Christian Living
Stephen Gant, a teenager, and not just any teenager, as reported by the baseball world, was headed for Vanderbilt University coming from Riverside High in Tennessee, he was noted to be a Prep baseball superstar, first round MLB and yet with all of that hope and promise he is reported to be dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Whether or not we want to accept it, one of the looming and most tragic issues within our society, is how our males live and die daily and it does not appear to alarm anyone much, at least not for very long! The men in our society are suffering from untold mental and emotional issues and these issues are often swept under the rug largely by men themselves because of a pride factor that is totally irrational and I daresay asinine!
Stephen Gant, why would a young man with a seemingly stupendous future in baseball with the potential to not only garner great fame, but also to gain awesome financial riches, reported to be a handsome young man with many friends; why would he even think of taking his own life; why, what could have caused him to do such a thing as it appears he did? Was it a chemical imbalance, was it that he had mental health issues that no one noticed or wanted to notice? What could it have been? I have no idea, but this much I do know from working with men for many years as a mental health therapist, men hurt at a far deeper level than they themselves might even be aware of! Men, young men, teens, boys, hurt and they often feel they have no where to go, no one to understand what hurts deep inside; and they hurt more and more as they face greater and more immense hurdles that they have to overcome and along with the increase in their hurt is the realization that this society does not want to hear about it if they can possibly avoid it! Men 'learn' early on that they are not 'emotional beings;' that they are not to cry and they are not to feel, they are to do, they are to perform and yet when they show very little emotion and when they don't cry, a woman, any woman from anywhere, steps forward and says 'you are cold, you are just a cold man!' And so he is confused, women are allowed to cry, women have a preponderance of support groups and it is expected that they can feel things and they can cry and they are not less of a woman for doing so! But what does a male teen do with that, what does a man in his 20's do with that, what does the man who is the CEO do with that? They learn to do this and do that and they learn to be angry; now that's one emotion a man is allowed to have and to express until he expresses it inappropriately; until he starts indulging in watching pornography, until he starts visiting prostitutes, until he starts buying bigger and bigger 'toys,' until he starts using illegal drugs while trying to maintain his job and family life; until he kills himself and or someone else!!
Men in the pulpits of our churches, men who are doctors, surgeons even who become alcoholics and think they can find no one to speak to about the unspeakable darkness that they negotiate and call life each day, men who are lawyers, accountants, ball players, jocks, men who look in the mirror each day and are not quite sure who they are and what they should be doing! Men who are unsure if they are even loved by a family that sees him simply as the breadwinner! Men who are not sure they should be seeking love! Men who lose their jobs and feel that their value is shot, what they were created for is now gone and the inevitable has happened, everyone now knows they are "a fraud!!" Men who marry women that they feel they should have married because she fit the bill for the profession he chose, men feeling unloved in marriage and accepting it simply because men do not complain, no they just simply learn to say 'yes dear' until one day his mind snaps and he says enough and he does something foolish and irrational because he simply cannot hide in the dark from himself anymore! Is it any wonder that women outlive men to such a large degree? Whether you are a man or a woman, understand this, pain is pain, hurt is hurt and if you bottle it, when it does come forward, it will come at its own speed, its own force and its own rage and often it is too late then to put the cap back on the bottle!
Wild as it may sound, I believe there are men who sometimes welcome a terminal disease so they might finally get a chance to make a Bucket List for the rest of their lives! So often, men in their misplaced sense of what they are to do and what they are to feel, postponse plans and desires that are more than appropriate and when they discover they have a terminal disease, that is when and only when they feel justified to live their lives more joyfully and at peace! Is the foregoing a picture of all men? Surely not, but sadly it is the picture of many more men than they or most of society want to admit exists! I counseled (in the prison sytem) black men, white men, Indians, gay men, bisexual men, male transvestites and I even counseled a 14 year old black male who accidentally killed a female playmate of his (he was a very overweight child and apparently he fell on his much smaller female friend and she was crushed to death); and a 16 year old black male who reportedly shot his white male school teacher; the one single thread that was consistant within the fabric of all these individuals, all these males, was anger!! The anger was apparently the only emotion they each felt was acceptable and when they felt it was not acceptable, they simply learned how to feign their true feelings until one day or night, they simply snapped, hurting themselves or anyone else that was close by! Here's a sidebar that not many men want to admit to and I see often and actually understand why it exists; a man's anger at women! As a woman that actually love men and not just see them as a necessary evil, I love men because I know and accept God's Order of Creation and perhaps I love men so dearly and understand them even more than they wish I did, because I love being a woman! Men are taught from little boys to objectify women and when they begin doing just what they were taught, everyone gets their underwear in a knot! It is very hard for a man to stay angry at me for long simply because I know he has a right to his feelings and I am not going to try to jolly him out of his anger, but I WILL love him through it!! There are women in this world who truly do like men and if one day you want to cry, call and don't forget God is available, but in the natural, there are women who truly love you!!!
Do not be fooled and think that men whom are in prison were not once, males with great promise, males who thought they they might be smart enough to be a lawyer, a doctor, maybe a CEO, a baseball player who was easily destined to be a superstar! Remember that superstars are called that by fans, but often, so sadly, often, males do not feel like superstars inside! It would behoove us all in our homes, in our schools, in our churches, in our place of business, on our basketball and baseball teams, make room for males who are hurting; for because they have been told not to feel, doesn't mean that they dont!!!!!! Do not brush off their behaviors as 'boys will be boys;' boys become men and men whose emotional reactions are denied or ignored, can easily become men who hurt themselves and or others; do not perpetuate the myth that men don't feel, do not encourage it in your sons, deal with it now for tomorrow even with a wondrous future lying ahead of him, a son or a husband or an uncle, a male friend could show that he does have feelings, but he might not show it in the way that is very pleasing!
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