OJ and I are engaged in an all out battle in our home with passivity.  It began because of what I like to call The Energy Crisis. One cold garbly day I had had about as much as I could take of my little bumper cars and said (well, maybe “said” is the wrong word) to OJ:  ”Get these boys outside boys are not made to be inside boys are made to be outside IT’S JUST WRONG they have too much energy and I have NONE!!!!!!!”  It sounds funny, but it wasn’t at all.  It was profound.

Energy is for work, which is for production.  But my frustration was looming because of the astonishing futility I saw looming over my days…USING my energy to SUPPRESS their energy…all my work going to drain them of theirs.  The end product being negative production. Practically speaking, this meant five rooms messed for every one I manage to tidy, eight commands given for every one acted upon, twenty minutes to settle them in an activity that engages them for seven.  And endless cycle of sucking away my life, and theirs.  Why?  Because they’re bad?  Actually, our sons are carefully trained in obedience.  We’ve been playing that harp since they were born.  It wasn’t a behavioral crisis we were feeling.  It was the beginning of the earth shaking under our feet.

What are boys for? This question is one we’ve pondered carefully, as you can read here, but…how?

Judah was doing very well in school.  Very obedient, eager to learn, highly social, and a favorite of his excellent teacher.  But he was coming home STRESSED OUT.  His little body couldn’t stop.  Oral fixations developed and became out of control, and after carefully paying attention for five hours at school, he couldn’t look me in the eyes or hear five words in a row out of my mouth.  Every day I would have to devote a half hour or hour of my ENERGY to help him get control of his.  If I could not spare that half hour, he would run us all (including himself) ragged for the rest of the day.  Energy crisis.

He easily absorbed what he was learning at school.  Which is what school is for, right? But what was school teaching him that HE was FOR? Sure, in words he was being taught that his purpose was to obey and glorify God, etc.  But what was hours of sitting still and taking in information that he could not put his hands to really teaching our son that he was for?  Was it something like this?

“Good men waste their time in a well-behaved manner.  And then SOMEDAY they are SUDDENLY heroes and champions:  moving, shaking, leading, liberating, proclaiming, battling, defeating, shouting, rescuing, healing, freeing, etc.  But we’ll train you in that in your off-time.  Mainly, you need to learn how to use about 1/100th of your engine for most of your day, and disconnect your body from your mind (which we worship and serve, uh, I mean, which we use to worship and serve God).  We’ll give you some recess time to let off your (useless) energy.”

I am a mother of four, wife of a mighty man, discipler of women, writer, and trainer.  AND I get dressed every day and sometimes exercise.  Energy is no joke to me.  It’s a matter of life and death.  I have often cried in the night with a fussy little one, please let me sleep… Not just because I like sleep, but because if I have energy it means that kids will be loved, fed and trained, my husband will be encouraged, built up and sent from our home to do his mission in power, captives will be set free, the gospel will be preached, either at home or on the internet or SOMEWHERE, and on and on…  Energy is PRECIOUS to me.  So the revelation that our system (Judah was just in Kindergarten, so he was about to embark on 17-20 something academic years) was going to carefully train him to DUMP his energy so he could do what was REALLY valuable (tank on information) was like a dagger to the heart.

NO.  NO.  NO.

OJ and I looked at each other.  We disciple men.  We know how many are floundering under the most elementary bondages:  video games, pornography, sports addictions.  WE know how many families will suffer incredible loss because of these time/energy/passion toilets, if you will.  The attraction of the things themselves eventually fail to explain the addiction level.  What has convinced men to dump their lifeblood, their force, their manhood into utter waste, and be blind and numb to the incredible exploits they have within their reach through the gospel in their home, their marriage, their actual acquaintances?  How can they stand it?  How can they spend most of their lives in purposelessness  and then commit their force, strategic ability, energy, and masculine power to HOBBIES?

Could it be that men are FOR something?  For a god-like purpose (Gen. 1:28, the first command given to mankind)?  Could it be that my sons have million of megawatts flowing through their blood for something other than driving me to the end of my sanity?  Could it be that it’s NOT God’s plan that moms and teachers exhaust themselves suppressing masculine drive so that in twenty years wives can be begging those young man to rise back up?  Please talk to me, please help me, please take out the garbage, please be my champion, please lead me to the Cross, please train the children, please get off the computer…

“Could it be,” we said, “that the way we do things in our culture is a set up to destroy men?”

More to come.