The Eric Metaxas Show - Ken & Linda Koldenhoven (Encore)

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

Ken & Linda Koldenhoven share their book: Connecting Around the Table: Discover the Power of Eating Together as a Family. https://us.amazon.com/Connecting-Around-Table-Discover-Together/dp/B0DCR6QMBG

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Eric Mataxis show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you can protect your wealth with noble gold investments. That's noble gold investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. Did you ever see the movie The Blobs starring Steve McQueen? The blood-curdling prep of The Blub. Well, way back when Eric had a small part in that film, but they had a small part in that film, but they had a to cut his scene because the blob was supposed to eat him, but he kept spitting him out. Oh, the whole thing was just a disaster. Anyway, here's the guy who's not always that easy to digest.

Eric Pataxon. Hey there, folks. I'm excited right now because I get a few minutes to talk to my friend Roger Kimball of the new Criterion about a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. For example, I want to talk to you about Greek wine. You wrote an article about Greek wine. I want to talk to you about Greece. But first I want to talk to you about the other day I mentioned that I worked Turner Classic movies.

And I watched a film called Libelled Lady, 1936 with Myrna Loy, William Powell, Spencer Tracy, and Gene Harlow. Yes. And I mentioned it to you, and you know the film. It's a brilliant film. I recommend it to everyone. I'm a great fan of Myrna Loy and William Powell. It's an hilarious film, actually. And if you like trout fishing, that plays an important role.

But the trout fishing sequence was, I thought, the dumbest thing in the film. It deliciously done that. Yeah. No, of course, of course. But it was, well, I love old films probably for some of the reasons you do too, that first of all, just the way people dress. Oh, my God. Yes.

Well, you know, this is a very interesting thing. you should mention that, Eric, because people talk about the destructive nature of the 1960s, and it certainly was very destructive. They talk about how they took over the universities. They insinuated a radical left-wing politics into it, how the same thing happened with, you know, the radicalism in our politics, just in general. But something that I don't think has gotten quite as much attention as it should is what it's done to manners. You know, Edmund Burke was right when he said that manners and morals are much more important than the law in the following way,

because manners and morals touch us everywhere. And whereas the law, at least it used to be the case, only touched us very rarely. But they dress beautifully, they spoke beautifully, they had good manners in these old films. And that was a sign of a respect that they showed not only for each other, but for our culture. You know, the Polonius, you know, in his little speech to Laertes, you know, he says, you should be careful. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy.

You know, for, how does it go? Cost of the habits they purse could buy for the apparel off proclaims the man. And they in France are the best rank and station of a most select and generous chief in that. You know, rich, not gaudy, but you should be well-dressed. So that's what we get the phrase from Shakespeare, clothing makes the man. Clothing, yes, yep, yep, yep. So there's a lot of, actually there's a lot of wisdom in that speech of Polonius.

People try to make fun of Polonius, and he is in some ways a windbag, but a lot of good things. Well, watching a film like the one we just mentioned, the libeled lady, it's just astonishing that whenever they show, just the way they live, they're always, I mean, I'm not. wearing a tie right now. They just are so turned out. It's so beautiful to just why. This is what the men are wearing. The women gorgeous, just really beautiful. But it's, it was a really fun, crazy film, a screwball comedy, rapid fire dialogue. And there are many others that they did together. I recommend them all, but that is one of the very best. Yeah. Well, we'll have to talk about film another time. I wanted to talk to you today. I think, yes, I did tell you that we're doing a Greek cruise next June.

Folks, if you want to find out about it, go to Ericmetaxis.com slash cruise. Not spelled like Ted Cruz. Cruz, C-R-U-I-S-E. Ericmataxe.com slash cruise. Like the missile. But, yes, like the missile. But I, you wrote something about Greek wine. Right.

And I thought I have to ask. was that published? Okay, so I write a regular wine column for the Spectator World. Aha. Which is the American edition of The Spectator in London. Yeah. And they

share some content and so on. It's the world's oldest magazine actually. This is, but the American edition has been going on now for, I don't know, five or six years, but I write a monthly wine column for them. I didn't realize that you were an enophile. I'm definitely an enophile.

I did not know that you were an enophile. Now I realize you are. Yes. And you, in the article about Greek wine, we don't have a lot of time, but that's another thing we can talk about another time. But I just thought that the one thing that you mentioned that just stopped me, because I ought to know this. Homer, innumerable times, refers to the wine dark sea. Yes. You say that in the Homeric Greek, it's not necessarily the wine dark.

You just make some points there. I thought I've got to get you to talk about. The phrase, the word for wine in Greek is oinas, right? And pontos is the word for C. The phrase in its little epithet in Homer is oinops pontos. And so it's wine plus the word opse. which means eye, or face.

So really, a more literal translation would be the wine-faced sea or the wine-eyed sea. Well, I would say, maybe I'm wrong, but maybe it's the wine-appearing sea. Isn't the idea that the sea looks like wine? That's possible. Isn't that it? That's another possibility.

I've often seen it as wine-faced sea. Yeah. Well, but I mean, depends how we take the term faced, what that means. When you say this, you also make the point, which I found astonishing, and I still can't believe it, that in the ancient world, at least in the 7th century, 8th century BC, whenever Homer wrote this, that they didn't have a clear view of color the way we do and that they would not have had a word for blue? That is an argument. I think I said in that article.

It's one of the things I'm not required to have an opinion about, so I don't. So William Gladstone, the British Prime Minister, was also an accomplished classist, and he wrote about this. His idea was that they did not have words for hue as we do, so blue and red and stuff. They had words for intensity of colors. That's so bizarre. Absent a time machine, we don't know. But it is kind of interesting. And, you know, I think a lot of people unfairly disparaged Greek wine.

I once sailed up from Rhodes to Bodrum, and it's many years ago now with some friends. And the Greek wine we had was not particularly good, but there is some really good Greek wine, especially from places like Santorini, right north of Crete. I have to say that I know a little bit about this because my cousin Yangos, for many years, ran a winery on our family property. And the grape, it is Gephalonia, cephalonia, one of the Ionian islands. And the grape there, it's Robola wine,

which is native only to Cephalonia, and it's a white... Yes. It's one of the complications of Greek wine. There are more than 350 indigenous grape varieties. Plus, they've imported a lot of things from Europe. like, you know, a cabernet and stuff like that. So it's, you know, every place, it's, it's a very complicated thing. And there's some really good Greek wine. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. It's, it's, it's a new world. And you say in the article that, you know, not many years ago, Greek wine was like Ritzina,

which is basically not great. It just tastes like, I don't know. Well, it's like pine pitch, you know, because it's sealed, the jars are sealed with that. A friend of mine said that he would rather look at Christmas trees than drink them. Right. Right. Right. That, was the line. Well, anyway, Ritzina, which actually can be great. I had some recently. There's a restaurant in Astoria, which is where I was born, and if you want

good Greek food, but I think it's called Agnanti. And they had two kinds of Ritzina, and John Zmirak and I were there. And it was the best Ritzina I have ever had. I thought this is amazing. But just to the point, it was out of time here, but

Greek wine has become very sophisticated. Yes, it has. I mean, my my cousin, as I said for years, had a very sophisticated winery. I was just amazing, small winery, but it's interesting. Now, if people want to read you on wine, what's the website? It's Spectator World. I think it's SpectatorUS.com. Okay, well, anyway.

It's easy to find it. Roger, Kimball, Spectator, wine, you'll find it. Roger, thank you so much. It's great to talk, Eric. Hey, folks, hold off on purchasing your first order from Balance of Nature, because I've got some information you need to hear. If you go to Balance of Nature.com to buy their popular fruit and veggie supplements, a discount offer will pop up.

It may say 20 or 25% off your first order. Don't click that because if you use my code, you'll get a much better offer, 35% off your first order plus free shipping. My special code is Eric, you guessed it. Use my code, Eric, and say big. And here's another bonus. Balance of Nature has a risk-free money-back guarantee. So go ahead and find out for yourself.

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You may get up to 10 free brand new one-ounce silver trump coins or a 10-ounce silver American flag bar with every qualifying IRA. That's noblegoldinvestments.com. If you know me, you know that one of my big themes is that we're supposed to live our faith out in every sphere. It's not just some intellectual theological thing. We're supposed to live it out holistically, integrated into every part of our lives, which brings me to my two guests right now. I have Ken and Linda Coldenhoven, not their real name, as my guest. They're the authors of a brand new book called Connecting Around.

the table. What a great idea. Ken and Linda, welcome. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you. It's great to be here with you. Well, I got to ask you, what prompted you to write a book about this? I mean, it sounds like you've been living this life. I mean, describe it. The book is brand new. Not that many people will know about it. So I'm glad I get to introduce it because it's an important idea. Thank you. We wanted to write this book because actually, like, I know you and Suzanne and us, we did live this with our kids, you know, eating around the table, making time for dinner. And as we know, what is happening right now to our children, the left is just trying to tear apart the family and to get us to not, you know, be together.

So we saw the benefits of it with our family, and we definitely wanted to write this book and let other people know. We wanted to start a movement to have families eat together again. it could solve so many problems. For me, I saw it firsthand, how important it is. I was going to say before, before Ken, you continue there. You guys are now grandparents. Yes, we are six grandchildren.

How many kids, how many grandparents? And when did you start doing this? Did you do this with your kids? Go ahead, Ken. Sorry. Well, we have three children. They're all married, and they all have two children each. So we have six grandchildren, five boys,

and we finally got that little girl, princess. You know, I guess I was building a business early on and I was gone quite a bit. And we were at a conference and it was on getting a priority straight, making sure God was first, then your family, then your business. And I thought, surely I'm the poster child of that until I went home and asked my daughter. And I set it up good so she could confirm it. And she laughed in my face. And she said, Dad, it's business, business, business with you. It really made us think hard about what we were doing and what, you know, it wasn't the way I was raised. We moved to Florida. I worked out of my home. I started cooking breakfast. We had a blast.

I got to know what my kids were doing, what they were about, what they were into. I started doing dinners, and then they started doing homework and then helping. It gave me a chance to be a father, a real father in our home and a better husband as a result of it. So we saw the value, what it did for a family, how it brought us together, how it got us to love each other more, we had a blast around the table. And it was something they looked forward to after we had done it for a while. So it was such a blessing for me. And we know that that's how God intended us to be together.

You know, we all have to renew our mind, body, and soul every day. Boy, dinner time's a perfect time to do that. We can accomplish all that. But we just have to do it on a consistent basis. Well, you're talking about community and you're talking about family community. And this is the sort of thing that, let's be honest, we all know, it's gotten worse and worse and worse and worse. This is what I always say, this is the downside of the free market. I'm a big free market guy.

But the point is, the free market will give you whatever you want. And oftentimes what we want is maybe not so great for us. Like to have a phone so I can get exactly what I want. So I'm not watching stuff with the family. I'm watching stuff that's aimed at me at some point that destroys relationships. It erodes community. And so what you're talking about is really taking the family back, building the community of the family. So I said it before.

This is a very important subject, folks. This is very important. This is central to everything. If you get this right, lots of good things follow. So you've been doing this since your kids were kids, and now they have kids. at what point did you say maybe we should write a book about it? Well, I think with what's going on in the world in America right now, you know, we saw the great quote from our late great President Reagan.

In fact, we have it on the back of our book where he said in his farewell address, all great change in America begins at the dinner table. How true is that? You know, we are the leadership starts in the home. And so we have to start getting our kids around the table, even if it's breakfast, to let them know about America, about God, about our faith. And like Ken said, you know, when you put God first, family second, and then your business, all those priorities, everything works out. And the kids follow. We're glad our kids are following the legacy and they're eating together with their kids.

And you have to be able to be strong as a parent and to tell your kid, hey, no phones at the table. There are a lot of people that they don't have that strength. They feel like, well, I don't want my kid to dislike me. But you're blessing your kid when you say no phones. When you have rules, I think there's something, too, about a family, there's a family culture. In this family, we do this. In this family, we do this to enforce that. And eventually everybody buys into it.

You say these are the rules. But at this point, I mean, when you started, you know, there weren't phones at the table. At what point did you see this as an important part of your faith and your family? In other words, well, first you're just doing it because it seems like you need to do something in the right direction when your daughter says that you're all about business, dad. But at what point did you feel like this is an expression of my faith, or was it from the beginning? You know, I think for us, every morning we pray to be bold and courageous,

especially what's going on in America right now. We need our churches to stand up and be bold and courageous. If you gave us a list of ten things we thought we would do, writing a book was never beyond that. And we just came to the conclusion, you know, we're praying to be bold and courageous. We've got to put down what we believe and what we think could help families get together

and to fortify family bonds, improve communication. We've been doing this, and we know it works, and we see the value of it. So for us to even have a book here, is like beyond our wildness imagination. Well, you know, it builds our kids' self-esteem, which they need so much right now, so that they can be bold and stand up and know what's right and what's wrong. And so that really helps, too, because if they don't have the direction, we know what's going on now.

These kids need self-esteem or love. If they don't get it from a single parent or a traditional family, we know we see what's going on, where they find it. I want to mention, again, the title of the book is connecting around the table. And I have to say that, again, we're living in a culture where everything is atomized, fractured, individual. And so it becomes spiritual warfare, just to say we as a family are going to have a meal around the table. That has become, you know, a big thing. It's a big thing just to say that because it's so easy. not to do that. And again, you have a culture. It's just a free market. It's kind of giving us what we

want. It makes it so easy to not do this. So you have to be intentional about this. I sure do. Yeah, you do. And, you know, every dinner, we start with a prayer to give thanks to God for being together and for the food that we have in the country we live in. But the next question we ask, we're intentional with the questions. We ask when the kids were little, what did you do nice for somebody today. So they knew they were going to have to be accountable for their actions and they were going to have to serve somebody or do something nice for somebody that day, every day. And that's what we wanted. We even had, we made the plates up and had us, we served each other. We wanted that servant attitude and that servant heart that we do things for each other. We do this

together. And in the book, we have, we use the acronym for creation. So C is for choice. These are the tips that we give in the book so other parents and adults can can learn from this so c is for choice of course we need to make healthy food choices ours for rest you know once you get everybody at the table rest relax have fun no phones right and the more you do it it's unbelievable the kids do love it and they put their guard down you can communicate so much more with your kids without the phones just looking at their body language and asking them, hey, what's going on today? And they do want that support and love from a parent.

So you don't let them bring the phones to the table. You don't destroy the phones with hammers and bleach bit. I want to be clear. Is that right? No, it's hard for us, too. All right. So you don't destroy the phones with hammers and bleach bit. You just put them to the side.

And do they put them in a basket? Or how does that work? Or do they just know we don't bring them to the table? Yeah, they just know we don't bring them to the table. The phones are off limits. The TV's off limits. There is one exception. When COVID hit, you know, we were all quarantined.

And, you know, we couldn't go out and do anything. Well, we had some very good friends. This is the home that we're at now. We had dinner with them about three times a week. When we moved away, we missed them so much. We do a Zoom dinner where they'll put us on in Orlando and they'll be down here. and we'll do dinner together so we can still communicate and be together around the table, even if we're 180 miles apart.

So it's not just family, it's community with friends, too. I do have to say, go ahead. No, go ahead. I was just going to say the only time I have a phone at the table is when Ken does something fabulous, which he usually does for dinner, and I need to take a picture of it. Well, that's different. That's not a phone. That's a camera.

We'll be right back, folks. The new book is called Connecting. Around the table. Don't go away. Hey, this is Eric Mettaxas. For years, I've told you about Nutrametics, a professional supplement brand trusted by doctors since 1993. Nutrametics offers a variety of health bundles. Whether you want to support your immune system, improve your sleep, promote joint comfort

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What kind of a name is Coldenhoven? It's a Dutch name. Oh, no. I hate the Dutch. Ah, if I would have known in advance. I just don't like the Dutch people. I'm putting that on the table. No, seriously, you...

So Ken and Linda, Coldenhoven, turns out it is your real name. You wrote this book called Connecting Around the Table, and you're talking about this is not just about meals. In other words, this is an opportunity to live out your faith, to connect with your kids,

grandkids, friends. So what's in the book? In other words, the thesis, obviously, I think, is beautiful and biblical, and a lot of Christians are missing this, and we need to not miss this because it's central to everything. But what about the food?

Can you said that you cook, When did that become a thing for you? You know, I think when we moved to Florida and I started making breakfast and then dinners, and I just saw what it did for the family. So it made me fall in love with food and cooking. One of my things that I love is I want to make it interesting. I want men to get involved in the family dinner and to cook, and they don't have to all the time. But I do some really fun things that to your kids, you're going to look pretty cool.

I use a big plumbers torch to finish things off and to brown them. A plumber's torch? That's when I use the camera. I use a rubber hammer to pound meat down that the kids can also do and not get hurt with. I use PVC connectors to make things look like you're in a five-star restaurant. It's PVC connectors from Home Depot. It's like a mold. It's a round thing so you can make beautiful salads and beautiful sandwiches.

And did you make a lovely floral centerpiece using a carburetor? How far do you take? this. How funny take the hardware theme? My son-in-law's in cars. So I might score points with that. Linda does all the hospitality and the decorating at tables. I just, I do the food, but you know, I just do simple, quick things that can make us look good.

But, you know, when you look good and you feel good, and now your kids are affirming you, which is we all need that too. We can affirm our kids back. And that's, I guess, my part, what I love about it, what I want to share with men, we can do it too. And some of us need just an example. They need to see it. Then they go, oh, yeah, I can do that.

That's a piece of cake. So that's what we're open for. Ken with his torch. It's like torch it with Ken. We'll have our grandkids over, and he can make an unbelievable hot dog in 30 seconds with this torch. And the kids love it. Yes.

Yeah, it's fun. We'll send you the video. You know how many guys are listening to this right now? They're like, I'm all in. If I can use a torch to cook hot dogs, you know, why waste time? Like, come on, a torch. I mean, to get to play around with a torch, guys, guys love this kind of stuff.

So you can, so you've gotten into the cooking. And I assume Linda, like you know, had a change, like a fan belt, like on the truck, right? Like, you're trading off. Right. But so what do you cook? I mean, it says, in my notes here, it says that you cook food out of the Bible. I assume that's like figs, dates and pomegranates. What do you mean food from the Bible?

What is that? Right. Well, we just try to use different foods from the Bible so we can talk about that when we have dinners. But lamb and pomegranates and figs, I do a great fig flat bread. I've got a fig tree out back. I was just joking. You're serious. You use things.

I about the fruits of the salad. Yeah, we have a salad that we do. It used to be a strawberry salad. We renamed it the fruits of the spirit salad. So we can bring up the fruits of the spirit and talk about how important that is. Because, you know, that's what we all need. We need love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithful, gentleness and self-control in all that we do.

So, and that's something that can be interactive. The dressing you make with fresh fruits. And you can have the kids put it in the blender and watch the colors change or put in whatever they want. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, you know, make it interactive. So you're getting them involved as well. We're all about getting everybody included and active. I want to be clear. Jesus never ate strawberries, but we're no longer under the law.

we can eat strawberries now. So I'm kind of assuming the book's called Connecting Around the Table, but I'm assuming there may be recipes. Are there recipes in the book? Do you talk about the different meals? There's a few. There's a few. We have a lot more coming. But we didn't want it to be a cookbook.

We wanted it to be a lifestyle book and just try to influence people to start eating together to share that precious time around the table. We don't have long that we have our kids in our home compared to our lifespan. Let's take advantage of every moment we have to do it right. You know, you hear people say this over and over and over. I remember people saying it to me when our daughter was young. And it's the cliche of life because it's true. You have no idea how quickly it goes.

It's just astonishing how quickly that time goes and how you want to take advantage of that time. It's just beautiful that you bring that up. I want to talk about cultivating healthy eating habits. That's part of the book connecting around the table. Healthy eating habits. What about that? Well, that's part of our acronym for Creation C is to choose healthy foods. And we have that in the book, too. It kind of gives you an idea what's healthy and what's not and how easy it is to, you know, choose healthy foods. Go to farmers markets and farm stands and, you know, do what you can because we don't want to eat this junk.

You are, you know, you are where you eat, face it. We're seeing more and more of that. So we kind of have tips on that as well. It's interesting. I mean, I've always felt that solid Christians should be at the forefront of all this kind of stuff. And it was just, it's a joy to hear RFK Jr. talking about how processed foods are bad and we need to get back to eating non- processed foods and how as Americans, we just go with the flow

and whatever's in the store, we buy it, and whatever. And we've got to do a U-turn. We've got to say no, no. We've got to get back to what's healthy. We'll be right back, folks. I'm talking to the authors of connecting around the table. Don't go away.

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There's no other product out there like Balance of Nature when it comes to fruit and veggie supplements. Whether you order online or call them direct, you must use the promo code Eric to get the special offer of 35% off and free shipping. Call them at 800-2468-751 and use discount code Eric or order online at balance of nature.com. Use discount code Eric to get 35% off plus free shipping. 35% off with the code Eric. Welcome back, folks. I'm talking to the authors of connecting around the table. Ken and Linda Coldenhoven. And if I would have known in advance that you were Dutch, this show would have never happened. But now we're into it. And I got to go with it. So I'm just going to assume the Lord will work it out. I'm not Dutch. I'm not Dutch. I just married one. The silver lining. They're not both Dutch. I've had it with the Dutch. Okay. So seriously, you guys talk about, um, community, and you say it's not just family, so it starts with family, but you mentioned

on the break that there's this epidemic of loneliness. This is a real thing. And Christians should be at the forefront of welcoming into their communities, their families, those who maybe don't have a family. So talk about that. Well, in the book, we do talk about hospitality because, well, hospitality is mentioned in the Bible over 100 times. right and it's so easy for us to have people come into our homes i mean ken and i love to have widows or single moms whatever and everybody doesn't have to be a great cook like ken i mean i don't cook you read the book i can't cook at all that's really why he started to cook exactly so but when we did all these um we did looked at surveys and got researched for the for our book

teenage girls are actually one of the loneliest people right now. Loneliness is an epidemic. And so that is why we need to encourage people to eat together. And even if you have to go through a drive-through, you know, get or pick up a roasted chicken, bring it home, put it on a nice plate, make the, you know, your atmosphere nice. And it makes such a difference. So kids love to be included. And same with widows and everybody else.

I'm sure in our churches, we all know somebody who is alone. So don't let them be alone all the time. It's easy to have them over. It makes such a difference to gather people around the table and make them, you know, hospitality, it feeds one of the basic needs that humans need. And that's to feel loved and accepted. And that's what we do around the table. I, my mom is 90 and we lost my dad earlier this year.

And I have seen this for the first time in my own life. My mom is a widow. And if somebody reaches out and says, you know, come over for dinner or we'll pick you up, it means the world to somebody who has lost their loved ones and they are alone. But this is the kind of proactive thing that Christians can do. And it's just so beautiful. It's so beautiful on many levels because you learn from those people. You're blessing them, but you're bringing somebody into the conversation, into the family.

And, you know, I think there are a lot of Christians that get all hopped up. It's like, no, no, this is not about leading them in the sinner's prayer, you know, before dessert. This is about love. This is about community. And it is, it speaks so loudly. It speaks so loudly. So thank you for bringing that up. Now I'm curious that the acronym creation, you mentioned C is for choice, R is for rest.

Can we go through a couple of the other letters? Because I'm just dying of curiosity. Sure. E, following down the creation. E is for encourage conversations for growth. You know, be intentional on some of the questions that you ask. Find out what your kids' interests are and hit those because it makes a difference. A, we want to achieve fun family meals. We have to have some laughter around the table.

We have to have some times where we show that, hey, this can be a lot of fun. And it's also activity. Get everybody involved. If you get them involved, they're invested then. T is for thank you. That's our most important one is to we thank God before every meal. I invest in your family relationships. And that's what you're doing by doing all this.

You're making the best investment you'll ever make in your life for your family. It'll be something the best return you'll ever see by giving them that time. optimize and maximize the family time, turn off the phones, turn off the computers, turn off the TV. If you want some light music, if it's you too and you're having a romantic dinner, fine. But other than that, it's focus on the people around the table. And then it's nourish. We need to nourish our mind, body, and soul, which brings us all back to making good choices.

So for us, it's a simple way to just remember, you know what, it doesn't have to be rocket science to get your family around the table and to do something. on a regular, consistent basis that just tells them you are so important. You matter so much to us. And it's good to have a huge big screen TV with some sporting events

so you don't have to talk to each other. I got to tell you, to me, when people have a TV on, whether it's, you know, when you're at the table, or just in general, like it's just on, I see that as supremely tacky. And I don't think people realize it's really tacky.

It is wrong. You know, there's a place for that. But this idea of constant distraction so that you never actually have to listen to someone and focus and talk and respond. There's always something else going on. I'm just amazed at how that has crept in to American family life that there's a TV on constantly. People are probably watching us on TV right now. Shame on you. Just kidding.

There's a time actually. you know, to do it intentionally. But the background noise and those distractions, I actually think this is a huge, huge thing in American life right now. And many Christians don't see this. They don't get this. They're not thinking about it. I don't care if it's Christian TV on.

You need to turn it off and focus on each other. Force yourself to have those conversations. Just a minute left. It's a brand new book connecting around the table. what have we not touched on Ken and Linda? Well, I know that real quick, you know, Ken loves to cook with the torch and guys love to see it. So if you go to our website, Connecting Around the Table.com, he can have a little tutorial on there that shows how he does it. And you can get the book, and it's a lot of fun to watch and do that.

And I guess for me, the benefit that we've seen from reaching out and loving others, we gave the example of, having widows over. We had four over for dinner, and we had the best time talking to them and letting them talk. But after they left, we looked at each other and just went, wow. What a blessing to us being able to just love on others. Hey, if we lived closer, we'd love to have your mother over. Well, I've got to tell you, you know, this is real, folks. People listening, they know what I'm talking about. Invite somebody over, folks, do it. Give it to God, see what he does. Connecting around the table, the website. is www.

Connecting Around the Table.com. Okay. And you can order the book and seek him with the torch. Listen, everybody, every guy listening, all we need to know, torch cooking, I'm in. Ken and Linda Coldenhoven, congrats on the book Connecting Around the Table. God bless you. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Eric. Chris, can I hit pause for a second? I keep realizing that we're only able to do this program because we have these amazing sponsors. Yeah, we have a lot of friends out there, a lot of friends. And I want to mention, we got a couple of new ones, actually. Metashare. Let me read this because this is important. MetaShare is one of our sponsors. Obviously, inflation is very big. I don't need to sell anybody on that, especially for those who are 65 or older, living on a fixed income. And one of the biggest challenges. This is where MediShare comes in. One of the big challenges is health care.

So even if you have Medicare parts A and B, they're still out-of-pocket expenses. It adds up. Here's the good news. Metashare 65 plus is designed to fill those gaps and to help protect you from rising health care costs. It's just $99 a month up to age 75. So that's $99 for peace of mind with Medeshire's solid 30-year track record. You're joining a trusted community of people helping each other, business owners, pastors, retirees, people just like you. Why wait? Call today at 866-88 Bible.

That's 86688 Bible. Medi-Share at 86688 Bible. Call them today. Okay, that's Medi-Share. That's great. I also want to mention a new sponsor. Tunnel to Towers. A lot of folks already know about them.

They do great work. They, we know that it's about veterans, right, who've served our country. Many of them, this is sick. Many of them are homeless. So one example, Glenda Williams is a U.S. Army veteran who faced homelessness along with her five kids. That should not happen, right? She was struggling to keep up with rent and basic living expenses.

She lived in a dilapidated unit with rodents and mold. the Tunnel to Towers Foundation's homeless veteran program provided Glenda with not just shelter, but also a safe and secure environment where she and her kids can thrive. Imagine folks what it would mean to be a veteran who'd served your country like Glenda and know that folks were there to make sure your family had a safe, stable home, a solid foundation to begin anew for her family and many others like them. Friends like you make all the difference, which is why we're asking you to donate $11 a month to Tunnel to T-2Tor.org.

That's T, the number two, t-t, dot org. T-2T.org. We're just proud to partner with Tunnels to Towers and with Medi-Share on the program. $11 a month. That's crazy. I think that's how much my pumpkin spice latte was that I kick off the autumn with last week.

That's what I heard. I guess the venty-venty. It's a leaveny on you for buying that junk. I know. That sugary junk. That sugary junk. I also want to mention another partner is the Heritage Foundation. They're the folks behind Project 2025.

Oh, perhaps you've heard of it. If you go to their website for that, it's 25truth.com. 25truth.com. It's kind of amazing because the left is really freaked out by Project 2025. And that's one of the reasons you've got to love the Heritage Foundation. They do this, you know, whenever it looks like there's going to be a conservative coming into the White House and by God's grace, Donald Trump will get in there. How does he hit the ground running project 2025 will help so you can check it out at 25truth.com. And before I go, yeah, it's kind of like Pelosi saying we need to pass it to see what's in it.

So Trump needs to win. So we can see what's in 2025. Right. Yeah, 25truth. dot com. And by the way, before I go, let me remind you to see the film Vindicating Trump by our friend Dinesh D'Souza. Honestly, folks, when somebody puts out a movie like this, we have an obligation to go and see it. Vindicating Trump. You can get tickets online at vindicatingtrump.com. That's vindicatingtrump.com. And we're proud to partner with our friend Dinesh D'Souza. Check it out, vindicatingtrump.com.

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