I want to talk to all the young men out there



It’s for the women too, but especially the men,



'cos it’s tough to be a young man in this world



You have to face so much heartbreak and loss



In love and career and life



It’s easy to forget the meaning and give up



To burn up or sell out to addictions, despair or greed



Easy to forget that life’s a journey



with a beginning, a middle and an end



It’s about navigating the future, your future



It’s about learning to become a man who’s real,



and able to love







Are you waiting for me?



Are your hands down in the dirt?



We belong together



I’ve been longing since my birth



To be arms around you



To be true to who we are



To let all our pain out



To be playing in your heart





So let’s talk about the first stage of life



The departure, when your boat is pushed out on the river



Most of who you are is still your small self



The you your family has made you,



your schooling and your friends



You’ve still not found your deep self, your Great Self,



'cos that’s what the journey’s for



So you set out, full of hope, but with a heavy load



All the baggage of your upbringing



All the love, yes, but the fuckedupness too



Maybe the absent father, or the smothering mother,



or the cold indifference of those around you



It’s no wonder you’ve a rough ride coming



It’s gonna get tough and it’s got to



So you can find yourself



So you can become, a real man







And that’s when you hit the second stage of life



The initiation in the rapids and the storms



That’s when you find the pain of brokenheartedness



Love affairs that fail, failures in career



and all your hopes for what the world might have been



Plenty young men founder grazed on such jagged rocks as these



Bruised and angry in a storm of violence towards self and others



But it doesn’t have to stay like that



No, my friends, not if you push on and open to the inner grace



that will bring you courage



The courage to face reality as it is,



without lies



The courage to know your wound but to outgrow it,



and insist on beauty



The courage to open your heart,



to hold fast to truth,



and to stand each step in dignity







And that’s the courage that brings your boat to the third stage of life



To see how your small self is held in a greater Self



And that you’re fit to be an elder in your community,



able to share the gifts and the blessings



Able to support and inspire what gives life among your people



And to love your beloved,



to love and be loved by the Beloved no less, my friends



Because we’re talking here of love in all its meanings



And you can only love with a deepening heart



And that is why you had to grow courage on this journey to the ocean



That’s what your battle wounds on the field of life were all about



That, my dear friends,



is what qualifies you



to be a man in your community



Capable of loving and able to be loved...



Capable of loving



and able to be loved...



Capable of loving



and able



to be



loved