Pints With Aquinas - Eastern Orthodoxy, Schoolyard Fights, & Exodus 90 w/ Derek Cummins

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

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So it's about a fist away and just under the mouth. Oh, you're we're live. So we are currently live on YouTube. Okay. Nailed it. How are you? You just told me about this. And there's some Scottish people that kind of see it.

He'll drive an F-bomb soon. But where did you hear that and what is he saying? Well, I spent some time, Matt, on a place called the internet and random stupid things just start showing up and then I fall deep into a hole for hours on end and end up watching that. I'm turning this off. This is the most awkward start to any Bints of the Coinas video we've ever done. We can make it more awkward. No, that's not awkward because we know each other. Right. We didn't know each other.

And you were nervous or something? Then it would be awkward. I might be. Yeah, I never gauge. I can't gauge if people are nervous or not. I'm a little bit nervous. I got a schvitz going. Is that Jewish that like Yiddish or what is yeah, I use a lot of Yiddish words for some reason give me one more I call a lot of people bubblah bubblah, which I guess is like a term of endearment like little grandma or something So bubblah. Yeah, so bubblah. It's bubblah Hi, Derek. How are you? It's nice to have you on the show again last time you're on when was that two years ago? Yeah, it was a January. I remember that. And we were talking about you Well, yes, and we were talking

About whether you were gonna become Catholic or Orthodox because you had left your post as a Protestant youth minister Yeah, and you ended up becoming Orthodox. I did and But in general, I'm proud to announce that I've made very little progress in the entire journey. Oh, really? I guess so. I mean, I feel like I'm still thinking through and asking a lot of the same questions that I asked.

Come up with an analogy. Make Orthodoxy and Catholicism to women that you're attracted to. What does that look like? Is it like you're dating orthodoxy? This is a bad idea. But you're scrolling and looking at Catholicism on Facebook and you wish you would stop. It's a problem. In that instance, I think you would have to say quit looking at Catholicism,

which is not a thing that you would want to say. I think. Well, it doesn't matter what I want to say. I want to, I want to know how you're interpreting this. Well, I can tell you that I have never ever thought of it this way. But it has been imposed on me that way. Like I did have one, an orthodox cohort of mine say one time, you have to think about this like marriage. Like, are you looking at other women

and considering being with other women? You're not the first one. But nobody's ever asked me to like describe each of them as their own thing. But I, I, nope. Yeah. Cause I mean, I don't know my, my thought on this, like as an outsider is that, I mean, there are, I know that different Orthodox churches would prefer to think themselves as a kind of cohesive hole. Yeah. And would probably object to these different orthodoxies, you know, different orthodox churches as if they're all splintered up in the way that Protestantism is splintered up. Yeah. And I get

that. And I think I agree with it to a point. But my point, I suppose, is it's easier to make your group look cool if you're not like a billion people. And I just, and I think that orthodoxy has great curb appeal. So you go online and you look up orthodoxy, you just see these really faithful men and women who love Jesus Christ and they're talking about the fathers of the church, you know? And then Catholicism, sometimes it looks good, sometimes it looks angry, sometimes it looks confusing. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think orthodoxy as an Orthodox Christian also looks angry and confusing. And like thinking about what you're saying, this idea of being so splintered up and there's different orthodoxies. I think that's overstated for sure. I definitely think orthodoxy is far more united than Protestantism is. It's definitely a lot more consistent than, and I don't mean any offense, that's a wrong way to say it. I don't want to say it's more consistent than Catholicism.

It at least appears more consistent than Catholicism, for sure, in terms of like liturgical expression or spirituality or just the overarching tradition of it. But it has its problems, like it is splintered. Like there is the issue of patriarchs can just excommunicate each other or there's no, it's hard to find a clear teaching on certain things or you know, you kind of have to be okay with...

Mystery is the hallmark of Eastern spirituality, so you have to be okay with not knowing a lot of things, which ultimately I think is actually true about everywhere. Like as Catholics, I'm sure you're like, we don't know how this is going to pan out right now. And like, you just have to be okay with that, and you have to be faithful where you are, and kind of commit to a path wholeheartedly, and just work out your salvation with fear and trembling. But the problem is like, everybody's...there's too many cooks in the kitchen in terms of theology at this point. Like everybody thinks they're a theologian, everybody thinks that they have the right to comment on the deep inner workings of the church, and everybody thinks they're a bishop

or thinks they know better than a bishop, or they're the Catholic Orthodox, whatever. Maybe that's an unpopular opinion, but it's just hard. It's hard to be a Christian in general, no matter where you are. And I feel like I, we've talked about this a lot, like I feel like I'm slipping more into this, I don't want to say denominational indifference-ism, but definitely like at least an apostolic indifference-ism where it's like, okay, if you can somehow say that I'm in line with the lineage of the apostles, whether I be Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, I don't know. Like, you just have to make the best of that.

Is that a bad thing to say? I think it's a human thing to say, you know, like I think objectively and on paper, I would say, I want you to be Catholic, you know, and I think objectively and on paper, I would say, I want you to be Catholic, you know, and I want other Orthodox to become Catholic. But then I also see that people are doing their best and they're doing their best given confusing times. And I like how Eric Ybarra put it, you know, that like, the second person of the blessed Trinity became man bled and died so that all men might be saved, you know, and This idea this idea that we have that he's gonna get us on a technicality Like you didn't know this obscure thing that happened at this council in in this century, which actually proves this thing

You know, I think Obviously, it's problematic if one sees the truth of Catholicism but says to themselves, you know, my little Orthodox parish or my little Protestant church is where my community is. And even though I know Catholicism is the true church, I just can't do that right now given the state of things. I think that's something extremely different to someone who's like, I just don't see it. I'm open to seeing it. And if I see that Catholicism is the true church, I will join it. But in all honesty, I don't see it. I think that's, that's obviously a different thing. I think that's like kind of my situation. And that like, since becoming Orthodox, like I've

continued to read, I've continued to study, I've continued to try to like sort through this and make sense of things. And I would say I believe that like the papacy as it defines itself, I believe that more now than I did the last time that we talked here. But I wouldn't say that I'm at a place where it would be detrimental to my salvation to not join myself to that because I'm convinced of it, you know? And I think about like being a stumbling block to others.

Like what if somebody, I don't know myself, right, is in a situation where it's like, I would say I'm like 70 or 80% convinced of something, but if I were to go do that thing, the rest of my family would quit going to church altogether. So now, is that the right thing to do to possibly, I don't know about hinder or, but negatively affect the path to salvation of the people that you love the most who have put under your charge and care, who you're supposed to steward and invest in and speak life into and point them to Christ is the right thing to do. Seemingly abandon where you are for your own sake of something that you might be convinced

of, might be convinced of. Yeah, that's the thing. Because I think if you were increasingly convinced of it, then I would say yes. You know, and I would say that you can't, you know, alter your wife's free will because you're not the source of it. So she gets to choose what she wants, your children get to choose what they want. And yet if you're convinced of something, I do think that, well, I mean, I've never been in this situation.

So it's really easy to quarterback. Is that what they say? It's like an American. I've never been in this situation. So it's really easy to quarterback Is that what they say? I look at Americans It's very easy to throw the basketball in the hoop and get a home run and get a home run at the same time You know, but I would think that if you believed yourself Monday morning quarterback, okay. I would think that if you Yeah found yourself like if I found myself convinced

of the claims of Mormonism. Yeah, okay. Then I think I should become Mormon, even if it would be detrimental to my family and points to the Aquinas. I think about, well, maybe. But that would be different to telling my wife and children, here's what you must do now,

because again, I can't make them believe what they don't believe, and God forbid that would ever happen. But a lot of people, maybe not a lot of people, but some people on either sides of the equation, along this path of discernment, have said like, you know, what about where Christ says, unless you hate father and mother and spouse, you know. Yeah, you can't be mother circle. You can't, yeah. And it's like, okay, that's one thing if your father, mother or spouse is not a Christian at all. But I think it's a totally different thing if they are,

right, like in a lot of ways, like my wife, not in a lot of ways, in every way, my wife is a far better Christian than I will ever be. You know what I mean? Like I talk to her about stuff or she'll say things to me. And I'm like, how do you know that? Like, how do you pray like that? Like, how do you have this intuition

in this conversation with God all the time where I'm over here like crying in front of my icon of Christ and like beating my chest and still floundering around in the same garbage that I've been floundering around in for years. And she has all the self control and peace and patience and love and joy that I'm like trying to get So how do I say, you know, hey, sorry, I have to hate you in light of this now

You know hate us. Mm-hmm. I guess a hyperbolic term for it. They're in light of all this because this is true It's I don't well What if you went home today and your wife just read a Scott Hahn book and went, I think I'm convinced of the truth claims of Catholicism. What would that mean for your life if you don't mind me asking such a personal question? This is interesting because I've thought about all the times in the past years that I've asked God for like a sign, you know, and I think there actually has been a lot of signs, but even those haven't been convincing enough. So it's like, I think that would never happen, here's why. Because I think I would do it,

I think I would become Catholic, but then I would be able to blame her if it sucked. You know? And I think what God wants is for me to be, if this is the case, for me to be convinced and take the action, I mean, we'll talk about this, but there's a point in the book where Father Jacques says this, like, sometimes God just wants you to make a decision. And if you make the decision, you can't blame anybody else, you know?

So does that make sense? Am I rambling incoherently? No, not at all. There's a little saying Jimmy Aitken shared with me once, he who is convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. And I think of that when people ask for signs or scripture that would just... And so even if you come up against what is objectively, though you may not know it, a sign, if your will won't concede to it, or to concede to the path the sign is pointing you on, you just can't do it. It's funny, isn't it?

Yeah, because you're asking for the signs. And you realize, if you're honest with yourself, or like, what if I'm honest with myself, even if I got them, like, I can remember one time saying like, this was super immature, but it'll be like, God, just if something silly, like if three red birds land on this power line while I'm taking this walk, I'll do it tomorrow. I love it. And then I realized, even if it is, I would probably say, I mean, it's winter,

there's red birds everywhere. They're always landing on these power lines. But if you're like, I'm gonna eat a hamburger or do something you really wanted to do, free redberts. You're just looking for any reason to affirm the decision. Yeah, I often wonder what it would take for me to join a different communion, which I hope I will never do. But, you know, because one thing, have you ever wondered what it was like growing up in the 70s, you know, or 80s where there was no internet? Yeah.

Maybe you were in a small town and you've got like the Baptist preacher and the Catholic priest and that's your world. And then you've got books that you rent from the library. But it just, I don't know, it felt like it was, I mean, this is true in all different aspects. Like if you played football and you were a great footballer, you believed yourself to be a great footballer. There was, I mean, okay, that might not be a good example because you're being exposed to Aussie rules football or NFL or some other football.

But if you have some kind of talent, like you play the guitar at the local, you know, um, battle of the bands, like you might think you're great. And then you go online and you realize that there's always a seven year old Asian kid who can do it better than you, you know? But in regards to the faith, you know, you've got the Baptist preacher and the Catholic priest or the Catholic friend, and those are all you're assessing.

But now you've got a world of people who can apparently out debate each other. And so going along with the person who you think can out debate that person isn't enough. Which ultimately comes down not to who is correct. It's just who's more skilled in rhetoric or. Yeah, it can be that for sure. But because if I if I was like drawn right now to deny the papacy, which I'm not,

you know, like I'm not, I think I would just take refuge in the fact that there are really, really smart people who would have an answer, even if I didn't. I imagine that's probably true of most people who believe their world view is being threatened. They take courage in the fact that someone else knows something more than me, and I can rely that even if I don't know it, they know it. But of course that goes both ways. Yeah. Yeah. That could be overdone too. Like, um, you kind of lift your own personal responsibility to say like, Oh,

it's all on the hierarchy of the church. Like, isn't it for most of us out there, right? Unless you're Trent Horn, uh, or the Orthodoxodox equivalent. If you, yeah, whatever view you hold, there's a lot of people who can talk you under the table and out debate you. And not just in a rhetorical way, but in a like, I actually know more than you

and can show you why you're wrong, given the limited amount of knowledge you have. Yeah. And like, I don't know. I think we talked about this the last time that I was on too, was like, okay, I'm married. I have three children. I work full time.

My son plays hockey. I'm at hockey practice twice a week. I'm trying to keep up with friends. I'm trying to do like house renovations and stuff like that. Like I don't have the time to read through the minutes of every council and like every book on the papacy and every book on orthodox ecclesiology or all the patristic literature.

Like I can't do that. So you kind of have to, and even if I did, plenty of really, really, really smart people have done all of that and have landed on both sides. So like, how do you know? I don't... I'm gonna say like that takes a bit of the pressure off because rather than relying on your own intelligence, you can rely that the Holy Spirit who loves you will guide you despite

whatever deficiencies you have. You know? Yeah, funny thing. I mean, imagine being Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, or not Thomas Aquinas, but like a regular person in the 13th century, where you've got Catholicism, and then Islam somewhere over there. And that was kind of it. Right.

Or people who, for years, were not in communion with one another another but had no idea. Like you look at like a lot of the Eastern European countries like the Byzantine Catholics. I mean, or like the Maronites even, I think that's what... The Melkites? I think the Melkites have always been in communion. I can't remember if it's the Maronites or the Melkites have always been in communion with Rome, but one of the two of those, it was like hundreds of years later and they're like, wait, what do you mean we're not in communion with Rome?

Yeah. And like they just didn't know. Yeah. So. Yeah, man. It's hard. It's tricky. And it's infinitely complex.

Like this is true of anybody discerning anything. Like someone might be watching us right now and they've gone down an atheist, theist wormhole, right? And so they've just listened to 8,000 debates and they're still unconvinced. And someone might be currently discerning between orthodoxy and what do you call Coptic? Oriental orthodoxy. Thank you, Oriental orthodoxy.

Or they might be considering, yeah, Calvinism. Yeah, or Islam, or Christianity and Islam. And I think it all depends on what's your hierarchy of values, what's the thing that's most important to you? Some people might say it's based solely off of the religious text of a group. And it's like, if they go down that road, who knows where they might land?

They're either gonna become a fundamental Christian, fundamentalist Christian, they might become Muslim, they might, I don't know, or if they say like, oh, I just have to look at the history of things, well, then they might become Catholic or they might become Orthodox, or if they say it's all about the spirituality of it, you know, the holiness of it, they'll probably, They could become Coptic Orthodox, they could become Ethiopian Orthodox. And I don't think people are at fault as much as we sometimes think they are if they're joining a parish or a church because the people are kind. You know, like us people who are more kind of intellectually bent value that. But when you encounter somebody who goes like, we have a soup kitchen and we read the Bible and like these people are kind to me. I went to your Catholic church

or I went to the Orthodox church and they were kind of rude and they said, how the hell could anyone be a Protestant? And I don't know. I don't, I've kind of experienced that. I think that's been part of the discernment too is like I've had, but I've heard the opposite, you know, talk to people who've, well, let me just stay with the one thing. Like I've had pretty much nothing but positive experiences with Catholics and Catholicism, Catholic clergy, but I know there's a lot of people that that's not the case, you know, they've only had terrible experiences. And I'm not saying that I've had all bad experiences in the Orthodox church, but it's been a rough go. You know, the first parish that I was in,

it just didn't work out because of distance. Yeah, because of distance mostly. And then just some like family relationships, like my wife wasn't jiving there. And then we moved to another one and it was like, we stayed there for a long time. And there was a lot of like, why are you here? Like, what's your last name?

You know, who's your family? Who's your mother? What village is she from? Couldn't understand why we were there. Basically I asked for like, hey, can I transfer my membership to this parish? Cause I want to get involved and was asked why? Like, why would you want to do that? Yeah.

And then it was like, can I get more involved? Can I get more involved? It was always kind of held at arms distance. And then eventually, you know, I don't know, the priest there was like, Hey, I, I'm having a hard time here. I don't want to let you get more involved because I'm afraid you'll get hurt. And, uh, so I was like, well, crap, you know, what's going on there. So yeah. Do you remember, I remember having this sort of triumphalist feeling back in the day. And I think a lot of people, whether they want to admit it or not, maybe can relate to that.

I'm not even saying that it's bad. I'm just saying that it was very, very comforting. Like I remember working at Catholic Answers and just being like overwhelmed at how obviously true Catholicism was and would come at any Protestant or atheist with like elbows up, like ready to go. And I miss that. That was nice. That felt comforting. And I think people can relate to that, whether they used to be an atheist or they are or

an Orthodox or they were. Um, but maybe there was something wrong with that, not because we're not meant to have certainty, because what God reveals is more certain than the natural sciences. But that, I don't know, maybe there's more of a kind of, it's more of a human condition to submit to what seems to be true in light of competing worldviews and arguments. I'm not sure. But maybe that's just me coping. No, I wish I would have stayed in that space long. I remember first discovering the Orthodox church and Orthodox spirituality and I'm like, oh my gosh. It was like I drank water for the first

time ever. I didn't realize how thirsty I was, you know, and it was like, this is amazing, this is the best, there's nothing, I can't find anything, it's the perfect church, you know, and I wish I would have just stayed in that place for a little longer, you know, and maybe put down some more roots and it would have made the experience better, but it was like, very quickly, I just kept reading and kept studying and you start to find the problems, you start to see the interpersonal relationships and how awful they are and the schisms and the politics of it all and like the toxicity of the culture of it online and you're like, I don't, these aren't, not everyone, but a lot of what I'm experiencing, this isn't the type of Christian I want to become,

and therefore I want to put myself around other people that I want to be like. Like, I just want to become holy. Like, I just want to become a saint, God willing. I want to... Why would you not want that? Like, I can't understand the mindset of just sitting around being like, I'm so right. Aren't you glad you're right? sitting around being like, I'm so right. Aren't you glad you're right? Aren't you glad that I'm right? Well, it gives you a kind of gravity though. I think that's what we're so afraid of. We're so afraid of living in a meaningless world where we're just falling.

Yeah. And we want a foothold because falling sucks. And so I think when people find a foothold, you know, after they've been confused, which really is a good analogy for falling, like you've lost your sense of where you are and where things are. Once you've found a foothold, it, you know, if someone questions the foothold, like you turn on them viciously. I remember seeing that back in the day with this group called Church Militant, you might

be familiar with. I mean, they were kind of, they were a foothold for many people. I feel like people were so sick of the corruption in the church. Here was a group that was apparently calling that corruption out and it kind of gave them a sense of, okay, like, and then so then if you were to critique, say, Michael, Boris, or then you were you were attacked. Maybe the same is true today with those voices in the Catholic space and Orthodox space, who are trying to instill a sort of maybe even unnatural certainty or that when they're attacked, their group will viciously go after you. And I wonder if that viciousness isn't because I don't want to fall again. Like, I'm tired of falling. Oh, for sure.

Because it's not just the church that's in disarray. It's obviously this American project that's coming apart at the seams. Like, and I've even spoken to people in like Muslim communities. And apparently there's a lot of infighting there amongst those who would consider themselves more traditional and those who would be more liberal. It's everywhere, man. Yeah, it's weird. I did, it was interesting. I did this live stream interview thing with a Western right Orthodox priest, which was like a really cool conversation. You know, he was talking about how, yeah, we do Stations of the Cross during Lent. I pray the Rosary every day. They do like the Tridentine Mass in English.

Can you just sum up in like a few sentences what that means for people? Because they might be shocked to hear that there are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, specifically in like the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of America, I don't know if it exists anywhere else but America, it might. They were looking for like, how do we, there's a lot of Anglicans that we're converting. It's, I guess, maybe analogous to the ordinary in Catholicism. Where they're like, people don't wanna leave their Western heritage, like they're Western Christians, they don't wanna have to adopt all these foreign things. So it's like, is there a way to recover in their minds

the Western part of Orthodoxy, like the Western rite, the ritual expression, the spiritual expression? And it's very contentious. It's a big point of contention in orthodoxy. That's a bet. Where they're like, no, this is wrong. You're trying to, the phrase that gets thrown around is you're doing liturgical archeology.

You're trying to recover something that was lost a thousand years ago. But instead, the hierarchs, at least, when they're trying to recover this, are like, well, we just need to pick up the Western expression as we've received it now, which means things like the Rosary, which means things like devotions that came after the schism, and they incorporate it back in, which is interesting because a lot of those things are often things that Orthodox Christians might say, this is a reason why we can't be in communion with one another.

But the Western right who is in communion with the rest of the Orthodox Church does a lot of these things. But anyway, I was having this conversation with this priest, Father Patrick, who has a beautiful church in Virginia. I mean, it's like, it's thriving, it's full, people are moving to Virginia to be a part of this parish. It's incredible. So we just had a conversation, I'm trying to understand more about it, you know. And it looks like a Latin mass. Yeah, yeah, in English. Yeah, Latin mass in English. Okay. And so the priest faces at our entum, no statues, I presume? No, they have statues. They have some statues. There's still a lot of icons present.

Just like the Eastern Catholic churches have kind of went through the period of Latinization, there's some things where you could say there's Byzantizations. How funny. Yeah, where it's like, hey, you have to use leavened bread. So they use leavened bread, but they like smash it down so that it looks like a host in the West sort of, or they add an epiclesis, a certain part of the liturgy that's I guess not normally present

in the Western liturgies from what I understand. Icons, some things like that. But after I did this thing, some other Orthodox people found this stream that I did, which was like had no traction whatsoever. And they did like a response video to it. And I'm like, who are these guys? And I look and find out like, number one,

they did a terrible job of responding to it because they responded to like a grand total of five minutes of content, which was like a two hour thing. Turns out they were some schismatic, old calendarist group that's not even in communion with the rest of the Orthodox Church, and they're calling this guy who is in communion with the rest of the Orthodox Church, they just keep calling him a papist, and it's like, okay, but clearly he's not a papist, or he would be. A papist. Yeah, he would be a papist. Yeah. I don't remember why I just told you all of that. Well, we're talking about Eastern, yeah, I guess, Western, right, Orthodoxy,

the confusion that abounds. It is. Yeah. So I think because it... sorry to interrupt you. Because it doesn't look the same, or because there's some devotional practices that seem incompatible with what they know to be true. They're like, this has no place here. And yet we're all just so threatened by anything. I mean, that's, that is the pattern of human history. Anything that looks different, we're threatened by, and we seek to eliminate it. You see that play out in a lot of different ways, not just religiously.

And sometimes that's legitimate, right? Like there are some thoughts that are false and so they are entering into the culture in which we live and they're doing damage and we need to eliminate that thought, not by suppressing speech, but by refuting it. Yeah. So it's not always wrong to do that, I would think. And that is also the thing that makes it tricky because it's not black and white. Like anything, there's discernment that has to happen. Yes, yes, there has to be, yeah.

You have to understand how do you discern things? Like what are rules for discernment? And then that gets complicated because even within that, there's different understandings of how you discern things. Like, and again, I think we talked about this a lot of times, like, and earlier you brought up this idea of like, revelation, like what has God revealed? And how does God reveal things? And is He still revealing things? Does he reveal things to the church at large or a subset of the church? Does he do it on the individual level? And east and west, there's different

modes of doing that. So like, you know, like Ignatian spirituality, kind of the rules for discernment and the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius and these sort of things. There's a lot of room for like dreams or visions or imagination. And like a lot of Eastern spirituality, particularly like Athenite spirituality or Russian spirituality is like better to reject an angel than entertain a demon. So like, you know, there's room for,

you could be deceived there. Like the devil comes as an angel of light. And it's like, okay, that's one extreme. And then there's another extreme that says, except everything that you think. It's coming from God. Right. People say God told me. And I don't know on that spectrum where, where the reality is. I find it better to enjoy the things that come. Like I've shared with you a bunch of like dreams that I've had and I'm like, I've shared with you a bunch of like dreams that I've had and I'm like, I don't know what to make of these,

but I would rather just enjoy them for what they are. They're a consolation in the moment and that's the grace. And then just keep living my life, you know? And if that just keeps happening, then maybe there's something there, I don't know. Like the whole resist the devil and he'll flee from you thing, James. But yeah, so like even discernment, you have to discern how to discern, you have to put your trust

in some authority to tell you how to do these things. And I don't know, man, it's just, every time I think I come to some understanding of something. I'm like no it's far more Complex than that. Yeah, which because you and I would much rather in one sense We would much rather sit here and be like, oh I could not be I know everything Yeah, you know and no one says they know everything because as soon as you admit that you admit that you're an idiot Yeah, but but we would like to pretend that we did and oh no I could show you right there and that feels great and you would garner an audience on YouTube who are so starving for that kind of stuff yeah and again I'm open to me being the

one who's just coping and I'm not saying we can't have certainty you know but like it's like we hate gray areas. It's not hard hitting content to sit here and say, I don't know, or it's both and, or it's what do you do with this? Or, but I think it speaks to the experience a lot of people don't want to admit. Yes.

Or I know that what we're doing right now is we're kind of giving voice to what people were afraid they were the only ones experiencing it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it seems like some composite of the different ways, I mean, specifically in this whole church Christianity, you know, that whole thing, you need both. Like even when that discernment thing, like, I think it's healthy to understand and read Saint Ignatius of Loyola and understand his rules for discernment and hold them loosely. The same way that it's a good idea to read the Athenite Fathers and the Russian monastics, you know, Saint Ignatius, Bri and Chananoff, and say like, okay, I'm gonna hold that too.

And I got Theophan the recluse, someone took his writings and turned it into 365 days of meditation. It's so beautiful, so powerful. Yeah, like, and that's the cool thing about like Eastern Catholics is they're pretty good at doing that, it seems. And I heard some stat the other day that the majority of Eastern Catholics in America are converts, which surprised me. Like I thought it was... From what? Well, that's a good point. I guess it didn't really like... What did you think when you read that? When I thought, I thought either converts from like atheism and other religion or Protestantism, but I didn't think about does that include like Latin right Catholics who had switched, canonically changed.

I wonder what that number is. But, and I don't know, it seems like certain personality types maybe come in. That's the other interesting thing, man, is like the psychology of these things. I think certain people determine something is true unknowingly in response to like their own psychological disposition or their own baggage or their own trauma.

Give us an example. Like somebody who grew up, let's say in an unstable household where, you know, dad wasn't there or mom and dad were two different religions and they had to live in this like confusing, are we Christians or are we Muslims, are we Lutherans or are we Catholics? Why aren't you look the same? Why aren't we doing this? And you're shuffling around a lot and you're keeping two different traditions and, you know, it's really strict or it's really loose. You know, maybe that person's like, oh yeah, I find orthodoxy and I find a stability of spiritual path. And they'll go into that camp or like, you know,

I guess the bad version of that is like the ortho bro camp of like triumphalism or maybe a person who's had no authority in their life whatsoever. It's just tired of making it up on their own, discovers Catholicism and the papacy. And they're like, yeah, that's what I'm gonna yoke myself to because at least I can finally get answers on everything. So when you talk to people,

like that's I think my story probably why I was most drawn to orthodoxy on the first part. Like I have very little religious upbringing, kind of like chaotic childhood, moved around a lot with my mom, we were in and out of our home and apartments, like, nominally Christian, kind of had these weird religious ideas imposed on me, there was a lot of like strange new agey things that kind of like seeped in, and it was very confusing and very unstable and like very scary. And then again, I found this thing where it's like, oh man, there's a stability here. There's a

history here. I at least feel as though the church that I inherit now is going to be the same church that my grandchildren would inherit. Like I don't think it's going to look any different. And it's like, yeah, why would you not want that? You know, but just because something always looks the same doesn't mean that's the best reason to do it. People talk about Western civilization coming apart at the seams. And Jonathan Pagio did this excellent video recently where he said that the reason for this is that we no longer have this thing that we're all focused on, namely Christianity. Like the bottom has fallen out and now we're just sort of drifting into strangeness, you know, and strange is becoming the new normal.

And he's like, this is a sign that the world is over. Not that they won't be another world, but this epoch, this is over. And it seems to me that that's kind of what happened when you mess with the liturgy and Catholicism. Like when you remove the center and you mess with it, and that's not an indictment of the council fathers, but it is to say that the implementation of the mass was done so poorly, there was so much and is still so much liturgical abuse. You know, even like there was a generation of people who thought that they should no longer pray the rosary,

or that we should throw out statues, none should throw out their habits. Everything was thrown out. And then there was a mishmash of like New Age ideas and things. And so it's almost like, in a way, I'll just say Catholicism in Australia, that's where I'm from. And here in America, it feels like the bottom fell out. And so what we're seeing in the culture is kind of like we're seeing in the church, the Catholic church. But just like in the culture, there's now this tremendous enthusiasm for tradition and to return to the ways of our ancestors. Like you see that in secular America with sort of like elevating the fathers of America

and the founding documents and this real desire to go back to that. You see that in Catholicism, like this, we have to go back because this is not working. So it seems to me, me like I think it's fair to say that the Western Church is a mess right now. And it may have been the case, I'm not really a student of church history enough to say this or to give examples of what I'm about to say, but it may have been the case that there was a time that the East needed the West.

Yeah. I think that's probably true. Yeah, it is. But I think in a sense today, the West is in need of the East. Well, that's interesting, like, you know, kind of like the linchpin moment of that whole conversation is like what happened with the Second Vatican Council. And I'm not super smart, I've not read the documents from the council. But one thing I think is safe to say is that the Eastern churches were the winners of all of that. The Eastern churches? Yeah, the Eastern Catholic churches, you know, where it was like they returned to their liturgical

expression. You know, they returned to like the fullness of their traditions. Whereas like where it seemed like the West kind of went off the rails a little bit, at least the, you know, the Latinization period was over and it took a while to see the fruit of that, just like it took a while to see the, I don't want to say the fruit in the West, because I don't know that it's fruitful, and it seems like, it seems like it could be getting better. But anyway, as the Eastern Catholic Churches have become more Eastern, have become more Orthodox, after Vatican II, now you start seeing all of these Catholics kind of

flocking to the Eastern Catholic churches, which is why it's interesting, like, I think most prominent, maybe not most, but a lot of prominent Catholic apologists are now Eastern Catholics. I mean, like, you're canonically Eastern Catholic, yeah? Like, isn't, I mean, Trent's... Mason- Trent's Western. He attended a Byzantine church and he may from still from time to time, but I don't know. And a handful of others, like I don't want to necessarily go into like their business or their life. But sure, sure.

Lofton is openly one. Yeah. So it's like, okay, there's an example where I guess the West does need the East in that. I don't know what that looks like down the road, like does it mean like the West empties out now everybody's an Eastern Catholic? I don't know, I'm sure there's a lot of Orthodox who would pray for that, that they might see this is the only path to union. I would hope not. We have such beautiful beauties in the West. I love the Latin Mass, I love... there really is, I

mean I know that it can sound a little kind of Relativistic maybe because again, there's this part of the human psyche that wants everything identical. Yeah There's something really cool about kneeling down and opening up your mouth and receiving the Eucharist Know your place get down shut up. There's something powerful about that Gregorian chant is Some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard. I keep trying to like orthodox, like Bulgarian chant and don't get me wrong, I do. And there's a lot that's beautiful about that and Ukrainian kind of chant. But in my mind, Gregorian chant is unsurpassed as far as spiritual, beautiful music. Yeah. The other thing that's weird is I was in Ukraine last year, eh? And I think Gugurri and chant is unsurpassed as far as spiritual beautiful music

Yeah, the other thing is weird as I was in Ukraine last year a And I think you and I talked about this that in America, you know Like if you're Catholic and you become Orthodox or if you're Orthodox and you become Catholic There's this pressure that you impose that others impose to like get rid of everything else So God forbid that I should pray the Rosary and the Chotky that I should have statues and icons. It's like, it's almost like the other is a threat to the culture I'm trying to bring about in my own heart and in my own family.

It's sort of maybe the reason that like Quebec is very strict about there being no English unless French is first. I don't know all the rules, you know, but like there's this like Quebec is aware. And I used to live in Ireland in what's called the Gaelic where Irish is the first language before like Gaelic before English. And they know and they're right that if they don't guard Irish, English will wash it away. So they have to be that kind of, you know? And so I think like when someone,

let's say becomes an Eastern Catholic, there's this like, okay, well now I gotta get rid of all these Western devotions. And there might be, maybe there's something to that, right? I'm not saying there's not, just like there's not something to the Irish or the Quebecois doing something like that. But what I noticed

when I went to Ukraine is like people comfortable with this kind of spirituality. Like you've got these nuns in these like Byzantine convents and there's rosaries. And I think I took a couple of photos of you, for you, of this beautiful Ukrainian Catholic church, which is clearly Orthodox and like there's a statue of the Sacred Heart. And I don't think they have the same weird hangups that we do. Yeah. Well, I think that's, I think you're right.

I think there's something beautiful about living in that space, which is like the same reason, like if you go to Poland, at least the pictures I've seen from Poland or like friends from Poland will send pictures. And it's like, that looks like an Orthodox church. Like, oh no, it's a Catholic church. Like, oh, is it Byzantine Catholic?

No, no, it's a Roman Catholic church. The kind of this, that certain space that kind of blends the two together. But I also think that there's something, there's a way to do the first thing, like the kind of, let's not engage in the other well, not for the sake of refuting the other, but for the sake of living fully

into what is your patrimony. But Seth, here's what's weird though. Like the East is need, I mean, maybe it's more yours than mine, because I think you've got some Eastern blood in you, but it's not our patrimonies. Yeah. Like, aren't I just play acting?

Why the hell would I abandon my patrimony? Like I'm there's a bit of shame there not shame, but there's a sense where I don't I'm not always proud Yeah that I became Ukrainian Catholic because I feel like there's a sort of natural piety that I ought to have to my natural Patrimony no, I mean, you know, I do have like on my mother's side, some Ukrainian, Romanian, Hungarian. I have a lot of that, a lot of Slavic stuff on my mother's side, but overall, I mean,

I'm like 60% Irish, English and German, or Scottish, English and German. So like, I guess, I don't know that, I think that's the weird thing for like most Americans is you're both, especially, because like one of your parents is one thing and another is another. So I mean, how do you do that?

Or I know like one guy, a friend of mine is Egyptian, his wife's Ukrainian, so his kids are half Egyptian, half Ukrainian. And like they split their time between a Coptic Orthodox Church and a Ukrainian Catholic church. And, but. I mean, the way I try to get around that is by telling

myself I'm Catholic, the entire treasury of devotions and, and traditions are open to me. And yet there is, like, I mean, if tomorrow there was a full on reconciliation between East and West and all of the patriarchs became whatever they become. Yeah, what would that look like? And obviously you'd have like little splinter groups that would be holdouts, but like, let's just pretend it's like, well, then there's still something to be said about maintaining

the traditions of your forefathers, right? Even on a cultural, natural level, like you still, like I love praying the rosary. This is something my grandma prayed, her parents prayed, there's something to be kept even when there's, if let's say, there's full reconciliation. I think, I just keep thinking about Saint Elias that perished in Canada that Father Jason and I went to

in last February. For those at home. Yeah, yeah. It's a Ukrainian Catholic parish. Father Roman Goladze, blessed memory now, was, if I'm not mistaken, the first married man ordained on American soil. So I think it was like in recent history that the ban on married clergy in the Eastern Catholic Churches was officially lifted, like I think like 2014 maybe, if I'm not mistaken. So you know, a large number of the clergy in the Eastern Catholic Churches are still celibates.

But so Father Roman found a bishop who would ordain him in Canada. He grew up in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, which is like 15 minutes from me, which is wild, and goes to Canada, but received all of his formation in a Russian Orthodox monastery in Jordanville in New York. And when he went, having grown up, Ukrainian Catholic was in a very Latinized Ukrainian Catholic expression. It was like, oh my gosh, this is it. Like, this is my heritage. So they start this parish from scratch, and architecturally, liturgically, linguistically, spiritually, everything about it is completely orthodox. Even the way when they, so the great entrance during the Byzantine liturgy, you

commemorate, you know, do these commemorations and you pray for like the patriarch, the bishop, and they pray for the pope, but they specifically, a lot of Eastern Catholic churches use the terminology for our universal pontiff, the Pope of Rome. Even they would say for ecumenical patriarch, like they refer to him as the ecumenical patriarch rather than like, I don't know. Rather than what? Rather than saying like universal pontiff, because something about that that language is, you know, would kind of get Orthodox folk on edge. I think you said that this Ukrainian Catholic Church is more Orthodox in appearance and maybe even belief than many

Orthodox churches. I really think so, yeah. So it was a wild experience being there and there was like some level of cognitive dissonance, like where am I? And like, what is this? And Father Roman, it was crazy, man. Like getting to meet him in February, he died six months later. And like just the timing of having wanted

to meet him for years and then being able to carve out this time to take a road trip with Father Jason and just driving there and he was like, let's turn off the radio and chant the Jesus prayer for a little while. And I'm like, that's kind of weird, but okay. Who said that? Father Jason. Yeah. So he's like, we're praying for- What's weird about that?

I don't know. Like who just turns off the radio and says, while we're driving, let's just chant together. Yeah. A good priest. A good priest, right? And he's the only man that I've ever spent time with that anything we do is bookended in prayer. Like before we got in the car, let's say a prayer. And when we got there, let's say a prayer. Before we left to drive home, let's say a prayer.

I do have a funny story about him at the duty-free shop at Customs, I can tell you. I would love you to tell us that. Yeah. But anyway, we're there and I can tell you, but I would love you to do that. But anyway, you know, we're there and I don't know. It was just like, okay. They say that the curse of St. Elias is you either go there and think it's possible to be completely Orthodox in union with Rome, or you go there thinking this is this will never happen anywhere else. And even father Roman said, I don't know what happens

after I pass. I don't know if this keeps going. Like who's going to run this? Who's going to keep this? Who's going to guard these traditions? Can you tell us about the conversation you had with him over dinner that night? Yeah. But before you do, Thursday, is he still in camera frame? Yeah. Good.

Okay. Sorry. Yeah, that's okay. You kind of moved the mic and I just wanted to make sure you were there. I also want to tell people, please subscribe to our channel. We have 70% of people who watch this still aren't subscribed. So if please help us out, help the channel out by actually clicking subscribe and the bell button.

We've grown hugely this year and it's been wonderful to see, but we'd love it if you'd subscribe to our channel. Click the bell button as well. Thanks so much. And if you do Matt will legally change his name to Fraddington Bear. Yeah. If I get a million subscribers, I'm going to legally change my name. No, I won't. I won't do that, but just do it. All right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The con. So, um, you know, Father Roman and I, we, he loved chocolate covered cashews from this candy store,

Anderson's Candies in Baden, Pennsylvania, which is close to me. So Father Jason called me, he's like, he would love that. So I picked him up a couple of boxes and we took it. So we stayed up to like midnight. No, not super late, but I mean, for a man who was in his seventies and had eight hours of liturgy the next morning. Wow. And just got done with like eight hours of liturgy the next morning. Wow. And just got done with like... Say that one more time. Yeah, had like eight hours of liturgy the next morning. Probably, I don't know, that might be an exaggeration. But he definitely had like two or three hours Saturday night for Vespers.

And then Sunday was going to be like Matins Divine Liturgy. So probably three to four hours. So overall eight hours in a 24 hour period. So we stayed up late eating chocolate covered cashews till about midnight. So probably three to four hours. So overall eight hours in a 24 hour period. So we stayed up late eating chocolate covered cashews till about midnight. And I asked him, I said, father, like, why? You know, you've gone through all of this to be Orthodox and everything.

And I said, so tell me, a man in my position, why should I do this? You know, why should I do this? Why would I do this? And he said to me, he goes, well, if you want to save your soul the easy way, and not that it's easy, he said, you should stay Orthodox for sure. He goes, but if you want to die a martyr's death

and climb up out of the trenches and get shot at by both sides, you should be a Greek Catholic, an Eastern Catholic. And I thought, wow, that's beautiful. Like, who doesn't? We should all want a martyrdom of some sort. We should desire some sort of martyrdom, white martyrdom, red martyrdom, whatever it is. But that was just really, I don't know, really stuck with me. And that, I don't know, I'm just like, I felt so close to that man

for the only having met him one time. Every now and then Father Jason will call me, he'll go, Father Roman loved you. And I'm like, I only met him once, you know? But when he died, his funeral services, they live-streamed. I guess he left in painstaking detail what he wanted for his funeral services they live streamed. I guess he left in painstaking detail what he wanted for his funeral service. So it was Orthodox, Orthodox bishops were not buried as well, I guess to use that term, as this Eastern Catholic priest.

And I mean, I watched that live stream almost every day for two weeks. Really? I would just let it play while I worked and I would like look over the screen. Like I just, it was strange, you know, and I would cry while I watched it. I would, I would smile when I watched, I would just feel all these feelings. And it was crazy seeing like, you know, in the clergy there, first of all, the church was packed. I mean, people were standing outside. It was so packed, like surrounding the church, still singing. And you had all these concelebrating priests. You could see Dominicans. You could see Benedictines. You could see, you know, Byzantines. You could see all these different things. And I'm like, man, I just want,

I want that when I go to have all of those people like that. I mean, singing all of this triumph that Christ is risen. Have you seen that meme that shows a beautiful Byzantine or even Latin mass burial and it says, if my, my funeral doesn't look like this, I'm not going. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. It was, I refuse. Yeah. But yeah, that was, I don't know how to explain it. Yeah. That was, I don't know how to explain it. I had a thought the other day that gives me tremendous hope, and I think it should give all of my viewers a tremendous amount of hope, right?

So it's going to sound like a tangent, but like YouTube is the new public square, or the new town square. Like I can't think of another website that you could say, this is illustrative of where a diverse opinions are shared and received and followed, okay? Therefore, if there is a mainstream opinion that people are voicing out there, we should expect to find

someone voicing it on YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. So like if, if no one was a vegan, then there's probably not going to be a vegan channel. If there are very prominent vegan channels, then that's a sign that there are prominent groups of vegans. Okay. Here's what gave me a lot of hope. If you think of the issues that you might say leftist heretical Catholics are trying to push, let's think of them. What would they be? Homosexual marriage, women priests. Um, I'm actually asking you to help me.

Oh, those were the two I was going to say. Those are the two big ones, aren't they? Maybe like maybe like maybe a movement to like bring back the old 70s hymns or to not have, not that anyone would phrase it like this if they held to this belief, but to not have beautiful liturgies, like to actually make it more loosey goosey or like, I don't know, fill in the blank. Let us know in the comment section. Like what is an opinion that you think people are trying to bring back? Yeah, like contraception.

Okay. You know, that would be another one. All right. All right. So like, fair enough. Can you name, I'm going to ask you who are watching and you, because I know you're not Catholic, but I can't think of a prominent YouTube channel that's pushing any of this. Yeah, that's a good point. I can't even think of a YouTube channel that's pushing it.

Like you hear about it, right? German bishops, Karen from the parish council. You hear about it, but can you name me? Why? Like, I know if you're watching right now and you lean more traditional, you know, you might take issue with me or Trent or other people and you might think we're whatever. But like, I'm not I'm against all that and anyone, even I think more that you

would consider more liberal Catholic channels. Okay, American Magazine has 70,000 views, but is it okay? All right. Well, there you go. Maybe I just disproved myself. But I don't know if American Magazine is pushing for homosexual marriage. Maybe they're doing it quietly. Maybe some of them who work for them believe it. I don't know. I wouldn't want to. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, you have that even, even within like, I think there's certain Orthodox publications. I think one's called the wheel or something. Um, or it's the same thing where there's kind of like that undercurrent, but it's definitely not, it's not the prominent view.

Yeah. I mean, you have isolated, I mean, I said it earlier. You have German bishops who are heretics It seems to me from what I'm hearing. I don't want to make a judgment But you know you have that I understand you have that but like where where is the groundswell of? Liberal Catholic YouTube channels that are overtaking the world that should give us tremendous Hope I think because I know that there are Catholic youtubers who wouldn't like me or what I'm doing or, you know, they would think that I'm whatever. But I, I, it's like the differences are so small and that gives me great hope. Like, I don't know anybody who's, I, okay, that's not that I don't know anybody. I mean, you've got people like father James Martin, like you have these outliers, But what I guess what I'm trying to say is you don't have like a cult following. That's the wrong word. You don't have this huge movement.

You know, like think of Taylor Marshall, like whatever you think of him and some of the things he says or how he says them or what he put whatever. This clearly a traditional Catholic and he's someone who I'm sure I would have 99% in common with or 98, 97, who knows? Very, very, a lot in common with. People are excited about him. And you might say, well, they're only excited because they're angry. And that might be true, but what are they angry about? Well, they're angry about the confusion and the liberalism and things like this. So again, I just think that is just a big sign of hope. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if this is worth breaking up or also kind of a tangent or something,

but what came to mind as you were saying that was like thinking, like I think we, those of us who are more traditional think that the other voices are a lot louder or bigger or made up of a larger population of people than they actually are, which is why instances and things like, and I don't wanna go too far into like social commentary,

I guess, but you see like corporations like Disney losing a ton of money. And it's like, okay, where are all the people that we thought supported going down that path? Maybe there's not as many of them as we thought. Maybe we were just made to believe that there are. And I think that happens in the church as well. On anything, it could be, you know, like even like, let's, the conversation

between Catholics and Orthodox, you know, the issue of contraception, divorce, and remarriage, they're big issues. They're problematic issues. And I think a lot of people say, well, look, Orthodoxy teaches contraception. And it's like, no, Orthodoxy doesn't teach contraception. And I think whereas there might be some issues there, whereas I personally fall, I think Catholicism is right on these issues, the issues. The vast majority of Orthodox clergy and bishops don't think that, you know? So it's like taking the exception and making it the rule all over the place. I mean, everywhere we look, we see one exception we think, we generalize and say, everybody's like that, you know? I don't know. Mason- Another thing that I'm really grateful for is, this is Cardinal Pell, who's a, I asked for his intercession. I was just got to pray at his tomb in Sydney. He was

maligned, spat upon, wrongly accused and convicted of crimes he never committed. He was eventually vindicated by the high court in Australia when all seven judges said he was not guilty, but he was in solitary confinement for a large amount of time. He wrote these beautiful prison journals that I'm making my way through now. And I think of him as a sort of spiritual father and ask his paternal blessing and prayers for this little apostolate. But I saw a program from the 80s on YouTube where he was put in juxtaposition to this like Jesuit, I don't know, like dissenter, okay? And they were arguing about contraception, you know,

and Pell was just a faithful Catholic, which is why he was, I think why he was so hated in Australia. But one thing I realized is like, you know, in all with all deference and respect to Cardinal Pell, while he held the correct opinion, I would say that the way he communicated it wasn't, I didn't find it terribly helpful at convincing those who didn't yet believe it. But the Lord has raised up kind of people who are able. You know, I think of Christopher West, I think of Jason Everett, think of Scott Hahn. You know, you think of these people who are now able to articulate the church's position

in a way that faithful, not even faithful clerics really were able to do. Some of course were, but even faithful clerics weren't the best at it. It's like the Lord raises up these people. And now, I don't know, man, I just feel like the arguments against contraception, the arguments against cohabitation, the argument, all this is so well articulated that you even have people like Jordan Peterson now. In that book, Beyond Order, he makes an argument against cohabitation. That's the argument that good Catholics are now have been making. He just did an episode about what the pill now. In that book, Beyond Order, he makes an argument against cohabitation. That's the argument that good Catholics are now have been making. He just did an episode about what the pill does

to a woman's brain when she's on it, you know? So it's beautiful to see the Lord raising up people for a time such as this. So there's a lot of confusion. And we've just talked about it. We've talked about the fruits of confusion in our own hearts, you know, and the, um, we feel kind of pulled towards this or that, but there's also just tremendous amount of good happening. Yeah. Yeah. And even, I mean, all over the place, you know, we were talking yesterday, I saw that

article, Patriarch Bartholomew. Tell me about that. Yeah. So Patriarch Bartholomew is the ecumenical patriarch in Orthodoxy, which is kind of the first among equals, and also the patriarch of the Greek church, and a few other things kind of fall under that jurisdiction, like the American Carpatho-Rusyn churches for the deep cuts. Anyway, he paid a visit to Italy and visited some Roman Catholic church there that held

the relics of some saint that I can't remember his name at this point. But one of the, the reliquaries was like a vial with dried blood in it. And I guess when Patriarch Bartholomew picked it up, it liquefied. Wow. Which is a fairly common, common miracle that happens at this parish, like once a year on the saint's feast day or something like that. And so it was just kind of like this. Is it Genesis? Maybe. Maybe Thursday. Good luck Maybe Thursday. Good luck. Oh my goodness, he's already over it. The blood of Saint Januarius and ecumenical light in Naples. Interesting. So yeah, and I guess at this point, there's a quote in this article where he's talking about like, we need to find a way to have a shared Eucharistic meal between Orthodox and Catholics.

Wow, wow, wow. And so what does that look like, you know? And even if it did happen, the chaos that would ensue from that, like you said, the splinter groups where not the entire community would come in, you'd have a parallel Greek Orthodox church, or you'd have, you know, all this, it'd be a huge mess. And so part of me is like, it's impossible for the church to be totally unified at this point, it never will be.

Yeah, it is funny that you say that, because I mean, we know that our blessed Lord said, may they be one, because we are one. And we, presumably the Lord gets, you know, what he's, didn't the Patriarch, you know, what he's didn't pay to claim something like universal authority. I think it was patriarch Bartholomew said something like that. So yeah, um, our Lord usually gets what he prays for. Actually the Lord gets what he prays for. So fair enough. So all will be one. And yet that doesn't mean

there will never be heretics that that I mean, that doesn't mean there won't be people who attack the church. So that is interesting. Like what does oneness look like? Yeah. I think we have to be open to an idea that it's not going to look the way that we think we do. And maybe on one level, if, if I may be so bold to be a filthy ecumenist or a different, maybe we already are to some extent, you know, we're

more one than we think we are. You know, again, I think this is a point I brought up the last time that I came on the show was, you know, there's, there's even these theories and writings of like this, the great schism never actually happened. Like there's we're behaving as though it did, but like, there's not really grounds to say it happened because it was like, the Pope had died. It was a legate who put the bull of excommunication on the altar. He didn't really have the authority to do that. So it was like, was that excommunication ever even really real? But then the patriarch of Constantinople like gave one right back

and I don't know. At this point, it's definitely manifest. Yeah. But if you're not submitting to the universal authority of the pope, then your own schism, whether the schism happened when it's said to have happened or not, I suppose. So you say that, right? And there's a part of me that's like, oh, that hurt my feelings. I love you. I'm so sorry. No, it's fine. It's cool. But I'm glad that you will say it. We can't just pretend that like, we're manifestly

in communion with one another. We might be in some degree of communion with one another, you know, but like, we have to be willing to say and plant our flag on something. Um, yeah, beware of false summits. Yeah. You know, and, uh, and false ecumenisms. But like, what are, yeah, I don't know. Nevermind. I was going to go down some road of like, what could we, what are things that we can do together that doesn't cross a line or like- Yeah. Cause I mean, we've said certain things in this episode already about, you know, Eastern Catholics being like Orthodox in union with Rome.

Um, I'm not convinced I like that title. I was talking to a friend who shared with me why we maybe shouldn't use that title. I know that I know that Eastern Catholics like that title and that Eastern Catholics feel like children of divorced parents because they have an allegiance to the pope of Rome, but then also to the spirituality of the East. And I also understand that you could probably use it in a correct way. I'm not dying on the Hill here. I'm not saying you can't say you're an Orthodox in union with Rome.

Okay. But I just think that Orthodox has come to mean not in union with Rome, you know, like it's really in a way it's come to mean. I think at least for a while, that's the term that needs to be used. And if you want to show Orthodox Christians that they don't have to forfeit anything about themselves for this, that's where it's helpful. That's where it's helpful. Or I think, you know, the terms Catholic and Orthodox were used like interchangeably in the first millennium, like I'm an Orthodox Christian, I adhere to the Orthodox faith.

I'm a member of the Catholic church. And even of course the Orthodox in the creed will say Catholic church. So I think Eastern Catholics should want to be and should feel comfortable saying that like, I'm an Orthodox Christian. I'm a member of the Catholic church. Because I think Orthodox Christians

would say the same thing. They might mean something a little different. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. But so even though a word has come to mean something else, it doesn't mean it's not worth salvaging or fighting for. Yeah. You know, unlike the word gay. Right. I'm feeling really gay right now. That's a clip. That's a clip. That's a short. I want to tell people it's Thursday. We're going to do the adverts in the mid roll. All right. Let's do that.

And then we'll. What can we. We'll do that and then we'll come back and take questions and talk about this wonderful book searching for a maintaining piece, which is really what we've been talking about up to this point.

Isn't it. I got to tell you guys about my new favorite app. It's called Ascension and it's by Ascension Press. This is the number one Bible study app in my opinion and you can go to ascensionpress.com slash frad go there and so that way they know that we sent you. It is absolutely fantastic. It has the entire Bible there very well laid out. The whole Bible is read to you by Father Mike Schmitz or just sections of the Bible. It has the

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It's had tens of thousands of five-star reviews. Again, go to ascensionpress.com Again, go to ascensionpress.com slash frad. It also has all of their amazing Bible studies. So I remember back in the day I had a big DVD case of Jeff Kavan's Bible studies. Well, it's all there on the app. So go download it right now. Please go to ascensionpress.com slash frad. I want to tell you about a course that I have created for men to overcome pornography. It is called strive21.com slash Matt. You go

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encouraging each other, offering to be each other's accountability partners and things like that. Strive21, that's Strive21.com slash Matt or as I say, Text STRIVE to 66866 to get started today. You won't regret it. Any sinner. Slack. Jibroni. What is Jibroni? Is that a Pittsburgh? Is it cool? Where?

No, the Dwayne the Rock Johnson of wrestling fame used to use. We don't know who he is unless you appeal to his WWE cred. Used to call people Jabroni. I think it's like maybe an Italian slang for meat. I don't know. Slack Jordan. Why Slack Jordan? Did he say that? He never said that.

That was my flourish. I'll buy George Jab Brony. I would love Here's here's an afternoon that I could get behind Cold you me cold cuts. Yes some stouts, okay 90s WWF wrestling all day. I would just watch the cage mash between mankind and the undertaker Repeatedly, we could just watch that you ever watch that one. I don't know I watched a lot of wrestling back in the back in the 90s

my favorite of court was not maybe of course, but like Hulk Hogan and Hogan jabroni is Italian word for ham. Yeah ham jabroni your slack jarred jabroni Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. Those were the fights I used to enjoy. I have a question about Hulk Hogan that I want to ask you later. You can ask me now. When you ask me now or later, I will not be able to answer it. Oh, you can't. I cannot ask you now.

Man, trust it's important, though. It'll tell me a lot about. I remember the day I discovered that WWF was fake Me they said call it E now But when I remember the moment when I was told and then came to believe that WWF wrestling or II Fake what do you mean fake? Very good very good. It was almost as traumatizing as when I discussed. Yeah, my cousin Jordan and I used to wrestle.

We had this back room at my house, still do, and we had a bed out there and we would wrestle on this bed as like six year olds. And before we wrestled, we would agree who would win. You know, and then that was kind of fun. So I in my grandma's neighborhood, when I was like seven or eight, I we started a wrestling federation. Did you? Yeah, we would wrestle on a trampoline.

But it was before trampolines had like the barriers, you know, so it was like you were way more likely to get hurt. And we made our own custom t-shirts. That's amazing. My, this was so stupid, I was Dr. Pepper, don't know why, but I was really into Dr. Pepper and I thought it'd be a cool wrestling name. But we didn't wrestle with one another. We wrestled with like old giant carnival stuffed animals so that we could like just rip into them, you know? And, uh, so what, so real human beings would stand around watching Dr. Pepper,

wrestle a three foot mouse and would they cheer? Oh, nobody watched. No, but would they cheer the people watching the stuffies? No, but I presume that there was friends of yours. Not at all. It was just us. But who's us? Oh, me and this other kid. And what I mean was he cheering.

Was he watching you fight the three foot mouse? I don't recall. I was so into the game, into the match, you know? But one time I tried to do like a front flip or a back flip and I went off the trampoline and landed on the ground like on my head and I couldn't move for like a minute. I was terrified and I was yelling for this dude's stepdad. I was like, his name is Dave. I was like, Dave, call the ambulance. I can't move. Dave was probably drunk and like raking the leaves. He's like, Hey, just you're fine. And I'm like, I can't imagine having someone else's child fall off a trampoline in my yard and not be able to move. And my response be, yeah, you're probably fine. I was indeed fine, but he was indeed right. He was I guess but

Yeah, I remember as a kid Watching the show mole rats. This is a this is a long story Not a good one. I'm in for a long one I believe I was watching more rats and if memory serves mall or mole mall Ma ll okay, and it may not serve. Memory may not serve. But if it does, they were playing an ice hockey game on a video console, video game console, and I just thought I love ice hockey. That's such a cool game. I grew up without ice, without snow in Australia, but I love the idea of people skating about on blades, I guess. My son plays ice hockey now. Nice. I actually went skating last night and only fell over twice.

Good for you. With my kids. I pushed them over a bunch, but they couldn't push me over. Anyway, so I love the idea of it. And I thought, well, I got rollerblades. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put a little goal at the end of my driveway

and I'm gonna play ice hockey somehow. So I got my dad's broom and I broke the brush bit off. Who cares about that? Who cares about if dad wanted it? And I nailed and duct taped kind of a two by four into the end of this broom. And I am cruising back and forth and I'm knocking this ball into this box. And I'm so proud of myself for being into a sport that literally nobody in Australia knows about or cares about.

Anyway, so as I'm flying down, I've got the broom handle held quite low and there was a kind of chip in the pavement. And so the ice, the two by four got caught in the hole and then went into a very sensitive area Belly button in Matty Fratty's body not the belly button not the belly button And I'm thinking of this because of what you said about falling down and not being able to move Yeah, I hit the floor dude. I was in the greatest pain of my life. I could not call or speak I thought I was going to die.

Eventually I was fine, but that was, that was a brutal time. I really like how this did not go anywhere where I thought it was going to go. It started with mall rats and it ended. Not funny. Well, where did you think it was going to go? For some reason I thought of this show that I used to watch called biker mice from Mars. Okay. But nobody remembers it. So I'm not convinced that it was a real show. Okay. Because I have a lot of weird state biker mice. Can you confirm? I have a lot of weird memory.

Like I have this weird memory from childhood where we were at the beach. I had orange swim trunks with black choo choo trains on them. Okay. This was like last year. I had orange swim trunks with black choo choo trains on them. This was like last year. And for some reason I remember a shark grabbing my swim trunks and dragging me out to sea. Bycomice. Yeah it was real. Okay.

Thank you Thursday. And my dad punched the shark in the nose and got me back. And I still to this day. Say that again. Okay. Choo choo trains. On the shorts. On the shorts.

Yep. And the shorts. Yep. And you were? I was pulled out to sea by a shark and my dad saved me by punching. Well, that's the thing. That never happened. Oh. But I, it is a real memory in my mind for some reason.

And I don't know what this means. So you remember it quite vividly. I remember it extremely vividly. And you brought this up to your dad. And I- Sounds like something he'd remember. Right. But I remember it from a first person point of view too. Like, you know how sometimes you have dreams

and it's like third person omniscient, like you're watching it all happen? Yeah. I was like first person point of view. Like I can remember watching the shark grab my shorts and like a small shark, but it was a shark nonetheless. Yeah. That's where you thought this was gonna go? Cause you said I didn't know where that was going.

You think it has something to do with the obvious head trauma from the trampoline? I have several stories of head trauma. I dropped a petrified rock or like a piece of wood that's petrified on my head in kindergarten when me and this other kid were seeing who was who could hold it the, like who was stronger. Blood everywhere. And they brought over a tissue and I put it on my head, I said, thanks. And immediately soaked through and my arm was covered in blood and I started screaming.

And so I went home for the day. And then I didn't get stitches or go to the ER. And then in fourth or fifth grade, we were, somebody threw a lollipop at somebody. So then naturally they started throwing rocks back and forth. And I walked into the crossfire, got nailed. I still have like a scar tissue lump

from getting hit with a rock, ruined my mom's Jerome Bettis sweatshirt. The bus, man, it was a white sweatshirt ruined. I don't know if I've told you some of my memories. This is one of my favorite memories from childhood. And I was in third grade and there was a big kid and his name was John. If you're watching, his real name is actually Mark J Ma. So Mark J Ma, if you watch this, would you let me know in the comments section if this in fact happened?

Because I'm about to say something. Please subscribe. Please subscribe. And hit that bell button. So he was he was a big kid and I don't mean to speak crap about Mark when he was seven years old, but something of a bully. Something of a jabroni. Something of a slack jaw jabroni.

And he was running across the field at me and he was much bigger than me. He ended up playing AFL football for the Melbourne Demons. He was running at me. And I don't know why I didn't run away, because it was definitely terrifying. Maybe I was too afraid to run. But at the last minute, I lifted up my hand, punched him in the stomach and he was winded in front of me. And he started making this face that looks so silly, I thought he was joking and was about to

destroy me. But I guess I actually accidentally winded him and felt like the king for half hour. That is way better than any of mine ends up multiple heads. Do you remember any good fights you got into No, I never really got into fights. There was got into more fights. There was one kid Named Steven. I forget his last name right now He was like a you know, one of the bad kids and he kept like picking on me for some reason He was wearing a hoodie. I remember we were in third also third grade and It was just me him and some other kid in the halls by ourselves for some reason.

We were going down the stairs in the school. And I remember I grabbed his hoodie and like twisted it around my hand and pulled back to like choke him. And then he fell down the stairs. Nice. Did he hurt himself? Uh, not real bad. I have another story about a guy called Jeffrey and Jeffrey was chasing me once in high school and I was nervous. I don't know why I was running so fast. He was older than me to be to be fair.

Maybe that's why I was afraid. But he he chased me into the library and at that point I just turned around and kicked him and I kicked him in the hand and I guess I not only this is how I remember this. And I don't think this is wrong. I broke his hand and maybe did more than that. I think they use the word shattered. Was it a cool kid? Like, no, that's unfortunate.

If you were cool and seriously, you know, beefy or like strong and mean, this would be a great story. I'm pretty sure Jeffrey was a nerd that people picked on but even he could beat me up And that's where I was running and I turned and kicked him and shattered his hand and I was told By my mom who got off the phone with his mom a few days later this hand would never grow From that was that true. It's just something they told you to make you feel bad. I'm going to text my mum. Pretty sure that's what happened.

I mean, I'm so sorry, Jeffrey, if you're watching. If you're watching, please subscribe here. Let's see. Let me see. Give me a good get my mum, get my mum. All right, let me see. Do you remember when I kicked that kid Jeffrey's hand? Well, I don't think she's awake

because it's probably the hell if she responds, I'm definitely going to call her. And they said his hand would never grow. That's wrong. I really am. I'm sorry if that actually happened. I love that.

That's the text message. Her last text to me was, no, South Australia was the only state that never had convicts. All right, so I'm not descended from convicts. Oh, good. And then I said, do you remember when I kicked that kid Jeffery's hand? They said his hand would never grow. Oh, my gosh. And then I remember he came up to me after he was out of the hospital. And I really was so sorry.

I went up to him to apologize. And he just kind of forgave me. And I was really shocked that he did. Did you ever go, did you ever take that to confession? No I don't think I did. Well I'll tell you what, if it happened then you will. I will. So like when I... I think it did happen and I will apologize. Well I'm not that sorry that I kicked him. I mean he was chasing me, you know what I mean? I had to stop him. I didn't intend to shatter his hand. You're only sorry if his hand never grew.

What if right now there's someone in Australia whose workmates with a guy called Jeffrey, who's just got a little shriveled hair. They're like, hey, you know Matt Frant? You ever heard of Pines of the Guinness? He was bragging about it. I'm just like crapping on all of these kids, Mark, J, Mark, Jeffrey.

You're on a hit list now. Oh my gosh. No what I was gonna say was like when I like when I became Orthodox you know part of like this. So I Thursday just wrote so I kicked his other hand to even it out when he came up to me. No I didn't. I had to do like a life confession. Yeah. So I had to think back about like all of these things. So like these sort of stories are the things that I had to think through like I remember that time that you That you're playing you're playing with the DigiPet like yes DigiPet Yeah and uh

and you could like link them up and like battle and you stole that kids and then turned around and pretended like you just swung around And you smacked him in the chest and he cried and you got on the bus and went home. I had to confess that. So I remember once I stole a video game from a guy, gosh his name is escaping me, I'm sure he's thrilled about that. Joe someone, Joseph someone, he was a friend of mine in high school in grade eight. So I'm 13, too old to be doing nonsense like this. I stole one of his video games.

I think it's like a Star Wars first person shooter. But this is back in the day when you would have to go and buy the box. Yeah, I like that. The kind of aesthetic of buying the box

that had this disks in it. I don't even think it was a CD back then. Maybe it was just like disks you would put into your computer, like 18 of them to install. Install the game. And I stole it from him. Anyway, so he he found out that I owned the game because I couldn't hide this

forever, I guess. And he started asking me questions. And I was like, oh, yeah, I got it from my cousin in Adelaide, you know, she gave me this game. Anyway, about a week later, that was it. Can you put that on the screen so people can see the game that I stole from Joseph? Gosh, I wish I remember his last name, Joe Williams, maybe. Can I see that on the screen?

Dark forces, that's what I stole. And anyway, he opened the back of his school book and he had written down all of the things I said about how I came about this game and showed that they all contradicted themselves. So maybe over the course, he's like, hey, you said your cousin Sarah, did you? Yeah, no, I think that's what I said, you know? So he was, and he was, I was able to, I had to give it back. I like to know based on all the information that I have now That we would have been friends then just as we are now. Yeah, cuz we did the same kind of

terrible things. Oh My gosh, I did. I know yeah. I used to steal from my From the place I used to work Woolworth's Let's rename it Woolworth's the fresh food. I am deeply ashamed of this I mean not a shit the shame doesn fresh food. I am deeply ashamed of this. I mean, not as the shame doesn't sting because I have repented of it, but I used to just shamelessly pocket cash.

Dude, so bad. So I worked. Oh, here's what else I would do. Not that Michael's story. There was this there was this place. There was a place out the back of Woolworths where you would bring busted up. Yeah. So I would walk past these big Easter eggs and punch them and then take him out the back and then eat the chocolate.

So I but I do want to say I did do this after my conversion when I was 17. I I went to the front desk and dropped off like 500 bucks as an apology. And you know, it's funny, like here just goes to show how impure my intentions were. I think they just got upset that I stole stuff to begin with. They were like, what an amazing person that you would bring this back. They're like,

well, okay. So I stole all the time. I'm ashamed to say I stole money from my parents. I worked at a grocery store as well. Yep Yep first job. They only gave me two hours shifts I don't know why but during that two hours like I would have to do like the dairy restocking You know and there was always like shredded cheese bags that had a slice in them from the like the the knives You know, okay, and we were supposed to throw them out or like do something, you know

Oh, I would just pound shredded cheese. And sometimes I would accidentally cut the bag because like, P-Polo needed some cheese, you know? And then, why wouldn't you steal something better than cheese? Also, quarts of chocolate milk. So it was cheddar, cheddar cheese, shredded, shredded, shredded cheddar.

Shredded cheddar. Shredded cheddar. Say that Scotsman. Yeah. Might be another one. And, and chocolate milk. I that Scotsman. Yeah, might be another one. And chocolate milk. I remember, I remember in Australia we have like ice coffee is a big drink. Ice chocolate, ice strawberry, had all these different things. So I would work at Woolworths and we dressed up nice, you know, we'd have a tie and a nice

white business shirt. And I went and I bought a carton of ice chocolate and I bought it and I was sitting out the back reading the newspaper. And what I would like to do is like shake the chocolate milk before I drank it because who doesn't like some bubbles in the chocolate milk? Only this one time I forgot the lid was off. And so while I'm reading my paper, I did that motion and the chocolate milk just landed all over my white shirt. And another time I was filling up a fridge at the front of the grocery store and I opened up one of the cardboard boxes of glass orange juice in glass containers and they all just rolled out and I for some reason couldn't get to them in time and they were exploding on the floor. And Lisa Brock.

Hello, Lisa, who I just thought was the most beautiful creature God had made was in line just watching me. Watch she watched me watch glasses of orange juice explode. It's like my third day of work. I've never been so embarrassed. A lot of shout outs today. Jared, do you remember being embarrassed in school? Like, yeah, in school, especially in front of the the pharisex? I'm trying to think of like concrete examples of it.

I'm sure, I mean everybody's experienced that. For some reason I remember there was this girl that I really liked when I was in like fourth grade and I just wanted to wave to her in the hallway. But like, so like how does a normal person wave to somebody else? Give me some examples. It'd be things like this. Hey, hey, how's it going? Hi or hi. Yeah. For some reason I did this. And she did it back. And we did that for about a week where we would just wave to each other like this Like as an inside joke at that point I don't know that it was I don't know what it was and then we just never we never spoke to each other and

That was the end of that the first girl I ever asked out Karen Burke. Hi Karen still lives in period. I think She was also the most beautiful creature God had made and I just thought she was beautiful because she was the most beautiful creature God had made. So I thought that I remember I asked her out. I was probably twelve and I remember we were at this park and her and her friends were across the road. And we started talking in front of this crisscross metal wired fence. I asked her out. I didn't know what that meant. I remember when I first heard people were going out with each other.

Oh, Nick's going out with her, you know. Oh, okay. Please don't put Lisa Brock up on the screen Thursday. Yep, that's Lisa Brock. Don't put her up there. That's the poor thing. It's not her fault. But yeah, that's her. Can you put her up there. That's the poor thing. It's not her fault.

But yeah, that's her. Can you put her up on the screen just for that? No, don't do that. No, don't do that. I was going to say just for Derek and don't post it. But yeah, that's Lisa Brock. I saw. But see if you can find Karen Burke, the other beautiful creature God had made.

Neither are as beautiful as my wife. I want to make that very clear. Good man. Yeah, that's Lisa Brock at this age. Yeah, beautiful woman. That was the orange juice man. That's Lisa Brock at this age. Yep, beautiful woman That was the orange juice one. That was the orange juice girl. Yeah, she saw me drop all the orange juice That's amazing that you found that. OJ Lisa. Okay, see if you can find Karen Burke I can't believe we're doing this. This is wrong. This really went off the rails. It is live and it started with slack-jawed jabron We can get this back. Burke B-O-U-R-K-E. All right. No, we're not getting it back. We're going all in.

Well, I feel like I'm saying nice things about them. It's not like I'm like that bitch. Yes, that's Karen Burke. So. Please don't put her on the screen. I want to protect her innocence and her. All right, here's how I remember it. You know what's going to happen?

I don't know these people. I don't know where they're at. They might have YouTube channels. There's probably going to be a thousand like, Karen, Karen refutes Matthew's saying I would never date him. Twelve years old, asked her out. Pretty sure she said, yes, I had never been so happy in my life. But then I remember, like, it was we were at the age where I was afraid of girls.

And so I never she's a beautiful woman still. And I would I would never I never spoke to her once because I was afraid of her. So I went to the public swimming pool and I knew she was there, but I could not for the life of me go up to her. So I ended up sitting out on a and I knew she was there, but I could not, for the life of me, go up to her. So I ended up sitting out on a tower with my friends, just not. And that's, I think, I don't even know if we kind of broke up. It was just, I was too afraid to speak to her. So we didn't kiss. Nothing like that ever happened.

It was just, I mean, that I was definitely, and this might not, um, I'm technically still with her. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she would disagree as I would, too. I was definitely not a cool kid. I don't know if that's hard to figure out, but I was I was I was. Yeah, I was I was picked on. I was skinny. Was your worst. Like, did you have the worst outfit? Oh, outfit.

Well, I think I say attribute my worst. The attribute that I thought was the worst was I just felt like I was really freckly And I was but now I realized freckles are the best I felt that way too and I thought that I looked like like a Frito corn trip and for some reason I thought that was a plus in my column People like I want to eat me Cornship what does that even mean? You ever eat free? Can you put a Frito corn chip? What does that even mean? You ever eat Fritos? Can you put a Frito corn chip up on the screen Thursday so I can see what young Derrick looked like? I don't know what a Frito corn chip is.

I wasn't quite as yellow as the chip. Isn't a Frito corn chip like round? No, well they're like little- Oh, kind of bent? Little chippies, yeah. You look like that. Yeah, see how- Can you put that up on the screen Thursday so people can see what he looked like?

Yeah. That's what you thought you looked like. I mean, my arm like still kind of... Yeah. Oh, I see. Yeah, you do look like a Frito Corn Chip. Yeah, we made fun of. This is why Thursday cannot be in the room because he would laugh that loud.

I wasn't made fun of for looking like a Frito Corn Chip, but I remember like for a long time in early elementary school when like my mother still, you know, dressed me or bought my clothes, she would only buy me these monochrome sweatsuits. Okay. Where it was just a crew neck sweatshirt and like sweat pants with the elastic around the ankles. And for some reason I never thought like, oh I can mix and match these, so I'd wear like yellow shirt yellow pants, red shirt red pants, and I went hard from that straight into like goth chain pants from Hot Topic, because it was like I need to undo this from Yum, yeah, I went through a not a goth stage because what's necessary for goth? What's the lowest bar? I obviously goth can be as yeah much as like mohawk purple hair

I think just like what is what is what gets me over the goth hurdle and I'll let you know if I was goth You gotta wear all black for sure Is that it? No, no, I can't be right cuz you could be a priest right? Yeah, I imagine it's when fishnet makes its first Like like I had a Jack Skellington fishnet Yeah, you were definitely I was definitely not goth then because I would would wear like black boots, black jeans, black long sleeve shirt with skulls. Oh yeah, maybe, maybe. I don't know. There's a, because you can be goth and metal, but you can't,

you don't necessarily have to be metal and goth. It's like a square rectangle situation. So maybe I was metal. I do. What would the distinguishing factor be? I mean, a lot of goth people listen to metal, but they'd listen to like cradle of filth. But I think like makeup, if you like, if you wear makeup.

Big, big eyeliner guy. That's goth, isn't it? Yeah. Is there photos of you online? I hope not. Please look. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. So I was in this like goth band.

At one point we were trying to take like some band photos. So I was like, oh dude, you know what would be sick? I said, I'm gonna fill my hand with Axe body spray and light it on fire for the picture. Yes. Like second degree burns on my hands. And then I couldn't put it out. They were like trying to get the picture.

My hand is literally on fire. I'm like beating it on the ground. Hang on, let me just take a horizontal one. That's what they do today. It's very frustrating. They told me after that, they said that my hand would never grow. Oh, stop it. Also my real name is Jeffrey and I'm from Australia and I'm here as your vendor, your reckoning. Me and my friends, uh, used to light our feet on fire. Right.

Like your socks. Cause they would do this. I think we lit the base of our sneakers on fire. Right. Like your socks, because they do this. I think we lit the base of our sneakers on fire and we would spray brute deodorant, light it on fire and run down the street. We did a lot of crazy stuff. We made a lot of bombs. I don't know if I should explain the

kind of bombs we made and how we made them. I should not. I won't do that. Thank you, Thursday. I will not explain how we made bombs, but we made different bombs and we would light them. You're on a list now in people's letter boxes We would like blow up. I did that kind of stuff too. We were big Throw stuff off overpasses kind of guys

That kind of person the cops came one time us too We threw a we threw a bomb off of an overpass and things caught on fire. Like the dead weeds and stuff. And we had to run. I will not stop Thursday. I will ruin my career now and you cannot stop me. The cops came one time. Those guys wanna cut the stream.

We're gonna be talking for another hour, going down and down and I'll be grateful to him one day that he cut the stream. Yeah, we've definitely. Well, okay, last thing and then we should probably move on. The cops came one time and they had like their search light and they were looking for us over this field. And we all just laid face down in this field motionless

for over an hour before the cop eventually just drove away. And that's so fun. But like, it's not it's not fun. Don't tell people that it was fun. I think we're just we have phones now, so we do other things. We have screens and Netflix. I really believe that God in His mercy and grace protected me from having an actual criminal record so that I could do something fruitful in ministry at some point in my life.

I like to hope that's what happened. We used to, you probably did this as well, knock on people's doors, ding dong and run away. That was so much fun. We used to egg houses. Mr. Shleeves, hello, it was me in high school. I think I was 13 or 14, egged his house. I'm gonna get in so much trouble after this episode. I don't know how this happened.

I'm concerned for our futures at this point. I'm sorry I did that, Mr. Schleaves. It was not your fault. Me too. Yeah. Mr. Schleaves. Man.

Knocking doors and running away was just so fun. Did you have anyone chase you? No. I remember once I made prank calls one night And my parents weren't home. We couldn't prank calls. You couldn't crank calls, right America? I called him prank calls Okay So we made this sweet these phone calls and I went to bed and woke up in the morning My parents had gotten home late after a party and I guess someone I guess you could find out on those

Landlines who dialed your number by clicking star something something Star six nine for us. Okay. Well, I don't know what it was in Australia, but they did that and my parents came in and I got in trouble But those were good human ways of getting in trouble I mean we all look with nostalgia on our youth and so maybe I'm wrong to To think anything other than shame regarding them, but I mean we've just with nostalgia on our youth and so maybe I'm wrong to to think anything other than shame regarding them But I mean we've just confessed to thievery arsony arson arsony or just arson Yeah

destruction of public property violence This would be the last time anybody sees us last last thing last thing I'll say when I wanted to be in the WWF as a kid again did you ever hear the term WWF yeah yeah World Wrestling Federation yeah when it was good I don't know what did they someone buy it well the worldwide world wildlife foundation had had tired of people showing up there yeah with steel chairs inside beating pandas with steel chairs. Well, I remember wanting to be part of the WWF one day and I wanted the name. I want me and my friend Toby Crocker.

I wanted him and I to join it and to have our name be double dragon. Cause of that video game. You probably don't remember double dragon. We go through streets. I thought it was a killing people broken bottles and things um Derek you work for Exodus 90 you work for Exodus 90 that is correct as an orthodox person yep they allowed you in they was an issue for them no not at all I had asked on the front end. Well, first of all, like how I got that job was kind of like technically, I guess, through you. So I was doing social media work for you. Yeah.

And you were like, hey, I was freelancing. You're like, you should start your own business. And I'm like, I don't really wanna start my own business. And then you said, well, let me introduce you to this guy, Ryan Foley, wonderful fellow, amazing dude, who was trying to help me get a job with Covenant Eyes, and that didn't come to fruition, which was fine. And, but he kept talking to me, he's like,

do you wanna start your own business? I'll run the books for you, I'll follow for the LLC. He goes, I know you're in a tough spot, your wife wants to be home with your children, and I wanna make that happen for you, it's the right thing to do. Like, this dude was just like committed to my family. Ryan Foley is one of the best human beings I've ever met.

And note that he's clearly not getting anything from this. He doesn't even know you. He didn't know me at all. But he was like, hey, I can at least help you get some more freelance work. I think at the time possibly on the board when Exodus was still nonprofit. And he was like, I know they're looking for some help

with some media work. So I contracted with Exodus at first, and then they brought me on full time. But yeah, never was it ever an issue. Like I was the one that had to ask, like, is it a problem that I'm Orthodox? And they're like, are you, do you have any problem with what we're doing?

I was like, absolutely not. In no way whatsoever. So yeah, no issue. It's actually kind of fun, you know, cause it's, there's me and there's another guy on the team who's Baptist. So sometimes it's fun, like, sharing our differences when we're all together, you know? I mean, Exodus 90 is another example of great hope for the church. We talked earlier about there being an absence

of prominent YouTube people pushing for heresy. Yeah. But in addition to that absence, you have great things going on in the church. Exodus 90 is absolutely one of them. Okay, I gotta tell the story. I was in Australia and I had hundreds of people coming up after my talks, meeting me, saying hello.

It was very, very humbling. But one fella said he came in, he became a Catholic. He attributes that in large part to pints. And then he told a fight. I've been told I shouldn't say his name. So then he told a former prime minister of Australia about Exodus 90, because he heard about it from pints that former prime minister, people who are Australian, I'm gonna guess who the prime minister is,

but said Exodus 90 rejuvenated his faith life. Wow. Isn't that wild? There's so many stories of just amazing, beautiful men who were like, we just did a big, the Freedom Summit in Esselstyn Park, Colorado, which was this massive, it's not a retreat, it's not a conference.

It's just this experience of all coming together and trying to figure out, we've all found an uncommon freedom through Exodus. It's changed our lives, changed our marriages, our relationships with our children. But now what? Like, what do we do now?

Like, we can't just stay where we are. Like, we feel called to do something. And time after time, men would share this same sentiment that they're feeling that. So it was like, we got them all together and offered like some formation and just plenty of time in prayer and in like adoration and mass.

And just hearing the stories of like these guys who were like, yeah, I was having an affair and somebody suggested I do Exodus and, you know, my marriage is healthier than it's ever been. Or one guy was like, I was trapped in the occult and, you know, I became interested in Catholicism and somebody suggested Exodus. Like somebody invited me to do Exodus. Stories of people who had like gambling problems, problems with alcohol, pornography, addiction of different, like one dude, it seems like such a small thing. He's like, I was addicted to cigarettes for 20 years and like I quit because of Exodus.

And just like all these amazing stories and stuff like that. And I don't know, it was wild just to hear all that and to think like in my job I don't see that on a daily basis you know I'm like cranking out content and well that's that's how I felt going to Australia and encountering people who'd actually been blessed by pints yeah I'm used to sitting in a studio in Steubenville and occasionally when I dare seeing snarky comments on YouTube, you know, and you're like, I don't even know what this is doing. I pray that, and it is.

So that's neat that you saw that. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it's cool. I think I'm going to do Exodus 90 this year, which actually- When does it start? January 1st. Also, just so people are aware, Exodus 90 is an, you tell me if I've got this right, an ascetical program for men where men get in small groups with other men and for 90 days, you know, take on extra penances, extra prayer time. They give up things they'd rather not give up like alcohol, snacks between meals, warm

showers and they read the book of Exodus over the course of this 90 days as they're engaging in these activities and they grow in their faith life over the course of this 90 days as they're engaging in these activities, and they grow in their faith life, they grow in brotherhood. Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's a fair assessment of it. You know, prayer, asceticism, and fraternity. It's like you can't do anything unless you're going to God first. So the whole point is not necessarily just to do hard things or give things up, but it's you're making room in your life to hear from God.

And it's kind of like, here's like a rule book or a playbook or a roadmap for you to make that room in your life. Because, you know, like the tagline that we use all the time is there's no shortage of modern Pharaohs, right? Like the theme of Exodus is like Pharaohs enslaving God's people and they want to be free to worship him. It's like, what is keeping you from worshiping God in the fullness of your person, you know,

in your body, in your mind, in your spirit, in your relationships. So, but you can't do it alone. So you have to do it with other brothers. Like, so it has to be done in fraternity and it has to be done in a human way. Like it's not a set of system for the sake of a set of system, like I said. And so people human way. Like it's not asceticism for the sake of asceticism, like I said.

And so people who are thinking that it's just about the cold showers or it's just about not eating snacks or sweets or not spending extra money, you're missing the point, you know? And people who think it's about succeeding in doing that for 90 days are also missing the point. There's one guy, an Exodus man from Chicago that we've talked with all the time, I've met him a few times, he always tells me,

he goes, yeah, when I invite guys to join me for Exodus, I tell them, you're not gonna be perfect for 90 days and you're not gonna be perfect after 90 days. Like, this is gonna show you where the cracks are, this is gonna show you where your weaknesses are. And it's just such, it's an amazing thing. Like I said, this will be the first year that I've done the 90, which is kind of interesting

working for Exodus, but I've done every other program that we've done so far. And each one, I can tell you, it like reveals something different about myself that I'm like, oh, I didn't realize like St. Michael's Lent, we did in like August, like late summer. And the theme was all about spiritual warfare. And we did a content series with Father Carlos Martins. And I learned a lot about like, oh, wow, the spiritual warfare in my life that's

going on that I wasn't even aware of before. So yeah, Exodus is obviously I could talk ad nauseum about it, because I love what I do. Yeah, but it's one of these things that is actually a good thing. Yeah, and it's, I think it's one of the unifying things. It's worth talking about. You know? Do you know Protestants, Orthodox, non-religious people who do it? Or maybe not non-religious, I don't know why they'd read the book of Exodus.

No, we've had atheists do Exodus. Yeah. I've heard, I can't confirm this, that, we've had atheists do Exodus. Yeah. And I've, I've heard, I can't confirm this that we've even had a Muslim do Exodus one time. Um, a lot of Protestants, there's been a lot of Lutherans for some reason, love Exodus. I mean, there seems to be this growing consensus among men in this country and others that we live a very pampered life and that that's killing us.

Pampered and isolated, you know? That's right. So this is something that removes both of those things. A lot of increasing number of Orthodox Christians are doing Exodus. One of the guys that came to the Freedom Summit was Greek Orthodox from Australia. And he came all the way to Colorado

because he's like, Exodus changed my life and I had to be here Exodus nine zero dot com slash Matt. Yeah Thursday, would you please put a link to that in the description and we invite men to click that and join this 90-day Journey starting January 1st. Is there a part of you that's desperately afraid to stop this? Here's the part of me that's afraid so I I'm Orthodox, right? I'm on the old calendar. So Christmas for me is January 7th. Easter for me in 2024 is May 5th. It's like over a month after Western Easter. So Exodus 90 ends on Easter.

Really? The Western Easter. It starts on the first and it just so happens that those 90 days- It's always 90 days before Easter. So that's how we... Interesting. So that when you end, you're entering the feast, you're entering the celebration of the resurrection. So for me, the Nativity Fast started like November, I can't even remember when it started, mid-November. It ends January 7th, Exodus 90 starts January 1st, Exodus 90 ends March 31st, I think.

And Pascha, Easter for me is May 5th. Aren't there some Orthodox churches on the Julian, the name calendar? Well, the Julian is the old calendar. Oh, so what's the Gregorian? That's right. Yeah, there are, but Easter would still be Orthodox Easter as always. That's going to be brutal. How on earth are you going to finish and then continue to fast?

I'm just gonna have to. Or I will like- Why don't you speak to your spiritual father and surely he would acknowledge that that amount of fasting is- Yeah, I mean, you have discernment, right? That's the same reason why it's like, okay, the rules are there for a reason.

Both the church gives us rules for feasting and fasting. Exodus has rules for feasting and fasting. Exodus has rules for asceticisms. But you kind of do what you can and you take into consideration that like you're, you're an adult and like, oh, on Exodus 9, yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's not that we say like just go willy nilly and change the rule. You need to try to do them the way that they've been presented to you. Yeah. that we say like, just go willy nilly and change the rule. You need to try to do them the way that they've been presented to you.

But if your consistent failing in it is going to like drive you away from it or discourage you, then work with your priest, work with your spiritual father. What if there's a fella watching right now and he's open to doing Exodus 90 come January 1st, and again, exodus90.com slash Matt will give you the deets and the lowdown on how to do that, download the app.

But what if he doesn't have other men in his town who want to do it? Do you have men who do it remotely with each other? So I just joined a fraternity. It's actually here in Steubenville. So I met a guy at the Melkite mission that one time that I visited with you. And I was looking for a fraternity. Oh, that fella, he really loves. He really loves Exodus.

Even you were like, well, calm down. It's not that good. But I reached out to him and I was like, dude, do you have a fraternity? And he was like, yeah, he goes, you want in? So like I meet with them over Google Meet and he's like, you can come whenever you want. And in that fraternity, there's a couple

like Eastern Catholics, a bunch of Roman Catholics, a bunch of one Orthodox guy. There's one other Orthodox guy in it. But you can use, there's a fraternity finder in the app. There's a new feature that we're rolling out. That I actually, how does that work? Like fraternity finder? How does that work? Practically? So, um, right now it would find you remote fraternities. So like the people who are still looking for others, it'll tell you how many slots are filled and like when they meet and that's really, then you just set up kind of a video call or whatever there's another feature coming out I actually

don't know if it should be launching today but I don't know if I can talk about it yet okay but I will tell you that it will solve all of those problems so maybe a little teaser is download the app right now wow you get a 14-day trial and you don't need like your credit card up front. It's not like other ones where it's like, we'll just charge you after this time. It's like, no, come just check it out. You want my phone now? Yeah.

Download it now. You don't have it? Nope. You get the 14 days of content and if that new feature is up, you'll be able to find... You think it could possibly be up right now. It should be. Why don't you look on your phone? I don't have a smartphone.

Alan Harrelson is in the chat. What's up, Alan? He's the fella who runs pipe cottage and he just became Catholic. Good dude. Exodus 90, 3.4 thousand five star reviews. That'll do. Show off. Live different.

Enter your phone number. All right, I will. 6 1. Well, I'm not going to say what that is. Easy there. Easy. Oh, now I'm going to dump the stream or I'll just like throw away my phone. You should have like a technical difficulties. Yeah. the stream or I'll just like throw away my phone. You should have like a technical difficulties. Yeah, I cannot. Yeah, I cannot pronounce the name of that song.

The girl from no, it's not Iwo Jima Impa Nima. Well, you just said you can't pronounce it. So how do you know? I think I pronounced it wrong. Allow the app to do it. Allow if it asks for your location, it how do you know? I think I pronounced it wrong. Allow the app to do it, allow. Yeah, if it asks for your location, it'll help you find fraternities within like a 25 mile radius. I think it does charge you right away. Well, you have already have an account.

Ah, I see. So you've already gone through this, that's why. But somebody who's brand new to it would not. By the way, your app is fantastic. It's so good, dude. Apps these days are so much better than they used to be. And it's really a labor of love. Like our product team,

shout out to Doyle and Brock. Brock's actually, he's the Baptist guy and he's the most amazing Christian. Classic Baptist man. Yeah, he was so cool at the, I gotta tell this story because it was really funny. We were at the, I don't think he would mind. We were at the Freedom Summit, right?

And he was just so excited to see all these people. He's smiling all the time, so full of joy. He said, I would really like a rosary, but like, it's not a thing that we do. And he goes, I don't think that I would ever pray like a Hail Mary on it. And I said, well, that's okay. Like you could pray other prayers on it.

If you just want the rosary, like you could pray the Jesus prayer on it. Like, I don't think you'd have any problem with that. He's like, that's a great idea. So he got, he bought one of our Exodus rosaries because he was so excited to have it. And he disappeared for a while. And I guess he asked one of our other guys,

one of our other guys said, you know, Brock, a lot of times when a Catholic will get a new rosary, they'll have it and he disappeared for a while. And I guess he asked one of our other guys, one of our other guys said, you know, Brock, a lot of times when a Catholic will get a new rosary, they'll have it blessed. And Brock was like, well, how do I do that? And they're like, well, there's a lot of priests here. Just have one of them do it. No way Brock's a Baptist next year. Yeah, so he had his rosary blessed

and he just was walking around telling us, he's like, guys, I got my rosary blessed. And like, it was just this really cool, like, him enjoying the traditions of the people that he's with the most, and using them, not abusing them to make them work for himself, but like just using them in a way that worked for him. I don't know. Mason- I can't tell you, and I'm sure other Catholics watching the stream right now agree, how pleasant it is to hear a non-Catholic like yourself have all these beautiful experiences of faithful Catholicism. Because I think our fear is that people who start to hear

about Catholicism immediately get hit in the face by a heresy bat and bad liturgy. The coolest thing working there is, like these are my brothers, like every day, it, hey, what's, are you doing okay? How's your stress levels? Can I pray for you? Like, how's your family? How's your wife?

How's your children? Hey, I noticed you were working a little late last night. Like, why don't you take a break? Why don't you, your first vocation is your vocation to your family. And yeah, I've been nothing but welcomed in and accepted by them as a brother. And as your friend, hearing about how Exodus 90 has been to you from behind the scenes,

you're always raving about how much you love your job. I've never loved a job like this, other than maybe when I was working in ministry, but this is a ministry, you know? But I think you said that when you got accepted, they sent your wife flowers? Yeah. Yeah, like within a week, by the end of the week when I said yes, and Jamie, the CEO, he was like on a personal vacation, like he was on a leave of absence, and he made it a point to like give me a phone call. And I was like, hey, I just, anybody that we hire, like, I I wanna know you, man.

And like just not in a like, who's this guy? Let me check him out. But it was just like a, tell me about you. Like, let me get to know you. And we had like an hour long conversation. And yeah, they sent my wife flowers that said like, thank you for saying yes with your husband, knowing that like she supports this.

And send stuff to our kids all the time. What do you fear most about the 90 days coming up? Like what, when you think about it, what are you like, Oh, okay, I can do this. I can do this. Is it just the fact that you have to commit to something for that long and you can't, you can't on week two go, nah, I'm gonna do something else. Apparently you're committed or is there a specific aesthetic? I can tell you right now,

my wife is far more committed to this for me than I, than like, she's like, you're doing this, you need this. This is going to be good for you. What is it you don't want me asking that she? She's just like, she's heard the stories of like men become more present to their wives. They listen better. They're more helpful around the house. They're more gentle. And she was like, I know that's who you want to be. Like I know you want, that's who God has made you to be like, and this is going to help you get there. So like, she was, I'm going to hold you accountable to this. And she will, she will. She's like, tell me the disciplines. I'm like, well, no TV, you know, we watch

TV together every night. We have our shows. She goes, that's fine. She goes, sometimes I'm still going to watch TV. And I'm like, that's, that's fine. Because like my Exodus is not your Exodus. You know, I'm not going to impose that on you. She goes, she's like, but we'll find something else that we can read books. She goes, maybe sometimes like if you want to go listen to a podcast and I want to watch a show, like maybe we spend, yeah. So she's just willing to accommodate that. Yeah. And that's what I mean, any man who's interested in it, who's talk with your wife You know, I remember when I did Exodus 90 back in the day. There was kind of agreed upon Thing in the group because we started to realize that You know like if one of the men went out for a date night the wife really wanted him to have a glass of wine

So he did yeah, but there was a sort of agreed upon. All right, that makes sense for the good of your marriage So I like that this sort of flex in the joints there, but it's not for the sake of dispensation culture. It's not that at all. Not making the exception the rule. Yeah, and I can see something being similar, right? Where it's like you're doing Exodus 90 and your wife says, I really would love you to watch this movie

just this once with me. And be like, okay, yeah, let's do that. The other thing that's cool as an Eastern Christian coming in is like the culture around Exodus really lends itself nicely to the Eastern way of things, you know, where it's like, hey, if I'm fasting and my wife cooks dinner and she makes steak, I'm going to eat the steak with gladness of heart and be thankful for what I have. To be clear on Exodus, not only you don't give up steak, but you're saying in the Eastern fasts.

For the entirety of it, during Exodus 90, it would be Wednesdays and Fridays, you would do that. So there was a story, one guy went out, he was a young professional, and went out to a networking event, and was having a really great conversation with somebody about a potential job, and the guy ordered him a drink and he was like,

I'm doing Exodus. What do I do? He's like, so I texted my fraternity and they're like, drink, have the drink food, like just have the drink. When I did Exodus 90, I went to Uganda to speak and for that entire trip, I did not watch the TV. It was not easy. Cause you get a TV literally there for a very long time. Yeah. I didn't think about that. But that's good, right?

Yeah, it is good. You want to do it and you're saying I'm not going to do it. Yeah. I think one of the best things Exodus 90 can do for men is to have them detach from their screens. I mean, how will you? Because I know they say unless for work. The problem with me and with you is, work is kind of broad.

I mean, I could see you justifying certain Orthodox or Catholic content because it keeps you abreast of what's going on and this world that you work in. And social media is my job. And social media is your job. So what are the parameters you're trying to set up for yourself now?

Yeah, I think it's just being more just intentional about what you're doing. Like I don't know how to explain that like it's just you need to stop and think before you make the next click. Always you should be like that right? But this is definitely gonna make you think that way or before the next thing that you eat think about the next morsel of food that you eat. Stop and think about that. But I mean, part of the reason, I agree with you, but part of why you come up with these disciplines

is because it's kind of harder than that. It's very easy to say to yourself, I'm gonna be more mindful, but you don't. So that's why you have to say things like, I'm not gonna use the internet from this time. Like those rules kind of help. So do you have rules for yourself? Yeah. You know what I mean? In addition to just trying to be more mindful.

Cause I could see the weaker part of you and me and others just kind of taking full advantage of that. You know? I think I need to, why I need to think through that a little bit more before I take it on. Yeah. Like what are my parameters? I wonder since Exodus 90 hires you to run their social media, I wonder if they would have an idea of how you might use it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. There's something else I was gonna say but I forget what it was. Great. Exodus90.com slash Matt. Here's what I love at Exodus 90 as well. Y'all could make hay on making a program for women. Yeah, but you just choose not to. How beautiful is that?

Like that was a big discernment process. Like the leadership went and was like, hey, we really need to pray about this. Like these, the Exodus team, hopefully me included, God willing, are people who are actually living this. Like, everything is bathed in prayer and discernment. And like, our leadership team was like, hey, we're spending time in prayer first. Everything is prayed for, every vision, every direction that we do, and like everybody's really trying to live this out. So, you know, don't be afraid of getting duped. Don't be afraid of being like sold something because you're not. You're being invited into something. It's something that's not just a 90-day thing. Like it's a life. It's a Christian life. It's an actual Christian life.

And this is just one way that you can enter more deeply into that. So if you're scared, it's okay to be scared to do it, but invite somebody to do it with you. Take it on, try it, know that you're going to fail, but know that you're going to be a little more who God has called you to be by the end. And you're probably gonna need to do it more, which is why it's a year-round thing. It's not, like I said, not just 90 days. There's, we have stuff all year round, but beyond that, most men that do it, do it multiple times. Like, I talked to a guy last week that has done it something like 13 times. We were like, it hasn't been around for 13 years. How'd you do it 13 times? He's like, I just did it other times of the year on my own.

And yeah. Very good. All right, I have questions from local supporters. We have quite a bit here. Oh wow, that's Derek. Why do you have that? Can he put that on the screen for people? But why does he have it?

Yeah, just do it. Put it on the screen for people. You look way better now than back then Do you really think I'm his hair hundred percent look better? I promise you you look better now. I Really loved hair. I know but the thing is dude once it starts receding like that Like mine has you got to quit it before it quits you as one wise man once told me that was you It's you can't fire me. I quit. That's that's that's right. I'm breaking up with you.

Carbide says, does Exodus 90 have entry level coding writing jobs? I've done the full exercise twice in college, but now I'm looking for full-time employment. Excess 90.com. I guess you could slash careers. Okay, is it really that's the thing. There are some open positions right now that people can check it Marshall says, currently raising a two-year-old and newborn twins, the suffering is

really setting in now. Tired all the time, new aches and pains due to lack of rest, recovery, and pain of self-sacrifice given to judge three little ones needs. These are bright spots here. There are bright spots here and there, but for the part this is not enjoyable I am afraid of losing my spiritual life completely Simply due to lack of time and energy Depression despair can be tempting at times But my wife and I try our best to support each other during our hard times any advice is appreciated. God bless you, brother Oh, that's I feel you You know, the first thing that comes to mind was there's this,

Father Thomas Hopko, who's an Orthodox priest of blessed memory, had these 55 maxims for Christian living. One of them, I mean, they're really cool. You should look them up. But one of them was, praise you can, not as you think you must, you know, which is not like unique to him. Other people have said this, but if you're worried about losing your spiritual life, like, don't think that it's going to look the same with two or three kids than it did before. The abbess of the monastery near me, the Orthodox monastery, Mother Christophorou, she said the prayer rule of a stay at home mom is to wave at her icons when she walks past them. That is so beautiful. So if that's the most you can do is offer up a thought here or there or similarly,

my wife has said to breastfeeding mothers when you're up at three in the morning, breastfeeding your kid, that's your adoration. Like that's your holy hour. She's the way she puts it, you know, no, that's really, really helpful because especially those of us who have more of a melancholic, scrupulous bent, you know, um, when we got married and when we started having children, like you kind of feel like, what am I doing? But I like that, pray as you can.

I would also say like, it's really important to sort of establish times and activities that give you soul care, because a lot of our day can be spent with distracting activities. And if you were to remove those unnecessary distracting activities, like checking your email for the 18th time or what have you, then you would realize that there is time during the day

that I could do something that actually kind of revitalizes me. And what might that be? You know, can I carve out a moment in the morning where I make my wife coffee and the two of us sit together intentionally and ask each other how we are? Can I do that? Can I watch a movie at the end of the night with my wife once a week or something like that? You know, like what can I do that can give me some respite? Are there people in my neighborhood who could come over to look after the kids so my wife and I can do a date night once a week or once every other week? And maybe we don't even

have to go out, but we can do it up in our room. We can just shut the door and we can tell the babysitter for all intents and purposes. We do not exist. You know, like make it work for you, but find time to give your soul care. Cause I know what it's like. You know what it's like to have times in your life where you are just hit hard and constantly and it is so exhausting and you really don't think you'll ever come out of it. I feel like my wife and I coming out of a season we just

Were buried in for so long and things are starting to open up and it's like oh my gosh I didn't think this would ever happen again. It's I have this Problem where I don't see the forest from the tree Like all I see is how bad this tree looks and that's my reality forever and I'm the same way Yeah, yeah, my wife has to remind me. This is the way it's always been and always will be. Yeah. No, that's not at all. I think once I actually said the words to my wife, our marriage is going up in flames.

And I think she'd love because it really, really, really wasn't. I was just in a really bad dramatic mood. Yep. Yeah. Derek says, Alex, you are probably the nicest person I've ever met on the internet. Give us some advice on making authentic friends in this culture of rugged loneliness. Bonus question. Tell us which decade is better, eighties or nineties.

First of all, we should say that you're on locals, right? As well. What is your handle? A dose of theosis dot locals dot com. Excellent. So follow you there. Yeah. A dose that's easy to spell.

Theosis T H E O S I S. Okay. And same on yin's tube. I don't do a lot on YouTube. Okay. Yeah. But same thing. So you're the nicest person ever. What is your advice on making authentic friends in this culture of rugged loneliness? Um, I try to always think that everybody I talk to feels just as lonely or isolated or defeated as I do sometimes. And I try to be the kind of person that I hope would reach out to me in hopes that when I need somebody to reach's from locals, from my locals, Adosathiosus. And that community that we've kind of built over there is very small, but it's very intimate. And it's very like, we pray together.

I say this everywhere I go, we pray together. We laugh together, we mourn together. We send each other gifts. Like one of my people from locals is from Poland and she sent me this beautiful handwritten icon. That same woman sent one to me. Yeah. It's just so incredible. I'll get a card in the mail that said, hey, a mask was offered for you and your family today. I just reach out to people and ask them about themselves. And if I feel like we're different from one another, I just try to understand, like, tell me about like, how many understand you? Like,

why are you where what and where you are? And most people don't have bad reasons for that. Some people do, but most people have good reasons. I also, if I could give some advice, it would be to cultivate those relationships that seem the most likely to deepen. You know, because like sometimes we have a lot of acquaintances and sometimes some of those acquaintances are potential friends, but not as potential as others. And so I think it's OK, especially if you've got children, you've got to kind of pick those times and those people to kind of invest in. I heard some analogy that people are like Lego bricks and that like they only have so many connecting points and it's like if you see like all of your points are full and one of them really isn't strong yeah like it's probably time to fill that with

something else yeah that's good but also the 90s are better than the 80s okay I don't know I have no real opinion Ross I'd like argue with you or something Joseph says how do we avoid making an idol out of the divine liturgy? Oh, that's a really good question. And what does that even mean? Yeah. Well, you know, you think about like the liturgy wars that are going on or people are saying like,

the thing you have to remember is the liturgy is not an ends to itself. It's a means to union with God through the Eucharist. So it's like if you're just focusing on just the liturgy and all you're talking about is how beautiful the liturgy is, which is true, and you don't find yourself talking about how God is revealed to you in the liturgy or what you've learned about God or how you are closer to God now, then you might have it backwards. Yeah, that's good. If you're not seeing personal growth.

Right. And if you also think that other liturgical expressions are not ways that people can experience God. Because like, I go to a very beautiful liturgy, but a lot of people I know that are way better Christians than me go to like regular Novus Ordo masses or go to like rock band Protestant worship services. And what's that? What do you say about that? That's, that's helpful. Thank you. The Catholic dude says, can we just lock Pope Francis and the Orthodox leaders in a room and tell them they can't come out until they learn To get along and resolve the schism and then someone said personally I'm in favor The one way I go about it I guess we could try

It's not like they haven't been in the same room together. Although if you actually tried you would be arrested Yes, yeah as people who have committed a lot of crimes. Yeah. Brand Bob says what is Derek's best dad advice? Wow. Also, how do you find peace in the hustle and bustle of family life? Yeah. Well, we never at all talked about this. We never did. That's okay. But we did. But can we can we say that everyone should get this book and read it? Everyone should get this book and read it. Everyone should get this book and read it? Everyone should get this book and read it. Everyone should get this book and read it.

Everyone should get this book and read it. Everyone should get this book and read it. It's good. Searching for and maintaining peace. A small treatise on peace of heart by Father Jacques Philippe. There's a line in it though. Yeah, man. You're looking for peace. Above all, we must never lose our peace because we can never find or be as much at peace as we would like So you can kind of get over the idol of having great yeah, I love it

Um, I think this quote sums up everything He says consider the surface of a lake above which the Sun is shining if the surface on the lake is peaceful and tranquil the Sun will be reflected in this lake and the more peaceful the lake the more Perfectly be reflected if on the contrary the surface of the lake is agitated undulating Then the image of the Sun cannot be reflected in it And if our souls are agitated in trouble the grace of God is able to act only with much greater difficulty Mm-hmm, and I gotta say I was completely not doing that this morning I was running around as we say in Australia, like a blue arsed fly,

just place to place, flitting back and forth, rushing. This book has helped so many people realize that, what God, it's almost like the singular and principal aim of the Christian is to live at peace so that one can discern one's circumstances and the events of one's life appropriately. Otherwise, it's like walking around blind, groping and... It's interesting. So there's a quote in here. This gets quoted a lot. And interestingly enough, it seems like it's quoted more often by Catholics than Orthodox Christians. A quote from Saint Seraphim of Sarov, which is,

acquire a spirit of peace and a thousand souls around you will be saved. And I think about that with my own family and I'm horrible at that. I'm an agitated individual. I get stressed out. Things are chaotic and busy. We're rushing around here and there. Somebody's always screaming in my house. I can busy we're rushing around here and there somebody's always screaming in my house Like yesterday my son took mr. Rule. He took a metal ruler and like Chopped off the edges of every corner of his dresser for some reason Obviously I was like that destroying property it's we're off to a good start And I'm like, okay, how can I acquire peace?

You know, if it means like as a dad, you need to get up 15 minutes before the rest of your family does, you probably already do. But if you need to add 15 minutes to that and pray for a little while to start your day in that place or to find the silence that you need to live the rest of your day out of, that's probably the best thing to do.

Otherwise, I would say be honest with your children about your shortcomings. I try to apologize to my children as much as necessary. This happened to me last night. I came home and I just, I got very agitated that the house was a mess. And I was just frustrated about that. Yeah, a good question to ask at a different point

might be why. And if I was to take a stab at it, I would say because I feel like other people don't care about me when they let things get to this point and then this is falling on me. Now, that probably isn't true at all, isn't true at all. And yet it feels that way. And when you feel that way, it may as well be real. Yeah, yeah.

So I was acting with great agitation and I apologized to my wife in front of my children. Hey, darling, please forgive me. I should not have done that. I said to her, I apologize. It always feels like a small death, doesn't it? And she came up and said, I forgive you. I love you. And she kissed me. But it was just beautiful to say that, to acknowledge your failures in front of your children, because you expect them to acknowledge their failures. Sometimes you demand that they do.

I had something similar to that yesterday where I had a very hectic day of work. Like it's a big campaign right now, right? We're getting ready, which also, if you're asking for Father advice, do Exodus 90. But chaotic day, and I wanted to start my day by going to Divine Liturgy. The church that I attend has a Divine Liturgy on Wednesdays. So I was like, I need to go, but it's like two and

a half hours long. And I always tell my coworkers, I'm like, I feel guilty for taking that, taking that much time away from work. And then in my, my, my new boss told me, he goes, I need you there. He goes, if we're going to create anything, I need you in front of our creator. And I was like, okay, I'm going. And they said, plus we go to daily mass, it's like half an hour a day, throughout the week, that's like two and a half hours. So you're just knocking it out in one day. So we know that we got you when you're at church

and you got us when we're at church. What a guy, my goodness. So I went, but that subsequently meant that I had to do a full day's work afterwards, you know, and try to get that in, and my son had hockey practice. And I kept telling my wife, I was like, I just need your help right now. Can you please, can you take him to hockey

and take all three kids? She goes, no, our daughter's napping. I'm not gonna wake her up and get her in the car and handle all three of them and get all of his hockey gear on when we get there. And she was like, I'll go, I'll take him to hockey, but I have to leave our daughter here, and I'll need you to handle dinner if you can.

And I got mad about that. And I didn't realize all the ways that she is helping me where I handle the dishes and the laundry at our house. She's been doing that all week and never even told me. And I just didn't notice that the dishes were magically done every day. And so same thing where I was like, Hey, Beck, I'm, I think I apologize in front of the kids, but I told her, I'm like, I need to,

I need to be better about seeing the things you are doing. That's right. Me too. You know? Yeah. I got to get better at seeing what your wife is also doing. No, no, no, no, that's really good. That's so good. And I hope that like our little admission there just shows everybody else that you're not alone. There's nothing wrong with you. Or if there is, we also have that thing wrong with us. Yeah, we suck. And so we're all in this together, man.

This is ordinary Christian living. Let's see here. Chris says, have you experienced spiritual burnout? And if so, what is the remedy to it? One can get stuck in never-ending cycles of prayer to reject what the world offers, leaving oneself exhausted, curious your thoughts to overcome this. That's a really interesting question. My first thought is remember that you're a body soul composite

and to act as if you were an angel who prays night and day before the throne of God. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. That is not you. Like you need to do things like poo and sleep and scratch yourself and drink water. There are physical necessities that are required of you to live a balanced life. Like, imagine if you were like, I'm going to live my life, but I'm not going to poo anymore. That wouldn't be good. All right. And then you spread that across all the other physical activities that you

have to do to live. I'm going to keep using poo as an example, Derek. You know, so like, but some of those things are, I need to rest. I need to sit. I need to not have a million things coming up at me at once. And I do think sometimes, especially for converts, or those who are taking a new interest in their faith, the temptation can be to plunge themselves headlong into a myriad of devotions, leaving themselves exhausted. There's two extremes. So this is where I think the relationship of a spiritual father, a spiritual director, a father confessor comes into play,

where somebody that you can talk to about like, give me a reasonable prayer rule. So I was trying to pray this from the certain book of hours every day and it has a ton of Psalms in it. And if I were to pray those prayers and not rush through them to actually take my time and get through them, it would take me 30 to 45 minutes to pray one hour, which sometimes is just not reasonable.

So I asked the priest and I said, hey, Labuna, how, like, what can I do here? Like, I want to be consistent. And he said, consistency is better than anything. He goes, so just pray one Psalm and... God bless him. Then throughout the rest of the day, I want you to think about one line from that Psalm

that really stuck out to you and applied to your life. So do you just pick the Psalm? I have, yeah. I just pick a different, or I'll just rotate through them, you know, I'll go Psalm 1 on one day, 2, 4, 5, whatever they are. But the other thing too, which comes again from like the Ignatian stuff, is never change your spiritual plan in a time of desolation. So if you're feeling like that God is distant, that you're dry, that you're spiritually burnt out, now's probably not the time

to change your spiritual plan either. You need to get to a place of consolation in a good place and then discern what kind of change can you make so you don't go back to that other place. Because typically when you're like in your weak point like that, that's where spiritual warfare really, you know, it's very, very real. And you're very vulnerable to it. So again, talk with a spiritual father and ask for help.

That's important to realize as Catholics, what's required and what isn't, you know, like as a Catholic, what's required of you is going to mass on Sunday and holy days of obligation, confession once a year. You know, these are the bare minimum. And sometimes we go to the opposite extreme where we start imposing upon ourselves things that the church never said was necessary and we act as if they are. But you're not wearing that medal, you're not wearing that scapula, you're not praying the rosary every day, you're not doing this. Well, those things can be beneficial. But if you're

feeling burnt out by heaping these things up, then... That's an interesting thing with East and West too, is like the West is very good about, here's the canonical minimum, anything below this you're sinning. And the East is like, here's monasticism. Good luck. Yeah, get as close to that as you can. So like a friend of mine who's a Byzantine Catholic priest said, he goes, I kind of like

living in both of those worlds because when people come to me for direction, I can say, here's what you have to do, here's what we're aiming towards, let's get somewhere in between. Mason- Edward and Cecilia ask, who are some Orthodox people you think would make for a good conversation on pints? Are you familiar with Father Andrew Damick? Bregman- should, if you could get father Andrew on, that would be really cool. Where's he from? Um, he lives in Pennsylvania, uh, on the other side, but he's, he works for ancient faith radio. He does. Have you heard of the Lord of spirits podcast? No. Oh, you would love it. Really? It just goes into like all of the kind of ethereal weird

thing. They talk about giants a lot and like, it's really cool. Father Andrew's awesome. He would be a great one. You've had Deacon Nicholas on. He's awesome too. I'm open to more. Yeah. See if you can give Father Andrew, that'd be cool.

Do you know him? Yeah. I know him well enough that I could help you. Yeah. Joseph asks, are you related to Klesi Cummins? I don't know. Kyle says, who is your favorite wrestler of all time and why is it Hulk Hogan? It's not really don't answer that I won't answer that happen my family with Hulk Hogan no, okay, we'll talk Okay, my favorite my actual favorite wrestler of all time is probably Stone Cold Steve Austin cool. Yeah

Tony says I'm not familiar with Derek's so I'm looking forward to getting to know his story. All right. Well, that wasn't, yep. Thanks. Appreciate that. We've talked about a dose of theosis. Yep. Actually Thursday, would you mind please putting Derek's locals community in the, he's on it. Sick. We're actually, we're reading through on the incarnation right now. Nice.

By St. Athanasius for the nativity. So beautiful. It's amazing. There's such good conversation around it. How do you asks Aaron, prevent outside events or even your own wayward thoughts from disturbing your interior peace? I'm starting to see some hope here

just by using Jesus prayer and a few daily masses a week. I'm starting to see some hope here just by using the Jesus prayer and a few daily masses a week. I was going to say, you said something on a stream recently or a show recently about the Jesus prayer that I thought was the most profound thing I've ever heard said about the Jesus prayer, where you said, you treat it like when you whistle for a dog. You said, when my heart or my thoughts have wandered, I use the Jesus prayer to call it back. And I think that's everything, dude. Because I've been thinking about it too. When I get into weird headspace,

or I think about vile things, or I have temptations, I'll stop what I'm doing, I'll slowly make the sign of the cross, and pray the Jesus Prayer just three times. And if I can commit to that, I notice that the clouds lift. One of my favorite Protestant authors is John Eldridge. And he talks about, I forget what he calls it, but it's like the holy pause or something to that effect, where you just take one minute. And he said he's trying to incorporate this

into his daily life between each activity, wake up, breakfast, whatever, Then you go to the office. Maybe you sit in the car. You take one minute. You just invite Jesus into it. You find Jesus within you and love him there. That minute pauses. That's the hard part about so many people like working from home. I think especially for Christians working from home, everybody working from home, but it used to be that you at least had the commute to transition from one thing of life to the other. And I would always use my commute as time for prayer or listen to a spiritual podcast or something like that.

But now I find it's like I sign off, the house is on fire, somebody's screaming, somebody crapped somewhere, dinner needs done, my wife is like losing her mind and it's just right into that. And then it's like, okay, they need me, but they need me. At a better place than I currently am. Right, so it's like, do I need to turn that off

and go for a walk real quick? Sneak out the back door and go for a walk? Or do I need to turn it off and just sit, plug my ears and sit for silence for a minute and then go back into my normal family life? Yeah. Well, my friend, this has been an absolute joy. I love talking to people that I love. I love having conversations that I enjoy and this has been one of them.

Oh, he wants us to keep talking. Okay. To three hours. Want to just randomly pick a page in here and talk about a quote in the book. Sure. Have you eaten today by the way? I have not. We should what do you think about this? Because you probably have work to do after this.

But what if we go we buy some rib eyes. We cook them on my barbecue. Would you want a rib eye? Or is that too much time? Let me think about it. Okay. Oh, yeah,'s it's a advent. You probably can't do that. That's the thing. Well, here's the interesting thing about that too. Talking about like the relationship with like a spiritual father. It is it's the nativity fast. So it would be, you know, traditionally fast. Maybe you can eat a tin of tuna. Not even that. You could eat some

Brussels sprouts. Well, no, thank you. But this is the first time that my whole family is attempting to fast together. Good for you. Right, so until this point, it was always very difficult because I was trying to keep the fast in its entirety and like my wife does all the cooking, so she's not gonna just cook special for me

or make them eat something. So this year she's like, I'll try something but I'm not ready for all of that. So we talked with our priest and he was like, how about you just focus on Wednesdays and Fridays right now and like have some fish. That's fine. You know, but on Wednesdays and Fridays don't, you know, so yeah, if I'm abiding by that, yeah, you know, you should buy it. That's fine. But it's a Thursday. I don't know if I told you this or not,

but my wife has been doing carnival for three months. Yeah, but I haven't heard a lot about it lot about is currently off of all her medication. That's incredible. Feeling good, feeling great. That's not looking great and like even solid, like a body is solid in a way that it hasn't been. She's been so weak and sickly. Wow. Dude, it's wild.

I'm going to interview her soon, by the way, I'm pined to the coin. We're going to be talking about this whole thing. And then we'll probably kind of get into like her history of illness and things. And you know, I don't want to speak too soon. Part of me is a little afraid that maybe it's something else or who knows, but she's been eating steak and eggs and she do dairy at all. She tries to do dairy, but when she does her joints hurt. So she was hoping, hopeful that she could do dairy at all? She tries to do dairy, but when she does her joints hurt. So she was hoping, hopeful that she could do dairy, you know, good cheese, good, but she can do butter.

She'll eat like maybe two sticks of butter a day. I know this is wild to people who have no idea about carnivore. She put half a stick of butter in her. Why? Why is she doing that? Because she's already a slender woman and a lot of people will do carnival to lose weight. That is not her problem. We need her fattening up, actually. So she's like during Lent, she tried it before, but she would do chicken, fish.

And then on Wednesdays and Fridays, when we were fasting, she would do like a dozen and a half eggs a day. But none of that worked. Like it just, it didn't work. She needs steak and she finds it when she has steak or lamb, maybe bison, she will feel great. So wild. So wild.

What will she do on fasting days? Or is it like, this is just more important? I would refuse to allow her to fast from meat. Yeah. And fish doesn't do it. I'm gonna to allow her to fast from meat. Yeah. Yeah. And fish doesn't do it. I'm going to make her submit to her husband because, dude, she'll just get sick. It's almost like her medicine.

I mean, she's almost inactive when she's sick. I mean, she has to keep leaving Steubenville, go down to Florida, get adjusted by a chiropractor, stay in the sun. She feels better, but this is, she's never felt this good living in Steubenville. So do you feel like- So I'm about to do something like this with her. That's what I'm saying.

And just talk about this sort of thing. Are you doing Carnivore too? That's what I'm saying. I'm about to do something like it with her. I'm about to, yeah, I'm about to move to something like that to kind of support her. But then also to, it was wild, like the other day on the feast of Guadalupe, LA to Guadalupe. She had three blueberries. She's like, you have no frickin idea how good blueberries taste.

She was like biting them like five little bites. And usually I'm the kind of guy seeing my wife, I'd be like, no, just baby. Like just have just have chocolate, like just have whatever. But now I'm like, do not seeing my wife. I'd be like, no, just baby. Like, just have, just have chocolate. Like, just have whatever. But now I'm like, do not, please do not, please do not. And she's way more committed than I am to her doing this. So I'm not telling her to not do what she otherwise would want to do. But do you think it's weird that.

Let me open a bunch of cans of worms here that we can allegedly put a man on the moon, but, but we don't know how to eat or how to sleep. Like you hear all this contradictory stuff of like no, vegan diets really the best, no carnivore diets really the thing that you want to do, no you want to do a Mediterranean diet, no you want to eat paleo, no you want to eat. I think part of it. Is progress like sometimes it just seems like we're see sawing back and forth and that no one knows anything, and that might be true. But I think it's like we are actually learning. Like, it's not like anyone stays like, actually, like white sugar is good for you.

Or like, you know, sugar is good, like high fructose corn syrup and moderation is actually good for you. No one's saying that. I don't think anyone's really saying alcohol is good for you or like, you know, sugar is good. Like high fructose corn syrup in moderation is actually good for you. No one's saying that. I don't think anyone's really saying alcohol's good for you. I know people still try to pretend that wine, whatever, but like, I think we are kind of. But even with that and like he sleeps the same way. It's like, oh no, you need a foam mattress. No, you need a spring mattress.

No, you need to sleep on your back. No, really your side is the best thing. I haven't gone down this rabbit trial, but I would imagine that a lot of it has to do with people are different and prefer different things. Wouldn't you think? Or are there people out there be like, no, they're not and everyone needs to sleep on the floor?

Yeah, that's another thing. People like don't have a mattress at all, sleep on the floor. Oh my gosh. Or they're like a thin futon mattress on the floor. Honestly, okay, so when I lived in Nashville. I'm gonna look it up while you talk. There has got to be a whole YouTube channel dedicated to people who are telling everybody to sleep on the floor. We don't know how to take care of our bodies. There has got to be a whole YouTube channel dedicated

to people who are telling everybody to sleep on the floor. And I bet they have a million subscribers. When I lived in Nashville, I was dirt poor. I lived in a two bedroom, 500 less than 500 square foot apartment with like eight other guys. Yeah, here it is. I just, I get so angry with these people.

And I think I get angry because I'm tired of getting new advice like here Why I stopped sleeping on beds and went to the floor instead and of course is beautiful Let me see the thumbnail. Look at him the prick. I know that guy I mean, I don't personally know him but I saw him one time on the internet Sleeping on floor is better than mattress. You're gonna get that but yeah Listen when I lived in this crap hole All I had was like the pad from a futon like not even the full futon and I slept on the floor on that and I'm pretty sure that's the best

sleep I ever had in my life have you tried it again no I'm scared too I want to remember it for what it was yeah I don't know but it's like health is such a weird thing. Oh, I can't read that. No, nobody can. What do we got here? I can't read that at all. Oh, there we go. That's better.

No, I'm a dingus. Pipe Cottage. I don't know what the hell is going on with the this talk of hockey and wrestling. All I can say is Matt needs his beard. Everybody already knows without me having to explain why it is, I no longer have a beard. It's the same reason any man does the same reason I keep giving. And it's that I really enjoy kissing my wife.

Oh, you have no idea. You might have some idea about my wife, but I guess we understand the pleasure of kissing. That's the only reason I no longer have a beard, dude. I read that last comment on there. What was it? I say yes because I'm biased. But I thought it said, I say yes. I've got to sign up, be well, oh thank you.

I told him this, he said, man up. Yeah, well that's fair enough, but I actually would rather my wife's opinion than this guy's opinion not a hundred percent like it's actually Yeah, like I it's like it's like my wife wins, but like by 53% Yeah

People are confused because I keep growing and shaving and growing and the other thing I think people are confused about is I now bank a lot of episodes. Oh, yes So the next week there'll probably be an interview with me with a beard or the week after you know so I think that's kind of weird too. Okay this person. The one thing I saw about sleeping on the floor that I agree with is the older Japanese people do and because they have to get up off the floor they have less instances of geriatric falls. That's what I'm saying. It's like that's a thing in Japan as people sleep on like floor mattresses. OK, in defense of my wife, he said his wife nagged him in defense of her. My wife never nags, actually.

And she didn't nag me. She just couldn't kiss me without having conniption fits. That's fine. It's fine. I'm not telling you to shave it. I just show. I'm actually really glad that I shaved it My wife doesn't nag either. I want to have like I feel like I have the potential to have a really good big beard Mm-hmm. There's parts like it's a little weak there. Yeah, but that's nice because it's underneath That's underneath and when it grows in thicker, you can't see that. Yeah, I want to I want to be like father Boniface

You know, and would your wife be okay with not at all This is probably already too much Mmm, we should develop a dumb phone that allows Marco Polo With only thing I miss about a smart with every advance. There's always a poverty. I Do not miss Marco Polo because I do not miss the pressure of having to respond to people Tell me about your dumb phone. Yeah. And why it's a blessing. You gave it to me. Yes. The light phone, the E ink screen, all it does is text call as an alarm calendar. So, um,

do you actually use their calendar? I do. I've synced it cause it'll notify me when something's coming. Like it'll sync to your Google calendar. That's amazing. Yeah. And the other thing that I really like about it is if somebody sends you a picture. Did you have it on you? No, I left it out there. But if somebody sends you a picture, it forwards to your email.

Yeah, that's good. So you get it later. Yeah. Same thing with links. Yeah, wise phone, dumb phone. No, sorry, wise phone, smart. What's the other one? Light phone.

Light phone, both very super simple. Thanks, bro. It's broken now, but thanks. Yep. How's the last, but thanks. Yep. How's the last time I'll ever use that? I tell you, one of the most difficult things about having a phone is how convenient they are. I literally paid Ryan Foley money

for something he did for me while I was driving to driving up the road the other day through PayPal. It's too much accessibility. I understand that that was probably wrong, not to mention illegal, but I'm like I did did did paid him But that's never stopped us before that's right. This is kind of hard to text on though I use the speech to text function a lot which makes me feel like I'm 80 years old But it's wonky because it puts periods in weird places and doesn't understand what I'm saying And then I can't go back to edit it quite easily, so I just give up. The nice thing about your,

because what carrier are you with? T-Mobile. So what's nice about that is, it sounds to me that you could take that SIM card out and put it in. Well, I do that. What's with those? This phone doesn't have any SIM.

Mine didn't either. I had to ask them to put in like a hard SIM card, because I had an eSIM, so I was like, I need a regular SIM card so I can switch back and forth. This doesn't even have the option for that, I don't think. It's a newer phone. Let me see. Yeah, it doesn't.

It's not even an option. Yeah, huh. No. See, there's nothing there. What's this? I don't know what that is. But I mean, they're definitely phasing them out. Say what you want, even if it's possible now, they're going.

iPhone 14 and newer, no Sims. That's lame. Well, I have like a iPhone SE or something, but I need so I need a phone for work to do some social media stuff. And obviously I need to be on our app. Yeah, I can use the web version of our app most frequently, but sometimes I just need the phone. So I keep it and I just switch back and forth sometimes, or like I just use that phone on

the Wi-Fi for work stuff, turn it off at the end of the day. That thing on the side is a 5G antenna. Thank you. Your face is going to fall off now. Yeah. And you know, what's going to be interesting is as technology advances, dumb phones advance, right? So soon I am like, give it a year or five, they won't have SIM cards. You had this one for like a while before you gave it to me, right? Yeah, I did. I would go back

and forth between, but see, I had two numbers, remember? I still do. Oh yeah. Which I kind of like. I kind of like just throwing people off so they stop trying to contact me. It does, because you'll text me sometimes and then it'll be like, Oh, Hey, it's from this phone number. And then I'll respond and you're off that phone already. Yeah. And it's like, not you. I want you to have my number, but like most people, like I want like four people to have my number.

You almost gave everybody your number. If you remember. Yeah. Matt McCloskey says, you can get a smoother shave than a... you can't get a smoother shave than a straight razor. The upkeep is good for me. I like sharpening stuff. Nice. I have a straight razor that I use to like... Okay, you didn't see it. I'll try again. Derek, tell Matt I'd like to meet him sometime with you. Lucy would like to meet you sometime.

Lucy has... she wants to meet you with me. Lucy has met me. Where is she from? New York. She's one of my locals people, but she drove through Pennsylvania and we met up one time. I just remembered that I had a Vespa on, another orthodox woman. Yeah. Love that woman. Her husband is so beautiful. Thursday would like people to stop being parasocial in the chat, but.

He has opinions. He does. Derek is the man, says the Catholic Man Show. I bet that's Adam. So he told me a story, Adam. Does he work for Exodus? Yeah, he's our head of marketing now. He told you a story about what?

About you. Oh, I can't wait to hear this story. So he was like, hey, we started the Catholic Man Show like two weeks either before or after you started Pints originally. He said, and very early on, it was like, hey, we started the Catholic Man Show like two weeks either before or after you started Pints originally. He said, and very early on, it was like, hey, let's reach out to this man and see if he'll come on the show.

So he's like, so we did. And he said, at the time, like their flow was, they would have a drink together, they would talk about like gear. And then there was like some spiritual talk. He goes, so the gear portion was WD-40. And when they pitched that to you, you're like, what am I gonna talk about WD-40 for however long? So we just skipped that part. I think they did a hammer or

something if I remember correctly. I have no idea. They're like maybe Matt can handle a hammer. What do you think of sourdough starters Derek? Big fan. My wife is a sourdough wizard. She makes everything sourdough. Kyle Whittington,, I had to cut you off to read this. What are your thoughts on having a big, beautiful, bald head? Like about you having you? I'm pretty sure about you. I don't have a big, beautiful, bald head.

Kyle, um, kissed me on my head this morning. Oh, you don't want a grown man kissing you on the head. Yeah, it was rather first choice. It was rather damp. Was it kind of wet? Oh, this is stopping wet smooch. I was back in Australia and I grew up in this hometown. So I memories just smacking me in the face every street I'd go down and this woman came up to me. Okay, I'm Lauren's mom. You remember Lauren used to go to school

Do you remember Lauren Lauren? I won't say her name now. Oh what the hell? I said a lot of people's names and I'm like in my head. I want to be like, yeah, I remember Lauren I was about six years old when she kissed me on the lips on the jungle gym, and I still remember that it was wet So yeah, I remember your daughter So what you're saying is that Kyle is so've called out so many people from my hometown. You're saying that Kyle kisses like a six year old girl. Oh, that's we. OK, let's move on.

Would Matt shave his head for a million supporters? I would I would do that. Not support. Well, I mean, for subscribers, I would and support us, to be honest. I got to do something like that. What if because I have a tattoo and I I think tattoos are stupid That's my the hill I'm dying on I'm with I think well I've told you this a person in a room with no tattoos is Objectively the coolest person in there. They are now by the way everybody. I've got a very tattooed guy coming on who's somewhat popular What's his name Shane?

Shane Smith is a comedian who's often been on Drybar Comedy. He's he's coming on the show. There's anybody in the chat currently. Let me know in the chat if you know who Shane Smith is. I know Kyle knows who Shane Smith is, but anybody else like, do you know who that is? Because this person sent me an Instagram message

and they said that they were that pints was played a role in them joining us CIA or whatever they're calling it these days and I didn't know who it was and Thursday saw it and was like whoa this guy's a big deal and I looked at him and that's him yeah do you want to put him on the screen for me he's incredibly incredibly funny you know how sometimes people are funny and you watch them and like you have to try to laugh because they're Christian or whatever. This guy is really funny.

He's got this his Instagram bio says something like number one comedian with swords on his face or voted number one comedian with swords on his face or something. He's very, he's very, very funny. Anyway, so he's going to be on the show soon. Hey, what Keith Keith Keith. Keith. Good day, brother. He says welcome home show soon. Hey, what? Keith. Keith? Keith. Oh, Keith. G'day, brother. He says welcome home.

Why does he say that? Do you think? Does he think you've just become a Catholic? He might think that. And you've announced your conversion. Sorry, dude. No, sorry, dude. He's still hanging out at an Airbnb.

Or whatever the analogy would be. You're saying the Orthodox Church is an Airbnb. That's going to go. No, the ortho bros are are gonna come after me good and hard. Keith is though like- I know who Shane is. He's one of the coolest dudes ever. I like him, cool.

Yeah, Keith is a very cool dude. Like the realest dude. Yeah. We've done some, like we've talked together for work stuff and like, and the conversation isn't like, we're talking about work stuff and a lot of times they're just like, how are you doing? What's going on? How can I pray for you?

And he's like, can I just ask you some questions about yourself and so he's cool Well, he did something recently that I really appreciated after everything that happened with Bishop Strickland. Hmm He recorded a video about how he's not going to Comment on it because not everybody needs to come on everything and that was kind of my take I'm like, you know what not everybody needs to come on everything. So shut up I'm not gonna address it and some people feel they're called to it. And I don't, I said that. And then a bunch of people proceeded to call me a coward.

Am I going to say that? That's okay? Why do they have to look to you for their direction on what to think? I'm not saying that like what you have to say is good and important and like influential. Why do they need it? Yeah.

Well, I don't know. I mean, I did have Strickland on the show and people say, well, therefore you should have an opinion. Well, maybe I have an opinion, but piss off. I don't need to do what you need me to do. So I'm not going to stick it to him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not everyone needs an opinion on everything. I I read this line in a country and Western book, and it said

something to the effect of only the person who's willing to be called a coward isn't. Because you think there's two sides here, right? You can straddle the fence and maybe then you can appease both group. But if you join one of the groups, the other group will call you a coward because they believe themselves to be the brave one. I think there's some truth in that. So the first you'll be called a coward.

Oh, yeah. And I have them frequently. Like the last time that I was on here and we were talking about the journey, I got a lot of that, like, oh, he's so indecisive. Somebody said he's well, I don't want to say what they said, but they're like, basically they said that I wasn't a man because I wasn't making a decision and I was waffling too much.

And I'm like, you can say that, that's fine. Or like one person said, they can have him, we don't want someone like that. That's good. That's good. I have said before, one of the nice things about growing in self-knowledge is that no matter what anybody else says about you, it pales in comparison to the truth you already know about yourself.

Oh, bitch please. Way worse. You have no idea. Oh, wow. Did we hit this thing that he wanted us to hit? Are we three hours yet, Thursday? I got 10 minutes. It's very important that we hit this thing that he wanted us to hit? Are we three hours yet Thursday? I got 10 minutes. It's very important that we hit three hours. It is. What can we...

Do you want me to tell you what I did on? Well, no, that's too personal. What do you want to know about? What should we talk about? What can you eat? We'll go downstairs, eat some broccoli. You want a cigar after this, maybe? Maybe.

Or a pipe? You like pipes. Let's just see what happens. Let's just wander. Let's go. Okay. No, here's a clue. My wife and I did this one time where we got in the car. We were so bored. And I said, let's take a quarter and flip it. Heads is turn left. Tails has turned right. What a cool husband. And I said, let's just drive. And then every time we come to an intersection, just flip the coin and we'll do that. So we did this for like an hour and a half and ended up because we were obedient to the coin, just going in circles. And then we ended at this like crap restaurant that we could have gone to way

closer to our house because it's a chain, but it was still really fun. That's really fun. I don't know about you, but like, I, I know you're like this with your wife. I really really like her my wife Yeah, your wife's great, too. But like I just you know, I know people might feel they have to pretend to maybe or I YouTube feels filled with a lot of bitter men. Well angry bitter men. I Consistently tell my wife the only decision that I've ever not been uncertain of was the decision to marry you. Her, not you.

We're not married. That's right. Just to verify. But I also tell her frequently, I know that I love you way more than you love me, which is not really true. Yeah, no, you just express it differently. Yeah, I'm much more over the top about it. And she'll say love me, which is not really true. Yeah, no, you just express it differently.

I'm much more over the top about it. And she'll say to me, she's like, why are you obsessed with me? I'm like, because you're worth being obsessed with. I don't know. Like, you're awesome. Yeah, we're very blessed. Because you and I, are we similar in that, that we kind of change our mind a lot? We kind of commit to something. Everything. Yeah. Yeah. Cameron's the one thing that's been able to hold my attention. Yeah. Yeah.

What is why? Why show that face? I said to Thursday the other day, I'm like, what's wrong with the cameras? They're like, I look red. He's like, dude, you're red. I'm like, what do you want me to do? Maybe that's why people do makeup. So there you go, you got your chockey there. Hey, I gave my chockey to a woman in Australia. Yeah? Yeah, you want to give me that one? Do you have a spare one laying around?

I would give you any chockey that I have other than this one. This is my favorite one. I need another one. This woman came up, she was struggling with anxiety and kind of not being in her body. She just felt like she's always kind of dissociating. So I taught her the Jesus breath. That's it. I'm a good person. You know how interesting that whole like anxiety and body, have you ever heard of, we've talked about this, I think that book, the body keeps the score. That is like, opened a whole new world to me of like trauma and like these things really manifest

themselves in a bodily way and to treat your trauma, you have to treat your body. So a lot of that, for a while I was having these fainting spells and I thought, what is this all about? I passed out in the shower one time, I got a concussion. And it turns out that has something to do with your vagus nerve, which is weak,

typically because of emotional trauma. So it's like, my emotional trauma has led to me passing out and getting a concussion. So it's like, how do you like work on that? By revisiting the trampoline incident. Yeah. And just, well, actually one of the interesting things were interesting things about it were deliberate cold exposure helps that. So like cold showers for Exodus actually was now you both read some goth white foundation for Matt You have to figure out what triggers you I think the triggering bit has more Here's how they're sparkling water, okay Consider you were saying you took about trauma and I just got this

Yeah, yeah, I get it I get it So what I'm saying is cold showers help. Have you, do they? They actually do. And this was interesting too. Chanting strengthens the vagus nerve. So a lot of people, and your vagus nerve will lead to like feelings of, like a strong vagus nerve,

feelings of peace and calmness. So like Gregorian chant or Byzantine chant, which has that drone, like the, is actually really good for that. Um, so it's just interesting kind of the physicality of spirituality. How cold does the shower have to be? That is the question that everybody asks. Cold enough to make you uncomfortable. Some people crank it all the way. Some people, well, even when I don't do, when I haven't been doing Exodus 90 and I'd like a cold shower, I'll,

I'll start off warm and then I'll just not nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, until I'm like, until I'm really, I put it on full blast cold. I breathe really heavy a few times and then I just make the sign of the cross and get in the shower. And then I will like get under the water, get out of the water, soap everything up, get back under, soap that goodness up, soap all this goodness up and then flip it off. All right. So not like give it the finger, like turn off the water. So we're about to wrap up. Hopefully

We're about to wrap up hopefully But what do you want to do? I let's let's talk about I want to go eat I do want to eat and then I want to go have a smoke with you Do you want to do those two things or do you have other things to do? No, that sounds great because you can have pipe. We've got the new what's the blend you like from our store? I like three nuns. Oh we have oh do we have three nuns? No, I don't think we do. So I don't know but uh Matt gave me a cigar that I have him out there. So I just have that. Yeah, do you have a humidor? No, she's sitting out there. It's fine. I mean like he just gave it to me this morning. Oh, that's nice What a guy. He's the best. Yeah, do you see that hat he was wearing? Oh my gosh. He's crushing that hat

He looks really good. I like that people are bringing back weird hats What kind of hats can you rock? Like I want to be a hat guy Well, I don't know if I can rock it or not, but I have a kind of like wool kind of brimmed No, I've seen you in that you know real Bing Crosby vibes. A little feather on the side Yeah, I just I like it and it's actually really warm. I want to be able to wear a bowler hat. What is that? That's like the it's like a can you pull it? Yeah, I have a bowler. We'll end on this. I Sometimes at home when I'm cold, I will wear a kufi which typically is known as like a Muslim hat

You crush a Muslim hat. But like Eastern like Middle Eastern Christians wear them too. Do it. I like it keeps my ears exposed So I can wear my headphones. Oh, I thought you were about to say that was the negative, but it turned out that was the positive. Oh no, you should not wear that hat. You don't think? Yeah, can you show people that hat? Yeah, don't ever wear that hat. No.

Oh man. Because I don't think you can wear that hat with what you're wearing now. You can wear a three piece suit to wear that hat I think. I don't know man. I think so long as you commit to whatever you're doing, people will be okay with it. That was like the mustache photo I sent to you. You should have Thursday.

Do you have that photo of the mustache I sent you? So I shaved when I shaved, I left my mustache and I sent a photo to you, I think. Yeah. And to Thursday. And I said, what do you think? Should I wear this and Mustaches are like kilts You have to really mean it and I could not do you mean that the plural go anywhere

You're about to see my mustache Lucy stick around. What should the plor is should the plural of mustache be must I must I? Mustaches maybe pedophile no that's wrong well people used to say there was like a pedo mustache right because it would look like a porno thing yeah it's just we keep getting into these weird but cheeks people but people wear it today they They even, I was in Australia, I was surprised at how many people had the old molester. One of my coworkers has the best mustache I've ever seen in my life. He looks like Tom Selleck and he's got that like 80s.

Yeah, so he should wear it. He's got like an 80s hockey player, baseball players flow. Yeah, people, yeah. Shout out to Q. Demonetized. How many people do we have waiting to see this mustache? We are gonna stop this show as soon as we get this.

We have screwed your entire channel today. What's that? 300 people. Stick around. Thursday's looking for the mustache. And then I want you to tell me that I was absolutely right to shave it. I don't think you were. I think you should have kept it. Well, what's,

yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Show it. Show it. I think that's a hunt. You should have kept that. That was me in a mustache and a wife beta. We don't call them wife beaters in Australia. We call them. So when I was in college, one of my jobs, no, let's talk more about that. I am though. I am. Okay. So one of my jobs was I worked's talk more about that though. I am though, I am. Oh, okay. So, one of my jobs was, I worked at Old Navy, like the clothing store, and I had some woman

come in one time with a very heavy Pittsburgh accent. Okay. And she said to me, she goes, yeah, excuse me, Marines keep your toddler wife beaters. I said, ma'am, we do not carry those. I don't know. There's probably a nickname for those in Australia. We can take it off. It's quite horrific at this point.

We just have to stare at it. He said they don't see it anymore. I just wanted you to. Yeah. But see, that's the one part of my face my wife wants to kiss, man. So if I grew my neck, no, no, no, my mustache. So if I shave that and grew my chin hair out, she'd be OK with it. But I think I should grow like a a neck beard and just turn it into a scarf.

I would throw up every time I saw you. All right. Can you what are people saying about the mustache? Hold on. That was so funny. Why do you want to know what people are? I want to know how bad they thought it was. We've reached the logic. Well, yes, singlets is the I mean, you go singlets too, don't you? What a mustache? No.

No, a wife beater, you go singlets. So, you know, I thought a singlet was like, no, you didn't like it goes down around. Oh, you don't know what a wife beater. You call them singlets, don't you? No, I thought a singlet was like... No, you didn't. Like it goes down around your... Oh, you don't know what a singlet is? That's... I just thought everyone knew that a wife beater was a singlet. So I never thought... So I'm thinking, OK, yes, that's what we call them. I thought a singlet is like a onesie. I will stop supporting you on locals if you grow a neck beard.

Good. This fella says Karen... Karen-za... What? Karen-za mustache? Who that that means wrestlers wear singlets that's what I'm thinking oh okay yes like I didn't realize that Andre the giant wore one you know creepy mustache this person said Matt with a Fu Manchu you should shave your head though no no I can't do that yeah yeah just try it, then you can wear a hat until it goes back Glory to God. Well Derek fun to chat with you. Hey, what did that person say? They insulted me go back I want to quickly see the insult and then we'll go back. It was a glorious stash. Oh, no. No. Yeah

No, that wasn't the insult. I love your sweater Matt those twin Goes stupid hard. I don't know what that means. Where's the twin beavers were Those twin beavers were singing hard. What does that mean singing Matt? Is that my mustache I guess Okay, and then this Thursday contributors comments in Western Australia, one of the local beers is known as wife beater. I give us a cartoon of a carton of what? Yeah, I never heard that.

Oh, what if we what if this was the show? What if the show is you and me reading comments? That's fine with me. My mum says you could join the village people with that mustache. Actually, let me tell you right now. Let me tell you right now what Father Jason said, because I also sent him a mustache. Yeah, let me actually at this point, who? Maybe I maybe I will actually. All right, let's see.

Oh, I said it to him and he said the gay leather bartender look and I went, right, it's coming off. All right. As we wrap up today, I'm going to show you a short that made me laugh so hard. No one else is going to know what's going on. It's not about them. It's about you and me. Poor Toby. That's what it says. Alright, see you everybody.

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