Recovering the Skills of Manhood
I can’t tell you how many letters I have received from men telling me that they grew up never developing the manly skills.
It may be a bias on my part. Okay, I will admit that it is. Although I know better, I do have this inescapable, underlying sense that a real man is one who can stand alone against the forces of nature and survive. There is great personal confidence and security in knowing that you are not dependent on the conveniences of civilization, that if for some reason you find yourself alone in the primitive wild, without so much as a knife, you will not be afraid or insecure. You will feel more like “you have come home.” You will find water, make tools ( a knife, hatchet, spear, etc.) and you will build a shelter before the sun goes down. You will find something to eat, and you will build a fire to cook it over. Within a week, you will be a well-equipped resident in command of your environment.
I know that God doesn’t measure us that way. Maybe it was just the way I was raised. Possibly, it is the Old South mentality, but I have seen the same perspective in Minnesota, the Dakotas, Texas, northern California, and many other places outside the reach of TV signals and cell phone reception. I know from a long list of personal acquaintances that there is a unique quietness and security exuded by men who possess some degree of outdoor skills.
When my boys (and girls, for that matter) first came into the world, I saw them as students. I wanted to impart all the knowledge and skills that I possessed, and much more. I wanted them to be competent in any situation, never at a loss for words, ideas, initiative, or skills. Never whining, never making excuses, and never blaming someone else. I worked to make them ready for anything the world or circumstances might throw their way. Whether it be academics, economics, general physics, or primitive survival skills, they must be prepared to triumph. This was not a decision that had to be put on a list and referenced. It was a consuming, constant passion. They were my charge, and I didn’t relate to them as if I had eighteen years to teach it. They must know how to swim a river by the time they are six, get out of a burning building, avoid being kidnapped, know their address and phone number and other personal and family information, be able to talk to an adult and ask questions, how to react to a wound or broken bone, how to gather and prepare food in the wilderness, how to build a shelter against the elements, how to stop an adult from assaulting them, how to recognize and avoid sexual advances, and any and everything that might come their way under adverse and unexpected circumstances.
Nothing on this “list” sprang from paranoia. It is born from the love of life, of overcoming, of enjoying the fruit of your own hands. I know that all my children are better for it. Their confidence and quiet poise is testimony to their inner security. From the age of seventeen, between the five of them they have traveled to primitive and war-torn countries all over the world, worked in orphanages, and worked one year in a ministry in Israel. They have stayed up at night with AK-47s and guarded missionary compounds to the sound of gunfire, nearly capsized on a ferry at sea traveling from Italy to Albania, hiked over the mountains into Turkey, ridden out storms at sea in small sailboats, boated up rivers in rain forests, been nursed back to health by primitive natives in distant jungles, survived malaria and dengue fever, hunted game in foreign jungles, eaten snakes, lizards, and live grub worms, and some stuff you would bury quickly to get rid of the odor. They have been awakened from sleep in a grass hut by a six-inch fuzzy spider dropping on their face. Together, they could nearly reconstruct a world map with the places that they have traveled. They have bagged game with bow and arrow and guns and traps. They’ve spearfished in the South Seas, off the coast of Thailand, in Central and South America, Australia, New Guinea, in the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Islands. They have learned primitive languages, translated Scripture, and smuggled Bibles into closed countries. I could go on, but you are beginning to get the idea. My kids are not backward, nor are they wimps. They have far exceeded me in their experiences. They have grown well beyond their parents’ accomplishments and it is a delight to see it so. Debi and I not only gave them life, we equipped them to live it to the fullest.
