"The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a _flaneur_, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensation. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute humility."

Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1913 (Gutenburg press on-line)

This is Super Bowl weekend 2008.

There will be lots of testosterone thrown around Glendale, Arizona (which is less than a mile from my house) this weekend.

All this is making me think about what do sports have to do with the masculine soul.

Well, first, testosterone isn't the exclusive possession of the male species. Men and women are equipped with this hormone. Therefore, claims that sports are an exclusive male domain are suspect.

Second, not all men are equipped with an equal amount of testosterone. Therefore, many men find themselves left out of the sports competition world. Remember the football player who liked to knit? I would contend that to question a man's masculinity on the basis of his choice of hobby or interest is discriminatory and prejudicial.

Third, our culture's emphasis on manliness based on a man's interest or ability in sports is shallow and demeaning. Many men find themselves left out because they don't share these interests. Many men express their manliness by being good fathers, husbands, sons and brothers with no connection to athletics.

Healing the masculine soul means coming to terms with who you are as a man and being comfortable in your skin.

Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold when it comes to thinking about how you should define your masculinity.

Superbowl XLII - New York Giants 17, New England Patriots 14

MVP - Eli Manning

Trivia Question - Eli Manning and his brother, Peyton Manning (Indianapolis Colts) are the first brothers to win a Superbowl. They also accomplished this in back to back years.

"What a man is frightened of, more than anything else in the vast possibilities of living experience, is dependency, regression to a state in which he becomes an infant in the care of his mother - a mother later unconsciously symbolized by almost all women with him he comes in contact."

Paul Olsen, Sons and Mothers, p. 41.

What do you think?

When I was growing up, I wore blue jeans everyday.

I wore jeans to school. I wore jeans around the farm. I don't remember what brand they were but GWC sticks out in my mind. I don't remember Levis or Wranglers in those days in the early Fifties.

Blue jeans were the stock of the life of a country farm boy where I grew up. I think all of us wore blue jeans.

When I went to High School, my mother decided that maybe I should have 'dress up' pants. I remember she took me shopping and we bought come corduroys. They were uncomfortable - they felt wierd. Gradually I wore other dress slacks to school.

I have to confess that I rarely blue jeans these days, if I do it is to work around the house.

I am aware that according to the media, blue jeans are supposed to make you manly. There is a perception in those ads with the guys hanging out after work in their Levis and with their favorite brew in their hands, that they are 'real' men.

Is it that easy? What do you think? Do you think you are more masculine because you wear blue jeans? Do you think the man in your life is more masculine because he wears denims?

(c) Ronald Friesen 2008

"Clearly, the church, both conservative and liberal, is manifestly concerned about these important issues, each of which essentially demands a change in male behavior. Yet meanwhile-can it be mere coincidence?-relatively few men actually participate in church life. Often less than half of a church's members are men. In fact, over half of the students in the old-line denominational church seminaries today are women, and that figure is increasing.

There is, however, one major institution today in which those figures are reversed, which draws a far greater percentage of men than women: prisons. Why are so many men in prison and so few in church?

Clearly, the answer lies within the tear in the masculine soul, which the churches have largely ignored, which the prisons can house but not heal."

Gordon Dalbey, Healing the Masculine Soul: How God Restores Men to Real Manhood, p. xxv.