Pints With Aquinas - LOTR, Family Life, and Ring-Tailed Lemurs w/ Bill Donaghy

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

Matt chats with The Theology of the Body Institute's Bill Donaghy about their Catholic faith, the meaning of life, and their shared love of Tolkien. Hallow Catholic Prayer App: http://hallow.com/mattfradd  Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/matt  New Website Just Dropped: https://pintswithaquinas.com Join our Locals community (its FREE): https://mattfradd.locals.com Theology of The Body Institute: https://tobinstitute.org   

We're live. Good day, Bill. What's going on, mate? You doing all right? I'm doing great. Great to be here. Pickies out. That's really good. Great to have you in studio. Does it, is it smaller than you thought? Um, people often come in and say, no, no. I mean, no ceilings are higher than I thought. Yeah. Walls are closer than I thought. It's good good air temperature is warmer than I'd hoped slightly well we run all over the place. I love it I love the the blue. I love the wood stain anything with a stain interesting just a screen stain fella

Yeah, I still don't know who this characters have a few more guesses you see BS of Ponticus. That's it No, it's definitely not whoever Whoever you just said that is. Um, a saint? No. A man? Yes. Oh my gosh, why is it so, why did you have to make it so hard? It's not. Um, is this a new fixture? No. I have seen your show Matt, I have watched before. Would it help if you were like looking at him dead on? Oh now, Isaac Asimov, the sci-fi writer. No. What? Catholic? No. Not Catholic? Not Catholic. See this is great. Once you've almost got 300,000 YouTube subscribers, you stop giving a crap about the experience of the viewer. Give me a country. Russia.

Russia? Dostoevsky! Yay! Son of a... Nutcracker. Gee, I'm really embarrassed. Dandy. I'm more embarrassed to say I've never read Brothers Karamazov.

What have you read? In its entirety. Lots of other books. I just looked up how, sorry to interrupt, but how Isaac Asimov looks and he has these giant sideburns. Just for everyone's edification. I kind of want to see it now. You should put it on screen just to show people. Dostoevsky, wow. Yeah. He'd have to show us, but you should show them. So. Sideburns. Yeah, I didn't read Brothers. I started the audiobook. I'm sorry. I can't do audiobooks.

No, wow. I like the idea of audiobooks. It seems very efficient. I can get stuff done while I do other things. No, I can't. But my brain doesn't work that way. Yeah, well, you can't do other stuff while you're, you have to be all in. I have to be. Yeah.

It seems like other people can exercise or they can go on drives. Yeah, yeah. I do. I have a two and a half hour commute. Well one in 15 back and forth each day. The BBC has done a dramatized version of several of Dostoevsky's books. Okay. So they different voices, background noise. It's a condensed version of the book, but it's something if people want to check that out. Who's your favorite author? Do you feel like we're yelling to that fan outside? No, I don't know. How about you? The viewers at home?

Do you feel like you're yelling? Are you annoyed? Like, yes, because you've been talking about this freaking statue. Well, clearly not Dostoevsky. No. Yeah. But I'm always reading. Tolkien, Lewis, Craif craved nice or sheen Sort of enough. Yeah, also I love Thomas du Bay These are books that I these are the books that I read constantly so evidential power beauty by du bay

I'm always kind of like dipping in Obviously Lord of the Rings. I'm always flowing through anything by C.S. Lewis constantly flowing through. Yeah. Jerry Seinfeld said that you know what your dad's best years were because that's when his wardrobe

ceased and he just kept wearing that thing forever. Do you think books are like that? Yes, exactly. You read some books like I'm just going to do this forever. I know there's a lot of books. I'm sure Dickens is great.

Don't care. Right. Yep. Because you just you found the you slipped streamed into the it's like the golden vein And I know that this is somehow inspired and I can just keep it's like the Gospels Although a notch down but I can keep getting refreshed keep getting rejuvenated doesn't get old. Yeah Well, I told you I just started reading the space trilogy. Did you read that yet? No I told you I just started reading the space trilogy. Did you read that yet Neil? I'm telling you it's a hidden gem. All right, it is a hidden gem. You mentioned that and you know people see as those Oh, yeah, screwtip letters Narnia mere Christianity space trilogy

No Explain it to us without giving anything away. Oh my gosh. Okay It's a it's a fantasy sci-fi kind of a trilogy So it's fun and brilliant and adventurous in itself It's a fantasy, sci-fi kind of a trilogy. So it's fun and brilliant and adventurous in itself. But Lewis is always like, he's got, he's doing a little subterfuge there. Subterfuge.

So he's talking about, he's attacking the scientific reductionism of our age, the demythologization. Like, you know, ah, there's nothing out there, there's no transcendence. He's like, it's, we demythologization. Like, you know, ah, there's nothing out there, there's no transcendence. He's like, it's, we're in a great dance. We are in the womb of worlds. It's, everything means something.

And so he's got this amazing interplay between the masculine and the feminine, the great dance of that, the fact that everything is full of the divine. So as you're diving in, you're realizing he's doing therapy for you, because you and I have been sort of hypnotized by this scientific reductionism for a century.

It's funny you say that, I've only read like the first three chapters, but I think within the first chapter, it talks about ransom coming upon Davene and Weston. Yes, yes. And he feels like they might be doing something criminal, but believed, like all men believe in our age, that he could never stumble upon such a thing. I wonder if that's- and the names all mean something obviously, right? Is it a vein or divine? It's it's like a little play

It's not because he's not divine and Weston is sort of iconic of Western scientific reductionism ransom He's gonna be the hero character who will by his actions end up becoming a savior kind of figure. And fun fact, he's based on Tolkien, C.S. Lewis's good friend. No way. He's a philologist. Yes, that's right. A lover of language. Tolkien's a lover of language. So ransom, just think this is Tolkien. Okay. Yeah. So epic adventure. First book is essentially The Travel to Mars, which is named something else, Malachandra. There's a heavy masculine theme going on there,

like what is masculinity? So as you're reading the first book, think about that. Paralandra is Venus, it's the second book, and it's the feminine mystery. And it's an incredible book. Ransom's character, so he's kind of- You're not giving it away, right? I'm not giving much away here,

but he's essentially kidnapped by Western and divine brought to this world But there's a mission because paralandra is a new beginning a new man and woman who make a new choice And I'll just stop right there Alright, and you can imagine where it goes the final book is this epic battle between good and evil all things coming together Yeah, yeah, I was saying to you yesterday, like it's obviously not talking. Nothing is, of course. Right. True.

But I'm also shocked that it's not more prevalent, which just leads me to think prima facie just isn't that great of a work. I shouldn't think that way. But like, I don't know. I tell people who've read it. I've tried to find the three books in separate form as opposed to one book with all of them in it. I can only find on eBay. Yeah. So why isn't it as popular as some others? You know, because it's not as good or is it because we're not as good. You know how long it's taken for theology of the body to sort of explode. It's similar. Really? All right.

Because as I reread the space trilogy and I want to call it the ransom trilogy for reasons. After you're done, you'll realize don't call it space. Okay. It is theology of the body. It is, it's the golden key. So I think, you know, all the good stuff gets smeared over, attacked, thrown a blanket over it, don't look at this right now. So many good things happen like that.

Louis de Montfort's True Devotion to Mary, right? Literally locked in a box for like a century until it came out. And we know now why, because John Paul II was rocked by that book and it affected his whole papacy. So yeah, Space Trilogy, I mean, couple of rungs down, but there's a lot there.

I'm excited. Yeah. Yeah, the last few years I've done a book every August and last year was Lord of the Rings, but I read that June, July, August, because that's a mammoth undertaking, of course. So I'm excited. It is good. If you get annoyed or frustrated, you're like, what the just text. Give you a call. Yeah.

What do you love about all the rings? Everything. You just took the word out of my mouth. I stumbled on Lord of the Rings. Nineteen eighty. Five, how old are you? Maybe 52. stumbled on Lord of the Rings 1985 How old are you? Maybe 52. Are you? Yeah.

I was, I get your hands better than mine. I was two years old. Two years old? Yeah. Okay. You're not. I am 39. Okay.

I know. Well, I'm in my grandmother and grandfather's house in Cranberry, New Jersey, great state of New Jersey I Go up into the cedar closet. I literally remember this moment. Oh my god. What was I then? I don't even know 14 13 maybe was before 85 So I'm almost a teenager I stumbled into this old cedar closet and I see the stack of books and it's the Valentine translations with great art of fellowship withering two towers return of the king There's yellowed curtains and a beam of sunlight i'm telling you matt it's like

cedar smell of the closet sunbeam falls on the lord of the rings books which were all weathered because i have my dad's one of 10 so all my my uncles my aunts read the books in the 70s and i pick them up and the maps and you know, I just dove in and man, it's transcendence. Right. And it's like, it's this going out into this mystical world. That's so strange, but you feel like it's not. I mean, Tolkien said, I discovered middle earth. I didn't invent it. What a guy. Yeah. He was always saying cool stuff like that. You know, my dad was in the Navy,

the Australian Navy, and he said that there was a line of men who would read the book once someone else was done. You know, so you were like in line to read The Lord of the Rings when somebody else was done. I just made me think how much more interesting my father's generation is to the idiots today who just are passing around, Lord.

Destroy their brains on TikTok or YouTube or whatever. Well, just even the discipline to read the whole thing. I'll be honest, because I started it as a teen, made it halfway through two towers. Because Tolkien writes so in such a detailed fashion and you're feeling it, I couldn't do it. I couldn't finish. I returned maybe post-college, read through halfway through two towers, and I'm so invested, I'm exhausted. I'm so invested, I'm exhausted.

I'm feeling like Frodo and Sam. Pause. And then my third entry into it, probably my 30s, finished it, and as soon as I finished it, I wanted to start reading it all over again. Yeah, and it gave me that melancholia at the end, we talked about it the other day, when Sam, oh my gosh, well just, you know, the sound of the waves,

the sound of the gulls of the gray havens, his return home, yeah, you're just, you're bawling, and you're like, oh, I don't want this to end. So then you dip into the appendices. Have you discovered the appendices? No. Oh my gosh, okay. I think that's too hardcore for me.

Well, don't read it all. You jump to the timeline where you find out what happens to each Of these characters. Do you know what happens to them? No Sam becomes mayor of the Shire like eight times Yeah, I knew that Gimli and Legolas They build a ship at the Grey Havens and sail into the Blessed Realm. Gimli is the only dwarf ever to enter Valinor It's crazy. What is that place? He entered. Valinor is the place of the Valar, which are these archangel types that sort of formed the world and music.

And, um, yeah, so it just, you get to keep going. You know, you learn about Arwen and Aragorn's marriage and their son and his death scene because he's a Numenorean, he chooses the time of his death. So he's, I don't know how old he's like 180 or something. And he's like, this is the dormition of passing on you know and he says something like I leave you now but uh there's hope beyond the rim of the world it's like this idea of the eternal life that's coming and yeah it's just you just don't want it to end it makes you sad it breaks your heart but you come out refreshed like I come

out wanting to be a better dad, wanting to love more, wanting to be more attentive to my kids, you know, and get my kids in the journey. Have you read it to your kids? Yeah. I read the Lord of the Rings back in the day to Liam and Avila when they were quite young. I used to just as an excuse to read it. Um, honestly I supplemented it with the audio book at parts when I kind of got a little overwhelmed and the kids still wanted it. Sure. But, uh, so that was good, Honestly, I supplemented it with the audio book at parts when I kind of got a little overwhelmed and the kids still wanted it.

Sure. But so that was good. But this past year, I read it with a guy called Dr. Mike Welker, who's a big Lord of the Rings nerd. And so it was good to read that with him so I could ask him questions. Yeah. So help us understand who is what is Gandalf? Oh my gosh.

So you know, in a beautiful sort of hierarchical way, Tolkien's a devout Catholic, right? He's got this whole world of Valar. Well, there's Iluvatar, the All-Father, that's the God figure that you don't hear about in Lord of the Rings explicitly. He creates the Valar, who sing the world into existence. And then there's Maiar, I'm really nerding out right now.

Thanks for asking. The Maiar are sort of angels beneath the Valar. And there's a class of them called the Istari, the wizards. And there's five wizards, the gray, the white, the brown, and there's two blue wizards. So Gandalf is actually one of these really ancient Maiar who comes into Middle Earth on this mission with Saruman, Radagast and the Blue Wizards to fulfill the mission to fight Sauron and to bring the good. So Gandalf, you know, he's an angel for all intents and purposes who takes on the form of

an old man. Yeah, and it's wild. And he's the only guy who completes the mission. Saruman obviously goes off the deep end. Radagast just falls in love with the birds and the bees and he doesn't do anything. And Tolkien says, the blue wizards, they wandered off to the east and I don't know what happened to them. Which again, that's brilliant, right?

I don't know. So yeah, that's kind of awesome. When you say he took on the form of a wizard, what does that mean? Yeah, I mean, it's an incarnation. An old man, an old man, right? Yeah, because the Valor and the Maiar are kind of these luminous, I imagine luminous beings. I think they have bodily forms, but when the wizards come, they come as old men.

And I guess that's Tolkien's way of showing like sort of these prophetic wisdom characters. So I mean Gandalf is thousands of years old, right? The wizards are. They're as old as the, older than the elves. Do you think, um, like often when you write a story and you publish it, it takes on a life of its own. And then there are contradictions in the overall story. Is the Hobbit like that then? Do you go back and read the Hobbit and, and, and realize this is a separate book? This is for kids. This isn't. Yeah. And he didn't, he, you know, when he was 18, 19,

he's in the trenches during World War I, he already was composing on bits of paper, the Silmarillion, the great mythology, characters like the Valar, he already had that in his head. The Hobbit was for his kids, I'm gonna write a story for my kids. And, you know, having that huge wealth, a legendary I'm already forming, he's like, oh, having the huge wealth, a legendary Marty Formy,

he's like, oh, I could pull a couple things from here and there. No intention of going all in to what became Lord of the Rings, but people loved The Hobbit so much that they wanted a sequel. It took him 13 years, I think, to write The Lord of the Rings after that. But you can see, see though how he really beautifully

Pulls from what he wrote in the Hobbit. I mean what were goblins kind of became orcs, you know, it's like they're interchangeable But uh, it feels seamless the way he writes I mean starts off Lord of the Rings with Bilbo and the ring, right? So it's oh, yeah the ring golem that whole bit Yeah, I mean, he's a perfectionist. You can go through Lord of the Rings, maybe not The Hobbit so much, right? Because it was for his kids. But if you go through Lord of the Rings, you've got characters who are in one area of Middle Earth on April the 23rd. And what is the phase of the moon at that point? If you go to these other characters, Aragorn and Legolas or something, he matches the moon phase to the time.

It's what took him 13 years to write it. Everything is perfectly orchestrated. I don't know anybody who puts that much time and detail into a story. It's nice to realize that all these great works weren't written thousands of years ago. Do you know what I mean? Like sometimes we have this impression that there were all these really smart people who did all these great works, but this is maybe the greatest novel ever written. You know, you, you probably heard of those polls. Um, I think four or five different polls 20 some years ago. And every time what's the book of the century, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings, every time.

What's the book of the millennium Lord of the Rings? Have you read Lord of the Rings? Cause he the Rings, every time. What's the book of the millennium? Lord of the Rings. Have you read Lord of the Rings? Cause he's a big Duster the Death given. Well why don't you? Yeah, I mean I want to. It's on my list. Realms of pleasure. Bill do you have any opinions of the new show coming out?

Do you know what that's supposed to be drawn from? What's your opinions on Amazon? Okay well I admire the fact that Bezos is a, he's a fan, he's a Tolkien fan. I love the fact that he wants to do this, that he wants to go into this. You're way too optimistic for me. Well, I'm just warming up.

So, I mean, a boatload of money has been put into this. From what I've seen, the graphics are amazing, but it doesn't seem to fit the way Tolkien wrote it Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings and landed everything basically in northern Europe I mean in the area of like the Shire is basically England and all that, you know, so there's a reason So the fact that we have like so much ethnicity and multiplicity there. I Get like okay. We want to make it look relevant to today, but realistically in this fantasy world That's not what it would have looked like

It's okay. I can you know suspend my belief, but it's just I'm a little nervous. They're gonna gotta push it a little too too hard of making it too relevant It's it's a whole other world. It's millennia ago. Just stick to the text and don't try to force some Present-day Jenna Peter Jackson Respected very much. I was gonna ask you that if you what do you think would have happened? If you had have gone to a time machine went back to Tolkien and went hey I want to just put this video in this machine could a thing and play it for you What do you think he would have thought of? No, he would never he actually never

Explicitly said I don't want this ever in cinematic form. He said that yes, he actually Explicitly said I don't want this ever in cinematic form. He said that yes, he actually Uh a bit of a luddite. He didn't like technology tolkien wouldn't go into a pub where there was a radio playing Oh pubs are for pints. I want to be talking pipes. I know right he actually The tape recorder was kind of a new thing in his day and somebody gave him a tape recorder Uh and encouraged him to record bits of the hobbit or Lord of the Rings and read it. He prayed the our father in Welsh over the tape recorder and then he recorded it.

What do you mean? He was just like machines. He didn't like technology. In Welsh, which weird, I don't know. And then he recorded bits of the Hobbit, thank and Lord of the Rings so we have I actually have recordings of that of him reading Bits of his work, but yeah, he didn't like he would not have liked there's a YouTube clip That says what why the Eagles didn't take them directly to Mordor and he says you know do that. Yeah Yeah, I don't think that's really him. Oh, you don't think that's really him? Yeah, it's a bit of a fake.

Oh, I feel like an idiot. But he probably would have said that. He probably would have said that. Oh, okay. But then somebody told me the reason for that is... What? You tell me. That he wouldn't want to see my form? Why didn't you take them to Mordor?

No, not since the Megalovania. Oh, the Eagles? Well, that'd be a five minute movie, I mean. I mean, story, not movie. But then somebody also said the the black riders could ride as fast as the wind for example And so it was only after Mount Doom was destroyed that the Eagles came and fetched True Frodo and Sam kind of thing. They would have stopped him the Nazgul That's that's something I've heard. Yeah. But maybe don't get too.

Yeah. Detailed. You can't do it. You can't do it. But he loved a long story. And Tolkien actually said that he said, I want people I want to write a really long story. Try my hand at my hand that will engage.

And man, it did. It does. And I don't read it. And you think this is the whole book is as beautiful and precise as poetry. Yes. Yes. It doesn't feel like any sentence he slacked off on.

It felt like every word was chosen. Everything is constructed so lovingly and attentively. And I tell people, when people ask me like, you know, should I dive in? What do I, where do I start? What do I do? First off, I actually say, skip concerning hobbits. Don't read the prologue. Yeah.

Just dive into chapter one. And I said, be willing to tarry a bit. Don't be afraid to linger because Tolkien's going to linger. He's not in a rush. He's going to describe every leaf, every path, every river. He's going to give five names to every body of water and just relish it, because he did. And that's what he actually said. Middle Earth is my, it comes from my fascination with the world, with everything in it. And we need that. That's why I think Lord of the Rings is medicinal for

people today. Because we're flicking, you know, we just flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, and we're just looking for a quick But that's first of all, that's not human. That's not a human process of receiving information It affects us It makes us more restless But when you can just tarry in the story and linger And not be in a rush you start to soak up every detail, right? Lord of the rings is very sensual in the proper sense, that you're engaging all of your senses, the smell, right, of Lothlorien, like the Maloran trees, the look at those golden leaves

falling, all of it, the water. You just gotta chill, hang it. I read the chapter in the House of Tom Bombadil. That's like spiritual reading. Tell me about Tom Bombadil. Oh my gosh, this guy. What do you feel about Tom Bombadil? Oh my gosh, this guy. Many people have thoughts.

Yeah. I don't know if you follow Nerd of the Rings. You ever see that YouTube channel? I think I watched the video on that, but I can't recall. Yeah, a lot of people have different thoughts about Tom Bombadil. Very mysterious character and Tolkien himself doesn't get detailed with it either. I'm not really sure. Like, wait, didn't you make it up?

Again, he discovered it. But some people say maybe he's a Valar who's taking human form, a Maiar. The best explanation, I think. So let's go back. Tolkien's whole world, Middle Earth, starts in music, right? Iluvatar encourages the Valar he creates to sing. What they sing becomes mountains, valleys, seas, trees, all of it. It's interesting because C.S. Lewis borrowed that idea from Tolkien, his buddy, and Narnia was created in music. If you remember, Aslan the lion is singing

and Narnia comes to be. So there's the music of the Valar that forms the world. When you meet Tom Bombadil, what's he doing? Singing. Singing constantly. Dancing around. Even when he's talking, it sounds like he's singing. Yeah, everything's lyrical Yeah, he's got this like jubilance. It just comes pouring out of him. He's he's afraid of nothing. The ring has no effect on him That's right. So one

You know and yet he can he can see aren't I right and thinking he can see Yes, like literally so Sumposit is the Illuvatar, is he God? But that's not true from Bombadil's own words, right? He's the master of the wood. But one thought is that he is the music of the Valar. He's the embodied incarnation of the music of the Valar. Because he'll say to Old Man Willow, right,

oh, I know the song for him. So through music, he can sort of manipulate or control so I think that's kind of cool that he's embodied music and it makes sense because he's always singing somebody told me that Tom Bombadil is sort of representative of those people that we cannot box in we want to understand them we want to category we put a category over them and sort them out, but they just burst asunder all of our labels. Yeah. I love that.

I like that a lot. I think that's what Tolkien would say too, because he didn't, when people would ask him, he was just not really sure. One of the most beautiful things Tom Bombadil says that just almost brought me to tears was when he talked with such reverence of Farmer Maggot. Do you remember that? Oh yes, yes, yes. They just did, there you go. He's got dirt in his fingernails and yeah,

something, it's like a really earthy description of this guy is rooted in the real. Right, he's rooted in the real. But it just makes me think, you know, like here I am sitting across from you, I haven't, if the Lord allows me, I catch an insight into your magnificence, you know? Like you are willed into existence by God.

But we walk around just treating people like they're objects in the way of us doing things. We even do that with our family. I look at my, I on our 15th wedding anniversary, my wife and I went away and we're just laying in bed and I was looking at her and I was brought to tears because I thought, how many cups of coffee have I had with you how many times we passed each Other and I feel like I'm seeing you now I was just it just broke me because I saw how magnificent and individual and beautiful She was so I love that line of about farmer maggot like here's this fella

We all just sort of well whatever right we do that to everybody we do that to everybody. I do that. You know, as you're saying that, Matt, I'm even thinking like farmer maggot, maggot is like this, ew, like I know what a maggot is. It's the larva of a fly. Right. That's one term maggot. So even taking this sort of like almost crass or mm, you know, hillbilly kind of name. And yet Bombadil says, you know, this guy is amazing. He's magnificent. He's rooted in the real.

Listen to him. Tells me, yeah, it's that idea of being attentive to the miracle of every person that you meet. Every person that you meet. I can go back to like college days and wisdom would come from the professors, but there was a groundskeeper. He's actually security guard.

Jerry. This guy, Jerry. This guy. He was like a farmer maggot character you just look at him and he had an attentiveness he would remember you he would ask about your family and Again, it's not it's not you know, I'm here to learn things but this guy's teaching me wisdom And I think farmer maggot is like that and I love the idea. It's because he's a farmer. He's got his feet in the soil. He's plugged into the natural rhythms of things, as is Bombadil. Right. And when you look at our culture today, we are so disconnected from the. Living today, you and I went and bought some beer, which we'll be drinking on the second half of the show with Neil looking forward to it.

But, you know, the lady was just like, yeah, I love to watch Netflix. I've been watching the show up polygamy. I'm like, OK, that's great. It made me want to cry. Removed from it made me want to cry because I'm her. Not because I'm better than her, but because I too am an idiot. Yeah. And I could be spending it viewing people like not in a weird viewing with people, but like looking at people, seeing them, not a voyeuristic way

or reading something beautiful. But instead, I'm like, what's refresh daily wire? See what the latest bull crap news is that doesn't matter at all. I do it too. We have to be so intentional. I mean, they're literally like Pandora's box. The smartphones are Pandora's box.

You know, and the more we open the lid, I mean, just all manner of stuff comes out and then it's in your head and then it distracts you and it splinters your focus. I fall into it as well. It's, you gotta be so intentional. I fall into it as well. It's you got to be so intentional. I know your month is coming up.

Your big sabbatical. This will be going live in August. Right. Okay. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, we talk about Jesus and the Eucharist is the real presence. And I think we're supposed to model that in our interactions with people.

I love what you just said about Cameron. I told you that yesterday about Rebecca. Let me say what you said just because if you say it, I know you're listening right now. Rebecca, listen to this. We're walking and I said something like your wife's lovely and you said, Oh my gosh. You almost stopped in your tracks as we were walking and you said, you know what Rebecca means captivating in Hebrew captivating. And you said, I just look at her and I'm like, Oh my gosh,

she's so beautiful. Catch it. Yeah. How did I get here? How did I land her? Yeah, but how did she land you? I mean she married up. She's great Great, you know, she's right. That's that's my line. I was I always I always say that the men I know and love married up just just a just to change things around. She's so beautiful I just love the way you spoke of well as you're talking about Cameron. I'm thinking about Rebecca We're married next year 20 years not Cameron means since Rebecca Since Rebecca means captivating or kept is that right captivating? All right, Cameron I want you have a good swig of that before I tell you all right cleared

No, I need you to know I need you know, I don't want to ruin your materials crooked nose Can you look that up? Can you check that Neil? I? Really don't find anything about that. There's no way that's true. It's unacceptable. And is she aware of that? She told me. What?

She's got a great nose. It's beautiful. Crooked nose from the Gaelic word cram sran, which means crooked nose. Crooked noses are also captivating. You can't stop looking at them. That is a good point. They're weird looking. She doesn't have a crooked nose. That is a good point a weird looking

She's got a great nose great nose great. Maybe a great great great grandma Well, I love about my wife is got a little nose and little ears because you know as you age those cut the cartilage Loosens and they get larger. They seem to get larger Okay, so me and my old wife With a nice shape nose and ears. I don't know how to build back better right now Sorry for that. Rebecca. Rebecca. Yeah, yeah. But no, I love what you said, because. You've heard this a million times, the eyes of the windows to the soul,

but it's so hard to engage for more than 10 seconds. Anybody's eyes, even your spouse. I mean, do you and Cameron actually like gazing each other's eyes? There's times I think to myself, I've chatted with my wife a bunch of that. I don't think I've looked at her yet, right? Right? Yeah I want to do that, but it's hard and I don't know I don't think we're supposed to force that either But there should be it's almost like gazing in someone's eyes that you know

A life unlike your own can be your greatest teacher st Columbine said a life unlike your own can be your greatest teacher life unlike unlike your own can be your greatest teacher just Tarrying a little bit there it is actually when the glory starts coming out right and not just the glory but the wounds too Right everybody's got like such a story such a story everybody I love um, I Don't do it often, but you know we were traveling to New York for talks or something or some event as a staff We did something years ago and on the subway and you got the pole, you know, and there's you got like all these hands

there's like millions of people in the New York subway system constantly right millions and We're standing there, you know, we're all jostling down here Christopher West is there and some of our other staff and we're just like hold on the pole and I'm looking at the hands I'm like this is amazing. We had dudes hand, you know, just get the tattooed you know fear or love or whatever it was and just like you look at all these gnarled hands or soft hands and and Then you like look for that fleeting eye contact and if you let yourself it is overwhelming Because each of us is not going anywhere like we're gonna be around for millennia. We're like we're immortal. That's amazing Amazing and I think heaven's gonna be getting a little taste of everybody's story all the way back

Back to the womb. Like that's why heaven will never be boring, right? Billions and trillions of lies and how each uniquely manifested something about the mystery of God it's just it's not gonna get old. Hmm. That's wonderful Bring it back to Lord of the Rings a little bit. I think that was saying Is that just not focusing Nilo? Thanks When they took about the Eagles how they're not concerned with the lives of men or something to that effect When they took about the Eagles, how they're not concerned with the lives of men or something to that effect. And why was that? Oh, was it the trees? Maybe it was the...

Oh, the Ents are not concerned. Yeah, the Ents. The Eagles in a certain sense too. Right. But the Ents... And why was that? Because we're like a blip on the radar of history? Yeah, there's something about their lifespan that's just... Like Fangorn or Treebeard, he goes way, way back. You know, it was the original elves that breathe life into the as the elves were formed by a lewatar they can subcreate and form they give life to the trees some of the trees so I think it's just

the longevity of their lives like they just see passing shadow you know even Sauron like this is gonna pass see we can learn so much from that. Yes. Yes. Those of us who keep refreshing our newsfeeds, right. It's like, yeah, this is just, you shall pass in a way shouldn't concern us. Not that we shouldn't be engaged with our brothers and sisters in the world in which we live. So there's a difference there, right? But our story is so much larger than what Joe Biden accidentally didn't say when he was trying

to say something else. Like, why? It's less than a blip. Why do we care? Honestly, I don't know. Or let it ruffle our piece. Why are we obsessed? Yeah.

That's hard. Well, I mean, we're second by second. But what we're moving second by second inch by inch is kind of slow. But no, I want tranquil. I want that piece, you know, even like family life. We talked about this with our kids too. I can get so stressed and you know, I got to step back. Like it's, it's okay in the grand scheme, you know, it's going to be okay. And you just got to let it be a mess for a bit,

let it play out and just keep the peace, maintain the peace. Because everybody older than us with older the children says this goes by real quick. And we're like, do you promise? What's that song? You're going to miss this. You're going to want this bag. And I'm like, not this part. No, I'm not. But, but then it does flash by. In fact, I was sitting in front of my 13 year old, uh, he was going to bed and I just wanted to check it out. You got it I was sitting in front of my 13 year old. He was going to bed and I just wanted to check in. Oh, you got it. Yeah, this is beautiful. Oh my gosh. But it's just

He's just a sword from lost nine. Sorry. No, no, no, no, but it was just what took a couple weeks ago and this is my This is my saint maker. I mean all my kids are my saint makers. My wife is my we're all saint makers to each other but um I just had this moment, I'm looking at him and he's almost six feet tall already. He's like, I don't know, five, seven, five, eight, or something crazy. And I flashed to the moment,

we adopted him at five and a half weeks. I met him in his second week of life. He was the first diaper I changed. And honestly, it is insane how fast that just flashed by because I I'm looking at this kid who's just big lanky teenager. That's, that's a way to realize it goes quick. Yeah. Because I imagine myself 10 years ago and where the kids were. And I do think, Oh, wouldn't that be cool to go back there for a day? Right. And not stress out like I did 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah.

Cause it isn't that big a deal. And you know, flow over you. No, you got to let it flow over you and just, yeah, cuz it isn't that big a deal and you know what he's a flow over you No, you got to let it flow over you and just um, even this morning. I told you this morning was kind of chaotic It's just kind of hold the gaze this who shall pass Sometimes I just got to take the hit. You know, you know, you're all Dr. Greg Batara is a friend of mine and he talks about like this emotional Disequilibrium equilibrium that kids have we're supposed to be the equilibrium We're supposed to like steady. It's so often. I react in the same way but I

Gotta just sit I gotta be like the rock and they're the waves and it's just that's right. And whenever I do that I'm so grateful not because I know I've done the right thing, but because it has the correct effect. Because then my son and my daughter come to me and they apologize. And it's not just about me having to apologize and then reminding them. But what you did was also inappropriate, even though I also, and then it just muddies everything. Yeah, it's a stabilizer. Yeah. I just remember the story I shared with you the other day the story when I had a complete like meltdown

Conimption the whole our four kids. It's like the four horsemen the apocalypse sometimes like a bedtime total chaos I often joke like over our door, you know, people have like live laugh love I want to put like abandoned hope all you enter in Because I'm just I don't know what to do with you and why are you screaming in my face and I don't know. So when all four volcanoes are erupting with all these needs and you just don't, I don't know what language to speak to right now. I had a melt, I lost it and I was like, shit, I got to get out of here. I ran downstairs and over the fireplace we have a divine mercy, image of Jesus, divine

mercy. And I literally, I'm just like collapsing and I'm like, Jesus, I can't, I can't. This is my prayer. I can't, I can't, I can't this is my prayer. I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I Can't and then This is like 1030 at night 1045 at night. I feel a little tab Daddy, you want some water and it's my Sheila. How beautiful was a spewing lava in my face 10 minutes ago

And then the big guy comes down You got this buddy How beautiful was a spewing lava in my face 10 minutes ago. And then the big guy comes down. You got this buddy. Don't call me buddy. But then you realize like, wow, this is okay too. Even as dads, even as parents, kids need to see, I've got my limitations. I've got my threshold too. And, and it's okay to like kind of how much more helpful to see you?

Lose it in that way. Yeah, you just can't do it anymore before the Lord as opposed to shouting at them. I wonder You know, I often wonder like how much of my kids gonna remember and I hope they don't remember that part and what's the earliest? memory that I have But it would be cool to think. I remember my dad collapsed in front of Jesus praying. That would be. That's so much cooler than dad was crying in the bathroom. Clutching a pint. Yeah, that's right. Help me.

Bring me peace. Yeah. But no, I went to Jesus for the peace. And he gave it to me through my kids. And I'm reminded of our Lord's words If you give a cup of water to one of my followers. Yeah Nice Sheila. What a legend. Yeah, she's a gift. Did you name your children because they're adopted So all four of our kids are adopted from birth. They all came home their third day of life except for Seth he was five and a half weeks and

So Seth our oldest is the only one whose birth mom chose the name Seth Ryan. And she just asked if we would retain that name. And we're like, wow, I mean, yeah, to honor her. And what a gift. This is cool, Matt. We went home and Googled Seth means appointed or chosen one. And Ryan is Gaelic for little king. So, and he was our first child that we adopted. He's our appointed little king. So we're like, sweet, we won't touch that one. But the other three kids we named, Claire is our 11 year old and Claire just, you know,

she's a, it's wild when you name your kids as babies and then later you realize, whoa, that name worked. Claire has the connotation of light, right? Clarity, claret clarity, so she's a light. She's got a real spirit of wonder Sheila actually you would know what Sheila mean. I know in Australia. It's kind of like a girl or a lady. Yeah But yeah, everyone Sheila is my mother-in-law's name and I have an aunt Sheila my dad's youngest sister who actually died quite young and tragically But um, so that's our Sheila got it. No, I'm seeing heavenly or blind one. Oh Wow, so you've got a claritas and a blind one And Kagan actually comes from we named him Kagan Matthew k a G a n

Kagan comes from an Irish song Peter K Cagan and the Wind, that I grew up with. You know the legend of the Silkeys, the seal people off the coast of Ireland? Okay, the whole legend, the Irish, of the Silkeys are, when a seal comes to land, they can take the form of a human being. But if they ever go back out to sea, they revert to their seal form and can never return.

So there's a really mystical, beautiful song, and Peter Cagan was a fisherman and fell in love with a silky. So Kagan, it's a good strong. And it also means little fire. Which he is a little fire. My middle name is Ryan. Oh nice.

What's your middle name? Christopher. You had to think for a moment. I did, because I went to Michael, my patron saint. William Christopher Michael Donahue. That's very good. Do you take a lot of pride in being Irish? Very.

Yep, Irish Scotch actually. My grandmother was from Scotland and my grandfather from Ireland. Yeah, I do. And we all, I think I told you, my grandmother, my grandfather joined the American army because he was born in the US and went back to Ireland, but he joined the army, lost his accent.

My grandmother grew up in Clydebank, Glasgow, Scotland, held that thick Scottish baroque for her whole life and we've all kind of picked up on it. So, but yeah, I love my Irish Scottish heritage. I love it. I love the music. I love the fact that it's just this, you know, windswept, sea splashed island and the poets and saints and scholars. Like I just, I love it. I love I love we need their indecision right now Yeah, we sure do for Ireland. Yeah, I sleep in Donegal with it for three years in the Gael tic. Yeah, I don't know that I've been up to sleeve league. Yeah relations come from Red Castle in Donegal and Anya's folks own a pub up there. Oh, wow, we go to Daily Mass. And so I

Really cool and I got to know her sister a little bit and Enya would come up and sing at midnight mass. It was fascinating that nobody in the town cared about her though. It's funny, like a prophet is never welcome, right? Not that she's a prophet. Well, like not animosity, but just didn't make a big deal. She didn't care about it.

It's like, oh yeah, Enya, yeah, she's not that famous. Like, are you kidding me? She's not that famous. Wow. What's she doing these days, Enya? You should know you're Irish. I don't know, but we do have her music lilting around the house sometimes. She's not that famous. Like, are you kidding me? She's not that famous. Wow. What's she doing these days? And you should know you're Irish. I don't know, but we do have her music, uh, lilting around the house. Sometimes lovely. I mean, whatever. I got no idea what she's into. I'm sure she's into stuff I wouldn't agree with, but I mean, a day without rain.

Oh, yes, please. Great album. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, a day without rain. That's as much as you get in Ireland every year. Right. There was like a three week period in July where it was sunshine. and it was during that period that you realize if it was like this all the time houses would be like a billion dollars each because I'm so beautiful. Although maybe it wouldn't be if all the greens start to pop I'm sure the farty shades. So beautiful. Yeah but it's interesting how people today I don't know if this is because we've severed ourself from our roots in many respects. I was just hunting with my mate, John Henry in Namibia and we were sitting in the back

of a truck. I'm like, what's a song? And I thought we suck because we don't have any communal songs. Yes. And when we have some rock songs that we both know, which are kind of cool, we could sing Africa by Toto. That's cool. Uh, but you know, it just, it was sad that we don't have, uh, you know,

like folk songs are like fairy tales. They're written by people, but by cultures and we don't have any to sing. And I, it occurred to me that maybe the reason people are really into finding out about their ancestry right now, like that's a big thing, which I'm really psyched about. I'm glad people are doing that. I think it's the same, that same impulse that wants us to reclaim our Catholic tradition and makes us so angry that people decided to throw it out for what. Yeah, I'm with you there. We, it's really sad. I mean, American culture, is it culture?

What do you think the traditional sense of the word? I mean, I think a life lived in common. What do you think culture is? What do you mean? Yeah, but I also think a life lived in the soil in which that life is planted. Like you, like about the Irish and the Scottish background in me,

I grew up learning the Irish songs and bits of poetry and different things like that. And I love it so much because it roots me back in. There's certain smells. I can picture my grandmother making the mincemeat and the meat pies for my grandpa. Such a Scottish thing, an Irish thing. So are people going to go back and think about their latte or their macchiato that they got at Starbucks and it's going to bring back childhood memories?

I don't know. We don't have that anymore. Who knows? But, um, but culture, it's also being in the soil, in the soil and again, expanding your senses to drink in where you are, like what a difference, even growing up in South Central New Jersey is to growing up in Aspen, Colorado, like your whole life change like everything's different

But everything's so fluid here in the state. Yeah, Australia too. And maybe it's becoming more so as people can Work from home or they can easily take another job We're a lot more kind of interconnected perhaps Yeah, we were once like my dad worked in the local lead smelter our entire life, right? And there was no other options. It wasn't like, maybe we could take this job. Maybe we could go to this city. Like this is it. Right. And I'm sure he would have loved other options actually, but it's easy to romanticize, isn't it? Yeah. Things that, uh,

we aren't kind of constricted by, but. But I mean to that point though, I love to travel and I know you travel quite a bit too and traveling and teaching, uh, to me, it's just phenomenal. And I love to get into the soil. I don't, I want to get out I know you travel quite a bit too and traveling and teaching to me is just phenomenal and I love to get into the soil. I don't, I wanna get out. What do you mean? Yeah. Well, all right, recently a couple weeks ago

we did a talk, I did a course on the way of beauty in Madrid, Spain and one of our students, I met him last summer when we were there and he said, hey, you wanna come out and meet my family and instantly I'm like, heck yes. I wanna get away from the city and this experience in this controlled environment and get into your family's Villa. Yeah.

Yeah. Escorial and just, what does it smell like? What does it look like? And they're bringing out their native, like their food and they're proud of it. You know, they're so excited about it. And, um, you know, it's sad is going to Namibia where I was a couple of weeks ago, or going to Auschwitz where I was in Lent and there's a KFC See that

There are laws against that golly cuz it robs you You know for a split second you're like, oh sweet. There's a star, but you know, there's a Dunkin Donuts. I Think Starbucks are not allowed to be in Rome Neil Good luck whenever I've been to Rome, Rome. Neil. Good luck. Whenever I've been to Rome, I've never found a Starbucks. Good. I hope that that's true. I want the comfort sometimes of home if I'm not home. I'll get the comfort of home when I go back home.

But I want to be in a foreign land, right? I want to feel and smell and hear and taste like the wildest place I ever got to go and teach. They opened up a new one on the 5th of April, 2022 in Rome. The wildest place I ever was, was I did a week long, um, theology of the body retreat for bishops of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon islands. So I'm up in Garoko, like the rainforest. Did you feel completely unworthy leading that? Oh, absolutely.

Not that you were, but did you feel that way? Teaching bishops? Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, for the last 16 years, I felt unworthy. I'm like just, but if there's a joyful surrender to, Lord, you called me this and I'm happy to say this. This is your fault. It's all your fault if I screwed up.

No, it's the greatest blessing. So I'm up there and Everything is so wild and foreign and so not anything I've ever seen smelled tasted touched before in my life track is different the birds. Yeah, and that's the soundtrack I was it was probably five in the morning pitch black and I hear a Scream like a screech. Yeah screech and I'll just I don't want to do it right now It's like the Nazgul. Okay, I can the Nazgul like six octaves higher. It was a beetle Window, right? Yeah, and there's no there's like a couple bars. There's no screens And I remember I like I got the phone I recorded it cuz for my wife and just say like this is happening and it's five

In the morning, I don't know what it is. But I love that. But I'm afraid. Yeah, I love the experience of it. And people throw in, when you put your luggage on the rack and it goes in, you get on your plane. In Papua New Guinea, it was like, people were throwing machetes and baskets of coconuts on the thing.

Machete. Like, this is awesome. This doesn't happen in Philadelphia you can try but you would be arrested immediately yeah what this is one thing I love about Steubenville I mean Steubenville is so run down that our loan shark places can't survive I mean they've gone they've had to leave town you know they what do you know the loan places the pawn shop no you go and get money. Okay. What are they called? Those money places. They're terrible, but they have big interest rates. You know,

they give you money. That didn't survive. But what's happening is all these locals, we're all building these little things now, like the brewery, the cigar lounge, that coffee shop. It's nice, man. What you're doing is bringing culture. We really are. And it's exciting to see people who want to be a part of student bill and like one live here forever, right? that's I was in Abu Dhabi and The people who are native to that place have a particular dress. They were the men

I mean like I think just the men I think we should do that in student bill like a kind of shirt And those people get paid more than the immigrants who are neurosurgeons. And I know that because a neurosurgeon was driving me around. And in Abu Dhabi, you can't own land if you're not from there. You can rent land for 99 years. Then you can piss off. I respect that. This is going to create an authentic culture of Of a committed, like you're committed. I love it.

But you know, culture also means communion. So what you're talking about is people wanting to be together. And do stuff together. That's human. Which is so hard to do. It's so hard to commit to a place when it's so easy to go somewhere else.

Somebody who's moved about eight, I don't know, ten times. I've probably been in ten different houses since I got married fifteen years ago. Wow. That's hard. I'm somebody who's moved about eight ten times right ten I've probably been in ten different houses since I got married fifteen years ago. Wow, that's hard yes, I do I was very different from I think our parents or our grandparents because uh Just even the means like it's just not there This is where we are, you know We're in Pittsburgh forever or whatever it might be and your friends were there forever and those things were there forever, too

It wasn't like everybody else's movie, but you don't have a choice. That would really suck. Cause then everybody you know and love has to move. But there was a sort of, I don't know, a sense in which I can rely on you. You wouldn't think that out loud, but there's no other option for them either. So they're here with you in this thing and you can just complain about your little town together. It's funny here cause it's, I'm kind of in both camps cause it's there's a stability and a familiarity

that's nice and the permanence it's nice. It's good. Not nice. I hate the word nice. It's funny here because it's I'm kind of in both camps because it's there's a stability and a familiarity that's nice and the permanence It's nice. It's good. Not nice. I hate the word nice. Yeah, it's good But but the adventure too. I mean, that's the epic of the fact that the rings there are lucky in there, right? That's exactly. Yeah. Yeah, not it's not they go away they come back and What was familiar has been desecrated. So they have to revisit, reform, transform it. But it then becomes better than- Jordan Peterson would have a field day with that.

Oh, nice. I'm sure he's already talked about it. But there and back again, and then what was there, what you were nostalgic about has been perverted and having to redeem it. So yeah, sticking the flag back in and reclaiming it. And then it becoming better than it was before. Have you ever had Jordan Peterson on your show? No, I tried getting him on. He spoke in Steubenville. Make it happen, Neil. Quick Google. Two weeks. No, yeah, I tried to get him on but he's a busy man. Well, I'm a very, very pricey man. I'm sure. And good for him. No, that's great.

Yeah. But I think he's been refreshing,, you know kind of germane to what we're talking about. He's He's trying to point out the stability Like these things that are immovable and important and human and we're just like scrapping them for convenience He's he's getting us back to that like getting grounded even just in your own self, you know I know that there are Catholics who are just fed up with him or uninterested in him because what he's saying is Maybe so basic but it's because the basics been lost. It's a human formation Yes, so we don't have while we're working on our spiritual formation. Mm-hmm Maybe that's why we're kind of getting back to the roots of oh, yeah

I mean theology the body that I teach is humanity 101. It's utterly simple, but we have gone so far afield. I mean, our culture right now is unmoored from reality. We have no idea. So yeah, this isn't something new. It's something ancient, but it feels new because, oh yeah, that's what it means to be human. Even what you said about Cameron, attentiveness, loving gaze, just be. Because what's it means to be human even what you said about Cameron attentiveness loving gaze just be because what's heaven gonna be that being communion mmm and if we're just like you know what else is on it's not gonna work doesn't bring peace so I was I've said this before you know like the metaverse whatever the hell it is Facebook's doing or meta is doing this

commercial yeah it was so strange. The jungle thing. Bizarre. Whole thing was weird. Yeah. But okay. So how long do you think Neil, do we have until people are in virtual goggles? It says Neil's younger than us.

I feel like he's got his finger on the pulse more. Well, people already do that. I mean, there's VR chat. People have communities in VR chat where they're all in their VR things. Cause right now we almost live more in our phone. Yep. I think it was Elon Musk who said, we are already cyborgs. It's just this thing isn't implanted.

Right, it's removable right now. Right, and the watch is one step. I don't know why you would tether yourself to the internet like that. Take that off immediately. It's just to check my own. So he's like, we're kind of like cyborgs now. We're so reliant on this thing. internet like that. Take that off immediately. It's just to check my own. So he says like, we're kind of like cyborgs now, you know, we're so reliant on this thing.

And how many times do you glance at your phone a day, get news. Over 80 times a day, statistically, teenagers, subvert, subvert, interesting conversations. Like who won the last Olympics? Oh, let me look it up. No, how about don't. And we'll just chat about it. And this is part of the fun, you know, in the egg, right? So, okay. So we live in our phones a lot of the time. Like how long until it's wrapped around our face and we live there more than we do in reality? How long do you think that will be?

Oh my gosh, within the next decade, I'm sure. Less probably. All right, so here's the next question. People will be in the metaverse, right? Just like we're all watching YouTube on videos and phones right now. OK. And then what happened, right, is Catholics moved from like youth ministry for maybe a number of reasons and other kinds of ministry to like online ministry. Right. That's what I'm doing. Yeah. Yeah. So how long is it until people are missionaries in the metaverse? And wouldn't that be gross?

Doesn't that just seem wrong? Like that's a full time job. People pay him. Weird, totally inhuman. that just seem wrong? It's like that's their full-time job. People pay him weird, totally inhuman. It seems wrong. It seems like it is wrong. Don't do that. It's heretical as manichaeism in the early church. This body, soul do out. So where's the divide between what I'm doing and what you're doing at Theology of the Body on your YouTube channel? So I want to know where, right? Because I look at the metaverse and being a missionary in the metaverse and think that seems gross. I haven't thought it through and maybe I'm wrong

in thinking it's gross, but it seems wrong and you shouldn't do it. It's still a medium. Newspapers are, you know, as old as whatever. It's information that's being transported into your hand and you leave through it. We're still doing that, you know? We're offering a more embodied look, so to speak,

through our courses online for people who can't do it. But we're always saying, but if you can come in person, come bodily for this retreat, this course, this immersion. So I think as long as the medium remains, this information, that could lead to formation. I mean, even- But the thing is though, if the vast majority of Americans are in the metaverse more than they are in the real world, wouldn't that then justify Christians to be in the metaverse

more than they are in the real world in order to reach those? Now, that seems wrong, even though I can't express why it is, and that leads me to question other forms of social media. Like, I'm embarrassed that I'm on TikTok and I hope I get banned soon. Could you make that happen? No, don't ask me to do that. That could get ugly. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, well, okay. So if TikTok is wrong, which I think it is, like someone said to me yesterday, like my son's addicted to TikTok, but Hey, if that's the worst thing he does, I know that is the worst thing he could do. And then I think, all right, but then like one step down seems to be like Twitter that seems just wrong

Why am I on Twitter? But then I think okay, but like Facebook YouTube like should I cancel all of it or is there some that is objectively better? Platforms than other platforms and what is that? What is it? I wouldn't be able to diagnose and break that down right now, but yeah you go I think YouTube is a better platform just because it's longer form you're sitting you have to watch one thing for a longer amount of time I mean absolutely even it's, they're all just technologies. Books are technologies. Sitting with and reading with a book, you can say, oh, that's not natural.

You should go out and see the real world, put that book down and interact with the reality. It's like, okay, well, it's all just kind of degrees. So I think your reaction to the metaverse, I think that along, like you would just say the metaverse is gross in the first place. So that might be where a lot of the grossness of evangelization comes from, like from that. Where I would just say that that's probably not where you would want to evangelize then. But you think it's okay that others wouldn't. Yeah, well there's.

If they feel so called. It's another thing too, it's like when you see people evangelizing on like TikTok, it's just the format doesn't fit It's not like well suited to kind of people on there to think things through people aren't there to think things through so they try to like reformat and you're like this is just like Like not good. You're it's not good evangelization because you can't really do that on that platform So I don't mean it means to an end means to an end means to an end. What's the end communion? Communion right we're having? We're having communion.

The people who are watching this conversation right now are seeing us communicate and entering into some of that, but it might inspire them to enter into a deeper communion and conversation. And to Neil's point, I love the fact, and Jordan Peterson's talked about this as well, it's no longer this contrived, we've got four minutes and cut, you know?

No, that's right. We can just, now we are. That's a really good point. Like the same moment in which people are blowing their brains out on TikTok. They're also sitting around for three hour conversations, right? Which is more human. So there's that. And prior to YouTube, you couldn't do that.

You couldn't have a three hour conversation that you could digest. Like you can't do that on vinyl or city. True. You could on a series of CDs. And, you know, people always throw in like St. Paul, you know, he used the roads of Rome to evangelize and the internet is like the new, the new road, Roman roads. Yeah. But so it's unique. And you, do you feel so called? I mean, but maybe you're wrong to feel so cold. Like I don't,

I don't think St Paul would have been on Twitter. I don't know if he would have enough, but I hope he would have. I would have lost respect for him. Can I say that? Yes. I don't think Jesus Christ would have been on Twitter. But maybe he would, what do I know? I don't know. Just throwing thoughts out. I think John Paul II, 1995, wrote a thing on the internet.

So internet was kind of just coming out kind of new, fresh. And he talked about, you know, just the fact that the name of Christ can appear on billions of computers and monitors throughout the world. Yeah. But you know, but are we engaging with him really? Like this could be helpful, but it's not the end. Yeah. I, I jumped off social media three years ago, January 1st, 2020. I jumped off Facebook, jumped off all the other stuff. I pop in for news, news apps. I pop in on YouTube,

your channel sometimes try to be better, but I am so glad to be off now. I am so glad. So when you say you jumped off social media, I was on, I was on Facebook accounts or face Twitter's canceled. I'm done with that Facebook. I just haven't touched in three years. I think it's still out there, but um, and I used to evangelize through it a lot for years since like 2006 or 7 I think I was on you know an Instagram and all that But certain events unfolded in the family and I was just it's time. It's time to just stop I just felt called to it not everybody feels it but I felt called just step off and it's been great

I have no idea how I had so much time to To put things on that were true and good and beautiful but again, it's like designed to have the headspace to but I see what you're doing again like being an embodied person with senses the outliers this is how the world comes to me to live in the 20 feet around me to be attentive to the weather of the day the smell and touch and feel instead of, I'm walking through all of it like this, you know, bumping into stuff, I just, I prefer it now.

I just wanna kinda stay in the 20 feet around me. And obviously pray and think of others and reach out, but it's being present, back to the real presence. So here's the question I wanna get to. So it doesn't sound like you're necessarily in agreement with my suspicion that it would be wrong for Christians to flock into the metaverse. Yes, I think it could be a call for some. Like the mission call from the beginning, you know, some. But my fear is that way too many people will think they're being called there. For the same reason I might think I'm being called here, namely YouTube pays me. This is nice. I get, I get money from doing this. It's a subjective call. You got to pray through it. Honestly. You know,

it's the whole thing of, you know, whatever, uh, Rwanda needs missionaries or Chile needs, whatever you need to mission. So I should just go where you can't bulldoze your way into a vocation. It's a call. Don't force it. Yes. Just because some people may be not called, but think they are isn't an argument against those who are called and are doing the thing. Right. Yeah, I'm still flirting with canceling Twitter.

Yeah, because they suspended me recently. Did they really? Congratulations. Thank you so much. I was hoping but I guess so I didn't know what to do when they suspended me. I didn't really know what to do because when um, when they, they deleted my tweet that they found so offensive. And then when I tried to log on, they said, uh, something like delete your tweets.

I guess they sent us to the normal see it. And they say it by deleting this tweet, you agree that you have violated Twitter's agreements or whatever. So whatever. So I felt, okay, I can delete that because I can agree that it went against this stupid policy. I don't know if I want to say it on YouTube, don't get banned, but I basically said that this particular woman who thinks that she's now a man really, really, really isn't. Yeah. That's the same reason that a month ago Jordan Peterson got knocked off. It was the exact same isn't yeah that's the same reason that a

month ago Jordan Peterson got knocked off it was the exact same reason so that's same thing noted okay this is insane it's absolutely insane so if they had have said by clicking delete you acknowledge that you committed an act of hate speech I could never have done it right morally I couldn't have done it speech right but because they said by deleting you acknowledge that you violated our terms of service I can do that in good conscience and just say, well, your terms of service are crap, but sure, I acknowledge that I did that.

So I did. It still feels like groveling, coming, prostrating yourselves before. But he was Matt Walsh's point, cause I was chatting with him, he got suspended from Twitter and I said, you know, don't you, do you think you may be a coward for deleting those tweets? He's like,

well no. And here's why one, they censor them. So it's not like they remain up there. Two, why not use Twitter's platform against it? Like they want me off. They don't want me on there saying the things that I'm going to continue to say. So if I just go, okay, I'll go. They win. Whereas if I, continue to say the things that I do until they finally ban me. Mm-hmm So I thought well, that's that's that's prudent. I think I think that's that's good Yeah, I guess it's just but I still think of it as a hellscape and I think that I could maybe

Encourage others to get off by getting off I'm thinking about doing a live stream where I try to get a hundred people to agree to cancel their Twitter if I do Do it do it. Yeah, it's This this monopolizing this bullying is off the chart. It's so ironic That for speaking a truth you're accused of a bullying when you're being literally being bullied by this massive structure this faceless Structure. Mm-hmm. I hate it. I'm structure, this faceless structure. I hate it. I'm I'm three years free. I love it.

Well, so about five or no tan five or eight years ago, I, uh, I, I gave my social media passwords to somebody else. So I don't run it. Okay. I don't even have the logins, which is probably hugely irresponsible of me. But, but that that tweet like I said will tweet this one like sometimes I'll tell my guy what to tweet sure Well, I'm the same I had the same experience of like oh my gosh This is so much better But then the problem is you can just fill up your time on one thing so you might be free from all these other things But then you're constantly refreshing just two websites instead of 800

But you're spending as much time refreshing those two websites than if you were using all 800 even even right now like I'm I hate that we're talking about it. Yes, it feels so inhuman disembodied disconnected from the real world Whereas like we're having this conversation and then we're gonna go downstairs and maybe get another scone or something or and meet somebody face to face and that encounter is going or something or and meet somebody face to face. And that encounter is worth more than a thousand tweets. Right. Just just being present.

We've just put too much time and energy into this. I'm so disheartened when I see people constantly staring at it. Like you said, cyborgs already were on it all the time. So when somebody says to you, think of the good you could still be doing if you hadn't deleted your accounts. There's a better. There's a better. It could be good, but it's better to be present right here right now. That's it. I think another response to that objection is I'm not obligated to adopt every single social media network out there just because one tweet or post

I put on one of these millions of social networks could possibly end up. There's, there's where this is, you know, the image of Martha and Mary and Bethany and Jesus like that, that image of Martha swirling around doing, doing, doing, and Mary just like this, that is pure gold, right? She is anxious and troubled about many things many good things could serve the Lord she's literally serving the Lord but literally serving God yeah like stop this is better what just sitting there doing nothing yes yes that's much better it's worth that's it that's the pearl of

great price but I know it's really hard because we've been all so cultured to enter this frenetic whirlwind of activity and getting plugged in and it's insane. It's not healthy. It's not human. We can't slow down anymore. Yeah. Farmer Maggot. Back to Farmer Maggot. Back to the Shire. I got a priest friend, Father Patrick Schultz, he's in Cleveland, he's just awesome. He's like my brother from another mother. Lord of the Rings fan, massive. And he says there's a lot of Shire hatred out there.

Shire hatred is the hatred of this soil, this rootedness, this slow process of growth, this sitting here and drinking a beer and smoking a pipe, wasting time. I'm like, the Shire is heaven. And that's what heaven will be. Well, it just seems so rural and so like, no, that's what it's about. By the way, I didn't tell you this yet.

I'm building a new course for the Institute, launching next year on the sacramental stories of JR, Tolkien, and and C.S. Lewis. It's a five day immersion, all Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. This is your dream job. It is my dream job. I proposed it last summer to Christopher and he's like, you've got to do this. And we're going to England on a pilgrimage next spring to the Inklings

pub where they read their stories to each other. We're going to go and visit Oxford. We're just going to spend time in the fields reading. It's gonna be Shire love. Real quick, how do people find out about this? Yeah, I mean, I teach off of Lewis and Tolkien every time I teach a theology body course. And every time I mention these two guys,

students are like, I know. Men, women, every age they like perk up. And I, and some, you know, for the last five, six, seven years, I would say, wouldn't it be cool if I did a course and they're like, yes. So I proposed it, tobinstitute.org, tobinstitute.org. Can we put that in the description, Neil?

Yeah, so our course schedule's there. All this stuff is coming up. So it should be next fall, which by the way, is Tolkien's 50th anniversary of his death I didn't know that but so it'll be a celebration of his life and then CS Lewis and I Can't wait because these these guys were giants Millions of people have read their stories and their stories are all about what we're talking about like getting rooted again getting grounded fellowship friendship love of the earth, good pint, all of it.

That's what we need. Wordsworth says we are spending and wasting our powers. Little we see in nature that is ours. A sordid boon. He says, great God, I'd rather be a pagan suckled in a creed out worn. I go back to go back to the way it used to be. These machines, this technology is like so inhuman, it's killing us. And we just don't know how to turn it off. Turning it off restores life. And yet you don't think by being on this podcast, you're contributing to the machine. We're speaking a message into the into the void for good. We're evangelizing, right? Which I think we're

all called to do. Using this means to the end that is communion. So if you're listening to this conversation right now and you're like, oh man, that is so true. After we're done talking, just like us, turn it off and go spend time with somebody you love or in a good book or take a walk. and go spend time with somebody love or in a good book or take a walk. This is this is a stimulus to get back to communion and real authentic humanity. Let's take a break and then when we come back, we'll have beer. I'll see if we can make you have a pipe or a cigar. Let's do it. We'll keep chatting about this.

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

day, abstaining from unnecessary screen time, that doesn't include pines with the coin, obviously, abstaining from meat on Fridays, and fasting until 4 pm on each weekday. You can take this short opportunity to introduce your brothers, cousins, co-workers, fellow parishioners and even your neighbours. It'd be kind of weird if you didn't know them, just assume they're Catholic and want to torture themselves for 21 days, on how to live like Christ and prepare them for Exodus 90 in January. So check it out. Go to Exodus 90 dot com slash Matt Exodus 90 dot com slash Matt to get started.

I did Exodus 90 once and I lived like a boss monster for the first 31 days and then failed miserably. So Exodus 21 sounds super do-able. You would have done great at this. Yeah, I would have crushed it. Although probably because 21 days was the goal. I would have like faded out around the 11th day, I don't know. Exodus90.com slash Matt, go check them out to get started.

People who've done it just says it really rejuvenates their prayer life and helps them. Exodus90.com slash Matt, link is in the description. Click it and check them out. And that starts January? No, you can start whenever. So Exodus 90 is going to be starting in January. So this 21 day can be like a little test.

I see, I see, I see. But honestly for me, I'd just do the 21 day. So you can do it whenever you want. Go check it out right now, exodus90.com slash Matt. It's a great way to grow in friendship too with people in your community. Check them out. Also wanna say thank you to Hello.

Sorry. Hello is a really great prayer and meditation app. It is just phenomenal. Whenever I talk about Hello, I'm always impressed that a Catholic group has been able to create one of the greatest apps in the history and catalog of current apps. It has sleep stories.

It allows you to pray the Rosary. It even has Mark Wahlberg praying the Rosary. So you can pray with Mark Wahlberg, which is pretty cool. I just got back from a trip to Africa and I'm really bad at sleeping on airplanes. So I listened to sleep stories and they people read the Bible to you and stuff like that. It's really, really good. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. And also when you sign up on the website, you get three months for free. So if you just download the app and sign up that way, you got to start paying monthly. But you can try it for 3 months! That's a long time. And

you can see if you like it. And if you don't, you can cancel and you won't be charged ascent. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Finally, I want to say a massive thanks to everybody who's beginning to support us on Locals. Locals is a free speech platform that will enable me to continue putting out content long after YouTube may choose to ban us or suspend us as Twitter did recently. So go to locals.com slash no matfrad.com slash locals. Right? Link is in the description. And follow us there. We have morning podcasts. You get access to monthly spiritual direction with Father Gregory Pine. We release monthly audio books. For the month of August, we're going to be releasing, what's it called,

Teresa of Avila's... The Interior Castle. Interior Castle. We just commissioned a study on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas by Dr. Ed Faser. Hard man to get a hold of, but he has recorded the videos. They're fantastic. So just go support us there. And one more thing that we're doing is we've put together an ink on paper newsletter. It's phenomenal. I'm not joking, isn't it? You saw it. Are you actually impressed? I really like it. It'd be awkward if you said crossword to it's got a Catholic crossword puzzle and poetry and articles from theologians. And this will, when you get this for free, by the way,

we even pay shipping. So if you live in Namibia or Yemen or Australia, China, wherever we ship it to you for free, whenever these newsletters come out and you can put your phone in a drawer or set it on fire, sit out on the back porch with a whiskey or coffee and just unplug and just go to matfrad.locals.com and join us over there. And that's not extra. You just sign up for the local support. just unplug and just go to mattfrad.locals.com

and join us over there. We'd really. That's not extra. You just sign up for the local support. Yeah. So what you gotta do is once you sign up as an annual local supporter, that's how you get the thing.

You can support us monthly, but if you support us annually, you get annually, you get access to this newsletter. And we just ask that you put your address in. So once you sign up to local, it says something pinned to the top, click through that, put in your address in. So once you sign up to Locals, there's something pinned to the top, click through that, put in your address, and we'll just start sending them to you.

Check it out, matfrad.locals.com. Also, you don't actually have to pay to watch a lot of the content that we put out over on Locals. So download our Locals app, it's on iOS and Android, and start following us over there, because it's an amazing community of Catholics all around the world that are supporting each other.

It's not just me posting, it's also the supporters posting. I think people will really, really dig it. So matfrad.locals.com. Check it out. Thank you very much. Final word, be great if you subscribed. It'd be great if you then rang that bell button because right now we have a hundred thousand trophy over here. We're over quarter of a million, which sounds more than 250,000 Which is why I phrase it that way and once we get a million subscribers They will give us another plaque at which point I will quit the YouTube channel sell my house and go live in the forest Somewhere and these newspapers think on paper newspaper. Yeah, and just read all of the newspapers that I put together

Thanks so much kangaroo testicles Matt Kangaroo testicles? Matt Speechless I had this idea Every guest I would pass them testicles and then I would put a large like a 20-minute Collage of just people receiving the testicles and how they yeah. Yeah testicles the face testicles the face testicles the face Why am I still holding actually back? Okay, we're back Kingaroo kangaroo scrotum taxidermed

Intentionally you did that on purpose. Well, this is nice. Wait the last time I yeah, I haven a Guinness and forever. Ready? And this is in the freezer. You're welcome to do it. Three, two, one. I did. Brilliant. Rubbing on my pants. So you are a stout guy. Let's talk about this.

Let's talk about beer. I don't usually drink Guinness. Matt, you can't say you are a stout guy yeah I am a stout now do you have a pints of the coin as beer sign do you want that one I do want it thank you do you realize oh my gosh sometimes you forgive me things and I don't want to take him home oh no I'll take it thank you very much look at that it really it's There's chunks of ice. Yeah, you're what is the coldest Guinness I've ever had. Wow. It's spoon, Neil. I do not. I said, do you have a spoon, Neil?

Oh, dear. No, not unless he asks. I'm never coming back, man. Never, never, never. OK, so what's the good test? I love stout. Oh, yeah, let's do that. Do you have one? Well, we'll do the Irish and the Scottish slancher to your health and all the good brah Scotland forever. Wow, really? Hmm Like it not as much as Murphy's. So here's a story. Is it more? What's the difference? There's a little sharpness to the Guinness. Murphy's is a cool creamy

coffee slash touch of chocolate and Murphy's is a kind of a hint of a bitter yeah there's a little there's a little bitterness here so you know I love Guinness and then we went to Ireland this is great it is good I get a scoot no Guinness are you out there are you listening my wife's family is from she's got family in Cork and Killarney and we went there a couple years after we got married And we're one of those classic Irish pubs and you know, I you know enjoyed Guinness very much and they're like, oh no, no Murphy's stout brewed here in Cork and I tried it and instantly like wow, this is a lot better a lot better

By the way, the pub experience is always so much fun. You're in Ireland, right? First off, you put your pint down, you have like three sips, there's a new pint right next to it. Right, as soon as you start to lower it, they're like, there's another one. And at one point her uncle Pat, he's like,

I know, Abel will sing us a song from Philadelphia. Bill? And I'm just, okay. So I could- And what did you sing? A better will sing us a song from Philadelphia bill Okay, so what did you say? I I grew up while I grew up on the Clancy brothers and Tommy make him I was sharing with you I think I sang for Greenfield's go on which is a great Bill is singing something is a song from stupid. Oh, it's a great song actually Ireland is like the mother and she's got four so. If you sing it, it'll be better. All right, gosh, she's on the spot.

Let me have another sip. What did I have, said the pro-lore woman. What did I have this pro-lore woman did say? I had four green fields. Each one was a jewel but strangers came and tried to take them from me excuse me i have fine strong sons they fought to save my jewels my fourth green field will bloom once again said she That's beautiful. I kind of screwed the lyrics up. It was beautiful. Yeah, I grew up on that stuff Yeah, I

Love the Irish Scotch heritage. I love it. I love that you love I love the stories. I love to sing it I love to get my African American and Cherokee and Irish and Italian children to sing it with me because it gets in their bones. They just keep spreading it. And it's, it's a love of freedom. It's a love of culture. It's a love of music and pints and whiskey. We're going to come out with like 10 great folk songs. Everybody needs to know. Yeah. Go. Um, and the band played waltzing Matilda. Oh my gosh. Yeah. We talked about that. And that's a tearjerker. I love, um, oh my gosh, Mountain Dew. Let grasses grow and waters flow in a free and easy way,

but give me enough of that fine old stuff that's brood near Galway Bay and policemen are from Donegal Sligo lithium-2 They'll give me the slip when you take a sip of the pure old Mountain Dew There you go. Is that where Mountain Dew comes from? Is that's all I thought of was that terrible terrible drink? Yeah, it is terrible. That was my favorite drink when I was a teenager Was it the most caffeinated soda is Mountain Dew? Is it? Yeah, not anymore though. Surely it's monster or Red Bull. Well, that's not caffeine. Oh It's not that's taurine. I think Some weird most of them. They just have all kinds of stuff in them now

This is great, thank you. You're welcome. So true confessions Neil I smoked half a cigar with Matt the other day and So true confessions, Neil. I smoked half a cigar with Matt the other day and became ill. Did you smoke a man? I can't. Yeah, I did. I got nauseous. I can do half a cigar. So I have this little baby cigar. I like the idea of pipes more than cigars,

but I like cigars more than pipes. Well, you instantly get the pleasure. Yeah, the pipe is a slower draw, but I just it's more contemplative. It is. It's to hold it the ritual of it. I just love it. I agree. The ritual is nice. I'd like to get back into it, but it's kind of like going. It's like if you drank drip coffee and then you got into espresso, really good espresso, and then you try to go back to drip coffee. That's what it's like. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you try to go back to drip coffee.

That's what it's like. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can go back to it and then you can appreciate what it is, but it's a hard, it's a hard transition back because I appreciate that. Honestly, every time you smoke a cigar, you get the instant pleasure of smoking a cigar pipes. In what way?

Well, you know, there's just an immediate taste directly on the leaf. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. With a pipe, um, you can have a really bad smoke. You can have, you know, you's just an immediate your mouth is directly on the leaf. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah exactly with a pipe You can have a really bad smoke. You can have you know, you're drawn too fast. It's too ashy the bull gets too hot But I kind of like that because it's you know, there's not that was a good smoke. Yeah, that was a good smoke Yeah, I started smoking pipes in Ireland So did my dad. I don't know why I probably cuz all the old fellows were doing it and there's a great Peterson's pipe shop down in Dublin. Yes. Wonderful. Yes.

Peterson is the best pipe maker. Yeah. I have three. I think you do have the the system where you have the the hole that hits the roof of the mouth and disperses the smoke as opposed to directly on the tongue. And there's also like a second chamber in there. So the smoke goes up, has to go back down and come back up to cool the smoke down. That's what you have. I forget that's the Yeah.

Yeah. The big the big pipe that I had that you liked is a Peterson. It's a really nice Gandalf Churchwarden Peterson. It's great. Yeah. Well, again, back to our boys, right? The lads talking to Lewis pints and pipes when they met in the pub, the Eagle and the child pub, which again and the Child pub,

which again, we're going next spring on a pilgrimage there. You mentioned how you can get to the courses, but do you have a direct link for this pilgrimage? No, no, no, no, no, no, we're still building that out. So that'll be announced at the website eventually. But the guys, you know, the Inklings were a group of, you know, literary men, mostly, if not all Christian, Tolkien, of course, Catholic were a group of you know literary men mostly if not all christian tolkien of course catholic and a couple others but It would be the pints and the pipes and that's where they started reading their stories. That's where tolkien would read the hobbit Before it was published

Lewis would read snippets from the space trilogy before it's published Lord of the rings before it's published you imagine and they were encouraging each other Lord of the Rings before it was published. Can you imagine? And they were encouraging each other. In fact, Tolkien never would have published Lord of the Rings without Lewis's constant. No way. Yeah. And the first reviewer of Lord of the Rings was C.S. Lewis.

He wrote the first review. And the space trilogy, the first book, was rejected by a publisher from, C.S. Lewis was rejected out of the Silent Planet. Tolkien wrote a personal letter to that publisher and said, this is good. Please publish it. And he did. So again, like if these guys weren't encouraging each other in that friendship, we wouldn't have these amazing. It's, it's fantastic. Wow. Yeah.

And that just goes back to the whole idea of fellowship building each other up. See this brewery that we're building across the road. I would like there to be a section where only men can enter That'll be interesting. Yeah, so Leah Thomas can come for example But then we can there goes YouTube chat and we can just read read poetry read books together like a man stand up, it's a re-inklings that doesn't sound right though, but Yeah, it's an inklings all over again. Let's do it. Have you, you've been to this pub?

Not yet. This will be my, I've been to England, but not to the. Now do you, I mean, how famous is it? Oh yeah, it's famous. You've got to carve out time. And if I think they just renovated it without changing it. No, it's very, it's very, in fact, my buddy, I just mentioned father Patrick, he's a week ago he was there. So people go there. They carve out a little time, um, stuff's on the wall, but they try to keep it as old school as it was. And they would meet there. It is always packed with people though. I don't know how packed,

but sometimes you go to these places and they're like huge in your mind because of that to the people who live near there. It's just, no, it's a little, it's a little spot. I think just that's I'm gonna show you something before you leave sorry to cut you off my mate Jacob Imam he came into the church few years back his godfather was CS Lewis's secretary for a while oh my god he's got some great stories and Jacob here in Superville has CS Lewis's copy of Dante's Inferno and it's all no. Yeah, I would like to see that.

I would love it. Oh, my gosh. You keep talking so I can text him. It's funny because. Dante's Divine Comedy, if you know that well, then you'll get the space trilogy because he does similar parallels, even in the fact that Ransom's character, you meet him sort of in the mid part of his life and he's kind of on a path Just like the Divine Comedy. Yeah, but

It's gonna be a small little pub. It's tiny and that's how it was and they went every Thursday Every Thursday for years and years and years and that's where they just had fellowship. They read their stories They had their little debates Tuesdays, I think it was Tuesdays They would meet at lewis's chambers at magdalen college and they would have pints and just chat up there and read stories sometimes Till three in the morning two three in the morning And this is where like all this stuff got chiseled out and worked out all these great works Have you ever tried to write fiction?

Um when I was young I won't make you read it. I know you when I was young But no, I haven't I get ideas. Sometimes I have a really bold idea. I'm this close to buying a typewriter for August That would be awesome not an electric typewriter Yeah, cool well, um, I Have a crazy idea and it's kind of bold and sassy, but you know, screw tape letters was told Lewis's work where a devil is teaching other. Don't imagine writing it from an angel's point of view, like how the angels inspire us and

in what ways they kind of infiltrate and get into us to try to lift us up. See? Yeah. But then I feel like Rafe needs to write that. Yeah, see, I couldn't. I wouldn't have though. See, you could maybe, but I don't know what you are Like as a writer if I did it would be terrible

And great would let you that's what's always did. Yeah, Crave would let me know I was telling you yesterday Have I told this already thousand times ever just a couple you can just a couple craved craved wrote a rebuke of one of my I said I sent him a manuscript and I said would you mind endorsing this? I thought that's all you did Do you mind endorsing this? Yeah. No, he wrote back when this is really bad Are those the exact words? No, this isn't well written or it was something like that. He said it was on Boston University that was it boss new version. Yeah, that's his address He said I was surprised because I've heard you speak on other topics and found you to be quite skin

We're good, but this was really quite poorly written and some obvious mistakes philosophical mistakes were made And that's what they put on the back of the book But you know what they should have they should have that would be brilliant. I wish I still had that Maybe I could write something crap and send it to him wait He emailed or sent a letter? No, he sent a letter. And you don't have it? I don't.

I think I do have another one of these letters. If he used a napkin, I would keep the napkin. I love Peter Crave. I've been reading Peter Crave since I was 16 years old. He's one of these, like a Lewis or a Tolkien or a Fulton Sheen or a JP2, Crave, I met him when I was 21 or 22. I was discerning the priesthood

and I was at a seminary in Boston and he was teaching a course. And I was just like, oh. And they played, they had a little break and they played ping pong. Seminarians, me visiting Peter Craif. He was like schooling them. And he would, you know, you put the English on it

and a little ping pong ball goes, he was putting like Japanese or And he would, you know, you put the English on it and a little ping pong ball goes, he was putting like Japanese or something. It was just like, how does he, what the? And then years later, of course, he taught for the Algae Body Institute, he taught our philosophy of JP2 course. Which I'm sure sold out in two minutes. Sold out in five minutes, it was like U2 tickets, right?

Oh really? Or insert band of your choice. But when he came, so we had 120 120 we maxed out on our students and Peter Crave was probably 74 or 5 at the time and I love telling the story because he would teach three hours of lecture in the morning philosophy. Quick lunch, play ping-pong, destroy everyone including like 19 year old scrappers Then go to chess three chess boards Simultaneously playing three people destroy them all go teach three more hours of philosophy. Are you good at chess Neil? I'm pretty good at chess. Would you play him live?

Yeah, cuz I am not him Peter crave when he comes in Oh, yeah, he'll be coming in see I don't have the humility to play him because I know I would just be trounced and I'll be like What's this thing called again? That'd be cool imagine though at 76 start practicing now Yeah, cheat if you have a problem is he's 86. So if you beat him everyone's like what dude he's 86 And if he beats you it's like dude, he's 86 like you can't win But I was just I mean I just I just love my voice loved him he's just I hope I have that you know just that are you

magnanimity like you absolutely I promise you but it was just awesome one person beat him one time in ping-pong that was you baby yeah and I just I played him ten times did you have to try to calm down? In your face, old man! I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I put the paddle down and I walked away. I'm done now, but it took 10 games to beat him, but I was the only one who was so happy. And I got to drive him to the airport

and we talked about surfing, Lord of the Rings. I love him. And the culture and he has such a dry sense of humor to me. When you first meet him, he's an odd guy and the oddity kind of socially awkward. Yeah, I'm like, do you not want to be here? Do you not? Because if you don't, you didn't have to come. I feel like maybe I'm imposing, but that's not it at all.

No, he's just himself and 86. I don't really care what you think. No, and he's not in a rush. Definitely not a rush. You know, so and he's not. There rush definitely not a rush, you know, so he and he's not There's no like gaps where he's just this is kind of weird. I got he's just Last time he was here. He was drinking scotch and the only beer I had was like a peanut butter stout and he mocked me He's like I'm not drinking Sorry, the best line in our last interview was when I was like, what's your favorite movie?

And he's like, what's yours? And I went dumb and dumber. No, you didn't. I did. I said dumb and dumber. I don't even mean it. And then he said a man for all seasons. Oh, yeah, that one. Because I said dumb and dumber.

And he went, well, that is dumb. Oh, we're we're. Whenever somebody asked me my favorite movie, I just instantly. I can't do it because there's somebody's a flood of great films. What's my favorite movie, I just instantly I can't do it because there's so many flood of great films. What's your favorite movie? Bumps set spike. I don't know.

There's just too many. What did I I watched the short? Is that what it's called about the housing market crash? It's very good. I probably never watched that, to be honest. Isn't it the big? That's right. The big short. I think that's what it's called. And then I'd be interested in that.

Sorry. Have you watched Stranger Things 4 yet? I've watched some of it. Any good? I thought it was kind of boring, but here it's kind of horrific. Like we went a couple of episodes in and it got so demonic, creepy that we just stopped. Yeah. And we've enjoyed. I mean, they're all kind of dark obviously But it got a little too dark and we just stopped. I don't want that stuff in my I'm not a big horror film fan

Yeah, it's just the 80s vibe of Stranger Things is brilliant Yeah, again previously we talking about it just seeing a bunch of kids Not holding smartphones like at a, you know, community pool or playing Dungeons and Dragons, like it just takes you back. You're like, man, that was great. You just like ride your bike. Like I'm going to Jimmy's gonna ride my bike takes 15 minutes to get there. See you at dinner. I mean, my childhood, the 80s was I feel like it was the last great childhood to the

Atari 2600 debuted when I was like it was the last great childhood to the Atari 2600 debuted when I was like 13 Video games right space invaders pac-man all that stuff and it was just it was kind of novel and cool And we would play for an hour and they were like, let's go play baseball. Let's go for a bike ride Yeah golden age of just you'd be gone for six seven hours, I don't even know if we ate food we just be riding bikes climbing trees and of just you'd be gone for six, seven hours. I don't even know if we ate food. We just be riding bikes, climbing trees. And I think that's really getting to become a lost art.

I'm not supposed to knock this. You can go for it. Yeah. I grew up in a small country town in South Australia and was similar. Rode my bike until dark and they had to be home. But some of my best memories of playing video games with friends. And I know that sounds bad. What was different that it was actually was it? Yeah, no, today it's.

It's such an individual thing. I mean, unless you get your hands in on your kind of disembodied, connecting with. But it was sort of like it's me versus you. And we're doing this together, I think. Yeah, no, it was. I was sitting in the same room playing with people. And I remember when I first learned that Xbox and these other

Things no longer had the functionality to play multiple games Like split-screen on one right right right it wasn't competitive in that sense anymore But then you would play it yeah with your friend down the road right which again. It's kind of weird. It's different. It's different and Almost never-ending. I mean the the whole Fortnite thing, I think, is tragic. Why? Well, my son's got a friend who, he was probably 11 or 12 when he got it, and we didn't see him for three months. He's on it constantly. There's no end in sight, so to speak, with a game like that.

It just keeps going and going and going. I see what you mean. It's like when you're at a casino and there's no windows, there's no clocks on the walls. Yeah. It's just keep going, going, going. And I don't think that's good. That was interesting what Neil said earlier about books being technology. Yeah. There's a really funny, uh, YouTube video about it's a monk and he's got like a, well, he he's they're moving from

scrolls to books I don't you've seen this that's hilarious and he calls for tech help because he lost his place and he's like I don't know how to because he's used to the scroll right so the guy can take it just lift the cover and there's your content it's like oh okay great great great great and then he's like and if you want new content, you want to turn the page. And then he turns his way. I just I just something's wrong. I've lost everything. I've lost it all.

You just turn the page back again. Oh, OK. All right. OK, great. It's really funny. Yeah. Different between a book and a phone, though, is you act on the book and the phone acts on you.

That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. And the phone has, it's like a, there's little rabbit holes everywhere. Pop-ups. Yeah. What's interesting is that even though electronic music, if you want to put it that way, so not on a physical object that you're inserting into something like a record or a CD or a tape, whereas like Spotify electronic music has taken off. or a tape, whereas like Spotify electronic music has taken off. Ebooks really haven't in the same way.

But you don't see people with CDs and you might. And obviously, people like the nostalgia of records. Mm hmm. That's coming back. But there are people like books, like people still buy paper books more than they buy electronic. True. Probably. That's probably true. Let's just go with it. Why is that? I think again, incarnational and yeah, and it's touchable, tangible and I can.

I can stay in it. But why? I mean, you can do that with an ebook, can't you? It's touchable, readable. Take it with you where you go. I'm just trying to figure out why did ebooks not take off in the same way that's Question because they have similar advantages. Well, the input you can have a billion songs on

Spotify on your Spotify playlist you have a billion books on this little glowing rectangle that you carry with you It must be the sensory it must be the input, you know, the ear different from the eye the way you consume Yeah music is a from the eye the way you consume. Yeah. Music is a. That's a good point kind of moving through your life and it's the soundtrack. I'm looking trying to look up a chart or something. What I found so far is the audiobook industry was not audio book

there, right? I'm not doing audio. I'm not doing audio books to about ebooks like, you know, like you read on a Kindle. Oh, I swear you're flipping like do you ever read a book on a Kindle. Oh, I swear you're you're flipping like do you ever read a Kindle? I And you find that preferable to holding a paper book I?

Don't think of there's there's pluses and minuses it's it's like The plus is you can kind of hold it above your head if you're lying on your back It's much easier to read an e-book you can read it in any time of day Nice one harder to carry the sumo with you when you fly. Right. Yeah, there's definitely advantages. Like, how do you carry a whole library with you? There's some people who have like e-books and carry their whole library in their e-book and have their like paper reader.

But not many, right? Not many, but I respect the people who do. Because it seems very practical. I'm not knocking them. I'm just wondering why it hasn't taken off in the same way that music on your iPhone has replaced CDs. Like, why is it that people are buying paper books when you could just like I subscribe to some comic book back when I was into comic books until they all became gay and you can

pay like ten dollars a month and get unlimited. I think it was DC, Marvel, everything. But I wanted a comic book. I wanted it. And I think a lot of, Marvel, everything. But I wanted a comic book. I wanted it. And I think a lot of people are like that. And I'm not knocking it. Let's just say that both the same. I'm just wondering.

I think it's just the simplicity of it and the touchableness of it. That's true. You don't touch music in the way you touch it. You know, yeah. And you can. You don't touch a CD player in the way that you open and close a book. And I've and I've got I've got hundreds of kindle versions of books that I actually have many of them I have the actual hard copy as well. Yeah, but the reason I get the kindle is so I can research Yeah, I can brilliant, you know, yeah

Yeah, I'm doing this course next week on the writings of John Paul to on gender marriage and family I go into theology the body the actual book. I mean the kindle book To do a search gender by the way comes up zero times nice put in sex 340 times whatever it is. So interesting. So I for like research purposes and stuff like that, but But when I get a book to read I want to I feel the book I think the reason is is if you think about how most people read is it's it's kind of a project They're starting right so I think that it's it's rather than It's not a one sitting general idea of I'm gonna read a million books

And so this is the most efficient way to actually read and to carry everything around with me They're like I'm gonna read the brothers K So I should buy the brothers K and carry that around with me that'll get me to read it It can be my little book that I read because it's a whole project. I can underline it, which is far more natural than trying to do it on a screen. Right. Well, I really like just writing

in like the margins or something. Yeah. But they try to replicate that on eBooks, right? You can write little notes and you're like, and then it'll go across all your devices. Like, I don't care. But I would, that'd be my guess is it's, it seems to me that people buy books most often

one at a time as like Their kind of life project for the next like that's a good two or three weeks And I think that the physical book that you can carry around is kind of selling that where the e-book isn't Because you have to spend a lot more and you only are gonna get one book to start out with you see what I'm saying I think so. I like the word naturalness also, there's a natural I think so. I like the word naturalness also. There's a natural.

I bought a record player last year before my August because it's in my phone. I really enjoyed it. And I don't care how hipster that sounds. I'm not just I liked. I like tending to the music. I like having to put this thing on and having to be there for when it clicked off and I would turn it over or go back to the start. Yeah. This I love it. I love it because again, this this is human process. Kind of. But then to Neil's point, like records did replace, like if we didn't have records, maybe people would sit around and play music.

Actual music. Oh, yeah. Well, that's always the preferred. Yeah. You know, I wonder if it's Crave to actually talked about this. And he wrote a book on the philosophy of Tolkien Did you ever read Peter craves book on the philosophy of Tolkien? Wow, is it good? Yeah I mean he gets into under the hood, but it's really good, but he talks about you know There's kind of the song of songs that kind of drops down into poetry and poetry drops down into prose And prose is kind of dropped down into like texting lol Like that's the way to the point now where people don't use

Capital letters and period and he actually talks about that like we decapitate which means cut the head off So and I you know, I'm my teacher and I how many papers and stuff I've graded where it's just there's a loss of even periods Capital I want to be a university professor just so I can give everybody an F I knew you could say that did you get the red pen out tear it up I know I'd be no better than them that's the sad truth but I'd pretend I was back to Tolkien capital letters everywhere right when you read you see a word that has a capital letter which seemingly like why would that have a capital letter? It just instantly elevates you. Like, whoa, that's important. That's big.

But yeah, to this point, we just decapitate everything. It reminds me of why Mother Mother Teresa would write Blessed Sacrament or Blessed Virgin Mary, or she'd always or him talking about our Lord. She would always capitalize. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah So what would you do if you had the courage to do it and the means to do it regarding? stripping yourself from modern technology mmm

Because you just before we went live you were speaking about that that Spanish priests, what did he say? Yeah Doing of course a couple weeks ago in Madrid in this beautiful location on top of this mountain. It was glorious. If you look up a largest cross in the world, that's where we were literally. It's a Benedictine monastery on top of this mountain. And I'm talking about the way of beauty, the way of wonder, this idea of slowing down and drinking in the gifts that surround us. And, uh, he said, you're telling us this bill, but, but I notice you keep looking at your watch. Say it again.

I'm afraid we're not here. Okay, he says, I'm talking about slowing down, getting rid of the Martha Martha complex, a frenetic activity, and just be like Mary and be, he says, Bill, I'm sorry to critique you, Bill, but I notice you're telling these things about slowing down, but you keep looking at your watch. Why does he sound like Nigel Lee? I don't know. I thought it keep looking at your watch. What does he say?

Like naturally, I thought I was in a video. Did he say I took the watch off and just say this to in front of everybody? He kind of he kind of drew me in. I know. But I actually afterwards, then we had we had a break. And is that why when I pointed out your watching, I can throw it away. I got rid of it. Look, it's still wounded, wounded from the. He did it during a break.

When we came back, though, I said, but I just called me out and so for good reason. What would you do if you had the courage to do it? I would go cold turkey. What does that mean? I would get rid of the smartphone. Uh huh. I would. I feel better without it. I mean, I get now the neat look and need.

We survived in the 80s. We didn't have to, you know. But but checking in. But see, society moves on. Yes. And you actually required to use it. That's what happens as technology advances. Who's requiring it? Like a restaurant that says you have to scan the QR code because they know.

Men use. Yeah. Yeah. Like things move on and then you screw it and then you can either just not go along with. It's annoying. Yeah. So you have to. No, you don't. Well, I mean, if you want to eat a restaurant, so just don't eat the restaurant. So if you get rid of the smartphone, you get rid of other things. I had Mark Barnes on the show last year.

He's got this great line He said a man With a car in a world made for feet is a god And then he said and a man with a car in a world made for cars is in traffic That's good. That's really good So as things kind of quote-unquote advance. Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right, so you get rid of your smartphone. You can do that That's not that hard. Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right, so you get rid of your smartphone. You can do that. That's not that hard Get a wise phone Or a gab phone, right? Yes. I know you already I think I'm gonna have to look into that. I'm not shaming

Since you want to do it. I'm just helping you here. We're stepping into some Interesting places because we're both married we both have wives And we parent differently as many women right news differently as men and women right news alert here men and women are different so I don't need to check in so much on the kids like I like to give them freedom just have a general sense but for good reason my wife would be a little bit more plugged in like do you know where are they I get that I get that, I get that. So I think for that reason,

I couldn't get rid of it entirely. Though I would want to. So there it is. How would Cameron react to like, the inability to connect her? My love rolls with the punches. I just do what I wanna do and she, her life just gets busier.

Cause I'm like, just text Cameron if you need me. Oh my gosh. Well there's that. Yeah. And she her life just gets busier. I'm like just text Cameron if you need me Well, there's that yeah, yeah, um, I Don't know I Just I the whole helicopter parenting thing and I know I'm guilty of it too, but I don't want to do it I want more freedom when I think about my childhood My parents were divorced when I was 15. I'm sorry. And, oh yeah, well it's amazing how you can't, you look back and you're like, I wouldn't

change it now. I understood with that, you know, that brokenness and that wound has actually turned to degrace in all these other places. So you can't, like, I wouldn't want to force anything back then. Yeah, all kinds of kind of freedoms, which sometimes led to dangers, but just felt more free, human, alive. And you know, you're in trouble, you find a way, or someone's there, and generally speaking, but just this we're in a bubble. You can see everything and constantly aware of everything.

just this, we're in a bubble. You can see everything and constantly aware of everything. You know, we can do the location thingy and just, you know, I see exactly where you are and you'll be home in 13 minutes. Um, it's nice to be off the radar sometimes or under the radar or whatever it might be. It almost feels like once you start pulling at the threat of technology, you either go all out Amish or you offer up the cross of having a phone because Yeah, I was in Kansas recently and Went to a fella's house and they have no

Electricity in the house on purpose and they don't even have plumbing It was an awesome house. So this fella made with his son's Wow really normal handsome strapping father and how old? How was the fella yeah, probably in his mid 40s Wow So they've got their like oil lanterns on the wall They have a sawdust toilet. So after you do your business, she put sawdust and he empties it every day Wow And you spent a couple nights there? Nope. I spent about two hours there. It was crazy. He left no clocks on the walls, but it feels like, why don't you start pulling at the thread? Where do you stop? Like, yeah.

When I came back from my last August, I was seriously considering getting rid of email. Now that feels back to your restaurant thing. It feels like that's a necessity email. I'm really poor at responding to it, by the way. I think I have two thousand four hundred and something emails right now. That's amazing. Let's check. We check.

Let's do it. We have to do that. Public apology to everyone who's emailed me the last week or so. I can't tell tons. I have two thousand four hundred ninety nine emails. Do you actually go through them all? Um, eventually. But there's just. have 2499 emails. Do you actually go through them all the? Eventually.

But there's just, that's a necessary thing, right? But I don't like the pressure that you have to always be on. Like when they pop up at 9.30 at night or we shouldn't, you know, there used to be the sort of nine to five and now this is my time to just be or be family or do something else and yeah there's too much pressure. It's like always on imagine having your eyes always open never blinking that would kill you. I had friends who don't text me back when I text them and I am annoyed but I'm grateful for them, you know and It's so insidious now that they have this component on the phone where it's delivered or saying

I can turn that off and I have you should But yeah, see again. It's like it's it's too much It's too much. There's not enough time to breathe, breathe and just be. And not have this pressure. We've just, we've created all of it. We've created these monsters, these Frankenstein monsters that are now ruling our lives. And we feel like we just can't turn it off or live without it. And none of it will exist after death. Like literally none of the machinery that we've created will exist after death. So it's causing all of this anxiety and pressure and we don't really need it, need it and it won't go on into the next world. That's why I feel like I'm, you know, when I teach

my, the pedagogy is this idea of stirring wonder which is this sort of unplugged face-to-face contact with the real in real time and it's so hard for well for me I feel like I'm taught teaching it because I need to hear it but for everybody it takes a couple days and of course to get to the it's like detox because I feel like but I have to but they're expecting it and I should my dad always says always says, you know, we always say I should, I should, I should, my dad says, don't shoot all over yourself. That's good. That's for you, dad. But, um, again, manmade, there's no need.

What is one domain? Ooh, let's go. I think wonder is the human reception of God's beauty. God is beauty. Capital B comes to us in many beautiful things, sort of diluted or mediated through beautiful things. Wonder is our receptivity to it, you know, and it causes us to like, breathe, like whoa. And it comes in so many glorious ways,

like millions of ways. So I think wonder is a response to the beautiful. It's like awe, you know? Awe, being awe struck. It's just, wonder is like being pierced Benedict talks about this Beauty's like pierces our hearts opening us up and then giving us wings Mmm, when you encounter beauty and creation music poetry a good pint, whatever it is. It's just this pause of Yes, this is good. It is good to be here. That's wonder. Mmm, you know

and you think that phones are Getting the way of us they can there was a really weird Microsoft windows commercial years ago It's so weird some of these commercials like kill themselves in the end like the punchline is like that's And it was you know, there's a kid wakes up in the morning He looks out his window and there's like snowfall and he's like wow There's a woman jogging down the street early morning, there's a kid wakes up in the morning, he looks out his window and there's like snowfall and he's like, wow. There's a woman jogging down the street early morning and there's a deer pausing him and she's like, wow. And something else, the guy's wow.

And then it closed with the laptop opening up, Windows 95. Wow. It's like, that's not wow. That's work, like that's not wow. It's goofy, right? It's like, that's not wow. That's work, like that's not wow. It's goofy, right? It's goofy. Like the real, the deer, the hummingbird flight, which is insane.

The colors of the sunset that are literally different every time, every single time, cloud form, every single bit of weather is different. It's never been done before. That's the wow. And just like been done before. That's the wow And just like get into that that's the spirituality of wonder. That's the way of wonder the fruits slows me down Right decreases my anxiety Gets me a little bit more rooted in the real i'm constantly i'm aware of my own senses

And it's it's just healthy spiritually physically But we're just just not doing it. We're just like, that's I already saw a sunset when I was little. You know, no, you didn't see this one. That's another point Mark Barnes brings up about we talk about space travel and how incredible that must be. And he's like, don't forget, we have blinds on windows on aeroplane windows. Like who now gets into a plane, opens it up and just stares out through it. Oh my gosh. If we had space travel, it'd be the same thing.

It's terrible. A friend of mine who was just talking about, she was flying back to Florida after one of our courses and she, uh, we were kind of talking about this whole idea of opening up to the wonder. And you just see parents now kids get on airplanes. Here's your iPad. Here's your headphones, shut the window. And like, what a robbing that is of that child of the experience of flight, right? Like to, I remember my first flight, you know,

if you're feeling the rumble, you're looking at the wing flaps, like, oh my gosh, and you're begging for the window seat and you're looking at it and then you're feeling your, your stomach drop out. But it's just like, here, put on your headphones and here's your iPad and two hours later, where are we? Oh, we're in Utah. I mean, that's criminal, I think.

Is it getting to be a really depressing episode, but I appreciate it, because things are depressing. But they can be rekindled. Wonder can be rekindled. How? Get dirty. Get into the Shire, get your hands dirty. Your son, Peter, right?

My kids, they've been climbing tree, we're at the family land. Chiara and Claire, the other night, were up in that tree, like 15 feet up, sitting in that tree during the family rosary, right? Peter's got mud all over his face, whatever that was. Kids barefoot, looking like Frodo Baggins. He's all over the Shire. Peter said to me the other day, for at home. He went dad. Did you know you can cut your tongue with a single leaf?

I just did it No that yeah, let's and then yesterday I was like, okay, buddy We need to have a shower because he was just caked with mud and dirt Yeah, it's like furniture when you go like that and you get like sun in your skin. Exactly. But he's usually in the shower or the bath for like 10 seconds and then he's out. Oh yeah. So I put him in the shower and got him all ready and I was doing some other things and he's been in there for quite a while. Dad can you bring me a bottle of water? Sure. So bring him a bottle of water. In the shower. In the shower. Ten minutes go by by like dad He's been standing under the water like this until the bottle filled all the way up from the water from the from the shower head I did it

Yeah, he did oh my god perfect It's his way and he's always spotting birds and injured animals all the time And I'm like, how do you see all these things because his eyes are open. That's it Yeah, so let's get away from the depressing and into the impressing Impress yourself or let yourself be pressed in by by the real I mean as much as I am I Try to teach this stuff. I try to live it and I do it myself. I If I'm driving to work and something that rests me early October mist is amazing.

Uh, spider webs with those little diamond jewels of dew drops on them or intoxicate me. I get into it. I'll be late for work. Whatever. Let's go. Get the shoes dirty. Getting my kids outside, exploring everything. You're like picking up stuff. What the heck is this? And I'm, I'm generally awestruck by it, but I want them to just, not forcing it I'm just like I'm trying to lead by by the wow like being impressed by it and how different everything is and gratuitous like this just gratuitous beauty everywhere it's insane and it can be in a square yard patch of earth you can spend like an hour looking at you know

three by three of earth if you're still you'll see stuff coming out. You'll see different kinds of shades and colors and textures and it'll just... This is all God made. This is manmade. Everything out there is God made. Like, just think that came from the mind of God. I was outside with my kid. This was a few years ago. This wacky looking bug, about that big, I was with my kid, this was a few years ago, this wacky looking bug about that big, looked like a dinosaur, ridged back, like spikes coming out of it, crazy, right? It's crawling along the porch and we both get down,

this was Seth, he was probably six, and we're just like down, looking like this close, staring at him like, what the heck, that's so cool, dad. Afterwards, I try to identify the bug and I look it up, it's called an assassin bug. This guy on the internet is's like I'd rather be shot by a gun than bitten by that bug again hurt for three months Wow yeah I'm like this close okay so you know be cautious but explore and here's the thing with wonder it gets you into

the awe instead of the eww right what do we do when we're out in nature now? Ew, ew, you know, people have a bug on their arm. Ew, and we freak out. You're like three million times bigger than this bug. Unless it's an assassin bug. But we have to move away from the eww, eww, dirt, eww, to awe. We have lost that.

Like we've lost it. The Medievals, the An ancients, they had like they were starstruck literally by everything. And we're just like, oh, what if the only way to get from the to the ore is to really radically. Can you see things cut these things off? I know because in order to immerse, you have to cut yourself off from some of these things which prevent you from seeing it. You do. So, yeah, I mean, we got it.

We got to start being more intentional. I do. And I know, I know with your, your this August month is awesome. I mean, I've done this with the kids. I mean, even this week we're getting very unplugged with what we're, our families are both doing together out here outside of Steubenville. I took my son to Arcathios a couple of years ago. We talked about Arcathios, man, Alberta, Western Canada, a full week of complete immersion. No clocks, no gadgets, nothing. And after a day or so of this detox, you just start smelling like you're outside. You, you, you,

and you get so entrenched in it it just feels right and good and you start changing. Uh, it's uh, it's a real gift but it's hard. I mean it's hard. We want to stay clean. Everything is smooth today. I'm just reading a, this is funny. I don't know if you've heard of this guy. His name is um, oh my gosh, it's a tricky name. Blonchon Yen or something. He's a Korean born Swiss German philosopher. I don't know what that means.

But anyway, he's going into this whole thing about the philosophy of the smooth, like the aesthetic of this. Everything is smooth today, he says. The iPhone is smooth. Our cars are smooth. There's no friction. There's no resistance.

There's no negativity. It's all nice and smooth. He's like, this isn't good. We need like the rugged the jagged the negative so to speak the messy Because that's the world. God made like if you look at creation, it's chaotic and crazy It's got its rhythms and its beauties to it, but it's also nuts Assassin bugs right like crazy stuff and I always tell people when I'm teaching through this way of beauty, way of wonder, watch the Discovery Channel. It's crazy town out there. And better yet, like go into it and explore it and pick it up. And remember the God you're worshiping

in the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle is the guy that made that. They thought that was a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. Like the, what is it called? The, um The Panther chameleon of Madagascar? The thing is nuts What is it? It's a crazy looking creature with every color in the book and the eyes all over the place and It's like oh, yeah, I made this. Yeah. I forget what it's called. The MOBA ray It's like six foot seven foot wingspan on these rays to attract a mate they leap out of the ocean like 12 feet high and belly flop, bam!

That'd do it for me. Yeah, hey baby, come on over. And you're like, wow, God made that. Through the word, all things were made. Just bring the, whatever that mobile ray is called, into your holy hour. Right? Like bring the ring-tailed lemur into your holy hour i think that would be so cool to juxtapose our prayer and our ritual and liturgy which is so beautiful with images of this wild chaotic world god

made like it's just shifts your perspective of god the kind of god that we love it's god of wonder right god of wonders bjong chul han thank you bjong Han is Korean born German Swiss philosopher he's awesome is he a Christian I think he might be can I read a quote from him sure stand by standing by you're gonna love this okay young Chul Han he said he's actually gonna rock the smartphone world the stuff that we've been talking about. Stand by, standing by. Okay.

Okay, I got it. Being the cult objects of our digitally driven lives, smartphones, exhibit A, work like a rosary and its beads. Our fingers relentlessly scrolling down or swiping right and left. A pattern religiously repeated. As if trading one habit for another. Going from inward reflection, the rosary,

to outward voyeurism. And he says, the main difference, we don't use smartphones to ask for graces or forgiveness, but to call for attention instead. The rosary, he's got to be Catholic, the rosary is a contemplative inward oriented prayer. Kind of narcissistic exhibitionism, voyeurism that abounds on social media runs in an entirely opposite direction. Oh my gosh. Can I keep going with this guy?

You're gonna love this guy. He says, when we're depressed, we lose our relationship with the world, with the other. We sink into our scattered ego. He says, digitalization of the smartphone makes us depressed. This is gonna, this is a killer back to like growing up in the 70s, 80s, even the 90s. As a child, I remember holding my mother's hand at the dentist office. Today, the mother will not offer the hand to a child but a cell phone. Support does not come from others, but from oneself.

That makes us sick. We have to recover the other person. This guy sounds like an articulate me. He does. I just ran in. Where does he live? He lives in Berlin. He just lost in Berlin. Yeah.

Can you see if you can contact him somehow? Like on his website? He would be epic. I think he's probably in his late 40s, maybe. He's 63. There's a great image.

Would it be sweet if he had to take a boat because he was against airplanes. He's he's really good. He says, can I do one more bit from I want you to not stop reading beyond? Chul Han. We need information to be silenced. This is for you coming up.

This is August coming up. Otherwise, our brains will explode Really think think about the amount of content that comes into our it's too much. It's not human It doesn't come to us in a human way even like a book or a newspaper would come to us. We're in control I'm gonna this is just like he says Today we perceive the world through information. That's how we lose the experience of being present We're increasingly disconnected from the world. We're losing the world

The world's more than information. The screen is a poor representative of the world the smartphone contributes decisively to this poor perception of the world a fundamental symptom of depression is absence of the world absence of the world. A fundamental symptom of depression is absence of the world. Absence of the world. And the thing is like you can remedy that like right away. I try to tell people like get up in the morning go outside you know drop to your knees say a prayer and get outside. Rain, snow, what is it like out there? What does it feel like and smell like? Take a deep breath and then make your coffee and then go back out. Cause we just don't. You can be glued to that sucker

and be passing through all manner of diversity and stuff, but you don't, you're suckled by a phone. Like we're nursed by it. And someone else is in control of it all really, just pumped in like just, it's almost like the matrix, right? Like cut that umbilical cord cut the cord and live and it's going to be hard when you cut the cord but it's more human

yeah it's like a it's like a different it's a transition for a baby to be cut from its mother right and then it has to exist apart from it and it's a bit violent it's a transition for a baby to be cut from its mother. Right. And then it has to exist apart from it. And it's a bit violent. It's a bit of a rollercoaster ride. There's yeah. And in a fallen world, it's just messy, but, but it's fun. It's interesting. Yeah. You know, it's as a father with plans and dreams and concerns about myself and others, it's funny how death takes it all away in it. Like we were, well, we were at a camp recently and someone died at that camp last night. Yeah, literally last night. Unbelievable.

Heart attack. God bless him and god give rest his soul but I just family Francis and his family Francis to sales has a meditation on death and he talks about how like all of our plans like come to nothing it's almost like I'm under the impression that if I keep worrying about my children this will affect something but if I die I'm presumably ceasing to worry about them and life goes on without me imagine that life goes about me I'm the center of it how can it go on without me right right sobering but we worry about the church and the Pope and the president and whoever else like we're affecting something through doing that I do a

thing about it. Generally speaking, none of us, most of us can do nothing about it. And yet it feels defeatist or quietist to cease engaging with it in a worried, anxious sort of way. I think we have to engage, but we have to, we have to remain disengaged from the frenetic fear and worry and anxiety. Engage it and then give it. Like, you know, there's Carmelite monasteries, cloistered all over the place, whose bulletin boards have intentions. You know, the cloistered sisters, the nuns, the trapped, they're absorbing all this crap, and they're putting it right on the trap, they're absorbing all this crap and they're putting it right on the altar they're praying.

So they're aware. They're not running away from reality. They're actually facing it more intently, but they're not getting all the effects of the anxiety. They immediately entrust it to God. Jason Eric gave me good advice when I started speaking on the topic of pornography at high schools and colleges. I would encounter a lot of brokenness from folks and I'd ask Jason who kind of had really paved the way and went before me

And I what do you do? And he said he just he takes it all in and he goes and he lays down before the tabernacle and gives it over the Lord so I started doing that on his advice. It's like that in that awesome. I can't take this I can't I Can't do anything about it at this point I mean maybe I can there's certain things I can do about things if someone's being abused I can report it I do certain things like that but mm-hmm but I can't I can't psychologically take it on it will destroy me even just like now

if you were to be presented with all the amounts of evil that are taking place just throughout the product the lifespan of this podcast If you knew of it all if you could see it all you'd be good. Do I be crushed? Yeah That you know obviously Christ is the what does JP to say Jesus Christ is the center of the universe end of human history He's the center of the universe, end of human history. He's the center. So our lives, obviously I had a, I had a professor in college once who said, if you're going to walk this walk, whatever happened to Jesus is going to happen to you.

He took it all on, right? I, lately my wife and I just with our own home struggles and I've shared some of the stuff with you, Matt, you Matt off of this interview, but It's like gethsemane He enters into gethsemane Fully aware in his omniscience like he knows every everything every sparrow that falls but every sin And it's just I'm gonna let I'm just gonna just take this on and then just And gethsemane the meaning of gethsemane. No, what does that mean? Olive press.

So he's being crushed like the olives pressed and that virgin olive oil comes out, right? That's the first drip. So there's a great line from the Talmud that says, "'For we are like olives, only when we are crushed "'do we yield what is best in us.'" So we try to resist by our anxiety or fear or over control. He let himself be whatever happened to Jesus is going to happen to you. Crap is going to

hit you. Surrender be crushed. You know, crown of thorns mocked spit at I've shared a story earlier about some family stuff. And you know, I can put my Dukes up and fight back, but I like, I think I'm called into being this, being crushed, being pressed, not in a defeatist or weak way, but in a manly way. Like, I will sponge this up like Christ and in my, what's my prayer? The ringing out. Oh,, you know like just the ringing out and The pouring out of self-gift and then and then let the father keep keep loving on me I cannot imagine my life without I get up early I get up 5 3 in the morning and

Fire up the candle and just like now. I'm gonna drink your love in I'm your beloved son. That's it Let me just drink this in and quiet before I do devotions or read the gospel. Let me just sit here, get filled up somehow, some way I'm going to be pressed today, crushed, whatever's going to happen. But how long you've been doing that for? Get up at five 30. Gosh, about 12, 13 years. You set your alarm or do you just wake up at this point? I generally wake up. Yeah. Well, the kids.

Do you also set an alarm? I do I do I do Wow that's amazing that you've stuck to that given the Difficulties of family law used to get before 30 really? Yeah, I mean I'm slacked off a bit then I did I sliced up lazy bones lazy bones, but um well, that's the other part right you got a You got it. You got to do it. It's not a it's not an option But for me prayer has become The rest the rest in the father's arms not so much doing stuff. I have my rituals, you know But um, I got a drink in your love because I'm gonna pour myself out today

But I can't be you know, this is sort of this kind of martyrdom of always giving like so for me back to wonder Drinking in the beauty of creation drinking in good music Smoking the pipe for me is religious. I mean, it's like it's prayerful a good book Lord of the Rings, I mean it feeds my soul. I never again. I never stopped reading it. So I'm getting filled up so I can pour out. I think a lot of us, we just think we have to be the dutiful Christian, you know, the good Catholic dad who's always available and always doing something, going to a Bible study

and doing this and do that. Actually it's okay to waste time, to waste time, because it's not a waste. And no more a waste than the woman who broke the alabaster jar, right? I love that scene. That's a great comparison. Because what's the reaction from the, you know, the Jesus' own followers? What a waste. We could have done this good deed with that. And he's like, nope, she's going to remember for that. Wasting. And think of how fragrant, gratuitous, beautiful the scent of the room

was. It just like elevated. It's awesome. But we're, you know, but I gotta, I gotta get busy. Gotta do something. So how long once you wake up at five 30, like how long do you sit pray? Yeah, it's generally about an hour. So, you know, realistically speaking, I'd love to make a Eucharistic holy hour every day, but as a married man with four kids, I can't really do that. Also like violent and turbulent about having to leave your home and get into a vehicle.

And yeah, there's something not optimal about that. Right. As good as Eucharistic adoration is, I think that's right. It's different. I think, and I think, is it Francis DeSales who would speak into that, like, you know, you live your vocation, which is different than another vocation. I mean, I love to make a visit to the blessed sacrament. Sometimes I'll take the kids, we'll jump on bikes and, like, you know, live your vocation, which is different than another vocation. I mean, I love to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. Sometimes I'll take the kids, we'll jump on bikes and we'll, you know, we've got a church

five minute bike ride away, make a little visit. Maybe it's three, four minutes long. Yeah. You know, and we sing the Salve, which is so beautiful in an empty, dark church. It's awesome. And that might be the, that's it for the day, you know, in the sense of a formal prayer outside of grace, but

Spots of time don't force it, but just acknowledge like I need this. I need to just sit here quietly for a few minutes Practical question. Do you do well on a lot on? lack of so little sleep Because there are times where I wake up tired and I know Because of how I feel that a coffee can fix it But there are times I wake up and I know that no amount of coffee is gonna fix this day unless I have a nap Yeah, but if you get up at 530 every morning with young kids, how is that? How does that work for you? Yeah, I don't really know. I think there's something going on here supernatural because I've been doing it for a long time and

Coffee is essential. It's like a sacramental for me It's like the eighth sacrament. I have two or three cups before ten in the morning Oh, yeah, but I think I think I just been broken by the kids. I mean, I may have shared this before but One of our kids it's been six years. She cannot sleep through the night 90% of the time up night, tears, fear, plus, I don't know where, you know, trauma from the womb experience or the story, whatever it might be, all the kids have their own stories.

But, um, so I've been waking up in the last 10 years, two o'clock, three o'clock, I wake up three in the morning, almost every single morning. And sometimes it's not the kids I just wake up and you know our mercy right? This is the inverse 3 a.m So I'm instantly doing a little st. Michael prayer and then I might fall back out, but I I've been broken by the kids I wake up multiple times. So I I don't know I just get up Keep going but um, I think as we get older we need less sleep and less and less food

Yeah, I mean yeah, we get market haven need less sleep and less and less food. Yeah I mean yeah, we have a yeah, well, I don't know I think we do like, you know, like Peter this morning had his like third or fourth bowl of cereal I'm like keep going keep going you need more like I want to be a big strapping lad, you know Yeah, but like for us like if we fasted till three or five every day, we'd probably be way better off true That is true Because we need we don't need as much food. Our bodies aren't growing. Right. That's what is a decay. Stabilize. Yeah. Thanks for that.

Happy. You're welcome. Now who's depressing? Um, well I was the whole time. It wasn't you. Uh, but then the sleep too, maybe it's similar. Like, you know, these old folks, like they get up at five 30 before you sleep. I know it's amazing. Amazing. That weird. Why? Why would you sleep? I could see what you would need less food as you get older, but I not, Amazing. Amazing. That weird. Why? It is kind of asleep. I could see why you would need less food as you get older, but I'm not. Yeah, I guess maybe again, because your body's not growing like you, you know, teenagers sleep a lot.

Typically they do or can sleep a lot if you allow them. So there's something about their growing bodies. But I think I've survived on six or less hours of sleep for a long time. And I don't know how unique that is. But yeah yeah you just survive somehow. But I find moments in the day again back to back to wonder I find moments in the day where I have a creative sort of rest period whatever it might be. And maybe it's the drive where I'll just listen to some good music or

I'm just zoning out. I don't fill my time with some people are amazing with like I'm following all these podcasts and listening to all these different things. And I can't, I can't do that a lot. I just need to hear the wind or just like space for thoughts to go. Yeah. But not as the interesting thing about continually listening to podcasts like this one, it's cause when you're silent, your head does stuff like there is no dialogue that's going on And that's there for a reason you've got to think in the same way that dreams are there for a reason Processing all the so if I'm continually pumping somebody else's thoughts into my brain when my brain could be trying to process things like is

That good. Hmm. Maybe it's great But maybe it's not good Yeah, I mean we we are processing in the sense that computers process, we are, the brain is kind of a computer in a certain sense. It processes and that's work and right. Our dreams are working it out. But I've been, I think I shared this word with you the other day, Matt, lacuna, the lacuna, the space between things, the pregnant pause and Lacuna is essential

Otherwise, we're always tight tightly strung and it's sooner or later gonna snap sooner or gonna snap so Deep breath that's another thing to the breathing. These are simple things, right? How often do you go and then you're like I haven't had a deep breath in like six hours. I Mean there's a reason yoga and all that stuff is like taking off because people aren't breathing normally do you go and then you're like, I haven't had a deep breath in like six hours. I mean, there's a reason yoga and all that stuff is like taking off because people aren't breathing normally. We're just like little gasps. And when you finally stretch and breathe, you're like, hello world,

how you been? Good to see you again. Right? Yeah. But, um, it's machine based culture, man, keep going, keep running. The phones never sleep. Does your wife feel the same way about technology as you do? It's funny. Um, I think I probably made her get an iPhone years and years ago and they came out and I regret it deeply. She, she was, uh, definitely. Well, I mean, now for different reasons we have it, but she has always been very person oriented. When I met my wife, she was a missionary.

She was a Franciscan volunteer missionary at a soup kitchen. She was telling me the story. Oh, it's a really funny story. So she is a person who's always in with other people and she loves people. She loved the poor, the homeless, the prostitutes, the drug addicts. She worked in Kensington outside of Philly and that's when I first met her. I first met her, I was doing mission education work for the Pontifical Mission Societies which is this Vatican arm of mission. So I was going to like El Salvador, Haiti, Dominican Republic. I'd spend time with missionaries, come back to Philadelphia, and teach school kids about mission.

So I'm like the mission man. I'm going in and building the bridge. And it hit me, you don't have to go to Haiti. You can like walk out your door and find mission. The mission of love of neighbor. So I looked up a local soup kitchen, and it was St. Francis Inn outside of Philly.

And so Rebecca was the first person I met throwing garbage into a dumpster in her little overalls. And I literally, I remember that moment, this was like 99, 1999. I'm trying to find the director of the program, I wanted to serve a meal and a chain link fence, there's a dumpster and I see this lovely Irish lass throwing garbage and her eyes just like blue,

like the sea after a storm and just got drawn in and uh but meeting Rebecca it was so cool because she was a very unplugged person I mean this is of course this is back 20 some years ago but for her it was always this person and she would gravitate towards the marginalized this the person no one's looking at or listening to even when we go to a party or on date she would justitate towards the marginalized. The person no one's looking at or listening to, even when we go to a party or on a date, she would just go to that person. I remember one of our first dates, actually,

she had one nice dress, because she was a missionary, right? So she had one nice black dress. So we started dating, and we go into Old City in Philly, Second Street, and we're walking down, and we're kind of looking fancy, and we're gonna go to a meal. I'm all excited. She's just stunning, captivating, Rebecca.

And I see a homeless person up on the side off to the left. And my, you know, here I am, I'm already like, I work for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. I'm in Michigan, I'm teaching, whatever. And I see this homeless person. I always do this like, you know, I'm sorry. You know, you do the thing where I'm not going to give you money. You might, you know, waste it on alcohol or drugs. And so God bless you, God bless you.

I'm gonna keep walking. And I go to turn to Rebecca and she's like 12 feet behind me on the sidewalk next to this homeless guy in her dress. Like, do you have a place to stay? What's your name? Are you hungry? So our first date was me, Rebecca and George at a subway. And the guy smelled. He had like three winter coats on, big bag of stuff. And

I'm, I'm just like, man, this girl is unique and unrepeatable. And she is getting me out of my head. Like, Oh, I know, love love your neighbor I know the theology of the church and god bless you. I prayed for that homeless man. She's like bam right in his face I'm tearing up thinking about it because she did it all the time So yeah long answer to your short question She she's plugged into people and she really taught me to get my theology into my biology, right? Like, and anytime after if we're going out somewhere in the city and I see a homeless person, I'm like, we're going to be late for the movie. We're missing the previews, but it's awesome. Yeah. You know,

we ended up getting them a sandwich and learning their name and uh, yeah, she humanizes me more, like takes me out of my head sometimes and just like, it's got to, you know, it's got to get out through your hands. Touch it. It's awesome. There's a lot of homeless people in student bill. I'm trying to get to know their names one by one. Yeah. Oh, man. But it's it's easy to do one nice thing for one homeless dude.

And they'd be like, I'm done now. I can't Gary. Like, I know that you say that you want money for the law. OK, you said that same thing to me last time. Right. And I'll buy I bought you a sandwich. Like, do I have to keep doing this? It reminds me of Liar Liar, where Jim Carrey says, I just want to go from my car to my office without being reminded of the demise

of Western civilization. So I said There's a guy uh, lee jeffries. He's a um, I think he's british photographer And uh, he tells a story once of um, this literally rocked his world He was in london and he was just walking down the street again photographer journal photo journalist or something And he sees a homeless girl, maybe 14 on the side of the street And he's just you know, he's walking doing his side of the street. And he's just walking, doing his thing. And the lighting, the way the light was coming in and striking this homeless girl was like,

it just looked so, as an artist, he's like, wow, gets his camera out. And he's like, holy crap, there's a homeless girl on the street over there. What the heck am I? So he puts the camera down and goes over and learns her name and Again humanized a situation and this has wrecked him he's done this whole project now called lost angels traveling the world Encountering the homeless like spending time with them The smells all of it their stories and then asks permission, can I photograph you and share your

story? Wow. Basically, and his images are haunting. Neil, if you want to look it up. Oh my gosh, Lee Jeffries, Los Angeles. And it's messy. It's dirty. It's stinky. But he says, I always try to find the light of God in their eyes. The images are going to rock your world. I spent a whole length a few years ago for lent. It was just, the meditation was the face, the human face. And I just would look at the photographs he took and just, and this is a real person. Nice thing about looking at photographs is they don't smell or ask you for money

or swear at you or lie to you or. Yeah. You could certainly over romanticize that. I'm not criticizing it. I'm just, I know that I would rather look through a book of homeless people than actually encounter loud ones on fourth street. It's a start though. It's a start. Yeah. Whatever helps. Whatever starts to bridge the gap. I mean, again, Rebecca, my wife got me to think differently, act differently. And, and yeah,

it's funny cause it's messy. My wife used to do that all the time before we were married She just meet with homeless people buy them food. Yeah. Yeah, I don't allow her to do that though anymore I mean, honestly, sometimes it could be dangerous. There are people who are unstable Mental disorders can be violent. So obviously be prudent and be be thoughtful, but don't be cold We can do something we can justify prudence when we're really being selfish. Yeah. Right. Right. That's probably more often the case than not.

Yeah. But I think at some level you have to acknowledge this person. And it might be an awkward exchange, but at least, you know, I'm sorry, I'm not going to give you money. Can I buy you a sandwich? No. I just want money. OK But I'm gonna move on Yeah, I was coming out of your goes We gotta go. That's great Do you like what are they good? Heroes, but I got some euros euros euros. You're stunning. Oh buckle up. We're gonna have one after this, but I was walking out of

Yugo's and there's a fellow there trying to sell me his sunglasses, like scratched up old beaten up. I'm like, nah, but I'm wearing them, but I appreciate you trying to make an effort, but I think I bought it. I said, do you want me to buy? I can buy you some food and not a, yeah. Offer. Yeah. I've met some amazing people at the end where Rebecca served for two years as a missionary.

And again, you like open the door, you look in the eyes and you get like a crazy story sometimes, but a beautiful one. There was a guy is that his actual name was Lee, different guy. He, he was this amazing poet. And you can you look at him, you're like, oh man, that's, this is awkward. I mean, he's really stinky. He would be, he would find napkins, pieceskins pieces of cardboard and you just like write poems on it The you know, we talked about Hopkins before. Yeah, Joe male Hopkins. Do you know Francis Thompson the English poet?

I know of heaven. Yes, of course that guy's story is insane Francis Thompson Bishop Fulton Sheen loved the hound of heaven poem. That's where I first encountered it back in the 80s Francis Thompson fell into an addiction to opium and pretty much lost everything. He was homeless. He's on the street. A prostitute picks him out of the gutter, brings her back to his apartment, gets him back into health. An elderly couple somehow crosses paths. They start to realize his genius and they build him back up again that's where the hound of heaven came from I read the hound of heaven this guy when he talks about like the the bowels of he he was homeless a

drug addict and then rescued by a prostitute it's all messy but how many people pass this guy by oh this is to be one of England's greatest poets. The Hound of Heaven. There he is. That stinky crumpled up mess over there. Who's a drug addict. You know, Michael Talbot venerable. Was that a venerable?

Yeah. Or servant of God. Michael. Musician. Matthew Talbot. Matthew. Oh, yes. Matthew Talbot.

I think it is. Yeah. I don't know the whole story. Well, he was an alcoholic. Once stole a fiddle from a blind man. That's low to sell it. Yeah. What are you doing? To buy a beer with and had a, had a huge conversion. Wow. And, uh, daily communicant,

prayed the rosary daily would wear thick chains under his clothes that no one really knew about I guess till he died Wow There's a beautiful Statue in the Pro Cathedral in Dublin of the Blessed Mother He's got shackles around his wrists, and I forget exactly how it looks But she's she's either broken the chains or she's holding them was It's quite beautiful. Susan Irishman. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's like a venerable, venerable Matt Talbot.

There's a really cool movement of people in Ireland who give up the drink in reparation for those who don't. I had a guy on the show called Maddie Hart. Fabulous fella. I caught some of that. Yeah, what a guy. Yeah, that's worth watching. Awesome. But he, you know, he's like,

no problem with drink at all. Like, please drink like he's not. It's not like a puritanical thing. It's just choice. Yeah. So we'll go to his house. I'll drink whiskey. He'll drink water out of a whiskey glass. But in fact, someone watched that show.

One of my supporters, Andrew Monpetit, and he he made the pledge as well that day. And I saw him a couple of months ago. It's been, I don't know, several months. Yes. And Brian was like, yeah, I'm going to do it for life. Oh, my gosh. Amazing. Yeah. The pioneers, I think this pioneers have a badge of the sacred heart of Jesus on them.

And because I do remember, like prior to going to Ireland, that kind of romantic pub culture was shattered when I moved there because I saw how shattered families were because of the pub culture. Every single family in that town had been devastated by some one who was an alcoholic and it was quickly unappealing to me. You know, wow. Yeah, it's tragic.

I met a I did a retreat for the Calyx Society. Did you ever hear of the Calyx Society? It's Latin for chalice, right, Calyx? Okay. And their whole motto, so these are Catholics who were, you know, they wanted something more than Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, a sacramental version of it.

So their whole tagline is trading one cup for another. And it was one of the most powerful, I'm coming to give them a retreat and I'm getting the retreat. You just step into people who have been destroyed, like utterly broken to the bottom and then like built back up again. And I mean, 10 minutes in, it felt like I've been here for like two weeks. You guys like, this is amazing because they're so easily vulnerable. Like I've tasted it. I've been here for like two weeks. You guys, like, this is amazing because they're so easily vulnerable. Like I've tasted it. I've been on the edge and um, God saved me. And your edge no longer scares me. Right. Right. Yes. Yes.

That's what I find when I'm humanized, it all gets humanized and I'm not scared. I'm not put off. I'm not shocked. I'm like, that's all right. Um, a guy shared a story this week at the camp with me that uh I mean choices we make sometimes are absolutely horrendous and you're like how do you build back from that like how do you restore trust I can't even fathom but again that's the grace of God it's amazing and I think the more we like I quoted quickly earlier st. Columban a life unlike your own can be your greatest teacher.

If worse, if we're always nosing a smartphone, you're going to miss every life. And I, that's what I love about getting unplugged. It's just like getting into somebody's life. And though the internet has the appearance of a gigantic world, you end up looking at the same three websites every day and listening to the same three people every day. So this is not a world unlike your own. It's an echo chamber, like we say. Yeah. And so homogenized and you know, the face filtered,

cropped, you know, everything's like just whitewashed and clean. And to your point earlier about that, that philosopher fella, Korean, Byung-Chun Han. Do I get it right? To that, that idea of it's the, it's the opposite of the rosary, whereas instead of internalizing, I'm externalizing. True, that's it. Yeah. I think that about, you know, if pornography didn't exist, wouldn't that be good?

I still wouldn't want my children to have a smartphone. Oh yeah. Because I want my daughter, like, to write in a journal or to write little letters. Yes. As opposed to wondering what filter makes her skin look better Isn't that kind of a similar thing? Like an internal meditative reflection. Oh, yeah, however poor it might be Yeah compared to a like putting it out putting it out putting it out putting it out You know when we're driving with the kids and sometimes we've got long

we got a six and a half hour drive coming up tomorrow, and you know it's easy to sort of get the digital babysitter out and just like here, let's just nullify all of your angst and just stare at this thing. But when we're driving, Rebecca and I find ourselves constantly, look at those cows over there, look at that hill, doesn't it look like the Shire over here? Or whoa, look at that cool motorcycle, Kagan. Constantly like look up. There's a, there's a great line in Luke's gospel. Look up.

Your redemption is near at hand. I feel like our culture needs to our smartphone culture needs to hear that. Look up your redemption is near at hand. It's very, very near at hand. This has been great. Thanks for chatting with me. Absolutely. My pleasure. Finally, where can people learn more about these wonderful conferences? Cause I've been to one. It was remarkable. My wife went last year to a theology of the body conference. I think it was part one or what do you call it? Yeah.

A TOB one is an intro. Head and heart immersion course, TOB one. Yeah. And she went with an evangelical Protestant friend of hers. They just loved it. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so we're in our, what are we in our here, our 16th year, 16 years. We are in Amish country, so we are in a place that's naturally unplugged. It's a retreat center and our institute offers courses year-round on a variety of different themes, but always immersed in John Paul II's Theology of the body, which it's

everything we kind of just talked about. It's a sacramental way of looking at reality. It's recognizing God comes to us in and through the body, speaks to us through all of it. So we have head and heart immersive retreat. So your intellect, we're looking at philosophy, theology, but it's in a retreat sort of encounter of the heart. We have prayer, daily mass, adoration, the fellowship with people from around the country, around the world. Yeah, you've got people coming from Australia and where have you said coming up this week

or next week? Yeah, coming up. Yeah, next week I have a course we're teaching. We've got people from all over. We've had over 160 countries represented coming out, which is crazy. So tobinstitute.org is the website and you can see the schedule, but I have to just say personally as an educator and a teacher there, I look forward to these week long courses like, it's almost like Christmas week every time we do it

because I know I'm gonna get drawn into the beauty, into the mystery, I'm gonna make some friends, the fellowship's amazing. And for all of us, It's like a return to reality You know, it's kind of this return to the Shire to this is what being human looks like People are having meals together and sharing stories wherever they're from and in five minutes You could be weeping because you're sharing your stuff in total freedom because people are there for the right reasons and Intercessory prayer teams are surrounding it people encounter their you said something to be very beautiful

You said that whenever you're teaching there's someone in adoration praying for you and those just teaching to yeah What a beautiful profound sign of an apostolate's health when that's a priority Yeah, we realized that early on probably 15 ago, that we have to do that. So while we're teaching, Christopher West or myself or another faculty member, Christ is present in the Eucharist in the classroom. So we have that whole structure as we're teaching. There's a prayer team member in front of the Blessed Sacrament in another chapel. So you can't escape, you're destroyed. Even if you're not listening to anything we're saying, you're getting 30 hours of adoration, so there's no escaping it. And God does amazing stuff

in five days to us as a team and to the people that come. And I just feel like it's such the antidote to our culture right now that is so splintered, fragmented. We don't know who the heck we are or what we're doing or why we're here, but St. John Paul II's vision is a homecoming. It's a homecoming to yourself, to your body, to the world, to other people. So I've just put out a quarterly newsletter

with Pines for the Aquinas. It's an ink on paper. Yes, I heard you talk about that. In your hand, yeah. And the reason I'm pulling up my phone now is so I can I can read the poem that we're going to share on this first one, because you are going to love it. It's not grandiose. It's not here. Here it is.

It's called No Place to Go. The happiest nights I ever know are those when I have no place to go. And the missus says when the day is through tonight we haven't a thing to do oh The joy of it and the peace untold of sitting round in my slippers old with my pipe and book in my easy chair Knowing I needn't go anywhere Needn't hurry my evening meal nor force the smiles that I do not feel But can grab a book from a nearby shelf and drop all sham and be myself Oh the charm of it and the comfort rare

Nothing on earth with it can compare and I'm sorry for him who doesn't know the joy of having no place to go Does that get you favorite poem? Can I have the poem immediately? That's it. Beautiful. That is it What's your favorite poem? Have you got any memorized? Oh, my gosh. There's a few Shakespearean son scraps of words where stuff like that.

And it's kind of cut from the same cloth. Yeah, I love I love poetry. I love it. Jessica Powers is a favorite poet of mine. She's a close to Carmelite. Of course, Hopkins, Rilke, Wordsworth. Oh, that was good.

Who wrote that? Is that a living poet? Is it somebody? I don't believe so. That's it. Edgar Albert Guest. I'll take it. Yeah.

I want to live it. Oh, we're going to do one more prayer before we wrap up because you shared this with me the other day and it was written by Pope John the 23rd or St. John the 23rd. St. John the 23rd. I believe. This prayer will change your life. And I got a feeling that after I read it, um, everybody's going to download it, print it out and sort of everywhere. So print it out. Don't look it on your phone, print it out. As I read it from my phone. Here it is.

Let's see. Only for today, I will seek to live. Only today, only for today, I will seek to live the live long day positively without wishing to solve the problems of my life all at once. Only for today, I will take the greatest care of my appearance. I will dress modestly. I will not raise my voice. I will be courteous in my behavior. I will not criticize anyone. I will not claim to improve or to discipline anyone save me. Let's see here. Only for today I will be happy in the certainty that I was

created to be happy not only in the other world but also in this one. Only for today I will adapt to circumstances without requiring all circumstances to be adapted to my own wishes. Only for today I will devote ten minutes of my time to some good reading remembering that just as food is necessary to the life of the body so good reading is necessary to the life of the soul Only for today I will do one good deed and not tell anyone about it Only for today. I will do at least one thing I do not like doing and if my feelings are hurt, I will be sure that no one notices. Only for today, I will make a plan for myself.

I will not follow it to the letter, but I will make it and I will be on guard against two evils, hastiness and indecision. Only for today. I will firmly believe despite appearances that the good Providence of God cares for me as no one else who exists in this world. Only for today I will have no fears. In particular, I will not be afraid to enjoy what is beautiful and to believe in goodness. Indeed, for 12 hours I can certainly do what might cause me consternation were I to believe I had to do it all my life Love it. I love the last bit there. I will not be afraid to enjoy what is beautiful. What does that mean waste time?

Don't be in a hurry. Oh, this isn't productive What is gonna do for me or other people? I'm just gonna enjoy what is beautiful. I Love that final line. Indeed, for 12 hours, I can certainly do what might cause me consternation, right? I believe I had to do this all my life. It's so true. I mean, anyone trying to break free from a habit or an addiction would say the same thing. Right. It's like the alcoholics anonymous, like just just today. Just this hour today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And thanks for introducing me to that poem. Saint John the 23rd. Mm hmm. Thanks, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And thanks for introducing me to that poem, St. John the 23rd. Mm hmm. Thanks, man. Yeah, I love you. Glad you exist. I catch it. Cheers, Matt.