Fighting for Manliness Video

I finally got some of the video edited from my talk at the 2010 FOCUS National Conference in Orlando, FL on New Year’s Eve 2009. The talk was titled “Fighting for Manliness” for the Men’s Impact Sessions. The crowd for the two sessions totaled around 1,500 college men.

The video below is only part 1 of the 50 minute video.

In this talk, I highlighted some major points, including: What is Manliness?,  Manly Leadership,  Living Virtue,  Fighting the Giant of Pornography and more.

If your content is removed by your server, click HERE to view the video on YouTube.

Fallible Blogma’s “Support a Catholic Speaker” Month

I agreed to write up a brief post on a Catholic speaker for Fallible Blogma‘s “Support a Catholic Speaker” Month.  Click HERE to see the entire list.  I chose to blog about Mr. Richard Lane.  Here’s his bio:

“Born in Detroit, Michigan to Mary O. Alexander, retired Educator for the Highland Park School system and the Late Dick “Night Train” Lane; National Football League Hall of Fame Cornerback, Mr. Lane, Jr. attended Morehouse College in Atlanta Georgia and also served honorably for nearly six years in the United States Army Military Police Corps in numerous domestic and international locations.

As a convert to the Faith in April 19, 2003, it was in early 2005 when Mr. Lane was lead to begin proclaiming the Gospel as a Street Corner Evangelist, sharing the Word of God, passing out Bibles, Crosses and other Religious items. Since that time Mr. Lane has been featured on “Catholic Answers Live”, Ave Maria Radio, Relevant Radio, Our Sunday Visitor, the National Catholic Reporter, Sports Review Magazine, as well as Eternal Word Television Network’s (EWTN) the “Journey Home” with Marcus Grodi and is the Co-Founder of Catholic Men for Christ Men’s Conference in St. Louis, Missouri which continues to draw thousands of men each year to hear the Powerful Message of the Gospel.”

Mr. Lane and I are represented by the same booking agency, CMG Booking.  CMG Booking is the premier source for Catholic speakers.  To book Mr. Lane for your next event, click HERE.  If you would like to book me to speak at your next event, please click HERE.

Man up!

In Response to a Comment: More Positive Examples, Please

James,
I greatly appreciate your comment, keep ’em comin’!  The topic of negative/judgemental material has been brought to my attention before, and I would like to publicly respond.  I will write this post here, as well as respond to you in the comment section under “About TrueManhood’s Author”.

The first time I was asked about it, someone asked me, “Do I really believe that men are as bad off as I make them seem?”  My answer was emphatically “Yes!”.  I witness unconscionable behavior almost on a daily basis, and this behavior has become the socially accepted norm for males.  I also, on occasion, see an example of manliness lived out in our modern world – I typically write about it.

I’d like to draw attention to the majority of my past posts during the months of June/July 09; these posts are positive examples of men living out virtue and encouraing others to do the same.  Since Father’s Day, 7 of my last 9 posts have had optimistic and positive outlooks on men and their manliness.  The few posts that seem to have a negative and/or seemingly judgemental approach are written as real life examples of men who fail to live out the call that has been placed on all of our hearts since the dawn of time.  (See the discourse between God and Adam in The Book of Genesis.)  These few “negative” examples are in place in order to bring light to the darkness and to hopefully start to reverse a trend that I (I believe we all see it happening in front of us daily) see happening in our culture; this trend is that a stereotypical male lives a certain way.  I have referred to this as “cultural manliness” – the idea that a man is judged based on how much money, power, possessions and sex he has.  I desire to fight this stereotype, reverse it so that the trend is of virtuous men living out their God-given call and to win souls for Christ.

I would really appreciate any and all comments on this topic!

Man up!

Pontius Pilate, What You Did Was NOT Manly

I thought several times throughout Holy Week, as well as when I watched “The Passion of the Christ” on Friday night, that Pontius Pilate (pronounced pon-chus pi-lot) was not manly in his decisions to condemn Jesus to death.  He tried, yes, at first, to tell the people that Jesus had done nothing wrong.  Where he went wrong was when he worried about what sort of uprising the Jewish high priests would start and what the people would do.  He let self-preservation win out over justice. 

He’s infamously remembered by Catholics in our Creed (our profession of faith) “…He (Jesus) suffered under Pontius Pilate…“.  This is because Pilate had the power to prevent Christ’s horrible torture, scourging, carrying of His cross and His death, but failed to act; all out of fear.  He was a coward.  Even the movie “The Passion of the Christ” (picture above from a scene with Pilate and Jesus) shows Pilate’s wife as a hero and a servant, with compassion and deep sorrow while Pilate simply looks on, worried about himself.  Pilate leaves us with a good example of what not to do. 

Christ tells us that we’ll be persecuted because of Him, because we follow Him and because we love Him.  We should be ready and prepared to persevere.  We prepare for this by training (prayer and fasting, mostly).  When it comes down to it, who will you side with?  Will you take the easy way out and deny Christ or will you stand firm in your beliefs, in your faith and in HIS love and witness for Jesus?  Only time will tell. 

Again, society tells men that we must look out for ourselves and self-preservation.  Christ, the Church and TrueManhood.com say something different.  We all say “defend Christ, defend Mother Church, defend Truth” – God will provide for us and will raise us up on the last day.  A True Man does this.  A man like Pontius Pilate doesn’t.  What kind of man are you?

Man up!

7 Days of Virtue; Day 7 – Love

Think of virtues like your muscles.  You work your muscles out so that they can perform for you when needed.  Virtue is the same way.  You practice, work on the virtue and then, when the time comes, the virtue is there and ready.

Day 7 of the 7 Day Journey through the Virtues: DAY 7 – LOVE.

Love, also called charity, is the form of all virtue.  Love is friendship with God and love leads us to God.  An important aspect of love is that it is a verb; it requires action from us.   To perform acts of love, we must surpass our own abilities; we require supernatural grace.   (Supernatural = super –> beyond… natural –> nature… beyond our nature.) 

Society often tells us that love is something that we get, instead of something we give.  We’re often told to seek it for our good, instead of the good of another.  This leads us to selfishness and seeking our our passions, desires and wants.  Instead, we should love unconditionally, especially our spouse and our children – making a freely given gift of ourselves and our lives.  Love brings us:

• Joy – seeing love in others.
• Peace – right relations, when we are united (or under reconciliation)
• Mercy – a compassionate heart for another’s unhappiness.   (The greatest virtue in relation to others.)

Love also occurs in:

• Passion – the desire for something.
• Natural virtue – when you want what is best for someone else.
• Theological virtue – the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. 

Man up!

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