Normal Male Spirituality

1. Normal Male Spirituality Dave Scheider St David’s April 28, 2019

2. Outline • Definitions: normal male spirituality when you were 10 • Levels of Influence • Rohr’s model • 1st Half of Life Spirituality and issues for males • Crisis of Limitation • 2nd Half lf Life Spirituality and issues for males • Archetypes of male spirituality

3. Levels of Influence Grand Narratives Institutions that reward or punish Individual choices for compliance Or rebellion

4. Levels of Influence • Family, culture, and religion have authority to prescribe the narrative and establish institutions to reward and punish compliance leaving the individual’s choices limited to compliance or rebellion. • These three layers guide us in what is normal, male spirituality.

5. Rohr’s Male Spiritual Journey Old Fool Age of Ascent Age of Descent Embittered Journey Self-Identity Crisis of Limits Ages 35-50 Wisdom Journey Hero’s Journey Ages 1-35 Holy Fool Young Fool

6. Traditional Male Identity (from DPCC 705) • Competition and conquest • Self-interest is a virtue • Deny importance of feelings and relationships • Value market place over the home • Talk rather than listen • Open conflict over behind the scenes negotiation • Self-confidence without humility • Quick decisions more than pondering • Charisma and dynamism more than long term credibility • Power and Achievement • Business as an end to itself rather than human concern • Aggressiveness rather than soft persuasive approach • External rewards more than internal satisfaction

7. Issues for males in Spiritual Formation in 1st half • Necessary to build self-identity before letting it go. • Affirm them in: • Work • Intimacy • Family/kinship network • Parenting • “Sexual issues are always at the heart of masculine spirituality. Rohr, Richard. From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality (p. 75). • Prepare for Crisis of Limitation

8. Male Identity “A man without his feminine soul is easily described. His personality will move toward the outer world of things, and his head will be his control tower. He will build, explain, use, fix, manipulate, legislate, order and play with whatever he bothers to touch, but he will not really touch it at all—for he does not know the inside of things. He has no subtlety, imagination, ability to harmonize, or live with paradox or mystery. He engineers reality instead of living it. Rohr, Richard. From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality (p. 9). Kindle Edition.

9. Crisis of Limitation • Mid-life crisis • Inner loss of meaning • Failure, falling apart • Act out to regain control • Heroic virtues no longer work • Beginning of move from self-control to God in control. • John 12:24 Grain of wheat must die

10. Transition Model as illustration of crisis of limitation William Bridges Ending New Beginning Grief Loss Shock Sad Anger Crisis Wilderness Neutral Zone Despair, self-soothing, suicide/homicide Vision, meaning/purpose

11. New Beginning for Males • Help men transcend traditional and stereotypical images and models of masculinity that block their growth • Help men adopt more balance of their masculine and feminine energies to become whole persons connected to their bodies, feelings, others, environment, and God. • DPCC 704

12. Rohr’s Male Spiritual Journey Old Fool Age of Ascent Age of Descent Embittered Journey Self-Identity Crisis of Limits Ages 35-50 Wisdom Journey Hero’s Journey Ages 1-35 Holy Fool Young Fool

13. 2nd Half of Life Spirituality • Some men do not accept the invitation to descent and become old fools who try to continue the 1st half of life and become shallow. • Some stay wounded and transmit hostility and discouragement. They give up the 1st half of life journey but do not embrace descent. They are embittered. • Some accept invitation to descent and become holy fools and grandfathers who live in paradox and integration of male and female. God is increasingly in control. Role, power and prestige decrease as God increases. • Without grief work, the soul remains self-enclosed, rattling around inside its own limited logic and basically disconnected from the rest of the world.” Rohr, Richard. From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality (p. 84).

14. Snapshots of Healthy Male Spirituality • King • Lover • Magician • Warrior • From Rohr, Richard. From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality

15. Archetypes of male spirituality King “This image includes the Father images and carries all the connotations of authority, order, law, direction and grounding. The calm king sitting on his throne is the archetype of centeredness and security within himself.” Rohr, Richard. From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality (p. 150).

16. Archetypes of male spirituality Lover ”When we are captured by the archetype of the lover, we know how to delight, to appreciate, to enjoy that which is good, true and beautiful. We see the color, form, texture and ultimate gratuity of things. In its highest state, therefore, it is the contemplative who can value things in themselves themselves and for themselves and see the hidden beauty of “deep down things.” It is also the poet, the artist, the musician, the romantic, those who know how to sip the divine nectar in all events and relationships.” Rohr, Richard. From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality (p. 154).

17. Archetypes of male spirituality Magician This compelling image is the archetype of awareness, consciousness, growth and transformation. He leads us to see the depth, meaning and especially the shadow side of ourselves and all things. He shows us that things are not what they seem…the father confessor, the ritual elder, the shaman, the wisdom teacher, the statesman, the spirit guide, the sorcerer, the medicine man, the mentor, the spiritual director, the liturgist and, in most cultures, the priest.” Rohr, Richard. From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality (p. 153).

18. Archetypes of male spirituality Warrior The warrior is dreamt about in all cultures as the image of courage, persistence, stamina and devotion to a cause. And this image is obviously much needed and very good. He maintains appropriate boundaries even at cost to himself. Rohr, Richard. From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality (p. 151).

19. Conclusion The Holy/Wise Man “He has experienced it all—youth and age, masculinity and femininity, health and sickness, good and evil, society and solitude, trial and failure, feast and famine, activity and silence, life and death—and now he can put it all together in a meaningful whole, both for himself and for anyone who seeks his wisdom.” Rohr, Richard. From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality (p. 104).

20. Bibliography • Hunter, Rodney. Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling. Abingdon Press, 2005. • Rohr, Richard & Martos, Joseph. The Wild Man’s Journey. Cincinnati: St. Anthony, 1988. • Rohr, Richard. From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality. Kindle edition, 2005. • Rohr, Richard. Gender God and Spirituality online at Huffington Post Aug 27, 2012

21. Opening Exercise • What is your version of normal male spirituality? • Don’t overthink it. We want your implicit beliefs that were formed in your childhood before you had adult, critical reasoning skills.

22. Definition for Normal • Conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern • According with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, or principle • Occurring naturally • From Merriam Webster • It is not synonymous with health or optimum

23. Definition for Male • Noun – an individual of the sex that is typically capable of producing small, usually motile gametes which fertilize the eggs of a female • From Merriam Webster • This leaves open a great deal of influence from the culture and environment on how it shapes this baby into a “normal male.”

24. Definition for Spirituality The quality or state of being spiritual (relating to things of the spirit which are sacred, ecclesiastical, religious values, or supernatural) • From Merriam Webster’s definitions of both spirituality and spiritual. • Leaves open a great deal of variety depending on which religion is shaping the person and what roles and behaviors it defines as normal for males within that tradition.

25. Definition for Spirituality “The object and goal of all spirituality is finally the same for all genders: union, divine love, inner aliveness, soul abundance, generous service to the neighbor and the world. In these essentials, and in the Great Whole ‘there is no distinction…between male and female’ (Gal 3:28)” Gender God and Spirituality by Richard Rohr online at Huffington Post Aug 27, 2012

26. 1st Half of Life Spirituality • Build the container – necessary ego-centrism • Experience his own power and potential • Loves what God can do for him but usually not in love with God • Dutiful, responsible, hard worker, delay gratification, black and white worldview • If frustrated on journey could get angry and become young fool – never experience his own power and potential

27. Spiritual Direction for Males • Discussion • How comfortable are you with male directees? • Are there issues you avoid with male directees? • Is it your tendency to support the emotions or solve problems when male directees are in crisis? • Affirm the healthy parts of the masculine and then encourage and support the emerging feminine.

28. Spiritual Direction for Males • Liberate from blindness to narrative of male dominance • Release from compulsions to achieve, compete, ignore feelings, and future economic rewards • Grow in relation to women and other men • Value parenting • Director cares, confronts, coaches, and models rejection of the idolatry of the traditional male model and the acceptance of balance of masculine and feminine with God at center. • DPCC 705-6