I took office as MKP USA Chair on January 1st. It seems to me that our work in MKP is more crucial than ever before in our 30-year history. It’s also true that what we do and who we are in the world has changed the culture. Our ripples keep growing.
The Mission of MKP USA is to create a world where men act on their individual and collective responsibility for the future of humanity by initiating and supporting men on a path of emotional maturity, spiritual awareness, and deepening community.
What is our “responsibility for the future of humanity?” Each of us expresses it in his own way in the form of our mission statement: I create a world of……by…… Almost every men’s mission I’ve heard in MKP include fairness, equality, peace, love, harmony, and like values. The current world looks like hard times for those values. I’m noticing racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia expressed more openly than I’ve seen it in decades.
On the other hand, this same open expression of hate … driven by fear … is generating its own resistance – the March for Science, LGBT Pride, Black Lives Matter, #metoo, and #timesup among others. Voices for love and justice are refusing to be driven underground.
Now, more than ever, I believe we need “men acting on their individual and collective responsibility for the future of humanity,” and I believe that the ManKind Project has a place among the evolutionary forces at the forefront of the change.
There is strength in numbers. Approaching 70,000 men have gone through the NWTA since 1985. Of these New Warrior brothers, about 10,000 currently sit in I-Groups around the world. A percentage of those men staff, participate in next-level trainings, and are otherwise active in MKP worldwide. Here in MKP USA, we depend on the men who volunteer, whether occasionally or ongoingly, to support the organization through membership (about 3,000) and participation, along with countless others who take their MKP experience to prisons, communities, and their personal give-aways.
The key, I believe, is in our collective mission as an organization, and in each New Warrior’s mission of service. In the words of the Context presentation, with our past healed and our missions of service in focus, we accept our individual and shared responsibility for the future of humanity.
Are you that man?
Ed Gurowitz
Two Hearts
