Thursday, September 30, 2010

On Silver Blades of Grass

Today I saw the first frost of fall. It was a welcome sight that nipped my toes and was marvellously alliterative.

And it means that soon the trees will explode into a cascade of overwhelming colour. I love this time of year.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

On Psalms

In my Bible study last week, we talked about the book of Psalms and as part of the meeting, the person leading that week set some time aside for us to write our own psalms. I decided I would share what the fruits of that time were for me.

Holy father, Holy King
I call you God, I call you good
I raise your name around me
in towers of gold and glass
Majesty
You are
sacred and strong and pure.

selah

Light beyond and through
the heavens you watch me--
surround me. I praise you
and your unfathomable name
But enemies walk beside me--
before me--behind me
laying traps
hooks to pierce my skin
pull me down
And it hurts so much to fight

selah

In darkness, Lord, I call
Your name
sweet mercy
water to my weary soul
I beg for you--cry for rescue
Light, cut through these shadows
Grace, cut through these bonds
Have mercy on your servant

selah

You are the solid ground
beneath my feet, you are
the light, the warmth, that flows--
that falls on my head in showers,
You are the water that
cleanses me, that drowns me,
You are the breath that fills
my lungs, You are the fragrant wind

selah

Great God
Glorious
Goodness incomprehensible
Grace beyond sufficiency

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

On Manhood

In the corner of the blogosphere where I generally hang out, there has been a lot of talk lately about what it means to be a real man. I think it's great that people are willing to ask this question, but my concern is that my friends who have been saying the most about it are women. For fear of being only a bandwagon blogger, I have decided to submit some of my half-formed thoughts to the conversation.

The question of what it means to be a real man is one that has hung over me for a number of years now. The first time I remember thinking deeply about this was my freshman year of high school, though I'm sure it had entered into my thoughts in some capacity before this. For a number of years in high school, I would eat lunch in the cafeteria with some friends, then go and sit in the hall by myself to study for Bible Quizzing. Eventually other people would trickle out as well and the hall filled up. One of these times, there was a group of jocks sitting opposite me. I'm not generally one to support stereotypes, but a couple of these guys embodied all that is cliche of the adolescent jock. Somehow the topic of masturbation came up. I mentioned that I had never masturbated, and I was met with blank stares. A fellow with a quick wit took it upon himself to inform me: "90 percent of men masturbate, and the other ten percent are liars."

This guy was an idiot. Deep down, I probably knew it back then, and I certainly figured it out in the following years. That doesn't mean that his words didn't affect me. I may not have gone out and masturbated that night or anything so shallow as that, but for the first time in my life, I questioned my masculinity.

It wasn't until a few years later that I found out some of these same guys used to ask one of my best friends if I was gay. This was an incredibly unsettling revelation. It is worth mentioning that this was a very conservative community where "gay" was always used in a pejorative sense. What is more, this was at a time in my life before I emerged from my own sheltered, innocent conservativism (not that I am a flaming liberal now--I've always been more inclined to be a moderate) and references to homosexuality gave me a reflexive feeling of discomfort.

What was most upsetting about this was that it completely knocked the legs out from beneath the past I thought I knew. I had been pretty secure in my masculinity, not really questioning it much, but I found myself looking back into my memories for what it could have been that gave them the notion that I was gay. Was it because I never had a girlfriend while I was in high school? Was it because I wasn't on an athletic team? Was it because of my theatre involvement or other "artsy" pursuits? Was it because of my reticence? What was it in me that was deficient? What gave them the impression that I was less of a man?

I suppose the fact that I thought being gay meant being less of a man says something about my own outlook on homosexuals back then, but I know that is how they would have meant it. Clearly, this bothered me. I would not be telling this story if it didn't. It wasn't something I thought about constantly; instead it loomed in the back of my mind, nagging and haunting me while I wasn't even aware of it.

Had it not been for my faith in Christ, I really don't know how deeply this would have affected me. As it was, my naivete and untested notions of masculinity were challenged, and I had to fall back on the promises of Scripture. I am a child of God, loved and created uniquely by him. I love him. He was faithful to me in that time, and I have become more confident since then.

It wasn't until after my freshman year of high school that I found the answer to this contentious question: what is a real man? I was working for Bethel's summer team, which consisted of working as counsellors at a lot of different camps. One of these camps had separate guy/girl sessions to talk about fun issues like sexuality. It was during one of these sessions that a camp leader gave the definition I have come to claim for myself: a real man has a penis.

It was a revelation. It was the utterance of the idea that had been forming in my mind ever since I became aware that I failed to measure up to some standard of masculinity. Manhood isn't some list of ill-defined qualities. It means being a man, having an Y chromosome, having a penis. It may seem a rather crass and oversimplified definition, especially compared to the lengths my eloquent friend Barbara went to in attempting to define "a real man."

Here's the thing a lot of people don't realize, or if they realize it, don't mention: there is tremendous societal pressure on men. A great deal has been said in the last century and longer about the pressure on women to conform to the feminine ideal in the various forms that it has taken. However, owing to the fact that men have almost universally been the oppressors for all of history, there has been much less discussion regarding the constrictions inherent in the masculine ideal.

This pressure comes from both men and women. Men are expected to be strong, to love sports, to be logical, to have a good body (women are not the only ones with image issues or eating disorders), to be a family man, to be virile, to have deep voice and beards, to be mechanically inclined, to never cry, and let's not forget: to be attracted to women. There are even some senses in which men are expected to be jerks, to be insensitive, to be stupid, to be crude, to be unfaithful, and to be in a constant state of lusting and acting on lusts. I hate this pressure. What do those things have to be with being a man? They are all social constructs--categories we created to order our world whether anyone fit into them or not. Now, I'm not clear on what biological differences are actually present in the brain chemistry and hormones of males and females, but the only distinct feature I really see in being a man is having a penis. Can't that be enough? Why do I have to fit into society's mould?

My friend Barbara stumbled upon a list of traits that men should posses according to the website askmen.com. I must be honest and say that this list really bothered me, somewhat due to reasons already mentioned. Some of them are just ridiculous like: "A real man does not look like a woman." Says who? What's so bad about being androgynous? That's just basic genetics. I got a gene that allows me to grow a full ruddy beard, but one of my housemates got a gene that leaves almost his entire face free from stubbly growth. Which of us is more of a man? The foreman of the wood shop I work at has a ponytail halfway down his back. Apparently, this means he is not manly, even though he is a professional carpenter and plays in a rock band--two very stereotypically masculine things. And I dare anyone to tell a male swimmer who shaves his legs that he is not a real man. Swimmers are among the most physically fit athletes you will meet, and I would hate to have one upset with me.

That is the most ridiculous point of the list. The issue I take with the list as a whole is that most of the traits mentioned are qualities of a good human. Strength, focus, valuing family, avoiding gossip, keeping their word, being a role model, keeping your house in order, and defending yourself: these are some of the characteristics ascribed to a real man, but if you ask me, these are all gender non-specific traits. They are just as valuable in women as they are in men. Shouldn't we all strive to achieve such attributes? (The list also mentioned that a real man "makes his own fortune", but I did not include that here because I think that pursuing a fortune is frivolous and acquiring it on your own is both unlikely and unnecessarily stressful.

What both Barbara and our mutual friend Alysha delved into the last item on the above list: defending themselves and those around them, and with this they also drifted into discussing how men should take on challenges and lead. I thought Alysha had some beautiful things to say about defense, particularly her distinction of "when a man defends a woman he offers her his strength." She states it all very well, and you should read it. What bothered me is that I believe that women are just as capable of defending each other and men as well. Perhaps in a pre-industrial culture when men's natural advantage in physical strength was more important, men were much more likely to protect women, but that is not always the case anymore. Even then, if you take Alysha's definition of "offering strength," there are many different kinds of strength and I believe that women and men are equally likely to have them all. I don't know that you can say that the role of the defender is an inherently male role.

Furthermore, while I agree with the notion that more men need to accept challenges, to rise up and lead, I think it needs to be stressed that this fact is no more exclusively about males than defending yourself and others was. All my life I have heard doctrine spouting the idea that men are superior, that they are to be the leaders in politics, in the church, and in the home, and women must merely follow. Frankly, I don't think that is true. It is not like the God I know to create second-class humans. I believe that men and women were equal before the fall, and a God of redemption desires to restore us to that perfection and all that it entails. But I digress. What I am trying to say is that women are leaders too, and in addition to this, not all men are leaders. Neither are all women leaders. There must be some people to follow all of the leaders in the world. Certainly, everyone needs to be willing to face the challenges in their life--that is how we grow and change and learn--but that does not mean we are all leaders.

My sophomore year of college, I had the privilege to act in a scene for my friend Carrie, who was taking a course in Directing II at the time (strange to think that I am now currently enrolled in that class). The assignment was to direct a mimed piece set to music. In Carrie's scene, I portrayed God revealing his creation to two angels, culminating in the creation of humans who were endowed with the ability to create for themselves. It was one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had as an actor and the audience responded to it very well. After the scenes were finished, my then room-mate complimented my scene and told me that he thought I did a good job of portraying a masculine appreciation of beauty. I accepted the compliment, but the more I thought about it, the more upset I became about the way he chose to phrase it. It was almost as if he soiled something that had been precious to me. I was suddenly forced to ask myself why appreciating beauty had to be something that was masculine or feminine. Was it rare among men to appreciate beauty, and that was why he was complimenting me? Was there something different about me since I could appreciate beauty?

Those who know me well know my tendency to overanalyze things, and this is probably a situation where I did just that. Not too long ago, I was talking with my friend Carl about questions of gender, and I told him that story. He asked me why my room-mate's statement bothered me since, after all, I am a male, and everything I do is therefore masculine in a sense. His question challenged me a lot. I think that I had felt imprisoned and alienated by gender, like I was a white lab rat with a malignant tumor. I just wanted to be me without having to worry about how masculine or feminine I might be. If I am comfortable and secure in who I am, isn't that enough? Carl's simple question was good for me. Since then, I have come to the understanding of gender as something that is unavoidable. There are some obvious biological differences between men and women and probably some subtler ones as well, and the way in which a culture responds to these differences, no matter what that looks like, will be gender. But I still fight against men and women being limited by it.

And I still hold the definition that a real man has a penis. That is all it takes. I refuse to conform to someone else's notion of what a "real man" is. Instead, I am going to put my energy into being a real person--in the sense that God is the only thing that is real ("What is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal"), so I will try to be like God. I don't care whether or not I look like a woman or whether I make my own fortune. The traits I aspire to are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

On Odysseys

We are reading The Odyssey for the World Literature course I am taking. One of the assignments for the class was to write our own prologue/poem in the style of The Odyssey's prologue. I had a lot of fun with this assignment. I've also been working on a poem from Odysseus's son Telemachus's point of view, but since this was technically the first poem I have written in a couple of months, I thought I would share it:

Speak, O Muse. Tell of him who walked within the dusk
and often wavered in his confidence, for he,
disdaining death and fearing life, instead betook
him to a world where all reality was like
a dream, and dreams likewise became reality.
This boy, this man, this wanderer and wonderer
gave way to Time's unceasing river's flow and passed
across the land and sea upon the backs of birds
with feathers fashioned out of steel and glass, and though
pursued by snows of Boreas, he came into
a country where the lofty spires called him out
of dreams and sped him on a quest for truth and hope--
those gifts elusive and divine, the which to seek
is to possess, and thus, to own means seek for life.
Through love's fair city and through Troy's begotten town,
the home of gods, he journeyed til he had appeased
Hephaestes' wrath, which long had barred his passage home
with fire and ash. He to his native soil then
returned, though foreign still he felt, and ever shall
for tis his gift and curse to never feel at rest.

Monday, September 13, 2010

On Claustrophobia

I expected that coming back to school in America after a semester in Oxford would have it's strange moments and its challenges, but one thing I don't think I anticipated was how strange it would be to come in contact with so many people.

I don't just mean that there are people around, because there was never a lack of life in Oxford. What I mean is the overwhelming presence of people that you see and talk to on a regular basis. There were fifty
or so Americans in the same program I was, but even most of them I saw only rarely, and though they were wonderful people whom I miss, I was not close to a lot of them. However, being a member of the theatre department here means that you are part of a family. It is inevitable. We are always around each other, always working together. It has been one of my favourite parts of my college experience, but it is intense. I had forgotten how intense it was.

And unlike classes here, my tutorials always consisted of only myself and the professor. We would simply have a conversation about the subject of the week, not the throng of listeners or bevy of voices that tend to be the two extremes of the American classroom. Again, this is not to speak against the American system: it is just a shock.


Strange as this may sound, it is startling to have so many close friends around me. At Oxford, the only close friend I had was Eric, and everyone else was just opportunities to get to know people with the vague hope that some of them might develop into lasting friendships. Even over the summer, I was closer to people, but I saw them only intermittently and rarely more than a couple at a time. Now I am on a campus filled with friends, a number of whom I have known for three years and some for much longer. I have some fantastic friends, but it is curiously disconcerting to have so many of them around me all the time. I believe it is good, but I am still getting used to it.

In a broader sense, the English are just a much more private people than Americans. Emotions were rarely expressed in public. That seemed to suit my natural disposition pretty well and I got used to that pretty quickly. Even my first week back in the country I noticed how much more expressive, boisterous, and public emotions are in America. We tend to wear our hearts on our sleeves. Coming back to college has simply magnified my perception of this difference. I feel like something about my college encourages a campus even more emotional than the general populace, and it is something I am getting used to.

The point of all of this is that sometimes it all suddenly feels like too much, and I feel like I need to run away, to sit among strangers, to speak and have no one hear me or have no one care that it was me who spoke, to go somewhere without anyone else knowing my course, maybe not even me.

For some reason, I feel a vague pressure that these are feelings I am not supposed to have. And I don't know where that comes from.

I love my friends. I love talking to them, and I love it when they force me to open up (even if it is painful). My friends are more than I could ask for, and I am thankful to have them in my life. But sometimes I want to be alone. And other times I want to sit in silence next to someone who knows me very well and have that be okay.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

On a Saturday Morning's Grace

Sometimes, I wonder if I'm really living life or if I'm just messing around.
Sometimes, I wonder if anyone knows which they are doing.
Other times I am certain--one way or the other.


Sometimes, I sit and watch the sky, and the clouds file past in a solemn procession, and the sky is so blue and so bright that I think it must be on fire. And I am assured that there is a good God who loves us immeasurably.

Today, that is enough for me to know.