When Being Good Does Not Equal Happiness

Won't it be wonderful if there were a single formula for happiness? There is no such thing, and anyone who claims to have invented or found such a formula or equation is simply kidding, pretending, or trying to fool the rest of us. But it would be near-to-impossible to disprove the person's claim to gladness, because you'd have to live in the same house with that "happy person" for 30 days before you'd find out the fact that he or she only claimed to be happy all the time but was really just like the rest of us: unhappy in an unhappy world

Perhaps the closest any human being can come to cracking the happiness code is in being a good person, someone who is committed to doing what is morally right, as defined and understood by the dominant culture where that person lives. Religious people are said to be among the rare souls who have uncovered the mystery to happiness. They tend to link happiness or joy to being or doing what is good, godly and righteous.

The only trouble is that it is not that clear cut, or most humans would have followed the religious formula, and the world's billions of people would be mostly happy, glad, joyful. The reality is that being good and doing good may not result in happiness, at least not all the time. The only way godliness would produce permanent happiness in this life would be if only good things were to happen to good people, and only bad things were to happen to bad people. In a world where bad things happen to good people and vice versa, it is absurd to think or believe that lifelong happiness can become anyone's reality this side of the grave. The reality of a crippled world renders flawed every formula of happiness.

Concerning the morally good life, one writer penned these words on what he called "the straight life":

The straight life for a homemaker is washing dishes three hours a day; it is cleaning sinks and scouring toilets and waxing floors; it is chasing toddlers and mediating fights between preschool siblings. (One mother said she had raised three "tricycle motors," and they had worn her out.) The straight life is driving your station wagon to school and back twenty-three times per week; it is grocery shopping and baking cupcakes for the class Halloween party. The straight life eventually means becoming the parent of an ungrateful teenager, which I assure you is no job for sissies. (It's difficult to let your adolescent find himself – especially when you know he isn't even looking!) Certainly, the straight life for the homemaker can be an exhausting experience, at times.

The straight life for a working man is not much simpler. It is pulling your tired frame out of bed, five days a week, fifty weeks out of the year. It is earning a two-week vacation in August, and choosing a trip that will please the kids. The straight life is spending your money wisely when you'd rather indulge in a new whatever; it is taking your son bike riding on Saturday when you want so badly to watch the baseball game; it is cleaning out the garage on your day off after working sixty hours the prior week. The straight life is coping with head colds and engine tune-ups and crab grass and income-tax forms; it is taking your family to church on Sunday when you've heard every idea the minister has to offer; it is giving a portion of your income to God's work when you already wonder how ends will meet. The straight life for the ordinary, garden-variety husband and father is everything I have listed and more . . . much more.

Should we then forget about being good people as our society or religion stipulates, forget about doing good deeds, because goodness will only wear us out rather than bring us the bliss of happiness we desire? Certainly not! Why not? Because being bad and doing bad things will remove us even farther away from the gates of joy. Though happiness via goodness is illusive, it is far better to spend life at the gates of happiness, where we may see or smell the desire of every heart, even if we barely enter into those confines of joy. That is much better than to live our existence atop the pit of gloom, on the threshold of a hellhole, where we may never even know what the greenery of happiness looks like.

We should choose character with charity, because, when all is said and done, it is better to be and do good than to be and do evil. But let us be good and do good for goodness own sake, not for any reward of happiness we expect in return in this lifetime. That misguided soul who intends to trade goodness for happiness will find that such a bargain is never the fair trade we wish it to be in this uneven, fallen world we call home.

The Pursuit of Happiness: Choose Your Chase

Now that you have it down that America guarantees only the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself, you need to decide what it is or how many things you want to pursue in the spirit of America. What do you want to pursue in American fashion? Is it pleasure? How about wealth, more money, a bigger house, a bigger car, many houses, many cars? Why not add a motorcycle, a boat, a yacht, an ATV, an RV, a private airplane?

Pursue knowledge, philosophy, education. Go beyond high school to college. Reach the heights of graduate school and add a title or two before your name, perhaps Dr. or PhD, or some other fancier, more impressive tag. Be a lifelong student; no learning is for nothing, so they say.

Pursue the career of your dreams. Pursue toys, little ones or big ones, cheap toys or expensive toys. Pursue sex, all the sex you can have, with whomever you want to have it, whenever you like it, wherever you and your sex partner choose.

Pursue the best foods at the best restaurants. Pursue travel and spend your nights at the world's luxurious hotels and motels, and watch pay-per-view movies or premium channels while you are there. See the world by car, train, ship or airplane. Add tourism to travel as icing on the cake of adventure.

Pursue friends, and multiply them by the dozens, if you want. Pursue sports. Pursue the perfect body, watching what you eat; work out like a well-oiled machine. Pursue your pet project, the hobby of your fancy. Become a decorator, a writer, a singer, a designer, an engineer, a builder, and build whatever your heart desires. Pursue plants and gardens, and seek fulfillment in nature and horticulture.

Pursue fame, and get your own shiny spot in the sun of celebrity and popularity. Pursue position with some star power of your own. Seek political office for whatever reason you can come up with, and have the whole world chanting your name or slogan, while you convince them that it's all about them, not about you. Get them to believe that together you and they have been called to change the world.

Pursue technology. Own the latest computer and other communication gadgets of the time: laptop, cell phone, ipod, iphone, GPS, HDTV, DVR, TiVo. Get all you can, and can all you get.

Better yet, pursue religion, charity, philanthropy, doing the right thing. Volunteer your time and give your hard-earned money to help those in need. Find your cause in life and sacrifice all you can for that worthy cause, whatever it is. It will even make you feel good, that with your life you have made someone else's life better.

Pursue and marry the love of your life. Settle down and raise a family. It is far better than running around, shacking up, sleeping here and there, or is it really better? Raise responsible children and donate them as your ultimate contribution to human civilization. You may be proud of that, or you may regret the whole thing after all, in your sunset days.

You can pursue all of the above. You can grab hold of some or most of them. But sooner or later, you will realize that happiness still lurks in the foggy distance of your future, yet waiting to be pursued.

If there is anything in life close to a semblance of happiness, it only lies in the pursuit itself. "The pursuit of happiness". Not the possession of happiness. You are happier pursuing than finding and keeping whatever it is you are chasing.

Whether sifting through the desolations of the underdeveloped world in Africa, Asia and South America, or soaring heights of affluent North America and Europe, it does not matter what continent or country, there is no deposit or reservoir of happiness to be found anywhere on this planet. Humans have searched for and found deposits of petroleum, the dark wealth over which humans and nations continue to fight wars to control its flow and supply. Deposits of gold, diamond, iron and other minerals abound, and greed for these precious metals never cease to spoil much of our luck at happiness. But there has yet to be that one lucky son of man who decoded the secret or unearthed the stuff of happiness, that true wealth that all other riches combined cannot even begin to afford. Happiness is as priceless as it is scarce.

And whatever is valuable, humans will search for. Thus the chase goes on. The pursuit continues, the pursuit of happiness. Though something inside each of us tells us, we'll never find on this side of the grave the permanent state of happiness we are chasing, we somehow know it's better to be in pursuit of the dream than to give up the chase, sit back and kick back for a cop out in the name of frustration.

Be true to yourself and admit it: You are not happy, and you have never met a truly happy person. Many of your acquaintances pretend to be happy, but if you ever get to really know them, you'll find they're just like you and your family and friends: unhappy, always in pursuit, but never laying hold of the prize, not finally and permanently.

Now, for any soul who has ever been so blessed as to experience pure happiness, it has always been just for a fleeting moment every time. You see, real happiness is the orgasm of life. Like orgasm, happiness is the peak to which every human effort and endeavor builds. Like orgasm, happiness is a climax that sends into one's innermost being the sweetest of feelings. Sad thing is, the high never lasts. It is not meant to. Happiness is meant to like the brief splash of a victory lap accompanied by cheers, the awarding of medals and singing of a national anthem after an athlete wins an Olympic event. Happiness never lasts beyond the moment. Because of its fleeting nature, we humans can spend our lives in pursuit of happiness. Without the thrill of the chase, life would be quite boring, hardly worth your breath. What is life, after all, without something worth chasing, especially if the object of the chase is happiness, even if for a dot of time.

I'm still in hot pursuit of happiness. In the not-too-distant past, I managed to grab it a time or two, but lost it again each time. How about you? Let me know if you've found happiness that lasts. Or have you given up the pursuit, as millions of souls have done?

Happiness: The Chase Goes On

Some people claim to know what happiness is. No one seems to know where or how to find happiness.

Born and raised in Liberia, we spend part of our childhood dreaming about leaving Liberia, crossing the vast Atlantic Ocean, landing on the heaven-on-earth terrain known as America. My junior high friend, Robert Saydee and I would lay on the bunk beds of our dorm room in a boarding school and verbally dream of the day when both of us would migrate to the great, rich United States, the land of the missionary, peace corps, CIA agent, tourist, Hollywood star, cars, planes, and black American athletes. So we dreamed until Saydee and I were separated by the need to continue our educational journeys in different locations. Our American dream lingered.

Well, it was not exactly the journey to America we would have scripted, but my lifelong friend and I are in the United States now. It was the brutal Liberian civil war that uprooted us and catapulted us to this sweet land of liberty, which has proved to be so much more than our boyish minds had imagined. Give or take a few surprises.

Liberians who still live in what is perhaps now the world's poorest country will not believe me when I say it, but it is true: there is no happiness in America, just as there is no happiness in Liberia. Life in America means a lot of things, but permanent happiness is not one of them.

What does it really mean to live in America? Find it in those words in nation's Declaration of Independence: it is the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". In the United States, what you are given is the right to live, to be free, and to pursue happiness. You are not granted, guaranteed or given happiness. No, it's not happiness but the pursuit of it. That's what America offers.

The "pursuit" is the key to life in America. As for the happiness part, give it up, you will never catch it here. Unless you have figured out the mental trick of finding happiness in the pursuit itself, you will be a wind chaser all the days of your life in America. Can you catch the wind and hold it in your hand? Neither can you grab happiness, hold it, and take it with you into your American home.

Happiness has little to do with geography. It is not about location, or relocation. Moving from here to there will not make you happy any more than changing from flip flops or slippers to shoes. Happiness is not some place or some thing.

Happiness is a pursuit, not a catch. So, let the pursuit begin, or let it continue. Remember, they call it "the American dream". It's a "dream", not a reality.

Dr. James Dobson, Steven Curtis Chapman, and The Theology of Denial

It's Monday, our 16^th wedding anniversary. Not that this has anyting to do with the subject of this article. Okay, I'm driving our 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son to school. And as I normally do on school days, the radio is set to a Christian station with Focus On The Family as the program. This morning Dr. James Dobson, the psychologist, best-selling author, and traditional evangelical leader was interviewing Christian music artist Steven Curtis Chapman, the repeated Dove Award winner who has sold more than 10 million records.

For the program of the morning, Steven Curtis Chapman was discussing with Dr. Dobson the recent loss of Steven's adopted daughter Maria Sue. Mr. Chapman described how faith in God has helped his family cope with the tragedy. On May 21, 2008, the little Maria Sue died when her 17-year-old brother Will Franklin ran over her in the family's driveway with an SUV. Maria had just turned 5 on May 13^th.

Steven Curtis narrated how he prayed, seeking to change the forecast of dark cloud that was descending over the Chapman family. He said, “I heard myself praying over and over again all the way to Vanderbilt Hospital, 'In the name of Jesus, breathe life.'” That was the shortened version of the prayer Steven began praying in the driveway as the medical team was working on Maria. Dad kept believing that God was going to breathe life back into his precious girl.

As that awful day unfolded, Steven Curtis prayed some more, “In the holy name, in the worthy name, breathe life. God, I know You can do this. You've breathed life into dead bodies before. I know You can do this... Jesus, breathe life into Maria... God, I'm gonna trust You, I'm gonna bless You even in this.”

Dad had a sense that he was breathing for Maria.

“In my mind, I was preparing myself to go in and pray for Maria to be raised from the dead”, Mr. Chapman said as he neared the hospital. “I'm gonna go and bolt the door, and they can come in and call me crazy and say whatever they want to, but I'm gonna pray and just trust that God can raise her back up...”

At that point, Dr. Dobson, perhaps feeling helpless and uncomfortable about the level of pain in his radio guest's voice, gently interrupted Chapman to set the singer straight. You know how Christian musicians some times have a twisted theology, based on a poor knowledge of the Scriptures? Except that in this case, it was not the singer but the doctor who needed a theological fix.

Dr. Dobson told Steven Curtis and the radio audience, “In fact He (God) did, He did, because we know where she is”. Not surprisingly, Steven Curtis abandoned his line of what really happened and agreed with Dr. Dobson that “in fact” God did raise Maria from the dead, since the little girl is now at home with the Lord.

“And my son Caleb said it at the memorial service,” Steven Curtis continued. “He said, 'God did heal Maria. He answered our prayers for Maria. He healed her, but He didn't heal her in the way that we like very much right now...”

So, according to these two Christian men along with Steven's son Caleb, God “in fact” did two things for Maria Sue:

1. God raised Maria from the dead.

2. God healed Maria of the coma.

Denial theology! That's exactly what that sounds like. That's what it is. Denial theology confirms the charge that so many non-Christians levy against religious people: that we use faith to hide from reality. This is the kind of faith that cannot be defended with reason. Thus it portrays our faith as illogical. This kind of religious jargon attracts the label of “blind faith”, and it should.

The fact, the truth, the reality is that in May of 2008, a 5-year-old girl named Maria Sue Chapman died. God did not raise her from the dead. If Jesus had breathed life back into her, Maria would physically be a part of the Chapman family today. The truth is that God did not heal Maria Sue of the coma from which she never returned. The reality is that God did not answer the prayers of the Chapmans and the thousands of believers who prayed with them, asking the Lord to preserve little Maria's young life.

We play ostrich to stare such a devastating reality in the face and stick our theological necks in the sand and come away spewing such piety as, “God did raise her to life. God did heal her.” We can believe Maria is in Heaven, but that is not the same as her being resurrected or resuscitated. Not recovering from the trauma of coma is not the same as being healed of coma.

Denial theology does not serve the Christian faith well, or any other faith for that matter. It mocks true faith, which keeps on believing and trusting God, even though Maria died, even though Maria was not healed.

Words have meaning, and the words of theology are no exception to the rules of diction. Resurrection means rising from the dead; dying and staying dead cannot mean the same thing as being raised back to life. Healing has a meaning, and it does not mean the same as death. Why do we even have to point that out?

As Christians, our theology of pain and suffering should remain rooted in the Scriptures, and the Bible is no book of denial. It features real people, real events, real experiences.

Beginning with the teaching of Jesus Christ, death is spoken of in the New Testament as “sleep”. When a believer died, the first-century Christian community would say the person had “fallen asleep”. But that “sleep” was a euphemism for death.

Also, the language of sleep underscored the belief that for the Christian death has lost its painful sting; death has become as calm as falling asleep. Furthermore, the sleep imagery summed up the early Christians' hope of resurrection, that the Christian would literally rise from the dead at the end of this age, when Jesus Christ returns to planet earth. Never did the early Christians or the New Testament ever portray the experience of dying and death as healing or as rising from the dead!

The early believers would reject the denial theology that has become so rampant, coming even from the lips of famous Christian leaders. There are many Scriptures we can use to comfort people without resorting to the crude denial of death and disease.

A clergyman recalls how he was tempted to use denial theology as a cheap, watered-down way to comfort a young lady whose baby had died before delivery. He had considered cheap comfort, because he really didn't know how to help this young lady. It would have been far better for the minister to keep silent than give the girl some of the cliches that denial theology is famous for.

The grieving mom asked the minister to do a funeral for her stillborn baby. It was the preacher's first time conducting such a funeral, and he has never done one like it ever since. Frankly, the man of God really did not know how exactly to comfort that young woman and somehow ease the pain of her acute grief. Finally, he shared the story of King David and Queen Bathsheba whose baby had died, regardless of the fact that David had prayed and fasted, asking God to spare the life of the innocent infant. Using that biblical account, the minister told the mother and the sympathizers present something like this:

“None of knows why God allowed your innocent baby to die before birth. Our faith in the God of the Bible tells us that there are some things we will not be able to understand or explain in this lifetime. All we Bible believers know for sure is that the human race lives in a fallen world, an imperfect world, and in such a world bad things do happen to innocent people, even to innocent babies like your little one. To continue to believe and trust God in spite of our inability to comprehend such a reality is the essence of true faith. You can still trust God, even though He did not answer your prayer for your baby's life, even though you do not know or understand why your child did not live.”

Does Dr. James Dobson not know this? Of course, he does. After all, Dr. Dobson wrote the book, When God Doesn't Make Sense, wrestling with the subject of theodicy (the issue of evil in lieu of God's existence). So what are we to make of Dr. Dobson's preference for denial theology in his interview with Steven Curtis Chapman? One can only guess that the lapse was due to the psychology major's well-meaning effort to sympathize with Mr. Chapman and relieve the still fresh memory of the intense grief that Marie Sue's death must have brought upon the Chapman family.

But even at that, Dr. Dobson still came across as a typical denial theologian, who seems to trivialize the mentally demanding question of 'why bad things happen to good people'. Denial theologians tend to throw trite answers at the deep questions of theodicy, the presence of undeserved evil in a world governed by the hands of a sovereign God, a deity whom believers know to be omnipotent (all-powerful and beneficent (good, kind, loving).

There is much hope that denial theology shall not continue to rule the thinking of the faith community. How can we be so sure? Because left to sort out their own experiences in light of their faith, ordinary religious people will express views that resemble realty theology. That was exactly the way Steven Curtis Chapman was narrating his story, until Dr. James Dobson stepped in to save the day. The good doctor should have left Mr. Chapman alone, so he could continue to sort out his very own theology of pain and suffering, rather than stuff him with a loaf of cookie-cutter denial theology.

What? Another Barack Obama Re-Introduction?

Last night (August 20, 2008), I turned on cable television, and there on CNN Presents was the latest biography on Mr. Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic Party nominee for president of the United States. Perhaps CNN produced this show to counteract that slanderous book Obama Nation.

Frankly, I learned not much new about Mr. Obama. There is very little left to be learned about the man. Barack (Barry) was born to a black (Kenyan) father and white mother. His father abandoned him; his dad, born 1936, died 1982 in Kenya. Barack married Michelle Robinson in October 1992. His mom died in 1995.

Can we move on now, please? How many times will Barack Obama have to introduce himself or have CNN or any other entity introduce the man to America? Was he a naturalized citizen or something? Really, why does the man need to be introduced and re-introduced to his own country over and over? Barack has been on the national stage for months now. By now anyone interested in learning more about him should have checked Wikipedia or some other independent source on the candidate.

All this pretend curiosity about getting to know the real Barack Obama is getting kind of old. And it is getting some of us to ask, “If this guy were a white presidential candidate, named William Baron, would we still be wanting to know 'The Real William Baron', or would we rather be more concerned about William Baron's ideas?”

This is insane, and I'm about to lose more of my already vanishing hair strings. Look, people, the only important questions to ask of any presidential candidate of these united states should be those contained in the Constitution of our country. Perhaps a little civics review will do the trick:

1. First important question: Does the candidate satisfy the age and citizenship requirements as stated in Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution? The founding document reads, “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.”

2. Second important question: Does the candidate meet what may be called the no-dynasty, no-ruling family requirement? The term limit amendment ratified February 27, 1951, reads, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

The person does not have to be a certain height. Does not need to have been in Washington for decades; two to three years in the legislature plus numerous appearances on the national stage is plenty of time to know someone who wants to be president. Besides, the media, especially in the Internet Age, littered with blogs, will definitely leave no stone unturned in the effort to reveal, uncover or expose any politician aiming for Pennsylvania Avenue.

No, the candidate does not have to be a certain gender. Does not have to be married. Does not have to have children. Does not have to graduate from a certain school. Does not have to be a Jew, Christian, or Muslim. Does not have to be Evangelical, Catholic, Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Seventh Day Adventist, or Charismatic. Does not have to be a governor, representative or senator. And no, the candidate for the oval office does not have to own a dog or cat, or have his last name be Kennedy, Bush or Clinton. His/her name does not even have to be or sound American.

I thought the United Sates were the great, big cultural melting pot of the world. Has that changed all of a sudden, because a guy's name is or sounds Eastern? What am I missing here?

Yes, the presidential candidate must have character or integrity, as defined and accepted by American society. But if the person lacks moral integrity, the electorate will filter him/her out with their votes.

On August 25^th the convention for the Democratic Party kicks off, to be followed on September by the Republican Party convention on . May America be treated as an adult, not expecting or waiting for an encore introduction of Obama or McCain. May we see and hear a serious presentation of the big issues this election should be about from now until November 4^th.

“What are those issues?” one may ask. Those issues are not McCain's war record or prisoner of war accolade. Not Barack's last name or middle name; not his pastor or any other associates of decades past. Personality will not win or lose this election. What we want to hear are the candidates' ideas and plans concerning national security, energy, health care, taxes, judges, abortion, and the international scene.

How will either man deal with each of the following? The recessive economy; America's bankrupt social security scheme; the costly war in Iraq, costing the American taxpayer $10 billion per month; angry Russia, now occupying the sovereign nation of Georgia; ambitious Iran, with its unpredictable ruler; illusive Afghanistan, where the Taliban resurges; the explosive dilemma that is the Israeli and Palestinian question; the rising super power that is China; nuclear Pakistan, with increasingly bold and blatant suicide bombers; Darfur, the humanitarian disaster of Sudan; the AIDS epidemic.

Leadership Void: We Need Leaders But All We Get Are Politicians

Just look at the multitude and magnitude of the problems America and the world face.

On the international front: The volatile existence between Israelis and Palestinians continues. The war in Iraq seems to have no end in sight, and it costs America $10 billion every single month, probably more than any budgetary item of the federal government. The Taliban resurges in Afghanistan, taking back territory once under allied forces. Russia entrenches its forces in the sovereign democratic country of Georgia; the world watches, and world leaders in America and Europe bark like old dogs without teeth; meanwhile Russia lies to the world that it is withdrawing its troops when there is little proof of a Russian withdrawal. Islamic extremists step up the heat in Pakistan less than a week after that country's president resigned; the news media just reported that two suicide bombers just blew up themselves along with 50 innocent people.

On the domestic front here in the United States: Social security is still broke. Medicare is bankrupt as well. Health care cost spirals out of control. The rising cost of energy continues to inflate the cost of food and other essential goods. The banking sector has lost the trust of investors. The housing market slumbers in the basement.

In the face of this litany of demanding issues and problems, the political system offers America two men, Barack Obama and John McCain, whose resumes qualify them as politicians not leaders. But do we even know the difference between a leader and a politician anymore? In recent years, we have been so used to hearing and seeing politicians we are beginning to settle for typical politicians rather than demand true leaders.

Let's contrast a leader with a politician.

Politician: make the right move, and leave every difficult decision for the next guy. Problem is, "the next guy" will do exactly the same. Leader: make the tough decision, which is also the right decision for the country.

Politician: say the right thing, what's politically correct. Leader: do the right thing, what's morally correct.

Politician: compromise your principles; go along with others. Leader: stand on your principles; persuade others to come along.

Politician: identify many problems and make many promises to solve them. Leader: identify few real problems and solve them one problem at a time.

If you were to ask, "Of all the qualities that defines a leader, which is most important?", my answer, without a blink, would be "problem solving". The wisdom and courage to solve real, tough problems is the essence of what a true leader is.

On the contrary, the public officials of our time are known for creating problems, standing in the way of solutions, taking credit for doing nothing, pointing fingers and passing blames. There is not one leader among them. No, not one. How do we know? Everyone of our biggest problems is yet to be solved.

Class of Offenders: Exploring Alternatives for Non-Violent Offenders

The Bureau of Justice Statistics breaks down crimes into four major offenses: violent offense, property offense, drug offense, and public-order offense. The 2004 figures show the following:

1. Violent offenders: 52 percent
2. Property offenders: 21 percent
3. Drug offenders: 20 percent
4. Public-order offenders: 7 percent

From this breakdown of the numbers, you see that the dangerous criminals make up 52 percent of the prison population. That means, the other 48 percent of inmates could be out of jail and not pose any serious threat to public safety, because those are non-violent offenders.

Should America not step up the effort by providing the needed funding to explore and utilize real alternatives to incarceration for these non-violent offenders? Surely, a nation as wealthy and able as America can do just that, if not more.

Here are some alternative sentencing measures that can reduce the prison population, cut the cost of incarceration, benefit society, and help to rehabilitate hundreds of thousands of the prisoners in our backyards, all at the same time:

• Property Offenders: sentence them to labor equal to the value of the property stolen or damaged.
• Drug Offenders: sentence them to drug treatment centers, shelters or programs. If the person does not improve, combine this treatment with some hard, sweaty labor. The Divert Court program in Texas provides a working model.
• Public-Order Offenders: sentence those who violate public order to labor or community service. They could actually be given low-wage jobs to pay fines commensurate with their offenses.

Let us not forget that among America's prison population are many mentally ill people. Now, what class of offender do these fit in? Who knows what crime it is to lose one's mind? Just think about that: the world's most civilized nation hauls its mentally ill citizens to jails! Not that I want to fault my country, but can't we find a better solution than incarcerating crazy people? Yes, I know, they are often included with the druggies, because drug abuse may have resulted in their mental condition. But can't we find a better way than locking up the mentally ill like criminals?

Keep the brainstorming going; America might just one day shed its record as the world's lead jailer.

Inmates America: What It Costs to Run America's Prisons

America's prison population continues to explode, and so does the cost of keeping so many Americans locked up.

According to Pew Center on the States, America now has one adult inmate for every 99.1 American adults. Of a total of 230 million American adults, our prison population stands at 2,319,258. Only America holds this distasteful record. We incarcerate more of our citizens than totalitarian Russia (864,590 prisoners), more than even communist China, with its 1.3 billion people (1.5 million inmates).

So, while we rightly spew human rights lectures at China, the Chinese government only needs to throw it back at us that we have 1 percent of our adult population behind bars.

People, that's a whole lot of our precious human resources wasting away in jails, prisons, and half-way houses all across this land of the free. And it costs billions of dollars to keep those Americans locked up. The 50 states of the USA spend a total of $49 billion a year on incarceration. Twenty years ago, the cost was less than $11 billion.

In a recent town hall meeting, Governor Steve Beshear said it costs the state of Kentucky $20,000 a year to incarcerate just one person. In 2007, Kentucky led the nation in the increase of inmate population. Governor Beshear points out that though Kentucky's crime rate has increased by only 3 percent in the past 30 years, the state's inmate population has soared a whopping 600%.

Actually, the actual number is higher than the Governor's estimate of $20,000 per inmate. Kentucky, which had 3,000 inmates in 1973, now has 22,000 inmates as of 2008, and the state has been spending $500 million each year to house those inmates. If you do the math, it's costing Kentucky taxpayers about $22,727 to incarcerate one inmate for one year.

Should America Be Ashamed of Our Prison Population Explosion?

Imprisonment embarrassment. That's what it should be called.

Researchers of America's prison population have found that the number of women inmates continues to swell. The female prison population increased 2.5 percent from 2006 to mid 2007, for a total of 115,308 ladies in America's jails and prisons. Our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters have been packing the jails just like the guys.

One female prison, the Ohio Women Reformatory, houses 2,300 women, many of them mothers. Don't you like that name, “Reformatory”? The truth is very little reformation is going on behind the walls of American jails. The recidivism rate seems to still be stuck at around 85 percent; that means for every 100 persons who are released from jail, 85 percent of them will be re-incarcerated. Those giant revolving doors across the prison industry just keep swinging back and forth.

To their credit, the overcrowded Ohio Women Reformatory, in order to meet the demand of more female offenders, is building a 1,000-bed facility. They say 1,000 beds, but we know that “beds” really mean “women”. So this jail expects another 1,000 women to come knocking to enter Prison Institute.

Our choice of euphemism for the prison industry reveals there is something that really disturbs us about having so many of our fellow citizens locked up. The ballooning jail population shows something of our nakedness as a society, and we find ways to blush away this embarrassment by resorting to figurative language: reformatory, department of corrections, correctional facility, detention center, etc.

Are we embarrassed to call them what they are? Why do we hesitate to say them jails, prisons? What's this “corrections” stuff, like the incarcerated are students getting their tests graded (corrected) by their instructors? We somehow prefer to lessen the impact on our collective social psyche by minimizing the punishment aspect of our prison business. But no matter how tender the language we employ for crime and punishment system, we will do nothing significantly meaningful to reverse the trend towards more and more of our fellow citizens headed into prison cells.

It's high time started calling America's jail houses what they really are – hell holes of the world's greatest country. With the correct semantics, we may start seeing the seriousness of the problem that an ever increasing numbers of prisoners present to this civilized society. Let us call prisons by the punitive names they deserve. Perhaps by doing so, we may just prick our social consciousness into taking the necessary steps to reduce the population explosion of those dark halls of squandered human resources.

Cohabitation: How to Cut Down the Shack Up Craze

I pointed out in another blog that people choose to cohabit, shack up or live together without marriage for one of three big reasons: (1) They have an attitude that says "Marriage is only a piece of paper”; (2) they think that living together is a "test drive" for marriage; (3) they are afraid that marriage may reduce their welfare or social security check.

But there is a blunt reason for widespread cohabitation in our society: Boys and men love free sex; girls and women let them have it. That’s it.

If women want men to commit to marriage, then women must withhold sex from men until men marry women. Does it make any sense to you, dear lady, that the typical guy will want to reward you for something he can get for free?

As a certified male, I guarantee you that every man worth his manhood will do anything, short of taking his own life or going to jail, to obtain sex with the woman he loves. He will even pay a huge amount of money for sex. Hey, why do you think men pay female prostitutes, and not vice versa? It’s the same reason why men are the #1 subscribers to Play Boy magazine. Men love sex, and they’re willing to pay the cost.

The really awkward thing is that ever since women got “liberated”, more and more of them are putting the aggressive moves on men to have sex with them. What, you offer a guy sex so he can commit to marrying you? Are you kidding me? Yep, he may marry you, but you’ve given him a long rope, and the guy is more likely to play delay tactics after he’s seen your nakedness, or played you.

Here is the quickest way to get any serious guy to marry a serious woman. The woman should say something like this…

“You say you love me, right? You say I’m beautiful, right? And you say I’m special, right? And you say you’ll do anything for me, right? Well, my dear, if all that is true, then don’t I deserve something as simple and special as a marriage license. I consider sex and my body something very special, and I just can’t give it away to anyone. I must keep this treasure for that special someone who will respect me enough not to think of getting me free of charge. Are you that special person or not? If you really love me, you will wait until we are married before I can give you my body, sex and all.”

And, man, you think of it this way. To go into business, you need a business license. To enroll in school, you need an ID card, a registration, or some kind of paper work. To drive a car, you need a driver’s license. In the school my kids attend, to play sports you need to take a physical, with written results turned in to the coach.

Now, do you consider a woman or marriage less important than a business, than school, than driving a car, or playing sports? If you shouldn’t drive without a license, does it not make sense to you that you need a license to have sex with a woman? Hey, man, a marriage license is really your sex license.

On that point, when a police stops a driver, the cop walks over to the driver and says, “May I have your driver’s license, please?” Won’t it be really interesting if every time you were seen or cut having sex, the police came over and say, “Show me your sex license?” Can you imagine so many couples not able to produce the license? Can you see them in a hurry putting their pants back on and fleeing the sex scene?

Women, there is no sex police. Why not play that role to help the boys out some?

My point is this: when women stop giving men free sex outside of marriage, we will begin to see a greater number of men committing to marry their ladies. Then there will be more marriages with lots of responsible sex to follow.

But will that reduce the rate of divorce? Well, that’s a whole different can of worms.

Cohabitation: Shack Up to Break Up?

Cohabitation is just a big word for shacking up, which is two people living together before marriage or instead of marriage. It is like being husband and wife but without the wedding ceremony, without the marriage license. Shacking up is as close to a free ride as you can get in the arena of sexual relationships.

People who take the "shack up" path convince themselves that cohabitation is better to their relationship than marriage. Here are some reasons why people shack up:

1. The attitude that says "Marriage is only a piece of paper". This was the overriding attitude of Americans in the 1960s and 1970s. Those with this attitude seek to avoid marriage, because they somehow despise marriage, especially for the expectations that come with marriage.
   
2. Living together is a "test drive" for marriage. The cohabiting couple mistakenly believe that if they shack up before they get married, they will improve the chances of their marriage succeeding. That's what they think until they get hit with the facts that cohabiting will actually endanger their success in marriage. Research shows that five to seven years of shacking up point to the following reality: 39% chance that the couple will break up; 40% chance that you'll marry the person, with up to 80% chance that the marriage will end in divorce; 21% chance that you will continue to shack up with the person and keep delaying marriage. Shacking up becomes a game of chicken, a cop out from saying "I do".Fear of marriage. Why would a couple be afraid to marry? One reason may be that they saw their parents divorce and they want no part of such breakups. Cohabitation becomes the safer option to avoid the sense of failure that divorce brings.
3. Negative effect on income. I have spoken with cohabiting couples who said getting married would mean a pay cut. Say what? Yes, they actually say, "If we get married, the government will reduce the Social Security check." If that is true, then the tax laws of the United States need to change to favor marriage rather than discourage it. However, resisting marriage because your income may go down reveals a screwed up sense of priority that clearly rates money as more important than marriage or love. How can you say, "I love you enough to die for you", if you are not willing to pay the easier price of less money?
   

All in all, if you choose to shack up, you set yourself up to break up. And if you don't break up, you still pay the social price of less respect from people who know you are shacking up. And you know too that you deserve less respect for not doing "the right thing", the responsible thing ~ get married!

Cohabitation: Shack Up to Break Up?

Cohabitation is just a big word for shacking up, which is two people living together before marriage or instead of marriage. It is like being husband and wife but without the wedding ceremony, without the marriage license. Shacking up is as close to a free ride as you can get in the arena of sexual relationships.

People who take the "shack up" path convince themselves that cohabitation is better to their relationship than marriage. Here are some reasons why people shack up:

1. The attitude that says "Marriage is only a piece of paper". This was the overriding attitude of Americans in the 1960s and 1970s. Those with this attitude seek to avoid marriage, because they somehow despise marriage, especially for the expectations that come with marriage.
   
2. Living together is a "test drive" for marriage. The cohabiting couple mistakenly believe that if they shack up before they get married, they will improve the chances of their marriage succeeding. That's what they think until they get hit with the facts that cohabiting will actually endanger their success in marriage. Research shows that five to seven years of shacking up point to the following reality: 39% chance that the couple will break up; 40% chance that you'll marry the person, with up to 80% chance that the marriage will end in divorce; 21% chance that you will continue to shack up with the person and keep delaying marriage. Shacking up becomes a game of chicken, a cop out from saying "I do".Fear of marriage. Why would a couple be afraid to marry? One reason may be that they saw their parents divorce and they want no part of such breakups. Cohabitation becomes the safer option to avoid the sense of failure that divorce brings.
3. Negative effect on income. I have spoken with cohabiting couples who said getting married would mean a pay cut. Say what? Yes, they actually say, "If we get married, the government will reduce the Social Security check." If that is true, then the tax laws of the United States need to change to favor marriage rather than discourage it. However, resisting marriage because your income may go down reveals a screwed up sense of priority that clearly rates money as more important than marriage or love. How can you say, "I love you enough to die for you", if you are not willing to pay the easier price of less money?
   

All in all, if you choose to shack up, you set yourself up to break up. And if you don't break up, you still pay the social price of less respect from people who know you are shacking up. And you know too that you deserve less respect for not doing "the right thing", the responsible thing ~ get married!

Grandpa Mows Lawn, Grandkid Plays Golf on Lawn

Just the other day, I was driving by a home near ours when I saw a troubling sight. Here was this elder man, a grandfather pushing a lawn mow in the summer sun. Some yards away from him was a stout young man, the man's grandson, hitting golf balls. Obviously, neither the granddad nor the grandson saw anything wrong with this picture.

Something tells me something is seriously wrong with a lawn-mowing grandfather and a golfing grandson on the same lawn at the same time. That boy should have been pushing that lawn mow, and that grandfather should have required him to.

It is this sort of child-rearing or child neglect that is eating away at the work ethic of the younger generation. In God's name, what sense does it make to feed, shelter, clothe, and provide every necessity for a teenage boy, and then let him play ball while you mow the lawn around him and his golf balls?

By the way, Grandpa bought the golf club and golf balls too. Later, that grandson of his will probably expect Grandpa, even ask Grandpa to buy him a golf cart, that little vehicle golfers ride around in.

What's the underlined social problem here? It's the lack of authentic manhood, gold ole masculinity. I wager that this grandfather was a spoiler of his own kids before he became the same to his grandson. He may well think he's loving that young man the best he can, but Grandpa forgets that he won't always be around to pamper that young brat. And when life later begins to kick the little guy's soft butt and callous-free hands in the real, he'll have no clue what hit him in the rear end, what he missed out on while growing up.

Seemingly, that teenager has no father to teach him work ethic, which means getting him to work as an ethical way to live. Now, his one and only hope, Grandpa, is failing to show him how to work like a man.

There goes another masculine disaster just waiting to happen! Before you know it, the boy may flung school, drop out of the school or quit after high school, get into crime or drugs. And you know where that road leads: straight to jail.

Daughter Mows Lawn, Son Fries Eggs

Strange morning it was on Monday, July 21, 2008. Earlier that morning, our son asked, “Dad, can I fry eggs for breakfast?” At first, I said, “No, you don’t have enough time before your football camp.” Then I realized the camp would start an hour later than I remembered.

“Yes, you may fry some eggs,” I gave him the green light.

That same morning, our 14-year-old daughter got my attention with this strange request: “Can I mow the lawn?”

“Hahn?” I asked … shocked.

She seemed serious. “I want to mow the lawn to get paid $10.”

“Why does she want to fool with the lawn mower?” I asked mentally. “She got paid $50 a couple of weeks ago for typing my 164-page Liberian war journal. And now she wants to risk ripping into her legs with a lawn mow in the name of 10 bucks?”

Certain that there was no way this muscle-challenge young lady would survive that Craft lawn mower, I followed her behind the house to go through the motions in order to prove one point: This is NOT a girl’s job!

“OK. First, this is how you pull the lawn mower out of the shed. It’s kind of heavy. Second, you check the gasoline tank to see if it needs gas. Third, you check the engine oil level. Then you prime it about 5 times to get some gas to the engine. Now, you pull and hold this handle; push this part to the Start position; and you pull on the rope with some real force.”

I started the machine only to shut it off. She took over and got several weak pulls and false starts. I thought it was only fair to coach her some more, just to remove all doubts that I had given her a fair shot like I would have done with her brother.

“Left foot in front; right foot behind; bend forward a little; then lean back as you pull on the rope to get the engine going. Once it’s running, you push this one to the Throttle position, and you’re ready to mow!”

Daneto stepped up again. After a few more false starts, she had that thing roaring, then humming. With that, I left my daughter on the lawn and re-entered the house, expecting the girl to turn her back on the lawn mower and join me in the house any time soon.

“She’ll find out that pushing a lawn mower is a boy’s job,” I told myself.

Finally, I shouted one more command, “Keep your feet away from the blades at all costs.”

The last thing I wanted was the blade slicing into that girl’s sneakers.

“Boy what would her mom think of me, if she were to come home from work and see her daughter injured by the lawn mow? Well, dear, she insisted on cutting the lawn for money!”

In about 20 minutes later that girl had mowed along the sides of the house and the entire backyard, except for a strip of grass along our neighbor’s fence.

Meanwhile, Tojyea (T), our son did a good job too, frying those eggs. But somehow I wished he were the one behind the lawn mower and his teenage sister in the kitchen working those eggs.

Did I say my son CAN mow the lawn too? OK, yes, he does mow the lawn, and every time he does, he gets paid … you guessed it … $10.

Feminine Sons: Daughters to the Rescue

It takes strong men to defend a nation, especially in times of war. Preparing for war is more than stockpiling weapons; it includes raising boys to be boys.

We need to learn from our friends in the Muslim world; they train their boys to be brave, militant. I’m not talking about Muslim extremists or Islamic terrorists; I’m speaking of regular Muslims. They still believe that boys should be strong, brave, warlike, even war-ready.

On the other hand, some Western societies seem to be doing everything to tame their sons, so they can be “sensitive” like little girls. Need I mention that some of the boys are being “groomed” to become the wives of other men in same-sex marriages? (I know, some will call me homophobic.)

We will have to choose between our survival and being political correct.

The scary truth is, if America were to be dragged into another prolonged truly global war, like World War I and World War II, our population may no longer be able to stomach the sheer force it might require to win such a war. Why not? Because so many American men have become feminized, that’s why. The society as a whole can hardly stand seeing war casualties in the tens of thousands. We’ve seen the evidence from the Iraq war. Americans grew very nervous as the body count climbed, and CNN liked to tally the body bags. Millions of Americans began to call for an end to the Iraq War.

In another global war, with various nations lined up on either side, the camp that has the guts to stomach a higher number of war-dead will be favored to win such a war. And the side whose citizens cringe from the site of bombings, blood and deformed bodies may well become conquered territory.

Unless, Americans reverse how we bring up our boys, I’m afraid we may be digging our own graves by turning our sons into daughters. If we continue down the road of feminizing our sons, our daughters will have no brothers strong enough, tough enough to take up for them, to fight for them, to defend them. Or perhaps luck may have it that while we tame our boys into girls, we may also succeed in turning our girls into what we used to call boys.

There is some of that going on too ~ I mean making boys out of girls. The other day, on national TV, a mother was shown pleading for her daughter who wants to play football with the boys. That little girl sounded so confident, she could easily pass for a brave, little boy. This, in a culture, where some boys are taking the tryout to become cheerleaders! Could it be that it will take our daughters, sisters, and mothers to save us, after all? It’s like the return of Joan of Arc. Hey, I suppose girly men won’t mind being rescued by manly women.

Men and Suicide: The Suicidal Gender

On a personal level, every instance of suicide I know of was committed by a man. Suicide is primarily a male problem; women who commit suicide are trying to imitate men at men's worst.

According to suicide.org, out of a total of 32,637 suicides in 2005, men committed 25,907 of those suicides. That figure represented 79% of suicides for that year. By comparison, women committed 6,730 suicides or about 21% of suicides in 2005.

When it comes to suicide by ethnicity, white men are more notorious for killing themselves than men of other ethnic groups. For example, in 2005, white men committed 23,478 of the 25,907 male suicides. For their part, black men committed 1,621 suicides, while other non-white men committed 808 suicides, for a total of 2,429 suicides by non-white men.

Though more women than men attempt suicide, most suicide attempts by women fail, while men succeed in most their attempts. So men are better at killing themselves than women are. But the women continue to catch up. They may be jealous that we hold this record. It seems like our sisters want equal opportunity in the suicide department too. It seems like women, in their liberated effort to be just like men, have followed the examples of men in taking their own lives as men do.

So it comes down to men again, setting a bad example for the women and children in our society. Consider the flip side: if rampant suicides among men have led to more suicides among women, then it may follow that fewer suicides by may lead to fewer suicide attempts by women.

It is shameful for us to be known as the suicidal gender, but we can change that. So men, why don't we set an example for life?

Dumb Boys Equal Low Math Scores

You've probably heard by now that in Mathematics and Science, America ranks average or near the bottom of many developed nations. In 2006, students from 30 countries took the International Student Assessment offered by PISA (the Program for International Student Assessment), which is a project of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

For those who want to see America remain the leader of the civilized world, the outcome of the tests was troubling. The United States has been losing ground to other countries in math and science. Students in 23 of the 30 countries scored higher than the USA; America ranked in the bottom 7. On the science portion of the tests, students from the US scored 11 points below the average score of the 30 countries. Students in Finland ranked #1; they earned the top scores in both math and science.

Quoting a Washington Post story, the test "results underscore concerns that too few U.S. students are prepared to become engineers, scientists and physicians, and that the country might lose ground to competitors."

That's serious stuff, but the test results should not surprise us if we have been paying attention to what American culture has been doing to our boys over the past 30 years.

Think of it this way: math and science have been subjects in which males do well. But boys don't score high in math and science simply because they are boys. They make higher math and science grades only when they are smart boys. The dumber our boys become or the stupider they think they are, the poorer they'll do in math and science. How we program boys can enable or disable the math-science regions of their brains! That may not be scientifically correct, but the something has happened to how we raise boys in America, something that has helped to lowering the math and science scores.

There seems to be a link between those low math and science scores, and how American culture and politics have dumbed down of boys for about three decades. Need we mention that male bashing that has become a normal part of American culture?

Let's face it: Dumb guys = low scores in math and science. And in practical terms, that equals fewer American-born engineers, scientists and physicians. Want proof? Visit a hospital or clinic in America. See all those foreign-born doctors? That's just one implication of dumb American male students who flunk science.

Do we want American students to catch up with or outperform the rest of the civilized world in math and science? Hiring qualified math and science teachers will help somewhat. But if we want to get to the root of the problem, we must start by getting our boys to believe once again that boys and men are smart, that that young men don't only have brute strength for football, basketball, boxing and wrestling, but that guys also have brains that actually work. We must do something to teach our boys that men are not the likes of Patrick on Sponge Bob, that our sons can still become engineers and scientists and doctors in rising numbers.

We can reverse the trend, but we must have the courage to deal with the root of the problem, not the fruit and symptoms of it. Could it be that raising our sons UP instead of down might actually raise America's math and science scores up as well? It just might. There may be a connection there.

Sponge Bob Men

I can't be the only one who's bothered by this. How come in America the male is often portrayed in the media as a buffoon, dumb, too arrogant to ask for directions, as a flat-headed idiot? And this has been going on for around 30 years or so. I know many of the shows that paint guys as stupid were/are comedy or sitcoms, but why should it be guys that get the foul end of the fun stick?

I'm really not a big television or movie guy, so I'll only list just a handful that I actually watched at some point:

• The sitcom Good Times on CBS television (February 1974 to August 1979)
• The sitcom The Jeffersons on CBS television (January 1975 through June 1985)
• The sitcom Family Matters first on ABC television (September 1989 to May 1997), and later on CBS (September 1997 to July 1998)
• The sitcom Sanford & Son on NBC television (January 1972 to March 1977)
• The movie Dumb & Dumber (released in 1994)
• The sitcom Married With Children on Fox television (April 1987 to June 1997)
  
• The animated television series Sponge Bob Square Pants, which first aired on May 1, 1999 and premiered on July 17, 1999. Can you believe this is the most watched show on Nickelodeon's Nicktoons? By the way, since Sponge Bob is aimed at children, Sponge Bob may brainwash our little ones that boys are the dumb ones of the human species. Well, if boys are stupid, guess who's smart. Girls, of course!
• The animated sitcom The Simpsons on Fox (debut December 1987 and still running). It holds the double record as the longest-running American sitcom and animated program. The Simpsons Movie based on the sitcom has made over $526 million since it was released in July 2007. Stupid pays! And if stupid pays so well, why try smart?
  

Not just sitcoms and movies. Watch the news on TV, and you will find that male news anchors who co-host with female news anchors usually come across as less smart and timid, while the women journalists continue to exude airs of brilliance and confidence. Wow!

With all these years of our culture painting men as stupid, wishy-washy, and weak, is it any wonder that more and more men now fit the bill? Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy: believe that guys are stupid; say guys are stupid; say it over and over; say it in so many ways, and it sticks; it comes true.

To prove that boys are opting for stupid over smart, more boys than girls are dropping out of school. Fewer guys than girls graduate from high school and move on to college. Girls are doing better in school than boys. In our family, my school-age daughter makes better grades than my son, though he's been catching up. And I know my boy is intelligent, but it seems he believes that good grades are a girlish thing, and he doesn't want female grades.

Chew on this: When was the last time you saw a male valedictorian at a high school graduation ceremony? Yes, it still happens, but it's getting to be rare these days, unless the boy is from India, China, Finland or somewhere outside of the United States. At the last graduation I attended in May 2008, both valedictorians were girls. The girls are certainly doing better in school than the boys.

Why should we be surprised that men for the most part have lost the skill and will to lead? If men are as dumb and weak as they have been portrayed in the media all these years, then it makes perfect sense that men have hugged the stereotype. They are gladly living down to the expectation of being Sponge Bob men.

Who is a Genesis Man?

Genesis. It's the name of the first book of the #1 best seller of all time: the Bible.

Genesis. Do you notice the word "gene" in there? And from that word, we build words like "generate", "generator", "generation", "genetic", "regeneration", and of course "genesis".

If you care to know, the dictionary defines "gene" as "the basic physical unit of heredity; a linear sequence of nucleotides along a segment of DNA that provides the coded instructions for synthesis of RNA, which, when translated into protein, leads to the expression of hereditary character." Wow! What a mouthful!

In plain speech, that mumble jumble says that a gene is the code of life that we received from our parents before we were born. Our genes are our unbroken link to our ancestors.

Genes are to life what the alphabet is to language. In the English language, paragraphs come from sentences. Sentences come from words. And words come from letters. That says the letter is the origin or source of a paragraph, of a sentence, and of language.

And guess what "genesis" means: origin, beginning.

The "Genesis Man" is therefore the original man. The Genesis Man is the man who so cares to discover or rediscover himself that he will go back to the beginning to find what he lost and where he lost it, to find himself as he was made and meant to be. The Genesis Man realizes something is missing; he instinctively knows that society has stolen something valuable from him. The Genesis Man longs for the Creator's blueprint and design for his life as a male.

Oh, let's define that simple word "man". It comes from the Hebrew word "adamah", and it means "clay" or "dust".

This brings us to two important truths about the Genesis Man. On one hand, he is as special as the Creator's original (gene). On the other hand, he is as fragile as clay and as limited as dust. Thus, the Genesis Man can only reach his full potential to the extent that he is connected to the Divine, to his Designer, to his Creator and Maker.

Briefly put, the Genesis Man is a man of the God of Genesis. He is a man who refuses to stop at nothing less than a man-God connection, for in that link is found his manhood, his greatness. The Genesis Man is a man on a journey, on an expedition to find true manhood in all of its glory and splendor, as it was in the beginning, back in Genesis.

Man's Identity Before Man's Authority

“I’m a man. Respect me.” That seems to be a man's sigh, cry or shout.

There are few exceptions to the rule: A man is made for respect (as a woman is built for affection). Nothing offends and insults the average man like disrespect from a youth, from a woman or from another man. Every man wants respect.

A guy wants respects from peers, observers and total strangers, whether that man is at home, at school, on the battlefield, in a prison cell, in a group, in a gang, or in the workplace.

Often men will do anything to impose their authority to get the respect they think they must get at all costs. Is it any wonder that it was the male who discovered or invented the art of war? What is warfare but man’s attempt and effort to control his fellow man and thereby parade his power and prowess in order to win? During the era of empires and kingdoms, men climbed mountains, braved valleys, endured deserts and set sail across seas and oceans to attack and conquer foreign lands. Those war campaigns might have happened in the name of needed resources, slaves or resources, but to the male warriors the grand plunder of war was the grand prize of respect from the conquered.

On a much smaller scale, two boys fist fight to win respect from each other, as well as from other boys and girls who watch the fight or hear of its outcome. Respect is why boys bully, join gangs, wield guns, engage in certain risky behavior or even play sports.

Since we men need and crave respect to count our lives meaningful and worthwhile, one may think guys would be experts at knowing exactly how to get respect without issuing threats, blowing air, or inflicting harm. But the truth is few men have the foggiest idea about how to gain respect without anger, threat or force. A man may pursue respect by way of position, title, appearance (looks), or performance. Usually, that’s an empty chase.

For much of my adult life, I wanted to find the secret to attracting respect from others without much sweat, without directly asking for their respect. I realized that without respect, hardly anyone would take the time to listen to what I have to, or take me seriously enough to follow my advice, coaching, teaching or lead. After several years of coming up empty, I think I have stumbled upon the golden key that opens the mansion of respect. Here it is: authority. Specifically, a show of authority. Only authority figures get respect.

Underneath every man’s desire or demand for respect is the issue of authority. No man is respected until he is first regarded as an authority figure. Respect then is a fruit of authority, and authority is the root of respect.

The question for every respect-hungry man should be: How do I become an authority figure? The answer is: find your identity. Once you discover who you are, and you function as the person you are, you will “grow” authority and thereby gain respect.

“Who am I?” That’s the sixty-four million dollar question that each and every man needs to answer. The obvious answer is, “I’m a man.” But that’s obviously not enough. The generic answer is, “I am a leader.” But that’s only the beginning. Leader of what? Leader in what? What kind of leader. A man must find at least one leadership role. When others see you as a leader, they will begin to treat you as an authority figure. When that happens, you won’t need to starve or beg for respect anymore. Respect will hunt you down and overtake you.

Here is man’s path to fulfillment in its most simplistic form: Identity => Leadership => Authority => Respect.