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Manhood often feels like navigating through uncharted territory, but you don't have to walk alone. Join us as we guide a conversation about how to live intentionally so that we can join God in reclaiming the masculine restorative presence he designed us to live out. Laugh, cry, and wonder with us as we explore the ins and outs of manhood together.
Exploring My Father’s Fathering
00:00
Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast with Restoration Project. This is Chris Bruno and I am here with my partner in crime, Mr. Jesse French. Is it bad, Chris, that sometimes I wish we were like baseball players and had a walk up songs where you could like play the song and have the intro. That's my full vanity confession. I think we should at some point we should have a walk up song. I think that would be great. And, you know, the other thing that I think is really funny is that every time we do an intro and I say, hey, this is Chris Bruno and I'm here with my friend.
00:30
And then there's this like long delay between. I'm just trying to be dramatic. The anticipation. When I say that and you actually like give us your name, okay? So maybe now moving forward, I'm just gonna say your name for you. No, I don't give you permission to do that. I'm maintaining my rights for my self-intro. I don't know. Well, we'll see what happens next time. So yes, guys, it's Chris and Jesse back here on the podcast. And today we have a special guest with us and that is Mr.
01:00
Bart Lillie, Bart, welcome. Hey, thanks for having me. Super great, I don't get to say my own name. Well, no, you don't get to do that. Yeah, good catch there, Bart. Yeah, okay, because I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not letting other people say their own names. I'm taking control. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. There we go, I did it. He said it.
01:23
Well, you guys, if you've been around restoration projects much at all, you will have known, met, or heard of Bart Lillie, or at least heard of Bart Lillie in Journey to Restoration Project. So Bart, you and I met a long, long time ago, in the nineties in another country for the first time. Across the ocean. Across the ocean. We were but we little lads at the moment.
01:54
And now we're not, we're not we anymore. So we're. A little grayer, maybe a little wiser, definitely full of stories. Yes, definitely full of stories, 100%. Well, we wanted to have Bart come on the podcast because he's got some experiences that really we feel like are important for other men to hear and know. So Bart, before we dive into those, share a little bit about like why.
02:21
you are involved with Restoration Project? Oh, that's a great question. I like Restoration Project because it keeps me moving in the direction I want to be personally as a man. And I was at a conference a year or two ago and someone asked me the question, like what keeps you up at night or what do you pound the table over? And it was a fundraising conference and everyone probably expected everybody to say, I'm trying to...
02:50
do this or that to save, you know, these causes, this cause, that cause. And my cause was I just want to help men be better dads. And I said that out loud and everyone kind of wait, like that's not the answer I expected. And that might be true. I want to help men be better dads, but I need to be a better dad myself. And so by connecting with this community and the men here, it just...
03:17
It keeps me honest. It keeps me moving in the direction that I want to be as a dad. And yeah, I can look back over the gosh, 10, 15 plus years that we've been running together and I'm not the same man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say the same that I'm not the same man because of you and because of men like you. So it has been, it has been a journey. It certainly has. Yeah. And there are ups and downs. Well, Bart,
03:47
we're going to talk with you for a couple of times here on the podcast. And you have some stories that you became recently aware of and kind of put connected some dots in your life, specifically in the area of men and fathering when it comes to your own father. And so I wanted to just kind of give you the floor and say welcome and tell us about you, tell us your story. What have you come to know? Yeah. So I think that.
04:15
What's really interesting for me is looking at my dad's story and like going way back and he's no longer with us and I'll share that story later. But in doing some research and thinking about him, in his late 20s, he kind of started, he hit the reset button on his life. He left the farm in Michigan and he moved to the city. And there was a friend of his, kind of a mentor, a pastor.
04:43
And he said, hey, there's an orphanage in Chicago that could really use some men who want to give some energy to kids. And that was the chance my dad needed. And, uh, and so he jumped at it, moved to Chicago, uh, Lydia children's home. It's still there and they're still doing great work and, uh, they end up building this relationship and my dad jumped right in.
05:13
And, you know, I can only imagine kind of what he was like, because he never really, we didn't, as kids, we never got stories from that. You know, so I'm partly kind of just looking at their website and the old photos that I can see from Lydia Children's home when they're posting things about, you know, their history and their story. And I see these kids, you know, from the 60s in black and white, and that's where my dad was there. And the kinds of things that they would do, they would go camping, they would play, you know,
05:43
They played basketball in the courtyard. The snow would come and they would still go outside, but they were landlocked. They were kids from Chicago who didn't have parents and this was their home. And so this was a place where they had some peace. And I think that faith was a huge part of the mission of Lydia Children's Home. And so that was something where my dad's values kind of got to kind of really fit.
06:11
hand in hand with what he was doing and being able to do it with kids was really important to him. But I just want to ask why do you think your dad didn't share about that chapter of his life? I know he's not with us, but what's your guess about that? That's a great question, Jesse. I wish I knew the answer, honestly, because my dad wasn't a super talkative person. Like we didn't have just connection points.
06:40
you know I'm traveling today and yesterday before I left, I took my own son, Justin, for a walk around the neighborhood because I wanted to have a catch-in, check-in, you know, like, dude, I've got some stuff I want to talk to you about. To be intentional and say, these are some stories, these are some ideas that I'd love for you to think about this week and we can pick it up when I get back on Friday, you know. So my dad never did that. Now, he loved to coach.
07:10
He was my baseball coach. He loved to play games. He taught us how to golf and we would do a lot of things together. Activity was a love language for him, I guess, but not stories and not talking. So I wish I knew those stories, but those are kind of lost. Yeah. But as you talk about your dad, and I'm familiar with Lydia Children's Homes. When Beth and I lived in Chicago, we went to church.
07:38
there that was engaged and involved in some of that. So that's fun for you to even bring up that term. I was like, oh my gosh, I know that place. And I also, like, as you've begun to review some of these things of your dad's life, prior to you coming along, what is it like for you to imagine him with that level of intentionality, purpose, move, to go from Michigan, leave the farm as you said, and go...
08:05
participate as a man in an orphanage setting. Like he made fathering movement in his life. He did. It's really exciting for me to see that happening and taking place. I don't know that he was trying to be a father in those moments. I think he was just kind of living out of who he was. I think it's probably true of a lot of us in areas of our life. We live out how we believe and what we feel.
08:34
And that was certainly true of that space for him. I think getting to Chicago was fun. He's always been a Cubs fan. And so it was one step closer to being, you know, up there by Wrigley field and going to the games. And I love playing baseball. And this was a chance to, you know, be with a bunch of kids. And his love for coaching probably started there because he was the adult. And these young boys kind of looked up to him
09:04
in that space. So it's fun for me to imagine that. Imagine him excelling in that. And I just, yeah, I wish I knew some of the stories, I guess. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, Bart, but knowing you and knowing you as someone like you just said, as a man who has great intention and purpose and forethought, as knowing that about you and hearing some of this review and some of this discovery that you've done about your dad's life.
09:34
What significance has kind of risen to the surface around some of that in a way that's, I get the sense this is, it's more than just like memory lane, right? Like, wow, isn't this kind of neat and interesting that my dad moved to Chicago? Like, no, it gets the sense that there's deeper purpose to it. There's deeper significance to you. And so what has some of that been, or how is that being uncovered as you have been doing some of this exploration? I think the thing that
10:02
has stood out to me most recently is how his desire to be a man who fathers people, and children in particular who need a father, has mirrored or in a sense foreshadowed even my own heart for being a part of this. That started, again I mentioned that I've been doing some research and just thinking, and in 1968
10:32
summer of 1968, about two months before my parents got married, dad took the whole orphanage up to this land in northern Michigan with lakes and trees and, you know, fishing and a barn and a big white farmhouse. It was this empty space that this widow had decided she wanted this to be a camp for kids. And so a few people got together and said, let's see if this could really work.
11:02
put out the invitation to different groups, and my dad and Lydia said, yes, we'll come. And they brought the entire orphanage up to this place that would later become Spring Hill Camps. And Spring Hill was sort of born, even before it was founded, by this group that showed up. And I feel like that's really important on one level because that's the camp that I grew up going to. That was my camp as a kid. That was my...
11:31
in a sense, my Disneyland. Like it was an amazing place of such fun and adventure and excitement. It was certainly a place of play for me, but it was also a place of purpose and dealing with my faith and engaging life in really meaningful ways. So as a kid, that's where I would go every summer, to do different things.
11:56
Well, in 1989, 20 years after it was founded, 21 years after he had been there as a camper the very first time, they were looking to hire someone to be their facilities manager, to be the head over all the volunteer, to be the one who kind of runs the show when it comes to building the next phase of the camp. And he had been volunteering to build things all along, but now he was like in the running to become the guy,
12:26
keep things going and he got the job. So the year I graduated from high school, he accepted this position at the camp and now he's working there. What was fun for me then, it's like, it literally was, I would come home from college, not to the hometown I grew up in, but to Disneyland. I've lived in the magic castle, Cinderella's castle, was like, that was my home. And so it was really fun to do that.
12:55
We would have meals, something when camp was happening, we would have meals at the camp. And if it was night, the weather was great, there would be a six square set up outside, which is basically replaced by spike ball or gaga ball now. But it's the idea of you're just on this court, you're batting a ball around, you're trying to knock it in someone else's square. Before it bounces, you've got to knock it somebody else's square. My dad loved that game and he was phenomenal at it.
13:25
And so during summer camp, he would go play with the kids and he would be out there being with the kids. And again, I see that as an image of just this man who wanted to play and to give his time to kids. So it's, I think I'm just going off into this rabbit trail of my dad at camp, but it certainly was fun for me to kind of unpack that and dig into some of those stories.
13:52
began to make some of those connections Bart, I hear in your voice so much honor and respect for your father. I hear this sense that you, I mean, you've always known that he had that job and you obviously, you know, whatever went there, but there's something, as Jesse said, there's something deeper of a little bit of a downshift of recognizing that he was offering the very things that you have come to also passionately want to offer the world.
14:21
that you are actually far more similar to him in that aspect at least than maybe you realized before. Yeah. And I think that's what's, it's been surprising for me because I didn't make that connection until recently that in a sense he was foreshadowing my own journey as a father and as a father of other boys as I engage other men and say, how can we be intentional dads?
14:51
who are gonna be the kind of men who will raise sons and daughters to be the men and women they're created to be. And I love to get to do that. And so I do love the fact that, you know, I get to be a part of kind of following my dad's legacy. And clearly, and this is no surprise, we all know that no dad is perfect and no dad has, you know, got everything going on correctly. Clearly, I wish I had heard some of these stories. I wish he were still around so I could ask.
15:21
Dad, what were you thinking? These are stories that would mean so much to be able to unpack with him right now. But do you think this discovery of the fathering that your dad offered and the fathering that you have offered and continue to offer other men and the continuation in your word of this legacy, do you think discovering some of that enables you to rest and settle in like, yeah, this is who I am? Like there is.
15:51
There's deeper roots in this work, in this space than even my own life. And the way that I'm expressing it is unique for sure and different than what your dad did, but this is not just a blip on the radar. Like there's deeper history than that. Do you think that there's like a settling and a confidence or a gratitude for that, that you recognize? Uh, I think when you said that it resonated pretty deep in me. And, uh, so I would agree with you. Yeah. There are some really good.
16:20
solid, deep core work that I made for in that sense. But I think it's also true that we're all made to be fathers as men. And that doesn't just, you don't need to have a legacy. You could have a dad who did everything or did many things right. Or you could have a dad who did one or two things right. Or anywhere in between. And that doesn't change, I think, our ability to be good men who are.
16:46
fathers to our own kids and to each other and to the world around us. So I think knowing my dad's story does get me excited about being in this space of helping them be better dads, but it doesn't change anything. It's where I feel like I've been wanting to be for some time. And I love that. I was telling a story today of a friend of mine. I was at a conference a couple of years ago and we just, several of us were hanging out, just drinks, fire pit.
17:14
kind of a thing and telling stories. And one guy turned to me, he's like, he's like, what are you doing? He's like, what are you doing in this industry when you should be talking about men, talking about being a better dad and all this? Like, what are you, what are you? He was just so curious. And it caught me by surprise a little bit. And yet I said, I have the best job in the world. I get to do both. I get to work in a career that
17:44
helps nonprofits further their mission. I love what I do. And I get to volunteer with an organization and really to do it with friends like both of you guys. I have so many fun stories with both of you. I get to do that together. And so my passion of helping other men and then being a better man because of it, that's lived out, but it doesn't have to end there. I think, you know, I'm more than my job. I bring me to everywhere I go.
18:14
take it or leave it. Most people take it to a certain degree and then they really wanna leave it because I can come pretty all in, coming in hot, you know, and it is what it is. But- You know that everyone listening to you right now joined Jesse and me laughing at what you just said. That's true. And they know you if they laughed with us. Absolutely. Coming in hot, that's awesome. Bart, I wish for me-
18:42
that I had a story where I could look at my own father and make some placements like that, connect some dots like that, where the passions that have been born in me were first identifiable and born in him. And I imagine a lot of guys would feel the same, that I think a lot of us feel like we're forging our own path in many ways, trying to figure out like, how do I do this fathering thing? And I don't have a dad who
19:11
either did it with me or did it with others. And it sounds like your dad had that. So I just want to like name the sadness that is there. And then also the hope that even though you recognized how your dad's fathering was present for the kids in the orphanage, and then eventually all the kids at camp and all that kind of stuff, and there were still some things that you longed for from him personally that you didn't get from him personally.
19:42
that you can still honor him. And that my hope is a recognition for me that my kids can recognize like, oh, I didn't get everything I needed from dad, but there was some goodness there. Mm-hmm. Cause I'm trying. I know you're trying. We're all trying really hard to offer our world the fathering that they need and they deserve. And important then is it that we do so together. That we join a circle of each other.
20:10
And we show up with all of our stories because there are times when you want and need my story to give you the hope. And just like there have been times, Chris and Jesse, both of you guys, you share and that provides the hope for me. And so that brotherhood and that connection of doing life together, that fuels all of us. Yeah. Without it, it would be a far shorter and far poorer journey.
20:40
100%. Well, Bart, thank you so much for jumping on today and being with us to share a little bit about some of the conclusions, recognitions, explorations that you have. And I just wonder for those guys that are listening, like what it would be like to recast a little bit of your wondering about your own father and wonder like the woundedness that we experienced from him, however good he may have been. We still experience.
21:09
woundedness. I think a lot of times can shadow the attempts, the goodness that he did bring. So I wonder for us listening today, like what it would be like to go back and like just look back in the tunnels of time and history and wonder like, what did dad actually bring? Not what did he not bring, but what did he actually bring? And are there some morsels in there that I can return to? So Bart, thanks for being on. You bet. Great to be here.