Rise of the Sage After Hours

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This is the Truth Network. Coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours, a time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast. So sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here now.

Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours. And since the first show, now my throat's cleared so I can actually talk somewhat normal. But yeah, if you didn't listen to the first show, you have to go back and listen to it.

It's worth it. It's really not. I just said that so I get you to try to go back and listen. The first show was a great show and the topic is just a spectacular topic. And Rodney, it was kind of your idea for this topic. So if you want to tell us what the topic's about, so if people didn't listen to the first show.

We have a name of the topic, but it's what the topic's about that's really important here. But it's Rise of the Sage. And our own Harold Dyer, he's our sage.

He turns 80 tomorrow and we are trying to really celebrate his life and his life really with us and what he's taught us and what he has brought to us and what he means in this brotherhood as our one and only sage. He's just at the top of the list. Yeah. Yeah. In lots of ways. Well, not in height. Not in height. But that one he kind of lacks a little bit.

But other ones. If you go in reverse order on height. Then he's the top of the list. The first will be last. The last will be first. Then he's there. Sounds like time for some Hebrew from Robby.

I don't know. See, I'm still stuck on the whole first show whenever you talk about Yoda. And I can picture him walking out on the court. Oh, my height.

You judge me on pickleball, you say. So, Jim, you had a clip that you wanted to play about this topic. Well, the clip is from Evan Almighty and say I'm opened up with a clip in the first show that pictured our buddy Harold as I'm stalling because Gandalf won't come to me. But there he is. And then pretty good. Pretty good follow up with Yoda.

And then then he was compared to a monkey. Yeah. But I'm going to I'm going to top them all because in this one he's a waiter serving tables and it's God speaking to Evan's wife. OK, here we go. Oh, excuse me. Can I get a refill, please?

Coming right up. Thank you. Excuse me. Are you all right?

Yeah. No, it's a long story. Well, I like stories.

I'm considered a bit of a storyteller myself. My husband. Have you heard of New York's Noah? The guy who's building the ark.

That's him. I love that story. No one in the ark. You know, a lot of people miss the point of that story. They think it's about God's wrath and anger. They love it when God gets angry. What is the story about, then, the ark? Well, I think it's a love story about believing in each other. You know, the animal showed up in Paris. They stood by each other side by side, just like Noah and his family.

Everybody entered the ark side by side. But my husband says God told him to do it. What do you do with that? It sounds like an opportunity. Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience, or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If they prayed for courage, does God give them courage, or does he give them opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm, fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other? Well, I got to run. A lot of people to serve.

Enjoy. In that clip, and additionally, you think, well, he's sort of telling the story wrong about Noah, but he isn't. He's using that story to address exactly what she needs, and she thinks her husband's crazy, and most of us would if our spouse went off to go build an ark.

It's already been done. That would be my first thought, something different from God every time. But I loved the way he came around to getting her to understand what the problem was she was having, and that is a feature you will see in Sages, and that is something Harold does extremely well. So, yeah, he's not quite God, but he is directed by God, and he will always, often be speaking for God when he's speaking with us. Thanks, Jim. One of the things that, from one of the boot camp teachings we do, we do the masculine journey, is one of the segments we do from time to time at boot camp. We don't do it at every boot camp, but when they're talking about the sage in that particular thing, one of the things they talk about the difference, or we talk about the difference between a sage and an expert.

You know, an expert is somebody that draws you more to them for the answers, right? It's about building up their ego. It's about feeding how they feel about themselves, and a sage directs you to God, right, to get your answers. Totally different motivation, totally different perspective, and that is very true about you. You know, you tell us stories, you do that, but you're quick to give God the credit. You're quick to give your wife the credit that God's done through her in your life. Those types of things, but it's always about taking us back to God, right?

It's not about what Harold's answer is. It's what God's done in my life, and this is what I'm sharing with you, right? And so that's very much a sage thing that you do pretty continuously.

I remember a story, and hopefully you're okay with me sharing it, that you're sharing something about how much you loved your wife with us as a group, and I'm not going to give the details, and about holding hands with her and things. And then the next day, there was something in you that texted us and said, I hope I wasn't a little too over the top on this, you know? And another thing that the sages, as good as they're humble, right? And you were nowhere near anywhere over the top. I mean, you've been around us.

We're way over the top most of the time, right? But you were speaking from your heart in love, and you were trying to help younger guys get context, right? But the humbleness came in and said, oh, I hope I didn't over speak, you know? And that's definitely, it was not the Holy Spirit saying you overspoke.

I think it was just affirmation of who you are as a person saying, I just want to give what God lays on my heart to you. And so, sorry, that was a long illustration. But Rodney, you have another clip. I do?

Yeah, we tried to play it once. Yeah, that's right. I think I can get the right one this time. I actually have a couple of them yet, but. Okay. Which one do you want to do?

You want to do that? Let's go ahead and do Yoda again. This one again is just some great sage advice from Yoda as he's basically dealing with Anakin. So of course, in the movies, Anakin comes second, but is born first, right?

So it's one of those weird trilogy things. So you've got Anakin who is having premonitions, and he's telling Yoda about it. And there's somebody in his life that's close to him that's going to die. And he sees this, and he's basically saying, I'm not going to let it happen. And Yoda is giving him a bunch of really good sage advice in here as to what they basically gives his own premonition and saying what might lead to the dark side in here.

So just kind of listen through this, and we'll talk about it on the flip side. Premonitions? Premonitions? Hmm. These visions you have?

They're of pain, suffering, death. Yourself, you speak of? Or someone you know? Someone.

Close to you? Yes. Careful, you must be when sensing the future, Anakin. The fear of loss is a path to the dark side. I won't let these visions come true, Master Yoda. Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not, miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealousy.

The shadow of greed, that is. What must I do, Master Yoda? Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose. So we don't transform into the Force, but we do get transformed by the renewing of our mind. And basically, Harold, that's where I when I was thinking about this clip here and this one, I was just loving the fact that it's like how you are absolutely renewed in Christ and how you portray Christ in everything we do. And I just, like we're talking, we'll be saying something, all of a sudden you'll just grab the mic and with one statement say what we've been trying to say for about three minutes and you say it in about, you know, six seconds. It's just wonderful to kind of get that always out of you.

It's straightforward, it's from the truth, and it's scriptural, and it's just wonderful that you've walked with God for so long that you're able to do that. And, you know, you talk about like in here in this clip, I love, you know, don't mourn those things, this and that. Harold, you've talked so much about you know where you're going. It's not about life now. I get the most out of my life and all this other kind of stuff. It's you know where you're headed, you know who your father is, you know where you're going to be, and you're going to be with him.

And that just guides you. And that's what I love about, you know, we get on the air and we talk about things and some people get to hear part of us, but we have so much fun pre and post show and now in between doing the shows that it's just so much fun because that's where you don't know what's coming next, it's unscripted, and you can kind of let things go a little bit, you know, more freely. And that's when Harold, guys, if you could just see him light up when we're doing a lot of these conversations. And when he gets really serious, I love it when he will stand up and fight for God's word and when people are misrepresenting God or saying something bad. I mean, Harold, man, he's going to get up and fight for that. He's not going to sit down and roll over and take it, but he's going to do something about it, you know, but it's going to be in a very wise way.

He doesn't condemn people ever. I've never heard it once that you do that. So it's just a wonderful thing that you get in and be able to just kind of be able to give very good advice. And it's just something that is, it's soothing. It's, you know, something I think we have a really hard time doing, but you have actually, you know, over a lifetime built that up through the Holy Spirit. Absolutely.

You know, you bring up a point that I was wanting to touch on. When you look back at some of the clips that we've used, but especially with Gandalf and with Yoda, right? Yeah, they're definitely in the sage role, but that doesn't make them less of a warrior. In both of those, if I remember right from Star Wars, to be honest, I watched them all, only really like the first three that originally came out, was not a big fan of the rest of them. But I do believe Yoda fought at some point, if I remember right, in grinding my way through the rest of them. It was one of the first three. Was it? Yeah. Yoda wasn't in the first three, I didn't think. Yeah. Was he? Yeah, he was just there with Luke.

Ah, okay, never mind. Yeah. But yeah, he was old, he had that cane, he was walking around, and all of a sudden you see him when he was fighting the Vader, I think, and he was flipping and flopping all around and jumping and doing all these things. I was like, man, that must be what Harold looks like playing pickleball.

Yeah. That was the first thought, I was like, Yoda with a saber and you got Harold playing pickleball, probably looks about the same. If anyone out there is good at photoshopping, if you could send us Yoda with a pickleball paddle, we'd be forever grateful for that. If you could send that to masculinejourney.org, our emails are there so you could send it to any one of us. Some of the guys that play, and we do have ladies that also play there where we play in Moxville, but they've nicknamed me Zorro because of the way that, you know how in ping pong you use a lot of English strokes to make the ball curve and so forth, and I'm applying that technique in the pickleball and they started calling me Zorro.

So I have a nickname that I've been tagged with. No Zorro clips today, darn. Yeah, that's not good. I'm gonna regret this, but we said none of us have challenged you yet. I played once and I loved it. So I will, and the numbers are just right because I played and got trounced by a lady that was half a century old. I'm two-thirds of a century old, and you're four-fifths. Wait a minute, I'll get it in a minute. I'm two-thirds, you're four-fifths.

I knew it was sequential. Would you like a math major? I'm good at math, but I just can't say things right.

She was half a century, I'm two-thirds a century, you're four-fifths a century, which is one, two, three, four, and five. But I'm gonna let you trounce me at pickleball and it'll be kind of a fun David versus Goliath picture there. I think you're gonna regret saying all that, but not for the reasons that you think. I have to go back and listen to this.

Yeah, I feel like somebody's gonna send us some math stuff, I'm just saying. But if the contest that has to be on a day we can come watch, because I want to watch, I want to have fun with that, I want to come watch that, so that would be fun. Rodney, I think you have one more clip, don't you? I do, but I was just thinking too, I was like, that would be so much fun to have a pickleball day. Let's make that a masculine journey adventure.

Sam, yeah. No, I have two hamstrings that say no. Well, it doesn't mean you have to play. Okay, I'll watch. Like you said, you can watch.

Yeah, I'll video. But that would be fun to have a pickleball day. We'll put Andy on massage duty. That's a definite no. Maybe Robby, then he can tell me the Hebrew word for massage.

At least I can take a nap. Robby, that's just for you, I love you, I love when you go through Hebrew, I'm just having fun with you. Yeah, you should see his face, though. Yeah, yeah, being straight faced. Sure, you're trying.

So you try to find a way to get a clip from this movie in just about every topic we do. Well, you said warrior. Okay, all right, fair enough.

All right, I give you that. Yeah, he's a warrior. And this is exactly where I go with Harold and both these men that are in there, because they're both warriors, and they're leaders. And this is where I'm saying, you know, Harold's gonna fight for the kingdom.

And this is what I love. When I was thinking about this clip, I was like, man, you got two men coming together. They're both leaders of their ones out a little bigger tribe than the other one. But this is from the outlaw Josie Wales and the out and so what's happened is Josie had to go rescue his friends that got captured with another family. And he just basically killed about a dozen Comancheros who had taken his family captive.

And so then the Indians, who were basically I would call them business partners with them because they were buying people that they were selling. And so then what you have is the Indians raided the house that they were staying at, and they had to fight them off. And then next thing you know, Josie's right now on his own, leaving them all behind.

They're like, Where's he going? Well, he knew there's only one way they could go fight this. He had to go by himself face 10 bears, the leader of the Comanches, and basically just go face him down one on one. And basically, that's what this scene is him going to talk to Josie Wales going to talk to 10 bears. You'll be 10 bears. I am 10 bears. I'm Josie Wales.

I have heard you're the gray rider. You would not make peace with the Bluecoats. You may go in peace.

I reckon not. Got nowhere to go. And you will die. I came here to die with you or live with you. Dying ain't so hard for men like you and me. It's living.

It's hard. And all you've ever cared about has been butchered or raped. Governments don't live together.

People live together. Governments, you don't always get a fair word or a fair fight while I've come here to give you either one or get either one from you. I came here like this so you'll know my word of death is true and that my word of life is then true. The bear lives here, the wolf, the antelope, the Comanche, and so will we. And we'll only hunt what we need to live on, same as the Comanche does. And every spring when the grass turns green and the Comanche moves north, you can rest here in peace, which are some of our cattle and jerk beef for the journey. The sign of the Comanche that will be on our lodge, that's my word of life. And your word of death is here in my pistols, there in your rifles. I'm here for either one. These things you say we will have, we already have. That's true.

I ain't promising they're not an extra. I'm just giving you life and you're giving me life. And I'm saying that men can live together without butchering one another.

It's sad that governments are achieved by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see. And so there is iron in your words of life.

No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of tin bearers carry the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life or death.

It shall be life. And that's again going back to Harold and his words. I don't ever remember words of death coming out of Harold, but he absolutely has words of life all the time.

Zipper merging may be a time, yes. Maybe back in the day when he was a little more frustrated on the road rage. But so what you have in Harold is that guy who's always going to fight for the kingdom. And so his words are like when he was wearing, I love the story when you just told us a few weeks ago about the John 3 16 t shirt that you wear when you go flying because you want everybody to kind of see that and you go, you're like, Hey, that's just a part of what you do is like, Hey, when I'm flying, I'm going through the airport so everybody can see me. I'm wearing my John 3 16 t shirt. And I just think that is, I just love that.

And you're a warrior for the kingdom. Now, one thing I think we could do is, you know, we could all agree to like follow Harold out of here with our cars one night, and then just keep like cutting in front of him and seeing how long he can take it before we get a reaction. You know, like zipper merge in front of each other and turn on a signal and don't get in the lane and you know, just all the things that we've heard him share. You know, we'd have to do that just test how the Holy Spirit's really, you know, worked out.

Those would be where his words of death. Yeah, I think so. Now, Jim, you have it one more clip, right?

I do. And I want to I want to say this real quick. That was a the my third choice and films. I said, Dang, I've already said two.

That's the best one. But I ran out of time. So I was cheering when that came on. So great minds thinking alike. And several of us have great minds. My other clip was this is two sages, one female, one male talking about another sage who's evil. But it is also from Lord of the Rings. And this is Galadriel and Gandalf talking about Frodo. It is only a great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I found. I found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at hand.

Simple acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps it is because I'm afraid. And it gives me courage. That comes around full circle. We and I hope everybody's seen the trilogy. But Bilbo is a cowboy that turns into a warrior through the guidance of these guys that are part of the ring and ring fellowship. And Gandalf is their sage. But they're talking about the what the sage gets out of this is helping others and he says, you know, he sees this hobbit and that helps him not be afraid. And as a sage, Harold is always rejoicing in those he's helping. And that's a wonderful thing to see. And the different stages of masculinity. We saw a great example in the previous one. Both of those, Josie Wales and Tin Bears were warriors, kings and sages. And you could see that in that clip.

So they overlap. But it is important that we are working together at every stage of our development. And we love the love that we get from Harold.

And we'd love to love him by picking on him. Oh, yeah, you know that, you know, we've been nice this week for the most part. So, you know, it's on for the next few weeks. It's like, it's coming full force, you know, because we could only be nice for so long. And then we got to, you know, flip it back over to some of that.

Did you say something to me? I want to go back to Wayne said right before we close the show about you speaking with your wife about your wife. And Proverbs says he who finds a wife finds a good thing. And it seems like in my generation, I've been married. This is my third marriage.

We've been married going on 19 years. But to see how how long y'all been married now 57 years to see that brings us hope brings us you know that to see how it's done. And you you gladly share that with us. And I appreciate that as well. Because we we need to hear that as me and there is, you know, marriages to beat is tough. Yeah, you said that I did not. But I agree.

But it is a it is a covenant relationship that has to be walked out. And, you know, you walk it out well. And I've met your lovely wife and had a conversation with her. And, but to see that and for you to share like you do and these guys are right, you light up when you talk about her like our high school sweethearts. So we appreciate that.

We're gonna let Harold respond to what he said. Well, we we weren't high school sweethearts. But we we grew up in different towns. And I only met her when her brother tricked me into a blind date.

He ate at the boarding house where I work serving tables. But within less than six weeks from the time we first met, we were engaged to be married and waited 18 months for me to finish school before we got married. But yeah, she changed the direction of my life for the good.

And, you know, it hasn't always been, you know, a cakewalk by any stretch. And especially when I was put out to pasture involuntarily. I was over age for retirement, but I did not want to retire. I wanted to keep working. I love my work. I had a great boss. And we actually went to some marriage counseling because of our differences. I came home and was someone with over 40 years of work solving problems. I was solving what I thought was a problem that she didn't think was a problem. And so we had a few rough spots. But God was the third party of our marriage.

So there was never any opportunity to even think about that we would not be married. So, you know, I want to encourage anybody to tough it out. Don't give up on it.

God is there and He'll get you through it. Thank you, Harold. And tell Jan thank you for sharing this. I know her family is in town and, you know, your family and it's great to have you here. And I would have bet money that you would have met her delivering ice for ice boxes or recharging the gas lights or something way back then. We'll talk to you next week. This is the Truth Network.