There is No Difference Between Being a Good Man and Being Good at Being a Man

 We had a book discussion tonight, and we discussed "The Way of Men" by Jack Donovan.

He has some interesting things to say and some useful vocabulary to take away, but there are numerous problems with his treatment, and they start from beginning with the wrong first things. The man of Jack Donovan's imagination is all meat. He is interested in his own survival. and reason, spirituality, and brotherhood are things that come later only when one has the luxury to develop them. Religion is a product man creates to order complex hierarchies. Fatherhood is not a part of the virtues of his primal man. He frequently resorts to examples of lower primate behavior to explain human men.

The problem with his model of manhood, is that he leaves out the humanity and focuses on the animal. It is so curious that, in dealing with Courage, he engages the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, but borrows only what he likes about Thumos, Spirit, and leaves aside the discussions of telos--the ends of man--as "unhelpful abstractions." Because to him man is an animal first, and the nature of man is to advance himself and survive.

His interview with AOM was actually one that soured me on them a little, because I was researching manliness for a presentation at the Redeemer conference and was kind of appalled that everywhere I turned it was Spartans, Vikings, and cavemen getting top billing. Men of violence. Men who take what they want. Men who say that justice is the advantage of the stronger.

Now usually, this is where I would go on my usual canned rant that the exemplar of manhood is Jesus Christ, and after him it is John the Baptist, and you would splutter a little because I only say that because the Bible does, etc, etc, etc...

But my father turned sixty Thursday, so you are getting a slightly different rant today.

My buddy--who will remain anonymous, but for convenience sake we will call him Jody--has said on multiple occasions to groups of men that we should be asking ourselves what Colin Casey did right, that all of his children are not only in the faith, but that they all moved back home, and that we are closely engrained in our church and community.

The answer is a great many things. A tough act to follow.

It is not only the little things that my father taught me and demonstrated attention to--how to fish, how to clean a fish, how to work on plumbing, how to change the oil in the car, how to grill, how electric current works, and on and on--those things are invaluable, but they do not make the man.

The greatness of my father is in his example. The righteous life of a righteous man.

One of my first 'adult' memories of my father, in that I was aware of and intensely curious about the doings of adults, was a contentious--nay, acrimonious--voters meeting at a childhood church. The hostility in the room was like the buzz of bees. I think I was maybe 10-11, but I was intensely aware of it. The parishioners had many petty grievances to air, for why should this pastor have had more children than he could afford? And that the least of his sins. I mean, closed communion? How could this priest have so much hate in his heart to uphold his ordination vows and the discipline of the church?

The pastor, who I loved then and love still, had only two champions--Mr Paschke, and my father.

That meeting was long. I was too anxious to be bored, but it was only long because of my father's courage. It takes something to doggedly persist in the face of a bunch of bitter people who are angry that you will not get out of their way and let them be unjust. But my father is not the kind of man to shrink from such things. I do not remember the outcome, and I am pretty sure it was a lost cause, but that did not prevent him from fighting the fight before him.

My father is the kind of man who does the right thing. He is the kind of man who does it when it is hard, when it is unpleasant, and when it costs him. I think he has the most strongly developed sense of justice and propriety of anyone I know, and I think only Pullman pulls a close second in my eyes, and that is high praise of Pullman.

I was talking with my grandfather recently at a cousins graduation, and he mused with something like profound contentment on what a good father I had, and how blessed he was in the family that followed. I think my grandpa Mike and my dad have a lot of shared characteristics in this regard. I think they are both deeply moral and generous men, who rightly account to blessings the good things they have, while underselling that they are the means God worked to bestow that blessing.

My father commuted to another state rather than uproot his family from their church and community, even though providing in this way laid more and more cost upon his shoulders.

My family jokes about our inherited stubbornness, and sure enough it can find expression in things that are less useful, but this stubbornness in my father is united with this love of the right and produces something beautiful: steadfastness.

Steadfastness is the virtue of St Joseph, the father of Our Lord. It is not flashy. It does not get the most lines in the drama. It does not dazzle the people around you. But it produces saints.

The example of sacrifice, diligence, duty, love, and faithfulness--for sons to cherish, admire, and emulate--is what it means to be good at being a man. It is how the apostasy of 66% of LCMS confirmands is to be avoided.

If you would seek the answer for what it means to be good at being a man, do not read Jack Donovan. Go talk to my father. Because though Donovan tries to separate them, the answer is that they are actually one and the same. To be good at being a man is to be a good man. And my father is an excellent man. I have much still to learn from him.

Do you need to know what it is to be good at being a man? Talk to my father, he is something of an expert in that theater.