Dear Men,

My friend Lauren posted this on facebook and I wept reading it and wanted to share it outside that echo chamber. Shadé Ashani also posted it on Facebook.

We miss you.

Deeply.

When women gather together in circles, we tell stories of how much we long for you. Crave you. Pray for you to rise and meet us here. We mourn your missing presence. In our childhoods. In the homes we’ve built without you. In our beds.

We hold hands and beg God to set you free from whatever keeps you from standing at our sides. Right here.

Here In intimacy.

In integrity.

In wholeness.

In freedom.

The places where you are caught in dishonesty, shame, fear, addiction, we grieve and rage over.

We see your pain and we see your power.

We miss you.

We love you.

We can’t wait for you to come Home.

For the men who have, thank you so much. Please call your brothers, start men’s circles, show them the manuals. Tell them of what you gave up. Of your brokenness and acceptance. Of what it truly means to take up the mantle of protector. Please. There aren’t enough fathers, resources and leaders for men to sit at the feet of.

The women have tried. We can’t do it. The restoration must come from within the Masculine. The Feminine cannot mother grown men into wholeness. We cannot strap men to our backs and walk.

We tried.

We bow out. Not gracefully. But in mournful acceptance nonetheless.

And we will wait for you to burst free from the shackles patriarchy has placed on you.

We pray.

We pray.

We pray.

For the Great Remembrance.

—Shadé Ashani

Delusion - Dorina Costras