Being a Dad is Awesome – #HowToDad

I came across this great commercial.  I can’t really describe how awesome it is; watch it down below.  In our world that is so degrading and emasculating to men, and likes to poke fun at the “stupid man”, and the “incapable father”, and so on, this video kills it.  Really awesome.

Watch it and then read below for my thoughts:

I’m not really sure where to begin.  This commercial really is great, and has so many good things in it.  I’ll start from the top, and will hit the big points:

• Kid jumps on Dad – Dad doesn’t freak out, throw him off, or yell at him.  He takes it as it comes, and shows the kid the attention he both deserves, and desires.  He then “rough-houses” with the kid by throwing him over onto, and off of, the other side of the bed.  No one had to call the cops, the kid was fine.
• “My name is “DAD!”, and proud of it!” – yes!  So thankful that he’s proud of this ever-so-important title.  To kids, Dad is everything.  So Dads… be everything to them!
• Dad then goes through a slew of reasons why kids think Dads are awesome.  Notice that “being high strung” and “overly critical” aren’t listed.
• “We lead by example.”  yes, yes, and yes!  I’ve written about this many times.  Search Fatherhood, or look in the blog roll under Fatherhood for more.
• “Hot stuff comin’ through; the coffee and the wife.”  A man who loves his wife like crazy (and thinks that she’s “hot stuff”) sets the best example his kids could ever have.  For the boys, it teaches them how to love their future spouse, and for the girls, it teaches them how they ought to be treated by their future spouse.  Great stuff!
• This Dad is highly positive.  This is so important in the lives of our kids.  There are plenty of statistics out there, but most of them will say something to the effect of… kids need to hear 10 positive comments to outweigh 1 negative comment.  Dads – get to being positive, affirming, and encouraging to your kids!
• “Now, Dadhood isn’t always easy.”  No kidding!  Kids need clear expectations and clear consequences.  Hold them to both and they’ll grow to be wonderful adults. Being true to that is difficult, but really rewarding.

I’ve now watched this video about 20 times in the past day.  Every time I watch it, I pick up something else.  Watch it more than once, share it with your spouse, your kids, and then take some time to sit down and talk about how you’re doing as a dad.  Are you the “awesome Dad” that’s talked about in this video?  Have you said “yes to dressup”, and “made a great fort” lately?  Have you loved your wife, been positive to your kids, and enforced discipline and responsibility?  Now that’s #howtodad!  [Be sure to check out the other How to Dad videos, they’re about 00:16 seconds each.]

Being a great Dad doesn’t take just one thing, it doesn’t require just one characteristic, and it doesn’t happen over night.  We have to work at it, pick ourselves up when we fall down, apologize to our kids (with heartfelt sentiments) when we mess up, and never forget how important our role as Dad is.  Keep it up, they deserve nothing but your best!

TrueMan up!

The Case for Sainthood

The Catholic Church has a process by which She determines whether or not a man or woman should be named a saint.  The process can be long and tedious and involves loads and loads of paperwork, proof, documentation, etc.etc.  The “case” is reviewed and then a determination is made.  (For more on this process, click HERE.)  One such man, Fr. Emil Kapaun, has a case being sent to the Vatican as we speak.  The story of Fr. Kapaun is close to my heart, as he was from Wichita, Kansas and a military man.  I grew up just 6 miles south of Wichita and as many of you know, have a long and extensive family (and even a personal) history with the military.  My Father, Tony, just told me about the opportunity that he and my mother had of attending this special Mass that was held at the Cathedral in Wichita on July 1.  We’ll pick up with an Al Kresta story…

“Fr. John Hotze, episcopal delegate for the office of Fr. Kapaun’s beatification and canonization, said the event marks the culmination of years of work and also celebrates the “gift” of Fr. Kapaun.

“The fact that we, unlike any other diocese in the United States, in the world, have been blessed by the example of this saintly man, Father Emil Kapaun, boggles my mind,” he said in a June 30 statement. “How can we do anything less than give praise to God for this gift and strive to follow the example of Father Kapaun’s selfless giving.”  Fr. Kapaun, a native of Pilsen, Kansas, served in the Korean War. He courageously rescued wounded soldiers from the battlefield, risking his own life to prevent their execution at the hands of the Chinese.  He was captured by North Korean and Communist Chinese forces after he volunteered to stay behind on a battlefield with the injured.  The priest’s service to his fellow prisoners has become legendary among those who knew of him. Scores of men attributed their survival to his work tending the starving and the sick.

Fr. Kapaun died in a prison camp hospital on May 23, 1951. The Diocese of Wichita has investigated his life since 2001 and officially opened the cause for his beatification on June 29, 2008.

Andrea Ambrosi, a lawyer investigating the case for the Vatican, told the Wichita Eagle he thinks Fr. Kapaun has a good chance to be raised to the altars.  “He showed that there was not just a devil working on the battlefields of the war, but something else.”  The investigator said Kapaun’s candidacy is unique compared with the hundreds of other cases he has investigated because it is so full of action and detailed. While most cases involve “very holy” priests and nuns who have miracles attributed to them, Fr. Kapaun’s story involves far more deeds of heroism, sacrifice and action.

Ambrosi has investigated two alleged miracles involving prayers for Fr. Kapaun’s intercession.  In 2006 Avery Gerleman, then 12 years-old, was near death for 87 days. She recovered after her parents prayed to Kapaun.  In October 2008 Chase Kear, a college track athlete, inexplicably survived a severe pole vaulting accident. His skull was fractured from ear to ear and caused some bleeding on his brain. Doctors said he would likely either die in surgery or from a post-surgery infection.  However, family and friends joined in petitions to Fr. Kapaun. Kear survived the surgery and left the hospital only a few days after the incident.  Doctors said both recoveries were medically inexplicable.  Ambrosi said the intensity of the priest’s devotees is “incredible.”  Several Catholic parishes and many parishioners pray for Fr. Kapaun’s intercession every week at Masses and many call upon him when loved ones become ill.

Fr. Hotze said that the diocese has finished collecting information that will “hopefully, with the grace of God, prove Father Kapaun worthy of beatification and then canonization as a saint of the Catholic Church.”  Ambrosi and other investigators must now closely study 8,268 documents about the chaplain’s deeds and sacrifices in the Korean War. Those documents are being sent to Rome.  If canonized, the priest would become the third American-born saint.”

Clearly, Fr. Kapaun was an incredible man!  What a TrueMan!  Living virtue at every turn.  I wrote another story about him previously, which also includes some video trailers of a film that was made about his life.  Click HERE for that story.  We hope he is elevated to the distinction of “blessed”!

Fr. Emil Kapaun – Pray for us!

TrueMan up!

True God and TrueMan

The Easter Triduum is an incredible celebration within our Church’s liturgical calendar.  The Triduum is the time from Holy Thursday until Easter Day, which includes so many incredible elements to our faith, such as: The Institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper!  The Institution of the Priesthood, Christ humbling Himself (as our example, especially for men) as a servant-leader with the washing of the feet, Christ’s Passion, Christ’s death on the cross as the Paschal Lamb – the Passover fulfillment, and tomorrow, the celebration of His Resurrection!  What a rich and humbling tradition of redemption we have!

We should see Christ as our model.  He is the perfection of manliness.  He is all virtue.  He is sacrificial, even to the point of death.  He is a servant leader.  It is these characteristics that we should be striving for.  In the Divine Praises, we pray the following statement… “Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true man.”  This verse has become the tagline for our ministry here at TrueManhood (scroll down this page to see!), and for good reason.  We’re all asking the question, “what does it mean to be a real man?”  The answer lies with Christ.  When you get up in the morning, throughout the entire day, and again before you go to bed, I recommend that you immerse yourself in the life of Christ so that you can learn what He did while He walked this earth and also, so that you learn what He continues to do, as He sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven.  This means, first and foremost, that you are praying continually!  A daily, fervent prayer life will aid you greatly.  [Don’t know how to pray?… shoot me an email and we’ll chat.  Dave@TrueManhood.com.]  Next, I recommend that you gaze upon Christ on the cross.  His sacrifice is there and present on the cross.  The image of Christ on the cross reminds us of what and who He is and why He did what He did for us, all of us.  Stare at Him.  Unite your suffering to Him.  Serve as He served.  Lead as he led.  Love as He loved.

I pray that your Lenten experience was fruitful this year.  Be aware that you can give up things (this is called fasting) anytime (not on Sundays)… it doesn’t have to be only during Lent.  Work to control your will, so that by saying ‘no’ in the little things, you can say ‘no’ to the big temptations.  Practicing what the Church suggests for us during Lent is good to continue throughout the entire year.

Man up!

Tuesdays with Daddy – Selfishness Impedes Service

My daughter has been sick for several days.  Because she is a toddler, it is difficult to really pinpoint what’s happening with her, what hurts and how to make her better.  I’ve been at a loss for exactly what to do, and although we’re trying, she doesn’t seem to be getting better.  At least not as fast I my wife and I would hope.  As I’ve been observing her and contemplating solutions to this problem, I realized something today… selfishness impedes service.  What do I mean?

When you’re in charge of someone else, and their entire well-being stems from your actions, it’s plain to see that they not only rely on you to make good decisions, but to be at their service.  This isn’t to say that I wait hand-and-foot on my children, but it means that my daughters, especially when ill, need me to be selfless in regards to them.  And, I want to be a servant-leader for my family and for the world, which requires me to continually learn how to better serve them.  I look at my life and realize (quite often) how selfish I can be.  I like what I like, the way I like it, when I like it, how I like it.  This gets in the way of my ability to truly serve my family.

Where did my selfish tendencies come from?  Besides my fallen human nature, my tendency toward selfishness stems from my past pornography use.  It made everything I do, even serving my sickly little girl, about me.  Because of this revelation, I realized that the only way to do that is to look to the cross.  I must unite my failures in life to the struggle Christ experienced on the cross so that I am purified of my tendency toward comfort, self-pleasure and ease.  My little girl needs me to be one hundred percent committed to taking care of her and if I don’t watch it, I’ll put myself before her, falling into old patterns and losing sight of the cross.  If this happens, my selfishness has won and drastically impedes my ability to serve.

I urge everyone to take a step back, especially during Holy Week, to evaluate the areas in your life (vicious behavior) that require change.  Figure out how to change those things and continue to work on them until you possess the virtue that overcomes that vice.

Man up!

An Explanation on Ephesians Chapter 5

On semi-regular occasions, I come across stories of men and women who look at Ephesians Chapter 5 in a different way than the Church does.  It often appears that they take the writings out of context and make them something that they are not.  I want to take a few minutes to explain portions of this sometimes mistaken portion of Scripture.  Note: I am not a Biblical scholar – I recommend that you cross-check my words here with other sources for full understanding.

Starting at verse 21 in chapter 5, St. Paul tells Wives and Husbands “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.  Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord.  For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the Church, He Himself the savior of the body.  As the Church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.”  A few hard-hitting verses.  If we stop at this verse, we see the writer (St. Paul) asking women to be subordinate to their man in everything.  It almost appears that a woman should blindly follow her husband simply because he is 1. her husband and 2. the head of his wife.  We might look at this and say that a wife needs to be “below” her husband and always do as he tells her.  The image of a slave and a master comes to mind here.  After all, it’s right there in Scripture – right? 

Not quite.  We need to continue reading to finish out this section.  25: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed Himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the Church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.  So also husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the Church, because we are members of His body.”  We see a much different story when we continue reading.  St. Paul isn’t writing this to women alone.  Most importantly, he is writing this to husbands; husbands are the readers who especially need to heed these words. 

Look at this with me: scripture tells us that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the Church.  Christ didn’t love the Church out of dictatorial power… He loved the Church out of service, out of self-sacrifice and out of pure virtue.  If we leave this part out of our understanding, our understanding lacks truth and our relationship with our spouse suffers.  Again, St. Paul is speaking to the men, saying “Men, serve your wife!  LOVE you wife!  Give up what you want for the sanctity and holiness of your wife!  Love her as you love yourself!  Want what’s best for her, never thinking about yourself first!”  I can imagine him being incredibly frustrated with men who were lacking as husbands, trying to get them to see that Christ set the example of being a real husband (a TrueMan) for them and that they simply need to emulate Him in order to succeed.

This means, for us men who are or who will be husbands, that we MUST act as Christ acted.  We must be perfected so that our actions, thoughts, words and deeds line up with how Christ would have done them.  We must be sacrificial in the way that we treat our wife.  Christ was a servant leader, He said “I come to serve, not to be served.”  Do that… don’t live to be served. 

On a practical note: as you look at your marriage and begin to digest what you are reading, realize that countless blessings will come from being a servant leader for your wife.  Being a servant leader means that you are serving while leading.  Service comes first.  Want respect from your wife?  Respect her first.  Want your wife to honor you?  Honor her first.  Want your wife to trust you?  Trust her first.  It’s a simple formula and this formula will change your life.  Christ calls us to act in the manner He acted, so guess what… if you are trying to act as Christ acted, you can’t be selfish, ever.  Serve your wife, serve your kids, serve your co-workers, serve everyone, and do it ahead of yourself and your needs.  It will change your life.

Man up!