To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose
under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time
to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time
to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to
build up
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-3)
Four of the boys at training tonight are preparing themselves
for their first fight at our forthcoming Christians vs. Lions
promotion, scheduled for only three weeks hence. All of these
lads are boxers.
Three of those four - Joel, Daniel and young Dave - are friends,
finishing their last year of school together. They are a great
example of how guys from different ethnic backgrounds
(Australian, Latin American, and Lebanese respectively) can
still be the best of mates. The fourth guy, Louis, is an
enormous Islander man. I’m not sure whether he’s Tongan or from
the Cook Islands, but he’s a gentle giant really. He reminds me
of Mahendar - a regular here at the Youth Centre. They’re both
big, black and burly, but with gentle hearts. Louis has a few
years on the other boys who were there tonight. He’s a natural
in the ring, and plays the role of the older brother very well
indeed.
These four boys are the cream of our crop in the fight club at
the moment. They are all capable pugilists, but more than that,
they are each a good embodiment of what our club is on about -
courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. This isn’t to
say that none of them have ever been troublemakers. Indeed, I’ve
got a court appearance coming up with one of the boys, scheduled
for shortly after his fight, and he’s on quite serious charges.
Even so, I’ve seen nothing but positive growth since he joined
the club, and I’m hoping for positive results both in his fight
and in his court case.
What is it that makes fight training such a powerful tool in the
molding of young lives? There was a time when I thought of
fighting as just another form of sport. I have come to believe
though that fight training taps into something deep in the male
psyche, in a way that no other sport does.
When I used to talk to my old girls in the church about the
problems we had with our young people, they often used to say
‘what we need is another war’. I always thought that that was a
terrible thing to say - that a war was the last thing that
anybody wanted. And of course the girls didn’t really want a
war. They had just experienced the benefit of being part of a
community that had learnt to pull together through difficult
times. And they had seen the positive effect that soldiering
could have on the lives of young men.
I believe that men were made to fight. It’s part of our genetic
makeup. We may have managed to emerge from the jungle, but
there’s still a bit of the jungle in each of us, and pugilistic
activity keys right in to those ancient impulses - releasing the
wild man within.
This theory isn’t original to me of course. It’s part of the
fabric of the Bible - there behind every great warrior-king who
showed himself to be a ‘mighty man of God’ in battle, and behind
Jacob, who went toe to toe with God Himself and yet lived to
talk about it (Genesis 32)! These were men who knew how to fight
and pray and bleed and serve.
For a more philosophical exposition on the significance of
fighting, we need look no further than Plato’s Republic.
For those who haven’t read it, in the Republic Socrates explores
the concept of justice through examining both the just society
and the just individual, and then he goes on to delineate their
common elements. On the societal level he notes that a just
community is made up of a number of vital components parts:
rulers who govern, workers who labour, and an army that
functions to protect them both. In the individual he finds a
similar configuration - the mind that governs the body, the
limbs that do the work, and the ‘themos’ (which is often
translated as ‘temper’ or ‘aggression’) that plays a parallel
role in protecting the individual. Justice in the Republic
consists in having all of the component parts (in either
individual or society) being present and working together
properly.
In the wisdom of the ancient Greeks then, the ‘themos’ is the
vital third component in the human constitution, along with the
mind and the body. Without the ‘themos’, no individual is
complete, and at a social level, no society will ever achieve a
true state of justice.
It is my opinion that one of the negative legacies of feminism
in Western culture has been an attempt to deny the ‘themos’,
which seems to be more strongly present in men than in women.
This has been for the most understandable of reasons - because
of the excesses of male violence. But perhaps it’s time that we
realised that trying to eliminate ‘themos’ from society
altogether is like trying to eliminate spiders and snakes
because we find them distasteful. We soon discover that the
created order needs all of its creatures - even those that some
of us find ugly - if it is to function properly.
My experience with a vast number of men is that they tend to be
either functioning as doormats to their wives and girlfriends,
or they’re beating up on them. This is a reflection of the same
crisis in dealing with the ‘themos’. When we attempt to repress
the themos’, it often spurts out in the most horrible and
destructive of forms. When we successfully repress it, we
emasculate our men, so that they’re no longer able to stand up
for anything. Ironically, of course, such modern day men are not
only unable to offer any strength to society. They’re no longer
even attractive to the women they sought to please.
The only constructive alternative is for us to reharness the
‘themos’ and channel it creatively. We need to get in touch with
that distinctive male energy - recognise it, affirm it, and then
learn to bring it under control so that it can be put to good
use. Perhaps when we are able to do this, then we will see this
country produce leaders of the calibre of Martin Luther King
Jr., Mother Theresa, or Mahatma Ghandi - strong people of
principle who stand up powerfully for what they believe in. As
it is, our leaders always seem to come across as being either
‘wooses’ or criminals or both. God knows we need some real men
in this country who know what it means to love their women, to
be fathers to their children, and to serve God and their
community with their strength!
Fight training, I do believe, is a means to getting at that
‘themos’ and learning to bring it under control. When done in
the right way, fight training can help a young person to
discover who they are and can help them to bring their futures
into focus. They can then come to see their role as warriors in
this society who will stand up and use their energy to build a
better community and to fight for things worth fighting for.
What about these boys who I watched training with me tonight?
Will they go on to become ‘mighty men of God'? I don’t know. But
they’re on the right track, and they’re further ahead now than
when they first started their training..
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