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men and the wild

It was bound to come up somewhere in this series of thoughts on manhood, but as I’ve been thinking about the making of a man, I’ve been reflecting on the role that the outdoors has in that process.  It is no secret that I enjoy being “out there.”   And for me, the more remote, more rugged, and wilder it is, the better.

But even if it weren’t something deeply embedded in my DNA, the subject would have still been unavoidable.  Some high school friends and I are reading Wild at Heart, and much of what the author, John Eldredge, writes about are experiences in the outdoors.  In fact, this repeated focus on the wilder places has been something of a sticking point for some of the guys in our group.  I’m not entirely certain that Eldredge is saying that an experience in the backcountry is absolutely necessary for a boy to become a man.  But I’m not sure he isn’t saying that either.

So here’s my take on it.  Simply being in the great outdoors doesn’t a man make.  But, there are certain encounters one has in the wild places that are to be found with much greater frequency than in the the cul-de-sacs of suburbia.  In fact, it is the wild-er-ness of those places that is to be valued.  The inherent likelihood of risk, danger, and unpredictability creates the possibility for a boy aspiring to be a man to have a defining moment.  And, it is these moments that give a person a chance to find out what they are made of.  A chance to dig deep and struggle through obstacles.  A chance to discover that they are capable of far more than they dreamed possible.  And as I mentioned earlier this month, these challenges aren’t all physical.

Perhaps you think I’m making more of all this than is warranted.  And maybe I am.  But one thing is certain, these kind of life changing moments of self-discovery rarely if ever happen in a relaxing, climate-controlled, comfortable, sterile living room.

Again, I’m not saying that a boy becoming a man can’t have some of those same “tests” or rites of passage in less rugged places.  Neither am I suggesting that every adolescent male needs to kill a grizzly bear with his bear hands in order to prove his worth.  But there is something about God’s wild creation that provides the backdrop for many a man’s finest moments.

“Great things are done when men and mountains meet.”
William Blake


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Macho Jesus?

Let’s face it, “Jesus” and “masculine” are probably not words that we would immediately associate with each other.  In fact, we may never really think or say it, but I’m pretty certain that the picture that many of us carry around of Jesus in our heads is one that is fairly effeminate. Nice, soft spoken, sort of delicate are all characteristics we are prone to attach to Jesus.  Brawny, calloused, gritty, tough just aren’t words that quickly come to mind when we think about him.

In attempts to highlight Jesus’ manliness, people typically point to his profession as a carpenter as an indicator that he was probably made of hardier material than we usually assume.  But really, that only underscores our culturally conditioned views on what it means to be manly.  Jesus was a carpenter.  Carpenters are manly men.  Therefore, Jesus was a manly man.

But what if Jesus hadn’t been a carpenter?  What if he had been any number of other professions…  an accountant, computer programmer, teacher, pastor, hair stylist?  You get the idea.  Would he still qualify as a manly man?  Add to that, he didn’t trash talk, guzzle Coronas, shoot animals for sport, play football.  Now, we’ve got a real problem.

And then final straw… he wasn’t married.  Which we take to mean (mistakenly, I think) that he wasn’t attracted to women.  Needless to say, on all the things we are most prone to associate with manliness, Jesus comes up a distinctly lacking.

And yet, I think something in us knows that we should affirm the masculinity of Jesus.  Our problem is that we don’t know how to reconcile the tension.

But…  what if we started with the affirmation that Jesus was the ideal embodiment of a man.  And from there, we began to adjust our understanding of masculinity with Jesus as the starting point, rather than trying to fit Jesus into some superficial (and artificial) mold of manliness.  The beauty of the four-point definition I’ve been working with recently is that seems to attempt to do just that.  Here’s that definition again…

An Authentic Man…

– Rejects passivity
– Accepts responsibility
– Leads courageously
– Expects the greater reward; God’s reward.

Now, I’m not going to take the time to connect all the dots, but meditating a few moments on Jesus’ life should be enough to affirm that he lived a sort of masculinity that is a far cry greater than what the rest of us are doing.  Again, I don’t think that definition is necessarily all that there is to manhood.  But it is certainly a better starting point than what most of us have been handed.

Certainly, there is lots more that could be said about Jesus’ masculinity, but the very idea of starting with Jesus as the ideal man should be enough to keep us thinking a while.

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defining manhood

As I said yesterday, I think it is pretty much unanimous that men don’t just sort of bumble along through life only to wake up one day and have magically been transformed from boy to man.  Physically it may seem so.  I’m watching a boy morph into young man right before my eyes.  And while I know it isn’t over-night, it feels like it.

But the transformation into a man, at least in the ways that really count, doesn’t happen quickly or easily.  One of the studies I’m doing, Raising a Modern Day Knight, has beaten into all our thick skulls through agonizing repetition a definition of what it means to be man.  Again, I’m leery of “defining” manhood, but for the sake of conversation (one-sided though it may be), I’m going to share it.

An Authentic Man…

– Rejects passivity
– Accepts responsibility
– Leads courageously
– Expects the greater reward; God’s reward

Now like I said, I’m somewhat resistant to the idea of trying to define manhood at all.  I’m just not sure being a man can be reduced to four bullet-points.  It seems too easy.  I know that men characteristically like things simple and clear, but come on.

Yet, there is something about it that rings true.  And not just that it lines up with some of my own preconceived notions of what it means to be a man.  But as I think about ideal men, or even the ideal man, those qualities do seem to stand out.  In fact, even as I’m reflecting on all this for a few minutes here, the phrase, “Jesus was the man!” is taking on a new meaning.

More on Jesus the manly-man another day.

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making a man

For whatever reason, I’m finding myself in a season of having to take a look at the whole “What makes a man?” question.

Honestly, it isn’t one that I get all the fired up about.  I think Donald Miller in his book, To Own a Dragon, captures my attitude about the entire “making a man” genre of books, conferences, studies, etc.  In summary, he’s pretty skeptical.  All the macho, hunting, muscle car/truck, crude innuendo, and bravado that tend to permeate most “Christian” man-stuff leaves one sort of wanting.  I don’t really enjoy man-chants.  I don’t think a man necessarily figures out how to become a man sitting in a church classroom filling in blanks in a workbook.

And yet, the question is a crucial one.  One could even say that my life is consumed with it.  I have three young Chino boys in my own home that I have a highly vested interest in seeing become not just men, but men of worth.  And that desire is a large part of what I do with students.  At least half of the students in my charge are of the male variety.  Many of them I care about very deeply, and I long to be a part of the process in which they are ushered into manhood.

So the question still hangs out there.  How is it that a boy move from adolescence into manhood?  It is easy to identify the things that don’t factor much into that process.  Being good at sports doesn’t do it.  Being good with girls doesn’t either.  Nor does graduating from high school or college necessarily mean one is a man.  I’m not even sure getting married or having children necessarily makes a man.  We all know “men” who have excelled at or done all those things, and yet for all practical purposes they are boys. Boys that look like men, but boys nonetheless.

Currently, I’m doing two different studies related to manhood (I thought I just said that men aren’t made through reading books about being men!).  One is with with a group of high school students that I meet with on a fairly consistent basis.  By their own suggestion, we are reading and discussing John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart. Strangely enough, I’ve never read it.  I realize that every other male in Christendom (and most females) have.  I haven’t.  I haven’t seen Titanic either.  Sometimes, the hype-fest passes me by and I simply miss out.

Anyway, I’m reading it now.  I’m also doing a study with some men at church called Raising a Modern Day Knight.  My involvement in this latter study has largely been driven my already mentioned desire to provide what my sons need to keep moving down the road to manhood.  Between the two studies, lots of ideas on man-ness are floating around out there.

This post is already longer than I hoped it would be, so I’ll adopt the strategy from the wildly popular “gear essentials” series, and stretch this discussion out over a few days.  But I want to end on this last thought.  Regardless of the differences of content and approach that the two studies have, at least a one thing they agree on.

“Manhood” doesn’t just happen.

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don’t tease me

I’m not sure iPhone and weather.com understand the power they have to bring hope to a heat beleaguered soul.  They better not be lying about Wednesday and Thursday.

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odds and ends

I’m hoping that this will be the last time I bring up Colorado this month, but there were a few notable pictures that I left out.

These are the world-famous Maroon Bells.  Their beauty, symmetry, and accessibility are reasons for these being among the most photographed mountains in Colorado.  More specifically, they are North (the one in front) and South (the one in back) Maroon.  They are both fourteeners, and yes…  I’ve climbed them.  In fact, when you do the traverse from one peak to the next, it is called “Ringing the Bells.”

This is the Crested Butte-famous Camp 4 Coffee.  I haven’t tried all the coffee spots in town, but I would be surprised if any were better than this.  Whenever we stay in the Butte, a trip here is mandatory.  Usually, several.

This should-be-famous puzzle provided a distraction and respite when the Chino kids had gotten their fill of outside for the day.  The pieces were annoyingly uniform.  As often happens with puzzle-making in our family, there comes a time when most everyone loses interest, save one.  And that One labors long into the night becoming increasingly frustrated as each hour passes.  Eventually though, I… I mean, the One utters, “It is finished!”

Posing with the moose are the someday-famous Ben and Simon.

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I’m talkin’ bout a little place called…

… Aspen.

During our Colorado tour, we got to spend several days in this pretentious (yet lovely) mountain town.  I’ve been to Aspen four times now, and every trip has left a lasting impression.  My first time was nearly twenty years ago during a winter trip for a couple days of skiing.  It happened to be Gay Pride Week which meant that my traveling companion and I sat as far apart as a ski lift chair will allow.

Time two was with half a dozen or so would be mountain climbers.  The trip was in mid-September which apparently is a fairly unpredictable time as far as weather is concerned.  I can’t do justice to the catastrophe that followed, so if you are curious ask my friend Josh all about it.

My third time there was another climbing trip.  This time with a far more positive outcome.  There were four of us, and we tackled some of the most challenging 14er climbs Colorado has to offer.

This latest trip there was far more laid back, but equally enjoyable.  Here are the photos to prove it.

Aspen is notoriously expensive, but with a little meal planning and some the help of Difficult Campground, it can be done on the cheap.

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biking the butte

Alison pretty much covered our time at Crested Butte, but I’ve got a few pics on the phone that she didn’t necessarily have.  So…  here’s my contribution to remembering it.  Since I was a small child, a bike has been synonymous with freedom.  Loved seeing my kids experience that same joy.

Notice the snow on some of the mountains.  Just looking at it can cool me off a bit.

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labor of love

The vast wasteland known as my summer is drawing to a close.  The pace of activity combined with long absences hasn’t left much time for keeping this little project going.  However, I do desire to return to the world of blogging, and recent shaming encouragement from Alison has provided the needed stimulus.

And so I’m going to be joining Alison in her thirty-day blog-a-thon.  While there will be a certain amount of “flashing-back”, I reserve the right to do whatever I want around here.

Like starting a day late.

Or simply putting up a picture and calling it a post.

To get the ball rolling, here’s Simon and Ben in a canoe at the home of some dear friends early in the summer.

See you tomorrow!

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Four (Random Things) for Friday

The music situation hasn’t been all that great lately.  So I’m going to share a few (more like four) things that I’m liking some right now…

1)  Kyte – Dead Waves

I realize that I just said that the music situation hasn’t been all that incredible the last few weeks, but there is one stand out for me.  Kyte, a band from some other country, put out a new album recently.  I like it.

2) My Chaco’s

Alison bought these for me around Christmas time, and since it has warmed up a bit, I’ve been in them pretty much non-stop.  I don’t see that changing anytime in the next six months.

3) Huevos Rancheros

Lunch for me is typically leftovers from the night before, but lately the eating capacity of my crew has taken a turn for the unbelievable.  This is my lunch in a pinch, and it is always good.

4) After You Believe by N. T. Wright

I realize how this looks…  that I have a man-crush on N. T.  Whether that is true or not is beside the point.  This is a good book.  It is the third (and I think final) in series of books written on a more popular/pastoral level.  The other two are Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope, and any of the three are worth your while.  They don’t really build on each other, so you could pick any of them up.

Looking back on this foursome, I’ll understand if you don’t find my likings very remarkable.  I guess sometimes it is finding enjoyment in the little things.