Masculinity isn’t something I can define in one blog post. There’s so much involved in its essence that it’s not easily defined, or even summarized.

But, at the least, I can express my general disgust toward immature and emasculated behaviors in men. Man, it sickens me.

The other day I was listening to a radio talk show. It was on a Christian station, and this particular show dealt with counseling. The topic of the day was relationships, and listeners were encouraged to call in with questions.

I wasn’t paying much attention to the show until someone called in and relayed his situation to the counselors. He explained, in a laidback, easygoing kind of way, that he had found a nice girl a few years back and eventually became engaged to her. Apparently, his fiancé’s ex-boyfriend heard about the engagement and immediately started a barrage of letters and messages to the lady, trying to win her back. The ex ignored the girl’s initial refusal and kept trying to get back with her, all the time trying to hide everything from the fiancée. The fiancée, however, discovered the little plot from the girl, and learned all about this last ditch attempt for her heart.

By this time, I was listening intently, putting myself in the shoes of this dude. I couldn’t wait to hear how he settled this guy who was trying, for all practical reasons, to steal his future wife.

The guy finished summing up his story, then asked, and I quote as accurately as possible, “So, should I say anything, or talk to him, or what?”

What? Was he serious?

Was he so immature and passive that he wouldn’t deal with this dude who was trying to take his girl?

Was the dude oblivious enough to his own weakness that he would go on live radio and announce that he didn’t have the decisiveness, initiative, aggressiveness, and just plain guts to confront this guy?

Needless to say, I was angry at the caller. No, livid. If the wimp was too lazy or too scared (or both) to confront the potential fiancé-thief, then what was he doing getting married? Heaven forbid his wife ever be in danger with only this guy to help her. Does she expect him to defend her and protect her?

If they do marry, I expect that the husband won’t even be able to confront anyone flirting with his wife. She’ll be hard pressed to show him any respect. I’m no Dr. Phil, but I think the situation would improve if this girl breaks the engagement and doesn’t renew until this fellow grows up and becomes a man.

This opinion of mine was strengthened even more when I saw a similar situation handled the manly way.

In the movie Fireproof, Kirk Cameron’s character has come to a belief in Christ, and in his new faith, he concludes that he must save his failing marriage. He goes to great lengths to do so.

In his quest of sorts, he discovers one of his wife’s coworkers is trying to initiate an affair with her. He (notice the contrast) wastes no time but tracks down this snake. Putting his fist in the guy’s face, he makes it very clear that he isn’t hesitant to defend his wife. She is dear enough to him that he is willing to protect her, even if he has to break this dude’s jaw to do it (which, by the way, he doesn’t have to. The guy backs down.)

You see, that’s manly. That’s confrontation. That’s caring more about the woman you love than the breach of passive propriety. Kirk Cameron could teach the neighborhood wimp a few things about masculinity.

I’m not saying that only violence solves these sorts of problems. I’m emphasizing that men are to be firm and decisive on these things, and unafraid to resort to force if necessary. That doesn’t always need to happen. But, sometimes it does, and if men won’t meet the challenge, they fail their manhood test.

The guy who called in should not hesitate, but stand up to the man who is trying to take away his fiancé. That would be masculine.

I’ll post more on true masculinity later. A whole lot to be said, and not enough time to do so.

I’m a subscriber to author Ted Dekker’s e-newsletter, so I get updates on his new books and stuff about once or twice weekly.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the header: “The Challenge of Being Gay.”

My stomach knotted in horror. No! The coolest author ever could not be coming out of the closet. I’d have to recant and burn all my Dekker books. Gay? What was he thinking?!

Fortunately, I read the blog post that the title refers to, and, it turns out, Ted Dekker is not gay. Thank God.

Instead, he was making a point about how terms change over time and how one must separate from the bad association. He said, “The challenge of being gay is that I’m not.” Meaning, Ted has a penchant for cheerfulness, something that used to be known as being gay. So, he might say he’s gay, which would be true only in the sense that he’s a relatively happy man. But, in saying that, he involuntarily links himself with homosexuality. This association forces him, as a Christian, to abstain from describing himself as gay.

He compares this word association with the term “Evangelical Christian.” Clarifying that he does not consider himself to be one of the militant conservatives who would take up arms against Democrats, he states that it might be time to redefine Christianity.

I agree with Ted Dekker in the sense that I think many people are mistaken on the point of Christianity. Christ didn’t say he wanted an army of gun-toting, flag-bearing Republican commandos. I’m all for patriotism, but when we define our faith as a political force, we err egregiously.

People are confused with the intent of Christianity. I do believe that. But is the blunder significant enough to warrant conscious separation?

Truthfully, I don’t know. What do you think? Should we define ourselves as “Evangelical Christians” when so many going under that title stray from the path of the believer?

Please respond. I’m eager to hear your thoughts on the subject.

-Macarthyr

I thought I should take advantage of my fifth blog post and explain some things.

First, a friend of mine (who reads the blog) said to me that he wished he had time to post long things like I do.

Heh. If only that were true. Of late, I’ve had nearly no free time due to other obligations.

The reason I’ve been posting in large amounts lately is mainly because I want to give the blog some meat before I send it to friends. If I send them an invitation to a blank page, they aren’t going to return to see updates. But, if I can show a somewhat developed blog, they’ll come back again. Which, of course, is what I want. What fun is no audience, right?

Second, I really don’t plan on posting my personal life on the blog. As I can see, some blogs report people’s daily activities, which is fine, but that’s not necessarily the only direction I want mine to go. I’ll include some personal stuff, sure, but I’ll devote most of the thing to writing: writing stories, writing about current events, writing simply due to cacoethes scribendi (ad infinitum.) :-P

Besides, some things I keep to myself. You understand.

Third, I’ve been looking at the Poverty’s Penman blog (see it here at http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/nonbloodrelatives) and it has inspired me to write creatively once again. I don’t know if I’ll end up in a little writing group such as this one, but if any you, my dear reading audience, are looking for writers to contribute to one of these things, send me a message about it. I’d love to brainstorm with some other people on writing. Who knows, I may even make a blog of my own devoted to this.

If you’re interested or have any ideas, please comment.

If you want to criticize my Latin grammar, please don’t comment.

-Macarthyr

In case you’ve been stuck in a cave or a coma, let me fill you in:

Yesterday Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States.

Since his election back in November, I have received several invitations to groups and blogs like “Impeach Barack Obama” and “I Hate Barack Obama.” People are obviously confused about my implementation of political opinions.

For one, I don’t hate President Obama. Yes, I do fundamentally disagree with the man on almost everything. I respect him in the sense he’s an authority figure (pretty much the authority figure). I don’t respect him in the sense that I believe he lied and deceived to gain his position. But do I hate him?

No. For one, God commands us not to. I also have no motivation for personal hatred against the man; I just don’t.

But, unfortunately, there are many conservatives who hate this man with a passion and a fury. It is so frustrating to have to turn back from the offensive against the left-wing school of thought and rebuke your own side for their inappropriate behavior. How can we fight against the hateful accusations of the left if we hurl the same kinds of things back at them?

We simply can’t.

Not trying to insult anyone here, but if these people would stop targeting the speaking style and clothing choices of Obama, they could begin a movement against the foundational values of the Left, the things he plans to implement.

It may sound as if I am taking a weak position against President Obama. Not so. I am just as peeved with conservatives who bend over backwards to be nice and inoffensive (*ahem*McCain*ahem*) to liberals. Strong stances must be taken. But I’m for attacking core issues, not speculating about personal character.

Which leads into part two of my little tirade: impeachment.

Impeachment is a process of government used to oust presidents who have acted dishonorably, endangered the U.S., gone against the Constitution or any other gross act of malevolence. Such was done to President Clinton, and rightly so. But this process of impeachment should not be administered unless the President has actually done something worthy of the action.

We don’t punish criminals in advance, do we? Something about innocent until proven guilty, a core concept of America, it seemed…

Think twice before attacking Barack Obama. Question your means and motivation. Season your words with salt.

And that’s me on my soapbox for the day.

Sunday, the eighteenth. Just another red-letter day.

I’ve always wanted to say that. I suppose “red-letter” has something to do with the significance of the day, meaning that it’s uncommon for some reason. It stands out.

But if it’s another red-letter day, then it is part of a larger progression of red-letter days, rendering the uncommon common.

Hmm.

Wait—Oh, ok.

My dad has informed me that a red-letter day is a time of great happiness. Well then, today wasn’t exactly the acme of giddiness. Today was more like what I originally thought “red-letter day” meant: significantly out of the ordinary.

Today is Sunday, pretty much the busiest day of my week. I normally begin Sunday like I do any other day: fantasizing the violent death of my alarm clock. But as much as I hate my alarm clock, I now know just how much it is useful. It failed to wake me this morning, probably as a result of my unwise decision to stay up late the night before. I arose, bleary-eyed, to the melodic sound of spoons clanking against the sides of cereal bowls. It took me a few moments to realize I had fallen woefully behind Sunday morning schedule.

Those who have larger families will understand my predicament. An empty bathroom on a Sunday morning is a rare thing, especially if you have siblings of the female gender.

Fortunately, I was able to secure a short window of time in the shower. But the close call was not to be the last of my troubles.

After preparing for the day, I took leave of my house and boarded the church bus. We went along the usual route, picked up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed youngsters, picked up not-so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed youngsters, and took them all to Sunday school.

It was at the church that things started to slide downhill.

My work at the church involves some teaching, “crowd control” for the bus kids, odd jobs and the like. My main responsibility is the P.A. system. In the last couple weeks, I’ve had to carefully rewire several devices due to a major screwing up of everything by a well-meaning but inexperienced substitute P.A. man a month ago. It was frustrating, but I conquered and moved on with the sound system. However, today’s trouble wasn’t with the P.A. system itself, but with its location.

The church is built in a slightly older style, which means the P.A. control boards aren’t in the actual auditorium itself, but in a small room overlooking the auditorium. The path to the booth is a long climb on a steep stairwell, lit by one solitary light bulb. That one solitary light bulb almost killed me this morning.

Rushing to turn on the microphones before the service started, I opened the door to the stairway and flicked the light switch. The light bulb flared, made a pop, and then went dark. Ever adapting to the situation, I made no complaint but hurried up the stairs to fulfill my duty.

Wham! A low ceiling halted my charge.

Head aching, I continued, a little more slowly, until I was able to feel my way into the booth. I did what I came to do and then turned to the next challenge: the light bulb.

You see, church decoration is handled by a few older ladies in the church. Their task includes retrieving items from the upstairs storage rooms. So while I, with my über-adaptive nature and all, would have adjusted to the dark stairway, I knew that fixing the problem was the chivalrous thing to do, since those poor old ladies would probably kill themselves on the steep stairway.

That, and I didn’t feel like banging my head against the ceiling again.

I headed down the stairs, warily feeling the ceiling as I went. Light bulbs were kept in a closet on the lower floor, if my memory served correctly. I made it down, retrieved the light bulbs, cracked the door open to let in a little light, and started back up the stairs.

Wham! Yep, ceiling was still there, no doubt about that.

In my moment of excruciating trauma to the forehead, I let the good light blub slip through my fingers to the floor. Miraculously, it didn’t break, but rolled away, into the darkness.

A new task presented itself. (Cue Hoobastank’s Crawling in the Dark (“…looking for the light bulb!”) )

Feeling the ground, I finally located the bulb and stuck it in my pocket. That being done, I now faced the real challenge: mounting the light bulb.

The stairway is, as I said, rather steep. The light bulb was located over the stairs, just beyond normal reach. Adaptive nature kicking in once more, I hooked my right hand around the corner of the wall and leaned forward from the top step. Still too far.

Squinting my eyes to see in the dim light, I went on tippy-toes, stretching out my fingers, and barely reached the bulb before I started to fall. Adrenaline surged. I kicked out with my left foot and made contact with the wall, steadying myself.

I now stretched across the top of the stairs in an awkward, distorted position, leaning back and forth precariously. I kept my cool and painstakingly used my fingertips to twist the light bulb out. My right arm and left leg both went to sleep at this point.

Suddenly, the door at the bottom of the stairs flew open.

Startled, I knocked the loose bulb out of the socket. Lunging my arm forward, I caught it, but nearly fell.

“Heavens to Betsy!” the elderly lady gasped, seeing the contorted figure at the top of the stairs. I saw her knit her brow as she quickly assessed the situation. She snapped her fingers. “I’ll get a step ladder!”

Before I could say a word, that sweet little old lady stepped out and shut the door completely, leaving me in utter darkness.

My left arm went to sleep.

It was a full five minutes before the door opened again. The old lady lugged a tiny step-ladder behind her. “Here, use this,” she leaned it against the bottom stair, “and don’t hurt yourself.” She hobbled away, forgetting to close the door. Thank heavens, she forgot to close the door.

Using the wonderful light streaming through the doorway, I pocketed the bad bulb and screwed the new one in. Light flooded the stairway. Feeling rather proud of myself, I dropped to the top step and promptly lost all use of my legs, long ago numb. After a good deal of bone-jarring and bumping, I made it to the bottom. A quick rest remedied my embarrassing malady, and I was able to throw away the old bulb and grab my Bible. A quick look through the glass auditorium doors told me that church had already started. Eager to get started and happy to be rid of my troubles, I sprinted through the door and onto the first step.

Wham!

But, this was not to be the end of my eventful day.

After the service (a very good service, I might add) I rounded up my portion of the bus kids and loaded them onto the bus. We returned the kids to their respective homes and came back. When we neared the church, the driver, knowing that I don’t have my own car yet, asked me if my parents where going to pick me up at the church.

“Of course! Heh, they wouldn’t leave me,” I scoffed.

A minute later I stood, very cold and very alone, in an empty parking lot. It seems my parents are not as good at remembering things as I thought, including their now destitute son. Happily, I was able to get a ride with a friend. When they got to the house, my parents professed the deepest guilt for the mistake, but I have my reasons to doubt…

So yes, that was my Sunday. And it would have been a red-letter day, too, if that was what the phrase meant.

Of course, it isn’t, and I end up with a blog post with a misnomer as my main theme.

Anyway, hope y’all had a great Sunday, and may all your future days be red-letter ones:

Just not in my way.

-Macarthyr

Ah, to describe myself.  Forgive me if this seems like a prideful discourse on my qualities, but a blog requires it. So here it is.

I’m sixteen, am homeschooled, and live in Tennessee. I’ve been a Christian for about four years now, and my destiny is dedicated to (belongs to, for that matter) my Savior, Jesus Christ.

Personality: I really don’t know how to define this…I’m the type of person that loves battle scenes in movies and hates spineless behavior in people. A visionary in (almost) every sense, I am moved by inspiration and horrorstruck by monotony.

As far as activities go, I do a lot of work in my church, helping with bus routes and running the P.A. system. I debate and do public speaking with Guardian Club, part of Christian Communicators of Tennessee. In the great outdoors, so to speak, I enjoy hiking, camping, fishing, the whole lot of it. Airsoft and paintball: both great. I love music; I play the guitar, piano, a little banjo, a little bass guitar. Composing music is one of my favorite pastimes. I’ve come close to living and breathing politics, and debate in that arena is so enjoyable. I also write; I write a lot, probably too much.

Finally, hanging out with friends, for which I have had so little time lately, is right at the top of the list.

So that is me, or as much of me as I could fit within 300 words.