So I decided to do something this weekend I've never done before:  sign up for the Men's Retreat at our church.  I've done the church retreat thing previously, and it can be a nice getaway of contemplation, conversation, and fellowship, but I've never done the Men's Retreat thing.

The Men's Group at our parish is supposed to be seven types of awesome.  Everyone who goes there says that.  And certainly most of the folks at the parish who I really like speak very highly of it.  One problem:  they meet on Saturday mornings at 7:30 a.m.  Which ... is kind of a non-starter for me on a regular basis.  Selfish and all that, I know, but there it is.

But the Men's Group organizes an annual retreat.  This year it's a Friday evening down at the church, then today up at a conference center at Genessee.  That's one weekend, and, given my generally positive experience with retreats, and the plaudits about the Men's Group -- the tightly supportive bond they have, the loyalty that brings them back at god-awful-early every Saturday, etc. -- I finally decided to give it a try.

Friday night was ... interesting.  It's unusual (for me, at least) to do something in a religious context that is intentionally single-gender. I'm not the sort of fellow to "hang out with the guys," either (my social circle of gaming and comics does in fact contain a good leavening of women). 

And any time you combine men plus church there's an odd echo of power and superiority, if not paternalism and misogyny.  That echo is largely imaginary, at least at our church, but it does still make me more sensitive to the occasional joke about women.  (That I would have no problem with a Women's Group, or Margie going on a Women's Retreat, or the ladies making the occasion analogous joke about men tells me I'm perhaps hypersensitive, or at least not fully sensible, about this sort of thing).  The last thing I want to do is feel like I'm at a big Promise Keepers assembly.

Which in some ways gets back to the whole question of gender roles in society.  To what extent is it natural, even healthy, for folks of a given gender to flock together?  To what extent should that be encouraged, vs. discouraged?  Are the issues and concerns of men so distinct from that of women that having an organized group (and retreat) for men only makes any sense.  I thoroughly reject the traditional interpretation from Paul of men vs. women in church affairs and in the home -- but neither am I capable of saying that there are no differences between the two genders (and viva la difference) such that dealing with them separately on some occasions makes any less sense than other self-selected church groups (singles groups, music groups, outreach groups, parent groups, LGBT groups, whatever). 

The problem would come, then, if grouping was done to exclude, rather than focus; worse, if it were done to identify some sort of hierarchy.

Aaaaanyway, it was a long day, with some good discussion groups -- though not, to be honest, anything that seemed to require only men present.  Talks and small group discussions on things like life, relationships, responsibilities, church, and what folks find important in their lives.  Singing songs with just male voices was also interesting.  Good people, as advertised, and a worthwhile time ... and I will probably go next year, unless there's some sort of major conflict.

But I'm still not sold on getting up at god-awful-early every Saturday ... :-)

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