In the entry just above this one, I talk about our American culture not having a tradition of a rite of passage from being a boy to becoming a man. Pastor Joby Martin addressed this in his presentation at the 2025 No Regrets Men's Conference.
Used to be that men in the village would take all the boys who were soon to be men out into the bush and they would be there for weeks, living off the land, learning how to survive and other manly lessons. They either came back as men of knowledge or became lion food. We've changed a bit since those days and those cultures. For the better ? Maybe. Maybe not.
So the question I have for you is ... when did you become a man? Did you have a "rite of passage" moment? What about your sons? What do you want for them? Let me tell you about my rite of passage.
Ever since I was in junior high school, I liked to go hunting, rabbit hunting mostly. We lived out in the country and I had ready access to fields and woods which contained rabbits, and other wild game. I also was great friends with another young man named Gene who lived on a farm. Gene later became my best man at our wedding. It was on Gene's family farm that I learned how to work, in the fields, in the barns, 10-12 hours days in hot and cold weather. When Gene and I weren't working, we were hunting. And when I wasn't hunting with him, or playing football, I would go hunting with my dad. He was a WWII Veteran and he had a handful of his buddies from that war who lived up the road from us. Every year from junior high school through high school graduation, dad and his friends would take me on hunting trips with them. We spent several fall and winter Saturdays out with the dogs, chasing those elusive rabbits. Not only did I learn how to hunt and handle firearms responsibly, I also learned how to clean the game and fix it in the kitchen. Yumm.
Well, a few years after high school graduation, it was time for me to be taken into the Army. I didn't really have a clue what I was getting into, but there I was, standing in the parking lot at the Greyhound bus terminal waiting to board the bus for Ft. Jackson. My wife was there, as were my mom and dad, maybe my sister, and a couple of dad's WWII buddies. The bus pulled into the lot, the door opened and I took a step up to enter that metal beast.
And there it was -- that first step! I didn't know it, but I was passing over from boyhood to manhood. No turning back, life lessons and hard knocks here I come. I was just hoping that I didn't become lion food!
So that was my passage. Now that I look back on it, I actually recognize it for what it was and I also realize how lucky I was to have guys like Gene and men like my dad and his buddies mentoring me through those years.
When was yours? Can you put your finger on it?
"It was really an exciting time trying to find my way from being a boy to becoming a man—being toe to toe and eye to eye with grown men, even though I was only 11 or 12." (Karch Kiraly)
Hooah
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