Alex(
00:10.286)
Hello and welcome back to The Creative Catholics, a podcast on creativity, faith, and the hidden life. I'm your host, Alex Cahill. Before we begin, I want to thank Marie Miller for letting us use her music for the intro and outro. And a thank you to Riverside that is sponsoring this episode. You can use Riverside to record and edit audio files. So please check them out at the link in the show notes and in the description if you're interested in using them for any recording needs.
So today we're going to have a bit of a different episode, and I'm really excited about it because my husband and I are celebrating our anniversary. And I thought it would be really fun to do an interview slash discussion with my husband about how God used each of our creativities and creative strengths, but also interests, to bring the two of us together and write the well, I guess it's not the greatest.
love story, but the second greatest love story, in my opinion, of our life. because obviously the first belongs to God. But so I'm very, very excited to bring on my husband, Tom, to the Creative Catholics. Tom, thanks for being on the show today. Great to be.
Tom(
01:23.264)
Yeah.
Alex(
01:25.384)
Most special guest. So, Tom, what we're going to do today is we're just gonna talk a little bit about how God used our creative interests to bring us together, basically, and kind of write our love stories. So if you've listened to this podcast at all, kind of know a little bit about my background. So I am predominantly from a theater background. I didn't really get into theater really until high school, but I really started loving it and enjoying it in high school.
But when I went to college, I decided that I was going to major in well, originally I majored in cinema and comparative literature, which is something that I did also enjoy. But I added theater on kind of halfway through my first year. So I got two different degrees, two different majors. And so theater then became something that I just really fell in love with during college. Again, I've talked about this in other episodes, but throughout college I kind of worked myself
tirelessly in theater. And I gotten to a point when I graduated college that I didn't really actually like the person that I'd become just because I was working so hard, but I I started to kind of lose sight of the bigger picture. And I'm so thankful to God for those years because he really kind of at the end there kind of broke my heart enough that he could get in. And that meant for me that I I just wanted to start over. I wanted to move to a different country.
not do theater for a while, but I still loved theater. so I moved to Scotland, started a master's in ancient Greek drama. And I was the only one on my master's course that year. But it was a great way for me to kind of still study theater, really ignite that flame again, but without having to do theater all the time. And I really started to love the academic side of theater, which obviously then I went on to do a PhD and and become a professor in it. But
It's interesting because obviously God brought me to Scotland on a on the bigger picture to start my life over basically or s to to start over and become the person that he really wanted me to become. And he used my interest in theater to get me there and my drive and my desire to travel. so he used kind of all of those creative sparks to bring me over to Scotland, which is where I met my husband. So Tom
Alex(
03:44.792)
Tell us a little bit about kind of your creative background, specifically with painting, but let's you know, you can talk about all the other kind of pursuits you had as well, but kind of summarize a little bit for us how you kind of got into painting that and how ultimately you got to Scotland.
Tom(
03:59.692)
Right. Kind of a a complex journey I suppose. Yeah, I'll try and start from the beginning. So yeah, I I always loved painting from about I guess my early very early teens, like or even eleven or twelve possibly. Yeah. I loved painting Christmas cards at the time. That was that was my thing. 'Cause yeah, I just love that you get a nice Christmas card that you really like and when you paint it you're kind of in the scene because you're looking at it so much and you I guess when you're that
Age as a child as well, you can gotta enter the scene easier if your mind is kind of geared that way a bit better. But anyway, so as I was painting through my teenage years, I didn't do art in schools, it was just just on the side, just something I like doing, so I didn't really have any instruction. But when I was seventeen or eighteen, I met a nun from a religious order, the family of Mary. They were over in Ireland, I forget what what exactly they were over for, but they came to to visit our family.
with the co-founder of the community, Father Paul. And she was an amazing artist and and so was he. And yeah, they they found out that I liked painting and they wanted to see something that I painted. And yeah, I I painted this painting of the Divine Mercy. And like even at the time I thought it was terrendous. I just yeah, I should have been there. But of course ma'am sh thought it'd be gracious to bring this painting the idea of Divine Mercy and show Sister Veronica and Father Paul. And I was like,
Dear terrible. Terrible. Of course, yeah, they were very gracious, but this is so nice and like knows that I imagine.
Alex(
05:37.132)
Come on.
Tom(
05:39.502)
But anyway, so yeah, through my late teens I was in a prayer group. We went to Medjugory a few times and Sister Veronica, she came with us. So yeah, I got to know her quite well. And so that was when I was finishing school my leaving cert and Yeah. Yeah, I didn't really know what I should do when I finished school. I started a university course, but as soon as I started I just knew that yeah, it was just not the right course or the right path for me. So I didn't want to waste any time so I
Alex(
05:54.102)
Which would have been eighteen. Yeah.
Tom(
06:08.823)
I left that course.
Alex(
06:10.094)
Just as a side note, hold on, for anybody listening, either parents or people in their younger years, how long were you at that course before you left it? A week. And that is completely fine. As a university professor, as a mom, I want to just highlight that to anybody. If your child or if you start a something, especially a university course, and realize it's not for them, leave. Don't waste the money, don't waste the time, do something else. God's calling you something else.
Tom(
06:36.078)
Just kinda to add to that, like I know like starting university when yeah, when you're seventeen or eighteen, yeah, it can be a big thing leaving home and everything. But I knew that wasn't it. I knew that no, it just this course, it just wasn't a good fit and it wasn't that I was feeling off that I was away from home and that yeah. It's like no, no, it was it was bigger than that. Mm-hmm. So I was I was in the fitting windows company in in my hometown. So I was doing that for a few months, and then I got a call from Sister Veronica.
So I yeah, I used to play guitar for the the prayer group that that I was in and she asked me if I wanted to go to Rome to one of the community houses and play guitar and practice for this conference that they were getting ready for in Amsterdam. And, you know, for a young guy in mid Tipperary t the chance to go to Rome and play guitar and just just all that excitement and adventure was like, Yeah Bring me there So yeah, I flew over to Rome
didn't know anybody. It was like a very, very strange experience just yeah, just to land and like I have no idea where I'm going, who these people are. I didn't see Sister Vadica for a few weeks after I arrived. But but everyone was super friendly and and and nice. Yeah, amazing experience. But there was one particular seminarian there and he was an amazing artist. Yeah, he he really got me started painting properly, really. He brought me to the Vatican Gallery and I still remember
seeing those paintings for the first time. And I guess that that shows the impact it would have on you just to remember even particular paintings that you'd never seen before or or haven't seen after. Like big paintings that yeah, they just take in your whole field view. So you're just really in the scene. Yeah, it was after that I thought, man, I really, really want to to learn how to paint. Like much better
Alex(
08:22.33)
So you came back to Ireland and you'd gone back over back and forth to Rome a few different times.
Tom(
08:23.808)
Yeah, yeah.
Tom(
08:29.046)
Yeah, but I was always I was always painting and yeah, when I came back to Ireland well I'd spent some time in with the community at one of their mission stations in Russia as well. And even over there I brought some paints over with me and it was painted a little bit over there but n not a whole lot. When I came back to Ireland I went to film school for three years.
Alex(
08:46.924)
We both have a film degree that we do not use at all.
Tom(
08:50.254)
I loved yeah, I loved studying film. But more s more shooting short films and stuff. Yeah. and photography. Yeah, I did some factory work for a while and But that was actually valuable time because when I was had the job in the factory, I was at a medical device factory up in Galway. But Galway's a very arty city and I I was doing life trialing courses. So yeah, I was just trying to develop my skills a bit better. I mean, you have to think back then there wasn't so much internet. I didn't have a laptop.
Most people didn't really.
Alex(
09:21.486)
I'm kidding.
Tom(
09:23.832)
So yeah, I mean I'm I'm quite jealous now to think of all the online resources and how, if you like, easy it is to learn so many things now that you just didn't really have the access to before. So I was still trying to teach myself how to paint, which you can only kinda get so far with that really. But I was always practicing anyway, which is which is good. Mm-hmm. From there then yeah, I went to Australia for a few months. Yeah, it was just clear, right, I need to go back to university and get something and
Do something that I know I can get a job in straight away. So yeah, I went to study radiography. Went to Scotland. Yeah, I got an offer for university place in Glasgow. I'd never been there. I've been to Scotland before. Went over that that summer and it was the hottest summer in thirty years like that. So yeah, for for Scotland it was it was warm and sunny. I thought, wow, this place is great, you know? that's the last the last time we saw the sun. Yeah. Yeah, I really enjoyed doing radiography, really felt that I was kind of back on track.
Alex(
09:55.926)
So you went to Scotland?
Alex(
10:12.567)
Yeah.
To see
Tom(
10:21.56)
Because yeah, for I guess years before that it was like going here and there for a bit of this and that and didn't really know what my life direction was. But I really felt that when I started in in Glasgow that yeah, I was on yeah back on track. But you know, like looking back, I guess God used my different paths here and there, even though it might might have seemed that there was lack of direction. Well
Alex(
10:42.966)
the moment, right, you don't feel like you have any direction. And it's only, I hindsight's 2020, right? I mean, like I've always said this to you. Like, I am so thankful for a lot of the parts of my past that in those moments felt really terrible. You didn't like being in those moments because you were like, I either I don't have a direction or this is completely wrong, or I'm not moving forward, or whatever it is. Whereas in reality, yeah, when you look back, you know, 10, 20 years later, hopefully you are able to see.
how God used those strings to kind of knot your life together and and and bring you forward a bit. Cause essentially, right, I mean, looking back for you as well, God had to have you be in Scotland in two thousand and eleven, when two thousand ten, two thousand eleven, when I moved there. So I moved to Scotland in twenty ten. So he needed you to be in Scotland then. So if you would have gone to Scotland, you know, straight after film school, you would have been
done your degree, been gone, 'cause by the time you finished your degree, you were ready to leave Scotland. So, you know, you could have been well gone by then. So you had to have those filler years, if you will, before you got to Scotland.
Tom(
11:46.316)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think he does use that time even just to develop skills in this and that. Yeah. 'Cause yeah, we guess we all need to develop as as people in general, like in adult skills. But yeah, spiritually as well, for sure. In Scotland, do my radiography thing, qualified in that. Still painting a bit every now and then. But yeah, I I I still wanted to do a bit of painting on the side and I'd seen in there's some Italian restaurants in Glasgow
Alex(
12:00.942)
So you were in Scotland.
Tom(
12:15.112)
And yeah, there's a big wall painting of some I think some Tuscan scene or something like that. And I thought, hm, that'd be pretty cool paint a wall in a restaurant. I'd never painted on a wall before, so I needed a wall to paint. So every now and then, depending on my work schedule, I used to go to Mass at Las Go Unit Chaplaincy and there was a cafe upstairs. And I knew the the chaplain who worked there. So I asked him, any tense I could paint on your wall
So I showed him what I wanted to paint and he Yeah, work away, no problem. It was a big painting of Michelangelo's Moses and an Angel by Bernini. So yeah, I really enjoyed painting on the walls. That was fun.
Alex(
12:56.526)
So I moved to Scotland in August of twenty ten, after I finished my uni degree. Like I said, I was doing a masters in ancient Greek drama and absolutely loved my masters. And I also really just loved that time in Scotland because I was allowed, not allowed, but because nobody knew me from my previous kind of life, if you will. I got to be the person that I really wanted to be. So I went to daily mass and I became really, really good friends with the nun that was at the chaplain scene. So I went to the I went to mass at
the Glasgow Uni Chaplaincy because it was on my campus. And yeah, I went to daily mass, became really good friends with the nun that was at the Glasgow Chaplaincy, and really just kind of fell in love with my with my life in Scotland and with the person that God helped me to become. Because it was really, I feel like that was really kind of the start of me figuring out actually who I was meant to be. So then in the May of 2011,
I was finished with all of my classes for my master's and was just working on my master's thesis. And that was what I was gonna be doing over the summer, was working on my master's thesis. So one of my best friends from my childhood, she just had finished her university degree back in the States. And so we decided that we were going to do a backpacking trip for about three or four weeks. I think we had originally planned to do. I think it was about three weeks that we planned to do in May. And it was fantastic. We went all over Europe.
Backpacking, taking trains. It was, yeah, it was absolutely fantastic. Saw some amazing sights. But it turned out that that was the exact same time as the E. coli epidemic in mainland Europe. And obviously we didn't know that because you're in when you're in the middle of an epidemic, you don't actually know that it's an epidemic until you look back. But so we'd been in Germany and I had some bean sprouts at a big kind of German lunch restaurant thing that we'd gone to. And
My friend Ali had given me a hard time actually because she's like, You're eating everything, like you're trying everything. And I was Of course I am. Because I used to be a really picky eater before I moved to Scotland and then became a not picky eater because of Haggis and Napes and Daddies and everything. So yeah, I was just trying all the foods that the Germans offered us, including bean sprouts, which was not a great choice because that's where the E. coli was in the German bean sprouts. So, anyways, didn't find out though until about 10 days later when we were in France and I got extremely sick, like extremely, extremely sick.
Alex(
15:14.936)
to the point where I said to my friend, I said, you know, I can't I can't keep going. Like I gotta go home. I'm I'm so sick. And we didn't know what it was, obviously. We just knew that I was really, really, really sick. So we cut our trip short and I managed to get a flight on the day for us from I think we we were in Nice at that point. So from Nice straight to Glasgow. And it was amazing, went straight back to my house in Glasgow and just was sick at my house for like three days. And my flatmates were
Incredible. They took such good care of me. They were both in cancer research. So anything kind of medical, they're like, yes, we can do this. So they just took great care of me. And so then on that Sunday, so I wasn't supposed to be in Glasgow like that whole next week. I was supposed to be, I don't know, France and probably Spain, I think as well. We were gonna go and London. We were going to London too. Anyways, so I wasn't supposed to be in Glasgow that next week, but I was, and so Sunday morning I woke up and at about half ten, no, I think it was about ten fifteen in the morning. I thought
Right. I need to go to Mass now because I'm awake because I'd been sleeping a lot because I was so sick. And so I was like, I'm awake now. So I'm gonna go to the eleven AM Mass at the Chaplain Sea. I usually went to the six fifteen Mass in the evening, but that morning because I was awake and I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna be awake come six PM tonight because I just don't feel well. So I'm gonna go to the eleven AM Mass. So I got myself up, dragged myself the two miles that it was to the chaplain Sea. Okay, now let's pick up where we were.
So you had been doing these paintings on the walls.
Tom(
16:44.3)
Yeah, yeah. I guess it was before Mass. There was a couple who who were at Mass and the wife she worked as a a caretaker or s I don't know, something in the university. Is it the chapeling?
Alex(
16:57.118)
It's not it used to be a chapel. In Glasgow uni there's this gorgeous it used to be a chapel and now it's more of kind of like a exhibit hall, exhibition center sort of thing. It's a beautiful it's it's a beautiful, beautiful room, if you will, in the Chaplain Sea. But anyway, so they were having an exhibit on.
Tom(
17:14.796)
Yeah, so so this couple, yeah, they they had known that yeah, I did the the wall paintings in the cafe. So yeah, there was some exhibition on in the Glasgow Union at the time and she said if I hang on after mass she could open the door and let me in and yeah, I can have a look around the ex exhibition. So I thought, okay. I mean, I didn't really know her that well, so it was a bit a little bit awkward. So yeah, so after mass I went upstairs.
Alex(
17:37.197)
Right.
Alex(
17:40.866)
Well, actually before that happened. So we were both at the same mass, which again, I never went to the 11A mass. Tom, you never really went to that mass either. It was kind of just on your work schedule. But so after the mass, there was a holy water font right near one of the entrances to the chaplaincy. And I was staying at the Holy Water Font because I was waiting for my friend, Sister Karen, because I was gonna ask her for a ride home because I was so sick. So I was waiting for my friend and I was at the Holy Water Font and this guy, Tom, comes up to me and
Tom(
17:49.55)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alex(
18:10.776)
Just said hello to me at the Holy Water Font. And yeah, and I thought it was really interesting because I thought his voice sounded really familiar, but obviously I'd never met him before. So I said hello back and that was that and he left. So then yeah, Sister Karen came up to me afterwards and I said, Yeah, will you give me a ride home? And she said, Yeah, no problem. Go upstairs and wait for me so I can I can talk to a few people and then I'll give you a drive home. Okay. So and then you were going upstairs as well to wait for this couple. Yeah. So there was the cafe upstairs. All right, go ahead.
Tom(
18:34.37)
Yeah.
Tom(
18:37.762)
Yeah, I was waiting upstairs. Yeah, I don't know. I was waiting a few minutes. I don't know who
Alex(
18:42.542)
Again, so I didn't know anybody at this 11 a.m. Mass because I never went to eleven a.m. Mass, but there was a lady that I had kind of known through other people, and she would have been the only person that I would have even vaguely known upstairs. So I was waiting upstairs in this cafe, and this lady comes over to me to start making small talk, basically. And again, I didn't know her hardly at all, barely you knew her name, but I noticed these new paintings on the cafe walls.
And so I thought I'd say, just because we were making small talk and I was waiting for Sister Karen, I said, I said these paintings are really nice. Are they new? And she said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She said, The painter's here. Do you want to meet him? Now, just to give everybody a bit of an understanding, I had E. coli. I was very sick. I was extremely, I was, I think I was gray. Like my skin tone was I had been so sick for about four or five days. My skin tone was gray.
But this lady was like, Do you want to meet him? And frankly, I wanted to be like, No, I want to go home and sleep. But of course she don't want to be rude. So I was like, Yeah, okay, fine. So anyway, so she walks me over to this table where this man, Tom, is sat, waiting for this these other people that he doesn't really know. So, anyways, go ahead, Tom.
Tom(
20:01.55)
So yeah, so there there you were in in in front of me and and yeah, he asked me, Did I do those paintings? And I said, I do yeah. They're really nice and he said, I study ancient Greek drama. I thought that's cool.
Alex(
20:15.372)
Because in my head, again, my feverish head, yeah, those paintings look Greekish. So then I was like, The link is that yeah, I study ancient Greek drama and I've studied I've recently studied a course in ancient Greek art, not that your paintings were anything to do. You got it, you got the thank you. Yeah. Again, right? Soulmates. In my head, I was like, This makes sense. And you were I mean, you were so kind about it because no.
Tom(
20:31.563)
I don't know.
Tom(
20:42.102)
No, I I got yeah, I got where where you're going with the thank you connection there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we were only talking for a moment and then yeah, the the person came to get me to to go to university. But yeah, look at your blue eyes and your your stripy top.
Alex(
20:56.462)
My gray skin.
Tom(
21:00.546)
I thought yeah. Something different about her. She's different. In a good way. She's different.
Alex(
21:05.08)
She's got equal. Nobody else here can say that. Yeah, so you left. And me being an American, I was kind of expecting, if he was interested, might he might have taken my number, et cetera, but nothing like that because you were also being very respectful. What? We don't
Tom(
21:22.018)
I exchanged like two sentences. In my third sentence like my number
Alex(
21:29.294)
Fair. Fair point. Okay, fine. Fair point. Fine. But so, anyways, so that was that. We left it at that. And just as a side note, Sister Karen totally forgot about me up at the cafe. So I had to walk home the two miles. But that was okay because I had two miles to think about like this brief exchange that I had. Wow, this is I don't know. This feels a bit different. This is interesting. So yeah, that was that. And I remember actually the next week.
End on the Sunday. So we hadn't we hadn't said anything about like, we'll meet up next Sunday or or whatever it was. It was literally just kind of like a nice to meet you. And then that lady took you away. But the next Sunday, I remember I woke up, like I was gonna get up to get ready for 11 a.m. mass. And I remember saying out loud, because I was just like, I'm not getting up. Like I was still like kind of getting over the coli and all those sorts of things. And I was just like, I remember saying out loud, I was like, God, if it's meant to be, he'll be at the 615 mass.
And so I didn't go to 11 a.m. mass and went to the 615 mass. And I'd spent the whole day actually. I say this, I was that I was getting over E. coli. I was, but at the same time, my friend was like, let's go rock climbing. And I was like, done. Because I loved rock climbing. So we'd spent the whole kind of afternoon rock climbing. So I went straight from rock climbing to mass. And Sister Karen was, Will you Eucharistic minister for us for Mass? And I looked at myself because I was in my climbing clothes. Okay. So my my climbing leggings, I had a huge, my huge
Glasgow uni rain jacket on because it was raining. Surprise, surprise. And I was a bit grubby, I'm not gonna lie, but I was all right. And 'cause I was like, Sister Karen, I have all my climbing clothes on. And she was like, God doesn't care what you look like. You can Eucharist minister. And I said, Okay, fine. Or God doesn't care what you're wearing. And I said, Okay, fine. So yeah, so Eucharistic ministered. And as I was Eucharistic ministering, I was doing the blood and caught me a bit off guard because you came up for a communion.
And got the blood and I remember almost being like, Yeah, but so I was very shocked that you were there, especially based on what I'd said that morning out loud to God. So then yeah, after Mass.
Tom(
23:31.436)
Yeah, I caught you when you're going out the door. Mm-hmm. And we were yeah, we were talking for Yeah. Yeah. Just outside the door there. Yeah. Yeah, it was I know we we've we've talked about this before. It was like it was like we always knew each other, but still, yeah, we obviously didn't. But yeah, there was that I would just say that peaceful familiarity kind of feeling of of meeting the right person. Yeah. And I think that's that's a real telling sign, isn't it? Yeah. That peace in your heart. Yeah.
Alex(
23:36.014)
Two hours.
Alex(
23:58.51)
Yeah. Yeah. And it was also funny because obviously while we're having this conversation, I mean, I grew to like you very, very, very much in that conversation. I just thought you were cool and great to talk to. And yeah, you're right. Like there was that peace in in talking to you. And it was interesting too, because obviously so again, this was b this would have been summertime in Scotland. So even though mass finished at seven PM and we were talking for two hours like nine, nine thirty at night, it was still bright outside. So that's another thing as well, which I think kind of
fed into the timing of the year because if it would have been in the middle of winter, I would not have wanted to stay in the chaplaincy for two hours after Mass to talk because it's dark and it's wet and you want to get home. Whereas because it happened in the summertime as well, you don't feel like it's that late. Because in Glasgow, especially in June when this was happening, June is bright till half eleven at night. It could, it's almost midnight. So nine o'clock did not feel like it was late at all. But yeah, we can we can talk further about
Our story in future episodes, maybe. But I think in particular with this episode, it's for me, it was just very much like how God used your love of painting and wanting to constantly try and get better. And my love of theater, but in a very academic sense, to bring us both together at that exact same time in Scotland. Looking back now, what was it about kind of that creative interest or how God was pulling you in that sort of sense? How can you see that now kind of feeding into our life?
Tom(
25:21.56)
Well I yeah, I mean like w were saying before that random things are things that don't seem that significant, God can make them significant in his plan. Like wall paintings and bean sprouts these are vital ingredients in his plan for us. Who would ever put them together? But yeah, God his his planning skills are off the charts.
Tom(
25:47.68)
Yeah, I don't know where to go from there.
Alex(
25:50.158)
But I think just recognizing the fact that no matter kind of where you are in life and and the thing is too, God can take this doesn't have to happen like right at the start, if you will, of your act of your adult life. So Tom's a few years older than me. And it could have felt to you like you were, you know, not necessarily getting frustrated, but you wanted to get married, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And you wanted to settle down, you wanted to have kids. And you were thirty when we met, weren't you? Yeah. Yeah, you were thirty.
Tom(
26:11.875)
Yeah.
Tom(
26:19.754)
I would just say it was like you'd be wondering like i am I doing something wrong? You know, 'cause yeah, when you're trying to live your faith, trying to be a good person and you want to meet a nice person, the right the right person, of course, like to marry and it's just not happening. Yeah. I mean you begin to wonder what what am I doing wrong? have I been too picky? Which, you know, might be a natural sort of thing to think, even though like you don't want to think like that because you don't want to lower your standards. You know? I mean
Yeah, I won't say I was desperate.
Alex(
26:50.648)
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Tom(
26:52.792)
But at the same time you're thinking like, yeah, these years are passing by, you know, what's going on here? But yeah, in God's time and in God's choice of the right person. I mean it's all hindsight, isn't it? I mean, I had to wait for that time to come around.
Alex(
27:09.678)
So I'm very grateful, yeah, that it was obviously the way that it was, but also just God kind of biting your time until I could get to Scotland. I think it's just it was a and I think it was a creative way as to how he kind of kept you kept you engaged in those creative pursuits that ultimately would then lead to a wall painting in Glasgow. I just think it's really interesting how he kind of constantly kind of kept his fire going in you. And even though you weren't even studying painting in Glasgow, you know, you were still just doing it on the side.
I think it's yeah, it's incredible how we could kinda can use that to then write the story and and help us help two soulmates meet. Yeah.
Tom(
27:46.008)
I guess he's the he's the great artist. So he uses all the mixed media you might say of random things that that that he can throw together and make something amazing out of.
Alex(
27:56.43)
But anyways, all right. So we will end the episode there because it's actually a whole lot longer than I thought it was gonna be. I told Tom budget ten, fifteen minutes and Tom's like, Alex, it's gonna take way longer than that. Okay, so anyways, any pearls before we leave?
Tom(
28:11.918)
Any pearls. Yeah, like you know, hindsight, things are much clearer, but when you're in the middle of it, it's yeah, things can seem very lack of direction. And but stay close to God and stay honestly searching for what he wants. And I think in that desire and that search, then then you are doing what he wants. And yeah, keep praying for for your spouse. Yeah, when I was when I was over with the the community or when I was when I was leaving Rome, when I was coming back, I remember one of the sisters.
said that, you you should always pray for for the girl that you're going to marry. Pray for her guidance and her pr her protection and that and that in our in our meeting that we can recognize each other and not let an opportunity pass like that. You know, you could s you could miss an opportunity like that but yeah, to to pray for the the person you're going to marry and in God's time he'll he need you.
Alex(
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So that is our short, not so short story on how, yeah, in our in our own experience, how God used our creative interests to bring us together. Two people, Tom's from Ireland, I'm from the States, in Scotland. So not even in our home countries. Hopefully it gives a bit of encouragement or just or if you're just like a r romantic. Romantic. Or if you're a romantic like I am, you just enjoyed the story. But yeah.
That's thanks Tom for being on the show today. You're welcome. I appreciate it. And thank you so much for joining us today for this episode. Until next time, stay creative and keep making what matters most.
