To the Lighthouse

After a three week period in which we had a baby, moved to a new state, changed schools for the boys, and changed jobs for dad, we lately stopped to take stock of what's happened over the last nine months.

The simple answer: a lot.

Watching the national and international news has been deeply discouraging, bordering on suffocating. As a public school teacher for many years, I've lately felt almost voiceless to know how to navigate the bullying that now emanates from the highest office of leadership in America. I would tell my students at the start of every year that I have a very, very calm demeanor, and that I almost never get angry.

I am a big believer that everything is a learning opportunity. Middle school students, I find, seldom make decisions on the pure basis of trying to deliberately hurt and demean others. Instead, they make decisions without thinking deeply first, without checking in with the empathy in their hearts and minds, without stopping to consider whether it's mob mentality and false reality that drives their choices. Thus, as a teacher, my job is to challenge them to stop and think. To consider their actions from other angles.

BUT, I would tell my 7th graders, there is one thing that does make me deeply angry. And it's the only time you'll ever see Mr. Reynolds raise his voice. That thing? Bullying. When one student (or a group of students) attacks others because they are different, because they are scared, because they don't toe the line of false and insecure machismo or bravado or a certain look or style...that does get me heated. But how can we combat the attacks by those with more power on those with less when such attacks are modeled by the highest office holder in our country?

One possible way: lunch duty.

Many teachers would complain about having lunch duty--a task where we were asked to monitor the lunch waves as high school and middle school students rushed in, ate as if with timers, and gesticulated with gusto.

I loved lunch duty. I cringed seeing how my students interacted when I wasn't at the front of the class, directing our words and actions in a more structured way. So, then, why did I love having that particular duty assigned to me? It gave me a chance to connect with my students in a plethora of teachable moments. I could sit beside the students who happened to eat at tables alone, hear about their hopes and dreams, the books they loved, the poetry they wrote, and the journey they've been on so far.

I could also sit at the tables chock full of rowdy boys and ask them questions, share stories about my own love of poetry or about the movies that made me cry, or literally anything that might force them to stop the marching mentality of mob thinking.

See, lunch was always the most terrifying part of my middle school day when I was growing up. I hated the sheer volume of the massive cafeteria in Windsor, Connecticut. I hated the sense that I didn't belong anywhere. As a kid who loved poetry, basketball, but was terrified to talk in class or take a jumper on my team, I felt like I lived in no man's land. No rarefied struggle at that age, to be sure, but it seemed like everyone else did belong. They found their place. They were cool.

When I got to high school, I searched out the other people who sat alone, and together we forged our own table--a motley crew, to be sure, but one in which I looked forward to sitting every day. There were students who were labeled "learning disabled" and students who were in Special Olympics and students who were intensely shy, and students who just didn't have anywhere else to go. I loved that lunch table.

And when I became a teacher, I saw the same lunch room scene: some tables full of vociferous tweens and teens presenting as though they knew their place in the world--had it all figured out and completely belonged. And then there were the scattered lonely souls--often the same students who had endured years of abuse, mocking, and bullying.

I consistently viewed all of this first as a student, myself, and then as a teacher. But now, due to our own oldest son's experiences, I view it as a dad. This vantage point raises the game to a whole new level--a kind of emotional angst I have never before experienced.

When we are in the public eye--whether in a massive way, as the leader of a country, or a microcosmic way, as the leader of a class--we have an obligation to those who see us. Our obligation is simple, but profound: be better. As Nelson Mandela more beautifully asked, how can we get people to be better than they think they can be? 

Instead of asking, How can I get back at someone? we need to ask, How can I learn to model something better?

We can be sure of one thing in life: we all fail. We all make many mistakes and we all struggle to make our inner worlds align with our outer performances. But that fact does not necessitate any subsequent obligation to stop trying to be better.

When we have students looking up to us, or citizens watching us, the need to respond with kindness is severe and profound. It is our most lacking resource right now. Modeling basic human dignity and decency are desperate needs, and in the absence of genuine leadership, we must strive to show it more to one another, not less.

For the past nine months, I've grappled with the deep divisions I see springing up everywhere. People seem more at odds with one another than I can ever remember in my brief life thus far. There is more animosity, more hatred, more disgust towards one another. But behind all of that, there is also a reverberating dignity that is emerging. I see people who have often been silenced--those relegated to sitting at their proverbial lunch tables all alone--speaking up, and doing so with passion and unwavering commitment.

I see status quo cultural trends beginning to crack. The guise of the macho bravado is being questioned more and more, making way for sensitive boys and men to be who they really are, and show the emotions and inclinations they long to share.

I see an astounding array or books being published by writers who have been underrepresented for far too long. And when I stroll through bookstores and libraries and see these volumes on display, my heart flutters. Books like American Street by Ibi Zoboi, The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, and The Serpent's Secret by Sayantani DasGupta make me feel a sense of human dignity and hope that seems unquashable, inextinguishable.

Nine months of a strange malaise is coming to a close. There has been beauty over the past nine months, to be sure. There has been possibility. There has been insight and recognition and hope. Yes., But it has also been a very long winter. In search of genuine leadership based on dignity rather than fear, love rather than vitriol, I have had to search not at the highest pinnacles of power, but rather as the rising up of new leaders--those who perhaps haven't yet peaked, but who are surely en route, and refuse to back down.

There is a lighthouse in York, Maine, where we rent. Called Nubble Light, it still shines brightly every night as a beacon to ships at sea, wondering, perhaps, where they are meant to be. We had driven there a few times to climb, as a family, along the rocky coast nearby.

But it was only this past week, when our oldest son wanted to go for a run, that we learned how close we really were to this beacon. After running a while, Tyler turned to me and asked, "Hey Dad, you think we could run to the lighthouse?" Initially, I resisted, thinking the journey would overwhelm us. And even if we made it there, we'd be unable to make it back.

But that part of me that holds onto hope, that holds onto the possible, said, "Let's do it."

Two miles later, we climbed atop the rocky coast as the sun set. I glanced up from my sons's face to see the bright light of Nubble awake for the night ahead. That beacon of clarity and hope wasn't nearly as far away as it had felt throughout our nine months living here.

The rising of dignity, hope, and empowerment often feel far away because of what gets the most airtime. But I see students who have often been scattered around the lunchroom, lonely, coming together. I see voices rising up to speak stories that have been silent too long. I see boats, searching long, who have found a place to dock.

That place is dignity.

Red Underwear

Jennifer and I sometimes look at one another longingly whenever Tyler now roars out, "I am Superman--to the rescue!" Because it was a brief six months ago that Tyler's favorite show was the quirky, tender, violence-free Charlie and Lola.

Now?

Goodbye, Charlie and Lola.

Hello, red underwear.

At Target last week, the three of us giddily shopped the clearance rack in pursuit of a few necessary items: ties and a couple of pants to wear to work, some maternity clothes for Jen, and long pants and shirts for Tyler. As we approached one of the clearance racks in the boys sections, Tyler's whole face lit up.

Red Underwear!

With a Superman logo right in the front!

"Daddy! Mommy! LOOK WHAT I FOUND!" Tyler's who body began to do a dance, and he held the sacred red underwear in his hands as though it were something for which his little soul had been searching all his life. Finally! 

I looked at the price tag, exploring the first measure of a viable reason for saying No. But the price tag afforded me no such easy departure into the land of No-Superman-Status. It read: $1.96.

In my mind (yes, for real) flashed Jackson Katz's incredible documentary Tough Guise, which explores the very dangerous and deplorable ways we teach boys how to be men: through violence, bravado, and toughness. I though of the incredible and momentous readings in Critical Race Theory, which challenge us to explode the myths of equality-already-reached and instead see the severe structural inequalities, dominance, and racism built into our society.

And, yes, I thought of Charlie and Lola.

And I looked down into the bright eyes of my soon-to-be-five-year-old son holding red underwear with a Superman emblem right in the front.

"Please, Daddy? I can rescue people with these!"

And, okay, I caved. It wasn't so much that I chose the macho male route (at least I hope not) but rather that I wanted to allow Tyler to explore everything he wants to explore, rather than trying to hold him at a stage or a place that that brings Jen and I delight and glee.

Immediately upon returning home with the $1.96 red underwear with the Superman logo in the front, Tyler ran to his room, put on his blue pants, and then pulled the red underwear on top of them.

He then ran back out to the living room, "Let's go to the park because I AM SUPERMAN!"

At the playground, we saw two children we've played with before, Inian and Chandrini. They are delightful, kind, thoughtful children, and immediately they asked Tyler if he wanted to play with them. And he did.

I sat alongside their mother, explaining about the red underwear. She laughed and smiled, then said., "My kids don't even notice it, see?"

And it was true. They didn't. The three kids walked balance beams, played tag, played Octopus (a game they made up whereby an "octopus" tries to reach up onto the play structure and gran the swimmers' feet! Ah!), and then created an obstacle course.

I watched my son in the red underwear--watched how he giggled, held hands with Chandrini, giggled some more--when it was finally time to go--gave both kids massive hugs. And something in me calmed down. Just because he's in a Superman stage doesn't mean he's going to start acting tough and cool (and we especially hope not, because, hey, lets' face it: he's got a Dad for whom traditional notions of toughness are about as familiar as rubbing Crisco all over oneself and subsequently taking a trip to the Moon).

At lunch today, Jen was explaining to Tyler that on this very day nine years ago, "Daddy asked me to marry him, so today is our anniversary.

"What did you say when Daddy asked you about that?" Tyler wondered with anticipation and excitement written on his face.

"I said Yes." Jen looked at me and I looked at this beautiful, strong, loving, kind woman. Then Tyler interrupted our little reverie and said, "HAPPY UNIVERSITY!"

The thing about red underwear is that maybe it doesn't have to be what society says it is. Maybe it doesn't have to be about bravado and fighting and a one-size-fits-all definition of masculinity. Maybe it's possible to remake Superman into something other than a fighting machine. Because at some point we come to the conclusion that everything is flawed--all of it. There's no film, television show, book, interpersonal connection, article, essay, political stance that is flawless. There is bias and cruelty and ignorance in everything we create, because there is bias and cruelty and ignorance inside each of us.

But there's also love.

There is incredible love. And what is love if it's not the power to remake something, to rename and recreate and redeem? It happens in the small moments when we take one of the world's symbols and we transform it to mean something different--to allow love to so overwhelm that thing that it ceases to signify whatever it once did.

It happens when Superman becomes a stand-in for gentleness and thoughtfulness, and when the rescuing he's doing doesn't involve intense violence but instead involves intense connection. Maybe it happens when red underwear streams across a playground with giddy giggle and lots of hand-holding.

Transforming and renaming and redefining seems to be what Jesus was all about. You thought religion was about rules and standards and judgment? You're wrong. It's not. It's about grace and surprising forgiveness and love. You thought love was being nice to people who look and act and talk just like you? It's not. Love is hard, love is work, love is bravely caring for someone so hard that your caring breaks open the concrete doors of their own pride, fear, self-righteousness, guilt. Seems like Jesus had a never-ending list of You thought it was like that, but it's really like this. 

Like all of us, I am (of course) still learning how to navigate the cultural messages my son receives--and those that I receive. What to allow, what not to allow? How to explain certain things, how to teach certain things, how to transform certain things--in my own heart and in the world's? And while Jen and I both explore how to do this at each new stage Tyler approaches, we're holding on to one firm hope: that love trumps everything, and that nothing--not even Superman's red underwear--can long resist transformation in the face of love.

The Darkest Day of the Year

Today in England, the sun set at about 11:25 am. Okay, seriously: the sun set at 3:30 in the afternoon. (Though it sure felt like 11:25 in the morning.) But it rose at about nine o' clock, and for those six and a half hours, we looked up at a sky that drizzled us with mocking rain and then laughed through a thick layer of clouds.

For other reasons than the fact of absolute minimal sunlight, today--and this past week--has been very dark. I grew up in Connecticut, and hearing the news about Sandy Hook rattled me. Like many people, I found myself weeping.

In the flurry of articles that have come out in this past week, none is able to articulate exactly why this kind of tragedy is pepetuating itself over and over again. But one area that continues to go unexamined by most social theorists and also those in the media is the area of gender. Jackson Katz and Byron Hurt are doing their part to discuss why of the 62 mass killings on American soil, 61 of them have been commited by men. Katz powerfully reasons that if the opposite were true, and 61 of the 62 mass killings had been perpetrated by women, all we would hear and read would be about the gendered nature of the crimes.

As a society, the way we socialize men is dangerous and we see this over and over again. The 61 mass murders are the highest form of the tragedy, but every day we see lesser versions--no less horrendous to the victims, however--of gendered violence: we see men killing men in gang warfare; we see men fighting men for pride, revenge, or to prove their masculinity.

In essence, we see men learning repeatedly--from father, from film, from heroes and mentors--that the only way to be a man is to be tough, violent, and aggressive. Men are not revered for their compassion, gentleness, empathy, and their tears.

I think one reason why Harper Lee's Atticus Finch stands so tall after all these years is that Lee artciluated through fiction an idea of what genuine strength in masculinity could look like.

It could look like going against the bullying culture so many men are bred into and indoctrinated towards. It could look like self-reflection rather than blame. It could look like an end to attacks and harassment (whether through words or actions) and a commencement of authentic listening--asking what it's really like to walk in the shoes of other people, whether minorities, females, homosexuals, or transgendered people.

Until we come face to face with a fraction like 61/62, we are going to be missing an underlying cause of the violence we continue to see in every city of every state of our country. Masculinity does not have to be defined by aggression, violence, tough-talk, and lack of empathy.

After the sun had set today, Jennifer and I watched Tyler run back and forth through our kitchen and hallway as we blasted Enya's Winterland CD. He was laughing, running, laughing, running, giggling.

Tyler is four years old.

He is my son.

The question I am faced with as a father, and the question we are all faced with as members of an American society, is this: How we can we teach boys that to grow into men does not mean to lose one's ability to giggle, to weep, to show compassion, empathy, tenderness, and vulnerability?

It is time we make heroes not only of those who hold a gun--whether in films or in real life--but also of those who hold a hand. If we can learn, as men, to move forward hand in hand--vulnerable, honest, authentically strong--rather than as aggressive lone rangers, I think American society will see massive shifts. Our darkest days--no matter when the sun sets--may yet transmogrify into our brightest possibilities.

A Real Man?

This week, a friend and I watched Clint Eastwood's film Gran Torino--and the premise of a tough, old white guy who's learning to embrace new culture, new tenderness, and new possibilities about masculinity was all intriguing to me. But the tragedy of the film wasn't in the final scene, when Eastwood's character offers up his life in a pacifist sacrifice to stop the cycle of death in his neighborhood. As moving and incredibly poignant as that moment is, the tragedy of the film occurs earlier, when Eastwood's character takes the young learning-to-be-a-man Tao to his local barbershop so that he can learn how men talk.

And, watching the film, the moment that became the deafening defeat, for me, was when Tao and Eastwood walk into that barbershop. The barber--whom Eastwood has prefaced as a "real man"--is sitting on his chair, waiting for business, looking through a porn magazine.

The Education of a "Real Man"
in Gran Torino (which begins with porn use)

The magazine is never referenced by any of the characters, though. No one talks about it. But the fact that Eastwood's character has already denigrated Tao for his weakness and complete lack of "real" manhood sets up the barber as the definition of the authentic thing: masculinity in action. As viewers, we're prepped for the scene and we're supposed to laugh at Tao in his weak attempts to become a real man. Yet, this question is paramount to how our culture views men: can we really become "real men" by using pornography? Do we men reveal strength and courage by purchasing a glossy magazine for a few bucks in which women are made to look like meat and overt notions of domination, subjugation, oppression, and misogyny are rampant?

The barber's answer--and by extension, Eastwood's character in Gran Torino--is a resounding yes.

But the real paradox of this moment is that, only a few scenes prior, Eastwood's character watches from his front stoop as a middle-aged woman drops her groceries on the sidewalk as she's trying to carry them from the back of her car. A group of teenagers walks by. None help, and one gesticulates with an overt sexual enactment. The others laugh. Eastwood's character bemoans this display--and rightly so--and is impressed when Tao (the character displayed as the total opposite of a "real man") comes over to help her. It's a moving scene, and rightly so.

Yet, the irony is here: Eastwood's barber friend is fanning the pages of a magazine where women are portrayed as objects--totally useless other than to arouse men's appendages--and yet here, Eastwood's character expects these teenage men to help the women rather than see her as a sexual object through which to make themselves laugh.

So, we're teaching men two things, here: the women in porn magazines are not real women. Those are the kinds of women you're supposed to use, abuse, see as meat for your hunger, and basically dominate. In essence, they're not real and they have no emotions. So the disgust Eastwood's character evidences when the teenage boys make fun of the middle-aged woman is essentially this: That middle-aged woman is a real woman. She has emotions and feelings. You can't treat her as a sexual object or a punchline to a dirty joke.

It's the same old misogynist practice: some women are to be respected, others are to be treated as less-than people and used for pleasure. That's the only reason Eastwood's character can walk into a barbershop where the "real man" is using porn, yet he serves as the model man. A tough man. A real man.

We see the same kind of overt misogyny is the fodder of Tucker Max. In the sickening chants of a Yale Fraternity. Among e-mails of the previous Duke Lacrosse team. Ultimately, young men of every class, race, and place are adept at learning a tragic lesson from the men who are supposed to be their models: some women matter; some women don't. And a real man learns to tell the difference. A real man learns how to abuse and use women.

Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird

The time for tough bravado and pretension are over for us men. It's high time we learn to display a more authentic kind of manhood--the kind that Michael Kimmel, Atticus Finch, Nicholas Kristof, Cornel West, Jackson Katz, Sut Jhally, Michael Kaufman, and so many more reveal. These men--among many others--are using their lives to show that a real man doesn't sit in a  barbershop looking at porn. They don't buy the excuse that pornography empowers women. (Gail Dines and Robert Jensen have powerfully articulated how a system of male dominance and oppression feeds off of pornography, not anything that empowers freedom for women.)

Instead, a real man is one who is able to listen to the stories of others and look full in the face of another human being, granting them autonomy, respect as a citizen of the world, and deserving of dignity. Real men live to enhance the voices of others, offering opportunities for women to be empowered, not denigrated. Real men seek to quit the addiction of glossy magazines and instead see the reality of the world in front of their faces. Real men know that all women deserve dignity. And in empowering others, real men also become empowered in an authentic, honest, and yes--dare I say it--even vulnerable way.

Cornel West is right when he says, "We know that misogyny is shot through the culture. It's in country. It's in rhythm and blues. It's in the White House, and it's on Wall Street." But the men of this generation and the next will be able to choose what kind of men we are going to be. It's high time we put down the glossy magazines portrayed women as objects and pleasure sites. And it's time we call out misogynist actions, jokes, businesses, and ideas as unacceptable--whether they're on the campus of Ivy League schools like Yale, on the fields of sports teams, or in our own hearts and bodies.

Like much social change, it starts by turning away from one ideal, and embracing another. Goodbye, Domination. Hello, Empowerment.

What Love Does

There's an awful lot in our world telling us what can't happen, what isn't possible--feeding us an endless progression of stats, probability, facts, past occurrences. And we tend to bank our lives on these numbers. These narratives. We give a heck of a lot of credence to what's been done, in other words.

And we often make a throne to disbelief. Consider: to discredit something, to critique something, to interrogate a text or a person or a dream or an idea--all these are afforded high regard. Respect.

When James Meredith attended the University of Mississippi as the school's first black student--enduring relentless attacks both verbal and physical--there was no fallback. There was no past occurrence of this event. No stats other than this one: zero percent of the university was black.

When Dave Eggers wrote his heartwrenchingly beautiful A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, there was no example of a literary work that came before like it: a memoir that read like a novel which was searingly honest, ironic, and postmodern.

When Anita Hill demanded the right to defend her own dignity against male oppression and power, there was little evidence of this kind of speaking truth to power. Few statistics that would tell her it was okay to speak so openly, so boldly against that ever-present and deeply forceful institution of power the world over: patriarchy.

The thing about love is this: it doesn't bank on stats. Love doesn't calculate cost-effectiveness or probability of success or even cultural laws and norms. In the words of Lewis Smedes in his powerful book Love Within Limits: "Love shatters disbelief."

As a young man, I felt the constant pressure that a lot of young men feel: to be tough, to hide emotional truth, to pretend. When I became an (older) man, teaching high school and middle school students, I saw the very same tendency in the young men I taught: towards a fake stance of power rather than an acceptance of who they really are. Jackson Katz documents the horrifying cultural norm of violent masculinity, patriarchal power in his documentary Tough Guise.

And for young women, Jean Kilbourne has movingly documented the absurd pressures women must face every second in her Killing Us Softly documentaries.

In a sense, we're trained from a young age to disbelieve: to disbelieve ourselves, to disbelieve the possibilities for different paths, different ways of being and living and working and growing. Instead, fear pressures us into a very narrow life-journey--fear that's abusively proffered by people like Rush Limbaugh. In his recent attacks on women (and, his historical attacks on women, which have been ongoing for decades), he urges people to disbelieve: don't think men can change; don't think the world can change; don;t think there are other narratives to tell, other ways to live.

The beauty of novels by remarkable writers like Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Gary D. Schmidt, Neesha Meminger, Harper Lee, A.S. King, and so many other fabulous writers is this: they're telling stories about other possibilities. They're sharing the narratives of the lives we know are possible--the belief that we long to embody in ourselves--and they're doing it in the face of a culture that pressures the status quo relentlessly.

There is little more beautiful in life than watching someone love or be loved. And one way love happens, I think, is when we come across a narrative that echoes something in our soul. It might be something we sensed as kids, but which got buried by pressures to act certain ways as males or females, as members of a certain culture or race or religion. It got buried by people who peddle fear, knowing that the marketplace looks so favorably on that wizard of oz.

But love shatters disbelief. And one place love emerges for us is in the imaginative narratives that haven't historically happened yet--but might. Love leaps off pages of novels where we find characters taking the chances we long to take, rejecting the norms we long to reject, and becoming the people we long to become.

When I first met Atticus Finch a decade ago, his journey leapt like that for me. It showed me a different way to be a man. Not by trying to attain patriarchal power, but by following the cause of justice in the world. Not by violence, but by defending the rights of the marginalized and the silenced. Not by bravado but by inner strength of conviction.

Not by disbelief, but by faith. Because the work of love, if it does anything, shatters disbelief.

Rambo, Atticus, and Raskolnikov

In the March/April issue of the Believer magazine, I wrote a review of the Rambo IV tagline: "Heroes don't die...they just reload." Ever since I first saw the movie poster--four years ago now--that tagline has haunted me as a dangerous message of what media tells men: act tough, be invulnerable, hide who you really are.

Here's a link to the full essay at the Believer's site.

Tonight

Sweeping the kitchen floor,
Washing dishes,
Picking pasta remains off my bare feet:
Singing "The Eye of the Tiger."

A new kind of tiger.
A new kind of eye.

Rambo, Conan, and the Impossible Male

Walking home from the city center today pushing Tyler in the stroller, my eye caught an advertisement for the new Conan the Barbarian movie plastered along the side of a double-decker bus.

Under an image of Conan as biceps-and-pecs-the-size-of-Texas, the movie's slogan was printed in all caps: BORN ON THE BATTLEFIELD.

Immediately,my mind jumped back to four years ago, when Jen and I were leaving the movie theater in Flagstaff, Arizona after having watched The Freedom Writers, and we saw the movie poster for the latest Rambo installment. The slogan on that one? HEROES DON'T DIE. THEY JUST RELOAD.

So, along my walk home, my mind started a little mini-synthesis paper. (Perhaps I miss the classroom a bit, or maybe the rain that had begun pouring made me pensive.) I combined both movie slogans and came up with one that presents a fairly accurate depiction of what many men see as their culture-proclaimed epitome of manhood is: REAL MEN ARE BORN TOUGH; THEY LIVE TOUGH; THEY NEVER DIE (BUT IF THEY WERE TO DIE, THEY WOULD DIE TOUGH).

But when I tried to enter the next layer of synthesis and try to make my slogan fit men generally, or even any man specifically, I was stuck.

Thing is, a lot of men profess drivel like this. A lot of us y-chromosome-wielding guys might claim that toughness, battles, and reloading guns is what masculinity is all about. But the truth is, no man really believes it. (Though he may be suckered into it by the way his dad raised him, one too many Rambo films, video games where you can kill your opponent a thousand different ways, and bully-peer-coolness culture in our schools.)

See, every male student I've ever taught at the middle, high school, or college level has all had one thing in common: a heck of a lot of pretense. (This, by the way, includes yours truly.) In other words, all men learn that sooner or later, you've got to act the part and try to look cool, act tough, and carry a big stick / gun / sword / mouth / name-brand-clothing-that-has-been-advertised-by-a-guy-with--yes--pecs-as-big-as-the-state-of-Texas.

But every man knows, deep down, that this is all one big load of baloney. Because we men know how we feel. We know that we get sad; we get happy; we get lonely; we get scared (even terrified); we get needy; we get contemplative (yup, even those guys who you'd never expect it from); we want to get real.

I think there are a lot of us guys out here who would rather push a stroller than wield a sword.

Writers like Robert Bly, who popularized the notion of this secret, innate-warriorness / wildness / aggressiveness that all men possess and which has somehow been crushed by women, talk a big game. Their words get a lot of guys fired up, thinking to themselves, Hey, maybe Bly is right. I am a warrior. I need a sword! I need a gun! I need to tell this nagging lady to be quiet so I can lead the way! After all, Bly must be right because, hey, didn't they give him a Pulitzer Prize? And didn't John Eldridge translate Bly's notion of the wild man for the Christian male with Wild at Heart?

But in reality, maybe we men are starting to come to some new conclusions:

1. Courage isn't necessarily about one big moment of power and aggressiveness with a sword or a gun. It might be more about the way we live; the way treat people; the way we learn to love when it's excruciatingly hard to do so.

2. I'd just as soon drink a cup of tea and watch a rom-com with my wife rather than kill a thousand people on a video game.

3. It's a heck of a lot more fun to be honest rather than hide. Hiding gets old. Boring. Tired old script; same old hiding places. Ugh.

4. There's got to be something better out there--some better model.

And there is!  Men like Atticus Finch present a far more beautiful--and courageous--notion of what authentic masculinity should look like (and could, really could, look like).

In the Acknowledgements section of his bestselling book Guyland, author Michael Kimmel writes movingly about the wish he has for his sons. He quotes a poet and Pulitzer-prize winner (three times!) far different than Mr. Bly. Kimmel cites Adrienne Rich's wishes for her own sons--that they would "have the courage of women" regarding his sons, too.

What a beautiful desire: that we men would learn the courage of women--the courage to love when it's hard, to live not only the moments of glory but also the moments no one sees (that are no less valiant or brave). To walk among the noble souls who live not only for battle, but for peace.

Conan and Rambo may wield power when it comes to the masculine ideal, but men like Atticus Finch have another kind of courage and power entirely: the masculine real. real love; real conviction; real courage for the long journey. And I, for one, am a heck of a lot more interested in that.