What is true manhood?

David says he's had male role models in his father, coaches, teachers, professors who have helped illustrate manhood for him, but has also found his heroes in the Bible–among them Daniel, Joseph, and Christ Jesus. In responding to the many diverse and thoughtful questions asked by site visitors, he says our real need is to have a model of what real manhood is and to gain the view that Christ Jesus had–to look beyond the image of rebellious or destructive behavior to man (and woman) as the image and likeness of God. We're by design made to be that likeness.

Among many topics covered are how to deal with sensuality, pride, arrogance, trouble in the workplace, abuse; what it takes to have lasting and loving relationships; manliness and sports; ways to navigate changes in the roles of men and women; and how to get beyond regrets for past behavior.

The transcribed text has been edited for clarity.

Rosalie Dunbar: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another spirituality.com live question and answer audio event. My name is Rosalie Dunbar, and I’ll be your host for the next hour. Today we’ll be exploring “What is true manhood?” Our guest is David Stevens, a practitioner and teacher of Christian Science from Petaluma, California. David has been active in interfaith work, and served on the boards of non-profit organizations. He’s also a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship, and has been in the public practice of Christian Science for about twenty years. Dave, do you have some thoughts to get us started?

David Stevens: Well, first of all, it’s great to be with you, Rosalie, and I love being part of this conversation. I’m absolutely convinced that manhood is no more to be stereotyped by a material or physical view than womanhood is. In recent years I’ve been thinking about men’s spirituality—that we’ve got it!—and really championing that idea. I was certainly blessed by a dad who was a spiritually-minded man, a man of integrity. I’ve had coaches, teachers, and professors along the way, who have helped illustrate that for me. And also found my heroes in the Bible, as well, as in the movies and on the football field. And, given that we’re talking here from the standpoint of Christian Science, I just am always grateful for Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, in her liberating and empowering view of manhood as the expression of God’s very being. So there’s a lot there to cover, and I’m eager to have this conversation.

Rosalie: Well, that’s so great, and it’s so nice to have you here. Julie, who is writing in without telling us where she is, says: “In your experience working with students, what prayerful ideas have you used in to help them understand their true manhood, and also, to deal with rebellious, disruptive behavior?”

Dave: Well I think—yeah, my background is education, including coaching. For me, the challenge has always been to look through that behavior, to have a model of what real identity, real manhood, is. It’s to try and gain that view that Christ Jesus had, obviously, that was a healing and uplifting view. Mary Baker Eddy describes Jesus’ view as beholding in Science—in the context of God’s law—the image and likeness of God, right where sinning, or in this case, rebellious or disruptive mortal picture might be. Jesus was looking beyond that, to an understanding of man made in the image and likeness of God, as Genesis 1 brings out. For me, if I’m holding somebody up there, in that light, I’m thinking out from the nature of God to identify their real qualities and characteristics. I’ve often shared with students the great line from Hamlet where Polonius, the dad, says to Laertes, the teen-aged son, who’s going off to school, “To thine own self be true,” and really challenge them as to what self that is, and get back to what kinds of qualities their ideal self includes. And often, in the conversation, that cuts right through to some wonderful qualities that we would all love to see in manhood.

Rosalie: That’s such an interesting idea of really stepping back, and asking yourself, as you said, “What self is that?” And that would be a spiritual self, wouldn’t it?

Dave: It sure would. It turns out that it is. When people describe the kind of self they want to be, you see spiritual qualities. Things like honesty, integrity, purity, innocence, certainly goodness, unselfed love—things that are clearly derived from the nature of God. And if we’re made in the image and likeness of God, that’s natural. We’re, by design, made to be that man.

Rosalie: That’s really helpful. Becky in Seattle might be continuing this discussion in this question: “In the absolute sense, are men and women actually right now expressing the male and female qualities of God?”

Dave: Well, in the absolute sense—I guess you mean from God’s point of view as spiritual ideas or expressions. Yeah, I love the statement on page 470 in Science and Health, “Man is the expression of God’s being.” To me, that helps me remind myself what man is. So that if I, or anybody else—man or woman—appears to be expressing something else, then I recognize that as a fraud, a lie, about who they are, or who we really are, and it takes me right back to that spiritual model—“the expression of God’s being.” And in order to know what that includes, I have to ask myself, “Well, what is God being? And how is God being?” That gives me the real model of manhood. We’re just constantly bombarded by models that begin from other premises.

Rosalie: Yes.

Dave: But that true model of manhood, which if you look to Christ Jesus as an example, it’s all there—that balance of compassion and strength and love and principle and courage and moral courage, and so forth. All of those elements are there. He’s just shown us for all time what we’re made of, and what we can live up to.

Rosalie: Now, Sarah in Colorado, is asking a question about the times when somebody isn’t living up to that. “What can we do when we feel that a man has been careless with our feelings, and is filled with so much ego that he doesn’t realize? How can we see the perfect man in these difficult times?”

Dave: Well, again, I think it’s by starting with the nature of God. I actually learned from a young woman a few years ago, she just put it so beautifully as she broke free of depression, and I don’t know if there were relationship issues involved in that. Thinking about herself, she said that the spell wasn’t broken—the spell of depression and sadness—wasn’t broken until “I looked to the nature of God, took all my strength to look to the nature of God, to find myself.” We can do one another a great favor by doing that—by refusing to buy that picture of arrogance or ego. That’s just a case of mistaken identity. The thing we need to exercise, is our spiritual sense of identity, which, again, goes back and looks out from God who is Love, who is intelligence, who is Principle, to see that man—the real man—is made up of those qualities and characteristics, and learn to speak to that in one another. I think when we really are determined to see that, no matter what, in one another, then we’re calling each other by the right name, essentially. And because that’s truly who we are, there’s something inside that responds to it. I’m walking down the street and someone calls, “Hey, George,” or starts yelling things at me, accusing me of something, I probably don’t respond, or at least don’t respond well. But when I’m called by my right name, I do. And the right name, again, is “child of God.” That’s not avoiding a problem. That’s really calling for someone to step up and claim their inheritance, and their true identity, as children of God.

Rosalie: Yes, it seems as though the more clearly you can see the spirituality, the more clearly you can see that whatever the offensive behavior is, can’t possibly be attached to that spirituality.

Dave: Yeah, it’s an imposition that isn’t part of the original goodness of man. I’ve been talking quite a bit with, mostly men, in prison settings lately. I realized that, rather than talking about original sin, as is pretty familiar to a lot of people—the idea of Adam and Eve biting the apple and losing their place in Eden—that really the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible which says that we’re made in the image and likeness of God (male and female, by the way) is a history of original goodness. To me, that’s such a powerful thing to stand up for, and to hold onto. And often it’s right in the face of problems, or something that would argue the opposite. But if we’re really serious about God as cause, then let’s be serious about the quality of what God must have caused, and be causing in us today, continually—and that’s good. It’s all, really, good news.

Rosalie: That’s a very neat idea. Now, this is from someone in Indiana, who says: “I think sensuality is the biggest challenge to men, bigger than pride, being successful, fulfillment, and the works. What is the belief behind sensuality?”

Dave: Well, that we’re made out of matter. Gosh, I guess you could go back, and blame it on Eve biting that apple, couldn’t you? [laughter] But, no, that’s not it—that we’re made out of matter, that we’re these biological creatures, who are essentially evolved animals, and that that’s still a major drive and a major determiner of who we are and how we are. To me, learning to really identify with these spiritual qualities and characteristics that we’ve been talking about a little bit here, is the remedy for that. I’ve certainly struggled with sensuality along the way. I realized at one point late in my college career that it was kind of ruining all of my relationships, because I was looking at women from a sexual perspective, and I was looking at men as competition. And so I realized I was defining myself, or letting myself just be defined in those terms, those very basic biological, continue-the-species, sort of terms. And all along, I had thought of myself as somebody who had a degree of sensitivity, and prided myself in being an honest person, and I was always quick to jump on somebody else who was hypocritical. But I realized the great hypocrisy in that. And as I began to look for answers, one of the things I found was a statement in Science and Health that says that purity is “the corner-stone of all spiritual building” (see p. 241 ). I realized that I wanted spiritual building in my life. I’d gotten that far. I knew that was something I really wanted. And then purity had to be part of it—purer motives, purer thinking—that had to be worked at. It wasn’t something that was very easy. But as I began to value honesty, purity, unselfishness—those kinds of things—in my relationships, and as I looked at people, it really helped tremendously. And I was able to have relationships with women, where I wasn’t thinking about them in those terms, and I’d largely gotten that out of my life, at least as a major hurdle. Spirituality is the real inheritance of man. I think, too, the idea that man is a creator is an issue here, Rosalie. That somehow it’s up to us to create, and that’s what this sensual urge is all about—that we have to measure ourselves according to our capacity as creators, and so forth. I was reading at a—doing some readings selected by a bride and groom recently at a wedding. A couple of the readings were the definition of bride and bridegroom from Science and Health. Bride was “purity and innocence, conceiving man in the idea of God; a sense of Soul, which has spiritual bliss and enjoys but cannot suffer” (p. 582 ). That’s something for the ladies to be thinking about, as well as the men. And bridegroom got to this issue of really yielding to the idea that God is the creator. The definition is: “Spiritual understanding; the pure consciousness that God, the divine Principle, creates man as His own spiritual idea, and that God is the only creative power” (p. 582 ). Satisfaction, of course, is an issue here, too. I remember when I was really working hard on trying to break free of what I realized was a very limiting, sensual view of myself and others, the great verse in Psalm 17 , verse 15, that says: “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.” That, again, pointed me right back to: “Well, what’s the real me here? What does it mean to awake with God’s likeness and have that satisfaction?”

Rosalie: Yes, that’s a very important point, and to see that model, that you were talking about earlier, always in relation to God.

Dave: I remember one of these fellows in a jail in Colorado who said—and he was a real tough character, and obviously he was scarred and tattooed, and had been through the battles a number of times, and probably spent a great deal of his adult life in jail or prison. And we were talking about this spiritual view of manhood as expressing these qualities—and by the way, including all the qualities of God. When, in Christian Science, our understanding of being made in the image and likeness of God, male and female, doesn’t refer to our physicality, but it does refer to including all of those qualities that we might look at mistakenly as just belonging to one gender or the other, to really be complete. But we were talking about some of these ideas, and all of a sudden, at the end of the discussion in a group of men obviously who respected this fellow, because he was a tough character, said, “You know this is the first time in my life that I’ve thought of myself as anything other than a violent man.”

Rosalie: Wow.

Dave: He said, “I’ve got a lot to think about here.” And he thanked me. This spiritual view isn’t something that limits us at all. It really opens up the great potential and possibility of manhood as the radiant, powerful, productive expression of God’s being.

Rosalie: Now, Debbie in Minnesota says: “As public educators, how can we help young men feel confident enough to step outside the stereotype of the macho man, and try some new activities, such as the arts, speech, drama, etc. Sports are great, but don’t we need balance?”

Dave: I agree, we need balance, and no question, the arts and so forth are wonderful, and hopefully we can grow in society to where more young men find an interest in that. But right now, for the majority of them, sports is the biggest draw. There’s no doubt about that. To me, those are all really teaching vehicles, aren’t they? They’re opportunities to translate what’s going on, into the expression of these qualities. I remember a coach—a high-school coach, track coach—who was having his runners translate everything they were doing into qualities—strength, grace, and so forth. And they would work on different qualities, including things like willingness and unselfishness, and just qualities that seemed to be far from that macho image. Sports is certainly not limited to that narrow view of the macho. If anybody’s been watching the World Cup, and actually, Rosalie, you and I were talking about this just before we went live.

Rosalie: That’s right.

Dave: You know the French team which lost today to South Africa was in such disarray, really because of all that ego and macho business. I don’t know if this is the case across the board, but I did see one of those in-depth looks at the captain of the South African team, and he was obviously a man’s man, but had such great humility and tenderness, and respect for his mother, and the things that he’d learned from her. I can’t help but thinking of the contrast in qualities there, and who came out on top.

Rosalie: There you go. Now Alistair in London says: “Could you please share some thoughts on Mary Baker Eddy’s statement in Science and Health: ‘Give up the belief that mind is, even temporarily, compressed within the skull, and you will quickly become more manly or womanly’?” That’s from Science and Health, page 397 , and I’d just like to let our listeners know, if you don’t, that on the Website there is a searchable edition of Science and Health and the Bible, but please stay with the chat and visit Science and Healthafterward. But that statement that I’ve just read to you is from page 397 in Science and Health. What do you think, Dave?

Dave: I love that statement. I haven’t thought about it for awhile, but to me often the steps that I’ve made forward, do come from giving up the idea that I’m my own little mind, and that my mind is compressed within the skull or within me. It’s giving up human will, it’s giving up the idea that I’m the source of my intelligence, it’s giving up that false sense of ego, and yielding to the divine Mind. It turns out it’s a lot better to be the effect of one infinite Mind, good, infinite intelligence, with all of its wisdom and discernment and understanding and power and capacity to order and govern, than to try and be the cause of all of that.

Rosalie: Yes.

Dave: I’ve had plenty of times when I’m thinking along the lines, I guess, that it’s all about my little brain against the world, have run out of wisdom at about nine o’clock in the morning [laughter], and I’m just so frustrated I can’t find it anywhere. But if I’m remembering that I reflect this infinite basis for right and true thinking, the source of all good and right, true ideas, then I’ve stopped identifying myself in limited terms. I’ve really yielded to that divine Mind, and the limitations come off. It’s pretty exciting.

Rosalie: It is. And it also is revealing. You discover things about yourself that you didn’t know were there.

Dave: Well, that’s right. The communication, really, is from the divine Mind to us. And the message is the Christ. It’s God speaking to the human consciousness, voicing good, and revealing the nature of God, and this true nature of who we are, as the image and likeness of God. What our inheritance is, what our possibilities are, and it’s just so much broader and more promising and better than anything we could think up with our little brains.

Rosalie: Exactly. Now John in Los Angeles is asking: “How can a man learn to have lasting and loving relationships with women by expressing the qualities of manhood?”

Dave: Well, to me, there’s nothing more attractive than the true qualities of manhood, which include integrity and honesty, and moral courage, tenderness, and so forth. It may be a little bit of an aside, but I was in an airport a couple of weeks ago, and there was a dad with a young toddler, a little girl, and he was just so tender. He was leaning over, stroking her hair, smiling, giggling, poking her a little bit, and she’d giggle back. And he looked up and caught my eye, and I grinned at him, and I gave him a thumbs-up. I just thought it was such a beautiful scene. To me, that was a wonderful expression of manhood. It wasn’t missing anything. And yet, what was being expressed first and foremost there, was this tenderness, this unselfed love.

Rosalie: Yes.

Dave: Science and Health speaks of the expression of unselfed love as “receiv[ing] directly the divine power” (p. 192 ). And I think about unselfed love a lot in relationships, and certainly have, over thirty-five years of working through a marriage with my dear wife. The demand is that unselfed love, which involves compromise, it involves living unselfishness, it involves forgiveness—so many things that are needed, but all of which just strengthen who we are, and definitely strengthen a relationship.

Rosalie: Now, this one is from France, and the writer is saying: “What do you think men in our world today are really looking for in women? What do they most need or crave?” And the person says, “since gender roles have changed in the workplace, for instance” —and we have a number of questions about the change in gender roles that we’ll get to, but this was one I thought we might start with of this particular set.

Dave: Well, the gender roles have changed in that women have more opportunity, and certainly have gained and earned more respect in the workplace and elsewhere. But it’s not a competition, folks! I think the tendency is to think that because women have more, men have less. I think men want that same respect, ongoing. I think men have to let go of the idea, again, that they’re the cause or the creator, Often, men, the creator of an idea or some good and they have to feel the pressure, the stress of being in that position, of being called upon to provide a certain outcome in the business world and elsewhere. There has to be a letting go of that, a recognition of God being the cause and creator. Get used to the idea of being the effect of that one infinite cause of good, that one divine power which is intelligence and love, because that’s full-time employment. But I think what men really want from women is that kind of ongoing respect. Maybe it is in a little different way, but if it’s there, if the women aren’t trapped into that idea that it’s all about competition against men, then I think we’ve gone a long way to being on the same path. I think in all kinds of relationships—business relationships, or marriage relationships—if people are willing to spiritualize their view of who they are, and of the other person is, turn to prayer, which is really our vehicle individually for seeing more of what God is and what God would have us be, then they can find themselves really gaining ground in good ways in relation to one another. Of course, if both sides in a work relationship or in a marital relationship are doing that, it’s a bit like two people climbing a mountain. They may be on opposite sides, but if they keep going, they’ll end up standing together at the top.

Rosalie: That’s a very helpful image. This one is from Michigan: “A few months ago I came out of an abusive marriage, verbally and physically, along with what appeared to be infidelity. He was a monster. He still blames me for all of this, and lies about the cause of our divorce. I’m losing my faith and my true view of man. His buddies are all in commiseration with him. I still would love to see and experience the true view of man. It seems my view has been poisoned.”

Dave: Well, don’t let it be. I hear you, I understand what you’re saying, and bless your heart, and I’m glad you’re free of that. But be free of it, and you can be free of it, in your own thought, by exercising your spirituality, and your spiritual sense to think out from the nature of God to see yourself, your own completeness, the fact that your purity, and innocence, and goodness, and completeness is not touched by that lie about man, that imposition that this is man. He’s operating under a mistaken view of himself, and of what man and manhood is. It’s a shame. But that’s not true manhood. And he’s not stuck there, either. I remember one time when our family was being threatened by a gang member who was stalking our daughter. We were quite concerned about all of this, and I remember the whole thing resolving when I—not because I changed him, or we tracked him down and threatened him with anything—but when I changed my thinking about him by learning to, again, think out from the nature of God to identify man. I realized in the process that this young man was simply playing out what he thought was his best and highest model, or view, and somebody needed to hold up a better one. And I didn’t want to be that somebody because we were being wronged, but I realized there wasn’t anybody else to do it, so I needed to. And I can’t put myself in this lady’s shoes, really, and understand what she’s been through, but I do know that she’s not—you know, being free of it, she said she came out of that marriage. When we’re really free of something, we’re coming out of the dream, the mortal dream, that tries to tell us that it’s all about villains and victims. And the Christ brings us out of that mortal dream, into this true and fresh and untouched view of our original goodness and completeness, which contains all of our capacity to go forward freely.

Rosalie: Yes, and I’ve, in reading testimonies that people have written about being in abusive situations, there often comes a point where it’s almost like it never happened, like it happened to someone else, where the abuse becomes so much not a part of who you are, that you don’t even identify ever having been in that place before, you know, that there was never a time.

Dave: I’ve heard that, too. And I also think that no one out there really wants to be in a position to condemn a particular man, or men in general, of being stuck forever with that false, destructive, and self-destructive model or view of themselves. I think of the Apostle Paul, who at the end of Romans 7 said, “Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (verse 24 ). He was saying, the good that I would do, I do not, and that which I don’t want to do, I do it (see vs. 7-19 ) . He came to the very next chapter, the eighth chapter of Romans, to me, is one of my favorites in describing this restoration, this redemption and restoration, that’s so important for us to hold up as a possibility, and really as natural, as we spiritualize our view. Came to, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (8:1 ) and ends up with a conviction that nothing can “separate us from the love of God” (verse 38, 39 ). There was that transformation. Later on, he spoke of being transformed by the renewing—well, he said that we should be transformed by the renewing of our minds (see 12:2 ). And we all have to champion that idea, that that’s possible. If it’s not, we’re just all stuck. But, happily, we’re not.

Rosalie: Well, I think, too, that when you were saying about there is no condemnation, there is also no condemnation for anyone in an abusive relationship, whether, like the person condemns themselves for “why did I get into that?” or “why didn’t I get out of it sooner?” or whatever. There’s no condemnation anywhere. And if the argument comes to one’s thought that one has failed, or whatever, Christ can guide you away from that. It gets back to what you were saying earlier about the material sense of things, that personality, that may experience failure, but that’s not where God is, and it’s not where each of us actually is. Right?

Dave: Right, and that original goodness was never touched by that experience. And our primary relationship with God is never touched by that experience. There may be some men listening, too, who are saying, “Yeah, but I’m that guy, and I don’t want to be that man.” But to have the willingness that Paul had, the humility to yield to the Christ, to listen, which enabled him to find out who God made him to be.

Rosalie: Yes.

Dave: And the rest of that verse about being transformed, it starts out, “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (12:2 ). In other words, to be the man God made you to be, that willingness is so important. And there’s a passage in Science and Health I love, on that very point. It begins on the bottom of page 324 : “Willingness . . . to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced idea. Gladness to leave the false landmarks and joy to see them disappear,--this disposition helps to precipitate the ultimate harmony. The purification of sense and self is a proof of progress. ‘Blessed are the poor in heart: for they shall see God.’ ”

Rosalie: Yes.

Dave: There’s so much in there, but I love that idea of willingness. I also love the fact that it’s about leaving false landmarks, and we never have to leave true ones.

Rosalie: Right, right!

Dave: Any of us, any of us.

Rosalie: And we never lose what is actually true.

Dave: Yeah, we can’t lose what is actually true—that’s of God, it’s good, it’s permanent.

Rosalie: Yeah. Now, Keith in England says: “At the beginning of the program you mentioned finding good role models for manhood in the Bible. Can you expand? Apart from Christ Jesus, who’s your favorite male Bible character?”

Dave: Oh boy. Well, Keith, I don’t know. I have several. My mother used to talk to me about David quite a bit, because that’s my first name. David obviously had to work through the whole sensuality thing, as well. He certainly showed that moral courage, and recognition of God as the doer in facing and slaying Goliath, from the standpoint of it’s the Lord of Hosts that’s doing the battling here. Daniel in the lions’ den--and one of the things I love, is that these fellows weren’t spared these experiences entirely. They found that true manhood and those qualities of courage, and God’s presence and power, right where they needed to have it, right in the thick of things, right in the middle of a very difficult circumstance.

Rosalie: Yes.

Dave: One that I love is Joseph, who was envied by his brothers, then thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, thrown into prison, tempted, and so forth. Joseph must have had a real GPS going there—God Positioning System!—that enabled him to have a sense of who he was, and his integrity—in fact, his refusal to sleep with Potiphar’s wife, his boss’s wife, when he was a slave in the house of Potiphar, who was a captain of the guard I guess, for Pharaoh’s guard in Egypt. It’s remarkable, because he said, how could he sin against Potiphar, who’d done a great deal for him, but also against God (see Gen. 39:9 ). And somewhere along the line it hit me that this was prior to the Ten Commandments being given by Moses, where we’re told “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Somehow Joseph knew that, and to me that’s just this great illustration of this internal GPS that we have, which Mary Baker Eddy calls “spiritual sense”, our capacity to know God, to know what’s true and right about who we are, and to do it.

Rosalie: Yes.

Dave: And, of course, for Joseph, it lifted him to that status of prominence which enabled him to save, not only a nation, but a whole region—including his family that had done him wrong.

Rosalie: Yeah.

Dave: So he’s a big hero of mine. Nehemiah—gosh, there’s lots of them.

Rosalie: Now, this is from Nancy in Canada, who’s just sent us a comment. She says: “To that dear one that has gotten out of the abusive marriage, I would love to let her know that you can be healed of the seeming aftereffects through Christian Science as I have. May you feel the constant flow of God’s love until you get to the healing. Keep on with Christian Science, the solutions are there. Much love.”

Dave: Ah, bless her heart. Amen.

Rosalie: That’s very nice. Now Janet in Pennsylvania says: “How can I rise above the belief of trouble at the workplace? There’re so many people who enjoy hurting other people because they think it will benefit them. I want to rise above the belief of mortals at the workplace.”

Dave: Well, I think we run into that all the time—mortals at the workplace, mortals around the holiday table in the family, mortals at church. But, yeah, it really, again, is to just see their immortality, to see their true status, as reflecting and expressing and being motivated by God, good, not including anything else. It’s interesting that, to me, problem-solving in Christian Science—as far as I know, it’s the only thing on the planet that doesn’t really start with the problem. It’s not about the complexity of the problem, it’s really about the simplicity that was in Christ, that Christly view that sees through the problem to hear the spiritual fact, and hears the presence and power of God and the law of God, to bring that out—practically—in human experience. There’s one place in Science and Health on the bottom of 262 where we’re told that, “The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense of man’s origin.” Well, then, wouldn’t part of the solution there, and anywhere where there’s discord—mortal discord’s a pretty large umbrella—but where there’s something discordant, wouldn’t part of the solution necessarily be, to start with the true sense of their origin, emanating from that Father-Mother God, good? And, really, including all of those qualities, and nothing else. It doesn’t matter that the other people don’t get that at this point. Somebody needs to. Somebody has to turn on the light. Everybody benefits.

Rosalie: Right.

Dave: That old truism.

Rosalie: Yep. Now we have a couple of questions that are sort of somewhat related. This one is from Missy in Jerseyville. She says: “The other day I was browsing through a weekly news magazine and came across an article that suggested men are obsolete, because women are taking over the world. At first I laughed at the ridiculousness of the idea, but then it dawned on me that the article was serious. I sense this as an opportunity for prayer. Do you have some spiritual ideas to get me started?” And we also had a question from Larry in New York City, who says: “Men seem to be an endangered species in the Christian Science movement”—and I should say, also in other churches there seem to be fewer men. He says, “There’s definitely a feminine atmosphere and tone. Any thoughts?” So we’ve got the article about men being obsolete, and then the dominance of women in church membership.

Dave: Yeah, yeah. Men will be obsolete when the qualities of courage, strength, honor, honesty, integrity, and so forth, are no longer needed. And women will be obsolete when the qualities of purity, gentleness, kindness, clarity, and so forth—it’s nonsense. We all include all of those ideas. They’re always going to be needed. It’s a call for all of us to really value those ideas, and the fact that we include them. You know, the battle of the sexes thing is—it makes for both drama and comedy. But, ultimately, from a spiritual perspective, it’s just not a very accurate view, because all of us include those qualities. And we need to cherish those and champion those in one another. As far as men in church, that’s certainly something to pray about. It’s just an extrapolation, isn’t it, of a long-held—at least in Western culture, at least in the US—that spirituality is kind of a women’s thing and the men can come along for the ride but they’re really more engaged in the great responsibilities of providing, and so forth and so on. And even if those great responsibilities seem to have been replaced by NFL football on a Sunday morning or something like that, again, here is where I think we need to champion the idea of men’s natural spirituality. And church certainly is a place where that spirituality becomes cultivated, challenged, tempered, and called upon—not just for individual growth but to bless others. And it’s natural and right for men to hear that call, and step up, or man up, as they say these days, and be part of it, be part of Church which Science and Health defines as “. . . that institution, which affords proof of its utility . . . .” I can’t think of anything that men like to do better than afford proof of their utility.

Rosalie: Right, and I think also women can have a responsibility too, if their church has a lot of women in it, to be sure to include men in their thinking about church, not to just become a girls’ club so to speak—to keep desiring that balance. This is from Andy in England, and you just mentioned the NFL Sunday mornings. Andy says: “You briefly mentioned sports and the soccer World Cup. A lot of guys define and express their manhood through participation in sports. Is that healthy?”

Dave: Well, it’s healthy if it keeps growing—if their sense of what that is, and what really is—it’s about—keeps growing. I think playing American football, for me, was a place where I learned to grow spiritually. I was faced with physical challenges, and injuries, and so forth, where I needed to learn to pray for myself. I remember in college one particular game where, as we were preparing for it during the week—and I played football for a small college—but my opponent, the fellow I was going to have to be blocking and attending to the whole game, was already a small college all-American, and the rumor was that there were pro scouts coming to watch this fellow. Most of my teammates were saying, “Lots of luck, Dave. Have fun out there! We’ll pick you up afterwards.” And I remember, at first I was worried about it. I tried to sort of strike a macho attitude about it, and I realized that wasn’t going to work, because when it came right down to it, it was going to be how I expressed myself on the field. And I remember coming across something early that morning, before the game, in the Sentinel—the Christian Science Sentinel—that really elevated my thought back to, this is about expressing qualities from God in an unlimited fashion, and that, as the reflection, or expression, of God’s nature, I have the ability to do that--qualities including precision and courage, and strength and agility, and so forth. And as I translated what I was doing into the expression of those qualities, and began to get a sense of the unlimited nature of it, I stopped thinking about my opponent, and all of that hype that had gone on during the week, and was even kind of late getting to the locker room. I probably had the best game of my life, and I remember at the end, he and I exchanged a few words, just of genuine appreciation for one another. It was a level of competition that taught me that the competition is really from within. That it’s about finding our capacity to express those qualities of God, and dominion over our situation and circumstance. And it was just a real joy. So my answer to that is, yes, that can be very helpful. I see sports as a wonderful teaching vehicle, along those lines.

Rosalie: Thank you. From Gordon in Madison, Wisconsin: “The world often makes it seem like we aren’t attractive as men unless we conform to certain standards. Society tells us that women are attracted to the bad boys—men who are controlling, dominant, emotionally aloof, have great sexual prowess, etc. It can seem like the kind of men who pursue this lower model are rewarded. How can we avoid falling into the trap of seeing this lower model as desirable, and how do we avoid feeling unattractive when we’re trying to follow a more spiritual model?”

Dave: Well, there’s a lot in that question. I know what you’re saying, and I can remember feeling like I had to be one of those bad boys, or kind of aloof, during that period where I felt I was very competitive—the fellows were my competitors as far as relationships went. But where exactly do we see the evidence of success in that? Maybe in an hour long or half-hour long TV show, but in life, I don’t see it. In life, to me, the success and the satisfaction, and again, it gets back to that great statement in Psalms: “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness” (17:15 ). It’s in the expression of those genuine, strong, purposeful qualities of God. And that’s what’s attractive. There’s no question that that’s what’s attractive. It’s not only attractive, that’s what causes relationships to last—the expression of those kinds of qualities. Because the other really comes down to selfishness, and pretty quickly people find that there’s nothing behind it. It’s all about this business of the façade. Even if somebody is really into creating a beautiful body, you take a little time off, and suddenly it’s not so beautiful anymore. Or a few years go by, and suddenly it’s not so beautiful anymore. The temporal things are definitely “here today and gone tomorrow” but the things that last are the expression of those qualities, and the utilization of them simply strengthens their value, their usefulness, their power, their beauty, and so forth. I think part of the last part of the question was how can we keep from getting sucked into that other model? And I think it’s by becoming familiar with, and really valuing and championing and putting into practice, this spiritual model that we’re talking about.

Rosalie: And that leads us to Matt in England, who says: “The Bible teaches us to be humble and meek, but as a man, am I forfeiting my strength and manliness by being meek and humble?”

David: Well, to me, meekness and humility have to do with the recognition that God is the doer, and a trust that God is about the business of being God. It has to do with the strength of understanding that “I’m not in competition with anybody else for good, that I have that constant flow, that relationship to God—the source of all good—that gives me what I need.” That no one can take it away. So it really is a kind of a confidence, I think, but not in self as cause, but in God as cause. And a willingness to see what it is that God is doing, or what God is unfolding or revealing at any given time. It’s a great strength. It enables us, it’s really a mental posture that enables us, to hear God’s direction, to hear that “still small voice,” and to hear others, both in terms of their needs and whatever it is we need to hear from them. No wonder the Beatitude is that “the meek . . . shall inherit the earth.”

Rosalie: The other thing I would mention is that Moses in the Bible is described as being very meek and humble.

Dave: Yes.

Rosalie: And when you think about what he did, and how we remember him today, well, I don’t think of him as anything less than an incredible man.

Dave: I agree. That’s just a wonderful example. I had an experience as a young man, asking a fellow that I admired greatly, he was a fine Christian Scientist and all, so someone who had just accomplished a great deal in the business world, “What does it take to really get in the right career, and to be successful? And how do you know?” and that sort of thing. And I expected either a very deep metaphysical answer, or a very savvy business answer, and at the time I thought I got neither. But when I look back on it, there’s that element of meekness in it, as well as a wonderful challenge. He said, “Just go where you can give and grow.” To me, that’s become one of the real guiding thoughts in my life about expressing my manhood—go where I can give and grow. That always takes meekness, really on both ends of that—giving and growing.

Rosalie: Yes. We’re almost at the end of our time. Would you be willing to give us a few more minutes?

Dave: Sure.

Rosalie: Thank you. We have some questions. I’ve tried to choose questions that will answer some of the questions that some of you have asked that we haven’t answered directly. But we have just a few that are more specific. So we’ll go with Judy in New Jersey, who asks: “How can I help my friend who is struggling with alcohol addiction?”

Dave: Well, Judy, I think it’s by seeing their freedom in this new light that we’re talking about here—looking out from God to see their freedom. There’s a wonderful statement inScience and Health that speaks of—it says, “Citizens of the world, accept the ‘glorious liberty of the children of God,’ and be free! This is your divine right” (p. 227 ). It’s a wonderful thing to recognize that we do have divine rights. Everybody cares about their rights. In dealing with addiction, people feel that the substance, whether it’s alcohol or drugs, has taken away their right, their right to be themselves, their right to sometimes even care. But divine rights truly cannot be taken away. They are aspects of that original goodness, that original stature and status of man—and freedom is one of them. And it’s so wonderful if you can be that friend who holds them up in thought, and speaks to them, and identifies them, in terms of their status as the man of God’s creating, including all of those qualities of good, and the freedom to utilize them. Freedom, to me, always includes two sides. It’s freedom from, and freedom to. It’s freedom from that label, and freedom to explore the inheritance of good, that is the inheritance of God’s man. There’s a wonderful hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal, No. 382 , that says:

What is thy birthright, man,

Child of the perfect One;

What is thy Father’s plan

For His beloved son?

Right there, it gets us thinking out from God, to find our nature, and to look to see what that plan is. But it goes on—well, I’ll just read it all—it’s too good here.

Thou art Truth’s honest child, Of pure and sinless heart; Thou treadest undefiled In Christly paths apart.

Now, that’s the spiritual fact, whether it looks that way or not, and that’s what you get to hold up. And here’s the promise:

Vain dreams shall disappear

As Truth dawns on the sight;

The phantoms of thy fear

Shall flee before the light.

Take then the sacred rod;

Thou art not error’s thrall;

Thou hast the gift of God—

Dominion over all.

Rosalie: Thank you. Did you want to say something more there?

Dave: Her friend is that man.

Rosalie: Yes—has that dominion.

Dave: Has that dominion—God-given.

Rosalie: Actually we have another question about dominion. Let me see if I can find it quickly. This is about stewardship. It’s from Em in Georgia: “Can you address the issue of dominion as an expression of good stewardship? Dominion has been severely misinterpreted as dominance and destruction. Can we see this in the current problem with the Gulf and with other environmental challenges?” And I think that that sense of dominion and dominance is part of a discussion about true manhood, which is why I’m including this one in it. But of course, the Gulf issue is also on many people’s thoughts.

Dave: Yeah, that’s a great question, and an important one. The man we’ve been talking about here is not the problem, is not the self-absorbed, selfish, greedy, competitive—the one who’s going to ruin the environment. Really when you think about man from a spiritual perspective, man isn’t the problem, and isn’t designed to be the problem, but part of the solution. That dominion really has to do with stewardship. Elsewhere the Bible talks about not polluting the earth, literally. And in that verse in Genesis where God has given man dominion, it also talks about replenishing the earth. We’re designed to have dominion over ourselves, and over these false models that come to us—often as our own thinking—that would usurp our true status, rob us of our true identity. And not to have dominion over each other, or the earth in terms of “I can do anything I want to it.” We are designed to have stewardship, and to live in healthy relationship to our environment. It’s what God has given us, and designed us for. I’m reminded in the middle of that by something that’s maybe a little off of the environmental take on that, but a discussion I had with another fellow in prison. We were talking about identity with a group. He came up afterwards. He said, “I really got it.” I said, “What’d you get?” And he said, “I got that I’m God’s man, I’m originally good, and that these qualities are the truth about my identity.” And then he said, “And the devil’s the identity thief. And I have to get up every morning, and remember who I am so I’m not a victim of identity theft.”

Rosalie: Wow.

Dave: And I said, “Man, you really got it.” But we do, it takes work to do that, to remember who we are, to remember who they are, so that we’re not seeing one another in terms that are essentially a case of mistaken identity, that keep us enslaved by that mistaken identity.

Rosalie: You know when you were talking about stewardship, I couldn’t help but also think that even in a marriage, that stewardship of the spiritual qualities we each have, and of the marriage and treating the other one in a loving, cherishing way is all part of that dominion that is true stewardship of caring for each other.

Dave: It really is. It really is. The chapter on “Marriage” talks about that. It really talks about “tender solicitude” and definitely “the union of masculine and feminine qualities,” and exercising stewardship over those. And that goes both ways.

Rosalie: Yes. Now this is from someone in Boston who says: “What advice is there for when you are in the spotlight all the time, and people are always judging upon your constant moves? Usually people like to push you to the extreme limits.”

Dave: Well, I’m not entirely sure what they mean, but I think it’s important to recognize that we don’t “live, and move, and have our being” in the context of human opinion. And maybe that relates to a lot of things we’ve been talking about—about these models that are out there, that would give a limited view of what manhood or womanhood is. The Bible says we live, and move, and have our being” in God (see Acts 17:28 ). God, the divine Mind, is the context, and we are ideas of that divine Mind, moving in that context. So, one definition of idea in an older dictionary that I found was, “What the mind perceives of itself.” We’re never out there, exposed, when we really are operating from the context of the divine Mind. We’re what God is thinking—and that’s always good. And the Christ is the way that that good news comes to consciousness, affirming our worth, affirming our oneness with God, affirming that we’re there in the safety of the divine Mind, which is Love, and that everyone else is too. And it’s not just this swirling sea of mortal minds and mortal opinions.

Rosalie: Now we’ve got—these next are two questions that relate to equal rights. The first one is—this is David from New York City: “When men stand up for equal rights for men, they’re often belittled. For example, I see generally that young girls and young boys tend to learn differently, and tend to learn different things at different stages of development. Since most public education today seems to favor the female pattern of learning, we see this resulting in more females going to college, and exceeding men in employment. Do you see that Christian Science can help correct this apparent imbalance in the rights of the sexes?” So that’s question number one, and then the other one is a little different but it’s again related to equal rights: “Do you have any spiritual insights on how to combat the prevalent view that men became more feminine after the sexual revolution, and less likely to commit, and to be responsible husbands and fathers?” That person hasn’t given us their name or location. But they’re basically tied in there with the changing views of men and women.

David: Yeah. You know I think it gets back to—and I love this, maybe it’s from all my Bible heroes, I think of them as champions of good, of truth, of the right—I think we have the opportunity to champion the natural qualities of manhood in boys and young men, to lift them up to make the connection between those qualities, and their true source which is our Father, God—our Father-Mother, God. And to see and champion the completeness that is there. I’m not sure what the relationship is, and I know there are various theories on the subject between men’s lack of commitment, and so forth, to marriage today, and the sexual revolution. But I think we do need to champion and foster—hold up in our own thoughts—and if we’re in a position as educators or parents or grandparents, to foster in children and young men these qualities of integrity, courage, honesty, honor, and help them see where those fit, where they apply in life, and how invaluable they are, as well as developing their tenderness, their gentleness, their capacity to love more broadly. These things simply are not in competition with each other. They are aspects of the nature of one God. And it takes all of those facets of the expression and reflection of all of those qualities, to accurately reflect the whole. If we can see—again, thinking out from the nature of God to identify man—then we’ll see the value and the place of each one of those qualities, and we’ll find the value and the place as we go through our day because there isn’t a single day that goes by that isn’t calling for them.

Rosalie: Yes. I have two that are related to memories. This one is from Laurie. She says: “I wish that my late husband of fifty-one years could have listened to this chat because his ideal was the macho model, in spite of the fact that he was a lifelong Christian Scientist. Memories of his insensitive behavior still haunt my thoughts, as well as those of our daughters. I keep wondering if I can, or should be, praying for him even now so that I can feel my own freedom from those memories.” And the other one is from Nancy in Oregon, who says: “How do I stop blaming myself for past behavior?” And I think that that could apply to both men and women as a part of this chat and the ideas we’ve tried to cover.

Dave: I think it sure could. You know, the memories—we can hold on to a memory of what essentially is a false dream of our nature, or we can hold up in thought what’s true. I remember my dad was a wonderful man of integrity and spiritually-minded, but he also had a bad temper. And he went through most of his life, and I know he prayed diligently about it, and finally that disappeared. I remember after his passing, just being so grateful for the good that he represented, and I recognized that there was this great feeling of relief that I didn’t have to attach that temper to him at all, even though I’d been on the receiving end of it many times growing up. And I didn’t. I remember this amazing feeling that, as I prayed to identify him as God’s man, and admit that he was going on being God’s man, and learning the lessons he needed to learn. Divine Love doesn’t leave us alone, you know. We keep going, and growing forward, because the demand of divine Love is to be that man. I Corinthians 15 says that “This mortal must put on immortality” (verse 53 ). That’s losing that limited, or distorted, mortal sense and gaining an immortal sense. And that it all counts. Well, I was just so grateful that I could appreciate what was true about him, and let that other go, and grow forward myself. And you can too. You can too. You’re not stuck with that. And I guess the other part of it was?—help me, again.

Rosalie: There was one about praying to stop blaming one’s self.

Dave: Oh, for past mistakes.

Rosalie: Right.

Dave: Well, it’s certainly related. We are not the sum total of our past mistakes, or really even defined by them at all. That sentence from Science and Health that I spoke to earlier on, that “Man is the expression of God’s being,” got me thinking one day about the fact that that’s all in the present tense. So we’re not sort of an accumulation of past mistakes, false views, heredity—those kinds of things—other people’s mistakes. We’re the fresh expression of God’s being this very moment. And I think the more we learn about what that means, the freer we’ll be of those past mistakes. Certainly, it’s become a lot more impressive to me, and I’ve certainly had some mistakes in the past that I tended to carry around, the more I have thought about being the present expression of what God is being. The more I’ve realized that’s the thing to focus on. And as I do, my sense of being defined by, or limited by, past mistakes has really fallen away.

Rosalie: Thank you very much David, you’ve just been great. And for all of you who were participating in the chat we just give you a huge thank you. There may be some questions we didn’t specifically answer, but there are answers to those topics within the questions that we’ve responded to, and we thank you a lot. Dave, do you have some final comments before we close?

Dave: Well, my thanks to you, Rosalie, and to everybody who’s joined in today. I just think it all just does such a great—it’s such a great gift to ourselves individually, and to the world, to think about manhood in this regard. And I just wanted to close with that great statement from First John: “Now are we the sons of God.” That’s something that we can explore, and continue to find out more about, and it’s all good news.

Rosalie: Thank you, David.

Dave: Thanks, Rosalie.

Rosalie: You bet. Today’s guest was David Stevens, a practitioner and teacher of Christian Science, based in Petaluma, California.