This morning I’m thinking about diversity and masculinity.

I attended a party last night. It was a Christmas party hosted by one of my wife’s colleagues.

It was lovely from beginning to end.

Beautiful home.

Welcoming people.

Abundant food.

The host’s specialties included lasagna. He had made like four of them. Each was different. One was traditional. One had shrimp. I think one was meatless. I seek to be a good guest, so I tried them all. They were a testament to the power of cheese.

As I was going from group to group, however, I was struck by how many different life stories were in the room, and how many involved lanes I either don’t presently occupy, or never did.

The was the woman who offered me a drink. When I declined, it sparked a conversation as to why, which is familiar to me. It also led to inquiries about what I used to drink, which was less familiar.

It was a retrospective of good tastes and bad choices.

Another couple had great news of being pregnant after years of trying to conceive. I had heard about them from Lori. So it was a joy just to meet them.

Another woman reflected on moving to New York City from her home country years ago and being enthralled by the beatify, and the activity, and the life of it all.

I remember my own experience of that when I got here 24 years ago. It was like I had grown up under those GE soft white lights, and now everything was 1500 watts. I’ve always marveled at how you can light up a baseball stadium for a night game so that it can be pitch black out there, but daylight in here.

That was my experience of NYC. Pitch black elsewhere, always lit here. So I could relate.

Then I walked past a group of people I didn’t know at all and heard about a fight at a bar mitzvah. The dad was explaining his son had gotten into his first physical altercation there, because a group of kids came to be rude, and disruptive, and say inappropriate things to the moms.

And while I’ve met disrespectful people of every age, gender, and culture, and I wasn’t there to witness the fight, there was something particularly striking about the image of a group of 13 year old boys with a religious understanding that they were now men, choosing to express that manhood through aggression, misogyny, and a lack of self-control.

It made me think about how we understand manhood. This is a much longer conversation. It is interesting to me, though, how many broken definitions of manhood figured into this story.

A real man is sexually aggressive.

A real man disrespects women.

A real man bullies anyone he sees as weaker than him

A real man is unapologetic when intoxicated, and not responsible for his behavior.

A real man is violent.

And this leaves me considering how many of our messes involve bad things done to us by men, or bad things we did as men.

It also brings me to a sense of the harm of narrow definitions of manhood. Do we all have to get on the same poison truck?

We live in an era that often demands conformity and celebrates uniformity.

If you find meaning, or belonging in that, more power to you.

I do not.

I think the world is a richer place when I can celebrate people in their lanes as I pursue mine.

I think the world is a safer place when young men learn that the mark of manhood is not empowered mistreatment, or emboldened unkindness.

I think the world is a better place when middle aged men learn that the women in their life are not the source of their discontent.

And I’m not saying those women are perfect. I’m not saying that people don’t mistreat each other in relationships. I’m also not saying that life is fair. I deal with anger regarding many moments in my life. I created, or consented, to most of them myself. And the ones outside my control are certainly not the fault of the women standing next to me, who are products of the same systems.

I also think the world is a kinder place when old men learn that becoming great again doesn’t mean putting people in their place.

There’s enough sun for everyone.

I pray we would enjoy it.

I pray we would not block or wreck it for anybody else.

May we not be the storm clouds in anyone else’s day today.

You were made to shine.

So just keep shining.

(Photo Credit: Picjumbo.com)