I don’t know about you but I am so tired of hearing phrases like, “in these extraordinary times” or “given current circumstances” or “when we get back to normal.” Man, talking about throwing you on a drag. We need to have some FUN!
I try to take long walks every couple of days and I have been listening to various podcasts while I am getting in my 3 miles. I have been intentional in searching out sites that have podcasts dealing with subjects clearly oriented toward men and our everyday lives. I found one produced by Brian Tome, the founder and Pastor at Cross Roads Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. The title of his Podcast is, “The Aggressive Life.” That intrigued me, a church Pastor talking about living aggressively? Based on what I have always been taught in church, aggressive and faith aren’t synonymous. Even more interesting is the subject of Episode 54 which is “having fun.” Huh? An aggressive Pastor who wants us to have fun?
When I was growing up, fun was dramatically different than what most kids consider fun today. We weren’t subjected to all the rules and oversight kids deal with today. Nor did we have all the organized sports and activities kids participate in today. I know, the term “subjected” implies involvement isn’t by choice and sadly we all know Dads who are living vicariously through their kids. Please, please, don’t do that, it isn’t fun. In a lot of ways I feel fortunate that my pre-high school years were spent in a place that didn’t have a lot of organized sports. Sure, I played little league baseball but that was about it. For the most part we made our own fun. We didn’t need to practice to have fun. We didn’t have rules for having fun. We didn’t need special coaches or trainers or psychologists. We didn’t have a date on our phone calendars to tell us what day we could have fun. We didn’t need expensive game consoles, laptops, an Internet connection or anything else. We made up our own ways for having fun.
From the time I was a 4th or 5th grader and all the way up until I became a “stud” ninth grader it was common for me to leave the house early on a Saturday morning meet up with some buddies and not show up at our house again until I got hungry which was usually after dinner time. We played army out in the fields with toy guns. We caught blue tailed lizards and horny toads which we took home and kept in our garages until they died. We rode homemade skate boards that we made using the metal wheels from our sister’s clip-on roller skates (not always a good move) and any wood board we could find to attach them to. We took the Briggs and Stratton motor off an old lawn mower, figured out how to attach it to a mini bike frame the brother of one of the guys welded together in metal shop at school and then rode the thing all over until the old engine quit running. We “chose up” teams and played football and baseball for untold hours at the local park. We also fought like we were auditioning for Brad Pitt’s Fight Club. The whole time our parents never really knew where we were at. They did know we would come home eventually, sometimes with bloody noses, a black eye or some road rash from crashing on the mini bike or falling off a skateboard. Mom would patch us up with some Mercurochrome and a couple bandaids and we would get right back out there again the next day. We were boys, we played like boys and boy did we have fun.
So what happened to us? Where did our fun go? We grew up – that’s what happened to us, we became men. Most of us got a job, got married, started a family, took out a mortgage and a car loan and allowed society to put us into a grinder filled with other peoples rules and expectations of who we should be and how we should act. Worse yet, in the last 20 or so years we have been emasculated and convinced we should not live the life God created us to live as men. Jim Burgen, Pastor of Flatirons Church in Lafayette, Colorado once said, “The original sin was Adams passivity.” Well, guess what guys? We are being molded into passive, uncommitted beings who have allowed society to beat us into thinking we should not act like men, we should not fulfill our God given role as men, and we shouldn’t have any fun. Even more concerning, most of us don’t encourage our kids to have real fun!
Now, before you go off the rails, I am not advocating you become an irresponsible, narcissistic, misogynistic, anarchist. What I am saying is we need to stop letting society convince us we shouldn’t act like what God created us to be, MEN. And in addition to being leaders, the heads of our households, bread winners, responsible husbands and fathers, and faithful followers of Jesus, we need to have some fun!
So how do we turn the ship around? First of all, quit listening to all the criticism aimed at you exercising your natural instincts – you were born a man and God gave you unique qualities because of it. We are hunters. We are providers. We are protectors. We are leaders. We should be like a bull elk, stomping around in the forest, marking our territory. Now that guy is having some fun! Now before you show this to your wife, girlfriend or any other female which will result in them hurling all sorts of accusations at me and then telling you to delete my blog from any memory you might have – calm down. Do you see anything here about males being the superior gender? No you do not. That is because despite what you might have been taught God created man and woman to compliment each other. Each gender has specific gifts, none of which are better than the others. I am simply identifying God given male characteristics that will ultimately shape what type of fun we have. I will however challenge anyone, male or female, who attempts to correct or confuse Gods intent for us as men. Let’s have guy fun!
I should mention what guy fun isn’t. It isn’t vulgar, it isn’t deceitful, it isn’t prideful, it isn’t destructive toward people or property, it isn’t irresponsible, it isn’t mean or ill intentioned, and while it isn’t always safe it should never be at the expense of your wife or family. On the flip side it is honest, it is clean, it is creative, it is productive, it is considerate of others, it is steeped in tradition and history and it results in a satisfying confirmation that we are who God created us to be – men! Certainly you need to carve out time to have fun with your spouse or children but guy fun needs to be with other guys. Real fun should put a smile on your face, a smile that cannot be wiped off, a smile that your wife or girlfriend, sons or daughters will love, not resent.
I can’t tell you how to have guy fun – you have to figure that out on your own. Yours might be calling up a bunch of buddies, meeting at a local park and wearing yourself out playing basketball or touch football. For others it could be spending an hour at the local shooting range trying to refine your aim prior to your next hunting trip. Still others might define their fun as throwing a couple sleeping bags, a tent and their fishing gear in the back of a pickup, along with a couple cans of Campbells Pork and Beans, some beer, and a bag of Cheetos (for breakfast of course) and heading out to a new location to slay some unsuspecting trout. The key is, men need to have man fun. So get out there. Quit listening to those who want to convince you that we can’t have fun because we are in extraordinary times or that our current circumstances mean it is deviant to even think about having fun or heaven forbid, there will be new normal that will change our whole perspective on fun. You didn’t sign up for a life of drudgery, enslaved to a career and all the expectations our society wants to strap to your shoulders. Be the man God wants you to be and have some fun while doing it. You will find your life will be so much more fulfilling, exciting and interesting and you will become a better husband, father, friend and person. Go have some fun!
Doug's Journey 