Pints With Aquinas - Joyful Chaos with Aquinas (Mother Natalia & Shayne Smith)

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

Mother Natalia is a Friend of the Show. She converted to Eastern Catholicism after college, and eventually entered Christ the Bridegroom Monastery where she is now Vocations Director. Mother's observations and Wisdom on the spiritual life have touched thousands around the world. Shayne Smith is also a Friend of the Show. He is a recent Catholic Convert. He is a full-time stand up comedian. Shayne's comedy is mainly focused on his surreal life experiences. 🍺 Get episodes a week early, 🍺 score a free PWA beer stein, and 🍺 enjoy exclusive streams with me! Become an annual supporter at https://mattfradd.locals.com/support 💵 Show Sponsors: Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/matt Hallow: https://hallow.com/mattfradd Strive21: https://strive21.com/matt 💻 Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Pints_W_Aquinas TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pintswithaquinas 👕 Store: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com/

So this reason special I talk about like my childhood in the very small town, like bringing a gun to elementary school for show and tell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You actually did. Yes. Yeah. So I have a whole bit about that and I get taken to the principal's office and the principal has my back because it's the smallest town ever. It's lovely to have both of you here. Excited. I feel like things have really changed in the church because I think back in the 80s seeing a nun next to a tattooed muscle

Guy seemed insane Whereas today the nuns are Cool, like the Catholic. I really do think the new rebellion. Yeah like orthodox Christianity and by orthodox I mean both capital and lowercase. Oh, mm-hmm. So it's great to have you Can we rewind when you called me a muscle guy and how cool that was? You know, I'm pretty good about that. I feel like I've not really been accused of being cool, and so I'm excited about that. Were you cool as a kid?

We're both so egocentric. Yeah. Like in high school, were you kind of cool? No, definitely not. Is that true? Do you think or is that just what you think? Do other people think you were kind of weird? I think it's true that I wasn't cool. I Was a skateboarder. I didn't really have a lot of friends. I listened to Avril Lavigne and I Did but that was before I was a skateboarder like Avril Lavigne was more when I was in middle school

Much older than you. Could you kickflip in your habit? Well, I didn't wear a habit in high school. But now, currently. Oh, I couldn't kick flip anymore. Oh, that would be so cool. What was the coolest thing you could do? Probably kick flip, or like a shove it sex change. No idea what that is, what is that? Well, a normal shove it is just when you like

kick the board 180 degrees and then jump forward onto it and then So that's a shove it a shove it sex change, which is this not really a great term anymore You flip the board and then you also jump 180 degrees And land on the board. I want to know I like us to do this I like us to both like each go around and talk about what we were like in high school. Okay, so you were a skater. So were you, did you tend to gravitate more to male friendships?

Oh yes, my whole life. Seems like a kind of a tomboy hobby, is what I'm, is my sexist comment for the episode. Okay, yeah, yeah. Just the one. Let's see what happens. I'm feeling fresh, I wouldn't know. Yeah, I was not cool, I was a Metallica guy.

That's what people call us, the Metallicas. That was our group's name, the Metallicas, but not in a cool way, just trick. Yeah, I was not cool. I was a Metallica guy. That's what people call us, the Metallicas. That was our group's name, the Metallicas, but not in a cool way. Just like, yeah, yeah. And me and my friends who were trying to grow long hair. Okay. And were very and pretended to be angry. That was me. How long did it get? I didn't ever have the courage to grow it very, very big. But I had some friends who did, and some of them had really curly hair.

And as they grew it out, it just looked awful. But at some point, it turn and it's like wow well done for putting in that investment. Yeah, it takes time In high school, I grew up in such a small town that like to have a clique wasn't really a thing So I was like a nerd when it was time to play Dungeons and Dragons and I was a skater when it's time to skate and I was a baseball player when it's time to play baseball But around 14, I was like, I'm gonna smoke cigarettes and be a degenerate, a grown man. And that's what I was up to. So I kinda didn't, my childhood pretty much ended around 14.

I know it. That's really sad. Is it? A little bit. I mean, I've had a job since I was like nine. I realized that the other day I was talking to someone and they were talking to me about punishments for a child. And I was like nine. I realized that the other day I was talking to someone and they were talking to me about punishments for a child and I was like, make them chop wood

or stack rocks or dig a hole. That's what I did those things. And then I was like, oh, I guess I chopped wood for like a job when I was a child. And then I was like, oh, I've had a job since I was nine, like a part-time at least. So that's probably not the normal experience. But it's like a farm thing.

Right? Did you live on a farm? I mean, I lived near one. My family was too poor. We weren't the owners. We were like, my mom like picked like fruit and or you know, did menial labor. So not, not the most wonderful. But still, character building. Was there a time in your childhood or teenage years where you thought, I I've come into my own like I think I'm kind of cool,

at least in my own eyes right now, like I can be more confident than I thought I could be up. Does that make sense? No. OK. Oh, no, it makes sense. Yeah. Definitely not. I didn't feel like myself until I was in the monastery. Wow. Yeah. I'm still struggling with it currently trying to figure it all out. What am I doing?

But no, never confident as a high schooler or a middle schooler. I feel like for the sake of transparency, I should clarify so that people don't misunderstand. I skated in high school. That was the first thing that came to mind. But I wasn't like a skater. I didn't really fit into any

cliches because I also was very much a hard-working student who then like it was really important to me to go to a good college and things like that and So I was a nerd and also a skater and also I don't know I was just a lot of different things. Okay. I was a cheerleader in high school like a math nerd or Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. Do you ever play that video game Tony Hawk's something something? Pro skater? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Underground is the best one. That was wild. On the PS1? Oh, the soundtrack. Yeah, who was that again? I mean there were so many people. Every time I hear that Goldfinger song, the like saxophone, it just puts a

little pep in my step because I'm like a child again. Did you play video games as a teenager? A little bit, not a ton. Did you have a console? We did. Yeah. It's amazing how nostalgia really does make

me think that I that those things are better than they actually are. You talk to people who, you know, were kind of teenagers when the Atari came out. Pong was the greatest thing in the world. Yeah. Yeah. And space invaders, et cetera. But yeah, I don't think they got excited about it. For me, it's Super Mario three. Okay. For any s the first Nintendo. That's like was the height of gaming. And me and my brothers were obsessed. And then I remember watching the movie three ninjas and they were playing it And I was like we're just like the ninjas like I was so pumped I really liked what was the Mario one where you jumped into the paintings? Oh, I don't know Oh Super Mario 64. Thank you Yeah, yeah, I got you. You never played Super Mario 64. I never I was always a Sega fella In Australia, we pronounce it Sega. Oh

But I remember at the start you put in the cartridge and we go Sega. Yeah, yeah. Why are they pronouncing it wrong? You people. Now, I have such fond memories of video games. My wife never grew up really playing many video games a little bit. So when I would tell her about some of the best memories from my high school years were playing video games with my friends, she would look at with me with tremendous pity, like,

oh, I'm so sorry. And I'm like, oh, no, I actually really think it was great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I found out somewhat recently in the last couple of years that a friend of mine, a friend of mine, we had the same experience of growing up like we both just one in time with our brother, our brothers.

And so I would, my brother would let me play video games with him, but he would always, either my controller was unplugged, or he would tell me, or he would tell me like, oh, you're this person, you know? But the thing is, I figured it out way before I said something, because I just was so excited to be playing a game with my brother. before I said something because I just was so excited to be. Well, that makes me so sweet.

That is sweet and so sad. Oh, so not one of my other female friends had the same experience growing up with her brother. Tales in Sonic and Tales. Something like that. Yes. 100 percent. I think I think actually I was I used to play Tales. There's let's dig into that because that is such a sad story. Shane thinks it's sweet.

I think it's sweet. Well I think it's sad because my brother didn't actually want to spend time with me. Well it's because you loved him so much and you were willing to go along to make him happy even though you weren't getting anything out of the game. It's kind of like a child who maybe it makes it means more to their parents that they believe in Father Christmas and that they do so they go on believing it For the good of the parents maybe yeah, yeah, yeah, sweet and sad yeah Oh, man, I figured that out recently too. I never thought Santa was real

Yeah, yeah the other day someone was like I gotta buy my kids presents and I'm like Santa does that what are you talking about? I gotta buy my kids presents and I'm like, Santa does that, what are you talking about? No, I never thought Santa was real. And I was like, oh man, that experience sounds like it was fun to think Santa was real. That sounds cool. Until. Until you figure it out.

I remember telling my friend, Toby Crocker, who was trying to tell me Santa Claus does not exist, it's not real. And I then relayed to my parents how I rebuked him with my logic and facts I'm saying to mom and dad and then I said Toby as if my parents would be so Disgusting as to like chew on the carrots we leave on the front lawn for Santa's Reindeer's Yeah, that would be really gross Your dad spitting carrots out.

I remember when we, I've always been super gullible, but also the truth is so important to me and precision of language is so important to me and all of this. And so I remember when I found out because also I really hope no kids listen to this at all, because this is just the most devastating thing at this point. Turn it off now kids. Spoiler alert. Ear, ear, what's it called? When you ear? Earmuffs.

Earmuffs. Yeah. The, I remember my mom sitting, my brother and I down, my brother's two years older than me to talk about Santa Claus. And my brother says, mom, my brother's two years older than me, to talk about Santa Claus. And my brother says, Mom, don't worry. I know he's not real. And I just go, don't worry, Mom. I still believe. And she's like, well. And I was devastated. I was like, this just broke my trust. And how can I ever believe? Why would my parents lie to me? It is interesting how people have different responses. I actually spoke to a fella. He's a big burly fella, very educated PhD,

as well as being burly, which is weird to find. It's almost not fair. Like he can be strong or smart. Don't be both. Because there's some of us who are neither and we don't appreciate it. Shane is both. No, I'm incredibly silly. He called you muscle guy.

Yeah, no, yeah, I agree. No, I'm incredibly silly. He called you muscle guy. Yeah, no, yeah, I agree. No, I know what he said. I'm not both though. But he said like he had to forgive his mom later in life because it was traumatic. So this part, I hear that I'm like, get over it. But I mean, if children react differently, they're not wrong to react the way that they do. So that's interesting that you reacted that way. I find older siblings seem to take it better

because then they are in on it for the younger siblings. Yeah, I was the youngest. So they come into the understanding and then they kind of like get to play the game and watch their siblings have that sense of wonder. Whereas if you're the youngest, you're like, so just nothing then, like great, cool, you know? But whatever, I don't know. Yeah, what an interesting experience though

What was your first job? Well, like real job not like like not like babysitting and things like that. Not like that Like your first you got a paycheck. I worked at Chick-fil-A for two years when I was 14. Oh Was that great? I loved it Did you say my pleasure? I still say my pleasure. Yeah It's stuck. Why is Chick-fil-A so great? It really is. Here's a fun fact, actually. Um, two fun facts about me working at Chick-fil-A. One is that, uh,

the owner's son came to our store at some point and he was there with his friends and he was so impressed by my hostessing. This was like when hostesses were a first a thing at Chick-fil-A. They like wasn't a thing before. And so he had a film crew come out and they put me in the training video. Whoa. Fun fact. So that was my first appearance before even Pines with the Coinus. And then Chick-fil-A fame.

Yeah, I think people have looked for this video and they haven't. Praise God found it. So I don't know. Yeah, we used it like in our store and then they were using it at Chick-fil-A. But there it's updated now. Praise the Lord. But the other fun fact is that I also was sometimes the cow. OK, the mascot, except they called me the calf because yeah and my tail would

drag on the ground football games soccer games events at like the library and now whatever part of your job like we're getting paid hourly by Chick-fil-a for this yeah I wasn't just doing it for Actually, it's my passion. I just like to cow around, hang out. That's me. Yeah, I just like to move around town. He's a comedian. Yeah. Throwing out a few dad jokes.

What's your first paycheck job? My first paycheck job. Hmm, what was my first paycheck job? I think it was, like my first job where like a stranger was like here's the money was thawing pipes So we'd go out to like alfalfa fields or cornfields or whatever in the morning either on horseback or four-wheelers Depending on what we had and we would go thaw pipes before school. So much cooler than what I did. Continue It's a really cold job and I remember I did it with this- On a horseback?

Yeah, sometimes. Did you have your like hairy chest facing the sun, shirt open? Almost like the most baby face kid. Very- Zero body hair. I'm not gonna lie, I regret saying that. I'd like us not to dig into that.

Unfortunately. I think Shane's the only one who doesn't regret that you said that. Yeah, I'm kind of back mountain proud of- Well, okay, hold on now. Sorry, mother. But I did, I did, it was good. But, you know, I was, I was a cowboy, but like I wasn't like looking like it, you know. I was wearing like Osiris shoes Riding a horse going to put

Sounds like a really cool manly job, but did you actually have like a paycheck job where they took taxes out? And you had like a you know My first paycheck job was like a phone bank so like I I Definitely worked for a place where they were stealing from people like I would like do you want a vacation? Would you like this is before all those jobs were sent to India or whatever? Yeah, and so I would do that and they would be like is this a scam and I'm like 15 and I'm like absolutely not I'm a child. I don't even know what I'm doing. I just want a hundred and twenty dollars for like oh man They paid minimum wages,

like $7 an hour at the time. Oh wow. I made no money. And then I worked at Subway and that was a good job. I've heard that the avocado they serve at Subway comes from cans. I, it didn't when I worked there, we used to do all the prep work. I love it. If it did though, that sounds disgusting. Doesn't it? I wonder if it's, I'm gonna look it up. Yeah, you should look it up.

I know the bread is classified as like a donut or something because there's so much sugar in it. Yeah, you know who we're gonna ask, ChatGKT. Yeah, Subway's so bad. Does avocado from, where is it? Subway comes. Yeah. That's really cool. I still am.

I got the boots and everything. Subway's avocado typically comes in the form of a pre-made Padiga pre-made package spread so it's not canned so it's less gross Maybe but pre-made package spread it often is made from mashed avocado and added ingredients, okay What are the added ingredients like styrofoam? probably probably just spices or someone I Just feel like they're always putting weird stuff in the food. They're like, it's avocado and we added sludge.

You're like, why did you add sludge to it? And they're like, it's a mystery. It'll kill you, but it tastes good. Just feed me regular food, please. Now, this is my wife's, she's on this kick right now of like telling everybody they're eating poison. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she's wonderful to have at dinner parties. Cool, but she's exactly right too. She only eats meat, yeah. She's wonderful to have at dinner parties. Cool. But she's exactly right, too. She only eats meat, right? She only eats meat.

So she's kind of that's like what vegans do. She's in the reverse. So now it would be it would be over the top if she was trying to make everyone carnival. She's totally not. But I think she's actually she's like RFK, right? Just going around, telling people you're eating poison and being completely right. I mean, yeah, it's wild that America has the lowest age of death out of rich countries. We dropped.

So America has a higher, what am I trying to say, average lifespan? Lifespan, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My generation dies before our parents. So like Gen X isn't my parents, the Boomers are. And Boomers were living in the 80s. That had to do so much damage to their bodies. The 80s were crazy.

How are we dying before them? Like the 80s had to be so bad for you. So you're saying, yeah, tell us more about this. This sounds unbelievable. A Boomer's life expectancy is like 76 if you're a man, or 73 if you're a man, higher if you're a woman. And if you're my generation or 73 if you're a man higher if you're a woman and if you're My generation, I think it's like 72 or something like lowered

Yeah, the first time in like modern history in a third in a first world country. That's how I'm all about being yeah, America But no one it comes to the crap. We eat enough food. I know it's disgusting freedom, baby Freedom to be fattened. Yeah, the freedom to eat two packs of sweet tart ropes a day, which isn't something I'm totally doing. They're so good. Do you care about your health? It's not that you have a habit. It covers a multitude of sins.

Not that you're fat. I'm just saying, if you were, it would cover it. Well, I care about- I feel like I should leave. I couldn't tell which one was the microphone. You're so small and dainty. Oh, thanks, Shane. I think, uh, I mean, I care. Did you ever care about how you could you have health issues kind of like my wife, right? Do you have you ever tried to

Um eat well to mitigate it? I have not I have not. Well, no, but I want to go back to I think there's something very wrong with what you just asked because you said, do you care about your health? Well, you wear a habit, so it covers things. But like your health is not just about your physical appearance or like that's vanity I disagree. I disagree your appearance. Of course. I agree Your appearance can coincide with your health. It's a pretty good Indicator if you see someone so if you were like I gotta organize a football team right now

There's certain people who you're like that's gonna be to be the healthier. Right. But his implication seems to be that the only reason you I don't need to care about my health because my habit because you're hiding in your habit. Yeah. Yeah. But I care about my health. So this was actually a really important transition for me that happened at some point in the monastery because I've struggled with body image issues for my whole life as Like every woman does is that right? Oh, have you is that been your experience when you talk to women that a lot of most women?

Yeah, no, absolutely and the more beautiful they are the worse it is. Yeah case in point. It's crazy. It is crazy though They're always gorgeous and like just perfect and then they're like I am a blob or whatever Like what do you what do you see when you look at yourself? Reality is like I mean, I guess I figure that in this visual culture It makes sense that a lot of women and now increasingly men would feel that way about themselves I just didn't know to what degree it so impacts them I remember having a conversation with someone at some point in the monastery because I realized after being in the monastery for a few years, someone was taking a picture at some point.

This is very vulnerable. That's fine. Someone was taking a picture of us in a group and I realized that I was sucking my stomach in for the picture. But this was just like so ingrained and so habitual that I just did it without thinking. And afterwards I was like, what is going on? Like that's not so anyways, this transition happened at some point a few years ago where I did care about my health. about being, I've always been like very active and I cared about all of that because I cared about my figure. But then at some point it shifted as the Lord just healed interior things because it's always an interior problem. I can say something about that in a second, but

as he continued to heal the interior for me, then it shifted to I wanted to be healthy in order to be able to do the things that I love to do, to be able to run and rock climb and hike mountains and things like that. So my health does matter to me. I do the things that I need to to be healthy. So what you're referring to that I have that similar to Cameron is I have POTS, which is a dysautonomia. It's a problem with the autonomic nervous system. And I've been able to, just through cardiac rehab, and increasing my salt intake and always wearing compression

socks, I went from getting a migraine every other day Cardiac rehab and increasing my salt intake and always wearing compression socks. I've like I went from getting a migraine every other day to I get a migraine a couple of times a year now. And I can run like I run half marathons and things like that. And so that's been super, super exciting. Is that dog still attacking you? Yeah. OK. Yeah, yeah. We got to do something about that guy. Yeah, I don't know what to do about it though. I'm gonna buy the, I'm gonna buy you guys like a Red Rider BB gun

and then just put it on your back like you're one of those Olympic skiers and then pull it off and you see the dog and... Is this the road by your monastery where you run yeah yeah they have dogs and not fences and they just like there was one yeah there's like this german shepherd that will chase me down the street it's terrifying that is putting way to make minutes on your time yeah yeah what's gonna say knocking off second one time it was uh one of the people they come out of their house as this dog is just like coming at me none of them have ever bit me but and they come out and they're like come on when people make excuses for their dogs who act inappropriately they should be deported yeah no it's the worst they are the worst people yeah yeah if your dog

scares someone or barks at them or snaps at them you're the problem and it's not don't make excuses if you're stupid dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you're in charge. The dog is a dog. That's right. It's a tool. Yeah. Dogs are too. You're in charge. You are capable of shooting in the back of the head and burying in your backyard. Right. So I want to go back to what I said about it being an interior problem. Yeah. Because enough of killing dogs.

Let's go back to the regular stuff. The thing most people love that all the dog lovers have stopped listening, there is actually, so in our monastery we have our cells, which is the word that we use for our rooms. We have our cells dedicated. We have a saint that we, a picture of a saint that we hang on the outside of our door and then one on the inside. And as patrons basically of like our exterior life and our interior life. And I chose years ago, I chose for mine, for the patron of my interior life, I chose Saint Fotina, the woman at the well. Fotina is the name given in tradition to the woman at the well. And I think most people would think

of her as someone who is very exteriorly sinful and had this exterior conversion. But it really was so much a conversion of the interior in her encounter with the Lord that all of the sin that was happening outside of her was coming from those interior wounds. And so I think that's yeah, I think that we make the mistake when a woman is struggling with like body image issues, we make them or anyone. We make the mistake of thinking that this is a problem that's an exterior problem that needs addressed and they just need to Somehow be convinced that they're beautiful or they need to be convinced that they're desirable or that they but like that's not the problem There's something inside of them

That needs healed. Yeah when people ask me about My tattoos and if I enjoy to have them and if I like how I look I do when I was a child I saw two people with tattoos and I just really wanted to aspire to that all the people I looked up to I thought it was manly and cool and interesting and Whatever and I always say if you if the person who looks at you in the mirror is the person you imagine yourself to be That is like healing and beautiful and good. And so I think so many people, it's the interior issue. They imagine themselves and then the person who looks

at them in the mirror is not the imagined person. And that creates like this major conflict. So the key is to imagine yourself differently. So difficult, easier said than done by a lot. But yeah, yeah, yeah. And then how much has this been expedited by social media? I know people always talk about this. I'm so glad my eldest daughter has never had a smartphone.

She's never had the horror of having to scroll like to imagine the depth you get to create in a child by encouraging her to learn poetry and to like journal, as opposed to figure out what filter makes her skin look good. Like when that's your predominant thing you're doing daily, that's gotta be so destructive. It's heartbreaking when regular, like just my regular female friends are on their stories with filters and they have to have a filter on everything

when they talk to the camera, take a photo, and it's like absolutely not necessary. Someone, someone asked me, someone took a picture of me recently. For my podcast, and there was something. I don't remember, I made a joke about something in the picture, and they were like, well, we can we can just Photoshop that out or edit that out or whatever. And I was like, no, please, please don't. Like I made a joke to Josiah at one point

in because I had like a terrible zit and I recorded multiple episodes at once for my Pines episodes. And so I was like, man, it's going to be like weeks of people seeing this huge zit. And so I made a joke to Josiah about editing it out. And he was like, I can if you want. And I was like, no, please don't, because like, that's not the witness that I want to give to people of let them see that Mother Natalia has its two playing. Yeah, I noticed after I went to a Bob shoot.

I thought you were about to say I noticed. No, I noticed. Couldn't stop looking. I noticed after I went to a Bob shoots retreat that why is it that I hide so much of my behavior? So I might be. I don't I know we've already talked about video games. I don't play them much. But let's say I'm playing a video game and my wife or my son or someone walks in. I might like put it down.

You have that experience, not with video games or like you're just doing something. And then why why am I acting like I'm unacceptable? And if I am unacceptable, then I can also address that. Yeah. But sometimes you like you said, when you take someone takes a photograph and you change your position, why do I do that unconsciously? That's what's weird. When I was like putting down the game without realizing or even thinking through why is this unacceptable?

Is this wrong? Why? And I think some of it does maybe come from childhood, especially if you had like an overbearing parent who you feel like you're being yelled at all the time. I kind of felt like I was yelled at all the time. I'm always in trouble. So I feel like I'm always in trouble.

Like someone's always about to. Yeah, especially too, because we were both raised in a time where parents didn't understand what video games were. And so they're like, you're rotting your brain, but video game is way better for you than any TV you'd ever watch. You're being active, you're solving problems,

you're using your imagination, you're reading, you're doing math, it's engaging, it's often social nowadays. So like a parent who would admonish you but then go watch Netflix is like, what are you doing? So parents don't really admonish their kids anymore. Also kids can be millionaires from playing video games now. So there's more money in e-sports than all American sports combined. Yeah, I don't think we should encourage our children to play video games, but we should. I think that it's a tool, among other things, to allow kids to like spend their time for sure. I agree with what I agree with. Part of what you're saying.

I think the bit I agree with is, yeah, it's easy to be judgmental about what someone's doing and then go and binge three shows of Netflix. Like, not even that. I remember my parents would sit down and watch the news. We're watching the news and it had this air of sophistication about it. But it's like, this is entertainment and that's why you're doing it. So it's easy to criticize somebody doing something that you think is juvenile. Exactly.

And then go and watch a bunch of news. Exactly. I think if you do it really quickly. doing something that you think is juvenile. Exactly. And they go on a bunch of news. Exactly. Can I add something to that? If you do it really quickly. There's a culture in dating now of women judging men for playing video games, but they spend as much time watching the same TV show over and over again.

Oh yeah. Sorry, the reason I said really quickly is I'm afraid they can't hear you. So if you want to come in and say it to them. Yeah, yeah. Here, I'll share. Love you, bud. There's a culture now in like dating

where women will look down on guys who play video games at all regularly, but they're also like proudly watching The Office for the 800th time. And it's just like, at least when I play Call of Duty, it's different every time instead of like the same white noise, you know what I mean? I think I've heard, thanks.

I think I've heard that the reason we like to watch shows again and again is because we know how it wraps up and it's somehow calming. Yeah, yeah, I always say that with comedy and when I write, I'm always imagining there's like a scale of funny to comfort, and like some shows are way more comfortable than they are funny, and that's why we enjoy them,

are way more funny than they are funny and that's why we enjoy them are way more funny than they are comfortable. An example would be The Office is a perfect comfort to funny level. That's why it's so popular. A show- Not the English Office, that's uncomfortable. No, no, English Office, wildly uncomfortable. This is a show that I think no one should ever watch

and is despicable. But Friends, a lot of people like it. High comfort level Incredibly low funny one of the least funny shows of all time. I thought it very funny. I couldn't I can't Seinfeld high funny low comfort So there's different shows that are moving around 30 rock high funny low comfort But maybe a little higher comfort big bang theory all comfort no funny But you you enjoy it for different reasons, you know. There's this like warmness to it.

There's a whole community of people that can only fall asleep to the show Futurama. There's people like that. There is a whole community. Like they have the online message boards and stuff. And their whole thing is they can, it's the only show they can fall asleep to. It's like a phenomenon.

Oh, that's so sad. Isn't it weird? No, sad. It is, that's the internet. That't it weird? No sad. It is that's the internet that's the internet because if you if the internet wasn't a thing you would think I got this weird thing that I do. Yeah yeah, but then you have a community and then you encourage it and then it becomes a thing in your head and now you have to be part of a group now. Right. I feel like yeah. Yeah, yeah, and they're empowering you to be weirder and the next thing you know who knows what you're up to. I'm gonna say something vulnerable and then if You guys want to save me by backing me up

I don't mean by defending me, but maybe by offering something similar. I'm sitting here I feel so stupid that I've said like two or three things that I really regret in this show 100% and for like for the first ten minutes I've been thinking I should just tell Thursday to take that out But you probably won't take it out and I shouldn't be worried about taking it out And so I feel so bad that I said the thing about the habit. And I feel so weird. I said the thing about the cowboy point is like, there's so much of my life

where I do things like that. And then I and then I become aware of how concerned I am of the opinions of others, because it's really easy to say that you don't. And that sounds so virtuous. And then when you realize to the degree in which you do, that can be crippling. You're trying to suck in the gut of your personality Yeah, that's it Yeah, we're doing it

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I think that that's I Want to commend you for your self-awareness in that because this is something that I was just reflecting on yesterday actually Because I was overly concerned overly for sure concerned about a conversation that I had had with someone and some of the things that I had said in it and maybe I shouldn't have said that, maybe I shouldn't have shown them this thing, maybe I like whatever it was and then as I sat with that in prayer and tried to actually be open to some self-reflection in it,

in prayer and tried to actually be open to some self-reflection in it, I realized I was not regretful of the thing that I said. I was regretful of what that person might think because of the thing that I said. And so I think that's that's really good self-awareness of it's maybe not even a problem of something that you said that you shouldn't have said, but a matter of you don't said that you shouldn't have said, but a matter of you don't wanna be seen in a certain light. That's right. Cause if you all had laughed at what I said,

and we all have thought it was funny, I'd be like, yeah, go me. Yeah, yeah. Cause it felt flat. I'm like, oh, I'm embarrassed. And I see that was kind of silly. Yeah. I do that constantly where I'll have an interview

or I'll do something and I'll like deeply wish it went differently for no reason. Like it it'll be this is the comedy thing that happens I will have a show and I will hate the show. I'll feel like it was work I'll feel like the audience didn't laugh enough. I'll feel like certain jokes didn't land and things just were awkward in the room I'm sweaty. I feel I get off stage and I'm kind of like You know depressed and a little deflated my egos hurt and I'm also feeling really guilty these people pay money I know like working-class adults. They have to get a babysitter They have to convince a friend or a wife or a girlfriend

They take all these risks so they drive all the way to see me. They pay $30. They have to buy drinks It's and I didn't deliver and I'm just like I'm feeling like a bad person And then someone come up to me and go that was the greatest show I've ever seen in my life And I want to in my instinct is to be like you're wrong actually that shows sucked Is it more than that decent always feel like they're lying just to be nice No I think they're being totally genuine and And then I have to stop and think how I'm perceiving the situation is not how they do.

Just because I think I did bad or I was silly doesn't mean that's how they perceive it. The reason I brought that up is I know the idea sometimes I'll be on stage and I'll do something and I'll come off and someone affirms me. I think, yeah, whatever, I dismiss it. And then someone criticizes me and I'm like, you could not be more right.

You are the voice of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, yeah. I hate that. I've, the criticism you didn't ask for is always tough because that one lands. If someone volunteers a criticism, it's so bold that you're like, there's no way they're lying.

Like they just went in on me, you know? But how does that experience of getting up on stage and subjecting yourself to that kind of change you affect you in the long run? Like, what does that do to a person? Can I say one more thing before that question? Because I, I really want to emphasize, Matt, I think it's really important that you took the break to say that because as opposed to just having Josiah edit the things out, because what you just articulated is the experience of every one of your listeners. Like we all have this happen

to us where, but even though we all have this happen, most of the time we're not self-aware enough. We're not aware of what's happening on the interior. And so we just kind of keep like we get stuck in this loop of trying to get out of the embarrassment and trying to say something to make up for it and trying to, as opposed to just acknowledging like what's happening inside of me and how can I move past that. And so you articulated something that's happening inside of everybody that most people don't realize is happening inside of them. So I think it's really. Amen. I appreciate the compliment.

And I do think it is a gift that I have. I'm constantly like aware of all of the movements of my heart. It's also very exhausting. Sometimes I feel so almost envious of like people like my wife, who doesn't seem to like I don't mean she's not a deep person. Here we go again. Me saying things. Oh, man.

Beautiful woman, but she's not self-replicated. Like she she she often say to me that she doesn't know how she's doing until she speaks for a while. So how you doing? I don't know, but then she'll talk and then she'll only then will she really. She's an external processor. Exactly, so I'm the exact opposite.

And so I'm sometimes really envious of people who walk around not like continually looking within. Which is also a problem I guess, right? Yes, sometimes I'm like, I'm being so self-aware. This is great. And then I think, well, maybe someone who's not self-aware, as self-aware, or they mean that's, self-aware is the term I want to use, aware of self, maybe,

because there's a less negative connotation. But like your wife, maybe it's less of an ego thing, or an ego thing for me, I'm afraid. And then someone like your wife, that maybe it's less of an ego thing, or an ego thing for me, I'm afraid. And then someone like your wife is so dedicated to her children, her community, you, that she's focused on you guys and not herself. And then when it's prompted to be like, what's going on with you?

She's like, well, I love everyone else and I'm focused on them. Let me take a moment to think about me. Whereas I'm constantly being like, what's going on in Shane world even though I am Shane And I feel like I should be so focused on loving others that I don't even have the time to think about me Yeah, I'd say two things about that I'd say like my wife is an incredibly humble person, so it's actually I don't think I've really seen her embarrassed much because

She doesn't overly obsess about things. Yeah. But I think if she were here, she would say that that is something that she needs to work on, that she gets into this overdoer mode. So if there are fires to put out, she goes into like, we are going to take care of everything. And she can do that to her own detriment. So she may even like, you know, maybe overlook the fact that she's not feeling well and start trying to help everyone help me help the kids Help friends and then realize the toll it took on her. Yeah, that's something she's trying to grow on grow in I think she'd say if you're here. I Think it is good to be I

Understand what you're saying about it being exhausting, but I think what's exhausting about it is not the awareness of what's happening inside of you. What's exhausting about it is getting stuck in that awareness and, like, when it becomes debilitating and when suddenly I'm not paying attention to the things happening around me because I'm so focused on what's happening inside of me. So it's the problem of, yeah, being pulled out of the present, which is always the problem with anything, is when we're pulled out of the present.

So if you can acknowledge, oh, that thing's happening inside of me. Interesting. And then what do you do then? Well, you can, I don't know, make a mental note of it to to pray about it later or or bring it up in the conversation like you said, like if you can't move past it and it's debilitating, then I think what you did was the exact right response. One thing I've been doing more and maybe this is to what you're saying, because I know the easy answer is like give it to the Lord or something.

But quite honestly, something I've been doing. What does that mean? Well, here's something I've been doing lately. And I've learned from John Eldridge on this this who hopefully will be on the show in January Um, he he has this prayer. It's very simple. He says lord jesus. I surrender everything and everyone to you And I just spend like five minutes saying that and I try to get really real with the lord I'm like i'm gonna give this to you just for a couple of minutes when once we're done praying I'm sure I will take all of it back from your beautiful competent hands

Once we're done praying, I'm sure I will take all of it back from your beautiful, competent hands. But I know that just for a minute, I can give everyone and everything to you, Lord. I surrender it. And if I find that I can't surrender it, I surrender that. And I just spend some time giving everything to the Lord. And that is beautiful. I think just that turning my posture towards the good Jesus like that, just in that moment, I realized how much I'm carrying. Interesting.

Like I'm gonna just go straight out to the Lord and I'll just like get into that space and then I'll be like, oh gosh, I'm carrying so much. Yeah, there's an interesting quote from Napoleon Bonaparte who- Thought you were gonna say Napoleon Dynamite. No, no, no, no, no, who died a Catholic, even though he was an enemy of the church for a long time.

What a very beautiful, long story that ends well. Yeah, but he received his last rites and confessed and said that the Catholic church was correct and beautiful and good and died in good standing with a priest with him. But in any case, he was a super mega genius, like incredible to the nth degree. Like people, he would meet like an enlisted man, it's like a private. He's the most important person in the empire. And they would tell him about their wife

or something. He would see them 10 years later and ask them about their wife. So this guy is like, he used to say that he could handle the pressure because, and he never lost sleep. He was a very good sleeper. He would sleep on the ground on battlefields and stuff just right away. And he used to say that he could open a drawer in his mind

and put his worries and stuff in the drawer and close it and it would be gone from him. And he could sleep and then he would wake up and it would be a battle and he would simply pick the drawer he wanted, open it and then take on whatever he needed to take on. And I'm like, how do I do that? What is that about? So I always think about that.

It's so interesting to say he's like oh, yeah I'm not troubled by the pressure of my life for all these other things I simply open the drawer I put it in and I close the drawer and I go to bed and when I wake up in the morning I choose the Drawer and I open it and I receive those problems. Have you tried to do so I have tried it is incredibly difficult I think that a lot of it is that really smart people a hack that they do is they imagine things in 3d space So like a Jimmy Akin's like that Yeah, whole discussion in our six and a half hour interview in which he talked about how he does that

Yeah, and that's a trick. It's how I learned how to memorize things I have a really hard time memorizing things, but you imagine like a room. You're incredibly familiar this room memory palace Yeah, memory palace. Yeah, yeah. And then you just assign numbers to the different and you can see them in your head and it allows you to recall them. And I've tried to do that with my problems

and other things, all Napoleon, but it's incredibly difficult. One thing I used to do and I'd like to pick up again is someone told me about this. I'd be, I was probably embarrassed to tell anybody that I was doing it, but it's called a worry journal. Yeah.

So as I would lay in bed at night, I would just write on a piece of paper, everything that's maybe I'm not, I wouldn't consider myself worrying about, but it's pressing upon me. Yeah. I'm a little anxious about it. That was just a really nice way.

It's kind of like the opposite of writing a to-do list. It's like, here are the things I don't need to worry about right now. You know, get it like that. What about yourself, Something similar or? Um, well, I was thinking actually about what you said about the surrendering everything and everyone to him in this moment. I had an experience a few weeks ago where I had just heard

this amazing quote by St. Faustina, something in her diary about the Lord saying to her, part of what he said to her. You look confused. Sorry, I thought I knew what you were going to quote, but now I think something else. The Lord, part of what he said to her was, except everything is from my hand. And I was like, that's great. That's beautiful. That's what I need to do. That's what I need to live. And I then got really frustrated with something that with just like a community life thing, right? Something that one of the other nuns did.

And I knew because I knew it was going to mean more work for me and it was going to whatever. And so I'm so frustrated. And then immediately I just like. Dive into this self-condemnation because I'm like, whatever she just did, I need to accept that as from the hand of the Lord. Like I'm terrible at this. I can't accept the things around me as from the hand of the Lord. And the fact that I'm impatient and the fact that I'm annoyed that this happened and all

of the whatever. And then I was talking to a priest friend about it and I was like, I just don't know how to do this. I don't know how to accept everything as from the hand of the Lord because I'm just a terrible human being. And he said, you're right that you need to accept everything as from the hand of the Lord, including yourself and including your own emotions, including your own reactions. You know, and as I was thinking about that, I was remembering something that one of the other nuns had this reflection at some point about, He leadeth me, Father Walter Czizik. The whole point of He leadeth me is Father Walter Czizik realizes that the

situation in which we find ourselves is God's will for us. And all of the nuance, right, of God does not desire evil. God does not want evil, but God can work through evil. He can use the evil that's happened to us. He can use our suffering. So on and so forth. I want to make that very clear. But one of the other nuns, as she was reflecting on this concept from Father Walter Tzizek of the situation in which you find yourself is God's will for you, she realized, I am

the situation in which I find myself. With all of my faults, with all of my sins, as I am today, I am the situation in which I find myself. Like God could change you. God could have, he could make you entirely different. He could take away all your sin. He could take away all your, like that, right? He's God.

He has the power to do that. We have to cooperate. But anyways, I was thinking of that. We are the situation in which we find ourselves and we have to accept ourselves in the present moment as from the hand of the Lord. And so, yeah, just that prayer of, I surrender all of this to you. You know, I think. Going back to your question of, well, what do you do in a time like that?

As you like, how do you stay in the present? How do you have that self-awareness and not be debilitated by it? I think it's a matter of a very brief. Wow, Lord, I said something stupid. Please use that for the glory of your kingdom in some way and grant me whatever graces I need through it. Purify whatever was whatever is causing this discomfort like whatever in me needs healed. You know what it is and just heal it right. We don't have to figure out what needs healed. We can just ask for healing. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah that's Guess I it seems so obvious you hear it and you're like, oh, yeah, that's Christianity

And yet it doesn't like occur to you till to be like hey Hell, you know to just reach out for help at any moment it always feels like I need to wait until like like a close family member a member of mine became terminally ill recently. And at that point you're like, okay, here we are, game time, time to get in there with the Lord and ask for help and grace and all this other stuff, but also if I embarrass myself, I could do the same thing.

Like why am I waiting for the worst case scenario to reach out for help as if I'm annoying or Not it's not even not worthy, but just you're like I don't even know how to describe it This is a very lame way to describe it. I'm gonna do it anyway You don't want a video game when you have a super move And you're like I gotta save it for the right moment And then you beat the level and you're like I never use the super move I made it so much harder on myself myself I could have used it like three times

You know but you saved it for the perfect moment and of course that moment never arrives because no moment is perfect That's and so there's this part of you where you're like I have a super move at any point I could reach out to my Lord and Savior and ask for healing Understanding peace and I'm like only waiting for the perfect moment instead of being like, wow, I feel stupid on this podcast. Help me out, you know, give me peace, like do something with this. I don't know.

That's something I do that's very dumb where I'm just like waiting for that perfect moment as opposed to simply just giving it up, you know? But I think too, what do you think about this? That healing is not synonymous with growing in holiness. And we sometimes equate the two, that as I experience psychological healing, that this is somehow synonymous with my journey into the Lord. And yet I think that some of the things that you and I struggle with today were things that we struggled with when we were children and in all likelihood will be things you will never get over. And that's okay. Like evil's weird and the Lord seems to be able to use it the way he wishes. And so just like, I think I'm quoting Father Mark Foley here. He said something to the effect of working on ourselves can sometimes be an insidious form of self-hatred.

Mm. Yeah. Whereas if I don't try to overcome these things, like these many things. I think sometimes when you say the word like, like the Lord can free us from our sins or we could be over, sometimes that word sins, I think is too churchy, too religiously. But it's other things too. And it's like your idiosyncrasies that you're embarrassed about. The way that when you smile, you remind yourself of your mother and you don't like looking like your motheriosyncrasies that you're embarrassed about the way that when you smile you remind yourself of your mother And you don't like looking like your mother. That's just a random example, but anything right or your accent or How you look or just these little the ways you feel like you annoy people and you don't know why yet like all those

Gajillion things that sink into us like splinters He was saying like to not try to overcome them. Don't make that the point of the spiritual life. Like the point of the spiritual life is to be in communion with the good Jesus and to pray for the grace to make the right decision in the moment. And like that's that's in a way it sounds like fatalistic or or exhausting to say you're never going to overcome this stuff. Yeah, never. That's right.

So the person watching now, like, when am I going to overcome my temptation? Look at porn. When am I going to overcome my temptation? Look at porn. When am I going to overcome? What am I? What is my relationship with my mother going to be better? Whatever. Maybe never. Yeah, that's that's. But so there's a sense in which

that feels terrifying. But there's another sense in which you go, oh, OK, cool. So I'll never be over this. That's right. Never. You'll always be kind of annoying to people. Yeah. Now love Jesus and make the right decision

Yeah, a little bit of Camus mix Next a Camus the philosopher Oh Camus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's a little bit of a sit. No, I wouldn't want to absurdism I know not to like but before when I was a secular person absurdism was like very good to me because it was It was happy nihilism Because nihilism is nothing matters and yada yada yada., it was happy nihilism. Because nihilism is nothing matters, and yada, yada, yada, we all know what nihilism, but absurdism is the idea that nothing matters, so go dance, go love, go be with people,

and do good things, and like, and enjoy beauty. I think that is, I think that is so, so superficial. 100%, but there's a part where, but get the point I get the I get the analogy It's like yeah, yeah, if the Lord loves me and loves me even like this Mm-hmm, then I can be free to be like this exactly, but I love what you said mother about yeah If I'm being cool, we all understand, you know, it sounds very like maybe cliche wisdom in the church to say Yeah, everything comes with hand the Lord accept what he gives you It never occurred to me really in the way that you put it to

accept everything, including myself. Man, do you feel stuck in old idols or burdened by the pharaohs of our time? Do you know that you're capable of so much more than you're giving today. Exodus 90 is the number one freedom app to help you become the man you were created to be. Exodus 90 is a powerful 90-day journey to freedom in Jesus Christ and it starts on January 20th. I've met so many men from all around the world who have been blessed by Exodus 90. So download the Exodus 90 app today to join tens of thousands of men from all around the world for Exodus 90, starting January 20th, leading up to Easter Sunday. We all have pharaohs and idols in our lives, things that hold us back from being who we were created to be, things that keep us from love. It's time to leave our pharaohs and idols behind to journey to uncommon

freedom in Jesus Christ. Join the men of Exodus 90 and Father Boniface Hicks, Benedictine monk and renowned spiritual director who is the spiritual guide for Exodus 90 this year. We will establish daily habits of prayer, discipline and brotherhood as we journey to greater freedom in Jesus Christ. So go to Exodus90.com slash Matt to learn more about Exodus 90. That's Exodus90.com slash Matt to join tens of thousands of men from all around the world for Exodus 90, starting Monday, January 20th and leading up to Easter Sunday. I know Mother Therese of Lisieux, one of your favorites. Her little way is so, a lot of what we're talking about.

She talks a lot about putting up with herself just as I am. All right, dress isn't really one of your favorites. Why? You know, it's interesting that you ask why, because a priest friend of mine several years ago. OK, so here's the thing. I'm going to publicly admit for the first time that I don't dislike to us.

First time on your show. So feel honored. I done. I don't like and I think this is probably the case for most people who say they don't like to us. I don't like what people have done with Terez. I don't like people who write about Terez

Not I don't like the people who write about her. I often don't like what they write. Yeah Because she's a very sweet saint out right, but that's how she's portrayed and I'm like and I sweet saint out there. Right. But that's how she's portrayed. And I'm like, blech. And I because when I've read anything about her spirituality, I love it. I love her spirituality. I think I just haven't. Yeah. And I just kind of like push back because I don't want to jump on the train that so many people are on of just. I know what you mean. I was like that with Louis de Montfort back in the day when everyone was on this Louis de Montfort kick and I would read it and I didn't want to pretend that I liked it.

I don't like it. I don't like how he writes. I don't like it. And I think that was true. I think I didn't like it. And I'd have grown into his writings a little bit But it's also the case that no one should feel the pressure to you know resonate with the writings of any particular saint, right? That's why we have so many. Yeah, and so many devotions and 100% Terez is my Confirmation thing. I know Okay. Um, yeah, she's sent roses on roses And has interceded for me in like a very crazy way. I've received roses from her multiple times. Yeah.

My friends who love St. Therese, they're like super jealous of this, right? They're like, why you don't even like her? Why do you get roses from her? And I'm like, well, she likes me a lot. Yeah. The first rose I received from her is the rose on my face. It's true. So very cool.

But yeah. It hurt a lot. It did quite a lot actually, but wasn't one of her trials, the fact that it just seemed like no other nuns liked her and she felt that. I can't speak to that. I think, I mean, I think that she felt disliked by, I don't know.

This is maybe I'm speaking out of turn here, but I'm like, is this just the nun thing? And the nuns are just like, oh, Therese, what are you up to, you know? Can I tell you what Chet GBT told me about Mother Natalia and Therese Alicia? Yes, but first I realized I cut myself off. I was gonna say, one of my peace friends several years ago

said, he was like, I know why you don't like Therese. And I was like to say one of my peace friends several years ago said he was like, I, I know why you don't like to rest. And I was like, why? And he's like, you just like her. And I was like, oh, but I don't think he's wrong. I don't think he's wrong either. And that's a beautiful compliment. Yeah. So I said, does Mother Natalia love to resublige you? You ready for this? This is what Chachi BD said. Yes, Mother Natalia, the abb of leisure you ready for this chat GBT said yes mother Natalia The abbess of Christ the bridegroom monastery

Has spoken fondly of Teresa of Lizzie in various interviews and talks she has expressed her admiration of st. Teresa's little way Mother Natalia's connection with st. Tereza is part of a broader love many in religious life and here They're just guessing but Wow so chat GPT is totally inaccurate. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not the only case in point. Yeah. I'm not the Abbess of the community. Praise God. I hope I never am. Christ the Bridegroom. How wild that I just typed your first name, Mother Natalia, and I knew you were from that. That's why. Yeah, it's crazy.

Terez for me was is important because I wanted to pick like, you know, Linus, wait, who's the Roman soldier who stabbed? Longinus. Longinus, yeah. Very heavy metal saint, you know, went on to get his tongue cut out and smash idols, love that guy. Or like, Dismas was a huge one I wanted,

the thief on the cross, all these manly saints, you know? But then there's something that is missing for me in my life that I need to practice, which is gentleness. And that's like, Therese's whole thing. She's just like so wildly gentle. And like her quote about God's mercy being like a raging inferno and all the sin you could possibly do is like a droplet of water falling into it

like it just consumed by God's mercy and Deleted instantly like you could never compete with the amount and all those things are like so beautiful to me and you do have this air of like Gentleness that like ebbs and flows off of you like just to be close to you is to feel like a Little bit of like a hug or something You know what I mean like that nice like that rock that a kid has you know that or in their parents You know yeah, yeah that like I go to play and then I'm scared and I have a home base to always come back to and that's like sort of

Terez with this infinite gentleness and like Loving feminine energy that is at maybe absent from my life in certain ways and something that I aspire to have Because it's so far away from my experience Whereas I want like st. George, you know, I'm like let's stab dragons and like have quotes about like Killing heretics or whatever crazy stuff, but no No, just the little girl who who prayed for murderers and like which is so gentle and loving and like struggled with herself That's like the that's what I need not what I want. That's really interesting. Can I ask you a very personal question please okay? Are you different with other people than you are with me? No because I would I would describe you

I in fact have described you to people as like I'm like Shane is just so gentle and so sweet I thought it's fascinating to me that you say that you Like gentleness is something that you're very lacking because I don't see that at all. It's like a deliberate thing. It's like how for a time, when I first started doing comedy, I had all these people give me all this advice and I got in my head and I would wear long sleeves

and I would never not wear my glasses and I shaved my facial hair and I had a really nice haircut all the time. So as to sort of like make myself palatable and then as I've grown into myself especially as I've made my conversion and felt more comfortable with me I've sort of been like oh this is what I look like this is what Shane looks like when he's just being himself and like it's not to say I don't want hair again at some point or whatever but like this would be me right now, and I sort of took that leap

Recently when I did my special I didn't wear the glasses didn't have the fancy haircut I wasn't traditionally handsome, and I am kind of nervous how that'll be received But I do do that and so the gentleness is like something that I practice Like deliberately yeah, I'm deliberately gentle with you. Whereas what comes natural to me would be simply not being social at all. You know? Oh yeah.

You seem like a very social person. No, it's like I am making myself do it. And I almost liken it to like the way I approach fitness. Like I hate the gym. It sucks. But if you don't get interested in suffering, if you don't find a way to enjoy it, you're not gonna excel.

But is it something like with the gym, right? You might not wanna get up and put your sneakers on and go work out, but once you're there, you're happy to do it. Is that like that? 100%. So like, I don't wanna get up, I don't wanna do things, I don't wanna perform, I don't wanna be social, I don't wanna text my friends because it's hard and I'm a very out of sight out of mind guy

I don't want to call my dad I don't want to see what my mom is up to because it's exhausting sometimes and just to say that feels bad It sucks to like to be tired to talk to someone you love But then I make myself to it and I'm always feeling fulfilled by that. But it is exhausting at times. But yeah, it's all very deliberate for me. I think my natural inclination is to be very closed off

and sort of just like in my head. When I was a kid, I think I've said this on the podcast, I was addicted to daydreaming to the point that it became like a problem that people were considering seeking medical help over I Would sit like and just daydream for hours hours and hours because I can like I can induce Lucid dreams so when I daydream it's like a full-on dream in my head that I can see and like Really get into and there are characters that have been recurring since I was a child and it's a pretty cool place to hang out

But I can't And I'll just be like sword fighting or whatever You know instead of like paying attention to your girlfriend or calling your mother during the dishes, so Yeah, yeah, it's a struggle. It's it's like embarrassing honestly, and then you tell your friends. You're like. I love you I'm sorry. I don call you, and they're like, what's the deal? And you're like, oh, it's exhausting. You know, and then your friend's like, what?

It's exhausting to talk to me? And you're like, well yeah, but I love you. It's like type, do you know, maybe I've said this on the podcast before, the types of fun, type one, two, and three fun. So I love type three fun. That's my favorite type of fun. Type one fun and three fun so um I love type three fun That's my favorite type of fun type one fun is this I'm with people I love like this is exciting There's so many things about this to me that are really great. It's like I'm a fan of you

I'm a fan of you. I respect you as a man, and I'm so interested in what you have to say I love you and in like watch all your bits, so I'm a fan, I'm a friend. This is great. It's just pleasurable. That's type one. Type two is the gym. Like it can be fun in the moment, but it is difficult. But you suffer a little and you feel better, right?

But it also, it ebbs and flows between type one and a sort of suffering. That's the gym, that's maybe sports at times or whatever. And then there's type three fun. This is like mountain climbing. Like it's a blizzard, one of my friends is literally dying. We don't know if we're gonna make it. I have frostbite.

It's an adventure and it is not fun. It's terrifying, it's wild, it's crazy, but that's the most fun to reflect upon Yes, yes, and then later. It's the most fun. That's type 3 fun I love that recently I got asked a question on my Instagram or whatever about My favorite childhood memories and my favorite childhood memories are me and my brothers anytime There was like a legit blizzard a heart where I'm from's like, we've gotten like nine feet of snow before. Crazy amounts, like snow in your door, kill you type of snow.

They would be blizzards and we would purposefully release our chow, our dog, who was not trained. He would just run away, right? And then we would spend all day trying to get him back into the house. So my parents would think he like escaped, but we purposefully let him out in the blizzard because we wanted to have an adventure.

And like it wasn't fun. You know? And the dog lovers stopped listening again. Yeah, yeah. They had just tuned back in. Well, he's a child, so he's this big fluff. He loves the winter. But like we would be tracking him through the snow

for miles. We'd be so cold. we'd be hungry and miserable, and he would bite you. You would be like trying to find him, and he was so smart, like he'd make his tracks go into the wood, and he would double back. So you'd be looking for him,

and he'd come out of nowhere and like grab your leg, and you'd fall, and he'd be dragging you around. He's a big chow, they're really fun dogs, but he would never hurt you, but you would, it was a whole thing, and then we're're like these kids you're trying to tackle this big fluffy dog to capture Him and at the end we would have to both carry him You know like he's in a stretch or something, but it was an all-day adventure And it was kind of miserable like your hands are freezing here

I have these memories of being like are we gonna get home? But those are my favorite memories. And we would do it on purpose. So like that's the thing, the type one, two, and three fun. When we talk about like overcoming or never overcoming our issues or whatever, I always think like God set up life so that it's type three fun. Like when you apprehend the kingdom of heaven,

how much fun is it going to be to look back on your suffering and be like yeah let's go that's a great I did it you know but so often we're trying to turn God's type 3 fun into type 1 fun or something else exactly yeah that's the thing with people in church where they're like oh it's difficult like parts of mass are boring or I'm like it's not fun and it's like it's not supposed to be it's not supposed to be fun It's supposed to be true, and it's supposed to be good Fun we keep he never at any point was like this is gonna be fun

And in fact he was like I think a lot of people are gonna hate you you know So like why why do we want it to be fun? Or why do we want it to be easy or or anything like that? It's type 3 fun you're you're climbing the mountain your friend is dying. You're pulling him up You don't know if you're gonna make it But when you get up there and you take that photo and you come down and you're like, yeah, we did that That's gonna be awesome, you know So this started with you asking him about him being gentle and social because I would say the same thing is super social

So I find it. I don't. I'm not saying I'm not disagreeing with you. Yeah, obviously, you know, you I don't know you. But I guess just seeing how social you are with people, I would I would find that hard to believe that you're like that. But I think I understand now you don't you have to make yourself do it. Yes. Yes.

You're there. So do you have some kind of rule of life where you know, it's not good for me to lay in bed and watch TV. I'll spiral to a terrible place. So therefore every day I have to do such and such. I loved COVID. I did COVID in New York. Oh, we probably bleep it Josiah. But bleep it for YouTube.

But did COVID. Yeah, yeah, the time. I was in New York and everyone was just like, we're all locked in our houses. And I was like, let's go. I was so stoked. I everyone was just like we're all locked in our houses and I was like let's go I got one so stoked. I just played video games writing reading. I could be in my house for a year right now with no extra Things and I would entertain myself the whole time. I would have the best time of my life So yeah, I do have to have rules, but but would you continue to or would you go to a bad place eventually?

I don't think I would so then why don't you do that? Because I just don't want to become a mad wizard. I don't want to be that guy with big long eyebrows and I'm in my house and I'm like, have you read the Summa? Like I'm like crazy, you know? I just don't want to be that. I think that, you know, God implicates everyone

in the plan of salvation. We're supposed to commune with each other and be social. That was something from seek that I was like, oh, a huge part of my Catholic journey is realizing like I have to go to these places with others. I can't just do this by myself, which was my original plan. I was like, oh, I'll just go to church. I'll go by myself. I'll just be very personal journey. It's not personal. It is, but it's not like I cannot do this without you. You

know, and I think that's fair to say I need other Christians like you do. You just do. And so yeah, I've decided like, Oh, I should be more social. So if I get invited somewhere, I'll put down the video game. That's the rule if like someone wants me to come outside I'll go but I do allow myself certain days to stay in But yeah, I have to like make rules or whatever when I was a kid I would play video games hours and hours and hours where I just sit and read or I daydream But if a friend shows up, and he's like we're going to X place The rule was always okay

You have to go and then you come back and you just jump back into the game or whatever but it's tough I could become a wizard I would just be at home and I would be insane and I would play video games 12 hours a day and only leave to work to the point about being social and I want to ask you what it's like being in a monastery with a few other women that you have to do life with forever right but I think part of the exhaustion for me, because you were talking about it being exhausting is, it really just doesn't feel natural to have more than three or four friends, like close friends, right? But the phone gives us the illusion that we can be in touch with everybody all of the time.

And it's tired. It's tiring. And you're a very popular fella. I'm sure you get a lot of people who text you and you're like, look, it's not that I am not. I saw like I'm actively trying not to be your friend. Yeah, I just can only put this active energy into the people that make sense right now. Yeah, I mean, I'm in this situation now where because of my wife's health, we had to move from here to Florida. I'm now meeting other families who are so beautiful. And they these are the people I now need to invest in and I feel that too

I'm like, oh now I feel this pressure to report back to families and friends who still live up in Steubenville But I mean in all honesty, it sounds harsh but like the gravity of my life needs to shift over here now Yeah, yeah, it's hard because it feels like time correlates to love or or attention correlates to love, which is not the case. We don't text almost ever, I love you as much as ever. Why not? Same here, and yet you're like, oh, it feels like time and attention correlates. And so if you're not getting the time and attention,

you're like, do they even like me? Especially I do that, which is unfair, because then I don't give the time and attention, you're like, do they even like me? You know, like especially I do that, which is unfair, cause then I don't give people time and attention. And then meanwhile, when someone I love doesn't, I'm like, oh, so they just hate me. Even yesterday I texted Josiah something and he thumbs up the text and I was like, how dare you? Thumbs up, that's catty and rude, you know?

And then I was like, oh, obviously he's like working. Why am I being weird about this? Now, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure in one sense, being in a monastery with people who have vowed to die there in a way, it's like these are my friends now and we live in such a disposable culture. There's something beautiful about having to be there for each other till the end. And yet at the same time, I'm sure I don't know, in regular life, at least for me, it's kind of nice to be like, all right, this isn't working anymore. This doesn't seem healthy anymore.

So we're going to, you know, be friends, love the person, but we're going to not really spend a lot of time with that person anymore. Like, what's it like? But you can't do that with your wife. No, so I can. But I would ruin my life and hers, my children's. Right. So I choose not to. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's

also there's something very different. And I think I've probably talked about this in other interviews, but there's something very different living in a place in which because when I was in college, I never even considered the possibility of joining a sorority. Right. You know, you asked if I as a kid, like gravitated more towards the male friendships. And I was like, absolutely, my whole life. And similarly, in college, I was like, why would I ever want to live with a bunch of women? And but there's something different about living with a bunch of women who are all striving for holiness. And like we have, we have problems, we have disagreements, we hurt each other often. And, but there's also like, we constantly want to be like asking forgiveness and, and healing the things that have been broken and all of that.

And so it's really it's living in a monastery is type three fun. Yeah, no, like it's it's hard and relationships are hard and there's it's there's no running away from it, especially at in a monastery as opposed to an active religious community, because in a in a monastery, like the people that you live with are the people that you pray with are the people that you work with. Like we don't even have apostolates that we go out to, you know, like everything is together. And I go across the street to my little Pint studio to record a 10 minute episode and then I'm back with everyone, you know. And so, yeah, I really think I think it's type three fun. Like it's it's difficult, but there's also it's the deepest joy. And I haven't always, I haven't always been in a place in which I really like trusted

and leaned into my sisters. But I'm very much in that place now. Like the thing that happened yesterday that I was talking about where it's like, did I say the right thing? Did I do the right thing? Like I was just like, I need to process this with somebody. And I turned to my sister, one of my sisters in the community, to to process it as opposed to looking outside the community. And there's very much.

This idea, we've talked about it in our community before, there's this idea of like, you know, like the chocolate fountains or whatever that flow down. Yeah, Fondue. There's like this top tier is our relationship with the Lord, our spousal union with him. And whatever flows out to that needs to go into our monastic community. And then what flows out from that can go to the to the friends in the community outside of the monastery. But it really. that's beautiful.

When it's not rightly ordered. We can feel the strain within the community. There's a Foo Fighters song that says, you know, is someone getting the best of you? Yeah, it's a great song. And that can be taken in two different ways, right? I guess. But is someone getting the best of you, which means are you allowing them to irritate you? Yeah. Yeah. But then also is who's getting the best of you? And just like you said, your spouse or union, you don't then like spread

that energy out outside of the monastery. It should go right into the monastery. And as a married man, like the best of me should go to my wife and then from us to the children community. But how much, how many times is the temptation to then take the best of me into wherever else? Like my mates, my work, some other woman, some other feller if you're a woman, you know? Yeah. Yeah, that's it. I, when I first began converting, I think Father Mike Schmidt, Father Mike, he did a homily where he spoke about how you should put your marriage above your children And I remember as a secular person being like this is the opposite of logic

Like what are you talking about? But then as you begin to like reflect on it, you know, you put God above everything But if you put God above everything God is calling you to be the best husband you can be so by being the best That's exactly person who's doing it cascades down into the best verse so you don't realize like oh by putting this person first. I'm securing My ability to love as in apprehend that relationship as best as humanly possible By first doing the order of operations. I love my wife as best as I can. Now our marriage is solid. It's the foundation by which my children feel safe.

You know? Yeah, I've often said that one of the best ways my dad loved me was by loving my mom really well. Exactly. That's huge. With like the, it's interesting as I've realized the marriage is what the kids need. I mean, they need their dad and their mom, but more importantly, they need the marriage.

Do you remember? I don't know if you remember this. I don't mean to assume, but I'll speak for myself. I remember times as a child, hearing my mom, my dad making my mom belly laugh in the bedroom. I may have been morning or nighttime and she'd be almost wetting herself, laughing so loud. And I just remember feeling terribly safe. It wasn't always like that, but it was that quite a bit. I mean, there were other issues, but as far as my dad and loving my mom, he's really done a good job, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. I think I think where we need to

something that we need to remind ourselves of as well. You know, as you're talking about, like that energy could be going to your friends or to your work or whatever. And what we need to remember is this also applies to the things that people are asking of us that are very good things, because this is the temptation at the monastery. And one that we have at times fallen into and we're finally like kind of learning our groove in is, you know, people want us to come direct this retreat or to be a spiritual director for this person or whatever it is. And like, those are good things that they're asking for. But if our community life can't take it, then it's not good for us to do it. And

I remember I told someone recently and I got this this mindset actually from a monk friend of mine. I told someone recently who asked me to be their spiritual director. Like I'm just maxed out. I can't take any more spiritual children, which is so that's the most painful thing for me to say no to. It's so because I know it's such a need and I lament to God about this. I'm like, you put this need out there. You need to fill it. Like, what are you doing, God? Anyways, he's taking care of it.

But the the someone who recently asked me, I said, I think I'm a good spiritual mother to all of my spiritual children. If I take on one more person, I will be a bad spiritual mother to all of them. It's not like one of them is going to suffer because I take this person on or I'm not gonna be a good spiritual mother to the new person that I take on. It's that I'm gonna be spread thin enough that I will just not be a good mother to any of them you know. Like the night waitress at Denny's. You know the rush comes in and she's by herself at 2 a.m. and she's got too many tables and she's like everyone gets bad service now

Yeah, but it's good to know I think I mean you're doing them such a kindness by first hurting yourself by accepting the pain of rejecting someone else, which I think is world-endingly worse than being rejected. I would rather be rejected a thousand times than reject someone and watch their pain. That's so brutal. So you're doing someone such a beautiful gift by taking on that pain and being honest which is so hard it would be so much easier for you to just do a bad job and say yes right and then you're setting them out to go somewhere else for

spiritual direction where someone who can give them what they need will and now you're also being there and prioritizing the people who you have that's like a very self-sacrificing beautiful thing you're doing Do you have a difficult time saying no to things no? But I um I Don't but I do I think it just depends I think that I'm a fairly confrontational person at times I have no problem with confrontation you told a story about yelling at a man on an airplane hitting him yelling

Yeah, yeah watching. It's a good story. I was watching porn in front of me It's crazy on his phone, and it was like it was a hardcore sex scene I just smacked him in the arm because my kids are behind him and I said very loudly could you stop watching? Pornography in front of my children? He did not look at me again. Yeah, he definitely turned it off. I unlike you. I wish I were more confrontational I'm not it makes me feel very anxious. I wish I was more like you I think I might have gone with what you did. You're on an airplane with your kids Not time to they're gonna my what i'm trying to say is you may not have felt as like oh my god Oh, no, no, I would have been like that's a weakness of me. I'm glad you have that strength

I probably would have added a little like stand up and find out or just sit there like but I can't help myself. Yeah Yeah, I've done that similar things. I um, I have a really big pet peeve in movie theaters I don't like to watch movies because someone uses their phone. It makes me crazy I have pulled the phone out of someone's hand and slid it down my aisle in a full theater so they have to go through people to get their own phone now. Have you asked them to stop first? Yes, I said hey no texting, no texting during this movie because they were texting like as the credits were beginning and I said you're not gonna do that during the movie are you? And the guy was like no and

then he was like showing his Girlfriend something and I was like this is mine now And I just slid it along the thing and like that's really confrontational maybe a bit I shouldn't be violent or whatever, but I'd like to say thank you on behalf of all moviegoers Yeah It just makes me crazy that makes me crazy is that when people think it's okay in an airplane to push in front of other People those people also should be exported. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What I do, all right, is as soon as I hear the bing, I get up and I stand right out there and I let everyone else go ahead of me. And I just block those awful, awful human beings who push ahead on planes. Back to what I was asking, though. So you don't find it difficult to say no. You said you're a confrontational. No, no, not. So you don't find it difficult to say no. You said you're a confrontational person. No, no, not really. I don't find it all. I think there's a middle ground here

as in many areas in life. I'm really good at saying no. I say no to everything and I have no problem saying no. All the time, constantly. I get so many emails a day. We get requests for people to come on the show every single day, multiple times. And I just ignore most people.

And then I say no to the rest. But I think what I need in order to be okay with that is some kind of process to discern. It doesn't have to be elaborate. Doesn't have to be like uber spiritual. It just has to, I think I need to set in place some way to discern whether this is a good idea or not. Even if it doesn't have to take a lot of time.

Otherwise, how do I know if I'm listening to the voice of the Lord or not? Yeah. What do you think? When I'm going to say no, my first thought is, can I alter this plan so that we both still get what we want? And if I can't think of a way to alter it, I say no. So like you ask me to get lunch tomorrow. I don't want to do that. Can you do it Thursday? Like I'm, I'm trying to alter so that we like,

we come to some kind of compromise and that's my process. I'll almost always think, how can we both get what we want here? Very often we can't though. And I just say no, but at least I feel like I've tried. That's really nice of you. Yeah. You're way nicer than me.

Let me share this text exchange that just took place last night. All right. So someone I was saying, are you wearing? That is not what happened. So someone says someone wrote writes to me and asked me if I would like to do a live stream on their channel. And I write back, amazing. But I just don't want to do it for the reasons. I didn't give immediately I said amazing, but I don't have time tonight. Thanks for the invite. Oh, I didn't mean tonight and then I say Honest honestly live streams caused me enough anxiety to say no, so I'm gonna say no and he's like it wouldn't be live What is that? And I said, yeah, that's why I said no What is that and I said yeah, that's why I said no yeah, yeah, you're like Oh, yeah, I just I don't want to do it. Yeah, I get asked to do so many podcasts that can be okay

Don't they say no is a full sentence. Yeah. Yeah 100% it is hard though sometimes to I Don't have a problem saying it. I have a problem with the afterwards Where I do feel like I'm a I'm disappointing people in a way where I'm like well Maybe I could have given this like open mic comic some of my time and done 30 minutes of their podcast I actually really like it when people say no to me like when you and I first met and I said when you come here Would you want to do a stand-up at the cigar? Yeah, honestly? No, I'm trying to something something I just love that straight talk It makes me feel free to be to say similarly straight things

Yeah, and it makes you feel free to make the request Like I'm much more willing to ask someone to do something if I know they're the type of person who will say no That's why I said are you okay if Shane comes on the show and you like yes, I'm like cool Yeah, I don't have to know You sure? Yeah, that's so exhausting. Oh, you can just trust people Nothing's worse than someone saying yes to something and you realize they did it out of obligation like halfway through and you're like, oh no Are we about halfway through this episode? Cause there's something I want to say Oh, uh oh

He said Oh, I missed the joke I'm just kidding. Uh oh. Oh. What? He said. Oh. I missed the joke. Sorry. When someone, there's nothing worse than like, someone says yes and then like halfway through it, you realize that they didn't actually want it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Having a bad time. You guys are very quick. I'm very proud of both of you. I know, let's go. I missed that. Sorry, sweaty pumps. Yeah. Me too.

And anything, I want to ask him about his standup special, but anything else like, or on that topic about saying no to folks? I can see how it would be more difficult for you, Me too. And anything I want to ask him about his stand up special, but anything else like are on that topic about saying no to no to folks? I can see how it would be more difficult for you because I could even see people, immature people maybe even kind of expecting something from you because you're a religious in a way they may not expect it for me. Like what else are you doing?

You're just praying. Uh, yup. I get that a lot. So I have. I hate saying no to people. I have my whole life and. Yeah, like I'm such a people pleaser. It's funny, as you were talking about the airplane story,

I was thinking of my own airplane story where I was I was flying next to Father Boniface somewhere and I was in the middle seat because I usually take the middle seat on planes and then Father Boniface was on my left and then someone else was on my right. We were in the front row which means there's no tray table in front of us. The tray table comes out of the arm, right? This is like a four-hour flight that we're on. The person to my right pulls the tray table out of the arm. No, no, no. Sorry.

I pull my tray table out and I have mine out. And then while my tray table is out, this man puts his arm on the armrest that the tray table had come out of. OK, that's fine. But then you can't put it back. Right. So then I'm done with the tray table and I'm just kind of like not sure what to do. And Father Boniface notices this. And so he's like, you can put your tray table and I'm just kind of like not sure what to do. And Father Boniface notices this.

And so he's like, you can put your tray table back. And I was like, I can't. That man's arm is there. And he was like, well, just just ask him to move it. And I was like, don't you understand that would clearly ruin his life? He probably has a family. And Father Boniface is just looking at me like I have a third eye. And he's like, just like, just nudge his arm a little bit.

And he'll, he'll like, or just start to put the table up. I was just gonna say, if you just lift it up, you go, oh, excuse me. I just love that the two of you are having this conversation, clearly whispering. While this man is completely oblivious. He has like ear... This dude sitting there like, this Muslim lady is crazy right now. And Father Boniface is... And I was like, no, it's okay.

I can do it. It's just a few hours. So I just leave the tray table down. And then at some point he gets up to go to the bathroom. And so I like throw the tray table in. But I'm like, yeah, I would not throw someone's phone down the aisle. So I'm very much a people pleaser. It's very difficult for me to say no. I find that not hard to believe, but I see you as being very you seem to speak your mind very freely around me and other people that I meet. You seem very beautifully free. So it

surprises me that you also have this trait. So much of that is a learned freedom and a recent freedom. OK, but it's also. And a practiced freedom like that day, I was in not a good place and I was feeling a lot of insecurities and things like that that day on the plane. And so that comes out in my just like, I don't want to disturb anyone because then I'll, yeah, it feeds into the insecurities. But what something I have going for me is I'm under obedience to someone. And so we're just not giving talks right now.

We're not going out for talks because I mean, you and I kind of already have an agreement for pints with Aquinas. But in general, we're not going out to give talks because our community is just like we're doing there's too much going on and things like that. And we just can't right now. And so I have the freedom to say, no, we're not giving talks right now or whatever. But I've also started to have kind of a, a better discernment of what is this person owed. And someone who I've never met before who reaches out from wherever is owed something different than my mom when she reaches out, you know, like different than my mom when she reaches out. You know, like we we don't have to give everyone all of the reasons, all of the explanations. Like you said, no is a full sentence.

And I do try to say no charitably or to express. So one rule I have is I like. I don't I try very, very hard to not say things that are not true. So I'm not even going to say, I wish I could do this, but I can't if I don't actually wish I could do it. I might say, I'm sorry to disappoint you because that is true. And so I try to be very attentive to the language that I'm using when I'm saying no, because I want to be sincere and I don't want them to respond with. Yeah. Anyways.

That's beautiful. I'm going to say something and I'm afraid you might too quickly dismiss it, but try to hear it. Please stop doing pints stuff whenever you want. Sure. I love you. I never want anything I ask of you to be a burden. Yeah, I interject you have to keep doing So far away I hardly ever see you it's my I get mother time via YouTube, but like I had I Had someone like someone called the monastery recently and they were asking for my advice on like what they should be doing for work and things like that. This is someone I've never met before. This is someone and and I think a year ago I would have spent 30 minutes on the phone

with them trying to help them discern what they should do for work. And instead I was just like because I also have to think, like, how does the Lord want me to be using my time right now? And so that's I guess that's the other part of it, is I try to be open to. What is he asking me to do in this moment? Because sometimes he is asking you to be with the person and be on the phone with them. But I was just it was very clear to me that like,

I don't have anything to offer this woman. I don't know her. I don't know her background. I don't know what she should be doing for work. And so I just had to tell her, I'm sorry, I don't have any kind of input here. And that was that.

And we ended the phone call. Part of the difficulty is you have different people who in justice should receive different things from you. But when they're all coming at you through the same medium, it feels like like email. Yeah. Yeah. Because I also think you're CS Lewis. He used to say that he would always reply to every letter he received.

I do that. And I think, OK, well, maybe there's an argument for that. Maybe there is that on this. Oh, no, you shouldn't have. That was a terrible idea. Quick change of mind. I do that and I think okay. Well, maybe there's an argument for that. Maybe there is that on this Quick also like I'm sorry to disappoint you I'm also like nine months behind in letters and I have over a hundred to respond to so I will respond but it might Take me three years to respond to you We got a are you typing and printing or we handwriting? We got to get to typing and printing, come on now.

My point was, it makes more sense for Lewis, but if I'm gonna receive 20 emails from people all around the world, you know how easy it is to send an email? Yeah. That's really easy. I feel like if someone hand writes you a letter, or me a letter, okay, maybe I owe them something as far as a response, but if you just send off an email

that maybe you've cut and pasted to several people, I'm not, I don't, I far as a response. But if you just send off an email that maybe you've cut and pasted to several people. Right. I'm not, I don't, I'm not a no obligation. I used to feel the obligation to respond to every email. I no longer feel that obligation. Good, yeah. What if we get a happy medium and I get the monastery a typewriter?

Yes, yes. There's something about getting a legit typewriter. I think I would love that also. I would use a typewriter. They're like, okay. I'll get you one. Now we're onto something. I'll 100% get you one. It genuinely would love that. I would use a typewriter. Okay, now we're onto something. I'll 100% give you one.

Genuinely would be awesome. I love the idea of you with your little spectacles and you're like clicking away. You'll get the first letter. I've written both of you letters. Yeah, yeah. I wanna tell you about Hello, which is the number one downloaded prayer app in the world.

It's outstanding. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Sign up over there right now and you will get the first three months for free. That's like a lot of time. You can decide whether it's useful to you or not, whether it's helpful. If you don't like it, you can always quit.

Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. I use it, my family uses it. It's fantastic. There are over 10,000 audio guided prayers, meditations, and music including Mylofi. Hello has been downloaded over 15 million times in 150 different countries. It helps you pray, helps you meditate, helps you sleep better. It helps you build a daily routine and a habit of prayer. There's honestly so much excellent stuff on this app that it's difficult to get through at all. Just go check it out. Hello.com slash Matt Fred. The link is in the description below. It even has an

entire section for kids. So if you're a parent, you could play little Bible stories for them at night. It'll help them pray. Fantastic. Hello.com slash Matt Fred. Can you tell us about your shirt? My shirt? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I wanted to I wanted to make shirts, okay? For those who persecute you yeah, yeah, so this is a for those who press pray for those who pursue Yeah, I want to know why the guy who's persecuting me has a cross on um no no no he's praying for his enemies Oh, I see yeah. Yeah, he's being persecuted, and he's up to stuff. I see um yeah, so I just wanted to there's this company called ritual print and there's a

lovely man by the name of Tommy who's an Orthodox gentleman and he Sings in a band called Holy Name Holy Name is in the st. Michael's war music thing. I have So good vision was the print code a ritual print and they're great and they print everyone there is Christian and they're very like Christ forward thing and they it's all made in America and it's really cool and They're in Salt Lake my hometown the lead singer of one of my favorite bands of all time So I'm like so honored and just like it's just crazy. I almost could cry about it It's so cool that this is where my life has taken me so anyway I wanted

to make sure it's because as a comedian you're supposed to sell merchandise it's a part of how you make a lot of your money and I am bad at that I never take merchandise because I just don't want to like lug stuff around I also hate finishing a show and then being like please buy this like I hate that I hate it so much so Can I tell you the way I would sell stuff and I would it was a really easy way and it's gonna be difficult for you Now unless the Lord calls you to marriage, but here's what I would do I would say so I've got books and things up the back and

All of the proceeds I want you to know go to help needy children mine That's an incredible that's a good joke. 10 of 10. Wow. You can take that. Look at this guy. Yeah, I will take that. If I'm a comedian.

Is this ritual print? Is this different people's merchandise on one website or is it all yours? Yeah, so they, it's a print shop. Look at this. And they do all kinds of other people's prints, but they do some of mine. I love this Oh, they're awesome. They have one. That's the Jesus prayer. Do they it's an incredible. It's my favorite shirt

I wear it all the time. He's an Orthodox fella. He is yeah Yeah, and so he's he's just one of the best people and his band is so fun and cool. You're really kind person Um, anyway, I wanted to make shirts cuz I I'm like, oh, I gotta make them. And then there's this thing where comedians always like, their merchandise has their name across it real big, which I'm wildly uncomfortable with. And then, so I was like, I wanna make merch that I would wear.

And so then I'm like, I want it to, I'm like, oh, it would be so cool if it's like, has something to do with my faith, but then also is something that like like a secular person who enjoys my comedy would just think is cool also now I'm sneaking in a little a little Catholicism into the into the secular situation but so I was like oh I'm gonna make this like heavy metal cool shirt and this is what I the first one I came up with And I just love like the imagery. It's um, it's a nod to Shirts from heavy metal bands in like the 2010s

So it's a very specific type of shirt, but pray for those who persecute you Have you saw that you may be sons of your father in heaven? I love that I've sold a decent amount But I would love to sell more if anyone here wants to look really cool at the gym Josiah would you want to put the link in the bio? Yeah, there we go link in the description. I'm in Lanken bio Yeah, um, so yeah, it's I like it. I'm making more. Yeah, do you design them? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Oh in in with I collaborate with the designer at ritual, but like I'm making one so they have one That's the Jesus prayer, you know, and

the prayer goes across the front. And then it's got like it's all busy and has all this cool Orthodox imagery. And then it has these two Orthodox monks and their super awesome hoods. And it just like it's so cool.

Have you ever heard of death to the world? Yeah, like magazine. It's that's kind of aesthetic. And so I'm making a Hail Mary version with Mary and Gabriel, and then it's going to have the whole Hail Mary on it and everything. So that'll be very cool. Yeah, so it'll be a heavy metal Hail Mary shirt with Gabriel and Mary on it.

I love that they're working alongside Roman Catholics like you. So I know it's awesome. I love it. So I know that there's so many people who are like Kind of down on ecumenical ism or is that the voice that ism ecu? Yeah, I don't know how to see man ism Yeah, remember earlier how you were like you're the muscle guy and then we we figured out that I wasn't this far guy So you're like, oh, yeah, you just quoted to Camus So, oh, yeah, I guess but um

Anyway, I forgot what I was saying. It's cool. Yeah, so that's cool that there Yeah, because I mean that death to the world aesthetic. Yeah, beautiful. I don't know anyone in the Roman Catholic space That's creating content like that. Would you please do it? Yeah. Yeah, I think we could I'm on it. We're working on it I would do really well. Yeah, it's very cool. Um, so yeah, I'm trying to make these I've got more I've got one that's like a night Hospitaller like the outline of him and he's got a bunch of arrows in him and he's trying to stand up with his using a sword And it says stand up son of God. There's more in you. I like that one It's funny cuz stand up and your stand-up community. Mm-hmm. There you go. It was meant to do that.

Yes. Yeah, that's clever. You're getting it. You're getting it. But it's also very cool and tough and sort of like got it going. So but yeah. And so I'm working on that. But that's fun.

Could we take questions? Please. And then you can answer as little as much as you want. Sure. Why do nuns have a reputation for being mean, crotchety, and slapping you with a ruler, says Emmanuel's mom. little as much as you want. Sure. Why do nuns have a reputation for being mean, crotchety and slapping you with a ruler, says Emmanuel's mom. Oh, I think-

Because some of them are mean, crotchety and slap you with a ruler. Yeah, I think that was probably the experience of a lot of people in school with like sisters who were teachers. In a time when it was like Discipline is how you become holy or something. I don't know. Yeah, I I think that it's almost like that movie Sort of trope. Yeah, cuz I as a secular person remember thinking like nuns are severe austere people and then I've every nun I've ever met has been like the light of my life. Like I'm, they're incredible.

I have like this weird fascination with nuns now where I just want to, I mean, I wanna buy every nun on earth roses for Valentine's Day. We're working on it. But like, yeah, so I don't know, I think that's fake. And I also think that like in the 70s and 80s I hear stories my dad was like yeah, my principal spanked me my teacher hit me and I'm like, oh So that's just what teachers did not what nuns did

So maybe there's an element of that too. I think there's also I think people link nuns with teaching often Yeah, or with nursing. Yeah, if you're a teacher this I mean, I'm not justifying any of the abuse that took place from nuns with teaching often or with nursing. Yeah. And if you're a teacher, I mean, I'm not justifying any of the abuse that took place from nuns. I'm sure that's happened. I never experienced it. But I mean, if you're teaching a bunch of kids, like you kind of need to lay down the law too, right? That's my thing. I've never heard of someone being like a nun wrapped my knuckles with a ruler. And then you're kind of like, what were you doing? You know? And then they're like, Oh, I was like the worst kid.

And you're like, yeah, she's gotta get after you, man. Well, Father, a priest here says, hello, I am a priest. And recently my spiritual director, a priest, advised me to find a Catholic, preferably a counselor, who is a woman, so that when it comes to ministry, I can get a feminine perspective. Of course, this would not be instead of direction, but in addition to it, I am quite busy. Cliche, I know. And to add a regular meeting for something like this just isn't a priority right now. But

I do find that I get fresh insight on stuff when I speak with women devoted to Christ, especially nuns. What do you think? Don't worry. He's not about to ask you to be his spiritual mother. Yes, I can be your spiritual mother. Yeah, I think. I think there does need to be some discernment there of how much of your time and your ministry is spent ministering to women. Like if you have female directives and things like that, then

I realize that it will take time and energy to add something into your schedule. But if it's going to make you a better father to your to your flock, then I think that's something that like a sacrifice that you might need to make, you know, kind of like we were talking about earlier of like, where is your energy going? So I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that sounds right. It sounds prudent.

Like, I mean, I don't know. They are half of your congregation, would assume at your parish so you want to reach them as best as humanly possible Yeah, I mean if you're a parish priest if you're a parish priest. Yeah Do you? Sometimes like how much responsibility should be on your shoulders to like connect with everyone in your parish. That sounds like I don't think you need Yeah, but like able to yeah understand and be on your shoulders to like connect with everyone in your parish. That sounds exhausting. I don't think you need that to connect. Yeah. But like you need to be able to understand and be compassionate. I suppose. Right. And then you're in a place where you have to engage.

And that's why I say, like, if you're directing women, like if you're a spiritual director for women, like, yeah, you you better understand women or you might be like causing harm. If you're directing your female directories the same way you're directing your male directories, you're missing something. Please tell me. Give us some more insight on that. What are some ways that you suspect women are sometimes directed as if they were fellas that is unhealthy?

Yeah. Or not helpful. I think it's just like. I guess I'll give the nuance that these are generalizations, and so I understand that there are exceptions to every generalization, right? But. We often I mean, even honestly, even like hormonal stuff. I will talk to my spiritual father about hormonal things that are happening

because those affect the spiritual life. They absolutely do. And like, that's not the same thing that a man is going to be bringing to direction, you know? So there's things like that, but it's also just. There are the different lies that I think the devil particularly speaks to women versus men. I think women often believe they're too much and I think men often believe they're not enough. Hmm. Yeah, that's actually pretty profound. Oh, so I think that there is.

Yeah, there's sensitivity needed in directing both men and women, but I think the sensitivity looks different. You know, like Father Boniface is not my spiritual director, but I meet with him regularly and I would imagine he speaks very differently to me and interacts very differently with me than he does with his like male directives I don't know that would be my guess Things like that, so I don't know Yeah, put the bone of us sorry no I I would also if you're if you're a person who has

Your relationships with women are very different because you're pretty soon you have vows and stuff like how much do you understand women? Do you think? It's a dangerous question. Well, I don't even know what that means exactly We actually need to ask Cameron that question Yeah, and so imagine like you're married and it's hard imagine no marriage and you're so busy and now you need to understand so maybe that should be priority and honestly not even just for the sake of Yeah, I'm gonna go back on what I said a little bit because it's not even just for the sake of the women that he's Ministering to but like for his own sake it's good to have the feminine perspective Because like men need women too. It's not good for a man to be alone and

Y'all need our perspective just as we need yours. I don't need my wife's perspective. Whenever I brought something to her that I'm trying to discern and think through, she's never led me astray. Whenever she's had, you're right, let's do this. Or I don't know about that. Let's go this way. Yeah, she's she's usually spot on. So, yeah, I don't know if that's a Cameron thing or a woman more generally intuition thing

or both. But here's a thought of let's try Shane's method of can we find a compromise and make everybody happy? Like maybe you don't have to actually add something into your schedule and maybe it doesn't need to be a counselor, but is there a married couple at your parish that you can be spending more intentional time with them at their house for dinner and like letting the wife speak into some of the you know, not yeah, not sharing inappropriately with her crossing boundaries or things like that. But is something like that a possibility? Yeah. Yeah. Got to get that compromise. This is a funny question well doctor says my fiance didn't grow up Catholic she is now and thinks nuns are creepy All right. What can I say to her to possibly change the way she views them? Nothing have I watched this video and she realized they're not but that's from those horror movies

Where they're what I can't remember what they're called Yeah, there's like an evil nun that shows up but she's not even that scary looking honestly she's kind of sick honestly I could take her yeah yeah she's got like the heavy the like the death metal corpse paint on and I'm like that just looks like a cool nun on Halloween how sick would that be if it was Halloween and your nun at your local barrage or whatever showed up and she had corpse pain on It was standing out candy I mean, I don't think I'm I don't think

Literally like yeah, so they yeah, I could show videos of me. That's a weird thing to say Hey, how did your stand-up show go recently really well well. Sorry, is that what you say, stand-up show? Yeah, yeah. Am I recording? Yeah, because it was, well, explain to people like me who aren't familiar with this, you have to work on content for a long period of time, and then you do a new set, and it was recorded.

So you spend a long time writing, you write an hour, you perform it, it takes you sometimes years to nail down and get like timed correctly and well done and all the laughs you want in there and and it's written right and then you record it now You're back to square zero or square one. Whatever. How are they say it square zero one again? I'm the muscle guy And I gotta get bigger so um Yeah, it's just, so yeah, you do that. And so I wrote an hour, I've been touring on it for like a year and a half, and it was time to record.

And so I nailed it down and I went and recorded it at Drybar in Provo, Utah for VidAngel, the people who own the company or whatever. And it was great. It went really well. I messed up like once or twice, no one noticed, but you filmed two shows. So if you mess up on one, you get the other one

and then you kind of blend them together to make the best version of your set. Knowing that that's the case must be wonderful. It's incredible. Although they're like, why does everyone in the front row look different? Yeah, yeah. It is funny because they cut to different laughter and you can tell that the crowds are different

But like no one really says anything I noticed but no it went well. I was really happy with it It's a little different than anything I've done. So I went as my specials have as I've grown as a comedian I've just like stepped into what I want to do, which is tell long Stories that are like far away from things other comics are doing different experiences Not just like this stuff people tread, you know The the typical like sex and relationships or like this is what my kids are up to I think there's a lot of good stuff and I'll probably eventually do some but I'm trying to do weirder a lot of good stuff and I'll probably eventually do some but I'm trying to do weirder

Stuff that people haven't heard so this reason special I talk about like my childhood in the very small town like bringing a gun to elementary school for show-and-tell Yeah, yeah, yeah, you actually did yes Yeah So I have a whole bit about that and I get taken to the principal's office and the principal has my back because it's the smallest town ever we have this like teacher from California that's like you know when like a Lady is so progressive that she becomes racist. Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah She's like one of those the sweetest lady that means well But just like so bad at being like the like she's from California

She moved to the boonies to like help poor trailer people. She's like a white lady with dreadlocks and her weird really colorful dresses with patches. So I remember her, she's really sweet. But she, I had, I just like pulled the gun out for show and tell sort of pointing it at people, you know? And she was just like not having it. She took it to the principal's office.

And then, so I do jokes about that. And then, then I get get I do that and then I get wilder. I tell like one of the craziest stories I've ever told on stage for recording Which is the story of my brother setting someone on fire In a fight. It's pretty crazy and it sounds like mortifying but I do make it funny and the people are fine ish whatever They're alive. Do you sometimes fear that people think you're making these up? So yes, so outlandish 100% so I have um, I tell a ghost story. That's the majority of my set is a ghost story I the set starts in my childhood

Leads up to my brother doing that very crazy thing in that fight and then I say and he's not even the craziest person in My family hears about my mother and I tell a story about my mother knocking a dog unconscious, and then we do it again Yeah, yeah, no, sorry. I'm this is a crazy good episode of your cat person I have a dog everybody. I love dogs okay. Oh your mom knocked a dog I wouldn't make you tell us they should watch oh yeah the dog I have a dog everybody. I love dogs, okay? So your mom knocked a dog on you. I wouldn't make you tell us in case they should watch this. Oh yeah, trust me, when you see the, if you go watch the special and you'll be like,

oh, she was right. But I promise you, and then a lot of the joke is me saying that and then addressing how awkward the crowd becomes, that's a big part of the joke. Cause the crowd is so like, ooh. And then I make them realize that you're acting on emotion, you're not thinking about it. Because there are lots of reasons to stop a dog. I could think at least 200.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, and then we go into, my mother's into hunting ghosts. That's her main hobby. She's obsessed with the wild. Yeah, yeah, yeah. and she's from a total scientific perspective. There's no like weird spirituality. Yeah, none of that. She's 100% just evidence-based

interested in whatever ghosts may be and so she's it's pretty fun and so she invites me and my brother to go ghost hunting with her once. And we had like a crazy experience and it was really silly and goofy. But I tell that ghost story and I have a recording of a ghost whistling at us. But I swear in the recording cause I'm scared. So I couldn't play it, but I usually play it when I do the standup, I tell the story and then in the middle of the story I go Do you guys want to hear a real recording and everyone is obviously down and I play the real recording for them?

And so I was hoping you can't because I couldn't do it on dry bar So I was like people aren't gonna believe this but I have a recording but I I swear in it And so I was like I can't play it. This was this recorded? How old were you? This was like three years ago. Do you explain that in this game? Okay, could you please explain to us, sorry. No, please, well, please explain to us. You don't have to make it funny. Yeah, yeah.

But can you tell us how on earth this happened three years ago and what happened? Yeah, so me and my brothers give my mom a lot of grief about ghost hunting, which is silly because as a teenager, we've all been to a haunted house to ghost hunt with A girl or whatever and it's everyone's your whole friend group is scared and it's actually a fun adventure But that's just what my mom's up to but she's got like five thousand dollars worth of gear

She rocks did and so um She invites us to go ghost hunting and of course She's so excited to share her hobby with us and we show up and we begin to go son She's showing us how it works and she has these ghost hunting friends. Hang on. Sorry Just slow down just the three of you and are you like it's building. It's a three of us at a Really like a hundred plus year old haunted bank in Salt Lake City, Utah And it's got these tunnels underground that the Mormons had dug so that they could like hide from the government.

It's so cool. It is cool. How did they, how did she get access to the building? She just, so what she does is she finds buildings that are rumored to be haunted or have a lot of people who talk about them or whatever. She finds the owner and she simply is like, I'm a paranormal investigator. She finds the owner and she simply is like I'm a paranormal investigator Can I go here and I'll show you any evidence I grab here's evidence. I've gotten from other places. She's got Legit evidence of ghosts and those people are get fired up and they're like, yeah It's my building haunted because it's like cool. And so she does this I by the way

I don't know if this is heresy or not just to be clear My mom is a Protestant. She doesn't care Nighttime please yes, of course. It's nighttime. It's gotta be scary my man Presumably the ghosts are still there in the day. Well, this is true. My mom says she could hunt ghosts during the day But it's just more fun at night. Why not make it more fun for yourself? Okay, so you, your mom, who has night vision goggles, and your brother show up at an abandoned bank that she's allowed to enter.

Exactly. With like what? With two of her friends. You cannot tell this slow enough. I want every detail. Okay, okay, so we show up. I'm gonna try not to like do too many like stand up jokes, but if I joke, it'll be.

So we go, we show up. my mother's there with her friends, they're these ghost hunting ladies, they rock. They're, listen, this is the joke in the special, but all my mom's ghost hunting friends are in their 60s and they look exactly like what you think they do. You know what I mean? Like you know what they are up to. And so so go and

We show up and my mom kind of gives us a rundown We just got to stick with her and hang out and so then we begin to ghost hunt and then of course we're doing like We've got cameras My mom has like this crazy like laser machine that blows up it makes the whole room full of lasers You've ever seen that movie. Is it entrapment? What's the movie where? full of lasers you've ever seen that movie is it entrapment what's the movie where Katherine's aided Jones is like going through the lasers. I know it's wildly inappropriate now. I think about it She's in the most skin tight suit, but that's what it looks like It's like lasers everywhere so that if you see like a ghost apparently it's like you the lasers are like outlining it We didn't see any but and then she has like these cameras

She has like an Xbox Kinect camera and they like wear it or whatever and then like because the Xbox Kinect senses The body and sometimes like a ghost will be on the Xbox Kinect and you'll like see like a body moving But it's there's nothing in front of you, but the X it's it's capturing. It's really fun. It's interesting I don't know if it's real but So this is wonderful, isn't it? So it's really fun and kind of scary different people, right? Like the way you grew up your first job what your mom does. Yeah, yeah, it could be more different Then what happened so it's pitch black. Also, we're wearing headlamps and have lights and like it's really scary and

So we're doing all this stuff and hunting and we're like we've got the tape recorders and stuff and of course me and my brother like can't help ourselves we're like tossing rocks or knocking and then everyone's like what was that and we're like a lot of ghosts yeah I know what it's like you know trying to act like we're cool and um so it's like this huge building and you go something like room by room my mom's got her tape recorder And then they like take time to like go over the evidence every so many hours or whatever But we go how many hours are you there my mom has ghost hunted for nine plus? I think like full on like I'm all night in this building when she took you and your brother

How long were you there? We were only there for like five hours When she took you and your brother how long were you there? We were only there for like five hours It's a part-time shift and you're just walking around a dog walking around and then sometimes sitting in a room So my mom will be like there's a lot of activity in this room or historically we've captured EVP So we're gonna spend time here and they have like different devices Hey, my mom has this little boom box called the spirit box and apparently goes talk through radio signals I don't know how real that is, but that one's weird but in so we're doing all this stuff and Honestly, mostly just it reminds me of your video game thing where I'm like

I don't care if this is real or what's going on. It's scary and it's fun and I'm with my mom You know what? I mean, like I'm just having a good time, but a ghost did whistle at us So we we were up in this area. So we ghost hunt great sentence, right? I got cat called by a ghost did whistle So the first the first two floors of the bank in the basement are like what you would think It's just like a creepy haunted building with a lot of rooms the third story It's like all the walls are knocked down There's only only the large load-bearing pillars and then it's full of Theater rents that room and it's full of costumes

So it's like a maze of these giant racks of clothes and they're not organized well and the costumes right right I'm mascots like creepy Chick-fil-A. Like yes, yes. Oh, ho ho ho ho ho ho ho. Yeah, ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo So it is creepy up there. It's so scary. And so we're in this area and me and my brother thought we saw something. We wanted to leave. We're like genuinely scared.

So we all sit down and my mom puts the spirit box down and we're kind of like crisscross applesauce on the ground. And my mom's trying to talk to a ghost. We're not talk to a ghost, but get a ghost to talk to us. Because it's not like you're trying to discern the future. You're not like doing witchcraft or anything weird like that. You're simply trying to capture evidence Who are you? Why are you able to talk to me? And what do you want to say? That's it? You're not trying to do more than that

It's very my mom is very like if they are real and there's something going on then we're just gonna give them an opportunity To talk to us She's very sweet about it actually and so we're trying to talk to it and nothing's happening And I'm kind of like yeah, of course nothing's happening and then from behind me out loud not even in the box something whistles at us like and We all in the recording I play everyone is like what was that? that was not from the box and it scared us all so bad and after that we went downstairs and we had

this whole thing and this is like a crazy part of the story but we go downstairs finally and we're kind of done with the ghost hunt and I texted my girlfriend at the time to be like ghosts are real by the way you know and then she was like we need to have a talk later and then we're immediately going to break up. And so I know, right. And so then I am at this time of my life, like three and a half years ago, I, I was very much not good with relationships. So as soon as I got the inkling she wanted to break up, was like I'm gonna call her and ask her and if she says yes

I'm gonna hang up and never talk to her for the rest of my life Which is a very immature kind of rude thing to do, but I was like I'm not her boyfriend anymore I don't owe her anything that was my thought process So I'm trying to call her and I realized I didn't want to do it outside because it's winter in Utah And I'll die out there And then I didn't want to do it inside because I didn't want My mom's goofy friends to be like and they're so like wearing the big giant Paddington bear hat, you know, like the they're so say and I'm like if I break up in front of them

That would be the saddest thing I could do 65 year old woman hunting spirits and I'm like so I went alone woman hunting spirits and I'm like and so I went alone Into the haunted building and closed the door behind me and then something growled into the top of my head while I was trying To use my phone. What does that mean like growl like? like scary real scary and it was the most scared I've ever been and

it was a moment that like where I was like, religion is probably real. Because this is scary. Like I had a supernatural experience. But yeah, and it just scared me so bad. And then I tried to open the door and it wouldn't open. And so I got so scared that instead of trying to solve the problem or taking my time or figuring something out I started punching and headbutting and I pulled like I didn't kick the door down or pull it off I literally went through like the room gave birth to me

I went through the door and so that was that night. It was very embarrassing. So it was a square window which you busted. No, a door. Like a door. Oh, you busted a hole in a door. Yeah, yeah. You know how some doors are just kind of like not very well made? Like I literally like punched and head butted. I was head butting the door and ripped it open and then pushed my leg through

and like crunched my way through the door So the door still closed and locked I just went through it like the Kool-Aid man like the weirdest scariest version Yeah So my mom immediately was like something's probably up. Yeah, I was like Why did I did have to pay for the door? So before the girls started my mom had warned me that there's a specific entity that roams this thing and it scares people she called it the tall man and so I the tall man scared me and

Then my mom was like never let me live it down So that's the whole thing so she made fun of me immediately growled into your head growled into the top like he was standing behind me and growling into the top of my Because he's tall You know and then I said did she think we should go investigate that room? No. Did that change her? There was a rule that you're not supposed to go into his room specifically. Because my mom is very interested in respecting spirits. I don't know, screw that guy. He growled into my son's head.

That's what I said! I was like, do you even love me? Why would you invite- you know, and so... But yeah, I accidentally, Providence or you know bad luck I chose his room to go into break out with my girlfriend to break up with my girlfriend Did you break up with I sure did well she broke up with me Were you on the phone when you heard the no I was trying to call her on my phone wasn't working wait So you still so later she later we broke and so I I I was like didn't make that call after the growl yeah I was well later that night later that night but I was so scared and then I had to do that it honestly made the breakup like I could care less about this guy just found out

ghosts are real like our relationship is meaningless the afterlife is happening we got to figure this out you know you being disappointed with me is the second most scariest thing that's happened today. Right, right. I was like, I got to figure out what ghosts are. And then luckily the magisterium knows. So that's great. Wow. That is the most wild story I've ever heard. I'll show you the recording later. I would love to. Thomas Aquinas talks about how the dead can appear to us. And he says how the damned can appear to us, those in purgatory can appear to us to beseech our prayers, the blessed can appear to us. That's what we call visions of the saints. Right. So depending on how you

define ghost, the Catholic answer is obviously they're real. Yeah. I also, um, someone, one of my big epiphanies as I very, very first started discerning Christianity in general was one of my friends, I had that experience, I told him about it, he's a wild skeptic. Like no way he would believe any, he's so hardcore, like almost to the point where you're like, something's going on, why are you this much of a skeptic? And he was like, well, I want the experience,

I seek it out and never happens. Like I'll play with a Ouija board, I'll do all these negative, horrible things. I know. And so, but nothing ever happens to him. And he's like, so it's not real. And I go, well, you don't believe anything. Why would they come near you? You're already giving them what they want. And then I was like, wait a minute, that makes a lot of sense. Why would someone who doesn't believe and is living in sin, in seeking out these kinds of things, they're, by them appearing to you, they would give you the ammunition to then believe in God,

which is kind of what happened to me. So by rights, they, they're sneaky like that. So was this experience, would you say at least part of what eventually led you to Catholicism? 100%. It was a, in retrospect, an incredibly positive experience for me, which is why I wanted to do the joke, because I wanted to just talk about that experience and like bring to light the supernatural, because it happened. It's so interesting.

And it was eventually- Did you explain it away somehow through, I mean- No. Given the context and what you already heard, it would seem likely that you would interpret it that way, but I think if it were somehow through I mean no given the context it was already heard It would seem likely that you would interpret it that way, but I think it fit with me I'm like, okay. Did I think I heard that that was a whistle? I was explaining the whistle away to myself and honestly Already dismissing it by the time I got into that room and then

Whatever spirit that was was like, oh Listen, I got you you're believe. And so that happened to me, but it ended up being a positive. But then you read like exorcists are like, it's actually a major blessing to encounter a demon because by encountering him, your faith in God increases like tenfold. And then also logically, oh, I've seen this thing, so the antithesis must exist.

So it like just strengthens your belief in God, which is an interesting perspective to be like, what a blessing to have something so negative happen to you. But again, God works through negativity and evil to bring goodness. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. And when will your special be out? My special will be out. We'll post about it when it comes out. God works through negativity and evil to bring goodness. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah.

And when will your special be out? My special will be out. We'll post about it when it comes out. To be determined. Whenever it comes out. I have no idea, but I think pretty soon. That's awesome. But yeah, it's a weird one.

And I'm just like, oh, I hope people- And I love what you said about the narrative of your, like, using your story. Yeah. I love that. It's not just one joke after the other. It's connected. Yeah. Prologically. This is inside just one joke after the other. It's connected. Yeah. This is inside baseball and I'm not ruining my own special I suppose by saying this but the idea

is that the special begins and I'm in the small town and I'm this weird little kid and I bring a gun to school and I'm very wild and you go oh that's crazy and then I bring my brother into it and he's wild and you go he's even crazier and then my mom is here and she's the craziest one. And then me and my brothers are like sort of almost disparaging my mother like in her hobby and what she's into, but it turns out despite her being the craziest one, she's the most right. And so at the end, my mom is the hero

and everything she said was true and we were wrong to think that she was being silly. And so there's like a hidden lesson where like, just because your mom's the craziest person doesn't mean that she doesn't know and you shouldn't respect her and she's not right. And so there's like this through thread of like, oh, the family is crazy and everything's wrong, but actually she's right.

Wow. And then you get to reinterpret all of the so-called less crazy events. Yeah that light three exactly exactly So I think that's fun. Have you ever experienced a ghost when you were a child or thought you did or um? No, okay. That's the correct answer for a nun to give on a popular podcast. Yeah Weegee boards you like, those aren't good. Yeah, just be clear. You're clear as none on the podcast. Genuinely horrific. The occult is awful.

No one go near it. It's silly. That was wild. I can't wait to hear your special. Thank you. I'm really excited. I wanted to be there so badly. I wanted to be there. I wish. One day I'll do it. I want to hear your special. Thank you. I'm really excited. I wanted to be there so badly. I wanted to be there.

I wish. One day off, I'll do, I wanna do another one. I was talking to- What about a special Just Nuns Can Come? I performed for the Sisters of Life, and let me tell you, it's the most nervous I've ever been. Oh, I would be too,

because the Sisters of Life are beautiful women, but they're a lot more straight-laced than your sisters, wouldn't you say? Because there's different religious orders, you know, like you look at the Franciscan friars the renewal They're kind of like they're rough and tumble and beautiful. Yeah, yeah There are the religious orders in the mail who would be a lot more kind of like, they're rough and tumble and beautiful. And there are the religious orders in the male who would be a lot more kind of, yeah, like the Dominicans, right?

The stormtroopers. Yeah, that's what they remind me of. And that's okay. The stormtroopers from Star Wars, they're in all white, they're all very straight and sort of like, hello, I'm a Dominican, I know things. I like that. So then how did they receive it?

You know what, I couldn't tell if they were laughing I told like a crazy story I told an old story of mine that I actually want to rerecord Um, I was talking to Josiah actually want to do a small special that's only like 20 25 minutes long That's like a house show or like in a really small space that I record myself. We should collaborate on that maybe. But yeah, so they, I don't know if they liked it, but afterwards they spoke to me about my conversion story

and my witness and they all seemed very like excited to talk to me about that. And so that was nice. And they also took a photo with me, very sweet, but they're also nuns. So maybe they were just being nice and they're like this guy but it was like the large it was a very large pro-life event with like 900 people there it was really cool there was a bishop too recently yeah recently in Arizona like

two months ago it's why because you just became Catholic recently and you've had already so many lovely. I know I, it's so funny cause I felt like everyone was waiting for a little bit after my baptism. Okay. He's being serious. He's being serious. See the takes. Yeah. And so I've been like, yeah, it's been great. I feel so good to be able to use my comedy for something that feels real, you know, intangible, some tangible good, you know, whereas like you do, usually you're just doing jokes

for drug, like you feel like I'm a chicken finger salesman at the end of the day. I go to comedy clubs and they make their money from selling cocktails and chicken fingers. And that's kind of why I'm there, so that they can make money, you know. And of course I wanna believe like I'm making people happy and giving them like some sort of refuge from

the horror of life and like laughter is so important when we laugh I feel like we're close to god, but like I am a chicken finger salesman. So it feels good to be like Oh, i'm here like bringing joy to these people and we're like raising money for a real thing or like i'm like Catholics are seeing me be like a person who's doing things that you don't expect Catholics to do. You know? And so that's like maybe edifying isn't the word I want.

What's the word I want? I don't know. But yeah, I feel like I'm doing something more tangible that's good now. So do you have, when you go give a Comedy special let's say at this thing you did in Utah Do you have people who recognize that you're Catholic from other things you've done and want to talk about that now? Yes. Yes Yeah, so

My fan base has is a lot of my old fans have stayed and they're so wonderful and great and I appreciate them immensely Lot of my old fans have stayed and they're so wonderful and great and I appreciate them immensely And then now I have this new group of fans who are all Catholics or like even Protestants and Orthodox just Christians in general And they come to the show and they're always So cool like I went from Having shows and not doing meet-and-greets because I was getting sexually harassed by like women. Oh It's the worst Let's go with your interpretation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean listen, it's never who you want There's a nun right there. It's always sorry guys drunk aunt and she's like

And you're like never in my life you're trying to karate her away, but she's so strong I like you know I mean like it's just awkward and so I stopped to meet and greets for a while Cuz I was just so awkward about it and then um for a while because I was just so awkward about it. And then, you know, I converted and this new tour, I started being like, well, these crowds are they seem like cool. Like, let's do a meet and greet and see what this is all about. And they've been incredible. I'm talking about like I've received relics,

like gifts, I've had priests come and give me blessings and like give me spiritual guidance. And like I've had priests come and give me blessings and like give me spiritual guidance and like I've made so many friends and People bring me like like this guy from this company called motherboards he brought me all these skateboards that have like saints on them and like Awesome stuff to give her one. I know I have a Joan of Arc skateboard that rocks. And so they're so cool. And like, so they're icons on skateboards, like straight up, it's the best. And so, so many people have done so many beautiful

and cool things or given me letters talking about how my witness has like really helped them. And then I've also had a lot, I mean, hundreds of people come to shows and be like, I came back to the church after listening to you, or my parents showed me you, and now I'm like discerning Christianity again. Like, it's, it's like, so, so, so, so, so good. So comedy has like, it's so funny, I was so burnt out. And then after my conversion now,

I'm not doing anything different, I'm still doing comedy. I'm not even doing comedy about my faith, but somehow by just like putting God first in my life and trying to like always put that out there, it has made my work more rewarding, which is so interesting because really I haven't changed anything. That set I was doing, I was doing before my conversion.

And now that set has like got new meaning. It's just interesting that God is like, oh, I'll just take this and now it's better and we're doing something good with it. Thank you, Shane, for trying, you know? That feels so good. So it's been sick. The amount of people who have talked to me

about converting or reverting because of our interview and then just like basically being like, you're a weird guy. I'm a weird person. I didn't know I could do this by being, I didn't know you were allowed to be weird and Catholic. There's a lot of that. And I'm like, yeah, you're allowed to be weird and Catholic. For sure you are of that. And I'm like, yeah, you're allowed to be weird and Catholic for sure. You are. Most of us are weird if you go and start paying attention, you know? So it's been really good. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. Yeah. So many people like so, so, so many, I have like, I screenshot like every message I get cause I can't reply to all of them,

but like I have, I think right now in a folder like 400 something screenshots of people being like I am in RCIA or I've reverted because of Your comedy or your interviews or just whatever. It's been great. I print those out. Oh Put them somewhere and that's thanks to God. Yeah, that's kind of my plan. So it's been good I want to tell you about a course that I have created for men to overcome pornography It is called strive 21 comm slash Matt you go there right now Or if you text strive to six six eight six six, we'll send you the link It's a hundred percent free and it's a course

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Jason Everett, a good friend of mine, travels around the country speaking on chastity, and he's been doing it for years. And he's very effective, incredibly brilliant, talented, hilarious. And he's got like a big shoe box full of things that students have given him after they have heard him speak. So like the Playboy bunny necklace, or the condoms in the pocket, or the all sorts of just debaucherous stuff. War trophies.

Exactly. Yeah, it really is. Someone's gonna find that shoe box after he dies and be like, this guy's the biggest hypocrite. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so low-money. He said once he was, he said two funny things. Once he was walking through the airport

and he had a condom in his back pocket that a student gave him, but the cellane made the the thing go. Oh, no What are you gonna say to that? Oh my god. No, no, no, don't worry a man gave it to me Yeah, yeah That's so has this Barbie doll that he uses in his skits sometimes no skits, but in his presentations And so they had to check his bag and they pull it out. And he's like, what am I going to say? Like, that's for work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's so funny. Yeah. War trophies. That's a lot better than what. What particular stresses do you think are upon the people of God today that we don't readily see but need to acknowledge? Because I think that too often we say things like look the way we're living today like it's so comfortable compared to the way things were years ago like we've got it and There's a sense in which that's obviously true But there's a sense in which I think it's not and I think it underplays the amount of stress Christians are under today.

So what do you think those particular stresses and anxieties are that we're dealing with? And how is God giving us provision in this time for this moment? Hmm. I mean, the stress I see the most people message me about and that I feel often because I'm like attacked online quite a bit is Modern culture has flipped everything so that as a Christian you are perceived as evil or bad or controlling and when you're you know not Christian and you're in your pride and self-care and you're self-centered and your life is around pleasure and you don't care

about all these things that's good and so many people perceive you as bad without knowing you that I think that affects people so many people message me and they're like I want to be Christian but I feel like am I being gullible am I being good am I am I a sheep? Am I doing the wrong thing by doing this? I'm afraid of people thinking that I'm bad or that I hate gay people or that I don't support women The narrative is just so flipped that like you kind of have to exist with strangers thinking You are a bad person and that's difficult especially when your whole life is centered around trying to do the most good and

Love the highest good and now you're in the situation where it's almost like you have to suffer quietly Or sort of just and it goes back to us talking about how you're in the situation where it's almost like you have to suffer quietly or sort of just, and it goes back to us talking about how you're perceived, you know, and it's like, especially as a Christian, I so badly want people to perceive me as, as, as a Christian, as a good person who's doing their best. And very often I'm not perceived that way and so then you suffer and you put in all this work and you're loving and but like no one sees the loving conversation I have with my gay friend who's scared to walk in their neighborhood recently and like you know they know I don't want them to live

that lifestyle but they're also a person I love and care, but no one cares about that They only care about that my opinions about marriage and that Obstacle is huge and to be a regular person and like face that is like You know horrible Just just so difficult for people. I think that's a huge challenge today But I don't know I don't even I'm still dealing with it. I don't even know what to do half the time Yeah, there there are two things that come to mind for me The first is actually related to what you just closed with Shane about

You know, they don't see this Relationship that you have that's maybe not the way to't see this relationship that you have. That's maybe not the way to put it. This friendship that you have. Yeah, this gay friend and like wanting them to feel safe and loving them. Like they only see your views on marriage. And I think one of the stresses that we have is. There's this false sense of knowing people because we have some amount of access

to them online. And you know, like when you were saying Matt earlier about how easy it is to just send an email or whatever. It's like people think that because. They've read someone's blog or they've listened to their podcast or they've like, well, they just know them. And then, but this is the case, too, with like emails or texts or friends on Facebook or Instagram or whatever it is like. This feeling like. Almost this like we deserve access to other people at all times, and I think that adds this stress of also, I need to be accessible to everyone at all times.

Hypervigilance is what it leads to, right? You're always in a position of response or thinking you should be responding. Yeah, absolutely. And that just feeds into this problem that we have in general, which is a stress of just everybody is doing too much everybody's doing too much like we You know when we started having electricity, it's like well now we can work longer hours now we can Do more things now we can and there's just this this constant like do more do more do more and well, I have all these emails to respond to or all of these texts to respond to or all of this work that I'm not getting done and, you know, there's this like mindset of, well, if I just had more time.

But the truth is, if you just had more time, you would just fill it with more stuff. You wouldn't actually. So I think there's this stress of we just do too much because it's hard for us to say no or because we want to do all of the good things or, you know, I was thinking about this earlier when you were saying we can only like, we only have the energy for so many friends and before all of the access that we had to people. Well, that was fine because these are the only people that you see or these are the only people that you write to or whatever.

But now it's like, yeah, and there are the goods, obviously, that come with that access. But then there's also the stress that comes with it of I need to be accessible to people all the time. But the other thing, and I think this is being talked about in a lot of, I think a lot of Catholics and Christians in general are talking about this, but I think it's one of the biggest misconceptions that we have and I think deserves to be talked about even more is one of the episodes that I did recently for Pines a couple of weeks ago and I was thinking of this when you were talking Matt about earlier when we were talking about Therese and just like the point is not to just like healing does not mean just

growth and holiness. I think healing does mean growth and holiness but I don't think growth and holiness means what most people think it means. It doesn't just mean being better at doing good. It doesn't mean being better in general or losing our flaws. It means an increased communion with the Lord. So anyways, something that we get so backwards and the episode that I did was the point is not to not sin. not sin. And that's the mentality we have as Catholics often, as Christians often, is like, well, I just need to not sin. And we get this this backwards mindset of like, I

want to be holy. I want to be a saint so that I don't sin. And like that's the total reverse of what our mindset needs to be. I want to not sin, sure, but because I'm striving for holiness, the point is communion with God. The point is not not sinning. And I was thinking of this too when you were talking, Shane, about Dismas, the thief. He's the one that the Lord says today, this day, you'll be with me in my kingdom. And he's being crucified as a thief. Yeah. Like his whole life, he was still doing this. And only in that last moment was there this conversion and like. He's in the kingdom.

And so why are we so stuck on like? I don't know. Does that make sense? It does keep going though. Yeah, just like we get so stuck on ourselves and this self-reliance of like, well, I just want to be like, I think usually the reason we don't want to sin is just because we don't want to have to see ourselves in our sin and confront anything that's broken in ourselves. It's not because we're actually like worried about our relationship with God. 100%. And that's just a problem. Yeah, it's the wrong focus.

I think one of the things that we are struggling with today is kind of what you said, a constant conflicting barrage of information. And that can be from the mundane, like what exercise should I do to help my back or what food is best or what vitamins could I take to sleep better? There's conflicting information on all of those. You'll get completely opposite accounts from people who all look credentialed, all seem equally enthusiastic, all have equally large YouTube channels. And you get to a point where you're like, I just, I can't know anything because everything I thought I did keeps getting overturned.

So it's on the mundane things, it's on the political level, it can even be on the religious level as people are just desperately trying to find like what church does the Lord want me in, you know? I have many Protestant friends who say, look, if it's the Catholic Church, I'll do it If it's the Orthodox Church, I'll do it. I'm not trying to be stubborn. I'm not trying not to know I just can't tell it's like this analysis paralysis and I think this is a real poverty that we're experiencing that should not be underestimated Like I think you are all three of us here

that should not be underestimated. Like I think you, all three of us here, undergo a particular warfare with the world that Padre Pio knew nothing of. I know that's a strong statement and I thousand percent will double down on it. I mean, he knew warfare that I don't know. Yeah. Because he actually wrestled with the devil.

Haven't done that yet, you almost did. But, but, but, but yeah. To have like every kind of debauchery and deviancy in your pocket. But he didn't know that actually. Yeah. You know, so like the person watching this who's struggling to be free of porn and is making like strides in that direction, just realize that like you get to choose Jesus in a way that Padre Pio didn't, because when you choose Christ over your phone, that wasn't an opportunity that Padre Pio had. Alright, so that's just like maybe an example that kind of shocks us, but I really think

we're living in the end times and that the good Jesus is going to make provision for his church, and that that provision is going to be different and in some respects greater than what previous Christians have received because they didn't, they weren't undergoing the same sort of stresses. That's a very kind of secular term, anxieties that we are. Yeah. I often think about how much do you think that's too much? Do you think that's? I mean, a thought I have constantly is it would be so much easier to be martyred than to like struggle with the lust You know or whatever like just martyr me like come on

It'd be so much easier and so you think about Christians like struggling with like the Huns or You know Spain and the reconquista are like all these like horrible things you hear about or like Christian persecution and there's a part of you that's almost like That almost seems easier in terms of just like what do I do about this? Oh, I'm being persecuted Whatever it takes find a way to do mass, you know find a way to love the Lord Even if it's in secret I saw a video of like these North Korean people having mass secretly in a basement and they're like all whispering and it's like so beautiful and like moving and I'm like It's it seems like I'm being lame to be like and that looks easier. It doesn't look

Literally easier but in terms of what I need to do That looks easier because you know exactly what you need to do resist love the Lord Yeah, I mean that is kind of actually the same answer when I'm sure if you're struggling with porn or whatever You know, but like it does seem like I know what you mean. I'm in this modern life. It seems mundane But it's so evil and so you're like it's just like so casual When evil is less casual, it's so much easier to fight I've had a similar thought and I wonder what you think about it I've shared it before on the podcast if I say if the good Lord Jesus appeared to me and said alright, Matt Here's what you have to do to be saved

I need you to listen to the Bible in a year podcast every year So, you know, let him miss a day every single day. All right. Also, I need you to pray the rosary every day I need you to mass every day. I will crush that. Yeah. But if the good Jesus said, don't cause any unnecessary grief to your wife and children, I'm like, oh, I'm screwed. I actually cannot do that. And what am I meaning by that?

I guess it's like I want a list of things to do. Yeah. But I just see all that. I guess it's like I want a list of things to do. Yeah, but I just see all that. And then maybe I worry about sins that I really shouldn't be as worried about. And then there are things I don't even consider that I should be way more worried about. Like, I really think that's true. Like, there's this beautiful prayer of St Ephraim that I pray every night. There's a line in it, if a beggar has come to me and I despised or neglected him, if I've made fun of my brother's Sin when my own faults are countless if I've angered anyone like oh all these things

It's like it never occurred to us because we get so hyper fixated on certain sins. Yeah. Yeah I mean, it's incredibly tough. I hear when you see that in yourself, too It's like we're all tendingly difficult I I really think if things are worse than they've been in some respects, then it must be the case that grace is abounding all the more now and that Christ is communing with us and blessing us and leading us and and providing and protecting for us in a really peculiar way. Yeah, I think that's that's actually I'm glad you said that.

That's something I was going to. Comment on because I appreciated what you said in the follow up of. But Padre Pio also experienced a different struggle that you haven't a different a different warfare that you haven't a different a different warfare that you haven't um because in only saying We're experiencing a warfare that Padre Pio didn't have to I think there's an unfairness in that until again you added the and he had warfare that we didn't um,

because I think the danger in Even saying I don't know i'm not trying to be nitpicky, but even saying like, well, it seems like it would be easier to be martyred than to do this other thing. Like, there's just such a danger, I think, in saying that any time or any way or any place would be easier or harder than what we're in right now because because God provides the grace and so like he provides the grace for the martyrdom and he provides the grace for overcoming the struggles that we're overcoming now and and it's just it's just different it's not easier or harder because he forms like he forms us to to carry the crosses that we are supposed to carry which are different crosses than other people are supposed supposed to carry um so i think this is the yeah it's the the problem that comes with.

Comparison in general, comparison to other people, comparison to other times is we're not usually imagining being that person in their shoes. We're imagining being ourselves in that person's shoes. And then it's just a faulty comparison. Yeah, yeah, that's really good. As a beautiful woman friend of mine who lives here, her name is Cindy Welker. And she once said, never compare your inside to another person's outside. And I just think that's brilliant because how many times have you glanced at a very happy married couple or a very happy family or a very happy nun or a priest.

And you just go, my life sucks. Their life is perfect. What is wrong with me that I cannot make my life like that? But their life's not even like what you thought it was. Or, yeah, yeah, it might be more beautiful than you think, but it's not without its crosses and thorns. Yeah, definitely. I think a big part of my issue is that sometimes I see

other people's crosses and I think that looks simple Does not easier easier or harder? I just like I constantly desire simplicity my favorite gun AK-47 I doesn't I don't need accurate. I don't need perfect accuracy or I want it to work I just want it to do what it says it does well and often and despite hardship You know what I mean? Like the simplicity of it is great. No bells and whistles, just works. And so when my sin feels to me personally very complex or whatever, and then I lament my own situation,

which is pathetic for sure, and then you see someone else going through something that is like, you know, whatever, and you go, but that looks simple. It that is like, you know, whatever and you go but that looks simple It looks like you this is all you have to do is is go from a to B Whereas I feel sometimes in my own sin that I'm going from Like a to eight point one to eight point two to eight point three back to a back to eight point three go to eight point Five when am I gonna get to be you know and you're just like

discombobulating what is B exactly B is just no longer having this struggle then I agree with you but if the point is union and communion you can have that at 8.1 and 8.2 and 8.3 that's what I should be focused on yeah 100% but instead you you kind of just lament your situation It's a grasses greener situation Which dangerously gets close to envy I suppose which I should avoid Have you ever encountered someone who's maybe telling you about something traumatic that happened to them in their childhood? Or something like that and they too quickly go but I you know, whatever like I know other people go through things

Oh, I do that. Oh, it's not a big deal. They say that just real quick. What I'm trying to say when I say that we are in a particular part of the battle and it's ferocious in a way that it hasn't been, I think to emphasize that is to it's like saying to the friend, no, no, don't do that. Don't don't don't don't downplay what you've undergone, because and I think we do that too much. That's, I guess, so to put a spotlight

on the ferocity of this part of the battle for the people of God is a kind of response to those of us who go, we have it easy, and we got a church up the road, we got, it's like, don't do that. No, you're under violent spiritual assault right now, and it doesn't do anyone any good for you to pretend you're not going through that. Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more actually That's very important. Yeah

Then take a moment to reflect on everything Yeah, the simplicity I desire simplicity so much I just want to know where to go and how to get there just let me do it Like when I work out I love like CrossFit I love just showing up and there's a workout on the whiteboard do it as hard as you can no thinking no planning No, is this the best thing for me today? Am I maximizing gains? Am I doing the best? Nope. There it is on the board. Get it done. I love that. And so I desire that my spiritual life so often. But that's not how it works at all. Even a little bit.

Yeah, that's really good. And I suppose maybe lay people like Shane and myself might look at you, mother, or and think, well, you have it like you have. And I don't think this is true. I think you'll probably push back against it. But like, it seems to us that you do have this plan of life and these specific prayers you have to pray like, that's it. But maybe why isn't that simple? Or is it? Because relationship is not simple. Yeah, like in relationship with the Lord, like I'm very broken and brokenness in relationship like brings about yeah, it just needs healing and that brokenness is from me and not from him, but I

Don't know it's just like I Also get tired and prayer is hard and I don't want to do the things and I get annoyed with my sisters and I get snippy with my sisters and I really, really dislike the Archbishop Fulton Sheen quote that is quoted all the time of hearing a nunconfession is like being stoned to death by popcorn or whatever. Yeah. I really dislike that because. I guess this is hmm. This is part of what I mean of. Empathy is not putting yourself in someone else's shoes.

It's. yourself in someone else's shoes, it's empathy is being that person in that person's shoes is what I consider a sin that weighs very heavily on my heart might seem trivial to someone else. But when you're spending the hours in prayer that I am, and you're living this intense community life and so many of the things of the world have been removed from me, then actually this sin is very serious. Like, it's serious for me to look the Lord directly in the face and say no. And that looks different for a nun than maybe it looks for a lay person. But like, don't just assume because this thing that you're doing you think is more objectively grave. Yeah, a monk once said to me, if you want to see how boys sin, go to Vegas. You want to see how men

sin, come to a monastery. Yeah, absolutely. Because the backbiting and the envy and the pride and the arrogance actually is in some sense worse than what we might consider more grandiose sins. Wow. What a saying. The Vegas monastery. They want to see this man sin. The man sin come here. That same monk has said that to me as well.

That's very interesting. Is that how you know it's the same monk? Because because of the same story. Yeah as well. That's very interesting. Is that how you know it's the same monk? Because of the same story? Yes. Good, good. That's so funny. Yeah, but it's true. It's like, OK, well,

it might seem silly because all of that time in prayer is forming my heart to be a contemplative heart. It's making me more aware of the things that are happening inside of me, which is why I constantly come back to that of like, it's good for us to have this self-awareness to, to look at what's happening inside of us. And I think most people don't pause to see that. We just fill everything with noise.

But that means that like I have a greater consciousness when I'm choosing this sin or I So it like it might seem Like not a big deal that I got angry with the nun for not putting the scissors back at my desk But didn't I promise that those are not my scissors and this isn't not my desk and like I said those words aloud in my profession service and and to violate that like again there's just I don't know it sounds so trivial.

If you're considering that in the context of your everyday life. But yeah. I wanted to if it's not that the sinning in Vegas aren't also committing the graver sins of envy, pride, etc. It's just that sometimes we don't even notice them. I'll give you an example. When I used to live in Ireland, we had this massive snowfall. And look out the backyard, there's just a beautiful thick blanket of snow. It looked very pristine, very beautiful. As it became warmer and the sun began to melt the snow, I began to realize that there were things out there. There was a tricycle and I could see a handle sticking through. I'm like, oh, there's a tricycle out there. As the snow began to

melt, I realized my back lawn was covered in litter. And I think sometimes that's our journey with the Lord. Before we encounter him, we think, I'm a good person. And then as the Lord works on us, we realize there's a few things that have to change, but basically I'm a good person. But if the Lord can melt our heart, as it were, we begin to see just what St. Paul does. Like I'm the greatest sinner and he's not lying. He's not exaggerating. He doesn't have a complex like he's right. He just sees something about himself that you and I don't see yet.

Yeah, maybe. Yeah. And it's it's right to take that seriously always. Right. I mean, at what point do you is it important to You ask God for forgiveness and you want to give it to him but is there a certain point where you need to focus on forgiving yourself or Should you not focus on that and focus on just giving it all to him? Like how do you balance those two things? Yeah, I think we we have to forgive ourselves. We have to be, we have to have compassion with ourselves.

You know, like we're, we're called to have compassion on other people, certainly. Right. Everyone would agree with that. But like, love your neighbor as yourself. So you need to have compassion on yourself as well. Because what's not okay, it's good for us to take our sins seriously. It's not good for us to be debilitated by that or to think that because I've sinned, that's an impediment to like the Lord no longer wants relationship with me or. Yeah, like when we can't move forward. Yeah, I've talked about this before on the podcast for sure, but

I think that the Lord and the devil both want us to see our sin. It's not like the devil always wants to hide our sin from us. Sometimes he does that. But the devil wants us to see our sin and get stuck there and to feel despair. There's not a way forward. I will always be this way. I will never be close to the Lord. The Lord wants us to see our sin, but always with he's offering a hand forward or a hand

out to like help us out of the thing. And he's always offering relationship, he's always offering repair, he's always offering healing. And so if those are not, if we're not feeling the gentle conviction, it's still a conviction and it still hurts. But if we're feeling, if we're only experiencing the despair, then we're looking at our sin through the devil's lens, not through the Lord's eyes, because the Lord doesn't see our sin and just say, well, you're a piece of crap. And look at this hole that you've gotten yourself into and now good luck like that's not how the Lord looks at us. Yeah so we certainly have to forgive ourselves and to move forward and to just kind of like Yeah

Yeah, it's tough, especially if you hurt someone else via sin and then you're like, how do I deal with this? Like I had the experience of this is pretty vulnerable., I guess, I mean, I don't know, dating someone and I had never really argued with any of my previous partners ever, which I now realize is a huge negative and is evident to me in my relationships and how they ended. But this person, she'll argue, she'll stand up for herself. But I swore while we were arguing with each other,

which is something I've never done. And I felt next, I can't describe how much shame I felt later, you know? And how horrific I felt. And I'm seeing myself in, I've had the opposite experience of you. Like you're talking about hearing your mother laugh in the room. I remember hearing my mother scream.

And so like protecting women or being there for them or being perceived as someone who doesn't treat them well affects me in like ways I can't even like, I would make myself emotional currently, like it's really hard. And so to have failed in that way, and then to be like, well, I'm sorry, God, that I did that. But then, like, you have this, like, horrific feeling

where you can't seem to forgive yourself. And then you're like, well, obviously God wants to help me with this, but like, where do I go with this? Because I have it, and I'm asking God for forgiveness and I'm feeling, I understand that I'm forgiven, but then like, I am not forgiving myself. Is that a sin?

Where am I going with this? How do I get rid of this? Do I even want to get rid of this? Should I hold it and be shameful because I don't want to repeat the behavior? Am I, is this some sort of penance? There's a part of you that's like I'm gonna fast for a week straight Because I suck and I hurt someone I love and was like reprehensible, you know

And then you just like where do I go with that? What do I do with that? I think a lot of people have sort of that especially when it's someone else That's the worst and so then you feel guilty because you're like, well, I gave it to God, but did I really? Because I'm still struggling, you know, and it's just like, but and then also, let's say you did that bad thing and then you're guilty for yourself. And then who is it? I can't remember which saint that said, don't, don't dwell on your past sins, lest the devil renew his war against you, you know? and so then I'm, maybe I'm not committing that sin again,

but I'm reliving it constantly, you know? And is that a sin? In another, am I, the same way if you allow lustful thoughts to just control, you're on an airplane and you're just thinking about the woman next to you, that's a sin, it's not good. You shouldn't feed those thoughts.

So by feeding these thoughts of my previous sin and punishing myself and not accepting God's forgiveness, like, but then there's a part of you that's like, I want the person I hurt to know that I feel bad. But at what point do I let it go? And how do I do, you know, these are all questions that are like incredibly difficult when dealing with sin and, and other people. Beautiful questions. Yeah. I think a lot of that comes. Um, I mean, I don't do any of this well, so just, the episode that I think I most recently released for pines with Aquinas was like announcing to people, like I'm a huge hypocrite and I want everyone to know

that. Um, because I give all of this advice on how to live this spiritual life and I'm like, but I don't like do that. Yeah. So let me just preface with that. I'm I'm actually I'm reading a book right now called Overcoming Spiritual Discouragement by Father Timothy Gallagher. And it is excellent, excellent, excellent. And highly recommend.

And a lot of it is about this, I think. I think the thing that I would. Say is like, obviously, if you've if you've damaged, if you've caused harm to someone, you need to whatever extent you're able. To offer some sort of repair to with them as well, like it's not only in the confessional that this happens. So apologizing and so on. But but there's also this takes so much humility, which is why I say I don't

practice it because I'm. An extremely prideful person. But I at least intellectually know that if you can muster up the humility to accept that if God uses all for good for those who love him, if he uses evil, to accept that if God uses all for good for those who love Him, if He uses evil, He even wants to use the evil that you committed for the good of that woman. Like if you can be humble enough to say like just as He's used the evil in my life

and the suffering in my life for my good, what I've done to her, the way that I've spoken to her, he also wants to use that for her good. Wow. Because maybe what that woman needs. Is to have a man come to her and say. I spoke to you in a way that is so beneath your dignity. Yeah, and please forgive me for that Maybe that is more healing to that woman Then you never having spoken that way to her to begin with Yeah Yeah, so I'll let her know I actually did her a favor actually by well

We're sin of where sin ab, grace abounds all the more. Does that mean we should sin more? Of course not. It is a great point because we do all accept the fact, even if we don't feel it, we accept the fact that God is going to use everything for our good. Yeah. Even our mistakes and our sins. But what if God was so good that he would do more than that? What if he would use our sins,

our sins against others for their good, too? How good is this God? Maybe we don't know. Yeah. Yeah, that's hard. But I do think the what you were saying earlier about, you know, is this a sin? And now I'm a sinning. I just I just think as soon as I go down that rabbit hole it It's so unhelpful

Even like when people you feel temptation to lust or something like that You're like well knows that a sin is that a sin you can get so fixated on that It's just no it's not you haven't committed the act you you're not like you're not thinking it through like it's one thing to go Oh gosh, I'm lusting right now. I guess that's intentional It's like yeah, maybe not Like, it's one thing to go, oh, gosh, I'm lusting right now. I guess that's intentional. It's like, yeah, maybe not, because that's a very different thing to saying, you know what? Like, once I get to this place and I get to my hotel room, then I'm going to spend an hour lusting or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's intentional.

But so much stuff flies through our head at all, all times throughout the day that's trying to lead us out of the temple that we are. Yeah. Towards shiny objects. Or am I wrong? I don't I think you're I think it's still not the point. Like. What's even the point in saying well no it's not a sin and just move on. Like. No I'm not saying it's not a sin.

I think we're seeing all the time. This is why the G. Like when I say you said you said no it's not. Well I guess what I mean is saying it's not a sin. I think we're seeing all the time. This is why the G like when I say you said you said, no, it's not. Well, I guess what I mean is a sin that you have to even even knowingly repent, willingly repent of. Let me try to explain this because I might get it wrong. I see where you're trying to go with it. Heart is a dog and it keeps trying to run away.

And I have to keep calling it back through the Jesus prayer to sit at home with Jesus. And all temptation calls me out of wakefulness into a desperate deep slumber. Sin causes us to sleep and it's horrible. But there's certain sins that really put us unconscious and then there are certain sins that make us drowsy, eh? And so what I guess what I'm saying is like, if I've like knocked myself unconscious willingly, then I'm repenting of that sin to a priest. But all throughout the day,

I'm being led outside of the temple that I am, this outpost of Eden that I am. And to dwell on those things pulling me out of myself is exactly the wrong thing to do. Instead, it's Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner. It's like it's yeah. The analogy is I keep using it is where my dog runs away from me. If he's out of sight, pushkin and I call him back. And that's what the Jesus prayer does to the heart that's being lured into sleep by external things that are outside of the kingdom. Something like that. Yeah, no, maybe nothing like that. What do you think? I think

that's extremely beautiful and accurate. And and that's exactly what I'm trying to say is like the point is not even to define. Well, is this a sin? Is it not a sin? At what point did it become a sin? What is the thing that I need to because because like, confession, I love confession. I love confession. I go regularly. It's beautiful. But we just keep forgetting that confession is a mystery of healing. Like, it's listed in the Catechism as one of the sacraments of healing, confession is.

And it's meant to be that. But we get into this crippling mindset of confession where it's like that's the place where our sins are forgiven. And so that's why it's important to know, is this a sin? Is this not a sin? When did it become a sin because I have to like get all the sin together and take it to this place where where it's forgiven And like we're totally Misunderstanding what the point of confession is because our sins are forgiven through the reception of the Eucharist

Like that's part of the prayer in both the Roman Mass and the Eastern Divine Liturgy is that the Eucharist is given for the remission of sins. Now, of course, if you're not in a state of grace and have committed a sin that is, is, that meets all three of the constituents of a, of a deadly sin, of a mortal sin, then I'm not saying the Eucharist forgives that. And you do need to bring that to confession. But like, if you haven't met those three constituents, those sins are forgiven through receiving the Eucharist, through praying the Jesus prayer, through making the sign of the cross, through

receiving a blessing, through praying the rosary, through like whatever. Like the sins, it's not like we have to just like whatever, like the sins. It's not like we have to just gather up all of the sins and take them to this magical place where the sins are forgiven. The car wash. Right. And and even those sins that are forgiven through the Eucharist or the sign of the cross or the Jesus prayer. Like we also bring those to confession to the extent that we can remember them, to the extent that they're on our heart,

but not because we have to say this out loud or we're not forgiven. Because this is like we just get into this trap. And this I'm speaking from very personal experience because for years, like I was, I was hardcore broken of my scrupulosity like a year ago. But for the rest of my life, there was so much scrupulosity. And so I'm not just like naming other people's sin here. I'm talking about myself. Like there's this misunderstanding that until I get to confession, the sin is not forgiven. And I like have no chance to redeem relationship, even for the even for the smaller sins.

And even like using that phrase smaller sins. But but my point is like. Penial. Yeah. But the. Conf confession should not be the first time that you're talking to Jesus about your sin. The moment you realize it, like, and I guess that's what I mean. So you're having the thoughts about the woman

next to you on the airplane, bring the Lord into that. You know, like immediately, not just in the sense of like, God forgive me, I'm doing this thing. But like, Lord, I don't, I don't want to actually be having these thoughts. Like what if instead of obsessing over whether or not something is a sin, you're instead spending that time, like having a conversation with the Lord or praying the Jesus prayer or like, are you really spending your energy wisely by just obsessing over defining something as opposed to putting that energy into relationship? Yeah, a thousand percent. Yeah, 100 percent. I'm really sweaty. I got really fired up. I said a

thousand percent, you said a hundred percent. Which means Matt agreed for it. One million percent. Thousand percent you said a hundred percent Yeah, the the Hail Mary has been my like Refuge anytime I begin to have like negative thoughts even just like anxiety and stuff I just hail Mary's in my head and just invoke the and it just like it really is So healing I'm like I I find like as every day as a Christian I'm like the rosary is like my weapon Like I have like two on me at all times one in the car the rosary you gave me is in my window

I guess my anti-theft device Rosary you gave me is in my window. I guess my anti-theft device People see I can't rob this guy. It's got a rosary in his window or on my rear view But yeah, that's been the best so when I do deal with those thoughts or whatever it's true that Jesus prayer and the Hail Mary both Yeah, sometimes it's much. It's probably always a better idea not to go to war with the thought Yeah, call upon the Blessed Virgin when you were saying gather them up I had this image of when you you have like a pile of trash and you take to the dump Is this an experience either of you had yeah, and you go? I'm gonna do it or goodwill is another yeah Yeah, and then and then you cars filled exactly go

Oh, I'll do it and then you don't and you pile up more and at first it was just a small pile I didn't mean anything was fine. It's just in your yard No one cares and then after time now you're that family and you have a pile of trash in your yard Now there's animals living in it. There's bugs this and too much to fit in the truck Now you got to make two trips and you And now you've created a dangerous problem. You've given, the pile has strength. It's an entity on your property, you know what I mean? Like, as opposed to when it was just like some trash.

Now it's the pile. And I feel like I can do that with my sin. Especially the smaller ones, or smaller. They never feel smaller to me. But yeah, so when you say like, you give it up to the Lord, that's something I have to start doing. Well, because the other that reminds me of like the other problem that this creates when we have this view of, well, I just like store up my sins until I get to the place of the confessional

and then I can start talking to Jesus about them and then I'm forgiven for them is like then we fall into this trap of Well, if we have this was like my life in college if I have committed a mortal sin and I can't receive communion then like What's the point my spiritual life's on pause right now. Yeah, exactly. And so like, well, why not commit these other sins? Because I can't receive communion anyways. And because I, because then it becomes, yeah, this trap of like, the point is getting to confession

where we can say the thing as opposed to actively working on the relationship right now. Yes. I want you to speak to this, Mother, because this must be true. But I think the devil is hell-bent on us not believing it. It is a delightful thing for the Savior to save. It's got to be. So that we can even please Him. Even our sins can please Him. Don't misunderstand me.

Not you, but those watching. When we repent of them, they become an opportunity to delight him because it's a delight, because that's his name. I mean, that's scriptural. There's more rejoicing in heaven over one repentant sinner. Yeah, the saints and angels. We don't believe that. I believe a lot of the time that God is more like, I don't know, like someone who comes over to do his service, but I haven't filled out the paperwork properly. And so he's, he leaves or he's not actually invested in doing the thing I'm asking him to do. He's going to

find ways to, to not do the thing I need him to do, namely save me. Well, this is, I think I make this point maybe in the in the. The episode I did about like not sinning is not the point is when that becomes the point when it's just like we just we just want to be in a place where we just don't sin and we just get everything right. And. Usually again if you have that mindset in the focus of like, not I want to not sin, but I want total union with God, then it's beautiful. But if the point is simply not sinning, then what you're saying is like, I don't even want to need God.

I don't want to need a savior. I want to be able to just get everything right so that I don't ever have to say I'm sorry, so that I don't ever have to ask for help, so that I don't ever have to ask for healing. I just want to get it all right now. And that's very different than saying, yeah, saying I just want total union with God is very different than saying I, I want to not mess up. There's a totally different focus there.

Tell me if this is a little bit like what you're saying. It would be like saying like, I want to love my wife by not committing adultery or something. As long as I don't commit adultery. Maybe that's not exactly what you're saying. Sorry. But but I mean, the point of my marriage is union with my wife. Not adultery. It's not not doing things. It's also doing things. Yeah. That's it's not exactly what you're saying.

So I'm sorry if I misunderstood you. No, I understand that point as well. It's yeah, I think it's different, but it is a good point. But it's. Yeah, I mean, at the call of Matthew, Jesus says, I didn't come for the righteous. I came for the sinner. But we're just like, well, I don't want you to have to come for me. I come for Shane, come for Josiah.

Yeah. But not me. Faustina. Christ says to Faustina, the greater the sinner, the greater right he has to my mercy. Mm. Cha-ching. Yeah, that's beautiful. Imagining the saints and angels watching me

is always something that kind of fires me up. Especially with your photographic imagination. Oh, 100%. There's this story about a battle between the the Roman the Eastern Roman Empire after they're Christian and they're about to fight a Muslim invading army I can't remember the generals names I should I'm usually good at this but anyway they're lined up for battle and it's this whole huge thing and this champion, this champion of Islam or whatever,

he comes out this like incredible warrior, rides out on his horse and he's like, which Roman, which Christian wants to fight? Like who wants to do this in front of everyone? And back in the day during ancient battles, people would watch. So there would also be like a bag of trained people, they'd be witnessing the battle and then all these soldiers.

So thousands and tens of thousands of people's he comes out and he challenges everyone and the soldiers don't really want to do this they're just getting ready to fight and a wrestling instructor comes out a person who just came to witness the battle and he's like I don't know whatever I'll do it and he's not dressed in armor he's not ready to fight he's literally a wrestling instructor he owns like a do. And so he just shows up and he's like, yeah, whatever, I'll fight you. And the guy goes to spear him and he pulls him off of his horse.

And then the historian says, he executed him like an animal, humanely. Like he basically just beats this guy up and slips his throat in front of everyone, like kind of casually. And everyone is like, whoa, like this is the craziest thing. And the Romans are going crazy because they thought they were gonna lose and now this wrestling instructor

Just took this guy off a horse Wearing armor and stuff when he's just like shirtless and like kills him and then another guy comes out and he's like What a fluke I'll fight you and the wrestling instructor is like whatever I guess and he kills him, too I'll fight you and the wrestling instructor is like whatever I guess and he killed him too, but the The imagery of this army that thinks they're going to lose they're terrified. They're lined up for battle No one wants it. Everyone's worried and this just like casual guy Does this he he's brave and he steps up and he does this in front of everyone and just imagining like imagine the craziest Catch in a sports game and how insane the crowd goes now

imagine that catch is going to save tens of thousands of lives how the feeling of everyone just going Absolutely nuts like no one is more pumped than those soldiers watching that You know and then I try to and then you imagine like the Saints and angels in heaven have to be going even crazier Do you know what I mean? Like because to overcome sin and to make it into the kingdom of heaven like they're there they understand they know and it's just like to imagine them just like this huge roar and this cheer and this like elation Not because they're saved or because you're saved is like really something

I imagine often and kind of helps me. Yeah, I like that. It's nice to think about I know that it was a really macabre thing leading up to it, but that's just how it works for me I can't help myself. Well, we've been going for three hours and 15 minutes. So my time to wrap up before our hard drive stops receiving any