Great, gnarly chunks of stumps blazed and shed coals into the roaring firepit. Several of us men and our sons sat in a half-moon shape around it. Sometimes the smoke would blow through the opening in our circle and instead of our faces.
My warrior buddy, our host, invited a few fathers and sons to his place for his oldest son’s 12th birthday party. It was an overnight campout. After the Airsoft battles and the archery, we gathered around the fire as night fell, the full moon rose, and coyotes shrieked on the other side of the field.
We told stories. By some unspoken agreement amongst the dads, we told stories with a certain kind of point.
My warrior buddy told the story about that time he and his his brothers-in-arms had fought to protect the mayor of Fallujah from hoards of attackers. Among other things, one guy got an anti-tank RPG stuck through both of his legs. He threw himself over the 3rd floor railing and into a street filled with hostiles in order to keep his brothers from being blown to bits. The RPG was a dud, though. And more heroes were made during his rescue.
I was on deck next, but since my story was about that time I successfully assembled and mounted a complicated IKEA cabinet, after his story, I was searching the brain files for an alternate.
I noticed that my friend didn’t talk about his own deeds while under fire. He only told us about the heroes he fought alongside.
After my buddy finished his story, we sat in silence and watched the fire pop and sizzle for awhile. Nobody went for the S’mores.
One of the dads, a jiu jitsu instructor and police officer, I believe, made sure that the boys got the point that our host might have left just out of the frame:
“There is good and evil in the world, boys. Someday, one way or another, you’re going to have to choose to fight it or go along with it.”
I looked around at these boys. I looked at my son. He’s 13 now and he, more than any of my kids, I believe, takes stories of battle, heroism, and honor to heart.
These boys won the family lottery in some ways. Every dad at that birthday campout was far from perfect, but they were doing something most of their fathers didn’t do—they were taking an interest. These men consciously and intentionally—perhaps to a level their own fathers hadn’t done for generations—took up their mission to create and form not boys, but strong men.
I’m happy to see this movement developing everywhere. Networks of like-minded men are forming and connecting across the country and well beyond. You hear the word “legacy” a lot in these groups.
Every knows what’s coming. More and more say it out loud.
But what about the millions (or billions?) of men who have already died inside and have yet to be buried? That’s a tough one.
“It is easier to build strong children than fix broken men.”
-Frederick Douglass
Most men I meet today are insecure, distracted, or stuff-oriented. We are so wrapped up in a culture that is, to my mind, undeniably curated to keep us in a constant state of busy preoccupation with fluff. We give our lives to it.
The result is widespread depression and worse. If they aren’t turning the anger inward and burning themselves alive with self-loathing and despair, they turn it outward toward loved ones, or ones who should be better loved.
Or they start lopping off parts of themselves and changing their names. For every one of these grotesque parodies of femininity, I see a boy who never had a chance. They were victims who, as inevitably as night follows day, become the victimizers.
Most, I think unscientifically, just sink lower and lower into darkness. “Lives of quiet desperation.”
The cure? There is no one-size-fits-all panacea, although there is a common theme under which every remedy falls: Mission, purpose, and power.
If you’re reading this, my brother, and this sounds familiar, keep going. Keep taking that next step. More than that—let me challenge you: Stand up straight. Lift your head up. (Instead of always looking down at your feet and the endless hard-packed dirt road.) Look toward the possibilities. You may not believe it right now, but everything you want or hope for is within your grasp.
Don’t see a point in trying anymore? I’ll give you one good reason why you should:
We need you.
Your wife needs you—she needs you to step up and create, or be, a safe place for her. Your children need more than just a Dad—they need a fire-breathing, hammer-of-God wielding, life-preparing, deliverer of bedtime stories and life lessons and snuggles.
If you don’t have a family or loved ones in your life, you are still needed. Look around you. What kind of world is this? I mean, for the love of everything holy, people don’t know which bathrooms to use anymore. Our country—you know, that place where we keep our stuff—is being overrun by millions of people who don’t give a damn about the founding principles, and I’m not just talking about the ones pouring over the border. And YOU, yes you, are an integral thread of a much larger tapestry of brotherhood. Without you, we are less.
We need men.
There is good and evil in the world. Someday, one way or another, you’re going to have to choose to fight it or be taken by it. The time to start is now.
Message me if you need to chat.
-Chris