Masculinity? 2 - Lords

Lords – Man was created to exercise dominion in the earth. The charge which God gave in this regard is frequently called the cultural mandate.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth…Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. (Gen 1:26-28).

Some may assume that this cultural mandate is negated by the fall of man into sin, but God repeats the mandate again after the flood (Gen 9:1). Sin certainly affected our ability to fulfill this command from God, but it did not remove the obligation placed on us by the command. But if it is to be fulfilled now, in a sinful world, then it must be as a result of the goodness and grace of God. And this is what we see. The mandate is given to us yet again in another form in the Great Commission. We are told there to disciple the nations and bring them to true submission to the Lord Jesus Christ (Mt, 28: 18-20).

In boys, we might call this the “tree fort” impulse. Boys want to conquer and subdue, and if the terrain before them is the back yard, then that is why they want to conquer and subdue.

My brother, 2 cousins, and myself are about 6 years apart in age. When we were together there is no telling what we might try and build. We built a series of fishing docks out into Wildwood Lake in Wolverine. With posts in water and interconnecting 2x4’s going everywhere. Caught many a bluegill and perch off those docks. If you go there now, the posts are still in the water. We built at least 3 forts that I remember. Who knows how many we tried to build and failed. We built our own teepee and slept in it. Spent many nights camping out in our forts as well. I built a hunting blind when I was 15 and my cousin and I built one together a couple years later. This is a natural tendency for boys and soon enough Seth will be going after my tools and scrap 2x4’s and trying to hammer something together. Wanting to spend time with me in the garage and the yard.

The point of discipline with boys is to channel and direct their energy into an obedient response to the cultural mandate. It is not to squash that energy, destroying it or making it sullen. I should have Seth in training to become a man who exercises dominion, Seth should be learning to be lord in the earth, I should make sure he learns to be adventurous and visionary.

Next Up - Husbandmen

Masculinity? - Introduction

Every Mother's Day our church holds it's baby dedication service. This is the day that all babies born into the church since the last Mother's Day can be dedicated by the parents for service to the Lord. We, the parents, make a vocal assurance that we will raise up our child (who is fearfully and wonderfully made) in the commands and statutes of God. Is it symbolic? Yes. Is it necessary? No. It's something Michele and I already committed to do. And yes over the years, the whole baby baptism vs. baby dedication thing has become just a "rite of passage" and something parents do to comfort themselves and their families.

But I think that a celebration of life is important and an event like that offers the parents a chance to contemplate just what kind of challenge is before them. It's easy to get caught up in the emotion of the day and making sure everything goes just right and "please do not let junior cry while the Pastor lays hands on him, show he is normal." But it is up to the parents to lock in on this chance and put some thought into what they are truly saying. This monumental task of raising a child and having it turn out normal is paramount. Everybody draws on their own experience of how their parents were. Whether we do as they did or opposite of what they did. Ultimately we blend the do and do not into some sort of ratio.

For me, being raised with virtually no father figure for the first 8 years of my life and then being raised with a tyrannical ogre as a father figure for the next 8 years has really put a gap into my confidence of how I am going to raise my son. I can see the effects of both gaps (effeminacy namby-bamby and "macho-like") in my life in the way I handle my life and the direction it takes with my family in tow. To put it out there, I want my son to be masculine. Masculine in every sense of the way Jesus, David, Moses, and John the Baptist were. To be a man. To walk the line between effeminacy and macho. Through some lengthy discussions, a lot of reading of specific books, and contemplation on some of this subject matter I've developed a somewhat thought process to this. I will lay some of it out here and in subsequent postings. Feel free to add to the conversation.



We live in a feminist and effeminate culture. Because of this, at best, as a people we are uneasy with masculinity, and with increasing regularity, whenever it manages to appear somehow, we call for someone to do something about it.

There are 2 basic directions a boy can take in departing from biblical masculinity. One is the option of effeminacy, and the other is a macho-like counterfeit masculinity. With the former, he takes as a model a set of virtues which are not supposed to be his virtues. With the latter, he adopts a set of pseudo-virtues, practices which are not virtues at all.

When God has assigned a place to someone, it is disobedience to desert that station. A woman is no coward for refusing to desert her children in order to enlist in the army to go off and fight in a war. But a man who refuses to fight can be charged (depending on the circumstances) with cowardice. This same pattern can be seen in all the little things of life. A man is not supposed to stand around when its important to exercise leadership. A woman might be called to simply wait for her husband to make a decision. But a man who waits around for someone to decide is abdicating his assigned role.

Of course a biblical man is to be kind and gentle, but the model for this is to be (ultimately) the Lord Jesus, and in conjunction with this, the teaching of Scripture. The overarching model for this is not our composite cultural picture of what an accomodating male looks like. When distortions occur, they can veer left into effeminacy, or right into a counterfeit masculinity.

Manhood is where boyhood should aim. So what is masculinity? What are we looking for when we describe manhood according to the Bible?

Here is what I think...

Men are created to exercise dominion over the earth; they are fitted to be husbandman, tilling the earth; they are equipped to be saviors, delivering from evil; they are expected to grow up into wisdom, becoming sages; and they are designed to reflect the image and glory of God. To satisfy our "list culture:"

• lords
• husbandmen
• saviors
• sages
• glory-bearers

Honestly, my thought process on these is not detailed at all. I do not think I could make a detailed case for any of these roles. But I have a rough outline and some description to show the features of each. I think I can also show how each one is manifested in the life of boys.

Most of the subsequent posts are done, but my anal-retentive ways do not allow me to post them all right now. Every couple days allows me to pour over them and re-edit and re-type and then finally post them. They are all kind of short for now. They will probably stay that way. I'm not long winded. They may grow or shrink. But I look forward to hopefully some fruitful discussion and a definite growing experience for me.

Next up - Lords

Civic Duty

Just got done today serving my civic duty as a juror on a court case.

Criminal Sexual Conduct in the 3rd degree (2 counts). The trial went multiple days so being at court all day has kept me away from the computer.

Now that the verdict came in and the trial is done, I can talk!!

The whole process was actually very cool and a great experience. Out of a pool of 500 potential jurors for 20 different court cases I found myself on one. Odd.

But there is more "oddness" to the story. The forewoman in our jury is a friend to the guy who was my best friend growing up. From about age 7 to 13. We played little league together, his dad was St. Mary Magdalen Dad's Club Softball coach on and on. Through a casual conversation I mentioned living in Lincoln Park, she stated she had a couple good friends named so and so and so and so and one of those so and sos was him. Unbelievable!!!

Very awesome though.

As I said, being a juror was very cool and our deliberation was long and heated and had all the drama of a movie. Good stuff. But when you are dealing with rape and a husband and wife and kids and some very graphic content (2 counts because there are 2 "ways" a husband and wife can have "sex" if you get my drift), it's serious. I'd gladly do it again if asked.

Interesting even more was having the ability to talk to the judge and the prosecuting attorney afterwards and get their opinions on the matter and ask the prosecutor some of her motive and why she did and did not do what she did and did not do.

We did deliberate pretty much all day today and took it right to the last possible minute before they would have asked us to go home and come back tomorrow. But some late talking and a final pouring over the evidence and we finally came to the unamious verdict of (drum roll please) Not Guilty on both accounts.

The judge agreed with our decision (as I said we were able to talk to him afterwards). Which is somewhat comforting because it is tough. Do you lock someone up in prison for something you doubt he did or do you let a rapists back out in the street? The assumption is innocent until proven guilty and the prosecution has the burden of proof. The prosecution didn't do that. Further talking with the prosecution showed some of the same doubts were shared but once something like this is started and the ball gets rolling, you can't stop it.

It may have been the best law and civics lesson I have ever had. The case seemed to be an example of how the jury system works. We were split at the beginning of the deliberation. All took turns talking and counter pointing and yes things got heated but as the evidence played itself out and more and more blocks were built we reached a unaminous decision.

America in its purest form at work and succeeding. I'll raise a pint to that

Still Feeling Nauseous

A year later, a year older, a year wiser, and still making me sick.....

This is what I was posting a year ago, and it' not funny how I haven't changed.

No need to.

It’s All About Him, Me, You….

Ted Bundy
Columbine High-School
Virginia Tech University

We’re looking in all the wrong places for why.

The cracks, chips, holes and broken places in the lives of men like Cho Seung-Hui are getting old, fast – very fast. The pain, grievances and self-pity of mass killers are only symptoms of the real explanation. Those who do these things share one common trait. They are raging narcissists. “I died – like Jesus Christ,” Cho said in a video sent to NBC.

Guns, games, lyrics, pornography – they are just trees in the forest of extreme self-centeredness. To list the traits of the narcissist is enough to prove the point: grandiosity, numbness to the needs and pain of others, emotional isolation, resentment and envy.

In interviews with Ted Bundy 25 years ago, the essence of homicidal narcissism can be found. For hours and hour and hours, a man who killed 30 or more women and girls preened for his audience. He spoke of himself as an actor, of life as a series of roles and of other people as props and scenery. His desires were simple: “control” and “mastery.” He took whatever he wanted. From shoplifted tube socks to human life. For the simple fact that nothing mattered beyond his desires. He even went so far as to being surprised that people noticed his victims were missing. “There are so many people,” he explained. The only death he regretted was his own.

Only a narcissist could decide that his alienation should be underlined in the blood of strangers. The flamboyant nature of these crimes is like a neon sign pointing to the truth. Charles Whitman playing God in his Texas clock tower, Harris and Klebold in their theatrical trench coats, and Cho’s Messianic comparisons – they’re all stars in the cinema of their self-absorbed minds.

Freud (everyone’s favorite, you knew he was going to show up somehow, somewhere) explained narcissism as a failure to grow up. All infants are narcissists, he pointed out, but as we grow, we ought to learn that other people have lives independent of our own. It’s not their job to please us, applaud for us or even notice us – let alone die because we’re unhappy.

Narcissism is the signal disorder of America culture. The cult of celebrity, the marketing of instant gratification, skepticism toward moral codes and the ever so, so, so, so popular politics of victimhood were signs of a society regressing back to infancy. Maybe Freud was right. And that is where the immediate danger lies in how we examine mass killers. Everyone (not just the way over-board media) tries and digs up apparent clues and weave them into a sort of explanation. Remember Columbine? Harris and Klebold emerged as alienated misfits in the jock culture of their suburban high school. We learned about their morbid taste in music and their violent video games. Largely missing, though, was the proper frame around the picture: the extreme narcissism that licensed these boys, in their minds, to murder their teachers and classmates.

And with Cho it is the same. Elaborate writings and over the top videos were an almanac of gripes. “I’m so lonely,” he moped, but failed to mention that he often refused to answer even when people said hello. Of course he was lonely.

We need, no must, stop explaining killers in their terms. Minus the clear context of narcissism, the biographical details of these men can begin to look like a plausible chain of cause and effect – especially to other narcissists. And they do not need anymore encouragement.

Then there’s the telling moment in Bowling for Columbine (yes I am mentioning Michael Moore). Marilyn Manson dismisses the idea that listening to his lyrics contributed to the disintegration of the Columbine killers. What they needed, Manson suggested, was for someone to listen to them. This is the narcissist’s view of narcissism: everything would be fine if only he received more attention. The real problem can be found in the killer’s mirror.

Hindsight is always 20-20

After hearing and listening to President Bush at the Virginia Tech convocation yesterday, I couldn't help but think/wonder how different his Presidency would have been if he hadn't surrounded himself with Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfield and the like.

The guy wears his emotions on his sleeve and no matter what anyone says, his speeches have always been truthful and you know exactly what he is thinking. He doesn't B.S. you. Sure, he may be an idiot and keep to his guns about how Iraq is not a problem, but that isn't B.S.ing you with lies, it is really what he thinks. He didn't gloss you over with political speak.

It is the exact same traits that helped him in 2000 and 2004.

Most Pro-Bushites say, take 9/11 away from Bush and things would be different. You cannot do that, he had no control over 9/11 (well, I guess some, but so did Clinton, Bush Sr., and Reagan) but he did have control over he surrounded himself with to run things. And he always had the authority to make changes along the way.

For this he is cuplable and history will show it forever.

It's just unfortunate.

I cannot believe I am saying this....

*taking a deep breath*

Watch Oprah today at 4pm. There I said it. Whew..., but it was/is worth it.

She will have Jason Whitlock on her show.

He is a sports columnist and has come under fire recently for some of his dead on comments in the wake of the NBA All-Star game in Vegas and most recently the Don Imus situation and the Duke lacrosse case.

Basically boiling down to the fact that a black journalist like Whitlock is blaming the black race and that black's allow hip-hop and gang culture to influence thier lifes. Imus' comments were derogatory and wrong, but he is small potatoes compared to Snoop Dog, Jay-Z, and the Revs.

This is the story that started it all.

He is qouted as calling Sharpton and Jackson, "terrorists" on the Tucker show. This video is awesome. Where is the apology to the Duke players Jesse?

Also check out this article. It is his latest article from Friday. Not much different from the video, but still a good read.

You can also check out a podcast from Friday that he did here in Detroit on WDFN AM 1130. The sports talk radio show I listen to here. It's the first couple choices on this page.

This guy is right on.

Michele is TiVo for me so I can check it out tonight.

I'm glad someone is finally speaking out about this stuff.

My Perception - Confessing myself

I posted this about 11 months ago "Devils Advocate"

Go back and read and come back here...NOW!!!

Ok that was too forceful too authoritative (sorry Corey).

So, if you do not want to read it I'll give you a quick run down.

Back in the 1600s Newton figured this whole gravity thing out. Edmund Halley worked with Newton to iron out the hard parts and basically gave Newton hell as he tore apart his work and discovery. Always questioning him and driving Newton nuts. But Newton kept Halley around.

Ultimately Newton publishes Mathematical Principle of Natural Philosophy and the field of science is never the same. But why was Halley so damn anal on Newton? No one knows, but I think it was a "Devil's Advocate" thing.

And that is me. Nothing has changed

I play that role almost to a fault way too many times. I challenge a lot of people when they make a statement or claim. Not sure why I do it. Maybe I am too skeptical. Maybe I give them no credit. Maybe I like confrontation. Maybe I like to argue for the same of arguing. Maybe I like to come off smart. Maybe I want them to truly believe what they say. Maybe I want to help them think of all the angles. Maybe I am challenging myself to learn something new. It could be for any myriad of reasons. I am not entirely sure why I am this way. But I am. I know I do not do it to discourage anyone. I never want anyone to lose heart or doubt themselves and their ability, but watch them grow and really know and understand what they are saying. And honestly, I have no plans of changing this "habit" of mine. I have gotten a lot better at recognizing when it would be the wrong time to employ this trait or when I have crossed the line and discouarged someone and I have to work real hard to fix and correct that. But overall, I am just this way.

• I challenge
• I ask
• I confirm
• I question
• I poke
• I prod
• I solidfy
• I doubt
• I confront
• I think

I thank God he made me this way.

Absolutely nothing as changed

While 99% of what I post here is what I think/believe, nearly half of what I comment on here or with others is not. I am arguing and bringing up other points because of me. Of who I am.

I know it gets frustrating and I can be hard headed, but many times I am working out my own difficulties and doubts on a subject at the same time. Taking the side on an arguement I do not agree with just to see the results.

I once took a class in college that every quiz and test was oral. We never knew when the professor would call our name and ask us a question. Nothing was scheduled. I could have my test on Tuesday when he asked me 3 questions and the guy behind me might have his 3 weeks later. It was crazy but invaluable. We'd have to answer it and be ready for the retort from the teacher. He always told us to talk through every issue from all sides and try and anticipate what the other party is going to question before you even answer.

That's one of the few things I have held on to.

This is me.

Sunrise

"He is not here..."

734*

So what date did you draw in the Barry pool?

He is relatively healthy, so he will break the record.

How does 2 weeks before the All-Star break sound?

Next Question:

Should we celebrate it?

What an awful question. I mean, think about it. Barry Bonds is about to break one of sports marquee records. We are looking at history; it should be a fun time. But unless you are a die-hard Giants fan, you like me are uncomfortable. There is a Mt. Everest of circumstantial evidence that suggests that his great push towards the record was aided by performance enhancing, eh… materials.

There is also a book, “Game of Shadows” that is necessary read for those that think he has been clean. Even without the performance enhancing issue, he is a smug, colossally arrogant, and thoroughly unrootable figure. The feeling I am left with is not anger it is resentment. This joyless pursuit of Hank Aaron’s record is bad for baseball. I love baseball; I resent what he is doing to it.

I just hope he gets within one homerun and has the guts to retire.