LEADER SHIP
On becoming the men we have been waiting for Mac Macartney Founder, Embercombe
Power and domination are not masculine values. Nor are love and co-operation feminine ones. Both maleness and femaleness are fully engaged in all of these, yet men and women tend to express them differently. Men, that is real men, know how to love, and they deeply understand the necessity and virtue of co-operation. How can men step into gendered maturity in a balanced way and why it is important to do so for the sake of the world and one’s own mental health?
© Journal of holistic healthcare
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Over a period of 20 years I was mentored by a group of indigenous Native American elders. During this training and ever since, I have attempted to bring two worlds together – an ancient world-view that emphasises relationship, interdependence, and reverence for life with the significant challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.
‘The world is changing’, said my mother, ‘and a good thing too’, she added with some feeling. She had been regaling me with a conversation that she had experienced with a group of her elderly friends. It had left her frustrated and irritated. It seems they had been treading familiar ground on the theme of ‘things were different (better) in our day’ and my mother’s efforts to derail the predictable drift of their tense and fearful conversation had failed. It is indeed changing, and whether for better or worse it will continue to change, probably accelerating as it does so. At Embercombe, our centre in Devon, we are witness to the impact of these changes as people from all sectors of society and of all ages share the kaleidoscope of stories that have brought them through our gates. People come for many reasons. Some arrive on the back of a crisis, some are bored, some look for meaning and purpose, some seek distraction, and some are following a trail and we are the next staging post. All carry questions, hurts, triumphs, joys, sadness, fears, and hopes. Many of our visitors bring questions around identity, belonging, authenticity, and what it means to be a human being. Some, of course, are men and some remind me of the young man I was, floundering to find my way in a society that made no sense to me. I got into
Volume 14 Issue 3 Autumn 2017
all kinds of difficulty and came close to what my mother’s friends might have called ‘a sticky end’. I was a young man blessed and challenged with many of the fixations, desires, naivety and fantasies commonly associated with my age and gender. I was physically powerful, possessed boundless energy, a fertile imagination, carefully disguised low self-esteem and a secret longing to make my mark on the world. Nothing that I could see around me was likely to yield the adventures I longed for and with the exception of a schoolteacher who was rumoured to have once worked as a lumberjack in the far north of Canada, there was not a single man I knew whose life looked better than servitude to repetition, sameness and predictability. My own father died when I was in my very early 20s. I admired and respected him but as the only son of three who had failed to achieve academically, I believed myself stupid and incapable of walking in his steps. We all have different stories and we all have different challenges even if they are often versions of the same thing. I now view my early failures as blessings that encouraged me to walk a path less travelled. The boy-child that I was yearned to see honour and nobility in his life. I now understand that like the fox cub or the young of most animal species I was exploring
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