I have come to think of the pursuit of masculinity as a journey. The dysfunction of our culture and the way we have to respond to it and live within it make it much more difficult to mature in our masculinity than you would think.
Masculinity by its nature is separation and self-differentiation. We are created by God as unique and one-of-a-kind, bearing the imprint of his nature. Our general assignment is to be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth with good things, to have dominion over it, and to subdue it. We are to take the raw materials God gave us and do something creative with it.
Within that general call is something more specific. We are to take the particular raw materials God gave us, our circumstances, our gifts, our skills, our personalities, and do something creative with them. To build culture, as Andy Crouch writes. We have a cultural mandate. Pursuing our calling demands risk-taking boldness. Sometimes it involves conflict and is deadly dangerous.
In the Hebrew culture, where everyone was following the same road, it was easier to come to this at an earlier age. It was perfectly appropriate to initiate a boy into manhood at age 13. But with the complexity and diversity of our culture, the perversion of our religious and educational systems, and the dysfunction of our families, I think it takes longer. Several years ago I heard someone say it is probably not really possible to settle into our life work until we reach age 40.
The masculine journey follows a cycle. First there is separation. We separate from our family of origin to discover who God has called us to be. In simpler cultures boys at the point of adulthood go to live in the wilderness somewhere apart from their families to find themselves. I don’t think we really have an adequate means of doing that.
Discovery is a time of solitude and reflection, or perhaps being thrown into entirely new circumstances away from the security of home. It is a spiritual moulting. Many young people can accomplish this by going away to college or going into the military. This is the time we sort out what we bring to adulthood from our family background and the new experiences and learnings we add to become unique. God speaks to us and defines calling, purpose, and direction. This is where our masculine strength is focused, refined, tested, and directed. Unfortunately, in our culture distractions, entertainments, and communication, combined with the intense pressure to conform to feminine values, all conspire to delay or eliminate that process. That’ s why it takes so much longer to go through, if we make it through at all. If we don’t go through this time we will never realize our masculine calling, and as John Eldredge points out, we will misdirect our energies to violence or passivity.
After we return from the wilderness there is reunion, but on different terms. We reunite with the feminine by taking a wife but we must remain separate enough to keep focused on the journey toward obedience to God. Leon Podles writes that our association with woman through marriage is both a blessing and a risk. The blessing is that patriarchy gives us a way to channel our masculine energies through responsibility to wife and children, to fulfil our cultural mandate to be fruitful. It gives us purpose. But the risk is that the close relationship with our wives puts us in danger of regaining the feminization we shook off during our spiritual moulting through a disordered love. If we never had an adequate time of separation we will not be sufficiently differentiated and we will be more readily feminized.
It seems to me the struggle is to remain separate but connected, to be fully in tune with who we are as God created and called us free from all attempts (however well intentioned) to reign us in and tame us, and yet connected and committed to our care. To be successful we need several things. We need a wife who understands that we must be free to be who we are., and who respects us enough to trust and go with us into life changes. We need times when we separate and go apart to the wilderness alone for reflection and refocus, and we need a brotherhood of men on the same journey to encourage and challenge us. In that regard the cycle repeats itself throughout our lives.
The masculine journey takes us to the place of healthy patriarchy, where we are self-differentiated enough to be confident in who we are and how we live our lives, yet connected and committed to the wives and children God gave us to nurture, love, and lead.
Masculinity by its nature is separation and self-differentiation. We are created by God as unique and one-of-a-kind, bearing the imprint of his nature. Our general assignment is to be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth with good things, to have dominion over it, and to subdue it. We are to take the raw materials God gave us and do something creative with it.
Within that general call is something more specific. We are to take the particular raw materials God gave us, our circumstances, our gifts, our skills, our personalities, and do something creative with them. To build culture, as Andy Crouch writes. We have a cultural mandate. Pursuing our calling demands risk-taking boldness. Sometimes it involves conflict and is deadly dangerous.
In the Hebrew culture, where everyone was following the same road, it was easier to come to this at an earlier age. It was perfectly appropriate to initiate a boy into manhood at age 13. But with the complexity and diversity of our culture, the perversion of our religious and educational systems, and the dysfunction of our families, I think it takes longer. Several years ago I heard someone say it is probably not really possible to settle into our life work until we reach age 40.
The masculine journey follows a cycle. First there is separation. We separate from our family of origin to discover who God has called us to be. In simpler cultures boys at the point of adulthood go to live in the wilderness somewhere apart from their families to find themselves. I don’t think we really have an adequate means of doing that.
Discovery is a time of solitude and reflection, or perhaps being thrown into entirely new circumstances away from the security of home. It is a spiritual moulting. Many young people can accomplish this by going away to college or going into the military. This is the time we sort out what we bring to adulthood from our family background and the new experiences and learnings we add to become unique. God speaks to us and defines calling, purpose, and direction. This is where our masculine strength is focused, refined, tested, and directed. Unfortunately, in our culture distractions, entertainments, and communication, combined with the intense pressure to conform to feminine values, all conspire to delay or eliminate that process. That’ s why it takes so much longer to go through, if we make it through at all. If we don’t go through this time we will never realize our masculine calling, and as John Eldredge points out, we will misdirect our energies to violence or passivity.
After we return from the wilderness there is reunion, but on different terms. We reunite with the feminine by taking a wife but we must remain separate enough to keep focused on the journey toward obedience to God. Leon Podles writes that our association with woman through marriage is both a blessing and a risk. The blessing is that patriarchy gives us a way to channel our masculine energies through responsibility to wife and children, to fulfil our cultural mandate to be fruitful. It gives us purpose. But the risk is that the close relationship with our wives puts us in danger of regaining the feminization we shook off during our spiritual moulting through a disordered love. If we never had an adequate time of separation we will not be sufficiently differentiated and we will be more readily feminized.
It seems to me the struggle is to remain separate but connected, to be fully in tune with who we are as God created and called us free from all attempts (however well intentioned) to reign us in and tame us, and yet connected and committed to our care. To be successful we need several things. We need a wife who understands that we must be free to be who we are., and who respects us enough to trust and go with us into life changes. We need times when we separate and go apart to the wilderness alone for reflection and refocus, and we need a brotherhood of men on the same journey to encourage and challenge us. In that regard the cycle repeats itself throughout our lives.
The masculine journey takes us to the place of healthy patriarchy, where we are self-differentiated enough to be confident in who we are and how we live our lives, yet connected and committed to the wives and children God gave us to nurture, love, and lead.
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