Baltimore is a city with some issues… However, it was also popularized with the rendering of the 2002 – 2008 HBO television cop show called “The Wire”. To be truthful, this is not a show that I would recommend. There were incredible amounts of profanity, violence, sex and drug use. Interestingly though, the use of profanity, violence, sex and drugs use (depicted in the series) are symptomatic of the desperate social and economic conditions of perhaps “any given Sunday” inner city environment. I’m guessing that the producer opted into creating a realistic, raw, adult representation of what things really look like. (It’s not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure.)
The viewer realizes very quickly that every character is more than just flawed, and that they are great distances from perfection. As a matter of fact, there are equal opportunities of corruption and genuine bad activities portrayed by men and women, gay and straight, politicians and citizens, cops and criminals. There is no one who is good. The moral line is shaded and elusive. The “good guys” aren’t always good, and the “bad guys” aren’t always bad. Moral relativism rules the day like the t-rex hero of Jurassic Park (the first movie, which incidentally was the best.)
However, one consistent observation I noticed was the lack of fathers. (It was glaringly obvious during a heart breaking Season Four which focused on education, following a group of young male characters and their descent into manhood.) Mind you, there were plenty of male influences, but many of them were bad, and few were good. The critical mass of positive male influences were critically low. (I wonder if the lack of positive fathering could be the greater issue at play.)
In any case, we need an army of men to lead our sons and mentor the fatherless into authentic manhood and masculinity which focuses on relationships in three realms: Relationship with God, Relationship in community, and Relationship with our environment.
Relationship with environment refers to the reality in Genesis chapter 2 that God made purpose and work for Adam (the first male prototype). God created the “garden” before He created the man. God had every intention for Adam to take a “tending” role in his environment.
Also, they seem to be lacking at times in: Purpose. Meaning. Employment and Spiritual Relationship. Are these our Achilles heel? Do these lack account for some of the failures these men and emerging men encounter? Do they abide in a community deficit?
Fast forward to Baltimore. The issues are real, deep and complicated, but I feel that taking up more responsibilities of mentorship and leadership as men must be at least one of the keys to the solution.
In The Wire, does art imitate reality or is it the other way around? It’s debatable, but here is an interesting conclusion…
Despite the language, sex, drug use and societal despair, in the end, the earthly hopelessness of our insurmountable social problems can find optimism in the divine; that is, within a relationship with Jesus Christ.
(Kind of a weird thing to take away from the show… eh?)
What are your thoughts?
The Genesis Man Project 