1 00:00:00,480 --> 00:00:05,879 Because there are these sort of elements of seduction in the conversation between the serpent 2 00:00:05,919 --> 00:00:09,400 and Eve. Yeah, but the Bible functions like that, Like the Bible 3 00:00:09,519 --> 00:00:15,119 also will not say something like the serpent slept with Eve, But because of 4 00:00:15,160 --> 00:00:20,719 the structure of the conversation, you understand that she is submitting herself to him 5 00:00:20,879 --> 00:00:25,640 like she would to her husband, in a way that suggests a kind of 6 00:00:25,679 --> 00:00:32,520 sexual union without necessarily having to go into the idea that they actually united sexually. 7 00:00:32,679 --> 00:00:35,399 By the way, this happens all the way through Bible, and in 8 00:00:35,439 --> 00:00:39,479 positive ways too, where for example, Christ when he meets a Samaritan woman, 9 00:00:39,520 --> 00:00:44,320 the entire structure of the conversation is one of Christ taking her as a 10 00:00:44,359 --> 00:00:47,479 wife. But we know that he didn't marry her, and he didn't have 11 00:00:47,600 --> 00:00:52,880 he didn't sleep with her. But it's to signify the meaning of the relationship. 12 00:00:53,240 --> 00:00:55,920 So we have to be careful not to fall into the same kind of 13 00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:00,880 materialism that we're criticizing when we read these stories, but rather be attentive mostly 14 00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:04,480 to what they're trying to help us understand of what's going on, and let's 15 00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:07,760 say, the structural meaning, rather than just wondering like Okay, so did 16 00:01:07,799 --> 00:01:11,959 Eve really sleep with his snakes? Like, that's not what it says in 17 00:01:11,040 --> 00:01:15,000 the scripture, but you can understand that that's what's going on in terms of 18 00:01:15,400 --> 00:01:42,040 a relationship. This is Jonathan Fehel Welcome to the Symbolic World. So hello 19 00:01:42,079 --> 00:01:47,159 everyone, I am here with Father Stephen the Young who I know needs no 20 00:01:47,239 --> 00:01:52,480 introduction to the people who are watching my channel. Father Stephen he is a 21 00:01:52,519 --> 00:01:55,760 priest in the Antiochian Church, but he is also the host of the Lord 22 00:01:55,760 --> 00:01:59,640 of Spirit podcast, of which you know we're all huge fans of. He's 23 00:01:59,640 --> 00:02:05,560 also in several books, and he is key in helping people re understand the 24 00:02:05,599 --> 00:02:12,000 ancient way of thinking, kind of coming back and bringing back an integrated cosmic 25 00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:15,960 view. And so we really appreciate Father Stephen coming to talk to us. 26 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:21,080 A few things to say. Father Stephen is going to be speaking at the 27 00:02:21,120 --> 00:02:24,919 Symbolic World Summit in February. We are so excited that he is coming. 28 00:02:25,360 --> 00:02:29,319 It'll be great to everybody. It's good. I think there'll be so much 29 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:31,800 like buzz in the room with Father Stephen there and then everybody there. It's 30 00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:37,120 going to be quite quite crazy. And he is also he's also submitted an 31 00:02:37,199 --> 00:02:40,319 article for the Symbolic World Journal, which we will be publishing very soon, 32 00:02:40,479 --> 00:02:44,840 and that is partly what we're going to talk about today. So Father Stephen, 33 00:02:44,879 --> 00:02:47,759 thanks for coming back. Yeah, it's good to be back again. 34 00:02:50,360 --> 00:02:54,879 Everything is you know, you have the the Lord of Spirits conference coming, 35 00:02:55,240 --> 00:03:00,080 you publish, you read some book Apocrypha, things are just theme rolling ahead 36 00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:07,680 with your project. Yeah, there's I mean, I don't want to give 37 00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:15,120 the impression I'm churning things out, but you know, there's I'm in a 38 00:03:15,159 --> 00:03:19,479 period of my life where I'm I'm blessed to be able to be very productive. 39 00:03:19,599 --> 00:03:24,319 So I'm trying to steward that well because I'm sure there will come times 40 00:03:24,319 --> 00:03:27,840 in my life later where I won't be able to be as productive as I 41 00:03:27,879 --> 00:03:30,680 am right now. And so before we start the actual conversation, i'd like 42 00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:35,360 I want to hear from you what you think if you've seen because now Lord 43 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:38,199 of Spirits has been going on for a while, with like two years or 44 00:03:38,240 --> 00:03:40,680 a year and a half, three years, three years. Man, times 45 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:46,520 flies like crazy, and have you seen a difference, let's say, in 46 00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:51,039 people's perceptions, like have you kind of seen a mark change in the way 47 00:03:51,120 --> 00:03:55,360 that people perceive the world, also perceive scripture, perceive their place in the 48 00:03:55,400 --> 00:04:01,719 tradition. Since you started the podcast, I think so. The thing I've 49 00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:09,000 always liked most right to be the most flattering thing has always been, like 50 00:04:09,280 --> 00:04:15,040 in my ministry as a passtor has always been when I see someone saying something 51 00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:21,360 I said and not crediting me for it. And the reason it's important that 52 00:04:21,399 --> 00:04:28,199 they don't credit before it is that they're saying it just from their own heart 53 00:04:28,279 --> 00:04:32,759 and mind, right, meaning it's sunk in and they've sort of made it 54 00:04:32,800 --> 00:04:41,639 their own. And so with Lord of Spirits, the thing again that makes 55 00:04:41,639 --> 00:04:45,319 me most happy is not when people sort of fall on over Lord of Spirits 56 00:04:45,399 --> 00:04:53,399 or you know whatever, but when I see people talking about Orthodox Christianity, 57 00:04:53,639 --> 00:05:01,160 talking about religion and you could tell that it it's been shaped by sort of 58 00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:05,160 the topics we've been talking about. You pick up phrases, but that they've 59 00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:12,680 internalized it in a way you know that they don't need to give me a 60 00:05:12,680 --> 00:05:16,279 footnote. It is really becoming it's kind of becoming their own worldview. And 61 00:05:16,720 --> 00:05:19,639 then that's what you're hoping, Yeah, yeah, that it's not well, 62 00:05:19,680 --> 00:05:25,560 Lord of Spirits said this right, but that you know, they say that 63 00:05:25,600 --> 00:05:30,319 this is what's really going on, you know, so that's that's heartening to 64 00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:38,000 me because that's nothing I do. And I'm sure Father Andrew feels this way 65 00:05:38,040 --> 00:05:44,120 too. Has ever been about me trying to raise my own profile or get 66 00:05:44,120 --> 00:05:50,439 fans for me, or impress people with how clever I am. It's always 67 00:05:50,439 --> 00:05:59,040 been about trying to recover you know, in English speaking, Anglophone Orthodoxy is 68 00:05:59,079 --> 00:06:03,800 so impoverished in terms of how much of the Orthodox tradition is it available to 69 00:06:03,879 --> 00:06:10,480 us in our language, and so it's always been about trying to recover those 70 00:06:10,519 --> 00:06:14,480 things that aren't really lost. It's just we're still kind of in the mission 71 00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:20,160 field stage of Orthodoxy and trying to bring those things out. And it's great. 72 00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:24,120 You know, a lot of the you know a lot of the keys 73 00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:28,519 that you've been offering, you know, all these the kind of cosmological keys 74 00:06:28,560 --> 00:06:31,279 that that that you've been offering had been really helpful to people. And I'm 75 00:06:31,279 --> 00:06:35,000 seeing it, you know, Richard Roland and I we just started this course 76 00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:41,560 on BeO Wolf, you know, and just reading reading the first lines, 77 00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:46,680 like the early lines, just in the the in when they set up Grendel 78 00:06:46,759 --> 00:06:48,879 as the as the monster, like right in the first part. You know, 79 00:06:48,959 --> 00:06:54,279 it's like you can just see the world that the Anglo Saxons were living 80 00:06:54,319 --> 00:06:58,000 in, and it was really they were lived in a kind of this kind 81 00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:01,519 of cosmic vision of the world. And you know the obviously Grendel is is 82 00:07:01,560 --> 00:07:04,959 a descendant of Kine. He's a he's a monster, he's a giant, 83 00:07:05,360 --> 00:07:12,240 you know, and and the whole book like actually the Beowolf is in a 84 00:07:12,360 --> 00:07:15,240 larger book which has like where the manuscript was was in a larger book which 85 00:07:15,279 --> 00:07:18,360 had all these monster stories in them, and it was like, you know, 86 00:07:18,560 --> 00:07:23,000 uh, the letter of Alexander to Aristotle, there was a legend of 87 00:07:23,040 --> 00:07:27,759 Saint Christopher and that was that it's been it's in that that book, and 88 00:07:27,800 --> 00:07:31,000 so you could just see that, uh, it's it's making us notice things 89 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:35,040 that people did that people people didn't notice before and realizing, oh, like 90 00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:40,079 this this vision was is the one that the ancient had, whether you lived 91 00:07:40,079 --> 00:07:43,560 in Constantinople or if you lived in England, you know, it was the 92 00:07:43,560 --> 00:07:47,680 cosmic world they lived in. Yeah. Yeah, and this is a place 93 00:07:47,720 --> 00:07:53,879 where we are in sort of impoverished by modernity, where there's been this this 94 00:07:54,040 --> 00:08:01,439 reduction right, which didn't have to be the case. Scientific understanding could have 95 00:08:01,519 --> 00:08:07,240 been additive, right. It could have been we have this that we already 96 00:08:07,319 --> 00:08:13,560 understand, now we have this additional, deeper level of understanding of this part 97 00:08:13,680 --> 00:08:22,399 of right, the universal reality. But instead it was accompanied with this rejection, 98 00:08:22,120 --> 00:08:28,000 an idea of replacement, that we can replace this spiritual wisdom accumulated over 99 00:08:28,759 --> 00:08:37,519 millennia with scientific insight newly gained. Yeah, you know, yeah, but 100 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:41,039 that time is over. I mean, it's it's over. But a lot 101 00:08:41,080 --> 00:08:43,440 of people don't realize it. I think it, you know, there we're 102 00:08:43,440 --> 00:08:48,399 still running on the fumes of the nineteenth century. It seems like very thin 103 00:08:48,519 --> 00:08:54,080 fumes, but still we still are. But we're you know, we're on 104 00:08:54,159 --> 00:08:56,840 people that are talking about the things that you're talking about, or I do 105 00:08:56,879 --> 00:09:01,840 think that I'm talking about in some ways, are this strange leading edge even 106 00:09:01,879 --> 00:09:05,200 in terms of you know, I don't know if you if you followed some 107 00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:07,600 of the conversations I've had, but I'm in a point now where I can 108 00:09:07,679 --> 00:09:13,519 talk to secular you know, cognitive psychologists. They're secular scientists and talking about 109 00:09:13,679 --> 00:09:20,399 demons and angels and talking about worship and talk about God even, and they 110 00:09:20,480 --> 00:09:24,960 just kind of nowed along because they realize that these the question of agency, 111 00:09:24,799 --> 00:09:28,720 you know, of transpersonal agency for example, has become inevitable to deal with, 112 00:09:28,879 --> 00:09:33,600 like we it's actually even from a materialless point of view, the idea 113 00:09:33,639 --> 00:09:39,559 that agency exists only at the human level and doesn't if it scales down into 114 00:09:39,639 --> 00:09:43,360 animals but doesn't scale up into higher organizations. It's like it doesn't even their 115 00:09:43,399 --> 00:09:46,799 own system. Actually, it's it's like there's this weird superstitious thing and they're 116 00:09:46,840 --> 00:09:50,480 thinking that make prevents them from wanting to see agency kind of coming down from 117 00:09:50,519 --> 00:09:54,840 above. And so you're you're, you're, you're in this situation where you 118 00:09:54,840 --> 00:09:58,759 know, even like I said, even people who wouldn't call to say their 119 00:09:58,759 --> 00:10:01,720 believer wouldn't even belie even God, or like, yeah, well we kind 120 00:10:01,720 --> 00:10:07,759 of have to acknowledge that there are these these intelligences that are acting on us. 121 00:10:07,360 --> 00:10:11,720 Yeah. I think there's always been a sort of intuitive knowledge of it 122 00:10:13,919 --> 00:10:16,679 and then sort of a denial of it. Yeah, right, then the 123 00:10:16,759 --> 00:10:20,559 act as if but then if you ask me if if you believe it, 124 00:10:20,679 --> 00:10:22,279 like no, no, I don't believe that but it's like strangy enough, 125 00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:26,320 you still act as if that that was true in a lot of these actions, 126 00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:30,200 you still act as if these these things coming from above are real. 127 00:10:30,639 --> 00:10:35,720 Yeah, I've never I've never read I mean, I've read plenty of history 128 00:10:35,759 --> 00:10:45,279 books by outright Marxists who it sists they're doing completely material history, but it 129 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:52,000 always reads like a story. Yeah, it always, you know, And 130 00:10:52,120 --> 00:10:54,559 if you ask them, they'd say, well, yes, to some extent, 131 00:10:54,720 --> 00:10:56,840 you know, my book is a false construct, right, because they 132 00:10:56,879 --> 00:11:03,240 have to like deny their own yeah understanding, right, they see there are 133 00:11:03,240 --> 00:11:05,360 things that work here, that there's a pattern, and they're bringing it out 134 00:11:05,440 --> 00:11:09,679 through their work, but they know, based on their views, there shouldn't 135 00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:15,799 be. Yeah, So they're in this performative contradiction where the very the very 136 00:11:15,919 --> 00:11:20,360 like decrying of the pattern, like this revolutionary trope is itself a story that's 137 00:11:20,399 --> 00:11:26,039 as old as you know, the cosmogony, and so the idea that that 138 00:11:26,159 --> 00:11:31,639 because they're introducing this revolutionary kind of that's a destructuring, destructuring trope in there 139 00:11:31,639 --> 00:11:35,480 thing that it's not a story. It's like, well, it's just another 140 00:11:35,480 --> 00:11:39,039 it's a it's another myth, you know. It's like you know, Saturn 141 00:11:39,080 --> 00:11:41,200 castrating as father. That's what you're doing. It's not it's not a big 142 00:11:41,480 --> 00:11:45,360 it's not a big surprise, like it's not something you know, and so 143 00:11:45,440 --> 00:11:50,159 you you're stuck. They're stuck in the religious world. Ultimately, you just 144 00:11:50,159 --> 00:11:54,360 don't realize it. Yeah. Yeah, and it's just sort of known and 145 00:11:54,559 --> 00:11:58,279 denied rather than He's all right. So the thing I want to talk about 146 00:11:58,279 --> 00:12:03,240 today is some thing you know. You keep handing me these amazing golden keys. 147 00:12:03,279 --> 00:12:07,440 In my own work, I mentioned before that one of the keys that 148 00:12:07,480 --> 00:12:11,320 you handed me was for years I wanted to mention traditions that were kind of 149 00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:16,720 Inochian traditions, but I knew that the fathers had put that aside. But 150 00:12:16,799 --> 00:12:20,120 I also knew that there were some aspects of it that were really useful. 151 00:12:20,679 --> 00:12:24,399 And I knew that the problem was like the demon and angel, the demon 152 00:12:24,440 --> 00:12:28,279 and women problem. And then when you handed me the ritual part of it, 153 00:12:28,320 --> 00:12:31,039 where you said, you know, these are just ritual it is. 154 00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:35,639 It is true, it is actually happening, but it's happening through ritual proxy, 155 00:12:35,919 --> 00:12:37,360 and that is how these things get embedded into the world. I was 156 00:12:37,399 --> 00:12:41,000 like, oh my goodness, you just handed me the best key even for 157 00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:45,440 my own work, and since then I've been like willing to talk about these 158 00:12:45,440 --> 00:12:50,000 things more openly. But now you've handed me another key, which is that 159 00:12:52,440 --> 00:12:54,240 Okay, So I want you, actually you, I want you to lay 160 00:12:54,279 --> 00:12:58,799 out your theory because it has to do with a very difficult not difficult, 161 00:12:58,879 --> 00:13:05,720 but a weird passage in the Book of Genesis when after the flood, you 162 00:13:05,720 --> 00:13:09,279 know, Ham discovers his father's nakedness. And I want you to lay it 163 00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:11,559 out and then we can talk about it because it's for me, it's like 164 00:13:11,559 --> 00:13:16,000 a massive key. Yeah, yeah, so there is, and it is 165 00:13:16,039 --> 00:13:26,559 weird, right. It's this episode that comes after the flood story is basically 166 00:13:26,600 --> 00:13:35,279 over, and it seems in certain ways that odds with the preceding story because 167 00:13:35,279 --> 00:13:39,279 the emphasis, of course, in the most of the flood narrative in Genesis 168 00:13:39,440 --> 00:13:46,559 six through nine is that Noah is this one righteous person from his generation, 169 00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:52,039 and then after the flood you have this whole story with him becoming drunk and 170 00:13:52,440 --> 00:13:56,679 these other things unfolding. Part of the reason it's so weird is that it's 171 00:13:56,799 --> 00:14:05,960 kind of bowdlerized in all the English translations, so we aren't getting sort of 172 00:14:05,960 --> 00:14:13,360 the direct and because most English readers aren't as familiar with the rest of the 173 00:14:13,360 --> 00:14:22,360 Torah as maybe we should be. So Genesis really is the prologue to the 174 00:14:22,399 --> 00:14:30,759 rest of the Torah. Yeah, and that's one of the very basic he's 175 00:14:30,799 --> 00:14:33,879 to interpreting it, understanding Genesis. If you don't keep that in mind when 176 00:14:33,919 --> 00:14:37,279 you're reading Genesis, that this is leading up to Exodus, right, this 177 00:14:37,399 --> 00:14:43,039 is leading up to the rest of what's in the Torah, then you'll sort 178 00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:48,279 of end up misinterpreting it. And so there's a theme here, and this 179 00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:52,279 is the place where I go to kind of lay it out because this is 180 00:14:52,279 --> 00:14:56,639 a place where it's most complete. But it's a pattern that repeats in Genesis 181 00:14:56,639 --> 00:15:03,000 and the patriarchal narratives that make u chapters twelve through fifty of Genesis. So 182 00:15:03,559 --> 00:15:09,080 what's described if you just read it in English is Noah plants a vineyard, 183 00:15:11,360 --> 00:15:22,600 He gets drunk in the vineyard, and his son Ham sees his father's nakedness. 184 00:15:22,759 --> 00:15:31,320 His father's nakedness is uncovered and goes and tells his brothers Sham and Jath, 185 00:15:33,159 --> 00:15:39,200 Him and Jay Fith go and cover their father's nakedness. And then when 186 00:15:39,519 --> 00:15:48,919 Noah sort of recovers from his inebriated state. He curses Canaan, the son 187 00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:54,440 of Ham, who is the fourth son of his third son, and disinherits 188 00:15:54,519 --> 00:16:00,320 him. So he disinherits the fourth son of his third son. Yeah, 189 00:16:00,360 --> 00:16:04,399 so definitely, already there's a massive narrative problem, and it's a narrative problem 190 00:16:04,440 --> 00:16:08,559 that we gloss over, and I've done it myself. We gloss over it 191 00:16:08,600 --> 00:16:12,879 by saying that Ham is the cursed one. But that's not what's written in 192 00:16:12,919 --> 00:16:18,039 the tex right, right, And there's all kinds of bizarre and even racist 193 00:16:18,200 --> 00:16:25,039 theories about the curse of Ham, and Ham is not cursed in the narrative, 194 00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:30,159 that's right. So yeah, So in order to kind of figure out 195 00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:34,879 what's going on here, we have to understand sort of what uncovering the father's 196 00:16:34,919 --> 00:16:42,919 nakedness means. And if you go to Leviticus chapter eighteen, Leviticus chapter seventeen 197 00:16:44,519 --> 00:16:48,679 through people cut it off in different places in twenty two or twenty three, 198 00:16:48,799 --> 00:16:56,279 it's what's called the Holiness Code and has regulations covering holiness. Leviticus eighteen is 199 00:16:56,360 --> 00:17:02,279 discussing sexual immorality, so that's where the command it's are about about sexual morality, 200 00:17:03,639 --> 00:17:08,279 and that takes the form, because we're in a patriarchal society, that 201 00:17:08,319 --> 00:17:12,920 takes the form of telling men primarily who they're not allowed to sleep with, 202 00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:18,880 because they, of course were the ones making the decisions regarding that culturally. 203 00:17:21,160 --> 00:17:30,319 And one of those commandments is you shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's 204 00:17:30,319 --> 00:17:37,799 wife, for this is your father's nakedness. And something similar is actually said 205 00:17:37,799 --> 00:17:41,799 about your father's daughter. Right. This is and so this idea of it's 206 00:17:41,839 --> 00:17:48,799 like all the incest laws are are are portrayed as uncovering your father's nakedness. 207 00:17:48,920 --> 00:17:52,759 I think it's even like like your aunt and like yeah, your father's sister 208 00:17:53,000 --> 00:18:00,279 your yeah, yeah. And so this phrase of uncovering the nakedness, right, 209 00:18:00,519 --> 00:18:07,680 is this reference to sexual relations, particularly that are forbidden, right, 210 00:18:07,759 --> 00:18:15,160 and you can see why that would be right. The idea is that the 211 00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:25,160 father, the patriarch right within the family, is the one who is charged 212 00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:29,200 with safeguarding in the case of the daughter, in the case of the sister, 213 00:18:29,960 --> 00:18:34,240 right, and even his own wife. Safeguarding is sort of protecting them 214 00:18:34,400 --> 00:18:42,039 from sexual exploitation from right, and so it belongs to him and it's his 215 00:18:42,200 --> 00:18:48,039 job to cover it, right, it's his job to right sort of protect 216 00:18:48,119 --> 00:18:55,759 it. So once you have that in mind, right, and we go 217 00:18:55,960 --> 00:19:03,400 back to this story in Genesis, what Ham is doing here sort of makes 218 00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:10,039 sense, right, so we can now understand when it says he, you 219 00:19:10,079 --> 00:19:14,920 know, went into his father's tent, right, this is talking and uncovers 220 00:19:15,240 --> 00:19:18,480 the nakedness of his father. This is him having relations with his mother. 221 00:19:21,920 --> 00:19:30,920 And then when this comes to the attention of Noah, we see him disinheriting 222 00:19:30,200 --> 00:19:37,759 Ham's youngest son. And why would he need to do that? Well, 223 00:19:38,160 --> 00:19:44,640 Canaan, Ham's youngest son is the son he bore. Who is his mother 224 00:19:44,799 --> 00:19:52,799 bore him? Yeah, so it's a child conceived through those illicit sexual relations 225 00:19:52,839 --> 00:19:57,759 and the covering of the nakedness is talking about protecting that again, So the 226 00:19:57,839 --> 00:20:03,799 other brothers, once they find out this is going on, move to stop 227 00:20:03,839 --> 00:20:10,400 it, right, move to protect their mother from from him their brother Ham. 228 00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:17,480 Right, And so the question then becomes sort of why would Ham do 229 00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:22,000 this? Right, aside from just maybe perversion, right, like, why 230 00:20:22,039 --> 00:20:27,960 would he why would he do this? This is actually I don't want to 231 00:20:27,960 --> 00:20:33,559 call it an institution or a practice, but because it was not well looked 232 00:20:33,599 --> 00:20:37,839 at, right in the in the ancient world. But in the ancient world 233 00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:44,160 and in other places in the scriptures, we see what's called family usurpation. 234 00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:51,720 The idea here is that what Ham is trying to do is he's trying to 235 00:20:52,119 --> 00:20:56,960 bear a son with his father's wife, who replaced father, right to replace 236 00:20:57,000 --> 00:21:00,039 his father, and then that son would be come the air, and so 237 00:21:00,119 --> 00:21:06,160 he would be effectively taking over the family structure. Yeah, it's a it's 238 00:21:06,200 --> 00:21:11,359 a kind of revolutionary it's a revolutionary move where he's trying to take take he's 239 00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:14,640 replaced his father in terms of authority, take his body, like, take 240 00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:19,160 his take his wife, take his and then also take the inheritance and take 241 00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:25,400 the take everything away from his father while his father is still is still alive, 242 00:21:25,839 --> 00:21:30,839 right, right, And and this becomes especially clear when you know how 243 00:21:30,519 --> 00:21:36,880 inheritance and the right of prima genitor worked, Right, they should societies which 244 00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:44,000 was firstborn son inherits everything, Yeah, and then can choose whether or not 245 00:21:44,079 --> 00:21:49,960 to share that with the other right brothers. Yeah, the others become dependent 246 00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:55,119 on him, like they become subsidiary to their older brother. When father does 247 00:21:55,200 --> 00:22:00,160 right, he takes his father's place when his father passes away, and they 248 00:22:00,599 --> 00:22:03,839 have a place in the extended family only in so far as they're connected to 249 00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:10,960 him and maintain relationships with him. And this is true throughout the ancient period. 250 00:22:11,039 --> 00:22:15,759 So even in the Gospels we find someone comes to Christ and says, 251 00:22:15,839 --> 00:22:21,720 teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me, right, And 252 00:22:21,799 --> 00:22:25,119 Christ says, you know, you know what, don't worry about the inheritance. 253 00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:26,559 Come follow me, right, don't worry about the money. But even 254 00:22:26,599 --> 00:22:32,240 there, you see how there could be problems when first word son just says, 255 00:22:32,319 --> 00:22:36,079 nah, I'm just going to keep all this and you guys can and 256 00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:41,920 buzz off. But so Ham would not have inherited anything unless he, you 257 00:22:41,960 --> 00:22:47,039 know, maintained this relationship and remained subsidiary to his older brother. He then 258 00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:52,519 enacts this plan to try to displace his father and take over. And that's 259 00:22:52,559 --> 00:23:00,680 why then Noah has to disinherit this child and reject it. And maybe you 260 00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:03,359 can tell people because obviously it's like, okay, father Stephen just pulling this 261 00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:07,759 out of his hat here, you know, in Genesis itself and then later 262 00:23:07,839 --> 00:23:12,920 in the Bible, there are examples of that exactly happening again. And so 263 00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:18,640 there are places where this type of behavior is repeated, right, and and 264 00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:22,640 this is just sort of a clear case of it, but there are other 265 00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:32,119 clear cases. I mean, later in Genesis, Ruben is going to sleep 266 00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:38,200 with one of his father's concubines to attempt to do this, and that's it 267 00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:42,440 a sort of an especially shocking case because Reuben actually was the firstborn son. 268 00:23:42,759 --> 00:23:48,759 Yeah, so he's sort of tried to usurp Jacob while he's still alive, 269 00:23:48,839 --> 00:23:59,359 right, And Ruben was disinherited because of that, he lost that firstborn status. 270 00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:06,440 Because of that, it ends up passing to Judah. Because there's also 271 00:24:06,559 --> 00:24:12,119 Absalom. Yeah, Absolom does this with David's wives and concubines during the period 272 00:24:12,119 --> 00:24:22,240 where he served David's power. But Absolom actually did this publicly. He made 273 00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:26,640 a public display of it, right to signal to everyone, I'm the I'm 274 00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:36,799 the head that he had now taken over. This is something that was an 275 00:24:36,839 --> 00:24:41,079 attempted. One of the first places where we see the office of queen mother 276 00:24:42,079 --> 00:24:51,279 in the Old Testament is with Solomon has his mother Bathsheba and throwned in his 277 00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:56,000 right hand, and the first person to come to her and make a request 278 00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:02,680 to the king through her is trying to do this. He requests, now 279 00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:07,319 that David is gone, that he'd be given one of David's concubines as a 280 00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:12,599 wife. And Solomon's said, uh, I know where this is going. 281 00:25:15,759 --> 00:25:22,759 So this is happening. So this is this directly is a pattern in the 282 00:25:22,799 --> 00:25:29,519 sense of other people doing this in the context of family usurpation. You also 283 00:25:29,559 --> 00:25:37,559 see that pattern in other places less literally, yeah, right. So one 284 00:25:37,599 --> 00:25:45,039 of the biggest examples is in Genesis three. Now there's this stuff in Protestant 285 00:25:45,039 --> 00:25:48,759 circles it's called the serpent seed doctrine, but there have been Gnostic sex that 286 00:25:48,839 --> 00:25:55,039 thought this and stuff too. The thought that Cain was like literally the son, 287 00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:59,480 the son of the devil. That's not what that's not what it says 288 00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:03,119 in the Bible though, right right, you have to be really, but 289 00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:07,920 that's not based on nothing, because there are these sort of elements of seduction 290 00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:12,799 in the conversation between the serpent and Eve. Yeah, yeah, but the 291 00:26:12,839 --> 00:26:18,200 Bible functions like that, Like the Bible also will not say something like the 292 00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:23,440 serpent slept with Eve, but because of the structure of the conversation you understand 293 00:26:23,519 --> 00:26:30,000 that she is submitting herself to him like she would to her husband, in 294 00:26:30,039 --> 00:26:37,039 a way that suggests a kind of sexual union without necessarily having to go into 295 00:26:37,079 --> 00:26:40,960 the idea that they actually united sexually. By the way, this happens all 296 00:26:41,039 --> 00:26:44,119 the way through Bible and in positive ways too, where for example, Christ 297 00:26:44,759 --> 00:26:48,000 when he meets a Samaritan woman, the entire structure of the conversation is one 298 00:26:48,079 --> 00:26:52,359 of Christ taking her as a wife. But we know that he didn't marry 299 00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:56,519 her, and he didn't have he didn't sleep with her. But it's to 300 00:26:56,640 --> 00:27:00,359 signify the meaning of the of the relationship. We have to be careful not 301 00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:04,480 to fall into the same kind of materialism that we're criticizing when we read these 302 00:27:04,519 --> 00:27:10,160 stories, but rather be attentive mostly to what they're trying to help us understand 303 00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:12,680 of what's going on, and that say, the structural meaning, rather than 304 00:27:12,759 --> 00:27:15,960 just wondering like, okay, so did Eve really sleep with the snakes like 305 00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:19,599 that? That's not what it says in the in the scripture, But you 306 00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:25,319 can understand that that's what's going on in terms of a relationship, right right, 307 00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:29,519 that there is this sort of seductive element and that after all, is 308 00:27:29,599 --> 00:27:33,920 what the serpent is trying to do. It's it's an active usurpation. Yeah, 309 00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:40,799 and in that case it's because he can't create. Right. And so 310 00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:45,960 this this idea of usurpation, whether it's directly in this family context or outside 311 00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:52,319 of it, right, is over again sort of the opposite of it. 312 00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:59,359 It's what it's a sin against is creation, creating something, putting something in 313 00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:06,039 which is putting something in order and filling it with life. Right. So 314 00:28:06,559 --> 00:28:12,119 you look at Abraham, right, he builds this family unit, right, 315 00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:18,519 which has structures, people have roles right within this extended family, which includes 316 00:28:18,559 --> 00:28:25,359 not just biological family members, but his servants, his herdsman, his right, 317 00:28:25,759 --> 00:28:29,559 this whole unit that he's built, and he's filled it with life in 318 00:28:29,599 --> 00:28:33,359 the terms of I mean most directly in terms of reproduction, right, but 319 00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:42,839 also it's sort of the prospering right of everyone and everything involved. And sort 320 00:28:42,839 --> 00:28:49,079 of the shortcut of that is, no, I'm not going to build something 321 00:28:49,119 --> 00:28:53,119 of my own. I'm not going to participate in continuing to build this up 322 00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:57,160 and fill it with life and keep it in order. I'm going to try 323 00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:00,960 and take it over. I'm going to try and make this thing that someone 324 00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:06,440 else created mind. Yeah, and that of course is what the devil is 325 00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:11,400 doing right from the beginning. God is your insight is perfect, so you 326 00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:15,759 can understand that the image of usurpation itself, or the image of the pride 327 00:29:15,759 --> 00:29:21,319 of Satan who wants to you know, even like whatever version of the fall 328 00:29:21,359 --> 00:29:25,000 of the devil you you take, and whether it's a kind of Miltonian or 329 00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:30,960 version or the more ancient one of the fall happening at the creation of Adam. 330 00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:36,000 Right, In some ways, the idea is that the devil wants to 331 00:29:36,079 --> 00:29:38,400 become our God, you know, like the devil wants to be for us 332 00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:42,880 what is God and then take over take over creation, and that becomes in 333 00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:47,160 some ways make trying to make creation his wife. Right. It's like that's 334 00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:52,480 what the devil is always trying to do, and that's what every single temptation 335 00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:56,480 that you face is trying to do for you. Right. So it's like 336 00:29:56,480 --> 00:30:02,960 what every sin that tempts you is trying to make you its life, you 337 00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:07,880 know, it's trying to is trying to come up above and master everything underneath 338 00:30:08,039 --> 00:30:12,839 and use it as its body in order to be able to grow and to 339 00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:17,160 have more power in the world. So it's like it's a fractal thing that 340 00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:21,400 happens at every level of reality, this idea of something which wants to come 341 00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:26,039 up, usurp and then take the body for itself. Yeah yeah. And 342 00:30:30,279 --> 00:30:37,200 it's important then to also have the positive side, right of we're called upon 343 00:30:37,319 --> 00:30:42,440 to create, right to build, to put an order, right to fill 344 00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:52,440 with life. And it's interesting in sort of the popular zeitgeist, like you 345 00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:55,200 look at HBO shows, you have Game of Thrones, and then as soon 346 00:30:55,200 --> 00:31:00,240 as it ends, you have Succession, which is all about shell or in 347 00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:07,359 trying to usurp and sees some kind of power, something that was created by 348 00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:14,599 sort of a previous distant father, and all kinds of chaos and mayhem and 349 00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:21,519 murder and destruction taking place in that context, rather than anyone trying to build 350 00:31:21,599 --> 00:31:29,519 anything, create anything, bring life to anything. Yeah yeah, Okay. 351 00:31:29,559 --> 00:31:33,759 So then the next step, and this is the one that I don't know 352 00:31:33,759 --> 00:31:36,480 what you think about this yet. I kind of wrote you an email proposed 353 00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:40,759 a little bit because one of the reasons why this story in particular had my 354 00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:48,759 fascination was also because I noticed a pattern in scripture which has to do at 355 00:31:48,759 --> 00:31:55,400 the beginning of something and it seems like when something begins, we always find 356 00:31:55,759 --> 00:32:00,680 in some ways a we could call a pattern of in that is there at 357 00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:04,920 the beginning. It seems like in some ways there's the It's like the sin 358 00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:10,359 of the beginning seems to be incest, and the sin of the end seems 359 00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:16,039 to be something like confusion or going to the strange woman or that. So 360 00:32:16,119 --> 00:32:19,799 you we have these two extremes. You could say, it's like, you 361 00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:23,680 know, Solomon saying, don't go to the strange woman because basically you'll lose 362 00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:27,960 everything, like everything will kind of give be given to the stranger. But 363 00:32:28,039 --> 00:32:32,359 then if you look at the pattern, you see this weird pattern of incest 364 00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:37,799 as the scandal of the beginning. So and that's why when I was looking 365 00:32:37,799 --> 00:32:40,200 at this story, I was like, that seems to be what it's referring 366 00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:45,359 to. But I always thought that it was that it was like a like 367 00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:50,400 a homosexual relationship between Ham and Noah. But I was like, I don't 368 00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:52,880 want to talk about that because it's just like I and the reason why I 369 00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:54,920 see it is because I want to give people the examples. It's like in 370 00:32:54,960 --> 00:33:00,519 Genesis, after a Sodom and Gomorrah, you have Lot who's leap with his 371 00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:06,039 daughters. Then you have at thet when God reveals himself to Abraham, you 372 00:33:06,079 --> 00:33:10,440 find that Abraham also is married to his sister, like his half sister, 373 00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:15,480 which is which would be which would be a sin, like which would be 374 00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:21,759 something that would be prohibited in the in the law later and then when you 375 00:33:21,799 --> 00:33:24,599 when you so you so you have Noah, you have law, then you 376 00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:30,480 have Abraham right right there in Genesis, these three iterations of the beginnings of 377 00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:37,759 worlds where there seems to be this this this trope, and then when you 378 00:33:37,799 --> 00:33:42,359 bring it into Genesis, then you have it right at the beginning. And 379 00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:45,039 now it's like, obviously it's not a it's not a sin at this point, 380 00:33:45,039 --> 00:33:47,680 but you have the idea that you know, Eve is taken from Adam 381 00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:53,279 and is his own is his own body basically is like it's him that is 382 00:33:53,519 --> 00:33:58,160 that is taken out of out of him and so and so, now when 383 00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:00,440 you when you say when you bring when you mentioned you said, no, 384 00:34:00,519 --> 00:34:04,240 it's it's really based on the law. What you see in the law, 385 00:34:04,279 --> 00:34:07,440 which is that there's a relationship with Noah's mother, Noah's wife, and then 386 00:34:07,559 --> 00:34:12,199 the descendants of that are curse. I'm like, yeah, then that it 387 00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:14,800 fits it even better with the way that I saw it. It kind of 388 00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:20,039 kind of makes this a pattern that repeats all over all over Genesis. So 389 00:34:20,079 --> 00:34:22,360 I don't know if you notice that or what do you think about my perception. 390 00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:32,360 So part of there's also another corresponding trope on the other side, and 391 00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:39,400 that is so if incest is too close, yeah, right, it's sort 392 00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:45,760 of joining the same with the same right. Yeah. Then you also have 393 00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:52,920 the trope with Esau right where they go and you know, Abraham is very 394 00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:58,280 concerned with Isaac that he not marry one of the people of the land. 395 00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:01,880 Yeah, right, yeah, because it's going even even in Abraham, you 396 00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:07,679 have the same thing where he wants to find the right distance so for his 397 00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:10,760 sons, he wants his sons to marry like a cousin or like a second 398 00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:16,760 cousin or something far. Then it will it will basically take all your strength 399 00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:22,840 away into the stranger fits too close. Then it creates this weird internal loop 400 00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:25,960 that it will that will cause absolute chaos. Yeah, that brings about this 401 00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:30,880 sort of chaos of destruction. And so both of those right, you see 402 00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:38,480 set out as these as these polarities, and that really goes back to Adam 403 00:35:38,519 --> 00:35:46,960 and Eve, right, and the whole idea. When Eve is created as 404 00:35:47,039 --> 00:35:55,039 an Hebrew the it'ser connecto and connecto. Really it means fits together like puzzle 405 00:35:55,079 --> 00:36:05,559 pieces, right. And there's a literal, very literal material biological sense that 406 00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:08,400 is there, like pieces, but it goes beyond that, right, It's 407 00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:15,039 not limited to that. And so the idea that yes, she is not 408 00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:20,159 she is bone of Adam's bone and flesh of his flesh. But at the 409 00:36:20,199 --> 00:36:25,639 same time, right, she is full in the places he's empty, right, 410 00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:31,920 And and so that is the place where there is this sort of this 411 00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:39,599 sort of perfect connection, right, that then is able to sort of produce 412 00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:49,599 life and produce good order. Yeah. Right, So the incestuous relationship can 413 00:36:49,599 --> 00:36:53,920 produce life, but but not order. Yeah, it's a new because it 414 00:36:53,960 --> 00:37:00,320 actually creates confusion. And this is technically it's technically true like it because the 415 00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:02,920 world has an order of manifestation. Right, It's like a father with a 416 00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:07,559 mother and then children and then you know, the father has relationships like sisters 417 00:37:07,559 --> 00:37:10,599 and brothers at this level and then the children come down. But if a 418 00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:15,000 child has a relationship with someone that is, you know, at the same 419 00:37:15,079 --> 00:37:19,719 level as their father, either their father or their mother or some or like 420 00:37:20,199 --> 00:37:24,039 an uncle or whatever. Then then the relationship has become actually confused. The 421 00:37:24,079 --> 00:37:29,440 identity of the people become confused because what is the child? The child is 422 00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:31,480 the child? My brother? Is he? My son? Is he? 423 00:37:31,639 --> 00:37:36,800 My is he? My uncle? Like? What is this child? It's 424 00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:40,880 it's it's now creating confusion in the order of reality itself. It's like it's 425 00:37:42,119 --> 00:37:45,360 it's literally doing that when you when you when you break the normal order of 426 00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:52,039 causality of the world, right and and you end up destroying what you're trying 427 00:37:52,079 --> 00:37:57,480 to you serve exactly what you're trying to gain control of, Yeah, which 428 00:37:57,559 --> 00:38:00,880 is the very pattern of revolution itself. You see that, that's what That's 429 00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:06,000 what happens like in the in the cosmogony, you have a very powerful image 430 00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:08,400 of it, which is that you know, it's like, you know, 431 00:38:08,599 --> 00:38:15,639 Saturn castrates his father, but then he has to eat his children because he's 432 00:38:15,679 --> 00:38:19,920 created now a confusion of order that makes it that he's now afraid of his 433 00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:24,920 own children because it's like they are they are not in the right relationship with 434 00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:28,639 with him. They're gonna come to get him, and he doesn't know what 435 00:38:28,679 --> 00:38:30,920 to do. And so you have this, you have this this confusion that 436 00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:37,480 that yeah, that self basically like that self destroys at some ultimate yeah yeah, 437 00:38:37,519 --> 00:38:42,199 and it becomes again rather than producing life, it becomes parasitic. Yeah, 438 00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:47,519 it drains it away. Yeah. So so, and it's interesting because 439 00:38:47,519 --> 00:38:52,159 my my brother mentioned this in his interview with Jordan Peterson, like how he 440 00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:57,440 said all the scriptures about that, like all the scriptures about finding the right 441 00:38:58,159 --> 00:39:01,440 distance, like the right wife, you could say, like between that which 442 00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:06,559 is too close and that which is too far right the stranger that loves you 443 00:39:06,679 --> 00:39:09,960 ultimately you could say, which is not a stranger that's so far that they'll 444 00:39:10,159 --> 00:39:14,119 kind of swallow you up. And if you take that trope now that we 445 00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:17,199 mentioned and we see that it's there this idea of you don't want to go 446 00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:22,079 to the strange woman because she'll bring her gods in and then you'll be usurped 447 00:39:22,119 --> 00:39:24,480 also in that way. But you also don't want to be too close because 448 00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:30,440 you create this confusion of identity. In Christ, you have this weird transcendence 449 00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:34,280 of all these things. You have this way in which it all kind of 450 00:39:34,679 --> 00:39:38,039 gets expanded and collapse at the same time. First of all, the Samaritan 451 00:39:38,079 --> 00:39:45,559 woman, I think seems to be a direct reference to this question because one 452 00:39:45,599 --> 00:39:47,880 of the things Christ does is, first of all, he talks about the 453 00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:53,599 well and the fountain, which is the image that Solomon uses when he talks 454 00:39:53,639 --> 00:40:00,079 about this strange woman. He says, like, keep your fountain to you, 455 00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:04,199 don't let it run into the streets. And he uses this images of 456 00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:07,400 wells and the fountains to talk about not going towards the strange woman. And 457 00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:15,679 then Christ basically is the only one who can marry this strange woman but not 458 00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:20,599 be taken over by her. Right he can go to the ends of the 459 00:40:20,639 --> 00:40:22,559 world, he can go all the way to the edge, but he's never 460 00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:30,840 subsumed by the strange woman. Well, and that's and I think the reason 461 00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:35,400 for that is the incarnation part of the theme. When you read the prophets 462 00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:42,840 and they're describing the relationship between God and Israel, and why that doesn't work 463 00:40:43,559 --> 00:40:50,559 is that they're too different, they're too far apart. And you look at 464 00:40:50,559 --> 00:40:53,239 the analogies there. The way Israel is described, it's always as sort of 465 00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:58,840 this foreigner, you know, who God finds in the desert, you know. 466 00:41:00,599 --> 00:41:06,159 And Mary's right, but it's it's too far apart. But and this 467 00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:10,719 is why calceed is so important, right, Christ is consubstantial with the Father 468 00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:15,519 according to his divinity, and consubstantial with us. Yeah, you can see 469 00:41:15,519 --> 00:41:20,199 that in some ways. It's it's because one of the things that I've noticed. 470 00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:22,119 You we did this whole Seminar and Exodus, And in the Seminar and 471 00:41:22,159 --> 00:41:28,480 Exodus, you can see the problem constantly of mediation, that God is constantly 472 00:41:28,559 --> 00:41:31,440 conceding mediations. But he like, it's almost like he knows that this is 473 00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:35,159 going to cause problems in the long run. It's like, oh, you 474 00:41:35,199 --> 00:41:37,880 know, you know, you want Aaron, but then Aaron makes the golden 475 00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:39,400 calf, you know. Okay, so now you have all these laws and 476 00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:42,800 it's complicated, and then you see, you know, and then later in 477 00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:45,079 Samuel is like, oh, you don't want a king, Like why would 478 00:41:45,079 --> 00:41:46,920 you want If you want a king? All this mediation is gonna is going 479 00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:52,440 to turn against you. But in some ways God's constantly conceding it because he 480 00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:55,920 knows that it's inevitable because of this problem of distance. And then ultimately Christ 481 00:41:57,079 --> 00:42:00,360 ends up being the key to the whole problem from the beginning of mediation, 482 00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:07,320 right, so, and so Christ can make that marriage work. Yeah, 483 00:42:07,360 --> 00:42:10,320 and so that's why so Pentecost is like, so when rophets say, you 484 00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:14,280 know, one day the spirit of God will be poured out on all flesh, 485 00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:17,000 It's like, you can imagine how weird that sounds, even to people 486 00:42:17,039 --> 00:42:21,880 who now have been told to not marry the strange woman, to not go 487 00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:25,679 to the stranger, to not but they it's like they know that ultimately, 488 00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:29,800 at some point, you know, this marriage will be a universal marriage, 489 00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:34,000 will be a marriage with all of humanity. But then how is that possible? 490 00:42:34,679 --> 00:42:38,679 Considering this problem of distance? You could say, yeah, yeah, 491 00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:45,039 and so humanity has to become bone of God's bone and flesh of God's flesh. 492 00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:50,480 Yeah, like Eve was to Adam. And so then this is this 493 00:42:50,519 --> 00:42:54,559 is to me because this is something that I've seen a few like writers try 494 00:42:54,599 --> 00:42:58,840 to take on, because when we look at the symbolism of the Mother of 495 00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:04,000 God in in Christianity, we have this weird thing going on, right, 496 00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:07,079 which is exactly the symbolism that I'm a trick that I'm talking about, which 497 00:43:07,119 --> 00:43:14,119 is that she's represented both as Christ's mother and as Christ's bride. So you 498 00:43:14,159 --> 00:43:19,519 have this sense in which it's suggesting a weird like ancestual thing. Ah. 499 00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:24,199 And but then when you realize what is actually happening, even if you use 500 00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:28,920 the image of the Samaritan woman as example, you realize it that Christ is 501 00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:34,599 in some ways he's beyond that. Do like he he doesn't have that problem. 502 00:43:34,679 --> 00:43:38,079 He's kind of he's kind of transforming the whole question, you know. 503 00:43:38,559 --> 00:43:43,159 And of course I'm not suggesting in any way that there was something inappropriate between 504 00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:45,599 Jesus and right and Mary. But I'm saying is that the symbolism that's been 505 00:43:45,679 --> 00:43:52,360 kind of expanded is that ultimately those two you know, in in in Christ 506 00:43:52,440 --> 00:44:00,199 are kind of that that problem is transcendent somehow. Yeah. Part of the 507 00:44:00,199 --> 00:44:07,559 problem with that, frankly is the modern American and maybe broader Western sort of 508 00:44:07,599 --> 00:44:14,960 obsession with sexual relations proper in the material sense. Yeah. Well, that's 509 00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:19,159 why we can't see the pattern if it's not like that's why people will struggle 510 00:44:19,159 --> 00:44:21,760 to say, well, the serpent is trying to seduce even It's like, 511 00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:24,719 I'm not suggesting the serpent slept with even some weird material way, but I'm 512 00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:30,840 just showing you that these patterns they have different iterations, you know. Yeah, 513 00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:35,639 But this is and this is this is the problem with the Augustinian treatment, 514 00:44:35,679 --> 00:44:43,000 frankly, of human sexuality is that it fails to see physical sexuality as 515 00:44:43,039 --> 00:44:52,639 the material signifier of a spiritual reality that remains regardless of the presence of that 516 00:44:52,679 --> 00:44:57,239 material signifier. So what I mean by that is, and I've said this 517 00:44:57,320 --> 00:45:01,800 to people in marriage counseling a lot. If you have a a you know, 518 00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:07,480 twenty three year old couple who just got married, and you have an 519 00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:14,960 eighty three year old couple that's been married for sixty years, right, the 520 00:45:15,039 --> 00:45:20,280 twenty three year old couple is having a lot hotter sex, right, that's 521 00:45:21,159 --> 00:45:27,480 a lot more often, probably, yes, But the eighty three year old 522 00:45:27,519 --> 00:45:35,480 couple, right, has a relationship at a deeper level that goes far beyond 523 00:45:35,519 --> 00:45:38,800 that, yeah, right, far far far beyond that. Yeah, in 524 00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:43,679 some ways, and also kind of in that physical aspect of it, let's 525 00:45:43,679 --> 00:45:50,320 say, kind of fading away, they capture there the pearl, like they 526 00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:54,440 they're they're they're moving into the into the deeper part of what of what it 527 00:45:54,519 --> 00:45:59,400 is that they were moving towards in the first place. And those two are 528 00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:04,960 not unrelated exactly, they're directly related, right, but the one is this 529 00:46:05,199 --> 00:46:09,800 sort of material signifier right of the of the deeper reality. And so but 530 00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:16,719 every time we think about any of these concepts, our contemporary minds move immediately 531 00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:22,599 to just the material signifier, right to just you know, titillation, and 532 00:46:23,039 --> 00:46:27,360 you know, oh, you're you're talking about says like, no, we're 533 00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:31,599 talking about the reality behind that, right, yeah. And so in some 534 00:46:31,639 --> 00:46:36,920 ways, what it requires of us is really a complete reversal of the way 535 00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:39,719 we think of what is real, you know. And it's not because we 536 00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:45,000 tend to. We tend to and you see it most people today, even 537 00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:49,440 you know, they tend to like oppose opposed normally the spiritual and the material. 538 00:46:49,519 --> 00:46:52,639 They oppose it. And so either they fall into one or the other. 539 00:46:52,079 --> 00:46:57,239 Either they wanted to to kind of uh, you know, pooh pooh 540 00:46:57,320 --> 00:47:00,840 the the material practice and the material world and want to live just in the 541 00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:04,519 spirit, you know, like people who say I'm spiritual but not religious, 542 00:47:04,559 --> 00:47:07,719 that kind of that kind of that kind of nonsense. And then on the 543 00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:10,840 other hand, you know, we have people who think that, you know, 544 00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:15,280 this material world is so real, like that's what we need to chase 545 00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:19,000 after. But both of those are are a mistake, you know, ultimately 546 00:47:19,559 --> 00:47:23,519 to see it in this scale of hierarchy where the physical materiality is the bottom 547 00:47:23,679 --> 00:47:30,320 part and the most the most let's say immediate, but ultimately has to move 548 00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:34,960 us into what it's height or what it's not hiding in the bad sense, 549 00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:39,280 but when it holds in its center, like what's holding it together? What 550 00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:44,440 lies behind it? Yeah? Yeah, and again what lies behind it is 551 00:47:44,519 --> 00:47:47,840 there, even if you want to try to deny it, Like people who 552 00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:53,360 live very promiscuously, that does things to your heart and to your soul over 553 00:47:53,400 --> 00:48:01,039 time. Yeah, because you can't be intimate with people physically and not also 554 00:48:02,119 --> 00:48:07,079 have developed intimate connections in other ways. Yeah, like leave some part of 555 00:48:07,119 --> 00:48:15,519 your soul with that person. Yeah, so because they're so intricately bound together. 556 00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:22,480 Yeah. And you know, and I think that it's not The way 557 00:48:22,559 --> 00:48:27,880 that the church represents our union, you know, is not arbitrary, and 558 00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:30,199 the way the reason why we insist on marriage is not just some kind of 559 00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:35,079 moral finger wagging, right, it is. It is and you can see 560 00:48:35,119 --> 00:48:38,400 like people who live with promise, with a lot of promisecuity in their life, 561 00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:42,840 and especially people that that you know, obviously don't come to repentance and 562 00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:46,320 don't come to kind of transformation, you know. They they they end with 563 00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:52,159 bitterness, like it's hard not for that not to not to happen. Yeah, 564 00:48:52,199 --> 00:48:55,679 And repentance again is not like feeling bad and whipping yourself. Repentance is 565 00:48:55,719 --> 00:49:02,320 being healed from the damage that's been done, you know. And and yeah, 566 00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:07,480 so there there there sort of is there is hope for that. Yeah. 567 00:49:07,639 --> 00:49:13,360 And and part of the part of the problem with the way we talk 568 00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:19,079 about marriage now is that we've got this very modern idea of the nuclear family 569 00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:23,960 behind it. Yea, And that conception of marriage and family leaves a lot 570 00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:31,280 of people out and has caused us a lot of problems. So I'm a 571 00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:37,199 big advocate as people who listen to Lord of Spirits it I describe it as 572 00:49:37,559 --> 00:49:43,480 arguing for the abolition of the nuclear family just to get everybody freaked out, 573 00:49:43,559 --> 00:49:49,559 but that we need to come back to within our church communities and things, 574 00:49:49,599 --> 00:49:52,679 a more robust idea of family, like the kind of families we see in 575 00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:59,440 Genesis of extended family. You know, that includes a lot that that is 576 00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:01,599 is able to include a lot of people, It's able to include an adult 577 00:50:01,679 --> 00:50:07,199 who for whatever reason has not gotten married. Yeah, but it doesn't mean 578 00:50:07,679 --> 00:50:15,360 like I understand what you're saying, but the nuclear family should I would see 579 00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:16,960 it this way. I'd rather see it as like the nuclear family should be 580 00:50:17,079 --> 00:50:22,199 just expanded into this. Right, for an expanded family to exist, you 581 00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:28,119 need someone to have been a strong nuclear family and then be able to expand 582 00:50:28,199 --> 00:50:31,159 that like breathe out and to include the uncle that, like you said, 583 00:50:31,199 --> 00:50:35,880 don't get married or like whatever, someone who got divorced or some you know, 584 00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:38,199 someone who died and the child gets up ends up kind of going to 585 00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:43,320 their brother whatever, like that has to be something that has to in order 586 00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:45,840 for us to be able to live in that more expanded way. Definitely. 587 00:50:46,199 --> 00:50:51,719 Yeah, I think the older, the much older, what family meant for 588 00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:54,719 most of human history, Yeah, has just been ground down to the nuclear 589 00:50:54,840 --> 00:51:00,480 family. Definitely. You know, And and I think right now, so 590 00:51:00,679 --> 00:51:07,960 much effort is put into trying to preserve that little bit that's left that we 591 00:51:08,079 --> 00:51:14,920 really need to redirect into rebuilding. Not just trying to preserve what the culture 592 00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:19,800 and society has left us, but build out, build back, and build 593 00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:22,719 out from there. Again. So I have another question that just to get 594 00:51:22,760 --> 00:51:28,360 back to the to the Noah's story and everything. Do you think there's do 595 00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:32,000 you think or do you see a relationship between the way that also you're interpreting 596 00:51:32,440 --> 00:51:36,480 first of all to serve of Noah, then also the the the story, 597 00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:39,760 the way that we talk about the fall of the the idea of the Nephilin, 598 00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:45,519 and all this questions that when Saint Paul talks about the covering, you 599 00:51:45,559 --> 00:51:50,039 know that weird, that weird sentence when Saint Paul says, you know that 600 00:51:50,039 --> 00:51:52,920 that that women should wear coverings for the sake of the angels, do you 601 00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:59,239 think that there's a relationship between this idea of uncovering and and the union, 602 00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:05,000 let's say, in that sense. Yes, can you help us work that 603 00:52:05,199 --> 00:52:08,639 out a little bit? Yeah, because we all have that intuition, but 604 00:52:08,679 --> 00:52:13,280 it's fuzzy, like it's a fuzzy it's a fuzzy thing. Yeah, we're 605 00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:17,639 gonna get into all the really wild stuff here in this one video. So 606 00:52:19,039 --> 00:52:24,039 there's a phrase that Saint Paul uses in that context that's often translated in English 607 00:52:24,119 --> 00:52:34,440 symbol of authority. So the word there, I'll go ahead and say it. 608 00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:38,679 The word there is the Greek word for scrotum. Mm hmm, yeah, 609 00:52:38,679 --> 00:52:45,199 I didn't want to know that. So and so, part of what's 610 00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:54,880 going on there is uh Saint Paul seems to be referencing uh Greco Roman medical 611 00:52:54,920 --> 00:53:05,719 texts, so the understanding in Roman medicine. And you see this if you 612 00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:09,039 read how Saint John Chrisostom deals with this past the larger passage, you can 613 00:53:09,079 --> 00:53:15,360 see it reflected in what he says to But if you go and read like 614 00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:24,719 the Hippocratic corpus, they believe that hair served as sort of a receptacle for 615 00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:34,920 male seed, that it was sort of drawn up into the body by hair. 616 00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:44,840 And therefore, so a woman who wore her hair long exposed was presenting 617 00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:51,039 herself as sexually available. And likewise, a man who wore his hair long 618 00:53:52,679 --> 00:53:58,760 culturally was considered to be presenting himself as sexually available to other men. And 619 00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:01,920 that's why, say Paul says, having long hair as a shame right to 620 00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:05,000 a man. And you're going, well, wait a minute, what about 621 00:54:05,599 --> 00:54:08,880 Nazareites and stuff. Right, he's not referring to that he's talking about in 622 00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:20,119 this context, right, And so because of that, essentially a woman's long 623 00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:25,639 hair was seen as a genital structure. That's why he can use that word 624 00:54:28,840 --> 00:54:37,320 right to refer to it. And so to have that exposed in worship, 625 00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:45,440 right, would be presenting oneself as sort of sexually available within the context of 626 00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:52,280 worship. He's writing this to Corinth where, to be super blunt, most 627 00:54:52,320 --> 00:55:00,119 of the religious festivals were accompanied by orgies, right, and saying there is 628 00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:07,440 there is no place for that within right, the Christian worship context, and 629 00:55:07,159 --> 00:55:12,360 then is referencing in terms of the because of the angels, is referencing back 630 00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:19,039 to the idea of the nephelo Yeah, right, which proceeded, as you 631 00:55:19,119 --> 00:55:23,440 mentioned earlier, out of this ritual context, Yeah, which is happening, 632 00:55:23,440 --> 00:55:28,159 which is a ritual context in the worship like they are in a ritual context 633 00:55:28,239 --> 00:55:32,400 there. And so there's like a confusion placing yourself as available to receive the 634 00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:39,400 influence of higher states, but not being properly covered so that you could become 635 00:55:39,519 --> 00:55:45,320 like a you could become like a receptacle for the wrong, like for for 636 00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:50,400 the let's say, for the yeah, for for for the intermediary beings. 637 00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:53,360 You could say it that way. Maybe right, this is and this is 638 00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:59,840 the ability to bring life into the world is a power that women possess that 639 00:56:00,119 --> 00:56:05,159 needs to be protected because of how powerful it is. Yeah, and so 640 00:56:05,559 --> 00:56:08,159 I mean it makes sense. It's very it's complex because it's working, it's 641 00:56:08,199 --> 00:56:13,119 working on it's working on all these multiple levels at the same time, which 642 00:56:13,199 --> 00:56:15,559 is in some ways we can understand. It's something like, if you were 643 00:56:15,599 --> 00:56:21,119 going to be very boring about it, we could say something like, if 644 00:56:21,159 --> 00:56:25,599 the woman is uncovered in in the in the in the in the context of 645 00:56:25,639 --> 00:56:32,000 worship in a religious ritual, she is opening herself to influences that are that 646 00:56:32,079 --> 00:56:37,159 would be kind of these free floating intermediary influences, you know, that aren't 647 00:56:37,880 --> 00:56:43,360 God himself, that are kind of like this kind of intermediary world that's messy 648 00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:47,039 and full of mixture of angels and demons or whatever. Uh, and that 649 00:56:49,079 --> 00:56:52,119 and that in some ways that would be dangerous for her, dangerous for the 650 00:56:52,199 --> 00:57:00,719 church, dangerous for yeah. Right. And and Noah's sin that in the 651 00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:05,400 case is not just oh he got drunk and embarrassed himself. Somehow he got 652 00:57:05,480 --> 00:57:09,840 drunk and did something embarrassing, which you know you shouldn't do. But in 653 00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:15,360 terms of like severe sins, right, not probably top of most people's list. 654 00:57:16,239 --> 00:57:22,840 His his sin is being drunk and inebriated right on the good things of 655 00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:34,119 this world and failing to protect right the the his nakedness right intact. Yeah, 656 00:57:34,159 --> 00:57:39,480 well them is there large because Laud gets drunk before he becore before right 657 00:57:39,519 --> 00:57:43,719 he passes out, and yeah for his daughters, and so there's like a 658 00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:47,599 there's definitely a narrative relationship between the two. And I think that it's because 659 00:57:47,639 --> 00:57:52,719 ikonographically, like we represented straightforward me and so if you if you have an 660 00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:58,119 iconographic representation of the scene, you will see you will see like a vine, 661 00:57:58,320 --> 00:58:04,400 You'll see Noah drunk, and then you'll see Ham like pointing at his 662 00:58:04,519 --> 00:58:08,920 nakedness usually, and then you'll see like the the two sons walking backwards, 663 00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:14,000 you know, with like a sheet something. And I think that it's it's 664 00:58:14,039 --> 00:58:19,039 completely appropriate to kind of take it at the first level, especially if we're 665 00:58:19,039 --> 00:58:22,039 going to represent it visually, but if you want to understand how it relates 666 00:58:22,079 --> 00:58:25,159 to the rest of the Bible and how it relates, you know, to 667 00:58:25,239 --> 00:58:30,760 all these these moments of beginnings and all these moments of transgression all the way 668 00:58:30,760 --> 00:58:34,159 into Christ, and we have to see that it's more than just this kind 669 00:58:34,159 --> 00:58:37,280 of like this kind of weird thing because if you think about it, like 670 00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:40,800 you know it, it's like anything, right you you think, Okay, 671 00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:45,360 so all of Canaan is cursed, like the whole, not just the sun, 672 00:58:45,440 --> 00:58:51,960 but like the oldest sentences of Canaan is cursed because his father saw his 673 00:58:52,039 --> 00:58:54,960 own father naked. It's like, man, that's rough. That's a that's 674 00:58:55,000 --> 00:59:00,639 a rough thing. But that's also see that's a the father son thing. 675 00:59:01,760 --> 00:59:08,599 In scripture is always talking about repeating the pattern. Yeah, right, So 676 00:59:08,679 --> 00:59:15,840 the Canaanites had come and laid claim to this land that belonged to God, 677 00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:21,679 and that was not their inheritance. It was someone else's inheritance, that's right. 678 00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:23,519 Yeah, So it repeats it in the in the context of the two 679 00:59:23,559 --> 00:59:28,880 people's right, and so that that that pattern piece. Yeah. In the 680 00:59:28,960 --> 00:59:34,320 lockcase, the idea of him failing to protect his daughters is really brought out 681 00:59:34,400 --> 00:59:37,079 leading up to that because if you read closely of the story, he had 682 00:59:37,079 --> 00:59:40,360 betrothed both of them to men of sodom, yes, right, yeah, 683 00:59:40,400 --> 00:59:45,159 and he basically he proposed to basically like just throw him out there man, 684 00:59:45,679 --> 00:59:52,119 to give them to the mob. Right and and so yeah, that final 685 00:59:52,199 --> 00:59:57,960 episode, right, is of it as it's really restrowth for sin. Like 686 00:59:58,000 --> 01:00:00,519 it's like it's always like it's a pendulum where he was willing to give his 687 01:00:00,679 --> 01:00:06,760 daughters up to these these destructive men, and that was like the sin of 688 01:00:06,800 --> 01:00:09,239 the too far, you could say. And also this this, and then 689 01:00:09,320 --> 01:00:13,960 finally turns back on him, and then he becomes the father of his own 690 01:00:14,280 --> 01:00:16,880 grandchildren, you know, right right, Yeah, Abraham is so concerned he 691 01:00:16,920 --> 01:00:22,400 wants to find Isaaca wife or besode people, whereas Lot is just like a 692 01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:28,519 couple of the guys here in town. You guys could marry them. That's 693 01:00:28,519 --> 01:00:31,719 fine, that's fine. Yeah, well, and especially in that sense because 694 01:00:31,880 --> 01:00:38,039 you also see in the in the they're already in Genesis, you have this 695 01:00:38,159 --> 01:00:46,599 image where who is it Hamore who wants to marry into the Jacob's family and 696 01:00:46,679 --> 01:00:52,400 says, if we marry their daughters, then we'll basically take them over. 697 01:00:52,599 --> 01:00:54,400 Like it'll take a while, but you know, at some point we'll just 698 01:00:54,440 --> 01:00:58,880 take whatever they have because we'll just keep taking their daughters, and then we'll 699 01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:04,239 overwhelm them and then they'll they'll basically disappear and stop them exactly, you know. 700 01:01:04,320 --> 01:01:07,119 And so it's like that's the image that Solomon tries to bring about when 701 01:01:07,119 --> 01:01:09,840 he talks about marrying the strange woman or the idea of the strange gods, 702 01:01:09,880 --> 01:01:15,079 Like, you have to find that balance so that you're not swallowed up by 703 01:01:15,119 --> 01:01:20,679 the by the outside. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that's and you 704 01:01:20,719 --> 01:01:23,039 can apply to the I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm making 705 01:01:23,079 --> 01:01:28,000 this tripe, but you can apply this at every level of structure that we're 706 01:01:28,039 --> 01:01:30,880 involved with. Like they say, you have any kind of team, you 707 01:01:30,880 --> 01:01:37,559 know, it's like and you're doing something like if you just constantly circulate within 708 01:01:37,639 --> 01:01:40,920 yourself, like you know, it's like you just constantly everybody is always withinside 709 01:01:40,920 --> 01:01:45,000 the team in a way that at some point, you know, just becomes 710 01:01:45,039 --> 01:01:47,639 circular. You're going to break down. Like, if you do that for 711 01:01:47,679 --> 01:01:50,679 a while, it's going to break down. At some point you won't be 712 01:01:50,679 --> 01:01:53,199 able to But if you just like go on the street and just hire anybody, 713 01:01:53,519 --> 01:01:57,559 just go out and like, oh, you you you're not doing anything, 714 01:01:57,559 --> 01:02:00,840 why don't you come work on our team, then you run the risk 715 01:02:00,920 --> 01:02:05,440 of becoming You have to find that balance between you know, what we're doing 716 01:02:05,679 --> 01:02:09,000 and innovation or new or new blood, and so you have to kind of 717 01:02:09,039 --> 01:02:14,840 find you're always trying to find that balance between that which will invigorate the team, 718 01:02:15,320 --> 01:02:19,280 but won't you know, basically take its identity away in the long term. 719 01:02:19,440 --> 01:02:22,280 Yeah, well, I think it's even I think it's even true. 720 01:02:22,400 --> 01:02:28,280 At the level of the human soul, we're very much now able with the 721 01:02:28,320 --> 01:02:32,320 Internet, for example, to put ourselves into an echo chamber. Yeah, 722 01:02:32,360 --> 01:02:37,119 where we only ever talk to people who endorse everything we ever say do and 723 01:02:37,159 --> 01:02:42,320 think, you know, who agree with us about everything right right now, 724 01:02:42,400 --> 01:02:45,760 that's exactly right, you know. And the solution to that is not the 725 01:02:45,800 --> 01:02:52,239 opposite is not to just expose yourself to everything and be completely credulous and believe 726 01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:58,320 anything anyone tells you and sort of sell everything out. But there's again the 727 01:02:58,760 --> 01:03:04,679 middle distance. Yeah yeah, and you can see when you don't do that 728 01:03:04,719 --> 01:03:07,599 what happens. Like there's a this is a weird example, but it's the 729 01:03:07,599 --> 01:03:12,199 one that comes to my mind, which is that there's an interesting debate online, 730 01:03:12,199 --> 01:03:19,079 a monk debate between uh it's like Matt Tebe and forget I forget his 731 01:03:19,159 --> 01:03:22,639 name, and like Malcolm Gladwell, right, and yeah, I've actually heard 732 01:03:22,679 --> 01:03:24,559 it. See that it's about media captured. And you can tell that the 733 01:03:24,599 --> 01:03:31,159 Malcolm Gladwell side was so much in their echo chamber. They didn't even understand 734 01:03:31,400 --> 01:03:36,039 the arguments of the of their opponents, and so they kind of they were 735 01:03:36,039 --> 01:03:39,039 just in this illusion of their coherent world. And then their world just got 736 01:03:39,360 --> 01:03:44,960 shattered on stage, like smashed into visas, and they lost the debate by 737 01:03:45,039 --> 01:03:49,360 the biggest margin anybody's ever lost a monk debate. And they don't they still 738 01:03:49,360 --> 01:03:52,360 don't understand why that happened, because it's like they're so into their own like 739 01:03:53,119 --> 01:03:55,639 and so you can actually see it. It's like it's actually even as a 740 01:03:55,719 --> 01:03:59,920 Christian, let's say, and if you just have these weird like can turn 741 01:04:00,239 --> 01:04:03,239 things like that, you're just talking to other orthodox Christians and all you talk 742 01:04:03,280 --> 01:04:08,920 about are like divine energies like all day and then and then you haven't ever 743 01:04:09,159 --> 01:04:13,000 you never encountered anybody from the outside, You haven't discussed with with with anybody 744 01:04:13,000 --> 01:04:16,679 outside. Then at some point when you when you're challenged, you'll just you'll 745 01:04:16,679 --> 01:04:21,239 shatter. Yeah, and there's no there's no creative power in that. Yeah, 746 01:04:21,960 --> 01:04:27,440 that's ever gonna go anywhere and produce anything new, like give life to 747 01:04:27,480 --> 01:04:30,679 anything. Yeah, anything living, Yeah, exactly, all right, this 748 01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:34,079 was this was wonderful. I mean, we really went right to the edge 749 01:04:34,079 --> 01:04:40,400 there. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you weren't going to try and monetize this, 750 01:04:40,480 --> 01:04:45,519 so that's probably good. It's like I, I didn't expect you to 751 01:04:45,639 --> 01:04:48,159 use you to use the word scrotum in our discussion, but there you go. 752 01:04:48,519 --> 01:04:51,400 That's that's how it goes. And so I and so thank you for 753 01:04:51,440 --> 01:04:55,960 a time. Thank you also for everything you do and and everybody I am 754 01:04:56,000 --> 01:05:00,159 also you know, and I'm really excited to have you talk to us the 755 01:05:00,159 --> 01:05:02,519 Symbolic World Summit. It's gonna be it's gonna be amazing. And don't forget 756 01:05:02,559 --> 01:05:06,559 people also to look out for the Symbolic World Journal, which we'll have his 757 01:05:08,119 --> 01:05:13,559 father Stephen's exposition about this very question in printed in the journal. So, 758 01:05:13,559 --> 01:05:15,480 so, a lot of great things coming on the horizon. Is there something 759 01:05:15,480 --> 01:05:20,400 you're working on that you want to give us a peak on, Well, 760 01:05:20,880 --> 01:05:26,119 Lord Willing the next book. I've been doing this big project on Saint Paul, 761 01:05:27,239 --> 01:05:32,559 so sort of from an orthodox perspective. So that's probably the next thing 762 01:05:33,800 --> 01:05:40,119 in print you'll see coming. All right, that'll probably sometime next year wonderful. 763 01:05:40,360 --> 01:05:42,400 All right, thank you, father Stephen. It's great to talk to 764 01:05:42,440 --> 01:05:46,440 you. If you enjoy these videos and podcasts, please go to the Symbolic 765 01:05:46,440 --> 01:05:50,239 World dot com website and see how you can support what we're doing. There 766 01:05:50,239 --> 01:05:55,280 are multiple subscriber tiers with perks. There are apparel in books to purchase, 767 01:05:55,559 --> 01:05:58,960 So go to the Symbolic World dot com and thank you for your support