The Way of the Wild Heart, Introduction

Wild at Heart is just the beginning, the first steps of a journey. This, The Way of the Wild Heart, is the next step. Wild at Heart gives us permission to follow the map that is The Way of the Wild Heart. "Home is now behind you. The world is ahead." And we are on the road less traveled, but we are not the first to journey this way. This book begins with the story of a trail, "'It's a marked trail,' he said. A path created by the footprints of the bears. 'This one is probably centuries old. For as long as the bears have been on this island, they've taken this path. The cubs follow their elders, putting their feet exactly where the older bears walk. That's how they learn to cross this place.'"

The young and inexperienced follow the elders, they walk in their footsteps and that is how they learn. And once they know the way, they show it to others. The knowledge is passed down from generation to generation, and we find ourselves needing something similar. John said that, "It awakened some deep, ancient yearning in me." This guidance is something we all long for as men, and so at the end of Wild at Heart, where we have recovered our strong, masculine heart, we continue with the journey.

"This is a book about what it looks like to become a man, and - far more to our need - how to become a man. There is no more hazardous undertaking, this business of 'becoming a man,' full of dangers, counterfeits, and disasters. It is the Great Trial of every man's life, played out over time, and every male young and old finds himself in this journey. Though there are few who find their way through. Out perilous journey has been made all the more difficult because we live in a time with very little direction. A time with very few fathers to show us the way. As men, we desperately need something like that marked trail of Chichagof Island. Not more rules, not another list of principles, not formulas. A sure path, marked by men for centuries before us... What you are holding in your hands is, as the cover indicates, a map. It chronicles the stages of the masculine journey from boyhood to old age. This is not a book of clinical psychology, nor a manual of child development."

This doesn't have all the answers; this doesn't tell us everything we will encounter along the way. "The pleasure of a map is that it gives you the lay of the land, and yet you still have to make choices about how you will cover the terrain before you. A map is a guide, not a formula. It offers freedom... It does not tell you why the mountain is there, or how old the forest is. It tells you how to get where you are going... A map cannot answer all the questions a person might have. It is offered only to the traveler, who wants to know the path. Those who would take the masculine journey will gain a great deal by following the map. Those who want to analyze it will no doubt find cause to, and remain at home."

But we must pull out the map; we must climb the mountain, venture through the forest, and ford the stream. We must be willing to set out into the unknown with simply the guide to where we are going. Wild at Heart is a great start, but it is not the end. It begins the healing and points us in the right direction, but it is not the final destination. This map we now have is going to help us write the next chapter, and it is crucial that we do. "Furthermore, many men make the mistake of thinking that clarity equals healing, that understanding equals restoration. They do not. Reading about a country doesn't mean you've been there."

From reading the last book I have come to a deeper understanding of things in my life, but there are still some things I'm working through, and in many ways the things contained in this book will help with further healing and restoration. If you haven't read it before let me say that this book is going to focus on seeing God as your Father (this book was re-published under the title Fathered by God), for many of us, probably the Father we wish we would have had. This is how we are meant to see God, "the God of the Bible is portrayed as a great Father... It opens a new horizon for us."

We are in the situation we are because we are living in "a time without a father." "First, that most men and most boys have no real father able to guide them through the jungles of the masculine journey, and they are - most of us are - unfinished and unfathered men. Or boys. Or boys in men's bodies." Many of our fathers can't lead us down the path because they haven't been led down it themselves. And so we must look to God so that we break the chains that hold masculinity captive. God is the Father we can always turn to, and He will lead us into masculinity. "And that is actually an occasion for hope. Because the life you've known as a man is not all there is. There is another way. A path laid down for centuries by men who have gone before us. A marked trail. And there is a Father ready to show us that path and help us follow it."

God is moving ahead of us, let's follow in His footsteps as we go The Way of the Wild Heart.

"Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

To God alone be the Glory!

Strength and Honor