Open Mic： Untold Catholic Story, Ted's Pilgrimage, The Horse, Sacred Retcons (QlQw6NzSHE0)

https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=QlQw6NzSHE0

Good evening brothers and sisters. Welcome to the basement of somebody else’s house. This is another priest’s house in a little town in North Dakota. We’re going to be spending the day together tomorrow. Day off, catching up, little fraternity, good stuff. So I’m coming to you with only one screen tonight and we will manage to make it through. The banner tonight is the untold story of American Catholicism. And I don’t think it’s generally untold. I think if you’ve spent long enough listening to me ramble on the internet, you might have heard bits and pieces of it. And I still feel like it needs to be told again because it’s not very well known what is this untold story of American Catholicism. Now if you go back to the 1980s and the 1990s, you find a very peculiar thing could happen. This is a story where I don’t have first hand but I do have second hand knowledge of this. You might have a perfectly fine young man in the seminary and he happens to have a devotion to the rosary. Now if you know anything about Catholicism, you know rosary is one of the most venerable popular piety prayers that we have. It’s not liturgical but it certainly has a very deep place in the Catholic consciousness. It’s about a thousand years old at this point and yeah, millions of Catholics pray it even daily. So you would think, wow, this guy, he likes the rosary. He’s probably a pretty pious candidate. But in those days, men who appreciated the rosary, who prayed the rosary in the 80s and the 90s in the seminary, they might get kicked out for that. You might find that to be a rather odd or surprising thing. Why would you get kicked out of seminary for praying, especially a prayer with such a long history, but that sort of thing did happen. People who would have affirmed the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist under the appearances of bread and wine, Jesus is truly present, body, blood, soul and divinity, which can be best described by the doctrine of transubstantiation. You might think that that’s bread and butter Catholicism, that that theory of transubstantiation as articulated by Thomas Aquinas would be the sort of thing that you are supposed to learn and understand while you are in seminary. But there’s one somewhat famous Catholic priest who got kicked out of seminary in the 1980s and had to go find a new bishop and a new seminary in order to be ordained because of an argument that he had with his professor over transubstantiation. So this is the status of most, not all, but most American seminaries through the 80s and the 90s, that people with a sense that Vatican II had created a new church, that everything that had come before Vatican II was now suspect and everything that had come after was good. Those were the ones who were running the seminaries. Those were the ones who were in charge of who gets in to the priesthood and who is left out of the priesthood. That all in various institutions began to change through the course of the 1990s, that there was new leadership coming into the seminaries. There was a concerted effort by people who were bishops and priests who were concerned about this, about the formation that the men were receiving, that they went and took on these what I would call corrupted and decadent institutions. It wasn’t only a matter of theology, but there was quite a bit of moral problems in many of these seminaries. If you were towing the line with whatever you were supposed to be saying, if you were quoting the right theologians, then you could get away with quite a lot of bad behavior, including same-sex behavior in a seminary. That was something that was not being policed. In fact, I again have this, not firsthand myself seeing it, but from reliable testimony that there were men who got kicked out of seminary for reporting that sort of thing. They saw something and they went and talked to the rector about it, and then the rector of the seminary decided that they needed to go because of their psychological rigidity. Yes, how about that? There was this concerted effort to take these seminaries back. I think a very hidden effort that this would not have been something that was manifest to the world, that this would have been a quiet battle to take back these certain institutions. From my own perspective, I got to go through of these institutions after that battle had been won. The seminary in Detroit, that turnaround process began in the early 90s with Archbishop John Neinsted, who unfortunately did not come to a good end. He did engage in what appears, as far as I could tell, to be a cover-up in about 2010, and he was removed from the Archdiocese of St. Paul, Minneapolis in 2015. He began that process in Detroit, so he’s got kind of this mixed reputation. He did a good thing that I’m happy about, and he did this other thing that’s like, well, that’s not good. St. Paul’s Seminary, beginning in the early 2000s. The status of St. Paul’s Seminary was so bad in the 1990s that my bishop in the Diocese of Fargo, he was on the board of St. Paul’s Seminary, and he would not send any of his men there. So, yeah, that’s a very interesting thing. Now, why am I talking about this all of a sudden? Well, on Monday, I was at the Canon Law Society of America convention, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I was at this convention this week. And the keynote address on Monday, they had this sociologist who was presenting on a survey of priests. I think it was conducted in 2021 or 2022. I actually participated in this survey. My bishop recommended it. So, this survey and some of the data on that, and there was this slide, there’s one of these slides on his data points that really stunned me. It broke down ordination cohorts, so by what year you were ordained in, and your self-identification theologically. How would I describe my own theology? As you go forward from about 1975, you see a dramatic shift in the theological self-description of priests by year of ordination. In 1975, a pretty sizable majority, probably a supermajority, would have described themselves as progressive or very progressive. By the time you get to 2022, you get to a majority of priests ordained in 2022, describing themselves as conservative or very conservative. And that right there, that right there is the fruit of this untold story of American Catholicism. And I was going to show you this slide because I have access to all of the slides in the convention. And I went looking for it and I was just getting frustrated and puzzled. I remember the slide. It’s like burned into my memory. I had kind of known this, but seeing the data put out there in a visual format was very striking. But as you can see here, maybe you can’t see it, generational dynamics. This is where I was expecting to find the slide. And underneath that, we’ve got this very small text that says, data embargoed until November of 2023. Oh, isn’t that interesting. What happens in November of 2023 is the annual United States Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting. And looks like they’re going to wait to get their eyes on that data themselves before they’re going to release that to the general public. So anyway, that in my mind is the untold story of American Catholicism, of the retaking of the seminaries by people who I think are more supposed to be responsible and the effect that that is having on generations of priests now in ministry and the rollout effect that that’s going to have across Catholicism in the United States for decades to come. And nobody’s telling that story except for me. But the good news is, is that you’re not stuck with just me anymore. We’ve got Jacob, Andrew and Valerie. How are you all doing? Hi, how are you doing? Doing all right. Jacob and Andrew, are you guys behaving yourselves? We went to the gym. Yes, nice. And so now you’ve got to feed Andrew because he’s hungry. Yep. All righty. He’s probably already hungry. I remember being in college. He’s 20. He’s always hungry. Yeah. Oh, hey, man. Just just work it while you got it. He’s six foot four and 20 years old. Oh, OK. Well, he can he can he can eat a lot then. Yeah. He doesn’t look six foot four on the camera right now. Just the way just like he’s leaning down. He’s like, is he condescending to you then? I guess. I guess. Yeah. But this is a really interesting story you’re telling about about taking this. Yeah. I mean, it’s like it’s actually kind of like Andrew Breitbart talks about like, you know, what’s downstream of what? And you have to you have to capture the high ground and and that really affects what else happens. So, yeah. It’s you know, there’s something to be said about the middle, right? Because this was an observation I made to one of my colleagues at the convention is that you had a fair number of guys who wanted to just be middle of the road, right? They just want to be good priests. They just want to run the program that they’re given. And I’m pretty day gone sure that since 1975, the road, what counts as the middle of the road has now changed a lot. Yes. You know, the priest that I’m staying with, he’s a good man and he just wants to be a middle of the road priest, right? He has a whole lot of big ideas. He’s come into a small town in North Dakota. He’s just going to take care of the people here. But like the program that he’s given is very different than what they were getting in 75, 85, 95. I mean, that’s part of what the postmodernist idea, I think, really starting with with Bernays in the 1920s, he recognized that there was this idea of, oh, some people just want to be in the middle. And if you want to move society, instead of staying within the discourse, you can kind of move the edges, which also moves the discussion. And that’s how they made a lot of advances. And I think that’s what we kind of have to undo is you can’t have dishonest bargaining positions. Like you can’t have an honest discussion with somebody who’s taking bargaining positions. You know what I mean? Right. And you’re approaching it like, hey, we’ve got ideas. Let’s just play around with these ideas. And the other party’s like, I want something. And I’m approaching this like a business negotiation. Yeah. Like, yeah, like I’m so when you’re trying to decide, OK, what are we going to do if I actually tell you, OK, this is what I think we should do. And the other person has an idea. We should do something else. And they think, oh, if I give an opening shot, right. So, for example, let’s talk about, I mean, I guess you could talk about like gay marriage or whatever. Right. So, like, if I’m like, no gay marriage and the other person’s like civil union, but if they push it beyond and they’re like, hey, gay marriage, then maybe the middle of the workers are like, hey, let’s take a middle position. Right. And like the middle position, like if you keep on pushing that out, I actually think that’s what happened with Trump. Trump is was like the guy that was like he was the bargainer. You know? So the populist, so he wasn’t a true conservative. He wasn’t a true conservative at all. But I think he he did a lot of opening shots. Right. He did a lot of things like he was he was trying to get somewhere and he would like his wall. Right. I don’t think I don’t think he actually wanted a big, beautiful wall across. You know, I think he wanted some fencing. And he figured if I talk about a big, beautiful wall, then maybe I’ll get some fencing, which he did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bargaining, bargaining. And yeah, it’s a it’s a problem if you go to a business negotiation just to discuss ideas with interesting people like you’re going to. You’re not going to have a good time. Yeah. Because they’re there, you know, they’re they’re coming in there. They got their elbows greased and they’re ready to start hitting people. And you’re just going to get pushed around like that. Yeah. But the thing about the Catholic Church is we’ve got this monarchical structure and, you know, the bishop can send in a new rector. And if he sends in the right guy, should be a general. Right. And not an intellectual. Then the general can go in there. And, you know, in the space of about two years, they could have 95 percent staff turnover at the seminary, which is what happened at St. Paul’s Seminary, because they said, right guy in there and he just. I’m happy to see it. I was actually so I was talking with John Van Donk and his what his daughter works at a Catholic charity. OK. I also I’ve been volunteering, I told you, at a at a Catholic domestic violence shelter. And so, like, I think what’s missing is is leadership. But by like, there’s supposedly a priest, but for the shelter, he comes on on Easter and Christmas. That’s it. Yeah. OK. Twice a year. Yeah. And I think that’s the thing about the church. Twice a year. Yep. He doesn’t really have any say in what goes on there. And I just the people in the shelter, they need they need like this shelter used to be run by 200 nuns. Zero nuns left. Zero nuns left. Maybe I should. Yeah, I think you’re a little too tall. To become a nun. Yeah, too tall to be a nun. Six feet to the max. So so do you know the Sisters of the Good Shepherd? I do not. So they’re the ones who were known as the Magdalens. OK. And the Magdalen laundry laundries. And Trey, you’re in Puerto Rico. What are you doing? You’re in Puerto Rico. Go be in Puerto Rico. Reception girls. I you know why I’m here. I’m waiting before our meeting that I am so hopeful for our foundation. Found of comfort that we’re working on together. You know, we have a meeting in 40 minutes. Yes. So yeah, he’s see he’s such a good man. He’s he’s in Puerto Rico, but he’s still early. 40 minutes early for a meeting as opposed to finding some girls to talk to. There’s a priest in the room. Come on. I encourage talking to girls. Thank you. Fine. Yeah, I would be doing it if I wasn’t a priest. Thank you, Father Eric. Thank you. Oh, man. Adam. Adam from Ireland. Yeah, you’re telling me all about this young lady that he’s meeting and all that. And I was like, two thumbs up, Adam. Get her done. Get her done. Get her done. Yep. Get married. Have lots of kids. That’s right. That’s the Catholic way in life. That’s the Catholic way in life. You know, cheaper by the dozen. So the the nuns. Yeah, like they’ll trying to get I mean, so for example, there was this one time this family that just moved in, lots of kids, a single mother, she fainted and had to go to the hospital. And like, we have to take care of the kids as the staff. And like, all the staff wants to leave at 5pm because as opposed to when there used to be 200 nuns, guess what? Yep. And they just, you know, this is life. Yeah, the nuns did not go home. They lived there. Yeah, man. That’s another I mean, that’s another untold story. It’s just the absolute collapse of women’s religious orders, you know, just I mean, like the chart in about 1970, it just goes straight down. Well, they threw those Sisters of the Good Shepherd under the bus. They really did. Yeah. Especially in Ireland, they completely threw them under the bus. Like the Catholic Church has been apologizing in ways that I think is just way too much. It’s nice to be like apologizing for any mistake you ever made. But at the same time, you can’t you can’t not defend thousands and thousands of nuns who did a lot of hard and good work despite any like problems that they were. So they were very strict. Guess what? Irish Catholic women are strict. They just kind of like that. Yeah. I think that the nuns were less strict than if they had none, not none people doing the same work. So like, I don’t like the fact they threw the nuns under the bus. I don’t. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not good tactics to apologize to people who have no intention of forgiving you. Never apologize to someone who will not forgive you and never apologize to someone for wrongs that were not done to them. Oh, yeah. I will not apologize to you for a wrong I did to somebody else. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Correct. Correct. I just never thought about it. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I don’t think a whole lot of that stuff would have come out until the 90s or the early 2000s, though. And the problem was there already. It’s like, and a lot of these communities, they got rid of the habit. Like they just changed everything overnight. We’re not going to wear our habits. We’re not going to pray and live in community anymore. We’re going to start being career women or something. I don’t know. But it’s just like, that’s not how this works. And it’s not going to work if you try and work it like that. So, so, yeah, that’s another just a precipitous decline. The only women’s religious orders that are having any vocations nowadays are the ones that wear the habit, live in community, pray in community and do their mission. So like religious, religious communities, actually religious. Yes. Yes. Instead of just being, you know, some single woman who I have to call sister for some reason. Show me. Show me. I could be in my, you know, sweatpants right now. I got my collar on because you need to. Mark Lefebvre was here. He’d be very proud of the signals I’m sending into the world. I very much approve of you wearing your collar, Father Eric. I bought two collared shirts. Unfortunately, his wife gave me the wrong size. Yes. Sad when it happens. I’ve I ordered some Italian clerical shirts like a like a year back and I’m scared to open them because they came in the mail and I didn’t try them on. So it’s like, I sure hope that was the right size. See, I told you he would approve of that. I got I got the size his wife gave. I considered buying a size larger just in case, but I didn’t know if collared shirts already kind of come a little bit oversized because they’re so stuffy. Yeah. Yeah. It depends on the style, too. Did you just get him with the little plastic tab that you stuff in there? So I got him two of them. One of them was black with an actual collar and long sleeve. And if I remember correctly, the other one was light blue, like it was a Protestant one with a tab and short sleeves. So Protestant and global South Catholicism. When you get to a really hot place, they stop wearing the black. It’s a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So how do we fix this problem with Catholic charities not having enough nuns and priests? Well, that’s a 2.0 Catholicism 2.0. I I’m going to have to see what’s in the update before I install it. You know, sometimes it’s like Vatican, too, but better. It’s like Vatican, too. Real Vatican, too. Yes. Contention that real Vatican, too, has never been tried. Actually, actually, it has. It has. The best place that Vatican, too, was a body was in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. I needed that. And it’s it’s I’m not going to sit here and say it’s perfect because it ain’t. And we shouldn’t expect that kind of perfection. But it’s pretty day gone good the way it works. If if if if we decide that we’re going to work it. It’s one of those things where it’s like, yeah, you can have the best code of Canon law in the world, but if these hosers aren’t applying it, then doesn’t do you any good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, it’s. You know, I just the solution to the vocations crisis is just bread and butter Catholicism as far as I’m concerned. Say the Mass well, preach the gospel. Don’t be afraid. Do you Eucharistic piety? Encourage people to pray the rosary Bible studies. Bible studies are fine. They’re a little new, but I think they’re working so well. It encouraged people to have kids because that kids there will be one to take a hit for the for the team. Yeah. Take a hit for the team. You know where I heard I heard that first. Supreme Court Justice Scalia. Yeah. About his son. About his son. His son is a priest. So he he he he talks about he was talking about it. He’s like, yeah, I fielded my own baseball team and one of my sons took a hit for the team. He became a he became a Catholic priest. Yeah, he’s a he’s a funny guy. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, one thing that I’m starting to come to a greater and greater realization is is that, you know, the Catholic Church just needs to really lean in into the whole all male clergy thing. That is that is just like a foothold of and I’m going to say this. I’ve said it on BOM. It’s a foothold of anti feminism that’s actually really good. And praise God that we’ve managed to hold on to it. Even like Pope Francis has just shot it down every time it’s come up. He calls it female machismo. Good. And only he could get away with that. Right. I go around talking like that. I’m going to get crucified. But but yeah, you know, I just just noticed, you know, letting men be men and women be women is actually something we got to do. We just got to encourage. You’re always going to have that 10 percent that doesn’t quite fit in. That’s just how the world works. Yeah. There’s some trades in the world. Trace just grinning because he doesn’t want to say anything. Oh, OK. Or am I taking Trey off or am I making him happy? All right. He just you know what? You know what? If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. That’s you know. You are a father, so I respect you. Orthodox Judaism has had a few outbreaks of people trying to God have mercy on our souls, create female rabbis and thank God nothing. Nothing has been egregiously like we’ve we’ve always had female teachers. I bring up the case of Nehama Lebowitz. She was a traditional Bible teacher and she for the entire entirety of her entire life, everybody called her Maura, which means teacher. And that’s what everybody’s always called their kindergarten teacher from the very beginning. And she taught she taught to not Hebrew Bible to literally hundreds of thousands of people because she had a radio show in Israel and she used to ask the she used to have these cards where she would ask questions and distribute these cards and people would mail their answers into her and she would respond to them and like thousands of people used to mail these cards in every week. Right? Wow. Yeah. And she’s she’s known as one of the great even in ultra Orthodox Judaism. She like in Hasidic circles, she was very well respected, but she never went around calling herself a rabbi. She never had was in a position of authority over anyone. She was just a great teacher. And so that model of a great female teacher. Sure. Why not? But what all of Orthodox Judaism has been adamant about is a woman cannot be put in a place of authority over men. And even the Orthodox Union, which is the broadest like mainline Orthodox, they came out with a response on a couple of years ago where they were very, very clear. No, this is not going to happen. Forget it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think selling people, you know, it’s like a lot of this stuff tends to come out as like a career woman, you know, and it’s almost like people are looking at careers as if that’s supposed to be, you know, something that should be accessible to everybody and is going to be a place where you’re going to find a great deal of meaning and such. And most people’s careers are really dumb that they go, they slave away at their jobs and hopefully they’re doing something productive that’s making things better, but not worse. The main reason they’re there is to get their pay. Maybe they have a few good times along the way, but it’s like all of these careers are like a vanishingly tiny percentage of anybody’s career ever was like super interesting and fulfilling. Everybody else were just kind of we’re just kind of hacking away at it. So our favorite Native American law professor from Harvard, Elizabeth Warren, wrote a book, The Two Income Trap with her daughter, where she explains how economically this idea of women working while it pushes up the numbers in terms of economic, like how you measure economics, it’s actually made families poorer. Yeah. And that’s why, why is Elizabeth Warren a politician? Like she’s not even good at lying. Like some of these guys, like I won’t name names just because that’s a little uncouth, but some of these guys, I know they’re lying through their teeth, but I just want to believe that because they just seem like such a nice guy. I’d love to sit down and have a beer with them, right? But Elizabeth Warren doesn’t have that energy at all. It’s just like, you know you’re spewing nonsense right now. You’re too smart for that. It’s sad and kind of pathetic. So the sad thing is in Israel with the religious parties, so there are religious parties which are, they have a rabbinic council which leads them, and then they have people who sit for elections, stand for elections, right? And because in the religious community, everybody expects them to be the least honorable, worst people in the world. Like the politicians for the religious parties, none of them are well respected people. But you don’t need it. You don’t need it. You just need to get me results. Look at evangelical Christian and I’ll say conservative American Catholic support for Donald John Trump, right? It’s like, you know, we were hacking away at Bill Clinton in the 90s for immorality, but you know, if the guy works for us, that’s how people are. That’s the way it works. But these members of Knesset, these parliament members for the religious parties, a large percentage of them have ended up in jail. And Dante put a lot of his fellow Florentinians in hell, you know, and we’re just realistic about how this works. She never worked for anyone but banks and insurance companies her whole career, often against individuals. Worst person, always protecting banks. It’s truly terrible. Yeah, probably. Now we’re getting too political here. It should be a happy place where we don’t have to think about that kind of stuff. Anyway, what’s the weather like in Los Angeles? Is it 70 degrees and beautiful still? Yeah, the weather is, especially where I live, like the weather is always nice. Like I live four miles from the beach. And so like, yeah, it doesn’t, it never gets bad. Preach it, Laura. Laura should jump on. She should. She’s a free and independent woman, though. She can choose not to. She might have good reasons not to. She has a family. She has a husband. She has kids. Yeah. She’s got a video hidden behind PVK’s paywall. You know, PVK is trying to get me to send money to YouTube. I have sent money to churches. I will not send money to you. Yeah, I’m just going to have to sit here in ignorance about how women set the rules for their community. I have lines I will not cross. I will not give money to YouTube, besides what I already giving way too much money. Like with premium, do you pay for premium or do you just… I don’t pay for premium. He kept on telling me you should put on, you should put an ad blocker on. I don’t think that’s, I don’t think that’s ethical. Inflectual property doesn’t exist. That’s not true. That’s not true. No, no. Look, if you don’t want to use… Oh, it’s in my mind, so I own it. Like what? What? Father Eric, is it ethical to use an ad blocker on YouTube? If you don’t want to use the service, don’t use the service. But like you’re using the service despite their terms, like obviously what they’re trying… And you’re confounding the way they make their money. I don’t think it’s ethical. Yeah, that’s, I don’t know. Is it ethical to go use the bathroom when the commercials are on TV? Or is it ethical to turn the radio… But yeah, you bypass it. No, but you’re bypassing what they’re… Yeah. Their actual rules. Yeah. Same thing with the going through the actual using commercials. No. Like… Oh, you mean like the terms of service that I’m going to scroll through and like nobody… Nobody who you use to click a box. It’s their business model. No. They know you go to the bathroom. They know you click through. They know. But like using an actual ad blocker, I don’t see how that’s ethical. Ad block doesn’t work on mobile. That’s why I brought… I want to address Mr. Frond with here. He says advertising is unethical. Sometimes I think, but if nobody knows that you have goods and services to trade, then you’re kind of hosed. So you have to somehow tell people. Are you leaving trade? No, I have a Catholic question. Well, good. Ted’s here to answer it for you. Whoa. Father Enk, that might have been the most anti-clerical thing I’ve ever heard you say. So when I’m in Puerto Rico right now, I’ve been noticing a big shift for mainstream evangelicalism with like… I was walking down the street and there was like evangelical pop-ups as well as like walking around. I heard more pretty much like prosperity gospel, I guess, coming from like people’s radios and everything like that. And I guess the question is, I’ve been hearing that like, I guess the Latino community is moving away from Catholicism to evangelicalism. Is that true? Have you seen that in your guys’ experience or is that made up? Yep. Yep. That’s pretty dig on true. So this kind of relates to some of the stuff we were talking about at the beginning and I’ll say that we’ll say… So there was this big movement in the 1960s and 70s, especially in Latin American countries, which is called liberation theology. It’s a big thing. It’s kind of mixed up with a whole lot of other things. So it could be a little bit hard to suss out sometimes. But the basic point was that, you know, Jesus wants to liberate people and he wants to liberate people entirely. He doesn’t want to just like liberate their souls as if those were somehow separate from the rest of their lives. And so when you are experiencing inequality, Jesus wants to liberate you from that too. And these people who are oppressing you, they’re not good because they’re oppressing you. And so Jesus is on your side against them. And so if you’ve got a discerning eye, you may hear, oh boy, that sounds an awful lot like Marxism. And that was the response of the Vatican as well under the leadership of Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Benedict the Sixth. He was like, ah, that sounds like you’re just practicing Marxism with Catholic flavoring on top. But a lot of the clergy bought into that. And people don’t want politics in church, right? What they want is the gospel. And so these evangelicals, they came in, they saw an opportunity, they started preaching something. I guess it’s moving more in a prosperity direction. But that sounds a little more gospel-y than all this liberation theology mumbo jumbo. So basically, my condemnation is that the priests stopped doing their job, stopped preaching the gospel, started preaching politics. And well, what do you expect is going to happen? Do you want to keep people around for that? It’s utterly uninspiring. Can I ask about an alternative theory? Actually, you go, Ted. Oh, okay. I was just going to say, yes. Are you in Puerto? I don’t know if you said you’re in Puerto Rico right now. Is that, or you’ve been in Puerto Rico? Yeah. So I lived in Peru for two years on and off, about a half a decade ago. And William Branch is dead on. I mean, you saw this like whole, just like so it’s, they called it Pinto Costa Lite. It was like Pentecostalism. Evangelicalism, sort of like you port in like the Hillsong and the Hillsong and the Bethel music, and then you get Flane and the Spirit. And so that was one part of it. And they’re all like, you know, they’re setting up these little churches and like storefronts and that they’ve rented out of malls. And that was one part. And then the Seventh-day Adventists and the Mormons were just like, and the JWs just everywhere. And it’s a sort of like, hey, you’ve got a really chaotic society. Why don’t you come over here where things are like orderly and we have a nice website and the grounds are swept. So saw a lot of that too. Yeah. So I was just going to say, like my experience in Peru was like dead on with that. Okay. Well, I’m not dissatisfied with that. I’m not dissatisfied with that. Okay. Well, I’m not disagreeing with the liberation deal at this point, but I guess my question is evangelicalism just seems like a closer idea towards atheism. Pretty much, if I’m being honest, or at least secularity, at least we’re going to devalue it is like it is flattening things out. I will say that like closer. You’re the closer your worship looks to normal society, meaning you’re going to be able to The closer your worship looks to normal society, meaning that’s what it’s going to become. I think. And do you like, do you think that it’s more from liberation theology or do you think it’s just like, I mean, probably you probably actually need a multifactor analysis to really get at it. And I don’t have all of that. Theology is what I know. So that’s the first thing I go for. And I know some people were disgusted with all the politics coming into the church, but there’s probably a multitude of reasons. It’s I heard this really funny story once where these guys wanted to get out of the cartels. They’ve been baptized Catholic, right? Because lots of people just kind of baptized Catholic day, but they want to get out of the cartels. So thank God, you know, for that. But they couldn’t start going to the Catholic Church. Like that wasn’t enough. They had to start going to the evangelical church and like the cartels understand if you get religion and you bail, then as long as you don’t start narkin, we’ll let you go. This is just a story I heard. So I don’t know how true it is. But like the evangelical churches, like that was like, oh boy, that guy’s got religion. But the Catholic Church didn’t have that valence to it. This person’s getting religion. So I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of that. Well, I have some theories. Okay. Go for it, Trey. So, you know, I think there was one point when we look in the Hebrew Bible, basically distinguishing like different gods. The gods are what they can do for you. The gods are what they service to you. And I think that there’s a big importance, at least like, Catholicism isn’t going to change for you. That’s the correct statement, right? Is it going to change for you individually? Yeah. Yeah, no, it really shouldn’t. It definitely will kind of shift a little bit over time because it is a living body, I think. But no, not for you. Right. And I think that like, are there prosperity gospel Catholics? That seems like a contradiction. I bet you if you went into a Catholic church and talked to people, you could find some who would articulate prosperity gospels. But I wouldn’t have never heard a Catholic preacher do that. It’s just like, right. Okay. We’ve got the big crucifix up front. Like that cures you of that. Right. So I would say that evangelicalism, at the very least, like, I can’t really think of a prosperity gospel person who is not an evangelical. Like, it is just a pop of my mind, you know, or at least some non-denominational thing. And it seems like what’s going on now is we’re sort of, you know, we’re sort of in the middle of a competition of what the gods are going to do to you. Like, if you go to an evangelical church, you can be like, yeah, I want a different coffee. Yeah, I don’t like this worship leader. Yes, I want different lights. You go to the Catholic church, they’re going to be like, no, God doesn’t care. Like, get on with it. He kind of cares, but he’s not just going to do what you want. Well, because the thing is that God loves you too much. And you know, I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s a good thing. I mean, like, I don’t know. Because I mean, one of the ways that you can read the say the Divine Comedy, because I can’t be anywhere for more than 10 minutes without bringing up the Divine Comedy apparently, is to see it as everyone gets what they ask for. So the question is not are you going to get what you ask for, but are you asking for the right thing? And like, we’re talking about there is what I call the magical mindset. The fundamental valence that a person has towards reality is am I going to conform to what exists, or am I going to try to bend reality towards my desires? Now, there’s like, there’s levels to that, obviously, because like, we make houses, we try to order things. But the higher up you go, the more that you’re trying to bend reality towards your desires. And so, I think that’s a good thing. And so, when I look at the prosperity gospel, I would actually call that magic and not religion in the way that I think about things. Because it’s about if you do these things, you will be guaranteed these results. So magic is about producing certain results, religious results, and then you’re going to be able to do something else. And so, I think that’s a good thing. And so, I think that’s a good thing. And so, when you do these things, you will be guaranteed these results. So magic is about producing certain results. Religion is about the transformation of the self towards some final T-Los. Right. I’m getting a nod from Jacob. There are people who see God as a divine, as a big vending machine in the sky. You put in the right coins, and you get what you order. And if that’s your view of God, then you view God as your servant. Yeah. Well, that’s not how the Israelites… I mean, when they were talking about Baal, they didn’t really say, like, this is magic. They believed it to be religion in some context. And it seems like it would be more closer to Elijah and, like, I forgot, the Baal worshippers. Right. They’re both basically trying to see what their God could do. Yeah. No, I get what you’re saying. So that’s why I’m saying it’s a mindset. Right. Because going to the evangelical service isn’t magic. I don’t know how much actual, like, when I say actual, I mean effective magic there is in realities that are currently constituted. But, like, most of the definitions you would use to define magic, say, in the Renaissance, would cover things like the sort of technology we’re doing now. And so when I look at the way that we treat religion, it totally makes sense to me that we think, oh, yeah, God’s probably like that too. Right. It’s… One way to put it is to take reality from an end to a means. It’s the movement from ends to means. And so I get what you’re saying. But again, I think… So like the weird caveat to this is that it’s like, but God still does things for you. But you just like you have to learn to want the kinds of things God does for you. Right. So it’s not that he doesn’t do good things for you. It’s just that like our tastes are bad. He answers prayers according to his own will. Yeah. Yeah. Techno sorcery. Right. Well, that’s what I’m talking about. Techno sorcery. And I want to specifically highlight the role of music because I think Sam Adams has pointed to that well. It’s like how important the music is to that Sunday morning experience that you’ve got. And I tell you what, I’ve been hit by it. Like, I’m not even a praise and worship fan, but I’ve been like, you know, made to go to these things sometimes out of obedience. And it’s like, you know, you just get that four on the floor. You get that really Dionysian and bit where you just kind of getting lulled into a trance there and everything starts getting louder and everybody starts shouting. Everybody’s slaying together. And all of a sudden, you know, you thought you were rational, but you’re not actually rational because you’re crying now. Why are you crying? And you’re vowing to God that you’re going to be better. It’s just right. But like I would say a death scripts concert is going to be better than that. Like I’m going to have more emotions. And I think that there was man, have you been to one of these mega churches? They get you. Yeah, but they don’t have much bits and much bits. That’d be an upgrade. But my point is, is only a young man would say that. And I’m not I don’t mean that as an insult. No, no. But my point is, I think someone said that like it was a dumb comment, but it kind of hit me in a big way where someone was like, I stopped going to church because I realized I got a better experience at a rock concert. I got the same sort of emotions. And I think that at the very least, what you’re trying to do is like, look at this care. Look at this care. Free rock concert, free rock concert. And then when somebody gets it for like less work, it’s a good trade. Yeah, that’s the way you want to handle things. Then go for it. You know, can we talk about this comment? Because this is one that this is like there have been three or four times where this is like passed in front of my, you know, and I’ve never had a chance to respond to something like this. So going to mass to mechanically receive Grace’s magic. No, I don’t say that only it’s only true if you think that grace receiving grace is receiving what you want. Like this is my point. Receiving grace is not receiving what you want. Grace is what you need. Like most we like of ourselves actually don’t usually want what grace would do to us. Right. Like I think of St. Augustine’s prayer, Lord, may we change just not today. Right. It’s like we don’t we don’t usually you have to learn to want the things that grace gives you. And so they this is actually again the absolute not magic. What what’s promised by going to mass is the capacity to be transformed into likeness of Christ, not to be given the capacity to transform reality to your desire. Right. And I think you’ve read Flannery O’Connor, right? Once or twice, maybe a little bit. I think you’ve read Flannery O’Connor, you know, mid century American Catholic author, and her main theme was the grace of God manifesting in grotesque and extreme situations. And so it’s like you read these stories, you’re like, oh my gosh, like, this is just the most violent and wicked and strange stuff I’ve ever read in my life, you know, like, how did this, you know, tiny sick Catholic girl in the South write this, you know, but she was she was really just wrestling the idea is like, you know, we got this, you know, southern Gothic literary stream. How does the grace of God manifest in that? Yeah. And it’s like being killed by bulls and getting weird tattoos on your back and like grandma takes three shots in the chest. Yeah, grandma takes three shots in the chest or you have some vision of of heaven in a transfigured hog barn. Some guy runs off with your fake leg, you know, it’s just the most wild. It’s it’s the grace of God in these things. So Flannery O’Connor. Yeah. And so basically, and it’s like, it’s like none of the people in the stories either are asking for any grace whatsoever. But it shows up whether you want it or not. That’s what the grace of God is like. Yeah. If you’re if you’re a believer and you start getting that cross on your back, like you want to do is be like, why did you do this to me, God? I could I could have things way easier right now if I wasn’t your disciple. Take the expedient little shortcut, not have this problem anymore. And literally the only reason I’m dragging this daggone thing around is because of personal loyalty to you. That’s what grace is like. So I mean, I believe it’s a good feeling on a Sunday morning. I believe this is trying to and I would say failing, defend Protestant ideas of like it’s a faith not works righteousness, stuff like that. Look, there’s a reason why I don’t think any other religion like I don’t think I I I know Jewish people are not going to be able to do that. There’s a reason why I don’t think any other religion like I don’t think I I I know Judaism, I know Islam doesn’t have this idea that the way you prove you have faith in God is by not actually doing any of the things that he commands and not hoping to like you turn towards God. You turn you and you have you are given a capacity by God. Deuteronomy 30 to turn towards God. And it’s a process of sanctification. It is not something it the fact that you can turn towards God. The fact that you even exist comes from God. So it’s not a denial of the sovereignty of God. It is an affirmation of the desire of God that he wants us to desire him. And so there’s yes, there is an awakening and arousal from below, which which elicits an arousal of God’s kindness and goodness towards us. That’s there’s nothing wrong with that. And there’s nothing wrong with you initiating it with you wanting to be closer to God. That’s there’s a lot right with that. And so anytime I hear people like making this works righteousness argument, it just it just seems very perverse to me. And with that, we kind of have to go because we have a meeting where we’re going to hopefully do works righteousness. We have a charity where we’re going to do good things because that’s what God wants. Very good. Are you going to continue broadcasting on this channel or about to remove that? So, OK, I’m going to post. I’m going to post the link to this video for those who would want to continue to stay. It should be in the chat right now. You should be able to see it hopefully at all destinations. I’m not sure I can post that to yours. Not Twitter. You should be able to see it on on on my on my YouTube. So let me let me just redo it just in case. Yeah. In case anybody just wants to keep the thing going and they don’t know how to spell my last name. That’s there we go. Now I see it. You guys do good. Be humble. Stay hungry. You know, I think that like at least the way that I work all this about. Most clearly is shockingly. Oh, hi, father. Oh, well, I’m so confused. So many things are happening. Wow. OK. I feel like I was in a room having a conversation with people and several of them just like apparated and just apparated. And now it’s a completely new mix of people. This is wild. It is. It is. The Internet is so disoriented. It can be. Hello, how are you? Hello. I’m pretty good. How are you? Doing all right. Hanging out. Well, my friend’s actually at a dress rehearsal for a play, but I’ll see him tonight. I’m drinking his beer right now, though. Nice. Oh, yeah. I just noticed you’re in a new spot. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. It’s a good place to be drinking someone else’s beer. Hammer. I was going to bring up Psalm 37, which says, Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. And that’s the answer to the conundrum in my in my mind, which is. If you desire the right thing, you’ll get it. That’s how you that’s how you get your desires by wanting the right thing. It’s hard. It’s hard to want the right thing because you’ve got bad habits turning you away. But Mark’s here. He’s going to tell us all how to want the right things. Right. If only that were possible. I don’t I don’t think so. I apparently did OK in the comments, though. So that was that was good. I just joined in time to miss the problem you were solving, but I do believe you said you solved it. So, yeah, yeah. Honestly, it’s like there’s something about being raised in a materialist culture, which makes the grace of God seem like a foreign intrusion. Right. Yeah. It should actually literally be literally be the most natural thing in the world because it comes from the author of everything. Do you think it’s materialism? I think so. Right. Right. Being an intrusion is only as old as that. Materialism is really old. The foothold of materialism is we’ll say in recent times is due to a bunch of converging factors. But materialist thought is very old. I mean, pagans are materialists. That’s true. Like everything is water. Right. Yeah. Well, Mark, are you referring to the fact that like a lot of the pagan gods are natural gods and not supernatural gods? Because like that’s a that’s a point that’s well worth making. Right. They’re all part of the system. Yeah. But not only that, Ted, I mean, even if you couldn’t let’s suppose you had to take that off the table for whatever weird reason. I mean, it’s it’s mostly correct. It’s not a percent, but it’s it’s real close to 100 percent. Right. The way that you used the gods. Yeah. Yeah. OK. There’s already the problem. Right. They were utilitarian gods based on what they could do materially for the most part. Not not entirely. A lot of paganism is about the material. Right. Because the gods are based on material for the most part, not not entirely, but for the most part. And then and even when they’re not, the way you see them is only through the material interaction, whereas I would say in we’ll call it good, healthy Christian thought, just so I don’t end up really against every Protestant ever. The idea is that things like love and grace or agape, agapic love and grace manifest and they don’t have material effect. It’s not that the material effect isn’t also attributable to those things. It’s that grace and agapic love manifest in immaterial ways. Well, and you you read but we talk about it as though they’re ethereal because they are. So well, yeah, but then I mean, so much of what they’re trying to do, it seems like the West is trying to do it. The sort of the hylomorphic view of reality pulling from Aristotle to get rid of that total distinction. Right, Father, like you were saying the difference between the difference between like saying. We is that your soul with something that could be liberated separately or something like that, right? The liberation theology distinction, right? I mean, is that that that old that old demon materialism again creeping in where it’s like and I think the reading like from what I see of Aquinas and Aristotle, it’s like. You can’t you can’t just a second. I’ve got a child situation. You guys keep talking. Alrighty Aquinas and Aristotle, you can’t separate the spirit from the matter. I hope that’s where he was going with that. OK, good, good, very good. But you should attend to your children, though. Hopefully there are no messes. You know, honestly, every single one of his ancestors up to this point has managed to raise children successfully, so he’s got good odds going for him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I you know, your point, Father Eric, about growing up in materialism or growing up in the naturalist, physicalist frame. Right. Which is that’s the part, Emma, that I would say that’s why it seems different. Right. Because what now? Now it’s like the scientists won’t even use the word soul. They’re like, when I use the word soul, we’re going to invent a new term. We’re going to call it consciousness. And it’s like, really? That’s your move, because you don’t want to use the word soul. And then and then when they’re pressed, they’re like, well, we can’t define conscious. We’ll go back to noose. That’s what that’s what we’ll do. We’ll just use the ancient Greek terms. And it’s like, really? Like, I see what you’re doing. I got it. Right. And even from God worth. Right. And nobody knows who card worth is. Nobody. Even psychology, the whole field is the study of the soul. Right. Well, it attempts it attempts. God bless you, Emma. I’ve been making that ontological point so many times. And I’m just like, I don’t get it. What’s the thing with psychology? I’m like, it’s literally soul ology. It is. But denies but denies that that’s what it’s doing at the same time. It does. Yeah. Right. Right. Of course. That’s why you need consciousness. Yeah. I think that’s a good point. Which again, I know that there’s a lot of her or he hate out here. But one of her eyes, wonderful moments of honesty is when he summarized the entire field of the study of consciousness, which it was. We know nothing. Okay. Harari said one true thing. I know. I know. I’m sorry. I started off. I don’t even know. That even next, Condi said one true thing. So. Can I throw out something that I think is interesting in relation to the whole mechanistic stuff and grace and soul material stuff is that me and core. I know a number of you guys know Corey. Just went on a pilgrimage in eastern Oklahoma this weekend. Oh, nice. Yes. We walked 35 35 miles in two days with about with about 2300 pilgrims. Wow. It was yeah. 23 miles on the first day. I about died. It was brutal. And then the earth mover hasn’t prepared you for that, huh? No. I said, I’m going to, I’m going to this year, I’m going to train for it. I’m going to get all this time and walking. And then I got completely slammed to work. And it turns out that sitting in an excavator and walking use different muscle groups. The new. So I didn’t know it was very, very penitential for me. But it was, yeah, it was, it was a really wonderful experience and all sorts of interesting things. And, you know, from, from this, let’s say from this direction of analysis, some very interesting things in terms of like the way that, say, the action of walking down a dirt road can be transformed into something extraordinarily powerful. Because of the way that it’s the way that it’s taking place and like what it means. But things that I’ve learned bagpipes, horns, and a wind flapping in the breeze are just like, they’re just, they just stir the human soul. It doesn’t matter how dead you are inside. They just. They just do something to you. And the moment of, so the last like mile and a half, you’re walking in on the Abbey grounds and you walk in, in, in silence. So there’s just the sound of the pogroms feet on the gravel. And then you’re walking in on the ground. And you’re walking in on the ground. And you’re walking in on the ground. And then there’s just the sound of the pogroms feet on the gravel. And then you go down this draw, you start coming up. And there’s, there’s a Catholic priest and three young men all playing bagpipes. And which again, bagpipes get a bad rap. If you’re out walking and there’s good bagpipe players, you’re marching to it. It’s like, like no wonder men went to die listening to bagpipes. Like it does something to you. And as we walk past the bagpipes, like out from like underneath. It’s like mournful wailing of the bagpipes comes the tolling of the monastery church bells, just boom, boom, boom. It’s like, man, I’ve walked 30 miles for that again. Yeah. Yeah. And so the whole point of a pilgrimage isn’t just to walk somewhere, but is to find transformation in that. That’s exactly right. So if you’ve got anything that’s, you know, YouTube level insights, changes, resolutions, we’d be happy to hear it. And if it’s a little tender yet, be at peace. Yeah. Well, this is the second year that I’ve walked that pilgrimage. I mean, it’s the kind of thing you could, I mean, the first thing that I did last year when I came back was I went and talked to a priest and got our chapter organized. So, I mean, it was clearly a good, it was a good thing that time. It what did there’s a couple of things. One is it just it actualizes. You get to see what things that we tend to talk about in abstract terms actually look like in like a really good way. And so one one example, this is this guy that I met the chapter that I walked with. He had a couple of young children with him and the boys were, I don’t know, 10 or 11 and then maybe like seven and two of them were. And they started having foot problems. They couldn’t walk anymore, but they desperately wanted to finish the pilgrimage. So he he already had his two year old on a chest in a chest harness. And then he got his 10 year old and put him in the fireman’s carry. And this is after he’s walked 33 miles over the last two years. And I’m walking next to him in the abbey for last mile and a half. And with he’s got a baby strap to his chest and his kid in the fireman carry is walking. We’re walking to go to the pontifical high mass at the end of it. And I was like, wow, there’s fatherhood like I’m walking next to fatherhood like that is it. He’s like, that was that was really wonderful. There’s a lot in terms of there’s a lot of things that we can talk about. There’s a lot in terms of there’s just a lot of blessing in terms of finding out. There were a lot of truth about the relationship between your will and your desires. Like, for instance, in the right circumstances, you generally have a lot more capacity to exercise your will than you think. You find that out usually like I find that unlike miles 19 through 23. Finding out there’s a lot there in terms of like finding out how much you desire the thing that you’re after. And I remember especially again last year, it was a little more clearly than this year. But I remember like the first day, which was just terrible thinking, you know, if I could see our Lord standing there visibly waiting for me at the end of the walk, I would walk until my legs were bleeding, until my feet were bleeding and my shoes were gone. And I had was walking on bone. And intellectually, I believe that like he’s waiting for me, you know, at the end of my life, but that’s actually there. So like, let’s go ahead and try this. Like, let’s let’s let’s do a dry run today. Next three miles. See if we can do it. And yeah, it’s amazing. It’s just it is it. And related to that. The whole underlying thing about the pilgrimage, which is what you were saying, Father, that it’s not just about getting to the end of it. There’s this wonderful thing where, you know, it’s a big group of people. You’re out in the wild ish. So like, stuff is not always the way you want it to be. And it’s not even about like, I can get over it. But when you’re on a pilgrimage, you keep my thought continually is like, this is why I’m here. Like, I’m actually here to be inconvenienced. Like, I chose to do this so that I would be inconvenienced. And what happens when you do that is that all of a sudden, the thing that was going to like tear away at you actually becomes a source of life. And you’re like, I’m thankful. I’m thankful that whatever of the countless things, you know, the kids sit next to me are talking a whole bunch, you know, that word. We’re, you know, fifteen hundred people back. And so there’s never seats for us and we can’t hear the mass being offered. And I know that I’m not going to get in the church at the end and get to see the incredible pontifical high mass and hear the choir, accept your speakers, etc. It’s like 363 days out of the year. I just do I’d be all up and trying to bust ahead of people and walk as fast as I can and all of this. But for two days out of the year, that inconvenience actually becomes a source of like joy and gratitude in my life. And then, of course, the thought is like, well, is there any real reason that I couldn’t approach all of my life like that? And the answer is no, there’s not. It’s just that I can’t see things properly because if I could see things properly, then everything would have the capacity to be like that. And obviously, like forever, the saints have spoken about our lives as a pilgrimage, right? Our whole life is a pilgrimage. And we pray that in the, you know, in the Hail Holy Queen prayer. You know, and after this, our exile, right? It’s like we should see ourselves as programs all the time. So that’s some of the stuff. I mean, yeah. But for Catholics out there, you should or non Catholics, frankly, just come on. It’s an incredible experience. Actually, there was a young man at Chino who I told about the Three Hearts pilgrimage. And I didn’t speak to I didn’t we didn’t connect anymore, like over the over the podcast or email or phone or anything. I was waiting on the bus from where I dropped my car off. And after I dropped my passengers off at the start, I drove to the abbey where it ends to drop my car off and they shuttle us over. And I’m waiting for the bus. And here he walks up to me. We didn’t even remember each other’s names. He’s like, I’m here. I said, What do you mean you’re here? He’s like, You told me I had to come. So I drove from Arizona all night. I’m here. Wow. Nice. So do you remember his name now? Yes, I do. I don’t know how much of a web presence he likes that he wants to have. So I’m not going to tell you what his name was, but I absolutely I’m not going to forget his name. Good young man. I was really proud of it. Did you did you catch up with him to find out how it went? Yeah, I didn’t see him at the very end, but we ran into each other several times. You know, you’re you’re all walking together and you take it. You take breaks together. And yeah, I ran into him several times. He was limping more every time. But as were we all, but he was never not beaming. So yeah, right. Yeah, it was really cool. So we were we had at least three Chino people on that pilgrimage, which I thought was wow. I was pretty happy about how good we did there. That’s awesome. That’s cool. Yeah, Mark, you’re the only person on the screen who didn’t camp at Chino, didn’t camp at Chino. I wouldn’t have camped. Believe me. No camping, no hostels. No, no. All done. Done. I’m good. Never again. I did a hostile once. I found out what it was all about. The best part of it never manifested. And I’m like, yeah, I could do without this. But yeah, I couldn’t make it out to Chino, but that’s OK. I’m OK with missing Chino. Are you coming to Arkansas? I’m working on it. It’s not looking good, but we’ll see. We’ll see what I can do. We’ll see. I haven’t given up hope. Let me put it that way. OK, Emma, you have to pray. You pick a saint that’s going to get Mark there. All right. There we go. I’ll work on it. Everybody pick a saint. Go for it. Go for Saint Rock, actually. He’s underappreciated. That’s a real saint. I don’t know who that is. Rock? R-O-C-D. Really? R-O-C-D. I’m sorry. Like the giant elephant eating bird. Yeah. Yeah. I’m sorry. The what? There’s a what? There’s a giant elephant. How do you not know about the rock? It’s a mythological bird out of Persia that’s so big that it eats elephants. And it’s also- I stop before I get to Persia. No. I stop at Greece. I’m so disappointed right now. I’m not usually disappointed in people, but you can look it up. You can look it up, the rock. I will look it up. But I need you to understand that I thought you meant it was real. Oh, no. That was terrifying. That was a terrifying minute. How do you define real? Okay. Presently existing, like in material reality. It is not physically manifest in reality. Presently physically manifest in some part of the world. I’m on an episode with this one. I want to know if that thing’s out there, right? That’s just a practical matter right there. Yeah. I will say there are actually, there are giant birds that eat elephants, but they just eat them like bite at a time, and we call them vultures. Versus the rock, which eats them one bite at a time like that. Different than the vultures. Yeah. Are vultures really giant? I feel like when you’re comparing them to a bird that eats elephants in one bite, giant might be flexible. No, but the old world vultures are sufficiently large in their physical manifestation for me to call them large because you don’t want to mess with them. In my book, a bird is large if you don’t want to tangle with it. Okay. Geese are large. Geese weigh less than me. I still don’t want to fight a goose. Swans. By the time you get to a cassowary, it’s like, no, I don’t want to get killed. They’re one of the most deadly wild animals, really. Big flightless bird in Australia, and they will mess you up. This is what I’ve got my degree in biology for if you’re wondering to know about which birds can kill you. Yeah. So the rocks can carry them away, I guess, but it’s not big enough to eat them in one bite. But it’s in Sinbad? The Sailor? It’s in 1001 Nights? I must have forgotten about it because I know I know those stories. Or maybe it has another name, right? See, that’s what it is, Ted. I’ve never actually gotten around to reading 1001 Nights, and it’s one of my deepest shames. Oh, yeah. Don’t worry about all that Oriental nonsense. You get to kick her off the stream, by the way, there’s no other way. There’s no other way. You can’t. Nah. But Mark, Mark, this is your guy right here. It’s a patron saint of dogs, invalids, falsely accused people, bachelors, and several other things. Several other things. Yay. So we’re all going to pray to St. Rock that Mark will make it to the Arkansas Conference. Amazing. It’s on. And in Italian, it’s just spelled with the C, but when you put it into English, we get the H in there. Oh. It’s one of the Italian saints. Okay. Oh, in America it’s called the Thunderbird. Yeah, there’s lots of giant birds floating around all over the world. It just makes sense. You’re like, I don’t know, you see some storms, you’re like, yeah, there’s giant things that will swoop out of the sky and kill me. Yeah, the Thunderbird mythology is cool, actually. The Native American Thunderbird mythology is like fascinating stuff. I don’t really know anything. I just know that it was around. I don’t know anything about, you know, what was going on there. They come from the south. They usually come in front of storms, and they’re enormous, and they just swoop down and take people. Or livestock or whatever. Extremely rare, but well known. It’s a strange sort of a thing. There’s all sorts of weird things like that. One of my favorites is when, I think it’s Milton, where he compares to, compares something, you know, like in a metaphor, like when you’re describing something extraordinary, you have the extraordinary thing, and you compare it to the thing everyone knows, you know, the reader’s going to know about. And so he’s making a description of something, either a storm or angels battling or something. He’s like, like the Airy Nights. And I was like, what is he talking about with the Airy Nights? And I looked it up, and apparently there’s a long time in Europe where, like, people looked up and occasionally saw these knights doing battle in the sky. It was just a thing that was going on back then, apparently. There was knights up in the sky doing battle. There’s in the sky. Man, I want to go to another mass than you in tone. You want to go to another mass with me? Yeah, you in tone, like a sung mass. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we had a sung mass today. I did my thing, you know. Yeah. Did my thing. Sing with the voice I’ve been given. So, you know, it’s great. It’s a blessing when a priest got a good voice. It’s awesome. Brings out another level to things. So. Yeah. I mean, I can come up with other stuff to tell people. I guess we have to start talking about Dante now. If there’s a pause of more than 10 seconds. I’m contractually obligated to mention Dante. Well, somebody missed the Dante book club, apparently, because my stream showed me that somebody wasn’t there for that whole thing. I know, because I was on pilgrimage, which is. Oh, is that why you missed it? Yeah, because it’s really appropriate. If you’re going to miss Dante for any reason, it’s being an actual pilgrim. That’s like. Oh, yeah. To miss. I’ll allow it. They did it without you. And I was a little shocked. Well, look, you’re only getting through one can to a week, which it means it’s going to take them over two years. Years to do this thing. I know. Like that’s the sort of thing where it’s like, yeah. You just you keep on going. We can’t we can’t afford that many delays here. No, that’s exactly right. So and the other thing is that it’s so reference, like it’s the whole thing tied together that if I miss any beats that I wanted to bring up, it’s like you can always bring them up. Yeah. Your conference is basically in my backyard. So down below at the description of the video, there should be a link in the description that’s going to tell you how to come listen to me and Ted and Dr. Jim talk about all of the things that you’ve ever wanted to hear about. Yeah, perhaps. Perhaps it manifests itself as a grace from God and you need it. You don’t know you need it yet. Mm hmm. I told Grim about the conference. Thanks Emma. And to be even more specific. I told Grim about the conference more than two days ago. If you come on Tuesday, if you come on Thursday for paintball, the plan right now is that you will come actually to my literal yard and have a bonfire and a meal after that. So question, if you’re driving eight hours that day and you can’t make it to paintball, but you might get there in time for the bonfire. If you’re driving eight hours that day and you can’t make it to paintball, but you might get there in time for the bonfire. Sorry, I’m trying to bring your info, but it’s not on StreamYard. So important, important, important enough to ask twice. Emma, if you’re making that kind of a pilgrimage to this, yes, you’re welcome. Just shoot me an email or some or a Discord message so that I remember. But yeah, you’re absolutely welcome. So yeah. Because I don’t think we’ll make it in time for paintball because that’s a long drive. Asking for a friend, she says. Yeah, well, getting Grim out of here. Grim would be an awesome contribution to him. You know, we’re in like a little Baptist camp, so we’ll have to drive him out to, you know, we’re going to dunk him. Smoke a cigarette. So we I mean somebody else, because if I dunk somebody, they’re automatically Catholic. I can’t do a non-Catholic baptism. It’s impossible. It’s automatic. Oh, wow. I don’t know. Catholic minister. Like, what do you think is going to happen? You are now bound to observe all the Catholic laws, practices and customs. Well, wait a minute. But what if you’re a pacifist and baptism doesn’t work because you don’t believe in war? You can’t you can’t be in the war if you’re not, you know, you can’t. God loves pacifists even. Yeah, you just won’t let them in the battle because they don’t fight. So they’re also I don’t think. No, no. Mark’s mad about pacifism right now. This is going to come up every day for the next month or so. Yeah. But this is not the next month. This is every day I have ever lived. Sorry. I haven’t noticed it. It doesn’t come up every time. Were you one of those born angry people? Angry is for the weak people. Anger, anger is for the people who can’t take it. I don’t have anger. I have rage. Very different. Very different. It’s got class. Anger. I will tell you that if we hadn’t become Catholic, I feel like there’s like deep down inside. I have a serious connection to my soul with the Amish. So, you know, I don’t know about the theology, but the way that they’re living. I’ve got a Catholic Amish. I know. There are a couple of Catholic Amish communities out there in the world. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. There are a couple of Catholic Amish communities out there in the world. What? Yeah, they decided to convert to Catholicism, but because they decided it was the true religion, but they liked their way of life. So they just kept it. That’s fair. Yeah, we’ll send a priest out there. Any Catholic can live the way the Amish live. Most of them should. It’s just really hard. It is. It is. Yeah. Yeah, that was. No, I was at a conference. I was at a small conference. There was a guy there who was a Catholic Amish, and he started a question. He was a convert to being a Catholic Amish, and he started a question to one of the speakers saying, having taken up the way of the horse, and then something, something, something. And I was like, I don’t know what the rest of this question is, but it’s going to be good. The way of the horse. The way of the horse. Yeah, I’m guessing someone gave him a ride to the conference because otherwise, you know, it would have been pretty hard to get there. There’s nowhere to graze the horses in town. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah, for the fact that that’s only true in some towns. You can graze horses on Boston Common. That’s amazing. The elites don’t want you to know, but you can graze a horse there. I do it all the time. Well, I don’t. There are horses. They did. I think they still, last time I was in Boston, they still had the police on horses. When they have events in Boston Common, they usually bring out the horses. So, and the police, the police do police work from the horses for real. So it gives you a hearty marriage. Tie up the bragging. Yes. People and horses are intimidating. You know, we’re out of when we were out of the pilgrimage to this old world, rural Oklahoma. You would walk past several places, little hobby farmers, where they had horses. And then they got kind of spooked by the pogroms. You just like, we just forget this in the modern world, but you see like a good, healthy, well groomed horse running in a field. And it’s like, I have seen a wonder. That’s why in biblical times, the horses were the with the sign of earthly power. The Lord had to say, put no trust in the chariots of Egypt. Yeah. Yeah. Well, over and over again, that’s not where the real power is, because I mean, you look at it, it’s like, oh boy, that’s power right there. That is speed. That is strength. That is grace. It’s being a few feet up on the ground so you could just hack at people. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there’s there’s one battle in the Andes where the where the it was like 15 Spaniards on horses with metal armor overcame an army of I think 10,000. Wow. It’s like, you need you need metal, you need metal, and you need horses, and then you’re good to go. The Spanish didn’t go anywhere in South America without a large contingent of unhappy rebellious natives. I know, but this was Mark, this was early on enough that they hadn’t set up any of those alliances. This is really early on the conquest of the Incan Empire. Yeah, but when they landed, they immediately had followers because they landed. So it’s a little that history is a little wonky just because because of what was happening. Yeah, I mean, you hear so many contradictory things, but this is this is what I got from my word of the Spanish. There’s no, but there’s also no question about it. Like, man, if you’re on a horse and they’re not, you ain’t winning. It’s multiple to one for sure. Yeah. Well, if you don’t want to take down a horse because you have to do it in a specific way, you’re kind of screwed. You guys are making me think now because we’ve got a lot of Amish or Mennonites. I’m not sure what probably Mennonites have moved to northern Ontario, just north of Superior. And my sons in Timmins, but you know, a few hours north of there. And he was talking about how every time you go up the highway, you want to try and not go up it in the dark because of moose. And I’m thinking, what are the Amish? They don’t bother the moose. They don’t spook them. I mean, moose. Okay. So, Sandy, I’ve actually heard why moose are so bad for cars. Does anyone else heard this? That they’re so tall that when you clip the legs, they just go right through the windshield. Yep. They fall on the car. That’s correct. That’s exactly what happens. Bad news. But doesn’t God say something like to Job, like, consider the horse? And part of his rebuttal to Job is, consider the horse. Like, look at it. This is why you should understand that I’m mighty. Behold the horse, and therefore I exist. And am just and good. I don’t remember anything about a horse. I remember Leviathan. But. What will be something for you, Ralph? I need to double check that. But I’m somewhere in the last four chapters. There’s also a great line from Richard Wilber’s poem, Lying, where he talks about a horse’s neck clothed in its usual thunder. Which is. It’s usual thunder. Oh, that’s a good line. I really should read more poetry. Yes. November, Arkansas, come. I’ll actually read. I’m going to read what Richard Wilber’s lying. If you come and you have a desire, we’re going to have some times where people can just read or recite poetry. Like if you’re cool enough to have memorized it, unlike me, then you can just recite it or you can read it. And there should be a lot of just enjoyment of cool stuff that people dug up and love. And so that’s one of the ones that I’m pointing out. Are you guys taking it? Are you going to record any of this? We’re going to record the talks. Yeah. Hey, I don’t think I can get more time off work. I know. One day I will be like 90. I have so much free time. Oh, man. It was it wasn’t the light meeting on Janine. It was really fun. Yeah, I enjoyed I enjoyed meeting you too. Yeah. And am I camping with me? Not directing that anybody in particular. You know, it’s good that you guys had each other there. Or should I say you gals had each other there. Yeah, it was helpful. It was that was a very was a very it felt a little fratty sometimes. Seriously? It did to me. That’s what I noticed. Like, oh, man, there’s a lot of beer cans just kind of strewn around everywhere. You know, like I’m not I’m not against beer, right? But it’s like, you know, you already got your crap. Yeah. Yeah. We always had all the kids over to our house because, you know, I don’t know why. But so I’m like, yeah, whatever. It was fun. Consider the horse joke. Did you make him? No, you didn’t. I made the horse. Therefore, your argument isn’t valid. That is actually that is that is the best possible logic right there. I made horses. Oh, my. You make nothing. You made nothing. Not a horse. Not one horse. Did you make I say? Oh, man. Yeah, it’d be good to see people actually reciting. I think I think I have. Well, no, I only have one poem memorized. Mine, of course. And then I had the tiger memorized for a while, but that comes and goes. So you can’t do it reliably anymore. I have one poem half memorized that I think I will try to like. Get back up to scratch before the conference. Well, well, so so Spencer Claven did this little thing in D.C. where it was like you memorize four lines. At a time. Yeah, I thought that was a good probably a good technique. I couldn’t do it. I had a professor who would make us do that for like every class. Yeah. Unfortunately, I could probably get those back to actually a little effort. I also have a translation. Yes, I’m hoping that you show up with like your own translation of like the song of Roland or something. I actually I have a translation of a Horace Ode that I worked on a while ago that I was thinking about cleaning up and reading. I wouldn’t be able to memorize it, but I wasn’t sure if that was like pretentious. I could also do the first few lines of the Aeneid in Latin with a little work. Nice. That would be that would be really. I know. So I’ll just in public. Give me a little bit of taste. Yeah, you’ll be able to give us a little taste of that. That’d be fantastic. Do it. I have to work on the meter, but I think I could get it there pretty easily. I taught like ten children it this summer. So I think that Fleabag should go to you. I definitely think so, too. He can hash it out with me in person. Then I can finally see what it looks like. I know. Well, he’s just got the P, right? You know, he doesn’t have any sort of picture. He’s like, I don’t know. You haven’t seen him talking on YouTube once. I have. I don’t remember. Has he been on? Maybe. OK. Man, if Jacob’s got like a five hour stream, I’m not watching that. Richard’s been on, but I don’t know. You know, you could probably use TLC and just search for. And find the time stamp. Peterson’s fear. Peterson. The list dash little dash corner dot com. Like, no, no search engine. OK. Yeah, I know. Sorry. We just call it. But I’m talking about the search engine. You’re talking about talking about the search engine. Which covers Peterson’s fear channels, but not mine. It does. Oh, how rude. We should get you added. You know, who is it? Is it the guy with the bear profile picture who runs that? Is it Craig? I don’t know. Anyway, there’s a very useful search engine there that pulls the transcripts of Peterson’s videos. Incredibly helpful, actually. If you want it like if you wanted to find Ted talking about the bear attack or Ted talking about the ladder to heaven in the children’s books. Or Ted talking about Dante, which will overload it. You can’t find it now because my channel’s humanly resolved. Let it be resolved. Mine should be added. Peterson. I feel like groomed groups. That was good. You know, that’s things like that are like cool, but also make me completely horrified. I’d like the future surveillance data to be more accurate. I’m just like, wow, if you can do that to all the videos and the Peterson spirits search engine thing, it’s like just imagine if you do that to the entire Internet and everything could be found always forever. Well, that’s their goal. You got to go on the Mark of Wisdom Discord server and see what I did. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to do that. I’m just experimenting. Quite interesting. I was like, wow. I knew I could get better results than the generics for lots of computer reasons that aren’t interesting. So what Mark did is that he fed a bunch of his own notes into a large language model and asked it some questions. And lo and behold, it reflected his answers back to him and he was pleased. No, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not that’s not. None of it was sent anywhere. It’s all here physically at my house. Right. And it actually gave better answers than I’m able to articulate. Now it’s like, well, that’s pretty good. I’m like, I’m going to go back to the internet. It’s not it doesn’t do that with everything. Like I’ve already tested. It’s only got about a 50% hit rate. But man, when it hits, it’s actually I was like, well, that’s way more concise than me. It’s pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. You can we can just retire now and then like the spirit of Mark can just bounce around in this LLM for like a year. Mark, do you feel like you’ve created some sort of like mathematical crystal and trapped your spirit in it? And now you’re like just a shell of a body walking around and, and Mark is now embedded in the Nellie bank. It only has a 50% hit rate. My hit rate is not that low. All of you are 100% at being yourselves. No, I’m not. I’m not. I’m not. I’m not. And I’m not at being yourselves. No, not even close. Oh, father, I don’t know about that. I’d settle. I’d settle for 85, but I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I can make that. Aren’t I aren’t I like annihilating myself in some sense when I’m. At when I’m sitting like this, like less of me. Yeah. You didn’t have God’s help with that. This is true. Yeah. How about when you have God’s help, you are 100% yourself. This is true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s always, always will I do whenever you need me, Lord. You can say true. So no such thing as why do you just tacking words together to make it sound different? I mean, it’s ridiculous. I know that in front of everything, you know, it’s not the same thing as the thing before, but we’re not actually saying anything. They will be better. Your untrue self, then it’s not itself anymore. Like that doesn’t work in the language. Right. It runs into a problem in the language. I mean, true self is like a true self. I don’t know what a true self. I mean, I think what people mean by that is the person that they wish. Sure. Well, no, I feel like I could come up with some definitions. The problem is that I think it’s a term that’s just like so nebulous and people mean all kinds of things. People generally by the true self, they mean what I really want. And if I was going to talk about true self, I would mean someone as they are transfigured alive in God. Why would it be what you want? Why that particular? Because we’re individualist materialist scumbags. That’s why. Well, I don’t know about the scumbag part, but but I mean, right. Someone’s like that wasn’t like my true self. Like I wasn’t able to express my true self. What they meant is I didn’t like do all the things that came to my mind or to my gut to do. That’s what people mean when they say like, I wasn’t really being my true self. It means that they generally means that they had good social inhibition. But what they should be saying is they weren’t being true to themselves. And we often mix up true and truth and true. Here’s an interesting thing that happened today. We were well, anyways, I went to I went to church and my one of the ladies there made a comment that she said, I see more calm, more certain than even when she first met me, which would be a number of years ago. And that more than what I would want to me reflects what I would think would be myself. If I’m if I’m visibly being just more calm, more they’re more whatever word people mean when they say centered or something like just simply like not frazzled against whatever I’m whatever is I’m not frazzled against anything that to me is when you say want I’m like, but the word want it indicates all sorts of things. Let me do the you know, Psalm 23, I shall not want. What does that even mean? It means, you know, I’m not going to be without I’m not lacking anything. I think it’s placing trust higher than anything else. It’s it’s trust and faith above anything else. I like that. I mean, you’re just like that twist of the word wants to like to lack not to desire, but to lack is a nice twist. I just when you were saying that, I was thinking about I think it’s Augustine’s Augustine’s definition of peace is the tranquility of order. And you know what’s amazing is all this stuff about St. Augustine that I bring up and I’ve never read Confession. So there you go. Really? Wow. I know it’s been a copy of that book and actually read it. He’s dyslexic. It took him forever. Yeah. You’re something aren’t you. So you take a long time to read too. Don’t you know, I think I’m just I know that. I’m just. No, I take a long time to spell. You’re dyslexic. Yeah, Mark’s dyslexic, I can’t spell. So it would take me forever. Like, and there’s, I regularly encounter, I think three words is less. What’d you say? I can’t spell either. Dyslexia is just the first problem. At any rate, Dr. Russ Hintinger’s got some wonderful lectures out on the, in podcast land on the confessions, but the true quality of, peace is the true quality of order. There’s some notion about like coming to peace, like being at peace, not in the sense of like the absence of action or something like that, but right, what you’re saying is, and you’ve got, you have this intuition that the degree to which you have, you’re at peace is the degree to which like, you’re what you’re supposed to be. There’s a relationship there. And yeah, I mean, an appropriate definition of your true self is yeah, what you’re supposed to be, right? Which is to say that you’re perfect, right? You’re complete. You’ve reached what you’re supposed to be. I guess, I mean, if you want to use, if you want a useful definition of your true self, it’d probably be that, but I would just call it being a saint. So. A lot of what you guys are saying interesting about, you know, being true to yourself, because as a writer, you’re supposed to find your voice. And it’s this nebulous thing of like, like how a musician or a band will have their sound. The writer is supposed to figure out what their voice is and write from that. And I’m like, still figuring that out myself. And it basically, go ahead. Yeah, the problem with that sort of thing is, is that it’s not something you can actually do according to your own conscious intentionality. Right. It’s more like you’ve got to just get yourself into the right place and let the, whatever it is, the muses will say, come down on you. And then kind of getting out of the way of that, rather than it being something that you produce. Yeah. But I have- I have those exercises where you get, you know, a writing prompt and you just simply put pen on page and you just don’t even think about it and just keep going. I’ve kind of learned that when I got feedback that I had figured out what my voice was, was doing this conversational, like I’m speaking thing. So I speak, I write, but I make everything grammatically, you know, like it’s written, but it sounds like it, it’s like how we’re talking with each other right now, kind of that kind of, that seems to be my voice. You know, it might change in 15, 20 years. I have no idea. I think it’s more about being authentic and just being true to yourself. That’s why I was kind of like, ooh, yes. So one thing I’ve thought about, so let’s say we all go to heaven, right? And this is a wrong way to think about this exercise, but let’s say we all go to heaven. And am I myself at 80 when I go to heaven? Or am I myself at five or 10 or 12? And so the way I’ve started thinking about what you’re describing, Valerie, is, so Christ says, I am the way and the truth and the life. And none of those is a destination and none of those is, it’s all a process. So it’s like to the extent that you’re walking with Christ, you’re following yourself. And to the extent that you’re not, you’re not. And so it’s not even whether or not you’re at the destination. It’s, are you at the right place in the journey at the present time? That’s at least how I think about it. That’s really interesting. Thank you for sharing that. That’s really interesting. Yeah. I’m not who I was 10, 15, 20 years ago. I sort of am, but I kind of not. You know, it’s like my family knows that it’s me, not just by how I look and that I grew up with them and everything, but I’ve kind of changed over time. That’s really perceptive of you. Thank you, Neil. Because I think this was Chad and PBK, obviously, I’ve talked about this a lot. Sorry, I’ve lurked for a long time. This is the first time I’m showing myself. Welcome on, Neil. Good to have you. Thank you. But they talk about, so I remember PBK talking about, it was either Chad talking or PBK talking about Chad’s experience and through everything he’s been through. And the question I always have when I think of something like that is like, would I prefer not to have experienced the depths of my own sin, let’s say, right? And I can’t say no that, I’m not convinced that it would be better for me, for anybody else even. And that’s a horrifying thought, right? Because I heard other people, but I’m still not convinced that it would have been better to avoid it. It’s almost like there’s a line that says, God writes straight with crooked lines. You ever hear that? Something like that. But we don’t have that power. That is not our capability. Yeah. So, but anyway, that’s been my own experience. And so the things that I personally have gone through, hard and soft, I would say, I can’t regret them because they brought me to where I am now. I think that’s a sign, when you’re able to say that, when you’ve got that peace, that’s a sign that you’re, sounds like you’re a Christian. Sounds like you’ve been redeemed, saved, working on it. Much to my surprise, I am practicing Roman Catholic for five years now. And it, or I guess five years. Yeah. And if you told me, I would, I’m a classic corner story. Like I’m the Sam Harris guy that found JP, you know, and then I stumbled upon PVK in the early days. And it was this guy with the strange beard who looked like God from Michelangelo. And I was like, I’m not gonna listen to this. But then I came back to PVK over time. I’ve listened to a lot. So, yeah. And that’s the thing is that when your stance and your alignment towards God changes the way that you look at your past, right? Because if there’s no redemption in the world, if there’s no possibility of forgiveness and, you know, God making right what had once gone wrong, then your sins are just absolutely gonna crush you, right? It is like, I did these horrible things. Or even if they weren’t horrible, they made me horrible. You know? But once you’ve got the sense that, no, it’s actually not a hundred percent up to you, but that there’s somewhat above who can bring goodness out of evil. That even though you can look at it, and I’m one, you know, and you get the paradox there. And St. Paul wrestles with this. I think it’s in like chapter six in the letter of the Romans, where he says, “‘Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.‘” Well, does that mean we should sin? No, no. Yeah. I would like to just know that, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more, you know? Because you get that kind of paradox there where if you hadn’t sinned and experienced your own wretchedness, then you wouldn’t have realized that you needed to submit humbly to God and ask for his forgiveness. I think, I remember Jordan Peterson saying something along the lines of, if you know that what you’re about to do is wrong, like clearly wrong, then the sin is all the greater. Like, you better watch out. But if you’re doing it either in darkness, I think in the depths of our heart, the depths of our being, we always know. Like, and we make excuses and we always know. But I hear him in that, when you really know and you still do the wrong thing, then, whoa, you know, whoa to you. I think a lot of that confusion, you see a lot of that confusion in the Peterson sphere in particular. It’s one of the things that Peterson does well. He points out to you that you will be different future you. It’s not you. Past you is also not you now. And people really hadn’t thought about that. This pernicious universalism puts us in the position where we want to be the same in the future and be the same as we were in some idyllic past, nostalgic past, right? And we’re not differentiating. I think that’s the fascination with the story of Job. Because the story of Job shows right universalism, which is your universal fate, rather than your universal psychology or your universal personality type or your universal stuff you have today, like where you live or what kind of job you have or the universal sort of path of your career. Like that’s incorrect universalism because it’s too based in material, right? Whereas in story of Job, the correct universalism is all this stuff is changing around Job and he’s not changing. He’s like, no, I’m on team God and I’m all in and I don’t care what these other people say about me or about how I’ve changed. I know I’ve changed, right? But not in this, not in this. And I think that’s why there’s this obsession around the book of Job, which I’m like, really, I’m not that hard, but hey, whatever. That’s what you’re struggling with. That’s what you’re struggling with. I have a lot of questions and I don’t understand the book of Job. And I didn’t understand it for a very long time. It was very confusing to me. And then it was like, Bible project really helped in understanding it’s dealing with how bad things can get even when you’re doing everything right. And it’s not connected to doing the right thing. Even though the Bible talks about all this stuff Israel will be blessed if they do this and this and this and that. We have this idyllic perception that if I do everything right then everything should go well. And that’s what we all hope for. And I think especially of the church fathers looking at Job as a foreshadowing, a type of Christ. It’s like, yep, he’s innocent and he still suffers. And when I was very early on in seminary and I first heard that idea, it just, it did not click at all. But nice thing about being a seminary and it’s just like, okay, you know what? I’m just gonna accept it and someday I’ll understand. And yeah, now a little more understanding. My eyes are opened a little bit more. Well, imagine you think you’re doing everything right but you’re still suffering and you don’t have Christ. So if you think you’re doing everything right and you don’t actually know how to get better and your suffering has no purpose until the end of time for the rest of your life. Yeah, I can understand suicide, let’s say, right? But if you’re aiming with all your heart, striving with all your heart to do the right thing and suffering, you know, either as a result or in spite of doing the right thing. I mean, what do we say? We give it up, we give it up, we give it up. So I was raised Presbyterian Protestantism. It’s like God is love, God is good, everything’s good. There’s no suffering as a Christian. There’s like, it wasn’t the problem of pain especially pain that is not clearly, a result of our own sin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That problem is not sufficiently addressed in my, at least as a kid. But understanding my faith better now it’s, oh, it’s, anything suffered is us bearing the glory of God. That’s it. Or it’s us giving up like in the words of Pageau, right? It’s like, it’s us giving up, it’s giving up. So, and I find myself at times, in these are like little graces, but I find myself at times if I’m suffering in the right way at the right time, I can laugh and be joyful about the suffering. And those are grace-filled moments, they’re rare. But I imagine saints and I imagine as someone matures in their faith, they can get to the point where that is like consistent. It’s like they know exactly, or their faith is so great that as they suffer, all it’s doing is increasing their joy and their love. And it’s like, yeah, I can take this for you. I can take it, like I will do anything for that other person, that other entity for the greater love and glory of God. Yeah. That’s what Saint Teresa of Calcutta said, if you love until it hurts, then you can keep on loving and there won’t be any more hurt, but there will be more love. And she really embodied that in a brilliant way. Yeah. Saint Mother Teresa, we have to call her Saint. Saint Mother Teresa just doesn’t sound right. So it’s now Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Yeah. And speaking of embodying things, the Saint’s eyes, theirs were open, but mine are shutting. Neil, welcome to the Sunday Night Open Mic. Thank you for hopping on. Yeah, thank you. Glad that you’ve found Christ, found his church, and hopefully I’ll see you around a little bit more. Yeah. This is gonna sound really weird, but I’ll just leave it as a dangler. So I play drums for my Catholic, for the latest mass, I think in the city where I’m in New Orleans, it’s the latest mass on the West Bank and it ends, right now it’s 9.30 my time, so it ends at nine o’clock. So I can make like the last 20 minutes of this. Okay. But I will try to participate on an ongoing basis, but the problem is I can probably only make the tail end. Okay, well the tail end is good enough. And if you wanna see me and Ted and Dr. Jim in Arkansas, we’ve got the link down in the description. You can buy the tickets there. You can see me in the flesh rather than this two-dimensional projection, which is apparently also made. And it was great to have you all along for the ride. So happy Sunday and God bless you all. God bless. Happy Sunday. Thank you. Take care. Night Father.