In the late winter of 2020, a group of men met in Joshua Tree National Park to teach each other about climbing rocks. There were no formal guides or instructors, just some guys with a little experience ready to share what they knew with anyone who knew less. Apart from the intention to climb, these men had two other things in common:

They were all Muslim.

They had all been profoundly affected by divorce.

Some had grown up in households where they suffered estrangement from their fathers. Too young to understand the bitter divorce dynamics, they were told what to believe by their wounded mothers. Their fathers were guilty of unconscionable things, their mothers told them, broke deadbeats who couldn’t be bothered to see beyond their selfish wants. These were the stories they grew up with.

Other participants were older, mired in agonizing court proceedings as their own divorces were unfolding. They were fighting for a place in lives of their children, a fundamental connection that was daily being challenged and threatened. These men were emotionally exhausted from trying to convince the courts that they have value apart from their ability to pay child support. A common sentiment among these men was the realization that their lives had devolved into a kind of indentured servitude. Rather than shouldering the expenses associated with raising their child, these fathers were now sentenced to subsidize the choices of a mother who was working at every turn to keep them away from their children.

The veracity of these respective narratives need not be questioned. The emotional reality is real enough, and what is more, the complimentary nature of these stories was an opportunity for healing, or at least a fuller perspective.

For the men estranged from their fathers, maybe they weren’t selfish deadbeats. Perhaps these were men who had exhausted their opportunities for perceived relevance in the lives of their children, men without an adequate support system who no longer had the money or internal resources to keep fighting. Or maybe they anticipated the harm to their children that would come from continuing to fight, and with broken hearts, had simply faded out of the equation.

After all, if no one else can see that fathers matter, maybe they don’t?

And for the men in the middle of their divorces, they could hear in the voices of those who grew up without a father just how much they did matter. Contemporary western culture has excised any language to articulate the specific nature of a father’s value, but there is no difficulty in perceiving the consequences of going without.

All of what we heard felt so unnecessarily complicated. A lot like climbing rocks.

Climbing rocks doesn’t have to be complicated. But when we simplify the process, we climb less and with greater risk. We introduce complexity in order to stay safe and climb more.

Ropes and knots and shoes and helmets and harnesses and all the devices and gear exist to protect us as we push ourselves to learn the techniques that will get us higher and higher up the wall. And here is the essential metaphor: we must expand our base of support to meet the challenges that will inevitably come our way.

This is the proposition of D&T Rise. The men who gathered back in February of 2020 are still in touch. They continue to talk, to pray for one another, and even show up in court to offer support or testimony. We give each other space to process and in so doing we’ve come to recognize that healing will only manifest at the point were we are willing to set aside our own pain long enough to appreciate that, like marriage, divorce is a shared story. There is always another side.

Dust and Tribe has suspended our adventure calendar as we continue to develop Camp One. The work of building community continues, however, and we are expanding our remote offerings to include a twice monthly coed discussion group for men and women affected by divorce. Participants are also free to share and connect at anytime through gender-exclusive WhatsApp groups.

We made the decision to bring men and women into conversation with one another to dismantle the false and often terribly negative assumptions that accrue in the siloed discussions we have with people in shared circumstances. We don’t promise that this will be comfortable, or even helpful.

What we do promise is the growth that comes out of pushing past our comfort zone. This is the most effective way of learning about ourselves and our limits.

And it’s the only way of knowing if the thing you’ve never tried is the thing you really need.

Our first meeting is set for Wednesday, November 16th.

We’re ready for your story.

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