A recorded conversation (titled "The Development of Strength") recounts running a boys' home in the mid-1970s and reflects on how that experience forced the speakers to mature from 'nice guys' into men with backbone. The narrative links practical responsibility and boundary-setting with spiritual growth: learning to draw lines, express disagreement, and leave teachings that demand override of one’s honest experience.
In the mid-70s, we went out, found a piece of real estate, started a boy's home. I don't know what we were thinking. 15 kids were 25 year old, 24 year old bachelors. And we got 15 boys in a boys home that were responsible for cleaning and cooking and organizing and the lawn has to be done and they have to get to school and parent meetings at the school and all the teenage rage. What came out of that for you?
Well, first of all, I think it made us move from boys to men. We went from being nice guys and thinking that we could just love the boys through being kind and sensitive and warm and they're smiling at us, thinking, man, I think of a cartoon where you got this little creature that's just looking at another little creature and just licking its chops and going, can't wait to eat these concerts alive. It basically was the beginning of starting to find something in our spinal cords that had to dig deep and had to be stronger, had to develop our passion. And if we weren't developing our passion, we got our asses kicked. And my experience was that it was the beginning of developing a backbone. And in the interactions, I can remember so many times where there was a sarcastic look in their eyes or there was a looking away and if we looked at them and said some version of hey, that was just completely powerless. But if we went hey, we had a chance. And so just like so many other parts of life, if we didn't develop that kind of passion and that inner voice, we were going to get whipped by life. And so from my vantage point, it was the beginning of our manhood developing at another level, really the beginning of our capacity to find when we wanted to say stop or this is the boundary here.
Connect that to your spiritual life. Connect that to what a lot of people look at as just simply a loving person.
When I we first started seeing spiritual teachers, there was a tendency to approach them a little bit like a boy, where we go in, treat them like a father figure, have a little bit of pseudo reverence. And then down deep, whatever part of us doubted, we appeared to be more agreeable than we really were. And then as each experience kept coming, we started to be capable of having a real dialogue with the teacher. Now when I say a real dialogue with the teacher, I don't mean they necessarily talk back with us because generally they dismissed us. But from my vantage point, what happened was I would say, hey, you know what, I hear what you're saying, but I don't know what, you know.
Drawing of lines is the connection then at the boy's home. Dead meat if you don't. And for me, I connect the two. I connect a feeling of almost a sense of some religion, some value systems, that you're unconditionally loving and that love is not viewed in all of its possible colors. And I think what you're describing is that our love for those boys, our caring for those boys, or our compassion for them included drawing lines. Is that what you're saying?
Yeah. I think love is so confused with just being kind and the softer parts of compassion. And what really was developing then and what got transferred over to our relationship, to our spiritual inquiries was a certain kind of strength, a certain kind of courage, and a willingness to disagree, even if it meant we had to say goodbye. And oftentimes it did mean we had to say goodbye. And even better, before we said goodbye, we said, I can't say this is my experience numerous times and attempted to reach the teachers, as I think of the many teachers that we actually approached, I can think of at least 10 conversations that I attempted to have with each teacher to say, you know, I can't really believe what you're saying here. I understand that you believe this, but I can't say that my experience is the same as yours. So can you make a place for me and accept the fact that I don't know? And then sooner rather than later, when I was being asked to override my not knowing and to come into a complete agreement with the belief system that was being presented, I basically needed to leave. And the longer it went on, the more I could leave in a sort of peaceful way rather than a frustrated way, because I became more comfortable with setting the lines and setting the boundaries.
