Latest / Sword&Spade / Your Son Must Bleed Before He Can Be Blessed w/ Marcellino D'Ambrosio of Sherwood Fellows
Transcript
- Jason M. Craig (01:33.509) Friends, brothers, welcome back to the sword and spade podcast, the podcast born out of something real because we print it on paper. It's called a magazine. And if you just missed the last issue, don't worry. It's the internet. You could probably get it really quick. If you go subscribe right now, sword and spade.com. If you're new to this, which I think our guests today might be as well, we, really only deal in sword and spade with men that are in the trenches doing something. Not people that are just branding themselves, but our guest today I'm really intrigued because he knows a lot about brands but We had some mutual friends say you guys should talk because he also has some experiences That we're gonna get into that. I know fraternist men sword and spade men are very interested in specifically How do we stop as they say making men without chests? But also how do we not be idiots saying that over and over on the internet? with sunken chests. So Marcelino D'Ambrosio, did I say this all right? Marcellino (02:39.618) Yeah, it's Marcholino d'Ambrosio. Jason M. Craig (02:42.788) That's so much better than what I did. Butchered it in a Carolina boy fashion. Welcome to the Sword and Spade podcast. Thanks for being on. Marcellino (02:44.974) Hahaha! Marcellino (02:52.15) It's great to be here, Jason. Thanks for having me. Jason M. Craig (02:55.46) All right, before we start talking about the tomato field fight, I'd like to ask you, just tell me about, cause you're working marketing branding, you know, strategy, which like all the, you know, everybody is, but you've got something different. It seems like I'm trying to figure it out. So tell me about Sherwood fellows, why it's called that and how in the world did you arrive at a thing like that? Marcellino (03:19.202) Yeah, so Sherwood Fellows is a strategy branding marketing agency. We work with primarily startups. We've had a history of working inside of Catholic apostolates that are trying to do innovative things and like reinvent themselves. And recently have been mostly focused on like venture backed startup firms. we the way that we look at marketing and branding comes from a very I don't know, ministry. Yeah, it comes from ministry experience, comes from, I went to Ave Maria University, I studied the classics, I learned how to think, I learned how to make an argument. Really what I've come to understand is that great brands are built on an argument. They are making a statement about something that needs to change in the world. A big idea, I think great brands in recent days that have done this are companies like SpaceX or Tesla that have come out and said something other than just like, we want your money, but we believe in a world that blank, where if we don't go to Mars, if humanity has a extinction event, we're going to be screwed. They're trying to solve some massive problem in the world. And I think that most organizations don't Jason M. Craig (04:39.78) You Marcellino (04:47.906) don't do that. They stay on the level of talking about what they do. They talk about their features and benefits. They use lots of technical jargon. And ultimately, they fail to get buy-in at the level that they could. So we help brands to figure out what that big idea is and then build marketing strategies around getting attention on that big idea. So yeah. Jason M. Craig (05:11.63) Yeah, see that that gets when I hear that my man, that's exciting because a lot of times, you know, I've got the dichotomy in my mind, which is essentially I'm a I'm a hyper localist as much as I can be. And or not as much as I should be, meaning, I mean, like economics, all economics, all culture is always local. Right. We say these things like local culture, local economics is actually and there's I think of big branding as the manipulation of Coca-Cola. you know, to get us strung out on sugar. Like, but the way you just put that, that's actually exciting, you know, but I know from a, is it Neil Postman's technopoly when he talks about the moment that marketing and advertisement went from telling you why this is a good product, like the vacuum works well to you will be more beautiful with this vacuum, like kind of manipulating your emotions, which seems like you probably wouldn't say you're doing that, but Marcellino (05:58.734) Hmm. Jason M. Craig (06:08.888) You're talking about telling a big story, you know, this like, guess a bigger disruptive thing. But I also know you to be kind of a localist or that's my understanding. So like, are these things that tension inside of you or are they integrated? Marcellino (06:22.37) Define localist for me, yeah. Jason M. Craig (06:25.63) no, you can't put the question back on me. I'm the host. Well, I would say when when our Lord says like, love your neighbor and when St. Paul writes essentially like most of the New Testament and he speaks about economics and work and that there's this presumption actually our life really is integrated and that it's impossible to fulfill those commands and sort of live as a Christian without. your life, your life being into intertwined with people near you. I approximate people. So this so localism would be the erase. The erasure of localism would be the work of the machine. You know, there's just this kind of collective disembodiment, disenchantment, whereas localism would just be loving people, which we Christians, think too often thinks that means like having being nice, friendly. but with our co-religionists, like doing pious things with them, but not doing crazy things like economic activity and being bound to one another and telling each other what to do. Stuff like that. Marcellino (07:28.984) Hahaha Yeah, so I would say that I am a, in a sense, yes, I am a localist. I absolutely believe that, you know, we have an order of loves that we need to love the people around us directly that we're most connected to, you know, first and foremost, before we go and love people on the other side of the world. And I think that, like, God brings out particularities that are beautiful and amazing in local community that I hate watching that get eroded. yeah, I think that, okay, so to the point that you made about marketing being this sort of emotionally manipulative thing, I do think that there is an element to that, I don't think that just focusing on the product is the obvious outcome of like, we need to go back to a time when like all we did is list the features and benefits and talk about the product and that's it. There are people that I know who I argue about that with. I think that brand is just second nature to human beings and that telling stories is absolutely just, it's just so natural. Like we can't, really process information without taking it in as a narrative. So it just seems like just the natural outflow of what it is to be human to build brands. So that's, yeah. Jason M. Craig (09:15.524) Yeah, I talk a marketing guy today told me, you know, he was saying, well, that is a narrative that's worth, um, recognizing. Like we talk about with our kids, right? When like a, so we don't have a TV, but we'll watch a movie or something and they'll, they'll see an ad somewhere. And we like to point out, like, look at what it's doing to you. Like it is, um, you know, a car ad or something. Like, what is it telling you? This will make, you know, we saw one last night cause it's a, we like hockey and it's time for the Stanley cup. Marcellino (09:41.262) Yes. Jason M. Craig (09:45.297) and it showed like a rav for driving alongside a pack of horses. And we're just like, guys, what is this trying to do to us right now? So that being said, I think there's like, all right, we just can like, let, maybe we can just leave out the big guys because, they are. And I, and I don't mean that because, there's some threshold of bigness that makes them ugly. actually think because so often they're, they are only working in the world of the global market. So they're working for shareholders. So they, they're just extracting money. Whereas people. Marcellino (09:51.874) Yeah, right. Marcellino (10:11.394) Yes. Jason M. Craig (10:14.85) And there are people that are maybe maybe they have investors or whatever, but when they're actually invested in doing when they think about it really as a mission, it actually does have a story. The narrative is important. But I trade told me, you know, our content editor, he said, you guys have probably a lot of like overlapping your thought when it comes to like Sebastian Younger's book, Tribe. And in the modern reality. Is that our local tribes have been eroded in a race there they take. They take work to be a part of, which is work we should be doing. Yeah. so we're in a kind of an, an era of reestablishing roots. but even when you do that, when you have a, like, I'm watching businesses around me that are trying to develop what they are proposing is like, you know, be a part of this story, be a part of what we're doing. Marcellino (10:51.34) Yeah, they don't exist anymore. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (11:10.816) And maybe we could say it's really easy. That could be manipulative if you really are just flipping products. But, you know, we're not talking about people doing the shitification of everything on Amazon. We're talking about. I'm looking at I mean, I'm looking at your rosters like, hey, these guys are actually trying to do important things. So is that. Stir it. Marcellino (11:29.976) Yeah, I'd say overall, the idea here is like, you shouldn't be lying. I'd say it's like, it's that simple. Is your story telling a lie or is it telling the truth about the product, about the world, about who you are as a company, about your consumer and what they want? I think that's really as simple as it needs to be. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (11:35.342) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (11:53.317) Boom, are you lying? There you go. You heard it here. That's, that's, uh, I, yeah, I'm not, I'm not joking. I think that's a pretty good line in the sand right there. Um, okay. So tell me you're, uh, you're up, you said you studied the classics. That's obviously, I see that, you know, even through your website and stuff. So just tell me, are you, your background, are you lifelong faithful Catholic guy? You're or, you know, tell me how you got where you are. Marcellino (12:18.626) Yeah, the two minute here is my dad is a Catholic theologian. He taught at the University of Dallas. I grew up in a, I was an Italian Irish from a homeschooled charismatic family in a sort of WASPy suburb. It was just a really wild, yeah, it was a really weird, weird upbringing in that way. Jason M. Craig (12:38.082) You just mentioned so many tribes. This is great. Marcellino (12:46.894) Yeah, I always felt like an outsider. I definitely, I'm a really small guy, so I'm like five, six, and I have a twin brother. We were never going to make it in Texas sports. And so we started a band in high school. That was really where I started learning how to build tribes, how to build brands, how to market, how to like kind of create community around a thing that I wanted to do. We were really, really successful at that. until God pulled the rug out from under us and through a moment of conviction called us back out of that and back into the fold, we prayed, God. Jason M. Craig (13:29.796) Wait, so hold on, hold on. I, the details of that is, so this sort of like budding music career, what did it do? Just bring you into a den of whores or something? Marcellino (13:39.734) Kind of I mean, yeah a lot of a lot of very negative behavior so you were mentioning on the How you are a punk? That you would just like destroy crap as a part of your like I don't want to be domesticated My brother and I did that we would with our our punk friends and it was a like kind of screamo punk rock band that we were that were part of and We we would like Jason M. Craig (14:06.212) I'm sorry, the charismatic Texas kid, short, that's like a perfect spot to rebel right there, like a scream up. Marcellino (14:13.902) Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So yeah, I got into like skateboard culture, then started a band. And yeah, so we would do stuff like put mustard and other condiments and water guns and like go spray people at the mall. I just like run through the mall spraying people. We would like throw water balloons at gang bangers and getting like high speed car chases. I mean, just crazy, crazy dangerous things. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (14:44.354) Right, just looking for trouble, looking for danger. Yeah, looking for danger. And what was the conversion you mentioned? Marcellino (14:51.406) so, I mean, along with that also, there was, there was a lot of other negative behavior, particularly like, womanizing and all that. but yeah, so my mom came to a show my senior year and she, after the show is over, she said to my brother and I like, Hey, you do not want to keep walking down this path. If you don't make a change right now, you are going to look up in 10 years and you're going to have no idea how to get back. And my brother and I just, whatever reason, God really convicted that moment. like he said in our hearts, you gotta listen. So we prayed, we offered God our band and the next day the band broke up and both of our girlfriends broke up with us. So it was pretty obvious. God's like, I'm not, I'm not letting you go down that, yeah, down that path. Jason M. Craig (15:47.364) Can I ask why, and if this is personal, we can move on, but why was it your mother that confronted you there? It sounds like you're an adolescence. Where was your dad? Marcellino (15:58.318) That is a good question. My dad, and he was, we had a lot of financial challenges and he really, he was just busy, he was just busy. And he did confront us multiple times, but it wasn't well received, really. I don't know. Jason M. Craig (16:23.492) Okay, yeah, loaded, yeah, I just, I picture in those moments, mean, a lot of those moments that I had, it was when men stepped in and they grabbed me by the collar and like, what are you doing? And I know for us, lot of so in certain space, we're talking about what fathers need to be doing and I think you just described, I mean, verbatim. Like I have a friend, Connor Gallagher, and he says the, The biggest sin of men today is not lust or pride, it's sloth. And he speaks specifically to fathers. You're just not doing the thing that you, whatever the thing is you think you're doing, if you're not doing this thing, which is entering into your son's life at the right moment, you're missing it. So I know that's why I asked the question, and we don't have to dwell on that. Because it sounds like a lot of us, I'm right now in a time, as you were saying, that I'm traveling and busy, and I've got, you know. five sons. I gotta not miss them. Okay, so after this conversion, the band broke up, but it was so it was it was more than just you and your brother, I presume. There's some, know, and but your conversion wasn't received well by the band or your girlfriends. Or did they just dump you like miraculously the next day? Marcellino (17:41.216) No, they, yeah, literally like the next day our bandmates called us and they kicked Anthony and I out of the band, which was kind of funny as it was like our band. So I don't know, it just destroyed it. We, yeah, and then like my girlfriend found out that I was cheating on her and then my brother's girlfriend was cheating on him and he found out and like that she broke up with him in that. It was wild. I've never... Yeah. And all of our friends too were a part of either the girlfriends or the band. So nobody wanted to hang out the next week. I was just by myself. And my brother and I decided to go to seminary. So we went to St. John Vienny in Minnesota, which at the time was a real... Jason M. Craig (18:15.288) Big couple days. Marcellino (18:39.47) one of the first seminaries to really overhaul itself and try to bring back masculinity. They didn't do it in a super healthy way. And that in some ways really pushed me to think more about masculinity and masculine journey, what it really is. Then I left, I went to Ave Maria, go ahead. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (18:59.672) I'm sorry, can I ask, sorry, because this is great. I ask like, I mean, obviously, you know, I mean, I don't know how many people out there have read like, goodbye, good man. mean, one of the, one of the dangerous things is if you go from, say you're a cute, you know, like a good homeschool kid, and then you go to like your good college, and then like you go to like your good seminary, and then. You actually have never been around men your whole life. And then you're paraded around as a seminarian and little old ladies are fawning over you before you have any oil on your hands. And you sort of enter into a church that doesn't know how to talk to men. And then you don't either. And you don't know it because it's I kind of see. Yeah, almost a real incompletion when it comes to like the seminary trying to like manify itself. So what were you what were you perceiving that they were trying to do to over and by overhaul? I presume you mean. sort of rolling back some of the ridiculous things of the 60s and 70s, maybe like trying to make men again. Marcellino (20:05.646) Yeah, just trying to kick guys out who were gay and stuff. No, which still crazily enough, like many of the men who went were gay and have stories about that too. But basically they were trying to create a template that was really masculine externally, but not truly masculine internally. And so Jason M. Craig (20:08.642) Yeah, yeah, step one. Marcellino (20:35.195) a man who would be Man, there's so much to talk about there. So the campus is St. Thomas University in Minnesota, which is a campus that is almost completely anti-Catholic with a one department Catholic studies program that still is and a seminary that's very Orthodox. And so as you can imagine, it's like, The amount of pressure on the seminary is enormous to not ever do anything that could possibly get them in the news. And this is something that I don't think many people understand about the priesthood is that we have enemies everywhere that are actively constantly trying to find ways of destroying the church through reputational damage and scandal. so there was just a sense of like, you have to be perfect and you have to look perfect. They also were recruiting from the Midwest, so it was a very like corn fed. want the football player engineer turns seminarian. And that just didn't work for most people. Like there were a few guys that that worked for, but like I'm an Italian Irish punk rocker who is trying his best to figure his faith out and. in some ways went to seminary looking for masculine initiation. And I was told, hey, you're not masculine because your voice is too high when you sing. You're a tenor, and a real man would be a bass. And I was like, dude, there's got to be a broader view of what masculinity is than. Jason M. Craig (22:27.672) Yeah, so they really had it. It was kind of an ex, yeah, kind of an external, let's duplicate a prototype look to it. But you clearly don't, I mean, we can jump ahead. You clearly aren't, if anyone's thinking, this guy's actually the soft touch that we're trying to get rid of, so maybe it's good that he's not. Because you actually kept dealing with this question of like the initiation. So maybe we should go ahead and keep going with your story. Marcellino (22:28.194) the football player guy, you know? Yeah. Marcellino (22:53.838) Yeah, well, one experience from seminary that I do think is relevant here that began my masculine initiation process was one of my friends was David Jarbo. He was a linebacker at Tennessee, a university in Tennessee, came to seminary, just like massive dude, really aggressive. I, you know, it was winter, made a snowball, threw it across the mall at him, hit him in the head. And he turned around and just like the blood lust comes over him. And I just like, just immediately like, shit. He just bolts at me. He's running like as fast as he can. And I just turn and start running away and he yells out, be a man and face the consequences of your actions. And I'm just like, you know, you're right. Jason M. Craig (23:48.708) Ha ha ha. Marcellino (23:52.662) I actually do need to do that. I turned around and he just speared me as hard as he possibly could, put me into the ground, stuffed snow in my face. And then I got up and was okay. And that was like a moment where I realized that I wasn't made of glass. I'd never been in a real fight. I'd never been punched in the face. Anytime that I had, and I had done a lot of crazy stuff that got me in intense situations and every... Jason M. Craig (24:07.288) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (24:20.62) it never caught up with you that's the problem. Marcellino (24:22.766) Right. I always got out of it by talking or by running away or by some very feminine sort of now, you know, way of navigating a situation. And so that was really a important moment. I didn't fully understand what happened there, like how it what it meant until later went to Ave Maria. We read the Iliad in a swamp with, you know, a whole bunch of boys and nothing to do. And that's a great recipe for disaster. just like think about that for like two minutes, what a either great or terrible idea that is. And so at the end of the year, you know, all of these homeschooled guys or, guys like me, like I was homeschooled a little bit, but I went to public school either way. Like we had all been quote unquote domesticated. Like none of us really had ever had any sense of a man speaking into our lives, of like experiencing physical conflict and danger of, or at least not in a healthy way. And so we're all talking about the Iliad all semester long. End of the semester, there's a bonfire. My friend Mati, who I'm still best friends with today, he got up and recited a Jason M. Craig (25:33.656) Mm-hmm. Marcellino (25:49.546) a monologue from Diomedes Aristea where he like Paris shoots him in the heel and Diomedes just like rips him a new one. He's like, the bow is such a basically like gay thing. Like you're just such a womanizing like boy, there's nothing scary about you. You shot me. If you would just face me with real, with armor and weapons. your bow to veil you not. He basically calls him out, like calls him a pansy. And it's just like this, I don't know, like, wow, men used to be like this. This used to be masculine. This used to be what it meant to be a man. And as Monty is giving this monologue, my other friend Ben just starts pushing dudes around and then. another guy from like St. Greg's named Jeremy Gay, who's the founder of another thing that you may have heard of. Sebast. he just like, starts wrestling like tackles Ben and the whole field erupts into one big brawl with no rules. And guys are just like, going at it and all of the women are freaking out. Jason M. Craig (26:54.104) Mm-hmm. Marcellino (27:11.212) the security comes and starts breaking it up. afterwards we just said, hey, we need to do this again. So we kept going out and over the course of the next four years, like I thought at least once a week, there's a lot more stories that I could tell there. Jason M. Craig (27:27.14) So you started a fight club at Ave Maria or you were there when a fight club spontaneously broke out due to the reading of the Iliad and somebody. Marcellino (27:32.396) Yes. Marcellino (27:40.118) I would say I was crucial to the founding of that Fight Club, yes. Jason M. Craig (27:44.101) I wasn't a bystander like the scared women. And so. All right. What is the. So you're obviously you're telling me this as the next chapter of what you're you're you've been calling in this interview your initiation. Was this just you like I have to get out of my boyish comfort and I got to get beat up by some like how are you thinking about that? How are you thinking about that now? Marcellino (27:48.483) Ha Marcellino (28:02.008) Yes. Marcellino (28:11.852) Yeah. So you had said something important, which is that you can't really initiate yourself. And while I think that's true, Jason M. Craig (28:18.66) I should fill in. Let's let's fill in our listeners. We had a kind of a pre conversation because I poked around and got a couple of articles ready. I was thinking, you know, this one's great. This and he and I was was telling Marcelino that I had written a book on rites of passage. So like he was talking about what was going on here. And I was as I was reading his story, I was thinking back to some of my punk days and saying, the problem is that sort of like the it's a it's a healthier version. Of the gang strategy the gang is the group of fatherless boys that are uninitiated looking for danger fraternity shared mission ritual they're looking for all the things and it's A lot of people like will send campus security after some of these people, right? Um, and the reason they're doing that is because it looks dangerous But nowhere never asks what what are those boys actually looking for the sad part the reason i'm I would argue the mosh pit in the tomato field um is understandable, reasonable, partially initiatory. But the sad part and I'm sharing in the sadness is that we don't have initiation where our fathers have brought us into their world that looks like this because they're saying that you can respond to that now kind of digesting it. Marcellino (29:34.498) Yes, I totally agree with you, but I think something is better than nothing. Jason M. Craig (29:40.78) Yeah, amen. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (29:45.188) Well, guess I'm more defending you. know, people get mad at college students for like hazing each other or doing things like that. They call it, but there's a logic to it. There's a necessity to it. Marcellino (29:57.238) Yeah, and since I've done a lot of initiatory types of things with younger men, but it is much more dangerous for a man to do that. mean, it's basically illegal for a man to do anything that's even remotely close to truly initiatory rights for men who are not already adults. So that's a part of the breakdown. Don't know how to get around that. Jason M. Craig (30:27.554) You mean, you mean they can't do, do you mean that, men, so it sounds like you've, you've grabbed a hold of like specific rights that they would do, like, that would actually inflict pain, public tattooing, well, you know, some tribes would do adolescent, public circumcision. We're not talking about those, punching a tooth out of a young man. Marcellino (30:47.342) Well, I think anything dangerous is going to be illegal. You're going to get sued if somebody gets hurt. And the reality is, I don't think it's initiatory unless there's actual real danger. That doesn't mean that you have to be scarring somebody for life. Jason M. Craig (30:58.446) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (31:04.024) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (31:12.046) But see, here's the thing, actually it seems, I when we look at the pattern, the necessity of a father to bring his son to pain and then to bless him on the other side of it. So this is what I argue in leaving warhead behind is that there actually is a, before God changes the identity of most of the men in scripture. So Abram to Abraham, circumcision first. Jacob to Israel wrestles him and breaks his leg first. Job's sort of initiation. Marcellino (31:35.875) Yes. Jason M. Craig (31:37.733) He, as Job says, he wounds, but he heals. St. Paul knocks him off a horse, strikes him blind. I actually would say, yeah, a father has to mark his son and then bless him. The, the, uh, pins there, the, the, the deficiency of that today is, is not so much. I would argue, maybe it's just my state of life and how old my kids are and stuff, but bringing them to pain and danger. found that pretty easy. Now I live on a farm. we, we like, we do dangerous things all the time. Um, Marcellino (32:02.542) Really. Jason M. Craig (32:07.426) And the boys don't do it and the men do and they do it with other men. The harder part I think is finding the way. if if an initiation is basically danger and pain and ritual meets blessing and affirmation and identity, that second part, we don't know what we're doing when it comes to that. But I live, I'm not in, I mean, I'm in a rural setting. We have we have dangers that are impregnated into our way of life. So like. Marcellino (32:33.998) Hmm. Jason M. Craig (32:37.454) You know, I got a boy that feeds the sow. And if you fall down in a pig pen, like you can be eaten. I mean, there's a woman in our community that is missing two arms because a sow bit her on one side and then bit her on the other side. And now she has, you know, she's, there are some dangers and you can take your son hunting. You can take your son on dangerous hikes. Like the kind where if you don't do it right, Marcellino (32:45.324) Well. Marcellino (32:56.598) Wow. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (33:04.642) It's almost a relational. I guess I've leaned more and this has been the worker fraternist. We want to talk about rights. It's going to have to be the father's the father's not just a father, but the father's the brotherhood of the men saying you boy are now one of us. Right. Then he's there in it, but I agree with you. mean, don't I've given it some thought. Marcellino (33:21.08) Yeah. So you've written a book on this. I would love to hear your thoughts about this. In my experience, this is part of my... So I started a community of writers, or helped to start a community of writers called Christendom Chord Relief. It's not just me, but there's a bunch of guys who are part of it. And one of our policies for people coming in is... You have to have punched someone in the face and been punched in the face. If you haven't done that, you're not writing for us. That's like, that's our policy. And the reason is, is because I think that physical conflict with another man is 100 % crucial to, to masculine initiation. I don't think that you get, moral courage without Jason M. Craig (33:58.479) Mm-hmm. Marcellino (34:18.752) understanding, feeling, living in, embracing physical conflicts. What do you think about that? Jason M. Craig (34:27.406) Yeah, I mean, so most rites of passage in history would have been related to the necessary work of men in that society. Now, as far as giving and taking a punch, the way, where I grew up, that just happened. I mean, that just happened. It may be for every, that is not, obviously that's probably not happening on like, know, Franciscan University, you know, or whatever. But the, Marcellino (34:46.253) Yay. Jason M. Craig (34:56.866) The physical endurance that is the physical pain, the ordeal that you have to get on the other side of a punch is going to be like an expression, some maybe even limited, right? So an example would be bootcamp for the military man. Like you can't just walk up and get your uniform. Like you have to go through bootcamp. So whatever the ordeal was for a rite of passage, as long as collectively on the other side of it, all of us men. have been through that and we collectively recognize that is like the thing. So it's not surprising to me that you who had his hit one of his best memories that he's still living from, because it was an identity forming memory is that when we started fighting each other, it wouldn't shock me that now your writer's group has the initiation related to what you understand your identity to be coming from. Right? Does that make sense? So if I'm you know, a tribal, like there was a Native American tribe that was a fishing tribe. Marcellino (35:28.846) Hmm. Jason M. Craig (35:52.985) So they would row all the, presumably, they were always fighting each other. Like fighting is just kind of a part of what boys do. But they would row the boys out way out in the water and dump them off. And the ones that made the swim back were men and the ones that didn't were not. mean, so whatever the danger, the ordeal, the trial you had to go through, it has to be collectively understood by the group of men that you belong to, that that's the thing you gotta do. Marcellino (36:07.096) Yeah, right. Wow. Marcellino (36:16.462) Mm. Jason M. Craig (36:20.386) So I'm not shocked that your story now ends with like, hey, this is how I've defined it because that's what defined you. You see what I'm saying? You see my point there? Marcellino (36:26.85) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (36:30.852) Do you disagree? We still got to fight? Because we can fight too. We're just on these lame webcams right now. Marcellino (36:35.16) Dude, we love that. Let's go. No, think that's right. I think that, yeah, that's totally right. I just also, I would say to add onto that, I once heard a priest giving a talk about masculinity and he was like, yeah, know, like men are built to like build things and carry heavy stuff. And I was like, and? Jason M. Craig (36:39.134) I'm not a great fighter, but I Marcellino (37:05.302) And there was no end. that is the defining feature of our current masculine environment is that the violence that comes as a natural part of masculinity is removed. And I think that because of that being our current moment, Jason M. Craig (37:07.332) Mm-hmm. Marcellino (37:34.242) That's something that has to be built into the masculine journey intentionally now. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (37:40.333) Mm-hmm. Yeah, just so you know, I mean, the name sword and spade, we basically thought that as we were developing that name, it was, right, we can boil down all of the actions of men to like those two tools. Either the sword is a matter of defense or the spade is the matter of building and cultivating, you know, that you have something worth defending. I would, and this might have to do with, Marcellino (38:04.429) Right. Jason M. Craig (38:09.196) Like I can't imagine you made it through like you're like the band stage without getting punched. Like that's, you know, it took a while for that. you did. Okay. I thought you saying you didn't until the, the mosh pit. Marcellino (38:15.436) No, I did. I totally did. Yeah. No, didn't really experience physical conflict in any way. I did martial arts, never did a competition or a real, and even those competitions are so fake that it doesn't do much for you. And like I said, I grew up in Flower Mound, which is more of a, I think probably I had more of the. know, metropolitan experience where everything had already been sanitized to some extent. And... Jason M. Craig (38:56.792) Yeah. So have you ever been around? Here's a question. Cause maybe you and I are coming from, cause I would, the simple answer, one, I'm not opposed to fighting in its formative way. Obviously I hope we can recognize, like, you know, sparring fighting, facing, facing people. If though we, we attempt to wrestle Christianity into the, the more like, like if you learn to see the world through, am I dominating or being dominated? Marcellino (39:15.628) Yes. Jason M. Craig (39:25.41) Right then you fundamentally have missed the gospel. That's one thing and I would argue that the formative way because and this is from the western experience The the most formative way that we began initiating people so we stopped and this is in This is in my book, which it sounds so lame whenever I have to say that but our ancient ancient tribes, they they Marcellino (39:28.514) Yes, true. Marcellino (39:45.227) I'm gonna read this. Jason M. Craig (39:50.377) Were essentially a lot of them were warring and most of the rites of passage were actually meant to replace the experience of battle Because and this is to your point battle is like where the men is revealed, right? And so they would recreate it not not by an actual recreation of battle, but I need something that's painful hopefully it makes you bleed because the girls start bleeding when they become women and you need to too and They're like there's all these kind of but in the in the West Under the influence of the church in the gospel Marcellino (40:13.154) Right. Jason M. Craig (40:20.462) the maturation of initiation went very heavily towards craft and building, mostly because that's where Jesus became a man. Like I don't think, I know Jesus was struck, but his initiation is in the temple, right? When he's separated from his mother, when he's with the men. And it did not involve him punching anybody, right? Now, because I think St. Joseph made Jesus a man. Marcellino (40:31.073) Hmm. Jason M. Craig (40:49.644) And I don't think Joseph taught Jesus how to fight. Now, was Joseph prepared? Like, we could argue all that. But if we were to adopt that lens solely because we see such wimpiness around us and nobody knows how to give or take a punch, that's great. I'm happy there's an explosion of jujitsu. know, there's a big I mean, I'm seeing the young men in my community, like they're really into lifting weights and all that stuff. But as far as how when an initiation occurs. In the form of competency and craftsmanship. That's the normative way because in our society, we have entered into the world of work, which was ennobled by the example of Jesus and Joseph and outside of like knighthood and soldiering explicitly had more to do with the actual necessary work of the men of a particular place and what they did. Right. So when, you know, an agrarian place, you know, essentially when you flat them out and the work doesn't involve the man's body anymore, it doesn't matter. Things get really wonky and now we're sort of trying to invent rites of passage, but no, can't, because Jesus didn't become a man in the way that you're describing, I can't say that's the only way, or that's like, I don't think it's unnecessary, but I think I would be weary to move away from understanding St. Joseph's workshop as a. Marcellino (41:57.486) Hmm. Jason M. Craig (42:16.12) Like I didn't think Jesus didn't like he became a man before he was 33 and went to the cross is my point. Marcellino (42:22.604) Yeah, I think that that's right. Christianity is obviously a very complex and nuanced faith. Jesus's example is... is always challenging in every way. It's challenging in every way. One thing I would say though to argue counterpoint, is Jesus, many of the... The Germans and the Gaels, when they heard the story of Christ, they saw his ordeal at the cross as the act of a warrior. They saw it in the same sense as Odin, the one-eyed hanging on the tree. was like, wow, this is the same story. And so you see this blend. of kind of Nordic, Germanic, Gaelic warrior religion and Christianity in the Middle Ages. so like some of the earliest works that we see coming out of those times, like recast Christ as a warrior on the cross. And those have not been dismissed by the church. The church actually embraced that at the time. which is interesting. I don't know, what do you make of that? Jason M. Craig (44:05.897) Yeah, who's interviewing you all right Yeah, I think well, I mean that was even in in the early church the martyr going to this is the paradox of Christianity because The they almost had to but they recast the martyr going to his death as the warrior going to battle Fundamentally though what Christianity does do is it makes our enemies into our brothers, which is the big dilemma Marcellino (44:08.642) Ha ha. Jason M. Craig (44:33.892) Um, that, uh, or it makes, tells us to love our enemies, which is a huge dilemma. mean, to, to lay down our life for our friends and the words of Christ, I can see, um, and I have no problem with, um, us. looking at Christ and the example of the cross, the endurance, the pain, the warring against the death to self. at same time, the warrior is not going to able to explain it to us. The warrior exists by the necessity of sin. There's not going to be, like we're not going to Valhalla, we're not going to enter heaven. There won't be any warriors in heaven, right? The battle's been won. I mean, we'll be in their glory. Saint Michael will be up there, perhaps he still has cool swords. But there won't be warring, right? So the ultimate definition of what Christ did is an act of love and self surrender. It is a surrender, which so I worry if we take it too far, that is like those evangelical posters where like Jesus is the muscle man, like on the cross, you know, just kind of look silly. and I've. And a lot of this is for him, not because, you know, I had a man, he was on the podcast, Rick Olaf. We're going to have to rerecord his podcast because it was like lost, but he's a special forces guy. Was in Iraq was in Nineveh and Wasn't a Catholic and started encountering these de menthe's frail Dominican women Who knew how to love and and Be loved by God and knew how to face danger they had been there for like a thousand years, know Just something well that if they're Dominicans that can't be true. They were there for a long time And his conversion was essentially I don't know anything about strength and manliness like These these frail women are teaching me something so. And now he's like he's like the strongest guy I know and the gentlest guy I know. So he to to know his preparedness for battles and he's a man. I mean, he's just a man's man. So I worry. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not quite there. I have no concern. We obviously live in a time where things have been softened and the men have been softened. Jason M. Craig (46:48.76) the incomplete lens of like, I would say it's incomplete to make it completely warrior based alone. But obviously if you lose that, like Christianity has been able to build civilizations and have a place for its soldiers. That is not, like that hasn't been as tense as some people might think it has been. But it does take a lot of work because Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, he's got a lot to tell the soldiers because of how on the precipice of damnation they are by how they identify with what they're doing. Anyway, that's my long answer, sorry. Marcellino (47:25.698) Yeah, I think it was 800 years of Muslim invasion and incursion before the church finally said, okay, we've got to give the warriors permission to do something about this. It's not, it is certainly an element of reality that Christianity is in tension with. Whereas like for Islam, Jihad is built in. It's like, you are, mandated to fight for Islam. You are rewarded for that. It's baked into the religion. For Christianity, it is something that is in tension with the faith. And I don't think there's any way around that. But I also think that right now, in this current moment, the call of the Christian man absolutely must have enough warrior in it that it Yeah, for it to survive and for Christians to thrive. I just think that like Jason M. Craig (48:30.446) So what does that look like? Marcellino (48:33.454) I think that that looks like, I in one, being willing and ready to fight if needed. I don't think that most men will be called to do that necessarily, but I do think that it's very likely that our sons will be called to fight. And I think that... the lines politically and yeah, just the lines everywhere are being redrawn. Everything is up in the air. Our civilization is in like a complete overhaul moment and there is nothing that we got to take for granted. There is no safety anywhere. Our enemies are all around us and are looking for ways to... disinherit us, to take advantage of us. I think that's just the reality. And so like, I think that we have to... Jason M. Craig (49:30.574) And is that in like a physical? Yeah, so all right. I live in Polk County, North Carolina, right? And like, what are the dangers that I'm facing? And I'm not trying to be naive, like, yeah, define those dangers as they insert. Cause part of me worries, like what you're saying, like works online, but like, if I look, like, no, we're so safe still. Like, where am I actually facing danger? Marcellino (49:41.794) Yeah, I would say. Marcellino (49:58.158) Yeah, you... I don't know North Carolina super well. I know what it's like in Dallas. And in Dallas, where I live, the streets are getting much more dangerous. There are... The way that politics is playing out, our environments are essentially being strip mined by immigration, by politicians that are giving handouts to whoever is gonna give them elections, and they're very happy to take your stuff. They're very happy to take your kids if you become a problem for them. I just met, I, had a conversation the other day with Daniel Penny, who is a man who on a New York subway had a homeless guy come in who was crazed. And his words was like demonically oppressed or something was going on there. The man started threatening the entire subway, specifically a woman and child. And he had had the courage to step in and do something about it. Unfortunately, the homeless man died and then the entire government of New York came down on his head. I think that is, yeah, it's an unusual experience, but I don't think it's, I think that could have happened to anyone, any one of us. Yeah, so that's what I see. Jason M. Craig (51:37.422) So you're this, when you say dangerous, I thought you were using that symbolically, like. Jason M. Craig (51:46.085) At some point I'm going to get taxed for being Christian more or something or people are going to say mean things about me on the internet. You're saying that the world itself is more physically dangerous. So therefore being prepared, but you're, but you're saying, you think, okay. And because, because of that, that physical, the actual threat that the most important initiative, masculine initiatory lens that we can understand is being able to fight. Marcellino (51:57.25) Yes. Marcellino (52:00.768) I'm saying both. I'm saying both. I think that we are, yeah. Marcellino (52:16.43) Hmm. I don't know if I would say most important. I'm saying it's a part, I think it's a part of. I think most important is what you said. Yes, I do. I really do. I think that. Jason M. Craig (52:22.062) Yeah, yeah. But it's an essential one. Yeah. Okay, yeah. See, I... Marcellino (52:34.722) When the crowns are in the gutter, somebody has to pick those up. Politics. war is coming to us, whether we like it or not. That's my view of what's happening politically, yeah, in our current situation. Jason M. Craig (52:55.204) that's probably then to our conversation and that's probably a separate because that's a, um, you're saying prudentially the way we ought to react to what we can perceive going on is with a form of preparation that I'm saying needs to require. You're going to have to be able to physically, uh, defend yourself, which I think a lot of men throughout history would say, yeah, that's pretty good idea for anybody. Um, and it is hard for me to like, an incident on subway sounds like a bit, sounds like that actually doesn't affect me. it's kind of like, I don't know. It's, it's like a narrative. I'm like, I'm now I've got now I'm out in the country. So we've got, you know, the meth guys that might walk in your house and like there's, but I'll just say where I live, we're well protected and we have every now and then we hang a dead pig in the tree in the front to make sure people know. Marcellino (53:41.816) So have you? Marcellino (53:48.366) Do you know anything about South Africa? Have you ever studied that country? Jason M. Craig (53:55.749) yes, hold on. Can I ask? I wanted to go back, before we go there. Cause I have some suspicion. Cause that is a nasty. Yeah. I have, I do have an idea of what's going on and what's been going on. My question is though, just, just to recap where, what our discussion is. Cause this is actually really important stuff. Cause I mean, do you, how old are your children? have children. Marcellino (54:20.29) Yeah, my son is six and I have a daughter who's 10 months old. Jason M. Craig (54:22.242) Okay, because what we're talking about is. Okay, congratulations. Is what what sort of world we understand our sons that we are preparing them to occupy, right, that we are preparing them to take up the mantle of father and life giving. I have come to my children. I don't know. I've been at this question for a while. My. Marcellino (54:28.878) Thank you. Marcellino (54:37.613) Yes. Jason M. Craig (54:49.028) I've got 16, I've got eight children, 16 through two, five of them are sons. That the harder battle that we have not recognized is the broad enemy of liberalism, which I mean, not to mean just like political left in the United States, but actually the autonomy of the individual, the secularization of that stuff. And the hardest battle for men to fight, if we're talking about these two tools, the sword and the spade. Is the spade being able to have a place a culture and a people that I can initiate them into? once that once I have something worth and worth defending The sword becomes very important But because I agree with what you said at very beginning that actually local culture has been almost totally a race But that I would also argue it's the only way to live like a human That the cultivation and the tending of a local community Marcellino (55:25.742) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (55:46.531) the leadership that that requires from men particularly, I would argue could be distracted if we're sharpening the swords a little too much, we're actually not doing the work. And for a Christian man, that actually is the work of fatherly love. That's work of fraternal love, That those, the things of actual building. So just to kind of wrap up, like I have a harder time when I dab, when I get into some of the questions like that you're bringing up, just looking around me, like how much danger we actually have. And again, I'm in the South. Everyone's got guns. Everyone kind of knows the Craig kids up the road. Like we shoot skeet like every weekend. Like we're probably okay. Everyone looks out for everybody. I'm in a totally different setting. If I was in an urban setting and I was thinking the, the tensions of society are getting, you know, as such, I'm not sure what my response would be. So I can't on a guttural level, I relatively I'm. Marcellino (56:34.478) Hmm. Jason M. Craig (56:45.732) I don't read that much, you know, stuff online, the news. So maybe that's why. Anyway, just to wrap up, think the when you think about rites of passage, you're you're actually I want to know who are the men around you that you will be able to stand around the fire with and look at your son and say you're one of us now. And that will be the defining characteristic of your right is what is the thing that we Marcellino (56:52.973) Hmm. Ha! Marcellino (57:13.187) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (57:15.14) collectively agree upon and that we will not stop with our sons until they cross that threshold into our world and do we have the way to bring them into our world Defining it by like there's dangers everywhere. It doesn't define the fraternity that will bring them in. That's the nest. That's why Christianity is so Effective and it's you know, the the fraternal expressions monastics the guilds and even the Knights things like that. So anyway, that's where Marcellino (57:42.178) Hmm. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (57:42.52) the hard work is that I think and I think you have written about the need for like men to get engaged in local politics, right? This is like, this is a thing. So shift me to that. What's your, is your thinking on that? Marcellino (57:54.264) Yes. So I think this is great example of what I'm talking about. I live in Dallas. One of the amazing things about Dallas right now is that we have this awesome university called the University of Dallas that is a actually good Catholic university. it is one of the only Newman schools, Newman Guide Catholic schools, that is in a city center. So it's in Irving, which is one of the main economic areas of Dallas. And it is a place where when someone comes here to go to school there, they or, you know, somebody comes to teach at the University of Dallas, like my family, there's enough opportunity for them to stay and to build a family within a community that is very Catholic. So like a lot of the urban Catholic people, live in the same neighborhoods. They're going to the same schools. It's really tight-knit, very unique, very unusual Catholic environment. There's a co-working space that's like kind of quote unquote quote called the like Catholic or I don't know Vatican Valley is what they've termed it where like a lot of these, yeah, right. Jason M. Craig (59:10.19) So I'm going to meet with Jeff. I'm coming to meet with Jeff on Thursday. Is that where we're talking about? Okay. Are you in that building? Cause I'm going to be, I'm going to be there Thursday night. All right. All right. Well. Marcellino (59:15.788) Yes, that's right. Yeah. Dude, you gotta come say hi. Yeah. Haha, dude. Can't wait to see you. Hopefully. Okay, so the Adelsons are one of the biggest billionaire families in the world. They've made their money through gambling and casinos and resorts and all sorts of other very nefarious things. They're a huge donor to Trump. Jason M. Craig (59:25.678) We'll do it, now we're gonna do it. Marcellino (59:44.078) They decided they wanted to purchase the MAVs and build the biggest, the world's biggest gambling center, like turn Dallas into the world's biggest gambling center. And they wanted to build that right by, right by the University of Dallas. And a lot of people will, who actually know what it's like to live in a city that has a gambling hub will tell you. that what comes along with a casino is prostitution, drugs, every possible vice that you can imagine. Yeah, that will come up around. So like, that's a horrible, horrible thing that would really damage the social cohesion of an already struggling place. Like, Muslim and Indian immigration has made Dallas like somewhat unrecognizable. Like Mexicans, they're at least Catholic, but dude, like when you walk through Dallas and you see what looks like a Muslim celebration in Saudi Arabia, you're like, what is happening right now? What is going on? Same thing with like Hindu religious celebrations. That is having a massive impact on Irving. So there's one church, the Latin Mass community, Jason M. Craig (01:00:59.908) Mm-hmm. Marcellino (01:01:12.13) They have figured out how to get like five or four of this four out of the nine city council seats in Irving. The fifth one was being contested. They used that to bring enough media spotlight to this issue about the casino. The Adelsons had bought land. They were like already lobbying. It was an easy thing for them. At least they thought to buy the rest of the seats. And though the Irving Catholics didn't fully win the race, they did bring enough media attention to the issue that, and they made it hard enough that the Adelsons eventually gave up and said, we're not going to do this. And they just, yeah, announced that they're no longer planning on doing that in Dallas. I cannot tell you how big of a deal that is. that was, that was. Jason M. Craig (01:02:08.58) No, see that makes me, that makes me want to run through a wall because that's what I'm talking about when it comes to like, I, I was just in Steubenville, Ohio, right? And I, not at Franciscan. I was visiting the college of St. Joseph, the worker and you go downtown and the downtown is being revitalized by Catholic men. And they're not, it's not that they're just having a prayer meeting downtown, which they should have a prayer meeting downtown. It's called mass. There's a pair of stairs, they're actually do, they're constructing and working with the local government. Marcellino (01:02:12.483) Hahaha Ha Jason M. Craig (01:02:38.446) There's so much that we can do. And maybe this is where like we're in actually in more agreement. When guys get on the internet and they start telling me about like the machismo, it gets so, when I'm thinking there is so much work you could do, so much spading that needs to be done that your city, cause I, this comes up every other podcast. My place is being destroyed by developers. There's a. Marcellino (01:02:56.674) Yes. Jason M. Craig (01:03:05.124) And there's an intellectual problem with people that live here because they don't have the mindset. They say, well, we want the freedom to use your land, however you want. They actually, they, they lack is imagine these people aren't. They're just using your land to extract their miners, right? They're not people that live here. And the only, and the, the, the county commissioners, like all these guys, unless you make a big stink, there's inevitability of a set, you know, for us, actually we do have. Marcellino (01:03:21.357) Yes. Jason M. Craig (01:03:34.853) There's not a casino in my, but they're popping up along the highway. And it's the men that have to get out there and actually be involved with their local politics and the amount of power, because I would say modern day Paris, yeah, Father Cunningham's like, he visits, like he's like, I don't know if we can say his name on the podcast, but anyway, good buddy, I know he just got moved to Virginia. He's from relatively close here. You know, not as if the parish had a council. It's just the men in the parish are like, Hey, this is our place. We're going to protect it. You know, it's not because I don't want to make that sound like, the parish got together and had a strategy and the parish council decide it's the men. are awesome Catholic men that are protecting and building and cultivating Dallas. So now they know when to wield the sword against this casino family. so no, that's a, that's a beautiful story. That's excellent. Marcellino (01:04:04.184) Yes. Marcellino (01:04:10.466) No, Yes. Marcellino (01:04:25.622) And so what I'd say about that is like, those were some very, very heated city council situations. There were, I don't know all the shenanigans that went on, but there were a lot of threats made that it was a nasty knockdown drag out fight. right, yeah. And so I think that that's a part of. Jason M. Craig (01:04:45.976) Yeah, think of the money involved. That's a lot of money. Marcellino (01:04:53.794) That's really a part of what I'm saying is that in order to face this sort of more abstract social pressure, you need practice at that. And I think if you look at who's leading that community, mean, not everybody, but there are a lot of men who play rugby religiously. That for them is a, I think an important part of the growing and comfort with conflicts. Jason M. Craig (01:05:22.328) Yeah, yeah. Marcellino (01:05:23.278) So what I'm saying more is not so much like we need to be LARPing, but like we need to become comfortable in conflict. It is being thrust upon us in all of these different ways, whether we like it or not. So that's more of my... Jason M. Craig (01:05:37.945) Yeah. Amen. Yeah, that's the, well, and and to the point where, cause you got a six year old son, right? It's going to get harder and you're going to be the one. Cause the job of the mother, the maternal world we live in is to protect the vulnerability of a boy. And then there's that time where we have to now bring him. That's the weird thing. You know, our lady releases Jesus to the cross. She doesn't lead him there. Right. The father leads him there, you know, so we actually have to lead and that's the The problem that you were bringing up too, mean, the homeschooling world, the suburban world in general, obviously our society, like this is a job for fathers. We have to bring our sons to conflict intentionally. So that is, yeah, we're not in disagreement. It's just, you learned it when you started taking some punches and giving some punches. We're going to have, we have to be able to define those things. the matter, this is, Marcellino (01:06:29.198) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (01:06:35.502) for the boy, is physical danger and pain, not information. Not like, hey, one day you're gonna have to take up your cross and no, like you actually need about and people who thinks that's foreign to Christianity or that's foolish. I fasting is very difficult. Asceticism is very difficult. Working the working life of of Christian men throughout the ages has been very difficult. You know, it's not as if it's soft. So but now we're just lacking in those physical. encounters. Marcellino (01:07:05.367) Yeah, and I think you're right about the spade being more important right now. In emphasis, I think what... What you're trying to say there is that men need a vision. They need something. They need a reason, really. And that has to be a positive reason, not a purely negative one. We want to stop the bad guy is like the only story that we really see and have seen in cinema. Like we've just seen this sort of stripping of like, what is the hero fighting for in Star Wars to stop the bad guy? What's he fighting for in Avengers? Stop the bad guy. Like the bad guy has the vision. All you're trying to do is stop him. You're trying to like somewhat preserve whatever the status quo is, that's what your vision is. And like all of these stories that we've seen since World War II. It's just kind of wild to think about that. But like, if you don't have a reason to build, you don't have a reason to fight. And that needs to be primary. And I do think that right now in like, in, especially on the more conservative side of things, we very severely lack a vision for what the world could look like, should look like, and that's why we lose. I think progressives do have a vision, right? Jason M. Craig (01:08:30.656) Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it sounds like you got Yeah, but their vision tends to destroy local places and your vision, what you're describing, I mean, your examples are, again, that localism we brought up at the beginning. It's that my place, presumably, has need for men of virtue. And when I build that place, it becomes a place worth defending. I think that the thing that's softening us the most is actually the entire tech world, machine world, we're making use of it right now, so we got, know. We're all stuck in it and many we're all in the matrix, but we're trying to use the matrix to escape it. Hopefully, because when your feet are off the ground and you don't even know what's going on in Irving, you don't even know. You don't care. You have to. That's the localism I'm talking about. You actually just there's so much. This is why I get frustrated. we're so persecuted today. I'm like, you mean your ex got canceled because you said something like that's not persecution. You actually need to go out and fight for people that are. Maybe it's subtle persecution, but there is battles right outside your door that when you win them, like when you stop a casino from entering into your neighborhood, you have one one of the most important battles of your lifetime. Most likely like you need to tell your grandkids about the time you stopped the billionaires from building their casino. I mean, that's but it's the it's the love of and I've been to Dallas. It's the love you guys have of that weird place. It's such a strange place in my mind. Marcellino (01:09:55.298) Yeah. Marcellino (01:10:03.191) It is, yeah. Jason M. Craig (01:10:03.844) Like driving up and down. It's like speed them. It's like 75 miles an hour. But anyway, so that's I appreciate that exit. No. Well, when I'm driving around, you're just like between Irving and like the airport is basically all I know. You're just like up and down like there is no city here. There's no thing. I'm just like up and down this highway. But I know I need maybe you can give me a better tour. I haven't seen everything. That's that's my problem. Marcellino (01:10:10.894) That's the weirdest thing you can think of. Marcellino (01:10:31.758) I it's a, yeah, I don't know if it's worth going in that, but yeah. Jason M. Craig (01:10:31.832) All right. Jason M. Craig (01:10:35.364) No, I'm going come see it. You're going to show me the good things. We've gone for a while. think I really want to have you back on to discuss. think both of us have had enough experience in and around the church that we could now apply what we're talking about broadly into society that, you if the only thing that they want men to do like in parish life is to bring our kids, pay our tithe and, and volunteer for the core team. We know that there's that we've been trying this in the conservative world. know, eighties, nineties, two thousands. There's there's a lot of things we need to own up to that aren't working and where the actual not just aren't working, but are. Actively crushing good things, and we both have examples of that, but I'm going to. We're not going to go there, Marcelino, where I'm going to have you back on because it's a whole nother episode. Marcellino (01:11:40.494) Yeah, how about we land the plane with this? Men are called to serve and cultivate the garden that they're placed in. that has, that will necessarily bring you into conflict with opposing forces that will require you to cultivate virtue, that will require you to cultivate alliances with other men. Jason M. Craig (01:11:42.692) Alright. Marcellino (01:12:09.812) And we all know that the best place to support you in all of that is the parish, right? It's yeah, it's a right For those who have actually tried to organize inside of a parish, know that it is really hard to so I think that ultimately like this has to happen whether the parish is a part of it or not many need to organize they need to get together they need to build community and culture alliances brotherhood and Jason M. Craig (01:12:18.232) Yeah, because that happens everywhere. I'm not sure if the audience is laughing with us, but yes, that's the, Marcellino (01:12:45.462) you need to do that whether or not the parish is supporting you or not. Jason M. Craig (01:12:50.414) Yeah, because what that actually means practically is what and the prime example of where most men, they think that to be attached and submissive to the church as a whole is to sort of comply, comply with like regulations, which a lot of them are being written. See, here we go. You're trying to land a plane. I was about to launch off. I'm going to, I'll, I'll end that story with you don't need the Bishop's permission to go camping. That's just how that whole story ends. And Marcellino (01:13:12.238) Ha Marcellino (01:13:17.528) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (01:13:19.364) Men, this is what trade has been doing. Get go light the fires, get in your backyard, start cultivating the fraternity because the reality is the fraternity that you have in most local communities is going to outlast multiple regime changes of at your parish. And you actually make up, you have huge, not just influence, but authority in the church that you should exercise in ways that are more than just volunteering to do things that people want you to. So Marcelino, thank you for being on the sword and spade podcast. I, I can not tell you how edifying and appreciative I am. We're going to, that is a, a teaser for the next one. Joe producer, go ahead and put this man back on the schedule. We'll finish, the conversation about parish life. Cause we need to do that. So thank you for being on the sword spade podcast, my brother. Marcellino (01:13:51.758) There we go. Marcellino (01:14:13.23) Thanks for having me, I really appreciate it, Jason.