Spiritual Ascents: Searching for Male Authenticity On the Mountain
By: Luke Lavin
The weekly exodus of students out into the afternoon sun floods the Gonzaga campus. It is Friday and the doldrums of study guides, notecards, meetings, jobs and other commitments have coalesced into that magical end of the work week feeling: freedom.
At DeSmet Circle, four 12 passenger vans await male pilgrims journeying from all sides of campus. Young men flock from South, East, North, and West. Some arrive alone, some arrive in groups. All have packed lightly, but strategically: layered clothing, Gore-Tex, neoprene, journals, daypacks, Nalgene water bottles, Bibles and wool socks. Some greet friends, while others attempt ambitious first encounter small talk.
Loading up the vans, the group makes the one-and-a-half-hour trek to Wallace, ID. After a quick meal the theme is outlined: Mountains. Mountains serve as the perfect male archetype. From a distance they appear isolated, rugged and harsh. It is not until we examine mountains up close, face to face, that we see their vulnerability, their richness of life, their wholeness, their spiritual nature, as well as their communal formation.
Men’s Retreat, and Men’s Ministry, is an attempt to examine this dichotomy. An approach to the male experience as one of holistic authenticity encompassing physical, mental, emotional, communal and spiritual dimensions. A central question for the weekend emerges: what does it mean to be authentic? Our weekend adventure is a peek into each retreatant’s possible answer.
Our theme becomes reality as we pack up Saturday morning and drive to our first trailhead, Steven’s Lake, on the North Idaho/Montana border. Covering three thousand feet and over 3 miles, calves burn, but discussion never stops. At the top, a student leader sits to discuss the trials of becoming overcommitted and what we can learn about stopping to rest on the trail for both our physical and spiritual selves. While the fog breaks over the lake, retreatants break into small groups, reflecting on the nature of goals and the challenges of naming one’s values.
We return to Wallace enshrined in mud and sweat to the celebration of the Eucharist. Not being able to bring the Mass to the mountain, we bring the mountain to the Mass. Dinner is followed by 8 visitors: Men from all ages (22-60) and professions (professors and staff) from the Gonzaga community join us to discuss the joys and struggles of their male journey. Questions and answers stretch into the late night with topics surrounding relationships, faith, managing time, vocation and the pressures of being male in today’s society.
Our Sunday begins with a new hike, emergent friendship and recaps of the previous night. At the top we examine the task of taking our weekend back home. Before we know it, all are piled back into vans and retracing our steps back to campus.
The sun is setting on both the campus and the weekend as our vans return to DeSmet Circle. As bags are strung on shoulders, the groups are definitively changed. No longer awkwardly encamped in friend groups, men actively hug one another and exchange contact information: community through authenticity.
In climbing the figurative and metaphorical mountain of male authenticity, the retreatants return home changed by some definitive force. We call this force God, but words often fail to encompass such greatness. Love, brotherhood, the true self, community, forgiveness – each serve as a blink into life lived truly. We each return to our daily lives forever changed by the mountain, committed to continue journeying through reunions, small groups and future programming throughout the year. We descend to our everyday lives enriched by our experience of our true selves, one another and our God.