Rise of the Sage

This is Chris Hughes with the Christian Perspective Podcast with Chris Hughes, where we encourage our listeners to engage the culture with Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds, so enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now. Welcome to the masculine journey.

I had all that time to clear my throat and I still didn't do it before I came on the air. Don't you hate it when that happens? Yeah, I know. You're sitting there thinking, okay, I'm good to go.

Anyway, welcome to the masculine journey. You're thinking again, yeah. Yeah, I was trying to think. So Robby and Andy aren't here today. Robby is sacrificing. Stop applauding.

Stop applauding. Yeah, I know. So it's going to be a more free-flowing show.

Better points made, all sorts of things. Robby's at the beach. I'm sure he's just dreading it, being at the beach. And Andy had to work.

He was really kind of disappointed he had to work, but then I found out he was at the BMW driving experience for work. That did really count. When you up one up from the beach, you're really doing something. Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, I got to work. And then he told me what he was doing.

I'm like, really, Andy? That's not work. That's not work. Yeah.

You got to drive a car really fast with a bunch of people and have fun. Okay. Yeah. Bummer. Yeah.

But we have a very important Eve today. And this is Rodney sitting next to him. I know you can't tell that he's sitting next to him. Maybe he's in Robby's chair.

So if I call him Robby, I really do mean Rodney. So Rodney, what's the important Eve that we're celebrating? That would be Harold Eve. Harold Eve. That's right.

So you want to explain that? Hark, the herald angel does sing tomorrow on his 80th birthday. Yeah.

Yeah. So congratulations, Harold. You got your birthday coming up. Thank you very much. Thank you.

And so in honor of your birthday, would you just tell us what the topic of the show is tonight? Well, the topic is something that I actually have a mathematical equation in one of my Bibles dealing with this topic. And it's hope. And my equation is hope equals desire plus expectation.

Because if you remove either one of those, you don't truly have hope. As an example, I once had the desire to be six feet tall. However, there was no expectation that someone five, six or seven would ever be six feet tall.

Therefore, I had no hope. That's great. That's great.

I'm sorry, I took the nine inches that would have gotten you there. Show off. That was such a great intro to that topic. I really wished we were doing that topic tonight.

But we're not. Rodney, what topic are we doing tonight? Well, Harold, we pulled another little switcheroo on you. Uh-oh. Yeah. So our show tonight, in lieu of you reaching your 80th birthday, is The Rise of the Sage. So you have risen to the top. You are definitely our sage. Yep. So we were going to do a show based on the sage and based upon you.

So that's the topic for today. So we're just going to have you kind of chime in if you want, but step back and kind of listen to what we want to kind of put together in honor of you for your birthday and how much you mean to us. Well, that's great. I have felt for quite some time the love that exists in this group, and especially for me, and this proves it even greater.

Yeah. So when you texted us earlier and said you weren't going to be here today, oh, my gosh, you got to come. It doesn't make sense. Well, I didn't want not to be here, but I did have some family visitors in and thought that I probably should stay home. We didn't know if it was the Griswolds, and it was like, oh, no, get me out of here, get me out of here. I will be forgiven, especially when they find out what you guys have done for me. Well, good.

We're so happy to have you here. So we got a bunch of clips because we all got some different clips. I was going to play the clip that Jim and I both chose because we both have different takes on the clip. And so this clip is from The Lord of the Rings that's in the first movie, A Fellowship of the Ring, and this is when they are lost. And Jim, you can probably tell me in the cave they're in, in Mordor? No, it's not Mordor. It's the mines of something. Yeah. It's where the mines of Moriah. Where the dwarves used to live. Yes.

Right. And so they're caught there. And in this clip, you've got Frodo sees something, and it ends up being Gollum, the thing that's been chasing after them for the ring. And then you have this interchange between him and Gandalf. And then we'll come back and talk about it. It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill him when he had the chance.

Is he? It is a pity that Stable goes home. Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal on death and judgment.

Even the very wise can assume ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet for good or ill. Before this is over, my lord, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of men. I wish the ring had never come to me.

I wish none of this had happened. So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of Evio. Bilbo was meant to define the ring, in which case you also were meant to have it.

And that doesn't encourage your thought. Now Jim, we both kind of picked this separately, not knowing the other picked it. So I'll let you talk about why you picked it first. I focused initially on the I wish that this wasn't the time.

I wasn't in this time. And that really hit me because we often are there. But taking it the whole thing in perspective, this is a wise sage telling Frodo not to deal in death, not to deal in judgment. And that's a word we all need to hear. But how many people do you know that currently are wishing, Oh, I wish I wasn't around now because of this, that, the other, more than ever in my life. And it's not what we wish could happen in our lives.

It's important is what we do with the time that we have. And that really struck home with me. Thanks.

I love those points. When I was listening to the clip, I was listening to how Gandalf responded to Frodo. Frodo's living in chaos. He really doesn't know what's going on. He hasn't lived as much life as Gandalf, literally.

Because Gandalf, at this point, he's not really a king, but he's more of a sage to the friends. And so he's advising kings at this point in his life. And for me, when I thought about this, the sage takes that chaos and brings context to it. He helps see the bigger picture. He draws out by asking questions. He draws out by speaking very little.

But when he does speak, it's very powerful. And that reminded me of you. Because you listen quite well. On an average Tuesday when we're all talking after the show, there's not a lot you typically say, but you're always listening to what's going on. And when you do have something to say, it's really relevant. It has a lot of context for us.

And so when I listened to that clip, I thought about you from the standpoint of you help bring that context and clarity to the chaos. Because as much as we joke with you for having seen a lot of years, you have seen a lot of years. And that brings a lot of wisdom with it when you let it. And you've let that happen in your life. And so we get to be the benefactors and share in that.

Well, it wasn't last week, because I wasn't here last week. But a couple weeks ago, I told Harold as he was approaching this that what I told my mother when she turned 80 is that we can't coldly mold anymore. It's now venerable.

And I pulled up the definition of it. It's accorded a great deal of respect, especially because of age, wisdom, or character. And our buddy over there, Harold, has all three. And it's also an Anglican church, a title given to an archdemon. That's weird. Oh, excuse me, archdeacon. Okay. Thank you for that correction. It may depend on which church you go to.

I'm not really sure. Yeah, a little bit of context there. So thank you for clarifying that. But Harold, you do bring that to our group. And we're very grateful for you doing that.

And I'm always grateful. You're willing to jump in wherever we need help. I didn't tell you I was going to have you open the show, right?

But I ask you, and you just did it, right? Because that's what we need. You just jump in, and you help with what we need. And that's greatly appreciated to have that perspective. And no, I was a little concerned when I called you to say, hey, we really need you to come to the show, that you'd press me a little bit and ask me one more time.

Why? But you never really did. I just said it's important. And your reply to me was, I'm on my way. I'll be there.

Yeah. Well, I had wanted to be here. I hate the times that I have to miss.

And hopefully, they'll be few and far between because such a special group. And so few people have it. And when you have it, you don't want to lose it.

You don't want to go without it. It's just extremely important. It's funny. I was telling one of the guys at work this week about what we were doing. And he's 32, I think. And he's like, you have a friend that's going to be 80? Yeah, it's possible to be friends with somebody that's different ages than you. It really is. And I said, yeah, it's really. He's one of the closest people in our group. And we'd had one before that with Vinny that was a little bit older. And as you get older, age is not what brings you together.

Continuity, purpose, desire, love are the things that bring you together. Well, I think I would tell people that one of the things that you ought to do is try to stay as young between the ears as you can because it makes a big difference. Most people don't realize that I'm almost 80, especially when I'm playing pickleball. There was a lady that had observed me. This was a few months ago. And she said, when he walks out to the court, he does his Tim Conway shuffle, but said, once the game starts, he's all over the place.

And few people can understand how quick I am still at this age. Yeah, as much of a hard time as we give you, none of us have stepped up to the plate to offer to play against you, because we know that you're going to win, you know. We're getting ready to go on the break. Go to masculinejourney.org, register for the upcoming boot camp. It's coming up November 18th through the 21st. We'll talk to you after the break. Hi, this is Sam with Masculine Journey.

I'm here with my son Eli. We're going to talk about ways that you can help support the ministry. One way you can go to smile.amazon.com, go to smile.amazon.com. There's information on our website there on how to do that. You go to facebook.com and click the donate button, or you can go to masculinejourney.org and find the donate button. Masculinejourney.org. Or if you want to mail something in, mail it to P.O.

Box 550, Kernersville, North Carolina, 27285. That was a little bit country, but Harold, that bump was actually meant for you as well, right? Because they're talking about heroes.

People don't recognize heroes for what they are, but when they invest and they sacrifice for other people, they're a hero in somebody's life, right? And you do that with us. And so we're very grateful for that.

And so that bump was actually geared towards you as well. Yeah, what I heard in there was about size. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's it. They come in all shapes and sizes. So that is inclusive, big, little, all the extremes. Which kind of does set up this clip, Sam. You talk about size, and I'm thinking of Sage.

I'm thinking of size. I'm thinking of, gosh, if I was to picture a Sage in Harold, I'm like, the mirror image is Yoda. I'm like, this is perfect. You don't have a cane yet, but you guys are basically the same age, you're about the same height, you speak, like Sam was saying, when you do speak, people listen, kind of like the old EF Hutton commercials. And it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, your ears aren't quite as pointy as Yoda's, but you keep working on it, sharpen them down a little bit, you might get there.

Yeah, I'm still missing the encouraging part here. Yoda didn't speak very well, in conjunction with different things. You say he didn't speak well? He didn't speak well.

I was going to go normal, but I guess that's probably a good thing. Normal he is not. Superior he is. Wise he is. Okay, so we got a lot of Yoda impersonations going on around here.

Do we have any good ones? Well, Harold probably will do it. But yeah, so on this clip, you've got, so I got a couple of them, we might get a chance to get later, but this one was with Luke. And so Luke, as we know, he goes to become a Jedi, and he seeks out Yoda, and he's out wherever he's at in this remote planet far, far away where nobody knows where even Yoda's at, right? But the Force leads him there. So Luke's been doing some training, and he's been levitating rocks and making some things move. And then all of a sudden R2D2 starts squealing and whining, and Luke's the only one who understands him. He comes running overseas as an X-wing fighter going down into the, I don't know what you call it, the swamp, I guess. But all of a sudden it's underwater, and he's like, oh man, I'll never get that out. And Yoda kind of basically chides him and tries to coach him through trying to get the fighter back out.

So that's what this scene is right here. Premonitions, premonitions. Wrong one. Oh, sorry. I gave you the wrong one.

Yeah, go to the other one because I have two of them. Yep. Okay, you're still going to be Yoda. Yep. Okay. We'll never get it out now. So certain are you. Always with you what cannot be done. Do you nothing that I say?

Master, moving stones around is one thing. This is totally different. No, no different.

Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned. All right, I'll give it a try. No, why not? Do or do not. There is no try. I can't. It's too big. Size matters not. Look at me.

That's me by my size. Do you? Hmm, and where you should not. You want the impossible.

I don't believe it. That is why you fail. There's just so much in that clip that, you know, I thought about it for the, for the, some of the obvious reasons I stated earlier to kind of even go there, but it was just a lot of the things that are in the clip.

You know, you must unlearn what you have learned. Harold, I can't even imagine you, and I picture this all the time because I love the scene. You're mad. You're in your office, and you're kicking a box around in your office. I want to be the fly on that wall.

I want to be there for that. That was one of the funniest things, and I can picture that because of things that I have done and kicked around and been ticked off. I just haven't done it at work or, you know, locked behind a locked door at all or nothing, but I haven't done that. I did not too long ago, because we're always on headphones these days, because we're always on some kind of call, you know, and we couldn't sit next to each other. I remember one day when I just, I just took the headphones off, and they're wireless, and I just flung them across the room, and I'm the only one in this big mezzanine sitting up there other than one other guy in a room that was not too far away, and he goes walking out, and he goes, what was that?

Oh, those are my headphones, go flying across the room. But you have overcome that, because I would not know of any of that road rage and all this other stuff that you've talked about and that anger issue, because you don't have it. You have unlearned and relearned how to be, because of also, when we're talking in that clip, you start to get to the parts of, you know, you're very precise a lot of times in your words. You don't go on and on like I'm doing now. You just talk, and you say the words, and they come out, and they're spot on, and they're in context.

In three or four words, you can say what takes us, you know, an hour to kind of get around and beat around the bush to finally get to, and I love that about you. And then back at the end where he's like, because you do not believe, Luke, you believe. There's no doubt that you believe, and you believe in the Lord Almighty. You believe that Jesus rose from the dead and has ascended into heaven, and he's there on your behalf right now. And I tell you, it's beautiful to watch you walk in that, Harold, and you inspire us all.

Thank you. I guess what I would say is that it took the efforts of the Holy Spirit to get me rid of a lot of that anger and frustration and the thing that would cause me to scream at other drivers. But yeah, I am different now, and it's more due, I think, to the Holy Spirit than it is to the fact that I'm 80.

Yeah, I understand. No, is it the Holy Spirit through Jan? Or just the Holy Spirit? I just wondered.

That's all I'm saying. I think he uses her little sweetheart, yeah. Danny, you have a clip you'd like to add? Yeah, this is from The Lion King, and it's where, I can't remember their names, but the monkey is explaining to Simba, is that Rafiqi, yeah, I knew it was something like that, that he's complaining, Simba's complaining about where his life has gone and all the problems he's having and that kind of thing, and Rafiqi cracks him across the head with a stick, and he says, what'd you do that for? He said, it doesn't matter, it's in the past. And he hit him again, and he ducked, and he said, see, you learned from, but the point of that is that the, well, we can play the clip. Yeah, you could just tell us what clip it was. We already kind of got to the point, but I'll go ahead and play it anyway.

Ow, jeez, what was that for? It doesn't matter, it's in the past. Yeah, but it still hurts.

Oh yes, the past can hurt, but the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it. You see, so what are you going to do? First, I'm going to take your stick.

No, no, no, no, no, not your stick. Hey, where are you going? I'm going back. Come on, get out of here. Was he rooting for Auburn there?

Yeah, it was an Auburn flag on the end of that stick. When I think about sages in my life, and Harold, you've become one of those, I've known you for a little over a year now, that usually the wisdom, like everybody's talked about it, that age brings and experience brings, and usually people have a unique way of passing it on to somebody, because I have needed lots of guidance in my life. It's not always a comfortable conversation. Obviously, that one was not, but someone able to speak into someone's life like you are, Harold, that impacts like we guys have talked about.

You perk up and you pay attention. Your name could have been EF Hutton, I think, because when you talk, people listen. There's always wisdom. There's some humor, and I appreciate that.

I don't know what this dynamic would be without our Harold. We do give you a hard time about being old, and I was thinking earlier with the King Arthur sword, you probably held the original or something. He tried to pull it from the stone. He tried to pull it from the stone, but I do appreciate that, that there is that element about you, and I am enjoying deepening our friendship.

Thanks, Danny. Wayne, we've got a couple minutes here left. We missed a clip. We missed a really important clip we should have got. So you want to tell us a little bit about the clip that we should have put in this group? Yeah, Secondhand Lions. Pretend you're Danny. Just tell us. Sure, I'll give you the rundown, the one, two, three there. In Secondhand Lions, and I actually watched this today, which was amazing timing, right?

Just the way God works. But the best part of that movie is when the two men go into the restaurant, bar, whatever, with their grandson, and a group of boys come in, young teenagers, young 20-year-olds or whatever, and they come in, and they're hassling everyone. And the oldest gentleman in the movie, sorry, I don't remember their names. Hub. Yeah, there you go, Hub.

Hub McCann. Yeah, he lived an amazing life, and one of the greatest things about him was he knew who he was. This young man comes up to him, and he's messing with him, and he's, you know, who do you think you are, and he grabs him by the throat, and he lays out who he is. But one of the things that he said kind of rung truest to me whenever I think of Harold is, you know, he said he loved one woman with the effort that a flea like you could never understand, and that's what I see in Harold. That's one of the greatest things I see in the way that he loves his wife, the loyalty that he has, the way that you, you know, when you talk about her, you do shine. You light up. That's the one time when I see a little emotion in you, Harold. The rest of the time, it's a little down there. And if you come to boot camp, you will see that clip.

Absolutely. You will see that clip, and you'll get to meet Harold. And maybe his wife. She does show up. She does show up from time to time, yeah. And you'll be able to have a talk with her. And, you know, Harold, for the longest time, it confused me because you call her Jan and you call her Susie, and I'm like, I'm really confused here.

I don't know who you're talking about. So if you come to camp, Harold can explain that story to you. But come to boot camp, it's November 18th through 21st. Go to masculinejourney.org to register. We're going to continue in the after hours talking about our friend Harold and the sage that he is to us and talking about sages in general. We'd love for you to listen to that. You can get that at masculinejourney.org and any podcast outlet. We'll talk to you next week.