My Life & Search For True, Authentic Brotherhood

For the last several years I have been on the search for true, authentic brotherhood. It was something that I first had a taste of in my fraternity years at Northeastern State University over in Tahlequah. (Yes that is a picture of me with a beer and cigarette in hand, but truthfully I'm more embarrassed about the straw hat, after all this was pre-Christian Dave). The times I had with those fraternity brothers were good ones that I remember with fondness.

After my time at college, I spent time with friends who came to hang out in my apartment, but really never developed any close brotherhood bonds. It was during this time in my life, that the drinking and partying began to play out in my life. It was all just so empty, and my life was just not very fulfilling. This is when my life took a major change for the better when I was introduced to Jesus, and for the first time was shown that the Bible was more than a history book, it was Jesus in print.

It was shortly after this that I met and married my bride Cheryl, and moved into the arena of being the head of our new family. This was all uncharted territory for me as I for the most part had been living my life mostly for myself. I remember asking my Pastor in Muskogee, Oklahoma if he would please do some teachings on what it meant to be a Christian husband and man because I was lacking in that area very much. It wasn't until years later that I realized that he probably never did that because he wasn't really sure what how that looked either.

Life moved on, and it wasn't too long before I was not only a husband, but my bride became pregnant with our first child., Micah. We were both excited for sure, but now I had a whole new dilema. I still really didn't have this whole how to be a husband thing figured out, and now I was going to have to add father to my resume' and that really scared me more than I would like to admit. I had made friends with a couple of guys from the church we were attending, but it was more of a casual let's have dinner and a movie type relationship.

Before long, we had a opened a new shoe store, and had our first baby along with moving into an entirely new city. Life was crazy for us, but we loved it, and a few years later we had added two more children. I really felt as if I had a tiger by the tail now, but not knowing anything different, I just kept moving forward. All the while, we played a vital part in our local church, training our kids to become the people that God wanted them to be. It was challenging to be sure, but I felt good about it, and had a few friends, but was still feeling like there was something more that I needed as a man, that there was more to brotherhood than I really knew.

It was a few years into my walk as a Christian that I decided to start helping out in the boy's group at my church. I felt a real strong call to help teach my sons what it meant to be a truly authentic Christian man, even though I still couldn't actually tell you what that looked like. A very dear friend turned me on to a book written by a guy named John Eldredge called Wild at Heart, and this revolutionized my life as a man. This one book, next to the Bible has had the biggest impact on my life as a man. All of the questions that I had been trying to be answered, were answered in this book. It was a dramatic change of focus and direction for me for sure. It was after walking out the things that John talked about in this book, that I felt an urge and desire to attend one of his bootcamps.

So in February of 2008, I made the day and a half trek to Colorado to meet with God in the mountains. And boy did He not disapoint, it was the best thing that I have ever done for myself in my masculine journey. It was while I was there, that God planted the seeds in my heart to develop my own personal Band of Brothers, something I'm happy to report I have done. I have a great group of men in my church that I do things with monthly, and that I have been developing through classes and times of fellowship. The six guys that are in my immediate Band of Brothers have been there through thick and thin with me. These are the men that if we were in battle together would be watching my back, and I'd be watching their's.

In the darkest moment of my life this past April when my youngest son killed himself, I was able to call on them in my family's most desperate hour and they stood with me literally lifting my family up, and battling for our hearts. On a comical note, these men went above and beyond the call of duty the day of Noah's funeral. Everyone was at the gravesite, and we were at least a good half an hour away from the nearest bathroom, and I had drank one too many bottles of water. Having an urge that could not be contained any longer, I spotted a tall dirt mound and called upon my brothers to stand guard as I managed to relieve myself a mere one hundred feet from all the family and friends standing by the grave. This is how you know you have true, authentic brotherhood. When your friends are ready to stand with their backs to you while you pee, that's when you really know you have true brothers.