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Continuing my reflections on Steve Biddulph’s book Manhood. Because of its length, and the weighty issues involved, I’ll split this chapter up into parts.

Biddulph’s final chapter looks at three things that affect us at our deepest being. He calls them initiation, the wild man and the time of the ashes. All three things are examined in more detail later on, but as a starting point, Biddulph says that each was once part of the spitiuality of a man’s tribe. His transition from boyhood to manhood was a rite of passage that was built into the culture of the community and could not be avoided. Become a man was a spiritual process because men (and women) are spiritual beings.

“Spirituality” simply means the direct experience of something special in life and living. Religion, by which we mean organised group activity and ritual, is an attempt to hold onto that feeling and make it last. (page 170)

Biddulph’s definition of spirituality above is quite simple and covers all faiths. He also says, however, that the old religions have lost their power by remaining fixed at a point in history instead of adapting with the surrounding culture. Instead of looking for news ways to answer the deep questions of life though, men have simply given up and now believe nothing. Biddulph’s hope is that the men’s movement will transform the old religions and see them become life giving once more.

(Side note: Is it just me or could Biddulph be an unsuspecting supporter of the emerging church?)

The initiation journey is thus a transition into manhood for the whole being - emotional, physical and spiritual. Quoting Joseph Campblell, Biddulph states that initiation involves three steps:

1. A separation from home, family and all that is familiar.

2. A frightening and difficult journey, helped along by unexpected hospitality from strangers and mystical allies, helping to break out from youthful fears.

3. A return home, changed forever.

There are many stories of tribal initiations where boys are taken of to a secluded place in the jungle, given tasks that are hard and involve symbolic wounding (ie blood rites) and a celebration as they return to the tribe as men. This is largely missing from our western culture nd Biddulph suggests that many men are weak, and remain boys on the inside because of it. He suggests that we should put some effort into making the rites of passage we do have more meaningful - for instance, celebrating the drivers licence, the first job, the first date, moving out of home etc. The symbollic wound could be a tough adventure, hike, camping trip or something similar, that takes all of a boy’s energy to achieve.

Sometimes the wounds take the form of a collection of things that have happened in the boy’s upbringing. Whatever the case, the initiation is the time to see the wounds turn to gold, strengthening the boy into a man who, while acknowledging his past, can leave it there and move on.

Interestingly, Biddulph touches on the Australian experience of initiation by alluding to the power of the land to shape people in much the same way as the cartoonist Michael Leunig (see this article). Biddulph says, Australia gradually changes all the races who come here. The land changes people to suit it. It has had 50 000 years to shape the Aboriginal people who wandered across the land bridge from Asia…the same process continues with us, the newcomers…all of us are gradually becoming aborginal.”

If this is true, then we need to learn from the aboringal initiation ceremonies. Biddulph uses Charles Perkins as a case study of how an aboriginal boy must learn where he has come from and where he is before he can become a man and look to where he is going.

I read this part of chapter ten with interest on two levels. From a youth ministry point of view, the need for some sort of recognition or rite of passage for all young people, but especially boys, has been an issue my denomination has been wrestling with for a few years now. Watching teenage boys struggle with adult responsibility while still a boy on the inside is painful to watch, but there has been little progress in showing parents the need for a rite of passage.

But on a much deeper level, I wonder about the process for me. What was my initiation like?

Growing up in the western suburbs of Melbourne meant rubbing shoulders with the poorer classes of the city. The East was where the rich people lived and there was little point in ever going there. My family had little education and so I was the first to finish secondary school and make it to university. My time at Melbourne Uni, rubbing shoulders with others from all over the city, meant a symbollic leaving of home (I still slept there, but not much else) and a journey to the unknown eastern part of Melbourne.

Uni was a difficult time - painful in many ways - as it was a journey I made on my own. Bad relationship break ups, bad relationships with my parents, bad relationships with my church community and a constant struggle to try and keep up with tertiary education made for a lonely few years. But it was here that I met Katrina, and I finished this part of my initiation with the woman who would be my wife.

But there was no return home yet. I worked in research, then left and entered ministry. All difficult times in their own ways, but profound in their shaping of me. It was when the children came along that the return home happened.

The relationship with my parents, while quite good since the uni days, now entered a new level. I was no longer their son, but the father of their grandchildren. There seemed to be a new found respect for each other as I suddenly appreciated what they went through for me and they recognised what their son had become. The cycle was now complete.

Of course, there where many smaller initiations along the way, and no doubt many more to come, but looking back , that seems to be how it has happened for me. It’s embarrassing that it has taken so long, and a bit sad that it was left to circumstance rather than a deliberate rite of passage, but that’s the way it has been. At the very least, I am grateful that it has happened at all.

For my boys, we will have an initiation. I’m not sure what that will be yet or when it will happen. But I want them to become men with a celebration they can remember for the rest of their lives.