Pints With Aquinas - From Wicca to Christ w/ Vesper Stamper (Shocking Content Warning)

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

Show Sponsors: https://hallow.com/matt https://stpaulcenter.com/matt Link to prayer at end:  https://wildatheart.org/prayer/daily-prayer-john Pints Episode on Yoga: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUOfp8Ssp3A&t=356s Learn more about Vesper here: https://www.vesperillustration.com Check out her books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Vesper-Stamper/author/B075QHMY2G Follow her on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/vesperillustration/  

Hey everybody, before we jump into the podcast, I wanted to let you know that if you become an annual supporter over at matfrad.locals.com support, you will get a free pines with Aquinas beer Stein, you just pay shipping, you'll get access to our free courses, you'll get access to our post show live streams that are exclusive to our local supporters. spiritual direction with Father Gregory Pine, as well as our free quarterly newspaper sent to your door. It's called The Jill, and we even pay the shipping on that one, no matter where in the world you live. If you're interested in getting these perks, please go to locals.com, sorry, matfrad.locals.com slash support, and sign up as an annual supporter to get those perks.

And you'd be tremendously helping us as a ministry. Thank you. You're live, Matt. I'm live. In case you want something. I was gonna bring mine. Where were you? Funny. My thing that frustrates me about this is how they all twist around on each of themselves.

I have like a half-size one. Okay. It's just right. Have you ever seen a little strovka? No. Come on. That's what the old Russian Orthodox use. This looks serious. This looks like for like really, really pious. It looks what the old Russian Orthodox use. This looks serious.

This looks like for like really, really serious and like licorice. It does. I should show my husband. He's like a big black licorice fan. Yeah. Um, no mine. I also like, maybe this is not holy, but I cut off the fringe part because it's just annoying.

I have not used that to wipe my tears. I'm not, no, I'm not going to start now. Listen, every time I go up to venerate the icon when I get to church, this is my prayer. Lord, you know I'm never gonna get this right, right? Like, you know I'm never gonna do it right. So I just kind of have a little chuckle with the Lord and he understands and I proceed.

Beautiful. Well, thanks for coming on the show. I met you because you were part of my locals community and I don't I kind of I mean, I know your story a little bit, but I forget what led to this. I know that we were chatting and I was really inspired by what we were chatting about that you'd become an Orthodox Christian last year. So I'm looking forward to. Yeah. Yeah. And I found out about you and Pines with Aquinas because a friend of mine, who's also Australian, sent me your interview with Sister Miriam James and I, you know,

that woman. That woman. Oh my gosh. She's a ninja. I just felt like seen. Yeah. Yeah. She's the kind of woman that when she looks at you, you feel like the rest of the world fades away and somehow you're still existing in it. Yeah. She's a good woman. Yeah, I've been praying on the Halo app. Yeah. So a little plug.

Yeah. Halo.com slash Matt. Three months for free. Sign up there. Not on Laura Horne's page, on my page. Yeah. But I've been doing the Mary Untier of Knots Novena and the Sacred Heart as well. It's been good.

That's beautiful. So when you became Orthodox, were you discerning between Catholicism and Orthodoxy? Is that why your friend sent it? No, I think she just sent it because Sister Miriam's story is amazing. So you know, it's funny, there is just like in the Catholic community online, there's I think she just sent it because Sister Miriam's story is amazing. So... You know, it's funny, there is... Just like in the Catholic community online, there's a lot of louder... Not that there's anything wrong with being traditional, but trattier people, you know? I think like in Orthodoxy, you have those as well.

There are people who are like really off-putting to me. Oh, really? But say things very solidly and firmly and sure sure. But it's been beautiful for me to encounter Orthodox Christians who like actually see me as a brother and don't feel the need to differentiate themselves to me the way New Zealanders do. Oh yeah I can only imagine. Yeah yeah that's cool that you're using the Hello app. Yeah yeah I like it I've been doing the Bible in a year with Father Mike and yeah. Yeah going all the way good stuff

Well, where do you want to start? I mean, I know we have a lot to talk about but I kind of want to get into your story Yeah before we if that's okay sure. I mean I can start at the very beginning. All right. It's a very good place to start so Which kind of has some relevance to the story overall I was born in Germany on an army base. My father was in the army. I never met him which kind of has some relevance to the story overall. I was born in Germany on an army base. My father was in the army. I never met him.

And I was born in West Germany during the height of the Cold War. So that kind of figures into later work that I would be doing, interestingly. And even though we left Germany when I was a baby, I still feel a real connection to it Like I don't really feel American I feel much more European. I mean I we came back to New York and I feel like a New Yorker, but I

Kind of feel everywhere and nowhere, you know, so anyway The reason we left Germany was because my father was not a good person. He he was abusive to my mother and when I was a baby, she was worried that he was gonna hurt me and so She fled with me and really saved my life You know, it was it was for the best, you know, I didn't grow up with a father That you grew up in New York City I did in Staten Island, New York until high school and then the Upper West Side. So I want to just throw out a disclaimer right now that there's going to be some things we talk about that will be triggering to people.

Sure. So just out of love, if you're watching right now, we're going to be getting into some issues. And if you have children, this is not, don't let them watch this. Probably not. Yeah. At least watch it before you make that judgment. But sorry. Yeah, sure.

So we came back and moved in with my grandparents, lived with my grandparents until I was in fourth or fifth grade. And my mom remarried when I was four. She married a Jewish man and she converted to Judaism. So I was ostensibly raised in a Jewish home. Not ostensibly, I was raised in a Jewish home. Went to Hebrew school, went to Temple Israel in Stanton Island.

And at the time, it was not, nothing in my home was comfortable, let's say. It was a very fraught childhood. I actually remember very little of it. And unfortunately, in my extended family there was, well in my immediate family and my extended family there's a lot of abuse. There was, we had a family member who, how do I put this delicately, he made his way through every female in my family, including me. And so if you can imagine, my mom has just endured this horrible,

you know, abuse at the hands of yet another man, comes back with me to try to start a new life. And then when I was three, we were having dinner and I just made some comment at the dinner table because this person was present at dinner. And I said, Oh, do you remember when you did did that? And it was like a record scratch, you know, and everybody realized that he had gotten to me, too. So the good part about that is that it stopped.

How did everybody react to the dinner table? I don't know. I don't remember that. My mom actually only told me this when I was 16. I had, and I was so glad she did, I didn't remember the abuse for a long, long time. And when she told me, it answered so many questions for me about things like why I didn't feel at home in my body, why I felt so confused when I would look at boys or girls and didn't know what was going on. You know, I had no guidance, no, no parenting in that area at all.

So it made a lot of things make sense. So it's better to know, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. Forgive me if I ask any insensitive questions. No, I'm an open book, it's okay. Do you remember the abuse? Yeah.

Yeah. Hey, I'm gonna change the title. Sure Sure. Just a warning on it. Sure. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I've heard and I was listening to a podcast today that talked about how when we don't process or heal from childhood wounds, they come back. Yeah. In like physical ailments and all sorts of things. Yeah. Yeah, that's certainly true in my case. I've had chronic illness since I was, you know, a kid. Have you? Yeah. Yeah. I had a chronic pain disorder for 20 years. That's another story. We'll get, you know, into that later. But yeah, in this, in this immediate kind of situation,

the other element of this was that my mom had mental illness that was undiagnosed until I was an adult. And so the immediate home life was total chaos. I really never knew what was real and what wasn't. Every time I thought I could hang my hat on something and kind of go in a certain direction, it would just, I would be derailed. You know, or I would say something that I thought maybe would make my mom proud or like make her my friend,

or you know, make her my ally or something like that. And it would be met with like the complete opposite or, you know, yeah, it's very, very difficult. There's an unpredictable, very unpredictable. So the, the subject of reality is really, really important to me. You know, I'm not going to call things something that they're not. So I do I do want to preface this too by just saying I honor my mother. I started out by saying that she saved my life and she set my life on a course that had it had she chosen to stay. Now I'm not making a theological statement here or anything like that, but had she chosen to stay and endure being beaten,

you know, for the sake of, you know, family togetherness or something, um, my life would be completely different. I don't think I would be a functioning person. So I honor my mother completely. And my mother is now, um, she's taken care of, she's stable, she's happy. There's been so much healing there. So anything that I say about my upbringing, just I want people to know that that's been healed.

And there's still, of course, there's gonna be things that, like the onion layers, it's gonna be unpacked over a lifetime. But it's important to say. How do we honor our parents while acknowledging the harm they did? Yeah, I mean, for me, I think it's. You know, my stepdad always used to say. You know, we did the best we could, I did the best I could. And as a young person, I would feel like that was nowhere near good enough.

How can you even say that to me? And I would be very judgmental, angry. But I think as you get older, you recognize that the adults in your life had their own limitations, just like you know you have your own limitations. And so I really do know that she did the best she could. You know, she just had fewer resources to do it with. You know.

Okay. Yeah. So living in this Jewish home. Yeah. Were you ever like, did you believe in God as a child? I think I did. I didn't really have a lot of thoughts about God, but I did know that there was something bigger. I don't think I could have articulated it, but I was a rabid consumer of fairy tales. And the fairy tales were really like where I saw the real world happening. And I felt like I was living in one, first of all, you know, because you always have this trope of like the simpleton, you know, like the least, the smallest, the least qualified, the one who's always screwing up. Right. And that felt like me. I felt like that all the time.

felt like me. I felt like that all the time. And it's always that person that's the hero of the story in some strange way. And they they grow and you know there's the usual things that are said about fairy tales and why they're structured the way they are. But I think... Say it again. What? Just because they've been said, say them again. No I think that I'm so you had Nicolas Cotar on your show and he and I were having a conversation and he asked me this question. What is it about fairy tales that you is it the moral? And I said no, because some of them are like, you don't even know what the moral is. You know, but for me it was always this theme of this, the simpleton, let's say being the gift, being given the gift of

insight and being able to see things that other people didn't see and That felt like my story Like I felt like I could see things going on that the people around me Didn't see or didn't want to see so for example, you know, I was largely raised by my grandparents and I would try to tell them what was going on at home. And they didn't believe me. And my grandparents were sainted people.

I mean, they were amazing. And yet so much went on under their roof that they never acknowledged. And when I would tell them this happened or this is going on, they would say, oh, but they really love you. Oh, but they're really doing the best they can. Oh, as if like as the child, I needed to be the one to extend grace. Yeah.

To the to the grownups. You know, and I was even I was told that, you know, again and again. So, you know, not being believed when you're trying to tell what's really going on with your story. It's really, it's hard. I was reading fairy tales to my kids the other night. I love fairy tales and I love how children are far more entertained by fairy tales than anything else. Yeah. I just love the, uh, something about the chaos that the person, the, the protagonist walks into, like something that's, you know, like dig up that tree and you will find a golden chicken

or something like that. So it's something about that too. I think that we find ourselves thrust into life with things we do not understand and do not know how to process. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, yeah, you get one of those hints, so the Golden Goose is the fairy tale that you're referencing. Yeah. Which I've actually I illustrated in college. It's one of my favorites. But yeah, you know, you get this kind of clue. OK, go over there to that tree, chop it down.

You're going to find something awesome. And you're like, why? What? You don't know why you're led to do something. But then all of a sudden, in hindsight, you realize, Oh my gosh, I couldn't have gotten from A to B without that instigation, that catalyst. Okay, so you went to Jewish school and but no kind of direct kind of communication with God. We taught your prayers. How does it work growing up as a Jew? So we were a very secular household. We were like New York City, liberal, Democrat households, you know.

It was really much more about like temple life and the culture there and my stepdad's pride in being Jewish. And I have two half-siblings who are his and my mom's kids. And so, you know, they are like fully, fully Jewish, you know, had bar and bat mitzvah. So this was like culturally the atmosphere in my home. But because of all the other stuff going on, I don't know, it didn't at the time it didn't really take. But it was it was part of me, you know, it's definitely part of me.

So when I was 16 is when I when I met the Lord, and that's a whole other, you know, it's definitely part of me. So when I was 16 is when I when I met the Lord and that's a whole other, you know, we can get there. But it wasn't until after I became a Christian that I realized what had been implanted in me in my Jewish upbringing. So now looking back at it, I feel like I was given a treasure house because I see things in the gospels. You see things that others can't or don't. Yeah. Because I didn't have that upbringing.

I didn't even think of it in that regard. But yeah, you know, sometimes I'll say something about the Jewish connection to the gospels or something and people will be like, what? Just go right over their heads, you know? But it's for me, I feel like I won the lottery, you know, it's such a rich, it's such a rich thing that was kind of tilled into the soil of my life. I'm grateful for it. All right. So how, how do we get from there to there? How do we get from child Vespa to Christ?

Yeah. Okay. So I started going to church with my grandparents when I was nine. And so I was actually, uh, had first communion and confirmed in the Episcopal church. And your parents were okay with that? Your stepdad and mom? They didn't care that much. I mean, I often say I was raised by wolves. There was just so much that I did that I was a latchkey kid. I don't really remember my mom and my stepdad in my childhood memories. It's just, I have a couple of memories. It's pretty blank. My mom was a nurse practitioner.

She worked all the time. My stepdad worked in New York at a bank. He, I was alone most of the time. So my grandparents were still a very safe place for me to be. So they would come and pick me up, bring me to church, you know, and so in middle school, when I sort of still had some childlike innocence, you know, I went with them and I felt very, very safe.

Right up in the front of the church, like right up, I wanted to be as close as possible to them in the choir and then to the altar. And I would even have the desire to crawl under the altar and just hide there. I just wanted to be there. So there was something very attractive to me about it but at the same time How deep did it go? I don't know. So I Around that time too. I discovered that I was an artist

I'd been drawing my whole life, but I didn't realize that that was like an option, you know and the fairy tales It was like oh, I want to draw fairy tales like for the rest of my life. So I found out about this arts high school in Manhattan called LaGuardia High School and I applied, I got in and I all of a sudden was commuting an hour and a half a day. At what age? At 13. Okay. Yeah, to art school in New York.

Wow. Yeah, in 90s New York, by the way, which was like- Way cooler. A dream. It was- I teach there now, not at LaGuardia, but I teach in the city once a week, in 90s New York by the way, which was like a dream. I teach there now, not at LaGuardia, but I teach in the city once a week. And it's like, you know, to gird my loins to go back. Yeah, it's not the same.

It's not the same. But anyway, we have a link to Vespa's Instagram page and her art in the description below. I put it there yesterday, Thursday. So please go check it out, because she's actually like shockingly good. Not like that's really good, but like, holy crap. Oh, thank you. Thanks. Well, there was no plan B for me. So yeah.

So I started going to this high school in New York. Did your mom care that you had got accepted to this, that you were going to this? Was she proud of you? Was it a, did she put up any resistance? She didn't put up any resistance. Again, like I hardly saw her. And when I did, it was so bad.

I tried to be home as little as possible, to be honest with you. I did a lot of theater in high school, just so that I didn't have to go home. So yeah, I don't really know. I don't really know. I know when I was applying to college, she had some different ideas for me.

Like she thought, two of the ideas she pitched to me were airplane pilot and dental hygienist. You're like, no. It's like, I'm a white knuckle flyer. Why those two? Those are very extreme. Maybe an astronaut or? Maybe stability, I don't know, job security, I don't know, not artist. You had to become an adult quickly.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So the idea of a 13 year old commuting by bus, I presume. Bus, no, bus to ferry to training. In New York City. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

At, what did I leave at, like five in the morning? And I would come home at eight, nine at night. Did you love it? I loved every minute of it. It was, I'll get there. I'll get there. So when I was 13, like my freshman year, I made a friend who was really into Wicca.

And there was a bookstore around the corner from our high school. And so we would bookstore around the corner from our high school, and so we would go and, like, read the New Age section, you know, and so she gave me a book that said that I could be a Christian and practice witchcraft, like, because that was this woman's story. Like, she was, I think, Episcopalian,

and she was like, no, it's totally compatible. And so because I had just had this confirmation experience, I was like, oh, well, I don't want to betray my grandparents. That was really what it was about. I don't want to like make them upset, but this other thing sounds really amazing. And- What about it sounded amazing?

You know, it was all about control. It was all about control. It offered this framework to be able to control your environment, to control the weather, to control your inner state, to control the people around you, whether that was through actual spells or astral projection I was really into. So I kind of like amassed this, for lack of a better term, new age kind of set of practices and beliefs around me.

And please spend some time on what might seem to you the mundane details because there's a lot of people who are listening who have no idea about witchcraft and I'm actually really interested. Because I'm sure when they were presenting, you can have this control, it was done in a sort of benevolent sounding way. It sounded like a fairy tale. It sounded like a fairy tale. It sounded like a fairy tale. It was like, and I think there was something about that

that really resonated. Like there's this whole unseen world that I always suspected was there. And now they're telling me it's really real. And the reality, you know, that I was trying to operate in and that I believed in, like I could be part of that. Are you kidding me? It was like candy, you know? So now is it the girl telling you this, your 13 year old friend or is it the books that you had started to read them?

Both. So we were really into it together. Yeah. And so it's important to know that this was pre internet. Yeah, I remember that it was pre internetinternet. Yeah, I remember that. It was pre-internet and it was pre like Sabrina the Teenage Witch and you know, those TV shows and stuff. This is like 1990, you know? And so the only access that we had to anything

was in this bookstore. And it was like a, not a Barnes and Noble, but it was a big chain bookstore. So it wasn't like, oh, we were going to East West books down on the 13th Street. You know, it would have been cooler. It would have been like with a grumpy old man who runs it is upset that you've come into his store. Yeah, probably. And like, it's you know, I can't remember what East West was like at the time. It's a real bookstore East West. But yeah, you know, and we would go to like these occult shops and buy herbs and you know,

all this stuff, but we didn't know how to find other people to basically form a coven with. So what is a coven? A coven would be a group of witches that would practice together basically. So it was just her and I kind of muddling along and reinforcing each other and trying stuff and whatever. So that was like, that was what we were into. We were also into, you know, fantasy books and dragons and lore and all that stuff. I mean, I was not your typical 13 year old girl.

If anime were cool back then, would have you been into that? No, good. No, not anime. I didn't know it was possible to be super into dragons and everyone I know who's super into anime is also into like D&D and... Well, my first boyfriend was into D&D. So yeah, that's my connection. No, but we were we were into like, you know, oh what, you know, the cure and like just anything kind of dark and spooky and just like otherworldly, you know. But it was more of a, oh one comic we did read, we didn't read anime but we read ElfQuest. Okay, I don't

know. Okay, so I'll just let you imagine what ElfQuest is. Okay. Yeah, you can still get it today. It's a good comic. It's the only comic I can actually understand because I don't really do comics. But anyway, so we were practicing and the thing that I was really, really into above anything else was astral projection. And what's that?

That is the belief that you can separate your soul from your body. So you can literally lift yourself out of your body and watch yourself and travel around and go to places and things like that. So I really wanted to do that. Sounds great. You know, like I felt pretty trapped by my body,

you know, for reasons that you can imagine from what I said before. So one day, oh, I'll tell you this one thing about the control part. So because I was in art school, I was drawing all the time and I would draw on the subway a lot. And I traveled with this pack of kids

that all went to LaGuardia and we were up early in the morning. It was like a very kind of tight-knit group. And so I was drawing this dagger that was like a witch's dagger. It had like symbols on it and stuff. I'm sitting on the subway drawing that. And this kid comes over to me and goes,

what are you drawing? Keep in mind, we're like 13, 14. Can you imagine like your precious little kids? Right. And I looked up at him and I went, it's a witch's dagger like that. Uh-huh. Like I just so wanted to be like nobody was gonna get anything over on me.

Like nobody was gonna like think I was you know naive or cute or vulnerable or anything like that. Like I was in the driver's seat and so I was gonna tell you what this creepy thing was you know? So fast forward, okay. So I'm like 14, 15, and my parents divorced. My mom and I stepped up. So my mom and I moved up to the Upper West Side

and we lived in a studio apartment that was about half the size of this room. And she was seeing somebody, so she was never home. So essentially I was on my own from 15. I cooked for myself. I got myself going in the morgue. I never saw my mom. I think I saw her in the apartment twice in the whole time we lived there. So I would come home from school, which was five blocks away or whatever, walk home, promptly like get out my book on astral projection and I would lay down and I would try to separate from my body.

This was like my after school activity. And one day I felt like I was coming out and I could kind of see with my eyes closed. I was getting this sense that I could do that. And just as I felt like I was maybe like an inch or two above my body, the phone rang and it was my boyfriend. And he was like, hey, what's going on? And I'm like, ah. And I felt myself slam back into my body

like as if I was hit by a truck. And I started shaking talking to him, and I'm like, I can't really talk right now. Like my voice is trembling, and I started to notice my fingers turning black. Oh my. It was really freaky. So anyway, I hung up with him, and just tried to calm myself down

and stop shaking and whatever. And then I kind of got over it and. Went on my memory way. Never thought about it again. Except that I started having uncontrollable thoughts, disgusting, like gross, like pornographic, racist, like all these horrible thoughts. And it and it was torturous. It was like all day, every day, from the minute I woke up to the time I went to bed. All these

thoughts it was like a it was like a four-lane highway going like crossing my brain and I couldn't make it stop. Like nothing. I would try to be like I don't think that way like this isn't even me and it felt like somebody else was thinking thoughts into my brain so I wonder should I tell you the conclusion of the story now or because it it didn't resolve for quite a time later whatever you want but did you share this with your 13 year old friend the fellow which I don't think so. Yeah, what about the Coming out of your body thing Cuz that it seems like if I was practicing witchcraft and I found some quote-unquote success in that area

Yeah, that would be something I would want to share and encourage for others if I thought it was a good thing I might have shared it with her Yeah, I might have shared that with her but Yeah, I might've shared that with her, but I probably wouldn't have shared the like, the thought. I didn't tell anybody about the thoughts. No, no, no. And I also didn't connect it. That's what I was gonna ask. You didn't connect it with that experience.

No, no, no. So around that time too, I made a friend who was a Hare Krishna. So I started going to the Hare Krishna temple with her and dancing before idols and doing all this crazy stuff and eating vegetarian food. And it was a party. It was like a party all the time, dancing like crazy,

you know, being, like letting my hippiness really come to the fore, you know? So it kind of developed even more into this kind of syncretist set of practices and beliefs. But the one thing that I took away from that time with the Hare Krishnas was that God was personal. Like first of all, that there was such a thing as God, whatever they called him, whatever they called him, and that he saw me. So, and that also, my friend told a story about,

she was like saying her prayers on her Hare Krishna beads or whatever, and she was in a van with a plate of food on her lap, and they hit a bump, and the food went all over her, and she felt like God was laughing with her, and she felt like God had a sense of humor. And that really struck me like, oh, it kind of broke my brain a little bit. It was like, God is personal.

He sees me and he has a sense of humor. Like he's not just a random being or deity out there in the universe, like he actually has personality. Did you continue to practice astral projection after that point? Like when you were with the Hare Krishnas, did you continue to read Witchcraft books and try to? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. And I was vegetarian from like a pretty young age and you know, so I was kind of on board with all of this, you know, these practices and things. And I thought it's important to say, the way that witchcraft is presented, even now, is that it's just light. It's like you're shedding all the trappings of organized religion and manmade things and whatever.

And you're letting your spirit be free and just float around and do good for people. You even hear this from the Satanists now. The thing that happened with Target, with the designer with Target, who's a Satanist, but doesn't really believe that Satan exists, but also believes that Satan is really for you and is all about love.

And I'm like, okay. So with Wicca, Wicca itself is kind of like, it's a syncretist religion. It's not, it has trappings of ancientness, but it's not really, it's pretty modern. And it's kind of bringing all, it's like what I did. Like bringing all these kind of practices together and kind of making a religion out of it, you know?

But we would have definitely said that we were wielding light, you know, for sure. Like we didn't want to hurt anybody. We didn't believe in, we didn't believe in the devil. We didn't believe in demons. Maybe we believed in spirit beings or something like that or spirit guides, you know? But it was all very like, it's all very chill, man.

Very chill. This reminds me, I'm reading the brothers again. So yeah, you're going to become insufferable throughout this interview. I've been reading the brothers for like 10 years. It's okay. I love it. But when Father Zossimo talks to the the holy women and one of them, he quotes a doctor he once knew who said the more I love humanity, the less I love my neighbor. And that idea is whenever I hear people being effusive about love and light, I wonder how they treat people who are closest to them. Well I'm reading the biography of Mother Maria Skopstova. Do you know who she is? She was an orthodox nun during, in Nazi-occupied France. She said the same thing. She said you can't love humanity. You know, anyone that she's met that loves humanity hates the individual. She probably got it

from Dostoevsky. Yeah, and I see that in certain political movements today, let's say certain people who might riot and that sort of thing where there's a lot of talk of love and peace where there is no peace. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of talk of these kind of generic, a generic sense of love and peace where there is no peace. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of talk of these kind of generic, a generic sense of love and a generic sense of justice or helping the oppressed. But those people never have faces. Yeah, yeah.

You know, it's not about the individual sitting next to you because that person might be a Nazi. So, you know, it's, yeah, it is very kind of anonymized and faceless and- I remember a university professor saying, it's easy to love humanity because humanity never leaves their garbage cans out too late. They don't play loud music.

They don't chew ice in front of you, which to me is the worst offense. Okay, be careful because some of you guys chew. Worse than that is when people, I'm gonna just keep saying this until I shame everybody into stopping, when people sit in a quiet room and they allow their phone to bing. Bing. Yeah. Bing.

That just says that because I do that and he wants me to stop and I won't. No, you gotta turn that sucker off then. It's not on during the show but we'll be sitting in... If there was somebody sitting across from me and they were chewing ice while their phone was binging and then I noticed they had a Disney castle tattoo. Oh dear. I don't think I could love them. Yeah. Yeah, I would become like Test your the limits of your love. Yeah You did like somebody's phone went off in the cigar lounge like a week ago and you went are you gonna turn that off? It was like we weren't even I just feel like I'm gonna embrace my gr like, we weren't even. I just feel like I'm going to embrace my grumpy old man

at this point. No, I feel like I'm going to become the least kind old lady. You know what I mean? There's part of me that's like, Lord, I want to become more loving like you. But then there are people who need discipline who didn't get it.

My gosh. Listen. When I consider what my family have to put up with me I need to be more merciful to the Bing's and the ice chewers. It's a pretty short path What do you mean a pretty short path between like my judgmentalism and me realizing? Oh, no. Oh, I'm the a-hole. Yeah Yeah, but okay Loving loving light. Yeah, dispelling the darkness Freedom man. Yeah, it felt great

It is so attractive like I went through a phase in my teenage years of new age tapes that I would listen to and meditation and whenever even the most new agey new age tapes or books that I got even the most new agey new age tapes or books that I got referenced heaven and it wasn't the sort of Christian heaven but just that Christian language turned me off completely. I would put it away. I didn't want anything to do with it. But I liked kind of this. And what is that? I think it's I want there to be more to life. I want there to be this hidden world that I've always suspected existed. I want to be special. I don't want demands placed upon me unless they're so general that I can't possibly break them. Well, essentially, right? You want to be your own God. Yeah. That's what any of us want

in our sort of natural, untamed state. We want to be our own God. God of our own heaven. You know? Yeah. But it becomes hell. Yeah. Well, yeah, and it did. Yeah, very quickly for me. So around that time, you know, I told you I was doing a lot of theater at this Catholic church, actually. And I started playing guitar. They did a folk mass and everything. And so sorry, this is why you're Orthodox today. Well, listen, you know, I still love those like, what is it? Gary Daigle, is that his name? I don't know. It is like Catholic

renewal folk stuff. Well, that's where I learned to play guitar. This was our tradition as well. Yeah. So even if it's not optimal, or not even good, you can't help but be sympathetic to things that you were raised with. It spoke to you at one point, you kind of see how I creed things my own prison. Come on. Yeah, you kind of see how things... Like Creed? My own prison? Come on. Yeah, you kind of see how things are like mile markers along your path. I don't know, I think I have less resentment toward those things in a way. I see how God was always trying to get my attention in the ways that I could hear at

the time. Like, I had a bus driver who used to share the gospel with me like every time I got on the bus. And I was like, yeah, man, whatever. Couldn't hear it at the time. I had a classmate whose mom would give her Bible verses in her lunch every day and we would just make fun of her. Like, you know, mock her mercilessly.

Alison, I'm sorry if you're listening. I'm not sure. So those kinds of things I couldn't hear it's only in hindsight that I realized oh He was always trying to get my attention in these little ways You know and even if at the time it didn't work now, I see it, you know that he cared. Yeah, he was calling me so These these friends also went to this youth group. It was like an evangelical youth group. They were always inviting me and I was like,

I'm not going to your youth group. Like I'm a witch. Like I don't think there's a place for me there. You know what I mean? So for like, I didn't know this till much later, but for two years straight, they had a prayer group that would go up on the Bayonne bridge on Tuesday nights and they would go up on the Bayonne Bridge on

Tuesday nights and they would look out over the, what is it, the Arthur Kill, I don't know what that is in Staten Island, that the Bayonne Bridge goes over. And they would pray for me for two years because they decided to choose the most hopeless case. And see, well, yeah, they were like, okay, she's the longest shot if she can get saved. Like, you know, so they prayed for me for two years. And during that time, about a year into that, I would say I agreed to go to the youth group. And it was pretty fun, you know, like, I could play the guitar. We you know, we hung out, we played games. The youth leaders were amazing.

They took us very seriously. They didn't patronize us. They weren't trying to be our buddies. They didn't wear Hawaiian shirts and have goatees, nothing like that. Oh. I look at him because he's always wearing Hawaiian shirts. Hawaiian shirts are the best.

You gotta have a goatee or a backward baseball cap. That's another thing I can't handle. The backward baseball cap is a child thing. If you're over 15 years old, here's what's worse than the backwards baseball cap. That's another thing I can't handle. The backward baseball cap is a child thing. If you're over 15 years old, here's what's worse than the backwards baseball cap. Even worse than that is when people use that reflective sticker and they don't take that off. I will not stand for that.

I can't say I know what that is. I think you should have said that either. I don't know. Or like, yeah, this is why I need Jesus. All right. No, seriously. If you're like, you're the worst. I'm like, I know. Yeah,'t know. Or like, yeah, this is why I need Jesus. All right. No, seriously. If you were like, you're the worst. I'm like, I know. Yeah, I know. Try being in me or me. Way worse than you think.

Yeah. Yeah. So I had these amazing youth leaders and anything I could throw at them, because I did like anything they would say about the Bible or about God or whatever. I'd be like, have you ever thought that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene? Like I just read that in a book. I was such a smart aleck, you know? Thought I knew everything.

And they just, I don't know, they didn't say it outright, but they were probably thinking bless your little heart. Can we smack you upside the head now? Like, thank God for patient Christians. When I went on my trip to Rome where I came to Christ or he came to me, I was with a bunch of young Catholic teenagers. Yeah. And I remember just swearing, just trying to shock people. I don't know what that was. I like shocking people. I did that so much. I was like, where does that desire come from? It's just a teenage. Is it? Yeah, it's the control. It's like I like, I'm not going to let anybody push me around or dictate my reality. I'm, I'm on top.

But you know what's weird is how does that couple with a desperate desire to be wanted and accepted? Because that's what teenagers are, isn't it? Like, that's what I was. I wanted to shock you. I wanted to be aggressive. But I deep down really wanted to be welcomed and accepted. I think it was like, yeah, because you want to know that whoever is whoever you're trying to shock can handle it. You know, like can you handle this? You know what I mean?

And if you can, all right, maybe I'll trust you. But just to wrap up that story, the people on that plane with me and on that pilgrimage were very patient with me. Yeah. Like your friends. Unbelievably patient with like my preaching vegetarianism and like all the, oh gosh, I look back on it

and I just cringe. I'm like 15, 16 year old me. Holy cow. Wow. So anyway, I was going to this youth group for about a year and... I think I would have really liked you. I think we would have been friends. Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

I've watched some interviews and I think, man, I think we would have been friends in high school. I was, yeah, anyway. So, okay. So this youth group had a real pre-memo on memorizing scripture and learning the scriptures. They were so good at that. There was nothing dumbed down about this group.

It was amazing. And so one night we were going through Galatians 5. Okay. And they start reading the the list of things according to the flesh, right? And it's like, you know, adultery, sexual immorality, but I'm just like, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And all of a sudden it said, sorcery and witchcraft. And I was like, what? Like, I thought I could do both of these things. It says not to do that. And it like, it was the first kind of like interruption

into this whole thing that I had built around myself, like this armor of spirituality that I had built around myself. And it was like the first arrow that kind of pierced and made me go, oh crap, I was going to swear, but I'm trying to get better. Me too. So, I don't know, kind of like went in and out, you know, kept going for a few months. And are you still having these compulsive thoughts all the time?

And... Are you still having these compulsive thoughts? All the time. All the time. Yeah. But trying to kind of stuff them down and, and, and I was doing really great in school. Like I was finally like finding myself as an artist and getting to know what I wanted to do with my life. And like from the outside, you would never have guessed that all this was going on inside.

And at that time also, like the abuse at home got really, really bad. And I just I never wanted to be home like the things that my I, I won't be careful how I talk about my mom, obviously, but it was bad. Okay, the the the verbal and the It was bad. Okay. The verbal and the sometimes physical abuse was awful. But I was putting on these airs of respectability and of professionalism. I was gigging by this time. I was already playing shows out.

I was really living by myself, really kind of trying to put this forward. By the way, when I say going home or encountering my mom or whatever, it was kind of like, even though they were separated, I was living in this apartment, but my siblings and my stepdad were still living in the house in Staten Island.

Occasionally, my mom would go back there and sleep. Occasionally, we would find ourselves in the same environment, never at the apartment, but sometimes at my stepdad's house. And that's where I would encounter a lot of this. So anyway, it's a Friday night. I'm 16. It's the end of my junior year. And I went to my friend's house,

and we were hanging out in his basement, in his room in the basement, and he tried to make a move on me. Now the whole kind of scene of sexuality for me was also very fraught because at that point I didn't know about this whistle blowing that I had done as a three year old. I didn't remember the abuse at that point. I was just confused. I was all over the place. I didn't know if I was straight or gay.

I didn't know like what I wanted to do or not do with guys or with girls. It was so confusing. And so when this guy, you know, it was the first time I had received like an overt solicitation. And it confused the heck out of me. I didn't know what to do because I had no reason to say no. And I didn't like him, but I also had no reason to say no. So I remembered very conveniently that it was Friday and at seven

o'clock there was going to be youth group. So I said, oh, I have a thing. I got to get to youth group. So I asked his mom to drive me. So we're driving over there. And I get to the church. And the way the church was, was like, youth group was in the basement, and the sanctuary was up here. But the narthex was like, had stairs, and it was like a kind of nether region.

It was like the in-between. So I just sat on the steps. Like couldn't bring my I was so ashamed at that episode that had just happened and by my thoughts and all of this stuff I was just in this state of like utter confusion is it dusty okay who says that when you look into the abyss the abyss looks back into you is it Nietzsche it sounds like me yeahsche in this room. That was what it was like. I couldn't bring myself to go downstairs.

I just sat on the steps and I started to sob my eyes out. Nobody was around. And I had this vision of the abyss and I was looking straight into it. And it was like on the outside, everything looked good. I was, you know, cool, funky artist in the 90s in New York, you know, like very much aware of that kind of persona of mine.

And on the inside, it was just like annihilation. I had no reason to live or die. I had no reason to sleep with somebody or not sleep with somebody. I had no reason boys or girls didn't met like I had no reason for anything in life. So I'm sitting there sobbing looking over the abyss and one of the youth leaders comes up and sees me a mess and he literally just sits down next to me and he just stays with me. He doesn't say a word. I must have sat there for half an hour. I'm just bawling my eyes out. He's just letting me cry. And then finally he says, you know,

people are going to start coming up here and I'm like, do you want to go in the sanctuary? So we go in there. Again, he just lets me cry and cry and cry. And finally, he said four words to me. Do you want Jesus? And it was like, keep in mind too, this is not the four spiritual laws this is not catechism this is not a sermon this is do you want Jesus and it was like everything in me like rushed together into this... I don't know, it was it just rushed together and all of a sudden out of my mouth came, yes. And as soon as I said yes, I had another vision and I mean I was there at the foot of the cross. And I was just at his feet.

Like his feet were right here. It's all I could see, just his toes and the nail. And in the vision, I backed up and I had piles of paper and I just crumpled up these pieces of paper. And I just, like with all my rage and my fury I just hurled them at his feet just throwing them one after the other just hurling him at his feet and they would pile up and pile up and pile up and pile up until they hit his little pinky toe and then everything disappeared and it was just his feet again and I did that like two

three times and then I heard the youth leader say to me, well, do you want to pray with me? And we said some prayer. I don't remember the prayer. But I knew that I knew that I knew that everything was different from that point on. And I didn't know why, because I didn't know what had happened. I just knew that I met this person So the next day we went to some amusement park or something We're on the bus and I said to my friends I think I got like saved last night Like I don't know what happened but like this thing happened and they were all like, you know, rejoicing and happy

They're like, oh my god, you know, and I'm like, I don't know what happened. But that night when I went home from that youth group, um, he gave, he like handed me a Bible from the pew, you know, it was just like, oh, freaking love Protestants who love Jesus. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. There was no intrusion. It was like, he let that moment be as holy as it needed to be. What a beautiful healing to because you know, so many of us have heard stories of our experienced things where we were preyed upon in our vulnerable moments, and you've had that in your history,

to have a man sit by you, and to not try to wound you, to try to take from you. What a beautiful healing thing. Yeah, yeah, it was amazing. I'm still in contact with him. Thank God for him. I want his number just so I can tell him I love him. You know what I mean? Yeah. His name's Bert Crabbe. He's amazing.

Bert? Bert. Yeah. No way. He's not 60s plus. He's not. He's not. He's not? No. Okay. Sorry, Bert.

He's close. So, yeah, so he handed me this pew Bible and he's like, go ahead and read this. I read that Bible all night. From where? I don't even know. Like Genesis? Where did you start? I think the Gospels.

I probably read the Gospels. I didn't even know too. It was like I just kind of opened it and I like fell head over heels in love with Jesus. I was like, oh my God, you were here this whole time? It was, yeah. And I'm telling you, like, it was not very long, and it wasn't people telling me to do this or that or not do this or that.

It was like, you don't need this anymore. That's over. That's done. That's done. I never looked back with the new age stuff. Like I, I just like wasn't interested anymore. I just, it was all him. It was just all him. It wasn't even church or youth group culture or whatever. It was just him. It was him. So I'm going to close the loop now on the astral projection story. So it's about a year later and I'm on a winter retreat with the youth group. A what retreat? A winter retreat.

Okay. So the speaker, you know, did his little talk and then he's like, if you want to stay behind in the chapel to pray, you know, blah, blah, blah, go ahead. Chapel's yours. So at the time I was struggling with some feelings of unforgiveness toward my stepdad, so I was like, well, I'll stay here and pray for forgiveness for my stepdad. I'm sitting there, it's kind of going nowhere. I'm like, Lord, help me, help me forgive him. And the same youth leader comes over and he's like, hey, how you doing?

and I'm like well Actually, I'm I'm here like praying for forgiveness But the real problem is I'm having these uncontrollable thoughts because they were still happening. Yeah all the time And he goes, um by any chance were you ever involved in witchcraft and I was like damn it Bert Were you ever involved in witchcraft? And I was like, Damn it, Bert. You know me. Right?

And I was like, how did you know? He goes, why don't you let me pray for you? So he starts praying for me. I don't even know what he was praying. He wasn't like doing an exorcism or anything like that. All of a sudden, I felt this being manifest. And I just start screaming, get out of me! Get out of me! And I felt like I was gonna vomit. It was horrendous. And you know, he was praying

for me, I was free. Totally free. Yeah. How did Bert react? I think he was happy. Go Bert. What a guy. Yeah.

So then what happened? Oh my gosh. What? Even just that day, what happened? You just got up, left the church and experienced just a peace inside of your head? Yeah, and I think, you know, like we went sledding or something. Yeah, it was like, never sure. I was like, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Oh my gosh. Well, even just that day, what happened? You just got up, left the church and experienced just a piece inside of your head? Yeah, it was like, I never struggled with that again. It's been 30 years. I just want to pause and say that in a day like this where truth feels so under assault and the traditions that ought to be ours by right were robbed us, we can be maybe too, well, triumphalist in our Christian tradition. And what I'm about to say isn't that it's all the same and whatever differences we have don't matter. But I think we forget that the Lord Jesus Christ is at work in all of these communities and his name is power.

Yeah. And he doesn't change even if the communities do. He's God. And that's not, I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm not a syncretist. You know, I am ecumenical within Christianity. And I would say I'm. But it's like, I think what I find so frustrating is I know that there would there would be a version of me that would want to tell Bert to get it together and to just finally realize this, that or the other thing that I as a Catholic believe. And all of that would have been, I think, true. Yeah. And yet here he is calling on the name of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is liberating this lovely young girl. You know, the worst case, the hardest case.

Yeah. Yeah, the long shot. The simpleton, the least qualified. Wow. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So yeah, where we go from here?

Did you share your faith with your mom or you not interacting with her at this point? I did share with them, uh, with my mom and my stepdad. Um, my stepdad was not happy. So like, even though I really had no relationship to Judaism at that time, I think he felt a bit betrayed, you know, that he had tried to raise me Jewish and maybe it didn't take or something. But I, but really from the very first, you know, the very earliest days of being a Christian, it clicked for me.

Like when I would read the gospels, I would be like, this is like so Jewish, like it's happening in Israel, like everybody's Jewish. You know what I mean? It just made sense to me in a way that I would find, I would still feel a little bit alienated from my friends who, it seemed like they thought Jesus came from France or something or like, you know, actually they were all, a lot of them were Norwegians. So like, Norwegians? Yeah, like Norwegian Jesus or something, you know, like, oh, he wasn't Norwegian. But yeah, yeah, so. So how did your Christian life develop after that? Well, I was really, really influenced also in high school by,

I had a lot of friends who were black from the black church and their kind of like charism and intimacy and friendship with the Lord like made a really big impact on me. And I felt like that was really deeply part of me. You know, so that was like high school and college were actually like that. You know, it was really, I would say, I didn't go full time to a black church, but I felt very comfortable in black churches. Maybe because of the music that I was used to, like we sang a lot of gospel in high school,

and you know, that felt very familiar and comfortable to me. Yeah, so I went to college for illustration. I did a very short stint one year in scene design for theater in North Carolina. And as a New Yorker going down to North Carolina, I was like, get me back home. I can't do this.

It was too much culture shock, you know. It was still very segregated at the time in the early 90s, so I didn't feel comfortable with that. But then I knew, like, I have to illustrate fairy tales. That's what I'm going to do with my life. So I transferred schools, I went to Parsons School of Design for illustration. That's all I wanted to do. And I think, too, as an artist, I know like a lot of Christians have difficulty reconciling the arts with their faith. I think I've come to understand that this seems to be

more of a Protestant problem because of the kind of iconoclastic atmosphere. Having images in church would be too Catholic or something like that, you know, and we don't want to do that, you know, I encountered a lot of that. And I'm like, what? I don't even understand what you're talking about. Like, it's Jesus. Like you guys like him too, right? I don't know. Yeah. These kinds of things have not really always made a lot of sense to me. You know? Yeah. How did you... I want to know how you became Orthodox. Oh, that was only last year. Yeah.

Yeah. So... So then, so, and how long have you been married? 25 years. Oh, golly. Yeah. Wow. I get the feeling that you're older than you look. You look young, but... Thank you. 25. Thank you. I've been married 17 years. Yeah. So did your, did you marry your husband? Was he a Christian? Yeah. Protestant, practicing evangelical. Yeah. Yeah. We met in college. We were playing at the same music festival and we were both musicians and artists. And I kind of accidentally visited

to him at his college. I was going to visit his friend, not in a romantic way or anything, but anyway, they were friends. And quickly realized that he was a serious artist and also a Christian. And this confused me because I was the only one that I knew that was like that.

I'm like, oh, at Tubertape? That's not the right reference. He wasn't about to stab Caesar, but anyway. So I, um, I fell in love with him hard, you know, like he took me to his art studio and like showed me around. I'm like, oh my gosh, you're really good. You're not just, you know, you're not making Jesus junk or like, yeah, lions holding flaming swords or something like that, you know what I mean? Like, oh, God forgive me. I'm so judgey. Did he wear a shell necklace? Ever?

He did not wear a shell necklace. Did he have bleach tips? Never. No, he has shaved head. Okay. Yeah. He has shaved head and round glasses and a dirty white t-shirt. Nice.

Yeah. He's the best. Okay. Yeah. Like copper bell bottoms. Okay. It's like exactly what you're after. My type. All right. Yeah.

Yeah, so we've been married 25 years. We got married as soon as I graduated from college. Yeah. Have two kids. Okay. Yeah. Adults. Wow.

Crazy. It is crazy. My son's in the Marines. Holly mackerel, how old are you? Do I say? Yeah. Adults. Wow. Crazy. It is crazy. My sons in the Marines. Holy mackerel. How old are you? Do I say? I think I've never understood why this is an offensive question, but apparently the

the females find this offensive. I'm 46. Okay. I don't feel 46. Yeah. I think. I thought you were definitely younger than that. That's the joy of the Lord Matt. Praise God Lord

so Did you and your husband? Have a I mean a faith-based Relationship have you absolutely in fact? Okay, so I will just scroll back a little bit Yeah, so to this the subject of teenage sexuality, right? Uh-huh. So all this confusion that I had, you know I dated a lot. And I never went all the way. And I think part of it was that I knew that I had the trauma

for my childhood, and I just, like, did not want it at all. Like, I would have been... In fact, when he and I met, I was looking into joining a lay order and, like like possibly just being celibate you know but I knew that I did not want to do the whole dating scene I didn't want to do that I was like I just I'm gonna meet somebody and get married if I'm supposed to be married and that'll be when I'm like 35, way down the line, you know, and then when I met him and it was like,

oh my gosh, it's him or nobody. We just developed a friendship because I didn't think he had any feelings for me at all. And we just developed this really deep friendship that was about our faith and about living pure, living for the Lord. I know people have a lot of things to say about purity culture, but for me, it was a godsend.

Like the message that I didn't have to do anything was like, I don't have to do anything. I don't like have to give my body to somebody just for whatever. It was such a gift. So when I met, you know, we both wanted to wait till marriage and we did. And it was like, oh, relief. So it was, we moved out of the city, you know, the New York area six years ago, and we thought, we moved into like New England, a little New England town, and we thought, oh, we'll just go to the local church. I don't care if it's Presbyterian, I don't care, you know, I just want to be the lady that shows up with the coffee cake, and like I'm there for 30 years,

and all I care about is I hear the gospel. Like, I don't care. I don't want to hear any kind of weird stuff or new ideas or whatever. Because we had been part of a church for a dozen years where my husband was a pastor and it kind of deteriorated very fast. And we had to leave that church under quite a bit of duress. We were actually excommunicated from that church, because things got very culty. And so I didn't want church to be complicated in any way. You know, I didn't want to go along with the whims of the pastor or the latest personality. Like I've never really had much to do with Christian culture in that way. I don't really read Christian books, you know, like popular books or any. I don't

know who the authors of note are or the musician. I don't listen to Christian music. Christian books, you know, like popular books or any, I don't know who the authors of note are or the musician, I don't listen to Christian music. I'm, you know. So I just was not very familiar with that culture. And I thought the less church culture I can have in that way, the better. I'll just bring the coffee cake, light a candle. That's it, you know.

So for three years or so, we were going everywhere we could, trying everything, and everything felt like a performance. And it felt like they were putting on a show for the people that were not sitting in the room. It was like all this wishful thinking for who they would prefer to be there, except the people who were actually there. I get that. Do you know what I mean?

Oh yeah. And you know, our kids were teenagers at the time and they weren't having it. They didn't like the youth group scene. And I'm like, this isn't like my youth group. This is so fake. Like, oh my gosh. So I was researching for one of my books,

A Cloud of Outrageous Blue, and I needed some like medieval research. And I had just started talking to Jonathan Paget at the time. And he mentioned orthodoxy. He mentioned the OCA, the Orthodox Church in America. And I thought, that sounds kind of like medieval. I bet I could get some research done there. So I, you know, Googled a church in my area. I found one 15 minutes away. We went to visit, we went to a Divine Liturgy. And the priest took us, you know, made a separate appointment with me and took me around the whole church, showed me everything, every icon, answered all my questions. And I got great research for the book, right? And then COVID hit.

And my kids anyway were like, not really able to stand for two hours during the Divine Liturgy, you know? They were a little too young for that. So COVID hits, we do the whole jammy church thing, you know, online jammy church with your hot mug of coffee. I was dying, I was like, this is not church, I need community, I need people, you know? And the culture in our town was not very social. I'm like an extrovert.

I'm like dying on the vine here. So finally I told Ben, listen, I'm just gonna start going to Vespers at that cool little Orthodox church over there. And I'll just like get filled up. And then wherever we go on Sunday morning is fine. It's irrelevant. Well, I kept going.

He started coming with me. And finally we thought, let's just. Well, I kept going. He started coming with me. And finally we thought, let's just try another Divine Liturgy. So the kids came back with us and it was like, instant, it clicked. It just clicked for all of us. And I think what we really loved about it was this feeling like none of it was there to cater to us

at all. This isn't about you. It's not about us. There were no screens. There were no colored lights. There was no... Hot cups of coffee. I mean, there was a smoke machine, you know.

Sure, old school. Father Tom Siroka told me that joke yesterday, so I'm using it. And yeah, it just felt like it fit somehow. It felt like, oh, this is what's going on around the throne for eternity, and we just get the privilege to step into it every Sunday and participate in what's already going on.

It was wonderful, you know? Martin Shaw calls it, do you know about Martin Shaw? He's an English storyteller. He just became Orthodox. And he says the first time he stepped into a divine liturgy, it felt like he was stepping into a Christian dream. You know, and like other people have called it like a living fairy tale, like the, you know, the fairy tale that's true, that I think C.S. Lewis,

you know, says that about the gospel and, you know, myth, the myth that is true. Thank you, thank you. Same thing. So yeah, so it just fits somehow. And I think we went through catechism for about a year and we're chrismated last fall. Beautiful.

Yeah. So. Well, that's beautiful. Let's take a pause and come back. Okay. Thank you Any center is capable of being a great saint. And any saint is the realization of this power that there is in each and every one of us.

For good and for evil. The good Lord would have us lay hold of what is worst in ourselves. Do not think that people who have virtue and kindness and other great talents just came by these things naturally. They had to work out them very hard. Any sinner is capable of being a great saint. And any saint is also capable of being a great sinner. Read them. Read them. Hi everybody. I want to tell you about two of our sponsors that I want you to add Reeds. Read them. Read them. Hi everybody.

I want to tell you about two of our sponsors that I want you to check out. The one is Emmaus Academy, which is part of the St. Paul Center, which Scott Hahn runs. And they've just created this new digital learning platform. And it's really quite cool. I know and you know what it's like just to waste. How many hours a week do you think just sort of ferreting around on YouTube and Hulu or whatever else looking at things that you probably is doing no edification. It's not even restoring you in a kind of natural way.

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They now have these new daily exegesis from the daily readings. So I was listening to that today. It's really beautiful. The other night, I played a sleep story to my son. There is just so much on it and it's so well produced. I think it's the greatest app I've ever used. Maybe Delta is better. I don't know. But like maybe not. Delta's got a great app. I like the Delta app. Uber's probably a good app. But this probably is the best app. The fellow who started this used to be into Buddhism and things like that. And there was a mindfulness app started by a

Buddhist and he was into that. And when he became a Catholic, he said, we should start something for Catholics to help them pray and meditate. Yeah, it's really good. If you go to hallo.com slash Matt, click the link in the description. You can try it for free for three months. It's awesome. And I 90 days, I did try it free for three months and then I kept my subscription because it was so good. It's yeah, it is true.

Hello.com slash Matt. I'm not going to tell you what any of the competitors codes are. Yeah. Yeah. And if you sign up, if you sign up on the app, it's more expensive and Apple gets a cut. That's why we're saying go to hello.com slash Matt sign up there. Look here, I'm going to give you a total out here on your calendar, set a reminder

for two months that tells you to cancel that app not three months because then you'll forget and then two months in a day then you cancel it and you get the you the next you cancel it before the next charge and you still get the three months yeah stay big brain you're welcome do it but I don't think you will I think you'll use it and you're like this is really great and then you'll want to support this amazing group of people who are doing good stuff. Yeah I sent you a slack by the way. You sent me a slack uh oh okay sweet and while Matt checks that uh if you guys send super chats we'll try to get them asked but no guarantees on super chats because we give priority to locals. Also can

we make an announcement about this local stream that you're doing for me tomorrow? Oh yeah, sorry. So tomorrow at noon, we will be live streaming and it will be only, it'll be an unlit, the link will be only shared to locals, but it's not a local supporter stream. We'll also be having it for people who are signed up to our locals for free. So if you are not yet signed up to the locals, even as a free member, go to matfrad.locals.com and sign up tomorrow at noon.

Melanie, the business manager and Matt and I's boss. Yeah, let's be honest. Yeah, she's our boss. She's the greatest person ever. Have put together a birthday surprise for Matt. And we'll be streaming it live. That's why I look confused. I don't know what's happening.

I don't know, thank you. Matt has no idea what's going on. So if you want to experience Matt's surprise at the surprise along with Matt, it's going to be Thursday jumping out of a cake naked. It's not. It's not. You don't see that. Speaking about compulsive thoughts.

I just gave that to Brett Cooper. All right. Anyway, so move on. Go back to the show. We're done. We so cool. Move on. Back to the show. We're done. Hey, would it be OK if we took questions from our supporters? I love these people and I don't want to give them the shaft like last time we had Dr. Berg's and we're on.

We didn't ask a single question. Yeah, we didn't. Yeah, because he had to go. We're going to have him back on real soon, though. He was amazing. So try it. I know you might feel like you're doing some sort of injustice to the questioner by giving a short answer, but try to give a short answer because we have so many

questions. That's okay. Sure. Tony RVA says, what would you say to a curious teenager who is dabbling in Wicca to think and thinks it's harmless? It's not harmless. You let demons in. Keep going. Sorry. Yeah. You're playing with demons. Like, I mean, everybody who's come out of Wicca will tell you, I didn't realize what I was playing with. Satan masquerades as an angel of light, and he really, really does. So don't think that for you, it's going to be different. But if someone had said that to you when you were into Wicca,

that probably wouldn't have helped. Nobody did say that to me. They could have given you the choice. It's kind of like, what could you say to a teenager who wants to have sex before marriage? You could at least say, don't do it. You could at least say, there's another way. There's an alternative path. This leads to this, this leads to that.

You know what you could do is you could have them listen to this show, Tony. Oh yeah, you could do that. And we'll be doing some clips that are specifically on this topic. So check that out. Sometimes somebody, you know how like the universal is told in the particulars, you know? Yes. So sometimes you can tell somebody like universal truths or whatever, but unless you hear somebody telling their own story, it's just going to be kind of meaningless sometimes. Kyle Whittington says it's very easy for someone to feel like they're too far gone to ever approach a faith like Catholicism or Holy Orthodoxy.

What does that path to Christ look like for someone who went off the deep end? I mean, the parable of the prodigal son? I mean, nobody is too far. Look at Paul, you know, he was complicit in murder. He stood by holding the coats of people. You know what I mean? It's like- I know what you mean.

I write about the Holocaust, you know, and so a lot of what I'm interested in is the people who may not have pulled the trigger, so to speak, or put the Zyklon B gas in the chute, right? But the ordinary people who just kind of stood by and did nothing and were complicit in murder, like you know what I mean? God can heal anybody and bring them to him. Mason Hickman This is a nice point. Can you just quickly tell us about some of your books? And so I said this to you in the car, I think, or when

we were walking over, I forget when I said it, I was on the phone with you. You sent me a book that you had written. Now people send me lots of things all the time. I just, I don't even know how they get our address, just shows up at the studio. And sometimes I look at it and I think, this is great, like good for them. But I don't think this is actually amazing. Your book was like that. And I don't know if you brought any of those books. Like what? My book was...

The book you wrote about the two brothers... Like Bless Her Heart No. No, no, no. On both sides of the Berlin Wall. I mean, I didn't... I have only read like three or four chapters, I've got to be honest. But I was shocked at how good it was. Did you bring any of your books with you?

I did. Can you please sign one book for my daughter Avalon when you meet her and give it to her? Yes. No, I have I have good books. I want to shame her into reading books because these books are for not just for adults. So I write for young adult. I write young adult historical fiction. Yeah. But I've been an illustrator for, you know, 30 years or so. And just so people know, we have a link to her books, to Vespas books

in the description to her. And they're really, really, really good. Like I'm so honored we have a link to her books, to Vespa's books in the description to her. And they're really, really, really good. Like I'm so honored to have you on the show. Thank you. It's so funny because usually when I'm doing an interview, it's about my books and we have, we're only now starting to talk about what I actually do in life. And there's somebody who writes very poor fiction. I know what good fiction looks like. Well, I didn't start writing until I was 35. Okay. Yeah. I was just an illustrator and a songwriter. You know, I journaled a lot.

I wrote a lot of poetry, bad poetry and some good poetry and songs. But I, you know, I'm on a real journey with the Lord, man. Who knows where it'll end up? Who knows? Jason of Old says, I came out of Norse paganism and struggled off and on for 11 years with a desire to go back to the gods, even though I know they are demons. Do you have that struggle? And if so, what do you do?

Any particular devotions that help? Oh, that's such a good question. So I'm not because I had such a personal encounter with Jesus, I'm not really tempted to go back to that stuff because it just feels so hollow to me now. I figure like all the riches are in Him and like I can only ever eternally get closer and discover more about who he is. So I do feel quite devoted to, now I don't know how theologically this sounds, but I'm quite devoted to the wound in his side. I feel like that is where I live. And Mother Maria Sklopstova talks about this too, just like, you know, just being in the wound,

like being in the wound of the world, basically. And I do feel that because of my story, I always live there. I live in the wound, but in such a deep joy in him, like that is unshakable. I feel tucked right up there by his heart, like tucked right there. It's hard to describe. No, I know what you mean because I live in the womb of Mary. I'm constantly just hanging

out there. It's so weird to people who don't know that kind of language. Yeah, it's like we're going to lose viewers real quick with this stuff. No, I'm kidding. But I mean, if you think about the Sacred Heart, like, that's what I'm talking about. I'm, like, tucked up there, you know? Where it's safe and nothing can hurt me. And it's also where worlds are created and creativity comes from and joy is there. And like... So this is your devotion. This is the in response to this fellow's question. That's the devotion. Sometimes I am tempted to, to say like, well, that certain practice, like, what's so wrong with that? Like, can't I, okay. So like my massage therapist,

suggested that I get a certain crystal to deal with my stress, right? And like for many months I was like, should I go get that crystal? Cause there's like a crystal shop to deal with my stress, right? And like for many months, I was like, should I go get that crystal? Cause there's like a crystal shop in my town, like should I go? And I pass it all the time and be like, oh, what's the harm? What's the harm?

But then something in me just always checks it and goes, there's nothing for you there. It's an inert rock. You know, there's nothing for you. You know, like go take a walk in the woods. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe to this point more Tony asks, what are your thoughts on yoga? If any? Do you have any? No, no pressure to have a bunch of thoughts on yoga. I don't have a lot of thoughts on it. I did practice it for quite a while. Um, I have friends who teach holy yoga and whatever. I don't know. I don't feel a conviction about it one way or the other.

I think because I was in the Hare Krishna movement, I do feel a bit triggered by stuff like that. I just like kind of don't wanna go back there. But also I had a car accident 10 years ago that precludes me from doing stuff like yoga. Really? So I don't know. This may be an unsatisfactory answer.

I want to let people know I interviewed a fellow called Alex Frank. Already in the description. You're the man who's a former yogi and actually let people who have a conviction about it answer that question. It was a two hour one 30 minutes. He's got some great facts in there that people don't know that people should. If you're someone who's like, every time someone's trying to tell me why yoga is wrong, I've never been convinced.

That was me. Right. I was like, come on, just calm down. Like not everything has to be evil. Yeah. Um, but he actually had a really nuanced take on it. But I thought I would say like the people that I have listened to that are against yoga, I completely see what they're saying.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, Ethan R says, you spoke a good bit on fantasy stories and fairy tales. What's your take on the idea that things like D and D and Harry Potter or other fantasy stories are demonic? Do you think fantasy as a genre is something Christians need to avoid? Where are those lines? I don't think it's something you need to avoid as a genre. That would be throwing a lot of

babies out with a lot of bathwater. Including Tolkien. Right. Yeah. And Nicholas Cotar, who's a fantasy writer. Because I don't read a lot of it now, I would say somebody like Nikki would be more articulate on this point. But I would say Harry Potter always felt funky to me, to be honest, and I didn't let my kids read it. And I would tell them why I didn't want them to read it. My daughter did wind up reading it in like,

early high school or middle school, because we had talked about it. And because I told her what things to look out for. So I felt like and we we did it in conversation with each other and even read it together. So yeah stuff like that. With all my books too I feel like I trust the parent too and this is a big thing with me is like I don't I write with parents in mind. I write with the whole family in mind. So I'm not trying to like do an end run around that to kind of like get kids into whatever it is that I'm into. I'm not into that.

Christian Madore says, I'll be watching what time? So that's not a question. Okay, Grady says, as a fellow ginger, what's your favorite ginger joke? Oh gosh. I don't know any ginger jokes. All right. He should have shared his. Sorry. Yeah. Paul LaHood. LaHood. LaHood. He does our timestamps for us. He's the best.

We love you Paul. We love you Paul. I even offered to pay him and he's like, no. He just offers this amazing stamps for us. He's the best. We love you Paul. We love you Paul. I even offered to pay him and he's like, no. He just offers this amazing service for us. He's a genius too. And for everybody. Unironically, he's like actually. Yeah, not like when you say I'm a genius.

No, he's got a full ride to his college. What a guy. He's a genius. If you speak with, if you could speak with any saint from the first century, who would it be? Why them and what would you discuss? from the first century, who would it be? Why them? And what would you discuss? From the first century, like the apostles? Or is well, you can't go past the blessing, are they?

I mean, my gosh, like my patron saint is Saint Philip, the apostle. OK. And he's been following me around for a long time, since way before I was Orthodox. So I would definitely I mean, I do like have conversations with him like, okay, teach me how to like do the come and see thing, you know? Like make me better at that, you know, pray to the Lord that I would like have those kinds of,

well, I might not have the answer, but like come and see, I like, I'll point you to somebody who does, you know? Like, let me introduce you to somebody, you know? And, you know, just like with the gospel, like I wanna be somebody who isn't just like, let me tell you how it's done, but just like, come in where I am, like, it's really nice in here. You know, there's like a lot of joy.

Burt, like Burt. Yeah. Maya says, I had similar interests in my youth because of which I have collected a number of books and objects that I had to destroy after my conversion. Some are still in my parents' house waiting for me to snatch them. Did you have a collection yourself and what happened to those items? Sure did, honey child. I sure did. And I burned them all. I burned everything. I burned or tossed everything. Like all my books. I had a nice little bonfire in my garage, which wasn't the best idea, maybe. But a better idea than keeping them. You know? Yeah. Even like, I was really into Led Zeppelin at the time

and I couldn't listen to, I mean, I can now. Love Led Zeppelin. But at the time there was music I couldn't listen to. I couldn't eat Indian food for a long time. That would kind of bring stuff back. Okay. Yeah. I would say if you have a funny feeling about it

or you know it's connect, get rid of it and don't give it to somebody else. Like pray over it. Renounce any connection to it and just to be clear for those watching, you're not making, you're not saying like my crystals or let's say a Ouija board is on par with Indian food. I know what you mean, but just maybe explicate that. Yeah, no, of course I'm not saying you shouldn't eat Indian food. I love Indian food. I hate Indian people? Oh god, this took a bad turn. No, no. My husband's actually about to go to India for the 11th time next week. But the point was just that during this phase in your life, these were things that you were

engaging. Yeah, it's like when you know that you were engaged in something and had attachments to like dark spiritual things, like you should break those attachments. Yeah. Oh, to be fair, though, Indian food is one of the greatest foods on earth. Absolutely. Is it tiki masala? Is that what they call it? Yeah, masala. Thank you. Somebody asked a good question. They didn't super chat or anything, but I like the question. So can you talk about why relics are different than crystals? I could see a Protestant misunderstanding and thinking they're the same thing. Yes. And as a former Protestant, okay, with the whole Orthodox thing.

Well, at the very least, you would say, you would point to a couple of verses in sacred scripture, right, like Peter's shadow or Paul's handkerchief. Exactly. Or the fringes of Jesus' garment. Exactly. That's seetheit off his garment. That had a connection. So I would want to say to the person, explain those to me.

What was it about that? Because whatever your answer is, that's very different to an inert rock, like you said earlier. You don't like that? Yeah, I mean, I see where that person's coming from, but I think the difference is the spirit. Like one is connected to the devil and one is connected to the Lord. One's real.

I want, yeah, I don't know. Also I think there's something beautiful about being a humble son and daughter of the church. Yeah. Like because the church told me that's why I do it. Because Christians from in all centuries have given reverence to relics. I want to answer it this way. Okay. Um, cause I did want to talk to you about relics actually, because I did the scavi tour. We have St. Thomas Aquinas in that reliquary there. That's pretty cool. Not all of Thomas Aquinas, but just a small chip.

A little bit. Big on the inside. Yeah, and we have relics of St. Nectarios in our church, and we had a piece of the True Cross for a while. So Ben and I went to Rome in November, like partly because I hadn't had a vacation in forever, but partly because as we were newly Orthodox and we were visiting our friend over there, I thought, oh gosh, like I've been to Rome a bunch of times, but I've never looked at the ancient roots of our faith. So here's a perfect opportunity.

So I know you're supposed to book the scabby tour like months in advance. I didn't either. And I got in, I got into, wasn't it amazing? Oh my gosh. I loved it so much. I was like, um, I heard we could see the bones of Peter. And they're like, talk to the Swiss guards and like I used the best of my Italian which is very rusty and At long last, you know, the guy was like come back at 130 So it was great and we had such an experience there by the time you get to the end and you actually see his bones I was like, I was in tears. Yeah, I think this is what what relics do for me. They go, they make me say,

this is all real. Yeah. Like it's not in the realm of theory or anything like that, you know? Yeah. So after we came back, we saw Paul's chains, we, you know, we were at his tomb in St. Paul, outside the walls. We saw the chains that he had while he was under house arrest. And I think it was after I came home from that, that you had the gentleman on who talked about the shroud. I'm a- Isn't that incredible? I'm a believer.

Yeah. Because for me, it's not just like, oh, look at this cool object. It's like, oh, the resurrection is real. Like, you know, and there's no other way to explain this object. So I don't know. So anyway, I went to Israel in May, and that was another thing that was just like, it just hit me again and again. Like this is all I've been walking with the Lord for 30 years. You know, and it's kind of like the way that I feel about it is that just like Jesus began his ministry at 30, I'm at 30 years now, and there's like more ahead for me, you know,

there's like an adventure, a new adventure that he's calling me on and relics feel like part of that. Just the tangible reality of our faith. And so when I was in Israel, I got the icon made without hands tattooed on me just to remind me like, no, this is real. And I was, I was there. Like I walked. Yeah. I want to give a shout out to that interview with father Andrew Dalton Which is almost got a million views right now and for good reason if you have not watched that do yourself a favor, right? Yeah that and the Eucharistic miracles. Oh, by the way, I am also type AB blood So I just it's just all these things that feel like little tokens from the Lord the like no You're really with me like, you know, you're mine you belong to me. So that's my long answer about relics. That's beautiful. Thank you

Let's see Back to the first question What does she say to someone who would say that it only affects the person dabbling in it? So why does it matter? What does that mean? The it only why does it matter if somebody's dabbling in witchcraft it only affects them What does that mean? Why does it matter if somebody's dabbling in witchcraft if it only affects them? Because you don't know what that person is calling on on your behalf either. You know, like when I was in it, I was definitely trying to cast spells on other people.

Was I telling them that I was casting spells on them? No. Yeah. You know, I don't know what damage I did then, but also I was a terrible person to the people around me. Like I was, I was horrible. I was just angry and bitter and confused. You know, I wasn't a good person. I was dealing with real darkness, you know, and that definitely bled onto other people. So that's just me. Patrick says, did Vespa experience any spiritual attack other than the intrusive thoughts during her conversion?

If so, what kind? Did she notice a difference in spiritual attacks after being confirmed in the church? I mean, spiritual attacks now feel very external. They feel like something coming at me rather than something that's inside. You know, and so I can, you know, raise the shield of faith and be like, pew, pew, like not today. Thank you. Kirsten says, I always live in super old houses, currently 180 years old house,

and often feel like there are spirits around, but they don't feel maleficent. I actually feel comforted by them, especially when I'm saying my rosary, should I not be okay with this? You're on your own here, Beth. Oh boy. I feel like you should talk to an exorcist about that.

Yep. Good answer. Yeah. And we've had a couple of interviews with exorcists on the show, so you can look them up too. I live in a house that's 240 years old. You win. I don't feel any presences there except the Lord.

Tim Paul, probably not the temple. Tim Paul says how ought contemporary Orthodox slash Catholic art look sound feel Wow Such a complicated question. I feel like I'd have to see that Rather than informing the culture as in the medieval times and the Renaissance the church now has to resist a culture with artistic expression which seems like an exciting spot to be in and a expression, which seems like an exciting spot to be in and a call to answer. But I have yet to find something that does that as well as it maybe should. So I think what he's saying is like, what should contemporary good Christian art look like?

Okay. This is something that I've been having conversations about for 30 years that often devolves into just like mush. Okay, let's see. conversations about for 30 years that often devolves into just like mush. Okay, let's see. And I, it feels like an artificial separation for me. I don't make Christian art, but all of the art that I make is informed by my Christian understanding of the world.

That includes human nature, it includes psychology, it includes mass movements of totalitarianism and how people act under duress and how people act when they're gripped with fear and how a society acts when they're gripped with fear. So like, is that not Christian art? Of course not. It's informed by that understanding of how humans are, right? But

also what is available to us in a redemptive capacity. Does that make sense? I think so. Yeah. So I kind of want to show what it looks like when one character heads toward a path of redemption and when one character heads toward destruction. Like there's nothing wrong with showing that. We need to know those things, right? As far as what kind of art comes into the church, I'm not really a fan of churches like setting up art galleries and things like that. I feel like the church is a sacred space that's meant for art that is devotional and liturgical and meant to bring the people toward worship because that's what the place is for. You know, I'm not into

like mixed use buildings. They feel like if it's everything, then it's nothing. But would you be okay with there being a Christian art show off a church premises somewhere? Sure, but what does that even mean? Christian art show? Are we talking lions with flaming swords? No. And why don't you like that? Because that shouldn't exist.

Yeah, but why? Well, because it's kitsch and campy and it's... What makes something kitsch and campy? I'm not trying to drill you. Yeah, I'm just... Because I'm with you, but I don't know how to explain you. Yeah, I'm just, cause I'm with you, but I don't know how to explain it. It's kind of like, you know, when you see it,

you know what I mean? Let me show you what I mean. I was in Africa, Uganda preaching, and I realized that there was this noticeable lack of both sarcasm and cynicism. And also, I mean, this is my narrow experience, you might say, but it was mine and I think it was real.

Also, there was a lack, there was no cheesy radar. And I've often thought that maybe sarcasm, cynicism and finding things cheesy somehow goes together. And so I'm wondering, yeah, like, what is it? Is it something in us that needs to be healed so that we no longer see it as? Or is it something embedded in the object that is by its very nature, something that shouldn't exist? You know? I mean, I think that a lot of the difficulties that we have with art

are very modern problems, because if you look, you know, before. You know, I know 1800 or something like that like most art was Public like in the churches or it was In the palaces, you know, there was very little like commercial art, you know, like maybe when newspapers and pamphlets and tracts started to get published or something, like you started to kind of blur the lines and get into more like popular art,

but that didn't really kind of exist before then. Like the art that people were encountering was not from something that was advertised to them. Like that's a very modern thing, right? Yeah. The art that most people would encounter would be in church. So now when you have like the appeal to the individual and or to the demographic or whatever,

and you have all of these objects and then it just starts to get all confused and muddy, so I think that there's a movement among artists back toward traditional ways of, you know, it's getting less abstract. Like people are like gravitating more toward figurative art, you know, more toward traditional stuff that's less confusing. And I don't know, I'm value neutral on that. You know, my husband's an abstract expressionist painter. Right? So, and I love his work and I love a lot of modern painting, but it's all kind of muddied up there

with like the commercial stuff. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, interesting. So then does it have maybe more to do with the avenue through which art is being pushed? Like maybe that's the thing that's kind of poisoning this art more so than the art itself. Does that make sense?

Like you talked about pamphlets and it being targeted to a demographic or an individual. Is it that kind of process that's maybe? Just creating a lot of junk. It's really hard to sort through the junk. It's also a lot easier to make art today than it was. Well with AI, yeah. Well that, that I mean, yeah, fair enough. Yeah. I have an interesting art question. Can I ask it? Yeah, please. Okay, what is your favorite

artist? Sorry, I know I can't see you, but I'm looking at you on screen. Okay. The computer screen's in the way. What's your favorite artist in each of the major mediums? Like painting, sculpting, drawing, like in those like major mediums. I'm like, how granular do you want to get about mediums? You want to talk about watercolor, oil, acrylics, whatever you want. Talk about the show is best when people talk about what they love and know about. Yeah. Okay.

Well, I'm going to give a shout out to my favorite illustrator, who's also my dear friend Felicia de Sala. You know that she is a great artist, but Burt probably wasn't. I don't know that Burt ever did it. Yeah, like just with the name like Felicita. Felicita. She's my friend in Rome. Yeah, everybody should buy Felicita's books and she's also in Ossie. Does she live there still? No, she's in Rome. Yeah, of course she is. Yeah. Do you have strong opinions on painters or like he said, like?

Um, yeah, I have. I have favorite, mostly illustrators. I don't. Oh gosh, I saw her. I saw a painting recently. I'm not going to remember it. So I shouldn't have brought it up. It just came out of my mouth.

Often I find my experience is looking at art that other people tell me is amazing. And I, I'm jealous that they find it amazing But I can't seem to right. I think that you just kind of like but there was this one There was a medieval painting that I saw that absolutely blew me away Yeah, I think people just like what they like and that's okay Yeah, how is that line like because a lot of us just haven't been cultured as it were I haven't been shown beautiful things.

So we get a taste for the banal. It's true. And the artists can get very like snooty about it and kind of hide things away in a sort of salon mindset like, oh, this isn't for the masses. This isn't for the plebes. Like this is, you know, only for the intellectuals. And I just, that's garbage. But which is I think why I like illustration so much, because it is a very populist kind

of, you know, approach to making art. It's like you're trying to communicate a message, not just a message, but like a text, you know, you're trying to make it not just easy for people to understand, but to like deepen their understanding of whatever it is they're reading. What's your favorite author? Who's your favorite author? Dostoevsky is they're reading. What's your favorite author? Who's your favorite author? Dostoevsky's hard to beat. Chaim Potok is-

Who's that? He wrote The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev. Yeah, Jewish American writer. It's amazing. Chaim Potok. Who's that brilliant American author who just died? He wrote The Road and Cormac McCarthy. Have you ever read Cormac McCarthy?

No, I have some books at home. He's incredible. Yeah. It's nice when you encounter modern art. You're like, oh, this, it's not like this isn't possible anymore. Yeah. It's really hard to go from Dostoevsky to anything. It very much is.

Yeah. I, as I said, I've been reading the Brothers Caramassa for 10 years, like my first reading. Okay. Yeah. I'm taking it real slow. I'm very much like a, like I take a bite, I chew on it for like a year, you know, and with him you can do that. Stinking Liseveta.

Talk about the simpleton. Yeah. It was so beautiful how the village loved her and clothed her. There's nobody that understands human psychology like Dostoevsky. And I always read brothers when I'm writing. Yeah, always. I don't read a lot of fiction when I'm writing because I don't want to get other people's voices in my head, especially like any contemporary. I don't really love a lot of contemporary writing. How do you find your work satisfactory when you know it's not Dostoevsky?

Like, do you ever write and go, this is just shit? Of course. And you, you, it's like, you have to suppress the gag reflex of your own, you know, your own mediocrity and just kind of press forward and be like, well, I'm telling this story. And so I have to trust that God gave me this idea for this time, you know, I'm about to embark on another book right now

that's I'm pretty excited about. And this is after like, I told myself back in the fall that I was done with writing. I actually quit. After I came back from Rome, I quit. Why? It's really hard. Writing fiction is unbelievably hard.

It takes me two or three years to write a book. Most authors are not bestsellers. Like 99% of us are not bestsellers because there's just a different set of parameters that publishers are looking for to make best sellers. And they're the ones that are more, you know, popular sensibility or whatever. And I'm dealing with like really hard stuff in my books. You know, Holocaust, plague, totalitarianism, like burgeoning, you know, issues in our own culture and whatever,

and, you know, trying to tie those in historically. And I don't shy away from stuff, and I think that's not everybody's favorite flavor. So what's your gauge on whether or not your book was actually good? If it's not sales, so what do you look to to go? Okay, I think I. I really trust my team I'm at Knopf Penguin Random House and there are really literary house

Or really literary imprint within Penguin Random House so I trust that if they want me to still keep writing books that There there's something that they're seeing, maybe that I'm not. But I also just kind of feel like my grid is, am I being true to this character? Or am I imposing something on them? Plano O'Connor talks about that. About how we got to shy away from making our characters, our puppets to say our little... Absolutely. And you can smell that a mile away.

Oh my gosh. And to be honest, a lot of young adult fiction is like that. It's like it breaks the fourth wall so badly and you just hear the author's agenda and it's not fun to read. It's really sad. It's really boring. It reminds me of the cheesy Christian films. Yeah.

It's the same thing. Laura, it's no longer a story. It's just a sermon. It's just a sermon. It's just a sermon or an allegory, like a straight one-to-one allegory. You're like, ah, this is drudgery. I can't get past like 15 pages in those books. Sorry. Like I'm a slow reader, I'm a chewer, so if I'm gonna devote my time to a book, oh man, it's got to be really good. Do you read your books to your husband as you're writing them or?

Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, he's like my number one editor and he'll tell me, cut this, this is crap. He can be like necessarily brutal and kind. You know, he's definitely also my biggest cheerleader. But I think because we're both artists, you know, we know where we're coming from and like we want to help each other get better. So it's been a really harmonious match. Thank God. I've had the experience a lot of like writing a short story and rewriting it and rewriting it and spending so much time in it that it's like there's no flavor for me left in it. I hate it so much. But then I find out it's actually

not as bad as I thought because it was just that I had spent so much time in it. Is that your experience or no? Yeah, it's really hard to detach from the thing that you've created and not see all the flaws in it. Like with my illustrations, I like as I'm working on them, I'm like, oh, this is so life giving. I like I'm communing with the Lord as I'm painting. It's such a rich experience. And then I get the book and I'm like, oh, shoot. I don't like how I drew that hand.

And oh, this composition's all wrong. Or like, why'd I use that color? So I just see the flaws, but I just have to trust if other people are having an emotional connection to it and they're getting something out of it, I just have to release that, you know. What do you think of the stereotype that all artists are moody and melancholic? Is that you and your husband's experience or no? I'm not. I'm really not emotionally driven. And for like, I don't really deal with the Enneagram anymore,

but it kind of helped me to see like, oh, there are like among my art friends, just different kinds of personalities. I won't say that out loud, but that was, oh my gosh. Yeah, and a lot of them are that. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm double that. Yeah. Skullcracker.

Yeah. Yeah. Like justcracker. Yeah. Yeah. Like, just don't, please don't waste my time. I got work to do. You know? Yeah. Because your husband is a filmmaker. Yeah. Again, this is another experience where like people send me stuff all the time.

And I think you said to me, like, my husband did this little film and you're probably like, bless his heart. I'm like, I'm sure it's great. But like, I'm gonna watch it because I don't know you and him It's and I and I started watching. I'm like, holy crap. Yeah, he's really good. Yeah. Yeah, he's really good Yeah And we were talking about the sound of freedom movie. Yeah, what did you think of that? We're supposed to go together last night, but I was so happy and forgive me, but I'm gonna repeat it for our listeners

Yeah, it was all sold out. Yeah. I'm like, what about the next showing? Sold out. So you want to sit on a Monday night. Yeah. And then tonight sold out. Yeah. Unless you want to go to like 11 p.m. showing. I want to go tonight, but I'm pretty sure it's sold out. Yeah. You're going to have to like book it a week in advance or something. Yeah. It was really it was really good. We talked a lot about it this morning because Ben does make a lot of films dealing with sex trafficking. Does he? Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

What was his take on it? He thought it was really good. Yeah. He thought like, you know, we had a conversation about the filmmaking aspects of it and he felt like, Oh, I have the same criticisms of it that I would have with any other film, right? But he's like an insider. he knows what he's looking at. But he felt like this is absolutely something that needs to be talked about, and the reception that it's getting, the negative reception that it's getting is shameful.

Why? Because people that are downplaying the trafficking of children as a problem. Are they downplaying it, or are they? Or attributing it to conspiracy theories or whatever. It's like, I'm sorry if you dismissing it, then you're part of the problem. Yeah. If you're trying to sweep this under the rug, like what's wrong with you? Because this is happening.

Yeah, if you don't even if you have criticisms, if you don't lead with a seriously sympathetic foot. Yes. Like if your first thing is just to pull it apart, as opposed to, of course this is happening, my God, thank God someone's beginning to address it. And yet I have these criticisms. Fine, critique it on its merits. It's the same thing with, you know, books or art of any kind.

It's like critique it on its merits. Don't make ad hominem attacks about the people who are creating it. Like what is the problem it's trying to address? Take it for that. I want to see what's how's it doing? I want to see how it's doing. Weren't they trying to get like two million?

Let's see this came out 15 hours ago. Sound of freedom earns 40 million at the box office. An independent dramatic thriller, yada yada yada, has made 40 million since the 4th of July right behind Insidious, The Red Door and Indiana Jones. But it was above those. It was crowdfunded. I think on the, I don't know if it was ever above it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

But I think the first day it brought in more than Indiana Jones. Is that relative to budget or I see relative to budget? And given the fact that it's not in nearly as you adjusted for the budget of the movie and the number of theaters showing it, it like doubled Indiana Jones on that. Like those adjustments. Yeah, not straight. I think it was like for maybe almost. I'm sure I see the numbers in my head, like I can see the shape of the numbers. I can't remember what the numbers actually are, because I was looking at the chart

the other day. It made it like 50 percent less, maybe of Indiana Jones. But if you adjusted for the budget of the movie and how many theaters india was in yeah um Angels like speak of a cringy name like angel studios. I think of that. I just think that sounds Whatever it sounds on the two on the nose, however, they're doing this stuff Well, it says look at this his only son. I haven't seen that I've seen the trailer for that came in fourth fourth behind Dungeons and Dragons, John Wick 4 and Scream 6 at the box office in April. I also really like their VidAngel project. It's really cool. Are you familiar with that project?

No. I know the fellow who started VidAngel. We spoke at a conference together. This is back before it was mainstream, but I didn't know that the two of them are collaborating. I think VidAngel and Angel Studios are the same company. Oh, but that angels are really cool thing. It's basically if if you have a streaming service, you connect that streaming service to your vid angel account. And then you can tell vid angel what you don't want to see and what you're watching. It'll skip those scenes for you.

That's interesting. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to be honest, like I deal with dark stuff in my books, but there's stuff I can't tolerate. Like there's stuff that I've heard stories I can't repeat even off camera. They've they were so traumatizing to hear. I mean, the first the first 10 minutes of Sound of Freedom, like I was definitely triggered. I was going to ask you that.

Yeah, I did ask you that before the show, given your past. Yeah, it was hard to take. Like I was sweating, you know, and I've done a lot of work, you know what I mean? I've had a lot of therapy, like a lot of therapy, and a lot of healing from the Lord, but it was hard. In that therapy, we mentioned earlier how untreated trauma kind of shows up in physical ailments later on on like it comes back Yeah, what healing if any have you experienced through therapy? Mm-hmm physically mentally. Yeah Well actually wait till my wife comes in. She's right here. Hello Cameron

Hey, you want to come in take a seat. I just asked this question supernaturally Do you want my mic? Oh, no, it's I That's okay. That's not I just wanted her to hear it. And you want my mic? Oh, no, it's that's OK. That's I just wanted to hear it. Thank you, though. I was I was asking Vespa who experienced sexual abuse as a very young child about.

Well, you say better than me how trauma shows back up in bodily ailments and things he didn't expect. And I wanted to ask you about your healing of that. Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's been said so many expect. And I wanted to ask you about your healing of that. Yeah. So I mean, I think it's been said so many times, you know, like the Body Keeps the Score, that book, that childhood trauma can take up residence in the body.

And I think for me, it most definitely did. I didn't unpack it till many, many years later, but from the time I was about 15, I developed a chronic pain disease and I had for 20 years, you know, I wanted to die. Sometimes it was just. When you say what is that? What was the help? What were you diagnosed with? I was ultimately diagnosed with fibromyalgia, but it didn't seem to really like... It was at a time where fibromyalgia also wasn't very understood. But I still deal with some pain and I do have like other chronic ailments. But yeah, that pain disorder just like it had me flat for 20 years, you know, trying to like raise my babies, you know, at the time, you know, and trying to make work because, you know, part of it

is the brain fog and you can't put two thoughts together and you're trying to like make work and you're just, it feels like you're just rolling this boulder up the hill all the time, all the time. So, but I was healed from that. I think partly supernaturally and partly, it's kind of crazy. Okay, so 10 years ago I had a car accident and the nerve here is paralyzed. So the only movement I have in my arm

is like from the two other nerves back here. But I was- So can you lift your arm up? I, you know, to an extent. I see. Yeah. But I have all sorts of like ways of telescoping. Like you'd never know. And I worked really hard so that you'd never know.

I didn't know. Yeah. But so I've worked with a disability for 10 years. And in the beginning, I couldn't hold my paintbrush. Like I had no motor control in my fingers. So I was in full-time rehab for two years, four days a week, full days of rehab, chiropractic, physical therapy, acupuncture, massage,

anything I could do. And it healed the fibromyalgia. What specifically, all of it? I think all the body work it it rewired my brain I think is what happened and there's some people who deal with fibromyalgia who and chronic fatigue and things like that because I think what we know about fibromyalgia is that it is a misfiring of the brain it's not fake pain it's not all in your head it's just that the brain is

perceiving things as pain that aren't pain. So I think with all of that body work, it rewired me. I don't know how else to say other than the Lord's healing. I'm very grateful that I don't deal with that anymore. I feel like I would deal with the paralysis. Really? Fine. I can deal with that.

But being in pain all the time is, yeah, it's a different kind of, it's a cross. It's a cross. Did you carry it with grace? Do you think? I hope so. Yeah. I mean, I think- Did you grow in your ability to carry it?

I mean- Yeah. I think because I, I think because I met the Lord so personally and so intimately, I always felt like he was with me in that. And, you know, we talked about the wound in Christ's side. This is part of it. The writing is also part of that. So my first book was about the Holocaust. And a lot of it was because I was trying to relearn a lot of my Jewish upbringing and answer questions that I had that we never talked about and things about Jewish history.

But anybody who's written about the Holocaust will tell you that it changes you utterly forever. The things that you have to put yourself through and look at and digest, especially if you're trying to translate that for young readers who are other people's children and you don't want to traumatize them with the things that you have then traumatized yourself with. But I always felt like the Lord equipped me to be able to do that work because I had endured on the front end of life, you know, I had sort of paid on the front end of life with that trauma. So I felt like he was with me in that.

He'll be with me in this. And at a certain point, he showed me another vision. And it was of we were going down a dark hallway, way, way, way underground, like in a bunker, you know? It was this narrow, dark hallway. And in the walls were all these little doors with keys. And we turned to this one door and he put a key in my hand. And just a little door.

And I unlocked it and inside was his sorrow. And he gave me that So That's where I live Did you ever go to therapy other than Rehab many many many years of therapy was that also helpful in trauma recovery incredibly helpful. You had a Christian therapist Thank God. Yeah, who really kind of helped me see where the Lord was in all of the trauma Trauma recovery. Incredibly helpful. I had a Christian therapist, thank God, who really kind of helped me see where the Lord was

in all of the trauma. And he was there. And that's a hard thing to accept, especially when you're talking about child sexual abuse. Like, how could the Lord just sit idly by and let it happen? And I don't know. That's not up to me to know. Just like when I visited Auschwitz,

like I was like, where are you? You know, where were you in this? And his answer to me was, I was everywhere. What does that mean? I put my hand over my mouth. I can't answer that question, what it means. I just know that it is, you know. I'm sure we have people watching who have experienced similar sexual abuse and other forms of abuse who wonder whether it's okay to be angry at God. Yeah.

Because anger is honest. I think there's a difference between anger and rage too. Yeah, you know, I had rage for a long long time I still have anger. I think I'm I Think I'm somebody who is sort of naturally angry and I think that if wake up that way, you know When you say like there was no cynicism or sarcasm in that I'm like Hide myself away. But no, but I think that the Lord, like if he hadn't hijacked me, okay, which was very much what happened.

He came, I was in a pit, I was in the abyss. He literally came and yanked me out of it, hijacked me totally. If he hadn't done that, I often think like, at the time when that happened, like was I this great sinner? You know, like I wasn't on drugs, I wasn't sleeping around, you know, yeah, I was into some spiritual stuff, you know,

but like was I this great sinner or whatever? Answer is yes, but what did he save me from? And the answer is my anger. Like, I think now about who I would be if he hadn't, and I would just be the bitterest, most degraded shell of a person. And I think what he did was he took that fundamental aspect of my personality, that anger,

and he channeled it into being angry at the right things. You know, like I will not sweep the abuse under the rug. I will not sweep the people that hurt me under the rug. Like that's very real. And I'm not going to apologize for them or make excuses or you know what I mean? But I can acknowledge that without casting that at the Lord's feet. You know, I heard John Eldridge is.

Yeah. Love him. I woke up with Stacey Eldridge on my mind this morning. So it's interesting. Tell me. He gave a talk in which he led men through a prayer experience and invited them to forgive God. Yeah.

And he immediately anticipated the interior kind of rejection, those of us who have had any theology training would have. And he said, you just need to trust me because you cannot, you cannot trust who you haven't forgiven. And so in one sense, God is perfect and all spotless. But I thought there was tremendous wisdom in that. And I wondered if that would be good advice for those who've experienced abuse.

Yeah, I think that's not necessarily my experience of needing. I didn't really need to do that. I think I needed to trust God's goodness that he really was for me and that I belonged to him and was safe with him. That was the avenue, yeah. Yeah, so that I could know who to direct my anger at. Interestingly, the people who did these things to me are dead. The world feels a lot lighter without them in it. I hate to say that.

Yeah. The world feels a lot lighter without them in it. I hate to say that. But you can direct your righteous anger at the people who do evil. Like that's, we should, like, you know, we should know where to direct that. But at the same time, like we have to, we have to release them to God's justice, you know,

because he's in the business of perfect justice. Like, he's able to give the victim perfect mercy and the perpetrator perfect justice. But it also, at the same time, makes me tremble for those people. You know, my father, who I never met, is dead. My God, you know, like, I don't want to think of my father having to stand before the Lord and give account for what he did. But I also have to just release him to the Lord. I can't.

How do you do that? It's muscle memory. Yeah. You know, nicely done. Nicely done. What did you just drop? A microphone? Damn it.

Why were you even taking it off? Sorry. Were you trying to give it to her or? Oh, did you want to talk? He doesn't even want to talk. You can come here and talk if you trying to give it to her or? Oh, do you want to talk? I just want to talk. You can come here and talk if you want to. So, um, no, because I hear you hear people talking about forgiveness being a choice.

Mm hmm. And I just. I think a fair question is, what does that even mean? And I wondered, it's probably similar to releasing someone. Yeah, I wondered what that means too. I Read something years ago. I don't remember what it what it was called or who wrote it, but I'm just sorry I gotta get this out. I'm laughing because after that gigantic crash, I just look at this day and it's like Even though doesn't sound like it everything's fine I feel really bad cuz I like don't feel set it down and reached over to mute it and

Cool. I feel really bad because I like don't feel set it down and reached over to mute it and Get to it as it hit the floor. I just heard in my headphones this dude the monitor like So I know everyone is just like As I told you when I was at daily wire and Candice was doing her little one person thing I walked into the dark room. There was at least 15 people working on her show. So you don't do that many jobs. You're crushing it. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Sorry about that. I apologize to the audience and to the audio listeners. I'm going to cut that out of the audio. I'm going to have to. It'll be easy to find too. It's just going to be straight up

forgiveness. And yeah, so it was about sowing and reaping. And it was about like, if you sow unforgiveness, like when you hold people to, when you don't release them to forgiveness, right? You wind up reaping anger and reaping bitterness yourself. It's a little bit of a variation on the, like forgiveness benefits you more than the other person kind of,

but I don't know, I feel like there is something more going on spiritually in the sort of relationship between that person and God and you. It's like, I don't know any other way to say it, but to release them to his justice. You know, like the woman who hit me in this car accident. I had to pray that for two years while I was waiting to get justice in that regard, because she took something from me. You know, she took my full function of my working arm as an artist, you know?

And I just had to choose. like, I am not going to give myself over to bitterness or offense with this. I'm gonna forgive her and I'm gonna release her to let God deal with her, you know? And I don't harper bitterness toward her, you know? And now I can see all of this stuff as just part of my story. And if I can recognize that and put it into my

work, then I have more understanding of human nature, of the psychology of the characters I'm writing. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not really willing to write anybody off. I'm not willing to draw hard lines and say, well, like I will only deal with these kinds of people that are like me or I don't know. I wanna have relationships with all different kinds of people, even if I don't agree with them or I find their views reprehensible, or I wanna understand like, you know,

how did this person become who they are? I wanna close in a prayer, but I wanted to ask you if there's anything else you wanted to touch on before we begin to wrap up? No I feel like we could talk forever so we probably shouldn't. Oh we could too. Is there any place you want to point people? We have links in your Instagram to your books to your illustrations below. I think I gave you those links. Yeah, I think I always love hearing from readers, you know, about how the books are kind of intersecting with them and

with their own stories. So hopefully, you know, people will read them. So, keep going. Before you do that, I think what I really want to tie things together with is just how good the Lord is, how loving, how sweet, how kind. He's been so unbelievably kind to me. I don't deserve it at all, not for a minute. And he just keeps meeting with me with his kindness again and again and again and again. And I don't get it, but he just keeps meeting with me with his kindness again and again and again and again. And I

don't get it, you know, but he just keeps showing up. And I get the sense all the time that he is just putting his arm around me saying, let's go on another adventure. Let's do something else. You know, that's available for all of us. So I wanted to pray this prayer with you and I thought what we could do is take it paragraph by paragraph. Yeah. And I want to invite people to pray along with us. This was written by John Eldridge. So I printed it off this morning so we could pray it. I just felt like the Lord wanted

this. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm going to interrupt you again because I said Stacey Eldridge. Yeah. And this kind of plays into what I was getting at. Her book, Captivating, opened up for me before I became a writer, the image of God living in every person. It changed the way that I see people. And when I see people of all kinds, even if I don't like them, there's something of that spark of the divine image that I can see now.

And that came from her book. Like, I feel like people are just like on fire with glory all the time. So take that for what you want. Yeah, praise God. Eldritches. All right, you feel up for this? I didn't ask you beforehand. That's cool. All right, in the up for this? I didn't ask you before hand. That's cool

All right in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. I'm in My dear Lord Jesus I come to you now to be restored in you renewed in you to receive your life and your love and all the grace and mercy I so desperately need this day. I Honor you as my Lord and I surrender every aspect and dimension of my life to you. I give you my spirit, soul and body, my heart, mind and will. I cover myself with your blood, my spirit, soul and body, my heart, mind and will. I ask your Holy Spirit to restore me in you, renew me in you and lead this time of prayer.

to restore me in you, renew me in you, and lead this time of prayer. In all that I now pray, I stand in total agreement with your Spirit, and with all those praying for me by the Spirit of God and by the Spirit of God alone. Dearest God, Holy and Victorious Trinity, you alone are worthy of all my worship, my heart's devotion, all my praise, all my trust, and all the glory of my life. I love you, I worship you, I give myself over to you in my heart's search for life. You alone are life, and you have become my life. I renounce all other gods, every idol, and I give to you God the place in my heart and in my life that you truly deserve. This is all about you and not about me.

You are the hero of this story and I belong to you. I ask your forgiveness for my every sin. Search me, know me, and reveal to me where you are working in my life and grant to me the grace of your healing and deliverance and a deep and true repentance. Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me and choosing me before you made the world. You are my true Father, my creator, redeemer, sustainer, and the true end of all things, including my life. I love you, I trust you, I worship you. I give myself over to you Father to be one with you as Jesus is one with you. Thank you for proving your love for me by sending Jesus.

I receive him and all his life and all his work which you ordained for me. Thank you for including me in Christ, forgiving me my sins, granting me His righteousness, making me complete in Him. Thank you for making me alive with Christ, raising me with Him, seating me with Him at your right hand, establishing me in His authority, and anointing me with your love and your spirit and your favor. I receive it all with thanks and give it total claim

to my life, my spirit, soul and body, my heart, mind and will. Jesus, thank you for coming to ransom me with your own life. I love you, worship you, trust you. I give myself over to you to be one with you in all things. I receive all the work and triumph of your cross, death, blood, and sacrifice for me, through which my every sin is atoned for. I am ransomed, delivered from the kingdom of darkness, and transferred to your kingdom.

My sin nature is removed, my heart circumcised unto God, and every claim being made against me is cancelled and disarmed. Amen. I take my place now in your cross and death, dying with you to sin, to my flesh, to this world, to the evil one and his kingdom. I take up the cross and crucify my flesh with all its pride, arrogance, unbelief, and idolatry. And cowardice, I'll add that. I put off the old man. Apply to me all the work and triumph in your cross, death, blood, and sacrifice. I receive it with thanks and give it total claim to my spirit, soul, and body, my heart, mind, and will. Jesus, I also receive you as my life and I receive all the work and triumph in your

resurrection through which you have conquered sin death Judgment and the evil one death has no power over you Nor does any foul thing and I have been raised with you to a new life To live your life dead to sin and alive to God I take my place now in your resurrection and in your life And I give my life to you to live your life I am saved by your life. I reign in life through your life I receive your hope love faith joy your goodness trueness wisdom power and strength

Apply to me all the work and triumph in your resurrection. I receive it with thanks and I give it total claim to my spirit, soul and body, my heart, mind and will. Jesus, I also severely, sincerely, severely to receive you as my authority, rule and dominion, my everlasting victory against Satan and his kingdom and my ability to bring your kingdom at all times and in every way. I receive all the work and triumph in your ascension, through which Satan has been judged and cast down, and all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to you. All authority in the heavens and on this earth has been given to you, Jesus,

and you are worthy to receive all glory and honor, power and dominion now and forever. I take my place now in your authority and in your throne, through which I have been raised with you to the right hand of the Father and established in your authority. I give myself to you to reign with you always. Apply to me all the work and triumph in your authority and your throne. I receive it with thanks and I give it total claim to my spirit, soul and body, my heart, mind and will. And I now bring the authority, rule and dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ and the full work

of Christ over my life today, over my home, my household, my work, over all my kingdom and domain. I bring the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and the full work of Christ against every evil power coming against me, against every foul spirit, every foul power and device. I cut them off in the name of the Lord. I bind and banish them from me and from my kingdom now in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. I also bring the full work of Christ between me and every person and I allow only the love of God and only the Spirit of God between us. Amen. Holy Spirit, thank you for coming. I love you.

I worship you. I trust you. I receive all the work and triumph in Pentecost through which you have come. You have clothed me with power from on high, sealed me in Christ, become my union with the Father and the Son, the Spirit of truth in me, the life of God in me, my counselor, comforter, strength, and guide. I honor you as Lord, and I fully give to you every aspect and dimension of my spirit, soul, and body, my heart, mind, and will, to be filled with you, to walk in step with you

in all things. Fill me a fresh Holy Spirit. Restore my union with the Father and the Son. Lead me into all truth. Anoint me for all of my life and walk and calling and lead me deeper into Jesus today. I receive you now with thanks and I give you total claim to my life. Heavenly Father, thank you for granting to me every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. I claim the riches in Christ Jesus over my life today. I bring the blood of Christ once more over my spirit, soul and body,

over my heart, mind and will. I put on the full armor of God, the belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of the gospel, helmet of salvation. I take up the shield of faith and sword of the Spirit and I choose to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of your might to pray at all times in the Spirit. Jesus thank you for your angels. I summon them in the name of Jesus Christ and instruct them to destroy all that is raised against me, to establish your kingdom over me, to guard me day and night.

I ask you to send forth your Spirit to raise up prayer and intercession for me. I now call forth the kingdom of God throughout my home, my household, my kingdom and domain and this studio in the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving all glory and honor and thanks to Him. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thanks.