When looking for the archetypal loner and independent soul, the world presents the Marlboro Man – a tough, hard working, good looking man’s man. Ironically, outside of Western novels and movies, cowboys rarely work alone. At least, I’ve never heard of a lone cowboy rounding up a stampede or successfully branding a calf. 
Still, despite the reality, that archetype holds power and we admire the lone wolf. I have even heard Jesus cast into this lone wolf stereotype – the man who went against the religious authority of his day, teaching his alternative message despite the consequences. But while Jesus was certainly alone on the cross and in those hours of darkness before crying “Eloi, Eloi!” we should remember that he was far from a loner. He moved with a consistent group of disciples, relied on the worldly support of a consistent group of women, and revealed an ever present fellowship with the other two persons of the Triune God.
With this precedent before us, why do we pursue our spiritual lives by ourselves? Especially we men? Why would we isolate our spiritual experiences almost exclusively in occasional private study and reading – prayer-closet only relationships with Jesus? And when we isolate the pursuit in this way, why are we surprised that the struggle overcomes us? Or why should we expect anything different when we neither grow significantly nor find opportunity to share our faith?
During a stay at a Latin American language school for missionaries, Henri Nouwen asked these same kinds of questions, and as he considered himself and his fellow missionary-trainees, he realized
how much we need each other. Mission work is not a task for individuals. The Lord sent his disciples into the world in small groups, not as individual heroes or pioneers. We are sent out together, so that together – gathered by One Lord – we can make him present in this world. . . .
He muses that before they begin to bring Christ to the world, they should
first of all look at each other, recognize each other’s suffering and come together as a living body to pray, and to share our joys and hopes, our fears and pains. . . . After all, the first and most important witness is to them who can say of us: “See how they love each other.
Nouwen’s vision for interaction and mutual reliance requires vulnerability that our loner archetype does not allow. Vulnerability means sharing more than the concerns of our extended family – “Please pray for my cousin who . . .” It means exposing and praying for our own veiled struggles, whether they’re discipline issues with our children or communication problems with our spouses.
And while we may not yet know anyone in church with whom we can share like this, our small groups are a place to begin – entering into relationships with other men and their entire families, building bonds and trust that allow for Nouwen’s vision, a vision of dependence, on each other to carry one another’s burdens, and ultimately on Christ, who carries all our burdens.
Certainly, such an arrangement wins over the Marlboro Man method, a method that leaves a man looking good in pictures but with no one to whom to admit that he’s a workaholic who smokes to give himself something to do besides fret.
Today, then, may we humble ourselves before God and each other, recognize each other’s suffering, and come together as a living body to pray, and to share our joys and hopes, our fears and pains.
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Nouwen, Henri. Gracias! A Latin American Journal. New York: Orbis, 1983.
Original image: ‘Dad & Harry – Santa Rosa Ranch‘ by: John Christensen
