By Archie Wortham
“Imperfect, unsuspected, forgiving.”
It’s been some time since I’ve initiated contact. Sound like something from Close Encounters or Star Trek. Time has a way of not allowing us to forget who we are, why we are here and what God wants of us. During the period I’ve been on a hiatus, I have garnered immeasurable support for many people, especially the young people author Grant Skeleton calls the “Passion Generation.”
I have been remiss in my contributions on my passion for parenting and men’s growth. We are a susceptible sort who hide our vulnerabilities behind a variety of landscapes: work, sports, sex and politics. Few of us are transparent on our adequacies and allow society to school the world on what they provide: deficit models; adjunct adjectives that don’t due us justice; behaviors that best describe us as petulant, plebian or pitiable.
That’s not my mission. My mission as I rise from the phoenix of depression with a defiance to deconstruct those images and hopefully provide a forum for men to realize we are the change in the world. We have a collective responsibility to instill in those who would follow us to show up and man up. Rather than be the bullies some would want us to be, let’s take on the mantle to defy the bullies who would want us to go to a corner with a dunce cap on and be silent. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., challenged us to realize “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” And “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” I have been silent too long.
I began this column again and will continue to write more frequently about men and what we face. I will address how we have cultivated a culture where we are alone; have few friends, and don’t want to talk about things that matter. That’s us and we matter. It’s more of a “you-too,” than “me too.”
This renaissance evolved over the last year as I developed a class on heroes. Last week, a student told me how he’s not experienced someone who was so passionate about teaching. I guess as a baby-boomer, I grew up with teachers who were almost monotheistic in how they looked at students as their children, and themselves as agents of change. I now see myself as an agent. But more specifically to realize how much I can still learn.
One of the things I learned about being heroic is as one student expressed, heroes are imperfect, unsuspected and forgiving. This quintessential remarks should resonate with you fathers, husbands and men who feel you don’t matter. They do every Wednesday on Facebook as I extol heroism and heroes, people like us. The young man is a member of the ‘passion generation’ understanding that you don’t have to be perfect.
More often than not, those heroes we applaud, Spock, Mr. Rogers, Truman, will admit they didn’t have it figured out. A couple of weeks ago another student shared a story that brought me to tears, his alcoholic dad, who would never have thought he was heroic, taught him how to be forgiving.
In the months ahead, as I use this as forum to dialogue, keep in mind as Tyler Perry’s character, Madea, one of my heroes said, “It’s not what people call you” that’s important, “it’s what you answer to.” I’m reminding you if you let others control your life, your life will never belong to you. Or as I tell my student ‘if you find yourself where you don’t want to be, you deserve to be there.’
So many missed opportunities I’ve passed up, ignored and just thought I wasn’t good enough, but after going through radiation therapy; having my students teach me more about heroes, and helping another man go through what I went through, I realized as Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull said, “Here’s a test, to see if your mission in life is complete. If you are alive, it isn’t.” Mine isn’t, or is yours and take stock as men, fathers, husbands and friends, we got this!
Truly there are heroes among us and you are one. So “kick it till you kick it!”