Chapter 1 – Wild At Heart

[Jerry Wierwille]

Quotes
“Deep in a man’s heart are some fundamental questions that simply cannot be answered at the kitchen table.” (p. 5)

“A man needs to feel the rhythms of the earth, he needs to have in hand something real…” (p. 6)

“They may be misplaced, forgotten, or misdirected, but in the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.” (p. 9)

“Life needs a man to be fierce – and fiercely devoted….Like it or not, there is something fierce in the heart of every man.” (p. 11)

“Adventure is written into the heart of a man…Adventure requires something of us, puts us to the test.” (p. 13)

“If a man has lost this desire [to face the unknown, to prove himself, to be tested], says he doesn’t want it, that’s only because he doesn’t know he has what it takes, believes that he will fail the test. And so he decides it’s better not to try.” (p. 14)

“It’s not just that at man needs a battle to fight, he needs someone to fight for.” (p. 15)

“What if those deep desires in our hearts are telling us the truth, revealing to us the life we were meant to live?” (p. 18)

Response
As Eldredge says in the closing of this chapter, “The way we handle the heart is everything.” I would amend that statement and say that the way we understand the heart is everything (and then what we do when we understand it). The whole chapter has introduced the concept of how God created men (male humans) and the inherent needs and longings that a man needs to experience in this world. Eldredge asserts that men have a fierceness, an aggression, and an adventure-seeking component in their soul that was placed there by God. It is not about ego or “masculinity”, as in being macho, it is about their primal programming. Men have been created with innate impulses that God intended him to pursue, and those impulses are suppressed, or even shunned, in our society today.

All of these concepts Eldredge brings up are about men recognizing their true identity rather than the identity that our world has developed and tells men they are supposed to be like. Our world has tamed men so as to make them fit a more unisex role in society. Eldredge affirms that this does great harm to men (and women too). I would agree. What is necessary, then, is for men to realize there is a great adventure awaiting them in this world that God intended them to engage in, and in order to enter into that adventure and see the type of life God designed for a man to live, a man must understand what God has placed in his heart…….a man must get his heart back!

[David Enniss]

I appreciate your amendment about the need for understanding the heart. So few individuals are aware of these natural instincts that Eldredge describes because they are seldom nurtured by families and society amongst boys and men. They’re usually stifled from youth and instead are encouraged to pursue the opposite route. A man (and a woman) must know what he was made for in order to know how he is intended to spend his life. If he doesn’t understand his makeup, he’ll wander through life bouncing from pressure to pleasure, reacting to life like a ball in a pinball machine. All because he is clueless of his purpose and design. “We have not invited a man to know and live from his deep heart.” (p. 8)

Eldredge notes the “universal nature” (p. 11) of young boys. It is apparent how common it is when observing youth. But it isn’t until they’re reprogrammed by society that they begin to veer away from their original disposition.

The man handicaps his heart when he attempts to secure his surroundings by making everything predictable. “It is fear that keeps a man at home where things are neat and orderly and under his control.” (p. 5) According to Eldredge’s claims, this tendency is detrimental to the masculine heart.

[David Enniss]

“It is a book about the recovery and release of a man’s heart, his passions, his true nature, which he has been given by God.” (p. 18) How each man pursues his own life is unique to him, yet it is always within the context of having a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. If these natural characteristics are not pursued, then that individual will feel incomplete. I’ll take that a step further and say that if he doesn’t carry this out from a spiritual perspective and purpose, then he certainly will experience an indescribable void; a deep internal lack of satisfaction to life. Man was made to live with a spiritual connection. When they are neglected, an internal void persists. But when these are put into application of a spiritual context, it seems an internal sense of satisfaction substantiates those innate desires of the masculine heart.

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