Musings on Masculine Spirituality pt 4

If the workplace is a pear, then the women and sex department have to be cherries. I love my cherry, she is sweet and delicious and refreshing. There is nothing wrong with a cherry. God made cherries and they are a good thing. But again we find so many men trying to get their apple from a cherry tree.

In our culture, you are a man if you have rock hard abs and have an attractive woman that you are able to please sexually. Many men do not have the ability nor the opportunity to achieve in the workplace. We have turned the workplace into a very impersonal place where men know that they are just another cog in the machine. Some of us know that we may NEVER find our apple within the workplace. And we are correct. We skip the whole illusion of the boss being the keeper of the apples. This is a grace from God, light for our path. But instead we turn down another unlit path.

Our media tells men that cherries are apples. This is what sells things, and what drives the market is what sells. Sex sells. Sex is not an apple. It is a very good cherry. But again you can never find your apple from anything other than an apple tree. I believe this comes from a culture of under-fathered and over-mothered men. Most fathers are absent, and we are taught that we need to look to the feminine to bestow upon us the masculine. But cherries don’t bear apples, they are not designed to, nor are they capable of doing it. When men turn to the feminine for their fulfillment of the masculine, they are turning down the wrong path. This path is that of fear. We fear our women because they could withhold our masculinity as punishment. Let’s make one point loud and clear, YOUR WIFE IS NOT YOUR MOTHER! She does not have the power to withhold your masculinity because she is not the keeper of the apples. She needs your masculinity to shelter her femininity. She needs you to be the man that God called you to be so that she can have the security to be the woman God called her to be.

This path can turn into a secretive secluded addiction to pornography. You can have the cherry, all the while thinking it is an apple, without the danger of rejection. But this is a double killer. It kills your masculinity because it enhances and weakens your insecurity as a man.

By seeking apples in this fashion, you are actually poisoning the ground where your apple tree is to be planted, preventing the chance that any apples would have to grow, and you are partaking of a cheap imitation of a cherry, not the real thing. So you are killing your ability to recognize a true cherry from the imitation. So within the secretive world of pornography, you kill two fruit trees with one axe, leaving you with cheap imitations, and a truck load of insecurity.

Musings on Masculine Spirituality pt3

There are men who need to have a bigger and better trophy than the last. Men are warriors by nature, something that we will explore a bit later. We love… no…NEED to battle something, even if it is just a little white ball on a tee. And that is part of the apple we are seeking. Many men will search for this illusive apple within the arena of sports. We get to see concrete victory on a large screen with numbers on it. We did better than they did; we are better men than they are. We have the apples and they do not, the proof is in the stats/score/applause/praise. Maybe we don’t play, but we are fans of a team or a player. If we have the right labels (T-shirts, bumperstickers, Hats etc…) then the world will see that we have an apple.

Men can easily become addicted to the praise and affirmation they get from sports. Again, there is nothing wrong with a pear, a cherry, or even, in this case, a peach; they taste good. The mistake we make is confusing one fruit for another — a peach for an apple. So many men are convinced that a peach is an apple that even though they cannot perform in this area, they will identify with those who do and develop an unhealthy addiction to sports heroes or teams. I know many men who love the taste of peaches, eat peaches often, and do so in a healthy manner, knowing that they are not going to receive an apple from it. This is great. It is when we seek our apples in a peach orchard that problems arise.

There is a dark side to peaches as well, the addictive world of sports “fan-dom”. Sports aren’t bad. They can be a source of recreation, relaxation, and connection. But many men develop an unhealthy addiction to sports, thinking that they can receive an apple from them. Many guys cast aside their responsibilities to take care of their worlds that God has given them (stewardship). They trade their real world for a virtual one. There is nothing intrinsically evil about the peaches. It is the mistaking of an apple for a peach that gets men trapped.

The battle side of men can take us in one of two ways. One: it can fan our competitive natures in such a way that if we do not win we do not obtain our apple. Two: Our competitive natures can be rendered impotent because we know that a peach is not an apple, so we are very passive and do not battle for anything. Guess what, there are some things worth fighting for, and there are some things not worth fighting for. Wisdom to know the difference is critical, and the beginning of wisdom is...well, we’re coming to that soon enough.

Musings on Masculine Spirituality pt2

Far too many men think that they can draw their masculinity from something other than the masculine. Masculinity is the stamp of approval that says we have what it takes as a man to take on the world. You can only get this stamp of approval from those who have experienced it. You can only give away what you possess. Most men in the West do not possess this true, healthy form of masculinity, so they cannot instill it into the next generation. In short, masculinity bestows masculinity. Apples bear apples. If masculinity is an apple, and the men who can bestow it upon others are apple trees, then, many men are searching for an apple from a pear tree. What does this look like?

Work/Boss| For many men, they did not receive adequate “masculinity training”, so they search for that approval within an authority figure. If the boss can give a sales ring, a promotion, more vacation time, or a raise, then we feel as though, for a moment, we have been handed an apple from an apple tree, when, in reality, we were handed a pear from a pear tree. We believe that we have received the approval we have been looking for, but, in reality, it is only a pacifier. We know deep down that it is only fleeting. This may be what Jesus is referred to when he said, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but lose his soul?” What would we gain from getting a pear tree when what we are searching for is apples?

The boss is probably in the same boat as the rest of us — looking for approval from someone higher up on the ladder. That is why they say it is lonely at the top. You have no one to receive your pears from anymore, and then you realize that you were not looking for pears in the first place. Maybe reaching the top is just as bad as reaching the bottom. Jesus said the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.

Pears are good. It is good to work, and get promotions and raises. It is good to have a boss you can look up to. It is good to receive praise and give praise in the workplace. Pears are good fruit, BUT it is not good to mistake a pear for an apple. It is a potentially fatal mistake that could cost you your soul and your masculinity.

Musings on Masculine Spirituality pt1

The Apple tree: Men are searching for an apple. Not only are we searching for an apple, but we are looking to plant an apple tree right in our own front yard so that we do not have to go looking all the time when we need an apple. I have decided to use this illustration to make an abstract idea a little more concrete. Put bluntly, men are searching for their masculinity; “the stamp of approval that we have what it takes to take on the world”, the inner confidence that we are indeed men to be reckoned with, strong, capable, and wise. This is the apple. Unfortunately, men are looking in all the wrong places. We are looking to the pear trees, cherry trees, peach trees, and orange trees to give us the apple we are searching for. But only apple trees bear apples. Masculinity only comes from masculinity.

Also, most men do not have a point of reference in which to draw their spirituality. Spirituality is the actions we take to settle or fill the inner madness, the unquiet, the built-in discontentment, the inner drive for something bigger, the “God shaped hole,” the search for our identity, to put it in one word; fulfillment. And since men are masculine, searching for the approval and bestowing of the masculine, men experience a masculine spirituality. Masculine spirituality then is: what men do to search for and fulfill their identity as men.

Everything that men do to find this identity is spiritual by nature. Whatever we do in search of our apple is our masculine spirituality. This can be a healthy spirituality leading to life, security, and health, or it can be an unhealthy spirituality leading to death, insecurity, and degradation. Searching for the apple is a healthy thing, a natural thing, something we were created to do. All men are involved in the search. Searching for the apple among other fruit trees, or mistaking other fruit for an apple is where many men fall flat on their faces in failure.

Far too many men think that they can draw their masculinity from something other than the masculine. If masculinity is the stamp of approval that you have what it takes as a man to take on the world, then you can only get this stamp of approval from those who have experienced it. You can only give away what you possess. Most men today do not possess masculinity, so they cannot instill it into the next generation. In short, masculinity bestows masculinity. Apples bear apples. If masculinity is an apple, and the men who can bestow it upon others are apple trees, then, unfortunately many men are searching for an apple from a pear tree, their work.

So, Here we go again

I am giving this blog thing a new try. Stay tuned for updates.