Toughness

Cowboys have been cool since I was a little guy. The representation of masculine toughness has for many years been the roughneck willing to tie one hand to a large angry beast and fight to stay off the ground. As children, my brothers and I would play "cowboys and indians". Many of our first Halloween costumes consisted of chaps, ten-gallon hats, and ivory handled six shooters. Cowboys are the icons of male toughness. Despite back-breaking, mountainous attempts to homosexualize the image of Cowboys, they remain at the forefront of the toughman landscape. The rodeo is the only place to see real cowboys in modern times because the vast industrialization of the North American continent has circumvented the need for men to drive cattle from one place to another, etc., etc... However, Rodeos still capture the attention of Americans, especially kids. For a few hours you can watch grown men willingly strap themselves to bulls who are bred specifically to throw them to the ground and proceed to stomp them until they stop moving. This is entertainment and kids will watch and cheer for these icons of toughness as if they were superhuman.

How is it that the majority of men have totally whiffed on the most important lesson cowboys ever taught us? This lesson doesn't have to do with any kind of extraordinary courage and it does not deal with the physics of leaning as much force down into the stirrups in order to better control body position. The greatest lesson cowboys teach is to recognize when you are in too deep and accept help from those who are there to keep you safe.

I have never seen a cowboy, the model of toughness, refuse help from a rodeo clown. He knows that his pride could lead him straight into the destructive horns of danger. The cowboy knows that he has to rely on those funny looking people around him if he wants to escape with his life. Maybe our spiritual lives are similar. Perhaps sometimes the role of our fellowship is to draw the eye of the bull in order to allow one of our brothers to get out of the dirt. Maybe we're all a bunch of clowns...