Rites of Passage

It was a wet, cold late autumn day in the mountains of North central Arkansas. I anxiously watched out the car window as my father and I traveled from the confines of the city into the unusual back hills life of the mountains. My imagination began to weave scenes of what the day would be like; the great adventure that lay ahead.

I had hardly slept the night before. As I lay in bed, the mind of this ten year old was filled with excitement. This was to be the first of my ‘rites of passage’, my first deer hunt. Today I would take my first step toward manhood and I worried how I would respond. There were the usual scare tactics used that seem to be uniquely male. Dad and the older boys talking about ‘blooding’, or the tradition of drinking a cup of the warm blood from your first deer, the tales from my grandfather of how the Indians always ate the heart of their prey in honor of its life. I was frightened that I would get sick when we cleaned the deer and embarrass my father and myself. The fear of becoming a man combined with the anticipation of the same is a difficult thing to handle.

The tales of blooding were of course not true, but used as something a young man must learn to overcome, the fear of what might be.

Fear is debilitating. Fear binds us and causes us to avoid difficult situations and decisions. Fear retards our social and emotional growth, and makes deep relationship impossible. The fear of not being good enough or not achieving stature in the eyes of the older men in our lives can destroy a developing male ego. Because of this fear, so many men in our society become adolescent adults. We need a Dad, or Granddad or other male figure that we respect to tell us we have what it takes to join the club, and become a man of strength and honor.

Strength and honor are the two most important things in a man’s life. These components are required to become a good husband and a good father. This is what makes a man, a man. To have the respect of a good woman is far more important to a real man than all the gold, or all the sensory pleasure he might garner. The respect of his children comes in a very close second, for there is no greater joy than to hear the words from one’s son, ‘I want to be just like you when I grow up daddy’, or to hear his daughter say, ‘I hope my husband will be like you’. A man who cannot establish these levels of honor and respect can never truly feel like a man.

By the way, we never even saw a deer that day…such is life.

Enjoy the Java

Jim