Imagine wherever you are now, in the very place you are sitting or standing, I am present, beside you, with you. I am someone you deeply respect. My opinion of you carries great weight and perhaps you have on occasion sought my direction, even approval. I am someone you trust; someone you know who cares deeply for you, wanting only what is best for you and your loved ones. Who am I . . . to you? Am I your buddy, brother, father, coach, mentor, paid consultant, boss, therapist, minister, or even God? You choose who I am. I tell you I have a question for you, two if we’re counting. Inquiries only you can answer. Here are the questions:
                           “Are you a man?”
                             
                               “Why?”

  By the sobering look on my face, you know I am serious, and suddenly you stiffen, feeling nervous, hoping desperately for an articulate, impressive response.
  Is your reply, yes? Do you answer in the affirmative with concrete personal qualities about which you feel confident, claiming these verifiable characteristics boldly, knowing those close to you would nod their heads with confirming enthusiasm? Or do you find yourself quickly regurgitating cultural or stereotypical responses, hoping to sound wise, or self-aware? Do you readily cite your likeness to someone, maybe a fictional someone? What is your answer? Is it a characteristic by which you wish to be characterized, a trait by which you want others to describe you?

Introduction

  Is your answer, no? Do you feel inferior, maybe even depressed, sulking, muttering a shoulder-dropping, knees bent response? Do you feel defensive, the need to protect yourself? Do you give credence to the accusation citing masculinity as “toxic” to society?

  We’ll get to that political buzz adjective in a moment . . .

  I hope your answer to my inquiry is a resounding yes, with concrete reasoning! But if not, I hope you are hungry to learn, change, and improve your circumstances and relationships. Because I have good news. This book is written for all men, to offer those who seek to know and practice the mental, intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual anatomy of a man and what this means in our lost, confused culture, one seeking not only to reduce the impact of a man in society but redefine what a man is, or eliminate him, certainly to crush strong male influence. Call this book an informal “operations manual” or a set of blueprints, or if sports are your thing, a team playbook, one designed to help you avoid the pitfalls of delirious, disingenuous gender assertions or other redefinitions of what and who and how a man…is.

Examples: Family and Friends
{this example being me}

I was seated in my office when the screaming began, counseling an individual who was pleading for my assistance with several needs (medical and mental health, ID, Birth Certificate, employment, among others—just another day at the office). The shouted obscenities and violent threats turned the heads of everyone in the spacious building, terrifying many. The ruckus started, I was later told, when my colleague, Nora, instructed Quincy (I later learned his name) to leave her office due to his harsh and loud criticisms, sparking pandemonium, a riotous one-man uproar in the lobby.

The Setting

The South Napa Homeless Shelter was bustling with overnight guest residents and myriad other needy people off the streets, stepping through the main entrance at 100 Hartle Court. The lobby was loud, littered with bodies, many altered and/or filthy, carrying a stench. A multitude of others were clustered around the lengthy “Front Desk” reception counter area (manned by Shelter Monitor staff) seeking Day Services (showers and laundry and mail) and appointments to see the doctor who attended scores of patients on both Tuesday and Friday mornings in the onsite medical clinic. The dining area was awash with sad souls waiting patiently for the twelve-thirty meal. It is free. This was the busiest time of the day, every day, six days a week. Think sloppy, smelly chaos.

I stepped out of my office, heading toward the fray.

The Commotion

Quincy was facing the Front Desk and with great volume bellowing threats at the top of his lungs. Program participants (homeless people) began slowly—some quickly—moving away from him. Glancing behind the front desk reception, I immediately ascertained our attending monitor staff were collectively incapable of quelling the violent verbal storm hurled at them. They stood frozen and aghast behind the Day Services reception counter, staring at him much the same way a small child gazes astonishingly and with great intimidation at a zoo lion roaring from mere feet in distance.

Screaming obscenities and threats, he waved his hands in the air, pointing the index finger of his right hand at no one and everyone. Quincy’s tempest had no target, simply seething angst blasted fiercely and without restraint, streaming wildly at anyone near him like a high-pressure hose let loose, drenching all objects in its vicinity. As I approached the bedlam, making my way through the cowering crowd, it immediately became my intention to hone his ferocious oral whiplash away from staff and lasso its wrath onto myself, giving him an audience of one to spew his vocal venom; to give him the attention he desperately craved.

I stepped up to Quincy, hands at my side, and in a calm voice asked a simple, open-ended, innocuous, and blameless question: “What’s goin’ on?”

It happened instantly.

With the speed of a cobra, he turned to face me, eyes fixed suddenly on mine. For him there was now an attentive listener, a scapegoat onto whom he could focus his fury. He stepped forward, glaring at me, eyes burning with rage, and unleashed a torrential blizzard of expletives and threats. For many working in social services, this aggressive, maniacal behavior provided the impetus to respond with equal intensity, maybe even physical constraint to avoid violence, an unnecessary mistake (most of the time, those not trained in a technique I’m about to describe hustle with fear to the phones and dial 911). However, unlike the colleagues and coworkers surrounding me at the South Napa Homeless Shelter (or “SNS” as we refer to it), among other proficiencies I am trained in a technique (often misused in conversation) called “de-escalation,” or more simply put, calming a person who is crazed with anger. Think of releasing pressure from a radiator . . . or nuclear reactor.

Patient and Tolerant

As both men approached, Mariano, surprised and stunned, smiled at his friends, not yet fully grasping the moment. When Andy and Derek climbed the hill to retrieve their beloved friend and teammate, the moment froze. It was the end of the line. Mariano buried his face in Pettitte’s chest and sobbed. Andy held him firmly as the world’s largest chorus bellowed praise in succession. Mariano then turned to fellow Hall of Famer Jeter and repeated the terminating affair, sending fans’ heads spinning in frantic arrays of emotion. The scene lasted nearly five minutes, culminating in Mariano’s stroll to the dugout, fans roiling rabid with appreciation for the hero they had cheered for nearly twenty years. After hugging his coaches and teammates, Alex Rodriquez, “A-Rod” literally pushed him up a small set of stairs, out of the dugout recesses, back onto the field, and in so doing created a scene, one so moving tens of millions of people longed to have witnessed live.

This is a grandiose example of loving men, and the evidence was caught on national television for the world to see, cherish and remember. I cry every time I watch it. In micro fashion, it happens around you and me with regularity: reunions (family, class, and military); homecomings of soldiers; in hospitals when the illness was beaten by medicine and good doctors; graduations and a hundred other settings. A loving man recognizes and celebrates the successes of others, both privately and in public; a loving man can cry on the shoulder of a friend, and a loving man can, without hesitation, offer a shoulder both privately and in public.

Examples: Formal

Yankee Stadium

48,675 fans cried like babies on Thursday night, September 26, 2013. Did their team come back from behind to win a big game? Nope. Did the team clinch a playoff berth? Nope. Was it a playoff or championship win? Wrong again. The game was, in fact, meaningless. The Yankees were playing the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on a night leading to a 4-0 loss at home, Yankee Stadium. So why mass hysteria and emotion? Did a legend announce he had a terminal disease, a la Lou Gehrig?

Almost.

An illustrious career was ending, witnessed live, en masse and on television broadcasts across the nation. After nineteen years of Hall of Fame baseball, Yankee closer Mariano Rivera was pitching his last game. Beloved by fans, teammates, coaches and the media, a feared opponent by all who faced him, dubbed “The Sandman” citing the condition rendered when the game was on the line and an opposing hitter faced him.

It was the top of the ninth, two outs when Yankees manager Joe Girardi tossed all procedure to the wind, knowing this was the end: Mariano’s last moment with cleated feet atop a major league pitcher’s mound. Instead of leaving the dugout himself to signal his bullpen and relieve his ailing pitcher—standard process—Joe sent out loyal and cherished long-time teammates Andy Pettitte and Derek Jeter, two men also adored by everyone in the baseball world and especially Yankee fans. Like grizzled characters in an old-time western movie, Andy and Derek strolled casually from dugout steps to the mound as fans went berserk, poignantly, mournfully, tenderly, nostalgically aware of the historic event unfolding in front of their disbelieving tear-soaked eyes. The three baseball titans would never again do battle together, and Mariano the gun slinger would hang up his spikes for the last time.

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Loving

Instantly Jesus stops! The flowing crowd becomes clogged, bodies bumping and colliding like logs in a crowded river stream. He turns, asks his disciples who just touched him. The desperation and terror of the bleeding woman now intensifies, fearing both the crowd and now Jesus. She expects to be shouted at in condemnation. What has this unclean woman done to this great man? All in attendance will see her, scream for all to hear her condition, and perhaps even stone her to death for such greedy, disobedient insolence.

Jesus is insistent. In his abrupt disruption, he is now ignoring the crowd and implores. “I felt healing power go out of me. Who touched me? Come forward.” In response to Jesus’ inquiry, I’ll summarize Peter’s response: “Really? Come on, Master. Look at all these people. Please, they’re all touching you.”

She is trembling, on her knees, face in the dirt.

Jesus asks again.

Fearing retribution from a hostile, judgmental crowd, knowing Jewish law regarding the bleeding of a woman, she shudders in the dust.

Jesus has stifled the onrush of the crowd by his forceful demand and remains steadfast. He refuses to move until he learns who, among so many others present, reached out for his healing with such desperation and faith. He wants and is motivated to know. His determination and resolve to find her leads to grace.

She ventures a confession, pleading, explaining her motive and subsequent (she fears inappropriate or illegal) actions.

His response? He identifies this ailing woman, calls her “daughter” then instructs her to go. She is healed.

Dogged determination, folks. Jesus was (and is) a man of dogged determination.

Determined

Examples: Foundational

Bleeding Woman: Matthew, Mark, Luke

Background: A woman has been suffering from, we assume, vaginal hemorrhaging for twelve years. She is considered “unclean” by society and spends most, if not all her days in isolation and fear of being identified, chastised, and scourged in public. She hunkers daily, avoiding attention. In short, hers is a miserable existence.

Scene and Setting: The leader of a local synagogue, a man named Jairus, has pleaded with Jesus to come heal his dying young daughter. In response, Jesus and the disciples comply and while in route are surrounded by a curious, hounding, frantic crowd. You’ve seen press conferences where reporters clamor and shout to gain a politician’s attention. Now intensify it. Let’s join them out there on the crowded, dirty street, bumping against sweaty bodies bustling to gain Jesus’ attention, calling out for, even demanding miracles. People are shouting, pushing, shoving, pressing to get near him. The pious cynical Pharisees and Jewish authorities are nearby watching, judging, scheming for his demise.

It is chaos.

Precipitating Event:

You and I see her, hiding behind a shrub, wearing multiple layers of fabric below her waist, squatting outside the throng of pressing seekers. She is an afflicted soul who avoids the slightest attention of even one person. Being drastically out of her element, risking a crowd is evidence of her fraught despair. And her faith! And for who, what?

Jesus Christ. That’s who. The desperate bleeding woman reasons if she can merely run a fingertip across a single thread of the garment Jesus wore, she would be healed.

Terrified and frozen, she is desperate. She has suffered without reprieve for more than a decade and has likely spent everything she has though no physician is able to deliver a remedy. As Jesus approaches, surrounded by pleaders and thrill seekers, she crouches, knees bent and rigid, thigh muscles weak and quivering. She becomes poised. In modern nomenclature this is characterized as ‘Go Time’ when you are called into action. Summoning all her strength and resolve, she . . .

. . . goes for it!

Every single modicum of comfort is abandoned, entering the buzzing crowd to stretch out her hand to touch the fray of his garment. Lunging into the mass of streaming bodies, she wrestles her way in the dirt and dust to get to him. He is ten feet away. She pushes, crawls. A knee bangs against her temple. She topples to the dirt, stalling her progress and pursuit. She rights herself, regains her balance and glances ahead, once again pushing. Five feet from her he walks, pressed by seekers and agitators. Two feet. She can hear his voice. She then stretches out a trembling arm, the shaking finger finding its target, momentarily gliding against the thin cloth of his tunic.

Fast forward: An island densely populated with deadly dinosaurs perceived to be safely contained, ready to dazzle the world. Enter an orientation tour of the park, one requiring, among others, both Grant and Sattler’s endorsements for legal issues, when everything goes wrong, and people are dying. Grant becomes stranded and lost with two children, Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim (Joseph Mazello), the grandchildren of Park Founder John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), who are abandoned by the company attorney Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero) the moment turmoil and mayhem ensues on the tour. Intervening, Grant becomes burdened with the custody of . . . wait for it . . . children!

Safely inside the lodge, Dr. Sattler is terrified the stranded parties are lost and facing peril. Hammond replies: “Who better to get them [his grandchildren] through Jurassic Park than a dinosaur expert?’

The stage is now set for conflict between not only deadly, carnivorous dinosaurs, but also Grant and children. Instead, what becomes of the chaos and life-threatening turn of harrowing events? We see a man who has not only the willingness to protect children from certain death, but the capacity to love them as well.

A Protector

Examples: Fictional

Dr. Alan Grant, Jurassic Park

Dr. Grant (played by actor Sam Neill) is an easy-going, run-of-the-mill average Joe, a paleontologist who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty and his thoughts heard. We first see him in Montana on an excavation with graduate students and assumed significant other, Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern). They are looking at a submerged Velociraptor skeleton via computer imaging capture. We learn quickly of his disdain for not only technology, but also of children when a bratty boy mocks the find, Grant’s reaction being to scare him with a Velociraptor claw he carries on himself, slashing air near his stomach, stating “You are alive when they eat you.”

In the subsequent scene we see Sattler laughing, stating he could have just pulled a gun on the kid.

“You want one of those?” Grant asks, his tone laced with sarcasm.

Again laughing, “Not that one. I’m intrigued by a certain breed of children,”

“Children are noisy, messy and expensive.”

“Cheap, cheap,” Sattler mocks.

He snorts, confirming his disdain for children. “They smell.”

She retorts, “They do not smell.”

“Some of them smell.”

“Oh, jeez—”

“Babies smell!” he snaps back, effectively cutting her off.

A Bold Leader

Examples: Formal

Growing up on a dairy farm provided few thrills. Milking cows at three in the morning in cold frigid temperatures was a daily task for which he held no affinity. Full of nervous vigor, he got himself into skirmishes, showing off for buddies and getting into fistfights. He was stubborn and enjoyed playing practical jokes on friends and nonfriends, like his high school bus driver who claimed to often be the focus of mischief, when secretly as a teenager he would cut off the gas line to the bus after he and his friends exited the vehicle, then giggled as the large transport shirked and shook and stalled, running when the bus driver shook a fist in his direction. He would get his siblings into trouble, yank on girl’s pig tails, and in church services, with a rubber band flick chewing gum into the hats of women sitting in front of him (it is told he purposefully sat in the last row). Who was this little hellion?

Billy Graham.

As a teenager, he was interested in two things: baseball and girls. He was the tall, slim son of a dairy farmer. Humble, a good-looking man with a booming voice, he called himself “just an ordinary country preacher.” We all know differently. I won’t delineate here his simple unwavering message of the Good News (Gospel), for which many, like me, hold with great conviction. Millions heard his voice and simple message in stadiums across the world. I personally saw him my freshman year in college. I didn’t walk down toward the stage when called by Billy to give my life to Christ. Perhaps it was pride, seated with college buddies listening to the man as if attending a lecture in a study hall, a rather large one on the grounds of Cal EXPO Sacramento. I don’t know what if any part Billy Graham had in my coming to Christ, but I can tell you weeks later I did feel a compulsion to attend a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting held at the Student Union. Yes, I admit, the blonde who invited me—quite the looker—was influential, nevertheless I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ during the CCC meeting on campus.

My intention here is to highlight events and circumstances in the life of Billy Graham, often referred to as America’s Pastor or Preacher, where we see bold leadership. Many consider him a timid, humble man with a big presence in the pulpit and on the world’s stage. And while those assessments are accurate, the man from North Carolina was indeed . . . a Bold Leader.