Asking The Right Question

Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what
makes you come alive, and go do that, Because what
the world needs is people who have come alive.

Could someone make it as professional skateboarder? Tony Hawk sure did. What are you really passionate about?

"...Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." (The Message)

What you are passionate about is exactly what you were created to do. What are you waiting for?

How Martial Arts Can Supercharge Your Man Spirit

In the link below, blogger Rodney King, creator of the world famous Crazy Monkey Defense Martial Arts Programme, explains how martial arts nurtures the warrior spirit in a man. He concludes with these words...

Because you are free to fully explore anger, frustration, and fear as a man in martial arts without shame or embarrassment- something wonderful happens. You begin to feel the confidence rise inside you. You feel alive. At times you are in flow. You become intimate with the present moment.

As you leave the mat and as you look down the long road of the martial arts of everyday life, you know that you are prepared, because you are a man once more!

To read the whole article go to here

A Battle to Fight

Men need a battle to fight we are wired that way. We need a cause that is larger than our own self-preservation. There is a reason for that: We were born into a world at war. We have an enemy that hates us and wants to destroy us. In Wild at Heart John Eldredge illustrates the “Warrior Heart” with the story of Civil war soldier Major Sullivan Ballou…

I have in my files a copy of letter written by Major Sullivan Ballou, a Union officer in the 2nd Rhode Island. He writes to his wife on the eve of the Battle of Bull Run, a battle he senses will be his last. He speaks tenderly to her of his undying love, of “the memories of blissful moments I have spent with you.” Ballou morns the thought that he must give up “the hope of future years, when, God willing we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood around us.” Yet in spite of his love the battle calls and he cannot turn from it. “I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter… how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution… Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break” and yet a greater cause “comes over me like a strong wind and bears me on with all these chains to the battle field.”

Eldredge’s conclusion…
A man must have a battle to fight, a great mission to his life that involves and yet transcends even home and family. He must have a cause to which he is devoted even unto death, for this is written into the fabric of his being.

Excerpts from Wild at Heart by John Eldredge

Mandels - Candles for Men

A Tale of Two Men

(The Noble Heart, Gary Barkalow, February 18th, 2009 eletter)

Jeff Andrechyn, a friend and former US Airways pilot sent an email to his friends sharing his heart's reaction to the CBS 60 Minute interview with Captain Chesley Sullenberger, known as "Sully". He was encouraged to submit his story to the Charlottesville, VA newspaper which he did. It appeared last Sunday and Jeff has been overwhelmed with emails and phone calls. It is a great glimpse into the glory of this man: Sully and Jeff.

Let me tell you something about Jeff's story before he gets into Sully's. Jeff was a successful 757 pilot. He loved his work: the responsibilities, the skills, the money and status. But, he developed an eye condition which forced him out. So he started to pursue his heart's desire, as best he understood it at the time, by meeting with men to help them navigate their life through this world with God. Jeff's passion and skill in "navigation" transitioned/deepened from airplanes to men. His loss became his gain. It is as Andrew Murray said,

"He brought me here. It's by His will I am in this straight place. In that fact I will rest. He will keep me here in His love and give me grace to behave as His child. Then He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends for me to learn. In His good time, He will bring me out again; how and when He knows. So let me say: I am here by God's appointment, in His keeping, under His training, for His time."

Jeff has started an organization called Expeditions of the Heart (expeditionsoftheheart.org). And now, his article:

Sully's Opus

There is a wonderful movie you may have seen, Mr. Holland's Opus starring Richard Dreyfuss. Mr. Holland is a man who believes his destiny is to be a conductor who writes symphonies, but as life has it, he reluctantly takes a job as a high school music teacher at a public school. Holland then has a boy who loses his ability to hear. The boy is deaf to his father's glory. The redemption in the movie comes at the end of Mr. Holland's career when the community celebrates his life with a surprise party where his former students venerate him with stories of how he changed their lives. It's a tearful moment when Mr. Holland finds out what his real "Opus" was. It was not a sheet of paper with notes on it, rather the hearts of all his former students who went on to be leaders in their community.

I was surprised watching 60 Minutes the other night at being moved to tears with the interview of Sully, the Hudson River pilot. Pilots are the least likely people to move your heart while telling a story, but there I was, in tears. There was this transcendent moment when Sully said, "I knew that all my life's training was for this moment".

It was beautiful.

Sully had some clarity on his life. Tragedy has a way of introducing us to ourselves and our deepest desires. Sully knew, even if for just a moment, the "why" of his life. When a life comes into that much clarity and things begin to make sense, it's like a broken bone gets set in the universe and the anguish is over and you have perspective.

It's what we all long for in our lives.

When I watched Sully talk about that five minute flight, I saw a man in his glory. We all have a glory to our lives. God is the father of glory and he doesn't mind passing that on to his kids. It is often hidden in the mundane routine of life but even though it might be obscure, it is still there. This event gave Sully a role to play, and he played it well and because of it his life's passion became known.

At the end of the interview, Sully and his crew met the passengers of US Airways flight 1549. It was Sully's "Mr. Holland's Opus" moment when the people, in tears, hugged him (which is unnatural for a former military pilot to hug someone) and thanked him for saving their lives.

I can only imagine what he was hearing;

Thank you for the months of training that took you away from your family.
Thank you for bearing the heart ache of missing significant events in your kids' lives while you were away at work.
Thank you for flying after the chaos of 9/11.
Thank you for staying sober when your retirement was taken away.
Thank you for the sleepless nights in strange hotels and answering the 4 am wake up calls.
Thank you for staring down that line of thunderstorms and prevailing yet again.
Thank you for sacrificing your body to cross all those time zones while eating airport food on the run.
Thank you for keeping it all together and being there for me when I needed you the most.

We can get so beaten down with life's daily assaults that we become deaf to the symphony of people that we have loved, forgiven, affirmed, validated, taught, and included in our lives. The world around us does change when we live like that.

I want to encourage the heroes out there who are covered with the dust of the mundane and are trying to keep it together. There is a weightiness and splendor to your life that for the most part is unseen.

You have a role to play in this great symphony of life. It's an important note; play it well.

Your day is coming.

Jeff Andrechyn
Airline Pilot and president of Expeditions of the Heart.

Adventure II

Casual adventure to the max.


wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Adventure I

Adventure, as men, we crave it. What does adventure mean to you? Backpacking? Sailing? Trading Stocks? Travel? John Eldredge says that there are three levels of adventure. There are casual adventures. These are the diving and hang gliding adventures. They are important because they stretch us and prepare us for crucial adventures. Crucial adventures are the adventures the scare us. These make us feel like we are in danger of great loss if we fail. Then there are critical adventures. Critical adventures are the ones on which we stake our lives. A critical adventure requires more than you have to give, it require the resources of heaven. If God does not come through it cannot be accomplished.

Mantopia Manifesto

Mantopia is a place where a man can feel comfortable discovering what authentic masculinity looks like and apply it to his life. It is a place where a man can discover why his life is the way it is and learn how to alter its course. Mantopia will facilitate the fathering of men through small groups, adventures, teaching, and training in a nonthreatening, nonreligious environment.

Mantopia will create an environment that will attract men that are not interested in church or religion, as did Jesus. Men will be welcome to participate at the level that they want to participate. Always telling the story of freedom and offering more.

The end purpose of Mantopia is to facilitate positive and permanent change in a mans life; move him towards being whole and holy. So that he can be the son, father, husband, friend, leader that he longs to be in his heart of hearts. Learning to use his strength to fight for the freedom and protection of the weak and innocent rather than to use them to get what he wants. To make his mark upon the world by stepping into the life-fulfilling role that God created for him to fill.

Everything done at Mantopia will illustrate or teach some aspect of the desires of the masculine heart (Battle, Adventure, Beauty) or stages of a man’s life (Beloved son, Cowboy, Warrior, Lover, King, Sage)

Teaching men to following a set of rules or principles could not accomplish the purposes stated above. Duty, obligation and behavior modification will not work. Moral striving leads to shame, guilt and a hidden life. That is why this is not possible in a church setting. This is only possible in an open and honest journey with God and others.