The Eric Metaxas Show - Thomas Howard (Encore Continued)

Episode Date: July 15, 2023

Eric continues his Socrates in the City interview with Thomas Howard, author of what Eric considers one of the greatest books of the last century, "Chance or the Dance." (Encore Presentation)

Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxus show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. Investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. You ever hear the expression, if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Well, when Eric Metaxus was little, he had his own lemonade stand. And he sold so much lemonade, he became rich beyond his wildest dreams. Now he's able to do whatever he wants. And he's now, he's now, the host of a big time radio show. Welcome the guy who's oh so lemony sweet, Eric Mat, Texas.

I am right now going to air an interview I did with my friend Tom Howard about one of the best books I have ever read in my life. It's called Chance of the Dance. He wrote it. And this is my Socrates in the city conversation with the great Tom Howard at his home. Do not miss it. Welcome to another Socrates in the city event here at the home. of Thomas Howard, the great author, and I'm happy to say, my dear friend, he has written many books in part one of this Socrates in the city interview with him. We talked principally about his book

Chance or the Dance, which I could rave and rave about and typically do. In this hour, I want to talk to him about lots of other things. My conversations with him over the years have been so fascinating that I really just wanted to share some of that with my Socrates and the City audience so that you could also get a taste of Tom and of his mind and be intrigued to want to read his books. So we're here without a studio audience. You're the audience. And so hold your applause.

But I do have to say that it means so much to me that Tom and his dear wife, loveless have led us into their home with all these cameras and microphones and things. But it's a privilege for me. And I hope you'll enjoy it nearly as much as I do. So stay tuned. Tom, let me start with this in the second part of our conversation. You know that I love you. And I can say that to you because you have an understanding of that word.

My understanding of that word comes from things I've read by you and C.S. Lewis. But you know that I love you. And it's such a joy. to be with you that, as I think I said before, I could almost talk to you about anything because I enjoy talking to you. That's mutual, I have to say. I hope that doesn't embarrass you too much. But I really, I revel in you and your emails and your letters and things.

And actually, maybe a good place to start would be, we were talking before about your relationship with Lewis. And I asked you whether you'd kept any of the correspondence with him. And you said you thought it was in the Wade Center at Wheaton College. Yes. And you were at least slightly incorrect. Oh. Because in the other room, I just happened to find a framed letter from C.S. Lewis to Tom Howard.

I think you're the Tom Howard in the letter. Yes. You're Mr. Howard. Marlund College, Cambridge. Oh, Cambridge. This was, yeah, in 1950s. He was in both. And when I read this to you earlier, you almost memorized it.

I just can't believe, first of all, his handwriting. What the heck. It's beautiful. Yeah. Right? Legible. It's legible. Dear Mr. Howard, oh, but believe me, you are still only paddling in the glorious sea of Tolkien.

Go in for the Hobbit at once. Go on from the Hobbit at once to the Lord of the Rings. Semicolon. Three volumes and nearly as long as the Bible. But not a word too long. Three volumes and nearly as long as the Bible. a word too long, parentheses, except for the first chapter. Which is a botch.

Which is a botch. Don't be put off by it. This is hilarious. Is this in Walter Hooper's volumes of this letter in there? I don't know. I mean, the idea that, it's just delicious, that Lewis is calling the first chapter of Lord of the Rings a bach. A bach.

But he loves the rest of it as much as anything. Then he says, the Hobbit is merely a fragment of his myth, detached and adapted for children. And losing much by the adaptation. And losing much by the adaptation. The Lord of the Rings is the real stuff. Stuff. Thanks for all the nice things you say about my own little efforts. Little efforts.

Your sincerely, C.S. Lewis. This is, how much can I pay you for this? Would you take, would you take, no? What do you say? I mean, look, I neglected to say this in the first hour. You taught at Gordon College for a long time. So you were a professor at the college level for a long time, and maybe I assume people know that, but many wouldn't.

You taught English literature. Did you teach Tolkien? The English syllabus, I had to follow it, and I'm not sure that I actually did formally get a section which I would have loved. But isn't it because when you were teaching college, maybe they wouldn't have thought of Tolkien as being worthy yet of being part of the canon?

Yeah, I'm not sure. Right? I mean, that's my guess. Maybe they even think of Lewis as being worthy of being part of the canon, even in a Christian college like Gordon. But I think I could have made it worthy of the canon. I mean, I think they would have, you know, eaten. up if you really unpack what the Lord of the Rings is all about.

Well, okay, then what is the Lord of the Rings all about? Is this where I get to admit that I've not read it? Yes, but you can still get into heaven, possibly. I've read Chances of Dance many times. Just by being Eric, yeah. So what is the fascinating? I mean, there are many people that rave and rave about Tolkien, and there are many people that are unaware of Tolkien.

I've heard people rave about him. I feel like I know lots about him. I know that he was instrumental in leading CSL. Lewis to faith in Jesus, which is an outrageous, an amazing thing. Yeah, yeah. But what is it about Tolkien for you? Well, I think he does an almost incredible job, piece of work, by opening out for us deprived, benighted moderns, opening out the world of myth, of saga, of the ancient,

glory of narrative. I think that's what, you know, his work is, I would suspect, is unique in the modern epoch. Yeah. I am struck, very struck by reading this letter the way Lewis writes

about the Lord of the Rings. I confess that I wasn't aware of his admiration for it at that level. Yeah, yeah. What do you think it is about Tolkien that Lewis so, loved and admired. I think it's a tribute to Tolkien's own capacity of soul to see and love magnificence where, which one is drawn into in the saga of the Lord of the Rings. Do you remember

when you read the so-called space trilogy when you read those books? You mean Lewis's out of the Santa Clara? Louis's, the South Atlanta, Peralandra and that hideous strength. Yeah. It must been while I was still in school. I'm not sure whether I had gone on to college by that time. I was a slow starter. Yeah. I often think that Peralandra is maybe Lewis's best book. I've never heard anyone share my opinion, but I think that well of it. Well, I couldn't disagree with you. I mean, it's a terribly hard choice, you know, what's Lewis's best word? Right. Well, there are passages toward the end of Paralandra, which are just flights of beautiful language like I've never read. I mean, people brave about Gabriel Garcia-Marquez or, you know, I've never read anything better than some of the passages there.

But even the idea behind Paralandra, I mean, I think of it as, I assume you taught Milton over the years. Oh, yes, yes. So I think of Paralandra as his response to Paradise Lost, and it ought to be taught in classes. tandem with that. Yeah. That's a great idea. Next time I teach it in another life, that would be a perfect duo.

Wouldn't it? Yes. I mean, it's amazing. All you have to do is read his preface to Paradise Lost. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then you read Peralandra, and you can't even. Yeah.

But it's so great. Yeah. Here, here. It just, it's just, yeah. I think the other two books, I don't want to say pale by comparison, but I really think it stands. How of the sign up?

planet and that hideous strength almost doesn't belong in the trilogy it's a weird thing that it's yeah it's yeah you you suddenly brought down to meat and potatoes so it'd have been away right yeah folks you've been listening to my socrates in the city interview with the great thomas howard the author of chance or the dance i hope you'll keep listening The Mr. Big, they dig a hero. Not to sound your A, the day you're born. Every day the parallel economy grows bigger and bigger. It's powered by everyday Americans who are sick and tired of all the woke propaganda

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Socrates in the city presentation of my interview with Thomas Howard about his book, Chance or the Dance. Have a listen. What do you think of Lewis's idea that the word space for outer space is the wrong word? Do you remember him talking about that? Yes, and I can't remember the exact passage, but I think his point there, space to a modern reader, means emptiness, uncharted emptiness, vacuity, almost. Whereas in the ancient, and I think Lewis and Tolkien and everybody would say the real meaning of space,

it's the wrong noun for the world, the heavens. Yeah, the heavens that is bespoken in those works. Space would be the wrong one. You know, they all spoke of getting in, not out into space, but in, getting in. You know, we're the outsiders, you know. Well, it's probably the first space journey from out of the silent planet where he goes to Mars, where he's remarking on what he sees outside the space capsule and it's the opposite of empty space.

It's glory. It's glory. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of a medieval idea, right? When you think of the medieval... You know the Michael Ward book, Planet Narnia. No, I actually haven't read it on. Sorry.

Oh, Tom. It is. But, I mean, it's this idea, basically. It's this idea that Lewis thought with this medieval mind. And he thought of the seven medieval planets. Yeah. And it suffused everything that he wrote. Yeah, yeah, it did.

And that's... So you pick up a little bit of that in the space trilogy when he's writing about what we call outer space. Yeah, yeah. It's, you're entering these realms. Yeah. I think it's because he loved that. His being, his bosom, his soul loved,

loved that dimension, that opening out onto real dimensions, you know, just the sheer. I was going to say size, but I think it's the glory of it, not just mere size, but you're drawn into the meaning of the word glory. The weight of glory, do you remember anything about Lewis's idea of glory? When he talks about glory, what does he mean? I mean, the weight of glory. I think when he says that, you know, it's, I think he, I was going to say he chose the word, weight. But I wonder whether he even chose it. It named the thing that he understood and knew,

you know, the weight of glory. It's not vaporous. It's not cloudy and, you know, thinly drawn and so on. It's not a, it's something more heavier, more solid than our notion of space. or light or something. Well, he gets at that in the Great Divorce, right? Yeah, in other words, that's this idea that the weight of going. These are the shadow lands. Yeah. And that the more real something is, the more mass it has, the heavier it is.

So you get that picture of people that can't walk on the grass. Yeah, yeah, because it's, yeah. Where did Lewis get that idea from? I don't know that I've ever seen it anywhere else. It's a brilliant idea. Yeah. I think he got it because of his own perspicacity. I mean, in reading. and stuff. I'm sure his brilliant

capacity, intellectual and spiritual, you might say, was turned on by that. I mean, he realized this is the real stuff and the word for it isn't

just outer space or something because that's a thin picture. You know, that's a picture of thinness. Whereas he wanted to continue that more ancient idea of this is where substance is. We live in a thinly drawn state of affairs. We hardly see.

He even uses the word nobly. When he's trying to speak of reality, you know, it's, you know, it's not vaporous. It's not cloudy. You know, it's not misty. It's solid and nubbly. If you talk about Lewis having. a medieval Christian worldview, which is what you write about in your book, Chance of the Dance, it seems inescapably somehow Catholic. It's pre-reformation. No question. Tell us about that.

Since you, at some point, swam the Tiber. You see that as a reconciliation in a way to these ideas that the evangelicals kind of thin things back out. That we, somebody the other day said to me that, you know, the word, the word was made flesh, but sometimes we make it back into words. Yeah, the word is the one thing that Lewis captures and you captures is that inclinational aspect. Oh, yeah. It's, yeah.

I mean, Mary certainly didn't give birth to a ghost or an idea. You know, she certainly would have had a unique take on what incarnation means. I mean, the word became flesh. I mean, of all inglorious things, you know, flesh and blood and meat and vomit and all the rest of that, you know, that's worth pondering. When God wanted to be known, he became an infant with dirty diapers and the whole nine yards, you know. Well, yeah. It's hard to, it's hard to want. I mean, it's tempting to want to spiritualize it back into some platonic form or something like that.

That's Manichaeanism. That's afraid of the flesh and the gook that goes along with it, you know. I guess I would argue, having written a biography of Luther, that in a way Luther was trying to pull the church back to an incarnational view of things. And I'm not here to debate the Reformation, but I think that he saw something that had begun to be lost. because of the focus on Aristotle and some of that kind of thing. That's interesting. I think you're dead right. I mean. Wow.

I was expecting a hard, horrible argument. No way. I'm on your side. You taught T.S. Eliot over the years. I don't mean you taught him as a student. You taught his work, obviously. Your book on the four quartets is called Dove Descending, and I found Dove Descending about the Four Quartets

much more interesting. interesting than the four quartets. I was going to say, I know what you're going to say. Help me with us. Well, I mean, I would have to demur because I would say, but truly to enter into the substance of four quartets, you know, that's the reality

of it. That's the weight. And the best I could do was like literary criticism. You're just talking about something. If you want to talk about marriage, you can say, well, it's this, this, this, this and this, you know, all these characteristics in marriage. But you have to talk to a person who is married, who has been

married, who has entered into what is contained in that word, what that draws us into. The only problem is and I'm not here to put down T.S. Eliot, but your writing about

the four quartets is great writing. I mean, you could make the same argument and you could have been incredibly abstruse and unreasonous and unreadable and say, well, then someone can write a book about my book. But the difficulty of the four quartets, which Elliot wrote, of course, after he had converted to Christianity, strikes me as unnecessarily off-putting. In other words, a lot of more modern literature and art, I think revels in being off-putting. Look, we know he already did that in the wasteland. He's,

you know, he's running footnotes to his own poem. Don't you find that at least somehow partaking of of a modern idea that's at war with some of the things that we're talking about? Very much so. And I don't know exactly where Elliot's imagination was

at that point in his biography. But of course he became Catholic, either Anglican or Roman, I can't remember of which it was. But, you know, someone who Caesar almost has to

he would feel a little constrained by what one might call mere Protestantism and so on. I mean, yeah, well, I could just leave it at. Well, theologically, but I'm saying that his writing, to my mind, and I'm very happy to be wrong, but it doesn't seem to reflect that. In other words, when you read the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock, it's loaded with beautiful images and language that you want to revel in. Very much so.

The four quartets is almost the opposite of that. It seems so abstract. If it weren't for your book about it, I don't know that I would ever have even tried to read the four quartets past the first couple of pages. Well, they're not the first couple of lines for that, man. Yeah. This is my Socrates in the city conversation with the great Tom Howard at his home. Do not miss it.

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incredible offer. So please order now. You're listening to a special edition of the Eric Mataxis radio show. I am interviewing my friend Thomas Howard about his book, Chance to the Dance. This was a Socrates in the city event we did and we're airing it on today's

program. Do not miss it. At what point did it occur to you? Let me let's just start with joining let's say the Church of England, the Episcopal Church America. To go from being a low church fundamentalist evangelical, right. Protestant. Whose Protestant, whose father was the editor of the Sunday.

School Times. School times and so on and so forth. And whose sister is the famous Elizabeth Elliott. And to say, I want to join a more sacramental church, did you, did you count the cost? Was that difficult for you at the time? that's a very good question. I think I counted the cost, but I didn't know how much the cost was going to cost. Well, I'm guessing the cost from, to, I mean, you made, you jumped over two broomsticks, so to speak, right? First, you become an Episcopalian, and then at some point, you become a Roman Catholic. How many years, roughly?

was that journey? I mean, it would have been a few years, maybe, I don't know whether it was 10 or 15 or something like that. Did it cause a stir when you became an Episcopalian first? No, I don't think so, because a lot of people do that. I mean, Lewis

was an Anglican, and, you know, everybody good was a Giscapalian or people who were safe. Right. But Rome, I mean, golly, no. Give me a break. Right. Whenever I would hang out with somebody like Walter Hooper or, you know, so many people have said, and Walter Hooper

is, of course, convinced he said that, oh, Lewis had he lived, of course, Lewis had he lived, of course would have become a Roman Catholic. And I retorted Flannery O'Connor, had she lived, would have become a Pentecostal evangelical. That was a joke. But the point is that you can never really know what people are going to do. But what do you think of that idea that Lewis was on his way to Rome? We know that Walter Hooper like you and many other people I admire, became at some point converted to Roman Catholicism. But what do you think of the idea that Lewis might have done that? I think there's a lot of substance in it. But I think in nuts and bolts, feet on the ground reality, I don't think

Lewis would have jumped the tiber because I just don't think it was that's where he, that's not where his being was. He might have in a theoretical

discussion or in an ecclesiological quarrel or something, he might have granted a certain number of points, blah, blah, blah. Many Catholics love Lewis and they sort of treat him as as an honorary member of the club. Yeah. And similarly,

Lewis touches on certain ideas. I mean, he doesn't really get into the theology on the nose, but he suggests in books like The Great Divorce and some other books, some of the Narnia stuff, that actually, no, he did write about it, but about the idea of purgatory.

I mean, he's willing to grant some things that suggest he was open to, Roman Catholic theology. Yeah, certainly. Just, yeah, to the whole Catholic vision of reality. Yeah. But purgatory becomes confusing to Protestants and evangelicals. What do you say to somebody who says, I don't get it?

They don't get it because they haven't thought about it. It's a heresy, so it's something that papists made up out of whole cloth. Okay, if that's not the case, what is the case for it? Well, it depends on what picture one has of it. I mean, what do we know about the flowering, the coming to fruit and so on like the of what needs to be done in me before I'm ready for purity and bliss and so on, the meaning of paradise? You know, I don't think purgatory is God wrapping me over the knuckles with a celestial ruler. that make me shape up, it's drawing and leading

and enabling me to go through the calisthenics that will make me capable of exulting in glory, exulting in the precincts of perfection. How the hell do I, how the heaven do I get there?

You know, and the state I'm in right now kind of flaxed and floppy and week and so on. I ain't ready for that. I mean, I got to do some grunt and sweating. And that's not the idea of earning heaven. I think it's entering into the truth and the reality of what holiness is. If it's a response to grace, in other words, if I do work in response to grace, in gratitude for the opportunity, in a sense, that's very different from trying to earn it. Yes, of course. I mean,

grace doesn't say, I'll do it over here. You can stay on your chaise long with your mint jewelry. up under the palm trees. I'll do it over here. No, we're drawn into that which is, which will make me live and supple and strong and so forth. And to get from being pudgy and flexed and weak and so on,

it does take some gruntin and sweating, and I'm not earning. That isn't making me earn heaven or something. It's fitting me. for the joy that I would give my gizzard to reach. Right. Well, I think. I mean, no, I think you're right.

This is heavy stuff, which is appropriate. This is Socrates in the city. We're supposed to be talking about heavy stuff. Folks, you're listening to a special edition of the Eric Metaxus radio show. I am interviewing Thomas Howard about his book, Chance for the Dance. This was a Socrates in the City event we did, and we're airing it on today's program. Do not miss it. to a special Eric Metaxis radio show Socrates in the city presentation of my interview with Thomas Howard about his book, Chance or the Dance. Have a listen.

Bonhofer talks about, you know, cheap grace. Famously, he talks about this idea that you can misapprehend the idea of grace and treat it as though it's nothing, when in fact it costs the blood of God, the death of God, so that we could have this grace. And so the point he seems to be making is that if you do not respond in an exulting way filled with gratitude to do anything you can to be closer to this God who has done this for you, then clearly you're not even aware that he's done it for you, which is to say you have not apprehended the grace. And so the grace is not yours because to apprehend it is naturally to have to respond, to want to feel. the poor and to help people and to serve God. In other words, to want to make God happy by blessing his creatures. And so, again, it's kind of a conundrum, the idea of grace, but it gets closer to what you're saying. Grace isn't, I mean, the usual, maybe the rather easy off-the-cuff notion of grace, it's, oh, well, you mean I get a freebie? Yippee. Well, in one sense, profoundly, it is a freebie. You can't make it yourself. And you're, you,

However, there's going to be blood, sweat and tears, if you will, there may be en route to there. I mean, crossing the desert or rowing your way across the North Sea, you know, whatever metaphor you want, it's not going to be, you know, easy. However, it's going to be exactly analogous to athletic training or anything like that. You know, you're not going to be able to run the 100-yard dash in nothing flat without some sort of, sweat and some grunt back here the afternoons of

practice. Since, well, I saw a photo in the other room earlier of you with Malcolm Muggeridge. He was in, was he in this house or in your other house? But you spent time with him. Yeah, he spent

time with us, I guess. He stayed with us for a while. He stayed with you. He stayed with you. He stayed with you for a while. A lot of people won't know who he is. And, of course, a lot of people will say, wow, you spend time with Malcolm Muggeridge. Muggeridge is a particularly interesting character. Do you remember how you came to know him? Or can you tell our audience who he was?

If Lovelace were here, he'd gone backstage, he was a, to say he was a journalist. Yeah, it doesn't do him justice. No. I mean, he was a figure during the 20th century. He was British. A celebrated journalist, a celebrated man of letters. Yes, celebrated man of letters. Funny, I was going to say funny as hell, but funny as heaven.

I mean, he... Didn't he edit punch? He probably was the editor of punch for a while. I thought he was the editor of punch for a while. If he wasn't, something was wrong, but I suspect he was. Yeah, probably. And, you know, when he spent days or weeks, you know, we spent the whole time laughing, you know. And that was after, obviously after he'd be.

become a Christian and after he'd become a Catholic. Probably. Was it? Yeah. Yeah, I don't think we knew him before he was a believer. Yeah. Well, his, it was a big, it was big news when Malcolm Muggeridge became a Christian. I think, I mean, maybe some people know him because he's the man who introduced the world

to a tiny Albanian nun called Mother Teresa. We wouldn't know about Mother Teresa, if not from Malcolm Mugge who made that film about her. Right. Something beautiful. for God is the title. But Mugridge was a man of letters, and I'm not sure what it was,

maybe you remember, that led him to faith. You know, the trajectory of my flight toward faith, you know, something, what is it? I can't give you a day-by-day sequence of it because it was

all of grace, he might say, although that wouldn't have been his language. But I know that, from talking to him. He was hesitant about what God used to finally bundle him along toward real understanding of Christianity and the faith and so on. That can become a problem. I mean, that has been a problem, I would say, for, let's say, evangelical Christians is that they come up with a paradigm. Actually, I mean, the Puritans, Jonathan Edwards and company, they were famous for this, that they would have to have your story of conversion.

and they set an incredibly high bar, unless you had this conversion story. And so people feel that almost like they have to make one up if they don't have one, you know. And so when people ask people like Mugridge or myself, so when did you become a Christian? If it doesn't fit a perfect kind of, you know, the sawdust trail experience,

people don't know what to make of it. But your experience, I mean, you grew up as a Christian. There's no question. Was there a moment at age five that you remember or no? No. But just to make sure. Sure, as a little kid, I probably a thousand times asked Jesus, who come into my heart just in case, just to be sure, you know.

Right. And were you baptized as a child? Yes, because we were Episcopalians. I mean, evangelical Episcopalians, but I was baptized as an infant, sprinkled. But I didn't know that your father was an Episcopalian. I thought that you had become an Episcopalian. I had myself, but technically, no, but when I was small, when they were first married, they went to the reformed Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Uh-huh.

Okay. What was the name of it? Church of the Atonement. But they sort of moved away from that into more fundamentalism and evangelicalism? Well, their, yeah, their eventual locale or, you know, was American fundamentalism and so on. But neither. My mother had been raised in Episcopalian and my father had been raised to Presbyterian, and they were, but they both had. had an evangelical story, you might say, you know, to tell of really coming to understand the

faith and receiving Jesus as Savior and so on you. But for some people, it's just much more complicated, and so it's a process. Yes, yes. Folks, you've been listening to my Socrates in the city interview with the great Thomas Howard, the author of Chance or the Dance. I hope you'll keep listening. I guess I have to ask you in the last 20 or so, you've been. the Catholic Church has had some terrible struggles.

You're familiar with what I'm talking about. And even now, with Pope Francis, many, many people are confused in a way at some of the things he says. Yeah, I mean, popes are not infallible. I mean, a lot of people are under the misimpression that Catholics believe popes are infallible. I mean, it's only in the very rare occasion, probably a lot of popes never have,

but, you know, made a solemn promulgation of a dogmatic point or something. When they're speaking ex-cathedra. Ex-cathedra, yes. Cathedral? Yeah, but I think most people say cathedral now, just because it looks... Yeah, no, that's good enough. I will defer to you, sir. Well, I mean...

Whatever. If I'm going to say it, I might as well get it right. Because the only time the church would believe that the post- Pope of Rome would be freed from error or defended from error would be on the rare occasions probably many popes never have solemnly quote promulgated a dogma right if he if he said you know that dog is a hound dog and you know that it's a yorky right uh keep the guy's wrong right but i thought he was a catholic that means he you know and blah blah blah yeah i think so many people have a deep misunderstanding of that idea. Oh, yeah. Yes, very much so. But I just know that my very serious Catholic friends

are now troubled by the current Pope and some of the things that he says. And it would be only on an extremely rare occasions when a Pope, and probably lots of Pope never have, quotes, solemnly promulgated a dogma. Right. Which is to be believed by Christians. And at that point, the belief is that God will protect the apostolic see from areas. error. Right. Yeah. So that it's something, the belief would be that the Catholic Church, the Church Catholic, will never before the Second Coming, fall into error, serious error and so on. You can, you know, they might say that give the wrong number of miles to the sun or, you know, so forth and so forth. But when it comes to solemn promulgating dogma, that's the only rare occasion. Right. when the whole of the apostolic sea would be... Well, I always want to clarify that because people misunderstand that.

No, it's very rare. Well, I just think, you know, there's so many people that are... They show up. They're in the pews, but they're missing out. And I think that your books, your book on being Catholic, it's so beautiful that, you know,

and I don't want to say that it tempts me to want to become a Catholic, but what it does is it helps me understand that, you know, the beauty of God is the beauty of God, and the truth of God is the truth of God. And it's kind of a pity when we say, well, that's for you and this is for us. And I'd like to think that your work has given me an appreciation of the sacramental

that nothing else I've ever read has done. So maybe we can end with my thanking you for that. Well, good heavens. You've contributed a lot to my growth and soul and spirit. Well, I'm sure that's not true. But thank you for making me feel good about myself. Folks, thanks for tuning in the Soctu City. Tom, as I said earlier, I love you.

And I'm just so grateful for you giving me this time. That's beautiful. Great, Scott. Absolutely. Hey, folks, you know how much I love Mike Lindell. Well, right now, My Pillow has a massive close-out sale happening on their all-season slippers. Listeners continually make the MySlippers the number one selling my pillow product. And I have a feeling you want to stock up right now when you hear the offer.

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