While we were in Bangkok, working on writing, Linnea and I read a book called “Lords of the Earth”. It is the life story of a man named Stanley Albert Dale. Dale was born in Australia, his dad was an alcoholic and left Dale with what is commonly called a ‘father wound’.
All people have in common this father wound. Even the greatest dad in the world will leave some type of a father wound. These father wounds come in many different forms, but for Dale it came like this:
Dale was a wimpy skinny kid, and he got bullied a lot. One day he got pushed around by the bullies and he was called weak. When he ran home he told his father about it and his father agreed with the bullies…”because you are weak”. This left a bit of an impression on young Stanley. Stanley thought to himself, your my dad, why don’t you teach me how to be a strong man? The truth is, his dad did not know how to be strong, how to be a man. His dad was hiding behind the bottle…like so many men do to cover insecurities (yeah, that’s been me).
One day, Dale was asked by his teacher to read some poetry. The poem that Dale had to read was by Rudyard Kipling. This has to be one of the favorite poems for any man who has ever read it, the poem “IF”, I was going to type the whole thing here, but I got lazy, so look this poem up.
Stanley ran home from school that day and read this poem over and over again. This poem became his life. This poem started Dale on a new love for reading. He read every manly type book he could. He began reading biographies of great men. He began a self disciplship into manhood, a lifelong initiation to answer the question, “Am I a man, do I have what it takes?”. Dale began working out, working manual jobs. If I remember right, he began boxing and doing rough sports. When he was old enough, he joined the Australian Army, and he eventually became a commando, working in New Guinea to defend against the Japanese in World War II. Shoot, I can’t remember the exact sequence, but at some point he heard the gospel, before the Army, and what excited him about this gospel is that Jesus fully personified the man in Kipling’s poem. He wanted to follow Jesus, and he did. While in the Army he fell in love with New Guinea, and Stanley Albert Dale took to heart his responsibility from the great commission and decided he was called to the tribes deep in the mountainous jungles of this island.
Dale was eventually killed by the cannibals, but his sacrifice opened the door to the gospel being preached and tens of thousands of the Yali tribe came to know Jesus. The Yali worshiped the spirit called ‘kembu’. The wisdom and knowledge this spirit gave caused the men in this village to live in constant anger and fear, constant warfare. Women were only allowed to bear children and garden. The women and young children were not allowed ANY education, only men were allowed this knowledge. The men called themselves “Lords of the Earth”. These people were cannibals until the gospel was preached, eventually, after years of work, the tribes were filled with the Holy Spirit and full of love and joy and peace….
This book was awesome, great for where I have been lately as a man, in everyway, especially spiritually. Then last Sunday the message was on Psalm 51, and that is what I have been praying almost everyday…
