This blog is a personal testimony celebrating a luminous experience on my spiritual  journey.  These kinds of moments often happen when I am introduced to new songs I have not heard before.  A song entitled “Hopeful Song” by a group called “Going to the Sun” was such a song for me.  The YouTube video features a group of musicians who are totally into their performance.  The lead singer, I believe, was singing about his own inner pain, declaring the need for a “hopeful song.” I can testify that I was moved to tears by the energy and passion of their performance.  

The chorus goes like this: “Oh, someone sing a song/Oh, of better days to come/’Cause I know this isn’t right/You can’t hold back the light for very long/Somebody sing a hopeful song tonight.”  Other lines throughout the song go like this: “Have I become predictable/A story told a hundred times before… A driver who will carry me/from rocky roads to sunny golden shores… Could I get up, could I get better/Could I have faith in sunny weather/Let’s light the night on fire/And laugh at the shadow that surrounds.”  

Why did this particular song from a relatively unknown group have  such an impact on my soul?  It was the energy of the group, their countenance, and the hope in the song.  It seems to me the group was celebrating a spiritual breakthrough.  It mirrors my own struggle with the darkness all around and within me… “You can’t hold back the light for very long.”  The group was singing a “hopeful song” about better days to come.  They cry out in passion, “Somebody sing a hopeful song tonight.”  I believe “better days” are coming. 

As I share how this song has spoken to me, you might reflect on how different songs have spoken to you in the past. For me it meant focusing on the light.  Isaiah encourages us “walk in the light of the Lord” (Is. 2:5), since “the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).  

1)  Have I become predictable, a story told a hundred times before?  Even as I am living in darkness, I know this isn’t right.  I hold on to the promise of Isaiah 42:16, “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth.  These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.”  In these latter years of my life, I spend time in the prophets, asking God, “What are you wanting us to know from your prophets during a time of darkening shadows and uncertain light?”  God will show us light and make our way smooth.

2)  Could I get up, could I get better, could I have faith in sunny weather?  Of course, the answer is “Yes.”  Isaiah prophesied, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned” (Is. 9:2).  Again, the prophet declares toward the end of his book, “Arise, shine for your light as come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.  See, darkness covers to earth and thick darkness is over the people, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you” (Is. 60:2).

3)  Let’s sing a hopeful song tonight.  Isaiah exhorts us to “walk in the light of the Lord” (Is. 2:5)  Why? “Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more: the Lord will be your everlasting light” (Is. 60:20). 

An article by Delano Squires of the Institute for Family Studies alerted me to a new movement.  A “masculine critique” is emerging as a result of the 1960s feminist movement.  “The crux of this nascent movement is that men should rethink their approach to marriage, children, and family in a society where women have more economic, political, legal, and cultural power than ever before.”  As women’s roles in the home and workplace have changed, men are re-evaluating their responsibilities as husbands, fathers, and breadwinners.

The second wave feminist movement thought women would be more fulfilled by pursuing education and other interests outside the home.  Betty Friedan and her allies, “claimed marriage and children kept women on the sidelines of American political, economic,  and social life.  For them, the benefits of the nuclear family for children were not worth its costs for women.”  

Today we find more women putting off marriage and having children altogether.  For women, the median age for a first marriage in 1960 was 20.  But in 2020 it has risen to 28.  In 1972 only 16% of women earned as much or more than their husbands.  Now it stands at 45%.

Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institute is an advocate of the “masculine critique.”  He believes “men should pursue fatherhood regardless of marriage… a man should focus on strengthening his relationship with his children, irrespective of his relationship with their mother.” 

But as Squires points out, fathers who live apart from their children are less active than co-residential fathers.  82% of married fathers play with their children, while only 10% of fathers who live apart from their children.  When there is a split between the parents, “only 16% of fathers who live apart from their children report speaking to them every day and 53% had not eaten a meal with their child within the previous four weeks.” 

Rollo Tomassi  offers his own version of the “masculine critique.”  He sees marriage and family as a drain on a man’s body, soul, and bank account.   His counsel: “Men who want to get on the fast-track to becoming a high-value man should not get married or have children.  His advice to men?  Get a vasectomy in your 20s, lift weights, and build wealth.” He points to the fact that women initiate 70% of divorces as a good reason to not get married. 

Here is Squire’s response – “Children need healthy marriages and strong families.  These institutions require love, order, discipline, selflessness, forgiveness, fidelity, patience, and understanding.  The last thing they need is more narcissism and naked individualism, whether that comes from the feminist left or masculinist right… Men of past generations fought wars for the sake of civilizations.  The least men can do today is fight for the future of their families.”

Since God made male and female in him image, he also gave us a blueprint for how to flourish on the earth together as male and female.  We need each other.

In the creation story, it is clear that male and female together are to be fruitful.  “Then God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.  Fill the earth and govern it.  Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground” (Gen. 1:28 NLT).  The enemy’s intention is to have men and women split from one another, living in conflict rather than in harmony.  

Later in Genesis Chapter 2, we read of God placing man in the Garden of Eden “to work it and take care of it” (Gen. 2:15). But surprise!  Man cannot do it alone.  God created Eve as  “a helper who is just right for him” (Gen. 2:18).  Man and woman need each other to flourish, that is, to be civilized.