March 2020 Q&A (oazV89x9Q_Q)

https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=oazV89x9Q_Q

Hello everybody. I hope everybody’s doing well in these strange times. So yeah, it’s been nuts. It’s been a crazy month as most of you know. A lot of things have been going on all over the world. Everything is shut down. Everything is changing very, very fast. And so as those of us who are sensitive or akin to symbolic structures and to trying to pay attention to what is happening, I hope everybody is paying attention because things are going to change so fast in the next few months that we need to stay awake and we need to look at what’s happening. What is being asked of us? What is being how things are being portrayed to us? What narratives are being taken up by our authorities, by our church, by our friends? Which narratives do we take up in our minds as well? And so we just need to be very attentive. As you probably know, I guess a few announcements pretty much. I mean, I guess I don’t even have to say this. All my events are canceled for the next, for the unforeseen future. All my carving classes, all my trips. I had to trip to Seattle planned and different trips as well. So everything is canceled. And so we’re here on the internet and luckily we have this technology so that we can discuss with each other. The technology is a double-edged sword, as I’ve said many times. The thing I’m a little worried about is that some of the, so quickly we’ve taken on these strange patterns of distance and you drive around. I had to do some things today and just driving around, everything is so surreal. Everybody has already taken up this strange distance from everybody. And like, for example, where I am, there’s police everywhere and it’s very strange. I saw police surrounding a guy in a parking lot and all the police were wearing masks and the guy was kind of alone at a certain distance and all the police were kind of surrounding him. It’s very surreal. It looks like a video game or a movie. So, yeah. So I think we’re going to, we’re going to get into the questions. We’ll see how it goes in terms of time. We might talk a little bit more about this whole virus situation afterwards. There’s a lot to think about and there’s a lot to talk about. If you haven’t seen my video on epidemics, I would suggest that you watch it. I tried to gather all my thoughts on the subject and what’s going on in that video. There’s a strange thing that happened. I want to note, I just want to mention this. There’s a strange thing that happened. Some of you might have seen this online. It was being passed around as a meme and just as a story. There’s a comic book in Europe from Belgium called Asterix and me being a French speaking Canadian. I grew up with this comic book. As a kid, I read this comic. And the last issue that came out in 2017, there’s a story of a race between Asterix and Obelix who represent the common people, not just the common people, but also the local identity. They are Gauls who are resisting the Roman Empire. They’re the last village that’s resisting this homogeneity, this single identity that is trying to take over the entire world. They’re almost like nationalists. They’re something like that. They’re like localists, you could say, isolationists who are trying to resist this power. In the last issue they put out, it’s a race. There’s this transatlantic race in the story where they’re going to race around Europe. Asterix and Obelix participate in this race. They’re going against a mysterious unknown racer who’s racing as well. This person wears this mask, a golden mask. His name is Coronavirus. That’s his name. Obviously, in the Asterix comics, all the Romans have names that end with US, with us. It’s always a wordplay, some kind of strange wordplay between a French word or a Latin word. They always have a wordplay, but it’s just so odd that they had this Coronavirus. In fact, hiding behind the Coronavirus underneath the mask is Julius Caesar. It’s the Roman state that’s hiding behind the mask. It’s hard not to see some kind of strange pattern there. I’m not saying necessarily that the people who wrote it were conscious of what they were doing. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. The debate about the Coronavirus is going to be, again, about where do we hold onto our identities? It’s going to play out again as a problem of borders, a problem of limits, a problem of power. That is how it’s going to play out. Right now, it actually does seem like a competition. We’ve seen this strange thing of Europe putting up its borders again, of different countries closing their borders. The idea that Europe is putting up their borders again between countries is really important because the fact that the European Union was almost trying to be something like the United States of America. That seems like that’s what they were aiming towards, that Europe, all of Europe could become a kind of United States with free circulation among the different states. Can you imagine right now if that would happen? If the different states would put borders between themselves and shut off their borders and control who is crossing the border? I’m not saying it can’t happen, but the fact that this is happening is showing how the discussion is between a kind of globalism and a kind of national or more localized identities. This Asterix comic seems like it was very prophetic in trying to portray this idea of this conflict and also what is hiding behind the apparent conflict, this race against the virus. Anyways, very strange, very strange. All right, so let’s just go into the questions. Talking about that’s kind of putting me back on top because I was, oh man, coming into this conversation, I was thinking, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get through this. My mind is so scattered in the past few days. Let us start with the website as we usually do. All right, and so I’m starting with the website. As everybody knows, people who are subscribers on Patreon or on my website or on Subscribestar at $10 a month, you get to ask questions in advance for the Q&A. And we do have a lot of questions. I’m asking people if they can to try to limit themselves to one question because we’ve been kind of going up to about an hour and a half. That’s usually about the time that I run out of steam and my brain starts to start to melt down. I don’t know how these people who do these three hour streams, my hat is off to them. All right, so Roxanne asks, a particularly rich deposit of symbolism is expressed in the Russian fairy tale, Vasilisa the Beautiful. Vasilisa’s mother has died but has left a special doll who becomes Vasilisa’s confidant and guide. There’s also a stepmother and a marvelous witch who is a great fairy. There’s also a stepmother and a marvelous witch, actually more of an earth goddess Baba Yaga whose house is on chicken legs and who flies through the air in a mortar with the pestle for her rudder. A simpler parallel story is the Grimm’s mother, Halda, also full of feminine symbolism. I would love to hear Mr. Padre’s thought on these stories. Yes, I have read Vasilisa the Beautiful to my daughters and to my son. For some reason, I don’t recall all the details of that story but I really do love Russian fairy tales. There’s a great little book out with the illustrations of Billy Bim and he was just the best illustrator of fairy tales. There’s a very beautiful version of it. Of course, the idea of the doll in the fairy tale that the doll is kind of being her guide, you see this version in a lot of fairy tales. You have this idea and it seems like it’s a proxy for the mother in a certain way. It’s kind of like you could say something like it’s the wisdom that the parent has left behind. You see that in some versions. The idea of the fairy godmother is very similar to that. This idea of a godmother or a character that represents that which is the mother who is not there anymore and is kind of just there in spirit. To me, that’s always what it seems to represent. You see it in a lot of versions. There’s stories, versions of Cinderella also where there’s a bird that talks to her and you always get this idea of these animals that speak to them. And it’s usually, especially when the animal is close to the main character, it seems like it’s what is left of their dead wife or dead mother or dead father, something like that. All right, so Josh the Mover says, ask, Saint Isaac the Syrian says, let yourself be persecuted but do not persecute others. Do you think a mutation of this timeless Christian ethic is partly to blame for the West, which I believe is still comprised of predominantly level-headed people and only thanks to the fumes of its Christian roots, allowing its stability to falter at the hands of the utopian subjectivist ideologies which comprise only a noisy minority? Which aspects of the Christian ethic point to a sense of self-preservation that could be cathartic for the present situation? Trying to see what you mean by, how do you see the relationship between let yourself be persecuted but do not persecute? Maybe I can comment mostly on the saying of Saint Isaac the Syrian, there’s a few things that are difficult to understand in terms of the idea of persecution. One is there is a difference between, there is definitely a difference between you and let’s say the body of the church or the body politic and the body politic and when Christ for example says that you should not kill, when the law says that you should not kill or when we have this idea of Christ telling people that even if you hate your brother that this is equivalent to killing and when you have this idea as well that we should not, Christians should not persecute, I think that this is true. I think we have to always be careful when we try to scale that up. Of course we can regret and I think with Reason Week we could regret some of the horrible things that have been done in the name of Christianity in terms of executing people, the burning of heretics and everything. I think that’s a really difficult thing to think about but we also need to understand that any group and the church is included has to have a mechanism to deal with, to eject, to remove from them those who are causing fragmentation within the group and so a state has to have a way to eliminate those that are causing chaos in their state and also a church has to have a way to eliminate those who are causing chaos within the church. Now usually the traditional manner is excommunication, that is the traditional way is to excommunicate someone so that they are not in communion with the church and therefore they can no longer subvert the church from within but that has often, when Christianity became more powerful of course, then that has often slipped into aligning yourself with the state and creating other kinds of punishments and so this has also involved the death penalty for heretics and it’s problematic. I don’t totally know what to think about it. It’s like, I don’t totally know what to think about it. I do think it is problematic and for sure I think that as a person, as an individual, you should not attack or persecute others. There’s a difference between someone who’s in authority and just a person and this is difficult for a lot of people to understand is that when you are in authority you are not acting out of the passions. In theory, in practice sometimes you can but because you have the authority of the church and you have a function to play, so a policeman can tie someone up, can put them in prison, can do all these things but you as an individual cannot do that. If you do that then you are not acting in justice and you’re not acting out of the authority which has been given to you by someone who is above you in a hierarchy and the same goes for theology. We have a method, authoritative method to deal with heretics within the church and because of this kind of weird democratic culture everybody somehow seems to feel like it is their role to be casting out heretics. It isn’t our role. It’s not my role. I’m not a priest. I’m not a bishop. I’m not within, I do not, I have not received authority from above to act as a police officer in the church and so I don’t. I try not to at least. I’m sure that I slipped it sometimes but I try not to. So I think that’s probably the best I can say about that. So Antique Melon says, I was wondering if you could talk about the symbolism of the flying serpent numbers 217 in particular Nehushtan in combination with John 314 where Jesus draws an analogy to the son of man and if there is a connection to the snake in the garden. Thank you for what you’re doing and keep up the great work. Yes I think I’ve talked about this quite a few times in the in the in the chats and in the discussion. For those who are interested I would say you can find a article that I wrote called the Serpent of Orthodoxy in which I deal with the question of the serpent and I understand why it’s such a for someone who sees patterns it is difficult not to notice that so I can understand why it’s somehow a something which keeps coming up because it is true. You know if you look at an image of the crucifixion in iconography you can see that Christ looks like a serpent on the cross and this does in fact I believe relate to the story of the fire the serpents and the bronze serpent and maybe I can give you a little hint and you can look up my article if you’re interested in seeing more about this it has to do with this idea of death trampling down death there’s this idea that Christ became sin for us or that Christ you could say that Christ became a serpent for us you see said Gregor Mnise says that explicitly that Christ became the serpent to save us from the serpent and so this is the greatest mystery of the incarnation this is the this is one of the greatest mysteries of what Christ is doing and he is doing something similar to what happened in the desert that is he’s taking death and he’s flipping he’s raising it up in a manner in which it is changed into glory and if Moses did that for a specific reason in in the desert Christ is doing it for all of the cosmos and so he’s taking death and he’s lifting it up and so the raising up of the cross the raising up of shame the mockery all the things that are being done to Christ are being turned into are being turned into glory and so you know if you watch my videos you’ll see that that’s what I talk about all the time I’m basically basically I would say 80 percent of my videos are me trying to get you to see the places where this happens and the reason why I want you to see where this happens is because of the current situation because of the current place we are in the pattern of history as we watch Christianity diminish as we watch the world take on the pattern of decadence and of death and of carnival and of upside down we need to have enough people who are able to recognize this pattern in order to be able to perceive it when it starts to glimmer on the horizon and not be seduced by anti-Christ all right okay so Pnumaesh I’m sorry I hope I’m pronouncing that okay I don’t know if that’s your real name Pnumaesh says it seems that the modern university is meant to subvert knowledge and create a perpetual deconstruction of belief do you think it’s still worth going to the university and hopefully come out with the spoils of the Egyptians or do you think it’s just a dead end for obtaining knowledge and wisdom look I don’t want to tell people how to live their lives but I think that unless in the current situation I think unless you are going to school in the sciences like if you’re going to become a doctor or if you want to be an engineer or something in that vein I would say that sure you could probably still get through and it would be okay but in terms of the humanities it seems like there’s not a lot of hope you know and so one of the things I would suggest people do and I think this is what I’m going to try to do with my own kids and with my own son is you know I was talking just yesterday if you’ve seen the video with Timothy Petitza who is the head of Hellenic College in the U.S. and there are a few of these institutions coming up these these at least Christian institutions that are wanting to offer a kind of degree in the humanities that will ground you in thought and will prepare you intellectually you know for the onslaught of the world and so I would say I don’t I don’t know a lot of them but I know there’s a few I would say pay attention to that try to see if that’s something that you could do at least first you know to get things straight to get your mind kind of straight to have the culture to have imbibed the Christian and Western culture so that so that you’re ready to face the rest you know I would say at least that. All right. So David Flores asks a second question I will take his second question because he’s been here for a while David so he says when you talk about principalities is it safe to equate them to Platonic forms or principalities forms and more I think I think that there are more than just forms I think that we need one of the things I think Christianity offers in let’s say the hierarchy of angels or the hierarchy of principalities is that it recognizes something akin to consciousness as being part of a hierarchy of being that it isn’t it isn’t just these abstract concepts you know the forms in the terms of the almost like these these these concepts or these just let’s say patterns in a way that is not related to consciousness and so when I talk about principalities I’m talking about a hierarchy of of beings beings that are that have something let’s say analogical or akin to what we experience as consciousness and that is the pattern of reality that is really how reality lays itself out and so you you end up with something like angels and demons and I know a lot of people are going to think that’s weird but people only think that’s weird because they’ve taken for granted that they are conscious beings and they somehow see human consciousness as this as an exception to how the world lays itself out but as you notice that it is through consciousness that the word lays itself out that you need conscious agents to to be you know to be points of fulcrums of logos to be the place where meaning kind of is gathered into then it’s not that hard to imagine that happening at higher levels as well at happening at levels that are higher than just the the human individual so that’s how I see it so Benjamin RVA says could you discuss the etymological relationship between symbol that which is thrown or cast together and diabolos the agent noun or greek verb diabolin to throw apart describe the work of the logos as gathering together identity while separating from everything else isn’t this symbolism is the etymology of art pointing to the same process of fitting things together kind of nature as co-creators be understood as symbolic artists of various forms if so what can we do to make the connotation of symbol and artist less mundane and more properly understood as the cosmic role of god and man in opposition to the diabolical that’s a lot of stuff man but it’s good stuff you’ve got some good stuff yes the the idea of the devil or the one who separates is that’s that’s what the devil means that’s what that’s what we refer to when we look at the way that the devil the evil one is described as the accuser you know the one of the things that accusing does is it all it calls you out to separate you from something right it’s like i want to accuse you so that i separate you from god and so the fact that god that that satan is the accuser the fact that satan is the source of our you know kind of like this idea that satan tempts us through his demons to commit sins that he breaks us apart he makes us fall into temptation or fall into um fall into a passion so that we’re not in communion with our totality so that we’re possessed by something all of this is related to the fragmentation and so the the the divine logos is has that it has both the divine logos both unifies and separates and that is the process of creation as you said and and so this is and it’s also more related to the true relationship to the world which is a a process of looking at the world which is both kind of synthetic and analytical both those two modes have to be together in a breathing in and breathing out let’s say the modern world or modern science at least has tried to focus almost exclusively on the analytical mode and this kind of separating mode without totally real you know it’s still you can’t avoid it you can’t avoid always kind of doing both at the same time but you can see how the devil or diabolos in as being this let’s say the ultimate principality of breaking things apart then you can see how that is you know the fallen angel you can see how the devil is doing is only doing this separating and is breaking apart the body breaking apart you know communion breaking apart love doing all these things together but as you rightly pointed out christ and the logos is always doing both at the same time and it’s doing both at the same time which is the very life of the the trinity this unity and multiplicity perfect unity and multiplicity that is the work of love and i agree that symbolism and art in terms of the traditional definition of art which i’ve talked about which is properly fitted together is related to symbolism that is for things to be properly fitted together you both have to acknowledge their separateness you both have to acknowledge the the integrity of the parts and also see how they are patterned in a beautiful and appropriate way and so how can we make this you know how can we help the world see this as the cosmic role of god a man i don’t know except that that’s what i’ve been trying to do you know that’s what i’ve been trying to do for the past several years both in my artistic practice and at the same time in both of my artistic practice and in my work on symbolism and in my you know trying to you know writing for the orthodox art journal or trying to talk about the beauty of liturgical art and the function of art you know all these talks that i gave there’s so many of them that talk about sacred space in secular terms i have one sacred art in secular terms all of this is is what i’ve been trying to uh to do so i would say join the chorus and uh and let’s all help the world see how powerful art how powerful art can be all right so kenan cronin so kenan cronin asked why is homosexuality called an abomination in christianity i can see it from a platonic sense as it doesn’t fulfill the form and it’s extremely intrinsically disordered but i met people who truly seem to find love in others of the same sex and as a result i struggle with the idea that god does not approve of that how do you see this sorry for such an annoying question well it’s not an annoying question it’s a question that will give you ban from youtube it’s a question like all other questions i think i’ve hinted at this before i think that you i think that that one of the things that you mentioned is right in terms of the the difficulty of the purpose i’ve talked about this in several ways before when i tried to to show that sexuality has different aspects different logy different different aspects which need to be brought together in communion in order for sexuality to be fully revealed and so if you strip away one of them then you’re lacking in your in it’s it’s a sin it’s a sin i don’t know what other word to say it’s missing the mark there’s no other way to say it and so uh and that goes also for the acts the homosexual acts they are missing the mark and i don’t want to get explicit about it but there when something is not performing its function or its role that is a sinful it’s a sin and not even before you see it in terms of morality you just have to see it in terms of not not accomplishing what that thing is for you know and and i think that that’s what we’re that’s what we see in in those relationships now in terms of love and in terms of finding love in someone from the same sex i agree i think that it’s totally possible the problem is not love the problem of course the problem is not love the problem is sex it’s not about love it’s it really is about sex and it’s annoying for a lot of people to have to see it it’s like you are definitely you are allowed to love someone you are allowed to love someone of the same sex you you have uh people you know you have these great stories of saints that become almost like blood brothers you know that are completely dedicated to to to each other monks who who live in the same cell who are completely dedicated to each other who become you know who are united in their love for each other but they just don’t they don’t have sex together i don’t want to tell you that’s that the fact that we sexualize everything is also a problem of our society the fact that we want to sexualize all our relationships is definitely a a difficult thing uh i i believe that it is possible i believe it is possible like we see in let’s say in the platonic sense in the idea of platonic love it is possible to use that passion to reach something even higher you know to reach relationships that are extremely powerful but that means that you it also involves a form of it also involves a form of it involves abstinence it involves not engaging in the physical aspect of what is meant to be there in part to procreate so i’m gonna make a lot of make a lot of i’m gonna make a lot of uh of enemies talking about this but you know i’ve already talked about it before i’ve already mentioned that this is i think is the you know i yeah one day i’ll tell you one day i’ll tell you guys some stories about that in terms of you know there are let’s just say it this way i’m not saying that this is easy and i’m not saying that that this is something that should be talked about lightly but to those who have transcended that desire they it can reach something a very very powerful that if you are able to if you are able to go beyond that desire then um then there’s a treasure on the other side that’s all i can say about that that all right guys okay so alex riddle asks my question is about justice and mercy as it relates to quality and quantity i noticed that early forms of justice and i for an i embrace the equality of the original offense i.e. the criminal receives a punishment the same offense that he inflicted on another today however there is really one kind of punishment incarceration and it is measured in time that is as extension of quantity as extension of quantity it seems like most people would agree that imprisonment even though it may last a long time is more merciful than getting your hand cut off or your eye poked out this suggests to me that there is some inherent relationship between quantity and mercy as well as between quality and justice could you help untangle this a bit uh i don’t know if you’ve totally i don’t know if you totally phrase it right um but i think you’re on to something i think you’re on to something there’s something about there’s a relation how about let’s talk about it this way okay talk about it in terms of how we’re dealing with now there’s a relationship between justice or rigor you could say and purity okay so that is related to space it is related to quality to a certain extent in the sense that you are being very severe about the identity of something right it’s like you are being extremely severe about what is inside and what is outside what is not what is acceptable for the body to exist and what is unacceptable that is of course kind of rigor and mercy is related to time in a way and you’re right because there it is there is a kind of letting go right a letting go in the hope that that will in time bring someone closer and so you have to imagine you always have to think in practice i always don’t i don’t like talking in abstract terms you probably know that you know and so you can imagine that someone that someone comes and steals something from you now you have every right to be rigorous and expect that that person to pay you and you can say you pay me or else you know i don’t know i’m gonna call the i’m gonna get my lawyer on you or i’m gonna call the cops on you or whatever and so or you can be merciful now in extending mercy what you’re doing is you’re opening up this loop you’re opening up this loop where the person you’re giving the chance the opportunity for that person to transform and to change so you’re saying you know here’s a chance for you to change you know to give me back the money i’m giving you some time to give me back the money or giving you i’m giving you the i’m giving you the possibility of showing that you will not let yourself be be defined by this that you will that you will change okay so that is this kind of extension of mercy but yeah you always need to kind of have both at the same time especially in society for sure you could say that our our system is extremely based on mercy and it has its advantages also has its disadvantages there are disadvantages which is you know you end up with mass incarceration you know you have this this crazy mass incarceration and so you end up so what you do is you leave you leave space and you leave time for a person to change you kind of put them in prison for a while for them to change but then you keep putting people there and so you kind of fill up the margin you fill up the margin with people and you fill it up fill it up at some point it’s so crowded that it it’s scary to have all these prisoners who represent a substantive percentage of the population that are kind of given time to change but uh uh so yeah so so it also has its negative sides as well you know uh i don’t know what the solution to that is but both sides have positive and negative in terms of this relationship between you know and so you could say something like if you have a very severe justice system then you know the the act of purity the sword that’s going to come down and chop it can it can on the one hand create enough you know enough fear and enough uh enough uh let’s say a sense of dread in the people that they will they won’t do the bad things but then when they do you you have to bring down the law and then you have to you have to shut it down um and so you also don’t give that extension for people to change and if you believe that the purpose of reality is for all of us to kind of to to to be given the possibility of transformation and to come into the life of god then for sure you need to find a balance between the two because if you’re if you’re too merciful as well then you have people who who don’t take it seriously and don’t care and you know will just continue there you know you know that with your kids if you don’t punish them you don’t bring down the law and you’re too merciful you just kind of you just kind of say go to your room all the time it’s not enough haha sometimes you need a little more discipline than that all right all right so i’m going to subscribe star now guys i think i’ve got all the marks yeah okay so erin lecktenberger asks does squaring hold any symbolic meaning explaining why it is avoided by christians put another way is there a common pattern between swearing to make people laugh versus swearing out of anger um i think swearing is a very very interesting subject it is extremely interesting especially the the the you know the religious word swearing you know not just like the cursing you know like not just not just saying dirty words of what of course that is also related to it but you can you can understand it more in terms of you know using god’s name in vain or using or saying things like damn or saying things you know uh in quebec we have a whole culture of using church words in swearing so people use every single word tabernacle chalice um you know um they it’s like sacristy they use the word uh it’s like every single thing in a church and every and and of course they’d use the name of christ the name of christ you know you in english you have people use the name of the mother of god uh in vain you would say and so there’s a there’s a relationship there’s an interesting there’s an interesting idea this is something that i’ve been trying to kind of point you guys to in terms of trying to understand the incarnation and trying to understand the mystery that christ brings to us is how there’s a relationship between death and glory i keep keep trying to try to show you that and i don’t want you to confuse the two you know i don’t want you to think that death and glory you know if you if you’re in the world of death that’s not good it’s bad it’s not it’s very bad but you have to understand the way that people kind of flip out of it the way that christ kind of brought us out of death through death is is something which you see happen at all kind of levels in my last video i talked about you know the relationship between the ark of the covenant and this kind of weird groin cancer that was developed in this these these growth in the hidden parts that were developed by the israelites and how they had to make golden hemorrhoids golden aspects and mice in order and return the ark to the temple in order to kind of be healed from their disease it’s all related and so and so the idea that when you are in a moment of passion when you’re in a moment where meaning breaks down and you lack words to to uh let’s say you lack words to express what is happening uh then you would use these church words in a distorted and perverse way because the there’s this weird relationship between the lowest and the highest there’s a very strange a strange connection between the two and i talked about this in terms of the crown of thorns in terms of a whole bunch of symbolism which is in christianity and so this is why you know this is why you could say like if you imagine how when the the roman soldiers are insulting christ you can imagine that that’s the same when someone is swearing when someone is using the name of christ or the name of the virgin mother or just using god’s name in vain that they are mocking that they are treating as nothing right they’re acting as if these holy things are just nothing and you connect them to your passion to some lack of you know you know giving up on words almost like an onomatopoeia you know almost like a grunt uh that you could see how that is what the roman soldiers are doing and christ is taking that bringing it back into the highest bring it back into the holy place so it’s related as well to i talked about this this idea of the nakedness in the garden and the nakedness of shame right the the nakedness of adam in the garden and the nakedness of noah drunk in his tent right that they’re they’re the same they’re like the same thing but they’re at the opposite ends of each other they’re one is at the beginning one is at the end you know and then christ takes that and flips it right he’s naked on the cross being persecuted being mocked all of that is happening but he is changing the nakedness of noah into the nakedness in the garden so that is also the pattern of swearing has to do with this pattern as well it’s just something inevitable um so don’t swear guys it’s not good for your soul um all right okay so let’s go so charles kinkade says what is the symbolism of doppelgangers wow seeing that they’re often harbingers of death does it have something to do with separation so i don’t know about the whole harbingers of death thing i i want to be careful that we don’t fall into the weird kind of occult versions of this idea of of doppelganger and whatnot um i think the idea of the doppelganger is an interesting one i think it’s a it’s a fascinating one in the sense of the one would be to understand it as the the idea of the evil twin you know and so you have it’s as if if you if you have a person then you have the totality of the being but if you have two of the same right if you separate if you have two of the same then you inevitably will have a you know good and evil it’ll just happen because you know it’s like it’s the same as the the separate you say that adam in the garden you know was beyond good and evil or that was the higher good you would say and and that as he comes down and falls and eats of the tree then he gets separated good and evil become these these appear as these two separate things as these kind of appear to him as these two kind of these two realities that are fighting each other and uh and so i think that that in in the whole symbolism of the of the twin the identical twin you see that in popularly tropes there’s a few movies about i forget there’s there’s a movie there’s a movie with nicklas cage about about these that like the evil twin kind of stuff um and so the other possibility also of the idea of the doppelganger is also the difficulty of seeing yourself kind of seeing yourself from a remove you know um i think that i think that we’re a little immune to that right now because we’re surrounded by mirrors and so we’re used to seeing ourselves from outside ourselves um but can you if you can imagine in a world where there are very few mirrors or you can only kind of see yourself in a dark pool of water or some you know some polished piece of brass or something uh to see the to see yourself is something which would be extremely unsettling and disturbing because it’s as if you’re outside of yourself seeing yourself and it seems like i think that that that’s probably what doppelgangers also have have to do with and so if if there’s this idea like a superstitious idea that they’re kind of harbingers of death i think that that probably has to do with that it has to do with the idea of kind of standing outside of yourself and and seeing yourself and so that is like a you know when you see something from the outside or when you see the totality of something from the outside you’re not it’s not a living experience of something right it’s it’s like an it’s like an outside thing that you’re analyzing so i that is in a way a form of of death you would say not totally but in the sense that like you are you and that the other person is not you right and so you’re not there’s a there’s a there’s a layer of death that has to be crossed before you reach the other person you would say and so if you can imagine yourself from the outside looking back in it’s as if you’re seeing like you’re seeing your own garments of skin you could say it that way something like that hopefully that made sense seems like it didn’t totally make sense seems like it didn’t totally make sense so christian chad hey it’s good to see you i think i saw christian chad in the chat as well it’s good to see you again feels like i haven’t seen you in a while christian chad says hi jonathan you mentioned in previous videos that jagdegedah combined with the sense of hierarchy would be a great thing however i’m a little confused what would a postmodern hierarchy look like yeah i think you have to be careful i when i talk about jagdegedah i think that jagdegedah had some really interesting insights in the sense that because he was kind of coming through heidegger and he was coming through a he was he was coming through heidegger through a kind of phenomenological approach and so he was re-entering a world of of meaning in the sense that he saw the world as patterned and he didn’t he didn’t he didn’t tend to see uh he wasn’t a materialist in the sense that we understand that now and the kind of the you know he had this interesting perception of patterns and he also had he also understood the limit of the modern project and was pointing to the limit of the modern project and so what i think is that in in his and so he he he he had a lot of interesting things in his work he talked about the problem of inside and outside he talked about the problem of the margin and the difficulty you know but he what he would do is that for example he’s always talking about the margin he talks about agents of deconstruction you know and so and he’s right all the things that he he identifies as being agents of deconstruction you know in between in between identities things that that are indeterminate you know he always talks about these concepts that are indeterminate that are in between concepts so he’s constantly bringing these things up and that is the deconstruction right and so the thing that i try to to help people understand is that that’s right you know the modern project had been ignoring this this this thing had been ignoring how what the place of the margin is and what it does and so Jacques de Gendin a lot of the postmodernists they’ve identified that and now i’m saying yes now but without the hierarchy none of it makes sense so in in a normal hierarchy then all of the question of the margin and the indeterminacy that the margin creates is completely logical like it makes complete sense and so the things that he talks about are real it’s just that it’s just that they also bring about a return of hierarchy you know because if you watch i did a video called how to turn postmodernism back i think it’s something like that like how to turn postmodernism on its head or something like that you can you can find my video on that where i tried to show how Jacques Derrida’s use for example of the prostitute as an image of this this kind of in-between character that that accepts everything that that you know that is open to everybody that is open to the stranger all of this stuff and i tried to show that even that in a narrative function that exact that’s exactly the role that she can play but you can see how for example in several stories this brings about destruction you know and the story of joshua and uh and the spies the two spies you can see that in that story she plays exactly that role she’s on the wall of the city she she’s open to the foreigner she lets the foreigner into into the city you know and there’s this whole idea of the red thread that goes out of the of her window in the connects let’s say the inside and the outside but it’s through that red thread that the city ends up being destroyed and so i tried to show how this re by playing out the pattern of the margin to its its logical conclusion then you necessarily end up reinstating hierarchy it just happens on its own um all right so nicola says you’ve talked about the extremely bad christian movies before i was wondering why do we cringe when we hear a story told in a bad way i can also think of my teenage self dismissing my parents lecture on something or just listening to a boring professor at the university why are we so hung up on hearing the story being told the right way why can’t we focus on the essence of the message on our own without relying too much on the skill of the storyteller to grab our attention i think it’s more than just the skill nicola i think that when we cringe at a bad story or when we cringe at our parents telling us something or when we cringe at the boring professor there’s also a sense in which we intuitively understand that what’s happening in front of us is inauthentic we have a very very let’s say intuitive grasp of something which is not authentic and so when we are faced with it when we’re faced with someone who tells you not to do something and but it’s so empty it’s empty because everything that has led you up to there makes you understand that the person who is telling you this doesn’t really believe it you know or doesn’t really live it or is a hypocrite or is just spouting out empty empty advice you know when we sense that and when we watch a movie where you can see that the person just wanted to get a message to you that the story that they’re telling is not does not have a profound authentic story pattern then we just it just gives us the you know it’s it’s it’s like it’s seeing something fake it’s seeing something which is and it’s it’s it’s difficult to to face that and the opposite is true like you said you can hear you can hear someone who says something to you and it’s the same thing as your parents said but because there’s something about there’s something imperceptible or are are unquantifiable about the way they’re doing it about the authenticity the deep understanding they have of what they’re saying the or the deep lived experience of what they’re saying then all of a sudden this has more clout and it just has more more power um yeah so does the bible of orthodox christianity have anything to say about ancestor worship if not how do you perceive it have noticed an uptick in this form in this from the woke subset of an otherwise protestant demographic in the united states really interesting i didn’t know that this was happening this is very strange uh we have i mean i wouldn’t call it ancestor worship but we have something in the orthodox church which we call the veneration of the saints and uh and we also pray for our or for the deceased we do not believe in the orthodox church that we are fully separated from those who have passed we we believe that they are mysteriously you know maybe eschatologically still connected to us and that they can still affect us and we can still affect them and so it is not it’s not necessarily recommended but it is not impossible for someone to to ask for their mother deceased mother or deceased grandparents to pray for them um thing about asking your ancestors to pray for you is that you don’t necessarily know what their situation is you don’t know what their spiritual state is and so it might not necessarily be super effective it just depends you know in the orthodox church as well it the idea that somehow people need to wait for someone to be canonized in order to pray to them in order to ask them for prayers is a hogwash because the way in which we recognize that someone should be a saint is in part through the fact that there are many people who are interested are asking that person to intercede for them and so before before someone is canonized there will be people who are who are asking for that person’s intercession and then when the church canonizes them it’s really just a recognition of something which is already there and already happening and so and so in that sense you know there is the possibility of doing that you know i mean obviously you have to be careful it’s just like anything there’s a hierarchy to these things you when you if you ask for someone who is deceased if you pray for them and you you you ask them humbly and very discreetly i would say to pray for you i would say to be careful that that doesn’t become a big thing because all our prayers need to culminate in christ you know all our prayers are ultimately directed to christ even when we ask others even if we venerate the saints we venerate the saints and we ask them to pray for us to christ we venerate the mother of god and we ask her to pray to us for us to christ and so and so this all has to kind of be hierarchy proportioned in a in a proper manner so that we all as we pray for each other are all directing you know our worship and prayer to god so that is what i would have to say about that okay so let’s go into patreon so norm grande asks what is grace you speak often about dichotomies such as a left hand and right hand and how one is not better or worse but it depends on the situation would you say that grace is the ability to discern what is right in a given situation or is it something else um so i would say that a good way to understand grace is to is to understand it as that which is received uh and so in the orthodox tradition we we believe that the grace of god or we could say the the underlying will the underlying you know extension that god how god underlies all of creation that is kind of hidden in creation that grace is what is holding creation together that it is that it is you know the the way in which things are connected to god and they are god himself that they are the that we call the this whole idea of the divine energies is grace the divine energies are grace and and so there is this sense that there is a way in which god opens up the world right that opens up that calls forth that underneath hidden in everything is the very will the very presence of god and so and so you can imagine it as a and so and so it’s not so and that doesn’t contradict the idea for example that we receive grace through the the church through the sacraments we receive grace also directly from god we and it’s it’s kind of like this you can understand it almost as this this first call right and so so god extends out right and and opens up the path you could say between between god and us between creation and him and then it is our responsibility to participate to respond to say amen to say thank you to worship all of this response to grace and this participation in in grace is how things are continued to how things become well fitted in love that’s the best i can do this stuff is hard to talk about especially because the idea of grace is so caught up now with you know with trinitarian theology stuff that i really don’t like to talk about it too much because i’m not a theologian all right so agars mamis says and guys everything i say please please always take as as my own attempt to express something and uh like i said go to your go you know the the church has its own authority on these things that you can always look up very easy to look up on google these days so you can just do that all right so agars mamis says hi jonathan in these days more and more of our activities and communication is happening through our screens what is the screen can you share some thoughts on the difference between the picture representation of thing and the thing itself representation of thing and the thing itself um yeah the screen i mean the idea of a screen it participates in the notion of image and so this is something which was developed in the in the christian church in the seventh day commedical council the problem or the reality of image which is that one of the aspects of a person is their image right it is an extension of your being and it points to you and so the so christ has an image you have an image everybody has an image something which if i see if i see photographed or painted or whatever i can recognize and say if someone asks me like who’s that then that the answer is that’s you and so you can understand the image as a as a as a kind of portal or not a portal but let’s say people say a window or an opening onto the person just like your name is just like uh you know your if you i don’t know if you write a book if then you leave a book behind or if you if you uh like this like these videos there are all these extensions of my being out into the world and as you see them if you see me on the street or if you see a video of me if you see a picture of me you’re you’re encountering an extension of me and i can extend out into to the world through through my through my influence and not just like that but even in my children like my children are also in a way these little images of me um and so there is this it really is this what this idea of understanding how a being extends out into the world and how you you know how you cannot reduce especially for today you cannot reduce a being to a materialist substrate just doesn’t work you know the very notion of the image is there to destroy that you know because although an image has to be uh physically made you know it’s like if i have a picture of you it has to be on something if even in on a screen it has to be have a material substrate but another material think about this another material substrate like a painting or or a screen or a photograph can become if it’s patterned properly can become an extension of you can become a a portal for me to engage with your being you know uh and just that is really important it’s really important to understand this idea of a being you know because it shows you how like i said you cannot reduce a person or any being to just their uh their material material uh composition you know if you could then it would be absurd to to to be able to have an image that’s that’s uh that’s just a bunch of of shining lights and say and i can show it to you and you say oh you know that’s john or that’s joe all right so joe’s siya mcarvey asked what are your thoughts on deconstruction huh interesting it’s interesting that this is coming up a lot the academic term for a systematic pulling apart of the belief system you’re raised in and why is it so common in the west um well there’s two things one is deconstruction the way that jagde did it was showing how showing the limit of systems and showing how as the system extends then there are there are processes in the systems that are showing its limit that are that are acting even against the central identity that are let’s say subverting even within you know even as you reach this this relationship between inside and outside you have on the edge you have these these concepts you have these figures you have all of these these types that are acting as chaotic agents you would say um whereas deconstruction the way that it’s happening now you have to see it or you could say weaponized deconstruction is is more virulent because the it is used to then instigate something else it is not neutral right and so using deconstruction to to try to destroy western civilization and to try to constantly point to its use of power its use of you know this idea that structure itself is power all of these tropes are there to destroy the society and replace it with something else which has the exact same structure even though people do not understand it and are unconscious about it but they want to replace it with something which not only has the same structure but has a kind of extreme virgin and an oh and really is i guess an inverted version of that pattern um you know i’ve made several videos like i did a video called um from equality to inversion there are a few videos i have i also have the video on deconstruction where i tried to show that the deconstructed the deconstruction move is usually hiding a weapon behind its back you know it’s not just to create this kind of you know uh egalitarian uh world not at all it’s ends up creating an upside down hierarchy all right richard anderson says so hi i was pondering the divine darkness and what it actually is i have my thoughts on it but i always find myself connecting it to the story of the prodigal son in which the life of the prodigal son is the journey in and out of the divine darkness i’ve heard you say that you’ve never first experienced a divine darkness is this connected connection i’ve made a valid consideration or have i misjudged with divine darknesses yes i think you’re misunderstanding the idea of the divine darkness at least the way that i’m presenting it uh you seem you’re you seem to be confusing i guess the divine darkness which is presented let’s say in sangria girmisa or in the apophatic theologians with what you know um this idea of the the the darkness of the soul you know you see that in what’s the name of that saint i forget saint therese guy man it’s horrible this idea of the the the deep dark you know the dark voyage into the soul this is these are not the same they’re not the same the divine darkness is is the matter in which god is unknowable and so it is in a way it is sometimes some of the fathers call it blinding light and so it’s it’s light which is so strong that it is that it ends up being darkness it’s a way to try to ride the aporia of something which is beyond all definition some with something which is beyond all knowledge so the divine darkness is actually seen as higher or above the appearance of light because it is the place where all the categories um fall apart where all the categories stop you know so the there’s there’s a darkness below and that darkness is rather the let’s say the darkness that the darkness that is talked about in the first chapter of saint john for example this idea of the darkness of the world kind of this this outer darkness you would say that christ talks about as well this is not the same as the darkness the divine darkness now there is a way there is a way and this is the both once again this is the most mysterious thing that christ does and i can’t believe i’m saying it but it seems like there is a way in which christ unites all of it together uh it seems like christ as he is going into the outer darkness he is also revealing you know his divinity and the highest aspect of his participation in divinity as well and so yeah christ the story of christ it just shatters every concept it just shatters all the categories you know you know it’s hard to think about that story all right taylor wilson hello mr peggio have you heard of alan watz and have you listened to his take on the joker could you upload your spirit away video on patreon thanks um yes i have heard of alan watz i have to admit to you that i i do not find him particularly interesting which means that i have not spent a lot of time listening to him um i have not heard his talk on the joker maybe i can find it listen to it but i i’m just not and i know some people following me you know i know that some of you um you know you do psychedelics i personally i i’m not that interested in that world i don’t know i’m not saying there’s anything wrong with psychedelics i don’t know i i seems like something that i i have to think about more i haven’t had the chance to but i it seems to me like people who have done a lot of psychedelics and i take alan watz just take jerry garcia those kinds of people or um it seems like they get something but it ends up being rather subversive that has been my experience of of them so so yeah sorry that’s my take on that so and what comes after this life is there any memory of this life man also any idea why toilet paper is the most in demand item during the apocalypse so drew i hope you watch my video on the coronavirus because i talk about that explicitly and i think i think you’ll get your answer if you watch that as for uh in what is there any memory of this life man the best way that i understand that is something like that we will not dwell on this life something like that and so so yeah i don’t know i don’t know we talk about memory and we talk about memory as this connection to each other and the connection to god so in that sense there has to be some form of memory in let’s say in the eschaton but it’s hard to think about that stuff it’s hard to talk about it so benjamin wood said is the logos the yin to some other yang or or are the yin and the yang united within the logos uh if they are what is what is it that opposes or stands outside the logos what is it that opposes or stands outside the logos and is there any orthodox vision of integration with this shadow i see this as a tremendous shortcoming in jung’s understanding of christ and anti-christ and would love your feedback i don’t really know i’ve said you i told you guys before i don’t i don’t read jung i haven’t really read him um maybe for the same reasons that i’m not that interested in someone like alan watz i’m not saying that he has no he has no insight i’ve heard people sometimes say things that he said and i feel like there’s insight there and i’ve heard people say things that he said and i feel like no there i don’t i don’t i don’t not a big fan of that i think that the the category of yin and yang is has less to do with logos it’s more analogous to heaven and earth really in in scripture in terms of the two the two opposites the two basic opposites of creation you know and so and so we can understand let’s say the logos or the action of the logos as the filling up the the the the filling up of earth with heaven you could you could see it that way that may be a good way to understand it you know and so for sure the logos has a more masculine role in creation because it names because it calls forth um and so you can see that happening and you get a sense in the creation narrative the earth that there is you know logos is telling the earth to bring forth and so you do have a sense of this this this feminine aspect which is bringing forth and the logos is giving names and is and is calling out you know reality out of it and so but in a way the logos also transcends all of that and becomes the principle of all of creation so we have to be careful also not to you have to be careful not to put god or put the logos in opposition to the world all right so k asked many short and sweet phrases in the bible really puzzle me fell on his face and stoned with stones are just a couple of the many what do they mean what do you mean what do they mean to fall on your face uh needs to fall on your face no it it means that you what is above goes below right you you so if you if you uh if your head is above when you’re standing and then you put your face to the ground it is an act of humiliation it’s an act of humility it’s an act of of um of becoming uh horizontal you know of becoming the earth you would say um and stoned with stones i mean it just means stoned um i don’t know i don’t um i don’t know i don’t know if there’s any other meaning besides that all right so horgay fernandez asked hi jonathan what do you why do you think that the movie parasite was the most praised movie last year why people are celebrating trespassing manipulating and killing the higher class and do you think there is a connection with all the chaos that we are seeing in the coronavirus festival i have not seen parasite to be i want to be totally honest with you guys this is a big confession i’m making to you guys i really don’t watch a lot of movies so you know i made a bunch of movie interpretations but i really don’t watch a lot of movies i rarely watch movies um i don’t i don’t have time you know and so i haven’t seen i want to see parasite i want to see it because i’ve heard a lot of things about it and you know because it’s gotten so much there’s been so much noise around it so i will watch it and uh and maybe i’ll make a either make something about it or maybe i’ll talk about it in one of the q a’s but i have not seen it yet um so james corti cortidis corte sorry if i’m pronouncing a name wrong james hi jonathan how’s your brother met you’re doing is he working on any new material can you expand on some of the topics at the end of his book the language of creation specifically the idea of meta space crowned by time and metacognitive model of the universe what do these concepts mean to you and how would their realization affect our understanding of being in the world um so my two is doing he’s doing okay he’s actually i’m actually very lucky right now because he’s had to move and there’s been kind of a bit of chaos around him and so he uh he had to stay at my parents house for a few weeks because he was kind of in between apartments and then this whole coronavirus thing hit and for reasons that are too complicated to explain now he’s kind of he’s kind of stuck there for a little while and so so i’m really lucky that i’ve been seeing mature you know once or twice a week now for the past month and so that’s been really awesome it’s been really great and so we’ve been having to have some great conversations and we might be working on some projects together but i have to warn you you will probably will not see him again in a video that’s just how it is um and so in terms of understanding meta space crowned by time and uh you know i’m going to give you guys a little secret is that he’s talking about christ in that in that idea he’s talking about christianity and so maybe that’s all i can tell you he specifically says that he doesn’t he wanted to not talk explicitly about christ in the book because he was hoping that people would make all the connections just from the old testament patterns and so but ultimately meta space crowned by time that’s christ on the cross guys that’s what it is christianity think about that so isaiah hale asked how did you learn to make liturgical art thank you so all right so this is a complicated story because one of the problems that we have what we have had is that you know liturgical art was in a decline for a while you know the 20 early late 19th century and early 20th century were not kind to orthodoxy were not kind to to liturgical art it was destroyed in a way by kind of vanishing into western secular art it was also destroyed by the secular governments the communist revolutions in eastern europe and also the kind of fascistic type states that were in some of the orthodox countries the highly secular state that was in greece all of this was very destructive so we’ve been seeing a renewal in the past 50 years i would say and what i’m doing is just moving that renewal one step further in this in the direction of icon carving the icon painting you know had its forerunners you have people like uspensky and and contour glue you have also certain people in russia apart from that you apart from that you that kind of reestablished liturgical art and so in my case what i did is i studied art as in the secular way i studied fine art from school and then i took some iconology classes and so i studied with a priest who is nearby father stephen freeman uh no sorry uh father stephen bigam father stephen freeman is someone else father stephen bigam who is a priest who lives nearby my house and uh i was a student of his i even translated one of his books and he gave me i would say the basis for understanding iconological patterns and then i kind of developed carving on my own and what i would do is as i was kind of developing the carving on my own i was emailing and connecting with proto icon carvers people who were also rediscovering carving but who were kind of a bit ahead of me like aiden hart there’s also a carver in the us a serbian carver his name is george belak you can check out his website he’s a great miniature carver and i i would send him emails and he would kind of criticize my stuff and so we and so that’s how it happened you know then getting the the blessing of my bishop to to continue he um he was the my bishop was actually the first person to order something specifically from me i think i’ve told that story before and so i made that that icon from him and then since then i’ve been doing it pretty much as a as a job and uh getting criticism from different i’ve had people from all over the world writing their criticism of my carvings i’ve been in contact with some russian carvers i’ve had some georgian carvers who have written me some scathing criticisms of my work which i always take take into account you know artists any good artist you have to be ruthless don’t if you if you want to be a good artist you cannot be you cannot be difficult about your work you have to be able willing to listen and not only listen but search out for people criticizing you and so i’ve had aiden hart uh who is a prominent iconographer in england write me and say you know it’s like why are you doing that your your cheekbone like that like i remember one time he said you should never have your cheekbone connect to the ear right you should always leave an open space here so that you can see the neck connected and then and then all of a sudden it’s funny when someone criticizes your art that way you then look at your your art and it’s like you see something you hadn’t seen before so it’s actually very useful i was like yeah oh i didn’t notice i do that uh-huh yeah i do that okay i have to stop doing that uh and so through a bunch of those i uh i slowly kind of developed and so what i’m hoping and that what i hope to do is i try to extend that out to those who want to learn icon carving today so i always tell people if you send me pictures of your icon carvings it might take me a while but i will respond and give you a critique i will not i will be honest about my critique so you have to be willing to deal with that if you send me images of your art if you want to know what i think about it i will i will be critical and hopefully doing that not to flatter you or to be mean but to help people get better all right so robert smith asks there are an inerural number of things that are distant from us which we have no control over and yet which we worry over in life a modern one is what strangers on the internet might think and say about us is that a symbolic curse from the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden well yeah everything is a curse from eating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden pretty much every every sin is uh is the consequence of that but for sure the internet has created a very very disturbing and psychologically damaging world where in us in a village or in a small community you had to deal with you know what a few people thought of you and you could have enemies who disliked you or who didn’t like you know your face i didn’t like what you were doing and so now you’ve extended that to the entire world um and so we have to deal with that and i think we’ve all experienced that you know you you end up getting into this really horrible chat discussion and you’re arguing back and forth and uh to be honest i decided a few years ago that i was going to not do that ever and so when i do that and it’s happened that i’ve done that please see it as a as a fall on my part see it as a moral failing on my part because i i think that it is useless and it’s pointless and it is even worse within the church when i see people in the church who are publicly insulting each other people come on my facebook page sometimes and i’m sorry to say but but clergy on my facebook on my facebook page and they start screaming at each other in my facebook comments and i’m thinking there are thousands of people who can see this and we’ve somehow accepted that this is acceptable to do that that that yelling at people online is somehow acceptable um especially in the church you know if you have something against someone and i say that to myself as well because i’ve not been 100 on this some of you know talk to the person directly write to the person directly go through the normal channels um try to avoid public public humiliation all right so sander kudert asked the whole must be free because there is nothing outside of it so if one with the whole we are free too doesn’t that bridge the religious and scientific understanding of freedom um well i’m not sure with the word whole let’s say god i prefer that uh or the infinite god so the infinite god must be free yes as there is nothing outside of it and so to the extent that we are one with god we are free too doesn’t that bridge the religious and scientific understanding of freedom so as i reformulate your question i can say i think it does i think it totally does i’ve said this before in a q a which is that to be to be free doesn’t mean that you can choose between things to be free means that you are not that you are not defined by you are not a slave to the outer aspects of you or to the outside in general that is to be free and so as you are one with god who is the source of your being who is the reason why you exist who is you know the the origin of you as you you as you become one with god then you are free and that is and so it ends up being for a lot of people ends up looking like a paradox because to be a slave to god is to be free all right and so oliver erickson says is there a relation between genesis one jesus’s birth and the resurrection well for sure there’s a relationship between them because if you read the first chapter of the gospel of saint john you can see that saint john is explicitly making a relationship between the incarnation and the the creation story in genesis you know what he is he the in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god and when we say through him all things were made all of this is to connect the the the creation of the world with the incarnation and the resurrection let’s take the incarnation as a whole and the incarnation as a new creation as a a bringing the seed of a new creation right you can see it that way and so there is definitely a relationship between all those three all right guys so i am done with the questions i’m going to go into the chats and see what we got here but we are ready at 10 30 you guys but it’s okay i’m feeling i’m feeling okay i hate to say one of the things that one of the things that that that gave you some energy was to see christian chad in the chat i don’t know why christian chad but for some reason when i saw you were there in the chat i was like christian chad is there all right okay that’s very odd sorry guys okay so here we go all right so let’s go down oh man there’s a lot all right so i don’t know if we’re getting through all this i’m going to try i’m going to try so eric cartman eric cartman for five dollars asked hi jonathan how does one deal with being physically ugly man that’s tough uh how does one deal with being physically ugly well i would say that being physically beautiful has advantages but it also has disadvantages because it is also a it is also a door to the passions and so i’m not saying you should want to be physically you know ugly if you are not attractive if you are not attractive there is a redeeming there is a redeeming possibility to that there is a way in which you know and this is one of the mysteries of christianity there is a way in which the grace of god can shine in our weakness you know one of the and so one of the things we have to be able to do is to if we are not bitter about those things in us which are not what we wish they were you know and it doesn’t have just to be about physical appearance of course that’s an important one for the take social our social world um but it can also be strength it can also be be capacity it can also be economic status all of these things um if we are capable of not being bitter about them and and accepting them all of these things can actually become a place of great blessing and when i talk about this flip you know this is one of the things that can happen that is one of the reasons why i think saint paul talks about this idea of boasting of his weaknesses which is that there is something christianity makes it possible for us to take the lowest and and have it be full of god you know and so that’s why i would say that how does one deal with being physically ugly i would say that you should pray that you should repent if you are bitter about that if you feel like you’re not given what you are owed i would say to talk about it with your spiritual father with your if you have someone who’s guiding you um and i would say to p to be attentive and to see to see the way that to use it as a way to see how people are also very superficial you know and and by having something by having a weakness an apparent weakness one of the things it does is it also exposes the hypocrisy of the world um and so that’s that’s what i could say about that all right so alex caris for ten dollars usd says hey john i’ve been following you since your pepe did um i have a slight problem with so much of symbolic interpretation seeing post-hoc what do you have to say about that um i think that you’re right i think that that some symbolistic interpretation is post-hoc the pattern which we talk about the pattern that i talk about the pattern that i point to in san grigger miso or san effron or saying max was the confessor and you know that mater talked about in his book this pattern is not post-hoc this pattern um appeared at all levels of reality at and so the pattern itself is real now our capacity to see it properly now that can be post-hoc you know it takes a kind of purification of the noose it takes a practice it takes humility um and it takes time and attention and so i think that there’s always a risk that someone will kind of put their own little thing uh put their little thing in there and uh and interpret it ad hoc you would say but uh but i would say that i’ve seen let’s say that on the on this facebook group that people are part of that are the people that are really kind of following my videos and want to engage in conversation i’ve seen amazing stuff i’ve seen a few people really get the pattern and be able to to discern it in the world you know so that’s what i would have to say all right so brad’s pit you keep you’re always there brad’s pit so 20 usd says i understand the importance of humility but we can’t keep our knowledge bracketed forever if that makes sense can we how do you know when you are being a soldier or agitator or peacemaker or coward um the only way to know that brad is to pay attention to your passions and to pay attention to yourself you know if you are attentive to yourself and you are in tune with yourself then you will slowly start to be able to tell what the reasons why you’re doing things what are the reasons why you’re doing things now obviously we all do things for bad reasons sometimes but at least to be able to perceive them is going to be helpful to you and so that and so it should help you to be able to be wise in the moment where you get to know yourself it should help you to be able to be wise in the moment where you get involved and the moment where you don’t you know uh spouting off on social media about a lot of stuff is useless not helping anybody it’s not helping anything um and so i would say be attentive to that but like you said it is also possible of being a coward in the sense that it is also possible to give in to you know the pressures of the world and to not hold your own but i would say that the moments where you’re actually confronted with that are the moments where you need to to manifest it you know and so and so it’s a more real life thing where you’re facing someone who’s asking you to compromise where you’re facing a situation where you have to choose between something right and something wrong in your life um i would say to be more attentive to those than to the screeching on social media um can talk about the parables that deal with the doors of the kingdom of heaven being one day shut and an orthodox understanding of revelation am i am i doing it in my pants right now for not acting sooner uh i’m not going to give you an orthodox understanding of revelation that would require several several videos um but can you talk about the parable that deal with the doors of the kingdom of heaven being one day shut you know there is all these patterns have an absolute version to them and so there is an eschatological version of the cutting off you know and i would say that that’s that’s that’s what it’s talking about you know and so you have this this you have a vision of all things that are gathered in you know and christ talks about it in several images you know the grain separating grain from the chap all these images that there is a the kingdom of heaven has a has an there’s an image of it which is a kind of totality with limits and walls and is you know and there is also an there’s an outside to it it’s very imagistic it’s hard to understand and we we also we also have to always keep that image of the totality with a kind of final wall that that shuts off with you know other images that that that talk that that talk about how you know god is all in all you know and there are other types of images you have the you know saint isaac of ninova who talks about this idea of you know that the fire in hell is the love of god like all these other images also are part of understanding this tapestry of images which is trying to show the totality of of reality as having you know as on the one hand exhibiting this idea of a cut off and on the other hand also understanding that god’s infinite life there’s nothing outside of god like there is also nothing outside of god so you know i can’t help you any more than that hopefully that is enough for you um any so jonathan so that was drug drug doug krelin sorry i think i didn’t say his name so jonathan for five dollars ask any history books you would recommend to help see symbolic patterns in history um i don’t know i don’t know enough about modern history books i mean i would say all the ancient history books do that from the bible to you know the the the history of the kings of england to all these all these ancient histories if you read uh if you read cicero if you read some of the greek or the roman uh historians that’s what they do and so it seems like the modern historian is trying to to constantly break down narrative so um i’m afraid i cannot help you there but i’m sure there are people who are reviving a narrative version of history as we speak all right so that was david markham david for tato uh what is the symbolism behind david and goliath guys guys you can ask a question as big as that what is the symbolism behind david and goliath uh short story foreign army giant uh smallest uh seed on the inside small seed with small rocks you have a rotating wheel the giant on the edge throw the rock kill the giant just an image of the world same image same image as all the other images you have seed david seed of the king who’s not yet the king this hidden king he’s turning the world and on the edge of the world there are giants which are defeated sorry all right so bv for 9 999 says i was born into and later disillusioned by the lds church leaving a while ago advice for trying to find a way to empty and refill their cup are ideas and symbols of christianity i mean the only answer i can tell you is i would say that i’ve seen quite a few people from lds i even had there isn’t a guy from lds in montreal who started going to our church orthodox church and there is an attraction of lds people to orthodoxy because strangely enough even despite the weird materialism the lds has there is there is a a kind of ritual aspect to what they’re doing there is a kind of form aspect there is this idea of a temple with different you know different rooms and different levels of entering into and so and so it’s kind of a weird distorted version of that so i would say that for sure traditional christianity probably has a lot to offer to people coming from lds you know because it it it it has that aspect to it but it also is part of a of a of a true tradition a connected tradition from the apostle and it also has a totality of the pattern and not just kind of a small fragment of the pattern all right and so jason for ten dollars says i can attest to that treasure promised i was in a relationship with a beautiful man and had to give it up now i’m virtually a monastic reading church father’s scripture and praying ceaselessly jason thanks for that man that’s awesome thanks for thanks for for daring with that with that comment i know people that are very close to me who have also been very close to me who have also gone through that have transcended and have given birth to wonderful things so andre johnson for five dollars usd says what is the meaning of the visions of the first chapter of ezekiel please explain especially the wheels within the wheels with eyes on the rim man you guys you can’t have these questions at quarter through 11 at night this is unacceptable uh okay wheels within wheels with eyes so wheels within wheels is really the pattern that i talk about you know so there are different ontological levels of reality so these these wheels within wheels are an angelic version of understanding and that these wheels are turning within themselves and are also turning in every which way and have eyes eyes mean that the eyes are images of consciousness many eyes are images of higher more consciousness and let’s say all around consciousness you know and so the idea of a wheel with eyes around it and many wheels that are going in all the directions with eyes around it is really just an image of a full a full image of let’s say the the principalities or you know the the the presence or the the the consciousness being full and seeing everything and you know that’s as close as i can get on there on in in in without doing a whole video on it i mean i would love to do a video on that i will probably maybe i will do a video on that on the idea of the of the throne the thrones and and those angels angels and so robert chezik says for ten dollars usd stay safe and god bless thank you robert we’re trying to do that charles snippy for ten euros says hello you’re you talk about participation art a lot what is your opinion of video games for example hideho kojima’s death stranding um so so this keeps coming up the idea of video games i’m not against video games i’ve played some video games um i think that they can be useful to a certain extent just like movies can be useful to a certain extent but i think that we have to be careful not to see their participation the same as a as participation in society or participation in in the body of christ or participation in a narrative which is your own when you when you enter into a video game you are you are kind of entering into a narrative and so there is something and i’m sure that it can be transformative to a certain extent but it is extremely limited because the story of the video game is not your story you are putting your story on pause in order to enter into another story um and and so in a way and there’s also something about it which is which is entertainment which is kind of a which is a form of of of entertainment and so it is participative to a certain extent but it’s not like i said so it’s not the same as as uh your grandmother telling you a fairy tale right or or you participating in the story of your nation or participating in the story of christianity those are bonds that link you to those that are around you in your in your life and in your in your community and so yes let’s say in the video game world there’s an attempt to bridge that with online playing and with these kind of these kind of connections and i’m saying it’s completely void and completely useless but in the end i think that it it is an alienated form of it because when you take your your headphones off and you leave the screen and you go back to your wife or to or to your parents or or to your neighbors it’s like they’re not in that world it’s a complete it’s such a such a complete disjunct um so that’s what i think but like i said i don’t have a problem with video games i have played some video games in my life um and so some of them are interesting like some of them are are interesting and do have interesting symbolic structures in them all right so Neil Schaeffer says what is your perspective on apocatastasis are you guys these questions you can’t ask that question at 11 at night Neil no you can ask what they’re questioning what is your perspective on apocatastasis does the post-communion prayer that thy flames devour my transgressions have an analogy to the purifying fire of god’s judgment um what i say about apocatastasis i’ve said it a few times is that there has to be two there are two realities and one and a good way to understand it is in the sermons of saint john christ system there is a sermon for a holy saturday which is the sermon of the fire and the sermon of judgment and the sermon of watch out and there’s a sermon of easter sunday which is the sermon of come enter into the kingdom so those two things i think have to be held in in in together in an almost an in a pori almost in it in a in a way that they cannot fully be resolved in this world so we see in saint gregor vanissa we have in saint in saint maximus the confessor we have a sense in which the purpose of all things is to be united with god that the end of all things is to be united with god we have in saint gregor vanissa we see the pattern of a bringing all things into god yet we also have a tradition of things like the tall houses or something akin to them like purgatory in the catholic church or other forms of judgment and also the idea that it is possible to be so closed off to the grace of god that one remains outside like or or not outside or inside but burning because when one refuses to be transformed by god and rather holds on to their own passions and so that’s how i see it i just i just see i just see that we need need both stories in order for the christian let’s say the christian story story to be full so alfredo diaz for 40 mxn i’m not sure what mxn is but he says femicide feminicide authentic legal figure or feminism i don’t know what that is i don’t know what femicide is sorry man so you got me on uh all right so last question this is it last question taylor taylor wilson he says what is the symbolism for ten dollars what is the symbolism behind tipping our hats like we used to do in victorian times or of taking our hat off inside a building or at a funeral thanks um so tipping your hat is the same as bowing it has to do it it has to do with lowering yourself um i’ve tried i’ve explained this a few times in some talks where one of the things that we used to have we still have this in the church is we bow to each other and so in bowing to each other we we are wreck we are putting ourselves under the other person but as the other person is also putting themselves under us what ends up happening is this kind of mutual kind of mutual coming together um and so it’s an act of of humility it’s kind of like a bowing you know in the olden days or a woman would curtsy it’s all related to the same gesture of putting yourself lower than the person in front of you and taking off your hat um taking off your hat has to do this is what i think this is what i think i think that taking off your hat has to do with the the the idea in st paul i think it i think it’s connected to the notion of the fact that men should not be covered in church i don’t know if that’s true um but that’s the intuition that i have that it that that men would uncover themselves inside um kind of has to do with this this sense that they shouldn’t that they shouldn’t put something between them and what’s above them um something like that and so but maybe i could have a better answer for you guys after if i you know when i haven’t been talking for two hours so all right guys so so now we made it till 11 man feels like these question periods are getting and i see jacob in the comments in the in the chat saying no more questions in all caps so thank you jacob for protecting me me all right guys so thank you for your time guys i i just want to say i just really appreciate i appreciate this moment you know it i know it’s strange but it does make me feel like like some little bit of a connection and uh i would say you know if this has been a difficult lent for everybody because we’re not going to church most of us the churches are all closed we are at home and you know and the gaming and the video games and the netflix and the couch is calling us and so let us renew our zeal in prayer and uh try to to see this strange moment as a a moment to to pray and so thanks guys for your support to everybody who supported me and i will see you next month guys