Currently Listening To : Five For Fighting - Chances
“A boy is a magical creature you can lock him out of your workshop, but you can’t lock him out of your heart. You can get him out of your study, but you can’t get him out of your mind.”
“Boys are found everywhere-on top of, underneath, inside of, climbing on, swinging from, running around or jumping to. Mothers love them, little girls hate them, older sisters and brothers tolerate them, adults ignore them and Heaven protects them. A boy is Truth with dirt on its face, Beauty with a cut on its finger, Wisdom with bubble gum in its hair and the Hope of the future with a frog in its pocket.”
“A little girl can be sweeter (and badder) oftener than anyone else in the world. She can jitter around, and stomp, and make funny noises that frazzle your nerves, yet just when you open your mouth she stands there demure with that special look in her eyes. A girl is Innocence playing in the mud, Beauty standing on its head, and Motherhood dragging a doll by the foot.”
-Alan M. Beck
Before boys grow up and become men, or whatever society dictates that men should be. Before they become cynical and proud and self-sufficient. Before their enormous egos blind them to their weaknesses. Men are so often so cold and hard. Battered by the worries of life. Love lost. A family to feed. Dreams crushed. I don’t blame them. But once they become men, it’s so hard to see the potential that was once in that boy. It’s so easy to see absent fathers. Alcoholics. Men who seek fulfillment in one-night stands. In secret mistresses. In brothels and bars. It’s so easy so see egomanical bosses. Wife-abusers. Men stuck in their mid-life crises.
But boys. Boys are something different.
As they run around with their sticks pretending that they’re guns, as they unselfishly try to help their mummies in whatever ways their little hands can, as they draw stick figures of the stories that play in their heads, as they get lost in childhood stories of adventure and fantasy… it’s hard not to see so much potential in them. It’s hard not to see your next leader. Your next successful businessman. Your next loving father and husband.
It’s so easy to see that, because before the world rains its harsh blows down on him, every little boy truly believes he can be the hero. That he can save the world. And if he comes from a decent home, he is – if not to anyone else, a little hero to his mother.
So what happens along the way? I don’t know. But somewhere along the way, potential has been lost and in its place, so often we find mediocrity.
If ever I have sons, I would not ever want to see them lose that potential. That curiosity about the world around them and that burning hunger for exploration and adventure. I would not want them to grow up and have the world tell them they are things that they’re not. I would pray they never become one of those boys who pick on other people and put lies in their heads. I would tell them that the ones who pick on them are just cowards, and the words they say are nothing but lies. I would pray that God would keep them from the evil that lurks in this world that seeks to rob them of their innocence.
I would hug them when they cry, laugh with them when they laugh, celebrate the little milestones they achieve on that long and painful journey to manhood. I would give them the freedom to explore and become all that they can be while praying they make the right choices along the way. I would pray that my sons will grow up to become strong, honest, and courageous men in a time when men are so often accused of being weak, corrupt, and fearful. Most of all, I would want them to believe that they can be and they ARE heroes in their own right. Because to me that’s all they’ll ever be.
As for all the little men in my life, including my younger brothers and the other boys-turning-into-men, I will always remember them as they are now. The dreams and the goals. To be artists. Doctors. Photographers. And so on. I will remember them as they are now because I see that potential blazing through. I pray they will never let the world douse that passion or lose it along the way.
McJammy ~~~~out!
