manifesto: men, come alive!

Men, come alive! Your women grow weary of waiting!

We stand at the door, beckoning, with tears in our eyes and heavy of heart. We want you to join us — to take our hands in yours and walk side by side into a glorious tomorrow.

We want you to be the powerful men you were born to be. Brave of heart, alive with courage. We want you to feel hot tears on your cheeks and the cool clarity of inner knowing in your belly. We have a head start, and we want you to catch up now.

Now! We want you to rest, to sleep through the night peaceful and calm, and to greet the sun with joy. Now! We want you to discover your true calling and say Yes! and feel the deep satisfaction of doing your greatest and grandest works. Now! We want you to clasp arms with other men, encourage each other, and find strength and humility in all your brothers.

We are the women who love you, and we want you to soar.

We know who is lurking inside your minds and what is trapped in your hearts. We know because it is a woman’s place to know. We know you have not grieved for your father, or for your father’s father. We can only imagine how much it hurts, how much you have missed the men in your life. Yet our sons are now crying out for their fathers, and we want you to answer them in bold and compassionate new ways.

Learn those new ways! For your sake and for the sake of your children, who look up to you with all they have in the world. Who need you. Like us, they grow weary of waiting, and there is such a thing as “too late.”

We are the women who love you, and we want you alive!

We want you singing, dancing, drumming, cooking, writing, painting, carving, welding, building. We want you making music and planting trees, scaling mountains and growing businesses. We want you becoming the magnificent men you were born to be. And we want it for you now!

We want you to give it up — the control, the power, the standing-over instead of standing-beside. The fixing, the rescuing, the figuring it out. We want to hear you say, “I can’t handle it anymore” — and we want you to find the way to turn it over to Someone who can. We want you to believe there is something larger than your own mind — and we want you to rest in the sweet peace that comes when you believe.

Men! We are the women who love you!

We are your wives, lovers, sisters, mothers, grandmothers, partners, and friends. Our hearts ache for your pain. We weep in solidarity and we stand, arms outstretched, holding you close to our hearts. Yet we cannot, we will not, carry you through the doorway. Summon up your greatest inner power, reach out to each other, reach out to your God and fall on your kness and surrender. There is no braver act a man can perform, and it is time.

It is time, men! Time to stop numbing your feelings with substance. Time to nourish yourselves instead of stuffing your bellies. Time to drop your armor, your defenses, your fists. Time to put work in its proper place. Time to be carried aloft by Love and to declare, “Yes, this brings me Joy and I will risk what it takes to embrace it!” You yearn for something and you will not find it behind the wheel of your car or on your computer screen or in your stock portfolio. Start looking in the right places!

We know it is hard, yet there are those who can teach you.

Seek them out. At the office, on the trail, at the gym, in the classroom, on the loading dock. Look into the eyes of another man. Take the risk. Seek out men who can help parent you just long enough until you can parent yourself. Until you can righteously parent your children. All the children. We are the women who love you and we know it is hard. We know you can do it, and we know it is hard.

Men! We are the women who love you and we want you alive!

May God give you strength, for we want you alive.

(c) 1997 by Rachel Snyder