Danny's Men's Studies

Movie spoiler alert: if you haven't watched it, don't read this post if you want to retain the surprise ending. The movie is R rated for four letter words and some blood/violence. And smoking, of cource.

What they called "manly" in the movie was a bit funny but forgetable enough.

The hero, Walt Kowalski, shows what real men do: take care of the bad guys, protect the innocents and leave a positive legacy. In this story Walt dies heroically, but with an asterisk since he knew he was terminally ill. We all die but one's willingness to die for other(s) shouldn't be conditioned by how soon we are expected to die.

Copyright 2009, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Labels: manhood, movie

Here's a cool article on Ron Paul in NYTimes (of all places) "The Web Takes Ron Paul for a Ride". It is about how by decentralizing the campaign, people on their own took individual responsibility and created a movement on the web, all without micromanagement by Ron Paul campaign.

And it hit me as to being very similar to my experience with J2M. We (the dads who prepared and ran the rite of passage for our sons) were given general guidance with example by other dads. And then we had to run it ourselves. And I had a blast, overall, because it opened my eyes to the freedom and possibilities of being personally responsible: we were able to customize our rites to match our sons, and it was flexible to meet the needs of the families involved, not some formula we had to follow step by step.

By decentralizing and allowing individual freedom and corresponding responsibility, great things can be accomplished, as Ron Paul campaign is showing. On a smaller scale, the same could be said about home life, Sunday School lesson, homeschooling program, or entrepreneurial endeavors!

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Labels: J2M, manhood, Ron Paul

I've been busy with new job, finding new church, starting up new school year, vacationing (finished J2M in Austin and had in-laws here in SoCal for 2 weeks) and getting ready for hunting season.

I was hoping to see something started among men of home educating fathers but it seems that they aren't interested (or the one person I talked to didn't carry through).

I've been attending a men's Bible study but it's too typical and not all that manly. Sigh. "Where are the men?" indeed....

Not much thoughts for a while: I'm now interested in manly Christian music. I thought having Psalm 84 set into music based on Taiko (Japanese drum) beat with upbeat melody would be neat but I don't have the time to do much with it. At the Bible study, we sang the slurpy version "Better is One Day" and it got me to lookup Ps 84 and I found that the words themselves are rather manly: if the music matched, then it could work out. Unfortunately, I'm not into creating music (a good software tool might help, like Apple's GarageBand).....

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Labels: manhood, manly godliness, manly music

"Fathers responsible for fat children: study" starts off:

Fathers who play less of a role in child rearing are more likely to have overweight or obese offspring, Australian researchers said.

Reminds of me of how, it goes something like: a husband makes the woman that his wife is [e.g., wife becomes unfaithful because he failed to properly care for his wife] -- if my memory serves me correctly (grin).

So it boils down to it's all man's responsibility as father and as husband. The buck really stops with him.

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Labels: fatherhood, husband, manhood

"Stop feminising our schools - our boys are suffering" is a great article on how bad schools have become into feminizing the whole educational experience. And the problems in school are much the same as problems at church:

• Instead of the make-or-break sprint to the exam deadline, boys have to endure stultifying coursework.
  
• the boys like taking risks - ending either in glorious triumph or disaster. The girls tend to play it safer.
• today's curriculum is pretty risk-proof. This is at its most obvious in science, where actual experiments with real flames and real blood have been replaced by facts on paper or video demonstrations.
• Essays are now so safe they can practically be marked by computer.

So: Answers are almost provided, no real world interaction, no competition and no challenge. Does this sound like your typical Sunday school? I volunteered in various age group Sunday schools and, looking back, none of them were boys friendly at all.

I love the following quote:

Their testosterone and its companion competitive streak need to be acknowledged. If they're ignored, boys get listless and they start retreating into their hoodies and terrorising the rest of us.

And to think that Jesus Christ called these "boys" (hoodies and terror-makers) into Christian leaders. The kind of young men that today's "Christian" leaders would turn their nose away from -- much like the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus' days? Hmm....

And these young men, without manly leaders, always end up with:

Eventually, they spend their time brawling, picking up ASBOs instead of A-levels.

[Or drop out and join a gang.] When it comes to church, they just stop attending, of course.

What draws the men in today? Computer gaming, pornography, extreme sports, to name a few. Somehow, church and school don't seem to belong on the top 5 (top 50?) list...

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Labels: apsotles, calling of men, discipleship, manhood