Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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.
Cody Buriff
Hey guys, welcome back to the Restorative Man podcast. This is Cody Buriff and I'm your, well, I'm sort of a host. I'm actually a little bit more of a producer this week because we're to do something a little different. This week, we're actually going to take an episode from the No Regrets Fathering content that we put together a couple of years ago that used to be a membership and now it lives right in the Grove Collective, but it is a 13 week module of content. It's everything from podcasts to some
helpful PDF to some templates to have quality time with your kids and some expert interviews sprinkled in. It's called No Regrets and it lives right there in Grove Collective. Like I said, where we've got a bunch of e-courses and expert interviews and forums and it's just our online community of where Restoration Project does life online. If you are looking for that, is at grovecollective.net, grovecollective.net. But anyway, this week's podcast again is stealing a little bit of content from that.
because of the time of year, it's going to set us up really well for Thanksgiving. This is podcast is on gratitude and it's Chris and Jesse discussing gratitude and what it looks like to get into rhythms together and form some really cool traditions as a family. So hope you guys enjoy it. We'll catch you later.
Jesse French
Hey, guys! Wanna know what it really takes to become a dad with no regrets?
Chris Bruno
We are Chris Bruno and Jesse French, and this is the No Regrets Members Only podcast. We know the fathering journey is part adventure, part uncharted territory, and part dumpster fire.
Jesse French
unfiltered look at becoming an intentional father or freaking diatribe.
Chris Bruno
Every year for the last, I think eight, 10 years, something like that, our family and two other families have rented an Airbnb house up in the mountains of Colorado somewhere, a different house, almost every year, a different house. And we go away for Thanksgiving. And it's this tradition that has just been part of the rhythm of our family for much of my kids.
grew up life and growth and our house and yeah, it's this thing that has become a thing because we've just done it so many times and now as I have kids that are, you know, leaving the house and the question is, so I have a daughter, our middle child, our daughter is off to college and the question was
Do you want to come home for Thanksgiving? Because she's out of state. was on the East Coast, foreign Colorado. And so it's a deal to get home. There's the cost of the flight. And then when is she done? When can she come home? And it's just really a couple of days anyway, right? it's kind of between. And then it's kind of dumb because you go back and then schools like three more days of classes and then you have finals and you come home for Christmas. So the question was, do you want to come home for Thanksgiving?
Jesse French
Kind of right in between.
Chris Bruno
Recently, like I we've just bought tickets. Yeah, because she said That is the most important thing in the year. I won't ever miss it. Whoa Yeah, right like I will not miss a Thanksgiving and so it not because we've done something as far as like, you know the turkey or the thing or whereas because there's this rhythm and ritual of being with these other families and
Jesse French
That's a huge statement.
Chris Bruno
and these kids have now grown up together and they, even if they don't have a lot of time together outside of Thanksgiving, which they don't anymore, it's this grounding nature of every year for Thanksgiving, Bruno's and these other two families get a house and we go somewhere and we spend those four or five days together.
Jesse French
I love so many things about that. One of the things that just stands out to me is this is indirect movement against the traditional script of you do the family gathering like for Thanksgiving and you guys have intentionally said, Nope, these three families are going to get together and it's the creation of our new ritual, right? Our new tradition that goes off the path from the expected. Yeah.
Chris Bruno
And there's reasons for that for each of the families that are involved in that. know, some don't have relatives close by. It's just something that we just were like, hey, we're going to, we're going to go to this ritual, if you will, this rhythm because we want to. And because it's important to us and we love these families. And so we're going to spend time with them.
Jesse French
Again, to me, that phrase, we want to, it feels like is, and the fact that your daughter is saying this is the most important piece of the year, massive endorsement of the meaning of that. Yeah. Those few days to her. Like, again, there's no, I get no hint of we should do this. It's our duty to go. Right? Yeah. None of that. Yeah. Ella's like, I'm coming home. ⁓
Chris Bruno
I'm down with that. Yep. Right. Yeah.
Jesse French
So it's interesting then to think through just the role of rhythms and traditions and rituals, right? Especially at this time in the calendar as Thanksgiving and Christmas and the holidays are upon us. I think what you're hitting on, right, is the creation of these grounding types of experiences is a massively important thing for us as individuals and for us as families.
Chris Bruno
And that, that word you just said, grounding is I think super important for us to consider here because these traditions can be empty. And, they can just be because this is what you do. And I last, you know, episode, talked about my birthday and it was that there was a tradition to that, but it was very empty for me. There wasn't any meaning in it, but traditions can also
Jesse French
yes, yes they can.
Chris Bruno
really be grounding if they're given and established with a sense of imbued meaning. If there's this meaning that is given to it for us to find ourselves. And when I say the word grounding, it's like, know where I am based on where these milestone moments find themselves in my life, right?
Jesse French
So you are you saying there's almost like a remembering these milestones, these events help us ground, help us remember some of who we are, some of who we are as a family. Yes.
Chris Bruno
That's great. The grounding and the remembering is important. And literally every year when we get together for Thanksgiving, we sit there and we're like, okay, what year is it now? How many years have we been doing this? And we go through each of the houses that we've stayed at and the BRBOs or Airbnbs or whatever we've gotten. And we kind of name each place and think about how old the kids were in each place. you know, and it's a lot.
And it's both grounding and remembering who we are by these rhythms that we have in our calendar. And there's something really important, even scripturally, it's all about doing these rituals and traditions in order to remember something. The Passover is a tradition and it has ritual. And so the tradition of Passover is that you do, you know, this season of time, these days.
But then in the tradition are the rituals, which also have meaning. And so the rituals are how you eat the food and what cups you drink and those kinds of things. So there's rituals within the tradition. And all of it is designed to remember. All of it is designed to remember something of where God did something, where he showed up, where he delivered, where he answered, where he provided, whatever it is, there's a remembering of something from the past.
And it's bringing something from the past out of the past into the present so that we can be together in the present in the memory of the past and That I think is what that's the grounding. I remember who I am because I'm gonna do this same ritual again today Because I want to remember who I have been
Jesse French
That's really interesting to me why the ritual and why the experience is important. I feel like what you're saying is, is remembering is more than just an intellectual like exercise. There's more engagement needed than just, let's just sit here and like, think about that time. Like, yes, let's do that. But you're saying, no, this is happening as these two other families and our family are away in this new space. Like.
Jesus in the act of and sacrament of communion is saying, remember, and he's giving them bread and wine to actually like ingest and to consume and to like experience. So what is this link between the remembering and the actual embodied ritual experience? Do know what I'm trying to say?
Chris Bruno
Yeah, I mean, think so. Jesus gives us the communion, for example, in the midst of the Passover meal. And there's something both very basic about those elements and also something very holy about the elements. So there's the moment where in the Passover, in the ritual of that specific Passover meal, where he says, do this in remembrance of me. But then also all the other meals that you have all throughout the year where you're eating bread and you're drinking wine.
He kind of leaks into all of the other spaces of, still remember Jesus every, you know, on a random Wednesday evening when I'm having a piece of bread, this is the body. So there's other times like the Thanksgiving tradition at one point got this house and out in the back was, is a forest. And so the kids at that time, I think my oldest at that time might've been 14 or something like that.
And they all went out. This horde of children went out, which was beautiful for the parents. Yeah. Horde of children leaving the building. They all went outside and they built this teepee out of logs. Now, anytime we're on a hike and we see some other kids that have built a teepee or they themselves are like engaged in something, they'll go out and build a teepee or find, know, do something. There's this, it's leaked into
Jesse French
Like I
Chris Bruno
other parts of our lives where now these kind of log teepees mean something to us about the connection we have with our beloved friends. And anytime still that same hoard of now almost all teens and above children leave the building, guess what they could do? Build a teepee because they've established for themselves their own rhythms and rituals of what does it mean for us to be together?
Jesse French
See you
Chris Bruno
and this beautiful space of now a 21 year old building a little kid tepee out of the forest, right? Right.
Jesse French
There's not an outgrowing
Chris Bruno
Right. Right. And it's important for us, I think, to have these kinds of rhythms and rituals and traditions that are not empty traditions without meaning, but that they're imbued with meaning so that we can orient ourselves to who we are, who we're becoming, and hold a memory of that past, like I said, and bring that into the present. And this is actually a priestly office, if you will, of a dad, of a mom, to be the priest of their home.
to hold the spiritual in connection with the practical. Where we're using physical objects of bread and wine or logs and teepees to represent something spiritual. And that's the bringing together of God's hand and the human hand and colliding the two in time and space right now. And as we have more rituals or traditions as families, the more I think we actually
create a family narrative identity. Yes. A family. This is what we do. Yep. Yep. And this is why Ella, who now lives on the other side of the country, is like, I will get on a plane at whatever hour of night to be there because that's what we do. Yeah. We, it's this communal we that begins to be formed. And you know, sometimes they need to be broken and changed and moved and whatever because of real issues that come up in life. Sure. But
I want to come back to your word grounding, is that the we is grounded in the identity that's formed in the process of these kinds of traditions.
Jesse French
For sure. So grounding, that feels really important too. I would say given this season that we're just starting of like, would say this is the six weeks of anti-grounding of scattered frantic. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So that feels important. But then I also would love to hear some of your thoughts, just like practically for us, as we look at maybe for you guys, you look at the holidays and you think there is a lot of busyness.
Maybe there's some empty traditions. There's like, this is just kind of what we do that we've fallen into it just unintentionally sort of. What would you say to us who are like, Hey, I do want to create some marketing, create some grinding experience for my family in the next month ish or so. Let's just talk about that. Cause I think it's so important. And how do we go about crafting that? Yeah.
Chris Bruno
I would start Jesse with the question I asked a little while ago or said a little while ago. That was, ⁓ what do you want? So 20 years from now, what is the narrative that what is the identity that you want to be established in your family? And, you know, it can be as simple as when you put up the Christmas tree. That's another tradition that we have that when we put up the Christmas tree, we all do it together. put on Christmas music, we get out.
hot chocolate and all that kind of stuff. We do that, but we do it together. And at some point, my very organized middle daughter, who's the one now out at college on the other side of the country, she created a chart for a multi-year chart for who would put the star on the top. So that it would be a fair, fair across a decade.
Jesse French
No way, four-
Gosh.
Chris Bruno
of who is going to put the star on top of the tree. But that's because there's a tradition. so now every time we come to the box that has the star in it, there's her chart. And it's a reminder of all the years of the others and, the, you know, who's it in the past and all that's coming. It's this grounding moment for us. so I say that because what do you want? What do you want to be the traditions? What do you want to be? You know, the Bruno's are the French's are.
this is what we do, what do you want the, what we do to be? Yeah. And I'll go back to the choice of the Thanksgiving house rental thing is because we made a choice and we decided this is what we want to be about is community with other families and these specific other families, right? Is where it began. And so what do you want? What do want the story to be told when your children
have children and they're looping back to this is what we always did and this is what it meant to me. Totally. So let's start there.
Jesse French
Which is so great because it, think you're forcing us in a great way to say, let's get out of the inertia stream of the holidays of just like, we find ourselves in the, the general movement of holiday parties and da da da da da and all of these. Yeah. You know, expected things and no, instead let's have the choice of, we're choosing to do this. We're not reacting with the flow, but we're going to say, no, this is what we want to do.
Chris Bruno
with the flexibility that if it's a total bomb, you don't have to do it again.
Jesse French
We'll get there. ⁓ Multiple bombs coming. Okay.
Chris Bruno
So, it's like all the great ideas that we have in our minds as parents and the kids are like, that was dumb. For sure. Then we don't want to it again. But if there's some level of resonance that happens, then let's do that again.
Jesse French
So one of our family traditions was my grandparents in the sixties decided, Hey, at Christmas time, we're going to go and sing Christmas carols to different homes of our friends. So my mom grew up doing that as a little girl. So I grew up doing that as a kid. And it was, you know, we've got our list of eight houses that we're going to go. They're generally elderly people and you would go. And I remember as a little kid.
singing them three or four songs, they invariably invite you into their house. Their house is like 86 degrees, right? you're just sweating your brains out and hoping, you know, that Ethel and Jerry, Kookie, total, like you're hoping there's a Christmas cookie. And so now we're doing that with our kids, but there absolutely is this sense of, this is who we are. And there's a sense of, that is an absolute reflection of like our family's belief in the value of community, right? Of like, this is what we're going to go and do.
Chris Bruno
And that, what you just said, our belief in the value of community. That's the thing you've decided I want to instill in, in my kids and in our family tradition, like in our family lore legends, whatever you want to call it. French is believe in community. There's value in community. so therefore we do these rituals, these traditions, right? So that's the part that I would want to push people towards. Like, what is the thing?
that you want people to have a sense of.
Jesse French
Hmm. Yeah.
Chris Bruno
I mean, another tradition and I won't go too far into this one, but another tradition because we were on staff with an international missions organization for many years, the earliest years of my kid's life, like international world and life is just written into the story of our family. It's woven into a fabric of what it means to be a Bruno. And so we love traveling together, the five of us internationally.
And so it's not like a tradition. we do this every, you know, once every year or something like that, we're going to do this kind of thing. But there's something about us that's like, if we're going to do something, if the Bruins are going to do something trips or travel wise, it will be something international. And we will sacrifice financially to make that happen. And we will sacrifice our time to make that happen because that's part of the tradition. Because the value that we have is that we want to have a sense of the world. We want to have a sense of what does it mean to be a citizen of the world?
aware of the diversity of languages and cultures and all those things. Because of that, we've invested our time and energy in the travel.
Jesse French
that. So tradition is, I think you're saying can be a way that we express value, right? Like it is the embodiment of our values. Yes. It moves out of the space of just words and language of we value this, but actually into, yeah, we do. And so we do these things.
Chris Bruno
And yes, and sometimes, so I know a little insider knowledge to the French's, you just had an apple pie making day. Good memory. Okay. So tell us a little bit about that. I'm just going to put you on the spot. Yeah.
Jesse French
So in September, we had our first inaugural Apple Day as a family. And it was, we went and we picked a bunch of apples from surrounding houses, friends of ours, brought the apples back to our house, peeled, cored them, made apple pies, made apple butter, made apple sauce. And in my mind was like, I don't think I imbued a ton of meaning to it, but for me was like, Hey, this is the marking into fall.
of the seasonality and so we spent all day. Yep. The five of us doing that.
Chris Bruno
Do think you'll do it again? Yeah. Why?
Jesse French
Yeah, our kids have, we just put an apple butter on like our biscuits last Saturday. they said like, next year when we do this, we should make this. So already in their minds, there was, they were looking forward to it.
Chris Bruno
So it doesn't, I say that because you didn't imbue meaning in it in the moment, but what meaning did they get?
Jesse French
Yeah, I think it was this sense of hopefully like let's enjoy creation. Let's enjoy one another. Let's then create and actually enjoy the eating of that and do this.
Chris Bruno
And the togetherness of it. For sure. Yeah. So when you introduced it, you actually said the first inaugural Apple Day. you noticed, you said that. there's the beginning of a tradition. There's the beginning of a ritual that your kids, as you do this year after year after year, will be kind of a marker in time. This grounding marker in time that will say, is what we do. And in the midst of that, okay, so you said apple butter, applesauce, what else?
Jesse French
So we made two apple pies and then we dehydrated a bunch of apples too. Yeah.
Chris Bruno
Who did that work?
Jesse French
we all did. So.
Chris Bruno
Did anybody have a specific job that they were interested
Jesse French
So when we were like peeling and coring them, totally had the different jobs. So Laney was like running the peeler. My son Case was, he loved the knife of course. So he was like chopping the cores out. Yeah. So they each had sort of a job in that process.
Chris Bruno
Here's what I bet will happen is that as this happens again and as it happens again, then Case will be the only one allowed to cut. Yep. Right. And Laney will be the only one allowed to peel and there will be someone who's in charge of the pie crust and it's their, it's now their recipe that they're and it's the collective that brings it all together. ⁓
Jesse French
I'm like smiling because yes, will happen unless we have a page from the Bruno playbook and we make the spreadsheet of, next year I get to be the apple peeler. For sure. bet you, I bet you're right though.
Chris Bruno
Okay. You could do that.
Right. So we bring this up this month because here we are in the month of gratitude and the beginning of the holiday season, as we've mentioned. And I think there's something about the grounding of gratitude and the grounding of these rituals and, and rites and traditions that help a family find ourselves and find one another. And as we head into the holidays,
We just want to encourage you dads to be thinking about what are going to say yes to and what are you going to say no to? And to not get sucked up in the things that are just going to be a time and money and energy waster, but really what are you wanting to build into the narrative identity of your family with regard to these kinds of traditions? And it is, as I said, a priestly role. is something that when you establish the moments of remembrance, that will be something that will ground your family for years to come.
for sure.
Jesse French
For sure. Okay. So this is too good not to share for a dumpster fire. Go for it. It's actually my mother-in-law's dumpster fire. okay. I'm sorry, Teresa. This is like a public story. And so I share this. Okay. It's already out there. It's already out there. Okay. So when my wife was 15, she's the oldest of four. And when she was 15, their family went and cut a Christmas tree, like went up to the mountains, cut it.
And then came back and we're decorating it. And so this like, that's becoming tradition in our family. It's super fun. So this particular year, Theresa, my mother-in-law, they like have the tree up and it's, you know, it's at night and it's been this fun, super rich day. And she, she was just living into her priestly role and she thought, you know, we're going to have a new tradition. And so she goes, all right. So my wife is 15.
And then her sisters are 13, 11, and her brother is nine. Okay. So just think of that. So she says, okay, our tree's up. We're going to start this new tradition. And she hands everyone a candle and asks them all to stand around the Christmas tree, holding a candle. She turns all the lights off in the house and then goes to the tape player and plays the tape of the song. That's, you know, catch line is.
light a ca- light the dark like just-
Chris Bruno
handle
⁓ my. Thank you. Thank you for that. So you're welcome. It's just like.
Jesse French
You guys are welcome.
That's the essence of the song. So my 15 year old, you know, going to be wife is just the eye roll is perpetual. And there's just so much pushback from all the kids of like, mom, this is the stupidest thing ever. And she's like trying to get them on board. This is going to be a tradition. And so now every Christmas we'll just randomly start singing bits of that song in. It failed. story is on.
Chris Bruno
It's gonna be awesome. It became a tradition. Well, it failed and the story lives on. It does. And so there's a grounding still that has happened every time you sing that song and light a candle. bet something happens.
Jesse French
It's a raucous laughter. And... yes.
Chris Bruno
Well, so a story that lives on for the Bruno's that has lived, the story lives on, but the tradition has not is that the first Thanksgiving that Beth and I had, we were living in Chicago in a little condo and we invited our parents to come to us for Thanksgiving. Huge mistake. Okay. We had just gotten married. had this little tiny kitchen. And so, I mean, there was literal fire that happened in the, in the kitchen.
Jesse French
I'm sensing a thing. The first...
Chris Bruno
no, the marshmallows on top of the sweet potatoes caught on fire. The bird was underdone. It was so, so. So that's a story that lives on, but we've not done everything we can to not repeat that. So, right. Well, hopefully you guys have a great holiday and a great Thanksgiving and that ⁓ you can find yourself.
Jesse French
No.
Chris Bruno
⁓ and your family grounded and located in the stories that you would like to be told for years to come. a great Thanksgiving.
Cody Buriff
Well guys, that wraps up this week's episode of the Restorative Man podcast. Hope you enjoyed that teaser and fellas, if you are a dad or if you know someone who is a dad that would love some really helpful resources and pursuing intentional fatherhood, like I said before, the No Regrets Fathering content is right there in our Grove Collective community. So jump in there. It's grovecollective.net. Grovecollective.net. All right. Have a great week. We'll see you later.