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Men, Anger and Friendship
A Sermon Given
by The Rev. Roger Fritts
on September 19, 1999
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
Statistics say that the amount of violent crime
in our nation has gone down each year, for the past seven
years. However, if you watch or read the news, it does not
feel that way. Month after month the news media tells us
terrible stories of innocent people who are shot and often
killed. Just this past Wednesday evening a man opened fire on
a prayer service at a Southern Baptist Church in Fort Worth,
Texas. He killed seven people. He injured seven others and
then he shot himself. It is the latest in a series of highly
publicized shootings.
Obviously, the men (and they are always men)
who commit these crimes are deeply troubled. For example,
letters written by the Larry Ashbrook, the shooter in this
most recent killing in Texas, lead some to diagnose him as
suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. However, some people
suggest that these killings are the extreme manifestation of
a larger problem. For example, Susan Faludi, a feminist
writer, saw the actions of Mark Barton, who killed 12 people
in Atlanta at the end of July as an extreme example of the
crisis men are facing. She pointed out that Barton:
. . . did us the dubious favor of providing
documentation. He wrote us a letter, a suicide note addressed
not to family or friends but, more globally, "To Whom It
May Concern." Its words hold some clues, if we knew how
to decode them. "I wake up at night so afraid, so
terrified . . . " Barton wrote. "I have come to
hate this life and this system of things. I have come to have
no hope." Unhappily, it is a comment that could have
been written by many ordinary men in America, who sense that
some vague and shifting "system" has let them down.
(Newsweek, August 16, 1999)
Evidence exists to support this view. In our
society on average men die earlier than women. Men die of
suicide more often than women. We men commit many more crimes
and engage in many more antisocial acts of violence. We are
far more inclined than women toward drug addiction and
alcoholism. Perhaps we men are biologically determined to die
younger, to die of suicide, to commit crimes and to use
drugs, or perhaps American society teaches us roles that are
unhealthy.
When historians write the cultural history of
this decade, they should devote one chapter to the continuing
quest to define what it means to be a man. The interest in
the O. J. Simpson trial and in the trial of President Clinton
are symptoms of the confusion around the proper role of men.
The popularity of the writings of Robert Bly in the early
1990s, the Million Man March in 1995, and the 1997 Promise
Keepers March, are part of the struggle to define
masculinity.
Robert Bly was born in 1927 and grew up on a
farm near the small town of Madison, Minnesota. His father
was an alcoholic. As a child he said that he would sometimes
lie in bed at night listening to his father shout at his
mother in a drunken rage. At other times, Bly says he would
run to his father with a story, only to watch his father
abruptly walk away before he had finished. Once, at the age
of twelve, Bly said that he proudly invited his father to a
school spelling bee. The twelve-year-old spelled word after
word correctly and watched anxiously for his father to show
up. His father never appeared.
Eventually Bly graduated from Harvard
University, moved to a house near his parents and made his
living as a poet, a writer, and a story teller. In the 1980s,
he combined his interests in poetry, mythology and psychology
into weekend workshops for men. The workshops were enormously
popular. One estimate is that by 1991 they had stimulated the
creation of 1,500 men's support groups nationwide.
Robert Bly's popularity increased
dramatically because of a television program called "A
Meeting of Men." The public broadcasting special was a
conversation between Bly and Bill Moyers, interspersed with
scenes of Bly lecturing to a group of men. In 1990 he
published his book Iron John. It was on the best
seller list for many months. In the book Bly wrote:
The male in the past twenty years has become
more thoughtful, more gentle. But by this process he has not
become more free. He's a nice boy who pleases not only
his mother but also the young woman he is living with . . .
when I look out at an audience, perhaps half of the young
males are what I'd call soft. They're lovely,
valuable people I like them -- they're not interested in
harming the earth or in starting wars. . . . But many of
these men are not happy. You quickly notice the lack of
energy in them. They are life-preserving but not exactly
life-giving. Ironically, you often see these men with strong
women who positively radiate energy.
Bly's answer to this "soft male"
was the "wild man." He blamed the industrial
revolution for creating a remote father. He said, if the son
does not see what his father does during the day and through
all seasons of the year, a vacuum will appear in the
son's psyche. Instead of being with their fathers,
parents send boys to school where most of the teachers are
women. He believed that because of lack of contact with the
father, people in our culture see the father as a weak,
ridiculous, bumbling clown. The model for the 1990s father is
Homer Simpson. Even worse, is the symbol of the father as an
evil, absent force. The Star Wars movies represent this
father symbolically by the character "Darth Vader,"
which is code for "Dark Father."
Bly said this devaluing of men comes just when
women are learning to assert themselves, which makes feelings
of depression and inadequacy in men stronger. Bly believes
boys need older men they can idealize and use as mentors. He
calls this the "hunger for the king in a time with no
father."
I read Robert Bly's book nine years ago. I
agreed with some of what he said. However, unlike Robert Bly
my father did not abuse alcohol. My dad was there for me in
ways that Robert Bly's father was not. Therefore, I am
not carrying around inside me anger toward my father.
However, I can imagine the pain in Robert Bly's soul. I
can imagine his anger, his disappointment and his deep
sadness about his relationship with his father. I suspect
that millions of men in our society do live with anger and
disappointment and sadness because of a failed relationship
with their father. The evidence is in the popularity of
Robert Bly's workshops and his writings. The evidence is
also in movies, books and plays (like "Death of a
Salesman") that have this story as a theme.
In Robert Bly's writings I found anger not
only toward fathers, but also toward women. His images were
often violent. For example he said, "We know that more
than one American man today needs a sword to cut his adult
soul away from his mother-bound soul."
Picking up on this theme of anger toward women,
in 1993 the humorist Garrison Keilor wrote a satire of the
Men's movement called The Book of Guys. He
wrote:
Last January late one night, I drove my truck
deep into the woods . . . to attend the annual [Sons of
Bernie] campfire and drunken orgy of song and self-pity,
standing arm and arm with other Sons of Bernie, or
S.O.B's around a bonfire under the birches, in a raw wind
at twenty below zero, the snowbank up to our waists, and
there, under the Milky Way a nearly full moon, we ate chili
out of cans . . . and sang mournful songs . . . and
complained about women . . . A guy said, "I got to say,
women are getting awfully impossible to please these days. .
. . I quit deer hunting and took up painting delicate
watercolors, and tossing salads and learned how to discuss
issues and feelings and concerns and they're still angry
at me."
Men's groups still exist based on Robert
Bly's model. However, as the 1990s progressed his
popularity faded. As interest in the wild Man men's
movement declined, two new men's movements arose in the
mid 1990s.
Louis Farrakhan is the head of the Nation of
Islam. This African American religious organization combines
some practices and beliefs of Islam with a philosophy of
black separatism. Farrakhan preaches the virtues of personal
responsibility, especially for black men, and advocates black
self-sufficiency. Farrakhan's message calls for black
self-reliance in the face of economic injustice and white
racism. His message of black self-reliance and mistrust of
whites struck a responsive chord among young urban blacks.
Farrakhan called for poor black men to make stronger
commitments to education and to their families. He also
called on African American males to end black-on-black crime
and to be less dependent on government welfare. In this
spirit in October 1995 Farrakhan organized the Million Man
March in Washington, D.C. At the march hundreds of thousands
of black men vowed to renew their commitments to family,
community, and personal responsibility.
Four years ago I watched the Million Man March
on television and read accounts in the newspapers. I found
wisdom in Farrakhan's insistence that black men
- Assume moral and economic responsibility
for themselves;
- Avoid drugs and crime;
- Provide for their children;
- Stay in school and;
- Become involved in their communities.
Nevertheless, Farrakhan is a dangerous
man. He has attacked white society. He has called
Judaism a "gutter religion" and referred to
Adolf Hitler as a great man. For these reasons,
Farrakhan's teachings about how African American
men should live their lives have serious limits.
Yet a third model for men appeared in the
1990s in the Promise Keepers, an evangelical Christian
movement for men, led by a former football coach.
Through rallies held in sports stadiums, Promise
Keepers encouraged men to keep promises made to God,
their families, and their churches. From 1994 to 1996,
the movement experienced explosive growth, as more than
two million men attended 42 stadium events across the
country. On October 4, 1997, a crowd of several hundred
thousand gathered in Washington, D.C., for what they
called "Stand in the Gap: A Sacred Assembly of
Men."
I went down to the mall the day before
the Promise Keepers rally and talked to many men. The
next day I watched the rally on television. The seven
principles of the promise keepers were general enough
so that there was much with which I could agree. Like
the Promise Keepers, I honor Jesus, though not in the
way expected of the evangelical Christians. I pursue
vital relationships with other men. I am committed to
building moral, ethical and sexual purity. However, I
am not sure that I agreed with the Promise Keepers
about what is moral, ethical and sexual purity. I am
committed to building a strong marriage. Like the
Promise Keepers, I am commitment to supporting my
church and my pastor. I am committed to reaching beyond
racial and denominational lines. However, I do not
think the Promise Keepers Movement is the right answer
to better defining the role of men. Unlike the Promise
Keepers, I do not believe that homosexuality is a sin
or that abortion should be outlawed, or that women
should submit to their husbands. I do not believe in
the trinity, or in original sin, and I do not believe
that their religion is the only true path. After the
great rally two years ago, the Promise Keepers lost
momentum and at their Colorado headquarters they have
laid off many of their staff.
In the past nine years I have learned
from Robert Bly's Wild Man, from the Million Man
March, and from the Promise Keepers. However, I remain
convinced that better solutions exist to the crisis of
masculinity.
Last March I attended a conference held
in San Diego for leaders of large Unitarian
Universalist churches. For me a highlight of the
conference was the visit to the Unitarian Universalist
Church in San Diego. About the same size as our
congregation, the church has many programs that are
much like ours. However, they have one program that we
do not have. They have what they call a Unitarian
Universalist Men's Fellowship. Established in 1979
the Men's Fellowship has grown to include about 300
members. About half are church members and about half
are not. The Men's Fellowship offers an open
evening discussion meeting at the church each month and
renewal weekends in the Fall and the Spring. It also
leads support groups, workshops, lectures, worship
services, social events and work projects. Working with
a woman's group in the church it cosponsors a
monthly discussion with women. The bylaws of the group
say that "it offers opportunities for personal
growth, brotherly support, intellectual stimulation,
spiritual deepening and social outreach. It seeks to
create a vital and affirming community of
men."
For many years Cedar Lane has had a
men's group called Wise Old Men that has met here
on Mondays at noon. Last spring I started a second
group that continues to meet twice a month on Saturday
mornings. In our Adult Program's brochure this fall
is a description of yet another men's group that I
am starting. The first meeting will be Saturday,
October 9 at 8:30 in the morning. If men here are
interested, I would like to see us establish a
men's fellowship, learning from the experience of
the men in the San Diego Unitarian Universalist Church.
We can learn some things from Robert Bly and from the
Million Man March and from the Promise Keepers.
However, I believe that our Unitarian Universalist
approach offers a better way of searching for a healthy
definition of what it means to be a man. Together we
can explore the questions that men today are trying to
answer:
- Is compromise a sign of health or a
sign of our weakness?
- Is self assertion a sign of health or
a sign of selfishness?
-
If we work twelve hour days are
we showing our worth as men or are we headed to
an early grave?
- Is a healthy father one who
works hard to provide for his children the
opportunities that come from financial
resources, or one who forgoes a higher income
so he can spend more time with his
children?
- Is a son who calls his dad only twice
a year a sinner? How much time and energy should a
son spend working on his relationship with his
father?
- Is a man who is assertive with a
woman treating her with respect, or with
disrespect?
Of course, the problems raised in
this decade about men's relationships with
women, to work, with children and with parents
are not new. They are a continuation of the long
struggle of men to try to discover our proper
role in the world. This church can be a place for
men to explore these issues.
Rev. Roger Fritts
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