Wild at Heart

A huge departure from yesterday’s comedy/mystery to today’s book, Wild at Heart by John Eldredge, a Christian minister.  Here’s his website:  http://www.ransomedheart.com/.  For those who aren’t Christian, may be a difficult read, well, even for some who are.  A very interesting concept, men are wild at heart and need to get back to being warriors, of sorts.  Not sure I agreed with a lot of his perspectives, ie get our young males into the woods, climb a mountain, shoot a gun, get the animal instincts back into the young warrior.  His “clips” from movies and lyrics from songs worked well, enjoyed and knew most of the movies/books/songs he referenced. Such as “the question that haunts every man”… from Jackson Browne’s The Pretender:  “Are you there? Say a prayer for the Pretender who started out so young and strong only to surrender”  or Paul Simon’s The Boxer: “In the corner stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade and he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down and cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame, I am leaving, I am leaving but the fighter still remains.”   He also introduced verses from the Bible to support his point.   Even for those not practicing as Christians, the message remains strong:  “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who come alive.”  Some nuggets that help with the reflection process in what I am to do in this world to make it better, and more importantly, to make myself better.  I do think for many non-conservative Christian thinkers the focus on men’s trials and tribulations may be a bit much.  The common sense and storytelling parts kept me reading, the preachy approach not so much.  There is a place for this type of read that can assist people through difficult transitions, but probably for females, at least many I know in college, this will be a hard book to stomach.  Appreciate the perspective, just not the type of book that I’d put in a top 50 or more….  Those looking for one way to think about enhancing the male perspective go climb a mountain, venture into the wild, or simply read this book.  I’ll stick to the mountain!