learning to shudder...

***This post is part of a series which started on April 12^th. This series is an exploration of masculinity which I think is  valuable to both sexes based off a book about men titled Iron John by Robert Bly with quotes in italics.***

“The Descent” will bring change and there is a particular change I want to discuss here. Innocence is often seen as naivety. Overcoming innocence is therefore considered a part of “growing up.”  But, innocence is not always naïve as “experience” does not always bring maturity. Often “hardening” to one degree or another is considered a sign of the development of the masculine soul.  This “hardening” is more than increasing one’s capacity to face the brutal harshness of reality.  It is seen as distancing from childhood sensitivity, but it is often simply a wall built between you and your heart. It is watching the news without feeling the weight of it.

When I talk with friends that I have not seen or spent any amount of significant time with in years, it often seems as if they are talking to a corpse buried somewhere in my past – a person becoming increasingly unfamiliar to me.  They expect me to be somewhat callous, unsympathetic, cynical, ridiculing of others, insensitive, strictly politically conservative, main stream Christian (unless they have read my blog occasionally)… but I am not anymore. I’m not different in every way, I still don’t trust most authority and I take pleasure in shirking it, and I hope (or humbly say I know) that these negative attributes are not all that they expect from me. The Descent, along with parenting and other life developments have broken down this wall between me and my heart. Oh, in the past I slipped through the window in the wall and snuck into the room built for my heart every now and then and it felt good, but the wall was always there. I often slipped through the window when I was speaking, but it never turned into a door that I could walk through freely. Thankfully, my Descent blew a big hole in that wall instead of reinforcing it separating me even more from my heart.  For a long time I didn’t have enough courage to face the pain that comes with tearing the wall down so I defended it.

I don’t find pleasure in ridiculing others as I did before, although I am not always innocent of it. I am no longer dismissingly judgmental of the poor or harshly critical of the non-Christian. My statements are increasingly cautious and less matter of fact. Hearing biting opinions dripping with bitterness even when not aimed at me cause me to flinch.  A day or two ago a mom was smoking a bit too close to the bus stop. Understandably, I didn’t want her smoking too close to my kid, but I wasn’t immediately full of anger towards her for this obvious self centered act of poor judgment. I know her. I have observed her life and other decisions that she has made.  She put out her cigarette, the bus came and she walked past the other mothers on her way home. They were disgusted with her and let her know it with their faces and dagger stares. Somehow their reaction to her felt worse than her unhealthy habit affecting me and my child. Being resolute and intolerant of certain actions does not have to be void of compassion.

This reconnecting with heart, Bly calls “learning to shudder.”  The masculine soul is not either tough and strong or soft and weak. If it is one or the other, it is dangerous. The soft and weak as we said before are not “life giving.”  Those who are only tough and strong are “numb, undone, unfinished men.”  These are the ones capable of pedophilia, genocide, using rape as a weapon of war as in the Congo, the shrugging of shoulders at the news of civilian “collateral damage”, drive by shootings, corruption…They are the CEO’s and investment bankers who made it out of the economic meltdown with millions while everyone else paid the price. On a lesser scale they are the loud mouth parents at little league games and teacher yelling at his second grade class at the top of his lungs.  “When [one] learns to shudder, he is developing a part of the masculine emotional body.”

One of my favorite scenes from the movie “The Patriot” is when the sons witness the father, Mel Gibson, brutally killing an enemy in defense of his family. The boys look at him as if they had no idea that their father was capable of such fierceness. It is a look of astonishment, some fear and yet a comfort in his protection. The other day my daughter asked me what I would do if someone broke into our house. I told her I would kill them. She said that didn’t really make her feel better. I toned it down a bit. The masculine soul of the Radiant Man isn’t always safe, but it is good. “Learning to shudder” is when a man can embrace the brutality of a battle as well as allowing the aftereffect of the shaking of his body from adrenaline to remind him of “how frail human beings are.”

Those who have not learned to shudder hate those who do. They marginalize it as weakness, naïve innocence, purely feminine, and they threaten to “put them out of the community of men.”  They are incapable of seeing the superior strength it takes to wield a sword while being connected to your thriving heart. 

I think I shared this story in a previous post, but it fits again. While living in California, some of our friends took us into Tijuana for the day. They told us that there would be a lot of beggars and children sent out by their parents selling chiclets – basically asking for money. I was determined not to give into it. I wouldn’t be taken advantage of and I can’t be emotionally exploited. At one point a little girl followed me down the side walk refusing to give up and even tugging on me to buy from her. I told her no and didn’t acknowledge her again until she gave up.  I hadn’t learned to shudder. I hadn’t developed a love for children. The poor were a nuisance and it was their fault anyway.

The non-shudderers think the shudderers “can’t handle the truth” and that “we need them on that wall.” Remember A Few Good Men? The truth is that we need more radiant men in our families, governments, businesses and communities who have learned to shudder and have developed a more complete masculine soul. Men who can write songs, sing and dance, and yet be resolute, protect and work hard.