Best “In Touch with My Inner Self” Book

I’m not sure how many of this sort I read this year, but two stand out.

Early in the year, I read Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.

I said pretty much all I had to say about it then, but I do so appreciate how Miller writes.  I should probably go back and read it again.

Mr. Miller isn’t one to be outdone, but I also finally got around to reading John Eldredge’s classic, Wild at Heart.

While this book is fairly culture bound (upper-middle class American white – and some Asian – males), it does a darn good job of delivering the goods to fellas who fit that demographic.  WordPress tells me that my thoughts on the book are HERE.

No way to pick a “top” read here, so it is officially a tie.

the (not so) final word on manhood

While there certainly is much more that could and probably should be said about manhood, I think I’m about done with it.  Other people have had plenty more to say about this topic (as evidenced by the number of “man” books available at your local Christian bookstore).  If you are interested in reading more, here are the three that I have spent some time with in the last year.

Raising a Modern Day KnightRobert Lewis
Wild at HeartJohn Eldredge
To Own a DragonDonald Miller (It has been brought to my attention that this book has been reworked some and re-released as Father Fiction.  Of the three, this one – unsurprisingly – resonated with me most.)

Each one is good in its own way, but they are also very different from one another.

And I think it’s this variety that is in itself a clue about the nature of “man-making.”  The different ways proposed by “expert” men points to that which we already know at a gut level.  Boys become men via numerous well-worn paths.  I know that this eclectic way of looking at this subject isn’t nearly as cut-and-dry as most men (and for that matter, women) would like for it to be.  Most of us tend to prefer things to be a tad bit more concrete, and so I would suspect that my suggesting that there isn’t one definite path to manhood is more frustrating than reassuring for many (myself included at times).  And yet, that seems to be the nature of life.  Life is rarely cut-and-dry.  Rarely simple.

These caveats aside, I offer up a few summary reflections.  I realize that it isn’t much. But in proper man-style, my points are at least numbered.

1) There is no “one” way. I think I just said this, but for the sake of clarity, I’m saying it again.  Going through some six-week (or twenty-six week) program doesn’t insure that a person will become a man.  Not reading books.  Not memorizing definitions.  Not going camping.  Not “I love Jesus” chants.  I realize that it sounds like I’m knocking (or mocking) these things, but I’m not.  They are all fine things to do.  At certain times, they are even necessary.  They just aren’t the end-all-be-all.

The reason I’m not writing this stuff off is that each of these varied experiences does hold out the promise of at least one thing…

an opportunity.

In each retreat, seminar, reading, or _______, there exists the possibility for a man (be he young or old) to more fully grab hold of what it means to a man.  But it is just that, a possibility.  Not more, not less.  Which leads to the next point…

2) There are no guarantees. Just because the opportunity is out there, doesn’t mean that it is going to be taken advantage of.  Simply showing up to something isn’t the “fix” that a man needs to become more a man.  Each man chooses to let an experience be something that will move them deeper and closer to the essence of man-ness…  or not.  And while not everyone will respond to the challenge or experience (regardless of what it is) some will… and some do.

3) It involves a community of men. While I would certainly maintain that fathers bear the primary responsibility of ushering sons into manhood, there are plenty of situations where the father isn’t around or is unwilling to engage a son on that level.  That doesn’t mean that those young men don’t have a chance.  Plenty of other men can and do step into that role.  But…  even if a son has a great father, they (both the father and the son) will need more than one man to be in it with them.  For something as weighty as this, it stands to reason that God wouldn’t have put all his proverbial eggs in one predictably flawed basket.

4) The outdoors play a role. No need to rehash what I touched on yesterday, but I would say that spending time in God’s proving ground is at least as helpful as a book, or class, or definition, or whatever.  Being outside isn’t everything…  but it ain’t nothing.  So the value of it shouldn’t be undersold.

5) It is a process. I’m not sure when a young man is able to say, “That’s it! Today, I became a man.”  Pinpointing the exact moment that this happens is a futile exercise.  Instead of a single place and time, it is more likely the case that there are a series of moments.  Some small and seemingly insignificant.  Others immeasurably freighted with importance.  All of these combining and continuing to exert their influence long after the moments themselves have faded.  In fact, one could say that it is the memory (and the remembering/retelling/re-living) of the moment that determines its significance as a shaping event.

I’m seeing that take place in my thirteen year-old, as he struggles to both leave childhood behind while simultaneously clinging to certain aspects of it.  I see it in the students I work with nearly every day, as their hearts and souls expand to match their frames.  And, of course, as I look back on my own life, I see how the combination of crises, people, and experiences brought me to a time when I was willing to shoulder the mantle of manhood.  Even if it rests uneasily at times.

So much more could be said about his topic…  the role of mentors, living with tension and hardship, taking responsibility for oneself and others, what the Bible has to say, men in the church, etc…  So until the book (and workbook, and dvd series, and retreat) becomes available, this will have to do.

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


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.