MINAS: Empowering men, their significant others, and those who have a heart for them, through the social, historical, and experiential challenges facing the modern man.
Brothers & Friends —
Let me share the truth of why I’m here with Project MINAS.
Heads up: this is a story about pregnancy loss, and a medical emergency that nearly took my wife's life.
I remember the day, 24 years ago, when my wife came to me excited about having our first child. And I remember the day, weeks later, when she called from the doctor’s office in tears because our child had been lost. And that was the first of 7 we lost in the second and third trimesters.
The hardest moment came with the last. In the third trimester, everything went wrong. In the ER, I watched doctors transform an office into an operating room because every other room was full. I watched as they fought to save her life—while our baby was already gone. I remember the smell of blood. I remember the sound of every cut as my baby’s body was broken. And I remember feeling the vibrations of broken bone and flesh through her body, unable to do anything but pray and fold silently inside, while my wife was unconscious in my arms.
She survived, thank God—but it took two days for the placenta to deliver, she couldn’t walk for weeks, and I couldn’t shake the thought that she almost didn’t make it. While I stood strong for her, I carried my own grief in silence. Because that’s what men do, right? We absorb it. We hold it. We keep moving.
Years later, a friend asked me to co-lead a ministry with her for couples who had experienced pregnancy or early-life loss. I agreed—and when I stepped into that space, something unexpected happened.
The men came to me. Quietly. Privately. Asking questions they had never said out loud:
“How do I help my wife when I’m falling apart too?”
“Am I wrong for being angry?”
“Why does nobody ask how I’m doing?”
“Am I still a father?”
“What happened to the body?”
I realized then that I wasn’t alone. Men are grieving all around us. But nobody teaches us what to do with heartbreak. And honestly, it feels oftentimes like no one cares either. We’re expected to fix things—but grief can’t be fixed. It has to be honored.
I share this because, like the men I served, no one ever asked me how I felt. People will say it’s not my body or my pain, but those babies held 23 of my chromosomes and were created from my body, too. People will say that it’s not a baby until birth - if it’s not, then how do you hear a heartbeat, fall in love, and hurt so bad when it's gone? People will quip about how I’m not a woman, I don’t know what it’s like to go through labor, but they don’t know what it’s like to be a man fighting through tears at losing your baby with an unconscious spouse in your arms.
And that’s why I’m telling this story now. Because my story is not only mine. Men are carrying a great deal, and almost no one thinks to ask.
So here is the heart of it, in one line. Masculinity is not a sin. It is not inherently toxic, it is not a disorder to be treated, and it is not a problem to be managed. Like all of us it can be wounded, and like all of us it can be redeemed. But at its root it is good, even sacred, and worth honoring.
Masculinity can be loud and not demeaning. It can be clearly visible and not oppressive. It can even whisper and still be strong.
Who this is for
The man who feels sidelined. Told, in a hundred small ways, that to be good he has to become less of what he is.
The person who loves him. The wife, mother, sister, brother, or friend who feels it too and wants more for him than silence.
The curious and the skeptical, including those who advocate for women and worry that this comes at their expense. It doesn't. Lifting men up has never required putting anyone down. That was never the trade.
What you won't find here
No contempt. Not for women, not for men, not for anyone.
No outrage for sale, no enemies list, no grift. I am not building anything on resentment.
No grievance. This is hopeful on purpose. The title is not a Sin.
What to expect
A thoughtful essay every week or two. Always free. And anything I can source, I will source with docs and details — that is the promise, and it is the part I take most seriously. When I give you a number, you will get where it came from, and when a number is soft, I will say so.
Some of what is coming is heavy. The next edition lays out the numbers on what men are quietly carrying, and they are not gentle numbers. But I am not writing to alarm you. I am writing so that the men in your life are a little better understood, and so the people who love them have something solid to stand on.
Faith and evidence, not outrage. Hope, not grievance. A bridge, not a battle.
One small thing, and it genuinely helps: hit reply and tell me what made you come along. I read every note, and your words shape what I write next.
Looking forward to walking with you,
Rev. Saī
