posted June 12, 2013 06:55 PM            

However, the realm of darkness is without values and the realm of light is full of values, morals etc.

If you want to undermine someone, make them think that it is stupid to have values. If you want to build someone up, build up their values.

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Passion, Lust, Desire. Check out my journal

posted June 12, 2013 07:29 PM            

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The great glass doors leading into the bank are heavy. They take a lot of strength to push; even healthy adults like me pick up speed on approach, gathering enough force to hit the wide bar with a solid shove. Elders and disabled folks find them daunting, even with two hands pushing. They're treacherous, too: as hard as they are to open, they fall closed again with a rapid whoosh that has caught almost everyone in town in a startling near-miss at one time or another.

Yet there he is, out on the sidewalk several feet in front of me, racing ahead to throw all his eager forty-two pounds against the intractable doors. "I got it, Mom!" my son sings merrily, leaning into the struggle with both arms extended over his head, palms imprinting the glass, body at a forty-five degree angle to the ground. I reach him, and stop. "That door is really heavy. Are you sure you don't want a hand?"

"Nooooo! I GOT it!" A few people have now gathered on both sides of the door, watching in amusement or impatience as this four-year-old platinum-haired mite struggles on valiantly for several more seconds, his face reddening with effort. At last, the door cracks open, and then - huzzah! - it yields. He races to the open edge, holds it securely, and stands aside with a flourish. "Mom goes first," he tells the assembled masses firmly - though he proudly waits for everyone to pass through before letting it fall closed again.

We have repeated this performance a thousand times in the two years since Kiernan first learned to open doors. Now, at six and a half, with the first hints of the lanky, broad-shouldered man he will become beginning to appear, he does it without thinking, without strain. In another few years, it will be as much a part of him as "please" and "thank you." He's also learned all the protocol that goes with it: Mom goes first, unless Grandma's around, in which case she goes first. Next comes his sister, and then the adult men. Age before youth, women before men; he knows it all by heart.

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In looking at the heroes and archetypes that have shaped so many generations of men, and reflecting on the long and remarkable persistence of chivalry as a Western ideal, one central theme emerges: the importance of the Beloved Other to a man's identity. When men are able to commit their singular strength and energy to the service of something or somebody outside themselves, they bloom into graceful, compassionate warriors capable of joining with others in "power-with" relationships to create awesome good. The search for this personal Grail has led men through the centuries to join armies; write love songs; build great temples; place themselves before oppressors with guns, fire hoses, and bulldozers; and grow into husbands, fathers, breadwinners, and elders who shone as beacons for the younger men who came behind them.

Conversely, when that male strength, power, courage, and intelligence are not channeled toward a larger purpose, the desire for "power-over" emerges, and young men's most honorable attributes fester into frustration, violence, and social pathology. The results are everywhere around us: gang warfare, fraternity hazing, brutal work environments, and the recent rash of high school shootings. In searching for this lost sense of purpose - and the identity it would give them - our young men turn their energies back against themselves, each other, and our culture.

While many will certainly want to argue this point with me, I think it's possible that there may be no higher calling for a Pagan man than to provide the Goddess of his choice with the resources she needs -- love, money, land, food, rest, protection, comfort, etc. etc. - to do her best work. This is reflected in our images of Pagan men as hunters, warriors, providers, protectors, lovers, and nurturers; and we see this loving commitment in gods from every corner of the planet: Herne, Tyr, Apollo, Dionysus, Cernnunos, Raven and Maui. Like the tales of chivalry, they tell us that in most times and places, a man's primary form of worship and greatest source of meaning is to be in service to his beloved family, his tribe or nation, or the Goddess herself.

What separates the men from the boys, in the end, is the willingness to make that commitment to the Beloved Other, and the ability to make whatever sacrifices that commitment entails. Every screwed-up young man I've ever known got that way because he was missing this sense of purpose -- and unscrewed himself when he finally found it

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posted June 13, 2013 08:07 AM            

In addition, there isn't love and respect without some element of fear of consequences.