This has actually bugged me since I was just a pint sized shaver.
It was back then that I noticed that a lot of ‘Christian’ men seemed to go to great extremes to lead the planet in wimpiness (they might refer to it as meekness, which, biblically speaking is fine, but for a lot of them I soon realized it was code for wuss).
As I grew in the my own walk with Christ I wondered why I preferred hanging out with the guys who liked Xtreme skiing, or camping, fly-fishing, shark diving, mountain climbing, 2 week back packing trips with 65 pound backpacks and tents unfit for even bigfoot, and on and on and on—to the homies who preferred bonding in recovery groups discussing their short comings and complete lack of ability to lead their family, discussing their inability to stop looking at porn, yacking about their fears about living like they weren’t ashamed of the testosterone coursing through their veins and their unspoken but practically worshiped their idol, Mr. Rogers.
Hey, you’d let me know if that was a bit too “in your face,” right?
Cool.
Wouldn’t matter, but I needed to know if you were one of the ‘group hug homies,’ or part of the, ‘XMen’ God so desires Christian men to be.
If you’re part of the second group (or want to be), I hope you will take heart and gain incite from this ongoing series of posts. I will try to toss out one of two of these a week for the next several months (or until I grow weary talking about it, which ever comes first). The first thing you can take heart in is that even the most Xtreme XMen for God struggle with crossing over (no pun intended) to a more feminine, subdued (read, ‘neutered’) approach to life from time to time. I remember one very distinct time in my own life when it hit me like a cold cup of water thrown in my face. Let me tell you about it…
It happens once in a blue moon. It happened last, seven years ago.
I came home early from work to a house ransacked by an intruder. The moment I entered I could feel his cold, steely presence—knew instinctively that the carnage I saw was very, very recent. I came in through the garage, into the kitchen and was greeted by a broken plate on the floor, two expensive cups my wife and I had purchased in Israel smashed in the kitchen sink, and, the most bizarre of all, several pictures of me and my wife turned down on both the fireplace mantle and the piano.
Why the pictures?
Why were they singled out?
Could it be one of my worst fears was being realized—a scene right out of the movie, A Fatal Attraction? Which one of my twisted, jilted, past girlfriends was it this time? Or worse, maybe it was one of their boyfriends, or even a husband who couldn’t resign himself to the painful truth that she’d actually dated others before him.
I grabbed a giant mag-light (one of those foot and a half numbers)—sure, it was broad daylight, but they feel more like a weapon then a flashlight when they are that long and heavy. I had the advantage now. Unless she (or he) had a gun?
Or a knife?
Or num-chucks!
I couldn’t worry about that. I would make do.
Might help to narrow the possibilities though. I searched my mind, running down a mental list of likely enemies.Â
Too long.
I switched to the short list.
Too scary.
I dropped the list idea altogether as I quickly opened and shut closet doors with my left hand while my right hand held the flash light cocked and ready to fire. In rather short order (too short I would soon learn) I had searched the entire house. They were gone. Should I call the police?
No hurry now.
So instead, I sat in the leather chair in the family room and calmed myself. Next, I called my wife and explained that we had been broken into and the house ransacked.
“Calm down,†I assured her, “they’re gone now. I’ve taken care of everything.â€
She was on her way home and, you know, amazingly, and too her credit, she was calm, very calm—handling everything like a true champ…
Stay tuned, this story has a bizarre ending…
but that’s for tomorrow’s post.Â