“I see you, you little bastards!” Cried Lady Marion in the 2010 movie Robin Hood as a group of young, masked boys runs off from her barns, stealing her family’s last bags of grain. They had taken to the woods as outlaws, doing anything they could to survive in a time of pain and starvation. If you haven’t seen the movie, you need to. It’s filled with deep truths about our needs for fathers, the place of redemptive masculinity and femininity, and our journeys to find wholeheartedness. All that was great, but it was this scene that grabbed me. 

I just got back from another Restoration Project weekend, one I look forward to every year. But, had I known what was coming on this one, I may have skipped the one weekend of the year that I’ll move mountains to be at. It started with a simple question, posed brilliantly by my brothers Ben and Jesse. They’d invited us to a feast; a celebration of God’s goodness. “As you sit at this table, what part of you is not here?” 

My stomach turned. I knew instinctively there was someone in me, some lost boy who was not there. Two days later as I walked the mountain path to my cabin to meet with two other men to unpack who this boy was, I felt the weight of dread, not sure of what was coming, but desperately not wanting to even look for him. An hour later, racked with sobs of pain, heartbreak and shame, I realized I had no idea where he was. He had retreated into the darkness that comes with the wounding of the un-initiated. Around the border of these woods, I’d put up “Wanted Posters”, proclaiming a death sentence if he were to be found. 

In his latest book, Sage, Chris Bruno delineated the six stages of a man’s life; the innocent boy, phallic boy, warrior, wounded warrior, king and finally, if we’re lucky, sage. What surprised me was how many of us can’t find our innocent boy or phallic boy when we go back and look for them. They’re lost; they’ve run away in fear and shame, trying to survive whatever hand life has dealt them. We’ve grown thick skins, armored up, designed intricate defenses to protect our hearts. But those boys are missing from what we bring to our worlds today. Our sense of joy and play, our spirituality and sexuality are out of whack. And we have no idea why. 

How do you begin to integrate the lost boy in your past when you can’t find him, or may even hate him? Sometimes this hatred comes from what we perceive he has done, but often it’s because we’ve actually agreed with evil about who he is. If we do go looking for him, it’s with a bow and fiery arrow, fully drawn. We’d like to wipe him out, destroy the weakness and shame he may represent. I only know of one thing, one man, who can bring him home. He wears a bloody crown, and his co-suffering is more than I can accept most days. That morning, he showed up in the form of a brother, offering more kindness than I could have mustered for myself in a lifetime. There was no judgment or condemnation; only kindness like I have never felt in my life. 

I’m glad He didn’t give me any advanced notice about what part of my heart we’d be walking through that weekend. Sometimes, the valleys appear too dark, too deep to risk. I would have stayed home. 

Are there valleys you’d rather wipe off the map, than explore? I’m with you.

What if He’s camped out in the deepest part, waiting to offer more strength and tenderness than you think is possible?

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Justin Koehn, Core Member and Key Volunteer