WHAT THEN WILL YOU DO?
HOW WILL YOU SHOW YOURSELF A MAN?

1. Discuss Theodore Roosevelt’s story with friends. What portions seem similar to experiences you’ve had? How did the “strenuous life” answer Roosevelt’s inner needs in the areas you identify with?

2. Evaluate your current physical life. Do you have arenas of controlled combat? Do you have “combat” and “struggle” in your life, even if it is twice a week at the gym? Do you have space, territory, wilds that you enter at least occasionally?

3. John Eldredge has said in his masterful Wild at Heart that Adam was made in the wilderness, and Eve was made in a garden. This, he suggests, contributes to some of the differences between men and women and also some of their different needs. Look up the stories of Adam and Eve. Do you think Eldredge is right? If so, what does it mean for you?

4. How are the young men in your life exhibiting their need for wildness, for frontier or adventure? Let me ask this question through a brief story. When my son was about ten years old, he got caught lying in the middle of a street late one night. He later explained that he was trying to see how close he would let the cars get to him before jumping up and running to the curb. Fortunately, the policeman who “arrested” Jonathan was a friend of mine and brought him to me to inform me that Jonathan was going to prison. Of course, my muscular SWAT commander friend was winking behind Jonathan’s back. Jonathan was terrified. My fierce-looking buddy was tossing hand cuffs in the air with one hand while fingering his holstered gun with his other hand. I took my son into “custody,” assuring Officer Apollo Creed that I would deal with the boy. I have to say, though, that I knew what my son was doing. He was testing himself. He wanted to know if he was any kind of man. I had to laugh, but only after I descended on him like the wrath of God.

Is anything of this kind happening in your home? Is some controlled wildness called for?

5. Finally, Eleanor Roosevelt advised us to “Do something everyday that scares you.” Don’t just respond to this chapter by getting a membership to the gym or buying a big, ugly piece of home exercise equipment. And do not think you are a wild man because you have a hunting lease that lets you sit in an air-conditioned blind fitted out with recliner, fridge, and satellite TV. No! Do a tandem jump out of an airplane. Hang glide. Train to hike to the summit of a mountain. Scuba dive. Go work a friend’s ranch. Don’t be stupid, but do press the boundaries. And get your buddies to hold you accountable so you don’t wimp out. We all have that potential.

“HE WAS MASTERED BY THE SHEER SURGING OF LIFE, THE TIDAL WAVE OF BEING, THE PERFECT JOY OF EACH SEPARATE MUSCLE, JOINT, AND SINEW IN THAT IT WAS EVERYTHING THAT WAS NOT DEATH, THAT IT WAS AGLOW AND RAMPANT, EXPRESSING ITSELF IN MOVEMENT, FLYING EXULTANTLY UNDER THE STARS.”

—Jack London, from The Call of the Wild (1903)