Generating Authentic Power

Our society, it seems, is set up as an accomplishment-driven world. What this means is that we value and measure each other - especially as men - by what we can and what we have done. I must tote around my resume of accomplishments in order to be seen either as a man of my word or as a valued, results-producing go-getter.

But when men reach a certain age or level of maturity, accomplishments are no longer the measure of worth.  In the second half of life (as Richard Rohr calls it) our goal is more about creating worth through what we give rather than what we get or win. This all came to a head yesterday as I talked with a friend and contemporary (he is as old as me) who was signing up for a goal-crunching program in order for him to up his personal integrity.  This man said that in his life he has seen where he has often not accomplished what he said he would and that he has not "shown up as his word" far too often.

I asked him what he though integrity meant to him and he told me that it meant doing what you say you will do.  Well, that may be true, especially in an accomplishment oriented first-half-of-life society.  Integrity is the consistency between what you say and what you do.  But in the second half of life we lose the fascination with trophies and points, so integrity of our word takes on a different texture and flavor. "What if," I asked him, "you looked at integrity as telling the truth about where you are right now?"

The wisdom and power of integrity at that point would look like telling others how much being out of integrity in the past has cost you.  You could look at the wounds and scars you have and say, "This is where I failed to do suchandso a thing, and here is what happens when you don't do that." and so on.  How powerful it is to be fully present to one's failures and the lessons learned from them, instead of pretending that history didn't teach him anything and having him try to (once again) white knuckle through another program of goals and accomplishments. Doing the later would no doubt result in another imbalanced list of losses and a few wins, and further the evidence of his life that he cannot accomplish these huge piles of goals - and that therefore he must suffer one more hit to his pride and integrity in the accomplishment world.

Enough is enough! He does not need anymore evidence.  What he needs, if anything, is the ability to tell the truth and to be fully aware and present to his results and lack thereof. Then, standing in the truth, fully aware of the associated pains and joys of his life, he can finally claim his authority - authority in his own life and his authority for the wisdom he dispenses. It may be hard to face the truth, and even harder to stay fully present to it, but the power that reveals is immense.

Male Energy

In a few months I am going to Hawaii for a friend's wedding. And the groom asked that I do some kind of male ritual or initiation in lieu of a traditional bachelor party (we're beyond the point of strip clubs and getting too drunk to see). So I researched the island culture, checked in with a consultant friend who lives there and blended it with some of the traditions I have used in past ceremonies - cool!

But his fiancee wants everything to go just right (why shouldn't she?) and is worried that the men in her family who would come might not like it, might not want to come, might... (what? be typical men??) So I needed to explain some of what I have collected over the years on the nature of male energy and working with men. It goes like this:

Male energy is wild and smelly and chaotic. Period. End of story. Working with men is like riding a bucking bronco - the game is to stay on for the ride, not to look good. In fact anytime you try to control male energy or make it sit down and fold its hands on the desk and be a good little boy, male energy will either leave the room or outright die.

Working with men requires letting it flow from the collective masculine spirit present in the group. Often it doesn't look anything like what you planned - but those are the best sessions, and the best team meetings. Because they are raw and unbridled and totally present in the moment. We men wear our battle armor so much that it is rare for us to ever take it off, and the slightest hint of controlling has men reaching for their helmets and swords!

Oh sure I know where I am going and I will get the men there, but it will be with them and through their spirits and energies that we go - and I will lay money on it being a night to remember. And yes there may be a "man" who would rather sell his seat to be able to spend some cuddly time with a girlfriend than to be where we are (it's okay, I used the term man loosely as I think most likely his testicles are firmly in her grip!). It is one of the real filters in men's work - just the right men will show up and the ones who want to whine are better off not coming, thankfully. God, I love working with men!

Male Spirituality

I have been wondering lately - especially as I read more and more of Richard Rohr's writing on the subject (http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/) - if the time has come to call for a new form of spirituality that appeals to men. I am not talking God talk here, but rather am referring to an understanding of the sacredness of life and a reverence for the world at large. Clearly these have suffered at the hands of man (and I do mean men, not humanity). There is less respect for life - wars, murder and genocide continue at horrifying levels - and the biosphere we call our planet is endangered - stripped of the life-giving rain forests, and polluted in every aspect, the air, the water and the soil that sustain us. Yes it is clear that we humans - we men - are in dire need of a new spirituality.

Religious movements, it seems, have coopted the term (and the practice) of spiritual reverence. Churches dressed it up in linen and lace and perfumed it into pettiness and pomp. In other circles, we are told that we have to meditate a certain way or do yoga a certain way or chant in some weird dialect of Sanskrit - there is always a right way to do it! But men don't seem to relate to formulaic spirituality, at least that how it seems to me. We men relate to the physical, the tangible and the experiential. I understand that when the astronauts first saw earth from outer space, they were moved to begin a whole movement of conservation and one of them even founded what is now called the Institute of Noetic Sciences because it opened him up to an "inner knowing" of the connection of all things. He experienced it and suddenly had a spiritual reverence for things.

But not all of us can get into outer space and pictures just don't do the same thing. What we need is more time to walk in the woods (what's left of them), time to do a vision quest, or perhaps just a couple days or a week with a struggling family helping them build a small place of their own to live in. We have to get out and into the real world in order to be touched by its spirit. Enough with the lives of the rich and famous - enough! If I hear another money-grubbing rich dude story I just may go off the deep end, after I throw up. Enough with Dancing with the Stars; Enough with TV 'reality" shows - that is not reality. Reality is the human struggle for meaning and brotherhood. Reality is touching another person.

Men, our world is out of balance and going downhill pretty rapidly; the preponderance of the wealth of the world is held by less than a half percent of the population while those living in abject poverty are closing in on 50%. Who will right this ship, if not us? What can or will you do? If you get a chance, see the documentary "I Am" (http://iamthedoc.com/). It won't tell you what to do, but it just might resonate with something inside you and get you into action. Maybe if one of us tells another, and he tells another after that, maybe we can start a movement. I has to start somewhere. Why not here and now?

You Are A Hero

I was helping my son study for his Latin quiz this morning and learned something very interesting. The root word viri, from which comes virile and virtue, is the Latin word for both man and hero.

So if you think about that for a minute, to be a man is to be both a virtuous hero and a virile stud! Are you? Are you virtuous; do you live according to your virtues, or do you sell out regularly? Are you being a hero for your wife or are you tired and whining all the time? Virility has no room for tired and whining! Let's step it up a notch today. Be a hero - it's what being a man really means.

Fighting for Honor

The honor/shame struggle is central to the masculine experience. That we are always attempting to prove our honor and trustworthiness seems to be hard-wired into every male. Like abandonment is the central issue for women, honor and trust are critical to us men. And this is not new age 21st century revelation, mind you, it is as old as dirt.


Theologian Barbara Essex once wrote a book called Bad Boys of the Bible (curiously omitting Bad Boy, King David) wherein she documents how far back our problems go. From the earliest of times, the honorable/shameful story of men has been been the making of the best stories. Even in the first biblical story Adam blames Eve, and their son Cain kills his brother Abel. Hey, we're doomed and condemned from that point on. But consider the biblical stories of Jacob (his wanting the only woman in the bible actually labeled as shapely - Rachel - and ending up having 11 other kids with her less than bodacious sister Leah) and David who screws around with Bathsheba so he has to have her husband killed to "legitimately" have her as a wife: now these guys were... were... what? Normal men? Bad influences? Great leaders and fathers of nations?


But the message we, who have heard these stories in Sunday School or Yeshiva, took on was that we must be guilty and shameful. We have learned through the stories of time that we are skirt-chasers, corruptible, and less-than-honorable scoundrels. So we have to be more honorable for our wives (who read and heard the same stories) today. Bullshit!


You do not have to prove your honor! You do not have to prove your masculinity! You do not have to make amends for historical man's wrong-doings! You have only to be you, to do the best you can at that game and bring that to each encounter you have. No one can make you honorable by awarding you some trophy! You do not have to doubt your masculinity or your value in the world. It was given to you at your birth. You are a man, and all you ever have to do is bring that unique brand of manhood to the party. You are welcomed in my circle any time.


And given what those guys did, I don't look so bad after all.