Category: Wildman Journey (Page 83 of 85)

As we men go about our everyday life, we forget that our present Western culture is a product of ideas that were planted centuries ago in Western consciousness.  As these ideas grew and flourished, they brought forth their fruit over time.   This fruit produced behavior that is present in culture t0day.  One such idea is the individualism and hyper-individualism that pervades our culture.  While my focus in this blog is more on the soul, the mind matters a great deal.  How our worldview is shaped and informed deeply effects how we men live and have our being in a post-modern ago.  Kierkegaard warned us, “We live forward, but we can only think backward.”   

James White in his book, “Serious Times” makes this point very simply.  He talks about the “second fall.”  We know about Adam and Eve and the first fall.  White suggests, “The first fall led to God’s explusion of humans from the Garden of Eden.  The second fall occurred when we returned the favor.  The leaders of science and commerce, of education and political machination have ceased operating with any reference to a transcendent truth, much less a deity.”  This is new in Western history.  We lives without a need for God.  My concern is how this effects men and their self-understanding

One of these “seed ideas” was planted by a  Christian philosopher named Boethius in the 6th century.  This simple idea has grown to greatly impact our day.  He defined a person as “an individual substance of a rational nature.”   This definition implies that we are basically “self-enclosed” persons, who are primarily rational beings.  There is nothing in this definition that points to the importance of relationships and the intutive-imaginative aspect our the heart.  We are “separate selves with individual centers of consciousness.”  In other words, we can do it alone.  We don’t need help.  We can “fix” ourselves and others

From the seeds of this thought our modern Western understanding of  persons has been evovled to that of  free, rational subjects who act on their own. From this has come the emphasis on individualism. with the priority on thinking.  The John Wayne and Rambo mentality is found in this idea.  Women have suffered for years in our culture, because men have not valued the importance of personal relationships, fearful of knowing what is hidden in their hearts.   Men have attempted in our culture to control with their reason.  But men are finding that influence is not in power and control, but in “servant relationships.”  Women in our day are saying “enough is enough.”  Men are waking up to the awareness that we live with a new personal consciousness today.  It is is focused on relationships and the personal.

A wildman would totally agree.  A wildman would say yes to the need for dependent relationships.  He can not stand alone.  He is in needs others.  A wild man is like a man “coming out of the cold,” having been locked in his enclosed self for years.  He is asking for help to know how to relate to the significant others in his lives.  He is learning to climb out of the control tower of reason, into the rewarding, yet dangerou  freedom of personal relationships, where feelings and desires are being expressed.  Yes, a wild man is a new bread of man in our day.

Like most men, Job struggled to understand the involvement of God in his life.  His experience brought him to the place of humiliation, as he humbly surrendered in dependance to God.  He made the following confession. “You asked, ‘Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?’  It is I – and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me.  You said, ‘Listen and I will speak!  I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.’  I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.  I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance” (Job 42:3-6  NLT).  Instead of resistance, Job was brought to the freedom of dependence.  As a wildman can you identify your resistance to God, especially when you don’t understand God’s ways in your life?  Then can you embrace dependance regarding the mystery of God’s will for you as Job did?  He ended up being content to let God be God, far beyond his comprehension.

I thought of this verse when I reflected on  words from Thomas Keating reminding us that we are more then our thoughts and feelings.  Men are not comfortable with the mystery of God, especially trying to discern his involvement in our lives.  But God’s way are far beyond our thoughts and feelings.  God tells us, “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts…and my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine” (Isaiah 55:8 NLT).  He will not bow to our desires and demands.  To come to the realization that we are more than what we think and feel can be very liberating, indeed.  For God is present in our lives far beyond our consciousness aware of Him.  Job expressed this freedom when he could say, “I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me.”  Now he saw with spiritual eyes, saying,  “now I have seen you with my own eyes.”   Paul refers to this as, “having the eyes of your heart enlightened” (Eph 1:18).  Job humbly repented of all his wrong thinking in his relationship to God.  

“Humiliation.” Keating reminds us, “is the way to humility.”  I am finally coming to see that humiliation is a good experience, even though it is hard on my male ego.  Surrender in dependance and weakness to the Lord, is the path to freedom.  “Humility,” says Keating, “is very close to trust and hope.”  For hope is found as we learn to trust God.  It is not based on what I think or do, but on the fact that God is good and merciful. 

My distorted thoughts and confused emotions are not who I really am in Christ.  My life is Christ is hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3).  There is plenty of mystery here.   As I learn to surrender my old patterns of sin  to his will, I will gain a confidence that  God truly desires my best.  In humble dependance on the Lord, “we know that whatever happens, the love of God is always with us and that He will turn even our failures into perfect love.”

Yesterday we had another “wildman” Saturday retreat here at Canaan’s Rest.  Since our place is a “prayer house” we do not have a large space for overnights.  We can  hold up to 8 to 10.  So day retreats for a larger group work out best.  There were 11 of us yesterday.  Many have been to most of the wildman retreats.  Yesterday we had two new guys.  It was a good mix of regulars and new-comers.  The energy and commitment makes the spiritual dynamic significant.  I always come away deeply encouraged by what God can do with a group of men, wanting change.  These are men who want to go below the surface.  I keep learning new things each time we meet.

I want to share one new insight that I came to me as I experienced the dynamic of a “Wildman” retreat. Remember I have said in previous blogs, that men are going to have to get together in committed groups in the days to come, if they are going to find their masculine soul.  The culture will be a hinderence, with its confused and even negative messages.  The church, in many cases,  has proven to be unreliable in giving “soul care” to men.  The feminine voice can help only to a degree.  What is needed is the “community voice” of other males.

The word that came to me as we met, was the word “thaw.”  As men shared their stories of faith coming from their deep masculine soul, men in the group could identity with the stories. It gave men permission to risk sharing, what Thomas Keating calls the “undigested emotional material”  that is “warehoused in the body in the form of afflictive emotions such as grief, shame, humiliation, anger, discouragement, loneliness, desolation and the sense of rejection.”  Notice Father Keating calls this material “afflictive emotions.”  They are “warehoused” inside, effective our whole body.  The “tiger” in the tank of many men are the “afflictive emotions that need to be released from the inner “warehouse.”  The cry of their hearts is “how can God help me to change?”  A “band of brothers” can help with the birthing process in which the pain is acknowledged and brought forth

When the “thawing” comes to a group of men, you can almost feel a sense of relief in the air, as men realize they are not alone and unique with their deep, hidden stories of defeat, failure and shame.  Our wildmen gatherings have a strong component that is similiar to AA meetings in which we,  “admit that we are powerless over our sin and that our lives have become unmangeable.”  As a man begins to experience a “thawing” of his soul, he can begin to admit his “dark side” to a group of other men.  The awareness that it is 0.k. to do so and to experience loving acceptance in the inner struggle bring a new freedom for men.  They come to the awareness that they are not alone, but they are is the company of wildmen” who share a similiar story and are on the same journey

I thought of the words of Paul in Ephesians 4:2 as I reflected on the thawing effect. “Always be humble and gentle, be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.”  For any man reading this blog, I strongly encourage you to find a group of men, who are both “humble and gentle.”  In such a context there can be  foundations laid for “space” to be cultivate an honesty about what is going on in the soul.  For it is when men make “allowance” for each other’s faults, that such space is created. Henri Nowen calls it “hospitality.”  When this is done in love among brothers, there can be a remarkable thawing affect.   Rmember men, you will not thraw out on your own.  Your wife knows that you need thawing, but she can’t help, in many cases.

I have been preparing for a “wildman” Saturday retreat.  This group of men are very open to dealing with the masculine soul.  Saturday we will be reflecting on the healing light of  Jesus’ presence in our hearts.  The greatest healing has come to my soul and many other men I have walked with when we can visualize the light of Christ coming to those dark places of our souls.  As you read this devotional, allow yourself to embrace by the healing light of Jesus, as he invites you to come forth from your darkn places of hiding. 

When a man trusts Christ as his Savior, the Lord Jesus comes to dwell in his heart (soul).  The presence of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit enters to live within his heart.  “And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us” (I John 2:24 NLT).  Paul reminds us that this presence is first and foremost the  presence of love.  “How dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love” (Rom 5:5 NLT).  Love fills our deepest being.  God comes to live and breathe in the soul of a man.  “It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life.  With his Spirit living in you, your body will be alive as Christ’s!”  (Rom. 8:10-11  –  The Message)

The reality is that the presence of Christ in the soul of a man makes him alive to the loving presence of God.  This is a startling awareness for a wildman – “Wow, God is alive in me,”  bringing the very creative, healing light of his presence.  “For God who said, ‘Let there be light in the darkness,’ has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ”  (II Cor 4:6 NLT).  God’s glory is his presence manifested through Jesus in the deepest recesses of  man’s soul.  So, men keep your focus on Jesus.  Attention needs to be given to this inner light.  Peter reminds us, “We couldn’t be more sure of what we saw and heard – God’s glory, God’s voice.  The prophetic Word was confirmed to us.  You’ll do well to keep focusing on it.  It’s the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your heart”  (II Peter 1:19 – The message)

I encourage you men, from my own personal experience, not to shy away from the light of  Christ shining in your souls.  He sees everything.  He simply waits for you to come into his healing presence.  Remember the light is first and foremost the loving presence of God.  There is nothing to fear.  “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear.  If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love”  (I John 45:18 NLT).  In running away we run from loving reality, to live in denial and illusion.  “This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness.  They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God.  Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure”  (John 3:19-20  –  The Message)

Some years ago, when I first read Larry Crabb’s book, “The Silence of Adam” I found his description of “recipe theology” helpful, as well as convicting.  Let me explain.  In his book Crabb makes the distinction between “recipe theology” and “transcendent theology.”  Recipe theology is most comfortable in what Crabb calls “the sphere of management.”  The sphere of management, “exists wherever things are more or less predictable, where there is order that can be understood well enough so that we can use it to make our live work as we want.”  Richard Rohr calls that living in our control towers.  Men, that is what we do so naturally.  But there comes a time when God asks us to not just get out, but rather to “jump”  out of the control tower.  That is a frightening prospect for men.  But wild men know this is what must take place at some point on the journey.  

What Crabb advocates for a wild man, that is, a man getting in touch with his passion, is “transcendent theology.”  Transcendent theology “exists wherever we are dealing with things that are finally unpredictable, where whatever order exists cannot be understood well enough to give us the control we desire.”  In other words, get out of the control tower. A man finally comes to the realization that living in the tower of control does not bring fulfillment.  Fulfillment will come as we get in touch with the life of God within.  The psalmist put it will when he said, “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires” (Ps. 37:4 NLT). 

Crabb observes that, “masculinity begins to grow when a man asks questions for which he knows there are no answers.”  Men, there will always be mysteries in our lives.  Just think about your relationships with women, and especially your wife.  God asks us to enter the confusion, where relationally we have little control or understanding of what will happen.  A wild man is one who is learning to embrace the darkness brought about by the chaos of relationships.   He will have to admit, “I don’t know what to do.” 

This is the place of dependence and humility.  We come the the point of not knowing what to do or think, particularly in relationships.   As men, Crabb suggests, we have to ask the question, “Do I have what it takes to do what a real man is called by God to do?”    The answer, of course, is no.  We are not capable of navigating the confusion and sometimes chaos of personal relationships.  We need to come to Jesus in humility and brokenness, asking that our hearts might be transformed.  Remember men, the work always begins on the inside, in the deep hidden place of our soul, where all those secrets of hidden.  Turn your heart to Jesus, and embrace the light of his presence.  He will lead you in the darkness and confusion.  Above all, don’t be a afraid to enter the darkness.  I submit to you, that it is the cowardly man that will not jump out of the control tower and embrace the darkness.

I have been away from the blog site for over four weeks.  Judy and I have been on an extended trip, visiting friends and the families of our three children.  In the meantime, Judy has begun to do her daily devotions on our blog site.  I must say that I admire her faithfulness in posting her devotional every day.  I know from the testimony of many, that her devotions are read by many and then passed on to others.  I believe God has given Judy the gift of writing, especially in letter writing.  She has done that as long as I have known her.  Now it seems that that gift is being used on the internet.  I would ask you, who are friends of this site, to pray for the ministry of Judy’s blog.

For all who read my blog and Judy’s devotion, I want to give testimony to the great treasure God has given to me in my wife of over 44 years.  She is the most consistent and gracious Christian I know.  I am truly blest of God to have her as my help-mate.  Other then my relationship to the Lord, my relationship with Judy has been the most formative.  She has stood by my side through it all, encouraging me and believing in me as a man.  Much of the healing of my male soul is do to her acceptance of me as I am and the belief that God could bring change to my life. 

Well, enough about Judy and I.  I will probably write more about her and I in the day to come.  Just one thought for “wild men” today, as I get back in the groove of writing.  In my devotions one day I was struck by this verse from Ps 77:19.  “Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters – a path no one knew was there!”  I was struck personally by the last part of the verse.  For me it meant that as I follow the Lord, he will make a way, even when I am not sure there is a path to follow.   In my own spirit I wondered if the promise of a path being there is an encouragement for me to know that in the days to come, there will be a path to follow as I keep my eyes on Jesus.  Do you are a “wildman” have wonderings about your direction.  God promises that a path will be there.

Judy and I are going to be traveling for the next four to five weeks.  We are going to see friends in Washington state, followed by visits with our children and their families, in Colorado, Texas and Kansas.  So I am not to sure how much I will be posting.  I will be back on the blog in mid Oct.  I hope that the wildman journey is stimulating some thoughts for you and creating a yearning in your soul to find new freedom in Christ, as you discov er the depths and riches of your soul life.

Again I must say, that what drives this “monk in the woods” to keep blogging is the conviction that men, both young and older, need to be in dialogue and conversation with each other about the male soul.  I have a deep sense that there are men out there who desire to be in fellowship with other men, who yearn to go beyond the programs, words and normal expectations of men in the church, to a place of deeper awareness of the soul.  Our being transformed by Christ, begins in the soul.  One of my favorite images, is that of God rearranging the furniture in the soul. 

I am only one small voice in the northwoods.  There could be other voices that need to be heard.  I might be just the person in the woods, priming the pump so that others can express their struggles, frustration and reservations concerning their soul life.  Remember we as wildmen have to do this for ourselves.  In the church we have for to long depended on the feminine voice to express what is a male spirituality.  It is time for men to rise up and do their soul work for themselves.  We need men who are strong in heart and soul, who know who they are in Christ.

In my last post I mentioned the name of James Houston.  As I continue to write on the blog, his influence will become apparent.  In one of his earlier books which I read in the early 90’s, Dr Houston introduced me to the concept of  “the double knowledge.”  It comes from the thought of Augustine when he gave this spiritual principle.  “Let me know thee, Oh God and let me know myself, that is all.”  The implications of this concept have been very healing in my own life.  I have come to realize that I not only need to know God but that I need to know myself, especially the bad and the ugly.  For most of my adult life I hid from and did not want to bring to life the bad.  I tried being good as a pastor, caught in a performance trap, that would sap much of my spiritual energy.  

Dr Houston has pointed out that the concept of the double knowledge has been lost to  the church in the last century.  It was basic teaching for spiritual growth throughout most of the history of the church.  It was especially with enlightenment thinking that we began to disregard the inner life, giving strong preference to reasonable, pragmatic knowledge.  The focus was on explanation and doing. The mystery of the soul was disregard,being relegated to the superstition of religion.  This  lead to the disappearance of the soul.  We have suffered from this loss ever since.  The church as a whole lost the ministry of the “care of souls.”   We became impoverished in our inner life.  There were few teachers to guide us back into our souls.  In our postmodern age, we are now trying to recover the soul.

Now when I say, we need to take the inner journey, or look inward, I am not talking about getting focused on the self.  Leanne Payne calls that “the disease of introspection.”  Rather I am suggesting that we become aware of what is within our souls in the light and presence of Jesus in our hearts.  We take the journey with him. We look to him to be our guide.  Always as we are being lead on the inner journey, we are to have our “faith look” as that of “looking up and out” to Jesus. 

I will write more about this idea of the double knowledge in some forthcoming posts.  I want at this point to simply testify to the great relief it was for me to know that in the presence of Christ I could accept myself.  David Benner points out, “Self-acceptance and self-knowing are deeply interconnected.  To truly know something about yourself, you must accept it.  Even things about yourself that you most deeply want to change must first be accepted – even embraced.”  Notice – I must first embrace what is there, before it can be changed.  I simply can’t deny reality. 

I am learning to accept the self that is really me.  I am finding that I can accept and welcome those bad parts and not trying to hide them.  Again, from Benner, “Any hope that you can know yourself without accepting the things about you that you wish were not true is illusion.  Reality must be embrace before it can be changed.”  Men, I want you to know that coming to see the reality of who youreally are and not hiding from it, knowing that God sees it all yet loves you deeply in your stink, is revolutionary.  What might you be trying to hid from?  What are you refusing to embrace?  A wild man is someone who is coming out of hiding,  because he knows that God loves him in his totality.  I can picture wild men coming out of hiding, into the light, rising up to be men of faith who have love and praise as the weapons for the battles ahead.

The Psalmist know that he couldn’t hide from God. “Then I said to myself, ‘Oh, he even sees me in the dark!  At night I’m immersed in the light.’  It’s a fact; darkness isn’t dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.”  (Ps. 139:12  – The Message).  A wild man is one who is willing to walk in the light of Jesus, having been given the grace to take the inner journey, as the inner darkness is exposed and then healed by the light of Jesus.  That which remains hidden does not find the relief of the healing light of Jesus’ presence.  Listen to The Message, “But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience, a shared life with one another, as he sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son,purges all our sin”  (I John 1:7)

The man that I consider my most significant mentor, is a man who I have only met once and that was only over lunch.  But his books and tapes, however,  have had a great impact on my life.  His name is James Houston, who for years had the chair of spiritual theology at Regent College in Vancover.  His book “The Desire – Satisfying the Heart” greating influenced both my head and heart when I first read it in 1990.  After I read the book and spent months digesting its message, I finally came to a comfortable understanding that it is ok to be both a thinking and feeling person. The great need was for integration.  Dr Houston and Leanne Payne have been formative in my being able to integrate my head and heart.  They both have fed both my mind and heart.

Dr. Houston makes this important observation about human nature.  “The unsatisfied longing for God is what drives human beings above all else.”  He quotes Augustine: “The whole life of the good Christian is a holy longing.  What you desire ardently, as yet you do not see…..by withholding of the vision, God extends the longing; through longing he extends the soul, by extending it he makes room in it….So…..let us long because we are to be filled…..that is our life, to be excercised by longing.” 

God has filled our heart with desire.  The desire is for him.  But remember men, if God is not the focus of our desires, they will run amok in all directions, being expressed in unruly passions and diseased emotions.  We need to acknowledge that we are passionate men with deep emotions.  God has made us that way.  The task, and it is a journey of a life time, is the “right ordering of love.”  In other words, what we are attached to will rule our desires.  Basil Penningtom suggests that our false self is attached to three things: 1) concern about what we have, 2) concern about what we do, and 3) concern about what others think of us.  A focus on any of these three will distort our affections for God.  We do not, however, need to strive for Godly affections.  God has put into our hearts “gracious affections” (Jonathan Edwards).  “For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love” ( Rom. 5:5).   

One more quote from Augustine, “My soul is like a house, small for you to enter, but I pray you to enlarge it.  It is in ruins, but I ask you to remake it.  It contains much that you will not be pleased to see: this I know and do not hide.”  As we begin to rightly order our affections, the inner space in our hearts in enlarged because we are making room for God.   God is then able by His Spirit to renew and restore that which has been in chaos.  With more inner space and peace our  desires for God are awakened and we desire more of him.  Remember again, transformation is an inside job.  Jesus promised us, “All who love me will do what I do.  My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them” (John 14:23).

Richard Rohr makes this very perceptive observation about men and the women in their lives.  “Women for the most part carry our feeling world.”  Oh, how true this was in my home, in my church and often in my marriage.  Just observe the ordinary interaction between men and women in our culture.  When it comes to “the heart” stuff men more or less go silent in the discussion or simply stay in the “control tower” of descriptive and factual language.  That is why in so many churches women meet to talk about spiritual needs and desires, while men prefer to do things for the church.

My mother set the tone emotionally in my family.  My dad was silent.  So as a boy I learned intutively more about emotional expression from my mother.  I had a lot of emotional energy that was expressed either wrongly or never got expressed.  It took me many years before I felt there was any significant  integration of my thought life with my soul life.  This insecurity made me defensive, feeling very inadequate in my self expression of my true self. I had deep gut level feelings that I was not able to give expression to in a healthy way.  My inner world was a kind of confusing fog of emotions and negative images.  I just didn’t have the words to express what I felt, nor did I have any confidence that I could express it clearly. 

I have found that many men are not comfortable talking about their deeper faith issues because their experience in the life of the church has been one of women dominating the discussion.  While we need to be thankful for all the women who have passed on the faith to us men, what is so often painfully missing is the male voice and male role model of faith.  This absence of the male voice spiritual at home, in society and especially the church, has been very damaging.  Men have gone “back in the weeds” spiritually, acknowledging that they are not as spiritual as their wives.  How tragic!! 

So what should men do?  This is where this blog can be of help.  I hope that men read some of my stuff and react to it both positively and negatively if need be.  For now,  here are a few suggestions.  First, men don’t beat yourself up spiritually.  You are as capable as your wife.  We have a God given male perspective that is often diffferent from our wives.  2) Admit that you have neglected your soul.  I believe that men will not become whole in Christ till they move from the control tower of the mind into their hearts.  3) Don’t be afraid of the unknown.  Sure it is new territory.  But Jesus waits for you at the center.  4)  Find another guy or a group of guys where you feel safe to be vulnerable about the stuff stirring in your soul.  5) Most of all continue to look up and out to Jesus, asking him to guide you on the journey of inner transformation.  Change comes from the inside out.  It is his work.  We only make ourselves avaliable to him.   6) It must be repeated continually – the way to a man’s heart is through his pain.  So ask for grace to see what is there, even if it hurts.