Hymns, no. 324
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
[...]
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!
-Rudyard Kipling-
"We need to grow up in Christ, or we risk not growing up at all"
-Bishop Steven Rhondeau
Firstly, I must apologize for the lateness of this post. I intended to get this out long before Friday, and even promised a friend that I would. I hope he will forgive my tardiness.
I've had a lot of trouble coming to the point I want to get at in this post. Generally, I try to write when I am full of vigor and passion on a subject, when I have an axe to grind with the world. With recent events and trends that I've observed, there have been plenty of times that I've felt that way, but I've insufficiently recorded those feelings to reproduce them here. So, if this post seems like less than you've come to expect, I do apologize.
In a recent talk, Elder D. Todd Christofferson (a leader in the Church I belong to) admonished the brethren of the Church that it was high time we stood up. Just a few weeks later, my own bishop gave a talk on the same subject. In my notes from the talk, which I found very inspiring, I find these, words, among others:
- "Media that display men as fools or shows them exhibiting crass or stupid "frat boy" behavior are offensive"
- "Seek Jesus--stand by Him. Be His man always. He is the Man to be like-become like Him. Allow Him to define your standard of manhood. Never look to the world for this."
- "Fight-no great man became so by just 'going with the flow'"
May I suggest something less traditional? Or, should I say, less worldly? Being a man is not so much about what we can do, as it is about who we are, and what we fight for. In a much earlier talk on this same subject, Elder Christofferson gives us the example of his own father, who skipped lunch every day for nearly a year to buy his wife a special ironing machine that would ease the pain that ironing caused her. Real men, as it turns out, learn to sacrifice, to serve others and love them. In my religious tradition, I believe there is a rite of passage or two, that if we treat properly, can prove us true men. At the age of twelve, young men are ordained to "the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins" (Doctrine and Covenants 13:1), a responsibility designed to teach them to be men. This priesthood is to teach them to physically serve-both in the Church's ordinances, and in the homes of the ward members. Upon reaching the age of 18, young men who have proven themselves in the ranks of Aaronic Priesthood offices become eligible to receive a higher priesthood, associated with more responsibilities and more blessings. During this time, they are also enlisted to serve as full-time missionaries, and invited to enter the temple and make sacred covenants with God. All of this with the aim that at the end of two years' service, they might return home as men of God, ready and willing to take on the full responsibilities of manhood; to sacrifice for the good of others, with a heart dedicated to a cause greater than their own pleasure.
Recently, a good friend asked me to come see a movie with him. Unbeknownst to him, I had already made a pact with a very close friend of mine that neither of us would see this film, because we both felt very strongly about the way that previous films in its genera and series portrayed the interaction between women and men, and how it portrayed the societal ideal of manhood generally. As tactfully as I could, I wrote him a note (as we were communicating via the internet) in which I declined to see this movie with my friend, even though he is someone I really care about, and do not see very often. With the respect that characterizes true friendship, he accepted my decline, although he asked, what it was, exactly that I found so objectionable about the movie. To this, I never got around to replying, because I was not sure how to tell him that, while there may not be any one specific scene that I read of in my research on the film, there is an overarching theme of violence and sexual objectification that pervades these movies (one morning on the radio, the DJs on one station spent at least ten minutes discussing and comparing the sexual attractiveness of actresses portraying the main female consorts of these movies' hero), and I refuse to take part in it. The problem, I think, is that we spend too much time looking to see if there's anything that "crosses the line" in terms of showing "too much" in movies, and we forget that storytelling is a teaching tool. Even if the movie does not graphically show things it ought not to (and they often do), if it portrays the ideal of manhood in a way that is wrong, this affects those who watch it. Storytelling is always pedagogical.
My bishop's talk left me with one quote that I hope I will never forget- "We need to grow up in Christ, or we risk not growing up at all". In conclusion, he read aloud the words of a hymn with special meaning to me, and to all of those of the (since dissolved)
ΣΓΧ, adding a verse not present in the LDS Hymnbook:
Rise up, O men of God!
Have done with lesser things.
Give heart and soul and mind and strength
To serve the King of Kings.
Rise up, O men of God,
In one united throng.
Bring in the day of brotherhood
And end the night of wrong.
Rise up, O men of God!
The Church for you doth wait,
Her strength unequal to her task;
Rise up and make her great!
Rise up, O men of God!
Tread where his feet have trod.
As brothers of the Son of Man,
Rise up, O men of God!
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