Sin Isn’t Your Main Problem—Art of Unseen Warfare | Justin Marler

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Justin Marler, thank you for joining me on a commitment
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to reality.
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Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I'm excited about
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this discussion.
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I love your book. You wrote a book called Unseen Warfare,
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Ancient Teachings for the Modern Fighter. And as I was
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rereading the introduction to the book this morning, you said
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it yourself that it's a field guide for life. It's
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what you wrote it for your daughters, and I want
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to give it to my boys as soon as they
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get older, but I want to give it to everybody.
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I want everybody to read this book because it really is.
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I mean, it's what all of us are looking for
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in life. You talked about how in your book you
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talked about how you would go into bookstores as a
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young adult and you were always searching. And I did
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the same thing, and I would feel this overwhelming sense
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of anxiety because there's so many books and there's so
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many different paths that these books can take you through.
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And glory to God, you have written a modern classic.
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I really believe that, and I think that God is
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going to use this book to help guide people through life.
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So thank you.
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Yeah, Amen, I'm really lucky that I was able to
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get exposed to it all as a modern American kid.
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You know, just stumbling into Orthodoxy in the early nineties
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was really It's a very unusual thing to have happened then.
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So I'm just grateful that I encountered the church and
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its teachings.
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Yeah, Providence works in that way. So before we start
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talking about your book, I kind of want you to
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talk a little bit about yourself, if you will. You've
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lived You're in your early fifties, correct.
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Fifty four?
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Yeah, yeah, and already you've lived a couple lives. Could
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you kind of get into a little bit of your
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your backstory of you, for lack of a better word,
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a punk and then you became a monk and then
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you kind of merged the two worlds.
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Well, they go hand in hand in a certain way.
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But and I was talking with somebody just yesterday about this.
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I grew up normal American Mickey Mouse MTV, you know,
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saturated with you know, nonsense and garbage, and obviously I
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was starved. My soul was starved to death, and so
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you know, I gravitated to punk rock and that sort
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of mentality because it's pushing back against the modern status quo.
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The modern the way the world sees things. I didn't
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agree with it, and so punk helped me articulate things
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in that way, sort of rejecting the modern world. But
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when you reject something, you have to accept something too,
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and I didn't know that when I was younger. So, yeah,
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I went through this whole experience of you know, depression,
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suicidal ideology. Music got into music and was my dream
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was to be in a band and record music and
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tour and all that kind of stuff. And I was
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able to realize that dream with some punk bands and
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some metal bands that I were in back in that
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back in those days, I mean, it was not solving
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the problem though. I was still extremely suicidal and depressed,
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and I didn't know why. I was raised with a
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kernel of sort of non denominational Protestantism, and that stayed
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with me, you know, throughout my life. That never has
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gone away since I was three years old. But I
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didn't have a way to understand it. What I was
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raised with was actually kind of confusing, the idea of
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you say that you're saved, you accept Christ and that's that.
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That was freaky to me at the time. I thought,
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this can't be that simple. It's almost like a magical
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prayer or an incantation where you say this thing and
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you're fine, and then you can go off and do
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stuff and quote unquote repent for it. That seemed really
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weird to me. So I stumbled through all sorts of sins,
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you know, like I mentioned in the book, I became
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proficient at all of them pretty much, you know, gluttony, lust, anger, despair, despondency, pride,
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van glory, avarice, not so much. I never really cared
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about things or money, but AMEN struggled through all these
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other and I didn't know what was going on with
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my soul. So obviously encountering the monks, well, first through
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a nun and a dwarf, mind you, there was a
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nun and a dwarf in this Christian Orthodox bookstore, and
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obviously a young person. I was gravitated to that, like
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what is this? This woman in a black robe and
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there's this dwarf, you know, small person. What do we
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want to call it? Yeah? I encountered the faith, and
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immediately I deduced that monks were the troop punks. They
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definitely reject the world, and they reject the status quo,
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but they accept the answers to all that which is
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the last true rebellion, you know, to fully reject the
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world and fully die to yourself as best we possibly
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can daily, so that we can live for Christ and not.
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I mean, when I saw these monks, they were sleeping
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on planks of wood, They had really shabby sleeping bags,
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They didn't shower very often. They were absolutely not interested
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in the world old and the convention of conventions of
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the world. And I I thought that was amazing, and
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I clearly, you know, when I visited the monastery, I
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didn't leave, you know, I stayed for seven years because
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that was so inspiring to me. I had to go
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back to the world and settle up some affairs in
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the world. I had an art exhibit that I had
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to wrap up, and that first album that I recorded
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with a band called Sleep that was just getting released,
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so I had to deal with that a little bit.
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But stayed about two about a month or two in
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the world and came back to the monastery. And I
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stayed there for a long time.
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Yeah, I mean, I feel like we could talk for
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hours about your experience in the monastery. How old were
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you when you got there?
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I was nineteen years old. I just completed my first record.
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I didn't go to school or anything, so.
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All the more I mean than me.
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You know, I was young and these things were brewing
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inside of me, and the monastery was you know. I mean,
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when you distill it down, the monastic life is the
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most conducive life for spiritual life and for a life
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in Christ. It is everything is geared towards Christ, towards
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I call you know, the Bible calls it the one
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thing needful. Everything in the monastery is geared toward that.
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So initially you either suffer through all of your awfulness
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and you get through it and you get on the
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rhythm of the monastic life, which is a long process,
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or you leave. We had a lot of people that
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showed up and they were excited about the monastic life,
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and they would disappear after a week or a couple
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of days. Sometimes they would leave in the middle of
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the night. I guess out of shame or something, which
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is not necessary. But yeah, when you're when you first,
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when you're first there, there's a romantic experience. You know,
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it's beautiful, it's amazing, and it's warm. It's filled with
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big ideas and lots of wisdom. And then after about
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a month you start questioning everything. You're standing in church
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for hours and you're thinking. Your thought processes go wild
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because of all this trash that we've exposed ourselves to
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through our senses, through our childhood and whatnot. And you
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hit a point where you have to either push forward
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and God's grace helps you through it, or you run
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back to the world. You know, you run back to
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the plow or whatever. But it was the best formative
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seven years of my life, easily. It taught me what
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it means to be a male, a man in the
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modern world, which I didn't get that from anything else.
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I actually got that mostly from our bishop here in Dallas,
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Bishop Garassum. He was in the monastery at the time
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there and I got to know him very well, and
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I still know him to this day. We have a
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lot of whenever we run into each other, we have
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a shared understanding, which is really beautiful. But he's the
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one who really showed me asceticism and to suffer quietly
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and to be a man really, And I got all
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that from the monastery.
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Yeah, I mean, you said you didn't go to school,
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but seven years in the monastery, what is that, and.
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So that's an interesting idea. I can go to school.
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I hated academia. I hated high school. I thought it
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was a toxic social environment for young people. I thought
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it was actually something you would want to do to
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hurt somebody, you put them in high school. You know.
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So I despised education in a certain way. But when
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I gave when I was given a platform to self
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educate or to learn on my own terms, that was
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in the monastery. So I dove into biology. I dove
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into books on life after death and death experiences, dove
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into science and looked into evolution a lot. Obviously. I
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read tons of theology, so it was a theological school.
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Every moment of every day was theology school. And I
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read my first book from cover to cover in the monastery.
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You know, I got through high school reading cliff notes
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for these books that I thought were horrible, you know,
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Animal Farm, terrible, terrible stuff.
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You know.
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My first book that I read from cover to cover
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in the monastery was Dostavsky's Brother's Cameras Off Okay, which
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was a big undertaking, and I didn't understand most of it,
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half of it anyway, But I did understand Alyosha, and
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I understood his brother, these two brothers, you know, I
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got what they were fighting for, you know, or fighting
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against whatever. Yeah, I self educated in there, and also
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I learned some major, major important things that a modern
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young person doesn't necessarily learn deliberately in the world, and
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that is the love of beauty, the love of the
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classical music, the love of old movies, the love of
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art and old art. You know. I taught and went
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through art classes in high school, but nothing revealed to
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me the essence of beauty in that way. So I
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got a great lesson on the appreciation of beauty in
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the monastery too. The abbot of the monastery, he's reposed now.
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He actually sent me to an opera in San Francisco
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as a monk, not showered dirty, and we went I
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think it was one other, maybe two other monks of myself.
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We went to San Francisco opera and me, being a
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punk rocker, I had record or did my metal record
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not very far from where that opera house is a
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year and a half prior. So I'm going to this
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opera and I'm newly appreciating classical music, and I finally
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wrap my head around it. You know a little bit.
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And when we go there, we saw geepe verdez la
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Forta del Destino, the force of Destiny, and it has
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monasticism in it. It has this struggle of the passions
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in it, powerful, powerful and moving. All that I got
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from the monastery.
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What's so interesting because you're talking about beauty, you're talking
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about joy, and monastics practice detachment, right, And so from
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my perspective, or from from most of the world's perspective,
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detachment is almost the opposite. It's kind of a despising
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of the world. That's the perception, right. So like, how
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do I mean, the monks are clear the experts at this,
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but how do us lay people who are living out
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in the modern world practice detachment while also maintaining a
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joy for the beauty of God's creation? I mean, our
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life is beautiful.
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Absolutely, Yeah.
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Yeah, Well, I have my approach to it, and obviously
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I you know, I've been saturating myself with the church
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fathers on this topic for a long time, and I
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tried to raise my.
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Daughters with some understanding of being detached, and they have
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it in them. I see it sometimes when they say something,
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I'm like, there it is that little kernel of I'm
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not going to fully care about these things of the world.
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You know. I think that when I started off with it,
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I learned to despise it, like you said, and then
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I learned that despising it isn't the answer. It's actually
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just not caring. You know. There's a middle road here.
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You can love it, or you can despise it, or
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you can just not have it affect you. And I
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think that that's what I learned from the Church Fathers,
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is to not swing either way with it. And so
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in the book, I don't know if you got to
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this chapter or not, but in the detachment chapter, I
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have this great story.
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I'm gonna stop you right there. Yeah, got to this
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part yet. I've almost read it twice. I've read your
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book cover to cover almost twice. I love it. So
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just to let you know, I'm very very well versed
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in the book, not that I have the kind of
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recall that you do of it, but I definitely paid
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attention to it.
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So this story that you've read, I'm assuming it really
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illustrates how detachment should play out. And I guess it's
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through a monk in the Egyptian desert. Okay, he's in
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the desert. He's living alone as a solitary, and he
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has a visitor, and the visitor stays with him and
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steals his one precious item, which is a beautiful gospel
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version of the Gospel that he had hidden in his
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cell so he could always keep it. This visitor steals it,
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takes it to the nearest village and asks the guy
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if he would be interested in buying it, and the
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guy said, I would be interested, but I need to
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talk to somebody else about the value. So he takes
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it to this monk, the same monk not knowing that
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this gospel belonged to him, and asks him is this
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a good price for this? And the monk doesn't reveal
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that it's actually his possession. He says, yeah, that's a
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good value and sends him away. That is the essence
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of detachment right there, is you do love this thing
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and you value it, and it's the Gospels, you know.
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But at the same time, I'm not attached to anything
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in this world, and the detachment to things is liberating.
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That's the thing that the modern man, I think is
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missing greatly in how we view everything is with these attachments.
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We view them as something that's important, something that defines
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our character. Even our attachments to our parents and grandparents,
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all these things we view them as essential, and that
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is totally not true. Detachment still contains love and still
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contains use. You're still using these things and they're in
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your life and love. You still have these relatives ands on.
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But when we're detached, when something dies, when a person dies,
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when a thing goes away, when your house burns down,
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nothing affects you. So being detached in a huge way
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is I think the essence of some of Christ's teachings,
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and he also just exhibited that in his life. Is
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just these things of the world are not us. They're
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not us. They're they're not ours, you know, And Saint
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John in his epistles talks about this at great length.
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Love of the world. You know, we can't love God
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and love the world. And that's a really harsh statement,
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but it's an hundred percent true.
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Or you will hate your your mother and father. Yeah,
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I mean without the proper context, they're jarring. Yeah, And
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they said.
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They're really jarring. He was, he was. He brought into
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the world something profoundly earth shaking.
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You talk about detachment, I mean as I finished or
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or was finishing your book, a text ran across my
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screen that the sexton at our church had died. And
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he was such a special man. I mean, he is
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the caretaker of the church, and he was the godfather
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to a lot of people who you've impacted. So you
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guys have a connection without you ever having met him.
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I mean, a lot of these young men coming into
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the church through you or through you know, through something
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that you're putting out there in the world, and then
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he was there to welcome them, and he just shepherded them.
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And it was unexpectedly expected. You know, he was having
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some health issues, but I saw that right as I
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was finishing your book and getting it through a chapter
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on death. I went to church that night and I
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had the strangest experience. You know, I've experienced a lot
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of death over the past couple of weeks for whatever
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reason in God's timing, and I think death will always
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I hope we never get too comfortable with death, right,
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it should always be an affront to our senses. But
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as I stood there, you know, all of his god
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children that were able to win up and they were
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praying the Trisagion, and I was watching and I just
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had this overwhelming peace that was not natural, and I
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think it was to some degree experiencing that detachment that
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this world is beautiful, but it's not everything, and he's
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home now, and while that's sad for us, it's beautiful
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for him, and now he's praying for us. So yes,
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So you talk about the healthy detachment, there's also when
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you left the monastery, you said that you assimilated, but
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with a healthy discomfort.
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What do you mean by that, Well, it goes back
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to my youth and punk and also the Monk chapters.
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I've never wanted to be comfortable with it, you know,
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So when I left the monastery and to this day,
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I still have a healthy discomfort with it because I
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know that this world is we're pilgrims here, and just
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you know the same thing about detachment. You know, this
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is not where we're We're not supposed to pitch our
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tent forever here. And I think that the discomfort in
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the world, it really ties to the passions. The more
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that I get comfortable with any of these passions, the
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more that I get off track spiritually, And the more
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that I'm off track spiritually, the more that I'm dissatisfied.
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The more that I'm upset, restless, discontent, anxious, all those
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things start to bubble up. But the more I'm dissatisfied
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with the world and see it for what it is
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and remind myself of that continually, the more I keep
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it at Bay, It's almost like, you know, you set
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up boundaries. You know, I'm setting up a boundary with
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the world all the time, you know. Yeah, And I
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do normal things. I go to shows, I'm gonna take
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my daughter to see a country singer, you know, go
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out and do things in the world and everything, but
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it's always with a critical eye. Last time I took
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her to a show, I saw the crowd and it
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reminded me of St. Sanya and her husband and him
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partying and him dying. And I'm looking at this crowd
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of people, and so I'm always kind of looking at
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it through this lens of this is just death. It's
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all gonna pass, and it's not worth getting your heart
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wrapped up in it, you know.
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Yeah. And I hate to keep forgive me if I'm
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beating a dead horse here, but it's I think it's
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something really important, and if if we can help people
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overcome people including myself, over this obstacle, that detachment and
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kind of this discomfort with the world and the critical
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eye that you're talking about. In that separation, there's a
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tendency to view that through a negative like a lens
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of negativity, Like, oh, Justin's a negative guy. He doesn't
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you know, he's this uh, spiritual guy, but he has
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this negative edge. He thinks the world is bad. And
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how do we overcome that?
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We have to separate the two ideas. Here there is
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the world, which is God's created world, which is beautiful.
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It's astonishing, it's filled with miracles, it's filled with majesty.
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The biological structures, the molecules, all that stuff is astonishingly amazing.
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The world is best defined by Saint Isaac Assyrian, which
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I've been, you know, beating this dead horse forever death
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to the world. You know, the world is the collective
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name that we call the passions. We must have a
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negative view of them. As soon as we don't have
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a negative view of them, they tear us apart. And
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if you can't see that in our own lives, then
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we're basically blindly letting ourselves fall into This is what
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leads to despair. And depression is once the world infects
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us in this way, and we should be negative about that.
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That is one hundred percent which we should be doing.
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One of the things that some of the visitors would
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come to the monastery, and they were largely you know,
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I'm talking about people that were inquirers, that were coming
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from a sort of agnostic background. They would point out
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that same thing, why are you fleeing the world? What's
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so bad about the world? Why are you saying so
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many negative things about the world. I was actually walking
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on a beach in Alaska with a musician that's pretty
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well known. He was the singer of a band called
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Minor Threat and a band called Fugazi. His name was
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Ian Mackay or he is Ian Mackay. And we were
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walking along the beach talking of all these topics. And
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he at the time and it probably still is maybe,
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but he was agnostic, atheist sort of, and he said
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that same thing, why are you guys, why do you
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guys hate the world so much? It's just people. I
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think we need to make the distinction here. We don't.
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We're not despising the people. We're not despising like I said, nature,
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but we are despising these manifestations that people and our
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passions bring into the world. If you look at all
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of the nastiness in our world, all of it is
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a result of the passions, all of it. So you
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can't soften this thing. There is no soft place for it,
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to make a little safe spot for these things. They're
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just they have no place here and we need to
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destroy them. And that's what the church fathers taught us
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or teach us, is to separate the two. And I
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think that that's the best approach. But when it comes
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to I just want to make a point about detachment
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really quick. Yeah. It goes back to this very topic.
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When we desire something, it causes us suffering. When we
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desire to have money because 'rapport that desire causes suffering.
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When we are unhealthy and we desire health and it's
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chronic and this desire for this health, which is not possible,
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it causes us to suffer. The more that we say,
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may it be blessed, period, may it be blessed, whatever
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it is, that is the detachment prayer. That is the
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detachment phrase that actually done across the board. No matter
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what's happening in a person's life, whether it's tragic or awful,
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or whether you're being showered with blessings that are worldly blessings,
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it should be may it be blessed. And I don't
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care about it.
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You know that will be done.
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That will be done. It applies to people that can't
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have children. If you can't have a child, but you're
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pining to have kids and you know you can't, that
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desire causes you to suffer. Let it go, Let it
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all go, and replace it all with prayer, all of it,
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all of it goes to May it be blessed.
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Amen, Amen, Glory to God in all things.
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Right.
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And that's that's that's I mean, a prayer is a
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maxim uh. I mean that's that's the prayer. I prayer
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all day, every day throughout the day. I mean, if
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if something good happens, glory to you God in all things,
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take keep keep me, keep me humble. Right. If something
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bad is happening, glory to you God and all things.
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I mean, give me the perspective that I need. Teach
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me what I need to learn through this. I mean,
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just it's all about perspective. Right. So you use a word,
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it's not it's not your word, but you are using
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a word the passions. Now they're not a complete equivalent
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with sin. So if you could distinguish what the sin,
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what sin is, and what the passions are, and also,
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if you will, sin has a lot of baggage. We
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can only speak from our American perspective. I don't know
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what the universal perception conception of sin is, but in America,
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as soon as you use the S word, it's like
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you kind of let's just create a straw man here.
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Let's imagine that it's a non religious person and they
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hear you use that word, that S word sin, they
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immediately see some in their mind, hateful, bigoted, you know,
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fire and brimstone preacher telling you that you're sinful. And
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so as a result, I think they almost protect sin itself,
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imaging themselves to a degree. I understand because there's a
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lot of baggage wrapped up in that word. And so
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when you use the word passions, I think it could
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almost be more helpful. But if you could just define
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the two and what the difference is.
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I firmly believe that one of the great psychological tragedies
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in the West is a misunderstanding of sin. It is
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informing the worldview of everyone, Like you mentioned, religious and
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non religious view the world through the lens of this
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of sin as as they understand it, and the misunderstanding
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here is what causes a tremendous amount of theological discord
457
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or theological misunderstanding, which causes people to leave God and
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the Church. You know, sin, as I described in the book,
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and the church fathers talk about this sin comes from
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a word that they believe. It comes from a word
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that is used in archery, where you are shooting at
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a target and you miss the mark. Missing the mark
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is a sin in archery. Very very interesting idea. I
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love that idea because when you're in archery, you're doing
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something av you're trying, and you're hitting a target and
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you go up to the target afterwards and you see
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where you land it. That's called self evaluation. And you're
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looking and you're seeing did I make it in the
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target or did I come out into the outer rings
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or not. You're trying, You're trying to get in the target.
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That's the whole point. So missing the mark is a
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much better way to understand sin. Yes, sin in the
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modern person's understanding is a tool for judgment, a tool
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for condemnation a tool for shame, and this is absolutely
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not helpful because like the archer, the archer is trying
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to improve accusation and shame and judgment. It's just hurting somebody.
477
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It's not fair, not fair at all. So sin is
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when we miss the mark. And then the church fathers
479
00:26:48.640 --> 00:26:54.440
have amazing teachings on the passions. Passions. There's typically there's
480
00:26:55.119 --> 00:26:57.559
eight of them. There's some church fathers that have seven.
481
00:26:57.640 --> 00:27:01.000
There's some that identify eight, and they use words a
482
00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:07.359
little bit differently, but ultimately the list is this gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, despair,
483
00:27:07.799 --> 00:27:12.160
despondency or sadness, vain, glory and pride. Those are the passions.
484
00:27:12.200 --> 00:27:14.759
These are the things that cause us to suffer. And
485
00:27:14.799 --> 00:27:18.119
the word pacio, which means to suffer, that's what we're
486
00:27:18.119 --> 00:27:22.599
talking about here, is suffering. So each of these passions,
487
00:27:22.680 --> 00:27:25.119
the church Fathers are clear to identify them as being.
488
00:27:25.759 --> 00:27:28.480
They have a natural place when they're ordered. So if
489
00:27:28.519 --> 00:27:31.759
you look at gluttony, for example, we are supposed to eat,
490
00:27:31.960 --> 00:27:34.160
we're supposed to drink, you know, we have to do
491
00:27:34.160 --> 00:27:37.759
these things. But when it's disordered, it can kill us. Literally.
492
00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:40.359
The main thing that's the cause of death in the
493
00:27:40.440 --> 00:27:44.359
US is heart disease, which is tied to diet. So
494
00:27:45.119 --> 00:27:48.200
when this passion is in its rightful place, it's not
495
00:27:48.319 --> 00:27:51.680
a passion and it's a natural thing that the body does.
496
00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:54.599
And that would apply to lust as well. Ust when
497
00:27:54.599 --> 00:27:59.119
it's disordered, becomes out of control and it controls a
498
00:27:59.119 --> 00:28:01.960
person's life, and it can destroy marriages and so on.
499
00:28:02.200 --> 00:28:06.920
But when it's controlled with self control and chastity, even
500
00:28:06.920 --> 00:28:11.279
in marriage, chastity can be a thing, it can produce life,
501
00:28:11.400 --> 00:28:14.680
Like to share in the ability of actually creating a
502
00:28:14.759 --> 00:28:19.160
human being with God is an insane thing, Like thinking
503
00:28:19.160 --> 00:28:22.240
about that is just mind blowing. So there's, on the
504
00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:25.160
one hand, the passion of lust, and on the controlled
505
00:28:25.160 --> 00:28:28.920
side there is the building of a family, which is
506
00:28:28.920 --> 00:28:32.160
like the most important thing in society. When all these
507
00:28:32.200 --> 00:28:36.960
passions are ordered, they are actually beautiful. But when they're disordered,
508
00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:39.200
they become a passion, and that's when they just destroy us.
509
00:28:39.200 --> 00:28:41.880
They become an addiction, they become a bad habit that
510
00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:44.160
it gives come something that destroys our life and the
511
00:28:44.200 --> 00:28:47.640
lives of those around us. And that would include also sadness.
512
00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:53.000
For instance, sadness has a place it's that moment when
513
00:28:53.000 --> 00:28:56.599
we're repentant for our mistakes or our sins, where we
514
00:28:56.640 --> 00:28:59.680
feel remorse. It doesn't mean it to be sustained over time.
515
00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:03.559
Remembrance of wrongs and obsessing over something I did twenty
516
00:29:03.640 --> 00:29:07.559
years ago is not repentance, but that sadness in the
517
00:29:07.599 --> 00:29:11.799
moment is crucial for moving forward towards God. You know
518
00:29:13.119 --> 00:29:17.079
the other passions as well. Pride. It's okay to have some.
519
00:29:18.359 --> 00:29:21.519
You know, you accomplish something and you feel good about that.
520
00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:24.359
That's okay because it makes you want to move forward
521
00:29:24.400 --> 00:29:27.880
and get better. But when it becomes where you think
522
00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:30.599
yourself is better than everyone else and obviously just way
523
00:29:30.599 --> 00:29:33.720
out of whack. So that's the difference from the church
524
00:29:33.759 --> 00:29:37.160
Father's teachings on sin versus the passions. Now the church Fathers,
525
00:29:37.319 --> 00:29:41.440
especially in the phil Callia, they emphasize the passions and
526
00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:43.720
working on them more because those are the root causes
527
00:29:43.759 --> 00:29:47.119
of what caused human dysfunction in the human condition. Are
528
00:29:47.160 --> 00:29:50.960
the passions instances of sin, Yes, they should be corrected
529
00:29:51.079 --> 00:29:55.640
or repented for, but these instances aren't the thing. The
530
00:29:55.680 --> 00:29:59.440
thing is the passions. You know, when you break the
531
00:29:59.480 --> 00:30:03.799
fast land and you eat, what is it a beef
532
00:30:03.799 --> 00:30:08.440
burrito whatever, you know, but you're not accustomed to doing that. Okay,
533
00:30:08.440 --> 00:30:11.359
you've made a mistake, move on, you know. But when
534
00:30:11.400 --> 00:30:14.960
you're doing this repeatedly and you gain weight and you're sick,
535
00:30:15.079 --> 00:30:17.319
and your doctors saying you have diabetes and all this
536
00:30:17.400 --> 00:30:19.079
kind of stuff, it's out of hand, you know.
537
00:30:19.599 --> 00:30:19.799
Yeah.
538
00:30:20.319 --> 00:30:24.039
The Church Fathers are brilliant at focusing on the root causes,
539
00:30:24.559 --> 00:30:27.440
the root causes of sin, and when the root causes
540
00:30:27.480 --> 00:30:30.599
are addressed, then the other sins clear up. You know.
541
00:30:30.640 --> 00:30:32.880
It's kind of just the same things as you know,
542
00:30:33.240 --> 00:30:34.640
a doctor in the body, you know.
543
00:30:35.880 --> 00:30:39.039
Well, I mean in the book, I don't think this
544
00:30:39.160 --> 00:30:40.960
is unique to you, but you brought it to me.
545
00:30:41.079 --> 00:30:45.160
So thank you that the Church Fathers were known as
546
00:30:45.400 --> 00:30:50.119
church doctors or as just spiritual doctors. And it's like, man,
547
00:30:50.720 --> 00:30:54.759
so much of this would the modern world suffers from
548
00:30:54.839 --> 00:30:57.920
soul sickness, but we don't even realize it because most
549
00:30:57.920 --> 00:31:00.319
people don't even think that they have a soul, right,
550
00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:05.079
I Mean, you start the book talking about the importance
551
00:31:05.119 --> 00:31:08.480
of worldview, and this is something that's really important to
552
00:31:08.559 --> 00:31:13.319
me because for many years I've held the belief that
553
00:31:13.599 --> 00:31:18.240
most people I mean, everybody has a worldview. Like somebody
554
00:31:18.279 --> 00:31:19.680
the end of the day said that they're not religious.
555
00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:23.480
I said, everybody's religious. You're definitely religious. You might not
556
00:31:24.720 --> 00:31:27.400
think about it. That's true. So you could say, I
557
00:31:27.400 --> 00:31:30.400
don't think about religion, okay, but everybody has a religion.
558
00:31:30.400 --> 00:31:33.920
There's no such thing as neutrality, right, Everybody has a worldview.
559
00:31:34.359 --> 00:31:38.240
The biggest problem is that nobody thinks that they do,
560
00:31:38.440 --> 00:31:40.799
or so many people in our modern world don't think
561
00:31:40.839 --> 00:31:46.000
that they hold a worldview, and their worldviews are discordant,
562
00:31:46.559 --> 00:31:52.160
I mean completely cognitively dissonant. And you know I think
563
00:31:52.200 --> 00:31:55.519
that well, I don't think, I know, look around. It
564
00:31:55.640 --> 00:31:59.200
leads to chaos. And so you start the book, I think,
565
00:31:59.319 --> 00:32:02.640
very appropriately talking about the most important thing that somebody
566
00:32:02.680 --> 00:32:04.960
can do is have a well formed worldview.
567
00:32:05.880 --> 00:32:10.640
How yeah, yeah, you pointed out something that's extremely important.
568
00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:13.359
And I think that this is only the sickness in
569
00:32:13.400 --> 00:32:15.839
our in our world. It's not even just American culture.
570
00:32:15.839 --> 00:32:19.160
It's actually PERVASI it's all pervasive now, it's everywhere for
571
00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:23.559
the most part, this illness because our souls are starved
572
00:32:23.839 --> 00:32:26.519
and we our world views are completely out of whack
573
00:32:26.960 --> 00:32:29.640
and in discord because we don't really know how to
574
00:32:29.880 --> 00:32:33.680
critically think anymore, which is really weird to me. But yeah,
575
00:32:33.720 --> 00:32:37.559
the formation of the worldview I think people are finding
576
00:32:37.599 --> 00:32:39.200
in the or. This is why the Orthodarchs Church is
577
00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:42.160
probably growing up blowing up like it is, is that
578
00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:45.319
people know they're sick, but they don't know how or why,
579
00:32:45.880 --> 00:32:48.960
and they encounter the Orthodox Faith or the Church of
580
00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:52.200
Christ that is Apostles and they see it's like a
581
00:32:52.720 --> 00:32:55.599
it's a it's a it's a massive well and you
582
00:32:55.720 --> 00:32:59.400
drop this bucket in here and the water is endless.
583
00:32:59.519 --> 00:33:03.319
It really truly is endless, this worldview. Like I am
584
00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:07.440
surrounded right now with books. They're everywhere all you know,
585
00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:09.279
going all the way back to the de Decay and
586
00:33:09.319 --> 00:33:12.720
the early Apostolic documents, all the way up to Elder
587
00:33:12.759 --> 00:33:16.319
Paieesius sitting right here and St. Mectarius of Aguina. You know,
588
00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:20.759
this whole worldview. The crazy part about it is that
589
00:33:20.880 --> 00:33:25.440
over the course of two thousand years, it's remained completely unaltered.
590
00:33:25.960 --> 00:33:29.799
It hasn't veered, it hasn't been changed. It's consistent over time,
591
00:33:30.200 --> 00:33:34.319
and it works. It works. And this is the difference,
592
00:33:35.400 --> 00:33:37.640
and I say this in my book, the difference in
593
00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:43.559
modern psychology and therapy versus the church. Modern psychology is
594
00:33:43.599 --> 00:33:46.680
trying to address these symptoms, you know, and it's helpful
595
00:33:46.680 --> 00:33:48.960
in a crisis, and there are tools in there that
596
00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:52.759
could be useful. I'm not discrediting that, But the Church
597
00:33:53.759 --> 00:33:56.960
gives us the tools to truly heal the soul to
598
00:33:57.039 --> 00:33:59.160
the degree of making a saint out of a person.
599
00:34:00.160 --> 00:34:05.039
That's astonishing, and psychology and modern approaches will never ever
600
00:34:05.119 --> 00:34:07.799
come close to that. They will help you cope, they
601
00:34:07.839 --> 00:34:10.719
will help you get through something, and they will give
602
00:34:10.760 --> 00:34:14.280
you some tools. But the Church actually wants to shape
603
00:34:14.280 --> 00:34:18.920
you into a saint. It's a holy person, which is wild.
604
00:34:19.199 --> 00:34:21.599
You say, you say, it's the purpose of life.
605
00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:25.519
It's the purpose and that The irony in all of that,
606
00:34:25.559 --> 00:34:28.199
which always has kind of bothered me a little bit,
607
00:34:28.320 --> 00:34:30.960
is that the Church is calling us to be a saint,
608
00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:33.480
and Saint Paul is calling his people's saints while in
609
00:34:33.559 --> 00:34:36.559
his epistles, but we're not supposed to even notice that
610
00:34:36.559 --> 00:34:40.840
it's happening at all, which is really funny. But we're
611
00:34:40.840 --> 00:34:43.280
supposed to supposed to still be working on this journey,
612
00:34:43.360 --> 00:34:45.480
you know, not necessarily to be a saint. But the
613
00:34:45.559 --> 00:34:48.679
idea is self purifying, purifying ourselves to the grace of God,
614
00:34:48.760 --> 00:34:51.840
you know, which means uprooting and dealing with these passions
615
00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:53.679
so that we can be better closer to God, which
616
00:34:53.719 --> 00:34:56.039
is the term it's theosis, which I don't like using
617
00:34:56.079 --> 00:35:02.280
that too lightly because it's it's very important seeing but yes,
618
00:35:02.320 --> 00:35:04.599
we're called to be saints, and my daughters, they're called
619
00:35:04.599 --> 00:35:06.239
to be saints, which is why I wrote this book.
620
00:35:06.280 --> 00:35:10.880
I want them to know that God is drawing them
621
00:35:10.920 --> 00:35:13.679
like a tractor beam to him because he wants to
622
00:35:13.719 --> 00:35:19.159
sanctify them, wants to sanctify you and me, which is crazy. Yeah.
623
00:35:19.360 --> 00:35:23.400
Yeah, I talked to uh to Martin Shaw on another
624
00:35:23.519 --> 00:35:27.079
podcast and reading his book. He talked about and I'd
625
00:35:27.119 --> 00:35:30.360
really like, I mean, you having spent time in monasteries,
626
00:35:30.400 --> 00:35:34.159
and many of our modern saints and just saints throughout
627
00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:39.440
history were monastics. But he said something along the lines
628
00:35:39.480 --> 00:35:44.079
I'm gonna mucky it up, but uh, something like he
629
00:35:44.159 --> 00:35:48.400
wants to make the word saint a little dirtier and
630
00:35:49.239 --> 00:35:51.119
and and and take the shine off of it a
631
00:35:51.159 --> 00:35:53.599
little bit, and in doing so, make it a little
632
00:35:53.639 --> 00:35:57.679
bit more approachable, that that's something that you can actually become,
633
00:35:57.880 --> 00:36:02.079
and that when you experience somebody in this world and
634
00:36:02.119 --> 00:36:06.039
they make your life better, or they do something that
635
00:36:06.159 --> 00:36:09.320
just brings you, that shines that you see the face
636
00:36:09.360 --> 00:36:12.199
of Christ through them, right, that that's what the halo is,
637
00:36:13.159 --> 00:36:17.599
and and you walk away from them thinking was that
638
00:36:17.679 --> 00:36:18.119
a saint?
639
00:36:20.280 --> 00:36:20.440
Right?
640
00:36:20.719 --> 00:36:24.880
I mean it's so beautiful. But even just the concept,
641
00:36:24.920 --> 00:36:26.719
like if you told me, yeah, I want to become
642
00:36:26.760 --> 00:36:29.800
a saint, I think that's really nice. Justin but aren't
643
00:36:29.800 --> 00:36:32.480
you supposed to be aren't you supposed to be a
644
00:36:32.480 --> 00:36:34.920
little bit of a saint? Would never say that, right?
645
00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.800
It almost feels like lacking in humility to strive for sainthood.
646
00:36:40.199 --> 00:36:42.920
But I mean you use the word try the other
647
00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:49.719
the other day earlier, and for some reason, that word
648
00:36:49.840 --> 00:36:52.039
just I cling to it. When you said it, I
649
00:36:52.079 --> 00:36:56.920
was like you talked about trying. It's like like wearing
650
00:36:56.960 --> 00:36:59.960
something that looks ridiculous and you can't make fun of
651
00:37:00.079 --> 00:37:05.440
me because I know it's ridiculous ironic that everybody's everybody
652
00:37:05.800 --> 00:37:11.760
everybody is kind of intentionally ironic because trying isn't cool. Right,
653
00:37:11.800 --> 00:37:14.400
If I try and fail, then you can make fun
654
00:37:14.400 --> 00:37:17.280
of me, But if I'm ironically dressed, you can't make
655
00:37:17.320 --> 00:37:19.719
fun of me because the joke's on you, right, And
656
00:37:19.760 --> 00:37:24.480
I think that that kind of ironic approach to the world,
657
00:37:24.719 --> 00:37:31.960
and also with the nihilistic view of the world. I mean,
658
00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:34.320
you want to talk about soul sickness, but the real
659
00:37:34.920 --> 00:37:37.960
key is just to try.
660
00:37:37.400 --> 00:37:39.360
One of the best, one of the great teachings that
661
00:37:39.400 --> 00:37:42.599
I learned. It's very simple and it makes sense. It's
662
00:37:42.760 --> 00:37:48.320
it's wonderful. God doesn't require perfection. He wants progress. And
663
00:37:48.400 --> 00:37:50.800
I really believe that, you know, we we kind of
664
00:37:50.840 --> 00:37:52.840
get hung up on this idea that God needs us
665
00:37:52.840 --> 00:37:54.880
to be perfect in the moment and it's never going
666
00:37:54.960 --> 00:37:57.599
to happen. I know that Christ says that, but I
667
00:37:57.639 --> 00:37:59.800
think that a lot of things that Christ said were
668
00:38:00.639 --> 00:38:03.119
extreme to kind of push us, you know, not you know,
669
00:38:03.159 --> 00:38:04.960
we're not supposed to cut off our hand. We sin
670
00:38:05.039 --> 00:38:07.000
with it, you know, but we're supposed to think in
671
00:38:07.039 --> 00:38:11.000
that fervent way, you know. And I think that the
672
00:38:11.079 --> 00:38:13.639
progress is what we need, you know, as long as
673
00:38:13.639 --> 00:38:18.400
we're moving forward towards Him. That's the ladder we're climbing.
674
00:38:18.800 --> 00:38:21.800
We're climbing, you know, as long as we're on that ladder.
675
00:38:22.119 --> 00:38:24.119
And my wife has a funny way of putting it.
676
00:38:24.159 --> 00:38:27.079
She's like, I'm sometimes clinging to the bottom rung with
677
00:38:27.119 --> 00:38:31.480
one fingernail, you know, Yeah, And that's how we feel
678
00:38:31.480 --> 00:38:33.719
often is like, but we're still on it, you know,
679
00:38:33.960 --> 00:38:36.400
you're clinging no matter what. We're not going to give up.
680
00:38:36.679 --> 00:38:39.159
And there's Chris at the top of that ladder, and
681
00:38:39.239 --> 00:38:41.760
we're we're not taking our gaze off.
682
00:38:41.679 --> 00:38:45.079
Of him exactly. I mean, you took the words out
683
00:38:45.119 --> 00:38:47.519
of my mouth. We're not taking the gaze off of him.
684
00:38:47.559 --> 00:38:51.360
Because when we talk about sin, which you talk about
685
00:38:51.639 --> 00:38:54.559
the meaning being missing the mark, I mean, just stick
686
00:38:54.639 --> 00:38:57.719
with the archery. I mean, you're trying missing the mark.
687
00:38:59.440 --> 00:39:04.119
Where sin goes wrong is when you stop trying to
688
00:39:04.159 --> 00:39:08.760
climb the ladder towards Christ and you start looking at justin.
689
00:39:09.199 --> 00:39:11.199
You missed the mark over there, I mean, unless it's
690
00:39:11.599 --> 00:39:14.880
out of love, a corrective out of love. Amen, we
691
00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:17.639
need that. I need you, you need me. I mean
692
00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:21.800
we're not saved alone, which is also a very dangerous
693
00:39:21.800 --> 00:39:25.199
paradigm to fall into, whether it's you know me and
694
00:39:25.280 --> 00:39:28.199
my Bible or Jesus is my buddy, or any of
695
00:39:28.199 --> 00:39:31.280
these kind of false counterfeit Christ. So sin can be
696
00:39:31.360 --> 00:39:35.039
dangerous when it's finger pointing, but it can be helpful
697
00:39:35.079 --> 00:39:38.599
when it's used as a tool to keep progressing, to
698
00:39:38.719 --> 00:39:41.199
keep trying, to keep trying to hit the mark.
699
00:39:43.320 --> 00:39:45.519
Saint Anthony, I put this in that in my book,
700
00:39:45.599 --> 00:39:49.079
Saint Anthony says, without temptation, no one can be saved.
701
00:39:50.199 --> 00:39:55.039
Amazing idea. When you hear that, you're like, that's not Christian,
702
00:39:55.119 --> 00:39:59.079
and you're like, that is Christian. It's almost like, you know,
703
00:39:59.280 --> 00:40:04.000
science is dedicated on failure and through multiple amounts, you know,
704
00:40:04.360 --> 00:40:06.880
times of failure, we come to an outcome that we
705
00:40:06.960 --> 00:40:09.480
find the truth. You know, the same applies to the
706
00:40:09.519 --> 00:40:14.119
spiritual life. We need failure, we need temptation. We need
707
00:40:14.159 --> 00:40:16.599
these things to shine a light on the areas that
708
00:40:16.599 --> 00:40:21.039
we need to work. Otherwise, why we get we soften
709
00:40:21.159 --> 00:40:23.280
up into complacency and apathy.
710
00:40:23.880 --> 00:40:28.079
We're not zombies, and you know we have free will.
711
00:40:28.920 --> 00:40:33.079
And in order to be tempted, you need the choice.
712
00:40:33.199 --> 00:40:37.400
And in order to truly love, you have to if
713
00:40:37.719 --> 00:40:40.519
you have no choice but to love me, I mean,
714
00:40:40.639 --> 00:40:41.639
is that really love at all?
715
00:40:41.679 --> 00:40:43.800
We need to fall. We need to fall too, and
716
00:40:43.920 --> 00:40:46.599
I know that that's not fun or anything. But there's
717
00:40:46.599 --> 00:40:48.519
a great quote in the Desert Fathers. I don't think
718
00:40:48.559 --> 00:40:50.559
I put this in the book, but there's a great
719
00:40:50.599 --> 00:40:53.239
story in The Desert Fathers where this monk, younger monk,
720
00:40:53.280 --> 00:40:55.679
is going to abba SISSOI is saying, dude, I keep
721
00:40:55.719 --> 00:40:58.079
falling and getting back up, like you keep saying falling,
722
00:40:58.079 --> 00:41:00.639
getting back up, falling, getting back up, Like how long
723
00:41:00.679 --> 00:41:03.159
do I do this? And he said until you're proficient
724
00:41:03.280 --> 00:41:08.639
at falling or getting back up. Yeah, that's a great answer.
725
00:41:08.760 --> 00:41:10.719
You're like, okay, all right, I'll go back and keep
726
00:41:10.760 --> 00:41:12.079
doing it. Yeah.
727
00:41:12.159 --> 00:41:14.519
And you know, it was only a couple of years
728
00:41:14.559 --> 00:41:17.840
ago that somebody on a podcast said that, you know,
729
00:41:19.159 --> 00:41:22.199
evil does not exist on its own. Nothing evil exists
730
00:41:22.239 --> 00:41:26.079
in isolation. It is always the opposite of something good.
731
00:41:26.559 --> 00:41:30.599
It's a perversion of the good. And when you think
732
00:41:30.639 --> 00:41:35.400
about sin and the passions, they're not fun to think about.
733
00:41:35.639 --> 00:41:37.719
And to be honest with you, when I I was
734
00:41:37.760 --> 00:41:40.760
so excited to read your book and I I messaged
735
00:41:40.800 --> 00:41:44.800
you immediately after finishing the introduction, I was like, your
736
00:41:44.840 --> 00:41:46.679
book's incredible. You're like, oh, well, the rest of it
737
00:41:46.760 --> 00:41:52.199
sucks or something like that, something humble, but I just
738
00:41:52.280 --> 00:41:54.639
couldn't wait. But at the same time, I was like,
739
00:41:54.920 --> 00:41:57.639
this is gonna be a bit of a downer, right,
740
00:41:57.960 --> 00:42:01.280
It's gonna be about sin. I'm a very peaceful guy.
741
00:42:01.880 --> 00:42:06.679
I'm I'm a sensitive guy. I've never been very into
742
00:42:06.760 --> 00:42:10.320
fighting or you know, anything like that violence. I'm just
743
00:42:11.239 --> 00:42:14.840
I'm chill. And so the whole concept of fighting and sin,
744
00:42:14.960 --> 00:42:20.079
it feels like a downer, right, But your book could
745
00:42:20.079 --> 00:42:22.920
not have been more uplifting. And the section on the
746
00:42:23.039 --> 00:42:27.679
virtues or to God, I mean, before we get into that,
747
00:42:27.920 --> 00:42:30.039
let's talk about the mindset of a fighter and why
748
00:42:30.079 --> 00:42:33.199
that's necessary. And even though that is jarring to me
749
00:42:34.039 --> 00:42:36.559
because I'm I don't want to fight, why is it
750
00:42:36.679 --> 00:42:38.400
necessary to have the mindset of a fighter?
751
00:42:39.800 --> 00:42:44.440
Yeah? Well, first of all, we everything is everything in
752
00:42:44.480 --> 00:42:48.400
the book is predicated on the idea that there is
753
00:42:48.440 --> 00:42:51.159
a God. And it's not a question a philosophical question
754
00:42:51.199 --> 00:42:54.960
about things or meaning of life or ay, you believe
755
00:42:54.960 --> 00:42:57.920
in God, you love God. You know. Next is you
756
00:42:58.000 --> 00:43:00.320
believe you have a soul. So once you have those
757
00:43:00.360 --> 00:43:02.199
two things, you have to believe your soul is worth
758
00:43:02.199 --> 00:43:06.599
fighting for. And everyone knows that their soul is in
759
00:43:06.679 --> 00:43:08.760
a battle. We were all in a battle all the time,
760
00:43:08.840 --> 00:43:12.920
like saying Nikolai Vilamirevitch wisely says, my whole life is
761
00:43:12.960 --> 00:43:15.800
a battle between me and myself, me as I am
762
00:43:15.880 --> 00:43:18.159
and me as God wants me to be. We're all
763
00:43:18.199 --> 00:43:22.599
in that, and that includes my atheist friends. They're still fighting.
764
00:43:23.079 --> 00:43:26.599
They're still trying not to do something crazy or offend somebody,
765
00:43:26.760 --> 00:43:29.679
or say something mean, or go out and hurt somebody.
766
00:43:29.960 --> 00:43:32.880
They're still holding back, you know, and they're still trying
767
00:43:32.880 --> 00:43:36.039
to control themselves. But the Church gives us a massive
768
00:43:36.079 --> 00:43:38.199
way of viewing all of that that's much broader than
769
00:43:38.320 --> 00:43:41.840
just kind of trying to function function, you know. The
770
00:43:41.880 --> 00:43:44.519
mindset of the fighter in the book I draw this
771
00:43:44.559 --> 00:43:48.320
from the book Unseen Warfare by you know, it was
772
00:43:48.440 --> 00:43:50.960
edited by Theofan the Recluse and Nico Demus of the
773
00:43:51.159 --> 00:43:54.440
of the Holy Mountain, but it was written by Lorenzo's Polly,
774
00:43:54.440 --> 00:43:57.239
which was a Catholic monastic. In that book, he says
775
00:43:57.360 --> 00:44:00.079
the mindset of the fighter must be never rely on yourself,
776
00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:04.440
have a daring trust in God, and always pray those
777
00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:08.239
are interesting, never rely on yourself. Like that's a really
778
00:44:08.280 --> 00:44:10.960
hard thing for a modern American to wrap their head around,
779
00:44:10.960 --> 00:44:15.280
because I personally was taught and raised to only trust yourself,
780
00:44:16.360 --> 00:44:19.519
but to relinquish that and to trust in God and
781
00:44:19.639 --> 00:44:22.639
also the Church and the sacramental life of the Church
782
00:44:22.719 --> 00:44:26.920
and your guide or spiritual father as opposed to yourself,
783
00:44:27.320 --> 00:44:31.159
is liberating way to let go of all of our
784
00:44:31.199 --> 00:44:34.360
preconceived notions that are causing us so much pain and suffering,
785
00:44:34.760 --> 00:44:37.679
and to learn a new way, you know, to having
786
00:44:37.800 --> 00:44:40.440
daring trust in God is the other disposition of the fighter,
787
00:44:40.920 --> 00:44:47.480
to completely and fully trust whatever is happening, whether it's
788
00:44:47.480 --> 00:44:49.519
good or bad. We know that God is fully in
789
00:44:49.559 --> 00:44:53.360
control and either allowing things to happen or think things
790
00:44:53.440 --> 00:44:58.400
are happening at his discretion. And then obviously praying without
791
00:44:58.440 --> 00:45:01.039
ceasing is like a given, you know. The disposition of
792
00:45:01.079 --> 00:45:04.199
the fighter must be one. That doesn't mean you're perfect
793
00:45:04.199 --> 00:45:07.119
in prayer, you've mastered prayer, or you're you know, some
794
00:45:07.119 --> 00:45:08.840
guy on you know doing Jesus prayer all the time.
795
00:45:08.840 --> 00:45:12.159
But you're trying again, You're trying, You're trying to keep
796
00:45:12.199 --> 00:45:15.639
reverting yourself back to prayer. That's why when we switch
797
00:45:15.679 --> 00:45:19.519
in the book from all this the devices and passions
798
00:45:19.599 --> 00:45:22.840
and sin, once you've switched the page over to the virtues,
799
00:45:23.360 --> 00:45:27.400
you feel this sense of relief. Amen, mercy, I made
800
00:45:27.440 --> 00:45:29.719
it through this tough stuff which I had to go through.
801
00:45:30.199 --> 00:45:33.159
Now let's talk about how this stuff is supposed to
802
00:45:33.199 --> 00:45:36.400
flourish in my soul and make me joyful and content
803
00:45:36.800 --> 00:45:39.719
and happy with the grace of God moving through my life,
804
00:45:39.840 --> 00:45:43.920
you know, and that's where the virtues kick in.
805
00:45:44.679 --> 00:45:47.360
Well, I told, well, I've told several people this since
806
00:45:47.360 --> 00:45:50.400
I finished your book. In trying to describe it, I thought,
807
00:45:50.480 --> 00:45:54.039
do you remember I think it was Bennett maybe back
808
00:45:54.079 --> 00:45:56.159
at Bennett the Book of Virtue.
809
00:45:56.559 --> 00:45:57.280
I love that book.
810
00:45:57.360 --> 00:46:00.280
Yeah, well you just wrote the modern version. Yeah.
811
00:46:00.360 --> 00:46:02.480
Yeah, that's funny you would say that that book is
812
00:46:02.480 --> 00:46:06.679
a major influence in my life. Actually, really absolutely, I
813
00:46:06.719 --> 00:46:09.639
love that book and the way it's presented. I love
814
00:46:09.679 --> 00:46:10.960
it absolutely, a man.
815
00:46:11.079 --> 00:46:14.719
What Yeah, when I finished your book, or maybe midway
816
00:46:14.719 --> 00:46:16.920
through whenever, I was like, this is like the Book
817
00:46:16.920 --> 00:46:20.280
of Virtues but for a modern reader, and kind of
818
00:46:20.320 --> 00:46:23.360
like like we all need those modern adaptations, right, because
819
00:46:23.360 --> 00:46:25.360
I haven't looked, honest to God, I haven't looked at
820
00:46:25.360 --> 00:46:27.199
the Book of Virtue since I was maybe ten eleven
821
00:46:27.239 --> 00:46:30.119
years old. But I still remember it and I remember,
822
00:46:30.360 --> 00:46:32.639
like you loving it, but it was kind of like
823
00:46:32.800 --> 00:46:36.719
old timey right, right, that's right, and yours is much more.
824
00:46:36.800 --> 00:46:39.679
It's for the modern the modern fighter.
825
00:46:40.119 --> 00:46:43.800
Yeah. Well, he's good at gathering these stories and putting
826
00:46:43.840 --> 00:46:47.880
together that tell these narratives about virtue that are accessible.
827
00:46:48.239 --> 00:46:51.840
The Church Fathers are ruthless in how they present these things.
828
00:46:51.920 --> 00:46:54.360
They're ruthless and how they present the passions, and they're
829
00:46:54.440 --> 00:46:58.239
ruthless and how they present the virtues. They introduced the
830
00:46:59.480 --> 00:47:03.039
machinery behind it, the mechanics of how this stuff is
831
00:47:03.079 --> 00:47:05.519
supposed to be in our life, and they really confront
832
00:47:05.639 --> 00:47:08.760
us with this stuff. That book is inspiring, but the
833
00:47:08.880 --> 00:47:14.679
Church Fathers are confrontational, like push us to the edge. Man, Well,
834
00:47:14.760 --> 00:47:17.719
we need to be pushed, oh, one hundred percent. Yeah,
835
00:47:17.760 --> 00:47:20.320
I mean it's self control is like you know, we
836
00:47:20.400 --> 00:47:23.400
talked about detachment. That's huge. Self control for the modern
837
00:47:23.440 --> 00:47:26.079
person is one of the things that I'm seeing a
838
00:47:26.159 --> 00:47:30.119
lot of people, especially men, young men, struggling with the
839
00:47:30.400 --> 00:47:34.920
idea of controlling yourself. Like in the Greek philosophy and
840
00:47:35.079 --> 00:47:37.960
with the Greek set of virtues, self control was huge.
841
00:47:39.159 --> 00:47:43.519
Self control was what that's what defined a man. And
842
00:47:43.880 --> 00:47:46.280
our culture is the opposite. You want to get high
843
00:47:46.360 --> 00:47:49.480
and play video games and barely pull off your job
844
00:47:50.440 --> 00:47:54.440
and have a clunky relationship with some girl. I mean,
845
00:47:55.280 --> 00:47:58.960
self control is what a man should be. It's not fighting,
846
00:47:59.440 --> 00:48:03.480
it's not standing puffing up your chest. It is having
847
00:48:03.559 --> 00:48:08.639
that quiet self control and that virtue alone. When somebody
848
00:48:08.679 --> 00:48:11.360
starts really pushing on that one and trying to implement
849
00:48:11.400 --> 00:48:13.440
it in their life, they're seeing that they have to
850
00:48:13.639 --> 00:48:17.400
they have to apply it all over the place. Self control.
851
00:48:17.840 --> 00:48:21.280
With my Let's say i have issues with my parents
852
00:48:21.320 --> 00:48:23.559
and how they raise me, and I'm angry about that.
853
00:48:24.639 --> 00:48:27.119
I'm going to exert self control in this zone and
854
00:48:27.199 --> 00:48:29.079
I'm not going to let the anger bother me. I'm
855
00:48:29.079 --> 00:48:31.800
gonna have I'm going to be detached from it, you know.
856
00:48:32.920 --> 00:48:35.960
Or the person in line, or the person that's you know,
857
00:48:36.960 --> 00:48:39.320
in the car driving by me and he's rushing past me,
858
00:48:39.480 --> 00:48:41.480
or whatever. I can be angry and upset, or I
859
00:48:41.559 --> 00:48:45.079
can just have self control. And also with food and
860
00:48:45.159 --> 00:48:48.239
with all these other different things. Self control, the virtue
861
00:48:48.280 --> 00:48:52.159
of self control is huge. It's easy. It's easier to
862
00:48:52.400 --> 00:48:55.960
try to implement other ones, like kindness. You know, you know,
863
00:48:56.159 --> 00:48:58.440
most people try to be kind, even though in our
864
00:48:58.480 --> 00:49:02.840
parts were not neuosity and gratefulness is another one that's
865
00:49:02.880 --> 00:49:06.199
really important for modern people. We get stuck in our
866
00:49:07.199 --> 00:49:11.159
we get justified in our moods and our views of
867
00:49:11.280 --> 00:49:15.800
things that are not grateful, and we feel like we're
868
00:49:15.960 --> 00:49:20.280
justified in these areas and we're it's just causing us discord.
869
00:49:20.360 --> 00:49:23.239
But the virtue of gratitude, once we realize I'm going
870
00:49:23.280 --> 00:49:26.679
to be grateful for everything, the good, the bad, the
871
00:49:26.760 --> 00:49:29.000
people in my life that are difficult, and the people
872
00:49:29.039 --> 00:49:33.119
that are not gratitude the virtue of gratitude, you know. Obviously,
873
00:49:33.239 --> 00:49:37.840
love is a huge one. Love is a grossly misunderstood
874
00:49:37.840 --> 00:49:42.159
by the modern American and goes back to the Beatles.
875
00:49:42.440 --> 00:49:44.519
I'm not going to throw it all on the Beatles,
876
00:49:44.559 --> 00:49:48.159
but as an example, there was a shift in America
877
00:49:48.519 --> 00:49:52.599
where love became something that it is absolutely not. It's
878
00:49:52.679 --> 00:49:55.559
this infatuation and that that is not it. You know,
879
00:49:55.719 --> 00:49:59.079
in the Greek there's several words for love, and aros
880
00:49:59.199 --> 00:50:03.039
is the one that we focus on and we kind
881
00:50:03.039 --> 00:50:07.320
of tend to forget that real love is the agape
882
00:50:07.480 --> 00:50:10.679
love where it's the husband taking care of the wife
883
00:50:10.760 --> 00:50:15.440
and she has a terminal illness, she has ms shows
884
00:50:15.519 --> 00:50:18.840
up every morning every day, takes care of her, deals
885
00:50:18.880 --> 00:50:22.519
with the harsh realities of that, and puts her to
886
00:50:22.639 --> 00:50:26.239
bed and prays for her and loves her through this suffering.
887
00:50:26.400 --> 00:50:28.840
You know, that's not a Beatles song and it would
888
00:50:28.880 --> 00:50:32.559
never go well on the radio. Yeah.
889
00:50:32.920 --> 00:50:37.360
I think a lot of these words right, like one
890
00:50:37.400 --> 00:50:39.239
word that I wanted to ask you to kind of
891
00:50:39.320 --> 00:50:44.400
dive into, because like sin, like love, there are words
892
00:50:44.440 --> 00:50:45.280
that we use.
893
00:50:46.199 --> 00:50:48.639
But or grace.
894
00:50:49.199 --> 00:50:52.159
I mean I talked to Martin Shaw about that. I
895
00:50:52.480 --> 00:50:56.880
named my son Grace and I still don't understand it.
896
00:50:57.639 --> 00:51:00.519
And I said, it's like that fish that that just
897
00:51:00.679 --> 00:51:02.639
you're trying to hold it and it keeps slipping out
898
00:51:02.639 --> 00:51:05.400
of your hands. And his response was, may it ever
899
00:51:05.519 --> 00:51:08.760
slip out of your hands? That we can't just stretch
900
00:51:08.880 --> 00:51:13.559
grace out on a rack of exegesus like it's grace, right,
901
00:51:13.800 --> 00:51:16.480
Some of these words are if we fully understood that.
902
00:51:17.360 --> 00:51:22.239
I think it's the life, our life's mission to just
903
00:51:22.559 --> 00:51:26.639
keep trying. Like you had it in your book that
904
00:51:28.960 --> 00:51:31.639
the process of trying to work out the will of
905
00:51:31.800 --> 00:51:36.400
God is how you know God. And even though it's frustrating,
906
00:51:36.639 --> 00:51:40.280
and even though you keep falling and getting that's the
907
00:51:40.360 --> 00:51:43.519
whole point that the obstacle is the path.
908
00:51:44.159 --> 00:51:47.800
Yeah, what you're pointing out is the will of understanding
909
00:51:47.840 --> 00:51:52.360
the will of God in our life. That's my conclusion.
910
00:51:53.039 --> 00:51:55.760
And you know, trying to live an Orthodox life, trying
911
00:51:55.920 --> 00:52:01.000
clunkily to live an orthodox life, a Christian life. When
912
00:52:01.039 --> 00:52:04.199
I was younger, I you know, I wanted God to
913
00:52:04.280 --> 00:52:06.159
tell me his will, tell me what to do, tell
914
00:52:06.199 --> 00:52:08.199
me what decisions to make, and make it clear, just
915
00:52:08.440 --> 00:52:10.679
tell me, you know, just like make it easy. And
916
00:52:11.000 --> 00:52:15.360
I've learned over time that that's not how it works.
917
00:52:15.400 --> 00:52:17.719
And like you said, the whole point of everything is
918
00:52:17.800 --> 00:52:20.519
that relationship with Him to grow and to build, like
919
00:52:21.480 --> 00:52:23.960
I mentioned in the book, and the understanding the will
920
00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:25.880
of God. That we have to practice virtue. If we
921
00:52:25.920 --> 00:52:28.360
want to understand God's holy will, we have to be
922
00:52:28.440 --> 00:52:31.159
striving at least for holiness. Doesn't mean we have to
923
00:52:31.199 --> 00:52:33.199
be a holy person in the moment, but we have
924
00:52:33.280 --> 00:52:35.039
to be at least working towards it. The more that
925
00:52:35.119 --> 00:52:38.199
we activate the virtues in our life, the more that
926
00:52:38.280 --> 00:52:41.400
we can try to understand God's will, and the more
927
00:52:41.440 --> 00:52:43.599
that we're praying and rejecting our own will, like just
928
00:52:43.679 --> 00:52:46.039
shutting down our own will, the more his will becomes
929
00:52:46.119 --> 00:52:48.920
more parent. I use the analogy of the cell tower.
930
00:52:49.360 --> 00:52:51.639
The farther you are from the cell tower, the harder
931
00:52:51.840 --> 00:52:54.360
it is to hear to understand the words of the reception.
932
00:52:55.559 --> 00:52:57.199
Closer you are to the cell tower, the more you
933
00:52:57.239 --> 00:52:59.599
can actually hear it. So how can I, as a
934
00:52:59.679 --> 00:53:02.960
teenage kid, expect to hear God's will when I'm living
935
00:53:03.639 --> 00:53:08.559
entrenched in sin and dysfunction. You know, how am I
936
00:53:08.599 --> 00:53:09.079
going to hear it?
937
00:53:09.280 --> 00:53:09.440
You know?
938
00:53:10.199 --> 00:53:13.360
The door, the door really impacts me a lot. You know,
939
00:53:13.480 --> 00:53:16.320
in the in the New Testament, he says I am
940
00:53:16.440 --> 00:53:18.840
the door. He says, knock on the door and it
941
00:53:18.880 --> 00:53:22.159
will be open to you. These are really interesting ideas,
942
00:53:22.239 --> 00:53:23.639
But at the end of the day, I think that
943
00:53:24.360 --> 00:53:27.199
discerning his will is really like you said just now,
944
00:53:28.360 --> 00:53:31.119
It's not about the do this or do that. It's
945
00:53:31.119 --> 00:53:34.920
about the relationship building with God. That is what the
946
00:53:35.039 --> 00:53:37.440
whole point of his will is. And so if we
947
00:53:37.519 --> 00:53:39.320
choose to go to college, or if we choose this
948
00:53:39.440 --> 00:53:42.079
surgery or not or whatever, all that stuff's good and
949
00:53:42.159 --> 00:53:44.400
we have to make those choices. But at the end
950
00:53:44.400 --> 00:53:47.199
of the day, he's the door. He is the door,
951
00:53:47.320 --> 00:53:52.320
and the door dissolves, it dissolves away, and next thing
952
00:53:52.400 --> 00:53:54.320
you know, we're just in his arms. And that's really
953
00:53:54.400 --> 00:53:55.199
what the whole point is.
954
00:53:55.760 --> 00:53:58.480
Yeah, somebody, somebody told me, you know, we had we
955
00:53:58.559 --> 00:54:02.280
had somebody visiting our church for the first time, and
956
00:54:03.280 --> 00:54:05.960
one of my friends said that, I think it's Saint
957
00:54:06.039 --> 00:54:10.320
John the theologian, that his icon. It's not him with
958
00:54:10.400 --> 00:54:13.920
a scroll, it's not him with a book. It's him
959
00:54:14.199 --> 00:54:18.400
with his head leaned on Christ. That's theology, right, And
960
00:54:18.559 --> 00:54:21.360
we've got it so twisted around that it's just this
961
00:54:21.559 --> 00:54:24.119
set of ideas that we can figure out, that we can,
962
00:54:24.719 --> 00:54:29.800
you know, finally describe God. And it's just it's that
963
00:54:29.960 --> 00:54:34.320
relationship and not in the watered down Western version of
964
00:54:34.639 --> 00:54:37.880
a relationship with God where he's kind of like your buddy.
965
00:54:38.280 --> 00:54:42.039
I mean, I really thank God. I've from a young
966
00:54:42.119 --> 00:54:48.400
age kind of felt very uncomfortable with the language that
967
00:54:48.559 --> 00:54:52.599
a lot of especially in the nineties, I felt like
968
00:54:53.199 --> 00:54:56.280
modern evangelicals were like throwing God on a T shirt
969
00:54:56.480 --> 00:54:59.519
and with like almost like beer slogans. I mean, the
970
00:55:00.079 --> 00:55:02.400
this blood's for you. I don't know if you remember that,
971
00:55:03.199 --> 00:55:08.440
but it it it's terrible, and it's a watering down
972
00:55:08.760 --> 00:55:12.400
of the Almighty in a way that just and I
973
00:55:12.440 --> 00:55:15.039
think a lot of it becomes Hey, if he's your buddy,
974
00:55:15.159 --> 00:55:18.039
just like justin, you know he gets it. You know
975
00:55:18.119 --> 00:55:20.960
he's got to say. It's just we need to have
976
00:55:21.280 --> 00:55:25.039
that healthy fear, not fear like sinners in the hands
977
00:55:25.039 --> 00:55:28.039
of an angry God. Fear, but fear respect all wonder
978
00:55:28.920 --> 00:55:33.119
the leaning on and you talk about the cell tower,
979
00:55:33.239 --> 00:55:36.800
I've used a similar analogy in my own mind, where
980
00:55:37.199 --> 00:55:41.480
you know, I was on Mount Athos this summer and
981
00:55:41.639 --> 00:55:46.280
I'm newly Orthodox, and so I'm still recalibrating. I mean,
982
00:55:46.400 --> 00:55:49.639
you talked about your upbringing and you still bring I'm
983
00:55:49.639 --> 00:55:51.480
sure you still have a lot of the stuff that
984
00:55:51.599 --> 00:55:53.880
you that you carried with you as a young person,
985
00:55:53.920 --> 00:55:57.079
and it never really leaves you. You're constantly trying to
986
00:55:57.119 --> 00:56:00.760
retrain your senses in one way or another, and I
987
00:56:00.920 --> 00:56:05.079
always pray for discernment to help me understand it. I
988
00:56:05.320 --> 00:56:06.920
know this is where I need to be. I know
989
00:56:07.159 --> 00:56:11.000
this is the answer. But my bunny ears, you know,
990
00:56:11.079 --> 00:56:16.039
the old TV antenna bunny ears, they're not positioned quite
991
00:56:16.199 --> 00:56:18.159
right yet. So I'm getting a clear sick I can
992
00:56:18.280 --> 00:56:20.800
see I know that, like, let's say I'm trying to
993
00:56:20.840 --> 00:56:23.920
watch the Dallas Cowboys play the Green Bay Packers. I
994
00:56:23.960 --> 00:56:24.760
see it's on the screen.
995
00:56:24.880 --> 00:56:25.559
I see score.
996
00:56:25.639 --> 00:56:28.119
It's kind of fuzzy. I just have to get it right,
997
00:56:28.639 --> 00:56:30.599
you know. I know that this is the path I
998
00:56:30.800 --> 00:56:33.840
just have to work on myself. And like you said,
999
00:56:34.480 --> 00:56:37.920
the section of your book on the virtues, I was
1000
00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:40.280
so excited as I was reading it. I was I
1001
00:56:40.320 --> 00:56:43.840
didn't understand why. But and this is going to sound
1002
00:56:43.920 --> 00:56:49.079
really silly, but something clicked to my mind that these
1003
00:56:49.119 --> 00:56:52.880
are things we practice the virtues right, and it clicks.
1004
00:56:53.800 --> 00:56:57.679
We could practice them like anything else. Like if you're
1005
00:56:58.400 --> 00:57:01.519
a musician and I'm like, man, justin you're really good.
1006
00:57:01.559 --> 00:57:05.159
How'd you get so good my practice? Now, maybe you've
1007
00:57:05.159 --> 00:57:07.960
got an innate tendency for it, like, but we all
1008
00:57:08.000 --> 00:57:13.000
of us have that. Like I am much more outgoing.
1009
00:57:13.199 --> 00:57:16.639
That's my innate tendency. I don't have to work at that.
1010
00:57:17.320 --> 00:57:21.360
So the virtues that stem from that ability, Glory to God.
1011
00:57:21.480 --> 00:57:24.199
They're a little bit easier for me, but we all
1012
00:57:24.320 --> 00:57:27.719
have those virtues that don't come as easily. Like you said,
1013
00:57:27.760 --> 00:57:32.360
self control. I wrote down virtues that I want to
1014
00:57:32.400 --> 00:57:36.239
work on, and you unknowingly admonished me. I mean that
1015
00:57:36.360 --> 00:57:40.760
the umbrella of self control is much larger than we realize. Right,
1016
00:57:41.280 --> 00:57:44.400
It's not just I've got to, you know, have a
1017
00:57:44.440 --> 00:57:46.360
little bit less food on my plate. I mean, it's
1018
00:57:46.440 --> 00:57:51.440
it's all encompassing. But that encourage Now that you talked
1019
00:57:51.440 --> 00:57:56.000
about daring trust in God, well, adding the word daring,
1020
00:57:56.239 --> 00:57:59.320
I mean, that's that's courage right in a way. But
1021
00:57:59.599 --> 00:58:02.519
just this whole concept that the virtues are something that
1022
00:58:02.639 --> 00:58:04.760
we can practice, it excited me.
1023
00:58:06.599 --> 00:58:08.800
There's a good reason why it excited you and why
1024
00:58:08.880 --> 00:58:12.199
it excites me and other people. We don't talk about
1025
00:58:12.199 --> 00:58:15.400
it in our culture at Oh, when I was growing up,
1026
00:58:15.920 --> 00:58:18.079
you're probably too young for this maybe, But when I
1027
00:58:18.159 --> 00:58:19.679
was growing up, the first time I heard the word
1028
00:58:19.760 --> 00:58:25.679
virtue was an advertisement for milk. The advertisement was milk,
1029
00:58:25.800 --> 00:58:28.039
It's a virtue. And somebody has a cup of milk
1030
00:58:28.079 --> 00:58:30.000
and they drink from it and there's a milk mustache.
1031
00:58:30.119 --> 00:58:32.440
Milk is a virtue. And I was like, what is
1032
00:58:32.480 --> 00:58:37.119
a virtue? And that's my first hearing of it. And
1033
00:58:37.320 --> 00:58:39.760
that's when I was like ten or twelve, like I
1034
00:58:39.920 --> 00:58:44.159
was older. We are starving ourselves in our culture from
1035
00:58:44.480 --> 00:58:48.960
these things that are so natural for this soul. It's
1036
00:58:49.039 --> 00:58:51.599
really tragic. It's actually very tragic. They should be a
1037
00:58:51.719 --> 00:58:55.239
major part of our culture, but they're all supplanted by
1038
00:58:55.400 --> 00:58:58.599
all of this nonsense, all this chaos, all this media.
1039
00:58:58.840 --> 00:59:02.719
Media has zero in in these virtues. But I think
1040
00:59:02.760 --> 00:59:06.760
it's fascinating to notice that when we practice the virtues
1041
00:59:06.800 --> 00:59:10.119
deliberately and we're working on them, there, like I say
1042
00:59:10.159 --> 00:59:12.119
in the book, they're like a tapestry. You're not working
1043
00:59:12.199 --> 00:59:14.320
on one or the other necessarily. Sometimes we have to
1044
00:59:14.400 --> 00:59:16.639
kind of focus on one. But they're kind of a
1045
00:59:16.679 --> 00:59:18.760
thing that we try to integrate throughout our day, and
1046
00:59:18.880 --> 00:59:22.440
we have thousands and thousands of moments every day where
1047
00:59:22.440 --> 00:59:25.280
we have the opportunity to work, to practice theeds, to
1048
00:59:25.360 --> 00:59:27.800
work on them. They happen all the time, and they're
1049
00:59:27.840 --> 00:59:30.719
happening a lot of the time in our thoughts. Virtues
1050
00:59:31.039 --> 00:59:33.519
activated in our thinking all the time, and we don't
1051
00:59:33.559 --> 00:59:36.639
realize that because we're so stuck in our thinking patterns
1052
00:59:36.679 --> 00:59:41.840
that are not virtue oriented. They're more self oriented. And
1053
00:59:41.960 --> 00:59:44.559
this is what I think. The church fathers, especially Saint
1054
00:59:44.559 --> 00:59:48.760
Besol the Great, talks about prayer, unceasing prayer. He talks
1055
00:59:48.760 --> 00:59:51.360
about it as being not a thing that you do,
1056
00:59:51.719 --> 00:59:54.480
which is it's important that we should show up and
1057
00:59:54.559 --> 00:59:57.239
read the prayer or say the prayer whatever. But his
1058
00:59:57.599 --> 01:00:01.760
whole point is that prayer should be a way of life, yes, state,
1059
01:00:02.719 --> 01:00:05.360
And I think the virtues are the answer to that.
1060
01:00:05.800 --> 01:00:09.920
When we are practicing the virtues, we are practicing a
1061
01:00:10.039 --> 01:00:12.960
form of prayer in a certain sense. It doesn't have
1062
01:00:13.119 --> 01:00:15.679
to have words attached to it. But when we show
1063
01:00:15.880 --> 01:00:18.440
kindness to a stranger in a drive through, when we're
1064
01:00:18.440 --> 01:00:21.199
getting food and we say, you know what, you have
1065
01:00:21.280 --> 01:00:25.639
a beautiful smile, we change somebody's day in a second.
1066
01:00:26.280 --> 01:00:28.960
And that brought virtue and prayer into the world in
1067
01:00:29.039 --> 01:00:31.480
a way that we don't really think about. I think
1068
01:00:31.559 --> 01:00:34.679
that that's the key why virtues are so exciting, is
1069
01:00:34.760 --> 01:00:37.320
that they are natural to the soul, and the soul
1070
01:00:37.440 --> 01:00:39.400
is starved from them, and when we implement them, the
1071
01:00:39.480 --> 01:00:40.719
soul is joyful for that.
1072
01:00:42.400 --> 01:00:45.199
No, you wrote that we're born for this, I mean
1073
01:00:45.559 --> 01:00:48.800
we were created to experience the virtues because as we
1074
01:00:49.760 --> 01:00:52.519
practice them and get better at them and see it,
1075
01:00:53.320 --> 01:00:57.360
and we're not alone. Right when I see virtue in you,
1076
01:00:58.559 --> 01:01:00.719
as long as it's not as long as I don't
1077
01:01:00.719 --> 01:01:06.119
stumble into the the passion of envy. It's beautiful and
1078
01:01:06.239 --> 01:01:08.920
I think that that's the march mark of wisdom and
1079
01:01:09.400 --> 01:01:14.360
maturity is when you embrace the virtue of others and
1080
01:01:14.480 --> 01:01:17.639
I and you love to see it. I mean, you
1081
01:01:17.719 --> 01:01:26.960
talked about kindness like almost everybody loves kindness like it.
1082
01:01:28.320 --> 01:01:32.960
But I mean, as I've gotten into this podcast world,
1083
01:01:33.360 --> 01:01:35.960
you start realizing. I mean, we all kind of intuitively
1084
01:01:36.159 --> 01:01:41.440
know it, but how much more than negativity travels and
1085
01:01:43.719 --> 01:01:47.679
my story. I grew up in the world of apologetics.
1086
01:01:49.239 --> 01:01:51.840
My dad had a large radio program. It was all
1087
01:01:51.840 --> 01:01:56.639
about questions and answers and apologetics and I hated it.
1088
01:01:58.000 --> 01:01:59.920
I hated it.
1089
01:02:00.119 --> 01:02:04.920
It drow apologetics a defense of the faith that it
1090
01:02:05.119 --> 01:02:10.360
fenced the faith for me. Because now that I believe
1091
01:02:10.400 --> 01:02:15.679
that apologetics as as an older man, I understand the
1092
01:02:16.039 --> 01:02:21.159
purpose of apologetics when properly utilized. We should all be
1093
01:02:21.239 --> 01:02:24.920
able to defend the faith that we have or explain it.
1094
01:02:26.480 --> 01:02:30.599
But I think so much of the apologetic world has
1095
01:02:30.960 --> 01:02:35.719
ceased defending and started offending. It's going out and attacking,
1096
01:02:35.880 --> 01:02:41.599
and there's so much nastiness. I see that, and it's
1097
01:02:41.719 --> 01:02:51.880
something that really really it hurts my soul when I
1098
01:02:52.000 --> 01:02:55.440
see it, right, I mean, you talk about I could
1099
01:02:55.480 --> 01:02:57.960
see it in your face, and I can see the
1100
01:02:58.079 --> 01:03:00.440
love for Christ in your face, especially when you talk
1101
01:03:00.480 --> 01:03:03.440
about things like the virtues and you get so excited
1102
01:03:03.519 --> 01:03:07.000
because you want to share it. That's an apologetic. That's Hey,
1103
01:03:07.400 --> 01:03:09.079
I want you to have what I have because it's
1104
01:03:09.119 --> 01:03:12.239
beautiful and I love you and I want you to
1105
01:03:12.360 --> 01:03:16.440
know this and so much and even I mean you're
1106
01:03:17.039 --> 01:03:21.119
well familiar with the concept of orthobros or internet orthodoxy
1107
01:03:21.760 --> 01:03:25.159
or just but it's not isolated to orthodoxy. I mean
1108
01:03:25.239 --> 01:03:30.719
it's all over the Internet under the umbrella of apologetics.
1109
01:03:31.320 --> 01:03:34.599
There's such a nastiness that comes out. How do we
1110
01:03:35.760 --> 01:03:39.119
I'm serious when I say it's something that really weighs
1111
01:03:39.199 --> 01:03:45.519
heavy on my soul because it's it's as though, we
1112
01:03:45.840 --> 01:03:48.960
love Christ right and we want him to be well represented,
1113
01:03:49.360 --> 01:03:52.400
and when he's not, it hurts. How do we deal
1114
01:03:52.440 --> 01:03:52.639
with that?
1115
01:03:54.119 --> 01:03:56.840
Well, there's two there's several questions you're asking you Yes,
1116
01:03:56.920 --> 01:04:03.559
sorry one The first one is okay, So for the apologetics,
1117
01:04:04.039 --> 01:04:06.199
I don't go online much because I think it's a
1118
01:04:06.400 --> 01:04:09.679
very toxic, dangerous area world part you know, the cyber
1119
01:04:09.800 --> 01:04:13.960
realm is not very healthy spiritually. I get exposed to
1120
01:04:14.039 --> 01:04:15.639
it through a lot of my God children and through
1121
01:04:15.679 --> 01:04:18.000
friends and through people that I contact, and what I
1122
01:04:19.320 --> 01:04:23.400
learned from them is the gross toxicity that's in there,
1123
01:04:23.920 --> 01:04:26.679
especially within the Orthodox people or world or you know
1124
01:04:27.639 --> 01:04:30.559
people you know judge very very judgy. It sounds like
1125
01:04:30.719 --> 01:04:37.039
out there and very self righteous. The world's longest journey
1126
01:04:37.119 --> 01:04:39.760
is the twelve inches from the mind to the heart. Now,
1127
01:04:39.880 --> 01:04:43.320
when we're talking about apologetics, we're talking about mental fighting.
1128
01:04:45.159 --> 01:04:49.159
We're talking about mental fighting. And yes, Christ exhibited that
1129
01:04:49.280 --> 01:04:51.000
a little bit with the Pharisees, and it was really
1130
01:04:51.519 --> 01:04:54.199
amazing to it. He was like, well, he's God, so
1131
01:04:54.320 --> 01:04:57.039
he's perfect in his thinking. But he was like a
1132
01:04:57.199 --> 01:05:01.400
lawyer the way he would counteract them with their their
1133
01:05:01.880 --> 01:05:04.559
self righteousness, and he would completely undercut them. And it
1134
01:05:04.679 --> 01:05:08.039
was amazing. But I think that we you know, I
1135
01:05:08.079 --> 01:05:10.480
don't know about these apologists online and what theirs, you know,
1136
01:05:10.679 --> 01:05:12.679
how their what their journey is with God or whatever.
1137
01:05:12.840 --> 01:05:15.360
But I really I avoid all that stuff at all
1138
01:05:15.480 --> 01:05:19.639
costs because the key to what we're doing here is
1139
01:05:19.719 --> 01:05:22.000
not in their mind, it's in the heart. And the
1140
01:05:22.079 --> 01:05:24.800
church fathers are very explicit in that you can. You
1141
01:05:24.920 --> 01:05:27.880
cannot stink your way into heaven. You cannot argue or
1142
01:05:27.960 --> 01:05:32.440
debate your way into heaven. You have to sink into
1143
01:05:32.519 --> 01:05:36.400
the heart, and that means loving, caring. Kind of all
1144
01:05:36.440 --> 01:05:39.719
these virtues, all these virtues when they're activated, and now
1145
01:05:40.039 --> 01:05:45.239
an apologist, you know, I think that they all these virtues,
1146
01:05:45.360 --> 01:05:48.039
you know, I encourage them to activate all these virtues
1147
01:05:48.079 --> 01:05:51.440
while they're talking to people. But man, this this endless
1148
01:05:51.519 --> 01:05:55.920
talking is really a distraction from the one thing needful.
1149
01:05:57.280 --> 01:05:59.760
It's a massive distraction. I think that's the hurt that
1150
01:05:59.840 --> 01:06:03.519
you feel when you see this this world. I call
1151
01:06:03.559 --> 01:06:07.199
it the underbelly of Christianity. You know, it's this thing
1152
01:06:07.360 --> 01:06:10.239
that it has, this it's justified and that it's trying
1153
01:06:10.280 --> 01:06:14.280
to defend the faith, but it's also gross, and I
1154
01:06:15.159 --> 01:06:19.320
think that it's actually more gratifying for the soul to
1155
01:06:20.400 --> 01:06:23.519
just show somebody kindness and love, you know. Like even listening.
1156
01:06:25.159 --> 01:06:28.480
I don't argue with anybody ever, I just don't like it.
1157
01:06:28.480 --> 01:06:32.000
It's not my thing. I like listening. I really enjoy
1158
01:06:32.119 --> 01:06:34.320
listening to people, whether I agree with them or not.
1159
01:06:35.039 --> 01:06:38.599
And listening, I believe is a form of caring for
1160
01:06:38.719 --> 01:06:42.000
somebody else, you know, and that's kind of not what
1161
01:06:42.840 --> 01:06:48.320
apologetics or debating is. You know. Yes, people need an
1162
01:06:48.360 --> 01:06:51.760
intellectual answer to some of these questions. Theological absolutely, So
1163
01:06:51.800 --> 01:06:55.239
it's fine to try to research and understand things. But
1164
01:06:55.440 --> 01:06:58.559
the endgame is that door. It's that door, It's that
1165
01:06:59.360 --> 01:07:04.400
Christ and the encounter you could. It's just it's not
1166
01:07:04.599 --> 01:07:09.360
found in words and debates. You know. Church fathers aren't
1167
01:07:09.360 --> 01:07:11.239
eat all this stuff, and they perfectly did it, so
1168
01:07:11.320 --> 01:07:13.280
we don't need to do it anymore. Let's just if
1169
01:07:13.320 --> 01:07:15.280
you if you have a problem, read the church fathers.
1170
01:07:15.320 --> 01:07:16.199
Otherwise go pray.
1171
01:07:17.559 --> 01:07:23.239
Yeah, there's a an artist and he has this mug
1172
01:07:23.920 --> 01:07:26.480
and it's kind of a saint and he's holding a
1173
01:07:26.519 --> 01:07:30.920
scroll and it says, just shut up. And I from
1174
01:07:31.000 --> 01:07:33.360
the moment I saw it, I was, I love that
1175
01:07:33.599 --> 01:07:37.280
so much because we talk too much. Yeah, and and
1176
01:07:37.559 --> 01:07:42.559
and even embarking on the process of podcasting, I thought, man,
1177
01:07:44.480 --> 01:07:47.679
I feel very conflicted about it because on one hand,
1178
01:07:50.639 --> 01:07:54.679
it is helpful for people, and and and I grabbed
1179
01:07:54.719 --> 01:07:56.480
one of the young men in our church who just
1180
01:07:57.079 --> 01:08:00.519
he is just I'm so I use the word proud, notically,
1181
01:08:00.599 --> 01:08:02.440
I'm just proud of him, like I'm proud of my
1182
01:08:02.639 --> 01:08:04.960
son when he does well. I look at him and
1183
01:08:05.039 --> 01:08:07.719
I say, man, I see the light of Christ shining
1184
01:08:07.880 --> 01:08:12.199
through you. And he came to the church through some
1185
01:08:12.320 --> 01:08:16.600
of this negative online you know, discourse, and I asked
1186
01:08:16.640 --> 01:08:20.439
him about it, and he said, when I was watching
1187
01:08:20.479 --> 01:08:24.039
those videos, it's what I needed in the moment, I
1188
01:08:24.119 --> 01:08:26.720
didn't have the love of Christ in my heart, and
1189
01:08:26.960 --> 01:08:28.479
glory to God had led me here. But I don't
1190
01:08:28.479 --> 01:08:29.680
watch those videos anymore.
1191
01:08:30.960 --> 01:08:34.319
And so we're at a dilemma here with this whole
1192
01:08:34.439 --> 01:08:36.720
topic that you're talking about. We're at a very serious
1193
01:08:36.840 --> 01:08:40.319
breaking point in my opinion. Yes, ninety nine percent of
1194
01:08:40.399 --> 01:08:43.600
people that I encounter find Orthodoxy or the Church through
1195
01:08:45.119 --> 01:08:49.079
this cyber realm. They do, and the Gospel has spread
1196
01:08:49.119 --> 01:08:51.920
there and the angels working there somehow. The demon's working
1197
01:08:51.960 --> 01:08:56.680
there too, no doubt. But I'm waiting for the desert
1198
01:08:56.760 --> 01:08:59.319
to show itself. It reminds me a lot of when
1199
01:08:59.399 --> 01:09:04.319
Christianity became legalized, like America is legalizing Orthodoxy. It's letting
1200
01:09:04.359 --> 01:09:08.600
it become, it's letting it flourish. And whenever something becomes
1201
01:09:08.800 --> 01:09:12.680
normal or flourishes, it gets comfortable, and that's when we
1202
01:09:12.800 --> 01:09:15.800
run to the desert. And I think that that's the
1203
01:09:15.920 --> 01:09:20.800
next step, is that there's people that will flee the
1204
01:09:20.880 --> 01:09:25.560
Internet and flee to their parishes in the sacramental life
1205
01:09:25.600 --> 01:09:28.600
of the church and shut the thing down and unplug.
1206
01:09:29.239 --> 01:09:31.479
I really think that's the next desert for us, is
1207
01:09:31.560 --> 01:09:34.680
to just simply unplug. And I say that while I'm plugged.
1208
01:09:34.319 --> 01:09:41.760
In, it's the tension that we feel, right because the
1209
01:09:43.119 --> 01:09:45.640
longer that I'm in the church, the more that all
1210
01:09:45.720 --> 01:09:48.399
I want to do is be in the church. And
1211
01:09:50.039 --> 01:09:53.039
I always joke that it's like when we're children and
1212
01:09:53.079 --> 01:09:56.079
we were playing tag and you add that safe like
1213
01:09:56.680 --> 01:09:58.680
that whatever it is like a fire hydrant, and when
1214
01:09:58.720 --> 01:10:01.520
you touch that, you can't get me. And the church
1215
01:10:01.600 --> 01:10:03.560
feels like that, and I just want to flee there.
1216
01:10:03.600 --> 01:10:05.399
I want to I want more and more of it,
1217
01:10:05.479 --> 01:10:08.279
and I want and I want to see it overflow,
1218
01:10:08.520 --> 01:10:11.119
like a fire hydrant that's gotten the thing knocked off,
1219
01:10:11.239 --> 01:10:13.239
like I just because there's so much there and I
1220
01:10:13.319 --> 01:10:16.319
want everybody to have it. And I just, I mean,
1221
01:10:17.039 --> 01:10:21.199
I'm an optimist by nature. And well, I guess that's
1222
01:10:21.239 --> 01:10:22.800
a question that I wanted to ask you. I mean,
1223
01:10:23.000 --> 01:10:26.159
you talk about that the world isn't positive or negative,
1224
01:10:26.159 --> 01:10:29.600
that it's a third thing. Well you called it a
1225
01:10:29.720 --> 01:10:31.039
third rail mystical.
1226
01:10:31.640 --> 01:10:34.319
Yeah, what do you mean by that? The optimist and
1227
01:10:34.439 --> 01:10:37.960
there's the pessimistic, but then there's the mystic, and the
1228
01:10:38.079 --> 01:10:42.239
mystic acknowledges both, you know. You I think being a
1229
01:10:42.359 --> 01:10:44.560
full on pessimist or a full on optimist is not
1230
01:10:44.640 --> 01:10:47.199
the real path. I think it's in the middle. We
1231
01:10:47.479 --> 01:10:49.119
and this is my opinion. You know, this is not
1232
01:10:49.239 --> 01:10:52.000
from a church father's actually, but there is a way
1233
01:10:52.079 --> 01:10:53.920
to acknowledge both at the same time, which is the
1234
01:10:54.000 --> 01:10:56.199
mystical path, which a lot of that well, a lot
1235
01:10:56.199 --> 01:10:58.800
of the church father especially the recent ones, are able
1236
01:10:58.840 --> 01:11:01.720
to kind of demonstrate that. So that that's kind of
1237
01:11:01.720 --> 01:11:02.600
what I believe, you.
1238
01:11:02.640 --> 01:11:06.239
Know, Yeah, no, and it's it's it's that it's the
1239
01:11:06.359 --> 01:11:12.800
understanding that the polarities exist, the passions and the virtues exist,
1240
01:11:13.039 --> 01:11:16.199
So that that's optimism and pessimism right there, and in
1241
01:11:16.319 --> 01:11:18.960
between is the mysticism where we just we do our
1242
01:11:19.039 --> 01:11:22.960
best to live in that world. I mean, we're this
1243
01:11:23.119 --> 01:11:25.640
far into the the podcast and I didn't even ask
1244
01:11:25.680 --> 01:11:28.960
you about the unseen realm. I mean, that's something that
1245
01:11:29.039 --> 01:11:32.720
we've completely forgotten to it for got. I mean, most
1246
01:11:32.720 --> 01:11:35.159
people don't even believe that it exists, or they do
1247
01:11:35.279 --> 01:11:38.520
in a very discordant way, like I think it was
1248
01:11:38.600 --> 01:11:41.199
Nathan Jacobs, and I forgive me if I'm wrong, And
1249
01:11:41.439 --> 01:11:45.880
is uh becoming truly human? Where you know, some overwhelming
1250
01:11:46.000 --> 01:11:50.039
percentage of these people that didn't have the nuns, that
1251
01:11:50.279 --> 01:11:55.560
didn't have a belief still believed in angels, And so
1252
01:11:55.760 --> 01:11:57.199
how do you square that circle?
1253
01:11:59.119 --> 01:12:03.000
Most people know that there's something going on. Even my
1254
01:12:03.079 --> 01:12:05.880
atheist friends know there's something going on, and no one
1255
01:12:05.960 --> 01:12:08.000
can if a few people can kind of put their
1256
01:12:08.039 --> 01:12:10.439
finger on it. But cultures throughout history have known this
1257
01:12:10.640 --> 01:12:16.159
very very like it's almost natural, like the worldview that
1258
01:12:16.600 --> 01:12:19.920
most primitive cultures and even in more advanced cultures, they
1259
01:12:19.960 --> 01:12:23.359
all had this understanding of an unseen world and they
1260
01:12:23.399 --> 01:12:26.399
would see it and they would experience it. It all
1261
01:12:26.479 --> 01:12:31.840
comes from from cultural experience over time, you know. But
1262
01:12:32.000 --> 01:12:34.119
what we've done in the modern times is that we've
1263
01:12:34.319 --> 01:12:39.600
distracted ourselves so thoroughly and numbed ourselves so thoroughly that
1264
01:12:39.720 --> 01:12:43.239
we don't really care and I think apathy. I write
1265
01:12:43.239 --> 01:12:45.279
about that in Youth the Apocalypse, a different book. I
1266
01:12:45.319 --> 01:12:49.039
wrote that apathy is this disease. It's modern disease of
1267
01:12:49.199 --> 01:12:53.520
just simply not caring. And I think that what happens,
1268
01:12:53.720 --> 01:12:55.680
and this is the beauty of suffering, is that God
1269
01:12:55.840 --> 01:13:00.319
uses suffering to wake us up to this reality, allows
1270
01:13:00.359 --> 01:13:02.520
suffering to do that for us, and it's a gift.
1271
01:13:03.319 --> 01:13:05.920
I want to give an example of my grandfather, who
1272
01:13:06.039 --> 01:13:08.359
was agnostic. He was married to my grandmother who was
1273
01:13:08.399 --> 01:13:11.720
Seventh day Adventist, but quiet throughout their entire marriage, but
1274
01:13:11.800 --> 01:13:15.640
she was devout in her heart. And when he got cancer,
1275
01:13:16.760 --> 01:13:19.239
the first thing he did is turn to her and say,
1276
01:13:19.479 --> 01:13:24.720
teach me. I need to know everything I read to
1277
01:13:24.840 --> 01:13:27.760
me the Bible, show me prayer, show me all this
1278
01:13:27.880 --> 01:13:31.000
stuff because I have to get my life figured out.
1279
01:13:31.199 --> 01:13:35.079
You know, the suffering of cancer was actually the greatest
1280
01:13:35.119 --> 01:13:37.000
blessing that ever happened to him. If you look at
1281
01:13:37.000 --> 01:13:44.680
it from an eternal projectory, the suffering of cancer was
1282
01:13:44.880 --> 01:13:49.680
the best thing ever for him because it purified him. Yeah,
1283
01:13:50.439 --> 01:13:52.560
you know, our goal in life is not to just
1284
01:13:52.640 --> 01:13:56.159
stay alive. If that was the case, then everything that
1285
01:13:56.199 --> 01:13:57.920
we're doing is completely futile.
1286
01:13:58.800 --> 01:14:01.520
God wants to heal all of us, right like, not
1287
01:14:01.680 --> 01:14:06.000
just physically, but spiritually not but more importantly spiritually. And
1288
01:14:06.119 --> 01:14:10.640
sometimes you know, I think I'll mess up the paraphrase,
1289
01:14:10.720 --> 01:14:13.399
but Jean Claude Larchet said something along the lines that
1290
01:14:15.239 --> 01:14:18.920
physical health can actually be evil if it leads you
1291
01:14:18.960 --> 01:14:21.359
away from God because we fall into that state of
1292
01:14:21.399 --> 01:14:25.560
self sufficiency that we don't I'm okay, it's when we're ill.
1293
01:14:25.720 --> 01:14:28.840
And you know, a couple of years ago, my wife
1294
01:14:29.000 --> 01:14:32.720
was diagnosed with cancer. She's in remission now, glory to God.
1295
01:14:33.760 --> 01:14:37.359
And so many of the older people at church came
1296
01:14:37.479 --> 01:14:41.640
up to us, huh, cancer, this would be good, brings
1297
01:14:41.640 --> 01:14:45.520
you closer to Christ and to our modern sensibilities. I mean,
1298
01:14:45.600 --> 01:14:48.079
I've told that story to people who are members of
1299
01:14:48.159 --> 01:14:51.039
our church and they they almost get offended, like I
1300
01:14:51.079 --> 01:14:55.000
can't believe they said that to you. But and and
1301
01:14:55.439 --> 01:14:58.560
you know, only my wife could answer this for herself.
1302
01:14:58.680 --> 01:15:02.119
But I saw her change through cancer for the positive.
1303
01:15:02.600 --> 01:15:05.359
I mean, she wasn't waking up early to pray, she
1304
01:15:05.520 --> 01:15:09.640
wasn't leaning on God as much before cancer. And what
1305
01:15:09.720 --> 01:15:11.640
I always told her, and this is my prayer and
1306
01:15:12.720 --> 01:15:15.960
belief hope that she's going to die an old lady.
1307
01:15:16.760 --> 01:15:19.239
And I told her as she was going through this, said, look,
1308
01:15:19.239 --> 01:15:21.960
God's going to lead you through this valley, and you're
1309
01:15:22.079 --> 01:15:26.319
going to for whatever time he gives you, use it
1310
01:15:26.399 --> 01:15:29.079
to help others, and they and I think even just
1311
01:15:29.239 --> 01:15:31.439
watching her, I mean, so many people didn't know that
1312
01:15:31.560 --> 01:15:34.279
she had cancer because she had this silent strength that
1313
01:15:34.399 --> 01:15:37.039
she walked with it through that me. I mean, I've
1314
01:15:37.079 --> 01:15:38.600
got a little bit of a man cold right now
1315
01:15:38.640 --> 01:15:42.239
and I'm miserable, and I always think, I don't think
1316
01:15:42.279 --> 01:15:44.920
she tells me. She goes, I hope I die before
1317
01:15:45.000 --> 01:15:46.920
you because I won't be able to handle you with
1318
01:15:47.760 --> 01:15:52.880
any sort of affliction. So it's he grabs us with suffering.
1319
01:15:53.039 --> 01:15:56.560
I can't remember what you said, but I mean, suffering
1320
01:15:56.640 --> 01:15:58.199
is a blessing. I think you said the.
1321
01:15:58.279 --> 01:16:01.279
Earth, the earth shattering thing that I experienced when I
1322
01:16:01.399 --> 01:16:03.520
was a punk. First at the monaster is, one of
1323
01:16:03.560 --> 01:16:06.600
the monks said this very thing that you just said,
1324
01:16:06.600 --> 01:16:09.680
which is really really interesting. You know, the philosophers have
1325
01:16:09.760 --> 01:16:11.720
been fighting over what the meaning of suffering is forever
1326
01:16:11.720 --> 01:16:13.239
and they still don't have an answer. The church has
1327
01:16:13.239 --> 01:16:16.439
a total answer for that. It's amazing. He said that
1328
01:16:16.560 --> 01:16:21.079
whenever somebody is suffering in the in the church, and
1329
01:16:21.479 --> 01:16:26.319
this comes specifically from Byzantine sort of worldview. Oh, God's
1330
01:16:26.439 --> 01:16:31.439
visiting you, And I was like, what, like that was
1331
01:16:32.119 --> 01:16:37.079
so an inversion of how I was taught to avoid suffering.
1332
01:16:37.199 --> 01:16:41.239
Suffering is evil And He's like, no, God's visiting you,
1333
01:16:41.840 --> 01:16:43.680
just like what you said was your wife. That is,
1334
01:16:43.920 --> 01:16:48.079
that is the answer to the philosophical question of suffering,
1335
01:16:48.119 --> 01:16:52.039
which Christ fulfilled on the cross. And you know, I
1336
01:16:52.159 --> 01:16:54.279
put this in the book, the quote from I Forget
1337
01:16:54.359 --> 01:16:56.760
His Name. He said that God didn't come to solve
1338
01:16:57.600 --> 01:16:59.680
or eliminate human suffering. He came to fill it with
1339
01:16:59.760 --> 01:17:00.479
his residence.
1340
01:17:00.840 --> 01:17:05.520
Yes, yes, God is visiting you. I'm stealing that and
1341
01:17:05.600 --> 01:17:07.600
I hope it's I hope it sticks with me for
1342
01:17:07.680 --> 01:17:11.560
the rest of my life because you're right, that's it's
1343
01:17:11.680 --> 01:17:17.800
paradigm shattering. I mean, that's the thing like you and
1344
01:17:17.960 --> 01:17:21.600
I'm I can hear already. Maybe it's just my upbringing
1345
01:17:21.600 --> 01:17:25.399
and the apologetics world wherever everyone has a counter like, well,
1346
01:17:26.399 --> 01:17:27.640
but why does God need that?
1347
01:17:27.920 --> 01:17:30.079
Right? I mean, what what.
1348
01:17:31.800 --> 01:17:34.680
So we experienced him? God is visiting you, hey man,
1349
01:17:35.119 --> 01:17:38.720
thank you for that. Thank you. Spiritual warfare, I mean
1350
01:17:38.760 --> 01:17:43.199
you talk about the unseen realm. My mom she's a
1351
01:17:43.279 --> 01:17:47.439
prayer warrior and she's one of my best friends. I
1352
01:17:47.520 --> 01:17:53.159
love her. Growing up, everything was spiritual warfare. If something
1353
01:17:53.439 --> 01:17:56.159
and am I you know, I think we're all kind
1354
01:17:56.199 --> 01:17:59.800
of materialist to a certain degree, even if we're brought up.
1355
01:18:00.000 --> 01:18:04.479
I mean, the Western mindset seeps in by osmosis. And
1356
01:18:05.319 --> 01:18:07.960
she would explain something bad going on. I'd be like, oh,
1357
01:18:08.039 --> 01:18:09.960
so and so is just in a bad mood. She's, Oh, no,
1358
01:18:10.319 --> 01:18:13.760
it's spiritual warfare, and she would just My mom's very
1359
01:18:14.479 --> 01:18:17.960
emotive and spiritual warfare. I'm telling you, I know it.
1360
01:18:18.319 --> 01:18:19.840
I know spiritual warfare.
1361
01:18:19.560 --> 01:18:22.800
When I see it, and as I've gotten older, I go,
1362
01:18:23.520 --> 01:18:27.439
like most things, like mom was right, most of our
1363
01:18:27.600 --> 01:18:33.439
lives are just a complete experience of spiritual warfare. So
1364
01:18:33.600 --> 01:18:36.359
to the uninitiated, what is spiritual warfare and how do
1365
01:18:36.439 --> 01:18:39.439
we encounter it? And more importantly, how do we counter it.
1366
01:18:40.000 --> 01:18:43.119
Somebody who critiqued my book recently said they were surprised
1367
01:18:43.159 --> 01:18:46.199
that there was nothing spectacular in there about fighting demons,
1368
01:18:47.880 --> 01:18:51.760
and that is completely deliberate. There's no there's nothing spectacular
1369
01:18:51.760 --> 01:18:55.600
about spiritual life and unseen warfare. Unseen warfare largely takes
1370
01:18:55.640 --> 01:18:59.399
place I identify the three enemies as the Church fathers do,
1371
01:18:59.760 --> 01:19:02.600
the world, the flesh, and the devil. The world not
1372
01:19:02.720 --> 01:19:06.399
being you know, nature, but being these passions. The flesh,
1373
01:19:06.479 --> 01:19:10.439
our bodies can be our enemy for us, and obviously
1374
01:19:10.520 --> 01:19:12.800
the devil. I don't focus much on the devil because
1375
01:19:13.319 --> 01:19:16.800
he is canceled when we activate all these virtues in
1376
01:19:16.840 --> 01:19:22.000
the spiritual life. But spiritual warfare is this battle that's
1377
01:19:22.079 --> 01:19:31.560
taking place. The battlefield is us and us walking through
1378
01:19:31.600 --> 01:19:35.079
the world, and that would be you know, at school,
1379
01:19:35.359 --> 01:19:39.279
we're being bombarded by thoughts and ideas and people and
1380
01:19:39.359 --> 01:19:43.720
interactions and relationships. And the marketplace, all these places like
1381
01:19:44.239 --> 01:19:47.000
supermarket is like a massive war zone where you have
1382
01:19:47.119 --> 01:19:50.039
all this food and all this garbage that's trying to
1383
01:19:50.159 --> 01:19:53.199
kill you, and then you have the pharmaceutical section on
1384
01:19:53.239 --> 01:19:55.319
the other end to try to heal you enough to
1385
01:19:55.399 --> 01:19:58.279
keep you alive. This war is everywhere all the time.
1386
01:19:59.159 --> 01:20:01.800
But the father especially in the Philip Colia, they mentioned
1387
01:20:01.840 --> 01:20:05.439
this frequently. It's largely taking place. It all starts with
1388
01:20:05.640 --> 01:20:09.239
the thoughts. Our thoughts determine our lives in huge ways.
1389
01:20:09.439 --> 01:20:13.880
And we don't have any classes in our culture, in
1390
01:20:14.119 --> 01:20:17.159
our upbringing, in our education, systems to help people see
1391
01:20:17.199 --> 01:20:19.079
this or talk about it or learn about it. But
1392
01:20:19.680 --> 01:20:22.520
this fight, this unseen war, is happening in the way
1393
01:20:22.560 --> 01:20:25.640
we think and feel about absolutely everything all the time.
1394
01:20:26.920 --> 01:20:30.640
And that's where the passions flourish or the virtues flourish,
1395
01:20:31.239 --> 01:20:35.600
is in this unseen war. And yes, this unseen war
1396
01:20:35.760 --> 01:20:41.720
is influenced by demonic forces or demonic activity, but it's
1397
01:20:41.760 --> 01:20:47.520
also influenced by our own proclivities, in our own bodies,
1398
01:20:47.720 --> 01:20:50.640
you know. And all this stuff is taking place unseen.
1399
01:20:50.720 --> 01:20:53.920
It's very interesting that the entire book can't be checked
1400
01:20:53.920 --> 01:20:58.920
by science at all. But if you read it, you're like, huh,
1401
01:20:59.000 --> 01:21:02.319
that's true. You know, all of this stuff is totally true,
1402
01:21:02.520 --> 01:21:07.920
but it's completely not verifiable by any scientific method. But
1403
01:21:08.000 --> 01:21:12.920
everyone acknowledges that they love. Yeah, I hate, you know,
1404
01:21:14.479 --> 01:21:17.840
and that's not something that can be challenged or tested,
1405
01:21:17.960 --> 01:21:21.800
you know, But it's unseen. So is our hate dominating
1406
01:21:21.920 --> 01:21:24.079
us or is our love dominating us? This is the war.
1407
01:21:24.560 --> 01:21:26.880
That's the one. I go back to that Saint nikolay
1408
01:21:26.960 --> 01:21:29.840
Villa Miravich quote. You know, it's a battle between me
1409
01:21:29.920 --> 01:21:32.720
and me. Saint John Cassian says the same thing. Our
1410
01:21:32.960 --> 01:21:36.680
enemy is not outside. It's shut up with it. Mm
1411
01:21:36.760 --> 01:21:38.399
hmmm mmm. Yeah.
1412
01:21:39.039 --> 01:21:42.960
Hey, so speaking of unseen, this is something that I've
1413
01:21:42.960 --> 01:21:45.760
been thinking about a lot. Also, my mother planted this,
1414
01:21:46.319 --> 01:21:49.600
uh you know, pebble in my shoe. She just we
1415
01:21:49.760 --> 01:21:54.439
don't talk enough about guardian angels. You've got to talk
1416
01:21:54.479 --> 01:21:57.279
about you've got it. You've got to have somebody. She
1417
01:21:57.399 --> 01:22:00.479
I mean, she wants who knows what she wants? God
1418
01:22:00.520 --> 01:22:04.479
bless her. But she's right, we don't. And I think
1419
01:22:04.600 --> 01:22:06.560
part of the reason is, at least for me personally,
1420
01:22:06.800 --> 01:22:09.319
I don't understand it. I mean, that's that's a frontier
1421
01:22:09.399 --> 01:22:11.600
that I would like to really get to know a
1422
01:22:11.640 --> 01:22:14.640
little bit better, because, like you said, I mean, most
1423
01:22:14.680 --> 01:22:16.920
people on the street, even if they don't have a
1424
01:22:18.119 --> 01:22:22.439
well formed worldview, they still, oh, mom's looking down on me,
1425
01:22:22.560 --> 01:22:25.640
she's an angel now or something like that. Like they
1426
01:22:25.760 --> 01:22:30.960
we talk about angels as though it's intuitively understood, and
1427
01:22:31.119 --> 01:22:35.000
yet when you really myself included, press on what is
1428
01:22:35.039 --> 01:22:37.640
an angel? What are guardian angels? I don't have a
1429
01:22:37.680 --> 01:22:38.159
good answer.
1430
01:22:38.840 --> 01:22:41.560
Yeah, my wife and I were talking about this just
1431
01:22:41.600 --> 01:22:44.760
a couple of days ago. I think that it's gonna
1432
01:22:44.760 --> 01:22:47.920
be very interesting once when we're Dad, and in that realm,
1433
01:22:48.880 --> 01:22:54.039
our angels, our guardian angels, are gonna. They display a
1434
01:22:54.119 --> 01:22:58.399
great amount of patience with us. We attribute a lot
1435
01:22:58.520 --> 01:23:04.560
of things to miracles, included two different things God. Normally
1436
01:23:05.560 --> 01:23:10.000
the angels are our guardian angels are involved insanely all
1437
01:23:10.079 --> 01:23:12.720
the time, and they don't get enough respect.
1438
01:23:13.520 --> 01:23:16.119
Yeah, justin I was thinking about that just this morning.
1439
01:23:16.199 --> 01:23:19.720
I in trying to understand that. I thought, how often,
1440
01:23:20.439 --> 01:23:22.960
and I mean, you do this with some degree of
1441
01:23:23.039 --> 01:23:26.439
trepidation because it's and maybe this is why we don't
1442
01:23:26.439 --> 01:23:29.079
talk about it, because it's slippery. How often have I
1443
01:23:29.199 --> 01:23:32.279
attributed something to God that may have actually been my
1444
01:23:32.359 --> 01:23:33.119
guardian angel?
1445
01:23:33.279 --> 01:23:36.000
A percent. We see this in the lives of saints,
1446
01:23:36.079 --> 01:23:38.000
especially in a life of Saint Andrew the Fool for
1447
01:23:38.079 --> 01:23:41.199
Christ's sake, he describes this unseen realm a lot because
1448
01:23:41.199 --> 01:23:43.680
that's what he saw all the time. He was seeing
1449
01:23:43.800 --> 01:23:46.239
the physical world in the spiritual world all the time.
1450
01:23:46.920 --> 01:23:51.760
But our guardian angels are intervening, or a miracle is
1451
01:23:51.840 --> 01:23:55.000
what I describe it as, this world crossing over with
1452
01:23:55.079 --> 01:23:57.640
the other world. There's an overlap, and that's what a
1453
01:23:57.720 --> 01:23:59.439
miracle is is you kind of see a glimpse into
1454
01:23:59.479 --> 01:24:01.760
this other thing, you know, this other dimension of what
1455
01:24:01.800 --> 01:24:05.520
we want to call it. But we my wife and
1456
01:24:05.560 --> 01:24:08.880
I were getting up in the morning one day recently
1457
01:24:09.560 --> 01:24:13.159
and our icon corner light went on by itself at
1458
01:24:13.239 --> 01:24:18.399
prayer time, and you know, I'm pretty sure it was
1459
01:24:18.840 --> 01:24:21.079
one of our guardian angels, you know. I mean, you
1460
01:24:21.119 --> 01:24:24.159
can say God did it, and God ultimately does everything
1461
01:24:24.279 --> 01:24:27.359
in a certain sense, but I really believe that was
1462
01:24:27.399 --> 01:24:30.760
our guardian angel saying prayer time. And then it happened
1463
01:24:30.760 --> 01:24:33.560
again at evening prayers. You know, I think these little
1464
01:24:33.640 --> 01:24:36.640
things that if we're tuned to the spiritual realm, we
1465
01:24:36.800 --> 01:24:40.800
realize there's far more things happening than we understand or knowledge,
1466
01:24:41.279 --> 01:24:44.239
and that includes the intervention of saints. Just in the
1467
01:24:44.319 --> 01:24:46.920
last few months, I've had interventions of saints in our
1468
01:24:47.000 --> 01:24:51.479
life that were profoundly unexplainable. I mean, they were just
1469
01:24:51.880 --> 01:24:55.359
too far field to make sense out of them with
1470
01:24:55.439 --> 01:24:59.760
the rational mind. And it's clearly one of them involves
1471
01:24:59.760 --> 01:25:03.119
Saint nik Tarisavigina. I haven't thought for and prayed to
1472
01:25:03.199 --> 01:25:05.520
him or had him on my mind for quite a while,
1473
01:25:06.399 --> 01:25:08.600
and he showed up out of the blue in a
1474
01:25:08.680 --> 01:25:12.159
way that was miraculous. And that same thing happened with
1475
01:25:12.520 --> 01:25:15.520
Nester of Sabchuk, a priest who was martyred in Russia.
1476
01:25:15.720 --> 01:25:17.880
Murdered in Russia not too long ago in the nineties,
1477
01:25:18.479 --> 01:25:22.840
he surfaced here in Woodway, Texas. His relics showed up
1478
01:25:22.880 --> 01:25:26.439
in my house. Right when I'm writing his story for
1479
01:25:26.760 --> 01:25:29.399
updating it for Youth the Apocalypse, I get a piece
1480
01:25:29.439 --> 01:25:32.920
of blood soak carpet from Russia. Like they're these Saints
1481
01:25:33.000 --> 01:25:36.720
are are active, They're not not real. And this is
1482
01:25:36.760 --> 01:25:39.560
the part that is, you know, Protestants struggle with to
1483
01:25:39.720 --> 01:25:44.439
understand the cloud of witnesses. There's so much reluctance to
1484
01:25:44.840 --> 01:25:47.880
let this family be a part of your family and
1485
01:25:48.000 --> 01:25:50.840
your life. And it's strange to me because it's so
1486
01:25:52.000 --> 01:25:54.720
like you'll have Spider Man and you'll you know, you know,
1487
01:25:56.560 --> 01:25:58.960
quote Spider Man as having wisdom, but when it comes
1488
01:25:59.000 --> 01:26:01.520
to the Saints, you'll have posters of these you know,
1489
01:26:01.640 --> 01:26:05.079
superheroes that are from comic books. Yes, but the Staints
1490
01:26:05.239 --> 01:26:08.640
who are active, they're actually alive. My godmother has a
1491
01:26:08.720 --> 01:26:12.520
great story where she's in Greece and her this she's
1492
01:26:12.560 --> 01:26:15.800
talking with this woman on a curb and her little
1493
01:26:15.800 --> 01:26:18.079
four year four year old boy strolls into the street
1494
01:26:18.119 --> 01:26:21.680
and gets run over by a delivery truck and the
1495
01:26:21.800 --> 01:26:24.119
mom turns around and sees the truck hit her kid
1496
01:26:24.600 --> 01:26:29.199
and yells out Saint Nicholas's name, and the truck pulls over.
1497
01:26:29.399 --> 01:26:33.000
The kid gets up and dusts himself off and goes
1498
01:26:33.079 --> 01:26:34.840
over to his mom, and the mom's freaking out, and
1499
01:26:35.359 --> 01:26:38.600
he explains that, oh, a guy named Saint Nicholas jumped
1500
01:26:38.640 --> 01:26:46.479
on me in the monastery. We had this all the time,
1501
01:26:46.920 --> 01:26:50.680
you know, Angels. There was a man in a shop
1502
01:26:50.960 --> 01:26:54.840
working on our vehicle, and the car was running and
1503
01:26:54.920 --> 01:26:57.199
it fell off the blocks and it drove into the
1504
01:26:57.279 --> 01:27:00.479
man against a brick wall, and the man was perfectly fine.
1505
01:27:00.479 --> 01:27:03.039
And he said a man ran out of nowhere and
1506
01:27:03.239 --> 01:27:07.359
lifted the car off like this, stiffs all the time.
1507
01:27:07.640 --> 01:27:09.600
But we're so wrapped up in the earth and the
1508
01:27:09.680 --> 01:27:13.079
world and our lives and our affairs and our distractions
1509
01:27:13.159 --> 01:27:16.720
and our phones and our all this entertainment and binge
1510
01:27:16.800 --> 01:27:20.720
watching and food and alcohol, all this stuff. We are
1511
01:27:20.880 --> 01:27:23.399
so numbed out to it that we don't see it anymore.
1512
01:27:23.920 --> 01:27:26.399
Yes, we don't see it, we don't, I mean, And
1513
01:27:26.600 --> 01:27:32.000
and the real irony is okay, if you're let's let's
1514
01:27:32.079 --> 01:27:35.800
use a pagan or your secular okay, you don't see it,
1515
01:27:36.479 --> 01:27:41.479
that makes sense. What really gets me and I'm you know,
1516
01:27:42.279 --> 01:27:45.399
describing myself in large degree, like I said, I'm still
1517
01:27:45.479 --> 01:27:48.359
trying to recalibrate my bunny heres and I'm trying to
1518
01:27:48.399 --> 01:27:51.840
get the signal clear because there's still some degree of doubt.
1519
01:27:52.680 --> 01:27:55.520
You know. You hear that and you think, well that
1520
01:27:56.399 --> 01:28:00.840
that's ridiculous justin that. I was really tracking with you
1521
01:28:01.000 --> 01:28:03.479
until and I and I could hear I mean, the
1522
01:28:03.600 --> 01:28:06.199
skeptic in me and the skeptics that are that am
1523
01:28:06.279 --> 01:28:09.000
visible to me, I can hear them saying, man, I
1524
01:28:09.079 --> 01:28:11.520
was really tracking with that justin guy. I mean, but
1525
01:28:11.640 --> 01:28:15.920
when he started talking about he saw saints and guardian angels,
1526
01:28:17.079 --> 01:28:20.560
that's a little too fantastic for me. It's like we've
1527
01:28:20.840 --> 01:28:23.880
lost connection to that. And I mean, some people say, oh,
1528
01:28:23.920 --> 01:28:26.159
it's it's this Eastern Orthodoxy thing. This is where I
1529
01:28:26.239 --> 01:28:30.560
can't get down with it. But it's thoroughly biblical. It's
1530
01:28:30.600 --> 01:28:31.479
all over the Bible.
1531
01:28:31.640 --> 01:28:33.399
It's all over the Bible.
1532
01:28:33.880 --> 01:28:36.800
And and it's all over the Bible, and it's thoroughly biblical,
1533
01:28:36.880 --> 01:28:42.640
and yet we've somehow so many people I know who
1534
01:28:42.880 --> 01:28:46.720
are Bible believing Christians. When you start talking like this,
1535
01:28:46.960 --> 01:28:52.479
you lose them completely or they say that's heresy. I
1536
01:28:52.560 --> 01:28:55.720
mean it's it's it's very difficult, and it's something that,
1537
01:28:55.880 --> 01:29:01.359
like I said the Saints when when we first started
1538
01:29:01.359 --> 01:29:04.840
attending our church, my sister asked the priest, well, what
1539
01:29:04.920 --> 01:29:07.479
do you say to people who say that you pray
1540
01:29:07.520 --> 01:29:11.239
to dead people? And he just so matter of factly,
1541
01:29:11.680 --> 01:29:12.840
there are no dead Christmas.
1542
01:29:13.239 --> 01:29:14.239
Yeah, that's exactly right.
1543
01:29:14.800 --> 01:29:17.880
Yeah, and we're surrounded by that great cloud of witnesses.
1544
01:29:18.199 --> 01:29:20.840
I think that that's the piece that I felt when
1545
01:29:20.880 --> 01:29:24.439
I was in the church after the sexton died. He's
1546
01:29:24.479 --> 01:29:27.720
still here. Yeah, so gi ant family.
1547
01:29:27.800 --> 01:29:29.399
And if you can't do it here, then how are
1548
01:29:29.439 --> 01:29:33.319
you gonna do it forever? Really, I think that the
1549
01:29:33.640 --> 01:29:37.159
best example of what y're and what we were talking
1550
01:29:37.199 --> 01:29:40.840
about is found when Christ is on not Tabor with
1551
01:29:41.199 --> 01:29:45.399
Moses and Elijah. I mean, he displayed it thoroughly. Hey,
1552
01:29:45.800 --> 01:29:47.640
there's a lot going on here that you can't see,
1553
01:29:48.640 --> 01:29:51.239
you know, And they were so freaked out the three apostles.
1554
01:29:51.439 --> 01:29:53.279
Let us build an altered what are we gonna do,
1555
01:29:53.399 --> 01:29:56.159
you know, kind of panicking because they were seeing something
1556
01:29:56.199 --> 01:29:58.479
that they could not wrap their heads around. Therefore they
1557
01:29:58.520 --> 01:30:02.079
wanted to be busy, you know, doing something because it
1558
01:30:02.199 --> 01:30:06.199
was so overwhelming. But in the icons, I have it
1559
01:30:06.319 --> 01:30:10.960
right behind you. Here you see this Mendalora thing, this
1560
01:30:11.199 --> 01:30:15.319
shape and this world dark and light behind them with
1561
01:30:15.479 --> 01:30:20.640
blue behind Christ. And the icon is great at illustrating
1562
01:30:21.079 --> 01:30:24.600
what we're talking about. There is absolutely a lot going
1563
01:30:24.680 --> 01:30:27.279
on right now. And I think that the more that
1564
01:30:27.399 --> 01:30:31.279
we are attuned to God through prayer and through virtue,
1565
01:30:31.439 --> 01:30:35.079
virtuous life, the more that it becomes normal. It doesn't
1566
01:30:35.119 --> 01:30:37.399
have to be explained, it doesn't have to be you know,
1567
01:30:38.239 --> 01:30:40.920
Western rationalism has kind of killed a lot of really
1568
01:30:40.960 --> 01:30:46.640
cool stuff, including what we're talking about. And again, the
1569
01:30:46.760 --> 01:30:50.119
world's longest journey man, it's got to go from the
1570
01:30:50.199 --> 01:30:52.279
mind into the heart. And the more that we're there,
1571
01:30:52.399 --> 01:30:55.800
the more that all of this stuff makes sense. The
1572
01:30:55.920 --> 01:30:59.640
more that God's providence, his economia, the way we were
1573
01:30:59.720 --> 01:31:02.800
to meet, household management, the way he's managing all of
1574
01:31:02.920 --> 01:31:07.319
this stuff, it all is grace filled and makes sense.
1575
01:31:08.600 --> 01:31:10.680
The more that we're living in sin, it doesn't make sense.
1576
01:31:10.760 --> 01:31:11.920
And so that's fine, you know.
1577
01:31:12.479 --> 01:31:14.600
Yeah, no, you hit the nail on the head. I mean,
1578
01:31:14.920 --> 01:31:17.640
you want to understand this. If I'm struggling to understand this,
1579
01:31:17.920 --> 01:31:20.840
the way to kind of you know, clean your your
1580
01:31:20.920 --> 01:31:24.479
glasses off is practicing virtue. It gets right back to
1581
01:31:24.560 --> 01:31:26.399
why that was so exciting to me. I mean, when
1582
01:31:26.439 --> 01:31:29.359
you practice virtue, you see the face of Christ, and
1583
01:31:29.560 --> 01:31:32.279
and and he reveals himself to you, and and and
1584
01:31:32.560 --> 01:31:35.119
and your friends show up. They showed up for you,
1585
01:31:35.359 --> 01:31:39.720
and and and you start understanding I guess maybe not understanding,
1586
01:31:39.760 --> 01:31:42.399
that's probably not the right word, but you start seeing
1587
01:31:42.479 --> 01:31:43.520
miracles for what they are.
1588
01:31:44.520 --> 01:31:49.159
When when our our icon corner light went on, we
1589
01:31:49.279 --> 01:31:51.000
were sitting in bed getting ready to get up to
1590
01:31:51.079 --> 01:31:54.840
do prayers, and my wife's response was to just grab
1591
01:31:54.920 --> 01:31:58.359
my arm and we were started reciting the prayers from heart.
1592
01:32:00.039 --> 01:32:05.680
It was natural. It wasn't anything, but it's called prayer.
1593
01:32:05.960 --> 01:32:09.520
You know. That's that's the sweet spot, if we can
1594
01:32:09.600 --> 01:32:12.359
get to that spot in our life, as clunky as
1595
01:32:12.399 --> 01:32:15.359
we are, as you know, sinners and human beings, but
1596
01:32:15.800 --> 01:32:19.880
when these things are happening there, it's just natural. Yeah.
1597
01:32:20.279 --> 01:32:24.880
Yeah, I mean you talked about your and I don't
1598
01:32:24.880 --> 01:32:26.880
want this to feel like it comes out of left field,
1599
01:32:26.920 --> 01:32:29.920
and I don't want it to be antagonistic, but we
1600
01:32:30.039 --> 01:32:36.479
talked a lot about the baggage that certain words in
1601
01:32:36.600 --> 01:32:45.640
our Western American Christian world have, especially amongst evangelicals, and
1602
01:32:46.039 --> 01:32:49.279
I think especially post Reformation, the whole idea, because we're
1603
01:32:49.319 --> 01:32:53.439
talking about practicing the virtues right well, I can hear
1604
01:32:53.560 --> 01:32:58.079
somebody saying you're trying to earn your salvation justin when
1605
01:32:58.119 --> 01:33:00.560
you're talking about how in order to to do this,
1606
01:33:00.760 --> 01:33:03.439
in order to see God, you have to do these
1607
01:33:03.520 --> 01:33:07.840
things to earn it. Practicing virtue, that's just code for
1608
01:33:08.600 --> 01:33:14.399
earning your salvation. And I think accompanying the baggage of
1609
01:33:14.560 --> 01:33:19.880
sin is that false dichotomy that exists with you know,
1610
01:33:21.079 --> 01:33:24.079
earning your salvation in this whether it's free or earned
1611
01:33:24.199 --> 01:33:28.880
what versus working it out with fear and trembling. And
1612
01:33:30.359 --> 01:33:33.640
I just I wanted to ask you how you feel
1613
01:33:33.640 --> 01:33:36.439
about that concept and how you can turn it on
1614
01:33:36.520 --> 01:33:36.920
its head.
1615
01:33:38.640 --> 01:33:41.279
I don't know much about that. You know that these
1616
01:33:41.439 --> 01:33:45.159
arguments are modern. The Christian Church has never had a
1617
01:33:45.479 --> 01:33:48.119
problem with these ideas. You know that you have to
1618
01:33:48.159 --> 01:33:50.359
work for your salvation, that God's grace is a part
1619
01:33:50.399 --> 01:33:52.520
of it. It's never been a discussion or a problem.
1620
01:33:53.399 --> 01:33:55.359
It's really for modern man where you have to like
1621
01:33:55.479 --> 01:33:57.560
try to think your state, your way through this stuff.
1622
01:33:57.720 --> 01:33:59.479
So if I'm standing in front of you and I
1623
01:33:59.800 --> 01:34:02.279
have the choice to slap you or hug you, am
1624
01:34:02.319 --> 01:34:07.760
I working out my relationship with you? Seriously? You know,
1625
01:34:08.000 --> 01:34:09.800
obviously the right thing to do is to hug you.
1626
01:34:10.000 --> 01:34:13.479
And whether you think that that's an action that I
1627
01:34:13.720 --> 01:34:15.720
am choosing to do to save myself or not, it
1628
01:34:15.760 --> 01:34:19.560
doesn't really matter. I think that if you put Christ
1629
01:34:20.399 --> 01:34:24.840
at his example and his teachings to this test, everything
1630
01:34:24.920 --> 01:34:29.960
he was doing was that everything he was doing. I
1631
01:34:30.000 --> 01:34:34.359
don't understand the argument. I don't get it. I have
1632
01:34:34.560 --> 01:34:36.199
to do I have to get up every day and
1633
01:34:36.279 --> 01:34:37.800
I have to do my prayers, and I have to
1634
01:34:37.880 --> 01:34:40.560
be kind in order to follow Christ. Like that's just
1635
01:34:41.640 --> 01:34:42.159
it has to be.
1636
01:34:42.760 --> 01:34:45.359
Well, it gets down to what you were talking about
1637
01:34:45.359 --> 01:34:48.119
earlier when you said it never really made any sense
1638
01:34:48.199 --> 01:34:51.159
to you that you say this prayer and it's done.
1639
01:34:51.920 --> 01:34:55.279
It's this concept of heaven and hell as though it's
1640
01:34:55.279 --> 01:34:57.960
a punctilier moment in your salvation, you prayed your prayer
1641
01:34:58.159 --> 01:35:00.359
justin you're good hopefully you do a all right with
1642
01:35:00.399 --> 01:35:03.000
the rest of your life. But no matter what happens,
1643
01:35:03.720 --> 01:35:06.399
whenever I hear it, it's so jarring to my sensibilities
1644
01:35:06.439 --> 01:35:08.600
when someone says, well, I'm just waiting for the rapture,
1645
01:35:09.000 --> 01:35:12.560
then I'll go to heaven. And I've really started to
1646
01:35:13.039 --> 01:35:15.479
whether it's correct or not, I don't know. I'm not
1647
01:35:15.560 --> 01:35:19.640
a theologian, but I've really started to try and wrap
1648
01:35:19.760 --> 01:35:23.119
my hands around or my head around the idea of
1649
01:35:24.039 --> 01:35:27.039
you know, we're saved, we're being saved, and we will
1650
01:35:27.079 --> 01:35:30.359
be saved. Yeah, and I think saved to what. Well,
1651
01:35:30.640 --> 01:35:33.479
when you talk about heaven and Hell, it's really just
1652
01:35:34.800 --> 01:35:39.039
union with Christ or separation from Christ. And so in
1653
01:35:39.199 --> 01:35:44.119
that process, as we're living out our lives and trying
1654
01:35:44.199 --> 01:35:47.760
to strive for deeper and deeper union with Christ, forget
1655
01:35:47.840 --> 01:35:51.000
about whether you're going to heaven or hell. It's where
1656
01:35:51.079 --> 01:35:54.039
you are. Heaven or Hell is where you've been. Once again,
1657
01:35:54.039 --> 01:35:55.840
I'm not a theologian, So somebody could come in and
1658
01:35:57.399 --> 01:35:59.079
heaven or Hell is where you've been, where you are
1659
01:35:59.119 --> 01:36:01.880
and where you're going. It's not this thing that that
1660
01:36:02.039 --> 01:36:05.880
happens often in the distance, and and and you know
1661
01:36:06.279 --> 01:36:08.760
they got into my head recently because there was this
1662
01:36:08.920 --> 01:36:13.359
online spar with you know, like I said, with people
1663
01:36:13.439 --> 01:36:16.439
and they're, oh, you're going to go to Hell and
1664
01:36:17.319 --> 01:36:21.079
whatever the language. And I thought to myself, Well, if
1665
01:36:21.119 --> 01:36:26.279
you're experiencing this degree of a lack of kindness, I'm
1666
01:36:26.319 --> 01:36:28.399
not saying that you're going to hell for all eternity,
1667
01:36:28.520 --> 01:36:31.760
but you're experiencing in that moment when we fall prey
1668
01:36:31.840 --> 01:36:33.760
to the passions, I feel like we are in Hell,
1669
01:36:34.920 --> 01:36:38.680
and when we experience the love of Christ and the virtues,
1670
01:36:39.079 --> 01:36:42.000
we're in heaven. Is there anything that I said that's
1671
01:36:42.000 --> 01:36:42.800
a heretical there?
1672
01:36:43.640 --> 01:36:45.600
Not that I know. I'm not a theologian at all,
1673
01:36:45.680 --> 01:36:47.720
and you know, I'll be honest with you. My area
1674
01:36:47.800 --> 01:36:51.600
that I'm most interested in is aesthetical theology. Asthetic theology,
1675
01:36:51.680 --> 01:36:53.960
which is practice practice.
1676
01:36:54.039 --> 01:37:00.680
Yes, justin or orthodoxies small Oh only exists for praxis,
1677
01:37:01.279 --> 01:37:05.359
it only exists for orthopraxy. So I'm right there with you, brother.
1678
01:37:05.680 --> 01:37:07.239
I have a story though, that I can add to
1679
01:37:07.359 --> 01:37:09.920
this real quickly. A few days ago, I was in
1680
01:37:10.039 --> 01:37:12.840
a rush to get some of our book orders to
1681
01:37:13.039 --> 01:37:16.800
the post office, and these two older gentlemen knocked on
1682
01:37:16.880 --> 01:37:20.479
my door and they were holding a Bible and they said, hey,
1683
01:37:20.560 --> 01:37:22.079
we want to talk to you, We want to ask you.
1684
01:37:22.199 --> 01:37:24.479
Do you are you saved? And I looked at them
1685
01:37:24.520 --> 01:37:29.479
and I made a huge mistake. I said no. And
1686
01:37:29.640 --> 01:37:32.119
I really should not have done that, because I opened
1687
01:37:32.199 --> 01:37:34.039
up a giant can of worms, and I knew that
1688
01:37:34.159 --> 01:37:36.600
I was opening a can of worms, and it was
1689
01:37:36.680 --> 01:37:39.640
this can of worms. You know, I firmly believe that
1690
01:37:39.800 --> 01:37:42.439
that is one of the most destructive theological ideas that
1691
01:37:42.640 --> 01:37:46.560
ever entered Christianity, is you call upon the Lord Jesus
1692
01:37:46.640 --> 01:37:48.199
and you will be saved. And I know there's a
1693
01:37:48.239 --> 01:37:50.640
Bible verse for that. There's also a Bible verse for
1694
01:37:51.199 --> 01:37:54.199
there are many that called upon me and said Lord Lord,
1695
01:37:54.960 --> 01:37:59.680
and I did not know them. There's an implicit contradiction
1696
01:37:59.800 --> 01:38:04.439
right there. And as you're saying, people should never, ever, ever,
1697
01:38:04.600 --> 01:38:07.880
in my estimation, say somebody is going here or going
1698
01:38:07.960 --> 01:38:11.880
there ever ever, it's none of their business. In fact,
1699
01:38:11.960 --> 01:38:14.960
it's an egregious thing to do to put your feet
1700
01:38:15.079 --> 01:38:21.680
in God's economia. That's that's a crazy assumption, to put
1701
01:38:21.800 --> 01:38:25.399
your shoes in God's judgment seat and say things like
1702
01:38:25.479 --> 01:38:29.720
this again, like you you alluded to what you were saying,
1703
01:38:29.920 --> 01:38:33.560
is that where am I right in this moment? It's
1704
01:38:33.600 --> 01:38:35.800
not there in the past, it's not in the future.
1705
01:38:35.920 --> 01:38:39.159
It's right now. Am I with Christ or not? Period?
1706
01:38:39.640 --> 01:38:43.039
That's all that matters, And honestly, that's all that exists
1707
01:38:44.479 --> 01:38:45.960
is right now. Yeah.
1708
01:38:46.439 --> 01:38:49.720
Amen, Well, I've got two more questions for you. I'd
1709
01:38:49.720 --> 01:38:51.640
be remiss about and ask you about reality on a
1710
01:38:51.680 --> 01:38:54.520
commitment to reality. So where are we most eager to
1711
01:38:54.600 --> 01:38:55.600
look away from reality?
1712
01:38:56.680 --> 01:38:59.800
Most eager to look away from Oh my gosh, that's
1713
01:38:59.840 --> 01:39:04.640
a tough question, but I think that obviously, the reality
1714
01:39:04.720 --> 01:39:07.359
of who we are are our own condition. I think
1715
01:39:07.439 --> 01:39:11.079
most of us are fearful of that reality of who
1716
01:39:11.159 --> 01:39:14.159
we are and what's lurking inside of us. And this
1717
01:39:14.359 --> 01:39:17.600
is why we have the passions, And this is all
1718
01:39:17.640 --> 01:39:21.359
the passions are, And all these habits and addictions and
1719
01:39:21.399 --> 01:39:23.640
all these problems that we have, they're all ways of
1720
01:39:23.760 --> 01:39:27.880
trying to treat or medicate the harmful effects of the fall.
1721
01:39:29.159 --> 01:39:33.720
They all go back to that, and we miss the
1722
01:39:33.760 --> 01:39:38.479
point when we do this. The panacea is Christ and
1723
01:39:38.720 --> 01:39:41.760
is the sacramental life of the Church. And that's the
1724
01:39:41.840 --> 01:39:45.560
reality that we most fear. That's why we fear confession.
1725
01:39:46.560 --> 01:39:49.800
That's why we avoid it. That's why we try not
1726
01:39:49.920 --> 01:39:52.720
to receive communion too much, because we're afraid of it.
1727
01:39:52.960 --> 01:39:55.119
That's why we try not to say things that are
1728
01:39:55.159 --> 01:39:57.279
personal to our friends too much, because we want to
1729
01:39:57.319 --> 01:40:01.560
project what we are, not people to think something else
1730
01:40:01.640 --> 01:40:04.840
of us. We're afraid of ourselves. That's the reality that
1731
01:40:04.920 --> 01:40:07.600
we are terrified the most of, in my opinion.
1732
01:40:09.279 --> 01:40:13.000
And in a world that feels increasingly unreal, what feels
1733
01:40:13.079 --> 01:40:13.960
most real to.
1734
01:40:14.039 --> 01:40:24.119
You tears, tears, tears of prayer, tears for people that
1735
01:40:24.199 --> 01:40:28.520
are suffering, tears for my children, tears of joy for Christ. Tears.
1736
01:40:29.560 --> 01:40:35.279
Man, justin, We've said this multiple times already. I want
1737
01:40:35.319 --> 01:40:37.279
to thank you for joining me on a commitment to reality.
1738
01:40:37.760 --> 01:40:40.439
And we just met today for the first time, well
1739
01:40:40.840 --> 01:40:44.119
if we can call this meeting. But these Christians are funny.
1740
01:40:44.359 --> 01:40:47.159
They love each other before they meet. And I love you, brother,
1741
01:40:47.439 --> 01:40:47.920
That's awesome.
1742
01:40:48.000 --> 01:40:48.640
Love you to you, brother,