I know my sons love me. But they adore their dad. He takes them fishing at 3:00 A.M. on Lake Michigan, often in very rough water (even our 5-year-old). He lets them chop wood (even our 5-year-old). He lets them drive the tractor and till the land (well, not our 5-year-old). He takes them snorkeling around shipwrecks. He’s taught them to surf, build campfires, drive boats, shoot guns, hunt, and fillet fish. They talk about wild adventures that they will enjoy in the future. All the while I continue to ask, “Are you sure they’re O.K.? Is it safe? ” etc.
My husband has assured me that boys need to experience life. They need to stretch themselves. He makes certain they do. He expands their horizons and gives them vision for their lives. I know this is wonderful and a huge blessing, even while their behavior terrifies me.
Lately, I have reflected on this whole idea of making men out of boys. A few excerpts from McCain’s and Palin’s convention speeches put it into perspective.
McCain’s Speech:
“On an October morning, in the Gulf of Tonkin, I prepared for my 23rd mission over North Vietnam. I hadn’t any worry I wouldn’t come back safe and sound. I thought I was tougher than anyone. I was pretty independent then, too.
I liked to bend a few rules and pick a few fights for the fun of it. But I did it for my own pleasure, my own pride. I didn’t think there was a cause that was more important than me. Then I found myself falling toward the middle of a small lake in the city of Hanoi, with two broken arms, a broken leg, and an angry crowd waiting to greet me.
I was dumped in a dark cell and left to die. I didn’t feel so tough anymore. When they discovered my father was an admiral, they took me to a hospital. They couldn’t set my bones properly, so they just slapped a cast on me. And when I didn’t get better and was down to about a hundred pounds, they put me in a cell with two other Americans. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even feed myself. They did it for me. I was beginning to learn the limits of my selfish independence. Those men saved my life.
I was in solitary confinement when my captors offered to release me. I knew why. If I went home, they would use it as propaganda to demoralize my fellow prisoners. Our code said we could only go home in the order of our capture, and there were men who had been shot down long before me. I thought about it, though. I wasn’t in great shape, and I missed everything about America, but I turned it down. A lot of prisoners had it much worse . . .
A lot of — a lot of prisoners had it a lot worse than I did. I’d been mistreated before, but not as badly as many others. I always liked to strut a little after I’d been roughed up to show the other guys I was tough enough to take it. But after I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before, for a long time, and they broke me. When they brought me back to my cell, I was hurt and ashamed, and I didn’t know how I could face my fellow prisoners. The good man in the cell next door to me, my friend, Bob Craner, saved me. Through taps on a wall, he told me I had fought as hard as I could. No man can always stand alone. And then he told me to get back up and fight again for my country and for the men I had the honor to serve with, because every day they fought for me.
I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else’s. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency, for its faith in the wisdom, justice, and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again; I wasn’t my own man anymore; I was my country’s.” (http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/conventions/videos/transcripts/20080904_MCCAIN_SPEECH.html)
Palin’s Speech:
“There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you … in places where winning means survival and defeat means death … and that man is John McCain. In our day, politicians have readily shared much lesser tales of adversity than the nightmare world in which this man, and others equally brave, served and suffered for their country.
It’s a long way from the fear and pain and squalor of a 6-by-4 cell in Hanoi to the Oval Office. But if Sen. McCain is elected president, that is the journey he will have made. It’s the journey of an upright and honorable man — the kind of fellow whose name you will find on war memorials in small towns across this country, only he was among those who came home.
To the most powerful office on Earth, he would bring the compassion that comes from having once been powerless … the wisdom that comes even to the captives, by the grace of God … the special confidence of those who have seen evil, and seen how evil is overcome. A fellow prisoner of war, a man named Tom Moe of Lancaster, Ohio, recalls looking through a pinhole in his cell door as Lt. Cmdr. John McCain was led down the hallway, by the guards, day after day.
As the story is told, ‘When McCain shuffled back from torturous interrogations, he would turn toward Moe’s door and flash a grin and thumbs up’ — as if to say, ‘We’re going to pull through this.’ My fellow Americans, that is the kind of man America needs to see us through these next four years.
For a season, a gifted speaker can inspire with his words. For a lifetime, John McCain has inspired with his deeds.” (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94258995)
I don’t mean to wax politically. However, these speeches illustrate the need for real men. It’s our responsibility to help our sons make the transition from boyhood to manhood. On the way they can enjoy time with their dad.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish . . .” – Proverbs 29:18
