Not trying to leave out my female readers here (and you can glean a lot here, I think), but men…we have a problem. At least here in the West, the increasing evidence is that we no longer really have a place in society nor know how to act well. I’ll leave aside any issues of how men treat women, or more importantly how men fail to treat women well….what I am talking about is a general growing body of evidence from many sources that men, particularly young men, have no sense of purpose or place.
This isn’t necessarily new. The book (and movie) Fight Club dealt with this starting back with my generation, Generation X. Tyler Durden’s famous quote–“Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering….an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”
Now, some 15 years after the movie (1999) and nearly 20 years since Chuck Palahniuk first wrote the novel, the evidence builds that men are lost. Whether the problem is an empowered female, too much digital stimulus (Facebook, snapchat, Twitter, instagram, etc…), too much TV, too many video games, too much porn or just too much else….its as if the male human species doesn’t see a reason to act, to move, to be. In fact, one could argue that what a male is to be is no longer an allowed option. If the human male is the provider, but there is a lack of reason to provide, especially if no one needs him to provide…..
Or, if the male is to be the explorer, the discoverer, the one risking the unknown and there is no longer any true unknown….? I have taught for years that one challenge of our country now for over a century is the loss of the frontier, which happened in the 1890s. We were able to mitigate this problem for 50-70 years due to the national challenges that Durden mentioned…great wars, great economic depressions, a cold war against a fierce enemy, a determination to build the best economy, a race to the moon. Since then….well, we’ve created rock music, built TV into a cultural behemoth, unleashed the Internet….but, what is that? I don’t mean to suggest we should WANT to storm the beaches of Normandy, but there is a difference.
Well, Darrin Patrick shows us the model to emulate–Jesus. He writes this:
In Jesus, we have the model of a determined man. He pressed on in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. He resisted comfort and approval, knowing what was at stake in his failure. He endured great suffering and shame because he had a greater joy. As the founder and perfecter of our faith, he saw the day when we would be with him in everlasting celebration. And though the weight of a broken world may cause us to complain and pout like boys, we have one who is not ashamed to call us his brothers (Hebrews 2:11). He is determined to grow us from boys to men.
As you move into 2015 and you wonder about goals to set, paths to take…I can’t tell you exactly what to do. No one can. However, I can exhort you to press on, never quitting. I can urge you to put down the game controller, turn off TV, get off all porn….all things that will drain you of real life and move you into a fantasy. Resist comfort. Resist ease. Your life is created for so, so much more! God invites you to His great journey of life. Come with him and live well.