This is something that came up in my meditations a week or so ago, and I thought I would save it for Father's day but the anticipation has ruptured therefore to delay is truly a waste. For the purpose of today, I want to yet again, bear my soul on a canvas of coding and LED pixels. This very reason, I feel the compulsion to explain such truth to the reader and expound exhortation upon those who this will touch. Here is a point given by Rohr, in On the Threshold of Transformation, entitled, Father Hunger:

There's an emptiness that results from the absence of a father's energy...when a father and son do not have sufficient shoulder-to-shoulder time, healthy masculine energy does not pass from father to son. If a son does not find a healthy way to heal or compensate for that lack of energy, the void will fill with insecurity, depression, rage, and more.

Without positive modeling from man to boy, the grown-up boy may find it difficult to relate to others. He may experience sadness that can turn debilitating by midlife. He may have trouble with self-confidence, sound judgment, and reading life's situations correctly. He may not understand his own feelings or how to empathize with others. He may never learn how to cry, because he is disconnected from his deepest feelings. These lessons call for mentoring that only men can do. 

It is a deep truth that has hit me when reading, considering, and pondering this point. I feel that my own relationship with my father has been exactly this, "sufficient shoulder-to-shoulder time." I think there were times that we embraced one another as within the bounds of brotherly and fatherly love. While in times past, push came to shove and an invertible clash came tumbling down as a heavy hail storm of emotion. Personally, the latter was the largest contributor to my development. The times that my father and I disagreed, pitted wits, and resulted to acts of aggression, were the largest contributors to my overall development.

Now this is not to say physical violence was always a determining factor, but the tension created by the theory of such, definitely provoked something aggressive and assertive inside of me. In a way, violence (or the theory of violence), bread something in the deepest core of my being and I felt a solidification of being a man. In a way this, was what Rohr coined, as the "The Warrior Initiation," one of the four archetypes of male rites of passages. It taught me exactly what is stated in this initiation, "enact (his) aggressiveness and recognize how far it can lead him" and to learn "the difference between good anger and egocentric rage." 

I believe for these various reason, I've had great, positive modeling. For that very reason, thanks Dad. 

Granted not everyone has had this type of physical (natural) father-son experiences, so to let's speak metaphorically, to "spiritual" father-son relationships. To those that have not had this experience, what would keep you pursuing these types of father-son relationships? What stops you from actually desiring and experiencing these "shoulder-to-shoulder times?"