Holy Lot

There was this great man in ancient times. Lot his name was. Lot was the nephew of Abram, he who later took on the name Abraham. Abram was one rather crafty man. At one time, when Abram was faced with a famine, he saw a way he could get rich in Egypt. He went down to Egypt and since his wife was rather beautiful, he decided to pimp her to the Pharaoh and the Pharaoh's officials. The Pharaoh saw this rather beautiful available woman and decided to appropriate her for himself. In a fit of generosity the Pharaoh gave Abram sheep, cattle, donkeys, male and female servants and even camels. Abram even got silver and gold. Sarai, Abrams wife, had certainly pleased the Pharaoh rather much.

Now the Pharaoh did not know that Sarai was Abrams wife, and Abram had also neglected to tell the Pharaoh that Sarai had a venereal disease. After a period of Sarai gallivanting about the palace she had spread this disease about the household. Pharaoh's doctors soon identified the source and advised him to get rid of her. Being a rather superstitious fellow, the Pharaoh sent Sarai back to Abram, and made sure that everything Abram had touched was sent away with them so that no vestiges of that disease may remain in his household. Abram thus left with quite a lot of stuff that he did not come with. What is not so clear from the story is whether Sarai got cured or Abram was immune to her disease.

Now Abram left Egypt and when along with his nephew Lot. Since Abram had quite a lot of stuff and Lot, too, had his own animals and tents, their servants began quarrelling over water and grazing rights. So Abram suggested that they part ways. Abram went to Canaan while Lot, who had acquired a taste for city life, camped near Sodom.

About that time war broke out and Lot and his goods were carried off as war booty when Sodom and Gomorra were defeated. Abram could not see how all that stuff could be taken so he got 318 men together and waited until night to attack. He managed to completely rout the enemy gaining back Lot, Lot's goods as well as women and a few other people. The kings were happy and Abram to keep Melchizedek (one of those kings) happy gave him a whole tenth of his stuff. However he refuses to give the king of Sodom anything.

Lot went back to Sodom as he still loved city life. He loved sitting by the gateway watching the city life flow by him. One of those days he sees two strangers approach. Knowing that the city can be rather dangerous especially for rural fellow he insisted that they come and spend the night in his house. He gave them unleavened bread and prepared for them a place to sleep. Rumours soon run around the city that there were two strangers in Lot's house and the men of the city decided it would be a nice time to have an orgy. They came and surrounded Lot's house and demanded that these new men come over for a bit of hanky panky with the city crowd.

Lot thinks "Oh! Abomination".

Lot looks around his household and sees that he only has his wife and two daughters therein and no men he can offer to the mob. He thinks "These my daughter oh. They are about to be married anyway. Perhaps if I give them to the mob they'll gain enough experience to please their future husbands. After all they are virgins and not very useful to anyone"

So Lot goes out to the crowd and offers them his daughters. The crowd, however, does not want the women. They left theirs in the houses to have fresh meat and they've been seeing these ones around ever. The crowd wants fresh ass. They even promise Lot that if they get his ass, his lot will be a lot worse. The strangers seeing this happen pull Lot back inside and throw some sort of tear gas that manages to disperse the crowd.

So now these strangers tell Lot that their boss has sent them to organize a tactical strike against that city. They urge him to get his people and run. Lot immediately goes to his future sons in law who had already paid dowry for his daughters and tries to get them to flee with him. The boys thought Lot was some sort of joker and laughed him off. Early in the morning the strangers tell him to get out. Lot still hesitates so they take his hand and that of his wife and daughters and lead him to the gate. They tell Lot to flee to the mountains and not to look back.

Lot being a city man begs to be let to flee to a small town nearby as he cannot fathom how he'll survive in the mountains. The two Angels (yes that's what they were) tell him they will spare this small city, Zoar (meaning small), from the strike but he'd better hurry. By the time Lot got to Zoar, the sun had risen and the tactical strike had started. Lot's wife finds it hard to believe all that property is lost and turns to look back. The Angels' boss, however, does not want anybody to report on the weapons used so he turns one of the weapons towards her and turns her into a block of sodium chloride.

After seeing all this destruction Lot got mighty afraid to live in towns so he got his daughters and settled in a cave upon the mountains. Now Lot had lost all his men and female servants as well as most of his goods when he fled from Sodom, however his daughters did not see the point of them not getting some even though they were alone in the mountain cave. The daughters hatched a plot and decided that they'll be getting their father drunk then they will take turns. As these things happen they eventually got pregnant and they both had sons. Through all this hanky panky Lot apparently did not know who he'd been spending exhaustive nights with.

And that is the authenticated story of a holy and righteous man called Lot.

To the Women of my life

I've had quite a lot of women in my life. Mothers, sisters, teachers, aunts, cousins, friends and even lovers. Each of these women have left a mark on me. Some have died, some are still alive. I have made them happy, disappointed them, annoyed them, amused them, flattered them, ashamed them and I still suffer the consequences of all my actions good and bad. One thing however all of them had in common was a personal network of female friends and relatives who they could rely on to support them in times of crisis and joy.

You can never have a relationship with a woman on her own. You'll have a relationship with her and her network, albeit at a distance. This network will monitor you, criticize you, suggest changes to be made in you and generally see to the wellbeing and downfall of your relationship. They will directly and indirectly influence the way you are perceived and will also provide diverse views on the suitability of this relationship. Whatever kind of relationship you will have with the women in your life you will share with the network in hers. This network also serves a very important purpose to women. When relationships get grim they serve a support network to grieve with, laugh with, vilify and rebuild the self esteem of the woman. When the relationships are going well they will serve as a mirror to show how well you have it. Sometimes this network will destroy a relationship indadvertedly or deliberately. They still will, however, lend their support when this happens.

We men, on the other hand, tend not to have this personal relationship with our networks. Most of our networks only touch on the surface of what we are. We have business networks, social networks and family networks. While elements in these networks may overlap, we do not have personal networks. We do not have the emotional crutch we can rely on when we need it. We maintain a distance around us, with our male friends, and limit interaction to those areas that a network is meant for. A man's emotional crutch is the women in his life. These are the only people we ever seem to touch with on a deep emotional level and rely on as our emotional crutches, and very erratic crutches these are. Mothers die, sisters get married, friends move into other relationships and even lovers sometimes give up on you. This is probably why it is a devastating experience for a man to love and lose. When we lose our lovers we do not just lose a relationship, we lose our only emotional crutch. We lose the only outlet we have for release. The loss, for us men, is greater then the face we put on it.

I am proud of the women in my life, past and present. I know there are probably a few things that I'd wish had not happened but in sharing their lives with mine they have made me what I am today. I wouldn't be me without them. To the women in my life I thank you for having been there. Happy belated Women's Day.