tuesday truth

May 23 2017

Wild: The Law

To be wild, to hear the heartbeat of nature, to feel the rush of adrenal strength, to drink from the fresh air and howl at the moon – these are things that are embedded into men.

The law of the wild – the order – the code if you will, matters. When we talk about living wild, we’re not talking about living without morals.

There has to be honor.

I know that some men define honor differently. Jack Donovan says the word honor has its root in the glory that came from ancient warriors who fought valiantly. He claims that now that we’ve spread out the honor like a participation trophy to anyone who does something good – we’ve stripped it all away.

I can’t say I agree wholeheartedly, but he makes a good point.

A man of honor, though, isn’t just a brave or strong man, he’s a man with integrity, who KNOWS right from wrong, and lives it.

He needs no government to enforce it. While he may be spiritual and commune with God, he doesn’t require religion to police his behavior. If he is a spiritual man who communes with God – he doesn’t follow the code because he is frightened of lightning or hell, he follows the code because his friend is God.

Regardless of his faith or lack thereof though – we live in an age that struggles to define that code. Right and wrong have slipped away in the tsunami of relativism. While some things in life are relative – the truth is – somethings just aren’t relative!

I can’t begin to answer the questions that living in a relativistic society dredges up. As a Christian, I’m often accused of being judgmental, because I have a believe in the idea of moral absolutes.

I know that not everyone shares my judeo-christian worldview. I don’t expect everyone to do so… but I do think that as our culture has become more secular, they have perhaps thrown out a few babies with the bathwater – and neglected moral codes that were previously accepted as universal in their attempts to distance themselves from Christianity.

I know we won’t agree on what morals are universal. I get that. But I would encourage you to determine what your code is.

May 16 2017

Wild: The Fire

To be wild, to hear the heartbeat of nature, to feel the rush of adrenal strength, to drink from the fresh air and howl at the moon – these are things that are embedded into men.

Something else that we’ve lost when our culture became civilized and pushed out the wild men – the fire.

Today, we gather around the television and let people tell us stories, with the imagination already painted for us. Or we pretend to gather in virtual communities – typing with our thumbs and sending each other cat videos and poop emojis.

But in the WILD – men gathered around a fire at the end of the evening. The fire cooked the food from the hunt. It kept the predators away. It kept the tribe warm.

But more importantly than that, it united them. It gave them communion with each other, with the stories of their ancestors.

They laughed, sang, and told stories while the little ones fell asleep in daddy’s lap.

Generations later, we brought the fire from the outside to the inside, in stone hearths. Our tribes were smaller, but the same thing happened. Grandpa played his fiddle, Pa smoked his pipe. Grandma braided hair and they told stories of the good old days.

Today, our heat is made from underground pipes or copper coils. Our songs are auto-tuned, and we all listen to our own with our Beats by Dre or earbuds. Our stories aren’t even our own anymore – as we stopped having real adventures generations ago. OR we’re afraid that Grandpa’s war stories might frighten the children, or trigger the young and traumatized adults. (When Grandpa was their age, he was in ‘Nam dodging bullets.) But now Grandpa lives in Florida, or in a nursing home, rather than to spend his remaining years with his loved ones.

Can we recapture the tribal fire? Can we sit with our band of brothers, their wives, kids, moms, and dads and tell stories again? Can we teach our kids that electronics are nice, but sometimes the untamed and raw beauty of a fire is what our soul really craves?

May 9 2017

Wild: The Hunt

To be wild, to hear the heartbeat of nature, to feel the rush of adrenal strength, to drink from the fresh air and howl at the moon – these are things that are embedded into men.

Hunting today isn’t what it once was. We used to hunt because it was life. We didn’t hunt, we didn’t eat. Now, it’s a sport, a multi-billion dollar industry. A government managed program that requires permits, fancy orange vests, and expensive equipment.

At the core of the wild is the idea that we must seek, stalk, kill, and haul our prey home to feed our young.

It was a right of passage for young men for generations – to get that first kill. To take the life of an animal, and to learn that our life depends on the life of another.

I understand that there are some that don’t eat meat -but don’t think for a minute that you aren’t still killing SOMETHING when you pluck that carrot out of its dirty ground!

Our cultured and shiny environment now doesn’t require people to get their hands dirty. If you go to the store to buy meat, you buy meat. You don’t see the beating heart, the twitching nerves, or the cold stare left behind by the animal that gave its flesh for you.

Today – our “hunt” may be translated to many things.

• Rites of Passage. What rites do we use to identify our maturity into manhood? What ritual marks a teenage son turning to a man? What ritual marks a man turning to an elder? I fear we may have dropped many of these by the wayside, and I think we must begin to resurrect them.

“Men cannot be men—much less good or heroic men—unless their actions have meaningful consequences to people they truly care about. Strength requires an opposing force, courage requires risk, mastery requires hard work, honor requires accountability to other men. Without these things, we are little more than boys playing at being men, and there is no weekend retreat or mantra or half-assed rite of passage that can change that. A rite of passage must reflect a real change in status and responsibility for it to be anything more than theater. No reimagined manhood of convenience can hold its head high so long as the earth remains the tomb of our ancestors”

— Jack Donovan (The Way of Men)

• Strenuous Activity. Chasing a deer through the woods, wrestling a bear to the ground, or even holding perfectly still to avoid chasing off the rabbit are all strenuous. They build strength and speed in us. What are we doing to build strength today? Are you active? Are you moving? Are you training to build your body better than it is?

“Training for me is a metaphor for life. Period. The Dedication. The Determination. The Desire. The Work Ethic. The great success and the great failures – I take that into life.” – Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

• Respect for the source. In many cultures, a hunter or farmer would say a prayer as he slit the throat of his animal so that it could be bled out. He respected the beast that would feed his family. Now, we could have a long talk about the evils of factory farming, but that’s another topic for another day. The crux here is: Are we grateful for the sources of our provision today? Do we show respect for the company where we earn our cash? Do we show honor and respect for the work and for the hunt for our success? Or do we just demand and assume that our wealth will be handed to us?

May 2 2017

Wild: The Call

To be wild, to hear the heartbeat of nature, to feel the rush of adrenal strength, to drink from the fresh air and howl at the moon – these are things that are embedded into men.

Men are wild, mighty, and fierce. Yet our culture wraps silky ropes around our necks, and shaves our faces, and trims our nails. The wildman isn’t quite socially acceptable. It’s not okay to have dirt under your fingernails, or to kill your own dinner.

We don’t have to reject civilization entirely, there is a time and a place for manners and polite conversation and neckties and cologne.

But I believe that all men, even the dandier, fluffier ones, have a call – drums beating in the distance – that beckons them into the wild.

“But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called — called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.”

― Jack London, The Call of the Wild

Fury. Sometimes, yes. Wild fury and righteous anger stirs up in the hearts of men. Driving them to action, to battle, to fight. Hopefully, it’s tempered with the code, with the order. Fury must be kept in check, and be used to propel justice, to free the oppressed, to protect.

Tests of Strength. From the time boys are young, they enter contests, either alone or with their brothers, and their fathers – to see how strong they are. Wrestling, weightlifting, arm-wrestling, “bloody knuckles,” Chinese hot-hands, even thumb wrestling. This wild behavior may seem reminiscent of goats butting their heads against each other, or bears mawing at each other’s necks…. But it’s a part of who we are. We don’t necessarily outgrow it. And that rough and tumble tug-of-war helps shape us, helps bond us together, and helps remind us who we want on our side if there is a time to fight.

The call of the wild pushes men to success. It drives men to be refreshed in nature. As long as we wrap it up in silk and lace and soap, it will still be there.

“He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars.”

― Jack London, The Call of the Wild

“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.

This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad in a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight.”

― Jack London, The Call of the Wild

April 25 2017

Sprung: Reinvigorate Your Life – Reimagine your situation

The winter is in your mind.
You know those times when everything has gone WRONG for so long, and you feel like you just can’t get a win? When you’re tired of just going through the motions? When you feel weary from the road?

Take a minute and fast forward to your desired outcome. What does your life look like if you were to lose the weight? What does your marriage look like if you fix the problems? What do your kids look like when they grow up?

Try not to imagine the worst case scenario, but the best one. Then trace your steps back to where you are standing. What steps do you have to make to get there? What changes do you have to make? What sacrifices and hard work will you have to put in?

These rough patches sometimes feel permanent -but they usually aren’t. Especially if you are taking the time to imagine a better path, and to make the changes and put in the work to get there.

April 18 2017

Sprung: Reinvigorate Your Life – Reignite your Spirit

Spring is in the air. The smell of mud and the opening of tree buds just seems to wake up not only the world outside our windows, but it seems to awaken something in us.

Men, let’s take advantage of the natural cycle of the universe to reinvigorate our lives!

Many men have a hard time with the spiritual. They struggle with the idea that spirit exists. Why? Because it’s not knowable. It’s not tangible. And talk of the spiritual gets muddied up by 18 million different religious viewpoints.

I may subscribe to one of those viewpoints, and I’m sure my writing will reflect it. But I’m not here to preach about why my viewpoint is right and others are wrong. (even if I do believe so)

What I’m here to do – is to tell you that the spiritual is real, and you’ve got to keep that fire going. Inside each of us is a spirit that drives us. It’s fueled by creativity, art, poetry, beauty. It’s fueled by thought, conversation, reading.

If you neglect the spiritual part of you, the rest of you will feel hungry for purpose and passion.

How do you reignite it, after a long “winter”?

1. Do what makes you feel alive.
I’m not saying, “ do whatever you want” or “just make yourself happy”
I’m saying, there are moments in your life when you felt alive. For me – it’s often when I’m performing music on stage, speaking to a large group of people, hiking in the woods, or writing. You might feel alive tossing the football in the backyard, hunting that big buck, or building a house. Take some time to identify what makes you feel alive – and do more of it.

2. Define or revisit your code.
Spirituality has a code of ethics. That’s why religion usually has a list of do’s and don’ts…. Because morality is closely tied with the spiritual. I know. People don’t like to think about it. I’ve already lost some of you – who can’t handle the fact that anyone would dare tell you to be moral. Take the time to define your code of ethics, or to revisit that code to make sure it lines up with who you are.

3. Try something new.
2016 was a crazy year for me. I started a new desk job, gained a bunch of weight, and neglected a number of things. I decided one day that I was sick of it and needed to change things. So I started doing and discovering things I didn’t think I could do. I hiked six miles. I lost 40 pounds. I tried on a sweatshirt that I could never wear and it fit. I ice-skated at my daughter’s birthday party. I emceed a major event (in a tux). It was just an amazing year after I decided to do new things. It made me feel like I had awakened. 2017 is shaping up even better.

April 11 2017

Sprung: Reinvigorate Your Life – Reboot your Body

I’m in the process of losing weight – and so I’m particularly aware of my body right now.
But i do know this – our bodies do respond to the seasons! During the winter time, it’s not unusual to pack on a few extra pounds, as we fight off the cold and are often less active.

A reboot in the spring is a great way to get things moving, and add a little more energy into your life as a whole.

I’ve found that adding movement to my routine helps me to fight off depression, keeps my focus on track, and just in general, makes me feel better!

Here are some tips for your body reboot.

1. Revisit your eating plan.
If you aren’t regularly tracking your calories, tracking them at least for a few weeks gives you a good snapshot of what your diet looks like, and if you need to adjust it. Use an app like fitbit or myfitness pal to see how many calories you should be eating, and how many you are eating. Remember – if weight loss is your goal, you have to burn more than you take in. If you want to bulk up- you’ll need to make adjustments to your diet as well. Consider paying a few bucks to meet with a nutritionist.

2. Fasting
This isn’t for everybody – but many people say that a three day fast from solid food, or maybe fasting from a particular kind of food for a week helps them to reset their cravings. There are some mental and spiritual benefits too, as the act of delaying your cravings tends to build a different layer of focus in your life. Don’t try this if you have any health issues, or without talking to a doctor.

3. Change your workout.
Fitness folks call them “plateaus” – those times when you stop losing weight (or stop building muscle) despite all your hard work. Sometimes, you need to radically change your routine to shock your body back into performance mode.
I’ve found in general, if I do the same thing all the time, I get bored with it anyway.
Take a hike instead of the treadmill. Swim instead of yoga. Mix up your strength training to try something different.

April 4 2017

Sprung: Reinvigorate Your Life – Refresh your Mind

3. Get aggressive. If you notice that you have been negative – make it a point to fight against the negative thoughts, replacing them with positive thoughts. Make a concerted effort to practice rebuking each bad thought. (out loud, if you have to!) “No. I will not think like this way!”

March 28 2017

Lion or Lamb? Gentleman doesn’t mean pansy

We’ve long said that March comes in and goes out inversely like a Lion or a Lamb. The thought of being one or the other may be a bit frightening for men. Especially in a culture that no longer appreciates the fierce and bold virtues that once marked manhood.
Being a gentleman does not mean that a man gives up his strength – that a man is a pansy.

Interestingly enough, my grandmother always told me that a pansy was actually a tough flower. It could stand against the cold, and grow in pretty adverse conditions… it still though has a reputation for being “girly” – and the flower’s name has been embedded culturally to imply weakness or a lack of masculinity.

Men – to be a gentleman is a noble calling. It means that you treat people with respect. That you demonstrate politeness, it may mean that you are neat in your appearance, and that you have earned a degree of respect for your knowledge, your artistic abilities, your ability with words, with numbers, or some other “civilized” skill.

You might also be a lumberjack, a rig hand, or a truck drive, and be a gentleman in the way you interact with people.

But there’s definitely an element of respect shown and received, based on a degree of civility.

This civility does not erase the wild, passionate strength that lies in a man’s heart. A gentleman can hold his own in a bout of fisticuffs or fencing. He can heft a child on to his shoulders, pick up his bride to carry her over the threshhold, and defend the tender things he holds dear with ferocity and strength.

My thoughts on this are two-fold.

1. Just because you wear a tie to work, or drive a minivan, or eat kale – does not exempt you from the wilder side of manhood. Make sure that you know how to defend yourself and the things and people you love. Make sure you keep your physical body strong and ready to perform.

2. Inversely, just because you are a strong and brave, do not neglect the tender touches needed in civilized life. Say Please and Thank you. Snuggle with your children. Read poetry. These things do not affect your ability to be manly. In fact, I believe they enhance them.

March 21 2017

Lion or Lamb? How and when to follow

We’ve often been told that men need to be the alpha. And this of course, relates to the idea that we need to be the most aggressive wolf (or lion) in the pack (or pride).
They tell us to show now mercy, to build and demonstrate strength. To strive to lead at all costs.

I don’t buy into the whole “alpha male” nonsense.

What are we, animals?

No. We are men! And men come in different strokes and sizes.

If the whole pack of wolves was alpha… You know the pack would die right?

There are different roles in the pack.

And we are supposed to be better then the animals…. And they already know that everyone can’t be alpha!

Sometimes, we need to live aggressively. Sometimes we need to lead the pack. But sometimes, we need to follow, to obey, to submit. To show compassion, to show mercy, to show love.

Honestly, I think what we need more on this planet is more men that know when to lead, and when to follow.

Historically, Jesus gets a lot of flack of saying “the meek will inherit the earth.”
For some reason, the english word meek has a connotation of weakness and lowliness.
But the word in the greek – πράος (práos) was often use to describe a horse that had been “broken” for saddle riding. That horse is obedient to his master – but you still can’t deny it’s strength, and the passion inside of it. The word implies “strength under control.”

I think what we need in this world are men who don’t think of themselves higher than they are. Men who have the strength to crush, but the self-control to know when not to.

Men who know when to lead and when to follow.

Men! Rise up and lead, love and learn!