Doug Giles takes a look at strong, wise, fun-loving, lioness-loving leaders - with a mission

Doug Giles

When God created Adam, he didn't breathe life into this divine concoction of spit and mud in order to develop a race of weak, lazy, irresponsible and chubby quiche-eaters. God made Adam to be a provider, protector, hunter and hero of Jehovah's created order.
Adam was not carved out of a dirt clod ... to be a clod. God's original and unchanging job description for man and his offspring was and is to be a protector of what's right, a prosecutor of what's wrong and a builder of what is holy, just and good.

Please also note that when Adam was created, God didn't throw up a Double Tree Inn next to the spot where he was fashioned. There were no 7-Elevens. No Blockbusters. No A/C. Neither Sushi bars nor SuperCuts. And this one's really going to hurt ... no McDonalds. Adam was placed, purposefully, in the wild. The wild brought out something in this leader that your favorite shopping mall simply couldn't provide. God's second in command was directly connected with the Spirit of the Wild.

Adam, the wild man, drew directly from the earth. Fast food for Adam was the fleet-a-foot Antelope he was trying to smack with a rock. Adam lived in naked partnership with wild beasts, birds, gigantic lizards and monster sharks. And guess what? Adam was not with some gay guy called Steve ... he was with a beautiful woman: Eve. And she was down with it, as well.

This is the way it was. And God said, "It is good!"

I know this doesn't sound like "paradise" for those who are immoral, lazy, stupid and fat, but it was God's and primitive man's idea of Yippee Land. So, what caused this initial state of bliss to be lost to Adam? Where did he go wrong?

What did he do, or rather not do, to lose this NRA Xanadu-like existence? And what lesson from creation can we learn?

Here it is: Adam's reticence to be the wild man God called him to be cost him the sweet haven of Eden's crib. He refused to rule righteously and conquer the serpent, which put him on the outs with his Creator and demoted him to somewhere east of Eden.

What happens when the Wild Man motif is gone, smothered, and vilified? Well, the snakes take over. That's how it originally was; that's how it has always been.

The song remains the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow. As long as the strong Wild Man attitude is absent, you can expect the corrupters and compromisers to fill that holy vacuum.

The current, hopefully momentary, societal emasculation of the Wild Man spirit has brought about the devolution of God's original desire: an earth ruled by man and by woman that is righteous, beautiful and secure. And guess what?

We can expect hell on earth as long as the original Wild Man spirit is absent from our culture, from our churches and from our families.

So what is the Wild Man spirit?

The Wild Man is a person, according to one writer, "Who has a solid connection to God defined by his standards plus a deep understanding and appreciation of creation in all of its wildness, beauty, complexity and austerity." He's the person who is god-smacked watching a wicked thunderstorm, who trips watching an eclipse, who sweats and is weirdly exited when riding out an earthquake and who is both terrified and overjoyed beholding a tornado. The Wild Man feels one with God and with the wild. This sends him in search of "Eden" -- the way it must have been. The Wild Man understands both the fundamentals of God and the funk of nature.

My ClashPoint is this: The Wild Man experience produces an attitude, and this attitude is a threat to all that is evil. The person who is wild has the attitude that he is not an easy prey. He ceases to be lugubrious and begins to become a lion. He becomes a hazard to cultural constructs that would keep him, those he loves and all mankind dumb and down.

With wisdom from above and senses honed on earth, the Wild Man is not a dutiful and domesticated "cow" of the politically, ecclesiastically and culturally correct constructs. He is a lion - a strong, wise, fun-loving, lioness-loving leader - with a mission: to care for his family, his community and his culture as faithfully as he can.