Have you heard me mention Andrew S. Oakes before? He is a super passionate guy following his own lead as a Stress Coach.  He posted up this weekend with a question and I answered it nearly immediately. I was surprised at my answer, and how I put it out there so quickly. 

Andrew writes “What is something Rare that you want or like?” and I respond with “healthy, raw masculine friends that have your back”. 

This may seem like an “everyday post” to some and move on, but to me, it’s one of those deeper thought-provoking moments. I am trying my best to walk a defined line in the Mañana No Mas! space keeping my personal, more political thoughts on a separate channel. That said, there is a driving force inside of me that is saying “How much further will we dissolve before rebound?”.

Growing up in a Philadelphia suburb, I had my “set”. No, I was not a gang member, but I had a core group of friends. We had the workaholic, the party guy, the nerd, the stuntman, the ladies man, etc. We had a diverse group of friends that loved one another. This is more than “hey, can I borrow $5.00 for gas?”. This is a “Hey, I am in jail… can you tell my parents and maybe come get me?” type of friendship. This is a friendship that when their girlfriend breaks up with them a day or two before Christmas, you bring them to your house for a long weekend sleepover.

Of course, I also remember a neighborhood where no matter how weird the parents were, we gave the kids a chance to be “Normal” with the rest of us. I remember a community that had parents on the porch waving and saying hi as we rode our bikes around town. Today, I see neighbors entering their homes with the push of a garage door opener and not being seen again until they pull out of the garage in the car – with the windows up.

When Heidi and I first moved to Albuquerque from Denver, we arranged our home and within a few weeks had hand-delivered invitations to the neighbors on our street. We invited the neighbors to the house on a Thursday evening promising coffee, tea, and a snack, with the option to bring a snack to share. The whole culdesac minus one or two came over. We had a blast. In the first month, we had met and endeared ourselves to the immediate neighborhood. Crazy were the stories that stood out to us. There were neighbors that lived next door to each other for years that had never spoken to each other before. They became friends that night.

Humans are pack-animals. We need community.

Now a decade later, I find myself in a similar position. One of my older friends from church came over for dinner and I invited him on a walk to exercise the dog. As we walked the neighborhood (about 6 blocks in all), Bill met about a dozen of my neighbors. He was blown away. It was a culture shift in a direction away from what has become normal. But back to Andrew’s post. Which of these neighbors would I call if I got arrested? Which of these neighbors would pray with me if Heidi had a big car accident?

Again, these people know me and I them. However, they might not know the neighbor right next door. This tells me that they are open to the ideas of community, but fail in their own personal sense of leadership to make it happen. Social media is not social. Social distancing is not social. I encourage you to make eye to eye contact with those around you and risk the connection. In fact, with Labor Day coming up, I challenge you to pull the grill out front and have a block party.

Without becoming overly political in this post, it has been on my mind a long time that we have been chipping away at healthy masculinity for a long time. Men have all these pressures to consider in every level of communication. Say something – do something, and suffer. Suffer what you might ask. You are bound to be labeled: Sexist, Homophobe, Xenophobe, Gay, Sissy, Puss, Bully, Racist, Supremacist, Murderer (yes, apparently we commit murder with words or masks in this age), Conspiracy Theorist, Loser, and on and on.

I sense a rebound on the way and I embrace it. If you are reading this and think “Right on” – hit the contact link and drop me a note. All this work I have done in Leadership, Business, and Faith studies solidifies within me the idea that we are not meant to be “Less than” simply to make the weaker among us more comfortable. Being the leader you were called to be (man or woman) is not Toxic Masculinity. It’s leadership.

If we succeed in bringing backbone into the weave of our society again, we will once again have the confidence of “they got my back”. I miss the kinship and based on how many people watch and love movies centered on this theme… I am not alone.

Courses in Leadership