Steve McLean doesn’t look like a warrior, but he is always working, never off the clock. He’s a “Jesus man,” as he so engagingly puts it. Religion is strange terrain for me, never more so than when institutions are pushing it. Institutions have a poor history of doing good on the earth, for the most part I think.
 Steve has a great record. He has touched many lives in his congregation and beyond, including mine. Our friendship is deep and rich, even though I am not close to landing when it comes to Jesus, God, or religion. I love Steve, though, and the spirit is clearly in him.
  Yesterday we had lunch and talked about the drama of middle age, the challenge of relationships, the responsibility of men to be better, more loving, and I thought, this is what men should be doing, thinking aobut themselves, about being better humans. I have a lot of friends who are women, and it always saddens me to hear how suspicious they are of men, how little they expect of them, how much they yearn for the small and intimate pleasures of life. Steve is doing something about it. He is offering a workshop in his church for men to learn how to be better, and to make being a man stand for something good. I think I will sign up.