Wounded Men and the Spirit

Often when men gather to tell their stories, and when trust is developed, the conversation moves below the surface and wounds are uncovered. This certainly occurred during the Men’s Institute at the recent Spiritual Directors International conference in Houston.

Through one journal writing exercise the men were invited to review their lives and identify eight to a dozen different steppingstones in which their spiritual journey changed direction. The steppingstones exercise, first developed by Ira Progoff, allowed each of the men to look back over his life and see those points that lead to the present situation.

Many recalled experiences of a deep wound. At some time later, there was a search for the meaning of the wound and how to integrate it into a future. As one man noted, we are healers of wounded men and are ourselves wounded men needing healing. There was a strong sense among the men of the connection between being wounded and significant spiritual awareness and/or growth.

Some men seek spiritual direction because of a crisis that has radically shifted the course of their life. Others may have been receiving spiritual direction for other reasons, but when a crisis occurs, seeing a spiritual director provides a different perspective upon the situation than other helping professions. For men, the crisis challenges our sense of control, the belief that we can protect ourselves and those we love from pain or turmoil, and the intellectual defenses that we have built up.

One man noted that in a situation where the director and the directee are men, just being in the presence of another man has a mutuality that cannot be replicated. While others noted that their directors have been women who effectively challenged and encouraged us in our growth as men. We all noted the difference in being men with men that we do not have the language to describe, at least not at this time, even though the difference feels significant.

At the same time, men are much less likely to intentionally seek out a formal relationship. One minister noted that he watches for men who arrive early for a meeting and hang nearby waiting to talk. Or, a man may be around the water cooler or any similar place where a casual conversation may be started. Once the conversation is started and a trust begins, a more private and separate time can be scheduled, and a deeper conversation begins.

As Kent Ira Groff wrote:

Ah! How is it stumbling stones
along our path
morph into steppingstones? Ah!

Masculine Spirituality: A New Beginning

In a recent publicity stunt, a snack food company declared Nashville the Most Macho City. Points were awarded for the number of sports teams, hardware stores, and monster truck rallies. Also adding to the score was the popularity of hunting and fishing, NASCAR and other “masculine” interests. Cities lost points for high numbers of home furnishing stores and minivans. While it is silly, don’t those descriptions fit all of our stereotypes for men?

Yet, at a recent meeting of men during the recent Spiritual Director’s International gathering revealed a different side of masculinity. The group included men who make ourselves available as guides to others on a journey to know God. We asked each other two simple questions focused on our understanding of ourselves a spiritual men: “what values do you hold sacred?” and “how do you live the sacred in your life?”

Many of the values generated by the group were what you would expect from a self-identified group of religious people. The most common value was “presence,” often in a phrase such as “attending presence” or “practice presence.” Other values describe an intentionality about prayer, such as sacred listening, stillness, silence, discipline of devotion and reverence. Yet, these are not common descriptions of men in the popular culture of our time.

Another group of values reflects our relationships, with love and being loved as a foundation of who we are. Different aspects of relationship are treasured such as honesty, truth, trust, humor and intimacy. As one person described, we desire the ability to see the universe in the other. While men are often portrayed as wanting to be Casanova, that is not the kind of love reflected in those values.

But as I reviewed the remaining values, the ones that stand out are those that stand in dramatic contrast to the Macho City award. Those values include gentleness, mutual mentoring, vulnerability, acceptance, humility and availability. Our gathering of men claimed values that are often assumed to belong to women, and are culturally seen as alien to men.

I have various memories that confirm those values as deeply masculine. I know that whenever I visit my father, we hug each other closely both when I arrive and again when I leave. It was a ritual that I initiated as I left for college and that Dad has joyfully joined. Even in times of difficulty, we know that hug conveys our deep love, our acceptance and our commitment to each other.

I remember when David’s son Jeremy was rocking Sam, just 10 days old in his lap. As gentle father he was willing to give up sleep so Ann could get much needed rest. It is an image of love from one generation of men to the next that I will treasure the rest of my life.

I remember David holding my hand tightly as I was waiting to be wheeled to have my inflamed appendix removed, his face reflecting my own sense of fear. He stayed available to me so I would not be alone, even as he felt vulnerable to his own fear.

While some of us learned those values through our own father or other males in our lives, often the opposite was true. One man in the group described how he was raised by a macho father who believed in the stereotype male role. That man learned about the other values of love, relationship and spirituality much later in life through his engagement in a church community. Others in the group described how their fathers had failed them in becoming a mature man, stories of pain, loss and abandonment. They were difficult stories to hear, yet needed to be told in a group of men for healing to occur.

Whether through positive or negative life experiences, we have claimed our values as spiritual men and try to live them in our lives as well as our ministry. We told our stories to each other, beginning to heal ourselves while also committing to the healing of those men who come to us as guides. It is a new beginning.