Smorgasbord #87
Healthy Male Friendships | Individual Needs | The Fulfillment of All Desire, Part III
Healthy Male Friendships
I try to be intentional about building healthy friendships with other men because it is good for my soul. If I don’t make time for friends, life gets in the way, and next thing I know, I haven’t seen my friends in months. We are all busy raising our young families; I get that. However, our wives and children aren’t a substitute for healthy male friendships, given that my wife is a woman (thank God) and my children are children.
Now, there is the risk of seeing friendship as a transactional thing: What am I getting out of this friendship? We may choose to pursue certain friends over others because we might gain something from it, such as tickets to sports events, invitations to birthday parties, or vacations. I think this is the wrong approach. Wasting time with friends is a good indicator of the state of the friendship.
We only have so many hours in a day, so carving out a few of them a month seems like the perfect sacrifice offered at the altar of friendship, to talk in pagan terms. I enjoy the company and conversation with my friends, and I derive satisfaction from the time we spend together. However, I’ve stopped thinking about what I could gain from maintaining this friendship and instead ask myself, what can I give? And sometimes, reaching out and being present in someone’s life is a good enough gesture. I mean, I always feel good when someone reaches out asking if I want to hang out.
I’ve also been making an effort to hang out one-on-one with some of my guy friends, or in a small group, because I think this allows me to give my whole attention to the person in front of me and vice versa. Whether we’re grabbing coffee, lunch, smoking a cigar, or going to BWW to watch the UFC, I try my best to be present and not look at my phone a ton.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve met with friends on four different occasions, which is a record for me. I have walked out of those meetings thinking that was time well spent. I don’t know if we have an ingrained belief that admitting we need someone else is a sign of weakness, that we should face the storms alone. I don’t know about you, but if I were on a ship and a storm was raging, I’d rather be part of a crew and help my crewmates keep the boat afloat, because our survival lies in all of us helping each other.
So, if you don’t have time for your friends, make time. And if you don’t have friends, find some. A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; whoever finds one has found a treasure (Sirach 6:14).
Individual Needs
A friend asked me if I have noticed a difference now that we don’t have toddlers anymore, since my youngest is four years old. It’s a fun stage in that all my children are starting to be more independent; the two older can clean and dress themselves, which is incredible. The two younger ones still require some assistance, but are beginning to want to do most things on their own. I don’t care how old my youngest gets, he’ll always be my baby.
The challenge I see now is fulfilling their individual needs. Much of my parenting style has derived from asking: when I was this age, what would I have wanted my dad to do for me or with me? Working from home has helped a lot with being present and chiming in every once in a while to be goofy or the disciplinarian, depending on the need. It has been a blessing to spend this much time with children. However, I recognize that sometimes my attention is split unevenly among my four children.
My oldest son is nine years old, and he’s a very tenderhearted kid who loves to snuggle. Being a firstborn myself, I recognize that I’m harder on him because that’s how I was brought up. Mrs. Cantú is good at holding a mirror up to me and reminding me of what a nine-year-old Walther needed from his dad. I know I would’ve loved to spend more one-on-one time with my dad at that age, so I’m taking him on a father-son camping trip. This will be the second time we go camping just the two of us, and I’m looking forward to it, as it’s been a couple of years since our last trip.
Mrs. Cantú pointed out that I have the ability to fill our daughter’s love cup, so I’ve been focusing on doing that daily. Her birthday is coming up, and we’re taking a trip up north to visit the Grand Canyon, as per her request. All of our kids are fond of snuggles, but my daughter is a textbook daddy’s girl. I half-jokingly say that I need to pray for the fool who lays eyes on her. Recently, I went to Costco and decided to buy flowers for her and Mrs. Cantú; both of them were appreciative of not having to share a bouquet.
The middle boy and the baby boy are a riot, and most of the time, I’m trying to let them have their way because sometimes their oldest brother and sister can be bossy; they seem to forget who the boss is. It’s a delicate balance of roughhousing, acting silly, and coming up with odd jobs to earn money to buy books about Minecraft.
It’s fun to see their personalities and temperaments emerge as they grow older. I don’t think it’s getting easier; I think it's just different kinds of challenging.
The Fulfillment of All Desire, Part III
Last week, we began exploring the purgative stage of spiritual growth and discussed the obstacles we may encounter on our journey. Let’s examine now how fear and joy can be transformed as we grow closer to God.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Ps. 111:10, Sir. 1:14), and the end of wisdom is love (1 Jn. 4:17). The fear of the Lord is an intelligent fear that recognizes the possibility of violating the law of God, despising His love, rejecting His mercy, and meriting eternal separation from Him. This is a gift from God; it is not opposed to love but prepares for it. Genuine fear of the Lord and the repentant and careful life it produces lead to a growing confidence in God’s love. Fear of the Lord and love of the Lord are not enemies, but friends.
Sin and evil are far more ugly and more horrendous than most of us can imagine, but so too are the beauty, glory, and goodness of heaven, greater than we can comprehend. The union with and love of God that begins in this life and grows as the spiritual journey progresses will be gloriously manifested and perfected in heaven.
The truth about reality, about God, the world, and ourselves is communicated to us in a wide variety of ways; we experience a progressive transformation. Thérèse of Lisieux experienced this progressive transformation by admiring nature, growing up in a family that fostered piety and virtue, attending liturgies that elevated her mind to heaven, being instructed with great catechetics, and being favored with meditation and contemplation that infused knowledge of God in an instant.
As we are formed by the Word of God and take on the mind of Christ, we also find our desires beginning to change or reconfigure themselves. Confidence in His love replaces the previously predominant fear of punishment. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn. 4:18). Our joy, too, is transformed when our emotion comes into harmony with the truth, or as Saint John of the Cross calls it, the “dark night of the senses.” He identifies six classes of goods in which we should rejoice: temporal (money, relationships), natural (beauty, intelligence), sensory (see, hear, smell, taste), moral (virtues, works of mercy), supernatural (charismatic gifts of the Spirit), and spiritual (infused gifts of God).
Saint John warns us when he says that nothing but what belongs to the service of God should be the object of our joy. Any other joy would be vain and worthless, for joy that is out of harmony with God is of no value to the soul. Denying ourselves of inordinate joy in temporal things will give us a greater joy in temporal things, as well as liberty of spirit, clarity of reason, rest, tranquility, and peaceful confidence in God.
Of course, this is easier said than done. Next week, we’ll explore how to begin living a devout life, as guided by the teachings of St. Francis de Sales.
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Sobremesa
How often do you hang out with friends?
What is your love language?
What brings you joy?
1. A few times a year.
2. Sacrificing self.
3. TLM.
1) Lately, I've needed to lean on friends for support so I've seen them more often than usual. But I am an extrovert, so no matter what's going on I make a point to meet with a friend.
2) I think my top love language is quality time.
3) Dancing, including my ballet classes.