Season of Life

This week I read a great book called Season of Life by Jeffrey Marx. Dixon's Varsity Football Coach, Scott Winslow, attends Living Hope Church and let me borrow this book. He had his coaching staff read it as well, I believe. It's really not so much a book about football as it is about manhood in America.

In a nutshell, Season of Life tells the story of a couple of football coaches (one of them a former NFLer) who coach a high school football team, but are much more interested in teaching their players what it means to be a man. They state that there are three components of "false masculinity" - athletic ability, sexual conquest, and economic success. This is the American ideology of manhood. But these coaches taught their team that true manhood lies in how you handle your relationships, accepting responsibility, leading courageously, enacting justice on behalf of others, and faith.

This book really got me to thinking about the importance of teaching my own son what it means to be a Godly man. But also about being very intentional about it, instead of just hoping all the lessons I want to teach him naturally come up while he's living at home.

The whole father/son relationship is probably one of the most awkward relationships in a man's life. I believe the majority of fathers and sons desperately want to know, be known, love and be loved by each other. But for some reason, in most cases, trying to do this just feels embarrassing and unnatural. However, I also believe some of the greatest things in life worth doing initially feel foreign to us. I hope as Isaiah gets older I can do some things to foster a meaningful relationship with him that we can carry on into his adulthood.

Anyway, this is a great read. Check it out.