Pints With Aquinas - Happiness, Thomas Aquinas, and the NBA w/ Fr. Gregory Pine O.P.

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

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So I don't know much about baseball but here's the joke. This fella is going to a baseball game and he gets a packet of skittles and a bag of chips and a big coke and he goes and he makes his way through the crowd and sits in his seat. He's just about to sit down when he hears someone from above yell, Hey Wayne! He drops his skittles a bit and he turns stands up and he looks around but he can't see who it is. So he sits back down and enjoys the game about five minutes go by. Hey Wayne!

And again startles him. He's dropping his food. He's getting bloody frustrated. He stands up and he's looking but he cannot for the life of him see who it is. This happens a couple more times you, skittles are everywhere and final time, hey Wayne! And he just finally had enough. So he stands up and he turns around and he says, my name is not Wayne! Well, people who are good at telling jokes could tell that joke. All of my dad's jokes are very, very rude. Very rude. Like, whenever my sister sends me one, she'd be like, make sure nobody's around when you

listen to this. She records him. You told me one joke. I don't know if you remember this. It was a long time ago. This teenage boy runs downstairs into the kitchen where his grandma is and he says, uh, hi Nan, have you seen a bottle of pills that say LSD on them? And she says, forget the bloody pills. Let's do something about this dragon. Do you remember that? Did you tell me that? I didn't tell you that, but that's a good joke. That's yeah that delivers in short order

It sounds like a narrative joke, but then it just gets right to the point which I respect. Yeah. Yeah. Oh Gosh, you know who's terrific. I miss Norm MacDonald, eh? Yeah, so I don't I don't know much about comedy I don't know especially I don't know anything about comedy. I don't know, especially I don't know anything about comedy like that anti-dates me. And uh... Well he just died about a few years back. Yeah. But uh... He was very foul.

I mean he had some jokes that you just be like, I'm never listening to this guy again. But he was also very, very brilliant. He has this one joke. He talks about even though his last name is McDonald, that he's Polish, and he says he had to address a Racist the other day he goes into this store and he's asked him for Polish sausage and the guy says oh you're Polish. He says come on If I came in here looking for you know French whatever fries fries what you think I'm French

You know if I came in here looking for German bratwurst, I guess you'd think I was German, would you? Uh huh. Yeah? Like if I came in here looking for... Come on, help me out, there's gotta be other things that are... Australian licorice? Australian licorice! Yep. I guess you'd think I was Australian. Yeah. Anyway, in this joke, he goes on for about five minutes with examples like that, you know, and the and then he says finally, he's like, I come in here as for Polish.

You just assume that I'm Polish. He's like, well, this is a hardware store. Why? Why? Yeah, he's very very funny Do you any good jokes? Are you just laughing to be? Actually funny or you just exacerbated um, I don't I

Don't know many jokes. I'm also not especially good at recalling jokes on the spot slash delivering them and you know Like actually hilarious fashion not one of my superpowers One of my brothers really likes Norm MacDonald, and he likes him especially because of the understated Norm MacDonald-ism. But apparently a go-to thing, he'd name some especially abominable character from history, like Adolf Hitler, and then his line would be like,

what a jerk, right? And he's like, I don't know if you guys are history buffs But in the 1930s or whatever Yeah, so I got no jokes, but you know any good jokes boys want to be a good joke teller Sometimes I'm pretty good This This woman comes home stop me if I know don't stop me if I told you Woman comes home and she walks into the lounge room, a husband sitting on the couch and she

says well, you know, does anything different? And he gets very panicky and he mutes the TV and he looks at her and he went, you've done something with your hair. It's beautiful. No, it's not my hair. Right. No, it's your dress. You've got a beautiful dress.

You look lovely and it's not the dress. No, it's your dress. You've got a beautiful dress. You look lovely in it. It's not the dress. No, it's not the it's not the new shoes. It's not new. Not new shoes. And she finally says I'm wearing a scuba mask. The moth one. Moth one. Oh, this is a little more crude. But my dad says, you have moth one? The moth one? Oh this is a little more crude but my dad says You have moth balls in America? I'm afraid about moth balls because they make me smell like moth balls I guess you put them in clothes to make them smell like moth balls

If I had a moth ball in this hand and a moth ball in this hand What do I have? A bloody big moth That's my dad's joke Alright that's as crude as we'll get Believe me we can go deeper That is not the one I was thinking of Oh what were you thinking about, moths? You told it on the show before,

it was the Norm MacDonald one. Oh, that one goes on forever, that's hilarious. We won't do that. It's way too long. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Stage whisper.

Thank you. So how you going? I'm doing well. Yeah, I just got back from Switzerland. So it's good to be in the United States Although this is the first time I came back and I kind of felt like I didn't belong Interesting. Yeah, I like was walking around the airport and I was like what's going on here? Everyone's shouting and then I like I went outside. I'm like they're all driving like Assault vehicles like everything is so big yeah

why are they Coca-Cola bottles that big and yeah I don't know I I'm like for all those things and it's not like a criticism it just struck me as strange for the first time so maybe I'm I'm getting assimilated by the locale which is what it is it's gonna be back do you speak German now I so I live in the French-speaking part of Switzerland I speak French, okay, and then I was in Berlin this summer to learn German because there's stuff that I have to read in Is there a German part of Switzerland? There is yeah. Yeah, that's the main point I thought you were just being kind of like actually I live in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. No. Yeah, so um Did you speak French before you went there? I had studied it in high school and then in formation

I kind of tuned up so that I could read it but there was never a point before I went where I was like blah blah blah this and such a little so going there certainly accelerated that process. That's awesome. Yeah. So you're pretty fluent? I would say I'm pretty fluent. Have you tried reading Thérèse de Lusier or some other? I've tried reading mostly stuff about Saint Thomas Aquinas on Jesus Christ in French because that's just, that's what I do. But I suppose I could. To have time for these other saints? To raise who? No, no, I'm for that. I just don't do much spiritual reading. So that's not a knock against

spiritual reading, except maybe, no, yeah, no. What do I think? Yeah, I just read a lot about St. Thomas Aquinas on Christ. And then when I read something to like relax, relax, I just read a lot about St. Thomas Aquinas on Christ and then when I read something to like relax relax I usually just read a novel. Yeah, so Cuz you know how they talk about when you learn another language at first you're replacing the word for the English word in your head Have you gotten to the point where you've stopped doing that? I have kind of gotten to the point where I stopped doing that like kind of like dreaming in French and then like imagining things In French, which is kind of cool. I've been into French jazz lately. Okay What is French jazz like it sounds lovely? Okay delightful. I like jazz. Uh-huh. Some people hate jazz So I like smooth jazz and French jazz tends to be more smooth Is this just like jazz without lyrics by French people or is this jazz with lyrics the lyrics which are French?

Yeah, yeah, but also I don't know. There's a kind of softer quality to it as well. It's not as intense, but. Yeah, most, so like people talk about how French music, maybe whatever, 50, 60 years ago, had a particular charm. It's changed, like France has changed. And so now it just kind of sounds like all other mass produced commercialized music. And so it doesn't have some of that same like peculiarity and charm, but French jazz okay cheers so you released a

video recently saying you stopped listening to music mmm is that right was that just a cool title that Neil came up with it's a combination I have limited my intake of music stopped certainly it hits better but I still listen to music on occasion. And the main reason for which is that music haunts me in my sleep and it wakes me up in the middle of the night and says, Hey, you remember what you listened to earlier today? And I'm like, I do. I wish I could forget. And it's like, but also how about I remind you? And I'm like, wait a second mind what that you took a vacation. And it's like,

no, I'm always here, sweetheart. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Well I was with a mate recently and we were doing these long drives together We just got back from Namibia. We're sitting on the back of this Land Rover and I'm like, what's it? What's a song and it occurred to me like how impoverished our? Yeah, just we weren't given folk songs that we all know that we can all sing, you know, and we just have these bless the rains down in Africa. It's the best we can come up with, which is pretty good.

Which is not bad. But it was just sad, you know, that we didn't have a communal heritage of songs. Do you know? Yeah. I mean, I feel like, okay, I don't know if this is going to be accurate. I hope that it's accurate. In Formation, we sang a lot of Americana, old time,

Irish, British, even Australian folk music. And it'd be the type of stuff where, some of it was oldie, oldie timey, and then some of it was kind of nouveau, oldie timey, kind of folk revival, mid-20th century stuff, like the Clancy Brothers, for instance, or the Dubliners, or things like that. And that was really cool because it was a thing

that we did once a week where we got together after the evening meal and just sang. And there were a handful of guys in that group that were super talented. They were just good musicians, so they could just pluck something out and then they'd teach us all and then we'd sing it. But it created a kind of stock of common melodies and common things. So that way, when occasion arose, which occasion does arise when you're like hiking in the mountains and everyone's cold and tired and you're like, how about we lift the spirits lads?

that we yeah, we could sing those things and Yeah, a lot of those guys are in the the singing group or the musical group the hillbilly tomas, you know So they're they're the real deal, you know, they've got skills with a Z as the youth said 30 years ago Yeah, I think like folk songs are like fairy tales. Like they're written by communities of people. Yeah, yeah. And uh. They're also usually about like lost love, communal suffering and adventure. Yeah.

Which I think are the things that we all think about, but are usually too embarrassed to admit to the fact that we're daydreaming about it. Like you're in math class, like she's explaining the second derivative and you're like, but what if like the parking brake on that car like failed and it started coming through this window? Like who would I say first? How would I push the desks out of the way? Would I leap over it? Would I fall under it? And then she's like, and what's the answer? And you're like, hard to say, but like, I feel like folk songs are a win. We give expression to just those things. Some of them are like base in facts. Like we fought

the battle of the boy and and we lost let's lament but other ones are like like what are we gonna do the next time yeah and that's really get wild and fun so I like that it's just uh what are some examples of those different genres of sentiment I guess in songs yeah so for like Irish music there are a couple ones that we used to like a lot called, so like Dicey Riley for instance, it's just like a kind of angry swashbuckling song that gets, like it just evolves progressively. Or I'm sure you've heard the song where it talks about

like a guy who courts a woman and the woman's father is a madman. And then like the climactic scene is like him grabbing him by the hair and ramming his head in a pail of water as he runs off with his lady. It's just like, dude, I want more lyrics about ramming an angry dad's head in a pail of water as I wander off into the sunset. Yeah. So it's those types of things. Yeah. Yeah. Unhinged, but in a very delightful way. Yeah.

Yeah. Good. But actually, I watched that video. I tend to be very impulsive. I don't know if you know that about me, but I'm sorry So my phone I've blocked the app store, you know, it's very limited phone here. Um, but I Deleted Spotify immediately after I watched your video and then I traveled 30 hours to Africa. Oh and I was like damn you father great Yeah, but then you read the collected works, you know like st st. Teresa of Avila and you're like, I'm very grateful for yeah Yeah Well, and then I actually texted my wife after watching your thing and I said we're never watching another episode of 24

Because you ever watch 24 now TV peaked with 24. It's the greatest. I Did watch an episode of 24? I've watched no you know, you episodes. Yeah. It's the greatest. I did watch an episode of 24. I've watched probably three episodes. Yeah, yeah. It's not possible to watch one episode of 24. That's how I know you're lying. Yes. It's not humanly possible. So you know how sometimes you associate certain TV shows

with certain people and also with like the peculiarities of their personality. So when somebody says like, I'm into this new show, inside you're like, I'm never gonna watch this because you watched it. Okay. Right, so it's not really a judgment on them, but it is a judgment on them.

So at one point I was with this person, like you have to watch it. And I was like, cool, cool, cool. And then I left and I was like, never again. So I was like passing it through the filter of associating this person with TV addiction and then distancing myself from that phenomenon, which is a very judgmental admission to make,

but here I am. Yeah, imperfect that God's not done with me yet. Yeah, I think we like my wife and I watched all like six or seven seasons back in the day and then we were just bored and we started watching the first season again and we're like, oh my gosh, I know everything that's happening, but I don't care. And it's but by the end of you like I just spent like like is 24 but it's like 40 minute episodes or whatever that is 18 or 19 hours like looking at a screen, you know? And you were just saying in your video, how like these television shows make these demands upon you and you're not free, you know?

The thing that, okay, so like with television shows, the thing that kind of throws me for a loop is a lot of them are subject to infinite revision because they want to make lots of money. So they're like, we could kill this character, but we could also bring this character back. It just depends on what the people want. So that way we can sell more of it. And so like the stories themselves, I find are kind of, um, yeah, they're false

because they're, there's not real stories. They're just commercial pursuits, like kind of in story like Vestor. Um, so that I find that to sit like dissatisfying because it's like, I'm going to take you through a thrilling experience, but there's, there's not not gonna be a real finality like it's not tending anywhere and it doesn't reflect anything. It's just so that frustrates me because I feel like it's just the point is to lay hold of you and then just drag you through however many seasons they're going to Mass produce how is this not different pints of the awareness? Well, I feel like the finality of this is actually human in so far as like you're trying to have a relationship with another human being to share things of mutual interest. And then the idea is that that conversation is broken open to other people who can partake

of it. Because I think that like, we want to have conversations about meaningful things, but we're all at like different points in so far as like some of us have dialogue partners, some of us don't, you know, like some of us live in rich communal settings, some of us don't. So we all wanna have something of that, and I feel like this is a place in which we can host and then have those conversations, the point of which is to, yeah,

to like make a human life better, which is to say to flourish. Whereas with those particular things, it's just to entertain. It's like the storyline kind of reaches into your interior life and then stirs up your emotions, right? It kind of tinkers with your desires, it manipulates whatever aspirations you may or may not have admitted to in the public, and then it just tries to drag you along through a season without burning off all of your goodwill,

so that when the next season comes out, you have at least forgotten about your disappointments or are sufficiently recollected in your excitements that you're just like, yeah, I'll watch another one, because then advertising revenue goes to that company and they continue to make more of it. So yeah, that's what worries me. Now do I think that those directors have that particular end in mind? Are they just, you know, kind of dollar hawks? I mean, like some of them probably have some artistic integrity, but this tends to be why

the first season is usually not always, but than the subsequent seasons like stranger things the first season of that was outstanding took us everyone by storm right yeah I haven't watched the latest season I'm not going to but it's something with a marvel like the first time the just not Justice League I'm so impressed with myself I don't know it yeah well done they remember the first Avengers came out I was in San Diego and I watched it and I laughed so much. I could not believe how funny it was But then the 800th one comes out. You're like I am so tired of this junk, you know, yeah Yeah Yeah, I don't know what I think about Marvel movies cuz sometimes

Yeah, my concern about Marvel movies is again the fact that people just like they die But then they come back things are subject to infinite revision Yeah, my concern about Marvel movies is again, the fact that people just like, they die, but then they come back. Things are subject to infinite revision. I feel like when you lose some of the limitation of human life, when you can always like go beyond it with science fiction, or you can go beyond it with whatever, like irresponsible fairy story, then it loses a sufficient reality to actually connect with me, to appeal to me.

What's the last TV season you watched? You were like, this was quite good. I really like Stranger Things. I watched... Oh gosh. I watched The Last Dance, which is a documentary, so I don't know if that counts as a TV show. Oh, Michael Jordan? Yeah. But the thing about that was disappointing

was that Michael Jordan did it to kind of solidify his status as the greatest of all time. But what it actually solidified was his status as the most insecure of all time. Did it really? Tell me about that. Oh yeah. Cause he was like, I mean, he wanted to do the thing

and you know, whatever, okay. There's a story to be told. He wanted to do the thing. Did someone approach him or did he direct it or? I think that he was in the driver's seat. Like it was his project. I don't know if he approach him or did he direct it? I think that he was in the driver's seat. It was his project. I don't know if he proposed it or if somebody proposed it to him, but it was clear that he was putting his weight behind it. And then you had all the other players from the teams, coaches,

staff and things like that, but also sports reporters, people who are in the business, who provided commentary. And it was kind of clear that his persona was just like looming over the whole project. People weren't going to criticize him because he's alive, like he's in the next room. And he's reacting to anything that anyone is going to say that's even slightly negative, and he's going to try to rebuff it. But what Michael Jordan effectively admits to throughout the course of that whole television show or that documentary is that anytime anyone even slightly disrespected him, he used it as fuel to subsequently dominate, which is fine, you know, use what you need to use,

but he just comes off looking really insecure. Like if anyone doesn't say like, you are the great one, you know, you are the best basketball player, I pay due homage and obeisance, then he's like, I'm going to show this guy. It's like, show him what? Like, what are we showing? Like, do you think other people got that same reaction? Or is it because you're looking at it through a sort of Christian lens that... Um... Which I'm not criticizing. I think it's probably the correct lens. I don't know. What do I know? But I'm just wondering, like, is this a general thought? I've had conversations with people who have seen similar things.

I think the reason for which it's so tragic is that he's talking about his life, his accomplishments, and he's sitting in a big empty house. Because his wife left him, and his kids don't really want to have much to do with him because he's a raging maniac. Did you say that? Is that part of the show? No, but it's just like here's a man who is smoking cigars inside because it's public fact that his wife left him shortly after the end of his NBA career. Yeah, so he's got a big ego, which I think a lot of very successful professional athletes do have a big ego because it doesn't pay too terribly much to professional athletes do have a big ego. Yeah. Because, you know, it doesn't like pay too terribly much to be humble in the business. Yeah.

It doesn't pay to be humble. And it also probably doesn't help you if you lack that aggressive streak. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But interesting. Yeah, that is sad. I do remember seeing a little bit of that and seeing the large empty house. Yeah. He's just smoking cigars inside because who's he going to bother with the smoke? I do that. Yeah, he's just smoking cigars inside because who's he gonna bother with the smoke? I do that. No Yeah, yeah Golly, it's gonna be so tough cuz you know if I was in his gigantic shoes

I'm sure I'd be in a much worse place Maybe I wouldn't but I don't know but yeah Like how the hell do you expect anybody to come out of the end of that being in any way normal? Yeah, that much fame, that much praise? Yeah. Not clear. I think like. I'm so glad I'm married, because you just cannot get away with stuff. You can't get away with often wonder what that's like being a diocesan priest,

because you probably can get away with a lot more things. But as a married man you have immediate feedback from your kids and your children. Now I can be arrogant and blame their negative reactions of me on them, and I do that I'm sure. I don't want to, but I'm sure I do that and have done that, but it's like if you want any semblance of happy family life you have to be a mediocre dad at least for that to work. I think I don't know what does as a priest think or experience too terribly much, but I was just in my family's parish for the past week and a half, and I took the nine o'clock mass most days because a couple of the

priests, like one just had surgery, one was on vacation, blah, blah, blah. But what I notice is that folks, you know, folks are awesome. It's a great parish, super engaged, a lot of really wonderful people. But people will often give a compliment and then they'll tell you the thing that they also want you to do in the next one. So like, that was great, Father, had a little bit of difficulty hearing,

but that was great. So it's like, basically what it is is like, speak up, Father, or like, that was great, Father, have you heard of like, Luisa Picareta, because you might wanna look into, but that was great. It's like, okay, so this needs to be a theme that I look into for subsequent rounds of preaching and stuff like that. So my impression is that diocesan priests, unless they, you know, choose to isolate themselves

or insulate themselves from that type of feedback are going to get it because people want to tell you what they think and they're going to find ways to tell you what they think. At least that's my experience. Yeah. Yeah. Back to Michael Jordan. I was watching, was it the 1996? When did he come back from baseball? Number 45.

Yeah. He came back at the end of 95 and then they went deep in the play. Well, they won. Do you remember who they went against in 96? 96. Next. Okay. I think perfect.

At least that's the game I watched yesterday. My son, it's such an enjoyable game. It is an enjoyable game. Quick, fast. Yeah. I've many with my son. It's such an enjoyable game. It is an enjoyable game. So quick, fast. Yeah. I have many thoughts about basketball. It's just a matter of which are shareable. They're all shareable.

That's the beauty of long form. This isn't about them. Yeah, no, it's a beautiful game. And it's so American, right? It's so, it's almost like one step away from WWF wrestling or WWE wrestling. It's just bright and shiny and loud and dramatic. Yeah, the personalities are huge.

Remember that guy? What was his name? Rod? He had the key would always die his hair. Don't know Rod. He played for the Spurs. Oh, wait, was it Rod? We're talking about Dennis Rodman.

Yeah, that's where I got the rod from. Sorry. No, it's not Dennis Rodman. Yes. That's where I got the Rod from. Sorry, not his last name, Dennis Rodman. He has such a loud personality. Americans love that. They love. He would disappear for like extended periods of time and just go to Vegas. Yeah, exactly.

And then just. The surprise that I know things like this. No, it's great. I don't even watch the game really. No, yeah, I mean, one of those things, like when people ask like, would you recommend, and then fill in whatever blank, like would you recommend getting into basketball? I don't recommend watch the game, really. No, yeah, I mean, one of those things, like when people ask, like, would you recommend, and then fill in whatever blank, like,

would you recommend getting into basketball? I don't recommend anything like that ever, because I feel like people have plenty in their lives and they don't need more things in their lives. And especially it's like, you haven't looked into basketball up until this point. Do you need to begin now? No, certainly not.

But I do like basketball when it comes to, yeah, sporting entertainment, because Because yeah, why? Because it's like a limited skill set and the way that you see that skill set in motion is very impressive. Like the athleticism of basketball players I find to be very, very, very impressive. Is there a reason that white people aren't as good

as black people at basketball? I don't know. That's true, isn't it? I think statistically there are fewer American born white males in the NBA than there are African American American born NBA players. I mean, it's to say, I don't know, like,

why aren't black people good at swimming? You know any good black swimmers? I don't know. Is it bone density? There's gotta be like a physiological reason for that. Can you name one good black swimmer? No, but I don't know anything about swimming. Larry Bird was fantastic.

There you go. He's a white guy who was good. Yeah, I suspect that some of it is like nature environment. So like you have like some things that maybe it's the case that by virtue of the fact that you're of African-American descent you have like natural advantages like body type or something like that. I don't know. Science, you know, I can just kind of wave my hand because I'm a theologian. I know nothing about the subordinated sciences. I just kind of say, hey, they are there. And then other ones are like environment. So like pools, like pool admission, I don't know. It's like pool culture.

It's like, where do you find pools? How do you get into pools? That's right. Stuff like what? Like what neighborhoods would they be in? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No idea. Yeah. Fair enough. All right. Yeah. Larry Bird. I was looking at the best of Larry Bird the other day, and he was the same thing. Like he was very mouthy and. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was part of a Celtics team that were just brutal. They were just they would beat you up around the around the rim.

And there were a lot of really good games between that generation of Lakers and that generation of of of Boston Celtics, like mid 80s, especially. So those are fun games. When I was a kid, people were into trading basketball cards. Okay. US basketball cards, no one cared about the Australians, because they're a bunch of white guys. And black guys who weren't good enough to make it in the NBA,

they would come and dominate all the Australians, right? Okay. So anyway, we would trade basketball cards where people trade Pokemon cards, and so I chose for my team the Phoenix Suns, even though I'd never watched a game in my life. My brother chose the Utah Jazz for some reason. I remember coming home on the bus from school one day

and my dad had put together a backboard on our shed and he had painted those two symbols. Isn't that cool? That is awesome. Yeah, now's a decent time to be a Suns fan and it's a less decent time to be a Jazz fan because it seems like the Jazz are mortgaging their future. No, they're mortgaging their present

in preference for the future. Whereas the Suns probably should have won the NBA title last year, but then they disappeared in the Western Conference Finals and they might still have a good team, but it just depends. You know, in Australia, like one of the big games we would watch is called Aussie Rules football. Okay.

And it was only played on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And I liked that because it was something to look forward to and it didn't permeate your entire life. Whereas I don't really follow sports, but my understanding is it's every night there's something to watch or is that- Basically, yeah. Yeah, and every night there's something to bet on too.

I think the sports betting culture has made it such that like the sporting market is a lot more saturated and you have a higher consciousness of like everything that's going on because you want to bet on everything or bet on something at least. You know people would talk about that at the beginning of the lockdown when everything went dark for whatever three, four months. Like the first games that people were betting on were like Japanese baseball games. They're like I just am so excited there's a game to bet on. But yeah, no, I can certainly dominate. And especially in these like, you know, households where the TV is always on.

Sports can just become background chatter, which is an ideal. But it's what it is. I was just in Kansas. Why? Because my son is going to a school out there called Saint Martins. OK, it's this wicked cool school. It's on 300 or more acres of farmland. OK, actually, I think 3000. And every Wednesday, the boys do farm work.

So they raise butcher animals. They. There's no electronics. They just read good books and kick it old school. Really? Anyway, while I was there, I went to one of the teachers houses and there's zero electricity in the house. Well, there's no clocks on the walls. They don't have a running toilet. Fascinating. It was so cool.

I was just like, baby, let's do it. Let's do it. My wife's like, honey, give it four hours and you'll be over it. But he has like the sawdust toilet. So I went upstairs, there's a toilet, and then you put a big bucket and see, he'll never know about me telling about his house because he doesn't have technology. Big white bucket they put in and then you do your business. Then you put sawdust on it. And then every day he takes it out. That's like standard at like campsites. Is it? In the Appalachian mountains.

He's got lanterns around the house. It was so amazing. The guy who brought me to their house said if they weren't so theologically grounded that they would be Omish. Fascinating. Doesn't that sound good? No. Doesn't it? Nah, not really. Yeah. Yeah. Nope. No. Air conditioning is great. Yeah, I love air conditioning. No air conditioning. Oh my gosh but but it's designed in such a way to let as much wind through the house and Yeah, I have to rethink how you build houses without electricity you do. Yeah and like fire code Especially in large setting him and his sons built the house. It was just so cool Yeah, I guess like I've begun to do some serious group think because I'm always in a big communal setting Yeah, and when I hear an idea like that because I'm always in a big communal setting.

And when I hear an idea like that, I'm like, that'd be cool for like one person. It's just like, oh, wouldn't it be great if we had a dog? My first thought is like, I'm allergic, you know? So it'd be great for you, but it involved me taking Claritin twice a day and also hating everyone with whom I lived on the reg. So it's like, wouldn't it be cool if we, it's like,

yeah, but like, what if, you know, Father Thus and Such got old, you know? And then he needed like a little jazzy seat to get around or something to help him up and down the stair. I just, no, I'm not criticizing it as a choice for an individual family, but it has very little appeal to me, but maybe that's because of groupthink. Maybe I've forgotten what it is that I would choose were it to be up to me. Have you had an experience where you've been put into a house of Dominican friars and have

either immediately liked or disliked a friar only to have your opinion change? Yes. What's that like and what's his name? So we kind of all did the same course of formation. We went into the Novitiate. I just come from Steubenville. I love Steubenville. Steubenville is a great place, but I had kind of like heightened moral sensitivities.

I was like, all right, so step one, praise the Lord. Step two, be careful. Step three, praise the Lord. Step four, still be careful. And then you like, you meet new people and it's like, these people don't talk like me. You know, these people don't think like me. So I sat down at the table for the first meal that we had together and I went to make the sign of the cross to say like prayer before meal but the prior of the

community had already blessed the meal and I was like I was like whoops yeah guess it's already blessed the guy and the guy next to me goes what are you one of those SSPX types? Oh my gosh! Savage! And I was just like what's going on? Where did I find myself? But that guy ends up being, you know, one of my best friends. So yeah, first impressions were like, yeah, I was just kind of heightened Steubenville awareness and easily thrown for a loop and or scandalized. But then I kind of settled in and yeah, found a good squad. But yeah, I mean, each setting is different. I've now been assigned in, like I was assigned in Bogota, Colombia for a summer, I was assigned in Berlin this past summer, I've been living in

Switzerland for the past two years. I've had a handful of different experiences of Dominican life, and they're common themes in the sense that you can recognize it insofar as there's, you know, a common fraternal life, you know, choral office, study, preaching, you know, some center as it were, like that goes around the Holy Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. But then there are other things you're like, what exactly is going on here? You know, like I don't, I don't really know what,

I don't know what this is. And so for me, suspending judgment is an important part of kind of entering into a new community setting. I mean, if it's bad, then it's bad. You make a judgment, it's bad, and then community setting. I mean if it's bad and it's bad you make a judgment It's bad and then you move on But if it's like different then sometimes it just takes a minute for that day for that to kind of register So Neil's a big fan of the idiot by Dostoevsky. Okay, and there's you know, this is different

I haven't read the whole thing read like half the book and then Russian hysterical women turned me off until I shut the book. Anastasia Philippevna, she's crazy. Oh, so you've read The Idiot. So there's this great line in the beginning that talks about how we should let people tend to enter into relationships somewhat guarded you know not necessarily talking politics or religion everything's politics today. Right. Unfortunately but that's that is interesting because it's so true it's like the first impression you have of somebody can really taint how you view them. I found that to be true and yeah certainly in that book in the scene in which like they kind of go into Russia on the train, he's coming back from whatever the sanitarium in

Switzerland and then he's meeting these people who will come to be key players in his life in the pages that follow. I've also, yeah, I've grown to love the first meeting. I was on the Camino for a couple of weeks and then after that, like I said, I was assigned in Berlin and in both places I met a bunch of different people, like a bunch of pagans, post-Christians, like Marxists, feminists, everything. On the Camino. On the Camino, yeah. Cool. A lot of people that think a lot of different things. And I think that the cultural memory of like religious life, the priesthood has, yeah, it's just gone, right? And so I didn't encounter much in the way of reaction or like rejection.

I just kind of, I kind of met a simple, a simple interest. It wasn't like, whoa, what are you? It was like, yo, what's up with the dress, you know? What are you doing with that dress there? Yeah. And as a result of which, I just had a lot of like delightful first encounters. And yeah, result of which I just had a lot of like delightful first encounters and yeah, I guess I have a newfound appreciation for simple first encounters which may become

second encounters. On the Camino like you're kind of going along and then you might stay in this town and the other person might stay in that town but might be you kind of like link back up after three days depending on how you do short days and they do long days and blah blah blah. But yeah, I found myself kind of growing attached to people that I had known for short periods of time. How wonderful. Yeah, it was just cool. Yeah, because you don't have that luxury of blending in slowly and slowly getting to know somebody

because you wear that. Yeah, yeah, but I can be non-offensive because I think sometimes people are like, here's the thing, and it's not necessarily that it strikes them as violent, but that strikes them as different. And so then, okay, how is that encounter going to go if I were just to kind of like lead strong, like, is Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior? If not, why? Because let's troubleshoot those reasons now and then

let's get to the point where we baptize you. Then people will be like, okay, walk away slowly, or quickly, as it were. Choose your own adventure. It's like an Arl Stein book. But yeah, my kind of approach recently has been, I've just been getting bowled over by how some people are good in a way that they don't know. Or some people have, like they're asking interesting questions, they're conducting an interesting pilgrimage, as it were, of life

without even being aware, as necessarily, of where it tends. Like I was talking to this lady from Dresden named Cynthia, just a really, really, really cool lady. And I was just like, like, how did you come to be so awesome? You know, I was walking with this other lady too, and she's like, do you believe? And Cynthia was like, no.

Like any religion, she's like, no. I was like, how are you so cool? Ha ha ha. So I feel like, yeah, there's a kind of lost start of conversation in so far as we've all just kind of gotten angry at each other. That's not to say like we're going to recover it,

but yeah, it's worthwhile. Well, I mean, I've been flying on airplanes these last few months and I just, I feel like I don't want to get into dialogue with somebody because I don't know how many sentences I can share until I say a buzzword that makes you either hate me or not. Yeah. Yeah. Um, which is so sad. Yeah. Maybe I'm putting that on everybody. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like back in the day when I would listen to a lot of atheist theist debates.

It's like when you are in that world, you just walk around hoping or waiting for an atheist to like jump out of the shadows. You like people aren't like that. Calm down. Yeah. And I wonder if it's because if people start imbibing a ton of politics, maybe they have that impression when it's not actually there. Then yeah, yeah. But I'll tell you, and I don't know if this might be very

subjective, but I have found that people who are anti Donald Trump are very quick to tell you about that opinion. Assuming you will agree with them. But I don't find it the other way around. Maybe it depends on the

setting. But it was funny. I've had more than one person just sit next to one a plane. They'll just launch into a tirade against the Trump or something like that. I'm like, why? Why do you assume that I agree with you? Or yeah, why don't you even sort of I don't know, ask? It's maybe because I'm Australian. I had someone come up to me in Trader Joe's. Maybe it's not surprising.

And they apologized for Donald Trump to me. I'm like, I'm really fine. Like, I'm not offended at all. I don't care. But they but they I am very sorry. So they had this like, I love your American accent. Is affect the word of humility or this posture of humility. But if I said, actually, I would have preferred him to that Sheila Clinton Clinton I mean, I'm sure it would have evaporated and he would have been upset but is incensed the word incensed

Yeah, what does that mean? Just like irate angry, but it's not like incensed. No, yeah No, but it could be but how do you spell it? What's the difference in spelling same spelling? Yeah incensed. Yeah, and so it's not incensed It's incensed. Yeah. Yeah. What does that mean? Etymologically? What does that come from? It's like senses. It's something to a sensory stuff Oh, I don't think so my poor guy who has to tag the guy who has to do bookmarks for this interview It's gonna be like For at least ten minutes No in chancer a chaser, I have no idea But if I come up with something, even a false etymology,

I'll let you know later. So that way the bookmarker guy can have more excitement. Incensed, yeah. Yeah, I think, so I've noticed this recently with people, so political stuff by and large. So like people kind of posturing about like the presidential race, about the abortion issue, especially in light of Roe v. Wade, the Dops case.

Other things have come up. Sorry, this is actually pretty good. It's from incendiary, which is set on fire. Wow. There you go. That's interesting. So perhaps incense and incense come from the same word. There you go. Sorry to interrupt. No, that's fine. It's better. He was set on fire. Yeah, but this kind of the disposition on the part of... I was talking to this lady the other day and she was in a train in Scotland and this, you know, like these two women across from her heard that she was speaking with an American accent. The first thing they said was like, I'm so sorry. And she's like, about what? And they're like about, you know, the whole abortion issue.

Like are you okay? And she's like, she said that and just assuming. Yeah, she's like, I'm talking about she's like, I'm good. You know, I'm good. I think conservatives consider themselves the underdog in this cultural moment. Yeah. Yeah. So conservatives, whatever the hell that word means, are far less likely to assume of other people that they're on their side since they believe themselves to be the underdog. Yeah. Whereas the other folks immersed in mainstream news, etc. Just assume that everybody thinks like they do.

Yeah, that's probably true. That's an idea. No, that sounds right. And I think that that's certainly what that everybody thinks like they do. Yeah, that's probably true. That's an idea. No, that sounds right. And I think that that's certainly what, that feels like the cultural projection. Actually, I saw something recently that was fascinating, like American confidence in major news networks

is at an all time low. So whether that be like newspaper or whether that be like television journalism or whatever, it's just at an all time low. So I think that that kind of consensus or majority, what you described is beginning to break up a little bit, but it's breaking up in a weird way. So yeah, I think we're losing our bearings.

But what were you gonna say about this friend? Did she do any more to that story that she just assumed? No, it was just to confirm the point that you said. What did she say? She was like, I'm good, we're good. She wasn't looking to have a long convo about it or like kind of do an apolog You know, like we're good. You know, she wasn't looking to have a long combo about it or like kind of do an apologetic exercise on

This fella who just started complaining about Trump to me This is before we even left the tarmac and I'm like the last thing I want to do Is get into any kind of conversation about any of these things? Yeah, but then of course he started talking about religion and my god god. I Guess I prayed for this Lord. I guess here we go. Yeah. But it was really interesting because he was telling me he was part of

this liberal church and things like that. And I really wasn't trying to be a jerk like Socrates. But I'm like, OK, what what do you mean by love? Like, what do you mean by the good? Like, I really wasn't trying to be pretentious, but he was using these

words. Yeah. And I just didn't know what he meant by them. And it turned out he didn't know either, which is perhaps most of us. Yeah, I don't know how well any of us know what we're committed to or can define it in a dialectical way. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we don't have reasons that are like societal and cultural or traditional more broadly. But I think that oftentimes people who congratulate themselves on being enlightened,

they have a backing that is paper thin. And then when that's exposed, whether socratically or otherwise, then yeah, it can be destabilizing. Or at least I hope it is. Which is like, in a way, what you're talking about when you say like, we're kind of relying on the opinions of others or the, you know, what culture is sort of mirroring to us. That's the wrong way of putting it. But yeah, like this is we have faith in what other people think. They say that we take it on faith that Trump's a bad person or a good person or we just most of our beliefs are just like not that I go very deep. I always joke. I'm like two questions deep into most topics. And then I've hit bedrock is I got no idea why I think many of the things that I think.

But I think that, I mean, some of that's probably sensible, or some of that's rational, right, because I don't think that the standard for falsification and verification of everything that we hold to be true should be like the scientific method. Right. Yeah. Right, like I think it's good to take a lot of things on faith. Like I think this way because my family does, or because, you know, my polity does, or because my church does. And I think it's good to have a steady habit of, like, inquiring into those and, you know, seeking to sympathize more with the principles, with the

arguments, even rehearsing them a little bit so that way you're not just, whoa, right? But it's based on testimony. So, testimony presumes some kind of relationship, right? And you have a confidence that this relationship is in the good, right? It centers around a bonum inestum, a noble and honorable good, and then as a result of which there's an integrity to it, right? Like I can trust you because we've come together for like discourse about God, right? Otherwise, it doesn't really make sense. So I think that I can typically trust what you say to me

on account of the fact that we've come here for this. If it were like just for monetary reasons, or if it were for like social media influencing, then I'd be like, well, hard to say. Maybe he said that because it's lucrative. Maybe he said that because it gets likes. But if it's like, we're just here about God, then I think I can typically trust what you say to me because otherwise this is silly. So I have a way

of justifying it, or I have a way of rationalizing it, or giving an account maybe just simply say that. And I think that's reasonable, right? That's a good human way to live. But if somebody challenges me on it, then I should have the habit of tuning into the the principles rehearsing the arguments Do like a weird dance or he has a tune in into the principle Yeah, I'll never do that again. I said what I do Yeah, so that way so that way it shows okay. This is like this is a human life It's not just like a brain in some whatever sensory deprivation chamber like vat of goo That's just like they think the thoughts, you know, it's like, no, no, no, this is real. This is, this is a human thing.

Yeah. So sometimes you can be confronted with so many conflicting opinions from so many different intelligent people that you just start to despair that truth is actually knowable because you know that whatever opinion you hold about anything, uh, that's mildly theoretical, that someone out there will be able to argue under the table, you know, that's kind of why that someone out there will be able to argue under the table You know, that's kind of why I stay out of politics. Hmm, because politics is so Like immersed and meshed and many of them. It's so in the practical order. It's really hard to pin down

Right because the practical order is just it's slippery, you know, you got matter you got contingency. Everything's moving changing And people are just so passionate about particular political arguments. Yeah'm just like, how can you be that sure about that? And it just, I find it destabilizing and it gets me all stirred up. So I just kind of, not that I leave it to the side because I'm a political animal, I need to be somewhat invested, but- You don't have to, we don't have to get into this since you just told me you don't want to get into this, but I'll ask the question anyway. I mean, living in Switzerland for so long, have you come to more of an appreciation of countries that aren't America?

Yeah, I think in certain ways, yeah. No, I think that there are things about it that are good. So, for instance, like my kind of typical patriotic argument is I love America because it's mine. Right. So for me, American exceptionalism isn't actually a comparison, it's not like, well, I made an Excel spreadsheet that I optimized for the optimal factors and I think America's the best. It's like, no, I love it because I'm American, you know?

And so I'm gonna beat the drum, you know, I'm gonna play the league greenwood, I'm gonna look forward to the F-14 flyovers because I was born here. I think there are things about America that are great Yeah, and I think the things about our political dispensation especially insofar as it affords for religious liberty and has pretty consistently for like almost 250 years. That's incredible when you think about long-standing regimes that haven't fallen in the past, you know quarter millennium That have provided pretty generously for you know exercise of religion America's doing great, right? It's doing great, and that's not something to be trifled with.

But then when I go over there, I look at the way that this state operates, and there are things about it that are way better, like public transportation. Okay, so there's, you know, like you go to the city of Charlotte, there's like a rickshaw that drives east to west three times a year, and it's like, if you need to get elsewhere, like good luck, it's like, use an Uber. Whereas in Switzerland, you can get everywhere. You can get in the most remote valleys, provided that you got a little bit of time.

Now mind you, it's expensive, but they have ways of discounting it and, you know, making it more widely accessible. And that's cool, right? So they're genuinely interested in making their beautiful country accessible to the whole of its citizenry. Because there's a sense like our biggest treasure is the country itself, you know, our beautiful

country with its resources, you know, with its views, with its water, with its glaciers, with its... And there's a real pride. And as a result of which, they want to share it. And I think that's cool. Whereas Americans, like national parks, there's like a little bit of that. And Ken Burns is like, look, cool, zoom in, zoom out. But most Americans are like, who cares?

Also it's really hard to get to slash expensive slash how would I navigate that? So, I mean, that's just one example. There are other better examples, but I do appreciate certain things about, you know, living in Switzerland. I mean, it's a tiny country. Switzerland isn't even what, eight million people

by comparison in the United States, which is like 327 million or something like that. So it's like, whatever that is, you know, one 40th the size. Yeah, so it's oranges and apples, but there are some cool things about that orange. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's, I think you're right though, to kind of take your head out of the politics

and think more about principles would be a lot more clarifying. I was listening to an audio book. It was C.S. Lewis's conversion story, surprised by joy. I don't know if you remember that. I'm sure you've read it. But he was talking about how he offered some critique about reading the news, you know, because usually what you it was it was in surprise by joy. I can't remember.

But because usually within five months, you'll find that what you heard was either wrong or the emphasis was incorrect. I think we could really learn a lot from just taking our head out of the news. But it's so exciting. That it's exciting. It's stuff happening right now. And there's a good guy and a bad guy. Like the whole thing is painted in that way that it's really, I don't know.

Yeah, and it also makes you feel the things that you want to feel like anger, sadness, outrage. Outrage, yeah. Yeah, so it's all there. And we want to feel all those things. And in a certain sense, like to feel all those things for us is therapeutic. Like we need to feel them if we're going to go to bed.

It's like the coffee addict needs a shot of espresso in order to fall asleep because it's like, ooh, I'm on edge until such time as I get it. He says from non-experience. So, yeah, I think it's just like to be honest about the fact that that's what we want. And then to realize that we're a little bit addicted and then to treat it as such. I think that's a helpful way. Yeah. I think the other thing, like I think a daily wire who are exploding right now, I think one of the benefits they give is they help you feel less alone.

You know, so if you're being constantly told that men can be women or something like that, and you're like, I'm pretty sure that's not right. Having somebody say, you're right to realize that is like, oh, thank God. You know, so it does kind of help remind you that you're right to realize that. It's like, oh, thank God, you know? So it does kind of help remind you that you're not the insane one. But old news is about more clicks, selling advertisements. Yeah, I think too, yeah, one negative outcome, apropos of what we've been describing

for the past however many minutes is that it kind of makes you despair of the discourse, right? It just, it goes you, it goes you, it sends you into this digital space in order to find like-minded people so that you can be communally bewildered. It's just like, look at these dumb people doing dumb things, you know?

But it's like, there's no real attempt to bridge the gap. Now, mind you, I think that it's basically impossible to bridge the gap with certain people, at least in this moment, okay? Not to say forever and always. But I think there are people who have chosen to be on the other side of the gap from you, and they're completely content with that.

So if you extend a hand of reconciliation, they're like, I'm not interested in that. That's patronizing, that's condescending, get it out of my face. So I don't think that we should be like, thinking it is something other than it is. But I don't think that we should be like, you know, thinking it is something other than it is. But I also do think that when you distance yourself from those types of conversations

or that type of discourse, it helps you to get more invested in the real discourse, which is possible. You know, like the people who sit next to you on the plane, the people who you meet on the Camino, the random people in like the streets of Berlin. Like these two women stopped me the other day, they're like, are you a priest?

I was like, I am a priest. How could you tell? Was this in Switzerland or here? This was in Germany. Okay. And they're like, you a priest? And I was like, I'm a priest. And then like, you're the first priest that we've ever met.

I was like, how's that possible? Were you on the street? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just like walking to a bar to meet up with my classmates from my language school because it was like our going away shindy. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, awesome. Well, I'm delighted to be the first priest

that you've ever met. They're like, what is that like? I was like, it's pristine, you know? It's satcharadodal, that's just the adjective for it. You know, hard to say. But yeah, I think that it's possible to have conversations. I really do think that it's possible to have conversations, even if those conversations don't end with baptism, right, or they don't end with a public protestation of belief in our Lord Jesus Christ. But I think that there's something. And that – maybe that sounds a little bit David Frenchy, like, we should be nicer so that we could be nicer. Like, I'm not interested in nice for nice. I still think that there's a finality to this type of discourse, and I think that that it's supposed to be humanizing because I think that you

need to reacquaint people with the natural law, which hasn't been blotted out of their heart wholly and entirely because it can't be right. So that way, you know, they are more open to the proclamation of the gospel when that time comes. And it might be from you, you know, but yeah. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Did you have any good conversations with these feminist Marxists on the Camino? That related around faith or important issues? Yeah. Some of them were like basic conversations about the food. It's like, oh my gosh, so much

meat. Am I right? Yeah, so much meat. I can't wait to see a vegetable. Am I right? So some of them were just kind of surfacey conversations. Yeah. I'm thinking about, yeah, so one conversation that I had with a couple of feminists was hilarious actually. And why do you call them feminists? Is it because they did or because then? Because it just went straight to reproductive rights. The conversation just went straight to abortion.

So they're like, hi, my name is X. What's your name? Father Gregor. Okay, so let's talk about abortion. Really? They went there like that? Yeah, it was just like straight up. In an aggressive way? No, no, no.

It was just like a genuine interest. It was actually a cool conversation. That's cool. And I'm continuing to be in conversation with one of them. Oh, that's wonderful. But yeah, so my go-to is always just to start with God and then cast it in terms of happiness, right? And just kind of like walk people through like creation, fall, redemption, and say like it fits within a story.

Because I don't think that a lot of us have the patience to tell the story because it's exhausting to tell the story, right? Because it takes a while. And everyone's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but sound bite me, dog. And they're like, sound bite me, dog. So yeah, I try to cast it in those terms so that way it actually, yeah, it makes sense in context. And it has the appeal of the context.

So I just wanna be like, you know, like the wild eye of a witness, like, let's talk about Jesus. So when somebody says like, what's your opinion on wild eye of a witness, like, let's talk about Jesus. So when somebody says like, what's your opinion on abortion? Like how did you then give the big picture or the big story? Yeah, so. And how long did it take you to do that?

Yeah, usually it's like, it takes me like six or seven minutes to get into it. So for me, it's like, okay, for me, like when we talk about, I usually talk about incommensurable language. When you say right and when I say right, we're typically not saying the same things, right? Because you're thinking like a claim right and a post-liberal dispensation, where my rights end, where your rights begin, but we're going to contest that middle ground, so it's actually a kind of violent affirmation of the way in which I can give expression to my liberty. Whereas when I think about right, I'm thinking about in terms of justice, which means I'm thinking about in terms of a theology of creation, because there has to be a first gift in order

for there to be anything like a do, like a use. So it's due in light of the nature, but the nature is given, and in order to understand that you have to understand the giver. So it all goes back to God. Regardless if we're in a Christian setting or a non-Christian setting, you can talk about this. It has to come from somewhere, or else it's meaningless, right? It's just violence.

It's just violence, which is like the Marxist approach. It's just violence. So then you get to talk about God, and then the way in which that story is complicated by sin, the way in which Christ rewrites that story more gloriously than it was before, and that we can partake of that. And so like when I talk about reproductive rights, I'm talking about a vision of heaven, right, which takes into account the eternal destiny of the persons involved, both mother and child.

So then, dot, dot, dot, yeah. And you kind of begin almost sounding like, well, for me, like in a relativist way, not that you are a relativist, but do you find that that's a way to kind of get in? Well, here's how I view it. Yeah, I'll often say, like, so this is a Christian, so like what I'm saying here is a Christian claim, so I'm saying this as a Christian, I don't expect this to be something to which you consent, but I just want to show that there is an argument, right? So it's not just an assertion, there is an argument, so I think that this is part of a kind of reasonable discourse, or at least,

you know, that's how it unfolds within the tradition that I occupy. So here, let me just trot it out and then you just tell me what you think is stupid and then we can sift on those terms. Wow, that's really nice. Yeah, but there has to be a sense that there's goodwill here before you would engage in that. I suppose if you're having a beer and eating a ton of meat, there probably is. Beer, meat, I dance a lot in public as of late. It just kind of gets into the hips and then all of a sudden people are like, don't ever do that again. But what if I did? And they're like, stop gets into the hips and then all of a sudden people like don't ever do that again but what if I did no like

stop it seriously and then you have a cool conversation about abortion yeah I was in Johannesburg the other day and bumped into this Christian fella and he was running a bookstore okay and just by the look on his face I knew that this was gonna get into an argument he looked far too happy and I knew that it was concealing. So I know that kind of that kind of thing. And I was just not up for it. I was just so turned off by it.

And I don't know if I was just tired or if I've been down this road too many times. Yeah, but it's like, you know, when were you saved? I'm like, well, I was saved at my baptism. I'm being saved now. And you start adding that nuance and they get suspicious. And yeah, but, you know, talking about John 3-5 and all that, and I'm just like, I just, we both know this isn't going to go anywhere. I just couldn't be bothered. Just tell me about this

Bible. I think that's why, like, I prefer to talk, I often, and this will sound scandalous. Is it scandalous? Hard to say. Let's just, yeah, I'll carry on. I'll let you know if it sounds scandalous to me. I often prefer to talk to atheists than to talk to Protestants. Because sometimes when Protestants approach me in that type of way, I'm like, why? Like, why me? Like, one time I was assigned in Providence, Rhode Island for the summer and I was coming down for my niece's baptism in Philadelphia, which is like a five-hour drive, and it was done at the nine o'clock mass, so I had to

wake up at like the crack of death dawn. And so I'm like cruising along, cruising along, you know, kind of going 17 over the speed limit. And then I finally get to a place where I've got a cushion. Like I can take a stop at a rest stop, I can get a cup of coffee, I can use the restroom, it's gonna be great. And then this dude stops me in the parking lot. And he hands me like this little watchtower publication.

And he's like, we're just here, you know, trying to encourage people in their faith, you know, just kind of get a pulse on where people are with the Lord. You know, so I just, you know, I just have a few questions. And I'm like, bruv, like you've got like dozens of options of people you could potentially encourage. Like I have like a like a footlong crucifix on my hip. Do I not seem encouraged to you? Like why are you asking me? Right, so it's that kind of, yeah, it's like the, it's that thing that I find very difficult. Maybe that is scandalous.

So with like atheists though, they're just like, you're full of know, swear word and I'm like I might be but let's us it Oh, I see. Yeah, I'm circumlocution. And so yeah, I just find that more honest of an approach It's just like I think you're bad because I think you're deceiving people. Yeah, and I'm like, okay I can see how you would think that given what you think but like let's suss it out and they're like, let's suss it out I'm like, let's go. Yeah, where it's like, I want to encourage you. So you don't want to encourage me. You want to convert me to your thing, right?

Because you think that your thing is better than your thing. Just say that, you know? Or my thing, I should say. Just say that's fine. That's a totally fine thing to say. But like, yeah. And I actually think that being that honest about it is actually a more effective way of making it happen

Yeah, so my friend Cameron Batuzzi who runs the channel capturing Christianity. I'm like, yes, I want you to be Catholic I want you to stop being Protestant because I think you get a lot of things wrong and we have more things right than you But just saying that it's so much more helpful than pretending like you're not really trying to convert them or something like that Yeah, like I want everyone to be Catholic. I want them all to be Catholic. All of them. All of them. You know, like one faith to rule them all

in a non-bad way. But yeah, just saying that just, I think allows your ideological interlocutor to take a breath, right, in a way. It's actually less abrasive in a way. Yeah. Yes, yes, I want you to be Catholic. That is where I'm coming from.

I understand you think I'm wrong and that's okay and we can chat about it. Just saying it like that is just, I don't know, the cards are on the table, you know? Yep, and I like it when people attack, not like in an angry way, but just attack the faith and say like, I have a problem with this, that, and the other thing.

Because when people are like, I just want to have a conversation, it's like, what am I going to do with the conversation? You know, like, I'm happy to have a conversation, but if I'm having a conversation, like I want to have a conversation, just want to have a conversation it's like what am I gonna do with the conversation you know like I'm happy to have a conversation but if I'm having a conversation like I want to have a conversation I want to have a sneaky conversation you know it's like for having a conversation let's have a conversation but if it's a conversation that's actually pointed because you actually have objections but you don't

want to pose them as objections because you think were you to pose them as objections they would be offensive to me and you don't want to offend me because that's actually rule number one it's like that's not a conversation that's apologetics but let's just call it apologetics. Let's say like, you think that there are things wrong about what I believe, so just lodge them. Go for it, and I will talk at 157 words per minute until the cows come home, because it is for this precise reason that I've come into the world.

It's like, party on. But yeah, I just wanna have honest conversations and or debates. That's cool that you're in dialogue with that, Sheila. How's that going? Good enough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's usually like, here's an update on things, blah, blah, blah. That's and such. And then to follow up on that abortion, it's like, yeah, that's nice.

I couldn't think of anyone better to be engaging in it. What's always a cop out and always annoying is when people send you a link, read this. No, I'm not. You do the work, don't you? Because you can point links back and forth all day. Yeah. Yeah. Let's take a break and then we'll come back. Let's do it.

Hold on. Exodus 90. You've heard of them, haven't you, Neil? I have. Well, the guys behind Exodus 90 have started Exodus 21. They've called, they're calling it a 21 day restart. Well, the guys behind Exodus 90 have started Exodus 21. They're calling it a 21-day restart. So for 21 days, you, along with the friends you invite, pray and read through the first two chapters of Corinthians, while practicing disciplines such as 20 minutes of prayer every day,

abstaining from unnecessary screen time, that doesn't include points with the coin, obviously, abstaining from meat on Fridays and fasting until 4 p.m On each weekday you can take this short opportunity to introduce your brothers cousins co-workers fellow parishioners and even your neighbors Be kind of weird if you didn't know them just assume they're Catholic and want to Torch themselves 21 days on how to live like Christ and prepare them for Exodus 90 in January So check it out go to Exodus 90 comm slash Matt Exodus 90 comm slash. So check it out. Go to Exodus90.com. Exodus90.com. To get started.

I did Exodus 90 once and I lived like a boss monster for the first 31 days and then failed miserably. So Exodus 21 sounds super doable. I would have crushed it. Although probably because 21 days was the goal. I would have like faded out around the 11th day. I don't know. Exodus90.com slash Matt, go check them out to get started. People who've done it just says it really

rejuvenates their prayer life and helps them. Exodus90.com slash Matt, link is in the description. Click it and check them out. And that starts January? No, you can start whenever. So Exodus 90 is going to be starting in January. So this 21 day can be like a little test. But honestly, for me, I just do the 21 days. So you can do it whenever you want. Go check it out right now. Exodus90.com slash Matt.

It's a great way to grow in friendship too with people in your community. Check them out. Also want to say thank you to Halo. Sorry. Halo is a really great prayer and meditation app. It is just phenomenal. Whenever I talk about Hello,

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the forest somewhere and newspapers and go and paper newspaper. Yeah. And just read all of the newspapers that I put together. Thanks so much. We're talking about jet lag. Yeah. And I was saying I've traveled a lot, you know, being from Australia, going back and forth and back and forth and going to Europe. I went to Ukraine, this well, Ukraine border this year, I went to Africa and I was just

saying to you like it wrecks me wrecks me and I've learned not to even trust my emotional state the days following the trip because I'll just like cry over something random, like not even that I'm sad but maybe I'm like super happy about something and I just find myself crying over it and like random stuff like that, that I don't wouldn't usually do. Yeah, that's intense. It is really intense. And I'm not great at sleeping on planes either. So maybe it's less the jet lag and more just I haven't slept in two days.

Yeah, I don't know that I notice any real difference with like jet lag fatigue versus general fatigue, but when I'm really tired, I start like making hard and fast plans of a disastrous sort. It's like, this thing about that guy's really upset me for a while, but I think today's the day where I'm going to address it, and I'm like,

yeah, today, and then I catch myself going, why today? Just because you're real tired and feeling stupid. So yeah, I usually have to rein that in. This is a fun comment here from Lucas Utrezula Jack. Nice. Speaking of travel, for Gregory, for Father Gregory, a fun comment here from Lucas Tresulajac. Nice. Speaking of travel, for Gregory, for Father Gregory, how do you look back on your Slovakia visit,

greetings from your altar server, Lucas. Incredible, YouTube, that's awesome, man. YouTube is such a wild place. So I went to Slovakia, I went to Bratislava, June maybe 16th to 19th, because they have an event there called the Ladisla Hanus Fellowship. So I gave a talk and I participated in like a panel discussion and then ended some other stuff

and it was great. It was really wonderful. Bratislava is a cool city. And then the people were there were, yeah, they were super hospitable. And they kept like leading me from thing to thing slash taking me from like lunch to lunch. Although I guess if you have consecutive lunches,

one of them is called dinner. But yeah, it was great. And we had this Corpus Christi Mass on Thursday night. So I rolled in, my plane, my plane, my flight plane, my plane flight was delayed an hour and a half. So I got there when I ought to have already been there. That's what delays mean. But I rolled right into this mass.

And then yeah, we had a really beautiful mass with the choir that had sung for St. John Paul II when he had celebrated the mass most recently there in Slovakia. And then we had a procession in the, like, the kind of plaza immediately adjacent to the church. And it was cool. It was a good squad. It's like when you find yourself in a situation with, like, young, committed, vibrant Catholics

and you're like, let's go. Even if we are few in number, I feel like we can, we can make it happen. Do you travel much for, why were you in Slovakia? I was just for this fellowship. So I was living in Berlin and there's just a, I mean, you can get an hour long flight from Berlin to Vienna and then it's 45 minutes to Bratislava. So. Do you go to different places to give lectures or retreats? Yes. And is that your community sends you or are people reaching out to have you?

People reach out to have me. So I did a little bit of it last year. First year when I was there, it was mostly, what was that thing called? It was COVID. And we were locked down. And I wasn't going too terribly many places except for the Swiss Alps. So it was just me and the Ibexes. Ibeces, I bet. Nevermind. And then the second year I did more in the way of that. So I try to just like work pretty intensely Monday through Friday and then try not in the way of that. So I try to just like work pretty intensely Monday through Friday, and I try not to work on the weekends. So that means like if somebody asks,

hey, can you preach this retreat? I can be like, yes, because I wasn't gonna get work done this weekend, so let's go slash preaching the word party on. So yeah, I've had occasion to do some stuff in the Netherlands, Belgium, Slovakia, Italy. We have another comment from Steve Roar that says ask Father Gregory about his time

with the Beatitudes and then a winky face. Nice, I don't know what the latter comment means, but there's an acapella group at Steubenville called the Beatitudes. At the time I thought that I could sing, which was a regrettable mistake, and I was a member thereof, and many, many tragic memories were formed.

Well, you really can't sing that well. Not really. And how did you end up part of this thing? You would have benefited from America's Got Talent criticism. Yeah. I ought to have been told otherwise, but there you go. Yeah. So Europe, period. I've been nervous to ask you about your dissertation cause I'm not sure how much I'm going to care. And I'm afraid that you might talk about it for three hours

Yeah, that's that's a great sense to I can just give you the thumbnail sketch I like that with anybody who's doing a PhD. Oh my god. This is all you've been thinking about for years I really want to be careful before I ask you. So what's it about? Yeah, it's about how the mysteries of the life of Christ save Yeah board see next topic It's about how the mysteries of the life of Christ save. Yeah, bored. See? Next topic. Just joking. Mysteries of the life of Christ save. Yeah. Christ lived a whole life. Why? You know, why not come, snap his merit fingers, and then leave as he is won't? I guess that's more of like an Esmeralda dance.

He was like, I said that I am doing it! Yeah. So why did he live a whole life? And what's the significance of the various deeds and sufferings? Do you take the sort of Franciscan approach or the Thomistic approach, I imagine it's the latter, in regards to the absolute supremacy of Christ? Interestingly, Albert the Great sided with the Franciscans, even though it was kind of like, hey, this is my opinion, whatever, not a big deal. What do you mean specifically by absolute supremacy of Christ? If sin, Christ, if no sin, no Christ. I find the Franciscan thing way more beautiful.

Hey, beauty is an argument. I'm not going to... I have a great deal, but it just seems like, and this is to your point, right, that if there were no sin, then the Franciscan idea and some of the Church Fathers idea is that you would still have Christ Because in addition to the redemption we get these other things You know like the mother of God and other things like that that you wouldn't have But yeah, have you thought a great deal about that? I thought some not a great deal. Mm-hmm me neither I typically follow st. Thomas Aquinas on most, unless the church has formally said, you oughtn't. It seems like a bad way to go. And in this case, okay, so like the divine causality

remains available to us as human beings, you know, before, during, and after the incarnation, because were it not available to us, we would pass out of existence. What Christ does is he makes the divine cause, I mean he makes God more human, right? More easy, more proximate. Those are the words the same time as he uses, humanior, facilior, et proximior. Okay? So like it's not that he makes something possible that wasn't formally possible, he makes something better, right? But you can say that about the plans of God, you know, forever and always. They can always be made better because, you know about the plans of God forever and always. They can always be made better because the power of God is such that He can improve upon

what He has presently done. Because God isn't motivated by the best possible world. He's motivated by the thing that He's chosen in light of His wisdom. So I think it's cool to sound the depths of the divine wisdom and be like, what were you thinking about there? But we can't ever hope to say like, he was thinking about this thing precisely because of this reason. And it can't be approved upon because we've got to figure it out because we don't comprehend, you know, who has known the mind of the Lord, who has been his

counselor, dot, dot, dot, et cetera. Quote, St. Paul, great guy. So yeah, those are my thoughts. Okay. All right. But I wondered if that would in some way come into what you're studying about the whole life of Christ. Yeah, it does. Because as you say, right, it's not just about like redemption. It's like something else happened. So go on. Tip your toes into it and I'll let you know if I'm... If you're getting bored? Yeah. Okay. That's okay. So basically, my contention is that the Lord accommodates salvation in a way that's best suited to our reception. All right, so the Lord makes salvation available to us in the way that we're best able to receive it, or you know, best able to, very well able to receive it.

That's not English, whatever. So like part of the reason for which He lives a whole human life is because we're destined to live a whole human life, and so the Lord gives us His life so that we can graft our life into His. I'm like, gesticulating in a wild, it's like, it's not clear to me that His life is here, whatever. So just as our Lord takes His humanity kind of top to bottom, so He has a human soul with its intellect, will, passions, co-assumed defects like hunger, thirst, suffering, death, right, human body, He takes all of that top to bottom, so He takes a whole human life start to finish so that passions, co-assume defects like hunger, thirst, suffering, death, right, human body. He takes all of that top to bottom. So he takes a whole human life start to finish so that we can find our humanity in his, right,

so that our humanity can have in him like the focal point of the giving of salvation, the receiving of salvation. And so like why does our Lord choose to be conceived and born and presented in the temple, etc., all the way down the line? Because in those mysteries we meet Him, right? We're conformed to Him, and being conformed to the Christ, we're conformed to God. What does that mean conformed to Him? How am I conformed to Him, say, in the finding of Him in the temple?

What does that mean? Right. So, like, a clear example would be, so, passion and resurrection are the ones that St. Thomas talks about the most because those are the ones that St. Paul talks about the most. And St. Paul will often talk about it in terms of the sacraments. So like in baptism, right? You, you know, often in the early church you'd be immersed, still now you may be immersed. You descend into the waters with him and the imagery there in like Romans and Colossians

is that you're buried with him. You die, all right? The old man dies. And then when you come forth from the waters, you rise unto new life, right? That's the new man. So there's like a ritual kind of reenactment of the Lord's passion and death. So you're made like him in his passion, you're made like him in his death. And by his death, sin is put to death in you. And by his resurrection, a newness of life is imparted. So it's like, He does these things,

they become wellsprings of grace, but a particular kind of grace, which corresponds to every aspect of our salvation. Because our salvation has this narrative structure. It's not like, boom, you're saved. All right? It's like, well, you receive the influx of grace, but then it's supposed to mature over the lifetime of sanctification. But it's not just like the Lord's like, hey, here's the principle, now make the best that you can of it. He's like, no, no, no, this is it's you're with me all the way down the line. Okay. But what about non passion death resurrection events of our Lord?

Like, why does any of that matter? I mean, it matters, I guess for how am I conformed? I don't know. I still know what that means. Conformed, I guess. So like, are you interested in the ascension? Are you thinking about more obscure things? No, I'm thinking like the eyebrows. Pucking of the eyebrows. He wouldn't have no Yeah, you can't meet him there. That's amazing

Jesus wouldn't have plucked his eyebrows. I don't know man. I'm making stuff up over here I usually signal the fact when I am so if you're not a bit finding in the temple You know thing like yeah So finding the temple is a great example insofar as our Lord is lost to his parents for three days. At that stage of the game, that domestic church, you know, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, is the church, right? Because, like, the people of Israel haven't yet been kind of like grafted into the church, or they haven't been yet, whatever, dot dot dot. That's a complicated story, Romans 9 through 11. So what we have

there is our Lord is lost to the church for three days and then he is restored. Right? So you have a kind of prefigurement of the resurrection. So just as you know you have a prefiguration of the glory in the transfiguration, so too you have a prefiguration of the loss in... And is the idea that these connections help us understand it better? They show us like that it's deliberate, that it's intentional, that doesn't happen by mistake, that it doesn't happen by accident,

that God has a plan for our lives and that plan is good. And that we don't fall through the cracks of his grasp, that we're all held there by a conscious purpose, which is like dead set on pulling us from death into life, specifically in his flesh. So I'm not like a big fan of trying to say like this mystery means this thing and this mystery means that like all the way down the line. Not to say that that's a bad

thing because there are many pious authors who do that and they do it to good effect like Columba Marman is a classic example of the mysteries of the life of Christ or like Christ and his mysteries I should say. But I think that what we see in the mysteries is the kind of differentiation of the divine causality, like the divine efficiency. And you see it like it's different shapes, it's different sizes. It's like the divine salvific will is passed through a prism, and what you see refracted is all of its different facets, like a kind of living technicolor salvation coat.

Never mind, Gregory, take that back. Disco bowl. Disco bowl. Disco bowl and then light is, yeah. So it helps us who come to the attainment of the truth by means of images and stories and narratives and all kinds of partial or fragmentary truths. It kind of spins out the divine causality in this visible narrative way so that we can be like, okay, I think I'm getting it. Not that I've got it, because we'll not get it until such time

as we behold it in his flesh. But it appeals to us as image-driven, as on the way, as wayfarers. Is there something, is there one insight that you would say that you've learned from all of your study having to do with this, that you could crystallize and help me understand? I would say that the Lord articulates his saving desire for you in the way that is best

suited to its recognition and reception. So basically like the Lord is a master teacher, he's a master pedagogue, all right? But in this particular case, it's not just like a lesson to be imparted. It's like a life story to be communicated to be manifested and communicated and so like the Lord is Like let's say that it's a play. The Lord is the playwright. He is the producer. He's the director. He's the principal actor He's he's like the one who's inspiring the other actors, etc And the Lord has made it such that it is the story most perfectly suited to your reception, or to your recognition and reception of salvation.

Like it's a story that's designed, it is tailor-made for your entry. He has thought about it unto ages of ages, right? He has desired it unto ages of ages, and he seeks always and everywhere to make manifest and communicate it for you, you know, specifically for you. So I think that that's what I love about the delicacy and the subtlety of the mysteries of the life of Christ, is that like God is making it such that His Son's life conspires toward your salvation, like your salvation. His Son's life makes what? Makes it such that...

He said conspires? Yeah, conspires. Like He's up in His salvation workshop and he's like, they are not gonna believe it. You know, it's like, he has set his will on your salvation. And so the way that he spins out the life of his son is tailor-made to precisely that at end. So it's like, it's not by accident, right? It's not by happenstance. It's deliberate, it's intentional, it's purposeful.

And it communicates a whole wealth of content, all of which content is for your recognition and reception, and then eventual conformity to, or assimilation to, the divine life itself. Maybe I should speak slower. But that was somebody giving that comment, actually, at the end of a mass last week. They're like, hey, it was great,

but you might consider speaking slower. I was like, I've been trying to slow down for like 15 years, and I stink at it. Um, so yes, I guess my, yeah, my studies have communicated that point. And how far are you from being done? I probably can deposit a version of it in the winter. So like summer between late January and early March. So close. Yeah. I was given three years by my province and I should be able to defend by the end

of that third year. So you come back to the States. I will yeah, are you looking forward to that? In some ways I'm already starting to lament the loss of the life there because it's a beautiful life there Yeah, yeah Because we'd be put in a parish or no, I'll probably teach. Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah Yeah, which I like well, you're like University of America or? I'll probably teach, probably like the House of Studies or Providence College or our two big institutions, yep. Awesome. Yeah.

So, sweet. Totally. Further thoughts on further things? I don't know. We had a super chat a while ago. Sometimes it happens, right? Sometimes you're like, I got nothing left in there. I'm just fresh out, man.

What's that? We had a super chat a while ago. I'll scroll back up here. Here we like, I got nothing left in there. I'm just fresh out, man. What's that? We had a super chat a while ago. I'll scroll back up here. Here we go. Super chat chat. From Robert Rodriguez. A couple of months ago, I went viral for taking selfies behind the 79ers bench and tweeting out,

Doc Rivers was cooking up nothing. What does Father Gregory Pine think about smack talk in sports? Well, you gotta do it. I think you have to do it. You have to. Yeah, it's a great way of psyching out your opponent. It also makes it exciting

because a lot of times sports aren't that exciting and you have to add a kind of personal interest to the whole experience or otherwise it's like, what are we out here for? And to like get along and pat each other on the butt. It's just too, it's silly. It was like great, great shot there. Great shot there.

I once saw this, maybe it was a dude perfect video, which characterized like different stereotypical pickup basketball players. One of whom was like the player coach, you know, who like he's playing the game, but he's also trying to give everyone pointers and stuff like that. He's like, shut up.

And then the other guy who's like the my bad guy, he's always admitting to the fact that he made a mistake. And then there's the guy who's just always giving each other, will give another guy's pats on the butt, like great, great, great job, you know, great, great effort. It's just like stop it, you know, like, I wanna compete, and you're just taking the edge off things. So I think the trash talk is,

it's a healthy part of the game. Especially when trash talk motivates. Like I think, for instance, Shaq and Charles Barkley, you know, they're NBA on TNT, they give color commentary on NBA games. And oftentimes when they criticize players, the players hear about that. The players take it to heart,

and the good players will use that as fuel for improvement. Like Joel Embiid is a classic case. Like they really criticized him. He's the best player on the Philadelphia 76ers. But they really criticized him four years ago and even three years ago. He took it to heart. He sought to improve his game.

He sought to improve his game every summer that he's been in the league. And he's a monster. He's tremendous. He sought to improve his game. He sought to improve his game every summer that he's been in the league. And he's a monster. He's tremendous. He's a great basketball player. And he's always used that as input to help him improve. So I think the trash talk, I think he's good, man. I think he's super good.

If you could watch one sport for the rest of your life and no other, basketball? Probably basketball, yeah. Football is a close second, but football just takes so long. And, but football just takes so long. And yeah, it just takes so long. I love cricket. I would watch that forever.

Really? It's a great game. We played cricket a bit in the House of Studies in the backyard to celebrate this kind of silly, but it's what it is, the feast day of St. John Henry Newman. Oh, cool. Yeah, so I was bowling at one point, and apparently you're supposed to keep your elbow straight, correct?

Which I never did. I was just winging it like a baseball player. You're going too fast! But yeah, sweet game. Yeah. There were a couple guys that could really ball out and then the rest of us were pretty terrible. As you might expect, you know, you're not gonna go to a seminar to find the best, you know, cricketers. Well, there's two basic ways of bowling. One is, now I'll, my boy, you didn't bore to go to a seminar to find the best, you know, cricketers. Well, there's two basic ways of bowling. One is now I'll my boy. You didn't bore me, by the way. I didn't mean to say that, but I'll bore you with my cricket talk.

You have like pace bowlers and you have spin bowlers. Yeah. And so I imagine there's something similar in baseball. I've never gotten to understand baseball. Yeah. But you've got you've got leg spin and off spin. Right. So a leg spin is you're coming over like that and you're rotating your shoulder. And so the ball is gonna hit, but then it's gonna fly towards the stumps or the wicked.

Yeah. But it's really fascinating to me that significantly less in speed and yet sometimes far more deadly. Yeah. So that kind of stuff I love. The other thing that's cool about cricket and I'm losing 99 percent of my audience here.

We don't care, dude. The other thing that's cool about cricket is, you know, it's probably similar to baseball in that you that you come up to the crease and they bowl it. Something happens. And then it goes back to the bowler and he waits for a while and he walks

up. And so it's like a lot of little plays that are just always interesting, I think. Yeah. What about you Neil? Any good sport you into sports? I started playing sand volleyball. Oh yeah. Pittsburgh with some friends. So that's a... That is a fun game. What's cool about volleyball is that you can always make one shot even on accident that makes you look brilliant and everyone likes to look that way. It's like you accidentally did something Oh, I guess I am brilliant

You can kind of have these fluke shots. I what I love other compliments for when you've done a bad job Hey good try. Oh, that was a really gutsy move those kind of things. It's like I just fell on my face I know but like you you really you committed it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah good bid is one that people say in frisbee Yeah, like you made a bid for a thing you missed but you made a good bid. Yeah. Yeah Golf you've got into golf so between the ages of like 12 and 14 a little bit on executive courses, but Yeah, I think that I like to choose the time place, and circumstance where I frustrate myself beyond compare. And usually that time, setting, place, and circumstance is always at my desk while working

on an old book. So I try to keep my leisure more leisurely than my work. That's frustrating and aggravating. Yeah. So I'm like easily thrown by racket sports. Like tennis, I constantly hit the ball over the back line. And by the end of the day, I look like John McEnroe on a bad day. I'm just like, so I stay away from that. And then golf, the back line and by the end of the day, I look like John McEnroe on a bad day. I'm just like, I don't, I don't. So I stay away from that. And then golf, there's something especially humiliating about five putting.

You know, it's just like, I got this. Not this one, but I'll get it next one. And not this one, but next one. There's something about that that's just terrible. It's just like inching your way closer to a hole that constantly alludes you because you're incompetent. So yeah, I just took my wounded reputation and my broken dignity and brought it

to the more hospitable climes of scholastic theology. I went with a few guys, Jacob E. Maum, Alex Plato, a few other fellows who haven't played golf recently, and I just did not enjoy it at all. Really. Yeah. It was sunny, it was nice. Yeah. But I went with some friends recently, I just, I said I'll just

drive the cart and then I got a six pack of my favorite beer, Ooboo Ale by Lake Clasid Brewery. Sat in the back and got increasingly loud. I smoked a cigar and I drank beer and just drove them around the course. It was great. Honestly, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Yeah. Yeah. But I had no expectation that I would hit a single golf ball and I didn't. Yeah. So I stood my ground as somebody who wants to say. What is going on with Tumistic Institute, God's Plaining and what else are you doing? Is there another podcast there that I'm forgetting?

I don't know. There's about to be one. Is there? Yeah. So Tumistic Institute, all good things, hustle and flow. I've actually done a really good job at committing to that. It wasn't a flash in the pan. It was this excellent video series

that started coming out and just kept coming. Yeah, so the first series, which was like the cover of the whole Summa, was something like 85 episodes. And then they all just finished the Faith and Science series, which was a solid, what, 40 episodes or something like that. And now they're transitioning into a third series on the sacraments.

So I don't work for the Thomistic Institute in a formal way right now because I'm full-time graduate school. But I'm just actually starting to kind of contribute again to the podcast. So- To God's Planning? To Temistock Institute.

This is still TI stuff. So we're doing this thing called Off-Campus Conversations. So, Temistock Institute, the audio quality on the podcast isn't always top-notch because it's a variety of speakers in a variety of places with a variety of student leaders blah blah blah so it's getting better but still coming along and so I'm doing follow-up episodes with speakers from who have given lectures at different campuses just to ask more questions about their theme and kind of tease out some of the

insights and that's going to be every two weeks so that's called off-campus conversation but it's just going to be on the Thomistic Institute podcast so they still have Aquinas 101, the Thomistic Institute podcast, both of which are doing great, blowing up. And then a lot of on-campus events. And at this point, they're opening up like 15 new campus chapters, it seems like, a year. So a lot of people in the United States, super interested in having it at their schools. And there's been a great response, which is cool. That is one. Thomistic Institute, God's Planning, Hustlin Flow. The new logo is terrific. Hey, thanks.

Did that come out recently? I looked at it the other day and I thought, oh gosh, that looks really good. Thanks, yeah. Yeah, that was Fuzadi. So cheers to them. Oh, cool. Yeah.

And yeah, we just did a logo redesign and we've been doing the normal Thursday episodes, guest episodes, live stream. The number kind of like standard fare. This summer we're expanding to, we had our first pilgrimage. We went on the Camino, which I made reference to, and then we're having three retreats. Last year we had our first retreat, now we're having three retreats, so we're looking to kind of

continue to build that out. I don't know that we'll have more than three or four retreats because every retreat is a weekend and there's only 52 in the year. And then what else is going on in God's planning? Those are the big things, I think. Yeah. Are you enjoying doing the podcast? Yeah. Yeah, I enjoy having weird conversations about weird things and sometimes people enjoy them. And then sometimes people are like, why would you ever?

Like I just recorded an episode with Father Bonaventure on Denny Villeneuve's films, like Arrival, Dune, Sicario, Blade Runner 2049. He made a bunch of really cool movies. And I don't know if anyone's gonna like that conversation, but I did. But isn't that the joy of it? So we haven't had a long form chat on this channel until last night, because I was gone for like 12 days. Okay. I was so happy to get back and do this. Like I really like doing it. Yeah, for sure. But it is nice too that it is nice when you can do something for the fun of it and not for the numbers or not for, yeah.

Yeah, and I think that like, we talked about this before maybe, or I talked about somebody else, but all right, regardless, deliver the goods, Gregory. If you start thinking about the types of conversations that other people would like to hear, then you end up being less interesting. Whereas when you talk about the things that you like,

then I think they end up being interesting conversations. Now mind you, you should be sensitive to your audience and you shouldn't be like, so this other obscure point about like animal husbandry in the 17th century, that really gets me going. Oh my gosh, that reminds me of something which I'm going to read to you, but keep talking. Yeah. So I don't think that you should just kind of give in to that tendency for the strange and obscure, but I think that, yeah, you gotta stay in tune with the things that animate you, and then that ends up being more engaging for the audience. So that's what we try to do at God's Planting.

And then the last one that I'm contributing to is a new one through Ascension called Catholic Classics. So another friar and I are reading like a classic work of spirituality. And then just doing, so it's like audio book for the first half of each episode, just reading it through, and then just like a little work of spirituality. And then just doing like, so it's like audio book for the first half of each episode, just reading it through, and then just like a little bit of commentary.

That's so neat. Yeah, and then you just go, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, x number of days in a row, and we'll have maybe two or three seasons a year where you just cruise through a book over the course of 30 or 40 episodes, just short ones, 20 minute episodes. So here is a meme I'm gonna share soon,

and it's actually a tweet tweet and it is freaking hilarious. So I'd better laugh. No, you love it. Ready? Every lifelong Catholic I've ever met is like, I think we're supposed to give this food to poor people. And every adult convert is like the the archon of Constantinople's epistle on Pentecostine's rights of the Eucharist clearly states women shouldn't have drivers licenses. That was to your point about the like super nuanced thing that no one cares about. But it is true though, like if you talk about what you're interested in,

that's going to generally be more interesting. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Especially in the current dispensation where like there are a lot of podcasts and you can kind of go where you find things to be interesting So yeah, no sense like trying to have the same conversations that everyone else is having. Yeah have your conversation Well, that's kind of like we have a new channel for those who are watching right now If you're interested, it's called victory. So it's like a anti porn YouTube channel and I just found myself so Freaking bored at the idea of doing Skype interviews.

Hey there, so what's going on lately? I just, oh my God, I'll die inside. Do you become American when you do Skype interviews? Yep. He's actually solely American on that. Solely American, yeah. Actually, I'm not even Australian. This is just to get the ladies and I've got her.

So I kept it up. So what we do instead is like if I'm interviewing you say for the channel Yeah, we'll come up with like seven questions. I'll ask them and those will just be seven videos Oh, and so everything is like a three two minute clip four minute clip five minute clip nice This is Skype interviews bore me right? This is so much interesting. Yeah, I think to me for sure wait So you're gonna do them remotely with the person? Yeah, they're already releasing right now So I've done interviews with people like Dr. Bob Schuetz and others.

Nice. And then we just take the clips out and we don't release the full thing. Okay. We doing that with the audio? We releasing the audio? Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's gonna be up on the website.

Yeah. On Spotify. Boom, party on. And is it piggyback on Pints with Aquinas or is it just its own thing? It's just totally own thing. Okay. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, cool.

Yeah. Is there anything else like that? This might be, but I'm not that familiar with it. I was surprised at the lack of stuff in that area the lacuna. Yeah Yeah Yeah, I think fight the new drug, which is a non-religious non-political type of anti-porn movement or whatever Yeah, I think they have a podcast but it's not video and okay. So we'll see where it goes It's with with 13,000 subscribers and 14 videos. It's not video and okay, so we'll see where it goes. It's with with 13,000 subscribers and 14 videos. It's pretty cool. Yeah, you're doing it going on for weeks

Yeah, so it's beautiful to see so it yeah All right. Thanks a lot. Hey my joy. This is this has been great. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me