The path to being a good man is often a spiritual one
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Many men aren’t into religion or spirituality. Maybe you are one of them?
Spirituality is important because many men go from bad to good to great by following a spiritual path. For many of us, it is the path to becoming a Good Man.
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Many men prefer hands on stuff, interactive stuff rather than things they cannot see. Religion and spirituality often involve conversations with beings or states-of-being that are hard to wrap your head around. For many men, the supernatural doesn’t come naturally.
I worked with turning some men on to the holy when I led lecture/discussion groups for men receiving treatment for substance abuse disorders.
Recovery and confession
Long before starting to do these workshops I had decided to wear black mock turtlenecks to work all of the time. They were comfortable and black hides stains nicely too. The fact that some men mistook me for a priest usually didn’t hurt.
It was the hospital setting where I got the nickname, “Father Dave.” When a patient didn’t pick up on the joke and asked me if I was a priest, my standard line was that I was not, but in the substance abuse treatment field I had heard a great many confessions and then, “Is there anything you would like to confess, my son?” That usually addressed the question adequately, so we could get down to the business at hand. Sometimes the business included a patient revising their account as to the frequency and amount of their recent drug use.
Losing My Religion
For many men, the supernatural doesn’t come naturally.
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My earliest association with religion was that it felt like it was so constricted, that I had a hard time breathing. That was because wearing a tie was an expectation for attendance. To make it worse, while wearing my Sunday best, there was no playing allowed. Sundays became a day for a no-play-day, with a noose around my neck!
Most of us have had an introduction to organized religions that was less than ideal, and in some cases brutal.
Some of you may have been taken to church against your will, or dumped there as a form of free childcare for your parents. You may have felt stupid for not believing wholeheartedly in things you did not understand. And for some of us, unbelievable things were done to us in the name of the holy, and you may have been dismissed when you spoke up.
The nature of your spirituality
My earliest association with religion was that it felt like it was so constricted, that I had a hard time breathing. That was because wearing a tie was an expectation for attendance. To make it worse, while wearing my Sunday best, there was no playing allowed.
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As adults, I believe that faith is important, both for those in recovery and those on another path. Spirituality is important because many men go from bad to good to great by following a spiritual path. For many of us, it is the path to becoming a Good Man.
Each of us will take a different path. Some of us decide that it is time to look at our childhood religion with mature eyes. It might be trying many churches on for size because spiritual communities range from the serene-and-somber to the rock-and-roll kind.
For others, they decide on a mix tape spirituality, where they pick from a variety of schools of spiritual thought.nearly universal for men to experience some form of the sacred in nature.
And for all of us, there is the spirituality available through time spent outside, in the cathedrals of nature. In addition, there is also the mood-altering power of ritual objects, fragrances, light, and scripture.
I hope you will check back with The Good Men Project for more writing on men and spirituality because the path to goodness is important for every man.
Photo by Moyan Brenn
My spirituality was found and is nurtured in the Church. The times I removed myself from what you called “organized religion,” were he worst time of my life.