"Digging Deep: Fostering the Spirituality of Young Men" is the latest unearthing in the important field of gender-specific religious education from St. Mary’s Press. It is a book that provides good background and yet utilizes a surprisingly donnish approach for those who might be using this in a local parish based program. Unlike the diverse "Voices" project regarding girls from the same publisher, "Digging Deep" is only a single volume which digs into a few subjects. Overall, we suggest the book for the strong opening essay and as a good back-up resource volume to be referred to when working with teenage boys in your programs. We give congratulations to SMP for the huge excavation into girls’ ministry, but are dissappointed that only one small ditch was dug for the boys’ issues. At least the man leading the dig is competent. Michael Downey’s strong experience as a minister in the catholic school setting is clear. To his credit, the book may have some very good applications in school settings. What this book is missing is the balance between action and contemplation. Although Michael wants to avoid “confining boys to doing,” far too many of the programs in churches are already "confining boys to sitting," reducing spirituality to an intellectual exercise.
The book has heavy emphasis on writing and journaling. These tools are excellent for boys after they are working in an established, trusting group with other young men and strong male mentors. If your parish group of young men is at this point, then you will find chapters in this book to be helpful guides. If not, the risk of using these programs is that your boys will be learning their faith as more "head" than "heart."
In this manual are a number of lesson plans that do provide some effective guidance for adults working with boys in catechetical settings. The methods to help boys to learn to listen deeply to the "stories" of other boys and men using circles and talking sticks are all very good. There are a few other activities, such as the match-stick buildings, that will lend themselves well to working with older boys.
The book has a surprisingly conservative approach in both theology and technique, no doubt to satisfy the requirements that the Bishops’ Conference impose before approving books. In some ways, this is unfortunate as the needs of teenage boys rarely match the mandates of the Bishops. This is not a reflection on St. Mary’s Press in particular as all Roman Catholic publishers are struggling with this issue in regards to youth ministry publishing.
"Digging Deep" is a good addition to your library as a reference manual and to fill in the holes in your other programming for the teenage boys in your parish.
