Men’s Issues

What are men’s issues, what are the things important to men, and what moves us and what are the things men often like? 

 

Some men are gentle; does this make them lesser men?  No, I don’t think so.  Some men, like me, are a curious mix of tough and gentle, we’re city boys used to seeing macho guys, some with tattoos and shaven heads and used to watching our backs in the tougher parts of cities. Cities call for a kind of toughness, but they also call for a kind of urbane smartness and refinement; many of us have these two qualities.  We’re tough because of where we grew up, but perhaps we’re gentle too, maybe because we’re Christian men and maybe because we see the folly of violence.

 

If you’re a working class male, or you grew up in a working class city or council estate or environment, you’re probably used to seeing violent people and the occasional violent situation and you might be used to seeing the limited horizons some working class people have and what this can mean for men: unemployment, drifting, getting involved with the wrong crowd, indulging in drink or even drugs. I’m not suggesting that only working class men are involved in these kinds of things as they can affect all different kinds of people from all walks of life, but that for poorer men, this can be their lifestyle because it’s the only one they can cling to, and when men have nothing else in their lives, they can doggedly cling to a lifestyle that to most everyone else appears harmful, unhelpful, life-limiting and even dangerous.

Nothing in life is permanent-just when you think you’ve got something pegged, then everything changes.  Life changes, society changes, people change, situations change and life in all its splendour just keeps on going whatever happens.

 

The lucky men find in life what makes them successful or what makes them happy, and they pursue it, and so subsequently find their thing in life.  No doubt there are many more men who struggle to make their mark in life, still trying to figure it all our and sometimes going from one thing to another and never quite finding just what it is they want; that sums up me anyway.

Does God want Christian men to be stereotypes, stereotype Christians?  Are we meant to question things, the way things are, or are we meant to just to put up and shut up?  If God created us, then all the things we are, questioning, asking, inquisitive, all these things must be from God.  Why do we pretend to be what we are not, why do we hide behind religion and religious platitudes instead of finding out who we really are?  Are we frightened of who we really are, are we frightened of finding out the truth of who and what we are?  And, just who are we?

 

We’re men, in all our glorious mess, our glorious imperfection, our wonderings, our wonderings of just who we are and what our lives mean.

 

Once you feel like a loser, for whatever reason, it’s hard to shake off the feeling and it can consume you and seem to ruin your life. 

 

We all deserve a second chance, we all deserve another shot at life, no matter what we’ve done or what we haven’t done.

 

Anyone can be a good Christian, a good neighbour if they live in a nice, prosperous middle class suburb, but their faith isn’t really tested. What if you don’t live in a nice prosperous middle class suburb?  It’s easy to be nice if you’ve got a nice comfortable life, surrounded by affluence and other nice people.  What if you don’t have a nice comfortable life?  What happens if you’re unemployed, or very poor and struggling, or live in a very run down area or just struggle to make something of yourself?  Are you not Christian material then?

What sort of people did Jesus come for?  Those who have it all together or those who find they haven’t got it all together?

 

What sort of men does God want?  Perfect men with good jobs, always smiling and endlessly successful with film star looks?  What about men like me, a mix of all kinds of contradictory emotions, sometimes awkward, or loners, or misfits?  Is God above dealing with people like that, people like me, people like you?  What does God want with us anyway?  Why doesn’t He leave us alone?  Weren’t we fine doing our own thing, didn’t we get on well without Him?

 

Can bad men be reformed, can they become Christians?  What about those men who don’t really care one way or the other about religion, who would rather be in a pub than in a church?  Can God reach out to them?  Why don’t men like going to church, why do so many men feel it’s not for us even if we are Christians?  Does organised Christianity appeal to men?  It doesn’t appeal to me anyway.  I’ve wondered about this for a long time: just what sort of worship do we want as Christians? It seems to me that church attendance is declining and yet no one is really asking why. Is it because it seems so deadly dull and out of touch?  What city boy wants, really wants, to go to a traditional church, sing hymns and hear a sermon that seems to have absolutely no relevance to them?  Raising money for church roofs, bric-a-brac sales and garden fetes are all very well, but they are not what Christianity is really about.

 

Talk about crucifixion and the suffering and trials and temptations of Jesus, and some men might relate to that.  We relate to what we know, to suffering, to hard lives, depression and sometimes the sheer injustice of life and the way things have turned out for us.  I can relate to Jesus’ sufferings because I have suffered.  Why can’t we be honest about all of this, why do we have to hide behind all kinds of falsehood, why can’t we debate and discuss these, and many other, issues openly and honestly?  Are we supposed to keep our heads down, say nothing, and pretend everything’s fine even when it’s obvious that it’s not?  If we’re honest, we might just find some truth by default.  And, don’t we all want to get to the truth, after all?

 

So, we’re men and we have issues.

 

What is all this religion about?  What is Christianity about?  What’s with all these denominations and which denomination is the true one anyway?  What sort of church do men want?  One that doesn’t mind our tattoos, our unshaven faces and looking like thugs in jeans and t-shirts? Do we want a church that has a barbecue serving steaks and ribs and burgers and a bar serving ice cold beer, with footy on the telly? Perhaps. What we most want is something real, something that speaks to our hearts and experience, something that makes sense to our troubled souls. What we want is a faith that speaks to us, to our masculinity, our brokenness, our uncertainties, our awkwardness, all the things in fact that make us men. Is Jesus big and tough enough to deliver all this?  I think He is. Perhaps we need to ask Him.

 

Men are complex. We cry at some things, but not at others. We are emotional, but usually in a negative aggressive sense.  We are meant to be hard, but we ache to be gentle and kind and caring.

 

Who do men identify with and want to be like?  Famous footballers, rock stars past and present, charismatic and handsome film stars from all eras, and maybe great writers and thinkers and artists. Some of us may even identify with Jesus.

 

We’re all mostly ordinary men, so why do we identify with the extraordinary, the great, the best? What’s lacking in us, for us to want to be something out of the ordinary? We’re ordinary and we live in the mundane everyday world, but sometimes we yearn for something bigger than us, to be something beyond us, to be part of something bigger than we are. We want it all to mean something. That everything isn’t by accident but that it all has a purpose, a bigger purpose that will be made known to us.

 

Life is unfair. Some of us are born wealthy and affluent, and some of us simply are not. Getting on is an issue for most men. But how are we to approach this as Christians?  Surely we should just leave it to God, pray and hope for the best?  Are we even to have ambitions to better lives as Christian men?  Surely Christians are meant to live in poverty and just accept the circumstances they find themselves in? Well, in the past poor people often had accept their lot in life, whilst rich people, those wealthy or connected, could really do what they liked. We live in more enlightened times now, and part of life for most people is getting on, progressing, setting goals and going about trying to achieve them.  But for the Christian man, where does God fit into all of this? Is trying to be successful setting ourselves against God and His plan for our lives? Doesn’t everyone want to get on? What about the Christian man? I believe in every area of our lives, especially whatever it is that we are unsure about, we should simply pray to God for help and for an answer. Everything we do in a sense should be approved by God, but there’s no reason at all why anyone can’t aspire to a better life, to make money, to fulfil a dream, start a business, be a sportsman, musician, writer, shopkeeper, further a career or simply like many of us just get a job. There seems to be an unwritten rule, especially in England, that Christians must stay poor to be real Christians.  I’m not quite sure why. It never seems to apply to those already wealthy or Middle and Upper class Christians though. There is a double-standard here which we all need to move on from. Christianity can be about empowering people, to do things they might never have dreamed of. God’s calling on your life might very well be to serve Him in some kind of reduced circumstances, helping others in poverty-stricken areas, but it might also be that God wants you to enjoy abundance and be successful, providing of course you remain true to Him and your Christian calling. It can be done.

 

Where do men stand with women?  Where do Christian men stand with the whole dating game?  If you make a move on some women, even if they like you, they’ll draw back from you and act like they don’t like you.  With another kind of women, if they like you they flash their eyes at you and expect you to rush over and break the ice. If you don’t right at that moment, they won’t usually give you a second chance. So, what’s a man to do?

 

All the things we want to be good at, successful with women, successful in general, happy, healthy, with a general sunny out outlook, yet we often fail to live up to any of this and we feel failures. Yes, we’re men and we have issues. You may ask ‘are we Christian men real people?’ Yes, we’re real people, if you hit us we bleed like anyone else. Why do we cling to so stubbornly to this faith, this belief, when often it seems to bring us no good?

 

For Christian men, the past represents our old life, and the present and future represents our new Christian life.

 

Money! That old chestnut money. Is there more to life than money and the making of money?  Whatever we think about it, money is something that is a big part of men’s lives, either we have it or we don’t have it, either we’re making it or we’re not making it and, whether we have it or not, it is the thing we most want in life, the thing we must keep making. If we don’t have it we want it, and if we have it we want even more of it. So, is there more to life than money? Well, there is peace, joy, happiness, a sense of well-being and contentment, and also the idea that we are not continually looking around the corner waiting for something better to turn up.  But, let’s be honest, we can attain all these things anytime...can’t we? And what we all really want is money...isn’t it? Money is what makes the world go round, and whether we like it or not, we live in a world dominated by money, one way or the other.

 

Money touches all our lives. In what way should Christian men treat money?  This could be an easy question, or not an easy question, depending on your point of view.  The first answer is we should fulfil our need before we satisfy our greed and we should be grateful for the good things in life we already have, like a roof over our heads, food in the fridge, access to the things in life that keep us clean and healthy and so on, and not worry so much about whether we are wealthy. Of course, to some men, this answer might seem a cop-out, a trite answer that just doesn’t work. I mean, don’t we all want to get on, make money, be successful, improve our lives and have a good quality of life and be able to buy the things we want? Most of us do, if we’re honest but where do we draw the line?

‘I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men!’ (Ecclesiastes 1:13)

Trapped In Me

Trapped in me,

Words are not enough

to explain the bittersweet emptiness I feel.

I have no friends near, no one understands… may never understand

what it’s like to be trapped in me.

My greatest gift, and my worst curse is simply to be me, and no one else,

and no one else can understand what it feels like to be me.

 

I journey strange voyages alone… I can’t get anyone to come along.

But then, why would they?

I’m a man, or so I think.

That’s what I am supposed to be.

 

Loss, pain, success, thrills, glory, tears, laughs...

To everything turn, and turn again.

 

I’m not a poet,

and nor would I pretend to be.

I’m just trapped...

in me.

Thinning On Top?!

No, Thinning on Top is not a small quaint village in Worcestershire somewhere (pronounced Wus-te-sha, not wussussestershishishishishi etc) full of English stereotypes out of a Hollywood movie, I’m talking hair here, and you know, you’ve all been running from that for a long time, haven’t you? Time to face the truth...

 

Oh, woe is me! Hair today, gone tomorrow!? As the hair goes, the beard grows! Grass doesn’t grow on a busy street!? His head is growing through his hair! Taking longer and longer to wash your face??! Well, at least you’ll save a fortune on combs!! Hey, Chromedome!! Oi, Slaphead?!! And on and on it goes, a veritable litany of cruelty, jibes, anxiety and hilarity aimed at the man who is ‘follicly’ challenged.

 

I’m going a bit thin on top, you see. At one time, it was a traumatic thing for blokes to go bald, or starting to go bald. In fact, it still is really, but the trend now is to make it trendy “are you going  bald, mate? Oh no, I’m just shaving my head. It’s really cool, isn’t it?” and so on. Get a tight t shirt and tight jeans, grow a trendy goatee beard, or the latest guy accessory a full beard (if you can, that is) and the bald head is the crown on the head of your new image change. Baldness can actually be trendy...

 

I suppose of course, that losing your hair also brings your youth to an end in some cases, too. But, not always. What seems to happen to guys where I come from is they actually start to take more care in their appearance, lose a bit of weight, perhaps work out a bit and start thinking about their wardrobe and what clothes they are actually wearing. In some cases, some blokes might even start buying AND using moisturiser!!! Not me, oh no... But, suddenly the hair loss isn’t the end, not a bit of it, it can be the beginning of a whole new you. Without hair though, obviously.

 

Just look at these guys for a moment, if you will, and savour their slapheadedness in all their glory...

 So, it’s not so bad to be a baldy, is it. Could be the start of a whole new you... and let’s face it, you won’t go through the trauma of going bald again, will you? And I’ll leave you with this pearl of wisdom, that may leave you at peace:

 Perhaps going bald is just God’s way of saying you are losing your hair....?

 And Here, is the Slaphead’s Slaphead....

 

 

John Sentamu’s Coming!!!!!!!!

John Sentamu’s coming, he’s coming today

Is he staying for a year, or a year and a day?

John Sentamu’s coming, he’s on his way

Three cheers for the fella, hip hip hooray!!!

 

 

John Sentamu’s buying, he’s getting them in

Cider for her, and I’ll have a gin

John Sentamu’s buying, so don’t be late

He drinks like a fish, and he eats for eight.

 

John Sentamu’s drumming, he’s forming a band

Rap indie rock metal, he’ll never be panned

John Sentamu’s strumming, a one man band

It’s always live music, he’ll never be canned.

 

John Sentamu’s running, get out of his way

Running for dolphins, or so they

John Sentamu’s gunning, he’s gunning for souls

He’s driving a mini, but never a Rolls.

 

 John Sentamu’s thinking, of what to do now

Skiing for hedgehogs, hopping in Macau

John Sentamu’s smiling, a friendly old chap

The nation is grateful, we all doff our cap.

 

John Sentamu’s laughing, but never at you

His anger is righteous, his barbs are all true

John Sentamu’s angry, but never for long

Soon he’ll be smiling, then what can go wrong?

 

John Sentamu’s singing, he isn’t half bad

Hes rarely unhappy, and usually not sad

John Sentamu’s ringing, he wants a nice chat

Nothing important, just this and that.

 

John Sentamu’s going on holiday

A caravan park, thats where he’ll stay

John Sentamu’s going, a nice well earned rest

Some fishing, some climbing, whatever is best.

 

John Sentamu’s crying, for all the poor

He jeers at poverty, shows injustice the door

John Sentamu’s frowning, at all of the pain

But his soothing smile is like desert rain.

 

John Sentamu’s dancing, dancing with joy

For every girl and for every boy

John Sentamu’s rapping, in the cathedral at York

He walks the walk, and he talks the talk.

 

John Sentamu’s jumping, and hopping with glee

He’s doing it all for you and for me

John Sentamu’s flying, flying at height

He frowns at wrong, and smiles at right.

 

John Sentamu’s walking, and he’s walking tall

He does it for one, and he does it for all

John Sentamu’s jogging for sweet charity

For  hope, and peace and equality.

 

John Sentamu’s sombre, he’s thinking through things

He takes in his stride whatever life brings

John Sentamu’s smiling, the sun has come out

He never worries, and there’s never a doubt.

 

John Sentamu’s here, and sometimes he’s there

You’ll get to see him, just don’t you despair

John Sentamu’s grinning, with nary a frown

Hey hey, its big Johnny, he might be coming to your town...

Man Talk

 

What does it mean to be a man?  What does it mean to be a Christian man?  How does an ordinary bloke, a regular guy, turn the other cheek on the street or anywhere for that matter, when society and all our instincts call for retaliation?  Do we have to subsume our masculinity to live as a Christian man, should we be consciously genteel and constantly rather nice to everyone we meet, being overly polite even to our old mates?  What on earth will our drinking buddies think of us when instead of laughing at obscene jokes, we just earnestly want to talk about our faith, between gulps of beer that is?  In short, do we have to deny our masculinity, whatever that may mean, to be a Christian man?  Do we have to pretend to be something we are not?  What about all us macho big city guys, baseball cap wearing street-smart blokes-are we really Christian material?  What about guys covered in tattoos and earrings and shaved heads and 3 day stubble?  Did Jesus really come for people like that; for people like us?  Didn’t God, after all, create all of us, not just holier-than-thou, well-to-do religious types who go to church and sing hymns on Sunday?!

 

Can Christian men listen to rock music; can we like Jimi Hendrix, The Who or The Doors anyway?  Just why is some music considered sacred and something else profane?  Can we only interact with other Christians?  Can we only listen to Christian music and watch Christian movies?  Do we have to eat Christian sandwiches and shop in Christian supermarkets?!  Just what does being a Christian man really mean anyway?

 

What does the world want of Christian men?  What does Jesus want of Christian men?  What do I want from being a Christian man?  I think, above all, I want a little honesty in my life, a little reality to shine through the fog of my life.  We allow women to be feminine, to be gentle, to reassure and speak soothingly; do we allow men to be masculine?  And I don’t just mean dominant alpha males, you know, the super-successful, the super-rich, the influential politicians who make decisions and wield power, I mean the guy on the street, the bloke who might be unemployed, the guy propping up the bar, the awkward, the loner, the misfit?  The ordinary bloke who has to struggle to get on; what does He mean to Jesus?

 

Jesus takes us as He finds us, in all our glorious individuality, our macho masculinity, our ‘woundedness’, our brokenness, our feelings of being lost.  What Christian men need to know, understand and come to terms with is that Jesus knows who we are; if He’s comfortable with our masculinity then we should be too.

 

What happens if a bloke isn’t really interested in singing hymns and Sunday worship, what happens if we struggle with the idea of being over-emotional in a church setting or we’ve never even been to a church before; is God not for us then?  Is worship reaching out, is traditional Christianity really reaching out to masculine men?  Does Jesus want Christian men to be religious stereotypes, clean shaven and wearing dark blue suits?!

 

Men, like you and me, need to know who the real Jesus is, because only through Him can we really understand who we are and only in Him can we begin to make sense of it all.  Jesus is big and tough enough to take on our masculinity and our awkwardness, our questioning and our misgivings, our very struggles with our often flawed masculinity.

 

Does Jesus know that even the hardest macho man hides behind an image, an image of toughness, to hide a tender side, a side that is hidden to the world?  Is it ok to feel doubt within, doubt that we are not sure of who we are as men?  We are brought up to be hard, cold and not to cry, and then when we are just that, we are condemned for being men!  And then if we are gentle and in tune with our emotions, we are called wimps!  When we throw off these mental chains, of all kinds, maybe, just maybe we can find out who we are as men.

 

Being reconciled to God means we can be reconciled to other people and as importantly we can be reconciled to ourselves; we can really find out who we are as Christian men.

 

God is big enough to take us as we are and He knows all about us anyway, so what’s stopping you moving towards Him?  Is the Christian life for real men or just for those who hide behind a mask; failures, losers, awkward loners, those who can’t get by in life without an emotional crutch?  Real men are often broken, broken into little bits, and we spend our lives pretending we aren’t broken and everything is fine, when it isn’t and we carry the broken bits around with us, trying in vain to put them all back together and make sense of it all; at all costs we have to be macho, or keep smiling, never letting the truth seep in, the truth of our deep and bitter brokenness; not even to God can we be honest; not even to ourselves can we be honest.

 

So, just what is it to be a Christian man?  Can we bring all our troubles and hopes and fears to Jesus, or what?  Can we still be real men and real Christians?  You might be surprised at the answer; if Jesus was a real man, so can we be real men!

 

Donald Trump - Making America Grate Again.

We tend to be a little perplexed over the Big Ol’ Duck Pond, at the goings on at the race for the presidency. To give any one person such power in the world’s biggest economy and no1 superpower seems a little worrying. Americans seem to have two choices: the nice candidate who pretends to care about ordinary people, and the bonkers one who seems to hear the beat of his own drum.

I’m saying, that Trump definitely is in the latter camp here. Quite frankly I don’t think he is nuts, not by a long chalk. Not even deranged. But whether he is saying what many Americans think is open to question. Obviously some agree with his views. Building a wall along the Mexican/Texas border, and making the Mexicans pay for it seemed popular in some quarters, but probably not Mexico. I wish you the best of luck with that, Donald. Perhaps you could pay for that wall instead, seeing as you’re richer than most oil sheikhs?? It’s not even that I don’t think he has no right to air such opinions, but they are the sort of things that people who frequent bars tend to air to nobody in particular when they’ve had a few ‘sherbets’, not the sort of thing hopeful presidential incumbents should be saying. How high will the wall be? 10 feet? Hmmm, I suspect the more enterprising Mexicans will be able to work out a solution to that. 12 foot ladders, perhaps? Oh, and the fact that by keeping immigration illegal, businesses stateside have a plentiful supply of cheap labour that will do almost anything, live in almost any slum and accept awful pay just to get a foot in the door. So everybody wins!!! Those for and against immigration. Democracy in action.

In Britain at the moment, our democracy has descended again into a sort of privately educated posh rich boy aristocracy, with the underlining unspoken assumption that such folk have the perfect right to run things, being descended from some dead aristocrat that nobody cares about or remembers, and that such things matter. In America, they have merrily done away with such things, and so any ordinary regular billionaire on the street, or someone backed by billions of dollars, can democratically run for the presidency. Thank goodness our respective political systems are not corrupt or lop sided in any way, or we’d all really be in trouble. People might get the crazy idea that democracy is democracy in name only. How silly it would be to think such a thing.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. Now, if this post ever goes viral, or gets more than the usual 20 or so hits such posts as this get, I will appeal to all Americans to think kindly on me. Because....  (deep breath) ... If this post angers Trump fans and they vote for him in spite of me and all I stand for, you can thank me in no small part for his election. However, if this post helps people vote for anyone else other than Mr’s Trump’s fave son, then all those who didn’t want him as president can thank me. So, whether Big Donnie wins or not, it’s a win win for me. And that’s the kind of democracy I like.

This is a blog exclusively for men, talking about men, and being men!!!

But women can look in from time to time, too!

Also, if anyone wishes to contribute something, I would like to hear from you. Men stuff only please, even if from a female perspective.

It is also going to be more light hearted and though I am a practising Christian, it is going to be on anything and everything.

Well, cheerio for now...