by Steve Hicken, Illuman Board Chair

We’ve all heard about, spoken about, and pretty much recognize toxic masculinity: willful, self-centered, power-hungry, prone to violence, and un-empathetic; focused on “getting one’s due” or “for one’s own clan,” but to the detriment of any “others” that get in the way.

But, what about healthy masculinity?  One of my sons recently asked me how he should be raising his son to live into healthy masculinity.  Illuman men, right now, are engaged in this very conversation.

As a fairly young man, exactly one-half the age I am right now, I witnessed healthy masculinity in practice in a small hut in Tanzania, on the edge of a tiny village called Kowak.  I visited Kowak as part of my job with the Maryknoll Lay Missioners.  I, along with a colleague, a medical doctor living in Kowak, were invited to a communal meal held in a thatched-roof hut lit by a single candle.  My colleague and I joined a multi-generational group of around 25 people for this meal.

As the meal ended, I asked a question, which had to be translated to Swahili and then again to Luo, which was Kowak’s language.  I asked, “Who do young people look up to as their heroes?”  The young men animatedly spoke about several warriors.  So, I reflected back that among their people the young train and hone skills to excel at being warriors.  At that very moment, a gravelly voice interrupted from the very edge of the hut, and all fell silent.  The male village elder spoke up.  He said that yes, warriors were important, but that in the beginning of everything, there were three human beings, one black, one white, and one of the Indian race (as in the country of India).  All three lived in peace and harmony.  They had children, and over time, the people lost their harmony and began to fight.  For that, great warriors were needed.

“But that is not how we started,” he said.  “Things began in peace and harmony.”  He stopped speaking.

After a respectful and, to me, slightly awkward silence, someone said, “Let’s sing.” I was astonished to hear this group break into multiple-part harmony. It gave me the shivers to hear the music, sung by these happy faces barely illuminated by the single candle.  They stopped and then, with enormous smiles, asked us to sing!  Having anticipated that, my colleague had brought a guitar along with a book of folk songs.  So, mustering every bit of gusto we could, we sang an American folk song. Maybe something by Peter, Paul, and Mary; I don’t remember now. What I do remember, even in my bones right now, half a lifetime later, was the joy of singing together—them beautifully, us terribly by comparison. But there it was, the peace and harmony, just as the elder Tanzanian man prophesied.

The healthy masculine in action produces stability, peace, and harmony. The healthy masculine holds, affirms, and guides the young man’s energy to serve the community. The healthy masculine’s community includes “black, white, and Indians”—that is to say, everyone.

The theme of Illuman’s upcoming Soularize, our national men’s gathering near Albuquerque, New Mexico, is Awaken – Reconnect, Realign, Re-engage.  We gather as men in transformation toward healthy masculinity, to celebrate, support, and teach each other how to undertake this sacred quest of service to all creation and all humanity.  As racism, climate change, economic inequality, and political division all seem to be closing in on us, we believe that healthy men, and healthy masculinity, can and will bring about the peace and harmony the Tanzanian male elder spoke to half of my life ago.