Passage - Calling Young Men to Manhood

Christian & Ben

The last month two of my son's have had significant milestones that we've enjoyed memorializing in special ways.

First, my second son Ben graduated from High School in late May.  We began planning a home party and barbecue but he grew uncomfortable with that idea and instead asked for a small dinner with some men  and young guys that have been a part of his life.  I organized this group of men and I asked them to consider bringing advice and wisdom for Ben.  We gathered at a nice resturant and began to enjoy a meal.  While we ate, many of the older guys shared stories from their college days, usually highlighting something they would have done differently or a fun memory.

my older sons

I spoke about Christian and then I spoke to him

My third son Christian turned 13 in April and I organized a camping trip to Hanging Rock State Park in June.  There were a few other sons of dads who were turning 13 or 14 so we invited about 6 other families along. At this ceremony, held the second night, I shared with Christian three things; Why I love him, Why I'm proud of him and Why I know he has what it takes to be a man.  It's important for a boy (and a man) to have these life-long questions settled in his heart and it's such a blessing to hear them from the most important man in your life, dad.  It's been my tradition to plan a special passage ceremony for my son's at the ages of 13, 18 and prior to their wedding week (though none have made it that far yet).  Also, around the age of 15, I take my sons to an incredibly special father-son, week long adventure in Jackson Hole Wyoming called Christ in the Tetons.

These moments of calling my sons up to manhood have been some of the most precious moments of my life.  The older ones have gone from being my little buddies, then crazy teenagers and now, so gratefully, my close friends and allies.  All of us too often simply let life happen without recognizing the transitions that are happening around us, like a boy becoming a man.  While I still make huge mistakes with my young men and am still learning much, I encourage you to be intentional and strategic during this time in your sons life.

p.s. for those who are real adventurous or who live "down under", checkout my good friend's organization Fathering Adventures in Australia.

p.s.s. also a great resource in understanding the boyhood to manhood journey is Robert Lewis' classic book Raising a Modern Day Knight

No, Is A Holy Word

Over the years I've taught my family a phrase that now get's repeated to me often, 

"No...is a holy word." 

Enjoying a "Dad versus Wild" Outing

With a large family there are MANY opportunities to do alot of things, often alot of  "good" things.  In fact, I often think I've earned a masters degree in logistics or decision analysis with this bunch.  But anyone with a family or a business understands that when you say "yes" to something, you're are likely, often times without knowing it, saying "no" to something else.  

My other thought here is, as Jim Collins says in his book Good TO Great, "Good is the enemy of great".  He suggests for instance that, we don't have great families because we've settled for good families or we don't have great relationships because we somewhere decided to settle for good relationships, we don't have great churches because we have good churches.  Good is your enemy of great. 


When we settle for good we've left something wonderful that will never be discovered, left unwrapped, possibly forever.  When we say no to things that may not pertain to our focus area or family calling it leaves our brain/soul space or weekly schedule open to that which makes us come alive, possibly that which we were born to do, be, become.  Besides, who says that every stitch of time needs to be filled with activity?  In fact, for some people their constant activity is likely a sign of other troubles.


From another angle, my wife's wonderful saying, which often pertains to our children is; "Everyone needs their daily dose of vitamin NO.  I like this, it helps them know, that despite how much we love them, hug them and would storm hell with a water pistol for them...life is not about them and the world does not revolve around them.


So what kind of things do you say no to that brings life to your family?

Never Go Alone

One of my sweetie's at Home Depot

People often ask me "how do you have time to spend quality time with each child?"  While I don't have a complete answer for this post, one motto I use is, "never go alone".  I work out of the home and travel at times, therefore home-time is very important to me.  No doubt there are constant needs, work to be done, things to fix.  But I've found that the moments that are uniquely special are when I'm working on projects around the house and I find a way have some of the children help me.  While having some "helpers" can suddenly make a one-hour project twice as long, there is so much exchanged with your child when they "do it with you or go with you".

Dad enlarging the house, circa 1973

Some of my fondest memories is doing stuff with my dad.  He was the ultimate handyman around the house and, unlike me, could do virtually anything; carpentry, plumbing, tile work, etc.  So when I need to head to Home Depot or make a quick trip I always try to take a child (or two or three).  Yes, it can be frustrating if you're the kind of person like me who likes to just get things checked-off the list quickly.  But if you think a little more strategically you can check things off and father your child's heart.  While not a complete list, here's a few things that can be accomplished "along the way".

1) You can talk about the business your visiting and how it makes money.
2) You can explain the tools you're using and give them some hands-on experiences.
3) You can talk about the people who work at the business.
4) You can demonstrate to them that whatever you're doing, you can have the joy of the Lord, even if a project gets frustrating or doesn't go the way you planned.

Time for Mums

So my encouragement is; never go alone.

Thanks for visiting.

Jerry Seinfeld on kids and family...

I found this article in Parade Magazine, an insert in my Sunday newspaper. Excerpts from his interview below...

Courtesy of Seinfeld reruns, he will always be the single guy hanging out with his Although his own children obviously want for nothing, Seinfeld works hard not to be too indulgent. He bemoans the way some people cater to their children’s every whim. Seinfeld has three rules of parenting, what he calls “the poison Ps.” The first is Praise—“We tell our kids, ‘Great job!’ too much,” he says. The second is Problem-solving—“We refuse to let our children have problems. Problem-solving is the most important skill to develop for success in life, and we for some reason can’t stand it if our kids have a situation that they need to ‘fix.’ Let them struggle—it’s a gift.”

Just as he’s explaining the third P—“Giving your child too much Pleasure”—a woman comes in the deli with her three young daughters and buys them all huge cookies. “Can you believe this?” Seinfeld says, gesturing like his TV counterpart used to. “It’s 5:30 p.m.—when will they have dinner? At 8?”

So why does he think we treat our kids like that? His eyes light up. “Do you want to hear my latest theory?” he asks. “It’s a little far-fetched.” He leans in and explains how children today aren’t as innocent as they used to be. “We feel so guilty for destroying that innocence—which is what we did—so we’re now trying to repair that by creating perfect childhoods for our children.” He laughs, but he’s serious at the same time. “The reason we overdo it so much is because we feel so bad about it.”

Seinfeld also believes that it is best to teach children by example. “Kids are not going to do what you tell them to do or think like you tell them to think,” he says. “Kids are watching how you deal with that waiter or that handyman, and they are probably more likely to imitate you.”

But the comic now has three kids (Sascha, 9, Julian, 6, and Shepherd, 4). “If I was younger, I’d have six kids by now,” he says. “I love it. I love having a family and kids and all the madness. There is no aspect of it I don’t like. Even when it’s horrible, I love it. I didn’t realize how tired of single life I was and how ready I was for married life.”

Seinfeld married Jessica Sklar in 1999. He says he will sometimes pause in the middle of a squabble with her to note that she delivered a great line. Recently, for example, “she told me, ‘I will unleash a freakness upon you,’” he says. “And I thought, ‘Gee, that’s a funny line—I would love that to be on the show.’”

Although his own children obviously want for nothing, Seinfeld works hard not to be too indulgent. He bemoans the way some people cater to their children’s every whim. Seinfeld has three rules of parenting, what he calls “the poison Ps.” The first is Praise—“We tell our kids, ‘Great job!’ too much,” he says. The second is Problem-solving—“We refuse to let our children have problems. Problem-solving is the most important skill to develop for success in life, and we for some reason can’t stand it if our kids have a situation that they need to ‘fix.’ Let them struggle—it’s a gift.”

Just as he’s explaining the third P—“Giving your child too much Pleasure”—a woman comes in the deli with her three young daughters and buys them all huge cookies. “Can you believe this?” Seinfeld says, gesturing like his TV counterpart used to. “It’s 5:30 p.m.—when will they have dinner? At 8?”

So why does he think we treat our kids like that? His eyes light up. “Do you want to hear my latest theory?” he asks. “It’s a little far-fetched.” He leans in and explains how children today aren’t as innocent as they used to be. “We feel so guilty for destroying that innocence—which is what we did—so we’re now trying to repair that by creating perfect childhoods for our children.” He laughs, but he’s serious at the same time. “The reason we overdo it so much is because we feel so bad about it.”

Seinfeld also believes that it is best to teach children by example. “Kids are not going to do what you tell them to do or think like you tell them to think,” he says. “Kids are watching how you deal with that waiter or that handyman, and they are probably more likely to imitate you.”

Jerry Seinfeld | Parade.com

Risk, Chaos, Mess...the stuff of real life!

Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest. Proverbs 14:4

People make a mess. Children make a mess. Houses with people and a lot of children make big messes. You can't have children around and have things clean, in order and in good repair for very long. While the words "disorder" or "mess" seem undesireable, within anything of beauty there remains an element of chaos (think nature). I'm learning (with difficulty) that when I look at a dirty kitchen or a messy garage, I'm looking at lives being lived, in all it's chaos with people I love.

I help run a lot of businesses that are highly dependent on people. If I couldn't accept a lot of ambiguity and chaos at times, I would soon be crushed by the weight of it all. Despite best efforts to train, manage and create systems, things just do not run the way you want them to a lot of the time. People aren't robots and they don't run computer programs in their brains, they are innately unpredictable, make mistakes or judge wrong. Equipment breaks, machines need service, the second law of thermodynamics is always at play, things are running down.

The same goes for families, home and relationships they are by nature chaotic. Unless we allow for unpredictability, disorder, chaos and mess in our lives our perfectionist tendencies create lids over us that ultimately create limitations. It's classic in business. A guy starts a business and while it's small and controllable his life is good, but as soon as it starts to grow he hits a wall, he can't handle the chaos it creates around him. Sometimes this is created by him because he hasn't grown his skills with the enterprise, often however it's simply the fact that the more people he involves in it the more complicated (risky, chaotic, messy) that business becomes....and that can be scary.

The above scripture gives a great word picture that while oxen make a smelly, stinky mess, without the animal the farmer has no strength to till his fields, provide for his family, build wealth; this large messy creature adds value to him, actually an accelerator towards his goal. If the farmer couldn't handle the mess of the oxen, it's care and feeding, it's smelly refuse, he'd be tilling his own fields himself suffering with a fraction of the output and productivity of other farmers with oxen. Without our children (read biological and spiritual), we create little generational value in the world, we don't grow as deeply as people. Without children there is little inner vision to live nobly, generational or holy. Without children, there is little down-payment on the future. Without children and the unpredictability, chaos and mess they create, you don't become who God intended. To enjoy a life that creates value (I'm not talking money and assets), we should embrace the messy stuff of life - children, people and relationships that over the long haul reap us a harvest of an abundant and value-adding life.

Phil Vassar get's it. Life with the people you love is messy, but still beautiful all the same. Enjoy the truth of his song.

4 Essential 4 Letter Words For Husbands and Dads

Work

Anyone who intends to be a husband (and father) needs to get used to the idea that when something gets constructed it must be maintained. Car engines, houses, careers, marriages, father-child relationships. Work...lots of it. Some guys adopt the notion that since they leave home to go "off to work" in the morning that when they come back home that they are officially now "off" work. As my college economics professor was apt to say "Wishing it were so doth not make it so". Actually nothing could be further from the truth. Dad's have "day" jobs and dads have "night" jobs. Any other approach to being a husband-father is doomed to failure. Though we may not have realized it at the time, when we first decided to procreate, we also decided to forever accept perpetual responsibility for the lives of the people we helped create (with God's help).

Other negative observations I've seen recently;
* Dads can get lost in TV sports or video games.
* While some proverbial Type A driven dads may teeter on over-working, clearly some other dad's don't put enough effort into providing for their families.
* While many men can be successful in self-employment, clearly some other less-disciplined men really need an employer in order to be held accountable - they can be more productive this way. I'm all for men being self-sufficient if they can be also be self-disciplined. But I've seen too many unsuccessful dads persist in self-employment when it is clearly not providing sufficient income for their families. While persistence in tough times is essential in order to get a business off the ground, there is also a time to confront

the fact that self-employment is not working and a change is required.

Play

Husbands and dads can enjoy being the recreation directors of their families. The more this doesn't involve TV and video games the better. Outside

adventures such as hiking, biking and playgrounds are easy to enjoy. One of my favorite activities is to visit a local park and take my kids hiking.

When you go to a playground, don't sit on the bench, play with your kids! When you're working in the church nursery or with small kids, get on the floor and play with them. But even more helpful is developing a playful approach to life in everyday things; household chores, projects, impromptu wrestling matches, hid-and-go-seek, etc. Kids catch the idea that being playful, regardless of the activity, is easy.

Love

Wise husbands and dads learn to cultivate the "love climate" of their homes. While I continue to struggle with "being in the moment", I have begun to understand a little about sharing words of affirmation, providing affectionate hugs and kisses and helping to channel others towards encouragement and life-giving words. I've realized that truly loving my family means dieing to my own agenda and desires. This can be a death by a thousand cuts for those of us who are ambitious. While I may want to go on a run or go mountain biking (and often times I can), many times I need to set my interests aside (die) for the good of others and wait for a better time.

Fear

While cultivating playfulness and love there are occasions when I need to take the lead and be the bad guy, especially with my boys. My children are very well-behaved, but I think part of the reason for this is that when they were young (3-4) we began to instill in them a healthy fear of disobeying us. I can remember in my own life that the fear of disappointing or incurring the wrath of my parents was a real motivator in my life. Creating clear boundary's of acceptable behavior and speech is essential (and yearned for) with children. When they exceed these boundaries discipline should be swift yet appropriate with the goal of remaining in close fellowship with God and mom and dad. After we discipline our children we always pray for them and hug and kiss them. Helping them realize that nothing they do will change our love for them and once discipline is over, we all move on.

Got Goals...?

A young man that has been close to our family overdosed on prescription medicine Christmas Day. He said he was depressed with life, he's had some history with depression and other mental and emotional issues. We visited him at a psychiatric hospital a couple of days later and inadvertently came during what was called "family therapy" so we served as his family. We believe he's going to be okay and are trying to be a blessing to him. While I don't intend to trivialize any part of someones important quest for mental or emotional health, there were several interesting components of the what the therapist shared that I thought was relevant for this New Year and New Decade that we've just entered. Here's a summary of what the therapist shared:

Confronting the diagnosis (problem) - According to the therapist and of course age-old wisdom, unless you clearly and unashamedly confront the negative issues that you're facing you will not begin down the path toward overcoming them.

Schedules - While our family enjoys routines, I never realized how a simply daily-life schedule is empowering for mental health. The therapist encouraged the patients to have regular sleeping and eating times, remaining as constant as possible.

Eat Right & Excercise - you are what you eat and you have eat the right foods and excercise to keep your body healthy.

Team - he talked about how life was a team sport and discussed how everyone has two sets of people in their lives - the ones that don't need to be in your life and ones who are your support system and need to be more in your life. They even talked about the power of regularly attending a church (this was not a Christian facility).

Goals - this subject got the most attention with patients being encouraged to write down very short-term and some mid-term goals. According to Wikipedia, "goal-setting ideally involves establishing specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-targeted objectives. On a personal level, the process of setting goals allows people to specify and then work towards their own objectives — most commonly financial or career-based goals. Goal-setting comprises a major component of personal development."

Granted, I only spent a couple of hours there and I am not schooled in psychology, but here's what I didn't hear..."awaken the giant within, just do it, we is bigger than me, or the power of positive thinking. Of course most of these books and ideologies have their place but they don't help a kid get over clinical depression.

What impressed me so much about the therapy is that it reminded me of what most mothers have told their kids for as long as we can remember. Get real, eat your vegetables, go play outside, get to bed, be true to your friends, get a job and get something done! It seems that acting on Mom's advice can really keep us all-around healthy.

Here's a more entertaining version of what I remember from Mom.

A Baby Changes Everything

After several passes at reading the Christmas story in Luke I was struck with some thoughts as it relates to how God uses babies (or for some adoptive parents - a child) to change history, our personal story or world history. Often times we speak in terms of history-changers, significant events in history, pivotal points in history, etc. As I see it, inasmuch as God uses people to affect 'his-story', he firsts brings babies onto the scene of our lives and first uses them to alter our- story. Yet nothing else can frighten some and excite others than the words, "you're going to have a baby".

Think about it. Across the generations babies have scared even world leaders. Pharaoh thought he had a security risk in the rising population of Hebrews in his land, his cure...kill all the male babies. Even though a baby can't wield a sword all too well, Pharaoh knew something we forget, a baby becomes an adult, who, armed with ideas they're willing to die for, will threaten even the greatest of empires. At this, God has had enough and raises up another baby, Moses, to change the story and delivers his people from slavery and into God's future.

The Canaanite God Molech (Satan in disguise) was another fascinated with babies - the dead kind. The bible records the treacherous practice of babies being offered up to Molech in fiery ceremonies. And in the Christmas narrative insecure King Herod repeats history after he hears about the possible birth of a competing king and has all the male babies under two years of age in Bethlehem killed. Ah...babies - such a fearsome bunch.

But that's not really the crux of what I've come to understand afresh. Not something I'm against, but something I'm for. God uses people to change his-story, but first he changes your-story with a baby. And unless you allow him to change your-story, its my opinion that he's limited to how much he may change history - just because he lacks the raw material. All the great history-makers such as Mother Teresa, Winston Churchill, Billy Graham, Abe Lincoln - have one thing in common - they had to be born, someone said yes to them. For thousands of years, God sought to speak to his people through his law, prophets and miracles large and small. And as he knew all along, nothing would touch them like giving them a baby - Jesus - God wrapped in human flesh. When God was left with giving his best, he gave a baby. When there was nothing else to try, he sent a baby.

To a business person a baby is like laying down hard equity - reaching deep and getting invested in the future. To a minister a baby is going for broke with the church plant or back-breaking outreach. To the athlete it's gutting it out, leaving it all on the field. To the gambler, it's betting the family farm. You don't just do parenting as a side job, just like you don't just get a little-bit pregnant, you're in deep and your in for life. Being bare-knuckled-invested like this changes you and leaves you no options but to go the distance. Sounds like an extreme sport to me, not for the faint of heart.

In summary, this leaves me with my founding thought that, a baby changes everything, everything in you, about your story and by God's providence his-story. Our best opportunity to changing history? Become a birthing center for the babies (physical and spiritual) that God wants to bring through your life - then pray hard.

During this same week, Rebecca and I came across this Faith Hill song that sealed these thoughts for me.