Restoring Order

A look at "Man of the Household:" Part 1

Have you ever seen “junkyard art?” Those creations artists make using such varied bits of trash as mufflers, retro toasters and an old Coke sign? It’s like the artists were shoved into a Red Robin and told they could come out only after they’d made something true, good and beautiful with the decor. And you know what? They do it.

That’s what it feels like with this piece I’m attempting to write. I’ve been studying that lecture series, “Man of the Household” from Dr. Cuddeback, and it’s like he pulled a pin on a frag grenade and underhanded it into my soul. There are pieces everywhere.

I mentioned before that I took part in a sort of pilot program for the thing a few years ago. It was a small group of men, and while I really, really needed it, I wasn’t ready for it. I had “real world” problems to deal with, including the death of the business and rapidly imploding marriage. Around that time it looked like I might be half-a-million in debt, and while I was beginning to sense what was coming, our marriage was just beginning to contract before it went supernova. Then along comes this professor with a man-shed or whatever, talking about entering into these “deep, amazing mysteries” of family “communities” in which the men should recognize and “facilitate” the “feminine genius” through their wise leadership…

Yeah, I wasn’t having any of it. I had a career to rebuild and a wife to either woo all over again, or to shove out the airlock. I needed to know precisely what to say and do, and I needed it Right Freaking Now.

But wait - there’s more! There was. A lot of it. To the point that, in my darkness, I coolly and rationally concluded that, thanks to my life insurance policy and the loss of my last erg of energy, my family would be better off if I took a little trip out to a southwestern desert and cut my own strings. 

Instead, I kept taking one step after another, and now that dark place doesn’t look like the universe, but rather a particularly macabre snow globe up on a dusty shelf of my mind. Perspective, man. It’s wild.

I can’t explain why I looked up Life-Craft.org a couple of weeks ago. I probably saw a post on Facebook. Whatever it was, I signed up and watched the first module, and it shook something loose.