For well over 30 years I have known that mentoring men is crucial in our sick, overly competitive, work-addicted, flesh-hating, misogynist, shame-filled, anti-intellectual, and bottom line culture. And, from time to time while I was in pastoral ministry, informal opportunities to do so arrived. By mentoring please know that I do NOT mean traditional spiritual direction. But rather something more like what John O'Donohue suggested with the Celtic term anam cara: soul friend. One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people.
Older men with a modicum of wisdom and a bit of time-tested humility have something to share in reclaiming the role of elder. We need some quiet shamans and story-tellers who have spent time in the ashes helping our young men find their place in the 21st century wilderness. I was kidding Dianne earlier that I need to add "committed elder" to my Facebook "job description." It is every bit as important as musician, writer and Gwad (my grandson Louie's first scrambled attempt at "grand dad.") There is so much to say about this calling - so much joy and so many tears, too - but the hour is late and I am worn out. For the young and middle-aged men I love and have befriended perhaps this poem by O'Donohue's poem is all this night requires.
Beannacht / Blessing"
On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
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