manhood

Boys need to be separated from the comforts of childhood and consciously handed over to the community of men to begin the formation process. They exit boyhood and enter a “gray space” until they’re welcomed back into the community as a man.

But if we follow the tripwire to its source, the wounds and injuries we men carry are due to a lack of love—the kind of love received by a son from his father which makes him a man.

There’s a line from The Power of Moments that resonated with me so much, and it’s this: “Beware the soul-sucking voice of reasonableness.”1 These moments I’m talking about have the power to change our lives forever, but they won’t be as powerful if we try to be just reasonable. We have to be unreasonable in the way we mark these moments.

I then gave him a beautiful leather journal, so that when we did our times together, he could write everything down. And, last but not least, I gave him something from the military: a beautiful, black footlocker.

Men, we need you. We need you to be husbands and fathers. We need you to be firemen and entrepreneurs. We need you to coach little league and change diapers and cut trees. Men, we need you to invest in your kids and your community and your church.

First, we have failed to deliver to our sons a clear, inspiring, biblically grounded definition of manhood.

This is what we do. There is nothing sacrosanct about our ceremonies; you may choose to imitate aspects of these or develop your own. But the important thing is that you do something creative and memorable to initiate your son into manhood. Remember, too, that the power of the ceremony is the actual experience! It is the lingering memory it makes

Think through what this might look like for you and your son. Some people plan a weekend trip to see a sports game. Some go on extended wilderness treks. Whatever you do, beware the soul-sucking voice of reason. Make this trip unreasonable. People should be asking, Who does that? Who takes a month and hikes across a country? It will be worth it.