From Boyhood to Emptiness

I am angry over a harm that has been done to boys and men. The harm comes from men, women, and evil itself. This writing is my attempt to explore the issue. I hope it drives you to pray for men to become powerful through emotions.

To be called into manhood these days is to be called into emptiness
This call into emptiness invites us to violence
The violence is a man stripped of his emotions
Severed from the stem of what it means to be a human being

See, when we were young
We had emotions
Chemicals that ran throughout us
We were connected to our bodies

Somewhere along the way
We were told to control our emotions
They became a source of shame
Control emotions, make decisions, and be a leader - a contradiction

Do you know research indicates
Human beings are incapable of making decisions without emotions?
Nevertheless, we are told to control our emotions
We are told to somehow stop the "bad" ones

However, emotions are interdependent
Cut anger and sadness departs
Cut jealousy and compassion leaves
Cut sadness and joy is eliminated

The reality is that wounded wives and mothers bore a misplaced ambivalence
Be nice. No wait. Be dangerous. No wait. I hate you.
Other men perpetuated the lie because they were lost too
They told us women couldn't lead because they were emotional beings

So we go to lust
It is the quickest way to comply with the lie
Unfortunately lust severs all emotions except for resentment and fear
It transports us out of our very own bodies and we cease to be human

We didn't know that by departing from this earth
On fantasies of sexuality
We were inadvertently harming ourselves
Severing power and leadership

Lust is a knife that cuts off our emotions
We become dead men unfit for manhood
To cut off anger is to cut off an arm
To cut off sadness is to stick a knife into our hearts

Our lust turns us into cardboard cutouts
We have "controlled" our emotions
Now we have no more
And we are incapable of leadership

The lie was perpetuated by both men and women
Cut off your arms but learn how to throw a baseball
Cut off your legs but run for a touchdown
Organize the plays and don't let your woman down you stupid man

A woman has misplaced ambivalence
In desperation she flippantly says get your act together
Okay husband, maybe I want the emotions back, but you scare me
I want you to unnerve me but don't frighten me

Sometimes the psychologists call us adult children
But we aren't even children because children have emotions
And we aren't yet adults because we haven't grown up
We lie in a deserted wasteland that is neither adult nor child

The reality men is that every woman wants to be unnerved
She wants the kind of fear a man instills in her
Not resentment, bitterness, and violence
No, she wants the anger and sadness against injustice that moves her

Men, the five senses are a bunch of hogwash
That was a concoction brewed by yet another empty man
The sixth sense is an entire set of emotions
Chemicals that need to be re-released into our bodies

If you want to know other human beings
You must find your emotions once again
Our personhood contains mind, emotions, and body
We go from our whole person to their whole person

Oh so sad is the paradox
We've lived in it so long
And we don't know what to do
We have no vocabulary for the emotions we lost long ago

But men, if you could truly see their hearts
Their real selves - these dear women
You would know they want to be unnerved
The fear and exhilaration our feelings drive

And women, if you could truly see our hearts
Our real selves - these powerful broken down men
You would know that we are so tired of the paradox
We yearn for those emotions left back somewhere in boyhood

So you'll have to take our anger
To have our sadness
You'll have to take our jealousy
To have our compassion

Men, your responsibility is to stop lust
But it isn't for religious bullshit
It is a means to restoring emotions and power
Then a voice from boyhood will call you into manhood

You will desire to treat them well
You will see what it does to them
The healthy power it puts into you
The value it puts into them

Men, we left boyhood
But we never entered manhood
We were misguided into entering emptiness itself
And we became violent

I'm not sure exactly how it happened
But yes, we are violent cowards
Yes, we have been harmed and this harm is a factor to our violence
But now is the time to redeem your story

To enter manhood is to ask God
Dear God - please take me back to these chemical emotions
Tell me the power I have to speak words of identity to her
So that she will want to decorate herself with a sunset and city lights

So sad, culture permitted us to leave boyhood
But only to enter emptiness - a sham pretending to be manhood
On the last day, you will meet us with our emotions and whole heart
We will tell you that you do not have permission to pick and choose our emotions

We will keep our violence towards injustice
Yet our violence towards women will empty as tears
We will keep the jealousy that was protective
But we will incinerate the jealousy that bore power and control

Were it not for God Himself
You would not be able to bear our sadness
Our anger
Or our tears

The peace in our hearts will last for generations
The joy we emanate will radiate for millennia
Our anger will turn to sadness
Our sadness will turn to joy and peace

You will not be able to contend with the power of our emotions
But the power of our emotions will be the bedrock of your compassion
Our tears of anger and sadness will unnerve you
But they will be the water-source of rivers that guide you

The men of the earth cry out
You have destroyed us
Dear women who fear violence
Empty men who have no hope

On the last day
We will look like God Himself
We will have emotions that will level mountains
We will lead with a power you have never known

It will move you and restore your hearts