This is a two part blog of rather extended lengths, but in all honesty, unlike any recent posts I’ve done, this one has been birth in a way that reflects my heart and journey that recent blogs haven’t. So as we begin our decent into these specific, thick, dark marshes of my heart that hasn’t seen light before, I ask for your patience as my mind begins to spew out things it never has. God has awakened a part of my heart to discover more of who I am and who He is, and this is the first part of that discovery. With that said, let’s begin our endeavor.
My team was house-sitting our contacts home for the weekend; a peaceful, homey residence with wooden furniture, Ikea-like light fixtures hanging on the wooden ceiling, and actual American dinner plates, which was the first time I ate on American plates in almost 10 months. The contact has a variety of good books in his humble library; Federal Husband by Douglas Wilson, Desiring God by John Piper, a book that transformed my life forever, and Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood by John Piper and Wayne Grudem. I was reading Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood when it happened. I had heard amazing things about this book. Its pages are an exploration of what it means to be a man or woman of God. I don’t necessarily endorse books by name often. But this is superb on the subject of biblical manhood and womanhood; from role distinctions in the Church to controversial passages of Scripture such as women being silent in churches, to women in ministries, to men being the leader and “head” of the household, to single men and women and their place among the married. It’s a book I recommend to married, single, women, and men.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve always been on this journey of purpose and meaning, specifically in regards to my manhood. Having been raised in a home where I was the oldest man, I often had a feeling like I was suppose to put on a tie and suit and wear shoes that were too big for me and be the “man of the house.” And when I became a Christian, that desire to become the man that I was made to be was doused with manly preachers yelling into my ears through headphones about what it truly meant to be a man of God. Sermon after sermon, blog after blog, like gasoline over a fire, I was soaked in a Christian world of masculinity. I heard from one sphere that a man of God knew his Word and theology, another that a man of God was a peacemaker and therefore was a steward of community and creation, and another that a man of God was a man who followed a Jesus who was more of a MMA fighter then anything else. Not that any of those are true or false; it’s simply the world that I found myself in. You either picked one side or the other. When the World Race hit me like a ton of bricks and God told me to take off onto this madman adventure, it was no surprise that God would continue to stir in me the desire to continue my journey within a journey of becoming the man God sees me as. And even now, nearly 10 months into this shipwreck that is kingdom bringing within yourself, the community you’re in, and the world you’re traveling, God is still refining me into the man that I am. This time, it was through a dog.
I was sitting in the kitchen, eating my honey-spread bread, devouring this book like a homeless man at a free buffet held by the local Anglican Church, when all of a sudden I overheard some of my teammates anxiously talking about one of the contact’s dogs. One of the girls on my team had seen the dog, Nola, stumbling over herself in the early morning. She carried Nola to the back porch, noticing that there was obviously something wrong with her. She was panting for air, her tongue sticking out, her eyes heavily open. She was lying there, not taking any food or water. I put my book down and went to the back porch to see her. I stared into her eyes.
She knew.
I walked back into the house for just a brief moment, when all of a sudden my teammate yelled “She’s not breathing!” I ran back to the porch; the collapsed dog was stiff. I ran to her side and put my hand on her chest. Her heart rate was rapid; her eyes dilated and open wider then ever.
She knew.
Tears were already flooding my eyes (as they still are even as I type this.) I felt helpless as I watched her slowly drift away.
She knew.
I panicked: should I try and give her CPR, should I lift her head up, what can I do? All I could do was sit there. I prayed to my God, my only Comfort and Hope. I asked God, begged Him in my heart to please, with all of His mercy, to help this dog. And within that minute, Nola’s heart slowly began to stop as her eyes began to grow dim. And in an instant, she was gone.
I ran away. Like a child, frustrated and hurt, I ran away. Through brush and branches, through stone and tall grass, despite the sharp rocks piercing my bare feet and tree limbs hitting my tear-saturated face, I ran away. I found a cold, grey boulder that stared out at the lake, hid behind it, and wept. Tears ran down my face as I brought my broken soul into the arms of the Lord. I laid in the tall Ugandan grass, ants crawling through, spiders weaving in and out, birds flying above, literally in the midst of God’s creation, and cried over the death of God’s creation.
Swallowed by the bush, I was resting my restless mind on the African forest floor, knowing theologically why things like this happened; Death has risen from the ashes of the Fall of Man as the result of the original sin of Adam throughout all of creation, leaving a path of pain and an odor of turmoil, in which only our Savior Christ can bring the hope of life. But in my heart, in the broken pieces of my soul, I wasn’t sure why this happened. Why I felt this pain; this unceasing anguish in my heart over an animal. Pain is ordinary and not unusual when man meets death. But when an animal meets death, why does my heart feel such a degree of pain? The wind smoothly swam through the sky, hitting me as I began to talk to God. And like the rewinding of a movie, God replayed in the theater of my soul things of the past. He brought me back to the time when I first became a believer.
On November 22nd 2007, I gave my life to Jesus. Before my conversion I was a skeptical agnostic, pacifistic anarchist, a sympathizer and supporter of an eco-terrorist organization called Animal Liberation Front (also known as the A.L.F), and an animal rights activist. I had been a vegetarian for almost 3 years at the time. Into my first year of being a Christian, I gave up my political view of social/pacifistic anarchism, my support for A.L.F, but was a vegetarian, going onto be a vegan. This was unusual in my circle of Christian friends, especially the men. They would often taunt me and call me names like “food faggot.” It was for the most part all in fun and they, for what I know, didn’t really mean to hurt me with their name calling and poking fun of my abstinence from animal meat and animal by-products for food. But for me it was much deeper. For nearly half of my life at that point, I was always an animal lover and advocate. But when Jesus came into my life, Christian masculinity to my fellow believers meant meat had to come into my stomach when Jesus came into my heart. Nights out, church functions, hangouts with friends, anything that had a meal alongside it was all met with discussions and retaliations against me for my decision not to eat meat. It was an identity crisis for me because on one hand I was a vegan, and on the other I was a follower of Christ, and in the eyes of masculinity in light of Christianity, I couldn’t be both. There was no way I could be a man of God and a vegan at the same time. So on the day that KFC (a place I could never find myself eating at before I met Christ) came out with the Double Down, a chicken sandwich where they replaced the two bread buns with chicken patties, I left my vegan conviction to submit and give into this black and white Western portrait of what a man of God was, and with my consuming of meat came my consuming of my feelings towards animals.
I sat up and stared into the sky of Africa. These memories unraveling in my mind; why was God showing me this? Where was He going with all of this? I wasn’t sure. I looked down at my feet. Ants were crawling over them; grass leaves were tickling the bottom of my toes. I laid back down, asking God for clarity.
In October 1st, 2011, my dog Ollie turned 9 years old. She had been there ever since I was 11 years old, and ever since she was a puppy. Named after the basic trick of skateboarding, she loved to poke her nose out of the living room window when I left, and she would always be at the front door waiting for me when I came home. She loved cuddling, loved being pet on her belly, loved chasing after all of her toys, and was the greatest dog in the world. In January of 2012 she became ill. Because my family couldn’t afford surgery, there was only one option…
The night before it happened I laid with her in her favorite place in the house; the small tile area in the front, near the garage. I told her my favorite memories with her. Memories of taking her to the park, memories of wrestling with her, the memory of her jumping on the couch for the first time when she was a puppy, memories of her sticking her small, cold, wet nose out the window of the car as we traveled together going on adventures. The next morning my mom and I helped her old, fragile body into the car. She stuck her cold, wet nose out as usual, for one last time.
We got to the veterinary.
She knew.
We waited in the room for the veterinarian.
She knew.
Her eyes heavy; the small puppy I fell in love with was about to go.
He stuck the needle in her leg.
She knew.
She gently laid down on the metal table, tongue sticking out.
She looked at me one last time.
And she was gone…
My mom took it very hard. I had to be there for her. I had to be the "man of the house." It had been nearly 5 years since I became a Christian, and in doing so, because of the culture and environment in which I found myself, I had been numb to animals and the affection I had for them. So in my pitiful effort, I did what I was told to do; suppress the pain. But in that moment, in that instant where I had to put on the “man of the house” title and be strong, I felt less like a man and more like a child trying to put on a tie and suit and wear shoes that were too big for me. But I had to bite my tongue, be strong, and hide back the tears that flooded pain in my heart. I couldn’t mourn the loss of my dog because I had to be John Wayne and act like a man and men don’t love animals to that degree. Men eat animals. Men don’t cry over animals. So I had to act tough and suck it up.
But here I was, thousands of miles from that veterinary, thousands of miles from my buried dog, thousands of events past January of last year. I thought I was past that, past all of that hurt and pain and non-masculinity. And yet here I was in the bush of Uganda mourning the loss of this dog, taking supposedly two steps back in my journey of what I was told becoming a man of God look liked. And I sat up in shock by the replay of all these memories, I looked up at the sky, and like my favorite hardcore band Have Heart and their album Songs to Scream at the Sun I stood up and screamed at the Son. But not in pain and anger, but rather in healing and victory.
You see, what God was showing me was a deeper understanding of my identity as a man of God. There were still places inside of my soul that had bought a faux Western version of what it means to be a man of God, saturated with ideas of what a man of God was, but so far from what a man of God really is. He was releasing things hidden inside of me. For so long, consciously, and now unconsciously, I suppressed emotions and characteristics of who I am because the Christian world taught me that I wasn’t a man if I didn’t. But God was showing me that all this time I’ve had this characteristic of being a fury-friendly animal lover, and that this external character wasn’t a part of the internal work of Christ that made me into the man of God that I am. Therefore I could stop condemning myself for crying because a dog died and just cry, because that’s who God made me to be. If John had the spirit of Elijah, you could say I have a little spirit of St. Francis in me, all animal-lover and all. But this event, this dog dying, wasn’t just about me loving animals a lot. It was more of the Spirit reaffirming my identity as a man of God by taking out the trash of self-condemnation and releasing suppressed memories from my mind that took hold of who I was. A new freedom I found. There was a new truth I had discovered inside of me. My identity as a man isn’t found in the food I eat or don’t eat, despite what people around me might say. My identity as a man isn’t found by the amount of tears I do or don’t shed because of an animal’s death, despite what others may think. My identity isn’t found by the beating of my chest, the flexing of my muscles, the suppression of my tears, or the amount of theology I know. My identity as a man begins, continues, and ends in the Man who gave it to me, Jesus Christ.
In our Christian Culture, you’re either a vegan Christian liberal who fights more for an animal’s life then a human’s life, wear thrift clothing, and either uses a fixed gear bike or an electric car for transportation, or you’re a Christian conservative who associates oneself with the NRA, has a rifle for the government and another for hunting animals, and thinks anyone who loves animals or reads Donald Miller is a Christian liberal. There are the extremes within our community and you pick which side you’re on. You’re either an environment hating conservative or a hippie liberal. When it comes to biblical masculinity, in the more conservative side (I’m from that side more with my theology), if you’re anyway similar to the other tribe, the Liberals, it’s a straight revoking of your Man-card. And as if the Church forgot who gave out the Man-cards, which is Christ, the Church makes up rules and regulations to determine whether or not you’re really a man. I find myself stuck between the two with the theology of the conservative side and the cuddly heart for dogs and cats and birds and even spiders on the other. With tribalism soaking our Christian community like it does our political system, the choice between one or the other, the left or the right, is a decision that can make or break your Christian status, credit, reputation, relationships, friendships, and the likes.
But why does it have to be like this? Certainly as someone who is a staunch advocate for truth, there are limitations to the middle ground. For example, when it comes to Christian truth, there are places of absolutism, like the character and person of Christ, the Trinity, the Bible, etc. And even in biblical manhood and womanhood, there are absolutes where there can be no middle ground. But when we begin to make what is grey, black and white, why should we have to pick between those absolutes, being condemned when we pick one or the other? Why is their hostility to a man of God not eating meat, when a man of God isn’t defined by whether or not he eats meat? It’s unheard of to have a Christian conservative who loves animals and even be a vegan! It’s outlandish for an eco-aware Christian liberal to love Reformed Theology and even be a Calvinist!
Maybe it’s because the definitions of Conservatism and Liberalism are a lot different then what we portray them? Maybe it’s because we live in such a tribalistic, often closed-minded community that we forget to extend a hand to our brothers and rather clench a fist when someone is different then us? Maybe it’s because of fear that comes from our friends and colleagues who stick so closely to their labels, unwilling to cooperate with others? Whatever it may be, when it comes to this topic of biblical masculinity, we ought to bridge the gap between our fellow brothers and be united once and for all in Christ; yes indeed pointing towards the Scriptures as our highest authority when it comes to what a man of God is, and even to other resources that may enlighten us like the Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood book I was reading when all of this happened. But when there is no blueprint, let’s not make one up. But in those areas a man ought to allow the Spirit to transform his hearts towards who he is. Let us stop our divisive, Western tribal perspective from simmering into what God has established.
All throughout Africa, there is always conflict between national tribes. One tribe doesn’t like this one because of this; the other one doesn’t like that tribe for this reason. There’s no unity between the tribes, and in a dog-eat-dog world, the tribes battle each other, leading to division, disunity, violence, and in the example of Rwanda, even genocide.
How different is the Christian community? How different is it when the Christian vegan hangouts with the Christian hunter? Is there unity, or is there division? In the midst of the diversity of perspectives and views, we can be one as Christ prayed for us to be in the book of John. In fact, I would suggest that
deeper unity is created in greater diversity.
Regardless of who you are, what you believe, what you like or dislike, you are in Christ. Therefore, whether you eat or not eat meat, drink wine or not drink wine, love animals to the point where you sob like I do when their killed or have more animal heads on your wall then in your Animal Crackers box, whatever you do, do all things for the glory of God, hand in hand with your fellow brothers. I have a passion for historical, reformed, biblical truth like a good conservative, and a heart for animals and the environment like a flaming liberal, and in those paradoxes, I am what I am, a man after God’s own heart, all because of the power of Jesus Christ.
