“We live in a world full of males who have prolonged their adolescence.  They are neither boys nor men. They live, suspended as it were, between childhood and adulthood, between growing up and being grownups.  Let’s call this kind of male Ban, a hybrid of both boy and man (Darrin Patrick).”  “The Peter Pan Syndrome” or “failure…

Stu Weber in his book “The heart of the tender warrior” observes that a man’s greatest strength is “staying power.”  This is  particularly seen  in men being able to make promises and then keeping them.  He quotes Lewis Smedes, “When a man make a promise, he creates an island of certainty in a heaving ocean of uncertainty….when you…

Anthony Esolen in his new book, “Out of the ashes” gives the reader a “trigger warning” regarding a quote from Henry James’ novel, The Bostonians, in which the character, Basil Ransom expresses his desire to save men from the most “damnable feminization.”  I have often used the term “feminizing” in my blogs.  The quote expresses the changing climate  of the culture with the passing of…

As one of the elders in our Evangelical Free church, I am committed  to supporting, encouraging  and working alongside our new pastor, who is a young man (34).  As his head elder, I am 75. I often think back to the days when I was young pastor.  Recently I was reflecting on the three years (age 32-35), when I…

On Easter Sunday as I listened to my pastor’s sermon, I was struck by the words of Jesus in John 1o, declaring his authority to both lay his life down and take it up again.  Both the timing and events leading to his death were a choice  Jesus made because he rested in the love of His Father.  “The Father…