Latest / Sword&Spade / What Your Sons Need From You w/ Devin Schadt of The Fathers of St. Joseph
Transcript
- Jason M. Craig (00:01.558) Friends, welcome back to the sword and spade podcast. the podcast that was born out of the best magazine for Catholic men that's ever been printed, or at least it's been printed for this long as well. Seven years in sword and spade magazine, has been finding men in the trenches, and having them write about, not just the wisdom that they, that they have, gathered, intellectually reading, talking to friends or by golly, even the internet, but that they have lived and experienced. on the ground and we need to hear from them as men because so many things have fallen apart. It's good to talk to men that know how to put things back together, right? What do they say? Dad's know things and fix stuff. So we like to talk to men, that are, that are doing those things. So today I have, an old friend of mine, Devin shot. I'll, I'll go ahead and just say he's an excellent author. And if he's written it, you should read it. the last time we talked, he just brought up, I'll say this cause it's good and humility. D (00:43.234) Hehehehehe Yeah. Jason M. Craig (01:00.35) in reconciling. I, he, I sent him, I did a series with EWTN a long time ago on rites of passage, probably before I should have. mean, I think, you know, more has been learned since then, but anyway, and, at the beginning of it, I'm like, guys, this isn't some sort of, you know, seven steps to being a better dad or something. I can't remember the exact word I said, but then Devin watched the show and he said, I think we're You said this is not, you know, seven, seven. I think that's an exact title of one of my books. You know, were you making fun of me? No, Devin, I wasn't. It was a total accident and flop. But, anyway, please forgive me and welcome to the sword spade podcast. D (01:32.202) Right. D (01:40.27) Thanks for having me on, Jason. It's great to be with you here. Jason M. Craig (01:46.006) It's been good. You know, the other the other other I remember we're starting off on a strong foot. The other time you emailed me. Recent in the last few years, you're like, Jason, I love all of Sword and Spade magazine, but this article is terrible. You shouldn't have printed it. It was spiced. Some guy who was it was like, gosh, it was like, you know, how to dress like a man. You know, one of these like quit dressing like a child or a doofus. I actually can't recall exactly the time. Well, I can. I'm not going to bring it up. D (02:01.375) I forgot about that. D (02:10.711) Yes. D (02:14.208) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you're right. Yeah. I love, yeah. And I do love the magazine. but that article just did not sit right with me, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And I, and you're, you're, very, you are very gracious about it. Very gracious about Jason M. Craig (02:15.573) because I don't want people searching it out. Jason M. Craig (02:25.705) rubbed you wrong. Good. Well, thanks for telling me, by the way. Jason M. Craig (02:34.485) I'm glad that's how you remember it. No, it's good. Well, I'm an editor and an executive director of an organization. So typically when I get communicated with, it's not because people are happy. So I'm glad to have you under happier circumstances for our podcast right now. So Devin, if you don't mind, I wanted to ask, so just to start us off and give you, get a little background. D (02:47.724) Yeah. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (03:00.883) I know that now you have been working in and around, you know, Catholic men's apostolate spirituality, author book, that kind of stuff for a good long time. Cause we've been comparing notes and talking since I'm guessing like 2014, 2015, somewhere around there. We first kind of connected. where'd you come from before that? What were you doing before you got all geeked out on St. Joseph, and started writing a hundred books about them. D (03:26.67) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I was a graphic design branding guy. I ran my own business for nearly 20 years and in the beginning it was secular. I was doing work for like John Deere and University of Notre Dame, those type of kind of clients. And then I started, well, actually it was really in desperation. had a period where I was not gaining any clients, I was literally broke. I think I had like $200 in my name and I just was praying to God. I closed the door to my office and I'm like looking at the crucifix and I'm like, God, what do you want me to do? And I felt like he was saying, what do you want to do? And I'm like, well, my dream would be to do graphic design and branding for Catholics. And he's like, well, the feeling I got was, well, then go do it. And I'm like, so I, at that time it was St. Joseph communications was the big, publication, marketing agency, one of the biggest publishers for the Catholic world besides Ignatius. And so I just sent an email to them and he contacted me immediately, the creative director and said, or the marketing director, he said, you're never gonna believe this, our two designers quit this very day. And so from that point, I started doing work for them almost full-time and then other Catholic publishers saw it and authors. Jason M. Craig (04:43.53) Wow. D (04:51.574) And then I started doing book covers and magazines and things like that and websites for Catholic authors and publishers. And then I pretty soon transitioned from doing secular work to the sacred work. And then it was doing that that really I had grown up with lot of woundedness and a very difficult childhood. I'd say it was violence and some, was just tough childhood. And so I was still living in the wake of my wounds really. And I embarked upon marriage and fatherhood, bringing lust into my marriage, not bringing selflessness, but selfishness into my marriage, starting a family and thinking that I'm supposed to, that God's going to help me live for the world and be successful in the world. And then we had some complications, some real traumatic situations, which drove me to discover what it means to be a father. And at that time there were no encyclicals, no official teachings. catechism doesn't have a section on fatherhood or really being a husband. And so I just felt like there was nothing out there. And long story short, I wrote a letter to myself, which was Joseph Swe. And in writing it to myself, I shared it with a friend who worked for a publishing company. They didn't publish books like that, but he just wanted to see it. And without telling me, he shared it with a publicist for another publishing company. And then that publicist without telling me shared it with Ignatius and Ignatius then called me said, we'd like to publish your book. And that was like, cause I was, I'm not, you know, I never esteemed myself as a writer for sure. And definitely not an academic theologian or scholar of any sorts. And so that was just kind of, that was the, I guess, when it all began to open up, that was in 2012 when that was published. and that's when I started doing radio interviews, speaking, and then we founded the Fathers of St. Joseph the Apostle in 2012 at that time, and then that's how it began, really. Jason M. Craig (07:02.035) Right? that's kind what you've been doing since then. D (07:05.122) Yeah, so basically I straddled it. I worked full-time with my agency, know, buying, paying for all the print materials, paying for our books, paying for everything, websites, everything, and meanwhile running the Apostolate, you know, on the side. And then finally in 2018, a group named Stewardship and Mission of Faith, they said, we want you to come out the world, we want you to do this full-time and apply all your energies, and so we'll We'll get the donations. We'll surround you with a team and we'd just like you to fully invest in this. And so that's what I've been doing since 2018. I've been doing this full time. And at times I feel guilty because I don't know about you with your apostolate, but at times I recognize my littleness, how pathetic my efforts really are. It's just like this little, little, little drop in a vast ocean that doesn't even create a ripple, you know? And it's so some many times many days. It's very hard to see the fruits or to see the the consequence of the efforts and so I but I think the lord does that purposely for many reasons, but for me personally he's allowed me to come head on with my own littleness Which i'm discovering Is really where we need to be going rather than trying to make ourselves great, you know in the world's eyes Jason M. Craig (08:27.647) Yeah, well I think, know Aquinas says that most of the fruits of our efforts are hidden from us for the sake of our pride. And I think in this day and age, because, and this comes up a lot on this podcast, talking to guys like yourself, I think the danger of being able to quantify and count your fruits in the form of clicks, views, shares. D (08:37.772) Yes. Jason M. Craig (08:53.897) Quite easily leads to hell and I don't mean that exaggeratingly. I think it's I mean you just you see you see lives implode and the second I have a metric that I can read which is why I like to stay away from the metrics, you know Because there's something about counting that that that allows you an affirmation. That's not good for you. I Would like to ask you if you could go back because you brought up something that is a little bit touchy because a lot of times when I'm D (08:57.868) No? No, I agree, I- Jason M. Craig (09:23.805) if I'm talking with or dealing with men, we get an idea that, you know, a certain way, a certain rule of life, like we're going to run our families well, we're to be disciplined. Our vans are never going to be dirty and we'll always be trim and ready and rocking. And then we get married and we realize, well, one, I'm never going to be trim. It's just not going to happen. You know, so don't, nobody write me an email about it. It's just not going to happen. That meant to be a joke, by the way. I thought you would laugh, Devin, or give me some encouragement. There you go. There's a laugh right on cue. We're counting laughs in this. We're quantifying them. But we come into marriage at metrics. I need a metric. I guess young adults that I have been in some sort of mentoring or friendship relationship with, what they don't know is that it's in marriage that things that you are healed from wounds. D (09:55.308) Yeah great. The metrics. Jason M. Craig (10:18.341) Right. It's in the sacraments and through the relationship where a lot of us think we're kind of pulling it together beforehand and there are are you there are red flags you should look for. But generally, a lot of our wounds are only healed when we have to love and sacrifice as men. But that can be a hard thing to recognize because it can feel a lot like navel gazing or or or placing blame on others. But the way you just said it, you know, you came in with wounds. You weren't sidestepping responsibility by blaming your childhood, but you did acknowledge the facts of it, which is our wounds, our difficulties have an effect on our family. And we don't know that typically until we're in the throes of it. So don't know if you care to, it's too late now. I've already started, I've cracked the door open, so now you have to. Can you give us some of the genre and the lessons? of the wounds that you brought in, because I doubt they're that creative. Because I too am a man and know that, you know, there's things like lust and violence and anger and pride. And we bring them into marriage. So how did those wounds, how did you come to understand I am wounded and need to and something's got to change? How did you come to know that? D (11:31.822) Okay, yeah, you know, psychotherapists, but I think Jesus-centered therapists and psychologists talk about triggers. And so if we want to use that word, I think that's fine. But jealousy, envy, impatience, greed, all these things were things that I was very susceptible to. So... I'm triggered when I see another guy more successful. I was triggered when this would happen, right? Envy and all that. And then just this posturing to try to be seen, to be noticed by men. So fundamentally what's going on, like back to your idea about metrics, how you avoid them and how the followers and the fans and the views and all of that, basically there is a direct correlation between how much I go out there to get meaning and validation and honor. That means from human opinion versus my identity as a son of God the Father. And so what I was doing was I was appealing to the world, the six Ps of the world is what I call them, prestige, prominence, power, profit, possessions, and pleasure. I was appealing to those thinking that God, became a, I had this conversion at 24, and basically I misunderstood Christianity as though God was there to glorify me. And I think there's two types of men. There are those men who believe that God is there to glorify them, so they use God to glorify themselves, and there's men who use themselves to glorify God. I was the former. I was using God to glorify myself, and so I'd appeal to the six Ps of the world, prestige, to be well known for my achievements and my honors, or prominence, to be in the right groups and have the right followers or fans or whatever, and then power, to be able to get something and extract something from someone in the relationship rather than being a gift like you were just talking about. And of course, profit, spinning my wheels to figure out how I can be secure in wealth and money, rather than finding my security in my relationship with God the Father. And of course, possessions to be identified by logos that give me a status rather than the logos, the mind of God. when, and this is the interesting thing about, you look at Jesus, Jesus in the desert, and this is very important, God makes that solemn pronouncing before the desert at his baptism and says, D (13:48.878) When he's baptized, you are my beloved son, with you I'm well pleased. And we've heard it a million times, but why was God the Father pleased with Jesus at this moment in Jesus' life? Because at this point, he had performed no public miracles, nothing astounding, he did not transform the water into wine or heal the lepers or raise the dead or feed the multitudes. Why was God the Father pleased with him? For one reason and one reason only, because Jesus is his. Jesus is his son, mine. Jesus is mine, God the Father says. And this is the problem. We think that God the Father or anyone is pleased with us, the world is pleased with us when we perform, when we produce. But God the Father says, I choose you for one reason only, because you're mine. And ask any good dad this, you know, like... Have you ever had a dad show you pictures of his kid and he's like, isn't my kid so cute? Isn't my kid so good? And the kid's like been beaten with the ugly stick, you know? I'm just saying that facetiously, but you know, it's like, why does that dad think his kid is so great? Because that kid is his. And, but what we do is we think that somehow we've got to measure up. But notice what God the Father does right after that. The Holy Spirit drives Jesus in the desert. God drives God into the desert to be tested. So God says, I love you because you're mine. Jason M. Craig (14:43.679) Yeah. D (15:05.089) but now I must test you to perfect you. But here's the testing. It's a crisis, K-R-I-S-I-S, you know, it's a decision, the judgment point in the Greek, is that with every crisis, there's a test and a temptation. So every time God tests us, the tempter is there to tempt us to give us an easy way out. And the tempter is tempting Jesus saying, prove yourself, turn these stones into bread, prove yourself. And that's the world's voice. The world is constantly tempting us. Jason M. Craig (15:30.729) Yeah. He also says if, if you are the son of God, I like it. D (15:35.562) Exactly. It's all identity. It's all identity based. If you are the son of God, turn these stones into bread. If you are the son of God, throw yourself down from the pair of the temple. The whole insinuation is, is I don't really believe you are who you are, but why don't you just go ahead and prove it? And I love Jesus's response. Basically, it's like giving the devil the middle fingers. Like I don't have to prove myself to you or to anyone because I know my identity. I'm a son of God. I am the son of God, the father. And so this is what I discovered in my life. I was jealous, I was envious, I was impatient, I was chasing after the six Ps of the world because really I didn't believe that I was chosen and desired by God the Father. The Father specifically, Abba the Father. And so to the level that I believe that God the Father was distant, angry, or created me to be destroyed or whatever, that was to the level that appealed to the world. And so my whole world spun out of control when our daughter Anna Marie was born at 28— 28 weeks premature because at that point I was living for the world and thinking that I was a great dad and a great father, great husband, and I didn't know what the heck I was doing. And actually my wife alerted me when my daughter was on life support. She shows up, my daughter was born at 28 weeks premature. She spent a month in a neonatal intensive care unit. They got her lungs and digestive system functioning properly. And then we brought her home. Five days later, she... She started to have respiratory issues, spiked a fever, so we brought her back to the hospital, but we couldn't admit her to the neonatal intensive care unit because he'd infect the other babies. So as to the regular pediatric unit, well, they weren't ready. They said, we've never seen a baby this small before. They weren't wearing masks, no isolation units, anything. Basically, there was nurse neglect, 11 hours of apnea. She suffered a hypoxic event. Non-alcoholic oxygen was transmitted to her brain. They flew her out, met a vector out to a children's hospital. Couple hours away by the time she arrived, she had three clinical death experiences, permanent brain injury. I drove there that night to be with her in her isolation unit. My wife showed up the next morning when she saw me on the life support, the ventilator breathing for and swollen by the Lasix. She turns to me and she says, I need you to come home and be a husband and father. And I'm like thinking, but I am because I thought it was solely about providing and LinkedIn with providing was identity. My identity is Jason M. Craig (17:47.669) Hmm. D (17:59.214) I am the breadwinner, I am the provider, and I'm gonna hit it big, and I'm gonna prove to everyone that I can do this. But meanwhile, I was failing on Jason M. Craig (18:05.525) So she meant, she meant, yeah, let me ask you. So she meant this moment for her was some sort of, hey, after this, things need to change or actually I need you to come right now. I need you to come home from the hospital because I need help. D (18:18.316) like after this thing's each, like you are a placeholder. We've got pictures that prove you're a father and prove that you're married to me all around the house. You are there, but you are not really present. You're working. So I was working all around the clock. Literally. I was developing set design for Fox news and like cooking shows on PBS. And, and I was trying to launch my own business at the time. And then I was also a part-time youth minister, which everybody knows is full-time youth ministry. And so I was doing all of that. And so I wasn't home. I really didn't care almost. It was like I saw fatherhood and being a husband as a secondary vocation that kind of takes care of itself. Like I wanted to hit it big in the world or at least be great in the world. And meanwhile, I was pathetic at home. And so that sent me scrambling because I didn't know what the vision of fatherhood was. I didn't know what it really meant to be a great husband. And the church There's smatterings of teachings and things all over the place, but it's not like it's in a collective like hole anywhere, like where you can go and say, okay, this is a source that's going to help me become that great father and that great husband. And so that catapulted me on a search to discover what that meant. I was, a friend of mine took me on a pilgrimage about that time, halfway around the world. I'm actually about three years after Andrew Murray was born. I was really suffering because I was detoxing myself. That's why I call it now. from the world. I stopped working overtime, stopped trying to launch my own business, tried to be a good father, didn't know what the heck I was doing. And this guy takes me on a pilgrimage halfway around the world to Medjugorje. And our pilgrimage guide, Nancy, who is the interpreter of Father Yozo, I was talking to her about like, man, I just feel like God's got a calling on my life, but I don't know what that's about. And she said, well, are you married? I said, yeah, I'm married. She said, do you have children? Yeah, I have three. Now I have five. But she was like, go home and be St. Joseph. And I was like, I was like, St. Joseph, like who's that guy? You know? And, and all I remember about St. Joseph was he really liked lilies and he looked really old and bald. And I was like, not, I'm not interested, you know? And, and then another thing happened was I went to confession to a Dominican friar and I was making my confession. He stopped me right in the middle of it. He said, you will become a saint by means of your vocation, not outside of it. And that hit me hard because I was looking for glory in all these other different ways. Jason M. Craig (20:11.551) Yeah. D (20:40.47) And he was telling me, there is only one path to true glory, and that's your vocation. Your vocation is your path to sanctity. And so I set myself to... Jason M. Craig (20:49.941) So what would you say to, sorry, I cut you off there. To go back into pry a little bit, because with what we do with the magazine, with what we wanna do in Fraternis, Sword and Spade, it's like, know that there's a lot of brokenness, there's a lot of men that think exactly like the way you're thinking. And it's hard to not think, I mean, we're permeated, it's all around us. D (20:54.766) No, it's okay. Jason M. Craig (21:15.615) But we want to think about, and I know right now you don't have sons. That's correct, right? You got daughters. Isn't that right? Okay. Sons in laws. All right, good. where, and the reason I asked this is because I would like to know, cause I have five sons, you know, what are the things that your father told you or didn't tell you that puts you on the, the, the, path of just thinking in this way? Were you just carrying on what you had learned from him? Did he, D (21:21.008) Sons in laws. Jason M. Craig (21:44.745) propel you in that direction? I haven't heard you mention him at all. You've mentioned God, you've mentioned St. Joseph, but what was your relationship like with your father and did it send you in that direction? D (21:52.792) Yeah. So, so dad was a workaholic. dad was a partier. dad was very social guy and a performer and he loves sports. And so that's how I related to my dad. four years old, remember him watching the Cubs game in the kitchen, black and white little TV. And I asked him what that was. And he explained it to me. You run around the bases, you run around the bases, you get a point, you hit the ball, you run around the base. I'm like, I could do that, you know? And, and so that's how I related to him. was sports and so it was performance driven. You do well at sports, you please dad, you know, and, dad, dad was early on, he was sort of involved as much as I could remember really, but then you realize over time, no, he's really involved with his career. He's really involved with trying to get ahead. But the one thing that I think that was detrimental was that dad would say, you can be whatever you want. And I think that's a lie. I think it's a lie from hell. because I cannot be a pro basketball player. I'm five foot six. You know, I can, I can't jump two feet off the ground. I have a terrible, you know, jump shot, you know? And, and so there's no way, no matter how hard I practice, I'm never going to make the pros. Okay. Now some people might argue with me on that, but bottom line is you cannot be whatever you want to be. And so the idea was worldly aspiration and money. And my dad, you know, he, got into some things like. gambling and alcoholism things like that and that and Just a strain on the relationship. My home was a you know, just a bit of a war zone I didn't know what was gonna happen next especially with my mother my mother and I's relationship was extremely strained So what were the lessons I learned from dad? I guess I guess I learned from dad initially that You could be whatever you want, which was a lie Also that he was in a sense looking for the golden ring He was, you know, he's gambling and things like that, trying to find an easy way out. And so I saw that and thought, yeah, that's what I'll do. I'll wait to win the lottery, you know, that kind of thing. So I, I didn't work hard. I was very effeminate in a way. I didn't, I avoided work. avoided, avoided sweat. The only time I would sweat and work hard was sports and I would work very hard at sports and I was good at sports. but that was a way to please my father. But the one lesson that I learned from my dad that I had to break. Jason M. Craig (24:01.365) Mm-hmm. D (24:20.534) was that as a man, as a young man, I wanted to be chosen. And I remember I was at a baseball game. It was a doubleheader. And that's just the language I spoke with my dad was performative sports. we were doubleheader, this opponent's team, they had a pitcher who had a rocket for an arm. And we were down a couple runs, I believe. It was ninth inning and I was the guy up. It was like one of these situations where you love like as a kid, you're like, imagine this, you know, we're two runs down, two men on ninth inning. And quickly I had two, first of all, I had two humiliation at bats and here I am quickly and two in the count and I'm going to lose the game, you know, but my dad had taught me like when you get, can't get around on a pitcher, you just get around just enough to take the ball to the opposite field rather than trying to pull it. And that's what I did. That ball came in high and outside and I took it to right field and I knocked it out, knocked it out of park. And and man, when I got to home plate, my team was like lifting me up, you know, we're partying. But guess what? I was as happy and joyful and glorious as that moment was. I scanned the stands looking for something. I was looking for my father's approval and he wasn't there. And I knew he wasn't there. And yet even in vain, I still scanned the stands. looking for his gaze of approval. We want, as sons, and what I learned via negativa, in a sense, from my father, is that every young man wants to be chosen and wants to be respected. And so we have this innate, the core primary desire of every man is to be respected. And the man we respect the most, all the way until about age nine, is dad. Dad is the biggest, he's the strongest, he's the best, because he's the greatest man we know. And then something shifts where we get to know dad a little bit better and he's not all those things yet we still respect him. But more importantly, we desire him to respect us. And so we enter into the shadow of the father of our dad where we're longing for his validation, his affirmation. But when dad's too busy, when dad isn't intentionally choosing us and what I mean is not when the son says, dad, can we play catch? But when dad says to his son, let's go play catch. D (26:38.242) When the dad's working on the tractor and he says, son, come with me, let's fix the tractor. That's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about when the son says, hey dad, what are you doing? Can I hang out? No. And so what I realized is that it is a father, his job to initiate choosing. And when a son is chosen, he feels respected. When he's respected, he wants to respect that one who's choosing him all the more. And he wants to please him. wants to work hard for him. And that's the ball game of being a man. Because what happens is to generally speaking, that a son feels rejected rather than respected, and therefore he seeks respect in all these inordinate ways, gangs or guys in his class or whatever it is, doing things he shouldn't do online to try to get that affirmation from other males, if not females, and it never fills him up because it's not at the heart of his identity because God's designed this. Malachi chapter 4 verse 6 says that in the end I will before that great and terrible day I will turn the hearts of fathers toward their children so that the hearts of children will turn toward their fathers. What's going on here? This is God's game plan. God is saying when we human fathers, turn our gaze of approval and choosing, you know, we choose our kids, that gaze toward our children, our children not only turn to us and toward us in trust, filial trust, but toward the one we represent, God the Father. As John Paul II says in Familiars Consortio 25, that the human father's mission is to reflect and to reveal God's fatherhood. So this is at the heart of everything. Jason M. Craig (28:07.925) Yeah, that verse of Malachi, I like how it ends, which is, I'm gonna turn the hearts of fathers to their sons and sons to their father, or I'll strike the land with anathema. That's beautiful. D (28:16.162) I will strike the land with anathema. D (28:21.196) Yeah, and if you notice too that that verse is verbatim almost in the New Testament when when the angel appears to Zechariah, will turn the hearts of fathers toward their children so that the hearts of the incredulous, the doubting will turn to the just. And who is the just one besides Jesus? His human father, not biologically, is spiritually St. Joseph. And so when we turn to justice and the just one, Jesus and his just father, then we have a spirituality of fatherhood. We have a spirituality of what it to be a husband. And that's how the doubting become trusting. And we know this. The essence of sonship is trust. To the level I trust that God is my father, that God has my back, no matter what hell is surrounding me and the suffering I'm enduring, I know that He is good. I know He's created me for good. And all that He will somehow will end up being good. To the level that I believe that is a level that I'm bulletproof. But if I doubt that, Hebrews 11 6 says, without faith, it's impossible to please God. Not just improbable, not just unlikely, it is impossible to please God the Father. And this is a point. We as young boys, we wanted to please our fathers. Why? Because it's innate in us, we want to please God the Father. Why do we want to please God the Father? Because we want Him pleased with us, because we want to experience His pleasure. That's what we're made for. Jason M. Craig (29:46.774) So let me ask you in your story, maybe just pry a little bit for some of the tips here because, you know, one of the things wrestled with when I was working on Leaving Boyhood Behind is when the father chooses, when he initiates, the son does need to perform, right? A of times he's, you don't have anything to prove. It's like, well, but a man actually wants to be proven. He wants to be proven out. He does have things to prove because if we reduce, D (30:06.573) Yes. D (30:14.424) Well, that's the test. Jason M. Craig (30:16.239) affirmation to, just like basically, an intellectual affirm affirmation. You are great because you're my son. That's great. I want to be okay. But also I want to achieve. I want to do, mean, obviously we're trying to balance the reality that we have bodies that need to be fed. We have lives where we do things. We have competencies where we learn how to do something. So in the context of like sports, it's obviously, you know, I know that's a big D (30:33.134) Mmm. Jason M. Craig (30:45.737) tense subject for lot of families because sometimes sports is the only place where the man knows how to lead, guide, affirm, praise. It's like he doesn't know how to do it. C.S. Lewis says in his autobiography, there are some men that can only communicate through sports. like, he was actually bemoaning this. He said, I just can't get along with these guys. He was a little bit more of a brainiac. D (31:09.9) Right, right, right. Jason M. Craig (31:11.113) But he regretted in his school not being able to join in, right, with the rugby and all the other stuff. So anyway, I know it's tense because... D (31:17.506) Well, let me ask you, let me ask you something. You said something, I think it's important. I want to ask you, you said you want to achieve, you want to do this. Why do you want to achieve? Jason M. Craig (31:27.817) Yeah, the affirmation. Well, no, hold on. I think there's well, let's let's on a natural level. Well, on a natural. Yeah, I have a strange well for me personally, I have a strange grace. Actually, I think it's temperament. I'm pretty flagmatic, so I can be pretty comfortable with mediocrity and just chilling. So it's for me, having a family is good because it does bring me. D (31:30.178) Well, so no, no, I'm, I'm, yeah, yeah. Think about it. Yeah. Why do you want to achieve really ultimately? D (31:52.159) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (31:57.686) a little more drive, right? But as far as the area of achieve, I would say the the need for a man to be competent, to be ready, to be capable, to be able to give himself is what the competency does. Right. So that gives you the ability to get so young men. Yeah, maybe. OK, so I'm going to achieve. I'm to I'm going to switch the word then, because I know how it's easy to say. I think all of us men know. D (32:09.986) I think that's great. D (32:14.018) Well, that's competency. That's not achievement. Jason M. Craig (32:26.077) I would like to be praised for my achievement, which is vainglory, right? Vainglory is when, we, cause a son deserves the glory of achievement and we bestow that glory on them. And that's a good thing. If however, they do the thing for the glory itself instead of the good of the virtue, right? The reason for doing it. Well, that's vainglory. I'm actually not doing it because the thing itself is good. D (32:31.277) Yes. Jason M. Craig (32:52.553) Like I'm going to be, I mean, we dads could do this. I want my family to be an order to be well-kept, to be clean, to be well-spoken so that people will speak well of me, which is not love, right? That's Vainglory. So it can be Vainglory is very easy. so I guess I was probing to see if you had, maybe some, you know, some tips for dads. like, Hey, don't miss the opportunity. Yeah. You need to teach your son. You need to pray. Like it would have been good, right? If your dad did see your home run, like that, that would have been good for him to see. D (32:53.207) Right. Jason M. Craig (33:22.377) But what else was he missing in his, if he's like as C.S. Lewis said, there's some guys that only know how to communicate this way. How could that have been different for you? D (33:32.76) Yeah. So fundamentally you can't give what you don't possess. That's the axiom from St. Augustine, right? And so what is it that men need? the, at the, so I, you know, I travel around giving talks, give retreats and speak at conferences and inevitably, you know, there's guys who are, their marriages are falling apart or they're addicted to pornography or their son is rebelling. whatever it is. And this has just been more recent, but we'll get in this big discussion, and we drill down, we drill down, we drill down, and then I finally ask, I said, tell me about your relationship with God the Father. And almost always it's, I don't have one. And this is the fundamental foundation. So what I'm saying here is this, what are we missing, or what was my dad missing, or what do we miss? We miss having a relation with God the Father, which means we're actually sacrificing our time for prayer. We're actually spending time waiting on Him in prayer, which is something that most men don't do. I mean, let's face it, how many men actually spend over a half an hour a day, or a half an hour a day just meditating on Christ, His Word, and His revelation of self, who is revealing the Father to us? It's so essential, but yet, that's where all the power comes from, and yet we don't go to the power source. So I'd say first and foremost, and this is something else. One thing I'm realizing, how do we know we are prompted and guided by the Holy Spirit? Paul tells us in Romans 8 and Galatians 6, he says, those who are led by the Spirit cry out, Abba, Father. And in fact, Jesus in his agony, and by the way, the Greek word agony, agonizima, ago, the root word means to be led. So the father is leading Jesus into his test, the passion. And what is the first word on Jesus's lips? Abba, which is that tender Hebrew word that does not just mean daddy, but it's a way of evoking humble submission. I trust you daddy. And, and so what I think is going on, and this is where you and I might have trouble is because I think that at times where we, as men, we can all be all about the bigness and we got to go get them and the virility and the D (35:52.866) I guess in a way we've got to prove ourselves and man up and all that. And I agree with all of that. However, in doing that, God allows us to hit a glass ceiling where we recognize our littleness. And nowhere else do I think we feel our littleness more than when we cry out Abba, Father. Because Abba is like, you are big daddy and I am your little child, your son. And I am completely dependent on you. And I think that this is where it begins because when we the morning when we hit the deck and we bow down to Abba and we put our head on the floor and we're on our knees and we're Abba, Father, I submit to you, I surrender to you, I trust in you. All the walls of formality of, oh majestic God and Lord of all, that kind of breaks down and fizzles away to where you start to have this intimate relation with God the Father, and that's precisely why Jesus came. Jesus came, yes, yes, people will tell them, why'd Jesus come? To save us from our sin, to get us to heaven, yes, yes, but why? Why? So that we could have what he has, have his relationship with God the Father, to have his sonship, to have his power that comes from that relationship, to have his trust in God the Father. That's what Jesus wants for us. And so what I would say is, yeah, we could talk all day long about protector, provider, and priest, blessing your kids, family dinner, family meals, all the things that were missed when I was a child, all the things I do now, and we could systematically take them one by one practically, but if you do not have this one thing, which is you do not have a relation with Abba Father, then you cannot be the face of the Father your children cannot, that they don't see. You cannot be the voice of God the Father they don't hear. You cannot be the touch of God the Father they don't feel, because that's your job. And until you have that relationship with Him where He's saying, let me show you what I'm like, so you can become like me and share that with others, you could do all the stuff you want to do and spin your wheels and shoot mud all over place, because you are not imaging the true God because you don't know Him. Jason M. Craig (37:35.402) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (37:52.01) Yeah, I have a friend who says he recognized in his parenting in his fatherhood that the way he tends to see himself or that he thinks God is seeing him is the way he will tend to see and act around his children. And how when we do the really uncomfortable thing, which is let God love us, that's my, if my good friend, Father Cunningham is listening, that's, he preached an entire sermon where people were coming up to him like, D (38:06.294) Yes. D (38:15.117) Yes. Jason M. Craig (38:22.181) angry. I was there and they were like there no there's more to it than that you can't just say that he was just saying no if you let God love you you're doing enough right now we know theologically practically that will bear fruit it will change your life there will be action after but you have to let God love you so my friend said yeah when I see God as disappointed with me D (38:36.696) Yes. Jason M. Craig (38:44.863) Right, well, then I tend to look with disappointment in these kind of, if I see God is waiting for me to have it all together so that he'll love me, well, my children might have to wait. In reverse of that, the continuation of that is, and I have found this to be true, when I am able to practice the very difficult but necessary art of letting God love me in sitting, you know, D (38:45.038) Mm. Jason M. Craig (39:12.917) or someone earlier, like competency, action, affirmation. What I've learned, my sons, my children, what they really want every now and then is just presence. Just me being with them and not just like giving them quality time. I actually think to show them delight, that I delight in them changes everything. And a lot of times, if I'm talking... D (39:23.981) Yes. D (39:35.884) Yeah. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (39:38.614) to dads that are having a hard time with this or that. Can I just ask like, does your son or is it your daughter, would they describe you as delighting in them about anything? And the reason that's so important for when you have sons, I've learned this is they get an adolescence. The reason a lot of fathers, get in huge amounts of tension in those teenage years, adolescent years. And I think that's actually good. The reason that's happening is because they're about to break out of that childhood. The man is being forged and formed. And my son, actually, he likes to do forging. So he's got to forge. And when you get done with a knife or a blade or whatever you're making, the end, when it's almost done and the fine tuning is happening, it's where you get on the grinder and there's just sparks everywhere. It's just constant sparks because it's being perfected. D (40:28.45) Right. Jason M. Craig (40:29.495) So that you know there's as you're as you're making the thing right there's the blows right? It's kind of a discipline steady heat it up heat it up beat it out here But when it gets to the end the sparks intensify and it just before it's like okay. We're done. It's this like again intensification sparks are flying in that moment And I say it's my son take guys sometimes. We're gonna be we're feeling that tension the sparks are flying But I they have to know that I'm delighting in them or those sparks, they catch fire and burn stuff up. I'm not going to relent in the formation of your character and the virtue. This is hard work. We're gonna do the hard work together. But if I can maintain that I delight in them through that, I'm not just correcting, disappointed, whatever. Because that is my job. I do have to correct them. D (41:18.306) Yeah, so I think there's a conundrum there because we can, yeah, I think that's all very good. The conundrum is that we can delight in them for the wrong reason, right? So when a child feels that we delight in them just because they are ours, like we want to, like, I guess from a child's perspective, my dad wants to spend time with me. Jason M. Craig (41:29.973) Yeah. Yeah. D (41:44.3) My dad likes spending time with me. He laughs with me. Like we do stuff together. We work hard together. You know, that's a different delight than, hey, my son, you know, had this huge achievement and therefore I delight in him. You know, like I was just talking to a guy who's another evangelist for men and he was saying that his son like scored the most points in like a NCAA basketball or something like that. His first year in college. Jason M. Craig (41:58.101) Mm-hmm. D (42:10.944) and the coach asked all the dads to write letters to their sons. And he specifically and intentionally made sure that he told his son that he delighted in him just because he's his. And he didn't even mention the thousand points or whatever it was because he didn't want his son to think that his value is based on his performative action. And I think because this is where we can get into it. What if you have a kid who maybe doesn't... You know, like, let's say you're an intellect. I've got intellect friends and they raise their children to be intellects. They have that gift. But let's say one of their kids doesn't ascend to that intellectual level. That kid feels like a failure if dad doesn't delight in them just for them. Right? And so what if, but what if that kid is trying really hard and just only hits that level? Can the dad delight him because he's even trying? You know, I find that with my children all the time. I delight in them just because of their effort, you know, not because of the result. And I think that's the way God the Father is with us because you look at it like you're right. The perception determines our reality. Our perception of God determines the trajectory of our life. So like in the parable of talents, the wicked lazy servant, his perception of the of the Lord or the master or the one who represents God is that he was a wicked man. He was a tyrant that he gathered where he didn't plant or scatter, that he took where he didn't give. And so he feared him. This is the this is the I guess the pivotal point is when you fear God in a servile way, he's not going to be your father. And therefore you're going to bury the talent, the true talent. But when you trust God as your father and he's saying, I want you to trade, I want you to invest, I want you to risk, you're like, yeah, I trust my father. He's giving me a task that is worthy of me. I'm capable of this. To each one he gives according to their ability. And so I can trust that he's not putting too much weight on my shoulders. And he's also giving me enough to call me out. And I think that's the way we got to operate with our children is like, hey, I'm not going to place a burden on you with unrealistic expectations that you're to ascend to this worldly greatness. But nor am I going to let you off the hook, you know, and just like you can sponge off of us. But what I want to see from you is I want to see effort. I want to see you strive for excellence. And when you hit that glass ceiling, I'm going to be right there. When, when you feel your littleness, I'm going to be there to Jason M. Craig (44:21.779) Yeah. D (44:34.456) feel that littleness with you and we'll walk that together. That's fatherhood. Jason M. Craig (44:37.845) Yeah, think that's where, yeah, and I think the filial lens is where so many intellectual, even theological problems or practical problems get solved, right? Is this a matter of just pure gift and affirmation or do I have to work and achieve it? Is this a matter of, you know, my effort or no effort or is he gonna just work through me? Well, that all makes sense through the lens of fatherhood and sonship. Of course, everything. that a son has he's received from his father. And of course the father is then setting him up to act, to work, to enter into his glory because what the father does is to invite the son into his work, which I love how often Jesus refers to, I must be about the work, the business of my father. And that's why the way Aquinas describes the purpose of prayer is through the filial lens. Cause he says, D (45:25.037) Right? Jason M. Craig (45:31.686) You know, you're a servile faith is the theologians. A servile faith is good enough to get you saved because you're scared of God. You repent of your sins. You can get to heaven on that. But if you want to be alive, you want to be a saint, you want to make true progress and virtue, you have to switch to a filial. You have to realize that that you're not just scared of getting in trouble. You're scared of being far from God because you want to be close to him. So Quine says that the very reason God made prayer as a part of. D (45:55.597) Yes. Jason M. Craig (46:00.767) You know, like why is prayer a part of our life? Why, why does, why does God want us to ask him to do the things he's already going to do? Right. Which is, well, because that's how you enter into his work. That's Aquinas's insight. The way that you enter his work is into that, that prayer. D (46:13.877) Amen. Amen. D (46:19.022) But there's a danger though too with servile fear. I mean, guess, yes, technically you could get into heaven with servile fear, but it's like a bell curve. And this is St. Thomas too in a way is that servile fear, it looks like it's going toward heaven, but then there's like, it's a bell curve. It goes back down because what happens is as you're rising up toward God, you still fear him, you're afraid of punishment, you're doing everything out of fear of hell, avoidance of punishment. And then that relationship with God actually dips. It moves away from God because you're not transitioning into sonship. And so like what you were saying is like basically it's both and. It's like, yes, I affirm you for who you are. And yes, I want you to work in the vineyard. It's both and. God is almost always both and. So it's identity and mission. But without the identity of sonship and that affirmation that you are mine, there is no mission. There is no let's go do this together because I'm always working on the false identity of myself and the false identity of my perception of God. he's a master. He's a, he's a, like he's a task master. He's enslaving me. He's against me. He's out to punish me. Therefore my identity is not son but slave. Therefore there is no real mission in serving him because I'm not doing it out of self gift or love of the other for God's sake, but I'm doing it just for self protection. That ends in nihilism. Jason M. Craig (47:45.974) Yeah, or I think it can end when we try to stay within the church. We're trying to stay, you we want to be Catholic guys and we don't we don't ascend. I would describe it as mature to filial faith. I the servile faith becomes exhausting. And I would say the spiritual danger. Yeah, you're probably going to get it's exhausting because your only concern is am I in a state of grace or mortal sin? Right. If that is your concern. But that's where it's like, well, as long as I die in a moment, D (47:46.7) So the identity piece. D (47:58.253) Yes. D (48:09.932) Yes. Yes. Jason M. Craig (48:15.487) where I happen to not be immortal sin, I'll get to heaven. And all right, again, technicality, God is merciful and good. He wants you there. So he's going to get you there. If that fear gets you there, that's, know, as Quina says, that the fear is good. You should fear the punishment because the punishment is bad. That's what makes it a punishment. However, you're not going to progress in the joy that he wants to give you and the virtue because D (48:24.77) Yes. D (48:36.192) Right. Jason M. Craig (48:44.755) You're just, really trying to get away with, it's like the analogy of when a child or a young man sees adult, like I want to be an adult. And then he looks at like, well, adults get to sin, right? Adult movies, adult language, adult stuff. So I get to sin without consequence. Like when you have a servile faith, you kind of just want to, your desire, you're still attached to sin. You're not attached to God. Your desire is just to not be punished for it. Right? Just want to it's like essentially immature. D (49:14.03) Right, So, yeah, that's so right. And so why is that immaturity so fateful? Why is it so crippling? It's because so when we're in that position, we fear pain. We associate punishment, suffering, pain as being one. But what God wants to do is He wants to test us to perfect us. So He drives us into the desert. So yeah, like I say, like, If I'm Ford Motor Company and I'm going to build a car and I want that car to run perfectly, I'm going to test every part on that car before compiling that car so when it hits the road, it runs perfectly, you know? And Ford fix or repair daily. But point is, that God wants us to run perfectly and operate with His power, His love, His joy, His peace, His fulfillment, but that demands pain. So here's what happens. When we're a slave and immature, We assess the pain is all bad and therefore we run from it and we run to the world to sedate us. But when we're a son, we interpret the pain as, I'm being tested and God is perfecting me. And therefore the pain is good in a way. And that's Jesus. Jesus is willing to embrace the pain as a, yes. He's already perfect, but to perfect him in sacrifice, but also to become that perfect sacrifice for the sake of others. And so he deems the pain as a good in a way. That's the mature son. Because if I'm immature, I'm always going to think whenever suffering comes, God is just punishing me. God is just against me. God just wants to make your life miserable. what about maybe the fact that God wants you to be great? that God wants to glorify you, that God wants to impart more of His presence to you, and therefore He has to expand you. We're like balloons. You you take a balloon, it's uninflated. Is that balloon a balloon? Yes. It still has something of its identity, but it's not fulfilling its mission. But if you breathe helium in that balloon, that balloon would start to say, ow, stop, you're hurting me. If it had a personality, you're stretching me too far. But you get enough helium in that balloon, it soars. That's what God wants to do with us. He tests us to perfect us, and He's breathing His Spirit D (51:30.2) through us and the only real way is through testing. That's when you're like talking about the son and the father working on the tractor or working in the fields or whatever you guys do build retaining walls like we do. Whatever it is, you're testing them to perfect them so that more of God's spirit can dwell in them so that they can give more to the people around them. What's that? Jason M. Craig (51:47.67) Do you think using the word, do you think, mean, I, I, I, I'm trying to think of it. I don't think this is like a challenge the way you're describing it, but it seems like the language of scripture, he doesn't use the, it, like, I'm not telling my sons, I'm testing you, but I do tell them I'm disciplining you because only the fatherless or as the old King James version said, only the bastard goes without discipline. yeah. So because when we're D (52:11.054) That's the Romans, the Romans, yeah. Well, well, yeah, but Jason M. Craig (52:15.667) The test is like the, when we talk about initiation, it is, it's that I know who you are. And I know on the other side of this experience that you're going to be more. So in a certain way, I'm not, I already know you're going to get there. And in fact, I'm at your side. I'm going to get you there. You are not, this is because a test can be failed, but, it's, but this discipline that I do as a father. Yeah. D (52:38.594) Well, I think that's an important point. No, I think that's an important point because we will fail. Our kids will fail. That's why it is a test. Jesus went into the desert to be tested and all—and as Hebrews also says, that all discipline is a form of testing. Or all—we should receive it as all punishment or—I'm sorry—all suffering as a form of discipline. So yes, you can say discipline— Jason M. Craig (52:50.655) Right. D (53:08.066) But discipline is different than a test. So discipline is like, I'm discipling you, I'm correcting you, I'm guiding you, but a test is the real time, it's like the context in which you grow in discipline. So both are needed, both are different though. And so a test is not a temptation. The temptation comes along with the test. But if we're not being tested, that is crafted, that is if we're not being forged, if we're not. in a sense, testing ourselves to be better men and greater men and challenging ourselves every day, then we're not going to be perfected. So the test is this. It's the P's. What's the pain in your life? That first P, pain, is their God-given reason. He permits it so you can encounter your personal poverty. That is, you understand you are not God. You can't solve this problem. Think of Joseph when he encounters Mary pregnant without his cooperation. That is a massive pain. He loves her. He can't understand why she's pregnant. He knows her beauty, her holiness, but he cannot, he doesn't have the capacity to understand why it's happening. So in his personal poverty, he does not go to the local bar in Nazareth. He does not go on X and hashtag my wife's pregnant without my cooperation. He goes to God in the silence. And this is where it goes. The third P is patience, huppomenai, Greek. He remains under the test. So he remains with God and his devotion. And then he perseveres. He perseveres in his daily life to sacrifice and to serve God and to remain at his post until God tells him, this is what you're to do. So your pain leads your personal poverty, which leads to patience and perseverance, which when you're at that low spot persevering, then you start to look around the world and you say, guess what? Now I understand why that guy sins or why he's got that porn addiction. And I no longer judge him because his pain is mine. And now I've been given purity. And that purity now is where I have the power to actually embrace people and draw them into Christ. That's the process God wants to take us through. But it demands us forgetting about all this greatness and realizing that God wants to take us on a reverse loop to glory, which is by recognizing our littleness, our patheticness. And that test is whether we flee during that time of crisis and trial or we remain. The slave flees, the son remains. Jason M. Craig (55:34.133) Devin is patheticness a real word? Cause that's my favorite word you use in that whole. You said patheticness. No. Yeah. As if, well, this is what God's going to do. He's going to lift up the lowly and no one else. So that is the, the loop, so to speak. D (55:38.574) Probably not. D (55:42.883) Yeah. D (55:49.09) Yes. So here's where it's difficult for men. We have these parts of us that are very little and very weak. And we don't want the world to see those, not even our friends. So we mask, we posture, we pose, whatever it is to hide that littleness. And yet God is saying, that's the part about you that I actually love the most because that's the part about you that, well, St. Bernard says it this way. There are four levels to love. or stages. are those who love them. There are those who love themselves for their own sake. That's the world. There are those who love God for their own sake, Joel Olsteen and those guys. Then there are those who love God for God's sake. And you would think that'd be the highest level. But then he says there are those who love themselves for God's sake. And so here's the key. When we love the parts of ourselves that we loathe or are little or we think are ineffective or small, When we can love the totality of ourself, then we're capable of loving our neighbor. When we're loving that little self for the sake of God, for the sake of Him, Lord, I'm going to love this because You love me here. That's what would become truly powerful because I cannot love my neighbor if I do not love myself. This isn't Oprah theology. This is true theology. You're called to love your neighbor and love God and love your neighbor, but in the hinges, you love your neighbor as yourself. but you cannot love yourself if you do not allow God to love you in your very littleness and you cannot allow God to love you in your littleness unless you love your littleness. And so rather than hiding and masking our littleness all the time, what we should be doing is we should be putting that front and center and saying, man, I am just like the rest of the human race and I struggle with this and struggle with that, but God is great. And look what he's doing even in my littleness. So that when everybody looks to you or to me and they see our littleness, they go, that had to be God who worked through them. Jason M. Craig (57:50.912) Beautiful. Yeah. I, the problem is Devon, I just wish there was, you're telling me that there's the way of the cross and suffering. And then there's the way of humility. Is there any other way? mean, can we, is there a happier way? There's no other way. Devon. D (58:00.238) There's no other way. It's interesting though. It is happy. Jason M. Craig (58:07.933) It is, well that's the paradox. think my sons are starting to see it more and more that as they're processing, as they're getting to know people in the world, they're entering into relationships with men and they can see past achievements really easily, some of them. And they can see when someone is humble. And when someone is humble and not glorified, because boys, D (58:29.813) Yeah. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (58:36.597) I've noticed they're essentially boastful, right? Boys, when they walk into a group, I'm watching it. It cracks me out. They come into a group and like the first thing everyone says is like what they bought, what they did, what they achieved, what they like, and they're wanting. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, how would you do? Yeah. What's your gosh, what are they the BMI? And I hear that like, and I, I, I'm in a relationship, I'm in friendship with these guys. I'm like, guys, you realize you just, you're like in a circle. D (58:39.81) Yeah D (58:49.454) How much they bench. D (58:57.772) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (59:04.757) Talking about yourselves. This is like the most boring conversation I've ever heard Just anyway, anyway boys are essentially boastful but when they encounter a man and we hope this to be of the fraternist man that when you encounter a man who is As we like to say he's you know, he's interested instead of interesting, you know when he's actually like focused on the other person the sincerity the joy the happiness that not only they Exude but that they create around them D (59:09.216) Yeah, there you go. That's right. D (59:23.53) Mm. Mm. Yes. Jason M. Craig (59:33.526) is so fundamentally different from the men in the world that they encounter that are the deep insecurity, the need to, in a sense, like you were saying, we hide the things that should bring us humility. They are constantly revealing the thing, and we all do this, I do this. We like to reveal the things that make us look good. I would like to show you this. I will let you in my van the day after I vacuum it, right, or make a kid vacuum it, but I don't want you to see it when it's dirty. D (59:58.19) Right, right. Jason M. Craig (01:00:02.707) They're, guess, yeah, I'm just reflecting on, I know this to be true, but they're encountering it. D (01:00:05.838) But it's very interesting. Yeah, love, first of all, I love what you're saying about like interested and not versus interesting, you know? I think when you meet a man who's asking a lot of questions, you know, like these conversations I get into, it's so great when, well, I believe asking questions is, because I want to know the other person. I want to discover something, you know, like I already, in a sense kind of know about me, not fully, but I know about me, but like I could talk about me all day. It's like so boring, right? But to ask the questions, to find out something new, to find out about this person, that's the revelation of God. But this is very important that Catherine of Siena says like, become who you are and you will set the world ablaze. I think that we have forgotten the art of becoming who we really are, who God has really designed us to be because we spend so much time being like everyone else. And but we can also be prideful in becoming who we are that we're so different than the world that somehow that's our identity. But I think when we become who we really are in the eyes of God and we're comfortable with who we are, meaning we're... and this is where confidence comes from. Confidence in the Latin confide, it's like with faith. We have faith in God that he knew what he was doing when he made us. You know? I have to have faith in God that I knew what he was doing when he made me short, when he made me whatever. These things that... about myself that I don't exactly cherish, I have to say, God, I have faith in you. You know what you're doing. And therefore I'm going to walk into my human identity, my divine identity in the spirit and my kingly identity. And I'm not going to shy away from just being who I am. Because when I am who I am, then others want to be around me and share who they are with me. That's the point. But when I'm pretending to be someone else, nobody wants to hang out with it. Well, people do want to hang out. Fakes want to hang out fakes. You know, it's like... D (01:02:02.018) you watch these movies or where these movie starts and there's a, there is an inclination, especially among boys when they see like a ultimate fighter or when they see a movie star or whatever, you know, or a great athlete. Yeah. They want to aspire to that, right? Because they see the muscles and they see the gold and they see the, they see the reward. Jason M. Craig (01:02:02.548) Yeah. D (01:02:21.848) But the people I respect in my life don't look anything like that. They are so little and yet they're so confident and they're so embracing. Like just because they are who they are, man, they're so inviting. They're like their life is an open invitation to you. And those are the people that changed my life. Jason M. Craig (01:02:31.741) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (01:02:44.319) That's beautiful. Well, Devin, can tell you, I know you've changed a lot of men's lives, but per our conversation in the beginning, we won't talk about it because Aquinas says God can keep it hidden so we can stay little. D (01:02:53.866) I don't, I don't, you know what, have a firm, I have a firm belief that I don't change anybody's life. I have a firm belief that I can fill the jars and in the end, only Christ can transform it into wine. And that's why the metrics online. Jason M. Craig (01:03:05.737) Well, Well, then I'm just going to say I appreciate what you're doing. And I'd like to just offer a thanks on behalf of the fraternist man. know lots of guys have read your stuff and if you haven't, I encourage them to go to it's men of St. Joseph dot com, right? D (01:03:21.219) Fathers of St. Joseph, fathersofstjoseph.org. Jason M. Craig (01:03:25.237) fathersofstjoseph.org. Devin, thank you for being on the Swords Bait Podcast. I think we're gonna have to keep going around number two, but it's been great to have you on. I highly encourage everyone to look up what Devin's up to and we're gonna have to get you to write some articles for us pretty soon. Devin, thanks for being on the podcast. D (01:03:30.54) Yeah. D (01:03:42.678) Alright, God bless you brother. Jason M. Craig (01:03:49.439) Sorry, man, we were rolling, I realized we're at like an hour, which is our typical stopping point. it's like, hey, where are you? It is. D (01:03:53.826) Yeah, yeah, no problem. It's easy to get going to these conversations and all those stuff. All this stuff is good though. All those questions and topics are so good. Jason M. Craig (01:04:02.965) That's great. Well, thank you for being on the podcast. The way this works. I think you have to hang around until it's all uploaded. You probably know how that goes. D (01:04:09.344) yeah, yeah. Usually it doesn't take too long. it's, just finished. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (01:04:13.215) Yeah, mine's that. D (01:04:20.738) Great. All right. Well, hey, it's an honor. It's an honor to be on your show and it's, it's, and I keep hearing about you wherever I go. And, and I did put in a plug for you on pints. but I, really, I really believe in what you're doing and, I'm so thankful for it because it, it's, one of the few things that fills this void, the, boy father, the son father kind of relationship. And, so thank you, brother. Jason M. Craig (01:04:38.185) Thanks, Devin. Jason M. Craig (01:04:50.431) Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. Reach. I, yeah, I want to do the pints thing because I want him to talk about initiation and rites of passage. I want to have that conversation with him. I saw he had, yeah. Well, if you, if you have a connection, poke them, that'd be great. Cause I'd like to, I'd like to push them there. Yeah. That's fine. God will do it if he wants to do it. Thank you for your time though, David. I'm going to run guys. Cause I've, I'm supposed to be off and I got some farming to do with the boys. D (01:04:58.76) He'd probably, he'd probably love that. He'd probably love that. Yeah. I don't know. Matt's like impossible to connect with. Yeah. No, I don't. D (01:05:15.074) Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'll leave this open. I'll leave this open. And I'm going turn off my mic and cam. God bless you guys. Jason M. Craig (01:05:25.525) Thanks guys. Jason M. Craig (01:05:30.153) Nope, you still sound terrible. By the way, it's still recording. That might be why it's not. Might need to stop the recording so that the upload will finish.