“An empty man is full of himself”
– Edward Abbey
I’ve always been a big fan of Genesis and Phil Collins, and recently, I discovered a Genesis song that I’d never heard before…or at least I didn’t remember it. It’s called Home by the Sea, and it was actually a big hit in Europe, yet remained relatively unknown in America.
Something about this song intrigued me. Besides the minor melody (which I always enjoy), the song tells the story of a burglar who breaks into a home by the sea, only to be overtaken by ghosts who force him to stay and listen to tales of their lives before the house became their final resting place.
It’s an odd choice for a song lyric, true, but I love songs that tell stories, and especially when there’s a lyric that causes me to consider it’s depth of meaning. The 2nd verse caught and held my attention because of the 3rd line. It goes like this:
Comin’ out the woodwork through the open door
Pushing from above and below
Shadows but no substance in the shape of men
Round and down and sideways, they go
Adrift without direction, eyes that hold despair
Then as one they sign and they moan
Help us, someone, let us out of here
Living here so long on this Earth
Dreaming of the time we were free
What are these “shadows but no substance in the shape of men”? Why are they adrift without direction with eyes that hold despair?
Maybe I’m thinking too deeply into a lyric that was just written for fun, or maybe it haunts me because it’s a lyric that echoes some aspect of life in a fallen world. Initially, I thought maybe these shadows with no substance in the shape of men could be demons. And then I thought maybe they were the souls of the self-proclaimed “elites” of society who worship power at the expense of the oridnary man. More to come on that in a later post, but it just didn’t ring true in this case.
I wasn’t quite sure what to think of this until I spent a full day with some buddies up in the Asheville, NC area very recently. During an evening campfire, the leader of the group told us of a dream he had where he was sitting on a horse on a ridgeline overlooking a large valley (picture Aragorn overlooking Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers). In this valley, he saw these black shadows attacking women and children and tearing them apart…dismembering them. What a horrifying vision! He told me that he initially thought they were demonic forces, but he came to realize that they were not demons, but men who were not living to fulfill their God-given purpose. They were living for themselves.
Suddenly, the 2nd verse made sense to me. The shadows with no substance are men who are devoid of purpose, who have sacrificed greater things on the altar of career or comfort or pleasure, who avoid accountability and responsibility, and who choose self-preservation over honor and sacrifice.
It’s not just the abusers or megalomaniacs who hurt their families. It doesn’t have to be that extreme to cause collateral damage.
Women and children are the casualties of a war between man and himself.
Recall the line, ‘Adrift without direction, eyes that hold despair’ – I believe this is where many men are right now.
- They (and I speak in generalities here) don’t know who they are or what they really want.
- They hold tightly to that which enslaves them.
- They don’t have a clear purpose, mission, or goals.
- They fight for the wrong causes and fail to lead their family.
- They aren’t clear on what truth is or even how you can know it.
- They are motivated by pain avoidance or by pleasure, not by the pursuit of excellence or truth.
The truth is that man has a passivity problem. It all stems from Adam…so you can blame him. In the Garden of Eden, the serpent tricked Eve and she ate of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Guess where Adam was at the time. Working out in the field? Nope. Naming more animals? Nope. Walking and talking with the Lord? Nope. He was standing right beside Eve, saying nothing. What’s more, she asked him to take a bite of the fruit, and he did.
Passivity. It destroys relationships. It tears families apart.
You may think that passivity isn’t such a bad thing. After all, Ghandi was passive, right? Wrong. His method was peaceful resistance, but it wasn’t passive. This is where the misconception lies. Passivity, reigning inside of a man, is not defined how we think it would be defined – ‘tending not to take an active or dominant part’. We think the antonym of passivity is aggression; a type-A personality that takes charge of every situation. In this context, that personality type can be every bit as passive as the guy who is mild-mannered and quiet. `
Passivity, as I’m defining it is: “Man’s refusal to be an active participant in God’s plan for his life.”
In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by the great Stephen R. Covey, he talks about the different centers that people have – that focal point in life which drives their thoughts and actions. Three of these areas of centerdness seem especially relevant in this conversation: Work centered, pleasure centered, and self-centered.
I won’t go into explanations of the different life centers, because I think they are largely self-explanatory, but regardless of what we put at the center of our lives, other than principles founded on truth, we will find ourselves fearful, powerless, emotionally dependent, and empty.
Empty men with no purpose and no direction are driven by fear. That’s why work, comfort, and pleasure are their centers. They crave distraction – an escape from the emptiness and fear. Men need purpose and direction – a mission to accomplish. That’s how God made them.
The pursuit of nothing other than your own pleasure and comfort will cost your family dearly.
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things..”
– Henry David Thoreau
If we place principles of truth that never change (in my opinion, taken from God’s word, then expressed and validated through nature and in our hearts – Romans 1) at the center, we will have sufficient guidance, wisdom, security, and power to live not for ourselves, but to fulfill the mission we’ve been given by our Creator.
It is our duty as men, then, to not only center our lives on what we know is right and good and true, but to always be in pursuit of it.
It is our duty to throw off that which causes us and encourages us to be mediocre and average.
It is our duty to know who God created us to be and to become him.
It is our duty to embody honor, integrity, courage, discipline, and nobility.
It is our duty to let go of those things that enslave us and to step into freedom.
When we do all these things, not only do we avoid destruction of the family, but we build up the next generation of men who pursue what’s right and good and true.