A Call To Arms

To the faithful readers, good to see you again; to the occasional passerby, greetings; to the crazy people, um…yikes; to the new visitor, welcome.
If I was a drinking man, I think this would be a hangover Monday. I’m dead tired; Sunday’s are not a day of rest for me anymore – they are flat out tiring. Yesterday, for example, I was busy with church from 9:30 to 6:30. What do you do? I’m trying to up and going this morning with some recently purchased 90’s tunes via iTunes. Inside Out (Eve 6), Santeria (Sublime), Zip-Lock (Lit), Water’s Edge (Seven Mary Three), Self-Esteem (The Offspring), Plush (STP)…just something to shake my mind loose from the cobwebs.
Fortunately I was spared this morning’s conference call with our offshore team in India. That would have been especially cruel irony to my beleaguered mind.
I was involved with my first one on Friday. Terribly brutal; Root-canal-minus-Novocain kind of brutal. There’s just something lost in translation and – this is going to be hard to believe – they don’t find me remotely funny or clever. I know; I couldn’t believe it either. Crazy but true. After it was over, I just dropped my head on to my desk, weeping in despair. (Kidding. Crying? There's no crying in Secuirty.) I said to my manager I was sorry it went so poortly and he told me not to worry about it, that most calls are straight business and humor isn’t something us and the Indians have in common.
I don’t often touch on church related items here at Cyber Commorancy; it’s not that I’m opposed, I just don’t. But I am here. And the irony is that I’m doing it in the same post I mention Santeria.
Yesterday in Elders Quorum our lesson came from a talk given by D. Todd Christofferson in the October General Conference entitled “Let Us Be Men”. It was one of my favorite talks then and I was happy to have it as a lesson; should I have sons, it will be something I will give them as they enter their teenage years. What it means to be a man has become so convoluted in today’s world that without specific direction, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find example of true manhood. Well, you can click on the link to the talk for a more inspired approach to what it means to be a man; I’m going to go on a little diatribe about what I think makes a man here below.

A man takes responsibility for his actions. No ones perfect, but a man doesn't use that as an excuse for his shortcomings. When he does falter, he fesses up and doesn’t blame society or the government for his errors. It's his bad and he'll take care of it; and if he needs help, he'll man up and ask for it. But he doesn't pass the buck.
A man sacrifices passion to principle. Today a man is measured by the number of women he’s been with or the size of his bank account or his athleticism. Right. Like it’s hard these days to have sex with strange and random women; a real man puts off impulsive, base desires for a greater good – righteousness.
A man acknowledges his weaknesses. It’s not easy to admit fault and shortcomings, which is why it really takes a man to do it. No one is perfect; no one expects us to be perfect. So don't be a poser because we all know you're lying. A man can embrace his weakness and make it a strengh. And then not make the same mistake again.
A real man is a leader because he’s a good follower. Playing off the last point, no matter who you are, there’s always someone who’s done it better; no man is going to get it all down pat in this life. That's why mortality is a probationary state, a proving ground for the eternities. A real man can admit that and learn from those who have; as he learns, he leads those who are learning.
A real man honors women. Treating women like play toys or objects not only degrades the sanctity of womanhood, it undermines the fundamental design of manhood. A woman – no matter what the feminazi movement says – is special and precious; they should be treated as such. I mean seriously, do we really want our daughters to act like boys? I hope not.

There's my diatribe. If it came across as coarse and preachy, I told you the talk by Elder Christofferson was better. Be a man and take responsibility for reading a sub-par discourse. (Ha ha ha) Let's answer the call to arms, to step up to the plate and do that which we were created to do. Man wasn't created in the image of God (the perfect Man) to be subpar. Our challenge, fellas, is that we do it. Buck up and be men in the truest sense. Let’s “rise from the dust and be men”, being “true at all times in whatsoever thing [we are] entrusted.” The last thing the world needs is men after its kind; it needs men after His kind.