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.