Legacy Vol. 2

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Welcome to Masculine Journey. We're very glad to have you with us this week. We are continuing to talk about this topic of legacy.

We think it may be a two week show, but it could be a three. It's just a pillar. It's a pillar.

Every time we think it's going to be just an easy, quick topic, it never turns out that way. Yeah, like the pillars. Yeah, we started with four. We built the Parthenon.

Yeah, that building is not coming down, I'm telling you. We had like 13 or 14. A lot. It just kept going. Yeah, if you want to go back and look at the archives, you can go listen to those podcasts. Yeah, the pillars of the masculine journey. Many, many pillars. masculinejourney.org.

You can find them there. We thought it was going to be one, two weeks tops. I think we had four lined out initially. A four week series. And we're excited. We have a four week series.

Like three months later, we're still talking about the pillars. As far as we know, our legacy won't be completing this show. We hope that we're going to be able to get through it today. And if not, we'll talk about it again next week. God's kind of leading that.

He always does. But this week, we're going to take a little bit of a different turn on the topic of not legacy. Do we want to leave? We'll get back to that.

But what legacy was left to us? Now, Robby, I want to get to your story here in a minute. But first, I want to go ahead and get to a clip by all means, you know, in this this particular TV show, you would never think that there's gonna be anything of substance. But when you go back and you when you go back and you watch a show, there's lots of times where there's really nice little nuggets of substance because it's about life. You know, an art imitates life.

I think that's what they say, right. And so there's a little bit pieces of life here. And so this is from Everybody Loves Raymond. And in this scene, you've got the boys that are supposed to be going to therapy, and they've told their wives are going to therapy, this group counseling for the three of them to get a better relationship. Instead, they've been going to the horse bedding track, and they've been bedding. And so they've been making up stories of what they're going to tell their wives when they get back about what happened in therapy.

And so as we listen to this, you know, they think they're just making up a story. But let's see what really transpires. And then we'll come back and talk about how it ties into legacy. Why you will like that, you know, unreceptive to our needs and stuff. Right, right. Why was I like that?

Because you two are a couple of monkeys. Okay. I think that might be the verbal abuse you're talking about, Robert. No.

You know, I've been thinking about this since last week. You know what you two's problems were? You took all that abuse stuff personally. Of course we took it personally. You're our father. It was just business.

This isn't exactly what they call the triumph of analysis. What else you got? What else you got? How about, uh, you were withdrawn from your relationship with us because your father was like that with you? That's great. Very good, Raymond. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, because it's like what you were talking about the other day. I'm kind of a lousy dad because of him. So, so I just back it up one more to Grandpa Joe. Yeah, yeah.

And his dad was the worst. My grandpa Sal. Oh yeah?

Oh yeah. Grandpa Sal, very scary. My dad used to tell me horrible stories about how his father used to hit him when he wasn't hitting me. Grandpa Joe hit you?

Sure. I got hit every day. Wow, Dad. I didn't know that it was like that for you. It was like that for everybody. That's just the way it was.

So, so your dad's dad hit him, he hit you, and you never really hit us? It was. I couldn't. I don't know. I was always weaker than him. Maybe you didn't want to be like him. I didn't.

The girls will buy that. In the midst of laughter, there's some elements of legacy left there, isn't there, Robby? Oh, it's tremendous when you think about it, you know, Grandpa Joe. Yeah.

You know, it's and, and, and even the comments saying that, you know, I'm kind of a lousy dad because he was, you know, it's all, you know, pointing to this stuff comes down. If you, if you've never really watched Everybody Loves Raymond, you probably not really watched TV at some point. It's going to come on. It's in syndication.

It's been on like every channel. I think it's not everybody loves Raymond. I do. Robert, Robert's the only one I care for because he's a big dumb cop. And I identify with that. Yeah. Yeah.

You've been down that road. But he's much more intelligent than anybody gives him credit for. But, you know, in the show, Frank is the dad and he's very quiet as far as sharing anything of substance, you know, with people he's, he's quick to make a quick comment, like a quick cut down, but he's not really share himself. You know, and this is one of the few episodes I remember where he really just shares part of himself. And that makes all the difference to the boys' understanding of who he is as a, as a dad. Just sharing the story. Right.

Because without knowing what grandpa Joe was like and grandpa Sal or whatever the names were, they wouldn't have any idea what the dad had to overcome to not be like that. Right. And that he had started a legacy that wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it was more perfect than what he had been given. Right.

Trying to leave something just a little bit better than what he got. Yeah. So that's Robby, that's not how we really started to think about this topic. You actually had prayed about this topic and you want to share a little bit about that? Yeah, actually I was thinking about the topic and, and, and as I was praying that morning, as is often the case, you might guess I went to study the word and saw it in Hebrew and it was fascinating to me that the word, and again, biblically, it's not legacy big, but biblically, it's an inheritance, which is huge throughout the Bible, talked about constantly. And when you looked at that word, it started out with a letter, which means faithful. And the second letter meaning life and, and an expression of that. And I thought, well, isn't that interesting?

And I have to, and it just, Jesus kind of hit me with this question. He said, well, Robby, what was the favorite thing of all the things that your father left you? What impacted you the most?

What was your favorite? And I started to think, well, the boat's pretty nice. There's a few that, you know, and then I really remembered his faith in me and I, you know, and I, you know, when I first looked at the letter, I thought it would be his faith. And yes, he had a faith. It was, it was precious and it was wonderful, but actually the faith that he had in his kids was even more important to me personally, the faith that he had in me to make him make me his executor and things along those lines. And, but, but I really, really, that just hit me straight in the heart. Like, wow, he really did have faith in me and the stories, you know, that started to pop up in my mind.

Cause it all has to do with stories of what your father left you, you know, where the stories where he helped you get this, where he promoted you in that. And, and those things were huge. Yeah. The story is, is the real thing. If you've been to a family funeral, especially somebody that you're close to, you know, that you can't help out without walking out of there without sharing stories. Yeah.

That's primarily what it ends up being. I remember when my dad passed away, my brothers and I stayed out rather late one night and I know my mom was pretty mad because the funeral was the next day, but we stayed out and the whole time we just talked about dad. We shared stories about dad and laughed and cried and enjoyed the time, you know, together. And to me, that was a part of the grieving process, but also part of the honoring, you know, I wouldn't have traded that.

I don't care that I was tired the next day. I know mom was kind of bothered by it, but you know, I don't think he or me or my brothers would have traded that for that time to share those stories. And I learned things about my dad that I didn't even know because I was 10 years younger than my oldest brother. And so the dad, the dad that raised him was physically the same person, but much different person that raised me, you know, and so hearing some of those stories was pretty amazing just to know how far dad had come when I've only had a small glimpse in my lifetime. So part of the question that I have for the guys here, that's, that's at the table with us today is what's been left to you in that legacy.

You know, what has been handed down from a grandparent, from parents, from uncle, you know, whatever that may look like. Anyone, Bueller? I know Harold's got something.

Harold. My dad was a blue collar type, not that there's anything at all wrong with that. He worked with Alabama Natural Gas installing pipelines and stuff.

And regardless of what the weather was like, burning hot, freezing cold, he was in it. And he told me over and over as I was growing up, son, get yourself an education so you don't have to work out here like I do. I didn't have a clue how I was going to go to college because our family couldn't afford that at all.

But I did. And it was the best thing that could have possibly happened for me. Because I got matched up with a career that God had given me the skills to do and that I love doing.

Computer programming for me was like breathing. And, but it was my dad that got me in the position to be able to do that. He couldn't do it for me. And that was his expression, get yourself. And so I did.

And that was the thing that I remember that my dad left for me that was wonderful. Thank you, Harold. We got a lot of quotes we may or may not use today on the show. But this is one from Shannon Adler, which I have no idea who she is.

I didn't take time to look her up. I just looked up her quote, which I liked. But it says, carve your name on hearts, not on tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you. And when you think about that, I think of the stuff that my mom left me when she passed away, you know, I got a share of her stuff. And that means things to me.

But the stories that really mean everything. It's the way she answered the phone when I called. It's the way she always told me that she loved me when when we hung up. You know, the things that was always there, that was consistent about how she genuinely seemed interested in whatever I was telling her.

I don't know that I would have been, but she generally had a way of doing that. You know, and just those things are the ones that are to me is her legacy and the things that I want to learn more how to emulate in my life is be more of that to my kids and my friends and the people around me because of the way it made me feel. I never doubted for once that I was her beloved. Now I know she loved my brothers and sisters every bit as much. But when I was talking to her, I was her focal point and I was her beloved child. You know, and that's something that I want to try to pass on in my legacy.

So I need to kind of learn from her and say, okay, I need to do things a little differently than I have been. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming bootcamp, November 12th through 15th. You can do that. You can go listen to past podcasts. You can reach out to us with some questions, anything you might want to do.

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Box 550, Kernersville, North Carolina 27285. Now what do we do? Just be yourselves. Where are you going? I'm going to pick a fight. If it feels like every day is picking a fight, then you might want to come listen to the masculine journey and find out why we use clips like these to illustrate the story God is telling in the lives of men today.

The truth is God designed you to pick a fight, but which fights do we pick? Well, grab your gear and come on a quest every Saturday at noon. And now the masculine journey after hours podcast, Masculine Journey Radio.

Welcome back to Masculine Journey. I personally am so excited about the legacy now that Sam is going to leave all of us a daily devotional at our website. I'm so excited. What a way to announce it, Sam, just to tell us like that. Yeah, that had to be from the Holy Spirit.

We definitely don't have that at our website. I don't know where that came from. That's a coming soon. I think I have a good name for it. What is it? The daily?

Daily Bible verse of the day. Oh, that's what it is. That's what it used to be years ago. From Sam. Yeah, I used to write one years ago, but maybe that's in the future. Maybe that's a coming.

What a legacy. As soon as I said daily devotional, like what? We don't have that. We got blogs.

I don't even know the right terminology. We were all looking at it and like, well, keep checking back. Coming eventually.

I don't know when. But yeah, going back to the show, maybe that'll be our legacy is that. But no, we are talking about the topic of legacy and what's been left. And that bump in was from a song called Thank You by Ray Bolts. And that was actually a song that he made for Pastor Appreciation Day back in Indiana. And the only reason I know that my mom and my sister went to that church and knew the family well. And he wrote that to Eldon, his pastor, and just wanted to thank him for all the lives that he had touched. And having known Eldon and met him, what an amazing man. No doubt that he had touched a lot of people. And then that went on to be a big song in Christian music. And there's still a lot of things to be said about that legacy that we leave by the people we touch. And as we're talking today is the people that's touched our hearts, right? That left a legacy with us. Jim? I'd go back to, well, my legacy really began well before my grandfather, but that's where I thought of it first because I have his name.

I'm the third. And the first thing that I thought of was my love for the military because my grandfather fought in World War I. He was in the first anti-aircraft battalion that the United States ever had.

And he was in Company A. The Great War. Yes, the Great War.

And that's part of what Trigger does when I listen to that earlier this week. And my father was in World War II. He was a dentist. And my mother probably did more fighting in World War II than my father did.

So I always had that as a legacy. And then when I tried to get in the military, the first time I was too blind, I went to the Citadel on a naval scholarship, ROTC scholarship. But I'm colorblind. So they said, sorry, you can't stay.

Well, I can stay, but you can't go on our nickel. And that was the first time I tried. I tried again in my 30s. And at that point, I was too fat.

And I really wasn't, but their chart was, yeah, we won't get into BMI and all that stuff. But and then the last time I tried, if I'd been Catholic, I could have gotten in because they would waive the age. But the last time I was too old because I was Protestant. So that, for decades, they would waive your age if you were Catholic as a chaplain because they needed chaplains desperately. And Catholics can go either way.

But for some reason, Catholics don't like to be blessed by Protestants who don't know what they're doing anyway. Right? No. Darren wants to say something so bad.

I'm glad he's already a quarter hiding. But that was my first thought. But then I got to thinking deeper. And my grandmother would tell me about pastors that had been deep. I mean, great, great grandfather was a Baptist pastor. My grandfather and father were both Presbyterian deacons and elders.

Sooner or later, we'll find out what's so funny. It was a while ago. And the greatest legacy they gave me was my name in Christ. I love my name.

I gave it to my son. My son paid me a great compliment, and my father as well, in that he said that if he had a son, he was going to start over at Junior, which is my father, because he lived with him a while and recognized the great man that he was. And both my grandfather and my father were men that I would be proud to be connected with. And both spiritually and in every other respect, they were men of integrity.

And that was a legacy. Thank you, Jim, for most of that. If you can't tell, we're all friends. We give each other a hard time.

But you know, Rodney, I'm going to come to you here in a second. One of the things that I struggled with when I heard the Everybody Loves Raymond clip was my dad was, in a lot of ways, like the dad that's on that show. He didn't really share his feelings at all. He would share disappointment pretty well.

And he would share character-related things pretty well. He taught me some good things about, you know, you never hit a woman, you never throw the first punch, these things that you live by, the codes you live by, right? And lots of good things, but he never really shared him. And so when I really think back, it's hard for me to know what I got from my dad, because I really didn't know him. I didn't know him well enough to get a whole lot from him, because he was always busy with his stuff. I think I probably got more of what I didn't want to be as a dad. And I don't mean that my dad was a good man.

I love him. He passed away many years ago. But he wasn't always a good father. You know, and I think that I learned a lot from his legacy of maybe what not to do. You know, and I don't mean that as a dig at him, but more of just a realization of you still get something from people if you open your eyes and you open your heart to it. Yeah, I'd have to agree with you on, you know, a father that is much like Raymond's dad, where he doesn't share feelings, doesn't share a lot of emotion.

I would say I can't ever remember a conversation where he tried to teach me anything other than maybe how to fix the car, change the tire, change oil, stuff like that. Critical stuff. Very important. You know, for the Christian car guy, that would have been really good, right?

Just kidding. But it's one of those things where, you know, I didn't have that in the father. So, you know, you had to, I went off and off to school. I knew some things about being a man, you know, that I thought I knew. And then I had some things, you know, I thought were really important, like, I really should know how to do all these things that my dad knows how to do. But he wasn't really interested in sitting down and taking the time to do that with me.

And there was times when he did kind of have that. And I remember I took a engine apart, you know, a little two stroke, and then I rode my bike clear across town to go back over to where he worked. And I was just going to go work on it. And I was like, man, I really don't want to bother him. I don't want to be a bother. So I just never did put that engine back together.

And he never asked, you know, said, hey, come on, let's go do this. You know, so there was that kind of thing. But legacy, you know, he took me to all kinds of places and did some things.

And basically, he showed his heart to me one time when I came home, and I was, how do you say, very inebriated. And I was just thankful I got the car parked when I got home. And I'm taking my contacts out. And I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, that toilet's clear over there. And I turned, and there left a trail from the mirror all the way over the wall over towards the toilet. And he came in and cleaned it up. Didn't say a word. Was just as gracious as you could be about the whole situation.

Never said a thing. My mom actually asked me, she goes, oh, is it something you ate? And I'm just like, mom, are you, are you delirious here? Are you just trying to be nice?

You're trying to get me to say something. But, and then the legacy from my mom's side, from her, her sister and my grandmother, who's the only grandparent that lived, was my mom's mom. And I got to spend a lot of time, you know, with her. And she was just as gracious a woman as you're going to get. So on that side, all the love and the love in Christ, because they were all Christians.

My dad was not. And my father's side, he had a half brother who, whose family grew up Christian. You know, they're, they're in church all the time. So you see things where there's legacies and things being broken and things being overcome and Christ is in the middle of it all. So when I was reading, you know, some scripture this week came across Psalm 15, I thought it was just so cool where David asked the Lord, oh Lord, who may abide in your heart, who may dwell on your holy hill? And then God starts to ask or answer him.

I won't read them all, but like he who walks with integrity works righteousness and speaks the truth in his heart. And it just goes on with more stuff like that. And you're thinking, well, legacy. Well, that's probably what God's starting to claim as some legacy for us. And it's like, well, where are we in that walk? Like Jim was just saying the whole in Christ portion of his legacy that was left to him that he's going to continue to leave is the most important thing we can do. And I just think that's so incredible.

And then like some of the quotes that you had, you know, were along the lines, some of them were a little more. I've got one here from Billy Graham. Yeah.

I love that one. The greatest legacy one can pass on to one's children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one's life, but rather a legacy of character and faith. Yes. And just, you just think about that. And I look around this room and talked with the men in this room and it's like, they're all leaving legacies. Some of them had legacies left to them. Some are starting their new ones. Some are breaking old legacies to start a new one, like we heard in the Raymond clip. And it's just, it's beautiful. Yeah.

It's going to take intentionality, right? Cause you're going to leave something. My dad was a good man. He did a lot of good things. He provided the best of his ability, those types of things, but he could have left so much more, you know, and I, and I want to leave more, you know, cause we're going to leave something as we leave. We're going to, there's going to be stories. It's whether you want them to tell those stories or not is going to be the key thing. Right. And there's some of the stories that my kids would want to tell.

I'm kind of embarrassed that they'd probably want to tell them, you know, hopefully they'd also be able to tell some overcome stories later on. Yeah. That's the way dad used to be. You know, that's not the way that he was for the last several years that I knew him, you know? And I think that's the whole thing is legacy starts now, right?

Yes. There's a past that you got to overcome or maybe dig into or move more to into it more and do more of what you've been doing. But it starts today and it starts with intentionality and doing it over and over and over again, but that becomes part of your story.

The whole story, the whole story, the rest of the story. Paul Harvey used to say, go to masculine journey.org to register for the upcoming bootcamp, stay and listen to the podcast. You can download it from that website or iTunes. I heart radio Spotify, lots of different places, but go listen to the podcast coming up next, the masking journey after hours. We're going to continue to talk about that, but first go register for the bootcamp November 12th through 15th. And don't forget about the daily devotion. This is the truth network.