Sermon by Jaco B. ten Hove
Paint Branch UU Church – February 20, 2005
PAINT BRANCH UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH
A Celebration of Life February 20, 2005 10:00 am
PRELUDE Will Snyder, cellist, and David Chapman, pianist and music director
WELCOME & ANNOUNCEMENTS John Bartoli, worship associate
CALL TO WORSHIP Jaco B. ten Hove, co-minister
SONG #389 Gathered Here
FLAMING CHALICE DEDICATION
MEN of the CHOIR If R. Kipling / L. Spevacek
TOGETHER TIME The Story of Ferdinand M. Leaf
PBUUC Men’s Group
SPECIAL MUSIC Everything Possible F. Small
with Barbara W. ten Hove, co-minister
SERMON Men in Motion
Jaco B. ten Hove
SPECIAL MUSIC Rock Me to Sleep T. Hunter / JBtH
OFFERING This month’s supplemental Special Collection is for The Interfaith Fairness Coalition
OFFERTORY Minuet and Dance of the Blessed Spirits C. W.Gluck
John Lagerquist, flute
Silent Candles of Joy or Sorrow may be lit at this time.
SILENCE, REFLECTION OR PRAYER
HYMN #17 Every Night and Every Morn
CLOSING WORDS
RESPONSE #123 Spirit of Life
CHORAL POSTLUDE Stouthearted Men O. Hammerstein II / S. Romberg
Sermon follows performances of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If,” a skit of Munro Leaf’s “The Story of Ferdinand (the Bull)” and Fred Small’s song “Everything Possible,” chorus:
You can be anybody you want to be; you can love whomever you will.
You can travel any country where your heart leads, and know I will love you still.
You can live by yourself; you can gather friends around; you can choose one special one.
And the only measure of your words and your deeds
Will be the love you leave behind when you're done.
“You can be anybody you want to be”and the measure of your life will be the love you leave behind. Nice message, right? Love is what matters. Even the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, the infamous Robert McNamara, makes that point near the end of an intensely revealing video portrait of him and his times, called The Fog of War. It’s love that really matters, he says. Robert McNamara. That got my attention.
But I have to wonder how many men got this message loud and clear during their early, formative years. Raise your hand if you learned as a boy that love is what really matters in life Well, if your upbringing was at all like mine, we boys learned all kinds of other lessons about what is important. Let’s name a few..:
SUCCESS…MONEY
INDEPENDENCE…TALENT
MASCULINITY…SUCCESS
CARS…TOUGHNESS
SEX…WINNING
SUCCESS…CAREER
RESCUING OTHERS…SUCCESS
PROPERTY…POWER OVER OTHERS
SUCCESS
Hmm, “success” is certainly a prominent thread in that mix, perhaps because it tends to trump or obscure much of what else we boys might learn. Maybe success is actually what really matters. Certainly there is more that boys absorb about their journey into manhood, and many positive lessons are also taught, including love, but goals like those just named on this list are perhaps the most culturally approved and supported ones. They fuel dominant stereotypes about males that continue to dominate because boys still learn them early on.
They also tend to involve action, because men are supposed to be in motion. Today, I’m going to try to unravel what this means and could mean, in both critical and hopeful ways. I’ll sometimes be speaking directly to my brothers here, all who identify as male and have faced the rigors of male socialization, but I hope there is meaning for other genders among us today, too. Often, we are all more alike than different anyway.
I think “men in motion” is an evocative image for our time, with tentacles that reach into almost all our lives. One could even speculate that the growing number of clinically hyperactive boys in our midst is a reflection of this cultural stereotype gone wild.
But males are supposed to be in motion, always accomplishing something that proves their worth. And if we don’t-if we should fail, or dare to walk a counter-culture path or otherwise resist the dominant stereotypes-well, then our very manhood is likely to be questioned, one way or another-if not by those around us, then by our own psyche.
Unfortunately, life is full of our failures, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone with any age at all under their belt. If we are alive, we will taste failure. In baseball, a successful batter only fails seven out of ten at bats. However, when we fail, or refuse to honor the expectations placed upon us, we often don’t just get to go home and smell the flowers like Ferdinand the bull, happily ever after-although that would be welcome. The beauty of that little tale is how Ferdinand innocently defied the powerful stereotypes of his kind-he failed at acceptable behavior-and yet was happier for it because he stayed true to himself.
Ha! We men know how realistic that is-NOT! It’s a nice lesson to teach boys, but they’ll grow up and have to compete in the world of men, where we know all too well that success is what really matters. So instead, as boys turn into men, we learn to internalize our failures and beat ourselves up; we resolve to try harder and get it right the next time, to perfect the right kind of motion so we can eventually succeed and fit in. Along the way, ethics matter less than results. After all, “I’d rather be a hammer than a nail,” as one old pop song put it, tellingly.
Some of us have felt compelled to resist this process, which means we get to swim upstream against a torrent of messages and momentum. It can really wear you out. I remember vividly how my own teenage and young adult counter-culture path led me into some mild despair that at one thankfully brief moment even included considering suicide as an escape from internal angst at my failure to fit in.
In those days I was seriously in motion, literally-hitch-hiking all over the country even before graduating from high school. I had done reasonably well in my hometown (during which era, not coincidentally, I led a strong youth group at my local UU church), but I dropped out of college after one semester and was very restless, itching to travel. Even when I did two more semesters at another school, the second one was for all independent study credits on a long road trip with some friends.
I would hit the highway at a moment’s notice, for the slightest reason, looking for well, I wasn’t sure what. I was on no particular career path, that was clear, and even as I insisted on staying out of various “traps” of the mainstream, I judged myself harshly for not having any focus. For the first four years after high school, I never spent more than three months in any one place. I was not an undiagnosed Attention Deficit patient; I was just untethered and philosophically disinterested in most stereotypical male pursuits. But I was still very male, so I did more of what I must have thought men were generally supposed to do: move.
Seeking the geographic solution, I was a young man addicted to external motion, out of balance. My thoughts of suicide were because I couldn’t avoid the conclusion that I just didn’t fit in anywhere anymore, especially in a fractured, individualistic adult world. It can be really lonely outside the mainstream, which may account for why many of us boomer rebels only lasted so long there, perched on those glorious revolutionary edges.
However much I may have resisted traditional pathways for men, I was still a well-conditioned American Boy, weak on internal reflection, eager mostly for action and abstractions. I had lots of vision and ideas, ungrounded in any real interior life, all just bouncing around in my head. I embraced adventure but ran away from the internal development I had no tools (or guides) for.
Meanwhile, I watched many of my peers go through school, get decent jobs, families, houses, etc., and I tried not to be envious. But there I was almost 30, with virtually nothing to show for myself except lots of road maps and a big box of tools. I finally realized that I needed a trade of some sort, so I made myself into a Volkswagen mechanic-about the most counter-culture of traditional male occupations I could find. But I hated the way my hands were grimy all the time, so I moved on again, eventually into the ministry, where I’ve been happily smelling the flowers every since.
Over the years, I think I have managed to balance that peripatetic young energy with a more centered inner awareness, but even that feels like counter-culture work, since such a quest is not what American males are usually taught to pursue. The rewards and inspirations for us in this culture are mostly out there. What seems to matter is out there. We are trained to focus our gaze and activity out there. And we have to be in motion to get to it, out there.
And when distress grabs us-which it always will, at least occasionally-we are taught to locate it out there, to externalize it. It grabs us from out there, and we must fight it back, push it away, like good soldiers. We usually don’t have the tools to truly understand, let alone accept our own part in the distress, whatever it may be. Nor do we have enough of a relationship with our self to even engage in that kind of inner reflection. So we just blame various forces out there that supposedly victimize us. This allows us to avoid responsibility and implications, which sometimes have roots in our boyhood traumas, which we’d just as soon keep buried and unexamined.
And, very unfortunately, it is all too clear in our time that “men who do not turn to face their own pain often inflict it on others”- a quote from author and therapist Terrence Real, in his 1997 book about healing men, “I Don’t Want To Talk About It” [pg. 234]. This stirring work informs a lot of my talk this morning and I recommend it-but buckle your seatbelts; it will get your attention!
Terrence Real also raises the ancient image from the Roman Stoic philosopher Cato of a thief who is questioned about stealing a fox. He has hidden the animal under his coat, where the fox eats away at his side, but the thief maintains a calm exterior and survives the inquiry despite the injury. Success is what matters.
But then I run into Robert McNamara, of all people-and others, too, of course-suggesting that love is what really matters. Yes, I believe that, and I know that men can have rich interior lives that give us a loving foundation for all manner of healthy, productive pursuits. Love grows as we deepen our inner resources, and that then expands our capacity to love ourselves, love those closest to us, and love the rest of the world with whom we share this planet and this short time of being alive. Any man can grow like this.
I know, for instance, that love grows in the embrace of regular, intentional men’s groups that meet to allow brothers to speak their truth to each other, healing and bonding in substantial ways that the mainstream culture just doesn’t encourage otherwise. My first such men’s group experience began in 1985, and it put me in a whole ‘nother mode of motion. The Men’s Group here at Paint Branch has similarly impacted its members’ lives. We men need to have and be new models of a conscious masculinity that puts us in motion toward what really matters. We can defy stereotypes, build bridges, deepen relationships, and a lot of that happens in today’s men’s groups, I’m happy to say.
In or out of such groups, any of us might notice when we are in the presence of men whose interior motion has become like a gyroscope, centering them in what really matters. I’ve even known a few boys who are already naturally centered in magnificent ways, able to navigate the mainstream waters intuitively and stay the captain of their own vessel as they mature. Such males inspire me to keep after my own path with intention and love.
We also all probably every day run into men in frantic motion, who propel themselves through life as if it were a race and all the trophies were out there somewhere, to be acquired before someone else does.
Any of us might feel when we ourselves are in either of those postures-internally centered or externally propelled-or some degree of each. It seems obvious which is healthier. But it’s also obvious which is the style of life we men are conditioned for and socialized into. The messages and mentoring, the training-formal and informal-that we receive from an early age all by and large propel us toward an external, often unhealthy existence, in which love is a luxury. We know we are rewarded for performance and success-measured out there-and our self-esteem depends on this.
Self-esteem. Ah, this may be the crux of the whole matter. It is an honorable cliché that in order to truly love others, in order to share and spread love, we must first love ourselves. Not a narcissistic self-preoccupation, just a healthy self-esteem, which reflects, in Terrence Real’s words, “an inherent, non-fluctuating sense of oneself as essentially worthwhile” [pg. 181].
Non-fluctuating is an important notion here. It means that in this kind of healthy state we would enter any experience, any moment, with the same degree of self-esteem that we have afterwards. It means that our essential worth would not depend on external forces that might influence us, but on our own internal gyroscope that maintains our inner balance. Our healthy love of self would be sustained regardless of our specific performance or any judgments by others.
Well, this sounds great, but in reality it is a supreme challenge-to stay that centered amid all the stimulation and frantic motion that spins around us every day. It is unusual, although often stirring to meet people who are able to move through life this way. Notice the popularity of the film character Forrest Gump, who, apparently because of his low IQ, never seemed to judge anyone, including himself, by performance. His self-esteem stayed very steady throughout all the vicissitudes of a curious life of ups and downs. This was the heart of the film, to my mind-how his faithful sense of self-worth helped him maintain indelible connections with others. For my purposes here, I might paraphrase Forrest Gump’s signature response like this: “Insecure is as insecure does.”
Fictional heroes notwithstanding, a healthy, “non-fluctuating” self-esteem seems like an almost unachievable ideal for men who are socialized to believe that the only measure of our words and our deeds will be the victories we accumulate plus our material possessions. In the often sarcastic but still relevant world of bumper-sticker wisdom, it goes like this: “He who dies with the most toys, wins.”
In contrast, a true sense of worth, according to Terrence Real, “always implies a secure sense of membership-a sense of mattering to someone, of being worthy of intimacyUnlike traditional mythic images of the lone, utterly self-sufficient hero, real boys and men need social connection just as much as do girls and women” [pg. 191].
If it feels like the stakes in this self-esteem dilemma are getting higher, it may be because we are just the latest generation to grapple with such a demanding balancing act. Rudyard Kipling’s century-old poem, “If,” described this challenge with a long series of what I think are unfortunately conditional statements, making it seem almost impossible to be a Man, but he did capture the need for that inner gyroscope. Two of the many verses of that piece are especially pertinent:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
and treat those two imposters just the same
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but not too much
If I can do that (and much more), I’ll “be a Man,” Kipling says in conclusion. Okay, those are worthy aims, to be sure, which would indeed demonstrate a healthy self-esteem. But I would prefer that my masculine identity not be conditional, thank you. It’s already “iffy” enough. It should not be judged, conferred, withheld, or taken away by others. It is my birthright. Why should it be conditional on anything, especially my performance at any given moment?
But it is-and I not only allow this, I expect it and participate in it. It is what I was taught to do. My self-esteem is less inherent than it is performance-based. I have to earn it, and if I don’t, shame on me. This is just the water American males swim in, including me. And I was raised Unitarian Universalist, which affirms, at the top of our list of principles, “the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” So I know how to give good lip service to this noble value, which is nonetheless severely at odds with the traditional conditioning of men. This hidden conflict may explain, partially at least, why there are usually relatively few males in our churches.
We men are socialized to believe that our “inherent worth and dignity” actually depends on our performance, our success. So we can’t really take seriously, can we, a religious value that directly contradicts what has been drummed into us by the rest of the culture every day since we were young? It could create a harsh dissonance in our soul, and perhaps some men subconsciously resist settings where we have to pit noble ideals against our unexamined but dominant conditioning.
Meanwhile, an intriguing Swiss study* in the 1990s found that church attendance by a family’s father is by far the largest influence on his children’s future participation. In families where both parents attend regularly, a third of the children will continue to do so. When the father doesn’t go, only 2% of the children ever will, even if the mother does. But when the father does worship regularly (even if the mother doesn’t) almost half of the children (44%) will carry the practice into their adult lives.
And over the course of the 20th century, the presence of men in church has steadily declined. When I was born, mid-century, Protestant men were only slightly in the minority (47%) of churchgoers. By 2002, we had shrunk in number to barely a third (36-39%)**. Sunday morning is already the most racially segregated time of the week; is it destined to also become gender segregated?
During that same 20th century, the nuclear family model emerged and the stereotyped roles of male breadwinner and female care-giver solidified, but social isolation increased. Hmmm, who’s really benefiting from these vaunted “traditional” family roles?
For men in this system, there have been costs that it has taken us a while to recognize, let alone accept. In essence, we have generally traded away our hearts and our friends-the warmth of interpersonal connection, including any perception of vulnerability-for the so-called rewards of accomplishment, such as the privilege of special status and external success, which are often accompanied by an deceptive sense of security and superiority.
However, the percentage of men who really benefit from this trade-off is probably pretty small; and those who cannot keep up the bargain at all, either by choice or failure, are marginalized, ridiculed or worse. All men seem to show the strains of increased stress. Yet many of us resist change, preferring to defend a system that actually improves the odds we will die sooner than later.
I find myself wincing now every time I notice a recently retired man dying without getting to enjoy much of his “golden years.” The actual rate of this may not be increasing, per se, but I just take it more personally, as my own distance from that work milestone shrinks. I try not to imagine what it must be like to work until ya die, which makes me want to ask, one more time:
What really matters here, guys? Do you believe that “the only measure of your words and your deeds will be the love you leave behind when you’re done”? If so, what kind of motion does that inspire in you? I know a parent who embroidered that line on a pillow to give to a college-bound child.
All men, with or without biological children, have fathering energy that is generative, meaning we can pass on our love of life to others, especially those close to us. When we are in generative motion, we are creatively authentic, growing connections that both support the community and fill our hearts. Almost any service to the greater good is generative and can help relieve pain, both the pain of those in need and the pain of those offering the service.
Generative motion also tunes up our inner gyroscope and provides energy to help us stand up to unwelcome, limiting stereotypes. It is indeed time that we actively pioneer paths for men and women that are better balanced, more just, equitable and compassionate, plus healthier. Start with your own inner life, your relationship with your gentle self and see what is reflected there. Deepen it, strengthen it, honor it.
And I bet any of us can find a way to sponsor even a little bit more love in the world this very afternoon. Then, tonight when we rest, we might hear this song echoing in our hearts. It’s a Tom Hunter message that I put to my own music
“Rock Me To Sleep”
All I can hear are the crickets and the whistle from some lonely freight I've been working so hard to make everything right, but for now it'll just have to wait CHORUS: 'Cause tonight I'd like you to rock me to sleep. I'd like you to sing me a song. I'm tired of trying to figure things out. And I'm tired of being so strong. I've never been too good at asking. I'm more apt to do it alone. And it's strange how a lot of us think something's wrong if we can't do it all on our own. CHORUS It's funny how times when you're hurting make what's so familiar seem strange, So when you need help it's hardest to ask, and it always takes so long to change. CHORUS
*[“The demographic characteristics of the linguistic and religious groups in Switzerland” by Werner Haug and Phillipe Warner of the Federal Statistical Office, Neuchatel. It appears in Volume 2 of Population Studies No. 31, a book titled The Demographic Characteristics of National Minorities in Certain European States, edited by Werner Haug and others, published by the Council of Europe Directorate General III, Social Cohesion, Strasbourg, January 2000.]
** [First statistic from church growth expert Lyle Schaller. Second from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey by Deborah Bruce and Cynthia Woolever, published in 2002 as A Field Guide to U.S. Congregations. Both quoted by Henry G. Brinton, Senior Pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church, “Praying for More Men,” in the Washington Post Outlook section, Dec. 19, 2003.]