What is Distinctive about Masculine Spirituality?

Is there a difference between the ways that men and women approach and grow spiritually? Is it better to call it masculine and feminine since the behaviors are not exclusive to one or the other sex? These questions have been in my mind for few years now, and while I don’t have an answer yet, I am beginning to identify some patterns.

My relationships in providing and receiving spiritual direction have primarily been with women. My spiritual directors have been women, my peer supervision group is women, even my therapist is a woman. I have great respect for all of them, for the understanding and skill they have offered, and all that I have learned. But there have been times when I wondered if they understood me.

Earlier this month I participated in retreat for male spiritual directors. The conversations had a distinctive flow, and in a very short time I felt like those who listened to me really did understand at a deep level. The way we told our stories, slowly sorting through things in our mind and cautiously exposing our feelings was different from how women tell their stories.

In Melting the Iceberg: Spiritual Direction for Men*, Don Bisson describes his perception that men often begin with an insight. Don describes a process in which he asks the man to personalize the insights into his present life struggles which causes the man to move to the center of his passion. As the conversation continues, often there is an “ah-ha” experience, and the man reconnects the insight into an emotional stance where he feels more whole.

My struggle has always been to integrate my head with my heart, to bring them together to create a new whole and basis for faith. Often what first emerges in my awareness is an idea or new insight. Then I grapple my way through my thoughts and emotions by journaling, looking for the ways the thoughts and emotions confirm or contradict each other. I will try out pieces in conversations to see how others respond. I monitor my reactions and try to relate the inner work to outside experiences. I try to listen for how God is acting in all of the conversations and relationships.

Writing for this blog has become another way to move through the process of pulling the thoughts together. By recording the fragments as they appear, and letting them keep arranging themselves as I write, discarding what doesn’t fit, I play with how it all fits together. Each of these essays reaches a point where I decide it is “good enough” as I try to let go of getting it “right” or perfect.

But is this common for other men? Don’t some women also find the same kind of dynamic flow and process? Is it just because I start in my mind, when many of the women I know seem to start with the emotions and their heart?

I don’t know, but the questions keep me on the journey.

*Donald Bisson, FMS. Melting the Iceberg: Spiritual Direction for Men. Presence: The Journal of Spiritual Directors International, vol. 6, no. 2 (May 2000) pp. 31-37.