At various times we wrestle with the question arising from deep within our hearts. Am I really a man? Do I have what it takes? The question is always there in the background, nagging at us. But certain life events seem to make it rise viciously to the front of our consciousness, like a wild animal, and attack us. At those times we have to deal with it.
Because of the dysfunctional nature of our culture we never really get to answer the question when it needs to be, when we are young and entering into chronological adulthood. Our culture regularly criticizes expressions of masculinity as “uncivilized” and tries to reign us in and tame us. It tries to make us “outgrow” the natural desire within us as boys to be wild, to explore, and to take risks. It wants to make us “really nice guys.” So it teaches us that it’s not nice to speak of war, conquest, and risk. It’s not safe to go on adventures. It’s not good to say what you think or use gruff language, and you want to be sure not to offend anyone! We must limit our references to God, and when we do be sure not to refer to him in masculine terms. We just need settle down, get a secure job somewhere, and be nice. The pressure to conform is overwhelming.
Our culture invented something called “adolescence” in the last century and did away with rites of passage where boys become men and are welcomed and affirmed into manhood by older men. By creating adolescence we created a perpetual place of immaturity and identity crisis for males. We also created a cultural situation where young people are conditioned to question the wisdom of their elders and to rely more on their immature peers for a sense of identity. Too often that is associated with the group in an unhealthy way. Ever notice how teenagers “express themselves” by wearing and doing the same thing all their friends do? I know men in their 40s and 50s still locked in the immaturity of adolescence.
Our problem is that we don’t have enough older men sufficiently mature enough and loving enough to take us under their wings and teach us how to deal with the energy and wild nature we were born with. And because masculinity is bestowed by other men (as John Eldredge points out) we are set adrift in life without reference points and left to wonder what it takes to be a man.
Ideally it is a father’s place to take his son from boy to man, to bestow masculinity on him, and teach him how to be a patriarch. It is the father who shows his son how to transform the testosterone-induced wildness within into the covenantal responsibility of provider, protector, and defender. It is a father’s job to teach his son how to have his own identity, to discover who he is and what he is called by God to do in life. It is the father’s place to send his son off into the world to be a man. But fathers do not know how to do this because too often they never became men themselves. They never made it out of the adolescent holding pattern.
How do we answer the nagging question within? It will take searching out and keeping company with a godly man who has gone before us, learned by precept and mistake, who will take his time to be a father and guide, and help us break through the adolescent barrier and discover our own true identity as man of God.
Because of the dysfunctional nature of our culture we never really get to answer the question when it needs to be, when we are young and entering into chronological adulthood. Our culture regularly criticizes expressions of masculinity as “uncivilized” and tries to reign us in and tame us. It tries to make us “outgrow” the natural desire within us as boys to be wild, to explore, and to take risks. It wants to make us “really nice guys.” So it teaches us that it’s not nice to speak of war, conquest, and risk. It’s not safe to go on adventures. It’s not good to say what you think or use gruff language, and you want to be sure not to offend anyone! We must limit our references to God, and when we do be sure not to refer to him in masculine terms. We just need settle down, get a secure job somewhere, and be nice. The pressure to conform is overwhelming.
Our culture invented something called “adolescence” in the last century and did away with rites of passage where boys become men and are welcomed and affirmed into manhood by older men. By creating adolescence we created a perpetual place of immaturity and identity crisis for males. We also created a cultural situation where young people are conditioned to question the wisdom of their elders and to rely more on their immature peers for a sense of identity. Too often that is associated with the group in an unhealthy way. Ever notice how teenagers “express themselves” by wearing and doing the same thing all their friends do? I know men in their 40s and 50s still locked in the immaturity of adolescence.
Our problem is that we don’t have enough older men sufficiently mature enough and loving enough to take us under their wings and teach us how to deal with the energy and wild nature we were born with. And because masculinity is bestowed by other men (as John Eldredge points out) we are set adrift in life without reference points and left to wonder what it takes to be a man.
Ideally it is a father’s place to take his son from boy to man, to bestow masculinity on him, and teach him how to be a patriarch. It is the father who shows his son how to transform the testosterone-induced wildness within into the covenantal responsibility of provider, protector, and defender. It is a father’s job to teach his son how to have his own identity, to discover who he is and what he is called by God to do in life. It is the father’s place to send his son off into the world to be a man. But fathers do not know how to do this because too often they never became men themselves. They never made it out of the adolescent holding pattern.
How do we answer the nagging question within? It will take searching out and keeping company with a godly man who has gone before us, learned by precept and mistake, who will take his time to be a father and guide, and help us break through the adolescent barrier and discover our own true identity as man of God.
Reading this post, I was reminded of 1 Corinthians 13:11 - "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
ReplyDeleteThis verse makes no sense to a culture obsessed with the pursuit of perpetual youth, where society desperately avoids requiring young people to be responsible. With a definite rite of passage missing, young males have no opportunity to put away childish things and be men; instead, they continue to speak, understand, think, and even behave as children for most, if not all, of their lives.
Very insightful article. Although we tend to look down on more "primitive cultures," I think that many of them have it just right in their understanding of how a young man needs a "rite of passage" to initiate him into the world of men.
ReplyDelete