Dear friend,

Sure enjoyed our bicycling trip on Friday. It was fun to get out and I think that God really blessed our day. We avoided the two rain storms and had perfect weather. No flat tires, no mishaps along the way. Then Chipotle. The Lord is good.

I was proud of you on the trail, young man. You set a personal best for distance. You didn't quit until we made our goal -- even though you could have when we got back to North St. Paul. There is no reason why you can't keep making progress on your fitness goals. Don't give up until you achieve them!

But I am also proud of you for other reasons. You are courageous. It takes courage to fight against the same-sex attractions that surface in your soul and you are doing it. It takes courage to open up to your Pastor and you did it. It takes courage to ask for help and you are doing it. May God continue to grow your courage and I pray that it will yield a great reward!

Yes, there will be challenges ahead. But you can allow each one to push you toward God and not away from Him. You will find Him patient, encouraging, fatherly, wise, forgiving and strengthening in everything that you bring to Him. What great help we have as Christians!

God's blessings as you press on. Keep the wheels turning . . . on the bicycle and in your journey!

Dave O

. . . He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6

Manhood at the University of Minnesota and the House of Commons

As I write this afternoon, I am at Wilson Library at the University looking out across the plaza. People walk, cycle, and "blade" to their next class or appointment. Like some others here at the library, I watch them between keystrokes and paragraphs.

I see students and faculty, visitors and administrators, men and women. Some of the men look like they might be athletes; others are clearly not athletes at all.

But what an error I would be making were I to “measure a man” by his physical appearance!

Two days ago I finished Amazing Grace, the biography of William Wilberforce. If you are unfamiliar with him, he led the fight in Parliament to abolish the slave trade. The man was a true warrior. Though he never wielded a sword or a pistol, he confronted the evil practice of rounding up Africans and shipping them to the West Indies to labor on a plantation. If they survived the trip, the slaves faced a life full of difficulties that are beyond my comprehension. Amid death threats and great opposition, Wilberforce and the abolitionists prevailed, though the political battle lasted decades.

The author provided a brief physical description of Wilberforce early in the book:

“Wilberforce was universally described as tiny and stood just over five feet tall with a child-sized torso. His chest was measured in later years at thirty-three inches.” (p. 43)

This “tiny” man was a spiritual and political giant who led the fight to secure the personal freedom of hundreds of thousands of slaves. I’ll say it again – what an error we make when we measure a man by what we see on the outside!

How, then, do we esteem the physical strength of a man? There is a certain glory to it, is there not? "The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair." (Proverbs 20:29) But what a fleeting glory it is! And how trivial in the sight of God! Recall what God said to Samuel when he was selecting a king:

“Do not look on his appearance or the height of his stature . . . For the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

Think about that, next time you overlook the plaza at a University.

His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor is his pleasure in the legs of a man. Psalm 147:10

Rich's Barbershop

If you are serious about overcoming SSA, you’ve probably learned that you need to gradually chase every remnant of defensive detachment from masculine things out of your system. We need to do what men do and go where men go. A big step in this regard for me was becoming a customer at Rich’s barbershop.

For years I went to the local franchise of a hair salon to get my hair cut. The salon had a staff consisting entirely of women and one very unmasculine man. As I sat in the chair, five feet to the left a woman was giving another woman a style-cut, all the while talking about highlights and styling gels. In the waiting area are magazines like People and Intouch and books of hairstyles.

What on earth was I thinking?

Less than half a block away is a barbershop. Rich is the owner and sole barber. The place doesn’t have a name. I don’t think that it has ever been redecorated and none of the patrons care. There are all sorts of interesting things on the wall, like picture postcards, yellowed business cards, pictures of people and comic strips. No credit cards are accepted; but if you’re short on cash, Rich will just tell you to catch him next time.


Along with the giant barber chair, three old-fashioned theatre chairs face the barber. There is one conversation in this tiny shop. Rich considers the place a man-refuge of sorts. During one haircut, we all talked about using boilers versus forced-air furnaces to heat homes. (Remember, I live in Minnesota.) I think that Rich can carry on a conversation with any man about any topic. At the end of the haircut, Rich lathers your neck with hot foam and then pulls out the sharp razor. It is the best part (no pun intended) of the treatment. I always look forward to the visit.


You might be saying, “It’s only a haircut, Dave.” Yes, that's true. But for me it is enormously symbolic. When I was a kid, I used to go to the barbershop with my dad. It was a man’s world. We would go on Saturday afternoon and there was a game on the TV and Car and Driver and Field and Stream in the magazine rack.


Then somewhere along the line it was decided that I wasn’t getting a good haircut there. I must have been about 13. My mom found a “stylist” and brought me to her. I was out of the man’s world and into a salon and I didn’t protest.



It took me a few decades, but I made it back to the barbershop.


Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 1 Corinthians 16:13

Reframing from Rich, Step 1: Find the Story

One of the helpful processes that I have learned from Rich at People Can Change is that of reframing. Men struggling with SSA would do well to practice this process with their coaches and build it into their daily lives. Implementing it will bring you significant benefits by diffusing some of the attractions that could otherwise knock you over.

In this post, let's consider his step 1.

You are at Chipotle and a man ahead of you in line captures your attention. In a split second your thoughts get carried away and you know that you are struggling. If you don't embrace another line of thinking, you could get carried away to a bad place.

Your first inclination might be to stop looking or to find a seat that faces the corrugated sheet metal on the wall. Sure, you could do that, but there will be another guy that could catch your eye as you walk out of the place.

Rich offers a far better suggestion that will cause you to grow. Get a grip on your thoughts and determine what is going on in your head. Begin by splitting off the sexual component of your thinking. Set that aside, look at him and "find the story". What are you telling yourself about him and yourself at that moment? This is an opportunity to hone your thinking and bring it under control.

There will more than likely be some sort of comparison going on. He is stronger or bigger; quicker or leaner. He is more important or successful; more rugged or adventurous. He is younger or carefree; he is more steady, confident and happy. He has more hair, it is less gray, or a fuller beard. As you can tell, the comparison could be on any basis. Determine the story running through your head, then you can know how to address your thinking.

Rich suggests that you zero in on your feelings at this point. Feeling can be difficult for some SSA men if feeling only resulted in sadness and frustration growing up. He mentions some possible emotions that might be emerging: envy, loneliness, sadness, or shame. We will deal with the important topic of dealing with emotions in subsequent posts.

This is step 1. You have discerned what you are thinking and feeling. Your next reflex must be to move on to step 2: processing

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Psalm 139:23

Disclosure as Manliness

Thank God for the journeys that He leads us on. As a Christian, I am journeying toward a stronger relationship with God and knowledge of Him. I am on a masculine journey, seeking to be a man in every aspect of my life. I am striving to become a more effective leader of my household and a stronger influence on the men in my life. As a coach, I am studying to learn the best way to lead men into their full potential, past obstacles, into lives that are productive, satisfying and God-glorifying.

I am also on a journey of self-disclosure. In the past, I have been cautious and reluctant to disclose battling same-sex attraction. But in my role as a coach to men who are same-sex attracted, self-disclosure is part of the new territory. God has called me and it is time for boldness.

My coach, Stuart, led me to make the connection between manliness and self-disclosure during our last time together. This was really the first I had considered the idea and it has given me a lot to chew on.

A friend and I were talking not long ago about how we are standing on the shoulders of those who have gone on before us. As I write this, there is a Bible, written in English on the table to my right. A few centuries back an order of the Pope dictated that all Bibles be in Latin, preventing non-Latin speakers from reading and understanding the truths of God for themselves. One man, William Tyndale, the British reformer, defied the order. He translated the Bible into English, then published and distributed it. For this he was imprisoned and burned at the stake. But because of him and others like him, I am able to read the word of God and be changed by it.

I also stand on the shoulders of many who have spoken of "change" for men and women with same-sex attraction. What would have been the course of my life, were it not for the network of Exodus ministries that sprouted 30 years ago? More recently, the impact of People Can Change has led me into a greater experience of manhood to the extent that the sexual escapes from the past are now unthinkable.

The founders of Exodus and People Can Change publicly disclosed their struggles. I don't know what this has meant to them. But I do know that I have a freedom from sin, a masculine identity and a satisfying life that I wouldn't have were it not for their disclosure.

This is masculine strength and courage, is it not? Manliness is setting aside the desire for self-preservation and acting for the greater good. May God grant us manly strength so that the ones to come may stand on our shoulders.

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 1 John 3:16