As an elder, I feel it is my duty to pass on patterns of cultures that enhance humankind. I reach out in support in a visioning in order to create change in echoes of truth that live beyond me. It has been a long journey of being a seeker of knowledge to just being a soul in a human form. I have moved on beyond my sexual assignment and my sexual preference. I am a man who is a human being living within a community which resides within a continent, within a planet. We are all living beneath the same sky and we breathe the same air, just at different times. May my pain not exclude the pains of another.
As a child, I was raised by a mother who was ahead of her time and a woman of necessity. She did not allow any sexually assigned jobs within her household. If a job needed to be done, it was your job to do it, whether it was mowing the lawn or changing the baby’s diaper. Girl or boy, it was a job waiting to be done.
My mother being a rebel, she did not want any man telling her what to do and how to be. Yet she married my father who was good looking, silently angry and controlling. They fought for power. He was abusive and she fought for love. I knew my mother wanted me to become a better man. As her helper and eldest child, I was bent on being that redefined man.
I learned at an early age, relationships are a dance of holding up the other. Where I saw men failing, I took note and made sure I made a correction in behavior. My goal was to be a man of love and not a man who abused power. My grandfather taught me tenderness and the beauty of sharing a story and a way of life.
He was not a perfect man, but he was a man of love and resolution. He was a man of convictions, dedication, a God fearing, an a capella gospel teacher kind of man. He helped to build churches and I spent my early years growing up in his shadow. He taught me the art of having faith, how to be a man of rituals. He taught how to accept failure and the art of picking up the pieces when it is time to move on. He taught how to admit your imperfections. Pain only gives you the right to forgive and when you forgive you learn how to live. He taught me how to maintain your dignity as you are dying. He taught me how to be humble in an important time of loving.
Became I have been fortunate enough to be raised by aware and spiritually based people, I knew the options of how to be a better man and a decent human being. I have been fortunate to be mentored by strong, creative men, men who could embrace their masculine and their feminine.
I feel I have been given a gifting and it is something I want to be able to share and use to transform the mindset and heart of the modern man.
Men, as leaders, must learn to lead with a sense of compassion and resolution. Men must learn to lead with a gratefulness for their placement of power. Men must learn to share effective power with other men, women and the planet. Men must learn to respect themselves as whole human beings with minds and hearts, emotions that need to be expressed as men.
To share knowledge and power is a gifting, a freedom that empowers. I believe there could be a positioning of power executed without fear. Without fear power grows within all of us as human beings, a power expanding because of allowance. I believe every voice should be heard and utilized to enhance the society. I feel men who have traditionally been in power have come to abuse power. There needs to be a right sizing of balancing, for one, the balancing of feminine and the masculine. Both entities should have equal power, male and female or mind and heart. Power is an energy that must be used wisely, a power that includes granting the power of others. May my rights not exclude the rights of another.
I grew up resenting men because of their abuse of power, but still wanted the respect of other men, because I wanted to respect myself.
The dichotomy of love/hate was not the positioning I wanted to be involved in or could I live happily with.I wanted to love and respect myself as a man. In order to do so, I decide to be a man of worth and a supporter of other men, especially young men and fathers.
The change starts at home with myself and I have it a choice to practice daily a method of living to enhance my gifting and habits that aid the maintenance of our society. Those habits should support, uplift and not negate.
I believe it is important for the modern man to be the supportive son, the loving brother, the emotionally present father, the grandfather of wisdom and elder of worth, as a healing entity of love. Love is not a weakness. Love is an action of character, a strength and testament of grace given to transform our society.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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