What a Real Man Looks (and Smells) Like

My four year old son, Joshua, came up to me at church the other day and said, a big grin on his face, “Daddy, smell me!”

When a four year old boy asks you to smell him, you get nervous.

I leaned over with some trepidation and smelled him.

He smelled kind of like me. Only his smell was lower to the ground.

“Do I smell like a man?” he asked with wide eyes.

“Oh, absolutely, buddy. You smell like a man, for sure,” I assured him, mussing his thick hair.

“I used your perfume!” he gushed.

Kim corrected him, “That would be cologne, honey.”

He asked me recently when he could start shaving (that reminds me, I need to get a play shaving kit like they had when I was a kid--- do they even have those anymore?). My little guy wants so much to be a man. 

And you know what really scares me?

I am the one who is supposed to be his teacher; it is my responsibility to show him what a man looks like!

Why does that prospect terrify me?

It terrifies me because, frankly, half the time I don’t even know what I am doing. I walk around trying to look like a man but I know when God looks at me, He must see a dorky boy who can’t tie his own shoes--- spiritually speaking. I pray, frequently and regularly participate in the sacraments, read the Bible and great books by spiritual giants, fellowship with other men who love God and who challenge me to keep growing. And yet I still look in the mirror much of the time and see myself as this goofy, clumsy little boy. 

I am supposed to teach Joshua what a man looks like. What it looks like for a man to love a woman and treat her with dignity and respect. What submitted strength looks like. How a man is supposed to react to adversity and trials. I have the task of showing my little guy what it looks like to love like Jesus, the only fully real man I have ever known (though I have been blessed to know some mostly real men), by being a gift of self beyond the limits. I am supposed to show Joshua what it is to love God first in one's life. 

I have been given the burden and privilege of showing my son what authentic love looks like: love of God and love of others.

This terrifies me because I know—I have learned from my Divine Teacher--- that authentic love bears the beloved from the Cross. And I am weak and dull and brimming with self-love, and I don’t like the Cross. I run from the Cross time and time again. The place I hide in is a cave of self, which is a tomb. And you and I both know that Jesus simply won’t be found there.

“Why do you seek the living among the dead?” said the angels at the tomb.

My only hope for teaching Joshua how to be a man--- a real man, not the counterfeit so prevalent in our popular culture today--- is to look to the Man Jesus Christ, to be His disciple, to listen to the Teacher and to walk with Him on His road to the Cross.

There is no easy way.

In the meantime, if it makes him happy, I will let the little man splash some of my cologne on his dimpled face. But by God's grace I will do what I can to teach him that being a man is much more than looking—and smelling--- like one. It is hard work, but it is worthy work.

Jesus, teach us how to be true men for our son's and daughter’s sake.

Copyright R. L. Drake, 2013