Richard Rohr, OFM, has said that life itself initiates men. The men of Homeboy Industries perhaps know this more than many of us. As they lived their lives in the social realities into which they were born, each man learned at a very young age that life is hard, that he is not that important, that his life was not about him, that he is not in control, and that he is going to die. Because of the transformative work of Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ, and the Homeboy Industries team, these men have learned to be transformed in a most remarkable way.

In May 2026, a team of Illuman brothers was asked to lead an Illuman-style, wisdom-led retreat for a 35-man cohort from Homeboy Industries. Led by Illuman weaver Jim Clarke, and accompanied by Illuman brothers Bob Juárez, Samuel Pérez, Scott Klaverkamp, Dan Harbuck, and Tom Vozzo (past CEO of Homeboy), the theme “Passage to Resilience” was profoundly unfolded in the Illuman way, building upon the transformational work of Homeboy Industries.

Building on themes of “Our Wounds: Doors to the Sacred”, developed in 2022 in Spanish by Giovanni Pérez (Illuman Weaver) and the leadership of Illuman en Español, we worked diligently to create a meaningful way for resilience to arise through the work of council, poetry, stories, and rituals that called forth this newness of life. This all unfolded at the Big Bear Retreat Center in California, on the edge of the San Bernardino National Forest.

Within this beautiful location, unknown to the retreat planners but known to the Creator, exists a “Tree of Resilience”; one that was struck by lightning and rebirthed into a larger, stronger tree. We learned of it right after Clarke told a story of resilience about our beloved Belden Lane. Upon the death of his son, while still caring for his ailing wife, Belden went out for a walk to find a tree that had recently been struck by lightning. When he found the tree, he stepped into the burnt hollow of the tree, put his hands on the burn, and wept as he felt an immediate surge of healing energy that he was able to walk away with. So, at the invitation of Bill Resnik, the camp proprietor, the entire team and cohort walked out to the Tree of Resilience, and it set the tone for a powerful Passage to Resilience by all who were there. We knew at the very start that the Creator had something very special for us to discover.

Rohr and Boyle both profess the importance of seeing the depth of a man, not just what is outwardly apparent, because we could only be observing the false self. In a recent talk given on April 21, 2026, in Anaheim, entitled “Becoming a Mighty Kindness – Surrendering to the Beauty of our Unshakable Goodness”, Boyle spoke of the impact of the work of transformation, not just for the man, but for the world. We witnessed this in the powerful cohort of transformed men on the retreat.

The retreat took all of us deeper into our transformational process. Drawing on various sources of wisdom, including the Christian Scriptures, the men were invited to cultivate this resilience, ultimately claiming their place as beloved sons of the Creator. One of the symbols used was a Cross (on the dais in the center of the photo above) that was carried by migrants on the freight train that rumbles through Mexico from the southern Mexican border to the US border. The train is called “the Beast”. The cross not only symbolizes the salvation of Christ but also an artifact of human resilience, as the migrant bearers of this cross fled the horrors of their homelands in search of safety and new life.

The retreat culminated in two actions to express their grief over the wound they seek to transform and to claim the power their transformation promises. Both actions were done in ritual, and these beautiful men powerfully embraced the challenge and the call.

Jim Clarke recently joined the Cave and the Fire podcast. At the end of the conversation, he shared these eight practices for cultivating a resilient spirituality in times of chaos. You can listen to the whole episode here.

Jim's Eight Practices for Resilient Spirituality in Times of Chaos

1. Orient, don't react.

   Start your day with 5–10 minutes away from your phone or devices, asking "What actually matters today?" Train your mind to lead with intention rather than urgency.
   

2. Micro-acceptance.

   When something stressful happens, notice the reflex to resist, then gently shift to "Okay, this is here; what am I going to do?" It's an attitudinal shift.
   

3. Use your breath as a reset.

   Pause for three slow, deep breaths throughout the day. Let the exhalation be even deeper. Let it come from your body, not your thoughts.
   

4. Keep one non-negotiable grounding practice.

   Choose one: 5–10 minutes of silence and prayer, a short walk in nature unplugged, or journaling with a few honest questions about what's really going on inside.
   

5. Reframe setbacks in real time.

   Ask yourself: "What is this asking of me right now?" or "What can still be meaningful in spite of this?"
   

6. Stay gently connected to people, even when it's hard.

   Send a thoughtful note, really listen to someone, or let yourself be a little more honest than usual.
   

7. End your day with an honest, non-judgmental review.

   Where did you stay grounded? Where did you get pulled from your center? What were you most grateful for?
   

8. Redefine what a good day is.

   Try saying: "I stayed present" or "I adapted well and didn't abandon what matters."
   

Rev. Jim Clarke, Ph.D., has held many roles, including Priest, Professor, Weaver, Elder, Author, & Spiritual Director. Officially retired, he still serves as a consultant for the Spiritual and Human Formation for the Permanent Deacon candidates and their wives for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He is also an Associate Spiritual Director at the Cardinal Manning House of Prayer for Priests. With a rich academic background in Theology, Depth Psychology, Counseling, Education, and Mythology, Jim is the author of five books and two CD/DVD series, and he has been involved in men’s work since 1995. He is a popular retreat director and conference speaker throughout the Southern California area and beyond.

There is a question that haunts men's work, and it goes something like this: What does it mean to be a man?

Attempts to define masculinity often rely on archetypes such as the warrior, lover, magician, or king. Or on benchmarks such as being a provider, protector, or progenitor. While these models may contain some truth, they simultaneously limit a broader understanding. The core problem is this: the instant we try to rigidly codify what masculinity is, we also inherently define what it is not. Both forms of crystallization are problematic.

Scholars who study gender have largely moved away from speaking of masculinity as a single thing. They speak instead of masculinities. Plural, situated, always in relationship to culture, class, body, and history. What it means to be a man in one context flowers differently than it does in another. This isn't relativism. It's honesty about what we actually observe when we stop trying to force a single image onto a wildly diverse reality.

But the plural noun still doesn't quite capture it. Masculinity is not only diverse across men; it is also always in motion within a man. It is less a fixed point than a rhythm. Less a noun than a verb.

Let’s look at an example from nature.

Physicists discovered something strange about light: it behaves like a particle when you measure it one way, and like a wave when you measure it another. It isn't one or the other. In some fundamental sense, it is both. Which one presents in a given moment depends on how you look at it. 

Masculinity is something like this. In any given man, it shows up as something particular and located: this body, this history, this gift. But it is also always moving. The tide comes in; the tide goes out. A man is fierce and then tender. He leads, and then he follows. He speaks, and then he falls silent in a way that holds more than words could. The mistake is to freeze one moment of the wave and call it the whole truth. Masculine vitality lives not in any fixed position but in the entirety of the dance. It includes both knowing when to advance and when to yield, when to build and when to destroy, when to act and when to simply be present.

My favorite story of all time, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, gets at this.

Consider who Tolkien assembles for the most important mission in the history of Middle-earth. It is not an army of identical warriors. It is not nine versions of Aragorn. It is nine radically different beings: different in species, stature, age, gift, and disposition, each of whom contributes something the others cannot.

What if that's not just a narrative device? What if Tolkien was showing us something true about how transformation actually works, and, in particular, something true about men?

If we are looking for a general understanding of masculinity, instead of asking, "What does it mean to be a man?" we gain much richer insights by asking the plural question: "What does it mean to be men?" The collective view offers a more complete understanding than any individual element.

One of the things I've become increasingly skeptical of in men's work is the vision of wholeness that subtly flattens everyone. You know the version: become the full man by integrating all four archetypes, ascending through all the developmental stages, completing The Hero's Journey, as laid out by Joseph Campbell. It's well-intentioned, but it quietly assumes that wholeness looks the same in everybody. It assumes we are all trying to arrive at the same destination and are simply at different stages of the journey. Also muddying the waters is that Campbell’s Hero’s Journey centers the individual, not a group.

The Fellowship of the Ring offers a collection that resonates as more true.

Frodo: The Unlikely Carrier

Not the biggest, not the strongest, not the most skilled. A homebody by nature. And yet the Ring can only be carried by the one least corrupted by the will to power. Frodo's masculinity is one of radical vulnerability and endurance. His gift is not force; it is that he can bear what destroys others. How often do we undervalue that in men?

Samwise: The Faithful Companion

Sam is arguably the most heroic figure in the entire story, and his heroism looks nothing like what we typically call heroic. He tends. He feeds. He carries. He weeps and keeps going. His love for Frodo is fierce and unashamed. Sam embodies a masculinity of devoted care, and it saves the world.

Gandalf: The Elder Who Holds the Arc

Ancient, unhurried, bearing wisdom that can't be transferred, only received when a man is ready to receive it. Gandalf knows things he cannot explain. He holds the larger story when others have lost sight of it. This is an elder's masculinity, not a younger man's strength, but something riper and harder to name. Watch how he moves: thunderous at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, then gentle with the frightened hobbit at the edge of the Shire. The same man, different currents.

Aragorn: The Reluctant King

Here is the warrior-king, and even he is not straightforwardly that. His journey is one of accepting an identity he has spent decades avoiding. His masculinity is not performed; it is slowly inhabited. He doesn't stride into kingship. He is drawn toward it and finally receives it. And he is most kingly not when he commands armies but when he kneels beside a dying man.

Boromir: The Man Who Fell and Died True

Boromir is the most painful figure in the Fellowship, and perhaps the most important one for men to sit with. He is capable, courageous, and deeply devoted to his people. He is also the one who breaks. The Ring finds the place in him where love of his homeland curdles into grasping, and he fails Frodo in the worst way. But his story does not end there. His redemption comes not in power but in sacrifice, dying to protect Merry and Pippin, spending his last strength on an act of pure devotion. He does not die as the man he wished he had been. He dies as the man he actually was, at his best. That is a different kind of teaching.

Legolas & Gimli: The Unexpected Brothers

Two men, an elf and a dwarf, who should be enemies, become something like brothers. Their masculinity is forged across difference. They make each other larger. Gimli, proud and fierce, weeps at the beauty of the caves of Aglarond. Legolas grows quieter and more rooted. Neither becomes the other, but both become better versions of themselves in the presence of the other. This is what the rhythm of brotherhood does: it doesn't flatten you into your companion, it calls out in you what was always there but couldn't surface alone.

Merry & Pippin: The Ones Who Grow Into Themselves

They begin as comic relief, loyal, bumbling, and unserious. They end up doing something individually that no one else in the Fellowship could have done. Not because they became Aragorns. Because they became, finally and fully, themselves.

Here is what strikes me about this fellowship: if any one of them had looked at Aragorn and said, that's what a man looks like, I need to become that, the quest would have failed. Frodo cannot carry the Ring and be Aragorn. Sam cannot be Sam and simultaneously be Gandalf. Even Boromir's tragedy is, in some ways, the story of a man trying to hold a fixed position—strength, strategy, the will to power—when the moment called for something else entirely. His redemption is the moment he stops grasping and simply gives what he has. The mission required each of them to be, as fully as possible, exactly who they were, and to move as that person: advance and yield, break and recover, be both particle and wave.

It is said that community is the possibility we can't achieve alone. This is partly about support and accountability. But it's also about something more mysterious. When I am shoulder to shoulder with a diverse group of men, men whose masculinities flower differently than mine, and who are each in different phases of their own inner rhythm, I begin to understand something about my own form of it that I could not see in isolation.

The Fellowship didn't just accomplish a mission together. They revealed each other to themselves, and far more about masculinity as a collective than any one of them could alone.

Masculinity flowers differently in different bodies. The goal is not to look like that man over there. It's to look like me, to be all of me.

One of the great wounds in men's formation is that we've been handed a single image of what a man should be: fixed, solid, immovable. Then we spend our lives either straining toward it or feeling diminished because we couldn't hold that pose. We've been trying to be Aragorn when we were made to be Sam. Or Gandalf. Or Pippin. And the world—the actual world, not the fantasy—needs all of them, including Boromir.

So, the question we need to stop asking is what does it mean to be a man, at least in the singular, and at least as though the answer were a fixed thing. Scholars figured part of this out a generation ago: the moment you pluralize the word, something opens up. Masculinities. Many. Rooted in different bodies, different histories, different gifts, different wounds.

But even the plural noun isn't quite enough. Because the deeper truth is that masculinity is not just diverse. It is alive. It moves. It breathes in and breathes out. It is fierce, and then it is tender. It builds, and then it grieves. It is like light itself, both particle and wave, and the attempt to pin it to one or the other is where the trouble has always begun.

The only version of the question equal to that reality is the one we ask in community, together, in the presence of all the different ways masculinity has taken root and flowered and is still moving in the varied souls around us. We ask it not to arrive at a definition, but to keep discovering, in each other, and in ourselves, what we were each made to carry, and how.

Be you today. It is all you can be. It is what you are called to be. It is all we need you to be.

A Franciscan monk, a question about power, and what masculinity might really be for.

My wife tells me most women, when asked, would rather run into a bear in the woods than a man they don’t know. Not because the bear is safe; the bear might kill them! But the bear would leave their dignity intact. For the vast majority of women, encountering an unknown man out in the woods is a far more terrifying and threatening prospect than encountering a bear. 

This reality can be uncomfortable. When Jamie shared this with me, I immediately wanted to defend the goodness of men! But we needn’t argue with the legacy; the impact is worth sitting with.

Recently, I spoke with Terry Symens-Bucher for this month’s podcast, and he shared a story that has stayed with me. Years ago, Terry was praying with a group of Franciscans. During these prayers, one quiet, unassuming monk voiced a simple prayer into the gathering.

“May no one ever be afraid of me.”

It caught Terry completely off guard and left him puzzled. Who would ever be afraid of this man? The monk seemed gentle, humble, someone who wouldn’t harm a fly.  It wasn’t that the monk was weak; in fact, quite the opposite. He carried a vitality and grounded strength. He bore that quality of strength that can’t be shaken, the kind that gives a man a gentle presence. He held the kind of strength that comes from long practice and years of prayer, discipline, and inner work done mostly in secret.

Furthermore, the prayer wasn’t about the man becoming small or weak, so as not to induce fear in others. Rather, this monk was consciously tending to his strength. He longed for his strength to be a blessing, not a curse. It was not a prayer of shrinking; it was a prayer of how to hold immensity in a manner that is good. It came to Terry that perhaps no one was afraid of this man precisely because he had been praying this prayer for many years. That is what made the prayer so powerful. 

“May no one ever be afraid of me.”

Often, prayers seek help from God, for blessing, for aid, for healing, for protection. The monk’s mantra was less about asking and more about a habitual bringing to mind the work needed for the prayer to become a reality. It was more an offering, a dedication and an intention than a request. A prayer that you pray day in and day out is formational, more than transformational, and you might not notice the difference at first, but over the months and years, it will shape you.

Terry told me it was the most powerful prayer he had ever heard, “the most powerful prayer a man can say.”

 From a brain science perspective, where we place our attention becomes our destiny, as neural pathways we repeat again and again, for better and worse, become deeper and deeper ruts. We can ingrain into ourselves habits that trend towards wholeness or habits that reinforce wounded ways of being in the world. So it isn’t the exact words, of course, that held the power; it was because the prayer had clearly been a familiar path for this monk, being formed over time, through which a man’s strength was initiated into a power that can be a blessing.  

The most powerful prayer a man can say is the one he will offer himself to in order for it to bear fruit. It is the prayer he will pray again and again and again.

And what about the bear?

Sadly, this monk’s idea of holding power hasn’t penetrated deep enough into our culture. Women still prefer the bear over the unknown man. We have a legacy of thousands of years we have to work through. When we sit with the harm men have done, let’s take a breath. 

When facing the litany of harms men have participated in, masculinity doesn’t need defending. Nor does it need to be attacked, inflated, or praised. More than anything, masculinity needs initiation.

Across cultures and throughout history, the maturation of men has almost always involved some form of initiation—a journey that takes a man into powerlessness, surrender, and loss. These rites of passage interrupt the illusion that strength is about domination or control. They crack a man open, and in that cracking open, something deeper begins to rearrange the order of things.

The initiated man learns to stay in that wide-open space long enough for his heart to grow larger. The larger the crack, the longer he remains, the more his heart will grow. Empathy grows there; compassion grows there; the capacity to hold both strength and tenderness grows there.

In this crucible, he is formed—not just as an individual, but as a member of a community of initiating men. This community helps shape how masculine power will be used. The question of what it means to be a man can never be answered independently from a group who are asking, what does it mean to be men? It is not a solo journey, but one discovered in community. And the quality of their response shapes the next generations of men. Men do not generally develop by contemplating values on their own, but by rubbing shoulders with other men.

We see this pattern of initiation across cultures on every continent. Where healthy initiation traditions exist, when true elders are present, masculine power is guided toward responsibility and service. Where those traditions disappear, young men still seek initiation, but often in distorted forms. Street gangs, violent subcultures, and extremist movements frequently function as substitute initiation systems. 

Healthy or unhealthy, at the root of all initiations lies the same two questions: Who are you, and what are you supposed to do with your power? The answer to the former always places the man in a larger communal frame, granting a healthy identity. In Illuman, we name this identity very clearly, “You are a beloved son of God.”  The answer to the latter question then orients him towards service to the larger realm.

Uninitiated power tends to revolve around the self. It seeks validation, dominance, and control. Sometimes it expresses itself through aggression, other times through withdrawal, resentment, or manipulation. Regardless, it remains centered on the ego.

Initiated power looks very different.

Initiated power becomes protective rather than threatening,
steady rather than reactive,
capable of holding space rather than needing to dominate it,
prophetic rather than capitulating,
flexible rather than rigid.
In other words, power becomes trustworthy.

“May no one ever be afraid of me.”

The monk did not live this prayer because he believed himself incapable of causing harm and simply wanted others to view him differently. He said it because he knew he was absolutely capable of it, as we all are. The difference came by allowing that raw power to be formed over the years by humility, prayer, and community, tending to the cracks in a rhythm of ongoing transformation.

When you follow this path, something subtle begins to change.

People relax around you.
Children feel safe near you.
Women do not instinctively calculate their escape routes.
Other men feel less of a need to posture or compete.

Your strength is still present, but it carries a different quality. It does not press outward. It holds. This is the quiet fruit of initiation, and perhaps that is what the monk’s prayer ultimately expresses. Not a desire to become harmless or passive but a commitment to ensure that whatever strength lives within you becomes a force that protects rather than threatens. A force that makes “good trouble” in the presence of injustice. A force that stands in solidarity with the oppressed.

We can call that force by its best and highest name, love. For this force is not about taking, but giving. One great teacher put it this way, “No one shows greater love than when he lays down his life for his friends.” 

And who is your friend then? Well, in the grand scheme of things, who isn’t?

What is the prayer you are willing to dedicate yourself to? What is the “vow that would kill you to break?” How will you carry your own power today? For whom and what are you willing to give your life?

January was a month of intense conflict in Minneapolis between ICE and the local community. Last year, T. Michael Rock was a guest on the podcast, and given his role as a police chaplain, local pastor, and spiritual guide in the midst of the protests, we had him back to talk about his experience on the ground. As part of our conversation, we discussed the archetype of the Prophet. This blogpost builds on the importance of this role. We talk about this as a role, and certainly, there are those who seem to carry this gift. But the underlying archetypal energy is in us all, and we all are called at times to hold it for the good of the world. Now is such a time.

There are places where the world as it is stops cooperating with our illusory beliefs of how we thought it was. At this threshold, we feel the mental divide between two things that seem irreconcilable. Some choose to take the blue pill and remain asleep; prophets take the red. This disillusionment is the doorway into healing and liberation for us all, but we may have to stay in the hard place of dysphoria for far longer than we bargained.

The desert invites awakenings like this. So do long illnesses, superfund sites, and Minneapolis neighborhoods filled with tear gas. In such places, language thins and certainty dries up. What remains is not insight so much as exposure. You realize what you assumed and depended on when the power of distraction is no match for the harshness of the vista, and you learn quickly that God has not arranged life for our convenience.

In many of his books, Illuman Elder Belden Lane invites us into landscapes, not as metaphors but as teachers and companions with wisdom to impart. It isn’t to make us feel better. Particularly fierce landscapes do not comfort, at least initially. They disorient, and hopefully, eventually, they bring a stark and stripped-down clarity. To engage them requires learning how to listen without reward, to attend without control. God in these places is not absent, but stripped of sentimentality—encountered as demand, silence, and invitation all at once.

Prophecy begins there.

Forget certainty and charisma, prophecy is born in attentiveness shaped by deprivation. The prophet is not the one who escapes the wilderness, but the one who consents to be changed by it. This kind of listening does not produce answers so much as it rearranges loyalties. It reveals to a person what can no longer be explained away. Its solace, in part, is the peace one feels from not expending loads of energy trying to suppress the sliver in the brain whispering that the official story is rotten to the core. Surrendering to truth and allowing the suffering to be what it is always takes less energy, but asks far more of us than pretending that all is well.

Only after this gauntlet does the prophet speak. When they do, their words carry the grit of the places that formed them.

A prophet is not a fortune-teller. They are not a brand, not a microphone, not a person who enjoys the sound of their own urgency. If they are anything at all, they are someone who has learned how to stay put long enough to notice when the world is lying to itself.

Walter Brueggemann says the prophet’s task is to nurture an alternative consciousness. Abraham Joshua Heschel says the prophet is one who feels the world’s pain more deeply than most, who is “somewhat embarrassed” to be alive while injustice persists. Between them, you begin to see the shape of it: prophecy is not prediction, but perception. They see both the way things are and the way things could be, or even should be. The gap between the two worlds is one they can’t abide.

The attentiveness of the prophet means they listen to grief before it becomes statistics. They listen to the land before it is exhausted. They listen to God not as an idea, but as a disturbance—an ache that won’t let them get comfortable. 

Prophecy begins with an unflinching witness to the story being told. They are the first to hold up the mirror to the rest us, offering a fierce inventory as to the state of our common life.

The official story, in almost every age, insists that injustice is just the normal way of things. Perhaps the snake-oil language of “We’re doing the best we can” or “We’ll change things soon” is offered to assuage the public’s doubts. Such platitudes are seen through for what they are. The witness of the prophet refuses to cooperate and won’t be suppressed, contained, or placated by such offerings.

Heschel reminds us that the prophet is not calm. The prophet is disturbed. But not in the way of someone addicted to outrage. This is not the disturbance of noise. It is the disturbance of intimacy. The prophet has gotten too close to suffering to explain it away and too close to God’s vision for the world to settle for anything less.

Their way of seeing refuses the official story of every empire, while offering something far better. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech illustrates this simultaneous offering of vision as critique, as well as any other prophecy one might find.

Prophecy always pushes back against empire—not just political empire, but the empire of inevitability. The empire that says:

This economy is normal.
These laws must be followed.
This violence is necessary.
This despair is your own fault.
Justice will come tomorrow

The prophet says no.

No, this is not normal.
No, this is not necessary.
No, the time to address it is not tomorrow
No, this is not yours alone.

Their “no” is always held in a deeper “yes.” They have seen a more beautiful and righteous path that offers liberation and wholeness for everyone. This is the prophetic imagination in action, which is ultimately not gloomy, not full of doomsday, but full of a fierce and verdant hope in the way things could be, the way of God, the way of truth and justice for all.

I have a dream.

And they speak from inside the life of a people, not from above them. Prophets don’t hover. They belong to a place, a neighborhood, a field, a people. 

That’s where Wendell Berry helps us. Berry has never pretended that wisdom floats free of fields and creeks and neighbors. He knows that truth spoken without affection for a place quickly becomes cruelty. The prophet, in this sense, loves the world enough to tell it the truth about itself.

This is why prophets so often sound unpatriotic, unproductive, and unhelpful. They are not interested in growth that forgets its costs. They are not impressed by success that requires amnesia. They refuse to call extraction a blessing.

And they grieve. Brueggemann insists on this: prophets grieve with the people before they imagine anything new. There is no alternative future without first telling the truth about loss. Lament is not weakness; it is accuracy. It is sacred desire that is inconsummate and stymied. It names what has been broken, aching with rather than covering over suffering.

Heschel goes further: the prophet’s grief is not just human sorrow; it is participation in divine pathos. God is not indifferent. God is affected. And the prophet, for reasons that are never explained, is allowed to feel that affect in their own chest.

That kind of feeling is costly. It will not make you popular. It will not make you efficient. It will not make you safe. It may cost you your life, your reputation, your personal health.

It is no wonder that prophets are rarely professionals; and even rarer still that they seek this calling out of desire. Much more often, the archetype finds them, and despite the person’s resistance at first, they end up incapable of doing anything other than being the prophet they were called to be. They are often farmers, poets, parents, exiles, troublemakers, people who would rather be doing something else. They are people who stay when leaving would be easier, and who speak when silence would be rewarded.

The prophet’s work is not to win. It is to witness and imagine. To keep alive a memory of how things could be otherwise. To remind a people of promises they have learned to manage without.

In Berry’s world, faithfulness is measured in small acts: tending a field well, staying with a marriage, refusing to abandon a neighbor. Prophecy lives there too—not in grand gestures, but in stubborn fidelity to what is real. In doing so they acknowledge the bloom as well as the broken bough, the harvest as well as the drought.

A prophet will not let us forget that the world is not merchandise, that people are not problems, that hope is not optimism, and that despair is not the final truth.

This point is essential. For while prophets might be known for the hard edge they offer, a mature one who remains connected is as joyful as they are grieved, as enchanted as they are disillusioned. Their deep faith and hope lie in a future in which Love has the final say. Their hope is in tomorrow, but they hold it with us in the present.

They are not ahead of us.
They are beside us, and sometimes even behind us, calling us back to what we already knew before we learned to live without it.

If there is a role for prophets now, it is this:
to slow us down enough to feel what we are doing,
to speak the truth without fear or shame,
to resist polarization and othering,
to honor the presence of God everywhere,
to grieve what we have normalized,
to love with wild abandon, following where Love would lead us, and
to imagine a future rooted not in escape, but in restoration.

Not louder,
not faster,
just truer.

Don’t wait for others to fill this role. It is a universal calling. Where are you called to tap into the prophet in you, for the good of the world?

When it comes to the spiritual life, let me tell you about the GOAT.

—St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 12:31, paraphrased prelude to his inspired ode to love.

Near the end of my Men’s Rites of Passage (MROP), our weaver, Belden Lane, one by one looked into our eyes and told us we were a Beloved Son of God. That day, those words penetrated deep into me in a way that is still unfolding. Too many men roll their eyes as soon as the word “love” is put out there. It is one of those “if you know you know” kind of things, it seems, which also implies that if you don’t know, you don’t know (yet.)

Gratefully, love has its hold on us, whether we know it or not. Wonderfully, there is no end to deeper knowing when it comes to love.

Before my MROP, I thought I was Beloved. I believed it to be true, and would have said as much if asked. But I didn’t really know it. I didn’t know it in my bones; I didn’t feel it in my gut. And as it turns out, the mere idea is somewhat impotent on its own, rattling around my head like some cold fact. The idea is still helpful as a sign that points to the real thing, but is no substitute for experience.

Now that I know it, though, I have to keep knowing it. I have to keep remembering it. Love is an ancient treasure that is a universal inheritance for all of us.

Sometimes I forget it, but love never forgets me.

Sometimes I let go of it, but love’s hold on me endures.

Love is the aim of life, full stop. I can’t think of anything more important for us all to live into.

I’ve written before about the power of love to change a life. It is everything. And the beauty of love is that it is both the ends and the means, the creative force that formed all things and the fabric of all that is. “God is love,” as St. John famously said, and the beauty of this is that love cannot be exclusively claimed by any religion, patented and metered out by any country or race, or only understood by learned scholars. Love requires no money, but it might cost you everything. Love is immaterial but is our greatest treasure in life. Love is its own cosmology, its own theology, its own justice. If there is one lens through which to view all things, it is best to choose love.

Over Thanksgiving, I wrote a letter to my nephew, a remarkable young high school student who is on a quest to know God. (He also just won Football Player of the Year for Washington State. #prouduncle.) While I think that theological discourse is important, it pales in comparison to our great falling into love. This month, I wanted to pass on what I wrote him.

I also want to invite you to write a letter to someone and feel free to post it in Illuman’s online community or mention who you’ve written to, even if you aren’t posting the entire letter. Let’s see how many of us will take the invitation to love in this way. Maybe write a letter or two to the kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, neighbors, or perhaps especially those with whom we’ve had a falling out. Let’s put love into practice!

_______________________________

Thanksgiving 2025

Dear Nephew,

So you want to know God?

Hallelujah

You already do.

Even this desire

is not yours

But God in you

I’m writing because I wanted to just say, again, both how joyful it was to watch you play football, but even more than that, how proud I am of the young man you are becoming. Talking with you Saturday night was just delightful for me, watching you thoughtfully process all the varied streams of faith traditions as you work things out for yourself. I also loved reading your Grandma Diane’s letter, and remembering the ancestral lineage in which you and I both find ourselves.

This process of working things out will never end, and I want to encourage you to keep up the journey, though forgo the need to figure it out. What you’re seeking can’t be found in the future, only in the present moment when you realize that what you’re seeking has already been granted to you. You’re already there, even as you will yet further arrive. God is a mystery, which doesn’t mean that He/She isn’t knowable now, but rather that God is endlessly knowable in each successive now. There is no end nor beginning to knowing God, but that we will never know God fully, doesn’t mean we don’t know God now.

So keep searching, even while you honor what you’ve already found. Remember if you ever get too comfortable with your current understanding of God, then you’ve probably made a system of idolatry out of your beliefs, rather than being again and again unsettled (for the better) by a God that is always more loving, more beautiful, more wild and free, more beyond, than we imagine. They say God is not just more than we imagine; God is more than we can imagine. All our best articulations of theology are just chicken scratches in comparison to the Real Thing, so let’s not take our ideas too seriously, even as we give ourselves wholeheartedly to the dance.

This dance of life, this dance of being seduced and romanced by God, you can’t learn by studying the steps, describing the meter, or observing from the sidelines. You must let yourself be whirled around on the floor yourself! This is the only true knowing that involves not just your head, but your heart, your body, and your soul. It is simple to begin, and even simpler to deepen.

Here is the crux of what I want to say:

In the pursuit of God (or perhaps in giving yourself to God’s pursuit of you), if choosing between the cultivation of knowledge about God, or loving … always choose love.

Ideas, no matter how good and beautiful, by themselves will never get you to know God and are utterly meaningless without love, as St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13.

Loving will always get you there, and it will do so in the blink of an eye.

To love is to know God, at some level, in that exact moment. God is love. There is no love outside of God. All true love is God’s love, belongs to God, is sourced from God, and even is God. All love originates, emanates, abides in, and returns to the Friend.

You cannot love anyone or anything without knowing, giving and receiving the Spirit.

You’ll never get closer to knowing God than in the moments you love. For love above all, is how God wants to be known, how God wants to be experienced, how God wants to create. Love is the Power of God.

There are many ways to know. We can know intellectually, we can know via muscle memory, we can know intuitively, we can know consciously and unconsciously, we can know by watching and listening, modelling and following. We can know by remembering and anticipating. We can even know by our constant connection to the collective unconscious.

But …

Knowing via loving is far more

profound and

salvific and

faithful and

soulful and

redemptive and

restorative and

forgiving and

compassionate and

justice-oriented and

righteous and

kind and

strong and

fierce and

hopeful and

grace-filled and

challenging and

(you fill in the blank) than any other way of knowing, because it directly taps all of who we are directly into God, using every way of knowing available.

The deeper you love, the more you know God. The more you know God, the deeper you can love.

The more mature of a soul and person you are, the greater capacity you’ll have to love, the greater a lover you can be, and the deeper you’ll know God.

This kind of knowing is so much bigger than our ability to articulate into words, extends way beyond our conscious and intellectual awareness, and is a knowing that is not just within us but between us and others. Unfortunately, in the West, we’ve idealized the kind of knowing that we can write down, master in our conscious mind, and control because one person can hold it within. These are wonderful ways of knowing, but are far too small a means to know God. And, if in order to know God, we needed to be literate, educated, and have the free time to read theology, how few would be able to participate! That would be a gospel of despair, for sure.

Hallelujah that this way of knowing we call love is universally available to everyone at every moment, and does not privilege the powerful, but if anything, ends up in the voluntary and joyful use and surrender of power for the healing and good of all. This way of knowing is just as available at home, in school, or in the workplace as it is in any house of worship. It doesn’t even require us to believe anything!

How amazing that wherever you find yourself, you can bring loving consciousness to the present setting, and every setting in which you love will reveal slightly different aspects of God. Loving your neighbor will reveal something about God that is different from loving your spouse, which will be different from loving the foreigner, the oppressed, the oppressor, your dog, the smell of the pine trees, or anything else.

Love passionately, and you will know God in a particular kind of way; love widely, and you’ll know God even more broadly; love yourself even, and you’ll start to clue into how God sees you, as a beloved son of God.

Like looking directly into the sun, loving God directly is not easy. Some very enlightened beings may fully give themselves to this, but honestly, most of us are a bit half-hearted—and that is ok. There is a reason for this, which we’ll maybe get to. However, if we take a fierce inventory of our lives, we must confess that we don’t want God, but perhaps we want to want God. That is sufficient for the Friend. So, while loving God directly is not as simple as loving God indirectly, by loving others and living a life in God and in love, it is sometimes an easier place to start. It is a grace that God goes around all day long “disguised as our life,” as Paula D’Arcy says, giving us a chance to love God by loving others. As Jesus put it, when we love especially the vulnerable, we unknowingly have loved God (see Matthew 25:40).

Your capacity to love is directly connected to your own awareness of your belovedness. We can love others only because we have been loved first. However, the love of God towards us can’t be just an idea in our minds. For this to have an impact, we must meditate on it long enough so it sinks deep into our bones. It helps that you already know what it is to be loved by your folks, but the love of God for you is far greater and even deeper, more joyful, more fun, more trustworthy and even more patient. This is saying something, because you have amazing parents!

Your belovedness is far deeper. You can’t earn it, can’t mar it, can’t increase or decrease it, you can’t lose it nor regain it, can’t be separated from it nor get any more connected to it than you are at this moment. Your belovedness is immutable, and it is always there, even if you aren’t aware of it. You can’t even become worthy or unworthy of it—that is a category you must abandon entirely. God’s love simply is. It is the starting place, the birthplace of all creation, the creative force which holds the entire world together. And it is deeply personal.

While I could affirm intellectually that God loved me at an early age, I didn’t learn this in my bones until my early 30s, and it changed everything. You needn’t wait that long. Once you know it, you will become unaware of it again. That’s also okay, and another time we can explore why this remembering and forgetting process is not a problem, but rather a beautiful attribute of God’s process. Frankly, most of us spend the majority of our lives largely unaware of it, even if we were aware of it at one point. When we are fully rooted in our belovedness, the whole world changes around us. We become immensely attractive to some and immensely threatening to others, but either way, beauty will blossom with each step you take.

God disguised as myriad things,

and playing a game of tag

has kissed you and said,

"You're it.

I mean you're really it.

Now it does not matter

what you believe or feel.

For something wonderful,

something major-league wonderful,

is going to happen."

—Hafiz via Daniel Ladinsky

Love is a strange word, and sadly, in our context, it is perhaps the most misunderstood word in our language. Love can be looked down on as weak, as only feminine, as idealistic, as optional, as serious, as imaginary, as emotional, as ridiculous, as dangerous or risky, and many other things as well. It is an unfortunate thing indeed. Love is beyond all of these things. Love always prioritizes the best for others above all, and it ain’t hard to see how sparks can fly as a result.

Love is a creative and constructive force, but the construction of the best sometimes requires the destruction of the lesser. Think of Jesus rampaging in the temple as an act of fierce love. Think of Martin Luther King protesting white supremacy, not because he hated his opponents but because he loved them and wanted something more just and righteous for everyone. Love might be forceful, but it will never be hateful. In being radically for something greater for everyone, it will always engender opposition, but not because it is oppositional.

In one moment, love can make us willing to sacrifice our very lives, but in the next moment, love can make us roll on the floor laughing or swing in ecstasy. Love will never force us to do something, but in our being compelled through our own sacred desires, the force of love is more powerful than just about anything I can think of.

Don’t put love in a box … she will almost always surprise us. At the very end of our lives, we will still just be getting to know her. We could write pages and pages more about what love is exactly, and what it isn’t … but the bottom line is this:

Never be stingy with love, and the rest will take care of itself.

Here is one more from Hafiz/Ladinksy on the topic:

I know the way you can get

When you have not had a drink of love:

Your face hardens,

Your sweet muscles cramp.

Children become concerned

About a strange look that appears in your eyes

Which even begins to worry your own mirror

And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness

And call an important conference in a tall tree.

They decide which secret code to chant

To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness

That arrays itself against the world

And throws sharp stones and spears into

The innocent

And into one's self.

O I know the way you can get

If you have not been drinking love:

You might rip apart

Every sentence your friends and teachers say,

Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale

Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure

From every angle in your darkness

The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once

Trusted.

I know the way you can get

If you have not had a drink from love's

Hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of

The vital need

To keep remembering God,

So you will come to know and see Him

As being so Playful

And Wanting,

Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:

Bring your cup near me.

For all I care about

Is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care about

Is giving love!”

—Daniel Ladinsky

And how can we be so generous with ourselves and each other? Practice going around remembering that you (don’t forget this first part) and everyone you see is Beloved, and then treat them accordingly. Be astonished at their beauty, for love enjoys this kind of joyful play. And because love is not something that can be contained within you, pay attention to cultivating the flow of love between you and everyone else. Remember, love is not limited to humans. Look to the whole of creation in this exercise. There is no place where love has not left its mark, and even now it is waiting to bloom.

That is all for now … If you’ve made it this far in one sitting, that is more than I can say! Ha!

Much love,

Uncle Ned

When the wind rattles through naked trees, when the last leaves and apples have fallen, and when crisp air reaches its tendrils into the chest with each breath, a barrenness descends and the darkened earth stills. Approaching the longest night each year, a dear theological jewel captures my attention yet again, like every year. I’m speaking, of course, of the mystery of incarnation.

Those who follow the path of Christianity speak of the incarnation, which they yearn for in Advent and celebrate during Christmas. The incarnation I’m thinking of includes that one, but extends farther, wider, and deeper than the more narrow and traditional Christian notion, which has been neutered into something smaller and more controllable.

This larger gift of incarnation is not Christian alone, nor is it just about a single historic event or person. Incarnation is a universal mythic medicine, a cosmological probiotic that we could all use right about now. For incarnation to have any power, it must be as true now as it was 2000 years ago. It should also be as vital and real here in my personal context as it was in Bethlehem. 

What is incarnation exactly? Perhaps we could say that on the most basic level, incarnation is a story of Love refusing to remain a mere idea, choosing to become embodied, not theoretical; lived, not imagined; present, not distant or historic; entangled in the web of life, not aloof somewhere in the clouds. Some surmise it began at the very, very beginning, when God created the universe not outside of God’s Self, but within God’s Self, while placing God’s DNA within each sub-atomic particle. Greek philosophy even had a school of thought that explored this concept, known as Logos philosophy.

This original incarnation is the basis for Meister Eckhart’s musing that “I’m not God, but I’m not other than God.” No part of me is outside of God. It is the grounding by which St. Paul could say that nothing can separate us from the love of God. It is the Presence that made David in the Old Testament reflect that there was no place he could go where God was not present (Psalm 139). In short, it is a message that reveals that separation is an illusion; it was never true to begin with. It’s a gospel that we need today now more than ever! Of course, this story seems not to have found enough traction in human history, as much of history has been an exploration into how many different ways we can separate, dehumanize, and ignore God’s fingerprints inherent in creation.

This was certainly true in first-century Palestine, a world characterized by dualistic separations. Bodies were ranked and categorized: clean or unclean, valuable or disposable, Roman citizen or colonized, free or enslaved, male or female. Power was centered in Rome, not distributed everywhere. Power was held over in dominance, not with in solidarity. The gods were generally set apart, each in their own temple and seen as living in higher realms, not readily available or close to the earth. Caste, gender, and religion decided with whom you could talk and share food, and who you had to avoid. It was all one big game of separation. Sound familiar?

Into this shattered fragmentation, an unexpected scandal of Emmanuel, “God with us,” shook the world. This gospel refused to participate in an aloof divinity or a world of division. Incarnation proclaimed that the Sacred could bleed, sweat and weep. It said the Sacred could be found among the poor, the foreigner, the religious outsider, the sick, and the ritually unclean.  God was not just “up there” in heaven, or “over there” in a temple, but entangled right here in the midst of creation, participating, touchable, vulnerable, present.  

God was in the dirt beneath our fingernails, in the mycelia connections between the trees, in the compost and dung heap. One early Christian non-canonical text quotes Jesus as saying, “Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” That was not a metaphor!

Thus, the incarnation simply ignored purity systems, subverting the control fantasies of every empire. It proclaimed that the way to life and to the Friend is available in every house of every neighborhood of every village of every nation, in every forest, swamp and ocean, on every mountain, in every valley. The very rocks can testify, and the heavens proclaim it in song.  

Incarnation proclaimed the ubiquity of God, the utter accessibility of the Friend. It was revolutionary then, and remains revolutionary now. 

This is a different kind of story.

Rather than avoiding pain or healing it from the outside, incarnation metabolizes suffering from within the web of life. If “sin” is to be understood as anything that separates us from each other, from ourselves, and from God, the antidote is not condemnation of sin. Condemnation only continues the story of separation, but rather the balm called for is our awakening into wholeness, into belovedness, into union. Incarnation is simply a special way to speak of “wholeness,” a way which brings and holds together spirit and matter, Creator and creation. It replaces the splits which create twoness, with oneness.

Taking incarnation seriously means refusing to revert to tired, old stories of God-is-here-but-not-there, or this-is-sacred and that-is-profane. Those narratives were precisely what the incarnation was revealing as bankrupt. Of course, a God this wild and free is not controllable, so it is no surprise that the Christian Empire has not been altogether comfortable with it. At some point, those in power turned back the clock, neutering the incarnation to be only about a time in the past, not the present; and about one particular person in Nazareth, not a universal reality.  

There is nothing wrong with directing our gaze to a focal point, such as Jesus, in order to encounter God. In fact, it can be so helpful that most traditions have one or more focal points like this. But focus can easily become myopic, and if our habit of seeing God in one place eventually crowds out our ability to see God in every place, we just may have missed the forest for the trees. By limiting the story of incarnation, the church soon began peddling the same old stories and rituals that mediated presence in some places but not others, and all the old systems of control and separation followed.

Today, we live in a world that is not that different from the first century. Modernity has prioritized distance over intimacy, objectification over relationality, and mastery over mutuality.  

We live in a world in which men are taught:

• to be ashamed of their bodies

• to suppress their emotions

• to view their value primarily as what they produce economically

• to remain cool and detached

• not to be open or vulnerable

• that power is for domination

The medicine of incarnation says to men:

• your humanity is not a problem to be fixed

• your body is to be celebrated

• your heart is not a liability

• your belonging is immutable

• you will be more alive when you let yourself risk the thrill of relationship

• you are not separate from God

• you cannot ever be separate from God

Whatever your spiritual lineage, I hope that in this season the flames of sacred longing are fanned in each of us. May we look for and recognize the presence of the Friend everywhere we look. May we awaken to our own belovedness, to the incarnate presence of the Sacred within us, may we join in healing the pain of the world by metabolizing suffering, and may we join in loving the world in embodied, sensual, and joyful ways. 

Fire and Grace to us all.

In the quiet fold of the Alleghenies,
where wind blows through the trees
and the bell above the chapel keeps sentry,
men gathered
not to conquer,
but to listen.

They came from long distances,
carrying stories of exhaustion,
of wounds and loss,
of something once fierce
now half-forgotten.

There, among the stones and mountain spring,
a stillness opened.
Circles formed.
And one by one,
they began to remember
that the warrior’s heart is not hardened by battle,
but tempered by love, 

not shrinking from conflict,

but standing firm in conviction,

without needing to win.

That courage
is not the loud cry before the charge,
but the quiet choosing
to protect what is good and true,
even when no one sees.

No trident on the chest,
no badge on the belt,

no arms on the sides,
only the discipline
of showing up,
of standing firm
in the face of fear,
of offering the self again and again,
to something greater.

And as sunshine broke during the morning sit,
light touching every face,
it was clear
the mountains had heard their vow:
to live with open hearts,
to guard what is sacred,
to remember who they are,
to focus on the mission,

rooted in healing

yet moving forward with purpose.

When I return home, I find the normal chores of everyday life to be most helpful. I do laundry, cook, and clean the house, especially the toilets.  There is nothing so healthy for the ego as to get down on your knees and shine a commode, and to be able to do it without minding at all, with a sense of love for the kids, and a sense that this is noble good work.

The rhythms of domestic life, rather than being a distraction from something more important, I find to be a gift that reorients me to what is most essential. They help me live into the understanding, as one of my directees told me recently, that “Rhythm, not productivity, is faithfulness.”  

This fall, part of work here at home has been helping my second son, Truss, prepare his college application.  It has been beautiful work to dream, pray, read his work, hope and plan with him.  I’ve made suggestions of wordings and sat with him for hours in this process, but my greatest joy has been the numerous times when he has said, “Dad, that’s ok, but honestly I think these words would be better,” before turning a phrase that delighted me.  

Truss knows the work of Illuman, having been through his own three week rite of passage, hiking 60 miles from the east side of the Olympics, all the way to the Pacific Ocean where he did a 60 hour solo fast.  He got to serve as a junior counselor at Journeymen, a partner organization for Illuman of Washington that does rites of passage for adolescent boys.  Finally, this summer Truss did a lot of volunteer work for the Elders Rites of Passage and served on the team.  In the nine times we’ve held an Elders’ Rites, most of them have had a young person like Truss on the team, and the experience for them has always been transformational.

There are a lot of things in our world that are a cause for concern.  For me, our society’s long term polarization is stretching us to a breaking point, and we’re all aware of the immense challenges facing young men especially.  This month, as he turns 18 I asked Truss if he would share his college entrance essay with all of us, as a bit of a reminder that in the midst of calamity, there is still so much beauty and goodness amongst us.  He graciously agreed, and so with nothing further, here is my son, Truss Abenroth.

A deep green ocean of leaves stretched far above my head while I fell, terrified, through the thick humid air towards the forest floor below.  A week before my class and I had stepped off an airplane into this foreign land, unsure, disoriented, but full of hope. For this Waldorf service trip I had raised money, organized materials, planned ad nauseum, and imagined I was there to serve others. Sometimes you have to step off the trodden road to realize the direction you were walking wasn't important after all. In the midst of the jungle, parts of who I thought I was, fell away.

After a long bus ride we walked along a winding path towards our waiting host families.  Nervous and curious, we approached the village commons, a large triangular roof over a rough wood floor. There the moms from the community greeted us, “¡Bienvenido a Costa Rica!” With that, our nervous energy dissipated. With loving hospitality these inspiring women welcomed us like family.

Communication was difficult: my Spanish was rough. In those first days, I felt adrift, straining to understand what was said around me. But in the midst of my service and through the simple cooking of meals and washing of dishes we formed a connection beyond and beneath language. At night a small bed in one room awaited me, while the entire host family, including their dog, slept in the other bedroom; their making space for my roommate and I spoke volumes.

Everyone embraced the pura vida way of living. Pura vida translates to pure or simple life, but means much more. This posture of greeting the world permeates the culture. I was honked at constantly, not from annoyance, but rather in a loving, “Hello.” Costa Rica showed me a beautiful way of living in the present moment, embracing the world and everyone around you in love.

In the consumeristic and screen obsessed frenzy of American life, we are increasingly disconnected from each other and ourselves.  Algorithms shape our focus, individualistic “success” underpins our values, and materialism informs our desires.  My dad is always talking about cultivating apatheia, which is a fierce indifference to unimportant things.  In Costa Rica, this finally made sense, as beneath the noise of our modern world is absolute stillness, and in that stillness I could hear the song of the earth. It sings of the sufficiency of what is. For me, pura vida is a deep joyful yes to what is most essential.

Towards the end of our time, we drove deep into the jungle. Tall and expansive, the trees were draped in impossibly thick vines descending all the way to the rich soil below. At the river, we transitioned to boats, paddling through alternating sections of calm and rapids. Down river the banks rose up into steep walls and a waterfall sprayed down upon us. Loud, cold, and full of life, the water’s power swept away modernity’s grime, leaving me alive and in love with the world. 

Soon after we found ourselves at the edge of a cliff on an enormous swing, invited to step into the void. Falling from high places terrifies me. Fear and apprehension constricted my body. A rope was strapped to me. I had to make the decision, only I could take the step off the edge. 

With a deep breath I stepped into open space. A twisting wind rushed past me. Only a dozen feet above the ground the tension of the rope caught, and I swung out into the sky.  Those 12 seconds were terrifying and liberating. Only beyond our comfort zone is growth possible

As I enter college, I’m wondering how to ensure technological and scientific advances, both which I’m passionate about pursuing, ultimately connect rather than divide us, and help us become more human and alive with the posture of pura vida? I want to use my education for the flourishing of all of life, not just a personal career, and in the midst of it all, to keep my ear tuned to the beautiful song of the earth.

By Rogério Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil (SoCal UMBRALES 2023)

Translated into English by Diego Américo (Illuman Brasil)

• English

  Past — I passed through it,
  Present — it passed, but longs to return.
  Fear was my shadow,
  still trying to paralyze me.
  It’s not as it once was—
  my shadow I’ve learned to embrace.

  
  

  A necessary emotion
  for me to survive,
  but fear in excess
  made me ill inside.
  Such deep anguish
  for a child to bear alive.

  It brought me turmoil—
  it all began in youth.
  Doubts emerged,
  trust shook loose,
  in those I once believed
  would guide and guard my truth.
  

  I could never have imagined
  all that I went through,
  unimaginable pains
  I could barely pull through.
  Inappropriate jokes,
  traumas I somatized too.

  Fantasies and fears
  kept haunting my mind.
  The idealized world I built
  crumbled over time. 

  Flaws in the environment—
  too much for me to endure.

  From those I loved most
  I drifted away,
  slowly becoming
  distrustful each day.
  A defenseless child,
  showing a false self to stay.

  Adolescence soon arrived,
  and I could no longer play.
  Spontaneity was silenced,
  fear got in the way.
  I couldn’t trust others,
  not even family, I’d say.

  I felt out of place,
  afraid to displease,
  yet it wasn’t easy
  to adapt with such unease.
  The fear inside me
  I could never release.

  So subtly, almost unseen,
  I hid it deep within,
  even from myself—
  too much to take in.
  Fear remained present,
  though it belonged to what had been.

  Only in adulthood
  could I truly see—
  the shadow ruled me;
  I had to let it be.
  It brought me great harm,
  and stunted my growth in me.

  Frustrations and losses
  nearly took my breath away.
  Alone, I could no longer
  find a path to stay.
  To face my traumas,
  psychology showed the way.

  It wasn’t an easy path—
  to remember all that pain,
  but the therapeutic process
  has also been my gain.
  I’ve faced the fear
  that once held me in chains.

  
  

  I sought a support network,
  spoke with other men.
  Recognized my struggles—
  found healing again.
  I saw I wasn’t alone
  in what I’d lived back then.

  I feel like a beloved son,
  with deep gratitude and care,
  to the men who listen
  in my nights of despair.
  I also hear their sorrows—
  in brotherhood we share.

  Therapy, groups, spirituality—
  new paths I began to tread.
  Rites of passage and Illuman
  helped me see ahead—
  where fear still lived within me,
  but where I could tend instead.

  Through my life’s story,
  I help men move on.
  All my pain and struggle
  helped me grow strong,
  showing that it’s possible
  to give new meaning to what’s gone.

  Speaking of my fears
  has helped me to stand,
  to live a healthy life,
  authentic and unplanned,
  to be my truest self,
  and live a life that’s grand.

  
  I was afraid to dream,
  afraid to feel pain,
  afraid to take risks,
  afraid to change.
  Afraid of fear itself—
  yet learning is what I gain.

• Portuguese

  Passado, passei, presente 

  Passou, mas quer voltar 

  O medo é minha sombra 

  Que ainda quer me paralisar 

  Não é mais como era antes 

  Minha sombra pude abraçar 

  
  

  Uma emoção necessária 

  Para eu poder sobreviver 

  Mais o medo em excesso 

  Fez-me também adoecer 

  Angústias tão intensas 

  Para uma criança conviver 

  
  

  Me trouxe perturbação 

  Na infância começou 

  As dúvidas emergiram 

  Minha confiança abalou 

  Nas figuras de referência 

  Que tão bem de mim cuidou 

  
  

  Não podia nem imaginar 

  Em tudo que passei 

  As dores inimagináveis 

  Que quase não suportei 

  Brincadeiras inapropriadas 

  Dores e traumas somatizei 

  
  

  As fantasias e os medos Continuavam me assombrar 

  O mundo tão idealizado Começou a desmoronar 

  As falhas no ambiente 

  Foi demais pra eu suportar 

  
  

  Daqueles que eu amava 

  Emocionalmente me afastei 

  Uma pessoa desconfiada 

  Pouco a pouco me tornei Era uma criança indefesa 

  Porém de forte me apresentei 

  
  

  Adolescência logo chegou 

  Não podia mais brincar 

  De forma espontânea 

  Tinha medo de me expressar 

  Não confiava nas pessoas 

  Nem no contexto familiar 

  
  

  Me sentia inadequado 

  Não queria desagradar 

  Porém não era fácil 

  Ter que a todos cativar 

  O medo dentro de mim 

  Não podia demonstrar 

  
  

  De forma bem sublime 

  imperceptível de notar 

  Escondia de mim mesmo 

  Pois não podia suportar 

  O medo sempre presente

  No passado não quis ficar 

  
  

  Só depois da vida adulta 

  Que pude perceber 

  A sombra me dominava 

  Precisava reconhecer 

  Me trazia grande danos 

  Dificultava meu crescer 

  
  

  Frustrações e decepções 

  Quase minha vida tirei 

  Não conseguia mais sozinho 

  Um novo caminho eu busquei 

  Para lidar com os traumas 

  A psicologia eu encontrei 

  
  

  Não foi um caminho fácil 

  Lembrar te tanta dor 

  Mas o processo terapêutico 

  Tem sido também libertador 

  Tenho encarado o meu medo 

  Que tanto me aprisionou 

  
  
  
  

  Busquei uma rede de apoio 

  Com outros homens eu falei 

  Reconheci minhas dificuldades 

  Uma grande ajuda encontrei 

  Percebi que não era único 

  Que passou pelo que passei 

  
  

  Me sinto um filho amado 

  Tenho muito carinho e gratidão 

  Aos homens que me escutam 

  Nos meus dias de escuridão 

  Escuto também suas dores 

  Vivo o presente com irmãos 

  
  

  Terapia, grupos e espiritualidade 

  Novos caminhos a trilhar 

  Ritos de passagem e Illuman 

  Foi fundamental para enxergar 

  Onde medo ainda habitava 

  Que podia da sombra cuidar 

  
  

  Com meu exemplo de vida 

  Ajudo homens a continuar 

  Todo meu sofrimento e dor

  Me ajudou até aqui chegar 

  Mostrando que é possível 

  Tudo na vida ressignificar 

  
  

  Falar sobre os meus medos 

  Tem me ajudado a caminhar 

  A ter uma vida saudável 

  Ser autêntico e não silenciar 

  Viver meu verdadeiro eu 

  Uma vida madura desfrutar 

  
  

  Posso ter medo de sonhar 

  Posso ter medo de sofrer 

  Posso ter medo de arriscar 

  Posso ter medo de crescer 

  Posso ter medo de ter medo 

  Mas não tenho medo de viver

A literatura de cordel, trazida de Portugal para o Brasil no período colonial, ganhou forma própria no Nordeste, tornando-se símbolo da cultura popular. Com folhetos pendurados em cordas nas feiras, os versos rimados — em sextilhas — abordam temas do cotidiano, lendas, dilemas e críticas sociais. Mais que entretenimento, o cordel educa, emociona e resiste, dando voz ao povo com linguagem acessível e sabedoria popular. Nascido no interior do Ceará, trago essa tradição ao narrar, em tom confessional, minha trajetória marcada por medo, dor e amadurecimento. Meus versos, embora pessoais, tocam questões universais como masculinidade, espiritualidade e transformação, reafirmando o cordel como caminho de cura, identidade e libertação.

How often do we as humans take our inner brokenness and project it onto others as a means of feeling superior, cleansed, justified, pure, or even as a release of anxiety? This propensity to scapegoat is as ancient as the mountains, and cultures all over the world have even created elaborate ceremonies to enact this very thing. It is surprisingly effective at a surface level, though not long-lasting, which means it must be repeated—again and again—for the equilibrium of a society to hold together. The victims are usually not guilty of what they are accused of, and are forced to bear the brunt of the shame, woundedness, blame, and guilt of everyone else in the system. 

If we were mature enough, we would hold onto our own pain and transform it within us, rather than projecting it onto someone or something else. This is even more powerful at the level of communities and entire societies who, rather than deal with their past harms, attempt to deflect, redirect, suppress, or attach it to some sacrificial lamb. (Check out a summary of René Girard’s work to learn more—his work is the best I’ve found on this topic.)

Understanding our natural tendency to scapegoat is especially crucial at this time. In a highly polarized society, being aware of this propensity can significantly diminish its power. When we recognize and name it, we can disrupt this unconscious force in us. We can more easily see it at work when “they” are doing it to “us.” Still, emphatically, this is operative at every level of society in fundamentalist ideologies, whether they be liberal or conservative, and everywhere else as well.

These days, folks blame and judge scapegoats for their own maladies, as if each person’s suffering is entirely of their own making. We judge homeless street kids who may have escaped abuse at home. We judge addicts, those who suffer from mental illness, the poor, and people living with the effects of intergenerational trauma. Some castigate and judge the cancelled White man, and others judge the immigrant. Some shockingly blame the rape victim for “asking for it” by the way they dressed; others judge Trump voters as one massive, homogenous group of hateful and ignorant people. The coal miner condemns the environmentalist, and the environmentalist condemns the corporation. The tolerant judge the intolerant. The intolerant at least own their condemnation of queer folks. There seems to be no end to the lists of the ominous “they” who are the problem and deserve the suffering they’ve created for themselves, and surely, we think, if only we could kick those folks out and send them away, everything would be fine. 

But what does it look like to subvert this systemic issue? Perhaps a mythic story can say it best …

Once upon a time, on the outskirts of a small fishing village far, far away, a man named Jesus came upon Legion, an outcast, who had a thousand devils in him. The fishermen and other townfolk, being good Jewish families, were interested in maintaining ritual purity. Thus, the poor outcast lived outside the town in the local graveyard, suffering not only his wounds, but clearly bearing the wounds of ancestors, of the current townsfolk, and so many others. 

Legion knew no rest; only suffering.

In this mess, Jesus perceived the root of the problem. He had compassion on Legion, for suffering the pain of so many. He had compassion on the townsfolk, who would never be healed, whole human beings, as long as they drew the line between good and evil outside themselves rather than through their own hearts. He had compassion on even the thousand devils, who couldn’t just disappear into vapor. Even the devils needed some place to be until their pain could be addressed and metabolized. In short, he had compassion on the whole sad and sorry lot.

Jesus began with the devils and told them, “You must leave this man and let him be.”

“But where can we go?” they asked. They begged him not to be sent away, for this was their ancestral home. 

“What shall become of us?”

How would we respond if we were in that situation? If we’re honest, our instinct might be to annihilate the devils permanently, sending them either into the abyss or to the ends of the earth. Then we could delude ourselves into thinking they could no longer bother us. Yet these devils, created in that particular fishing village, connected to all that had happened that shouldn’t have, and all that should’ve happened that didn’t, begged to remain nearby.

Somehow, Jesus knew that killing the devils would just perpetuate the same system of ritual violence that created the devils in the first place. Furthermore, sending them far, far away would be no healing at all, rather just a suppression, a delay, an illusory, cheap bandaid offering temporary relief, but no actual healing.

The devils, the traumas, the unspeakable histories of our communities can never be dissolved by ignoring them. These stories live on in our bodies and in the land and are passed on from generation to generation, until folks are ready to do the healing work of facing them head-on with Truth and Love. 

Jesus, though, sought a radical path that might return the devils of the village from afflicting Legion alone, back squarely onto the shoulders of everyone, which is where collective pain belongs after all.

At first glance, the plan seems problematic—at least for pig lovers! For on a cliff overlooking the sea, there was a massive herd of wild pigs, and Jesus granted the devils’ wish to enter the swine. What the pigs did to deserve this fate, who can say, but perhaps it made sense for folks in this culture, simply because pigs are considered unclean to many Jews.

Upon Jesus granting the devils’ request, the devils needed no second invitation. At once, they left the man and entered the pigs. In turn, the bedeviled pigs promptly ran down the hill and into the sea. Kersplash! In this great baptism in the sea, the bedeviled pigs sank under the surface of the waters. And as they died, what was previously pig flesh became fish food.

Bite by bite, the bodies of the bedeviled pigs transformed into the bodies of carp and sardines, tilapia and barbels, and day by day, the fishermen of the village hauled these fattened fish into their nets.

Week by week, the villagers baked bread and made fish stew in their homes. Bite by bite, the villagers feasted on the bedeviled, once-unclean swine-now-fish-flesh, somehow mysteriously taking back into their bodies that which they had previously projected onto Legion. In its composted form, they could no longer easily distinguish one person’s pain from another’s, nor who had eaten which devils. It was all one pain, and everyone’s individual pain was connected to everyone else’s. 

In the end, it turns out the “profane” pigs become the selfless Christ-figure heroes in the story for composting the collective pain back into the great circle of life. Those composters of our food waste, who will eat our discarded scraps and metabolize them into muscle and bone, seemed to intuit their part in the great drama.

Things seemed to end well for Legion, who was freed from carrying the burdens of everyone else, and only had to carry his own portion. But the terrified villagers in seeing the liberated Legion and the pigs running into the sea, asked Jesus to leave and never come back. 

Who among us hasn’t done the same thing at times? We aren’t always ready for the teacher to arrive, and when we’re not ready, this is a normal response.

Jesus taught that the “truth will set you free,” but left out the warning that before we experience the ease of freedom, truth will bring significant ego death and suffering. Perhaps it is because truth invites the composting of too-small patterns, along with a fierce inventory of oneself and of the collective, knowing this can become the foundation of any lasting hope for change. The unspeakable things in us and in our midst must be named for there to be a chance at healing, rather than palliative pain suppression. Hope that doesn’t take seriously the direness of our collective situation is naïve fluff and, indeed, no hope at all. But getting people to take seriously the truth of what is, is an adventure in hitting a wall again and again, or at worst, the experience of being railroaded out of town. The role of a prophet is not enviable.

Lao Tzu once said, “Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.

 In other words, let’s not mistake this story as a commissioning of prophets to run out and start naming all the unspeakable things in our communities. The wisdom of this story asks us to first become aware of where we are scapegoating others. Let us awaken to where we are colluding in the illusions that there are no “devils” around us (there are) or that we can somehow remain separate and unimpacted by these collective traumas and pains of our society (we can’t). In the end, it is almost impossible to get others to change, and entirely out of our control. What we can do, however, is confront ourselves with loving truth and grace. To this task, there is no end.

Awaken, our annual gathering at Shrinemont in Virginia, is nearly here. Like most of us, I come with curiosity, not knowing what will unfold. Yet this year’s theme—Igniting the Fire of our Sacred Masculine–has unsettled me. As I’ve been pondering the idea of the “sacred warrior,” it feels as though this archetype has been broken into shards and scattered across communities, each holding up a fragment, while mistaking it for the whole.

Perhaps, similar to the Jewish practice of Tikkun Olam (תיקון עולם), our work is to do some of that gathering of the shards of light as it relates to the warrior, both within each of us and in disparate communities. We can never be whole individually; we need each other. So too, communities can never be whole, separate from the wider communities in which they nest.

One thing is clear: a warrior is not a soldier. Modernity has industrialized, dehumanized and tamed the warrior (as it has done with everything else) into the role of the soldier. In the chain of command, soldiers are objectified cogs in a machine. Soldiers follow orders, aren’t to think for themselves, see through binaries of good/bad, right/wrong, us/them, and use violence to enforce foregone conclusions drawn by others. Usually, the dualisms result in scapegoating, and the line between good and evil doesn’t run through each of us, but becomes the trench between two opposing armies. An army is monolithic and will subjugate the well-being of any individual component towards the aims—good or bad—of the whole.

To contrast it simply:

Soldier: obedience, binaries, orders, machinery.

Warrior: conscience, paradox, discernment, life-affirmation.

There is something deep in us that resists this simple reduction of the warrior to a soldier. It is why there are so many movies where a warrior disobeys the chain of command to do what's just, sometimes at a significant cost to himself.  

In Star Wars, we see the archetype of soldiers embodied in the stormtroopers—faceless and robot-like—while the resistance is full of reluctant warriors like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, rebels who are more iconoclastic than conformist. 

Yoda is as much warrior as he is magician. Yoda shows the discerning wisdom of when not to act as much as when to move, and he does his inner battles before his outer struggles. In Marvel’s work, we see similar themes, rooting for warriors who don’t fit the mold of soldier. Even the title “Guardians of the Galaxy” gets close to the essence of a warrior. Warriors are called to guard as much as fight and they defend absolutely everyone, not only one nation, race, or ideology.

We see examples in pop culture and many pre-modern cultures that have incarnated warriors within their society as spiritual journeys. 

The Sikh Sant Sipahi—saint-soldier—embodies spiritual devotion and physical defense of the oppressed as inseparable; Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita learns that his true battle is against delusion, not enemies; Zen warriors trained as much in meditation as in swordsmanship; and in African traditions, warriors protected the community’s harmony, often in partnership with women as fierce guardians of life.

Warriors defend life and its chance to flourish, rather than imposing control. They protect an emerging future more than enforcing judgments and conclusions. They have an internal moral compass that is more important than an external chain of command. They have a heart that honors justice more than a persona or ideology. The best warriors, like Ghandi, Jesus, or MLK, are fighting not against their so-called enemies, but also on their behalf. They hold a larger image of wholeness that is never tribal but is universal. They may wield a power different and greater than the sword, but don’t assume they are conflict-avoidant as a result! These warriors will sometimes intensify conflict, intentionally getting into “Good trouble,” as John Lewis loved saying, even putting their very bodies on the line.

These days, the warrior archetype is partially understood and greatly maligned. In Illuman, we likely have a bias towards stepping away from conflict and spiritualizing the warrior as something to do almost exclusively internally, rather than something that may also need to be embodied in the broader world. This may be because we are so comfortable with paradox and resist the need to resolve uncertainties, and unhealthy and modern warriors prefer black and white. We prefer to use warrior energy to create boundaries and internal discipline, to use the sword of discernment to cut cautiously while trying not to offend or prick. But this will only take us so far, and certainly not far enough. There is a time for warrior energy to manifest itself through us in the many contexts of our lives. Right now, especially.  

At heart, the warrior is a contemplative activist, willing to insert something into the conversation on behalf of others. This willingness to insert or impose something that may not be welcome but is life-giving and needed is near the heart of masculinity. Warriors know that timeless truth of unknown origins: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” 

Too many of us are doing nothing right now.

Any warrior worth his salt must ask himself, “What is mine to do in times such as these?” To be an ancestor worth remembering, we must risk doing something memorable. Not for the sake of being remembered—that has nothing to do with it—but rather we must dare greatly, risk going too far, and as Rilke says, “flare up like a flame and make big shadows,” because it is far more dangerous for nice men to think small, stay safe, and emasculate themselves in comfortable silence.

This year’s Awaken gathering is vital for us because the path of a warrior is not something one should venture alone. We need each other to push into, rub off on, sit with, strengthen, loosen, grieve, pray, and dream. A band of brothers is always stronger than the sum of its parts.

Warriors who move boldly, grounded in love, wisdom and humility, can never fail, though their impact may be as unnoticed as a drop of rain on the ocean and though an inevitable shadow will form. They stand in solidarity with all that is, not as ones who fix, but who will remain even if defeat is inevitable. The final results are not up to us and are not ours to hold. 

Our task is to be one of those in the arena, incarnating a fierce love, an audacious hope, and an expansive yes to life, while we yet have our breath.

Once when preparing a homily, a short phrase from the desert fathers kept coming up inside me, which seemed to want to be turned into a story. So it happened that this story flowed out of my pen, and here it is.

Once upon a time there was a young man, who was full of anger. One day, he announced that he was taking a vow of silence and would live alone in a cave that overlooked the town, where he would dedicated himself to prayer. He wanted to be a holy man.

All the townsfolk were so impressed. They brought him food, and when they did, they noticed he was always in quiet prayer. As years passed the legend grew of the holy monk in the cave. Folks would say, “You know I think his robes are getting whiter with time." Another said, "When I took up food last week, he hadn’t touched the food from the previous week. I think he has added fasting to his practice!”

And their hearts ached with relief, for though they could never be holy like him, at least they had the honor of taking care of him, and could sleep under the opening of his cave.

And their chests swelled with pride, for his cave overlooked their town and not those idiots in the next village.

One day a wise old woman came through the town and, hearing of this monk, took pity on both him and on all the townspeople. So she sought to help them. Early in the morning she went up to the cave and said, “Young brother, how is it that you have become so holy?”

The young man opened one eye but said nothing.

At noon she went back this time asking him for advice on quieting the mind, and the young man furrowed his brow and shifted in his seat but again said nothing.

This went on three times a day—morning, noon, and night—for six whole days.Each time, the old woman brought a new question, and each time the monk’s body grew more agitated. But he kept the silence!

Until the seventh morning.

On that day he saw her coming, and when she drew close, he erupted at her, yelling: “Damn it woman, would you leave me alone? I’m trying to pray!”

Then he froze, astonished at the anger that had so easily poured out from within him. Over his face a cloud of sorrow came as he realized that all those years of sitting alone had still not healed him, had still not made him a "holy man."

As he looked up into the old woman’s smiling eyes, his own tears came. In that moment, he knew he was truly seen by her for who and what he was, and in those eyes he experienced nothing but grace, love, and kindness. She took his hand and they walked arm and arm back down to the village.

As one of the desert fathers said, “If you see a young man climbing toward heaven by his own will, grab his foot and pull him down, for it will be for his own good.”

And we might add that it shall be for the good of everyone else as well.

Just as we create scapegoats for projecting our own brokenness, trauma, and sin onto an outer object, making us feel better in the process, so too we are prone to do the same thing with heroes. Our own glory and beauty is as unsettling to us as our brokenness, so gladly we project it onto a golden boy, heroine, pastor, leader, or messianic figure, and some poor soul naively accepts the golden projections, with his ego fully in control. Thus, a semi-stable dysfunctional system is born in the village—until the elder arrives in town!

She is wise enough to know that she can’t simply tell the townsfolk they are trapped in what essentially amounts to idol worship.  That won't be received, nor will telling them that they are just as holy as the man they esteem! Both will get her run out of town. Indeed, information rarely transforms us. Instead, it is usually rejected unlessit confirms our existing biases. Never directly tell a religious zealot they’re doing it wrong—it won’t turn out very well! Whenever there is oppositional energy being used in working with fundamentalism of any kind, whether conservative or liberal, the oppositional energy only strengthens that which it opposes.

The wise woman knew that to bless this young one, and indeed to bring wholeness to the entire village, she had to draw on the archetypal wisdom of the "woman of the woods," priestess, or magician to help the young man see what he couldn’t see on his own.

Thus the elder honors the very thing the young zealot wants so desperately to be. Even though she sees his hubris and could name it, she works with his desire, not his blindness. She blesses him not with insight or knowledge, but both with questions and consistent relationship. This transcends his small categories of reality and holiness and eventually brings him into a broader web of relationships and health.

Sometimes a blessing must have enough craftiness built in, so it can penetrate deep enough to make a difference. An elder knows how to be shrewd. Their blessings aren't all flowers and positivity. They sometimes sneak up on us and, over time, invite us into wholeness. They call us to live into our true identity, which is always more and less than who we think we are. In other words, the blessing of an elder forces us to hold all of ourselves, our beauty and our depravity, simultaneously, without projecting any of it onto others. The way of transformation is to hold onto both, remaining suspended in between these two polarities, until a spaciousness is carved into us that is large enough to include both.

I want to talk about something that might be more germane to men who have already gone through the Men’s Rites of Passage (MROP), though I suspect that there might be some in this that could be helpful to anyone.

When Richard Rohr formed the MROP, he drew on five hard (not negative) truths he observed being used in a wide variety of Indigenous traditions and their initiation rites of young boys. They are universal, resting above and beneath any creed or faith tradition. When he crafted his book Adam’s Return, Richard connected the five hard truths to one of the creation myths in Genesis, and spoke of them from his particular tradition of Christianity.

These five truths were meant to help crack the ego open, so that he would be more ready to take in the gift of initiation, and they were tempered by five positive counterparts, which we have come to call the “common wonderful.” These are held in tension with the five hard truths. Together, they form five tensions or paradoxes. In the crucible that holds both the hard truths and their corresponding common wonderfuls, that is where we can grow.

Over the years, we’ve continued to refine and learn. For example the “hard truths” might be hard for men who have had a privileged position and ascent in their first half of life, but for marginalized or oppressed men who have not had the context in which to ascend, they are likely very familiar and will not dislodge the ego in the same way. For these men, the common wonderful might be “harder” to swallow than the hard truths which go down perhaps too easily.  Ultimately, both sides of a paradox are needed, of course.

As the MROP grew, it moved from being a Catholic program to a Christian one. Today, it is an offering that includes and honors the wisdom of all the major spiritual traditions. In the last thirteen years, we’ve examined the language around these universal hard truths and the “common wonderfuls,” and have experimented with making them universal once again. Thus as part of this process, I wanted to share some reflections shared with the men at the Minnesota and Oregon MROPs this spring on both the hard truths and the common wonderfuls.  

Life is hard and grace abounds. Not only is the latter an antidote for the former, but from the seat of wisdom we can see that often the hardness of life is often a grace unto itself. Men especially seem to thrive most when faced with difficulty, as iron sharpens iron. Thus, the hardness of life is not against us but can be for us. In fact, the beauty and diversity of the natural world can be tied in part to the hardness of life in all its many forms. To refuse the hardness of life is to be naive, to deny the grace that extends even further is to nurture despair and darkness, but to accept the paradox is the seat where one might cultivate wisdom. 

You're going to die and life goes on. Death is not the opposite of life, it is the opposite of birth—and both belong to life. The death of our small lives is not a flaw of creation, but an attribute that is generative. The forest floor reveals how death feeds into and creates life. Your individual death isn't the end of the greater story of life. Your own death is only another bend in the river as you journey towards union with the Ocean. Remember: "No great loss to die, so that a greater life might flourish."

You're not that important and you are invaluable beyond measure. Jesus said that the very hairs on your head are numbered, or as Rumi puts it: "You are not a drop in the Ocean, you are the entire Ocean in a drop." You are not that important and yet we greet each other with Namaste: the divine in me sees and honors the divine in you. It is the very greeting that honors the sacred divinity in which we all breathe, move, dance, work, and play. As Meister Eckhart put it, "We are not God, but we are not other than God." 

You're not in control (what a relief) and everything belongs. Control is an obsession only for the juvenile false self. The sting of this hard truth evaporates the more we are living out of our true selves and in a place of maturity. The mystery of this world is that God/Love/The Spirit/The Friend seems to be not all that interested in control either, and folks from Abraham, to Jesus, from Gandhi, to the Buddha all lived lives of surrender, not dominance. Rather than controlling us, God seems more interested in seducing the entire world to willingly lay down our pitiful toys and come to the dance floor of real Joy!

Life's not about you—you're about life! In this awakening, you move from the world orbiting around you and your constructed self and awaken to see how you are as fleeting and as beautiful as a wild flower in a meadow. This calls you to ask how you might add one movement in the season of your flowering, to ensure that there will be future seasons of life flourishing for descendants (not only of flowers but all of life’s incarnations). "Leaving a legacy" turns from preserving the ego to offering service towards the good of all that is, and is yet to be. "Leaving a legacy" is not about ensuring the remembrance of ourselves by those in the future but about ensuring that we have transformed more pain than we have transmitted, that we have contributed to all of life’s robust and beautiful conversation with star dust. As "fallen trees still feed the seeds they cast before they die."

Today, give yourself the time to see what in this day reveals the hard truths and the common wonderfuls.