Interview | Jonathan Jackson On The Cost of Faith in Hollywood and His Journey to Orthodoxy

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It's a tremendous happiness for me to be able to
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interview today Jonathan Jackson. I'm sure many of you know
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who he is. I'd like to say just a few
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words about him before we begin our conversation. Jonathan is
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an Emmy Award winning actor, musician, filmmaker, husband and father,
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and an Orthodox Christian. He has an extensive career both
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in television and film. Many of you saw him on
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General Hospital, on Nashville, and his band Ination. He's brought
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his talents and projects close to the heart of Holy
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Orthodoxy as well, for which we're very appreciative, including his
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portrayal of the great St. Joseph the Hesychast in the documentary,
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Man of God, St. Joseph the Hesychast. After many years
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of spiritual searching, he and his family became Orthodox Christians
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in the year 2012. Jonathan, you do us a great
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honor by being with us. Thanks a lot for being here.
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It's my honor and privilege. I'm so happy to be here.
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Would you tell us a little bit about your spiritual background,
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about your faith?
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Yeah, well, I was raised in a Christian home. My
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parents were both four generations Seventh-day Adventist. And when I
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was younger, they started moving away from that denomination.
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We're very familiar with the Adventists here. They have kind
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of a headquarters in Loma Linda about That's right.
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That's right.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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No, I heard about Loma Linda a lot growing up. Yeah.
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In fact, he got kicked out of the Seventh-day Adventist church.
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I don't know if you ever heard of him, Dr.
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Desmond Ford. He was here for, I think, decades.
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Really? Yeah.
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So my parents were leaving that denomination, but I still
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grew up around it. And they were kind of I
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didn't know it, but they were kind of shielding me
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from the most fundamentalist, legalistic strains. And we moved to
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Hollywood when I was 10 years old. And at that point.
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Who moved to Hollywood? Why did you move to Hollywood?
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I don't know. I don't know. It was a harebrained
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idea my brother and I had as kids, you know.
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Oh, but it was really your idea.
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Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, it was
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not coming from our parents.
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It was very validated, isn't it?
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Well, they tested us out. They said, okay, if you're
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interested in this, take acting classes for a couple years
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in Portland, Oregon. And we did, and we were still
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just as interested. So they said, okay, we'll go to LA.
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And they thought it was going to be a three-month experiment,
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get it out of our system, do some auditions, and
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then go home.
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And what's your brother's name? Richard.
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Yeah, Richard Lee Jackson. And he's three years older than me,
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so he was a little bit ahead of of everything,
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but I happened to get General Hospital when I was 11.
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How in the world did that happen? I don't know.
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I mean, I was, we were running around town like crazy.
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I remember one day I had five auditions in one day.
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Wow.
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13 in one week. This is before the GPS Thomas guy,
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the whole craziness, you know? And yeah, just one audition
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after the other. And I happened to be screen testing
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for General Hospital. I had no concept of what it was.
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It was Luke and Laura's son, which in the early 80s,
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they were the super couple, but it didn't mean anything
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to me, I was just a kid. So I ended
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up booking that, and it was a three year contract,
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so right away I was pretty much like, okay, we're here,
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we're doing this. And my father.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And my father is a family practice physician. he stayed
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up with his practice and he would fly down every
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weekend for eight years. And my parents are still together
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to this day.
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Yeah.
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Which is amazing. So, but when we moved here, we, we,
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we were, we were churchless. We didn't have a church. We,
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you know, they'd left Adventism, but we didn't know where
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to go. So it was interesting because I think my
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dad knew that that was missing in our lives. And,
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I mean, this is early 90s, so he would give
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us cassette tapes of sermons from a few different people.
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One of them was Desmond Ford. He's originally from Australia.
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And so my brother and I would listen to these
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sermons probably three to four times a week. You know,
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I was working in the business and all of that.
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But you were getting spiritually fed as well. Yeah, yeah.
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And the most, you know, kind of pivotal moment for
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me at that time, I was 12 years old. And
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just listening to another one of Des Ford's talks, put
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the cassette in, and I don't understand why or how
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this happened, but for some reason on that particular night
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when I was lying in bed and listening to this,
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his words just broke into my soul. And the sermon
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was on the pride of the human heart and the
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holiness of God. Um, and for some reason, I all
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of a sudden knew that I was a very, very,
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very far away from God. And I don't know why
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I knew that at 12, but it was real. I
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could feel it inside of me. And, you know, he was, yeah,
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it's a mystery to me. I honestly don't know how
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these things work at all, but, um, he was talking
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about how impossible it is to impress God with our,
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you know, self-righteousness and how it's just filthy rags before
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God and the holiness of God. And it just sort
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of started to open something up inside of me. But
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it was kind of like this dual revelation was taking
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place inside of me because I felt so far from God.
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And there was a kind of feeling of exile, this like,
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And at the same time, I felt loved.
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Yes.
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Self-loved, you know, in this personal way. So this dual
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revelation was kind of taking place inside of me. And
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I started reading the scriptures at that time right away.
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And then that was transforming things. So, you know, specifically
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Matthew 5 and Matthew 6 was doing things inside of
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my soul, you know?
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Yes, I know too well, actually, listening to you, I
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had a similar experience. I was 16. Really? And I
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had come home, I was a junior in high school,
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I had come home from school, I was getting ready
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to do something athletically, go somewhere, and out of nowhere,
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literally out of nowhere, I thought, I had this sudden
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impulse to to find a copy of the scriptures. I
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had been given a Bible when I was in second
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grade in my Presbyterian Sunday school. Never once read it,
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not once. Pulled it off the shelf, it was covered
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with dust. And I blew the dust off, and I'm like,
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I thought, where should I read? It's big. And it
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just fell open to Matthew 5. Really? And I read
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one verse. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
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for they shall be satisfied. And I felt... Christ standing
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in front of me, I felt like he had a
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bow and arrow and he launched it into my heart. Yeah.
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And I just shut it, put it on the rock
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and ran out of my room. Wow. But that was,
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I had been apprehended. Yeah. Both by conviction of my
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unworthiness and also by great love. Yeah. So I'm listening
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to you. Yeah. It's wild. I've heard that before. It's wild. Yeah. Yeah.
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It's interesting because these kinds of things I don't talk
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about very much because I'm because they're very personal but
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they're also mysteries and so it's it's difficult sometimes to
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even begin to explain these things you know um but
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yeah i mean it just yeah it washed over me
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um you know if you even look at a woman
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with lusts in your heart you've committed adultery you know
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if you say you fool you've committed murder in the
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eyes of the law your righteousness has to exceed that
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of the pharisees and i was reading these things as
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a young And it was like, it was this weight
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was compressing down upon me. And I remember just whispering,
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this is impossible.
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This is impossible.
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And immediately I felt that's exactly what I want you
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to feel.
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Wow.
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Because I want you to be able to receive grace.
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Did you share this with your brother? Did anyone know
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this was going on with you?
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It's hard for me to remember. I think so. My
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brother and I were very, very close. Yeah, I think so.
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Shortly after, probably 13, I started reading a lot of C.S. Lewis,
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Mere Christianity and those things. So it was like a
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hunger started. It was insatiable. And it was connecting with
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the root of it in terms of that first sermon
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that I heard because when I read his chapter on
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the great sins, you know, on pride, I was like, yes,
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this is me. This is exactly, this is exactly my problem,
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my brokenness. And, but again, it's hard to explain these
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things with words because all of the conviction that was happening,
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which was very serious, you know, when I was reading
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the words of Christ, in some ways it was with
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the innocence of a child. So I was taking it
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at face value The words of Christ are very fierce.
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They're serious. And so it was coming upon me in
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that way. And yet at the same time, there was
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so much love and so much grace. It wasn't It
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wasn't condemning and I remember for the first time in
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my life I started to hear my own thoughts. That
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was a big thing, you know, because reading like don't judge.
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Don't condemn, don't judge. And so I'd be working with
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my coworkers and all of a sudden I was like
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hearing my own thoughts of how judgmental, how critical. And
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it became such a reoccurring thing at that time that
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I almost, I hope this doesn't sound irreverent, but it
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was It was kind of hilarious how off my thoughts were.
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I mean, it was like, wow, there is a depth
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of just not good. Nothing good happening here. But I'm
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very thankful that, again, it wasn't a feeling of showing
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me that to condemn me. It was like, I'm showing
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you this to... I'm showing you this so I can repent,
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so you can be free.
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It appears, I think, a paradox to many people who
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are developing their relationship with God. That the more that
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they know Him, and the more that they labor to
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listen to Him and to follow Him, the more convicted
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of their own unworthiness they are. And yet, that conviction
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comes in a context of love and support from God. Yes.
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So you're actually, it's not a terror. Right. But it's
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our growing sense of complete unworthiness.
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Yeah.
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That is not opposite of knowing God. It's the part
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of the process. I've been as a priest for many years,
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helping people establish their Orthodox faith and come into the church.
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And I've seen over and over... the difficulty, if I
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would say there's the greatest challenge for a convert to
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the ancient church, to holy orthodoxy, is to accept that
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you'll never be smug. There's nothing that you're ever going
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to accomplish that you're gonna actually feel good about. And
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feel like I have arrived. So progressively, while at the
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same time feeling more and more supported and established in
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their faith and in the church and loved by God
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and his people, at the same time you're feeling more
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and more aghast, aghast in yourself. And you have to
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reconcile with that. They're never gonna come to the spot
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where you're like, don't bring good. Not gonna happen.
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Yes. And I was very thankful for, I mean, it's
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obviously not ideal to be kind of out there wandering
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without a church, you know, in Hollywood. But by the
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grace of God, it zeroed me in on the writings
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of C.S. Lewis, which was very helpful because.
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Was that enough to keep you from conformity to the
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chaos of Hollywood when you're playing a young teen?
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It was reading the scriptures primarily, and then it was
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also reading C.S. Lewis, continuing to listen to the sermons
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that I was listening to. I don't have an explanation
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for it, but I do know that every single thing
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in my life, absent all of my sins and brokenness
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and weakness, anything good that the grace of God has
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given me is because of whatever happened when I was 12.
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And I can't, again, can't explain that. So I can't
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add it up mathematically. But yeah, it was enough somehow.
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And you know, the other thing I would say is
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that it was also being surrounded by a lot of
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spiritual darkness that paradoxically helped. Because, and again, I had
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the blessing of being younger, I think. And so there
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was a sense of, observing the world and looking at
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it and taking a read on things and seeing very successful,
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very talented, very wealthy people. And many of them were
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extremely sad and tragic. And I could see this, you know,
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as a young person and intuitively I began to have
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this feeling that if I don't, if I don't anchor myself,
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if I don't make serious choices, the inevitable will be,
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I will be swept away in this tsunami. That will
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be the natural entropy of this whole thing.
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You know, I think that experience in which darkness actually
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propels you to an advance towards the light and supports
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your willingness to fight for your faith is something right
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now we're in the midst of such an unusual period
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of the outpouring of grace and awakening all over the West.
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We priests have never seen anything like this. I mean,
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exponentially increased numbers of people asking about God, wanting to repent,
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wanting to establish themselves in the faith, catechumens, just more
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than we can handle literally across the country and the West.
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But a lot of it has been, according to the
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actual people converting, driven by a shocking, recognition of darkness.
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So they're actually coming not so much by the incredible
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beauty that comes later, but by the terror. It's as
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though somehow the secularist world got unmasked and they saw
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these eyes behind it and they said, wow, wow. Can
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you take us from that period to how you came
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into the church? I remember I used to have coffee
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with Father John Strickland.
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He catechized us and baptized us.
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He told me about you.
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Yeah, that's wild.
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How did you go from where you were to an
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Orthodox Christian?
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Well, I got married quite young. I was 20 when
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I got married.
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So was I. Really? Yeah.
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Which was... such a good thing for me. And that
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was another thing that just put everything into focus. So yeah,
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nothing will mature and grow a young man up quicker
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than getting married. And my wife has an incredible story,
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bullet points. She was raised Roman Catholic. moved to Los Angeles,
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lost her faith, you know, went into the, just the
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darkness of this whole thing and, um, came back to
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her faith in Christ. And, um, we were having a
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Bible study at the time cause we didn't have a church.
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So we were just gathering with, you know, 20 or
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so people that we knew friends and she came back
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to Christ. And, um, so we were, when we were married,
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we were just kind of in this non denominational, uh,
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But we were seeking God as much as we could.
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The way that Orthodoxy came into our world was I
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was sent to Romania to work on a film. So
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we were there for three and a half months.
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Is that a common thing for actors to be sent?
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It's semi-common. There's a decent amount of productions that shoot
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in Romania. I had never been. And our kids were,
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you know, we had two kids at the time, really small.
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And my wife's Italian, so I had a week off
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from work and she said, you know, can we go
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to Italy? Can we go to Rome? We're so close.
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The Romanians love the Italians and the Italians love the Romanians. Yes, exactly.
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So I was like, yeah, why not? So we flew
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to Rome and we had no concept. We were not
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thinking about the church calendar. We had no concept. It
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happened to be Palm Sunday when we arrived in Rome.
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Happened to be.
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Happened to be, right? So we showed up, there's all
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these palm branches on the streets. We went, what is this?
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And they said, the Pope is speaking a few blocks
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down there. And I said, what's happening? There's Palm Sunday. Oh, wow, okay.
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So we spent six days in Rome and that changed
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our lives. And walking around, growing up in America where
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our history is so young, walking around the streets of Rome,
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And just realizing that St. Paul was here and St.
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Peter was here. And it was like that we could
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feel the presence of the saints. And we had no
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concept of communion of the saints, anything like that. It
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was just this experience we were having. And I remember,
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you know, in the Coliseum, for instance, there's this huge
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cross there. And my wife, you know, she goes, why
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is there a cross in the Coliseum? I think gladiators
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and all these things. And And then her, you know,
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Roman Catholic child that was coming back and she was, oh,
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the martyrs. It's amazing the veil, you know, like when
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I was in the Protestant world, we just didn't think
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about the martyrs and the saints. We just didn't think
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about it. So we're like the martyrs and all of
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this was washing over us. And I remember saying to her,
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I said, I have to study Christian history. I have to.
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I want to know how we got from here to
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where we are now with hundreds, if not thousands, of
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different versions of Christianity. And I want to understand, like,
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I've been reading the scriptures since I was young, and
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then there's this jump to Martin Luther, and there's a
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1500 year gap, pretty much. That's a pretty... I had
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no idea where it was leading. I just wanted more,
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and I wanted to understand how we got to.
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Where we are.
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And so for the next Probably four years. I read
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everything I could get my hands on.
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I didn't... Did you have any interaction with Orthodoxy in Romania? No.
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We had encounters, but the veil was so thick, I
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had no historical context to put it in. And I'm
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ashamed to say this now, but to be honest, the
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thought I had was, this must be some weird offshoot
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of Catholicism.
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Yeah, shouldn't be.
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That's what I thought. So I just dismissed it. But
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it did have an impact, because when we... flew back
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to Romania. So we were there for six days. It
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was Pascha. So we were looking out the hotel window
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and we saw this huge procession, massive, with candles. I
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still had no idea what was going on. I didn't
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know what I was looking at. I said, honey, come
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over here.
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Look at this.
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Look at the window. What are they doing?
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What is this?
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And then it dawned on me. I'm like, oh, it's Easter.
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I was like, wow, that's beautiful. And it's just one
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of those moments where you go, So we asked some
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of the staff at the hotel, like, what is this?
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And so they told us, Christos Anbiat, this is what
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we do for 40 days. We say Christ has risen
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and kind of created this, you know, holy envy. And
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I was like, why don't we say that for 40 days?
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You know, we should say that. And so we started
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saying Christos Anbiat and it felt really lovely. You know,
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it was too good. So that was a seed. But again,
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it took four years before Orthodoxy came back. to realize, oh,
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we were, that's what was happening in Romania.
365
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You said that was 2007?
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I think it was 2006 or seven, yeah. We didn't
367
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know a single Orthodox person the whole time we were
368
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researching Christian history. And back then, Orthodoxy was not online,
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it wasn't known, it wasn't, you know. So it was
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like we were kind of wandering in the dark And
371
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I was reading as much history that I could get
372
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my hands on. Finally, I started to realize I need
373
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to start reading the actual writings of the fathers and
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not just what people are writing about the fathers. And
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as soon as that happened, it was only a matter
376
00:22:52.799 --> 00:22:57.140
of time because my whole paradigm was kind of blown
377
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to pieces. I was reading St. Ignatius of Antioch, for instance,
378
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and I was like, okay, hold on a second here.
379
00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:05.470
Hold on, wait a second. He was a disciple of
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the Apostle John, and he's telling me that Holy Communion
381
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is the body and blood of Christ, and it has
382
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to be under a bishop. And I was told growing up.
383
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A medicine of immortality. Yes.
384
00:23:19.250 --> 00:23:21.509
I was told growing up, you know, they were just
385
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getting together with guitars, essentially, and blue jeans. There was
386
00:23:24.599 --> 00:23:26.779
no structure. There was no hierarchy. There was no any
387
00:23:26.819 --> 00:23:29.950
of this. And I thought, well, that's not true. So
388
00:23:29.990 --> 00:23:32.500
what do I do with this? So I was getting
389
00:23:32.539 --> 00:23:36.390
this hunger. And yet, I still only had the Roman
390
00:23:36.410 --> 00:23:42.920
Catholic paradigm or the Protestant paradigm. And I'll flash forward
391
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to kind of the moment that it happened for me.
392
00:23:44.839 --> 00:23:49.200
It was probably 1 a.m. and I was praying to
393
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God in a real kind of desperation. It was a
394
00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:53.900
dark night of the soul in a sense because I'd
395
00:23:53.920 --> 00:23:55.650
been on this four-year journey and I felt like I
396
00:23:55.690 --> 00:23:58.430
was at a loss. And I was crying out to
397
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God and saying, Where is your church? Because you said
398
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the gates of hell will not prevail against it. I
399
00:24:09.509 --> 00:24:13.869
can't be Roman Catholic because I'm reading the early writings.
400
00:24:13.890 --> 00:24:17.339
This doesn't feel like an actual continuation. I can't be
401
00:24:17.390 --> 00:24:20.940
Protestant because that feels to me now like anarchy and chaos.
402
00:24:20.980 --> 00:24:23.460
So I don't know what to do. I don't know
403
00:24:23.480 --> 00:24:27.400
where to go. And I am kind of feeling like
404
00:24:27.460 --> 00:24:30.099
maybe throwing in the towel, not on Christ, but just
405
00:24:30.339 --> 00:24:32.740
on The quest. The quest, I don't know what to do.
406
00:24:33.420 --> 00:24:37.079
In that moment, I heard a very, very, very quiet
407
00:24:37.140 --> 00:24:43.529
voice say, look at the Great Schism. And I thought,
408
00:24:43.769 --> 00:24:46.089
the Great Schism, I remember kind of reading about that
409
00:24:46.109 --> 00:24:48.730
a little bit. So I went and I really started
410
00:24:48.750 --> 00:24:51.250
looking at the Great Schism, the split between the East
411
00:24:51.309 --> 00:24:54.009
and West, and then it was all over at that point,
412
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I thought.
413
00:24:54.410 --> 00:24:57.109
How did you make a tangible connection to a local church?
414
00:24:58.819 --> 00:25:01.279
Well, that was kind of interesting. So I'd had a
415
00:25:01.359 --> 00:25:05.180
dream during this time where I was in an Orthodox
416
00:25:05.240 --> 00:25:08.079
church before I'd ever actually been in one. And it
417
00:25:08.119 --> 00:25:13.670
was very vivid, and people were praying and chanting, Lord
418
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have mercy, and doing the sign of the cross. And
419
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there were icons, and people were moving about and venerating icons.
420
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It was a very just beautiful feeling. And I woke up,
421
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and I wanted to actually experience this. I just went
422
00:25:28.200 --> 00:25:31.380
to a local church, not during a service, just to
423
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go inside. And so I was all alone. A sweet
424
00:25:35.259 --> 00:25:37.619
lady let me in. She was cleaning the church. And
425
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I said, hi, can I come in? She said, yeah,
426
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come on in. Just go in there. So I went
427
00:25:41.240 --> 00:25:43.200
in the church for the first time all by myself,
428
00:25:43.299 --> 00:25:47.880
just looked around at the icons. And in the total
429
00:25:47.980 --> 00:25:50.680
silence of it and just being surrounded by the saints,
430
00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:55.279
I knew, I said, this is the church. I had
431
00:25:55.339 --> 00:26:01.289
no doubt. And I was looking online for different churches,
432
00:26:01.460 --> 00:26:05.750
and there was a photo on Holy Virgin Mary Cathedral,
433
00:26:05.789 --> 00:26:09.109
which is where Father John Strickland is serving. And the
434
00:26:09.210 --> 00:26:12.549
photo looked exactly like the dream that I'd had.
435
00:26:12.670 --> 00:26:12.869
Oh, really?
436
00:26:13.230 --> 00:26:15.549
And I thought, yeah, I thought maybe I should call
437
00:26:15.569 --> 00:26:18.710
this church. And I'd tried to reach a few other
438
00:26:18.759 --> 00:26:23.519
priests prior, and for whatever reason, there was no connection,
439
00:26:23.559 --> 00:26:24.059
no interest.
440
00:26:25.579 --> 00:26:26.259
It was different.
441
00:26:26.680 --> 00:26:29.400
Back then in the sense of, it was sort of like,
442
00:26:29.640 --> 00:26:32.000
you're not Greek, why are you here, kind of a feeling.
443
00:26:33.240 --> 00:26:34.769
Or maybe it was something else, I don't know. But
444
00:26:34.829 --> 00:26:37.630
either way, I couldn't really make a connection. But right
445
00:26:37.670 --> 00:26:41.230
when I called Holy Virgin Mary Cathedral, Father John Strickland
446
00:26:41.269 --> 00:26:45.089
answered the phone. And he was from Washington State, where
447
00:26:45.109 --> 00:26:49.109
I'm from, converted to the faith, had an immediate connection.
448
00:26:49.950 --> 00:26:52.190
And my wife and I had met with him and
449
00:26:52.250 --> 00:26:54.170
started going to catechesis.
450
00:26:55.109 --> 00:26:59.819
A scholar. Oh, Christian history, a competent catechist, a beautiful family,
451
00:26:59.839 --> 00:27:01.440
and a beautiful church.
452
00:27:01.660 --> 00:27:04.960
We would have, you know, sort of playful arguments, Elisa
453
00:27:05.039 --> 00:27:07.079
and I, about, you know, who would get to go
454
00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:09.200
to the inquirer's class because our kids were small.
455
00:27:09.259 --> 00:27:10.759
Oh, sure. That's an issue.
456
00:27:11.079 --> 00:27:12.500
Such an amazing teacher.
457
00:27:12.720 --> 00:27:17.109
Yes, he is. A beautiful person, too. Just a beautiful person.
458
00:27:17.130 --> 00:27:19.589
So you were actually catechized there and received. How long
459
00:27:19.630 --> 00:27:20.869
did you stay at Holy Virgin Mary?
460
00:27:21.700 --> 00:27:24.819
Well, we were in choirs through catechesis. We were there
461
00:27:24.859 --> 00:27:27.519
for two years before we were received into the church.
462
00:27:28.400 --> 00:27:32.579
And within a month or two after being baptized, we
463
00:27:32.619 --> 00:27:35.700
were sent to Nashville for work. So that was a
464
00:27:35.759 --> 00:27:37.119
huge thing. You know, we just.
465
00:27:37.220 --> 00:27:40.980
You were sent? This wasn't something that you concocted?
466
00:27:41.289 --> 00:27:43.650
No, it was that I booked a job and they said,
467
00:27:43.670 --> 00:27:48.690
you're going to Nashville. And we thought, okay. We just...
468
00:27:49.319 --> 00:27:52.700
became a part of this family here and we're going
469
00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:58.220
to go in faith. And God was so gracious. The priest,
470
00:27:58.859 --> 00:28:06.660
Father Stephen Rogers, is amazing. And he was our priest
471
00:28:06.700 --> 00:28:10.180
and father confessor. And in the earliest days of us,
472
00:28:10.359 --> 00:28:16.809
you know, learning to live in the church and yeah.
473
00:28:17.539 --> 00:28:20.119
You went to Nashville and you've stayed in Nashville. How
474
00:28:20.140 --> 00:28:22.299
long have you been there now?
475
00:28:22.359 --> 00:28:23.529
Since 14 years now.
476
00:28:23.529 --> 00:28:26.789
14 years. Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit
477
00:28:26.950 --> 00:28:32.430
about your current projects? Especially, as I mentioned at the beginning,
478
00:28:33.769 --> 00:28:36.789
you're an actor, but you're much more to your musician.
479
00:28:37.869 --> 00:28:43.710
You're an author. You've been doing also acting in docudramas
480
00:28:43.809 --> 00:28:48.650
for saints. I'm very interested in that aspect. Tell us
481
00:28:48.670 --> 00:28:50.589
a little bit about the development of your career.
482
00:28:52.509 --> 00:28:56.170
Well, that's, I mean, because I started when I was
483
00:28:56.230 --> 00:29:00.029
so young, it's been a part of my life for
484
00:29:00.089 --> 00:29:03.750
so long. And it's had a lot of, you know,
485
00:29:03.829 --> 00:29:11.049
twists and turns. The development of my relationship with God
486
00:29:11.109 --> 00:29:14.650
and spiritual life was, you know, happening simultaneously with my career.
487
00:29:14.730 --> 00:29:19.269
So naturally at a young age i started to really
488
00:29:19.450 --> 00:29:24.630
seek a way to approach my work from a spiritual
489
00:29:24.670 --> 00:29:29.069
place and so especially as an actor i remember as
490
00:29:29.130 --> 00:29:31.930
a teenager i started you know really praying to god
491
00:29:31.970 --> 00:29:34.849
like how do i how do i do this you
492
00:29:34.890 --> 00:29:37.910
know how can i how can i bring a sense
493
00:29:37.950 --> 00:29:41.359
of prayer and your presence into what I'm doing?
494
00:29:41.380 --> 00:29:44.819
How could it be good for your soul? Like, how
495
00:29:44.839 --> 00:29:46.779
can I do this in a way that it's beneficial
496
00:29:46.799 --> 00:29:47.579
to my salvation?
497
00:29:47.880 --> 00:29:50.549
Yes, because I had seen so many stories and known
498
00:29:50.589 --> 00:29:54.750
people that it was the opposite. It can very easily
499
00:29:54.789 --> 00:29:56.049
be soul-destroying work.
500
00:29:56.309 --> 00:29:59.789
You know, in the early church, over the first three centuries,
501
00:30:00.690 --> 00:30:05.539
our bishops published lists for the catechumens because catechumens, many
502
00:30:05.559 --> 00:30:09.220
of the catechumens in a Greco-Roman pagan society in which
503
00:30:10.099 --> 00:30:15.000
idolatry permeated everything. There were many careers and acting was
504
00:30:15.059 --> 00:30:17.319
one of them in which you had to change careers
505
00:30:17.400 --> 00:30:19.259
as a catechumen. Can you imagine people coming to the
506
00:30:19.279 --> 00:30:21.900
church today and we, here's your list. I've often thought
507
00:30:21.920 --> 00:30:25.150
of that. Here's a list. If you're doing, you've got
508
00:30:25.170 --> 00:30:28.920
to get another job. How did you bring your faith
509
00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:31.759
in such a way? What are the principles that inspired
510
00:30:31.799 --> 00:30:35.700
you to be able to continue on and even develop
511
00:30:35.740 --> 00:30:39.839
your acting and your performance and yet be beneficial for
512
00:30:39.880 --> 00:30:41.539
your soul and for your family?
513
00:30:41.559 --> 00:30:48.369
Well, it's a constant struggle. And, you know, I immediately,
514
00:30:49.069 --> 00:30:52.390
it put me at a huge tension and at odds
515
00:30:52.450 --> 00:30:55.529
with so much of the industry in the sense of
516
00:30:56.549 --> 00:30:58.130
you know, nine out of 10 scripts that I would
517
00:30:58.150 --> 00:31:00.700
look at, I would pass on and say, no, I'm
518
00:31:00.720 --> 00:31:01.380
not interested.
519
00:31:01.400 --> 00:31:02.900
It just didn't look edifying to you?
520
00:31:03.339 --> 00:31:04.759
Oh, to say the least.
521
00:31:04.819 --> 00:31:05.200
To say the least.
522
00:31:05.220 --> 00:31:09.029
To say the least, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean,
523
00:31:09.329 --> 00:31:13.289
on many levels, creatively, you know, artistically and spiritually and morally,
524
00:31:13.329 --> 00:31:14.549
it was just, you.
525
00:31:14.509 --> 00:31:15.000
Know, and I....
526
00:31:18.809 --> 00:31:25.269
I don't subscribe to a sort of fundamentalist, puritanical, whitewashed
527
00:31:25.849 --> 00:31:29.910
version of art. I love Dostoevsky. You know, like, the
528
00:31:29.950 --> 00:31:37.289
Bible's a very intense thing. And, you know, Christ was crucified.
529
00:31:37.430 --> 00:31:43.339
You know, there's suffering and there's struggle and the whole
530
00:31:43.390 --> 00:31:47.009
human condition is there. And so I'm not, wasn't from
531
00:31:47.049 --> 00:31:49.170
a place of being a pruder or a fundamentalist. It
532
00:31:49.190 --> 00:31:52.890
was more, there has to be something life-giving. There has
533
00:31:52.930 --> 00:31:57.930
to be something edifying, something that points to beauty or
534
00:31:58.990 --> 00:32:00.799
even if it's a tragedy, it should be more in
535
00:32:00.839 --> 00:32:04.180
the Shakespearean sense where it's a warning.
536
00:32:05.900 --> 00:32:07.099
Provocative to reflection.
537
00:32:07.240 --> 00:32:14.720
Yes, yes. And so finding those, navigating through that is
538
00:32:14.779 --> 00:32:18.450
extremely difficult. You know, and there was a point when
539
00:32:18.470 --> 00:32:22.839
I was, you know, probably 18 years old where, you know,
540
00:32:22.880 --> 00:32:27.539
I was basically, you know, offered to say, okay, everything's set.
541
00:32:27.579 --> 00:32:29.039
We're just going to take you to the next level
542
00:32:29.119 --> 00:32:31.680
and everything's kind of aligned. And this is what we
543
00:32:31.720 --> 00:32:34.210
want you to do in order for this to take place.
544
00:32:35.250 --> 00:32:40.430
And by the grace of God, I was not interested
545
00:32:40.630 --> 00:32:43.210
in doing that. And so that put a huge kind
546
00:32:43.230 --> 00:32:44.789
of like the brakes on things.
547
00:32:44.829 --> 00:32:48.829
Yeah, that set it. definitive form for the future. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
548
00:32:48.950 --> 00:32:52.170
It definitely changed everything. So it kind of put me,
549
00:32:52.190 --> 00:32:55.579
I was very much on the peripheral of things in
550
00:32:55.619 --> 00:32:59.519
terms of the industry for, for a long time. Um,
551
00:33:00.700 --> 00:33:03.960
and so, you know, there's a desert, it's kind of
552
00:33:03.980 --> 00:33:05.809
been out in the wilderness at that point. And I
553
00:33:05.849 --> 00:33:07.829
didn't even understand it at the time I was so young.
554
00:33:07.890 --> 00:33:10.230
I didn't know there was that, you know, the kind
555
00:33:10.250 --> 00:33:13.190
of like people over the years have call it definitely
556
00:33:13.210 --> 00:33:16.589
a blacklisted or whatever, but these things happen where if
557
00:33:16.630 --> 00:33:20.789
you displease certain people, it becomes very difficult too.
558
00:33:20.910 --> 00:33:22.730
It seems to happen the opposite way though too, right?
559
00:33:22.779 --> 00:33:25.519
Because if you please certain people, especially the Lord God,
560
00:33:26.039 --> 00:33:28.200
he finds all sorts of beautiful things for you to do.
561
00:33:28.460 --> 00:33:31.380
I remember you, you'll have to remind me and those
562
00:33:31.400 --> 00:33:34.759
who are watching what exactly you were being, what award,
563
00:33:34.839 --> 00:33:38.019
we were receiving a great award and you were invited
564
00:33:38.079 --> 00:33:42.140
up in front of all the people. I thought, So beautiful.
565
00:33:42.220 --> 00:33:47.460
You said, you either said praise be or thanks to
566
00:33:47.480 --> 00:33:53.259
the Holy Trinity. Yes. And then you also thanked the
567
00:33:53.319 --> 00:33:56.220
monks of Mount Athos for praying for you. What was that?
568
00:33:58.630 --> 00:34:02.190
Well, that was during the journey of reading Christian history
569
00:34:02.210 --> 00:34:06.170
and discovering Orthodoxy, I started reading about the Holy Mountain.
570
00:34:07.549 --> 00:34:12.579
And that was a huge part of You know, there's
571
00:34:12.619 --> 00:34:18.199
the historical side of things, you know, like the, from
572
00:34:18.239 --> 00:34:23.389
my perspective and experience, it's very difficult. I can't get
573
00:34:23.429 --> 00:34:26.309
around it that the Orthodox Church is the historic church. Like,
574
00:34:26.409 --> 00:34:30.110
I can't. To me, from what I looked into, what
575
00:34:30.150 --> 00:34:34.610
I read, it is. But in addition to that, it
576
00:34:34.650 --> 00:34:39.690
was the spirituality of the church. And Mount Athos was
577
00:34:39.710 --> 00:34:45.780
a way to sort of begin to access the ethos,
578
00:34:46.340 --> 00:34:52.670
the sense of the mystical, the silence, the hesychism. So
579
00:34:52.710 --> 00:34:55.809
I started reading about this, and it just blew my mind, honestly.
580
00:34:55.849 --> 00:34:58.489
I mean, I thought to myself, wait a second. Okay,
581
00:34:59.929 --> 00:35:03.420
somewhere in the world on a mountain, there's a few
582
00:35:03.460 --> 00:35:09.219
thousand monks. For over a thousand years, they have been
583
00:35:09.320 --> 00:35:13.989
praying for the world. ceaselessly. And I was in my
584
00:35:14.050 --> 00:35:16.550
dressing room in General Hospital with the lights out at
585
00:35:16.550 --> 00:35:23.260
7 a.m., contemplating this. And I knew, I thought, their
586
00:35:23.320 --> 00:35:28.099
prayers are holding back the world from utter chaos. And
587
00:35:28.119 --> 00:35:31.739
in a personal way, I also felt that they've also
588
00:35:31.780 --> 00:35:35.579
been with me since I was 11, 12, in this
589
00:35:35.739 --> 00:35:36.579
crazy place.
590
00:35:38.400 --> 00:35:38.679
And so....
591
00:35:40.670 --> 00:35:43.309
It was such a deep kind of feeling that I thought,
592
00:35:44.369 --> 00:35:46.210
you know, I thought if it's God's will for me to,
593
00:35:46.489 --> 00:35:50.510
you know, get up and receive this award, which in
594
00:35:50.530 --> 00:35:53.519
the grand scheme of things is completely meaningless, but it
595
00:35:53.599 --> 00:35:56.360
means I'll have maybe 30 seconds to say something.
596
00:35:57.320 --> 00:35:58.800
Something of significance. Yeah.
597
00:35:59.139 --> 00:36:02.119
You know, maybe I'll never have an opportunity to speak
598
00:36:02.179 --> 00:36:05.159
in front of, you know, this many people again. So
599
00:36:05.179 --> 00:36:08.119
I thought, okay, I have 30 seconds. I want to
600
00:36:08.159 --> 00:36:11.690
give glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And
601
00:36:11.730 --> 00:36:13.429
then I want to thank the monks on the Holy
602
00:36:13.469 --> 00:36:18.179
Mountain because if it wasn't for their prayers, I would
603
00:36:18.219 --> 00:36:22.980
probably have been swept away. And I don't know. I
604
00:36:23.019 --> 00:36:24.760
just wanted people to know they exist.
605
00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:28.929
Yes. Yes. And they are relevant. They have a huge
606
00:36:28.989 --> 00:36:32.730
impact on the world. That concept, I think, is precious
607
00:36:32.929 --> 00:36:37.050
in the church and very much unknown in the West.
608
00:36:37.110 --> 00:36:42.590
The idea that withdrawal, St. Silouan the Athonite, who was,
609
00:36:42.730 --> 00:36:44.530
of course, a great monk in the 20th century on
610
00:36:44.570 --> 00:36:48.050
Mount Athos and reposed in 1938, he described it very beautifully,
611
00:36:48.070 --> 00:36:52.199
that the withdrawal of the monks to be with God,
612
00:36:53.159 --> 00:36:55.980
to fall into the embrace of God and to establish
613
00:36:56.039 --> 00:36:59.139
that as normative in their life is a movement so
614
00:36:59.179 --> 00:37:03.000
that they can then, with God, embrace the world. So
615
00:37:03.019 --> 00:37:05.920
they retreat in order to establish themselves in real life,
616
00:37:05.940 --> 00:37:08.219
and then with that real life, because of the heart
617
00:37:08.250 --> 00:37:11.719
of God, which is now their heart, they embrace the
618
00:37:11.760 --> 00:37:18.300
whole world. That movement, which I think Orthodox converts like us,
619
00:37:19.489 --> 00:37:26.389
we experience in the present moment in meeting monastics whose life,
620
00:37:26.550 --> 00:37:32.750
even monastics who live here, we learn that their quest
621
00:37:32.809 --> 00:37:36.059
for complete consecration to be before the face of God
622
00:37:36.099 --> 00:37:38.829
in prayer at all times is really a quest to
623
00:37:38.869 --> 00:37:42.599
save the world. They're doing that, joining themselves to God
624
00:37:43.420 --> 00:37:46.360
and embracing everybody, even the worst, and considering them all
625
00:37:46.380 --> 00:37:51.179
to be their superiors and to say, Lord, save me
626
00:37:51.239 --> 00:37:52.050
and save everyone.
627
00:37:52.510 --> 00:37:58.650
Yeah, and that's exactly what we experienced in 2015 when
628
00:37:59.329 --> 00:38:00.849
I got to go to the Holy Mountain for the
629
00:38:00.869 --> 00:38:05.440
first time. So the reading about them, experiencing the grace
630
00:38:05.800 --> 00:38:09.530
from that, and then actually getting to go and be there.
631
00:38:10.349 --> 00:38:13.679
And one of the first things that one of the
632
00:38:13.739 --> 00:38:16.659
elders said to me, he said, you had your life
633
00:38:17.199 --> 00:38:22.159
before Orthodoxy and now your life after Orthodoxy. Now you
634
00:38:22.199 --> 00:38:26.280
have your life before Mount Athos and after Mount Athos.
635
00:38:27.449 --> 00:38:32.769
And that is true because it changed our lives.
636
00:38:35.010 --> 00:38:37.550
Will you tell me, Brother Engels, who are watching us,
637
00:38:38.679 --> 00:38:43.119
a little bit about your current endeavors, about the projects
638
00:38:43.199 --> 00:38:45.739
that you are most enthused about?
639
00:38:48.039 --> 00:38:54.750
Yeah, well, there's a few. I mean, the current one
640
00:38:54.769 --> 00:38:58.250
at the moment is a book that's coming out in
641
00:38:58.289 --> 00:39:02.820
a few days on September 26th. The Feast of St. John,
642
00:39:02.840 --> 00:39:03.920
who's my patron saint.
643
00:39:04.079 --> 00:39:06.260
Oh, how beautiful. Coming out on his feast day. Yeah.
644
00:39:06.320 --> 00:39:07.380
That's this Saturday, I think.
645
00:39:07.539 --> 00:39:11.820
Yeah. Yeah. So it's called The Eternal Poet and the
646
00:39:11.880 --> 00:39:12.780
Cosmic Drama.
647
00:39:13.099 --> 00:39:17.610
The Eternal Poet and the Cosmic Drama. Yeah. Can you
648
00:39:17.639 --> 00:39:20.269
tell us more about the text and why you wrote it? Yeah.
649
00:39:20.309 --> 00:39:25.449
Well, it's a meditation on the art of storytelling and
650
00:39:26.289 --> 00:39:31.929
drama and narrative and storytelling. how these things connect to
651
00:39:32.719 --> 00:39:41.920
history and the scriptures and the soul. Looking back, it's
652
00:39:42.079 --> 00:39:44.239
really been something I think that's been building for maybe 20,
653
00:39:44.210 --> 00:39:49.920
25 years. And a few years ago, I was asked
654
00:39:49.960 --> 00:39:54.119
to teach at a film school, Theoria School of Filmmaking.
655
00:39:54.500 --> 00:39:58.079
And so it kind of, you know, propelled me to
656
00:39:59.510 --> 00:40:06.809
dig deeper into Shakespeare and Aristotle's writings and really just
657
00:40:07.730 --> 00:40:10.610
because whenever you have to, it's one thing to work,
658
00:40:11.170 --> 00:40:13.510
you know, in a craft. It's another thing to have
659
00:40:13.550 --> 00:40:15.780
to communicate it to people.
660
00:40:16.159 --> 00:40:16.639
And so....
661
00:40:18.199 --> 00:40:19.789
Being put in a position to say, okay, I have
662
00:40:19.809 --> 00:40:23.610
to articulate this. A lot of it's become kind of
663
00:40:23.650 --> 00:40:28.349
a second skin in some sense. It's intuitive, instinctive, and
664
00:40:28.389 --> 00:40:30.769
I was 11 when I started, and now I have
665
00:40:30.829 --> 00:40:34.650
to really think about how to communicate some of these things.
666
00:40:34.710 --> 00:40:39.630
And throughout that process, it was kind of, I was
667
00:40:40.090 --> 00:40:45.789
continuously dumbfounded as I was looking strictly at the art
668
00:40:45.829 --> 00:40:52.489
of storytelling, from even pre-Christian authors, again, like Aristotle, and
669
00:40:52.739 --> 00:41:00.099
recognizing the majesty of God that is built into it,
670
00:41:00.150 --> 00:41:06.969
the DNA of what makes an incredible story what it is.
671
00:41:09.510 --> 00:41:13.880
For instance, the very basics, I would say, in storytelling
672
00:41:13.980 --> 00:41:20.090
is promises are made. by the author, seeds are planted,
673
00:41:20.820 --> 00:41:26.780
and then they're fulfilled. These promises in act one are fulfilled.
674
00:41:27.079 --> 00:41:30.500
The seeds that are planted, they come to fruition. And
675
00:41:31.519 --> 00:41:36.539
there's a certain inevitability that takes place in story. And
676
00:41:37.900 --> 00:41:39.800
all the years of reading the scriptures and coming into
677
00:41:39.820 --> 00:41:41.659
the church and all of that, it was sort of like,
678
00:41:43.489 --> 00:41:48.030
something was connecting in a very, very deep way of
679
00:41:48.389 --> 00:41:53.250
taking a look at the cosmic drama of Christ as,
680
00:41:53.269 --> 00:41:55.469
you know, St. Maximus the Confessor, it's just the whole
681
00:41:55.510 --> 00:42:01.690
mystery of Christ and looking at this and saying, this is,
682
00:42:04.650 --> 00:42:07.510
you know, to say this is like genius or brilliant
683
00:42:07.590 --> 00:42:11.309
is not enough. This is divine. This is the poetry
684
00:42:11.329 --> 00:42:15.469
of God. So Christ is the eternal poet, you know,
685
00:42:15.510 --> 00:42:20.190
poet in Greek is maker. And so he is, he
686
00:42:20.269 --> 00:42:23.050
is the poet and he is at work and, and
687
00:42:23.070 --> 00:42:25.730
we're a part of that. And so the book is
688
00:42:25.789 --> 00:42:28.130
about that and it's broken up into three parts and
689
00:42:28.909 --> 00:42:33.389
it goes into aesthetics and scripture and culture, um, and
690
00:42:33.449 --> 00:42:38.090
looking at, um, and then reflecting back on our own lives, um,
691
00:42:38.630 --> 00:42:42.170
and saying, okay, if, if this is embedded in our DNA,
692
00:42:42.570 --> 00:42:45.090
if story is embedded because Christ is the alpha and
693
00:42:45.110 --> 00:42:47.139
the omega, the beginning and the end, he's the author.
694
00:42:47.650 --> 00:42:53.099
and finisher of our faith, then what does that mean
695
00:42:53.139 --> 00:42:59.519
for us? You know, when we're surrounded by so much
696
00:43:00.119 --> 00:43:03.739
despondency and nihilism and chaos.
697
00:43:05.030 --> 00:43:08.110
Can you say more about that, brother? What does the
698
00:43:08.150 --> 00:43:11.670
connection between our chaos and the fact that Christ is
699
00:43:11.710 --> 00:43:15.849
the storyteller for every person, how do those interact in
700
00:43:15.889 --> 00:43:16.170
your mind?
701
00:43:17.360 --> 00:43:20.260
Well, for instance, this was an interesting thing that for
702
00:43:20.280 --> 00:43:25.150
me as I was researching it, Anton Chekhov, the Russian writer,
703
00:43:25.170 --> 00:43:29.610
he said that they refer to it as the rifle
704
00:43:29.670 --> 00:43:34.590
on the hearth for great storytelling. Again, he's not thinking
705
00:43:34.630 --> 00:43:38.110
anything about theology, the scriptures, he's just talking story. I
706
00:43:38.510 --> 00:43:40.840
wanna write a great story, this is something to think about.
707
00:43:41.510 --> 00:43:45.079
And he said, if you're doing a play and in
708
00:43:45.199 --> 00:43:49.750
act one, there's a rifle, on the hearth, there better
709
00:43:49.789 --> 00:43:55.510
be something in act five with that rifle. Everything has
710
00:43:55.550 --> 00:43:59.969
a purpose. Everything's connected. And Aristotle talked about this as well.
711
00:44:00.170 --> 00:44:04.860
The story is like a living organism. And everything that
712
00:44:04.920 --> 00:44:08.420
doesn't connect to the whole should be discarded. Everything has
713
00:44:08.460 --> 00:44:11.960
a purpose. It's like a grand symphony. Every piece of
714
00:44:12.039 --> 00:44:14.539
music works its way back in with harmony and all
715
00:44:14.559 --> 00:44:19.530
of these things. As I was reflecting on the rifle
716
00:44:19.590 --> 00:44:21.030
on the hearth, and then you look at the scriptures
717
00:44:21.070 --> 00:44:23.510
and you go, Genesis is filled with rifles on the hearth.
718
00:44:24.989 --> 00:44:29.199
And the New Testament, it's always calling back. This is
719
00:44:29.260 --> 00:44:32.400
what was promised. This is the seed that was planted.
720
00:44:33.280 --> 00:44:38.940
And the language of the scripture is speaking fulfillment. And
721
00:44:39.639 --> 00:44:42.940
when we take those things and apply it to our
722
00:44:43.039 --> 00:44:48.369
own lives and realize that, okay, God is the author
723
00:44:49.110 --> 00:44:54.739
of this cosmic drama. He knows our name. The hairs
724
00:44:54.780 --> 00:44:58.440
on our head are all numbered. How many rifles on
725
00:44:58.460 --> 00:45:03.800
the hearth in our lives are there? And we experience this,
726
00:45:04.219 --> 00:45:07.590
because obviously we only see in part, but we experience it.
727
00:45:07.619 --> 00:45:10.760
You have those moments where something happened to you when
728
00:45:10.780 --> 00:45:13.000
you were six years old that comes back to you
729
00:45:13.019 --> 00:45:17.230
when you're 45 and you're just like, you start to
730
00:45:17.389 --> 00:45:21.969
see the providential authorship of God at work. So for me,
731
00:45:22.030 --> 00:45:24.429
the more that I was looking at the beauty and
732
00:45:24.449 --> 00:45:33.269
the mystery of story, the more beautiful and magnanimous the
733
00:45:33.309 --> 00:45:34.090
poetry of God.
734
00:45:35.449 --> 00:45:40.699
Is your book an evaluation of that, or do you
735
00:45:40.739 --> 00:45:42.960
set that forth and then tell your unique story? What
736
00:45:43.019 --> 00:45:44.659
is the actual content of the book?
737
00:45:46.559 --> 00:45:49.639
The content of the book is a deep dive into
738
00:45:50.159 --> 00:45:54.320
these things. So, you know, I go into the foundations
739
00:45:54.619 --> 00:46:00.909
of tragedy and drama. I look at Shakespearean tragedy. And
740
00:46:01.110 --> 00:46:03.230
as I'm, you know, as we're looking at each of
741
00:46:03.289 --> 00:46:05.989
these things, then relating it to, okay, how do these
742
00:46:06.050 --> 00:46:08.929
principles of storytelling... So, for instance, Aristotle would talk a
743
00:46:08.949 --> 00:46:12.179
lot about very specific things, like in a tragedy, in
744
00:46:12.199 --> 00:46:18.039
a drama, you would have... something called reversal of the situation.
745
00:46:18.519 --> 00:46:21.909
This is something that he just observed great tragedies have.
746
00:46:24.010 --> 00:46:27.230
And then looking at the cosmic drama, looking at the scriptures,
747
00:46:28.710 --> 00:46:33.389
and finding the touch of the eternal poet in terms
748
00:46:33.449 --> 00:46:38.559
of reversal of the situation. Recognition is another one that
749
00:46:38.599 --> 00:46:42.599
he talks about. And so you find these moments when
750
00:46:44.230 --> 00:46:49.210
You know, for instance, whether it's Mount Tabor or after
751
00:46:49.250 --> 00:46:55.179
the resurrection when Christ, you know, says to Mary Magdalene
752
00:46:55.219 --> 00:46:58.000
her name and she recognizes, you know, who it is.
753
00:47:00.440 --> 00:47:04.659
So... Climax and resolution too, I think. Oh, yes. You know,
754
00:47:04.840 --> 00:47:09.789
it seems to me that what you're setting forth, this
755
00:47:10.230 --> 00:47:17.079
restatement from your own heart of classic storytelling, of course
756
00:47:17.260 --> 00:47:22.239
runs up radically against the secularization of society and especially
757
00:47:22.320 --> 00:47:28.550
artificial intelligence and the embrace of a storyless universe. Which
758
00:47:28.590 --> 00:47:31.690
is really at the base of this modern vision is
759
00:47:31.710 --> 00:47:35.530
there are no theories. There's no ultimate storyteller. The future,
760
00:47:35.550 --> 00:47:38.070
I mean, if you listen to the way that the
761
00:47:38.949 --> 00:47:44.860
tech titans are describing our present condition, very nonchalantly, the
762
00:47:44.920 --> 00:47:49.519
major leaders of these companies are talking about the overthrow
763
00:47:49.559 --> 00:47:52.460
and decimation of the human race, the possibilities of that percentages.
764
00:47:53.699 --> 00:47:57.389
By 2030, there may be a 10% chance as though
765
00:47:57.590 --> 00:48:02.369
really we live in a world dominated by chaos with
766
00:48:02.530 --> 00:48:06.989
absolutely no common thread, no divine providence, no origin in
767
00:48:07.050 --> 00:48:10.900
God's creative act, no guidance by God, no glorious triumph
768
00:48:10.940 --> 00:48:15.420
at all. If these men are right, then everything about
769
00:48:15.480 --> 00:48:18.719
Christ is wrong. Which it isn't. Which means these men
770
00:48:18.760 --> 00:48:23.659
are terribly wrong. Poor men. Terribly wrong. But also the
771
00:48:23.739 --> 00:48:26.179
decimation to have that view of what it might mean
772
00:48:26.199 --> 00:48:28.769
for your own life. You're connecting it very much. You're
773
00:48:28.789 --> 00:48:30.949
writing this book from your own line. The things that
774
00:48:30.969 --> 00:48:35.030
God has done in your life. The sorrow, the despair.
775
00:48:36.050 --> 00:48:39.429
If consistent, if a person is consistent by the embrace
776
00:48:39.489 --> 00:48:46.219
of that kind of nom, story, perspective on life that disparaged.
777
00:48:46.840 --> 00:48:48.679
How can you hold it back? How can you possibly
778
00:48:48.699 --> 00:48:49.079
hold it back?
779
00:48:49.119 --> 00:48:53.469
Yeah, Chesterton expressed it very beautifully when he talked about
780
00:48:54.369 --> 00:48:59.030
man has, modern man has been disinherited. And that, all
781
00:48:59.050 --> 00:49:02.889
of this connects to the church as well. And this
782
00:49:02.949 --> 00:49:05.760
is something that I've, you know, felt very deeply, which
783
00:49:05.880 --> 00:49:12.670
is this is our story. This is our inheritance. And
784
00:49:13.050 --> 00:49:16.000
at the moment, man is sort of a lost protagonist
785
00:49:16.239 --> 00:49:19.949
in his own story. And that's one of the tragedies
786
00:49:20.260 --> 00:49:24.340
of um the the schisms and divisions in the west
787
00:49:25.400 --> 00:49:29.079
um is the story so real quick the third part
788
00:49:29.099 --> 00:49:31.840
of the book focuses so i i also you know
789
00:49:31.880 --> 00:49:34.460
we go through the the prophets because it's so important
790
00:49:34.539 --> 00:49:37.159
to look at promise and fulfillment and how this all
791
00:49:37.199 --> 00:49:41.519
connects but then in I also look at the pagan world,
792
00:49:42.320 --> 00:49:48.010
pagan mythology and philosophy. And Edith Hamilton in her book Mythology,
793
00:49:48.050 --> 00:49:50.849
she had a very interesting observation as she was compiling
794
00:49:51.110 --> 00:49:54.670
all of these myths, all these pagan myths. She said,
795
00:49:56.639 --> 00:50:02.320
eventually I gave up trying to have some kind of
796
00:50:02.480 --> 00:50:09.639
unifying tale here. There really isn't one. And She's right,
797
00:50:10.670 --> 00:50:15.269
but it's the exact opposite with Christ. It's the exact opposite.
798
00:50:15.469 --> 00:50:18.710
You know, when St. Paul was preaching on Mars Hill
799
00:50:19.750 --> 00:50:23.530
about the unknown God, he was making a very different
800
00:50:24.239 --> 00:50:30.360
proclamation to say, no, there is one unifying tale for everyone.
801
00:50:31.440 --> 00:50:35.300
And this is the most beautiful, it's the most beautiful
802
00:50:35.380 --> 00:50:38.699
vision that has ever been given to humanity. There is
803
00:50:38.739 --> 00:50:43.219
neither Jew nor Greek, nor male nor female, nor barbarian
804
00:50:43.260 --> 00:50:49.579
or Scythian. All are one in Christ. And Christ is
805
00:50:49.659 --> 00:50:55.610
the only, this is the only revelation of this unifying tale.
806
00:50:57.130 --> 00:51:02.210
And without that, as you're saying, there is a despair.
807
00:51:03.349 --> 00:51:11.340
There is an unraveling into despair. isolation, loneliness, nihilism, meaninglessness,
808
00:51:11.409 --> 00:51:16.519
all of these things. But with it, we can enter
809
00:51:16.619 --> 00:51:21.099
in to that story, that immortal poem, that cosmic drama,
810
00:51:21.579 --> 00:51:25.719
and realize that everything, everything is connected, all the way
811
00:51:25.760 --> 00:51:28.789
back to the creation of the world with Adam and Eve.
812
00:51:28.829 --> 00:51:30.269
Christ is the second Adam.
813
00:51:30.329 --> 00:51:35.250
Yes, and all the way future to your patron saint's apocalypse.
814
00:51:35.800 --> 00:51:40.019
And the last two chapters of the Scriptures, this grand
815
00:51:40.099 --> 00:51:47.679
story comes to this unbelievably magnanimous, rich ending where there's
816
00:51:47.699 --> 00:51:51.760
a wedding feast between God and His people, people from
817
00:51:51.820 --> 00:51:55.380
every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. So many of them
818
00:51:55.440 --> 00:51:58.460
that it can't be numbered. John repeats that several times
819
00:51:58.519 --> 00:52:01.280
in the Apocalypse, that the numbers of the redeemed are
820
00:52:01.340 --> 00:52:04.119
so great that you can't put them into human numbers.
821
00:52:05.420 --> 00:52:10.199
all surrounded by Christ who has replaced the physical son
822
00:52:11.000 --> 00:52:14.099
as the energy, strength, and grace of his people forever.
823
00:52:15.360 --> 00:52:19.679
This is what's coming, certainly what's coming. I want it
824
00:52:19.719 --> 00:52:25.929
to come. Your patron said at the end, come Lord Jesus.
825
00:52:26.750 --> 00:52:32.309
Come Lord Jesus. What? He needs to rap? Oh, I
826
00:52:32.329 --> 00:52:36.519
don't want to rap. Can we show the book? Can
827
00:52:36.559 --> 00:52:42.469
I show the book? Dear ones, the eternal poet and
828
00:52:42.489 --> 00:52:47.590
the cosmic drama, Jonathan Jackson is coming out the 26th
829
00:52:48.130 --> 00:52:51.550
on the feast day of St. John. Thank you, my
830
00:52:51.590 --> 00:52:55.719
dear brother, for being with us. Please come and visit St.
831
00:52:55.780 --> 00:52:56.300
Andrew again.
832
00:52:56.699 --> 00:52:58.460
Oh, I hope to. Thank you so much.
833
00:52:58.730 --> 00:53:02.070
Hey, everyone. I hope you've downloaded the Patristic Nectar app
834
00:53:02.150 --> 00:53:06.880
on your phone. It is a treasure trove of soul-nourishing content.
835
00:53:07.599 --> 00:53:10.780
And I hope you'll consider becoming a regular donor to
836
00:53:10.840 --> 00:53:12.019
Patristic Nectar today.