Looking Back to Move Ahead: What’s Important?

Well, it's a wonderful day in the neighborhood, wherever you are, or I am, I'm just going to go with that. It's a grand day in the neighborhood. And guess why? Because in just a few days, I mean, mere hours, it's going to be, wait for it, spring. Spring is about to spring upon us, and I'm grateful that we're here. And what's interesting about this broadcast in stories to make sense of it all, is that just about a year ago, the week that the COVID protocols kicked in in Fort Collins, Colorado, I had a walking conversation out on the street with my friend, Kirk Noonan. Actually, he had a conversation with me. He said he had some questions for the old one, and he wanted to ask me some questions. So a year after the fact, we're going to play that conversation, and we're going to make it parenthetical. We're going to stop reading the book for this week, and we'll come back in our next broadcast to pick up where we left off in known, finding deep friendships in the shallow world. So here is my friend Kirk Noonan and I a year ago. Well, here we are at the corner of House and Mountain Avenue in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is the morning of March 18th. This is the first day of my 79th trip around the Sun. Had a birthday yesterday, turned 78. And so I thought, well, let's talk about what's happened in the last 78 years, maybe, and we'll go from there. But I think it's appropriate place anyway. You loop around the world 78 times. Yes. Today you're walking in Fort Collins. It's a beautiful day. Tomorrow it's going to snow. Yes. And that's kind of like how this world is right now. One day their sun and the next day, there's a snow storm. That's right. What do you think about like kind of like the state of today? You had your big celebration yesterday and then today, or having this great day, but then tomorrow it's supposed to snow. But put that in context with everything that's going on in this world. This is one of those places where I say, do you have an easier question than that? I think one of the things that I thought about when I had my birthday yesterday was that I was born three months after Pearl Harbor and to very uncertain times. And my parents were of that generation where they had gone through World War I and the great influence epidemic and the great depression and now World War II. And life has always been like that. You look at the scriptures, you look at things, and the fact that things change from day to day and you never know what's going to happen is something that gives me pause to say, is there anything that's stable? Is there anything that is solid that I can count on? And because of commitments I've made in faith and other kinds of things, I'm fond, you know, there are hundreds of names for God in Scripture or these scores. And my favorite is I am that I am that one when Moses stood in front of the burning bush and the voice said, this is who you tell the folks in Egypt that I am that I am and I'm saying, what kind of a name is that? Clearly it's not a Western name, that would be I do that I do, but I think I am that I am is like the most secure name in the universe. So when you get then into the life of Jesus and he says, I am the way I am the truth, I am the resurrection. I think that place of security, that's the most secure name in the universe. I think I've often said over the last 50 years at least that when one comes to faith they get a family name, you know, a different family name. My family name, my clan name is Foth. My individual name within that is Richard. So this tells me where I belong, this tells me my uniqueness, but when I start following God I believe through Jesus I get the I am name. So my my middle name then becomes Richard I am Foth. Anyway, I joke about that much. So now we've gotten the heavy stuff out of the way. Let's jump back to yesterday. Yes. You had a birthday, you had a party with the family. Yes. A very social distancing party just with the immediate family. Yes. So that was probably the highlight. Be able to wake up, have a birthday party with your loved ones. Had my favorite cake. Your favorite cake. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting made by Ruth. And you got one cool gift in particular that kind of surprised you and it hit right on your birthday. Ten days ago from from yesterday I was with some of your people, Convoy of Hope people, out in Laguna Beach, California and I had the tremendous honor of having a 40-minute conversation with the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, who says when he in his tenure as President he said I'm a compassionate conservative but I tilt toward compassion. And in part because of that he was invited to this event. And so I had a chance to just talk with him and it was a it was fascinating and fun because he was he was hilarious personally very strong wit but he used the wit as sort of tracks to run on to make serious points and he encouraged us in the arena of democracy by saying you know we're going through some stuff and this was before the coronavirus got as intense as it has been the last 10 days in terms of our awareness of it. And he just encouraged us saying we're resilient we'll make our way through this and so forth. Anyway I told him at the end of the interview in front of 130 people whatever it was that to have the conversation with him was one of the greatest honors of my life. Well yesterday last evening when he picked up the mail there was a letter from George W. Bush just handwritten which is terrific at just saying how much he enjoyed that time. In a day of emails and texts to have a snail handwritten note from someone who for eight years was by all lights the most powerful person on the planet is a huge honor and gift and I just I was touched I'm not sure that I've fully grasped it yet but yeah but I mean that's I mean how many people have a letter from a president. To me you know I know you're a humble guy and you don't want anything to ever feel like you're bragging about it but for you as an honoring thing I was there I got to hear it for me it was like one of the most entertaining 30 minutes in my life because it was the banter going back and forth and some of the antics he was an unbelievable interview and it was cool to see you responding to it and having this great time talking to the president but just to see how real he was as a great guy I mean it was super cool and I don't think you know you look at him and no matter what your party affiliation is just a great guy. I was I was very touched by what he said not only about democracy in the nation because I asked him about his humor and he said essentially without humor you can't have democracy unless your leaders unless you can poke fun at your leaders without going to prison and if the leaders poke fun of themselves that's a that's a helpful thing and I'd never thought in those terms about that and he just he just helped me enormously both personally in the in the conversation but just as a perspective it was it was just a very special time and then we got to the end of the interview and I asked him how would you like to be remembered and he said as a good father all of that all of this prestige coming from a family that would be considered political aristocracy in our country there are very few families like you know you've got the Roosevelt's and the Adams he's he's one of two father-son duos that were in fact president of the United States and and John and John Quincy were 24 years apart he and his dad were eight years apart. Five six years ago I was at in Nepal up in the Himalayas and with Conboy we're passing out food to these families who are desperate for food after the earthquake that struck and I was standing there and I was looking out at one of the the next highest peaks in the Himalayas and below me is the cloud deck and I'm standing there and I'm looking back at all these people were were able to help and I'm like man what an honor like why do I get to see this like when you were interviewing him I'm sure you had some moments where you're like why do I get to see this and I'm sure you've had other moments like that when you think about your life why do you think you get these special moments whether they be with your family or getting to interview the president or getting to go somewhere where most people don't get to go why I don't know I don't know I I've often framed it in terms of God has a great sense of humor you know in our life Ruth and I married almost 57 years ago in the summer of 63 and our lives then have been pretty much 14 to 15 year packages we went off to grad school then did a church plant in the University of Illinois for 14 years total and then came back in her 14 years at Bethany College in Santa Cruz where your dad was one of our vice presidents and a dear friend and then we went to DC after leaving that I was pretty much worn out from running something so into DC and did what for all intents and purposes folks might call life coaching just coming alongside leaders privately quietly behind the scenes for 15 years and now we've been here in Colorado for almost 12 and I tell people I we've lived our lives Ruth and I in 14 year increments and we have difficulty holding a position you know we just keep moving around but those each of those places sort of built to the next place and I've often framed it as I'm a kid from East Oakland California I didn't go to Yale I'm not a blue blood I didn't really learn to golf at all and still I don't know very much until I was 51 so I don't hit any of the boxes that you would think of for people to run in those circles but God in his great sense of humor says why don't we take the kid from East Oakland put him on Capitol Hill or the Pentagon and see how that goes that's how I frame it and I think that's how I handle it because I think the thing that helps that that touches me is that I think some of those moments many of them are things where I think like the Lord said well let's see if I can trust both with this even in talking about the the note from the president and so forth that's saying something about him that's saying I mean who who writes a handwritten note in these days unless it comes from a sincere heart and somebody who does in fact have compassion so you ask me the question why my initial answer is I don't know except that I think that the Lord uses people of all stripes and I guess I'm one of those stripes and I've had great privilege because when I went to DC and I've said this to folks I didn't know anybody I you know really I knew one guy but I don't know how you work with people in places in leadership and the next year my boyhood friend that I knew when I was eight for one year in spring from Missouri shows up as a senator and ends up being the attorney general under George Bush and that was John Ashcroft two years after that the fellow I worked for in Illinois when we did the church plant his son was in the Navy he came as a three star and so from 2000 to 2004 five my two closest friends in some ways in DC who were in places of power were the attorney general of the United States and the head of the United States Navy you can't write a Hollywood script for that and all three of us are pastor's kids that's crazy yeah you know unless it's orchestrated in some way well when I when I was in the Himalayas I got back to Kathmandu I called Jana my wife and I said hey I just had this great experience and question I just can't get the answer to why do I get to see this stuff like why me yeah and I started like kind of listing off some of my talents and she goes no no it's none of that and I go well what is it she's like you're available that's why and I go oh and she goes and you're available because I help make you available so it's like okay good good to be humble with our families living near each other in Scotts Valley right California right I remember one thing that you would always say to Chris and I and that was one of the best things you can give a friend is another friend yes and that really helps shape not only my life like my career like I'm really into like you know hanging out with people and giving friends other friends but the over the years I've seen like shared experiences and books are great things that you can give people your friends to help broaden their worldview or add to their life what are some of your ideas on friendship that are so important to the work that you've been able to do and to have some of these crazy experiences that we've been talking about well people who've heard me talk over the years somewhere along the line I came to the conclusion that there are two things that we do with our whole life so whether we're six or 96 and that's relationships and money and one of those will make your itch and it ain't money you know that can go away overnight as we've seen as the stock market has dropped by a third in a few days the idea that the person that God brings into my path no matter who he is what status or she what rank that person bears the image of God and is worthwhile having a conversation with I mean that and you've heard me say this is that I've come to see people as books with human skin on them that we have pages and chapters and paragraphs and sections and depending on the questions that are asked because if I'm reading the Kirk Noon in book I I turn the pages by asking questions and depending on the kind of question I ask I'll either get the diary which is just the facts or the journal which is my feelings about the facts or my feelings about what happened to me just like we were talking about that conversation with the president there are some facts to that but I'm still processing 10 days or 11 days out my responses are feelings to that and sort of savoring and looking at it if I were to journal it a week or two from now it probably have a little different look to it but I think a friend in DC solidified some of this for me he would say to people and he'd meet people around the world they'd come to see him and he would say you know I don't have a lot of money I'm not rich that way but I can share my friends and when people say so what do you do Dick now that you're not running stuff you know or you retired I said I'm not retired but I'm not running stuff and part of that is I say I'm a collector I like to think of myself as a collector a connector and a storyteller and that is I like to collect folks and connect them with each other if I think that it's appropriate and along the way tell stories because stories take facts and put skin on them in a way that we remember right so I think when I think about friendship and Ruth and I wrote this little book a couple of years back called known finding deep friendships in a shallow world one of the things that really came home as we were researching and reading through scripture is Jesus gets to the end of his earthly life it's the night before the cross and he says to his twelve followers by this will all men know that you're my followers if you love each other and I and I choose greater greater love has no one than this then to lay down his life for a spouse doesn't say that or his kids doesn't say that says to lay down his life for his friend I always thought friendship was a diluted form of love according to Jesus it's apparently the highest most impacting form of love and so if we can think more seriously about what friendship looks like that's on the right track in terms of the heart of God so it's a long answer to a simple question so what what are some of the things that you know you're seventy eight seventy eight and one day seventy eight one day yeah half a day what are you looking forward to I I think you know my my father lived to ninety three my mother lived to four weeks past a hundred so I think maybe my genes are pretty good if I don't walk in front of a truck or something for for going a little further right I collapsed on a plane flying from DC to Missouri one day collapsed and the plane landed in Chicago as it was supposed to land and I presented according to a doctor who was on the plane like perhaps a tornado or something really serious turned out to be a gallbladder attack and they put me in Lutheran general for two for two days the next morning the doctor walks in stands at the foot of my bed well that's when I was in DC so my friend was at justice at another friend in the White House the president's doctor is a friend and so both the White House and justice had called the hospital so the guy stands there and says you must be a pretty important person I said no no no but I have important friends and he said well give me your history and I said I got a mom who's ninety three and a dad who's eighty nine said so I got pretty good genes and the guy looked at me and said well maybe they got them all I said well you you got a tremendous bedside manner you know but I think looking forward Ruth and I savor every day part of that's age and part of it is that she collapsed with what they called ventricular tachycardia seven years ago and she survived it and that that particular thing makes us savor every day that's one thing secondly I think the further down the pike you get because I don't have far to go compared to where I've come right you have a perspective on life that we're talking about here that is very different than when I was 40 or even when I was 60 and I think that in and of itself gives us something to think about so we have little times called both and friends where maybe four or five folks come and just hang out for a couple of days and we just talk about whatever we want to talk about talk about family or marriage or vision or leadership or food we talk about food a lot and and I think there's some distillation there I think the the further down the road I get the capacity or the desire to distill into manageable phrases some thoughts really is helpful to me for example when I was first on Capitol Hill I'm a kid from East Oakland I don't know anything about politics I vote but that's it and I'm going to meet my first senator and I'm having I'm winding to God if you will saying what do I say to a senator on and I felt like he said there was this wasn't a voice but I felt like he said both when you speak to the creator of the universe or the king of the universe in the morning it's not so hard to speak to the United States senator in the afternoon just that little that that kind of distillation is something we look forward to Ruth and I are working on a book we don't know if it'll get to the end stage having to do with this idea when Jesus has accept you become like a little child you don't get in you don't get into the kingdom or unless you receive the kingdom like a little child you don't get in and I'm thinking what is he thinking about there besides status in terms of the culture so we're working on that and the chance to keep investing in grandchildren before they get to 18 because even 16 you have a little impact and there's a I think there's a big hole in our culture where grandparents are and if we can do that so those are some of the things so when you hear people talk someone goes oh do you know Mr. Photh I'm like oh yeah we grew up I grew up with his kids we lived on the street and they're like oh he's a relationship guy uh-huh so for guys and gals who are interested and knowing some of the the secret sauce to become in a relationship person what does that look like what are some of the things that you'd encourage them to pursue you know it's what's funny Kirk when I when I hear that these relationship guy I take that as a great honor but I but I like to say well not exactly I said I I like to think I'm a Jesus guy and Jesus is the relationship guy so that's sort of the white angle view of things if they're a person who has some sense for scripture for example let's say they have a faith track that they're running I would encourage them to read the epistle of the letter to Philippi that's a town that's no longer there but it's a church north of Greece and in there the Apostle Paul says this in the first chapter he says and this is my prayer that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so you may be able to discern what is best and be pure and blameless until the day of Christ for me that sort of captures it what does love look like and how does that work let me put it in contemporary terms what would be a movie that I would watch to capture the heart of how relationship works I would say watch the movie that came out in November of 2019 with Tom Hanks it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood yeah Fred Rogers is he's not being deified but he he is certainly an icon for where does relationship start and it starts when you think that that other person that you're talking to has value no matter who they are and he captured it in one question won't you be mine won't you be my neighbor and it was cheesy and he did all the puppets and he did all this stuff and he's curky guy no question about that but he captured that coming out of his own experience as he put it as a fat kid sort of socially awkward so I think first of all it starts with the value question if you think somebody or everybody has value then you'll probably be willing to start a conversation with him yeah you'll probably be willing to to ask some questions that get a conversation going I often say this about prayer which is in in essence talking to God when you say to somebody I'll pray for you what you're saying is because prayer doesn't set a person's value it acknowledges their value I think what you're saying is I think that you are so valuable and your need is so important that when I speak to the creator of the universe this afternoon I'd like to bring your name on that be alright with you yeah and so that's the starting place if I understand that all people bear God's image even if it's corroded crutted over crushed it up hardly imaginable that would be true the second thing would be that if you are authentically curious and you want to know you're not just doing it as a ploy I think that's a big deal yeah what what happens in our cultures especially if you're running in business circles or in other kinds of things let's say I want to get I want to get to know Richard Flores who's filming this but I don't know him but I know you and you know Richard I start building a relationship with you not because I want to know you but because I want to know him well we know all we know how that feels yeah are they using me as a conduit to get to somebody they think is more valuable or more important I think when you stop doing that and say there's value just in that person then it works because that's the right way you know Ruth Ruth says Dick and I have different people groups Dick's people group is like 18 to 35 those are the people he really hums with she says my people group are people under the age of five and it's true you know preschoolers five meet him at the door they'll walk past me like I'm a piece of furniture and go straight to just because she well I don't know if she gives off an electronic force field or a vibe or or the fact that she's willing to land the carpet and do games for two and a half minutes at a click which is their attention span but she thinks they're really valuable it isn't that I don't think they're valuable I just don't know how to engage them the way she does yeah everybody's got their target market that they can speak to yeah so one thing that you slid into the conversation about six or seven minutes ago I wanted your answers was I'm a Jesus guy yeah so what's the difference between being a Jesus guy and just being a Christian these days particularly because we've had 2000 years of Christianity if you say Christian in certain places in the world let's let's say you go to Rwanda which is the place of a genocide in 1993 million people killed in 90 days between a Rwanda and Burundi it's a tribal fight but 80% of the people in those countries were considered Christian well over the years we tend to add stuff to Jesus when you add stuff to Jesus for whatever reasons and I think a lot of times we add stuff to Jesus whether it's structures or theology or whatever we say we do it to try to explain them and I think that's probably the original intent but along the way it gets to be those are the pieces I can control because I can't control Christ the tiger and I can't control Jesus and I just think that's human penchant and so I make a distinction personally between following Jesus who I believe to be the Christ the Messiah the Son of the living God and being just culturally what we call a Christian because there are all kinds of flavors you say you know what kind are you are you like a nominal are you a carnal one are you a born again I mean what are you and I think to be able to focus more on the person himself has helped me over the years and in DC I was there 15 years I don't know that anybody ever wanted to talk to me about Christianity but a lot of people wanted to talk to me about Jesus and I'm not disparaging what's happened in 2000 years of church history I you know there's some tremendous things that have happened I'm just saying that especially in a culture where information is available like that you know I have a thousand voices a day that I could listen to here on the subject that if I can focus on on the person who says I'm the resurrection on the life and I can plow into what does that mean that's big I'll just I'll just wrap this up with this one story one of my favorite stories as I went to play in a golf tournament some years ago it was in southern Virginia and they had a deal where young executives primarily young to middle age would bring their friends and these guys were believers in Jesus these weren't and before each of the three rounds on three consecutive days they would have a 20-minute talk on Jesus well the guys who didn't care about Jesus they'd put up with 20 minutes for around a free golf and so somebody came to me and said would you give that little talk I said on what this is 30 minutes at it they said on the simplicity of Jesus and I'm going whoa okay so I walk into the drink 10th they've got everything from Poland spring water to Johnny Walker red in there and I have this thought this hunch sometimes your hunches turn out to be leading to the spirit I think and and I picked up a Poland spring water in a can and a bottle of Coca-Cola I love Coca-Cola and I just got up and I said you know a lot of images for Jesus in the gospel so that he's a vine he's a shepherd he's the door all of these things and he's water that's one of them and I said water is a very simple formula two parts hydrogen one part oxygen and you know it's a if you don't get this for five days you die it's that kind of thing I said Coca-Cola uses water it could been anything could have been Mountain Dew or whatever but I said Coca-Cola uses water in this formula is unbelievable this is you know H 29 I mean it's got everything from phosphorus to used to have Coca-Cola in it back in the day right and I said you know you can put a nail in this it'll be gone in three days I've gained hundreds of pounds drinking this I and if you drink too much of this it's it's toxic it'll kill you I said no you you water your plants with this you don't water your plants with this you wash your car with this you don't wash your car with it take a bath in this you don't take a bath in this why because this this is a cleansing agent and this just got a lot of gunk when you and then I just said when you add stuff to Jesus you don't make them better you dilute it and sometimes you can even make them toxic and afterwards I had three guys come up who were the visitors they came up said I don't know about that Jesus part but I ain't drink a Coke anymore so for the exclamation point yeah I heard a guy ask another guy about 10 or 11 days ago what do you want to be remembered for I'd like to be remembered as a person who followed Jesus and loved the people around him with all his heart won't you please won't you please please won't you be my neighbor you know it's interesting what reflection does having the chance to look back on moments and things that sort of make us who we are I'd encourage you in these next few weeks as you contemplate a fresh springtime moment that you look back on the year that has been really tainted hammered by difficulties and say what are one or two of the things that I learned in a downtime for so many things that I learned that have helped me I think if we look we'll find a couple of those so until next time this is Dick Foth saying if you have the time and want to slide over to the website known.fm or want to contact us on social media please do so and God bless have a great next couple of weeks you