The Eight Masks of Men

A Practical Guide in Spiritual Growth for Men of the Christian Faith

Frederick Grosse, Richard L Dayringer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781317957683
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In today's rapidly changing society, the rules you learned as a child may no longer apply, causing you to experience restlessness and confusion. The Eight Masks of Men: A Practical Guide in Spiritual Growth for Men of the Christian Faith will encourage you to come out from behind your mask of solitude and loneliness--one of man's most obtrusive masks--and reach out for help and community. By answering questions commonly asked by men of various religious and personal backgrounds, this book will help you tune into your feelings, innermost thoughts, and that void you feel inside. As you become consciously aware of how the eight masks are a part of your being, you will recognize the true gift beneath each one.The Eight Masks of Men is the first book to combine historical, theological, and sociological perspectives with a practical approach for personal growth. To help you divest yourself of your inhibitions and experience inner harmony, it blends personal stories, humorous anecdotes, biblical research, and clinical information. The eight masks that men wear and what they hide that author Rev. Dr. Frederick G. Grosse explores include:

• mask: loneliness; hides: desire for community
  
• mask: rage and anger; hide: pain and hurt
  
• mask: compulsion; hides: desire for love
  
• mask: performance; hides: desire for acceptance
  
• mask: control; hides: desire for friendship
  
• mask: producing; hides: desire to just "be"
  
• mask: competition; hides: desire for humility
  
• mask: institutional religion; hides: desire for spiritual growth

Don't let tragedy or desperation strike before you commit to building a healthier relationship with yourself, the people important to you, and God. Men who feel out of touch with their spiritual sides, retreat and spiritual direction leaders, pastoral counselors, chaplains, marriage and family counselors, and members of the clergy will find in The Eight Masks of Men the inspiration and insight they need to guide themselves and one another to a season of union with God.

Chapter 1

Introduction:
Why You Need This Book

This issues discussed in this book can affect your life and your relationships in a very positive way. I know this to be true because of a very powerful event in my own life.

On May 12, 1991, I was diagnosed by our family physician with “econococcal cystic disease of the liver.” This is a very rare disease, and most frequently fatal. Through ultrasound and computerized tomography (CT scan) testing, physicians found three large septated cystic masses located within my liver. Each cyst was large and contained parasites. I showed no sign of such a serious illness except general flulike symptoms that had begun two days earlier. Because the disease was life threatening, I had to have surgery to remove the parasites and cysts. Prior to surgery, my wife and I were not given any sort of promise about the outcome due to the nature of the rare disease and the uncertainty of such extensive surgery involving the liver. The chances of my survival from the surgery and recovery period were quite unknown. During the eight-hour surgical procedure, the surgeons asperated the parasites and fluids out of each mass, sterilized the walls, and subsequently removed the cyst with a normal rim of liver tissue. A complete pericystectomy was subsequently performed shelling the pericyst membrane out from the liver bed. A postsurgical defect in the right lobe of my liver was then filled with omentum. My gallbladder was removed due to damage from the cystic growth. The three cystic masses, one each on the left and right lobe of my liver and one in the center below my sternum, also had to be surgically separated from my stomach, left diaphragm, spleen, pancreas, and right diaphragm. Following the surgery and seven-day hospitalization I was sent home for a seven-week period of recovery. While at home, I was given the drug Praziquantel for seven days as adjunctive medical therapy in case parasitic presence had spilled out of any cystic mass during surgery. Now, some four years later, I have the physical reminder of this life-and-death experience from a very obvious thirty-six-centimeter scar across my abdomen from the upper abdominal chevron incision. I have occasional stiffness and pain from the wound recovery area. I have no feeling on the surface of my skin throughout my abdominal area.

In his book Body Theology, James Nelson writes, “... body theology starts with the fleshy experience of life—with our hungers and our passions, our bodily aliveness and deadness ... the task of body theology is critical reflection on our bodily experience as a fundamental realm of the experience of God.”¹ My own personal experience is that Nelson is quite right. We experience God first and foremost through our bodies, for our body is truly who we are. As a result of this horrifying surgical event and near-death trauma, I have been directed by God to an awareness of my own spiritual hungers and needs. My body taught me how out of touch with it I was. My soul taught me how little I sought direction from God. My mind told me it is high time to put down my masks and seek the abundant life. This humbling event was a chilling awakening for me, an opportunity to look at the covenants I had made and to become aware of who I was listening to. I tell you this brief account so you can gather some appreciation for who is writing this book. I, too, am in the process of learning how to remove masks and seek direction from God. I have been humbled, converted, and transformed by surgery and will never go back to my prior way of living. To change one’s lifestyle and spiritual endeavors does not come easily or overnight. It is a long, complex process which never ends. It is done with the help of God, and within the context of a supportive community. This is, indeed, the good news.

In the Bible we read, “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous: our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple: when I was low, God saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.”² At a very intimate level, I experience these words. This entire chapter in the Psalms is a beautiful collection of verses that speak volumes to anyone who is ill or in need of God’s healing. Since God has allowed me to live, I have pondered my own spiritual activities and my life as a Christian man. This book is a response to what I have been learning. The past four years have been an exhilarating time for me to “move into” my body and explore the beauty God has created. It has been a time of seeking direction from God. It has been a time of building trusting and intimate relationships with other Christian men. It has been a time of meeting my family and friends anew, and developing more rich and life-sustaining relationships. It has become a season for me to practice the thirteen Christian spiritual disciplines and begin taking off my masks. Above all else, I have been given a time to savor my humility and to turn ashes of mourning into garlands of joy. I have experienced what it truly means to surrender to God, body, mind and spirit, and be saved. Like each of you, my faith is wholly impacted by my life’s experiences. When St. John of the Cross wrote about the “dark night of the soul” (more about this in Chapter 3), he illumined for many of us a way through profound suffering to a place where we hear God calling our names. We who live so much by what we produce and how we look, who are too busy to meditate upon God’s work, who use alcohol, sex, drugs, work, religion, hobbies, gossip, to deaden our anxieties and our pain, we who continually slave for that “something” that will make us feel complete, can truly give thanks when God takes everything away from us. For only then, when it is God and us, together, can we better prioritize and discipline our lives.

When we seek to remove our masks and receive spiritual growth, we are seeking change. We are seeking, or being sought after, for significant change in our lives. One night while I lay in the Virginia Beach General Hospital, there was a fairly severe thunderstorm coming across the Chesapeake Bay. I was laying in the bed directly next to the window. From there I could turn my head and see the thunderclouds moving toward land. I had a Foley catheter in my penis, a nasogastric tube in my nose and throat, and a needle in my back for pain medication. Because of the pain from surgery and my state of confusion and exhaustion, I could not move myself. Whenever I needed to be turned over or moved, several nurses had to do it.

The storm outside overshadowed the hospital. The lightning flashed everywhere, the rain pelted the windows, and the thunder shook the building. I was sure I was going to die. The electricity went out and emergency generators went on. Totally powerless to move or in any way help myself, I remember praying as strongly as I could for God to save me. Begging, really, for God to unite with me as one. I had recognized my own need to surrender to God for life. It was then, and is now, a time of spiritual transformation for me. There is no rational explanation for this, because I would not have been killed by the storm. But my belief was that I needed to be in union with God at that moment, and forever, to survive. All my masks came off in a hurry. Suddenly, and now over the years, the God-given desires beneath the masks I wore were exposed to the light of Christ. This was a spiritual moment I wish upon everyone, for it is miraculous. I do not wish you parasites or a thunderstorm, but a season of humility and surrender. A time to answer the voice that is calling your name. A season of union with God.

This release of control is very much the opposite of how most Christian men are raised and trained in our culture. Yet, to surrender the masks that separate us from God and humankind is the exact way to celebrate life in the faith. When we release our masks we are not vulnerable. We are standing, well protected, upon the rock of our salvation. There, the work of God will ring familiar in our souls. Whether we hear on the fourth or four-hundredth time, the Lord continues to call our names. When we listen, we release ourselves from our covenants of deception and we renew our true vow with our Creator. We no longer make covenants under clever ruse. We let go of the commandments of patriarchy and we put fresh light on the secrets we carry. This will lead us from loneliness and from fear to faith. Slowly or quickly, with illness or stillness, God does speak to us. God will leave us marked as Christ’s own forever, a mark as sacred and as holy as our baptismal water and oil. The true task of spiritual growth is to remove our masks and seek union with the Lord—with God’s help.

Many American men are trained from birth to be individualists and self-contained units of control. Nothing could be more detrimental to a union with God and the opposite of spiritual growth than this mind-set. So, our work is before us. This is no small task. In fact, to have spiritual needs and desires has been, until recently, just not “manly” in our country. The resulting premature death, ulcers, compulsions, addictions, unresolved anger and rage, fierce and reckless violence, child abandonment, and physical, verbal, and sexual abuses by males, are evidence enough that we need to redefine “manly.” We need to help each other take off old patriarchal masks that are suffocating the Spirit within us. American men are in desperate need of ministry from the church. The myth of the lone male hero is just that, a myth. Men need community. Men need salvation from God, alone, and with other men who will love, support, challenge, encourage, and forgive them in noncompetitive, nonsexual ways. When Moses was in need, God gave him his brother, Aaron, to help. When David was fearful and fleeing Saul, Jonathan befriended him and their souls were “knitted together as one.” When there was no room to get him through the doorway, the friends of the paralytic together lifted him to the rooftop. The Bible is instructive: men are in need, men are in want of healing, and men can help one another, with the love of God.

Much of the material in this book will ring a bell with the reader. This material will be familiar to you, whether you are new to men’s spirituality work or a veteran at the effort. The purpose of this book is to help you clarify issues, organize your spiritual direction, become familiar again with the spiritual content of your own life story, and to appreciate the journey of other men. Far too often in our society men have become workhorses or intellectual beings or physical beings without regard for our emotional and spiritual well-being. What we shall endeavor to do with this book is to ring the bell buried in our souls. We want to move beneath jobs, power, status, tenure, titles, jealousy, envy, and strife to the core sense of our being, our souls. When we shed the masks we have been given or have put on ourselves and we make room for Christ in our souls, we will awaken with ringing clarity what is most familiar to us. An introspective life values ambiguity, contradictions, patience, and quiet. Men of the Judeo-Christian faith must embrace these values as well. This is mask-free living in the name of Jesus Christ. The true task of every Christian man is to reclaim the power and mystery of his baptismal covenant and to live every day with this covenant familiar to his soul. Then in our daily living, actions, beliefs, and relationships, our faith and trust in Jesus Christ will be shown.

We are not alone in our work of surrendering our masks. We get direction from God. Recall the story of the Israelite people and the battles at Jericho and Ai. Moses was not to make his way into the Promised Land with the people Israel. Joshua, son of Nun, would be their leader. So it came to pass and the land God had promised³ was to be possessed by Israel. Having seen their affliction, God was going to deliver Israel to a very special place, a promised place of safety and comfort. The Book of Joshua records the details of how the Israelites must not just move into the region, but must also do battle with the current inhabitants. Trusting that the Lord was with them, Israelities moved into “their” land, after fighting for ownership. The people went as one, pledging their support and loyalty to Joshua. Spies were sent to Jericho to take stock of the enemy camp. The Jordan River was held back by miracle so the people could pass through. The Israelites followed Joshua and encountered the city of Jericho. Following the prescribed pattern, the Israelites surrounded the city, marching, shouting, trumpet blaring, and the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. Other than Rahab and her household, all the people and living things and devoted things were destroyed. This having been accomplished, the Israelites moved deeper into their Promised Land.

In a short time, they encountered another people and community. This one was much smaller and less well-protected than Jericho. It was a place called Ai. Only three thousand or so soldiers were sent from the Israelite camp to defeat Ai. The battle was indeed onesided, but it was the warriors of Ai who defeated the Israelites. Upon hearing this news, Joshua cried out to God for a reason. God revealed to Joshua that their covenant had been broken. Someone from the Israelite camp had stolen some riches from Jericho against God’s expressed wishes. The sin of Achan, a soldier overcome with greed, had caused much suffering for Israel. When his violation of the covenant was discovered, the Israelites destroyed his spoils of war and stoned him to death. Once the offering of repentance was made and the covenant renewed, God delivered a victory for the Israelite people at Ai. The conquests of the Israelite people spread among the other inhabitants of the land. The news that the God of the Israelite people traveled with them into battle was also spread among the communities. As word of the Israelites’ travels spread, the settled populations were fearful. One group of people, the Gibeonites, lived about seven miles southwest of Ai. They were keenly aware of what had happened at Jericho and Ai. They were well informed that these Israelites had a covenant with God to possess their land.

The Gibeonites decided upon a clever ruse to deal with the Israelites. Instead of waiting to be defeated in battle, the Gibeonites went first to the Israelite camp. To have the Israelites believe they traveled from outside the Promised Land, they dressed in worn-out clothes, carried worn-out sacks, wore patched sandals, and carried food that was spoiled. Upon meeting the Israelites, they introduced themselves as people from far off who wanted to make a peaceful covenant. They sought protection from the Israelites, in return for which they would be their servants. Listen to the response of the people of Israel. “So the men partook of their provisions, and did not ask direction from the Lord. And Joshua made peace with them, and made a covenant with them, to let them live; and the leaders of the congregation swore to them.”⁴ Without asking questions or checking out the story from ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• About the Author
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. Introduction: Why You Need This Book
• Chapter 2. Practical Use: How to Use This Book
• Chapter 3. Thirteen Christian Spiritual Disciplines
• Chapter 4. The Mask of Loneliness Hides a Man’s Desire for Community
• Chapter 5. The Mask of Rage and Anger Hides a Man’s Pain and Hurt
• Chapter 6. The Mask of Compulsions Hides a Man’s Desire for Love
• Chapter 7. The Mask of Performance Hides a Man’s Desire for Acceptance
• Chapter 8. The Mask of Control Hides a Man’s Desire for Friendship
• Chapter 9. The Mask of Producing Hides a Man’s Desire to Just “Be”
• Chapter 10. The Mask of Competition Hides a Man’s Desire for Humility
• Chapter 11. The Mask of Institutional Religion Hides a Man’s Desire for Spiritual Growth
• Chapter 12. Conclusion and Suggestions
• Appendix: Biblical References for Masculine Spiritual Growth
• References Notes
• Bibliography
• Index