day no. 16,286: masculinity does not retire

"It happens to many men, and I think doctors have memorized the litany.  It had happened to so many of my friends. The lecture ends, 'Slow down. You're not as young as you once were.' And I had seen so many begin to pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood into a kind of spiritual and physical semi-invalidism.  In this they are encouraged by wives and relatives, and it's such a sweet trap... Who doesn't like to be a center for concern?  A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span.  In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child... I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby... And in my own life I am not willing to trade quality for quantity.  If this projected journey should prove too much then it was time to go anyway.  I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage.  It's bad theater as well as bad living.  I am very fortunate in having a wife who likes being a woman, which means she likes men, not elderly babies." -- John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley In Search of America

Men were not made to live forever. They are born to die and go out with a bang. Too many men strive for what Steinbeck despises. They live their lives for the sake of forfeiting them in the end. They can't wait to be put out to pasture. They'd rather be petted than vetted. They step up in order to step down. They rise up in order to fall. They flex in order to flounder, spending their days full of nothing to do.

Judges 8:21

As the man is, so is his strength

Godly men don't retire. Masculinity does not take time off. Manliness cannot take a vacation and remain manly. Hardihood does not desire time off for good behavior. It doesn't want to be released from its responsibilities. It doesn't strive to slack off.

Now, men may and should rest, but that is intentional refreshment, not haphazard hospicing. Rest is intentional and active and aimed at invigorating. Retirement is inconsequential and passive and aimed at lazing. Men don't give up. They don't call it quits on kicking ass. They get up and get things done on behalf of those they love until they are forced to quit by a body that fails them or a mind that flees them, but they don't hang up their own uniform or sing their own so-long serenade. They throw until their coach approaches the mound. They work and are spent. They sow themselves for the sake of God and the good of their neighbor until He calls their number and retires their jersey.