Now There's a Man

I just read the chapter in David Brooks's The Road to Character on George C. Marshall, the ubiquitous mid-twentieth century general, chief of staff, secretary of state, diplomat and Red Cross president. Marshall is best known for his work as Roosevelt's, and then Truman's, chief of staff during the Second World War. That's about all I knew; that and the work of the Marshall Plan in reshaping Europe after the war's conclusion.

Each of Brooks's chapters focuses on a different virtue on the road to character. Marshall's virtue was self-mastery. And, boy, was he good at it. One of the more inspiring examples of this came when he refused to ask for control of the Operation Overlord (D-Day) plan when everyone on both sides of the Atlantic assumed command would be his. It is clear that he could have had it if he wished, and he wished, but he refused to advocate for himself. He wanted Roosevelt to do what he felt he needed to do and not bend to popular support or a feeling of indebtedness to Marshall. Freed by Marshall's reticence, Roosevelt tapped Dwight Eisenhower for command of Overlord. 

This same reticence that prevented Marshall from sounding his own drum in an epochal military event colored his life. No biographer has been able to find evidence of major moral failure throughout his life. An unexceptional student, Marshall worked hard to control what he could control. What he could control was how he carried himself. So he worked and mastered the art of carrying himself with dignity and gravity. More than fifty years after his death, he is still an exemplar of these qualities. 

After I finished reading--the last anecdote from Brooks is about Marshall's refusal of a state funeral; he was buried with only close friends and family in attendance, with the standard Prayer Book funeral service, and no eulogy--I put the book down and muttered under my breath, "Now there's a man."

This is not a feeling I get a lot these days, and most particularly not from myself. I can think of one or two people in my life that I would say something like this about. We don't cultivate this type of manhood in our culture today. To be sure, large parts of our culture are busy denying manhood at all as some sort of virtuous undertaking. We are men without chests in our culture. Men without backbones. Men without self-control. 

Self-mastery, self-control. We don't think of these things very often. And if we do we tend to atomize them. A pastor might show great self-control in reading Scripture, but he eats whatever he wants. An athlete might show great control in diet and training, but he gives vent to anger or has no control of his sexual urges. We need to return to thinking about these things comprehensively. Especially as Christians. The fruit of the spirit includes self-control. God has given us a spirit of power and love and self-control. We resist Satan if we practice self-control. These things are all littered through the New Testament. 

I wonder what would happen if we took this more seriously. If we stopped forgiving ourselves for our infractions and took with grave solemnity the injunction to control ourselves. I imagine more of us would elicit the response, "Now there's a man." And in a world without men that makes for a good testimony.