The world needs a man’s heart

A post for all you godly men who are trying to figure out what it really means to be a man in a gender-confused culture. From a blog called the Dirty Shame

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Gretel Ehrlich once described ranchers as “midwives, hunters,
nurturers, providers, and conservationists all at once. What we’ve
interpreted as toughness…only masks a tenderness inside.” I thought
about this yesterday as I was reading yet another “man-book” proposal;
what it means to be a man, etc. We usually think of ranchers or cowboys
as toughness incarnate, but Ehrlich suggests a tenderness that we’ve
seen many times, but may have been hesitant to point out.

I’ve
followed what has been called the men’s movement for quite some time
now, in both the christian and secular realms. I’ve read the required
reading texts in both. I truly believe, as one writer says, “that the
world needs a man’s heart.” But trying to pigeon hole that heart as
tough, always and forever, troubles me.

The proposal I was reading was
advocating a toughness that can always take the punches, anything life
throws at you. Now to be fair, this “toughness” is based on a faith in
God and the requisite humility before Him – but it still had the
be-tough approach in perspective. And I’m afraid that’s all some folks
hear. And even more afraid that it’s all some men hear.

The men
who have influenced my life the most have been tough and tender. I just
remembered that’s the name of a cleaning solution my wife uses on our
counter-tops to kill off germs and such. Anyway, these men have been
tough as nails. I’ve walked with two men out of the Grand Canyon, from
the river to the rim in one day, and we were all dehydrated and
hallucinating (the Virgin Mary and Pat Sajack kept appearing in the
rocks), but these men kept putting one foot in front of the other. And
we eventually walked over the edge of the rim back to our pickup as the
Virgin and Pat waved goodbye. Toughness.

One man I know would
spend every summer camping in the same place on the same lake. One
summer, a few years ago, someone tried to get his lake view. It came to
blows. I kid you not. He called forth his inner-pugilist and boxed the
other guy’s nose.

His opponent did get a swing in that left a black eye
on him for weeks, but he didn’t get his camping spot. Black and blue
badge of courage. Tough. Crazy, but tough.

But these men, all of
them, have a tenderness that’s just as accessible and obvious as their
toughness.

They don’t hide it or try to work it out in counseling or
anything. It’s part of who they are – men. Men who can put you in your
place one moment and cry at a Hallmark commerical the next.

Men who can
get up and go to work everyday and come home and still find the
strength to play Barbies in the floor with little girls. Men who can
stalk an elk for hours and then, as they stand over the kill, pause and
thank God and the spirit of the elk for giving himself over so that a
family can have meat in the freezer for a year.

Men who are quite
content using a car key for a q-tip and are just as content opening the
door for ladies, not in some let-me-take-the-power-position-from-you
way, but in a God-made-ladies-and-I’m-thankful-as-hell-He-did-so-I-respectfully-let-you-go-first
kinda way.

Men who can literally scream at the way folks drive on the
I-25 and men who literally cry when the pastor says, “Who gives this
woman?” and he peers into his little girl’s eyes and says, “Her mom and
I.” Then he peers into the groom’s eyes with toughness.

Men who can’t
take everything life throws at them, so they have to ask for help or
depend on other people or God or both. Men like John Walton, from that
beautiful tv production by Earl Hamner.

Or ole’ Gus, from the Lonesome
Dove scriptures. Or Wendell Berry or Sam Keen or Rick Bass or William
Stafford or Father Rohr. Men like Mark and Mo and Bo and Joel and Don
and Tommy and Thomas and Coyle and Richard and Huey and Randy and Ron
and Rob and Cory and Xan and Steve and Sam and Todd and Shawn and
Robert and John and Winn and Robert and Brennan and Fil and my dad.

And
Jesus. And on my better days, a man like me.

We’re men of our
convictions, call us wrong, call us right. But we bring our better
angels to everything. You may not like where we’re going, but you know
where we stand. Hate us if you want to, love us if you can. With thanks
to T. Keith for those lyrics.