An Army of Normal Folks - I Buried The Man Who Shot At Me

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

For our “Shop Talk” series, Coach Bill Courtney shares one of the most vulnerable stories of his life.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney. Welcome to an army of normal folks. We are adding to our library and on occasional Fridays and hopefully more often than not, we are going to start doing shop talk. And what shop talk is, is normal takes on hot topics. Not going to have a guest. They're only going to be about 10 minutes long. topics. Not going to have a guest. They're only going to be about 10 minutes long. And hopefully they're food for thought on different things that are going on in society. Maybe even dive into some of these issues our politicians argue of. Or maybe just discussing basic fundamentals and tenets. But we wanted to add to the library, we wanted to give everybody something new and fresh

to think about in addition to our amazing guests. And so welcome to one of one of Shop Talk. And today we're gonna talk about forgiveness in a very personal way, right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Good song. The Johnny Carson theme, right? Hey, who wrote that?

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Brought to you by the Ad Council. Walk a mile in my shoes. For as long as I can remember, Walk a mile in my shoes I'm Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. I'm a cognitive scientist and I've written 10 books and hundreds of articles on topics such as intelligence, creativity, well-being, narcissism, introversion, and education. The Psychology Podcast is a place where we investigate the different ways in which we can unlock human potential. And where I get to interview some of the most extraordinary and fascinating people. And we have real conversations about what it means to achieve success, and what it means to be human. So join me, Scott Barry Colthman, on the Psychology Podcast,

where we investigate the deaths of human potential. Listen to the Psychology Podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back, everybody, to shop talk. Some of you, if you've listened to all the episodes, read my book, heard me in a speech, watched undefeated, any of it. I've probably heard me talk about how fatherlessness really affected my life. My fourth daddy one night after drinking about a half gallon of usher scotch, took out a 38 caliber pistol and shot up her house. And in the middle of it, he shot at me down a hallway.

And if you've ever, hopefully you've never been in the situation to hear a bullet flying by you, but oddly a bullet when it's passing you has an interesting sound It sounds like Like something spinning real fast But you can't hear it if it's close enough and I did. And I remember the hangers and the closet behind me as the bullet passed me, the hangers clanking because the bullet went through the closet door and hit the hangers and they clanked.

I dove out a window, ran to a neighbor called the cops. Cops got there pretty quick. And when they came in, my mom was cowered in a corner in the attic and he was reloading. House was destroyed, bullet holes everywhere. Pretty traumatic stuff. And I was in my late teens at the time and so dad left on his four,

mom was buried and divorced five times. This was daddy number four and it was just one more episode of really dysfunction and trauma that affected me well into life as a husband and a father and it affected the way I interacted with my wife and my kids. But we're talking about forgiveness today and what I've learned about grace is it is so much more important for the figure of her than the forgiven when you hold things that have happened to you or

things that have upset you or wrongs that have been done against you and you covet those and you don't forgive the perpetrator of those actions that hurt you it will eat you up from the inside and With regard to my father With regard to a lot of things that went on my life as a child and with regard to this specific incident That's what was happening to me. I Never could Release myself from the anger, the fear, the trauma and the desperation of

that night. And it affected me. It affected me as a father, affected me as a business owner and a boss. It affected me as a father and husband. It just affected me. And to be perfectly candid, one of the worst days in my family's existence was Father's Day because it brought up,

you know, all of this stuff. And I never understood that it wasn't about me celebrating the minimum of my life who never stepped up and became a father, but the deliciousness of the opportunity I had as a man with my four beautiful children. And, um, I regret that. So one day, um, about 10 years ago I got a phone call and it was from a man who said that

he was in the prayer group in a Sunday school with my mom's ex-husband who shot up the house and that that guy would like to see me and I said okay I don't even know why I said okay maybe more out of curiosity than anything but I did say okay and I expected I was gonna go to a Piccadilly or something, but I was told to go to St. Francis Hospital in the room, and I went. And I found him laying in bed, a shell of his former self, sick, and he told me all that was going on in his life around that time.

He'd lost his job. He'd had a quad around that time. He lost his job. He'd had a quadruple bypass. He'd had cancer. He was 15 years older than my mom and my mom at the time was beautiful and he was still, he was kind of falling apart and he turned to alcohol, to mask his pain and he got drunk run night and let all of the trauma from his

life from a kid and a young adult and into where he was feeling lost and hopeless and like a failure because his body and his health wouldn't let him work anymore And he had the worst night of his life just like I did and He had for 15 years caged with him enormous guilt and had it not been for his Sunday school class and his men's prayer group he doesn't know how he would deal with himself and that he doesn't know how he would deal with himself and that he wanted to see me simply to explain all of that not as an excuse and then to beg me for my forgiveness and he told me that he thought I was an amazing young man I'd

grown into a fantastic father and adult and that he did not want to pass this earth without at least telling me how sorry he was and how important it was that I forgive him and he looked me dead nice and he said and I'm telling you what I've learned the last ten years my life is you need to forgive me not for me but for you. I left the hospital room that night, confused and frustrated, thought about it, talked with Lisa about it, prayed about it. I went back the next day and I, with tears flowing down my face, told him I forgave him.

And that I was sorry his life was where it was and that it was and that That it was over and thanked him for helping me Unload that burden Three days later, I got a call from the same man who asked me to come visit him and Was told he'd passed He had no money, he was destitute, and he grew up in a really small town in Arkansas, and he wanted to be cremated,

and so they had him cremated in these men in the prayer group literally built about a shoebox-sized pine box, and they put his remains in it, and they called me about a week later, and they said they, you know, he didn't have a burial plot or anything, There's remains in it and they called me about a week later and they said they, you know, he hadn't, he didn't have a burial plot or anything, but that they called a man who owned a small cemetery in his home in Arkansas and they were going to go over there and figure

out how to bury him and asked if I wanted to go. And I said, sure. So I met him over there and we met the caretaker of the cemetery. And he showed us a very little plot, literally a three foot by three foot area in the corner by fence. They said, you can have this spot. And the minister group had a very simple seven by nine, not even a headstone, just a piece of granite to lay in the grass that simply said his name, the day was born in the day dot.

And I took a shovel and I dug the hole and I put his remains in the hole and I filled it up and I put the marker on top of it and we said a prayer and we left. the marker on top of it and we said a prayer and we left. So, I literally buried the man with forgiveness and love that tried to shoot me and kill me one night. And the only way I was able to do it was through grace and forgiveness. And I speak about it now,

not with anxiety and anger and frustration, but I speak about that night now actually with humility and thankfulness, because it taught me that no matter what happens in your life, if you can carry grace and forgiveness into situations, you can emerge better from them. And it serves those in your life around you, because after that, I was able to let so much of my fatherlessness issues go and be so much of a better father to my own kids and a better husband to my wife and Really a better person to the people in my orbit because I was no longer carrying all this anger and anxiety in me

That affected the way I interacted with other people who had nothing to do With the people or incidents that affected me in the first place. And then the last thing is a very, very broken man who did a very, very, very bad thing was able to pass with forgiveness and grace in his heart because he reached out to me to ask my forgiveness. So as you think about the story, I hope you'll think about the things that you're harboring inside your life. And I hope you'll think about those who've wronged you and look yourself in the mirror

and ask yourself, have I forgiven? Is it a burden to me? Am I allowing something that's happened in my past to affect my relationships with people that have nothing to do with it? Have I understood grace and forgiveness? I challenge you to think about that because it will make you better and it will make those around you feel better and it will unburden you with things that cause you and those in your life issues. So that's one of one of Shop Talk. Think about forgiveness this weekend. We'll see you next week.

What if I told you fairy tales had a darker side? He locked her in this dungeon. He ordered her to do this impossible thing, he threatened to kill her multiple times. That's one where Red and Grandma are just dead. She takes the frog and with all her might, throws him against the wall. Join me, Miranda Hawkins, as we step into the twisted world of the Brothers Grimm. Listen to the Deep Dark Woods on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. History is beautiful, brutal, and often ridiculous. Join me, Ben Bullen and me, Noel Brown,

as we dive into some of the strangest stories from across the span of human civilization. In Ridiculous History. Join us to hear the many ways history can be oh so ridiculous. Listen to Ridiculous History on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. 47 years ago, on a warm summer's night in Melbourne, Susan Bartlett and Suzanne Armstrong were stabbed to death in their home in Easy Street, Collingwood. Suzanne's 16-month-old son was asleep in his cot at the time.

The double homicide left the community shocked, no one has ever been charged, and critical questions remain unanswered. Listen to Case Far Presents, the Easy Street Murders, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.