The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - The Art of Learning and Deep Fat Fridays

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

Are we losing the ability to learn and think deeply? Jeff explores this question and points out the incredible need for people to think, learn, and read more deeply. Jeff also offers an idea to help your family and community think more deeply. Snippet from the Show We need deep thinking, deep reading, and deep meditation to come to know the things of God. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is Show 273, The Art of Learning, and Deep Fat Friday. Okay, thanks for, you know what, I think it was the title that brought you in Deep Fat Friday. You're thinking to yourself, what in the world? is that about? Well, we'll talk about that. We're going to talk about the art of learning, something I have been thinking so much about lately, and this is the first of probably many shows. I don't know if they'll be in a row, but they're going to be. And I just am thinking

a lot about learning and some of the problems that we're facing, and we'll get into that. But I have to tell you, I have had just the best couple of weeks here. And last week was really, really a lot of fun for me because I got to get out for once. after COVID and I got to go out to Philadelphia and I spent time with Christopher West and did just a beautiful presentation that they had called Revealed. Check it out. And I spoke about the art of learning and beauty and creating and just had so much fun with that, a topic that I feel very, very strongly about. And then on the way back to Minnesota to get back up here deep in the woods. I went through Steubenville. And I've been to Steubenville. I taught there.

I've been to just dozens and dozens of conferences as a speaker. And I love it. It's kind of a little mini rome for me to go back there because I got so many good memories. And I ended up meeting with Bob Hickey at the school. He's doing a great job and really bringing about a kind of a new vision and a new group of projects at Franciscan University. Pray for them. They're doing great work. I was on Matt Frad show, and I didn't know that that show just kind of went on and on and on, and I was on there for three hours. You can check it out. I enjoyed it very much. He asked me some very difficult questions. I got to tell you, he's good at that. And I'm looking forward to going back and talking more about the faith and about learning. Well, anyway, we got

into a discussion on Pints with Aquinas, and we were talking about learning and how I go about learning, and I introduced what I call a note-taking system. I guess I don't have a full name for it, but I use atomic notes. That's the word I was looking for. I create notes. A lot of people will collect stamps and books and things. I collect ideas, and I have a way of linking all my ideas so that I can think more and I can go deeper. And we got into a discussion about that, and it was utterly fascinating. I really, really enjoyed it. And then I got to go out to dinner with Scott and Kimberly Hahn and just reacquaint ourselves.

You know, we're such good friends. I've got to tell you, he is 10 days older than me. And so I do have to respect him. He's 10 days older than me. But he's also the godfather of my middle daughter, Jackie. But we had a great time. Anyway, while I was out there on this little whirlwind tour, I was just going deeper and deeper into this idea of thinking and learning and the problems that we're facing in the world today. And so allow me to meander a bit with you today, kicking some ideas around.

And then at the end, I'm going to tell you about what one family did to counter the problem I think we're in right now. Now, I think we're actually struggling with a big problem right now, and I'm talking about a problem that good Catholics, conference going, book buying, CD, listening, television, watching, radio, and podcast listening, Catholics. We're actually going through a bit of a bit of a problem. Off and on, I'm going to talk about learning and share with you some methods that I use to help me think. What I'm sharing is a bit of a wake-up call, though. It's an observation about how we have changed over the last 50 years. Now, some of this is going to come out in other shows in the future, but I want to get going on it. I have become more aware recently that we may be in trouble as Christians.

What do I mean by that? We may be in trouble as Christians. One of my degrees was a degree that I got on Harvard Great Books. And we really went into the great books in great detail. detail. If you're not familiar with the Harvard Great Books program, it's a program that is made up of all of the great books from ancient Mesopotamia all the way through the Industrial Revolution. And that's what I got my degree in. That was one of them. And so it was really, really a difficult degree. The reason I'm telling you this is because it relates to what I want to talk about,

and that is that I think we're losing the ability to think. I think we're losing the ability to think. I think we're losing the ability to do deep learning, deep thinking, deep writing, deep conversations. We've changed. I've got a name for it, too, and I'm going to release that name in just a moment. But on the great books, the Harvard Great Books program that I was a part of, we had to read so much every week. I mean books. We would have to read, not just one book.

We had to read books every week. We had to write long, detailed papers every week, and we had to stand up and we had to give a one-hour talk about what we learned that week. I'm telling you what, on one hand, I really enjoyed it. On the other hand, oh, my gosh, it was rigorous to have to read so much in a week and then to write about it and then to stand up and articulate it. and what you learned. That took a lot of discipline and that took a lot of time. And to be honest with you, I don't think I could do that again right now. You know, I don't think I could do that again right now.

I remember years ago, 60 Minutes interviewed Bob Dylan. And they were talking about how many songs you had write a day with Joan Baez. He had write, you know, four or five songs a day. And the guy that was interviewing said, do you think you can still do that? And he was honest about it. And he said, no. Nope. So I can do some things, but I can't do that anymore because that was a season in his life.

And for me as well, back when I was doing this in college, that was a lot of work. But I don't know if I could do that anymore. But the reason that I say that is because of the busyness of life now and the internet and social media. I don't know if I could do that anymore because of how many things I'm involved in that would take me away from doing that deep thinking. I want to ask you, do you have a desire for deep thinking? Do you have a desire for really going deep in the faith and owning it? Are you satisfied with where you're at? Or do you have this hunger to go even deeper? I hope you do. I really do. I really hope you have that. By the way, just to take a slight break there, if you do want the show notes, which over the next few weeks, I'm going to have some really interesting ones. And I've got to I got one I'm going to share with you in just a few minutes. You're going to want it. Trust me.

You're going to want it. It's a statistic. It's like a scientific statistic about all the data in the world. You're going to want it. So if you don't get my notes, then simply text me, text my name, Jeff Kaven's, one word, and you can text it to the number 3377. Quite biblical, 33777. We'll get you the notes every single week.

Okay. All right. So I think the one thing I want to talk about here. here is that I really think we have a problem with being able to do deep thinking these days, particularly with young people. And some of the things that I've observed, some of the conversations that I've had leads me to believe that we are in trouble. We're in trouble when it comes to the habits of Catholic believers today. And because of those habits, their inability to be able to go deep into thinking and understanding the ways of God,

understanding the theology and the philosophy that is necessary to engage and to live and to pass it on. We live in an age, as I said a few weeks ago on this show, of radical individualism that really perverts justice and a Hollywood culture that completely builds on unnatural law and politics, well, politics that few trust. And how is biblical justice to flourish in these environments? That's a very good question. What is our answer to all of that? Is it to turtle?

That means we cower in a shell and it's like, well, I'm just going to act like nothing's happening and I'm going to have a ghetto experience with just my friends and we're going to let the world kind of devolve. No, I think we should be engaging our culture. but we have to know how to do that. The one thing that really concerns me are the habits of good Catholics who want to see the world change

but are engaging culture and life at a very shallow level. Now, I'm not sitting here as a judge. Please, please understand me. I'm not sitting here as judge and jury and executioner and all that. I'm telling you these are some serious observations that I've made.

I would like to hear from you. If you have noticed these, these things that I'm talking about, please write me. The email is very simple. The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. I would like to hear from you. I have a name for this way of living out our faith, this way of engaging data, engaging knowledge and so forth,

that I'm observing in the modern era. And you might not like the title that I have given it, but that's okay. I would call it TikTok faith. TikTok faith. Now, this TikTok faith, this is a faith that is made up of very short quotes, quips, stories, humor, five-minute videos, Monday morning political quarterbacking, day after day after day, text, you got to watch this, emails, oh, you got to know, you got, if you're going to watch you, they watch this one, and then more, you know, more texts with little quips and quotes and things like that. And if you really pay attention to what you're doing, it's almost like, if you're not familiar with TikTok,

TikTok is like aerobics for the thumb. You just flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip until you see something. You watch it for eight seconds. Flip, watch it for eight seconds. Flip, watch it for eight seconds. Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. Ten seconds, flip, flip, flip. And if you haven't done this, I understand,

you're not going to probably believe what I'm going to say here, but there's people who do this for hours. Good people who do this for hours. The sheer amount of inconsequential data is staggering. I shared this on my Hallow devotion the other day. Every morning I do a devotion on Hallow on the app. If you're interested in getting three months free to join me, this show and that show,

that's where I'm doing my deep thinking these days. If you want three months free, go to hallow.com forward slash Jeff Kavens. Sign up. You're going to get three months. this is the kind of thing I share on there every single day. Jonathan Rumi reads the gospel, then I do the devotion every day. And I've got a little bit more to say about that too in just a few minutes, about the daily discipline of engaging the faith.

So the sheer amount of inconsequential data literally is staggering. It really, really is. In 2018, get this. How much knowledge is in the world? How much data is in the world? I'm reminded of what John says. You know, he says if everything that Jesus said and taught was written down, the world would not be able to contain the books. That's a lot, right?

Well, let's put this in perspective. We're talking about TikTok theology, TikTok faith. In 2018, the total amount of data created, captured, copied, and consumed in the world, this is 2018. Total amount of data created, captured, copied. and consumed in the world was 33 Zeta bytes. There. Now, you got a new, a new word you can impress your friends with a Zeta byte. Z, E-T-T-A-B-Y-T-E-S-E-S-A-B-E-S-T-A-B-E-S-T-A-B-T-E-E-S-E-E-R-T-E-Bytes.

All right. now that's the equivalent of 33 trillion gigabytes this grew to 59 zettabytes in 2020 and is predicted to reach a mind-boggling 175 zetabytes by 2025 now to put this into perspective one zetabyte is eight followed by 21 zeros. That's one zeta byte. Zeta byte is eight with 21 zeros following it. To help visualize these numbers, let's imagine that each bite is one coin.

And that coin is around three millimeters thick. For Americans, that's 0.1 inches. One zetabyte made up of a stack of coins. one zteabyte one not not 175 one zetabyte made up of a stack of coins which each coin is 0.1 inch that would be 2,550 light years oh my gosh this can this can get you to the to the nearest star alpha centauri 600 times Currently, each year, we produce 59 times that amount of data and the estimated compound growth rate is around 61%. That's the data in the world. That's the information.

That's the store of knowledge. And it's growing and growing and growing. And yet, yet, we are using technology that is making it easier to just, briefly touch on little parts, and that puts us in a place where deep thinking, deep meditation is almost impossible. It's fun to dream and imagine the scope of Jesus' wisdom, but here is, this is very powerful. This is very, very powerful. When I'm going to take a break now, when I come back, I want to talk to you a little bit about what Vatican II said about this, and then I want to share with you what one family is doing to deal with this massive consumption of data and being

very shallow about it and not getting into deep thinking about what we believe and what our faith rests on. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ chose corrupt, broken, imperfect, sinful men to be the foundation of his church. And because these broken and perfect men chose to remain in relationship with Jesus, they became saints. And they were used by Jesus to transform hearts and minds 2,000 years later. I invite you to check out my book, Broken and Blessed,

where you'll find practical tools to overcome habitual sin, to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and to walk with an imperfect church toward a perfect God who is calling all of us to perfection over time. To order the paperback book or audiobook, Broken and Blessed, visit ascensionpress.com or Amazon. Okay, today we're talking about the art of learning in Deep Fat Friday. I'm going to get to Deep Fat Friday in just a little bit.

Before the break, I was talking about how much data is in the world, and the way I described it is staggering. I'm going to put it in the show notes for you if you do get the show notes. If you don't get them, Jeff Kavins, one word at 33777. That's the number you text. Going back to the 1960s, it was interesting because in the 1960s, that was Vatican 2. They were talking back then about the problems that we face today. And if I didn't tell you, if I read the documents of Vatican 2 and I didn't tell you it was

1964, 1963, you would think it was written yesterday, but it is written for today. I want to read to you just a couple of things from Vatican 2 that relate to the situation that we're in today about so much technology and not enough time to go and do deep thinking to where you can you can take up one book and go deep with it. I'll talk more about that, but listen to this. Gaudium et Spez is the document. It's the church in the modern world. John Paul II worked on it as Carol Waitia. And in paragraph four, it says, today the human race is involved in a new stage of history. Profound and rapid changes are spreading by degrees around the whole world,

triggered by the intelligence and creative energies of man, these changes recoil upon him, upon his decisions and desires, both individual and collective, and upon his manner of thinking and acting with respect to things and to people. Hence, we can already speak of a true

cultural and social transformation, one which has repercussions on man's religious life as well. That's pretty powerful. Now, it goes on in the document says that influenced by such a variety of complexities, many of our contemporaries are kept from accurately identifying permanent values and adjusting them properly to fresh discoveries. Okay, pause there for a moment. You get that?

That is very, very powerful. That's coming from the 1960s. This is before smartphones. This is before the internet. This is before fancy watches and the whole personal computer era. If you were to compare where we're at now to the 1960s, those were the old buggy days, horse and buggy days compared to now. And this is what Pope Paul the 6th was saying. He says, influenced by such a variety of complexities, many of our contemporaries are kept from accurately identifying.

permanent values and adjusting them properly to fresh discoveries. That's what's happening right now. It really is. That's what's happening right now. The complexities of life, they're keeping us from identifying permanent values, much less discussing them, much less thinking about them, much less finding out ways of applying the truth in the midst of all this complexity. As a result, Vatican 2 goes on, says as a result,

buffeted between hope and anxiety and pressing one another with questions about the present course of events, they are burdened down with uneasiness. Hello. This same course of events leads men to look for answers. Indeed, it forces them to do so. And then it goes on and says, and I love this, within the individual person, there develops rather frequently, an imbalance between an intellect which is modern and practical matters and a theoretical system of thought which can neither master the sum total of its ideas nor arrange them adequately into a synthesis. Hello, that's what I'm talking about.

We are not able to think deeply to where we can have an adequate synthesis of the knowledge of God that is used in response to the complex world that we're living in. So the result is this. In Godium Spez 10, it says the truth is that the imbalances under which the modern world labors are linked with that more basic imbalance which is rooted in the heart of man. For in man himself, many elements wrestle with one another. Thus, on one hand, as a creature, he experiences, his limitations. in a multitude of ways, and on the other hand, he feels himself to be boundless in his desires

and summoned to a higher life, pulled by manifold attractions. He is constantly, get this, he is constantly forced to choose among them and renounce some. Indeed, as weak and sinful being, he often does what he would not and fails to do what he would. Hence, he suffers from internal divisions and from these flow so many and such great discords in society. No doubt many whose lives are infected with a practical materialism are blinded against any sharp insight into this kind of dramatic situation or else weighed down by unhappiness they are prevented from giving the matter any thought. That's what I was saying earlier, just not giving things thought anymore. thinking they have found serenity in an interpretation of reality everywhere proposed these days,

man looks forward to a genuine and total emancipation of humanity wrought solely by human effort. Now, here's what's happened, is that we have made such tremendous advances technologically, but they've recoiled upon us. They own us. They own us. and they determine our day and where we go and what we think and how much time we have to do the things of thinking. It is really, really something. You know, in the Old Testament, in the book of Habakkuk, he said, Habakkuk, the prophet said something about being surrounded by the wicked in what it does in terms of justice. He said, in Habakkuk, Chapter 1, Oh, Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and thou wilt not hear. Oh, cry to thee, violence, and thou will not save. Why dost thou make me see wrongs and look upon trouble? Destruction and violence are before me. Strife and contention arise. So the law is slacked. And justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted.

A situation facing us today sounds an awful lot like that. Now, I want to turn your attention to Joshua because Joshua was a man who was told what to do when he was facing an enemy that would kill children, sacrifice children to foreign gods, and take your own kids and pervert love and marriage. He told us what to do. the situation facing Joshua as he was about to cross the Jordan to take the promised land listen to what the Lord said to Joshua in chapter 1 in verse 8 the Lord said this book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth but you shall

meditate on it day and night that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it for then you shall make your way prosperous then you shall have good success. It sounds a lot different than what we're doing today, doesn't it? Meditate on the Word of God day and night. That does not sound like TikTok faith to me. It doesn't. It doesn't sound like TikTok Catholicism.

And I'm noticing something that could be described as a lack of understanding on the basic foundational teachings of the church and not only a lack of understanding, but also an inadequate ability to articulate what Jesus taught and not clear as to the application of how to contrast his teachings with secular worldviews that dominate the movement of our culture. We need some deep reading, some deep thinking, deep writing, deep meditation to come to know the things of God.

And the wisdom of God is what is needed to deal with what's happening in the world today. Not six second looks at cute truth. we need deep thinking deep thinking now i want to share with you what one family did i got together with a good friend of mine his name is jeff by the way as well and we got to get together for lunch and i said jeff i said let me talk to you about something bother me and he said what's that and i said I said, I think we're losing the battle. I don't think that people are prepared to do the deep thinking and the deep study, the meditation on God's word that is necessary to acquire wisdom in a foundation of knowledge

that can counter what's happening in the world today, at least in your own family. We don't sit around and think. We're just moving and moving and moving and moving and we cannot win this way. And he said something and he says, Oh, he said, you've got to come over to my house. I've been over there before. He's got a beautiful family, beautiful home. And I said, why's that?

And he said, oh, we have deep fat Friday. I said, what's deep fat Friday? He said, well, we get together and we have a big deep fat friar. And we deep fat fry something every single Friday. The kids love it. We have neighbors over our friends, you know. And we do deep fat Friday. And we invite our kids in high school, in junior high,

to invite their friends over. And so they have a big, deep, fat Friday event. And after they're done eating, all of these kids gather around. And my friend and his wife and other adults sit around with these kids. And for about two hours, talk about ultimate things. Talk about important things. Take the time to go deep into the theological foundations of who we are and who Jesus is and why justice is different for us than it is in the world.

Why family is different? What is different about marriage as a Christian? He said, you've got to come. It's amazing. Two hours. He said, we spend a ridiculous amount of time together thinking. We just don't stop, he said. We just keep going.

And I thought, man, that's what I want. I want a deep fat Friday. And so I'm going to go over there one of these days. and I'm going to experience a deep fat Friday, but isn't that a good idea to take the time to just read something out of a book, read something out of scripture and say, guys, let's talk about it.

Let's think about this. How does this apply to work, home, marriage, money, children, time? If I do this, what are the ramifications? What will it cost me to do this truth? Does anyone have any good ideas? Can I copy? can I emulate any of you? Deep thinking, deep learning.

Well, I just wanted to share that with you today, and I'm going to be coming back with more information. In fact, I think next time we get together, I'm going to share a little bit with you on how I go about putting together my atomic thoughts to come up with new ideas of how to put God's word into practice in my life. I want you to know something.

I love you. I really do. and sometimes on this show we talk about discipleship, sometimes we talk about Bible study, sometimes we talk about topics like fear or envy and how to deal with those. But right now, for one reason or another, the Lord has me talking about the art of learning

and really encouraging people to go deeper and to take the time to do that deep thinking. And you can do it, by the way. Anybody that says, oh, I can't do that. You're kidding yourself. You're buying a lie. You can do it. I know you can.

So I want to pray with you and close out today's show. And I believe next week I'm going to come back with some more on this and talk about a program that I use to gather my thoughts and continue to harvest wisdom from the books that I have and the articles that I read and a quote on the billboard. and the message of Father on Sunday during the homily, how do I gather, how do I put it together, how does it assist me? I tell you what, after being with Christopher West and Matt Fred and Scott Hahn and Kimberly Hawn this last week, I can tell you right now I know people are interested in going deeper. I know it. There's not a minority.

People are tired of the trivial aspect of our culture and the Monday morning philosopher and a politician and, you know, they're tired of it. They want to go deep. They want to learn and they want to grow. Let's pray. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Jesus, I thank you for my dear friend. And Lord, I pray that you would draw all of us together to go deep with you,

to go into your teachings, and to not just be okay and satisfied with a kind of a shallow veneer, but we want to go deep, Lord. We want to know you. We want to know why. We want to know how. We want a deeper look at you. We want to worship you even as we study. We want to get on our knees with our books and say, Lord, praise you, glory to you. You are the creator of the universe. Help us to learn. Help us to discover. Help us to articulate the grand truth that you have given us. Oh, God, start a movement starting with us. Start something, Lord, where people will go deeper, deeper and deeper. Deliver us, oh God, from TikTok faith. May we have a faith that is as deep as the ocean. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son

and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. My friend, I love you, and I look forward to talking next week.