Larry Pesavento is a member of the TMC Advisory Council, a therapist, an author and the Founder of CHRISTOS - A Center for Men located in Cincinnati, Ohio.

"In 1993 Larry Pesavento started CHRISTOS men's center to help initiate a dialogue about how a man in this confusing, elderless world can find a sense of identity, place and pride. He had been counseling men for close to 25 years and learned from their struggles as well as his own. He then decided to write a book about the internal journey that a man must take in order to find a sense of peace and generativity. He felt called to write this book to share what he had learned as part of his own journey and struggle with manhood.

For more info about Larry Pesavento, visit his web-site, http://www
.christoscenter
.com/
E-mail: Larpes@aol.com

MENSIGHT will publish a chapter each month and we would like for you to submit suggestions and discuss your opinions on our Men's Issues Forum.

Chapter 18
Good Work

Indigenous peoples believed that one's identity and life work were sacred gifts from the gods. They did not believe that these things were arbitrary. These people were not existentialists, like modern man, believing that they could create their own identities, or arbitrarily create a satisfying life direction. In humility they believed that their work was the result of their calling. At the same time, they believed that their work was their identity playing out in their lives. They believed their work continued the work of a higher power, like the Force, if they kept themselves in harmony with that power. To them, one's work was intricately connected to one's spiritual path.

Many North American Indians' experiences of initiation seem most significant here, not only because of their particular search for meaning, but because their experience is so close to our own history as Anglo-Americans. The Sioux Indians' initiation is a good example.

Leaving father and mother, the young Sioux boy went out into the wilderness alone. He would carry only a blanket and a prayer pipe. The boy was looking to find a vision given to him by the Great Mystery, the Great Spirit. He would stay in a sacred space, usually a sacred circle that he would construct at a place in the wilderness he found to have significance. For three days and four nights, alone, he would fast and pray, not even drinking water. He would have to stay up all night and only doze during the day. His prayer would actually be a lament or cry to the Great Spirit for a vision. The prayer was called a lamentation. The experience was called a vision quest.

The vision would be the bestowal by the Great Spirit of the boy's place in the community, giving the direction for his life's work. Often, the boy would get this vision or message from Nature around him, Nature being analogous to the word of the Christian bible. The boy would have to be extremely sensitive to all that went on around him because the message could come from anywhere. Every activity around him of birds, animals, wind, clouds could have significance. As Denise Linn describes, "Life was seen as one long, mystical sojournÉ. They knew they were constantly surrounded with messages and signs from the spiritual realms, and the Vision Quest allowed them to be still long enough so that they could listen intently to these messages." Usually, he would find an ally spirit through the peculiar behavior of certain plants, animals, or the elements around him.

When he would return from his quest the initiate would explain to his elders all that happened to him. His elders would then interpret for him anything he did not understand about his vision. From the significance of this experience, the boy would be given a new name by his elders. This name was a sign of his new status in the community, as well as a guideline for his new role in society. With his new name he would start his new life. His new name would symbolize his life direction and point him to his life work.

For example, Malidoma Some found his life work through initiation. His name means "make friends with strangers". His elders told him he was called to bring his people's message of manhood and spirituality to western culture. He was to be a missionary of sorts. He came to Europe and the Americas to teach men these truths of his people. He discerned this through initiation. His elders confirmed it. He is doing this work today.

Work and The Father Wound

I believe that today many of the problems that men experience can be traced to problems with work. The arbitrariness and lack of meaning in most men's work demoralizes them. Consequently, men's lives are a hectic search for something or someone to make up for the hours of pain and discontent at their job. This is where addictions or the pursuit of power comes in. High salaries are meant to compensate for low satisfaction. 'Golden handcuffs' mirror the reality of job imprisonment. Poor work quality is assumed, if workers are not strictly monitored. The work world becomes one big Dilbert cartoon.

In a sense, lack of work morale comes from lack of morals, a lack of moral direction. Modern work doesn't make sense in itself any more. Modern work is merely a means to other dubious ends. Power and high-priced pleasure substitute for purpose and meaning.

My father's generation probably represents the low point in this downward spiral of the meaning of work. Coming out of the Depression and the continuing technological changes following the Industrial Revolution, the generation coming out of World War II looked for any job that could pay enough to raise a family. These happened to be mostly industrial jobs, as there was a continuing shift from agricultural work. The farm itself was even becoming industrialized, as agribusiness was born. As Robert Bly points out, not long ago there was a profound connection broken between men and the land, and men and their sons. This situation would be a kind of hell to indigenous peoples. They would be out of contact with the natural world and their initiatory direction. Thus, they would be out of contact with the other side, the soul side that gave everything else purpose. They would also have nothing of purpose to get from their elders, and little legacy of meaning to give to their sons.

My father picked a career in engineering because it paid decently and there was a need for engineers after the war. He never thought of his self-satisfaction or a higher meaning. He was from an immigrant family. My grandfather came to America at 14, because there was little opportunity in his small town in Italy. He was thrown, like so many other immigrants, into a terrible initiation, with no elders to help him. My grandfather was a janitor, an intelligent, hard working man with no opportunity to use his talents. He provided enough to send my father to college, so that my father did not have to work 14 hours a day in backbreaking work. He wanted my father to have choices.

My father took the first job that came along after college and World War II. He stayed with it for 43 years. He stayed in a job he didn't like because he didn't want to risk his family's welfare. He had choices, but he was afraid of the risk. He was increasingly unhappy at his work. He did what it took to be a man in his time, just as my grandfather did. He suffered for a higher purpose. He also gave me a legacy of choices. It is sad for me to be given choices at the expense of his spirit. My father was barely able to hide his unhappiness from all of us. Like many of his generation he suffered his wound courageously and silently.

Work and Play

It is not supposed to be this way. We are all victims, as were our fathers and mothers, of a society that has lost direction. Since we are not guided to the other side, we have lost a moral and sacred ground that the village can never bring. Work becomes even less a service to the village, and more an individual quest for perceived material survival. As they say, "Gotta put food on the table."

The initiated man finds intrinsic value in the work he does. He would do it even if he weren't getting paid. His motivation comes from deep inside. Through his work, he becomes more of who he is. Through who he is, he does good work. Through both, he serves the material and spiritual needs of his community.

I said earlier that the work addicted man looks like the mature man, because of the hours spent in dedication to the task. Yet here is the difference: essentially, the work addicted man is trying to find his manhood through his work. And not knowing manhood inside, he is desperately looking for outward verification that he does things that men do. The immature man says "I am what I do". Persona is enough.

The mature man says, "I do what I am." The initiated man doesn't have to do his work to create self-esteem. He is not working for rewards. He does it for the feeling of rightness and for the community he is a part of. So many great men and women have said that they did their work because it needed to be done. Their motivation resided in their person.

Marsha Sinetar wrote a book called Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow. In it she wrote, "any talent you are born with eventually becomes a need." The need surfaces, both as initiatory need and the need for work fulfillment.

Robert Frost talked in modern terms of finding this meaningful work in a wonderful poem, "Two Tramps in Mud Time". He talks of uniting one's true calling with a life work when he writes:

My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation as my two eyes make one in sight.
And the work is play for mortal stakes, I the deed ever really done for heaven and the future's sake.

When a man wants to do what needs to be done for the community, with no thought to reward, he is coming upon his own manhood. Then the work is not responsibility in the traditional sense, not a burden or a duty. Work becomes a sacred play, even when there is pain involved and there are serious stakes in the community.

Mircea Eliade, a mythologist and religious historian, talks of what happens to a man when he finds a life work. He refers to this life work as sacred or 'sanctified'. This work has qualities that give it a specialness that mirrors a 'high' that others seek in dark ways, such as addiction. He talked of the volunteers in Mahatma Gandhi's campaign who "could work 16 and 18 hours a day, singing, laughing and shouting out of sheer joy."

He said in an interview in the Spring, 1976 issue of Parabola that "any type of labor that is undertaken for an ideal such as defense or liberation of one's own country, preaching a religious, social or ethical message, and so on, can be performed in a kind of 'ecstatic' enthusiasm- one might also say 'outside of time' ". Notice the buoyant and otherworldly quality described in this kind of life work. Signs of the other side. The sense of being periodically invigorated is surely a mark of what is sacred work for each of us. Robert Frost's 'play' is Eliade's 'enthusiasm'.

Again the word enthusiasm, even joy. The mature man finds joy in his work, as well as in his life, even though there is pain and frustration. Maybe peace is a better term. Some men have found the precursor of this feeling in fatherhood. In healthy fatherhood there is no pay, not much status, and a lot of work and pain. Yet the peace that can come from nurturing a young, vibrant life is indescribable. The view from the other side does cause everything to look differently. Fatherhood, as it should be, seems to go so quickly, because a man is on the other side, outside of time. Since parenthood should also be a calling, healthy fatherhood is the melding of work and call.

Call

The old Christian word, vocation, comes to mind here. The word vocation, at one time, had the connotation of life direction. The word vocation comes from a Latin word meaning to call. To have a vocation in Christian circles meant to be called by a higher power to a sacred work. The call was always personal and powerful. The word has lost its power in modern times, devolving to a word meaning career or job. Frost struggles in his poem to bring its original meaning back.

Thomas Moore, a theologian and popular writer on soul, says that "a soulful life is one where we take fate as it presents itself to us. What our talents, abilities and tastes are-what our destiny is." Work and destiny become intertwined for the mature man. No longer is work just a job.

James Hillman, in his very significant book The Soul's Code, brings this mystical and spiritual idea into the realm of psychology. HIllman talks of the archetypal pull from beyond the ego, beyond the little or private 'I', that feels like a call. This call seems to pull out of us a yearning for a destiny we had, seemingly at birth. He calls this viewpoint the 'acorn theory'. Just as the acorn has the potential for the oak inside from the beginning, so "each person bears a uniqueness that asks to be lived and that is already present before it can be lived."

Indigenous people knew that a person came into the world with a unique mission. Elders often talked with the fetus to discern the talents each child brought to the community. In Classical times the Romans understood a higher self, or maybe an internal guide, that came with each human life. They called this being the genius. The Greeks called this being the daimon. This guide acted, like the Christian idea of angel, as a personal intermediary from a higher power to bring one to an awareness of the call.

The point Hillman makes is that this call is not a consequence of nature or nurture in the traditional sense, not a consequence of good or bad parenting or genes. The call is deeper and more unique, from a place beyond personal history. Yet, in the history of the world, "only our contemporary psychology and psychiatry omit it from our textbooks."

As in the initiatory work, the purpose of following the daimon has to do with fulfilling the deepest self in its mission. So there is a benevolence to the call. In fulfilling this call there is the sense of being cared for while caring for others. It seems this "angelic or daimonic intention...holds our interest at heart because it chose us for its reasons."

This care or compassion then comes out in the work of our mission. Work is the incarnation of the initiatory call, as well as the incarnation of our initiatory compassion. The paradox here, for we are talking of the other side, is that In caring for others we care for ourselves, the deepest most sacred parts of ourselves. This is what makes good work a joy. This is what makes good work a huge part of our spiritual path.

The Direction Of Pain

One of the most important signs of a true sacred work is that it is given for the sake of a community. It is given through us for others. As such, this call is the antidote to narcissism. There is self-fulfillment in work, but not selfishness. To be mature is truly to be a man of the people.

There is also the recurrent theme of the initiatory pain. A mature man is willing to suffer pain for the good of those he loves, whether it be family, friends, faith community, or the community as a whole. The paradox is always there, because the initiated man also feels a kind of buoyancy in the pain.

The paradox goes even farther. It is through the personal pain of the ordeal that a man finds his individual work. The pain of ordeal is not a generic pain. It is the result of a unique life situation, participating in a universal theme. We all go through our unique initiation. And our particular pain brings us the sensitivity and experience necessary for our work. In other words our pain is an essential part of our call. It is more than a doorway. It provides a direction. The calling is an answer to pain.

Tim's story from the last chapter continues. Tim came to counseling because of work as well as relationship problems. He also had a nervous condition called obsessive compulsive disorder, that caused him a great deal of discomfort. As explained by Tim, this condition was somewhat controlled by medication, but still gave him chronic anxiety.

Tim came to my men's group for a number of years to struggle with the initiatory work that he needed to do to find peace in his life as well as in his marriage. One of the first things Tim had to do was deal with his father wound which caused much of his work and relationship problems. Tim's father was alcoholic and abusive, but very successful. Jim felt he never measured up to an abusive father's demands.

As happens more often than not, Tim was assigned to a boss who was demanding and abusive. Paradoxically, Tim was in personnel work, and he had his own personnel problem he could go to nobody about. The universe was forcing initiation on Tim through dealing with his father wound. He struggled for a year with the anxiety of trying to please his boss, while keeping the peace and his job. He alternated between depression at feeling powerless and anger at his treatment. The boy in Tim felt like he was back home with a critical, unsupportive, punitive father. The boy felt just as powerless in his job as he felt 30 years before.

Tim had to start being a second father to the boy inside. He also had to let the other men in the group father him. Eventually Tim started to take more and more risks by setting boundaries, risking anger and separation. He started to confront his own father voice and the negative voice in his boss. He was also able to develop a second father voice inside, one that was supportive and motivating. The group supported him in helping to discern what were healthy, effective boundaries. As he set boundaries he got stronger, which enabled him to confront his boss more and more in appropriate ways.

Finally the boundary-setting got him fired. Tim knew this was a possibility. He had been willing to face his anxiety in setting boundaries, and he knew the possible consequences. As I've said, immature people do not understand healthy boundaries and often take them as threats to relationship or power. Tim's boss was immature and narcissistic. To his boss, Tim was a threat.

Tim was out of work. He was anxious. Beatrice was frantic. She was alternately depressed and angry. He suddenly found himself in the middle of his ordeal. He had just been expelled from the patriarchy. He was alone, without a job to give him safety and identity. He was alone, though together, in his marriage. He still had the incessant pain of his anxiety problem.

This is where many men turn back. The whole thing gets too confusing and unbearably lonely. There seems no rest or solace, or hope of it. He was tempted to find another patriarchal job, where he could find a decent salary for himself and security for Beatrice. He would also have a place again in the patriarchy. However he was determined, in spite of his nervous condition, to not regress. He had done a lot of separation work in group already. He also had the group support.

Tim was able to hold out for a year, even though he had to risk again by borrowing on his future security. He used some of his assets to get him through the year. Beatrice could not understand.

One day, as his patience and resources were running very thin, he saw an advertisement for a director of a small consumer group that served people with mental illness. This wasa group that was totally staffed by people with mental illness. Jim knew that this was something he not only could do, but desired to do. There was no status, in fact rather negative status. The money was barely adequate.

Yet Tim felt a real connection to this work. He had a background in administration and personnel work. But more importantly, he had a lifetime of struggle with his own anxiety problem and his own shame about it. He understood this work from the inside out. His own pain was his teacher. His talents and experience were uniquely suited to the job. If he had not gone through his ordeal he would have been in a dead-end job, serving the patriarchy that abused him. Instead, his pain led him to his calling.

Tim is now in a job that gives him a great deal of satisfaction and peace. He also is doing a fine service to both his fellow mental health consumers and the larger community. He still suffers from anxiety. But it is surrounded by a deeper peace.

Beatrice realized that she would not have to take care of a depressed freeloader. She also found strength to take up the slack in income with more of her own work. She and Tim also found a new peace together.

Nontraditional Work

In the traditional Western myth, as outlined by Joseph Campbell, the hero returns to the community with a boon that saves the community from outright destruction or prolonged harm. The boon, like a medicine, rejuvenates and renews the life of the community. The boon comes from the struggle in ordeal. For most men, the boon they have to give to their community is their talent and their work. If this work is the result of inner discernment it will have a healing effect on the life of the community. The Sioux have a belief that a mature man always acts with the awareness that his work will either benefit or hurt the next seven generations. Their community spans time as well as space.

The work a man finds himself doing after initiation does not always coincide with his job, as Frost intimated. Sometimes a man finds that his job allows him to carry on his true vocation with the rest of his time. This can often happen with men who have found a calling through their mid-life ordeal. They may not be called to change careers, but called to bring the focus of their lives to another meaningful work. I once gave a workshop for men studying to be permanent deacons in the Catholic Church. These were men who were married and had families, all at mid-life. They were preparing to be ordained ministers in the church, while still following their careers and their families. As one man said, "I have a job, but this is my vocation."

I often talk to men who realize that their work did not have the meaning it once did. Some realize that their work never did have meaning. They have often outgrown their jobs. I believe that most men who have started any initiatory work will find that their work starts to feel stale. This is because most men will still be working for someone else's vision, be it in a company or corporation. They will be following a father that they start to realize has nothing more to offer. They will find that they have their own vision of work that doesn't coincide with their corporation. This will be a crossroads for many men, and the substance of their ordeal.

Most men at mid-life need to either direct a company and incarnate their vision, be freed by a company to follow their own vision, or leave the father company to follow their own meaningful work. Otherwise, when they return to the village with a boon, they hide it away for nobody to see or use. Work is the way most men give their vision to the community. A man must be free to pursue his own vision.

Downsizing has thrown many men into their initiatory ordeal. Some have been destroyed by this separation. Many others have used their ordeal well. Most men I have talked to, who have survived this ordeal, have said that the pain and stress of their transition was worth it. They came out the other side with a new sense of purpose in their lives and a great deal more job satisfaction. Most also admit that they wouldn't have believed this outcome as a possibility when separation first happened.

When men come to me for counseling, these work issues invariably come up, after the initial crises of separation are dealt with. If a man has the courage to face these issues, he comes to the final part of his ordeal, facing the possible meaninglessness of his whole life, robbed of the masculine persona of his career. There is a literal feeling of emasculation. In the extended, painful moments of this confrontation, he will gradually find some priceless gifts and experiences. He will see his life work taking shape. It is then he will see the next steps in his life, and most often be quite enthusiastic about them. The process can start and stop at any time.

Phil faced the meaninglessness of living the same day over and over. From trying myriad ways of killing himself, in absolute desperation, he somehow killed his old self without killing his body. In the transformation he took on a very nontraditional work, the daily support of people in his community. He followed nobody else's plan. He had no external motivation. There was nobody to impress any more, including Rita. He seemed to do his work because it was the right thing to do, and because it gave him peace. And he did make a difference.

Good work can take all forms, paid or unpaid, formal or informal, seen or unseen. Very often the patriarch will not understand or even be threatened. But to a mature man his work will be his foundation. Upon that foundation he can then build the rest of his life.

The Twelfth Step

There are also some specific works that all men are called to. All men are called to be fathers and elders to the following generations of men.By fathers I do not mean necessarily biological fathers. I mean soul fathers. We will not finally be a wise, elder culture unless every man individually becomes initiated and takes up his role as father, and then elder, to the next generation.

Aaron Kipnis talks of Twelve Tasks of Men.. His Twelfth Task reads: "Reach out to other men and continue awakening masculine soul together." Older men today are the only hope of the next two generations. For this work there will be no pay. There will be little recognition. But it is one hell of a good mission.

Elderhood is probably the greatest boon a man can give. Sharing of his wisdom and knowledge, gotten through ordeal, is ultimately the key to the meaning of life. Indigenous peoples knew this in their bones. The renewal of our society will only happen when enough men become elders and make commonplace the journey of initiation.

In the Star Wars myth, Luke uses his gifts, and new ways of seeing, to save the galaxy. Luke has been transformed into seeing the world through elder's eyes and ultimately through a man's eyes. That is how he also transforms his father. The transformation of his father, resulting in the overthrow of the Emperor, is the symbol of the renewal of the galaxy. Luke actually reignited the power of his father's own initial ordeal experience. Healthy elders again could rule, through Luke. The circle that was broken was rejoined. Luke is not 'the last of the Jedi.'

In the hero myths and many fairy tales, when the hero returns from initiation, he most often returns to take his rightful place as a ruler or king. Through the ordeal he has found the strength and wisdom to overcome the present ruler who has abused his office for personal gain, leaving the kingdom in chaos. The hero overcomes the dark patriarch. The new king rules with the idea of the greater good of the community, immune to temptations of the ego. He then is free to elder the next generations.

I want to close this chapter by giving you words from the shaman, Petaga, I quoted earlier:

I did not ask for my office. My work was made for me by the other world, by the Thunder Beings. I am compelled to live this way that is not of my own choosing, because they chose me. I am a poor man; see how I dress and the house I live in. My whole life is to do the bidding of the Thunder Beings and of my people and to pay heed to what the Grandfathers tell me.

Larry Pesavento ©2005