course is I need the help of my prior host to help me do the transfer. This took a while. Eventually he got back on the job and helped me from his end. That meant he was giving me the backup files for my sites (this one and martycoleman.com). But the bulk of the work had to be done with the new host, Bluehost.
That took a number of days. Why? Because I am an idiot who misread a file and told the support staff to put it in the wrong place, which messed most everything else up. In addition I got all pissy with the tech support guy I was chatting with because of course it was completely his fault…until it wasn’t. We finally got that issue resolved and came upon another issue, this one having to do with the database. This took another day or two to resolve. Then another issue popped up with a plugin that was so good at security that it continued to lock me out even after all the other issues had been resolved.
While You Were Gone
So that is why napkindad.com has been dormant for almost a month. But that doesn’t mean I have been dormant. During the last few months one of my daughters got engaged, I visited another daughter and my grandson and I ran two marathons in two different states. I came within 3 minutes of qualifying for the Boston Marathon so another race is in my near future (probably September) to see if I can’t cut my time down and qualify. I will post something about that in the next week.
Anniversary
And guess what? 2018 is both the 10 year anniversary of the Napkindad website and the 20 year anniversary of when I first started drawing the napkins for my daughters. I will be doing some fun things to celebrate both of these anniversaries over the next year so stay tuned!
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