ATTENTION MEN: FOR YOU ONLY (No Ladies!!!!)...

I am a man.
At least I want to be.
I am male,
for sure.
But am I a man?
What makes a male a man?
What turns a boy into a man?
I need models.
Please show yourself, men.
So I can see you.
Study your ways.
Admire you.
Imitate you.

Will the Real Men
Please Stand Up.
Silence.
Fidgeting
Chuckling.
Uncertainty.

———————

What is a real man?
Who are the models?
The Duke?
"Never apologize, mister,
it's a sign of weakness."
"Make my day" Clint?
Rambo, Chuck, or Arnold?
Macho men!
Archie Bunker?
Homer Simpson?
Dagwood Bumstead?
George McFly?
Cartoon characters, all.
Boy George?
Michael Jackson?
Gender blenders.
Or are we
to be
our mother's boy?

Nice
Sweet
Pretty
Soft
But we are men.
Not women.

———————

We are different.
Not just physical differences,
or mental,
and emotional,
but spiritual.
But churches don't know the difference.
Or don't care.
Or we don't care.
Because we ourselves
don't know the difference.
So, the church is run by men
but for women.
feminized schools,
feminized homes,
feminized society,
feminized churches.
Feminized religion leaves
a hole in the soul.
Demons fill that hole.

So we come.
Our thirty percent.
We try to fit in.
Wonder what's wrong
with us.
Because we don't know
what we are.

It started early,
this feminization.
Probably in Sunday school.
By a lady-teacher.
No men here.
"woman's work."
Men have committees.
Board meetings.
Make decisions.
Pave the parking lot.
Study budgets.
Fix the roof.
Men don't tell Bible stories,
in Sunday school.

Boy-souls starve.
We bonded early,
with Bible stories,
lady-told stories.
Biased a bit.
Slanted stories.
Even about Jesus.
Nice Jesus.
mild,
delicate,
vanilla.
Always polite,
soft.

He closed the door behind Him.
Obeyed His mom,
Took a bath.
Smiled sweetly,
shared His crayons,
talked softly,
never carried a big stick.
This cozy Jesus,
never caught a butterfly.
-- just watched them.
Helped His mother,
washed the dishes,
helped dust,
cleaned His room,
hung around the kitchen.
Never wiggled in church,
said nice things to people.

This pretty Jesus.
Androgynous.
The sort of boy
a mother hopes her son might turn out as,
or her husband.
A feminized Jesus.
No snakes,
no snails
no puppy dog tails.
Just sugar
and spice
and everything nice.
This is the half-Jesus taught.
Or caught.
By what was said
and unsaid,
in church.

He is a false Jesus.
But our idea still.
Men at church.
Men at work.
Men at the bar.
Haven't met the other half,
of Jesus.

————————

Is this why men feel so unspiritual?
"My wife is more spiritual than me."
Is it true?
Always?
Are women more spiritual than men?
Did God make men more evil?
Or, could men just think they are less spiritual?
Could we be comparing ourselves with this false
Jesus?
This half-Jesus?
Am I saying
"I'm not like Him...
my wife's more like that."
because I don't know what He's really like?
We define " Christian man."
A quiet man.
Steady man.
Cozy man.
He likes quiet talking,
doesn't walk on the grass.
Dresses nice
attends Sunday school,
sings in the choir,
drives slow,
wears a tie,
shows up,
picks up after himself,
always puts the seat back down.
"Christian man."

More so, "minister-man."
Soft, sweet, nice,
media stereotype.
Religious gelding.
Nicely dressed
sissy-fied
fat.
Likes to drink tea with old ladies.

Face it, religion is feminized.
Men sense a loss.
In becoming "Christianized"
Men sometimes give up
their manhood.
An unrequired sacrifice.
Becoming like mother
or wife.
And we lose touch
with a path to spirituality.
Our own manhood.

——————

How are we different?

We are more aggressive.
Even spiritually.
Not peaceful.
But hard, and heavy,
sometimes violent.
To us spirituality
is not something done to us,
but something we do.
We want to go, see, do, attack, act.
This is what we need.

We are visual-spatial.
Words aren't as important
as seeing.
Even in our sexuality.
But especially in our learning.
We want to see it.
Hear a story.
Picture it in our mind.
We like to trade hunting stories,
tell jokes,
swap stories.
This is how we learn and change.

We are more physical-mechanical.
We like to do something
more than listen or chat.
We're not good
at listening to long talks,
taking notes,
talking too long.
We say less than women.
We'd rather do something.
Religious doing,
is more important to us
than religious listening.

We are more informal,
especially in our dress.
Dressing up.
Our wife likes it.
Some men like it.
But most don't.
Except when we have to.
Which is sometimes at church.

And we men are warriors.
We can sacrifice.
Bleed.
Die.
For a cause greater than we are.
Or One greater than we.

And we grieve.
Mourn
and brood.
Ache for the world's pain
and for ourselves.
Yet most churches offer
a cheery feel-good experience.
Don't worry, be happy!
Smile.
Feel sunny.
No way down.
No mourning.
No grief.
No Gethsemane.
No cross.
At church,
all routes lead up.

And we are earthy.
Woman say "gross."
Who knows why?
Could be our raw material -- dirt.
And we yearn back to it.
Is there any place in the church
for the "earthy side" of men?
Is there an earthy side to the Bible?
Who will tell teenage boys this side of the Bible?
Or, will our boys learn
that to become a good Christian man
means denying his "earthy side."
Become more like his mother?

And we men are risk-takers.
Even reckless.
Ask insurance companies.
We take chances.
We are rash
and competitive,
especially when we are young.
Sometimes we do stupid things
at least what some think is stupid.

The man quits his well-paying job.
Uproots his wife and two kids,
gives away his house.
Takes his family off to Alaska,
to "witness to the Eskimos?"
Most church folk say
"he's gone off his rocker."
This irresponsible man.
Unreasonable man.
To leave his home.
To sell all.
To leave his nets.
Foolish Abraham.
Irrational Peter.
Most churches prefer
rich young ruler types.

And men are wild.
Even the corporate man.
The corporation controls him.
But he lets it out after work
sometimes.
We are unpredictable,
untamed,
sometimes dangerous.
We have a wild man inside.
Deep below the surface,
chained up by years of training.
Even the domesticated man knows it.
There is a wild man deep within.
When the wild man is released,
action happens.
Sometimes life-risking action,
sometimes superhuman energy,
sometimes unshackled fury.

Most men have been taught
that the wild man is evil...
our carnal nature,
dressed up like a wild man.
But it is not.

The wild man is Jesus.
The real Jesus,
not the half-Jesus.
The Jesus
you can't put in a box.
The untamed Jesus.
Unpredictable Jesus.
This trouble-causing Jesus.
Breaking the half-men's Sabbath rules.
Treating women as humans
not possessions.
Telling status seekers
they would be last in the Kingdom.
Railing against
crooked religious bureaucracy.

The wild man Jesus
who fought with the Devil,
declared war on corrupt religion,
left home
and wandered around with a group.
This is the wild man Jesus
The one they didn't tell you about.
This Jesus
knew what it meant to mourn.
This Jesus
seldom said what people expected Him to say.
This Jesus
withered a fig tree with His anger.
This Jesus
turned over tables in the Temple.
This Jesus
got himself killed.

For you.

Have you met this wild man Jesus?
Does He live inside you?
Have you set Him free?
Will you follow Him?
To do the radical.
The tough.
To sacrifice.
To follow.
To die
for a man greater than yourself?
To live
for a man greater than yourself?

Does He live in you?
Have you met this MAN?
This GOD?
This God-man?
This Man of God?

Will you be
an authentic Man of God?

(Maybe I tagged you in this post or maybe you just found this in a casual scroll and made it this far. YOU! I just felt YOU needed to see this. I felt you were somewhere mentioned in these lines and could identify. I felt you are so much more than the nice, cuddly label or box you've been "assigned" in life...in church even. I need you to know that I've tried my best to create ministry opportunities for you. Opportunities outside the box, outside the norm, outside of safe, amazing opportunities for adventure and rescue, of protection and redemption, but few of you have stepped up. I just want to say that if you're ready, if the Holy Spirit inside you is calling you to step up and truly live out your manhood like Christ, that the opportunity is there for the taking. yellow selections for cocktail

I'm not calling you to a building. I'm not calling you to purple carpet, beautiful steeples or 3-piece suits. I'm not calling you to do anything Jesus didn't do Himself. I'm not even the one calling. I'm simply asking if you would would like to join me in an amazing adventure in following Christ into the wild...where the wild things are...and there, somewhere in your journey of living for something and Someone greater, that your wild would finally find a home and be tamed. Is the Holy Spirit calling you deeper? Only you can answer.)