Mansfield's Book of Manly Men: An Utterly Invigorating Guide to Being Your Most Masculine Self - Hardcover

Mansfield, Stephen

 
9781595553737: Mansfield's Book of Manly Men: An Utterly Invigorating Guide to Being Your Most Masculine Self
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1595553738 ISBN 13: 9781595553737
Publisher: Thomas Nelson, 2013

Synopsis

Witty, compelling, and shrewd, Mansfield’s Book of Manly Men is about resurrecting your inborn, timeless, essential, masculine self.

The Western world is in a crisis of discarded honor, dubious integrity, and faux manliness. It is time to recover what we have lost. Stephen Mansfield shows us the way. Working with timeless maxims and stirring examples of manhood from ages past, Mansfield issues a trumpet call of manliness fit for our times. 

In Mansfield’s Book of Manly Men, you’ll see that:

  • This book is about doing. It is about action.
  • It is about knowing the deeds that comprise manhood and doing those deeds.
  • Habits have to be formed, and actions have to be aligned with the grace received.

“My goal in this book is simple,” Mansfield says. “I want to identify what a genuine man does?the virtues, the habits, the disciplines, the duties, the actions of true manhood?and then call men to do it.”

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Stephen Mansfield is the New York Times bestselling author of Lincoln's Battle with God, The Faith of Barack Obama, Pope Benedict XVI, Searching for God and Guinness, and Never Give In: The Extraordinary Character of Winston Churchill. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife, Beverly.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

MANSFIELD'S BOOK OF MANLY MEN

An Utterly Invigorating Guide to Being Your Most Masculine Self

By STEPHEN MANSFIELD

Thomas Nelson

Copyright © 2013 Stephen Mansfield
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-59555-373-7

Contents

Foreword by Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin (ret.)..............................xiii
PART I.....................................................................
Gentlemen, We Begin .......................................................3
The Manly Maxims...........................................................15
Mansfield's Manly Maxim #1.................................................17
Mansfield's Manly Maxim #2.................................................23
Mansfield's Manly Maxim #3.................................................29
Mansfield's Manly Maxim #4.................................................37
The Four Manly Maxims......................................................41
PART II....................................................................
Show Yourself a Man........................................................45
Honor......................................................................49
Legacy.....................................................................61
Friendship.................................................................73
Blessing...................................................................87
Quest......................................................................101
Humor......................................................................111
Restoration................................................................123
Self-Education.............................................................139
Wildness...................................................................149
Integrity..................................................................161
Forgiveness................................................................175
Suffering..................................................................187
Vision.....................................................................197
Humility...................................................................211
Sacrifice..................................................................221
Presence...................................................................231
Epilogue: The Story of Taylor..............................................241
PART III...................................................................
Fifty Quotes for Manly Men.................................................249
The Ten Essential Books for Manly Men......................................265
The Ten Essential Movies for Manly Men.....................................269
Acknowledgments............................................................273
Notes......................................................................277
About the Author...........................................................281


CHAPTER 1

GENTLEMEN, WE BEGIN ...


Let me start by telling you about the night I becamea man.

Years ago, I was traveling through the Middle East to do reliefwork in a troubled country. A problem arose with my visa. If all hadgone according to plan, I would have flown into Damascus, travelednine hours through the Syrian Desert, crossed the Euphrates River,and entered Iraq. I had done it several times before. On this particulartrip, I never got out of Damascus.

I know this sounds like the start of a great adventure. It wasn't. Ispent my days at the Damascus Sheraton eating bad hamburgers andarguing about Syrian football with the doorman like I knew enoughto have an opinion. Now don't misunderstand: I'm going to tell this tomy grandchildren like I'm Lawrence of Arabia, but you should knowit wasn't true. I was bored. I ate pistachio nuts by the pound. I readeverything I could find that was printed in English. I even got fittedfor a bisht—the elegant outer robe Arab men sometimes wear. I hadit made, put it on once, decided I looked regal, and then never wore itagain. These were not my most productive days.

Fortunately, a friend of mine who was a member of the Syrian parliamentheard I was stranded and came to my rescue. We'll call himNadeem. He was a cool breeze of Arab hospitality. He took me to meetofficials who could help me, feasted me at the finest restaurants in thecity, and insisted that I go with him to his Orthodox church, thoughhe knew I would not understand a word. When I reluctantly went withhim that next Sunday morning, I found language no barrier. Hugs fromlittle old Syrian ladies told me everything I needed to know. Nadeemknew they would. He was a good friend to me during those days.

It was because of Nadeem that I ended up on the roof of a hotel indowntown Damascus with a dozen Arab men. That's where I becamea man.

Nadeem knew I was lonely, and he also wanted to show off hisAmerican friend, so he decided to host a small party. I urged him notto bother, but he insisted as though all honor depended upon it. Severalnights later, I found myself atop a soaring Damascus hotel surroundedby high-ranking government officials, their submachine gun–totingbodyguards, several expensively dressed businessmen, and one man ina shemagh—the traditional Arab cloth headdress—who looked to meas though he had just come in from the desert. Of course, the desertwas about three blocks away.

It was a stunningly clear Syrian night. The tents on that rooftopseemed to breathe with the evening breezes drifting in from the sand.It was mystical, and I wanted desperately to be still and quiet to takeit all in.

Nadeem had other plans. He began by eagerly introducing me tohis friends, and then he insisted I recount my life since birth along witheverything he and I had ever discussed. This got the party started, meaningwe spoke to each other as well as we could—which was badly—whilewe ate cashews the size of a man's thumb and bowls of watermelon. Someof the older ones smoked the nargillah, the intriguing Arab water pipeoften called a hookah. All were gracious and interested, but there wasonly so much we could manage to communicate through our limitedknowledge of each other's languages, and the conversation inevitablylagged.

That's when the more traditional-looking man wearing the shemaghleaned forward and asked a question. There was great wonder inhis face, as though he was inquiring about one of the great mysteriesof God.

It turned out he was.

"A son. Do you have?" he asked. I'm telling you every man on thatroof stopped what he was doing and turned to hear my answer.

"I do," I replied.

"Ah." He grew excited. "His name?"

"Jonathan," I answered.

The man slapped his knee and shouted, "Aha! Then you have anew name! You are Abujon!" Suddenly, there was a lot of smiling andhead nodding and Arab voices one on top of the other.

They could tell I didn't understand. Nadeem tried to explain.Apparently, when an Arab man has a son, his name changes. From thatmoment on, he is addressed with a combination of Abu, which meansfather, and the name of his son. Apparently, Arabs consider fatherhoodso important that once a man becomes a father to a son, he is honoredfor it the rest of his life.

So I became Abujon.

When this was announced, that rooftop erupted. Men startedshaking my hand and slapping me on the back. Food arrived by theplatter-full: the best lamb I've ever had and naan and a dozen types ofbaklava. It just wouldn't end. After a while, music sounded from somewhere,and several of the men started teaching me an Arab dance, oneholding his submachine gun in his other hand. It was a night! Finally, atthree or four in the morning, they drove me back to the Sheraton andbackslapped me out the car door.

"Gooood nyett, Abujon!"

I went to my room and, as spent as I was, I sat up hours longer staringout the window at the brilliant Damascus night. Something hadhappened to me. I could feel it but couldn't put words to it. I think Iwas afraid that if I didn't explain it to myself I would wake up the nextmorning and find that this powerful new thing was gone.

It came to me a day or two later. At first it was a great sadness, andthen it became a ferocity and strength that has never left me.

I should tell you this: by the time of that night in Damascus, I wasforty-one years old. I had been a Christian for twenty-three years. Ihad been a husband for seventeen years. I had been a father for thirteenyears.

Yet never before in all of my life had I ever been welcomed into thefellowship of men. Not once. Not ever. Nor had I ever undergone anysort of ritual to mark any of the important turning points in my life asa man. No one had ever said to me, "Congratulations. You are now aman among men."

Frankly, I didn't know I needed to hear it.

When the moment finally did come, it was a gift of Arab men whoissued the welcome with hardly a word. They named me. They celebratedme. They gave me gifts. They made it clear they understood.They counted me as one of their own.

It is impossible to fully describe what all this has meant since. Theimpact of that night is probably best captured in a single word: honor.Now, I had not lacked for honor in my life before that moment. I grewup the son of a decorated US Army officer. I eagerly played three sportsa year in my youth and was recruited to play college football. I hadfriends who were sworn to me and I to them. I knew a bit about honor.

Still, never had I been honored in such a way that it summoned dormantforces from within me. Never before had honor given definition tomy life, sealed me to men of common experience, or imparted meaning.

Yet all this and more had happened on that extraordinary night.Stirring new perspectives embedded themselves in my mind. To bea man. To have a son. To suddenly understand manhood as both alife to live and a tribe to belong to. For all my years yet to come, to beshaped by the calm, fierce knowing that I would live them as a man—notmerely as a male—and as a father. To know the good this could befor those I loved.

All of this was born of that night. Yet it has taken me more wordsto describe the experience here than were spoken during all the hourson that rooftop. Some of the most important things about my life weredefined that evening without any of them having been described orexplained. I suppose this is the power of ritual, commemoration, andtradition. They impart more than they explain, summon more thanwas thought available.

Perhaps there is a lesson for us in this. I will risk offending—andnot for the last time in these pages, I'm sure—by saying I suspect ifsuch a moment had taken place somewhere in the Western world, itwould have come with a torrent of words. It would have been talked todeath. It would have come with a book, a seminar, a CD series, hoursof concerned discussion, two recommended websites, a retreat, and acertificate to put on the wall. We'd probably still be talking about it ...having never actually done anything.

My friends in Syria lived differently. They arrived at the all-importantword—Abujon—with two short questions. Once theyecstatically proclaimed it, they didn't have a great deal more to say.They didn't bother to explain much. In fact, they didn't even ask mypermission. They just declared it and then celebrated my life in thetribe of men with the fiercest, manliest partying I've ever seen. Sixhours later, they pushed me out the door.

"Go. Be a man. Be a father. Remember that you are part of us."

I had been a male for more than four decades when that nightoccurred. I learned in those hours, however, that you are not fully aman until you are a man among men who respect what it means tobe a man—and who know how to summon manhood through honor.


* * *

My goal in this book is simple. I want to identify what a genuine mandoes—the virtues, the habits, the disciplines, the duties, the actionsof true manhood—and then call men to do it. I mean exactly thesewords. This book is about doing. It is about action. There is certainlyan appropriate moment for men to talk about their pasts, their wounds,theories of manhood, questions of values, and their ongoing war withthe society around them. This isn't it. This book is about knowingthe deeds that comprise manhood and doing those deeds until meremales become genuine men. For fun and for simplicity, I call thesegenuine men manly men in these pages.

My conviction—and it underlies all that is ahead—is that we becomewhat we do, that we are the sum of our habits. I should say quickly I donot believe we are only the sum of our habits. I am a Christian, and soI believe there is more at work in our lives than the product of whatwe do. Thank God! To be a Christian is to believe the grace of Jesusbreaks the unending, hellish cycle of cause and effect. I don't want tolive forever in the cancerous wake of my evil deeds. Grace intervenes.The Spirit makes me new. I'm freed, even from myself.

Trust me, I get all this and have based my life upon it. Still, even aftergrace comes to us, virtues have to be perfected. Our habits have to beformed. Our actions have to be aligned with the grace we have received.

We often miss this emphasis in Scripture. Consider just one verseon the subject: "Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; andto goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control,perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness,mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess thesequalities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffectiveand unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2Peter 1:5–8 NIV). Clearly, we are given faith and we are taught knowledge,but to make both productive, we have to devote ourselves to alifelong project of developing traits, attitudes, and habits. The apostlePeter calls them qualities in these verses. Otherwise, we'll be "ineffectiveand unproductive" despite the grace and knowledge we possess.

If we lived in an ideal world, every man would learn the traits ofmanliness as part of a dynamic body of righteous men. He would havemodels in these older men. He would have a tribe. He would be initiated,honored, challenged, trained, corrected, and commissioned bythese men. In fact, in an ideal world, a man would barely be able toidentify what had made him a great man, a genuine man. It would allbe natural and woven into life. It would just be.

Most of us have never had anything like this. Almost none of us. Itis a loss, but it doesn't have to mean devastation. Instead, it means wehave to put ourselves in a position to absorb the manly virtues anotherway. That's why I've written this book.

I intend here to put us among true men. I'm going to describe thecharacteristics of vital manhood as illustrated in some of the greatlives of history, lives that reveal what we must do to be true men.These men are part of what the New Testament calls our "cloud ofwitnesses." I think of the men in these pages as our cloud of witnessesto manliness.

Imagine sitting with Winston Churchill and asking him what hehad to overcome to be a great man. Imagine asking this same questionof Booker T. Washington or Rudyard Kipling or Jonathan, sonof King Saul. I think using inspiring tales from the lives of great menof the past makes the journey fascinating. I think it connects us witha heritage and points us toward a destiny. It also gives us tools fordefining manhood for the next generation of men, those who look tous to show them what to do. We want to give them far more than wereceived. The great men of history—our fathers, in a broad sense—helpus do this.

Fear not, though; this will not be some dusty volume of dates anddead people. History can be more than that. It lives. It breathes. It canbe rowdy and fun. It has power and nobility to impart.

The great men of old have much to offer us, and we should notneglect their gifts. In these pages, we won't.


* * *

There are a few important matters to settle before we begin.

The first is the issue of women. It is an evil of our age—perhapsof every age—that there is tension and competition between the genders.Do a search for the word men on the Internet and most of whatyou find is about the antagonisms, animosities, and disappointmentsthat separate men and women. Most of what is "for" men is inherently"against" women. The reverse is also true.

Let's be clear. This book is about men being strong, moral, dutiful,virtuous men—frankly, great men—in part because it is the best giftwe can give to women. There is nothing in this book that diminisheswomen, dismisses women, or denigrates women. Instead, much of thisbook is about how a man is measured in large part by who he is for thewomen in his life. I can certainly understand why some women mightfear a book about how men can be "true men." This has not alwaysworked out well for women in the past. Trust me, women will onlygain from what this book encourages in their men.

Having said this, though, I should also say that this book is Cosc arcailíní, as our Irish-speaking friends would say: "Not for girls!"

Second, we live in an age that defines people largely by appearance.The body is the man. The look is the woman. There is almost noseparating the outer from the inner, the true man from the physicalvessel he occupies in this life.

This overemphasis on what is seen has had tragic consequencesfor some men. Some of us just don't look "manly" in the traditionalsense. We are thin or un-muscular or high-voiced or perhaps eveneffeminate in the way we move. These features tempt us to believethat we are condemned to some form of un-manly, un-masculine life.Meanwhile, our more hairy, more muscular friends are consideredmanly merely for their appearance.

Hear me: I don't care about your appearance. Manliness, in myview, is about doing. It doesn't matter what you look like. I'm neither putoff by nor in awe of the physical. I've known great men who are threeand a half feet tall. I know an awe-inspiring man who has no arms orlegs. I've known powerful, dynamic men who looked like women froma distance. I've known immoral men who had testosterone to spare. Itis the doing, the deeds, the actions that make a male a man.

This is good news. Any man, no matter his appearance or voice,can be a great man, because masculine greatness is about the doing,not about the appearance. This means that the guy with the squeakyvoice and the twenty-eight-inch waist and the walk that he wishes hecould change can be a man in the truest sense. It also means that theguy with the twenty-eight-inch bicep is responsible for the same standardof manliness, no matter his physique. True manliness is aboutthe determination to act according to a noble definition of what itmeans to be a man. This is within the reach of every man, no matterhow he looks or sounds.


(Continues...)
Excerpted from MANSFIELD'S BOOK OF MANLY MEN by STEPHEN MANSFIELD. Copyright © 2013 Stephen Mansfield. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Thomas Nelson
Publication date
2013
Language
English
ISBN 10 
1595553738
ISBN 13 
9781595553737
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
304