The Way of the Wild Heart

A Map for the Masculine Journey

by John Eldredge

A surprising book for the modern age for it challenges the notion that men grow up with little connection with a father figure and that position needs to be corrected. Children grow up without the guidance and love shared with a father figure, that boys grow into men without the help and companionship to guide them through the hazards they experience and in the end how important that companionship is. The author states that we are not meant to figure life out on our own, that the masculine journey is too important to experience on our own. I suppose many fathers, like me, tend to allow their sons to grow to maturity expecting them to blossom in a similar way that they did; probably expecting mothers to care and tend for them whilst we “worked”. This book explains the need for that journey to be alongside a “father”, to provide the initiation into manhood in such a way as to affect the future. The author states that the fears, the anger, the boredom, the addictions of life may all come out of the fatherless place in the core of the being, so a father is important on the way. For those who seek a father then God can provide that place – “God wants to Father us”, the author states. He than goes on to explain how God can come to a man and live the journey, whatever the age, whatever the status -surprising but quite challenging as well.

Reviewer: Ian Gibson   (29/11/07)

Paperback
Price: £8.99
Publisher:Thomas Nelson (Available from Ritchie Christian Media)
Published:2006
ISBN:978-0-785-28868-8