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August
Why more priests need to train as fighters (and why
we don't see many boxers in church) II
The forgotten secret of the Ancient Greeks that
shows us how to keep our teenagers out of trouble
by teaching them to fight!
To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which
is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-3)--
Four of the boys at training tonight are
preparing themselves for their first fight at our
forthcoming Christians vs. Lions promotion,
scheduled for only three weeks hence. All of these
lads are boxers.
Three of those four – Joel, Daniel and
young Dave – are friends, finishing their last
year of school together. They are a great example
of how guys from different ethnic backgrounds
(Australian, Latin American, and Lebanese
respectively) can still be the best of mates. The
fourth guy, Louis, is an enormous Islander man.
I’m not sure whether he’s Tongan or from
the Cook Islands, but he’s a gentle giant
really. He reminds me of Mahendar – a regular
here at the Youth Centre. They’re both big,
black and burly, but with gentle hearts. Louis has
a few years on the other boys who were there
tonight. He’s a natural in the ring, and plays
the role of the older brother very well indeed.
These four boys are the cream of our crop in the
fight club at the moment. They are all capable
pugilists, but more than that, they are each a good
embodiment of what our club is on about –
courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork.
This isn’t to say that none of them have ever
been troublemakers. Indeed, I’ve got a court
appearance coming up with one of the boys,
scheduled for shortly after his fight, and
he’s on quite serious charges. Even so,
I’ve seen nothing but positive growth since he
joined the club, and I’m hoping for positive
results both in his fight and in his court
case.
What is it that makes fight training such a
powerful tool in the molding of young lives? There
was a time when I thought of fighting as just
another form of sport. I have come to believe
though that fight training taps into something deep
in the male psyche, in a way that no other sport
does.
When I used to talk to my old girls in the
church about the problems we had with our young
people, they often used to say ‘what we need
is another war’. I always thought that that
was a terrible thing to say – that a war was
the last thing that anybody wanted. And of course
the girls didn’t really want a war. They had
just experienced the benefit of being part of a
community that had learnt to pull together through
difficult times. And they had seen the positive
effect that soldiering could have on the lives of
young men.
I believe that men were made to fight. It’s
part of our genetic makeup. We may have managed to
emerge from the jungle, but there’s still a
bit of the jungle in each of us, and pugilistic
activity keys right in to those ancient impulses
– releasing the wild man within.
This theory isn’t original to me of course.
It’s part of the fabric of the Bible –
there behind every great warrior-king who showed
himself to be a ‘mighty man of God’ in
battle, and behind Jacob, who went toe to toe with
God Himself and yet lived to talk about it (Genesis
32)! These were men who knew how to fight and pray
and bleed and serve.
For a more philosophical exposition on the
significance of fighting, we need look no further
than Plato’s Republic.
For those who haven’t read it, in the
Republic Socrates explores the concept of justice
through examining both the just society and the
just individual, and then he goes on to delineate
their common elements. On the societal level he
notes that a just community is made up of a number
of vital components parts: rulers who govern,
workers who labour, and an army that functions to
protect them both. In the individual he finds a
similar configuration – the mind that governs
the body, the limbs that do the work, and the
‘themos’ (which is often translated as
‘temper’ or ‘aggression’) that
plays a parallel role in protecting the individual.
Justice in the Republic consists in having all of
the component parts (in either individual or
society) being present and working together
properly.
In the wisdom of the ancient Greeks then, the
‘themos’ is the vital third component in
the human constitution, along with the mind and the
body. Without the ‘themos’, no individual
is complete, and at a social level, no society will
ever achieve a true state of justice.
It is my opinion that one of the negative
legacies of feminism in Western culture has been an
attempt to deny the ‘themos’, which seems
to be more strongly present in men than in women.
This has been for the most understandable of
reasons – because of the excesses of male
violence. But perhaps it’s time that we
realised that trying to eliminate
‘themos’ from society altogether is like
trying to eliminate spiders and snakes because we
find them distasteful. We soon discover that the
created order needs all of its creatures –
even those that some of us find ugly – if it
is to function properly.
My experience with a vast number of men is that
they tend to be either functioning as doormats to
their wives and girlfriends, or they’re
beating up on them. This is a reflection of the
same crisis in dealing with the ‘themos’.
When we attempt to repress the themos’, it
often spurts out in the most horrible and
destructive of forms. When we successfully repress
it, we emasculate our men, so that they’re no
longer able to stand up for anything. Ironically,
of course, such modern day men are not only unable
to offer any strength to society. They’re no
longer even attractive to the women they sought to
please.
The only constructive alternative is for us to
reharness the ‘themos’ and channel it
creatively. We need to get in touch with that
distinctive male energy – recognise it, affirm
it, and then learn to bring it under control so
that it can be put to good use. Perhaps when we are
able to do this, then we will see this country
produce leaders of the calibre of Martin Luther
King Jr., Mother Theresa, or Mahatma Ghandi –
strong people of principle who stand up powerfully
for what they believe in. As it is, our leaders
always seem to come across as being either
‘wooses’ or criminals or both. God knows
we need some real men in this country who know what
it means to love their women, to be fathers to
their children, and to serve God and their
community with their strength!
Fight training, I do believe, is a means to
getting at that ‘themos’ and learning to
bring it under control. When done in the right way,
fight training can help a young person to discover
who they are and can help them to bring their
futures into focus. They can then come to see their
role as warriors in this society who will stand up
and use their energy to build a better community
and to fight for things worth fighting for.
What about these boys who I watched training
with me tonight? Will they go on to become
‘mighty men of God'? I don’t know. But
they’re on the right track, and they’re
further ahead now than when they first started
their training.
©2011, Rev. David B.
Smith
* * *
Never contend with a man who has nothing to
lose. - Baltasar Gracian
Rev.
David B. Smith is a Parish priest, community
worker, martial arts master, pro boxer, author of
Sex,
the Ring & the Eucharist: Reflections on
life, ministry & fighting in the
inner-city and a
father of three. Get a free preview copy of Father
Dave, the 'Fighting Father's book when you sign up
for his free newsletter at www.fatherdave.org
or dave@fatherdave.org
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