“Given the choice, I'll take the three musketeers.”

Bar none, I will always cherish a recent Saturday evening in june. I was one of three men asked by a good friend to participate in the coming of age and manhood birthday activities she had planned for her remarkable 13 year-old boy. He is the older of two boys raised by a single mother. The three of them have and continue to grow through some overwhelming challenges from family transitions over the last number of years. To say that their quest has been fraught with confusion, pain, fear and unknown dangers & obstacles at each errant bend is an understatement of the grandest proportion. Their journey is a testimony to the prevailing might of love, hope, providence and the power of believing.

Here’s the script of the event:

• Each of us were selected as important and positive male influences in his life;
• Each of us was asked to select a single word that we wanted to convey to him as important on his entry and quest into young manhood;
• Each of us was to give him some type of gift, a symbol for him to carry with him reflecting the word value we shared;
• He selected a historic location named Winstead Park in Franklin, Tennessee, a hilly site from where you overlooked the landscape upon which one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War occurred; the Battle of Franklin. http://battleoffranklin.wordpress.com/category/winstead-hill/
• We were to be positioned at separate locations along the meandering path, then after his mother dropped him off he would walk along the trail and encounter each of us;
• We were to share our words of wisdom, offer the gift to carry forward and send him on, alone;
• After the final encounter, he would gather us on his return path so that he and these three men in his life would walk on as a band of brothers toward what lay ahead.

The three chosen words were: LIGHT. COURAGE. STRENGTH. Having selected COURAGE, I took my position as the second stop inside a tree-darkened bend along the pathway. I rested the framed words and gifts against the road’s concrete border, sat down and waited. A pale breeze beckoned; I thought I could feel the last warm breaths from forgotten battlefields. I waited.

He appeared to my left, a soft blur of denim and plaid. As he neared my shadowed position I noticed the sepia of curiosity flickering in his eyes. He carried a thick blue flashlight, the gift of LIGHT from his first stop. The next moments intertwined our minds and spirits with the my following words:

Courage.

Courage is what’s found in scales of armor shielding the dragon’s fiery heart

Courage is what’s found when a geode’s hidden secrets explode with sunlight

Courage is what’s found in chasing the lions of your imagination

Courage is what’s found on paths mapped beneath the stars of your dreams

Courage is what’s found in the few who sail against winds of doubt

Courage is what’s found in the piercing wisdom of the night owl’s eyes

Courage is what’s found in pursuing trails carved with the neon of fireflies

Courage is what’s found when others believe everything is lost

Courage is what’s found beyond the clouds, where wings spawn and play

Courage is what’s found in the pocket where the power of believing is kept

Courage is what’s found in truth’s unbreakable sword, fear’s conqueror

Courage is what’s found in every step of every man inviting life’s quest

Courage is what’s found in the boy becoming the man.

Magic. Wonder. Believing.

For today and all your tomorrows – Brian

I handed him the parchment words in a rough-hewed wood frame along with a chunk of blended minerals and a small, jagged heart-shaped rock. And then he walked on.

So what? As leaders, followers, teachers, learners and sojourners it is good to consider:

1. LIGHT. Lighten your load: This world puts many heavy, scary, prickly things (that go bump in the night, too) in our paths as boys and girls… and then as men and women. And from experience I have discovered that if you try to protect and armor yourself from all those things that take your breath away, hurt, darken your journey and scare you to death…you will also shut yourself off from all those things that take your breath away, mend, enlighten your journey and scare you to life.
2. COURAGE. “If I only had the nerve.” Cowardly Lion, The Wizard of Oz. "But courage, child: we are all between the paws of the true Aslan." C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia. No matter what give us pause… the courage is always found when we walk the roads toward our fears; carrying the flame of believing, blade of truth and heart of the warrior we cannot be defeated.
3. STRENGTH. The true meaning of strength is not defined by the measurement of your muscles, but in the depth of your values; not found in the power of your stamina, but in your enduring commitments; not in the might of your conquests, but in the valor of your compassion.

The boy, becoming the man, becoming the boy.

For emphasis – (b)