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.
Jesse French
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Restorative Man podcast. My name's Jesse French, one of your hosts today, and I'm joined by my friend and colleague, Mr. Cody Buriff. Cody, how are you, man?
Cody Buriff
It's good to be here. Good to see you.
Jesse French
Yes, sir. Yes, indeed. Well, today, Cody, we are continuing our series around the fatherhood space and want to explore a facet of some of our fathering and specifically how we offer our words and what that looks like. And lots that could be said around that. But as we often do, we thought, hey, it might be helpful to tee this up with an actual story of our own fathering.
So you generously volunteered.
Cody Buriff
It's kinda throwback to the dumpster fire of the olden days.
Jesse French
Indeed, indeed. Yes. Yes.
Cody Buriff
So yeah, I'll share a little story. So it's a couple years ago in the kitchen. I feel like put my foot in my mouth lots of times when I'm standing in the kitchen. I don't know why that is, but in the kitchen and it's not what you want to put in your mouth when you're in the kitchen. This is true. Whatever, where am I going? my boys are I think they're supposed to be doing the dishes is probably what was going on. And they one of them, my oldest, was
Just kinda dorking around with his brother. I think he was he's I don't remember if he was being kind of mean or I don't know, withholding. He was just kind of being a jerk. And I responded, I got big and kind of responded loudly. I was like, dude, stop being a turd or don't be a turd or or something I said something like that, but I definitely used the word turd. And it felt justified and and not like wrong necessarily. Yeah. Because he was being a turd. So anyway.
Come to find out like in I don't know if was a couple hours or the next day or when it was, but we were out on a walk, family walk, or maybe I was with him, I don't remember, driving somewhere. I don't know. Anyway, talking with my son, and he's like, Dad, when you called me a turd, that hurt my feelings.
Jesse French
Mm-hmm.
Cody Buriff
And I could tell like it had stung him pretty hard. Yeah. And, you know, he wants my approval. He desperately like wants his father's approval, like we all do, right?
And I will be honest, like there was part of me that got defensive and you know inside and was internally like, time out, I did not call you a turd. I said that you were being a turd and I don't want you to be a turd. You're not a turd, you know, whatever. But I hopefully did a good job of not getting too outwardly defensive. Yeah. but he brought that to me and it was kind of this reminder of like, okay, like the weight of my words and how they come out of my mouth, regardless of my intention.
Can have a lot of weight. Yeah. And I don't want to label my kid a turd and he lives with that name, that voice in his head calling him a turd for the rest of his life. Because I don't actually think he's a turd. I think he's great. And I don't want him to be a turd. So
Jesse French
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Man, I can appreciate that. And as an aside, I think the word turd has just a
I think it has a a certain setting where it's it's actually really helpful. So this is not to like this sorry, this is not where you thought I was gonna go, but I just think it it there is the time and the place for yeah. It's just a it's a good use. So sorry. It's it's it it's need at certain points.
Cody Buriff
You're pro turd, is what I hear.
Jesse French
turn, yes. Yes. Thank you. This is what everyone was w ask wondering about. no, but Cody, thanks for sharing that. And
I think it's such a great story because it highlights what you're talking about around the significance of our words. It comes in a a very kind of normal, mundane setting, right? You guys are in the kitchen, brothers are doing what brothers do and you know, bugging each other, whatever. And so it was a very kind of normal setting, and yet it still reveals like the weight of those words, right? This was not, you know, super dramatic, like
I don't know, all of your family was there and you publicly like rebuked your son, you know, in this like very clearly awful way. It was just, hey, this is normal. And yet it reveals, hey, even in this small instance, man, my words carry a bunch of weight.
Cody Buriff
Yeah. Yeah, totally. It's like it's convicting and a little bit like I mean, it's a little scary as a dad, honestly.
Jesse French
Yeah for sure, right? As you're saying that, I'm playing through the tape of man, yes, those
Cody Buriff
What have I said?
Jesse French
just said I'm pro turd. Have I actually like Yeah. Yeah. And so I I wonder then, Cody, as guys are listening, and it kinda even with that story in mind, I would imagine there's some folks that are like, maybe they're nodding their head along with it. But I th I think it reveals this interesting
I would say one of the messages that I would say that we've received as men, so as we're talking about words, right? And this story says, like, man, our our words, they matter, they carry influence, especially in the lives of our kids. And I can even feel some of myself like nodding and agreeing with that on one hand, but it also comes in conflict, I think, with this very, I would say solid message that we have heard for a bunch of years and a bunch of generations, right? Of like just the old cliche of what?
Actions speak louder than words, right? And of course, there's a lot of wisdom in that phrase, right? Of like wanting to have actual movement and practical execution and not just giving lip service to things, right? But I wonder if some of that, like we've thrown the baby out of the bathwater a little bit of like, it our words are really the weaker thing. It's more about our actions. Yes, our actions for sure matter. But I wonder if in some of that there's been a discarding a little bit of the significance of our words.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, I mean you reminded me of like the sticks and stones, break my bones, words will never hurt me. It's like, no, that's that's bull. It absolutely words stick with us. Yeah. They impact us. It's you know. Mm-hmm. They actually are significant. We all carry the words of our fathers and mothers for that matter, and coaches and teachers, and like we're a member. Like they echo, you know? So it absolutely matter us as dads.
I think Jesse, what wanna where we wanna go over the next, you know, few minutes in this podcast is kind of talking about the idea of cursing, the idea of silence, and the idea of blessing and kind of those three dynamics. And so Jesse, what I'm just gonna put you on the on the spot. Like how would you define cursing when it comes to our words with our kids?
Jesse French
Yeah. I think I would describe it as it is words that we offer our kids that actively bring harm and hurt to them, right? And it is the words that bring death. And on one level that sounds like maybe dramatic and intense, but I think it is. Again, your example with your son is a good one of his honesty around saying, like, hey, that that hurt. Those words, there was hurt there.
That wasn't your intent. And yet I think to view cursing through, hey, when our words bring harm, when they bring hurt to our kids, I would classify that as that's like in that that cursing space. And so hopefully trying to maybe bring it off of, you know, maybe these really I don't know what people's perceptions of cursing. I mean, that does sound really intense. And to say, look, like when our words bring hurt, that falls into that category.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, totally. Totally. It's I I don't know if I can fully say that it's like a disagreement with the voice of God. I think when it's in the context of us saying words that are cursing our kids, like it is a disagreement with the voice of God and what he would say about them. Doesn't mean that all cursing is necessarily in a disagreement. but I think when it comes to how we father our children, it is like a disagreeing with
Jesse French
Yeah.
Cody Buriff
the
voice of God and therefore bringing death whereas he is the source of life, we then when we disagree with him are ushering in death, way you put it. So Yep. Yep.
Jesse French
Yeah. I mean the the real dramatic example of that, I think of the old Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight. Like I actually actually have a story I'll share briefly. So I have a family member who this is a bunch of years ago is when Bobby Knight was still coaching in Indiana and it was a big old deal. And my family member was at this coaching clinic where it was, you know, hundreds and hundreds of like high school coaches and stuff, and he was one of the speakers.
And my family member walked into the classroom or the whatever auditorium that he was speaking in and she was like, I think like four minutes late or something, was just like trying to sneak into the back door, grab a seat in the back, and she opens the door and is like sitting down, and he spent a minute publicly berating her for the disrespect of her interrupting his talk and just like
completely, completely verbally just cursed her.
Cody Buriff
Dang.
Jesse French
And so, like, you know, again, that's a really easy example of holy cow, man, what are you doing? Like, so much I could say about how messed up that is. But it is right. And I would imagine he had a sense of, my words will carry a ton of weight and I'm gonna use my platform right now to just totally tear down this person. Right. So again, very dramatic example there compared to the one that you just gave. But it is this again, the acknowledgement of our words are a tool.
That have incredible potential and when we use them for harm, they bring death and are cursing.
Cody Buriff
Yeah. Well, and that just makes me think, Jesse, like when we bring our words in that way, we are operating out of a very selfish state of mind. It's not actually about the other person. There's something going on inside of me that I need to assert my dominance, I need to assert my rightness. And so I'm attacking somebody else. And in this case, attacking my kids, which is like ridiculous, right? But that's actually what's going on. It's not about them.
There's something jacked up in us that's leaking out all over you know.
Jesse French
Yep. That's really well said, Cody. I think that's really helpful, right? Versus if it's like, hey, how he's treating his brother, like there needs to be a shift that's happening there. How do I, you know, this sounds very patient, like I get it. But but it is that it's a really helpful question to ask of like, is this about my son? And trying to say, like, hey, how do we call attention to what's happening, yet call him to like a vision of what this relationship can look like, right? Is it that?
If so, the words as you're saying will look very different than man, I feel the discomfort or the embarrassment, you know, of like how my son's treating, and so I have to use my words to somehow squelch that. Mm-hmm. It's helpful. It's really good.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, totally. I think the
other in that line of thinking, I think there's another way that we are often selfish with our words. And it isn't involving actually offering them, but it's actually when we don't offer them. Yep. Yep. And I think there's a couple different reasons why that happens. But you know, talking about the silence which a lot of us experienced, the withholding of blessing or cursing, frankly, because of the lack of words.
There's a lot of going on there. Like there's a lot of reasons. And almost all of them are because of whatever's going on inside of us as dads.
Jesse French
Mm-hmm.
Cody Buriff
I know as we were leading up to this conversation, you had a couple of thoughts on that.
Jesse French
Yeah, I mean, I think there's we're gonna get to blessing here in just a second, right? And unpack that a lot more. When we're thinking about like the words that our children need from us, we're gonna get to blessing, like this intentional communication of approval and delight. But I think they also need our word words of guidance too, right? To be able to say, Hey, I'm willing to try to guide you in the learning of something, in
Engagement of issues and important things in life. sex talk. Sex talk is a great one, right? Like really, really important conversation to be like proactively have with our kids, which I would kind of put that more in the like guidance rather than blessing category. And yet I think our silence is so easy in a conversation like that, right? Because of our own discomfort, because of like, gosh.
How do I do this? How is this not just the awkward bomb that went off? Right. And so rather than being willing to engage and kind of have the settled place of like, hey, yeah, there is some awkwardness, but I'm willing to just step into this so that I can guide my child, it can be so stinking easy to just be like, Yeah, let's just pull back and not even step into that and risk the discomfort there and instead choose silence.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, totally. I think there is that not stepping into the guidance space because of the fear of like awkwardness, the fear of failure. And then I think there's the reality that like when guys when when men when fathers don't step in and kind of offer words of blessing, whether it's I love you or I'm proud of you or whatever, sometimes it's because they feel awkward. They didn't learn how to be emotionally attuned and show up emotionally in those kinds of ways.
And you they never learned it. And sometimes their silence is because they don't want to give their kids what they were given. The cursing side. Sure. And so they're like
Jesse French
Right.
Cody Buriff
if I just don't say anything, at least they'll get something better than what I got. Yeah.
Jesse French
Yeah.
Cody Buriff
And so both of those are withholding. All three of those are withholding. All of those are actually a fear of failure. They're all
dealing with what's going on inside the dad's heart, it actually has nothing to do with the kid. But that kid is darn well gonna interpret that, then it has everything to do with them.
Jesse French
Right. Right. Yeah, that's the conclusion that they that they easily draw out of that. Mm-hmm.
Cody Buriff
Yeah. My dad never said I love you. I must never have been worth it. Yeah. Right? He didn't offer the sex talk. He didn't care about me. I wasn't good enough to I wasn't worth you know. Those are the stories we tell ourselves.
Jesse French
For sure. Yeah. And as you're saying that, Cody, I think it's it's particularly in the silence space, it makes me curious around the question of like what does my silence in this situation offer me? Like how does it actually serve me? And I think to wonder that, honestly and without judgment, but to s kind of start there and say, Okay, if I I'm only silent, it offers me it keeps me from failing, right? Or it keeps me out of an uncomfortable place that then
you know, disconnection is gonna happen. Whatever that is. Like, but I think that question as you're encouraging us to take stock of where we are is really good, right? 'Cause I would I would argue I that that silence actually is offering something to us important, right? That's absolutely why we're choosing that. And so to have a level of wonder around that. I think just a really
Cody Buriff
Bring that up to the surface and recognize what's actually going on inside of us. Super important. That's good. That's good. I'm aware even as you're saying that, like, you know, this whole conversation around cursing and silence and blessing, like we're talking about it in the realm of fatherhood. And it's possible there are guys listening that are not dads. And like all of this actually applies to everything in life.
Jesse French
Absolutely.
Cody Buriff
Like, do you show up and actually say the things that need to be said in your relationships?
Are you bringing the thunder in ways that are harmful in relationships? Are you just shrinking back and not saying anything? Or actually are you a life bringer into all of your relationships? Work relationships, you know, friends, spouse, whatever. Like it applies everywhere. We're talking about it with our kids, but it yeah everywhere.
Jesse French
It really does. I can't remember if I've shared this story before, but at one of my previous jobs it was I oversaw some college students and they were like part time and and got to know them, you know, decently well. And it was out at this ag experiment station of their university. And so I remember one time this college student came into the office and she just finished checking health on cattle, which is one of her jobs. And she just sat down and I was like, Hey, and this is
I'm not trying to pat myself on the back at all. It was like this very sort of off. I was like, hey, you you've done this really well. I've seen the growth in you from when you started till now. And you do this really well. You I have intention to detail. It's I'm really grateful. And so like that was not this like it was very task specific, right? It was like that realm. And yet, even in saying that, the student was like taken aback of like it just felt
Cody Buriff
Yeah.
Jesse French
like
My guess was that that words like that were not normal for her. Again, even just in this very small encouragement work feedback type of space, not deep approval of identity. And and you know, like to your point, right? It is how we are in all of our spaces with our life, right? That the restorative man is bringing life, as you said, in the context with his kids, with his coworkers, with his neighbors, that it is just permeating out.
Cody Buriff
That's awesome. Yeah, dude. Good job.
Jesse French
Give me my count of the back. Whatever.
Cody Buriff
No, I think and that's a that's actually a beautiful example of what we're talking about with blessing. And so let's let's dig into that a little bit more here. In Restoration Project, there are so many contexts in which we actually talk about blessing. There we offer a actual talk or message on the concept of blessing at like probably every event we do, almost every event we do, live event we do. It's like a major part of the Restoration Project ecosystem is this idea of
Blessing. And I have learned over the last five years or so with the Restoration Project, we like to talk about that through the grid of Matthew chapter three when Jesus was baptized by John. And in verse 16, basically it says, After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And here's the verse we like to kind of piece apart here.
And a voice from heaven said, This is my dearly loved son who brings me great joy. This is my dearly loved son who brings me great joy. And I think growing up, I heard that passage and was like, wow, that's cool, miracle. I wonder what all the people on the shoreline thought. They were all lined up to get their baptisms and you know, whatever. And I think it's just in the last several years where I'm realizing.
Those words, sure they probably heard them. Obviously they heard them because it was written down, but they weren't for them.
Jesse French
Mm-hmm.
Cody Buriff
Those words were for the Son. Yeah. They were for Jesus. It was literally as just before then very next thing he goes out in the wilderness for forty days and s and then starts his ministry. The son of God needed to hear words from the Father.
So of course we need to hear words from our father and our kids need to hear words from us. Like
Jesse French
Yeah.
Cody Buriff
Yeah.
Jesse French
Yeah, Cody, that's so true. We could stop there and just to chew just even on that of like the fact that Jesus needed these words and actually gets them a second time too, right? If we actually follow his his arc. Yeah. And so like just the sitting in that fact, I hope that's like good, good news to people, right? Of the fundamental need for this, and then also the actual ability of us to offer that to meet that need. Like, man, I hope that is good news for folks that hear it.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, I like what you said there, that we have the ability to offer it. Right? I know our good friend Bart, I think, coined the phrase that words are our superpower as dads. And so they are. And we've been given that ability to resonate with the voice of God to speak life into our children in this way. All right, Jesse, I'm gonna just break it down. There are
Four parts of blessing as we think about it and talk about it. Okay. And the first one is a little bit inferred, I suppose. It's but to offer a blessing you have to see the person. Mm-hmm. To be blessed you have to be seen. And so there is this reality that God was seeing the sun before he spoke to the Sun.
Jesse French
Yes. Yes. And so which I'm just gonna interrupt, which goes back to what you said earlier. In are my words about myself or is it about the other person? Like if it is about the other person that is rooted in this posture that you're saying of keying into them, of seeing them, of looking deeply at who they are.
Cody Buriff
Mm-hmm. Yeah. There is an intentional observation and notation of what has been observed that happens. You know.
Jesse French
Yeah. Yeah.
Cody Buriff
If you try to offer words and you actually don't know the person, you haven't seen the person, you don't, you're not actually paying attention to your kids, they fall flat. It might be encouragement, best case scenario, but it's not blessing. Yeah. Yep. So yeah, scene, and then and then I would say there's this category of belonging that is
Communicated. So when you get verse seventeen, it says, This is my dearly loved son or beloved son, depending on your version. This is my son. This is the father saying, You are mine. You belong here. You belong in this family. You belong on this planet. You belong in the world like you are mine. And that's part of identity, but we'll get to that in a minute. But it's distinct enough that it is belonging specific.
Jesse French
Mm hmm. When we think about like what some of our deepest longings are, right? It is to know that, right? To like not said know it, but like know it deep within our soul that belong here. Mm-hmm. That's well stated. Just that word my is intentional and communicates so much. Yeah.
Cody Buriff
Well and I think if you think about it like this way, like if cursing is the opposite of blessing, right? And so if you are seen versus unseen, you're invisible. Like belonging, like some of the most harmful words that we've heard are you don't belong here.
You know? And so blessing is a communication of belonging. Yeah. You do actually belong here. And then we then we can jump into identity. God very clearly says to the son, like, this is my son. You are son, you know. Yeah. This is who you are. And it's speaking to, you know, some of what has been observed, you know, it from our shoes, right? And we're speaking to our kids. It's like, this is who you are, this is what I see in you. I see a good man.
Growing in you, son. I see an amazing woman showing up in you, daughter, you know. You talking to this college student girl saying, Hey, you're actually really good at taking care of cows.
Jesse French
Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is it's so interesting. And that is a little more right, as I was sort of saying, connected to the skill of like, hey, you're able to do that. But if we track this verse that you're unpacking for us, isn't it interesting then that there is this communication of identity that this is my son, right? And then, as you know, so many people smarter than me have said, right? What happens next? You said it like he goes out into the wilderness
That is then tempted, and what is the basis of each of those temptations? Right. If you are the son of God.
Cody Buriff
Thing go.
Jesse French
And so isn't that interesting that that feels like the crux point that the father is communicating to his son, that the enemy then comes to try to take the
Cody Buriff
Question.
Jesse French
wife to question. Right. And then fascinating too, right? That I love that this happens before Jesus he said it, before he starts his public ministry. Like he's done nothing impressive. There's there's no
earning like he hasn't done all his miracles. There isn't this conflation maybe for him, I'm guessing, of like, yeah, I'm I've done all these really impressive things now. That's where my identity is, right? It's no this this happens before any of that.
Cody Buriff
That's true. It's good. And yeah, with that, like the cursing side is a false identity. You
Jesse French
Yeah.
Cody Buriff
are a failure, you are a screw up, you're never gonna be good enough. Like right? That's the the flip side.
Jesse French
Totally.
Totally. And I would say, I mean, this starts getting into a lot of the nuance, but it's also then can be the conflation of your worth is what you are able to do. That's why the kind of the example of the person worked for me is a little bit tricky. But like but if we kind of blur those lines right, I think that's pretty easy. And again, yes, let's recognize what our kids are able to do, but if that is the source of their value, right?
Cody Buriff
Yeah, that is the tricky thing, Jesse, 'cause you don't want to be like, Hey, you have earned your identity now based on these things, but you also want to offer evidence of this is how I've seen this show up in you. You know, you are a a compassionate person and that's super cool. And I've seen that show up as you have whatever, money to the person on the side of the street, or, you know,
Cared when your brother skinned his knee or you know, whatever.
Jesse French
Yeah, that's well said, right? To actually give the examples to have support for what you're saying. And I think it makes me wonder also just around the occasions of which we offer these words, right? Of if this only happens when the straight A report card comes home, right? I feel like now we're into the realm of
Cody Buriff
Of performance.
Jesse French
performance, right? Whereas, you know, one of the I think it is really sweet that
You know, at the end of our father-son and father-daughter experiences, we give the chance for dads to bless their kids. And the blessing is comes on the heels of multiple days of just being with them, right? There's not a lot of earning, hopefully, right? They've shared a bunch of fun things. They've seen their kids take risks and be courageous and be awesome, beautiful things that should be named. But it's not like the kid went out and just again scored forty points in a game or got straight A's, right?
Cody Buriff
Right, exactly. No, that's good. That's good. All right, the last part of it is the delight. So we had seen this belonging, identity, and now there's delight, right? So the very last part of verse 17 is, you know, this is my dearly loved son who brings me great joy. There's this enjoyment communicated, you know, and so our kids need to be seen. They need to know that they belong. They need to hear who they are, who you see that they are.
And they need to hear that you like them. not just love them 'cause you're supposed to love them, right? Whatever. But actually like that you enjoy them.
Jesse French
I think this piece connects to the scene piece I think that we were talking about, right? That there is this deep observation of who they are, right? Kind of the we've talked about in other episodes before, like just this study in the best sense of like who is my child, right? And the long look at that and the enjoyment. And I would say probably in that too, there's like a joining of them in those spaces, right? To really experience that close hand, that it isn't from a distance.
Cody Buriff
Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's I I think one example could be, you know, my kids are super excited about and love doing things and are good at doing things that I don't know anything about.
Jesse French
Mm-hmm.
Cody Buriff
Like my kids specifically. So my oldest two boys are super into music and they're talking about like whatever, eighth notes and I don't know what any of this stuff is. Like there's all these words that they're throwing around and amateur or whatever that, you know, like what? Yeah.
And but I get to like sit and listen to them practice. And obviously like when they were in sixth grade, that was maybe sometimes painful. Better
Jesse French
It's probably very different now.
Cody Buriff
now for sure. but even then there's this enjoyment of them enjoying.
Jesse French
Yeah.
Cody Buriff
You know, it's not necessarily me enjoying the music, although that's true too now at this point, but it's me enjoying their enjoyment or their aliveness. Or when my daughter's like, Hey, come check out my Legos and you know, she started painting her little Lego people sometimes and creating you know, whatever. It's like I get to enjoy her creativity. I get to enjoy what she brings to the world. Yeah.
You know, whether I actually want to paint Legos or play Legos or whatever, sometimes I maybe do, but usually it's not the first thing on my list. but I can enjoy her doing that.
Jesse French
Mm-hmm. Those are great examples because I think when those types of exchanges happen, I think it does help counter the, again, I'll use the like report card example of like the recognition of and again, like, yes, let's recognize that. But if that's the only thing, right, then there isn't this other set of experience that's like, hey man, my my dad's played Legos with me. Like there's nothing, you know, maybe like
publicly super impressive about that in the same way that a straight ape report card is. And so the beauty of that is then it's about it's about me as his daughter, right? That like he's enjoying me. He's not just enjoying what I'm able to do. And so I think that feels really same with the practicing of music. Like, this is about I delight in who you are, not the product of what is, you know, what's produced.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, totally. All right. So words our kids need to hear from us. Just kind of tying it up. They obviously don't need to hear our cursing of them. they don't need our silence, but they do need our blessing. yeah. They need to be seen. They need to know they belong. They need to know who we see in them, who they are, and they need to know that we enjoy them, that we delight in them. Yeah. Yeah. It's good, code.
Jesse French
Yeah. Great man. Well, I look forward to the next time maybe we chat and I can hear about when you use the word turd in a different 'cause again, I am I'm pro turd here, so yes, I look forward to hearing that.
Cody Buriff
All right. Sounds good, Jesse. Guys, thanks for tuning in and listening. Leave us a a rating or review somewhere wherever you're listening to podcasts. That's super helpful. If this was helpful for you or somebody you know, share it with them. And we'll see you here in a couple weeks. We're gonna keep talking about fatherhood. Yeah, that's kind of where we're diving into right now for this season. So all right. We'll talk to you soon. Sounds good. See ya.