Father Vacuum
The fastest way to get a room full of mancho men crying is to ask them to tell a story about their fathers. I've done it.
Reportedly, the only thing that 90% of convicts have dependably in common is that they have experienced no effective fathering.
When Daniel Patrick Moynihan found a 25% absent father condition in the black community in the 70's, he declared the community in desparate crisis. Fatherlessness is now 69% in urban African communities. The Anglo community is now at 25%. Both numbers are rising.
Our society is in rapid decline. Read it in the boys and the men. Boys are surpassed by the girls in every class, every profession, college admissions, graduate schools. Many young men now mature very slowly, if at all. They don't know how, because there is no one to show them, and so they frequently act out in ways that mimic tough, which is all the manliness they know. Alternatively, they become confused about their gender. To the hetero-confused men, being a man is having sex frequently (often violently) and fighting other men to "earn" respect. Or worse, seeking approval and acceptance from women, which leads either to philandering or submission and subjugation to women who then resent them for their weakness. To the homo-confused men, they attempt to find attention and approval from other men sexually, even though sex without latex is impossibly dangerous and the "gay" lifestyle is anything but. In late youth, childish attire is preferred. Backward ball caps, baggy pants, high school or college athletic shirts. Today's men play, mostly. Wherever they are, they avoid commitment.
My guess about the Sunday night gladiator in my last post is that I was looking at a young man that needed adult male validation and approval desparately. To mask his boyish need, he wore a muscled, fierce look. But in semi-consciousness after his knockout, the scared, sad boy came out. He wept. He wept because he was not going to get the approval that he so badly needed. He wept because he had failed to achieve the manliness that he sought in this "deadly" combat. He wept because without this achievement, he had lost purpose and direction. He had lost significance. Men are made for competition. There is a fierceness in their sports that pre-figures combat. They have a wildness in their heart that must be channeled and aimed. Because without taming, their distorted need for male recognition and achievement leads to destructive acts and self-destruction.
How does this happen? It has to do with the expectations and the disappointments of fatherhood. A boy, and the young man he someday wants to be, expects acceptance and approval. He wants...no, he needs validation from men. But, it is highly probably that today's young man's father did not receive approval and acceptance form his father, either. In the case of both generations, this leads to what Gordon Dalby has called the "father vacuum": the need to fill this vacuum can distort a man's life. And, strangely, the father vacuum is waiting for us all. Even if our father were healthy, happy and home, he can not be immortal and he, too, will disappoint us. We will need him and he won't be there. We will need his approval and challenge, and he will abandon us.
So, how do we escape this process? Boys and men must repent from making an idol of their sex. Instead we must turn our eyes and our hearts to our Father in heaven. And, when we experience the grace that fills this void, we must help other men with their transitions through the parts of their lives that seem to blind them to God's grace until He can claim them to himself as well. Because God alone can fill the "father vacuum" with the love, acceptance and significance that every man seeks. By following our brother, Christ, we are reconciled to our Father. And, in so doing, we find significance in adopting and living His life, our true inheritance.
More later.
The fastest way to get a room full of mancho men crying is to ask them to tell a story about their fathers. I've done it.
Reportedly, the only thing that 90% of convicts have dependably in common is that they have experienced no effective fathering.
When Daniel Patrick Moynihan found a 25% absent father condition in the black community in the 70's, he declared the community in desparate crisis. Fatherlessness is now 69% in urban African communities. The Anglo community is now at 25%. Both numbers are rising.
Our society is in rapid decline. Read it in the boys and the men. Boys are surpassed by the girls in every class, every profession, college admissions, graduate schools. Many young men now mature very slowly, if at all. They don't know how, because there is no one to show them, and so they frequently act out in ways that mimic tough, which is all the manliness they know. Alternatively, they become confused about their gender. To the hetero-confused men, being a man is having sex frequently (often violently) and fighting other men to "earn" respect. Or worse, seeking approval and acceptance from women, which leads either to philandering or submission and subjugation to women who then resent them for their weakness. To the homo-confused men, they attempt to find attention and approval from other men sexually, even though sex without latex is impossibly dangerous and the "gay" lifestyle is anything but. In late youth, childish attire is preferred. Backward ball caps, baggy pants, high school or college athletic shirts. Today's men play, mostly. Wherever they are, they avoid commitment.
My guess about the Sunday night gladiator in my last post is that I was looking at a young man that needed adult male validation and approval desparately. To mask his boyish need, he wore a muscled, fierce look. But in semi-consciousness after his knockout, the scared, sad boy came out. He wept. He wept because he was not going to get the approval that he so badly needed. He wept because he had failed to achieve the manliness that he sought in this "deadly" combat. He wept because without this achievement, he had lost purpose and direction. He had lost significance. Men are made for competition. There is a fierceness in their sports that pre-figures combat. They have a wildness in their heart that must be channeled and aimed. Because without taming, their distorted need for male recognition and achievement leads to destructive acts and self-destruction.
How does this happen? It has to do with the expectations and the disappointments of fatherhood. A boy, and the young man he someday wants to be, expects acceptance and approval. He wants...no, he needs validation from men. But, it is highly probably that today's young man's father did not receive approval and acceptance form his father, either. In the case of both generations, this leads to what Gordon Dalby has called the "father vacuum": the need to fill this vacuum can distort a man's life. And, strangely, the father vacuum is waiting for us all. Even if our father were healthy, happy and home, he can not be immortal and he, too, will disappoint us. We will need him and he won't be there. We will need his approval and challenge, and he will abandon us.
So, how do we escape this process? Boys and men must repent from making an idol of their sex. Instead we must turn our eyes and our hearts to our Father in heaven. And, when we experience the grace that fills this void, we must help other men with their transitions through the parts of their lives that seem to blind them to God's grace until He can claim them to himself as well. Because God alone can fill the "father vacuum" with the love, acceptance and significance that every man seeks. By following our brother, Christ, we are reconciled to our Father. And, in so doing, we find significance in adopting and living His life, our true inheritance.
More later.
posted by Unknown @ 7:59 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home