July 2014 Newsletter

Dear friends,

The good work continues…

• Below you’ll find the brief Foreword I wrote for the book Building a Better Man, coming out soon.
• Here is the interview I recently gave Jed Diamond, author of The Future of Men’s Health.
• Remembrances about my personal and my family’s relationship with Roger Ebert you can read here.

We started filming a couple “year in the life of a teen” stories.  We captured two very different 18 year olds experiencing Melissa Michael’s wonderful “Surfing the Creative” rite of passage.  Over the coming months we’ll see how they integrate the lessons they learned into their everyday lives.

Please join us for an upcoming talk or fundraiser:

• Oakland Rotary Club, Aug. 28
• Chicago, Sept. 18
• Silicon Valley, Los Altos, Sept. 28
• Big Island, Hawaii, October
• North & South Carolina, November

You can choose Warrior Films as a donor to receive 0.5% of your purchases from Amazon.com when you start here: http://smile.amazon.com.  Speaking of Amazon, if you’re a fan of Journey from Zanskar you might want to take a moment to share your feelings about the film with their customers.  A couple pretty cynical people wrote some very negative things about it.

in gratitude for who you are,

p.s. Do not reply to this email, as it’s an unmonitored email address. To reach out to us, please use this warriors forum address: [email protected].

Foreword

Men are made, not born.  We tend to think in this society when a male reaches 18 or 21, graduates high school or college, has that first drink or sexual experience, drives a car or joins the army, or worse, robs or steals, rapes a woman or takes a daredevil risk, beats up a “sissy” or shoots someone, that he is now miraculously a man.  These and related notions are some of the most pernicious yet commonplace in our society today.  The repercussions of this ignorance could not be more far reaching.  They are everywhere to behold.  We live in an age where suspended adolescence seems to be the norm for all too many men, most notably among men in positions of power.

Indigenous cultures knew better.  For Indigenous Peoples there was no such thing as adolescence.  You were either a child or an adult.  To mark that threshold, to perform and accomplish that transformation, was a function of the village itself.  It was a cultural obligation. Biology alone would not do it.  Village elders, both men and women, accepted the responsibility their ancestors entrusted them with.  The African proverb summarizes this neatly: “If we do not initiate the young they will burn down the village to feel the heat.”

But how can we even aspire to universal values of mature masculinity when we inhabit a world so varied by culture, race, class, religion, nationality, sexual preference, age, and more?  I believe we can, as do Doctors Seymour, Smith, and Torres.  The key of course is not to ignore difference or go around it, but to go through difference.  Once we acknowledge and name our deep and significant differences we can begin to open our hearts to what unites us as men, not in spite of but because of those differences, what makes it possible to proudly and without exaggeration recognize ourselves as brothers.  “Brothers from another mother,” as some put it.  Or, as Asa Baber wrote:

Each man is my Father
Each man is my Brother
Each man is my Son

Each man is my Leader
Each man is my Teacher
Each man is my Mirror

I will always remember it
I will always honor it
I will always accept it

My pledge is to men
To their safety and growth

My work is for men
And life is my goal

This is the invitation to the warrior in you and promise that these three men hold open to us.  The rawness and pain reflected in their own shared stories is the portal.  They model for us the road men must walk.  Into the grief, into the shadows, into the truth and acceptance.  But the promise of living life happier, more fulfilled, more connected and at peace is what lies in wait if only men have the courage to accept.

It is one of the most significant invitations of our time.  If you’re a man reading these words I trust you have already said yes.  If you’re a woman reading these words I trust you’ll take them to heart for the men in your life.  Welcome.

Frederick Marx

RitesofPassageMovie.com

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