We've all had something we can't figure out. My most recent run in with one of these was this past January during muzzleloading season for deer. I had taken a buck early in the day and had dragged it out of the woods, now it was time to field dress it. This wasn't my first deer, but it was the first time I was field dressing alone, and it had been a few years since I had done this.
How hard can it be? Sharpe knife, dead animal, should be simple enough right? Yeah, not so much. I got the deer cut open, i got the pelvis broken in half, but everything seemed to be stuck inside. I'm trying to pull the guts out and they aren't wanting to budge, and I'm starting to get mad. Why isn't this working? Why is this so difficult?
It turns out I didn't cut everything I needed to when I opened up the deer. I hadn't cut everything loose that I was supposed to, and so nothing was coming out. I learned this later, but not in the woods when I needed it. I was mad. And so many of us are.
Things like my experience in the woods happens everyday. It also happens to me when I have to do something on a car and it doesn't work as its supposed to. Little things end up setting us off, they become the final straw. We are angry, but why?
"First, I'm hacked because there's no one here to show me how to do this... I'm also hacked because I can't do it myself, mad that I need help... I'm also ticked at God, because why does this have to be so hard?"
I think that pretty much sums it up. I had no idea why the guts weren't coming out of the deer, and my dad wasn't there to show me what I was doing wrong. I wasn't thrilled that I still needed his help to do this. I don't know that I was angry with God because I couldn't gut a deer, but I have been upset because other things have been so difficult. But why are we angry to begin with? Ultimately, "it's about fatherlessness."
The source of our anger really boils down to the fact that we've been left to figure this out on our own, and this doesn't work that way. "A boy has a lot to learn in his journey to become a man, and he becomes a man only through the active intervention of his father and the fellowship of men. It cannot happen any other way. To become a man - and to know that he has become a man - a boy must have a guide, a father."
The road to masculinity is a journey. Masculinity isn't something that a boy just picks up someday when he decides he feels like it. It isn't something that a boy figures out on his own. "This we must understand: masculinity is bestowed. A boy learns who he is and what he's made of from a man (or a company of men). this can't be learned in any other place. It can't be learned from other boys, and it can't be learned from the world of women." Masculinity is passed down from generation to generation. Boys are initiated, and men bestow the mantel to boys as they overcome the tests and trials they face. But for a long time this hasn't happened.
"You see, what we have now is a world of uninitiated men. Partial men. Boys, mostly, walking around in men's bodies, with men's jobs and families, finances, and responsibilities. The passing on of masculinity was never completed, if it was begun at all. The boy was never taken through the process of masculine initiation. that's why most of us are Unfinished Men. And therefore unable to pass on to our sons and daughters what they need to become whole and holy men and women themselves."
How many of our dad's were initiated? I'm guessing not many. My dad grew up without a father beginning in his mid teens. My grandpa had an affair and wasn't around, and when he was, my dad was angry because of what my grandpa did. And I think part of what happened with my grandpa was a result of uninitiation. His dad had left his mom when he was young, he never had a dad either. So those two generations hadn't had the initiation into the masculine journey, and because of it, has impacted me.
You can't lead someone somewhere you have never been. You can't give an answer that you don't have. And so, "boys are growing up into uncertain men because the core questions of their souls have gone unanswered, or answered badly. They grow into men who act, but their actions are not rooted in a genuine strength, wisdom, and kindness."
God wants to finish us, and He will, but it isn't something that happens instantly. "Masculine initiation is a journey, a process, a quest really, a story that unfolds over time... We need more than a moment, an event. We need a process, a journey, an epic story of many experiences woven together, building upon one another in a progression. We need initiation. And, we need a Guide."
This is what this study is about, the journey to masculinity, and being fathered by God. Let's press on together my brothers, this journey leads us to who we are created to be.
"Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
To God alone be the Glory!
Strength and Honor
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