Supposed To Do

I just returned from a weekend trip to a private midwestern university where I gave a talk on manliness and Christian brotherhood.  I mentioned the topic of Adam from the creation story in Genesis.  In the story, Adam disregards the command that God gave to him to “shamar” the garden.  From his neglect, sin entered the world.  This, naturally, led to discussion about gender roles.  During the Q&A session, a young man in the front row asked me “what do you mean when you say ‘what a man should do’ and ‘what a woman should do’?”  I think it’s a great question and deserves some explanation and distinction here on the site.

When I say one of those statements (‘what a man (or woman) should d0’), what I mean is that men and women have been called to a specific role in humanity.  (For instance, fatherhood, or motherhood.)  The young man wanted to know if I thought that women shouldn’t work, or be in leadership or do anything outside of mothering children, cleaning and cooking.  Obviously, I am not of that opinion.  I can understand the question though, because our society tells us constantly that it’s either one, but not both.

Being called to a specific role in humanity means that a male or a female is embracing their nature.  Men are naturally designed to protect, guard and care for.  We are more rugged.  Our bodies are made for laborious tasks.  Women are naturally more nurturing, motherly and tender.  These differences aren’t pointed out to say one is better than the other, only that they are different.  John Paul II said many times, “Men and women were created equal in dignity, but different in role.”  This is an important distinction.

For men to be TrueMen, we must embrace what is naturally placed on our hearts by God and follow the commands that God has given to us.

TrueMan up!

How Men Were Created To Pray

In response to a comment, stemming from a recent post: The question was asked, “How were men created to pray?”  Please note, this post, as with all my posts, comes from my experiences and may or may not take into account every aspect of the topic.  If you have additional thoughts, questions, doubts or replies, please write them in a comment below.

I believe that men were created to pray in a manner that is wild, unrelenting and strong.  What do I mean by that?  I mean that a man has to pray in the same way that he was created.  It doesn’t make sense to do it any other way.  We were created, as evidenced in the creation story in The Book of Genesis, to protect, defend and guide.  (See Genesis chapter 2, specifically verse 15).  Adam was instructed by God to do all these things as the man, the one who has dominion over the earth and the creatures of the land, air and sea.  This was no small task.  Adam was given a great amount of responsibility.  Until the fall, Adam relied totally on God to direct and guide him.  We should take this as a guide – that in all things, we should ask God to direct and guide us.  After the fall, Adam was distanced from God and he toiled in the fields.  This is where we find ourselves today.  We toil, in whatever profession we have, and specifically, we toil in a real way when it comes to our conversations with God.  Why is this?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 397, explains this clearly.  It says, “Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command.”  We do this daily!  No wonder it’s so hard to pray!

If we know that we must trust God and that we must have reckless abandonment to God’s commands, then it will help us to pray.  If we know that we were created to protect, defend and guide others, it will help us to pray.  Now, some practicals:

• Find what works for you.  We’re all different and there are many different ways to pray.  Whatever your preference, do it often!
• Remember that prayer is a relationship with God.  It takes two; God always does His part.  Are you doing yours?
• Make your life a prayer.  Every chance you get, talk/listen to God.  (Guess what, you’ve got lots of chances to do this during your day!)
• A Man was created with a wildness within his heart – live wildly for God.  Your prayer can be wild, rugged and intense.
• Do it often.  Did I mention this already?
• Prayer is NOT an emotional thing; emotions may come about during/after prayer, but prayer itself is not emotional.  Our prayer is based on our faith – if our faith is founded on the Truth, then it is stable and unchanging and our prayer must follow that model.  If our faith isn’t founded on the Truth, then our faith (belief in God and His dominion over us) can change as quickly as the wind.
• Use helpful “tricks” to guide your prayer.  One easy one is ACTS – Adoration Contrition Thanksgiving Supplication.  Adoration is praising God, adoring Him, fervent worship of Him and His glory.  Contrition is asking for forgiveness for our sins; NOT in place of Confession!  Thanksgiving is thanking God for the blessings in our lives.  Supplication is asking God for the things that we need in life.

I suggest that you read up on men of the Bible, as well as Catholic saints, to get more ideas on how men pray.  Find one of these men that you share similarities with and try to emulate him and his style of prayer.  These men came before us and succeeded (and sometimes failed) in order to pave the way for us.

Man up!

Earth Day

I bet most of you are surprised to see that I’m writing about Earth Day today.  Now, I’m no tree hugger, or granola- cruncher, but I think there’s something to be said about protecting the environment.  How does a TrueMan do that?

I recommend that we look at the Book of Genesis to get a foundation for this.  Genesis 2:15 “The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.”  To cultivate and to care for it – in Hebrew, to SHAMAR (guard).  Everything in the garden (creation) was given to Adam to protect and defend it.  Yes, this included the woman (Eve) and the animals, but it also included the land and plants.  See, God wanted Adam to take responsibility for his surroundings.  Ask any farmer, and they’ll tell you that the land produces more bounty if you take care of it.  Adam’s job was to see to it that the land produced a large bounty.

The same goes for us now.  God expects that we shamar our gardens (our families, our land, our life, our Church).  He expects that we protect and defend all that is around us, therefore, we must protect our earth.  Personally, I’m not going to stop driving my eight cylinder Chevy truck, but what I will do is continue to use cloth diapers and homemade bio-degradable baby wipes.  I’ll continue to throw away my trash in a can instead of littering the side of the highways.  I will instill in my children how to respect the earth.  When I camp, I protect the fire from spreading.  When I see trash, I pick it up.  I’ve recently started using CFL bulbs around the house and just bought a bunch of new ones for the remaining lights.  It’s the little things that add up and really count.

Think about how you can protect the earth in your own little way.  If we all do it just a little bit, it’ll add up to some big changes.

Man up!