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Speaker 1: People think, oh, are you can you moralize people's people's

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adult treat It's like it's not even moralizing. It's actually

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this is if you did it, went into any deal

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with anyone and you break, that's illegal.

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Speaker 2: Like that's you're breaking the law now.

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Speaker 3: People I like, especially in southern California, a lot of

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people have swimming pools. Most of the people who have

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swimming pool have contracts with a pool cleaner. He comes

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once a week, he cleans your pool. He puts some

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chemicals on. You never see him. But if you break

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your contract with him, he's gonna sue you. In California

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where we did this, we're the ones who created no

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fault divorce nineteen sixty nine. Actually once again, Ronald Drake

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Ye Ronald Wow, governor of California, who did it. If

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you break your pool contract, you're gonna go to court.

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But you can break your sacred vowels that you made

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usually in front of a minister of God and a congregation.

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Nobody watched you sign your contract with your pool cleaner.

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Speaker 2: This is Jonathan Pejel. Welcome to the symbolic world.

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Speaker 1: Hello everyone, It is a joy to be here with

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Father Josiah Trenham. Everyone watching this knows about Father Josiah.

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He's been such a great voice for Orthodoxy and just

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general reason and common sense online but also in his

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wonderful parish in California. He is organizing a conference that

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I am very excited to be able to participate in.

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It is a conference on marriage. It is not going

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to be limited to the Orthodox Church. It's really going

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to be like a wide conference on the importance of

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marriage civilizationally, you know, obviously as Christians as well.

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Speaker 2: Well. It is October tenth.

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Speaker 1: Eleventh, finishing on the twelfth, and it is where is it, father,

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It's at.

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Speaker 3: The historic Fox Theater in downtown Riverside here in southern California.

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Speaker 1: And so and the website is Themarriage Conference dot com.

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You can go there, check it out and look it out.

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And today Father Josiah and I are going to talk

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about exactly that, which is the important of marriage as

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a civilizational institution that is universal and also its specific

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culmination in Christianity. Father Josiah, thank you for coming and

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also tell us why you want to talk about marriage

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so much all of a sudden.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's great to be with you, Jonathan. Want I

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get to talk with you, and I'll talk to you

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about anything. Whatever you want to talk about, I'll talk

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to you. I do love the subject of marriage, and

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it's not recently that I've been interested in talking about it.

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It has been kind of, well, kind of a personal

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obsession since I was fifteen years old. I'm pushing sixty,

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so it's been actually pretty long time I've been thinking

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about marriage. But the longer I have served as a pastor,

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the longer I have served as a priest, the more

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deeply convicted I've become that the decline of valuation of

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marriage and its significance in the West is intimately associated

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with misery of all sorts, and that if there's going

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to be any recovery of sanity and healthy human functioning

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in the West, it's going to involve a reclamation of marriage,

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for sure. I feel that more strongly now than I

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ever did before.

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Speaker 1: One of the narratives we've heard in the past few decades,

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I mean, probably you know, since World War Two, is

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in some ways this idea that the nuclear family is

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an artifice, right, the idea that marriage is actually a

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very superficial thing. It's an artificial you know, we've heard

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different attacks on marriage. This notion, how can I say

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that that it's not a universal institution, right, that it

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is in some ways an institution of patriarchy and somewhat

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hostile to.

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Speaker 2: Women, all of that.

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Speaker 1: And so you know when you hear that and that

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that's been going on for decades. Now now we kind

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of see the results of that. We see the demographic collapse,

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we see the misery of people, the loneliness of people.

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You know, So what is your take on those those

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attacks on marriage that have been going on.

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Speaker 3: There's a lot to that. Let me begin by responding

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to what you were initially saying about the universality of marriage.

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Marriage has always been at the very core of living

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the Christian life. However, traditionally in traditional Christianity it has

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a different place than I would say it's had, let's say,

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in twentieth century American Christianity. So in the history of

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the church, marriage has always been in front and center,

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for sure, but not exclusively. I remember I was raised

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as a Presbyterian. When I was a young man in college,

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I had a dear friend who clearly had a calling

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to the monastic life, clearly had a calling to the

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single life, and He pulled me aside on several occasions

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over the course of our studying together to share his

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angst because there was no place for him in his

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Protestant world. He didn't want to get married. And if

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you weren't married, somehow in that period of time, it

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was revealed viewed somehow unnaturally. As a matter of fact,

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today I'm giving you this interview on the feast day

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of Saint John the Baptist. The twenty fourth of June

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happens to be his birthday. His birthday is the third

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most celebrated birthday in the history of the human race.

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The Lord's birthday, of course, Christmas is the most celebrated,

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The Virgin Mary's birthday September the eighth is the second

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most celebrated. But John the Baptists is the third most

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celebrated birthday, and his life is the third most cherished life.

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I mean, in our tradition, in the Orthodox tradition, there

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is no such thing as a church without iconcept Saint

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John the Baptist like everything on the Iconist Dowson and

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everywhere else, and he functions kind of as a as

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a witness as a standard for monastics, especially people who

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have a calling like he did to complete consecration, and

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so he forewent marriage. He never got married. He gave

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himself one hundred percent constantly to Christ, and so our

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monks and nuns follow him. And yet today I was

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celebrating the liturgy before I came on with you. In

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my sermon today, I was pointing out that the archangel Gabriel,

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when he came to Zacharias to tell Zacharias about the

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upcoming birth of John and what he was going to do.

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He summarized John's in public ministry under three phrases, all

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beginning with the word turn. He's going to turn three groups.

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He's going to turn people to the Lord in general.

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That's going to be number one. That's a beautiful calling.

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He's going to turn the hearts of fathers to their children.

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And don't miss that. I mean, here's a guy who

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doesn't have a family. I mean, his ministry is going

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to be to families. He's gonna even though he himself

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had no biological children and lived in the desert and

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eight bugs, he he minished to the married, He ministered

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to those who had families, and he taught fathers to

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consider a great a great honor to invest themselves in

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their sons and their daughters. He turned the hearts of

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men to the children, and then he's going to turn

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the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous. He's going

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to bring people in general to start considering ways that

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our time tested. So I just want to say that initial, uh,

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that that initial volley for us. Marriage is fundamental, it's

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foundational for Christianity. It together with monastic life are the

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two kind of foundational bedterocks for building your life in

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this life. And they're not always that separated. They kind

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of interweave, they have a symbiosis. They both help each

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other all the time and in many ways. But so

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marriage has always been the natural for those who aren't

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called to the monastic life. This is the natural context

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in which all the beauty of life develops. And to

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see that abandoned as though somehow it was something that

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was man made, or even worse, maybe made by politicians

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and therefore can be altered and adjusted and you can

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take these parts and dump those parts. That's nuts. Yeah,

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that's just absolutely nuts.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting what you said about the relationship between monasticism

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and marriage. I've been thinking about that quite a bit,

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because one of the things that is confusing for people

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outside the church is they look at the literature of asceticism,

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you know, and they have this sense and in some ways,

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maybe Christianity is a kind of.

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Speaker 2: Anti life thing.

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Speaker 1: You saw that in Enlightenment thinkers that may be one

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of the causes of the Roman Empire, where all these

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people going to join monasteries. But our experience actually shows us,

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strange enough, the opposite, which is, in some ways, those

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that give themselves to the monastic life and in some

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ways offer their bodies and themselves to cry alone, they

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end up becoming the anchor for the communities who then

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just populate the world. They end up being like moral

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hooks that people can look to and kind of see

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as examples. But the funny thing about the example is

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that the asceticism of the monk, who's completely you know,

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who completely denies that, say, marrying a woman or being

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part of a marriage, gets reflected in life as the

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asceticism of marriage, which is then the people look to

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the monk, and though they are married with one person,

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they see thatceticism reflected in their married life, which people

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don't tend to think of marriage as a form of asceticism.

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Speaker 3: No, they don't, because much of our opinion about marriage

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has been you know, biosmosis, absorbed by our falling culture

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and very secular culture that doesn't have a vision for marriage. Obviously,

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obviously marriage is tanking. I mean, it is absolutely taking.

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It's a minority status today, like forty one percent Americans

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are actually married at forty one percent of households. That's

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nuts compared to when I was born, even, I mean,

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I know I'm old, but not that old. I was

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born in the sixties and seventy five percent of homes

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were occupied by a husband, a wife and children when

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I was born in California. That's nuts. You know, it's

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been my experience that this symbiosis is very intense. The

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Church even teaches in her canonical tradition that if there's

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any monk or none who criticizes marriage at all as

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a reason for becoming a monk or none, they have

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fallen into heresy, and any offering that their offering in

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their is gone. Saint John Crisostom dedicated a whole book

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that he wrote called on Virginity. In this text, he

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labored to argue that those who are choosing the monastic life.

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If they do it with criticism at all of the

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married life, that they have just stolen the value of

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monastic offering. Because some monasticism is so precious is because

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you don't have to do it. It's a free love

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gift you're offering. You're offering to say no to the

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great happiness of marriage in order to give all of

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your energies as a free gift of your love to

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Jesus and to the church. If all of a sudden,

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marriage is evil, there's no gift at all. It's the

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only option. If marriage is evil or in any way

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tainted with sin by definition, then you have to true

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Christians have to become monks and none, which just guts

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the value of monasticism itself. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, But one of the things that I've seen seems

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to be like one of the causes of the fact

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that marriage has fallen apart and marriage has become so

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difficult is because we've we have this sense in which

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marriage is the place where I will get everything that

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I want right, and so I have needs. I have

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all these these needs, these sexual needs, these emotional.

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Speaker 2: Needs, these these.

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Speaker 1: Needs of accomplishing myself, and I see marriage as the

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culmination of that, the place where I can get you know,

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make myself get what I need for myself. Uh where

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in fact, you know, as I mentioned before, it seems

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it seems like marriage in the in the traditional in

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Christianity is in some ways a form of offering.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: It's it is a form of sacrifice which has great

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joy in it.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: It's not that you sacrifice yourself and it's just this,

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you know, it's actually that in the in the offering,

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there's this great there's a great joy that comes out.

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But we I mean and I and I say that

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for myself as well. Like when I went into marriage,

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I had completely had that, I had completely absorbed this

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idea that marriage was for me to get everything that

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I wanted.

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Speaker 2: And you know, and uh and and and.

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Speaker 1: For for several years, I suffered quite a bit from that,

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you know, in my own marriage.

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Speaker 3: Yes, well you're not the only one, Jonathan. We uh,

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I share that too. When I when I was young

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and I was thinking about getting married, I I wanted

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a beautiful wife. I wanted to be have a woman

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who loved me. And you know, I'm very sympathetic with that.

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That's there is a you know, a lower form of

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love and ambition. Arrows, for instance, that is very important.

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It's very important. It's not as though the Church is

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saying that that that marriage it doesn't have that aspect

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of being able to be loved and to be possessed

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by someone and to possess them joyfully with with with love.

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The Church is just saying, look, that's the entry door.

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That's the entry door. But the house is much larger

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than that and much more beautiful than that. And even

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the entry door, as legitimate as it is, becomes much

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less relevant the older that we get and the more

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mature I should say, in our in our relations that

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we get. I love that image that Csus Lewis uses

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in his book The Four Loves. He's describing arros and

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he says arrows is very important. He reminds us that

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it is very dangerous, right, I mean, cube, it has

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a bow and arrow. It's not to give you chocolate.

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You know you're gonna get shot and you're gonna bleed out. Yeah,

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But he says, arrows is the is the powerful shot

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that gets the train of marriage and family life moving

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down the track. He says, but it can't sustain it

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now for that you need really more mature loves. You

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need story ghee, you need feelia, you need a GOPI.

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If you're going to keep your marriage going and it's

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going to mature, you know, you can have a place

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for arrows. But really, these other loves have to become

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larger and more important in order for marriage to become

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what it it can be. And once it's growing, Wow,

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what what can't it do? Really? I look at my

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thirty seven years of marriage and I think it's tamed me.

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I still have a lot of work to do, but

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it has tamed me a lot. It has taught me patience.

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It has expanded my heart from the little tiny stone

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that it was to now just a little bit bigger stone.

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It's done a lot of things to me that I

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never dreamed it could have done.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think we can see in

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some ways we're in an amazing situation. You know, it's

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sad to rejoice of the situation. What I mean is

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that there are some warnings that you can see in

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the fathers or in just holy people all through the

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centuries about the dangers of letting this, you know, letting

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our vision of marriage go and in the past few

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centuries we have so we went down that path, we

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had that experiment, and now we know what it looks like.

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And so in some ways it is a great time

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to talk about this because we actually have We've run

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the experiment, folks, We have the results, and we know

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what it looks like.

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Speaker 2: And you know, the the image.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there are so many dark is that populate

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our world right now, Like you know, the the image

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of the the the single or divorced person in the

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in their late forties swiping on Tinder, you know, trying

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to like find to get dates.

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Speaker 2: It's just this sad it's just like this sad, sad thing.

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Speaker 1: And there are just a lot of these images like

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that's just one, but there are a lot of these

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images that have populated popular culture now for several decades

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that show us to what extent, to what extent, putting

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effort and living a family life and marriage is the

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way to go to actually to be to live a satisfied,

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joyful life.

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Speaker 3: You know, I agree with you. We have abandoned not

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just living marriage, but we've abandoned champion. We don't have

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champions really of marriage, at least not in the public square.

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We have a lot of interesting people, we do, and

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some are even raising the alarm about declining birth rates,

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which is a great concern and which is one of

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the concrete fruits of abandoning marriage, is that we just

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aren't having children. We're not only not in love with

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marriage anymore, we're not in love with parenting anymore. And

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we're trying to find alternatives, which which are not working well.

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But even those who are discovering the importance of child

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bearing haven't quite been able to move to the next step,

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which is that before you address parenting, you have the

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issue of marriage as a universal institution, something that God

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himself made for the human race. Until we take a

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hard look at what we've done to marriage, and I

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would say, you're right. I think it is several centuries

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in the making. But I'll tell you the mid twentieth century,

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from the fifties until where we are now, especially with

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the outbreak of the sexual revolution in the sixties, we

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have gone from not expecting marriage to full frontal assault

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on him, full frontal assault, and now we can't even

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talk about it's integrity. I mean, look, I don't mean

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to be disrespectful in any way but when the champions.

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The two great conservative political champions of America are Ronald

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Reagan and Donald Trump. Ronald Reagan was the first Ronald

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Reagan was the first twice married president the United States

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has ever had, and Donald Trump is the first three

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times married president that we've ever had. Something is wrong.

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Something is wrong if we can't discuss the importance. I

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can understand if they presented themselves as you know, thank

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you for trusting me, even though I have failed in

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the most important earthly arrangement. I committed myself to that

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institution where your word means the most more than business arrangements.

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He's in marriage. You make sacred oaths when you get married.

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All cultures do. Yeah, it's the test about integrity. I

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would be more sympathetic if we had political leaders who

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were trouncing on marriage and they said, look, you know,

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forgive me, I'll give you an example. I give you example.

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I had the privilege of meeting a British politician recently

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that I really like. I'm sure you know, Nigel Farage.

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I like Nigel very much, and Nigel has a lot

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of good things to say. I'm very interested in some

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of the things that he says, and I was asked

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to participate and speak at a conference, and I knew

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he was going to go. I didn't really want to

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go to the conference, but I told them, I said, look,

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if you can give me ten or fifteen minutes with

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Nigel by myself, i'll go. Well they did. They were

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super kind, super wonderful people, very kind, and in my

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conversation with him, I appreciated his humility, you know, he said,

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and I've heard him say it elsewhere. A matter of fact,

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he said it at Art last time we were there.

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He said, I'm not an example. He goes, I believe

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in this. I champion marriage. I know marriage and family

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life are so important for culture. He goes, but please

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don't look at me. Don't look at me. I have

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failed in this area. I have, you know, some things

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in my past that are really not great. And I'm

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I'm humbled by that. I'm like, that's beautiful. Right. He's

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holding up the example as any person in leadership should.

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If you don't honor marriage, you're not helping your land.

359
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But he's doing it with humility. But we have others

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who you know, it's not it's just not talked about.

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It just can't be talked about. And that's that's tragedy

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because we have guns from all sides pointed at marriage,

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guns and all sides. The legalization of adultery, which happened

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in my lifetime. M I mean, that's Can you imagine

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a culture where it used to be illegal to be adulter?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

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Speaker 3: That's the legalization of adult three the U.

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Speaker 2: Because it's breaking contract.

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Speaker 1: So funny, people don't don't realize that even like just

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normal not even outside of morality, like just normal contract.

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You have a contract with a person. This is a

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promise you make, you sign a piece of paper. It

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is illegal to it is illegal to if you go

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outside of the contract, you're breaking the law.

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Speaker 2: Like it it's shouldn't.

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Speaker 1: People even even people think, oh you can you moralize

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people's people's adult treat It's like it's not even moralizing.

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Speaker 2: It's actually this is if you.

379
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Speaker 1: Did it, went into any deal with anyone and you

380
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break that's illegal, Like that's you breaking the law.

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Speaker 3: Now. People have like especially in southern California, a lot

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of people have swimming pools. Most of the people who

383
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have swiming pool have contracts with a pool cleaner. He

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comes once a week, he cleans your pool. He puts

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some chemicals on you never see him. But if you

386
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break your contract with him, he's gonna sue you. In California,

387
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where we did this, we're the ones who created no

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fault divorce nineteen sixty. Actually once again, Ronald Draken, Ronald Wow,

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00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:09,759
governor of California, who did it. If you break your

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pool contract, you're gonna go to court. But you can

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break your sacred vowels that you made usually in front

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of a minister of God and a congregation. Nobody watched

393
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you sign your contract with your pool cleaner. Hundreds of people,

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hundreds of people come to witness making sacred oaths to

395
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get married, and the consequences aren't even close. So what

396
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:40,160
you violate your pool contract and they get another pool cleaner.

397
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You violate your marriage and you have children. The consequences

398
00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:51,200
are irrefutable. The outcomes for kids in divorce families in

399
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:58,599
every measurable category atrocious, atrocious. No, we really need to

400
00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:01,960
have our hearts. All. We need to do exactly what

401
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:06,119
you said. Recognize the time is up. We've done the experiment.

402
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:10,240
Let's evaluate the results, and let's make the proper conclusions.

403
00:24:10,319 --> 00:24:12,759
We don't need to beat anybody up. We just need

404
00:24:12,799 --> 00:24:15,599
to make the conclusions and reorient our heart's disposition.

405
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that that's an important point because

406
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you're right. In some ways, we're all quite broken.

407
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Speaker 3: You know.

408
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Speaker 1: Everybody is affected by these these problems of the sexual revolution.

409
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Speaker 2: Everybody has been tainted by it.

410
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Speaker 1: You know, we none of us can just stand up

411
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and say we're glorious examples of everything. But I think that,

412
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like you said, to be able to reorient and say

413
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this is the ideal, you know, and and we will

414
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pray for those and we'll weep with those that who

415
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:47,319
struggle to keep it and will continue to have mercy.

416
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But we cannot compromise on what the ideal is because

417
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:54,599
to do so, like you said, we've seen the results.

418
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Speaker 2: We know what it looks like.

419
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Speaker 1: And on every front, in terms of people's mental health,

420
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in terms of the existence of communities, in terms of

421
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:07,200
children's mental health, all of this is just breaking down.

422
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Everybody is living with the consequences this now for a

423
00:25:10,839 --> 00:25:12,400
few generations over and over.

424
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Speaker 2: In Quebec.

425
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Speaker 1: It's crazy like here where we are, you know, these

426
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:20,400
reconstituted families are it's just it's become it's become completely normal,

427
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:23,839
and you know, and and it's taboo to talk about it,

428
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:28,079
but you know, the abuse rate in a reconstituted family

429
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:32,160
is so much higher than with it. So we have

430
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:36,519
this mythology of you know, the abuse of families, and

431
00:25:36,559 --> 00:25:40,279
how families are these little you know, these can I

432
00:25:40,279 --> 00:25:40,640
say this.

433
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Speaker 2: Like these these nodes of abuse and power and all

434
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:43,200
of that.

435
00:25:43,279 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 1: But man, reconstituted families, it's beyond it's beyond anything.

436
00:25:49,839 --> 00:25:52,759
Speaker 3: So not only do we have to I think, make

437
00:25:52,799 --> 00:25:57,400
the evaluation, conclude the experiment, and draw our conclusions from them,

438
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:02,440
so to speak, but also we we need people who

439
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:08,079
have experience and who are knowledgeable to lift their voices

440
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:10,960
and to say, you know, we need to address marriage

441
00:26:11,039 --> 00:26:15,720
for what it is. It's a pre political, divinely created

442
00:26:16,079 --> 00:26:22,039
institution and it can't be discarded anymore than you can

443
00:26:22,039 --> 00:26:25,799
discard your own humanity. We're trying that now too, and

444
00:26:26,279 --> 00:26:29,279
it's not going well. It's not going well at all.

445
00:26:29,559 --> 00:26:31,799
But they're connected. The two are very commended. You know,

446
00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:35,480
marriage is a paradisal institution. It wasn't exactly as it

447
00:26:35,519 --> 00:26:38,000
is now. The fall had tremendous consequences on marriage. But

448
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,440
it's not something that God made up later. It's something

449
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:44,599
that when he made humanity without marriage, he did not

450
00:26:44,759 --> 00:26:48,960
say his creation was good. His creation everything else was good.

451
00:26:49,599 --> 00:26:52,200
He looked at everything else. But when he had Adam

452
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:54,359
and he brought all the animals to Adam, and Adam

453
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:58,359
showed his incredible intelligence, his prophetic insight, and his ability

454
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to discern the purpose of God's creation for every animal,

455
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and he gave a name, which is which is what

456
00:27:04,519 --> 00:27:08,920
naming really means, Yeah, defining. When he did that and

457
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:14,279
he looked around, he could not find rest until God

458
00:27:14,799 --> 00:27:17,000
looked at him and said, you know what, this is

459
00:27:17,039 --> 00:27:21,000
not good, the only not good in creation. I'm not

460
00:27:21,079 --> 00:27:23,519
good without sin. That's amazing. How could there be a

461
00:27:23,559 --> 00:27:25,440
not good when there's no sin? Well, there's not. It's

462
00:27:25,599 --> 00:27:28,720
not good because it's incomplete. And then he made Eve

463
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:34,160
and then Adam looked at her and it was very good.

464
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:38,200
It went from good to very good. This is all

465
00:27:38,559 --> 00:27:42,640
foundational stuff. To ignore that, or to pretend that somehow

466
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:47,039
the political sphere or the state is the origin of

467
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:53,640
marriage or can control and irregulate marriage, this is ignorance. Yeah.

468
00:27:53,839 --> 00:27:58,640
Speaker 1: One of the things also that people say, they say

469
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,319
that the you know, the the nuclear family is a

470
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:04,839
modern invention that in fact, in the ancient world you

471
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:08,720
had extended families and that the extended family was really

472
00:28:08,759 --> 00:28:11,960
the family and all of that. And what's fascinating about

473
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:13,960
because I hear people use that argument all the time,

474
00:28:14,039 --> 00:28:17,359
even even in weird progressive circles. People will use that

475
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:21,759
argument to kind of defend an alternative vision of society.

476
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:27,559
But it doesn't hold up because the extended family, of course,

477
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:32,359
but always the nuclear family. It's like there's the merriage,

478
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,279
there's the family, and then the extended family is this

479
00:28:35,519 --> 00:28:37,319
large blessing that comes in kind of.

480
00:28:37,319 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 2: Supports Obviously you need that.

481
00:28:39,279 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 1: But if you think that you can have the extended

482
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:44,759
family without the nuclear family, that's absolutely ridiculous. You can't

483
00:28:44,799 --> 00:28:46,839
have the village without the nuclear family. You're not going

484
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,119
to have a bunch of children that nobody knows who

485
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:52,240
their parents are, running around being raised by a village.

486
00:28:52,279 --> 00:28:53,799
Speaker 2: That's completely ridiculous.

487
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 3: You know, this is a criticism from you know, the

488
00:28:56,599 --> 00:29:01,799
nineteen fifties and kind of the of the American family

489
00:29:01,839 --> 00:29:04,680
into this two kids. We have two kids. We really

490
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:08,359
don't have connections to other generations. That's not our way

491
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:12,000
in the East and in the West. In the formation

492
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:16,160
of marriages, we're very clear and we combine both the

493
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:18,839
reality that in the coming together of a men and woman,

494
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:22,400
a new family is constituted that is in a sense

495
00:29:22,519 --> 00:29:27,279
independent and unique, just like the family from which they came,

496
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:32,440
but with an abiding relationship to their progenitors. That is

497
00:29:32,559 --> 00:29:35,160
very expressed in our tradition and the Orthodox tradition in

498
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:40,279
what happens when people are crowned. The crowning has three

499
00:29:40,319 --> 00:29:45,279
basic references. It has the obvious kind of Greek victory.

500
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:49,440
You know, you run the race and you've come. The

501
00:29:49,519 --> 00:29:51,440
race in this case is the race to get to

502
00:29:51,559 --> 00:29:55,079
marriage in an honorable way. When we take the crowns

503
00:29:55,119 --> 00:29:58,000
off of a couple's head, the priest says that these

504
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:01,960
crowns were put on your head as a reward for continence.

505
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:06,559
This means the Church recognizes that when you found your beloved,

506
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:10,240
of course you've been as your hearts are growing closer

507
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:13,200
and your emotions are growing closer. It's natural for your

508
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:17,039
bodies to grow closer to God's institution for the propagation

509
00:30:17,119 --> 00:30:21,519
of the race. But you honored him by respecting that.

510
00:30:21,519 --> 00:30:25,480
That is a quality of married couples, and that took investment,

511
00:30:25,559 --> 00:30:28,599
that took some measure of merital asceticism. And so you

512
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:32,200
get a crown for being dignified in your courtship. That's

513
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:34,480
one of the purposes of the crown. Another purpose of

514
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:37,720
the crown is to bear witness that you are entering

515
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:43,119
into a relationship of self sacrifice. That love, which is

516
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:46,200
at the basis of your union, will show itself in

517
00:30:46,519 --> 00:30:49,240
you laying your life down for the other. You're choosing

518
00:30:49,319 --> 00:30:53,160
your spouse to be your chief neighbor, and Christ teaches

519
00:30:53,279 --> 00:30:56,160
us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and their spouse

520
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:58,440
is going to be that. And so you get crowns

521
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:00,359
like the forty Holy Martyrs did when the grounds and

522
00:31:00,359 --> 00:31:03,680
came down from heaven. Because you're entering into a martyr relationship.

523
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,839
The husband's supposed to love the wife like Jesus loves

524
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:10,119
the Church and Lacey's life down for her. That's serious business.

525
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:12,920
And the wife has to respect the Church and that

526
00:31:13,279 --> 00:31:15,599
respect her husband like the Church respects Christ. And that

527
00:31:15,759 --> 00:31:18,119
also especially because we husbands, a lot of times we

528
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:21,200
make it very difficult. It's very hard for the wives

529
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:24,559
to respect us. But they have to write and they're

530
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:27,839
crowned with a blessing, a martyric blessing. But it's also

531
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:30,839
it also has a third reference, and that third reference

532
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:34,119
is to being crowned as a king and a queen

533
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:37,599
over their new realm, over their new kingdom, which is

534
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:39,880
their home. It might be two hundred square feet. When

535
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:41,920
I got married, I had a four hundred square foot apartment.

536
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:45,039
I had to like suck in to get into the kitchen.

537
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:48,400
It was very narrow, but I felt like I was

538
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:51,519
the most wealthy king. We had four hundred dollars in

539
00:31:51,559 --> 00:31:53,599
the bank when we got married, like that's it. But

540
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:55,920
we had our health. We knew we're gonna get jobs.

541
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:59,440
We did right away. But we set all the rules. Brother,

542
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:01,519
we set all the rules, and we decided, you know,

543
00:32:01,599 --> 00:32:03,200
when we were going to pray and when we weren't,

544
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:05,079
and how we were going to raise our kids, and

545
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:07,960
when dinner was going to be right. This is our kingdom.

546
00:32:08,039 --> 00:32:13,039
That concept is so fundamental, it's actually in English common law.

547
00:32:13,079 --> 00:32:16,640
I mean, this is what's behind the fact that a

548
00:32:16,839 --> 00:32:19,440
police officer cannot enter your house unless he has a

549
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:24,279
warrant from a judge, because that a man's home is

550
00:32:24,319 --> 00:32:28,480
his castle. He says he's in charge there. This is

551
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:33,319
a great mystery. So when you're crowned and in the

552
00:32:33,319 --> 00:32:36,599
crowning prayers, the priest turns and he blesses your parents.

553
00:32:37,599 --> 00:32:40,000
So your parents are there. They're assumed to be watching

554
00:32:40,039 --> 00:32:41,880
and giving their consent. As a matter of fact, a

555
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:45,640
priest can't marry a couple unless he has the consent

556
00:32:46,079 --> 00:32:50,519
of the girl's father. The cannon's forbid it. So yeah,

557
00:32:50,559 --> 00:32:53,359
so they're involved. The parents are involved, and they're the

558
00:32:53,359 --> 00:32:55,480
ones respecting it. And it's the joy of a parent

559
00:32:55,759 --> 00:32:59,200
to see their children become their own family. But they

560
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:02,000
don't lose You don't lose your connection to your parents.

561
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:03,920
I mean, I have a bunch of my kids are

562
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:08,000
married and they have given me grandchildren. Our relationship changed,

563
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:10,359
but it's it's better, it's a deeper even.

564
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:12,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think a lot of the images

565
00:33:12,839 --> 00:33:15,799
you brought up are beautiful. I've been telling people that's

566
00:33:15,839 --> 00:33:19,519
why in fairy tales it's always princes and princesses.

567
00:33:19,839 --> 00:33:21,519
Speaker 2: People think that it's an arbitrary think.

568
00:33:21,519 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 1: No, it's because exactly of what you said, which is

569
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:26,480
that in some ways, when the man and the women

570
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:31,079
join together, they become principalities for the kingdom on which

571
00:33:31,079 --> 00:33:33,359
they reign, which is their own family, no matter what

572
00:33:33,519 --> 00:33:37,160
level it is. You know, this, this this union causes

573
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:40,200
a little kingdom to exist, and it's a and it's

574
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:42,839
important to kind of to understand. It's very beautiful and

575
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,519
there's a joy there's such a joyful element to realize,

576
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:49,839
you know, this image that that this idea that that

577
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:52,680
when Christ blesses marriage, like he says, you know, you

578
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:56,440
leave your father and your husband, you join together and ultimately,

579
00:33:56,680 --> 00:33:59,079
when you've seen Christian imagery, you become even like a

580
00:33:59,119 --> 00:34:01,960
little image of the of the Church, like you you know,

581
00:34:03,119 --> 00:34:05,640
you become a little image of the relationship between Christ

582
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:08,559
and the Church in your you know, microcosm. So it's

583
00:34:08,599 --> 00:34:11,519
a it's it's a cosmic thing. It's not a it's

584
00:34:11,559 --> 00:34:15,039
not just a it's not just a question of practicality,

585
00:34:15,119 --> 00:34:17,320
it's not just a question of emotion. Where although all

586
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:20,239
of those things are true, it really is a participation

587
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:23,400
in the in the cosmic order, you.

588
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,639
Speaker 3: Know, in the in the West, in the marriage right

589
00:34:26,639 --> 00:34:29,159
in the West too. It's there's an action that I

590
00:34:29,199 --> 00:34:32,639
really respect and I like at the end of weddings

591
00:34:33,079 --> 00:34:35,679
in the West and sometimes we orthodox use this too

592
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:39,840
in the West when the couple is now married, uh,

593
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:42,159
and they they're about to leave and they're going to

594
00:34:42,199 --> 00:34:45,119
recess out of the church. In our tradition, we usually

595
00:34:45,159 --> 00:34:47,639
are singing God grant you many years. It's very triumphant,

596
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:52,360
very beautiful. But they they step down and they go

597
00:34:52,639 --> 00:34:56,360
to and they greet their parents. And I always tell

598
00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:58,840
the couple of the couple's going to do that. I

599
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:02,920
always tell them, look, you go together. You're gonna go

600
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:06,440
greet the parents, the wife of the bride, but you're

601
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:10,800
going together. Don't separate. Your hands have been put together

602
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:13,000
in the service itself. The priest joins them and that

603
00:35:13,119 --> 00:35:16,159
you keep them together, and he blesses your hands. Now

604
00:35:16,159 --> 00:35:18,960
you go together as a new independent family and couple,

605
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:20,679
and you greet your parents for the first time as

606
00:35:20,679 --> 00:35:24,719
an equal. It's marvelous. It's majestic. You know, typically we

607
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,719
would kiss our parents' hands, but we're doing it together,

608
00:35:28,079 --> 00:35:30,360
you know, looking them eye to eye. And then you

609
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:33,320
go to the groom's parents, and then you come and

610
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:37,039
then you walk out as mister and missus. You walk out,

611
00:35:37,079 --> 00:35:39,920
you know, as as this new couples. It's the same

612
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:43,400
idea that as an art tradition that you have just

613
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:47,880
become something that is extremely valuable. You may be going

614
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:50,800
home and moving into the apartment above your parents. Very

615
00:35:51,199 --> 00:35:52,079
that's very common.

616
00:35:52,519 --> 00:35:52,719
Speaker 2: Yeah.

617
00:35:53,039 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 3: Common. If you ask me, do I have an apartment

618
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:57,079
in my garage and is one of my daughters with

619
00:35:57,079 --> 00:36:00,360
their husband living there right now, the answer would be yes, yes,

620
00:36:00,639 --> 00:36:05,679
that would be yes, but independently right, yeah.

621
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:08,679
Speaker 1: And I think there's so many things because one of

622
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:11,440
the problems that we've seen in I've seen that around

623
00:36:11,519 --> 00:36:14,760
me is people they they say, what's the like?

624
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:16,840
Speaker 2: What really is it? Like? What is this like? We

625
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:18,159
have this this ceremony.

626
00:36:18,199 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 1: You know, I love her, we live together, you know,

627
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:22,639
where we're faithful to each other.

628
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 2: Isn't that enough?

629
00:36:24,599 --> 00:36:26,800
Speaker 1: But I think what you've said and the way you've

630
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:30,159
described the marriage ceremony helps you understand. For those people

631
00:36:30,159 --> 00:36:33,880
that watch the MY channel will understand that origins have

632
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:37,000
a different quality to them. You know that in order

633
00:36:37,079 --> 00:36:41,320
to manifest the transition from one world to another. Right,

634
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,039
no matter how you think about it, whether it's you know,

635
00:36:44,119 --> 00:36:47,360
America separating from England and becoming its own thing, whether

636
00:36:47,440 --> 00:36:49,880
it's your own baptism where you leave the old life

637
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:51,880
and you enter into a new one. It has to

638
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,559
be marked in a certain way. It has to be

639
00:36:54,679 --> 00:36:58,039
a moment that is marked in time, marked in place,

640
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,199
you know, let's say, stamped with a kind of vertical

641
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:06,199
relationship where we invoke God to bless this, this, this

642
00:37:06,199 --> 00:37:07,119
this new reality.

643
00:37:07,559 --> 00:37:07,760
Speaker 3: You know.

644
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:10,559
Speaker 1: It's it really becomes like a little image. I think

645
00:37:10,599 --> 00:37:14,519
of Jacob when he he he discovers.

646
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 2: The Bethel like the house of God.

647
00:37:15,679 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 1: And there's these angels moving up and down and God says,

648
00:37:19,199 --> 00:37:21,559
this is your this is going to be the beginning

649
00:37:21,599 --> 00:37:23,320
of you, Like this is the house of God, but

650
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:25,840
it's also the place from which you will bless all

651
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:28,519
the nations and all of this sense. And so that's

652
00:37:28,519 --> 00:37:31,599
what marriage does for a couple. It basically says like you,

653
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:35,559
like you said, it's it's basically marking the moment when

654
00:37:35,599 --> 00:37:38,280
you are no longer two separate people, but now you

655
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:40,960
have there is a there's a being that is formed

656
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:43,320
that is the joining of the two together. And that

657
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:46,360
being is more than the individual parts, right, it is

658
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:51,039
something that is mystically one in a way that that

659
00:37:51,039 --> 00:37:53,760
that that is real, Like it's not it's not an illusion,

660
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:56,599
it's not something it's something that that will then, like

661
00:37:56,599 --> 00:37:58,159
you said, found a kingdom together.

662
00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:01,519
Speaker 2: Yes, so yeah, it's a very it's a powerful it's

663
00:38:01,079 --> 00:38:03,159
a powerful thing and very important.

664
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:06,679
Speaker 3: There's little aspects, I think, Jonathan, there's aspects of marriage

665
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:09,280
that are very attractive to people still, even in this

666
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:12,199
anti marriage culture, even though marriage has been you know,

667
00:38:12,559 --> 00:38:17,519
being shot and legislated against for decades now, and then

668
00:38:17,599 --> 00:38:20,800
that has to stop. Please Lord, let that stop, and

669
00:38:21,039 --> 00:38:26,119
let's reverse course. People like little aspects, right. They love

670
00:38:26,559 --> 00:38:31,280
the sex part, they love that, they love the being

671
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:36,400
together at least sometimes part. They like that, they like companionship.

672
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:40,000
Who doesn't like companionship? And even though if you're not married,

673
00:38:40,039 --> 00:38:45,880
the potential for developing that companionship into really a friendship

674
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:49,239
that's worthy of that name is less. Marriage gives you

675
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,679
that opportunity to really develop friendship. But I think what

676
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:55,679
they're missing is is an appreciation. And I think we

677
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:58,320
can conclude from this experiment that this is true. What

678
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:02,360
I'm about to say. Marriage and sexuality is such a

679
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:04,159
big deal that if you don't get it right, it

680
00:39:04,159 --> 00:39:08,199
will ruin your life. It will ruin your life. God

681
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:11,599
created marriage in his wisdom to be able to unify

682
00:39:11,679 --> 00:39:15,199
a whole bunch of extremely important things together. Let me,

683
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:17,400
just in my mind tell you what I think those are.

684
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:22,199
It starts at the top with desire, So the desire

685
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:25,320
that exists in a man for a woman and a

686
00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:29,320
woman for man. Saint John Chrisostom describes marriage from the

687
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:33,079
position of a father watching his daughter run to her husband.

688
00:39:33,119 --> 00:39:36,320
He says, the way that a parent should view it,

689
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:40,079
it's two halves running to make a whole. It's a

690
00:39:40,119 --> 00:39:43,760
sense of incompletion and a desire to be whole and

691
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:47,639
be complete in a one flesh union of life with

692
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,119
this other person. So that desire, it also has a

693
00:39:50,159 --> 00:39:53,559
sexual component, which is extremely powerful, don't we know it?

694
00:39:53,599 --> 00:39:58,000
I mean, look at our society. The desire is so

695
00:39:58,159 --> 00:40:01,360
powerful that people can't contain it without the norms of

696
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:04,840
the church, without norms of basic morality that most societies

697
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:08,119
have had. Since we've abandoned those, sexuality has gone wild

698
00:40:08,519 --> 00:40:11,360
and desire has spun out of control and reaked havoc.

699
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:14,559
Is reakd havoc with the epidemic of single moms who

700
00:40:14,559 --> 00:40:17,880
are abandoned with their children, with children who have no fathers,

701
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:20,119
which is kind of like the most foundational cause of

702
00:40:20,159 --> 00:40:24,079
disorder in their life. So if we start with desire,

703
00:40:24,119 --> 00:40:26,960
we might go then to the concept of union and sex,

704
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:29,960
which is so powerful. Remember though, that those two are

705
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:35,079
joining union sexual union and desire is very important. Our

706
00:40:35,119 --> 00:40:39,519
culture doesn't even get that anymore. Our culture today has

707
00:40:39,559 --> 00:40:44,800
separated the the impulse, the sexual impulse, from union with

708
00:40:45,079 --> 00:40:48,199
the explosion of auto eroticism. I mean, look what's happening

709
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:52,719
in some of the Asian countries, radical social dysfunction because

710
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:56,559
people have even broken that they have desire, but they've

711
00:40:56,599 --> 00:41:01,199
turned it in on themselves through digital life, and they're

712
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:04,639
not even allowing that to push them towards another. So

713
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:07,079
that's the first union. I would say, you have this,

714
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:11,679
you have desire, you have union. God puts in their love. Right,

715
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:15,199
that's a different kind of desire and much more noble

716
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,639
than just the sexual desire, to desire someone for the

717
00:41:18,679 --> 00:41:22,559
benefit of them. That's huge. So marriage has desire. It

718
00:41:22,599 --> 00:41:29,239
combines desire with sex, It combines sex with an actual

719
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:34,079
union with a person, and that union with love as

720
00:41:34,119 --> 00:41:37,760
the motive, and that love with some definition to it.

721
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:39,480
There's a lot of people say, well, I love my partner,

722
00:41:39,519 --> 00:41:42,559
but we define the love. It's a love of substance

723
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:46,119
what we might call commitment. So love marriage keeps that

724
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:50,519
defined well for us. It's commitment. That commitment is a

725
00:41:50,519 --> 00:41:54,280
particular kind of commitment we call marriage, which is a

726
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:59,440
whole life's commitment. Sometimes people don't fully embrace that, and

727
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:01,800
they get married and they keep little pieces of their

728
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:05,199
life to themselves and they don't let their spouse look

729
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:07,239
into it. You know, maybe I have my checkbook and

730
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:09,559
you have yours and we don't look at it. I mean,

731
00:42:10,079 --> 00:42:12,079
it's not the end of the world, but it's pretty stupid.

732
00:42:13,079 --> 00:42:16,840
Just as a pastor, it's a marker. It's a marker

733
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:20,239
of something unhealthy. If there's portions that you're keeping from

734
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:23,119
your spouse, that's not what marriage is. Marriage is a

735
00:42:23,199 --> 00:42:26,559
full blown sharing of all aspects of life. You can

736
00:42:26,599 --> 00:42:29,719
divvy up those aspects, but you can't on principle, say

737
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:34,280
stay out of that part of my life. Yeah, yeah, marriage.

738
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:36,320
All of these things are incredible. And if you tear

739
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:39,480
them apart, if you tear desire from union, union from love,

740
00:42:39,559 --> 00:42:43,280
love from commitment, commit from from marriage, marriage from children,

741
00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:48,159
that's a natural step. Children to parenting. Parenting is part

742
00:42:48,199 --> 00:42:51,360
of the package, and all of that in permanence. All

743
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:54,840
of those things together are the is the miracle of marriage.

744
00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:57,400
That is what God has done. If you take any

745
00:42:57,440 --> 00:42:59,800
one of those things outside of the bonds of marriage,

746
00:43:00,159 --> 00:43:01,119
you're going to have trouble.

747
00:43:02,599 --> 00:43:05,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing because you can just play it out

748
00:43:05,559 --> 00:43:07,599
in your mind and look at all the examples of

749
00:43:07,639 --> 00:43:10,119
all of those is, all of the things you mentioned,

750
00:43:10,119 --> 00:43:12,840
and how in our society they've all been broken apart

751
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:16,199
into their separate little thing and you can see the

752
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:18,400
misery that it that it brings.

753
00:43:19,039 --> 00:43:19,159
Speaker 3: Uh.

754
00:43:19,599 --> 00:43:22,599
Speaker 2: And it's interesting because the commitment part. I kept thinking

755
00:43:22,599 --> 00:43:23,119
about that.

756
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:27,039
Speaker 1: People also don't realize this as well, because one of

757
00:43:27,039 --> 00:43:28,599
the problems we've had is that love.

758
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:31,039
Speaker 2: Has been reduced to kind of emotion, like something that I.

759
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 1: Feel, and it is that to some extent. Obviously, you

760
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:37,960
know you need the feeling, it's a it's an important

761
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:41,480
part of it. But when you have the commitment, what

762
00:43:41,639 --> 00:43:44,440
happens is once that feeling is put to the test

763
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:48,960
and you you kind of anchor yourself in the commitment,

764
00:43:49,519 --> 00:43:51,960
you have this refining And it's hard to describe to

765
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:54,599
someone who hasn't experienced it, but you know, once you've

766
00:43:54,679 --> 00:43:59,039
gone through these refining processes, you discover whole aspects of

767
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:02,719
what a person is, of what it is possible with,

768
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:05,519
like what possibilities God has put in us when you

769
00:44:05,599 --> 00:44:08,639
are able to work through those emotions and the taming

770
00:44:08,679 --> 00:44:11,079
of those emotions even in your relationship, let's say with

771
00:44:11,159 --> 00:44:15,079
your spouse or your desire, and all that has fruits

772
00:44:15,119 --> 00:44:18,480
all through your life. Right, it's like the reining in

773
00:44:18,639 --> 00:44:21,239
of your sexual desire, for example, it's not just about sex.

774
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:24,760
It ends up pervading all your capacity to rein your

775
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:28,360
passions in to control yourself, to aim, to focus right,

776
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:32,519
to aim towards towards proper things. And it's just something

777
00:44:32,559 --> 00:44:35,400
that the ancients knew very well. Like you read, I

778
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:36,320
remember reading like.

779
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:39,039
Speaker 2: An old, an old salesman's book.

780
00:44:39,119 --> 00:44:41,559
Speaker 1: It was really funny and there was it was saying like,

781
00:44:41,599 --> 00:44:43,320
if you want to be a good salesman, one of

782
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:45,039
the things you should do is you should have sex

783
00:44:45,079 --> 00:44:48,199
the day just before a big sale. And like for

784
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:50,880
a lot of kind of let's say early modern or

785
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:52,920
like twentieth century read of this. So that's ridiculous, that

786
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:56,360
the dumbest, craziest thing, But like ancient people had understood

787
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:59,400
this energy, like if it's sexual energy, if it's focused,

788
00:44:59,559 --> 00:45:01,719
if it's sacrifice to something hiher, if it's put in

789
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:06,320
services something higher, actually yields in all through your life,

790
00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:09,199
in all kinds of things and all kinds of and

791
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:10,840
you can see, like you said, when you talk about

792
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:14,079
let's say South Korea as a good example, where the

793
00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:18,039
kind of auto eroticism out of control also leads to

794
00:45:18,119 --> 00:45:22,559
a kind of just a basement of human intention in general,

795
00:45:22,679 --> 00:45:26,199
where people have no motivation, have no desire, have no ambition,

796
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:29,440
I have no kind of drive towards anything, because they're

797
00:45:29,480 --> 00:45:32,960
just drowning in their own pleasure. It's like all of

798
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:36,360
these things go together in ways that it's it's so

799
00:45:36,559 --> 00:45:39,079
hard for modern people to kind of read to put

800
00:45:39,159 --> 00:45:42,039
back together in the way that ancient people's understood just naturally.

801
00:45:42,559 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, I did a trick once on my parish.

802
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:49,320
It wasn't very nice, but it was a lot of fun.

803
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:52,920
It was about twenty years ago, and back when it

804
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:56,559
was before email or it was like a WordPress something

805
00:45:56,599 --> 00:45:58,280
like that. I can't remember what the technology was, but

806
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:01,360
you could start writing messages on you know, and doing

807
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:05,000
these little blogs. And so I would always write some

808
00:46:05,039 --> 00:46:09,039
patristic quotes to my parish, and I was. I was

809
00:46:09,079 --> 00:46:11,440
in the middle of a study actually on Roman marriage

810
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:15,280
Pagan concepts of marriage, which, forgive me, is so far

811
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:20,079
superior to what we have in the West, so far superior.

812
00:46:20,519 --> 00:46:23,239
Take just take the word monogamy. You know, if you

813
00:46:23,320 --> 00:46:26,920
talk to Americans about what monogamy is, honestly, what they're

814
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:30,719
going to tell you is they might know that monogamos

815
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:34,519
means that you have one wife or one husband, but

816
00:46:34,559 --> 00:46:40,000
they think that means at a time, right. I have

817
00:46:40,079 --> 00:46:43,559
met numerous people who think they're monogamists and they've been

818
00:46:43,559 --> 00:46:47,639
married five times. It's just that they weren't having these

819
00:46:47,719 --> 00:46:51,280
multiple times at the exact time, Okay. And so I was.

820
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:55,760
I was reflecting on the Roman concept that Pagan they

821
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:58,239
knew what monogamy was. It was so serious. We have

822
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:02,119
many tombstones from the early centuries of the Roman Empire

823
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:07,840
in which a woman was just called she was the

824
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:13,320
wife of one husband. Paul uses that exact language quality

825
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:16,159
for ordination. It's one of his. But it was a

826
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:20,039
very common Greco Roman reference to the fact that you

827
00:47:20,119 --> 00:47:22,760
got married once and you made it work, and if

828
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:26,320
you did, it was extremely significant and you might not

829
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:28,679
be super faithful. You might not have a lot of love,

830
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:31,719
you might have a mistress or worse, you know, maybe

831
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:36,239
you even have a boy, but you don't mess with

832
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:39,800
your marriage. Now, you know, from a Christian perspective, of course,

833
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:42,599
that's greatly debased. But in their minds, you still have

834
00:47:42,679 --> 00:47:44,960
to take care of your wife. You know, you have

835
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:46,920
to provide for your wife. You need to get along

836
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:49,000
with your wife, you need to provide the household for

837
00:47:49,039 --> 00:47:50,840
your wife. You need to take care of your children.

838
00:47:51,039 --> 00:47:53,920
If you don't, the state will collapse. They knew that.

839
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:56,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, society will collapse, that's for sure.

840
00:47:56,840 --> 00:47:59,519
Speaker 3: That's right. Absolutely, these are pagan's right. They're supposed to

841
00:47:59,559 --> 00:48:02,719
be stupid. They're not stupid. They're not stupid. They knew

842
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:04,639
a lot better than us, the idea that we can

843
00:48:04,679 --> 00:48:08,719
be doing what we're doing today and it's not going

844
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:13,079
to have terrible consequences. No, they knew traditional cultures know this.

845
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:16,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what do you say to people, Because this

846
00:48:16,199 --> 00:48:18,239
has been something that I've seen a lot in my

847
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:20,880
friends and you know, and in younger people as well,

848
00:48:21,559 --> 00:48:25,199
is that they have this idea that people should people

849
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:27,679
want to get married. But they have this weird idea

850
00:48:27,719 --> 00:48:29,679
that marriage has to be this big, huge thing that

851
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:32,519
they they cost a fortune, and therefore people just wait

852
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:34,920
and then they live together and they have kids, and

853
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:38,599
then they get married as a kind of culmination of

854
00:48:38,639 --> 00:48:41,400
their relationship and you know, and that they can make

855
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:43,519
a big, a big big deal about it in a

856
00:48:43,519 --> 00:48:45,840
big feast. And there's even in the Christian world. You

857
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:48,719
see that by the way, I grew up in not

858
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:51,559
my parents particularly, but in a world where people would say,

859
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:52,639
you know, finish your.

860
00:48:52,559 --> 00:48:54,280
Speaker 2: Studies, you know, don't get married.

861
00:48:54,559 --> 00:48:57,760
Speaker 1: You know, made as if being married young will ruin

862
00:48:57,800 --> 00:48:59,920
your life or something like wait, and so you put

863
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:03,320
wishing these young people that are just can you imagine

864
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:05,840
like you're you know, you're nineteen or twenty, you're just

865
00:49:05,920 --> 00:49:09,039
exploding with desire, and you're telling these people wait until

866
00:49:09,079 --> 00:49:11,239
you finish your PhD by the time you're twenty five,

867
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:14,880
twenty six. And so, I mean, I'd like to hear

868
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:17,480
you talk a little bit about that narrative in our society.

869
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:19,239
Speaker 3: You're trying to get me in trouble.

870
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:22,039
Speaker 2: Well, what I'm not trying.

871
00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:23,800
Speaker 3: To get you in trouble. I think it's important. If

872
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:26,039
I cared about getting in trouble, then I would not

873
00:49:26,159 --> 00:49:29,559
answer the question, Jonathan, because I have gotten in trouble

874
00:49:30,039 --> 00:49:34,880
on this very subject my entire priesthood. I agree with

875
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,639
you before I answer that, though I never told you

876
00:49:37,840 --> 00:49:40,559
how I tricked my people. Oh yeah, yeah, I meant

877
00:49:40,559 --> 00:49:44,440
to tell you that. So I was sending out reflections,

878
00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:46,519
and I usually I love Saint John Crososom, so I'm

879
00:49:46,519 --> 00:49:50,000
always quoting him. So I sent out five reflections about

880
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:52,280
marriage and family life and that kind of thing, and

881
00:49:53,199 --> 00:49:56,119
about God's providence and arranging things, and I put the

882
00:49:56,199 --> 00:49:58,960
quote beautiful quote, and then I put Saint John Crososom.

883
00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:01,320
I did it for a whole week, five times. The

884
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:03,760
next week I told them I'm really sorry. All of

885
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:10,719
those were quotes from Seneca. Every quote was from Seneca, right,

886
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:15,480
a contemporary of Saint Paul the Great Roman. And his

887
00:50:15,639 --> 00:50:18,360
words were so beautiful no one could tell it wasn't

888
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:22,599
Saint John Chrysostom. That the points were the same, the

889
00:50:22,679 --> 00:50:25,039
respect for of course, he didn't understand I'm not suggesting

890
00:50:25,039 --> 00:50:28,280
that he understands providence exactly as I do, but this

891
00:50:28,519 --> 00:50:30,079
there was a lot more in common that we have

892
00:50:30,159 --> 00:50:31,239
today with Secondly.

893
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:33,360
Speaker 1: We have with today, yeah, exactly, or even a lot

894
00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:34,960
of Christians today, even that's a.

895
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:37,960
Speaker 3: And knew how to get married. The Romans knew how

896
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:41,239
to get married. And the involvement of the way that

897
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:45,840
we do dating today, this radical individualistic approach to dating

898
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:49,000
and to marriage formation. It also is part of the

899
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:52,320
package that needs to be re evaluated and dumped. Frank

900
00:50:53,559 --> 00:50:57,159
The best way to meet people are through friends and

901
00:50:57,320 --> 00:51:00,719
family who know you and know them. This is the

902
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:05,400
best way. I have a good friend. He's Indian, he's

903
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:10,239
from India, and he tried so hard. He came to America.

904
00:51:11,079 --> 00:51:14,119
He's working, he became a professional, and he's like and

905
00:51:14,159 --> 00:51:15,760
his parents were like, well, you need to get married,

906
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:17,239
let us help you. He's like, no, no, I've got this.

907
00:51:17,519 --> 00:51:20,000
I've got this. And he tried and he tried, and

908
00:51:20,039 --> 00:51:22,400
he did the whole kind of dating thing and then

909
00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:26,760
he just wore himself out. So finally he cried uncle.

910
00:51:27,519 --> 00:51:30,480
He called his parents and he said, okay, I give

911
00:51:30,559 --> 00:51:34,360
up arrangement, arrange me a marriage. But the only one

912
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:36,840
thing I ask is make sure that you consult my brother,

913
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:38,760
because he had Ah. He was very close to bother

914
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:42,239
than his brothers. He said, please make sure my brother agrees. Anyway,

915
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:46,159
so they did taken care of they made the beautiful arrangement,

916
00:51:46,159 --> 00:51:50,920
and he's lived in the happiest marriage since. For me,

917
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:54,880
it was the great weakness of the two styles, right,

918
00:51:55,039 --> 00:51:58,079
it's a competition between the two styles. He got worn

919
00:51:58,119 --> 00:52:02,199
out and completely depressed by doing the American Western secular thing,

920
00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:05,000
and he finally gave in and he let his parents

921
00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:08,480
have an important part. Who knows you better than your folks,

922
00:52:09,079 --> 00:52:10,840
and if they love you, and you have your brother

923
00:52:10,960 --> 00:52:13,519
to help as well, that's the chances that are a

924
00:52:13,559 --> 00:52:14,960
lot higher a lot.

925
00:52:15,079 --> 00:52:16,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, at least take it.

926
00:52:16,239 --> 00:52:18,760
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't necessarily need to have arrange marriage,

927
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:21,119
but at least take the advice of the people that

928
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:21,559
know you.

929
00:52:21,679 --> 00:52:24,000
Speaker 2: That is for sure. Like you said, your parents grew

930
00:52:24,079 --> 00:52:24,440
up with you.

931
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:26,559
Speaker 1: They know your temperament in ways that you might even

932
00:52:26,639 --> 00:52:30,280
not know about yourself, you know, and so they're definitely

933
00:52:30,679 --> 00:52:32,159
that definitely is a huge part.

934
00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:36,239
Speaker 3: Their suggestions are important, and it's better than scrolling social

935
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:40,039
media feeds and looking for pretty girls and then you know,

936
00:52:40,239 --> 00:52:43,079
cold texting them and saying, hey, can we have a date.

937
00:52:43,119 --> 00:52:46,360
I mean, that's not a great recipe. It's not it's

938
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:49,400
what people are doing everyway it's just not a great recipe.

939
00:52:49,519 --> 00:52:52,039
You know, when my wife and I were dating, we

940
00:52:52,039 --> 00:52:55,000
were very young. I met her when she was eighteen.

941
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:57,320
I was eighteen too. I was about to turn nineteen

942
00:52:57,679 --> 00:52:59,159
and I want to get married.

943
00:52:59,760 --> 00:52:59,840
Speaker 2: And.

944
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:04,639
Speaker 3: My parents didn't oppose it. Most of the parents of

945
00:53:04,679 --> 00:53:08,360
my friends thought it was nuts. We were too young.

946
00:53:09,199 --> 00:53:13,480
But I had already decided who I was. I had

947
00:53:13,519 --> 00:53:18,639
my fundamental moral commitments made, and that's very important if

948
00:53:18,679 --> 00:53:21,599
you're gonna I think it's good to date young. It's

949
00:53:21,639 --> 00:53:25,119
good to form your relationships with your spousors. A thousand reasons.

950
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:30,039
Young marriages have benefits, but they shouldn't be engaged in

951
00:53:30,199 --> 00:53:33,960
unless you really are out of the adolescence stage. We

952
00:53:34,039 --> 00:53:37,119
have this strange you know, childhood and adulthood. This is

953
00:53:37,159 --> 00:53:41,400
the traditional concept, you know, since eighteenth century and the

954
00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:45,840
growth of wealth in the West, this concept of adolescents,

955
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:48,679
this nebulous period between being a child and adult has

956
00:53:48,719 --> 00:53:52,280
gone from like a year or two to like fifteen years.

957
00:53:54,039 --> 00:53:55,360
I mean, now you have adolescence in.

958
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:57,119
Speaker 2: Your twenty five year old adolescens.

959
00:53:57,199 --> 00:54:00,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have thirty year olds playing video games, really

960
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:04,880
and not sure they if that should be a component

961
00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:07,320
major component part of their life. They think it's legit.

962
00:54:07,599 --> 00:54:09,360
I laugh at that. I'm like, you know, please, you're

963
00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:10,639
never going to be able to get married in that

964
00:54:10,679 --> 00:54:13,079
mentality because you really haven't decided who you are yet.

965
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:17,239
If you have decided that, if your commitment to God

966
00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:19,280
has been made and there's nothing that's going to tear

967
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:21,599
that apart, you're ready to go. If you have a

968
00:54:21,639 --> 00:54:24,880
work ethic, you're ready to go. Maybe you don't have

969
00:54:24,920 --> 00:54:27,320
all your education done, but that doesn't mean you can't

970
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:29,679
do it. My wife and I we did our education.

971
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:32,559
We got married in college. She was ten days past

972
00:54:32,559 --> 00:54:36,079
her twentieth birthday. I was twenty also, and she knew

973
00:54:36,079 --> 00:54:37,519
what I was going to be and how I was

974
00:54:37,559 --> 00:54:40,159
going to live, and she liked it, and I knew

975
00:54:40,199 --> 00:54:43,320
who she was. And she's the same person today, except

976
00:54:43,559 --> 00:54:45,119
more patient because she had to put up with me

977
00:54:45,159 --> 00:54:49,440
for all these years. And it blessed us because now

978
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:52,440
we're able to go through so much of our lives

979
00:54:52,480 --> 00:54:55,519
together and make decisions together. When you go and you

980
00:54:55,559 --> 00:54:58,039
don't get married till you're thirty five years old, you've

981
00:54:58,039 --> 00:55:02,400
already formed hard and fast opinions and about all sorts

982
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:04,320
of aspects in life. No, I like my kitchen raign

983
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:06,760
this way. This is how I do my refrigerator, and

984
00:55:06,800 --> 00:55:08,320
this is how I do the closet, and this is

985
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:09,880
how I live in my house, and this is what

986
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:12,079
I do with the bathroom. All of those things become

987
00:55:12,159 --> 00:55:16,840
major issues because you're so like formed, and now you

988
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:20,360
have to somehow merge with another thirty year old. It's tough.

989
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:21,119
It's very tough.

990
00:55:21,800 --> 00:55:25,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's also you know, this is something that

991
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:29,440
I've seen there are these two competing images. One is

992
00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:35,199
this idea that this nineteen forties fifties idea of the

993
00:55:35,320 --> 00:55:37,400
woman in the home that's just at home, you know,

994
00:55:37,719 --> 00:55:40,199
kind of basically cleaning the house and taking care of kids.

995
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:43,639
To me, that actually does it doesn't seem like a

996
00:55:43,679 --> 00:55:46,239
particularly traditional image of what a woman is in a

997
00:55:46,280 --> 00:55:49,639
traditional society. But then we've opposed that now with the

998
00:55:49,679 --> 00:55:52,960
woman who goes out, does all their studies, has a career,

999
00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:56,239
and once she's had a career, then she has children.

1000
00:55:56,559 --> 00:55:59,320
And now we have this problem, which is all of

1001
00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:02,239
these women in their thirties going to fertility clinics because

1002
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:04,159
they've they've waited too long.

1003
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:07,119
Speaker 2: It's like it really is a huge.

1004
00:56:06,400 --> 00:56:10,960
Speaker 1: Issue, and so I've been trying to advocate in somebody,

1005
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:13,159
into my daughters or to people around me, which is

1006
00:56:13,199 --> 00:56:17,119
that the women in the ancient world were involved, like

1007
00:56:17,159 --> 00:56:19,679
completely involved in the world, and having kids was part

1008
00:56:19,679 --> 00:56:21,239
of that. And they would have kids, but they would

1009
00:56:21,239 --> 00:56:23,760
still be involved in church and community. Like the idea

1010
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:26,000
that they're at home, just at home with kids, Like

1011
00:56:26,280 --> 00:56:28,480
that's a ridiculous and we don't need to give in

1012
00:56:28,519 --> 00:56:32,159
to that. And women can have all kinds of activities

1013
00:56:32,199 --> 00:56:34,880
and also raise their kids and everything. But the idea

1014
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:38,000
that you should wait to have children until older, that

1015
00:56:38,239 --> 00:56:41,199
is definitely an error, Like that is a huge mistake

1016
00:56:41,400 --> 00:56:44,800
that we've given into, even Christians like I again, like

1017
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:46,079
I said, I grew up in a world where that

1018
00:56:46,159 --> 00:56:47,840
was totally ignor like the idea that you had to

1019
00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:49,239
wait until you.

1020
00:56:49,199 --> 00:56:51,599
Speaker 2: Know, a woman finishes or like master's.

1021
00:56:51,119 --> 00:56:53,639
Speaker 1: Degree and then and then had a children and it

1022
00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:56,320
like she's like already in mid twenties, like going toward

1023
00:56:56,360 --> 00:56:58,480
the end of the year twenties, Like ough, what a

1024
00:56:58,480 --> 00:56:59,599
weird way of thinking.

1025
00:57:00,840 --> 00:57:07,159
Speaker 3: Well, I agree with you having a child though, even

1026
00:57:07,159 --> 00:57:09,559
in the way that we're talking about it last right now.

1027
00:57:10,960 --> 00:57:19,360
I'm sorry, but children are the most amazing reality. These

1028
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:24,599
are eternal beings made in the image of God and you.

1029
00:57:26,079 --> 00:57:28,360
God used you to be married and to have a

1030
00:57:28,440 --> 00:57:34,000
child is an incredible miracle of collaboration, co creation with God.

1031
00:57:34,039 --> 00:57:38,480
God doesn't do it without us. And forever that child

1032
00:57:40,039 --> 00:57:43,119
you've descended into one, and your love making with the

1033
00:57:43,119 --> 00:57:46,760
blessing of God, you've now become three. So there's the power.

1034
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:49,119
Chris System says, the power of unity is expressed in

1035
00:57:49,159 --> 00:57:52,880
the child bearing. It explodes, you shrink to one, you

1036
00:57:52,960 --> 00:57:56,400
become three, and then that person is a perpetual bridge

1037
00:57:56,440 --> 00:58:02,119
between you three or ever witness to your union. So

1038
00:58:02,159 --> 00:58:04,800
every time you look at your children, you see a

1039
00:58:04,800 --> 00:58:06,800
little bit of her and a little bit of him. Right,

1040
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:08,840
the husband and the wife are in that person, and

1041
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:12,000
that child bears witness and will continue to bear witness

1042
00:58:12,039 --> 00:58:15,840
in unique ways for all eternity, to their oneness, to

1043
00:58:15,920 --> 00:58:21,119
their unity. So a single child, forgive me, is worth

1044
00:58:21,159 --> 00:58:27,039
more than any job. I just don't buy it. A

1045
00:58:27,119 --> 00:58:29,920
human being, a single human being, is more worth to

1046
00:58:29,960 --> 00:58:33,000
God than the entire cosmos. Saint Simon the New Theologian

1047
00:58:33,039 --> 00:58:36,840
says that that's how valuable we are. So to have

1048
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:39,519
a child, to have two children. To have five children,

1049
00:58:39,760 --> 00:58:41,480
this is the greatest thing. And I'm sorry. It's not

1050
00:58:41,599 --> 00:58:46,119
just for the mom, it's also for the dad. I mean,

1051
00:58:46,159 --> 00:58:50,119
why do men work? Work is way over glorified. We

1052
00:58:50,239 --> 00:58:54,400
work so that we can have children and take care

1053
00:58:54,400 --> 00:58:57,320
of the children. We work so that we can provide

1054
00:58:57,320 --> 00:58:59,960
for our home and forgive me. Eighty ninety percent of men,

1055
00:59:00,119 --> 00:59:02,599
they don't work in glorious jobs. It's not like they

1056
00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:05,760
want to write books about how significant their jobs are.

1057
00:59:06,599 --> 00:59:09,760
I mean, I'm not downplaying work. Work itself. If you

1058
00:59:09,800 --> 00:59:11,679
do it for God and you do it for those

1059
00:59:11,719 --> 00:59:14,239
that you love, is very satisfying and very beautiful. All

1060
00:59:14,280 --> 00:59:16,519
I'm saying is that it's way over glorified in our

1061
00:59:16,559 --> 00:59:19,440
corp the public square is way over glorified. I'm sorry.

1062
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:25,519
The domestic sphere is the beautiful realm, is the beautiful realm.

1063
00:59:25,519 --> 00:59:30,760
And that's where even husbands get their motivation. To come

1064
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:32,920
home and have your kids sit on your lap, to

1065
00:59:33,039 --> 00:59:36,480
call it daddy. It's amazing, to pinch your face to

1066
00:59:36,559 --> 00:59:40,280
give you a kiss. I mean, then you feel alive

1067
00:59:40,360 --> 00:59:43,039
and you feel like getting up. If you don't have

1068
00:59:43,119 --> 00:59:46,079
any kids, it's hard unless you have a really meaningful job.

1069
00:59:46,719 --> 00:59:50,199
What gets you up? Why are you going to go

1070
00:59:50,280 --> 00:59:54,199
out and lay tar so that people can drive their

1071
00:59:54,199 --> 00:59:58,000
cars over it. I mean, that's great. If you're doing

1072
00:59:58,039 --> 01:00:00,519
it for your family and doing it because you want

1073
01:00:00,559 --> 01:00:04,480
to contribute to, you know, the functioning of your local community,

1074
01:00:04,519 --> 01:00:06,199
that's great. I'm not I'm not trying to discount that.

1075
01:00:06,239 --> 01:00:08,760
Alls I'm saying is that not only do we have

1076
01:00:08,840 --> 01:00:12,880
to make an argument for uh, you know, respecting the

1077
01:00:12,920 --> 01:00:16,000
domestic scene, we have to come to love kids. We

1078
01:00:16,039 --> 01:00:19,920
have to love human beings again, human beings are the

1079
01:00:19,920 --> 01:00:25,599
most incredible reality in the world. Young ones, middle ones,

1080
01:00:25,639 --> 01:00:28,880
and even old ones are elders. We're trashing the young

1081
01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:31,199
and we're abandoning the old.

1082
01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:34,159
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, and that comes with it so.

1083
01:00:34,239 --> 01:00:35,079
Speaker 3: That we can work.

1084
01:00:35,599 --> 01:00:41,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, we can work. And so father, what are you?

1085
01:00:41,039 --> 01:00:43,159
Speaker 1: What are you hoping with this? This can maybe give

1086
01:00:43,199 --> 01:00:45,719
be our last question? What are you hoping with this conference?

1087
01:00:45,719 --> 01:00:45,800
Speaker 2: Like?

1088
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:48,480
Speaker 1: What is it that you you're trying to do? Tell

1089
01:00:48,519 --> 01:00:50,400
us a little bit about the people you're inviting and

1090
01:00:50,440 --> 01:00:53,639
what it is you hope to to what message you

1091
01:00:53,679 --> 01:00:54,559
want to bring forth?

1092
01:00:55,119 --> 01:00:57,320
Speaker 3: Can we start with you? Since your comment, could you

1093
01:00:57,360 --> 01:00:58,519
tell us what you're coming for?

1094
01:00:59,559 --> 01:01:02,079
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm really excited. I mean, I think this is great.

1095
01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:04,760
Speaker 1: You know, I think the fact that you're the person

1096
01:01:05,000 --> 01:01:07,519
organizing this gives me a lot of confidence about the

1097
01:01:07,599 --> 01:01:10,239
vision that will be proposed. I really want to help

1098
01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:12,719
people see the beauty, the kind of cosmic beauty of

1099
01:01:12,840 --> 01:01:17,000
the image of marriage, and how it's something that is

1100
01:01:17,039 --> 01:01:21,119
there from Genesis one until the end of the Book

1101
01:01:21,119 --> 01:01:23,760
of Revelation, this image of the union of heaven and Earth,

1102
01:01:23,760 --> 01:01:26,000
of the bride and the bridegroom.

1103
01:01:26,039 --> 01:01:27,320
Speaker 2: It's just it's the story.

1104
01:01:27,480 --> 01:01:30,000
Speaker 1: And so I think being able to see it as

1105
01:01:30,039 --> 01:01:33,480
this beautiful cosmic dance is definitely what I want to

1106
01:01:33,519 --> 01:01:35,880
bring to that to this conference where people can can

1107
01:01:35,920 --> 01:01:39,000
realize that it's not just although it is our life

1108
01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:41,880
and our emotions and our but it is this one

1109
01:01:41,880 --> 01:01:44,199
of the greatest ways to participate in the plan that

1110
01:01:44,239 --> 01:01:45,159
God has for the world.

1111
01:01:45,199 --> 01:01:51,719
Speaker 3: So that's the conference right there. That's hilarious, Sory. I

1112
01:01:51,840 --> 01:01:58,000
love that, you know, we Orthodox, we go to conferences.

1113
01:01:58,039 --> 01:01:59,800
You know, we go to a lot of conferences different

1114
01:01:59,880 --> 01:02:03,159
Orthodox speakers. It's wonderful. But remember the numbers that we've

1115
01:02:03,159 --> 01:02:06,079
got in this country. There's about seventy million Roman Catholics

1116
01:02:06,119 --> 01:02:10,440
about seventy million Protestants and about one million one million

1117
01:02:10,519 --> 01:02:12,519
Orthodox in the United States. I don't know how many

1118
01:02:12,519 --> 01:02:14,119
in Canada. Do you know how many Orthodox that are

1119
01:02:14,159 --> 01:02:16,880
in Chemidt. I don't have any idea anyway. So we're

1120
01:02:16,960 --> 01:02:21,440
tiny compared to the Catholic and the Protestant world, but

1121
01:02:21,519 --> 01:02:27,719
we share a lot of common virtues and important teachings.

1122
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:30,519
And I can't think of one that was more important

1123
01:02:30,559 --> 01:02:33,440
to come together and to co labor on than to

1124
01:02:33,559 --> 01:02:36,519
address the experiment. I love the way that you put

1125
01:02:36,519 --> 01:02:39,519
that at the beginning of this talk. Address they failed

1126
01:02:39,519 --> 01:02:46,320
experiment of abandoning marriage. Identify the many evidences that we

1127
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:50,880
have made a very bad mistake in abandoning marriage, and

1128
01:02:50,960 --> 01:02:54,599
not just abandoning it, attacking it, and then coming together

1129
01:02:54,760 --> 01:02:58,960
to lift up powerful champions who love marriage, who have

1130
01:02:59,079 --> 01:03:02,840
thought deeply about marriage as an institution for the human

1131
01:03:02,960 --> 01:03:07,719
race and as a bedrock of any successful society, come

1132
01:03:07,760 --> 01:03:11,559
together make our unique contributions. This is not about the

1133
01:03:11,599 --> 01:03:15,559
interior mystical life of the sacrament. This is about the

1134
01:03:15,679 --> 01:03:19,719
public place of marriage in any civilization that's going to

1135
01:03:19,840 --> 01:03:22,840
thrive and is going to honor God. In human beings,

1136
01:03:23,039 --> 01:03:26,440
marriage has a central place, which it doesn't happen to

1137
01:03:26,599 --> 01:03:30,000
have today. So I'm hoping people like yourself, like the

1138
01:03:30,239 --> 01:03:34,039
esteemed Archbishop Salvador Cordelion of San Francisco, the Roman Catholic

1139
01:03:34,079 --> 01:03:38,280
Archbishop of San Francisco. He is a real fighter for marriage.

1140
01:03:38,280 --> 01:03:41,159
He's a San Diego, he's a Californian, and he's been

1141
01:03:41,199 --> 01:03:44,760
involved in the front lines of defending marriage here. California

1142
01:03:44,800 --> 01:03:48,280
has kind of led the way in decimating marriage. We're

1143
01:03:48,320 --> 01:03:51,800
the ones who propagated no fault divorce, you know, We're

1144
01:03:51,800 --> 01:03:56,320
the ones who have been wanting to promote a whole

1145
01:03:56,480 --> 01:04:01,599
political redefinition of marriage what's called now same sex marriage.

1146
01:04:02,119 --> 01:04:06,599
Archbishop CORDELIONI was behind the Proposition eight here, which was

1147
01:04:06,639 --> 01:04:09,079
a huge controversy about ten years ago, actually more than

1148
01:04:09,079 --> 01:04:10,920
that now, I guess it's more like fourteen years ago,

1149
01:04:11,519 --> 01:04:16,519
in which we defined we just reaffirmed natural marriage as

1150
01:04:16,559 --> 01:04:18,119
between a man and a woman. No one thought we

1151
01:04:18,159 --> 01:04:21,280
could do it, and we did it as probably eight

1152
01:04:21,519 --> 01:04:25,599
the most crazy secular state in the Union, California passed

1153
01:04:25,599 --> 01:04:29,840
Prop eight and it was only undone by our Supreme Court.

1154
01:04:30,159 --> 01:04:33,039
Our state Supreme Court decided that they were going to

1155
01:04:33,079 --> 01:04:37,199
impose some new never before heard of right to same

1156
01:04:37,280 --> 01:04:40,199
sex marriage. But it was Archbishop Cordelioni who went really

1157
01:04:40,280 --> 01:04:42,840
leading that fight. And after that he came onto the

1158
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:47,599
position of the defensive marriage chair for the USCCB, that

1159
01:04:47,679 --> 01:04:50,840
the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He's done a

1160
01:04:50,840 --> 01:04:54,480
lot of work. I interviewed him about this in twenty twelve.

1161
01:04:54,559 --> 01:04:56,079
Actually it was one of the first videos I did

1162
01:04:56,119 --> 01:04:59,280
on my channel. He's got a lot to offer. We're

1163
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:03,159
also really real to have the leading sociologist of marriage

1164
01:05:03,159 --> 01:05:07,199
in America, doctor Brad Wilcox from the University of Virginia.

1165
01:05:07,360 --> 01:05:10,159
He has done so much work. His book is best

1166
01:05:10,280 --> 01:05:14,719
selling book. Last year, Get Married was well received, and

1167
01:05:14,760 --> 01:05:20,360
he makes an argument for human thriving in numerous aspects

1168
01:05:20,400 --> 01:05:23,559
of marriage. If how marriage is designed to really enrich

1169
01:05:23,599 --> 01:05:27,199
your life and make you more human, and he posits

1170
01:05:27,239 --> 01:05:29,639
and then destroys many of the myths, some of which

1171
01:05:29,639 --> 01:05:32,480
you've raised. Many of the myths that if you know,

1172
01:05:32,519 --> 01:05:35,480
the more sexual partners you have, the more satisfied you'll feel,

1173
01:05:35,840 --> 01:05:38,360
that if you get married, boredom is going to come

1174
01:05:38,400 --> 01:05:41,440
into your life, that you're going to go into poverty

1175
01:05:41,519 --> 01:05:44,199
if you get married. He confronts those myths and then

1176
01:05:44,199 --> 01:05:47,559
he shows you the real reality, which not true. It's

1177
01:05:47,599 --> 01:05:50,599
just not true, it's exactly the opposite in fact. So

1178
01:05:50,679 --> 01:05:54,760
he's going to come a very fine Protestant theologian, a

1179
01:05:54,800 --> 01:05:58,559
young and budding Protestant theologian and YouTuber, doctor Gavin Ortland,

1180
01:05:59,079 --> 01:06:04,199
who has a very strong formation in the Protestant world.

1181
01:06:04,239 --> 01:06:06,800
He's going to come and talk about the significance of

1182
01:06:06,840 --> 01:06:09,119
love and marriage. I think this is going to be

1183
01:06:09,159 --> 01:06:12,159
also very valuable. We're going to have some great live

1184
01:06:12,280 --> 01:06:14,800
music from the dirt. Poor Robbins from the Grades are

1185
01:06:14,800 --> 01:06:18,039
going to come in seeing you know this their thematic music.

1186
01:06:19,119 --> 01:06:23,480
You really turned me on to actually, and I'm so

1187
01:06:23,599 --> 01:06:25,400
thrilled that they're going to come. I think it's going

1188
01:06:25,480 --> 01:06:27,400
to be really edifying. A lot of visitors that are

1189
01:06:27,440 --> 01:06:29,119
going to come, a lot of VIPs from California are

1190
01:06:29,159 --> 01:06:32,400
going to come in. I'm hoping that lots of people

1191
01:06:32,400 --> 01:06:35,320
will come in order to rekindle or maybe for the

1192
01:06:35,360 --> 01:06:38,559
first time, maybe for the first time, have someone stand

1193
01:06:38,599 --> 01:06:41,239
up and say, you know what, it's time to set

1194
01:06:41,280 --> 01:06:43,960
the vision for marriage and to reaffirm the glory of

1195
01:06:44,079 --> 01:06:49,280
marriage and its centrality in any good culture, any normal culture.

1196
01:06:50,599 --> 01:06:51,239
Speaker 2: That's amazing.

1197
01:06:51,360 --> 01:06:55,280
Speaker 1: I'm really excited everyone, so sign up, come to the event.

1198
01:06:55,400 --> 01:06:57,480
I think that I think tickets are already on people

1199
01:06:57,480 --> 01:06:59,360
told me they already have their tickets, So tickets.

1200
01:06:59,119 --> 01:07:00,639
Speaker 2: Are on sale. They're are we going to go?

1201
01:07:00,760 --> 01:07:03,119
Speaker 1: So uh, I'd love to see you there, love to

1202
01:07:03,119 --> 01:07:05,719
meet you there. And they'll be you know, the half

1203
01:07:05,800 --> 01:07:09,639
dried for Robbins there, Father Josiah, all these these wonderful people.

1204
01:07:09,679 --> 01:07:11,400
It's going to be it's going to be a powder

1205
01:07:11,480 --> 01:07:13,760
keg of I think it's going to be great.

1206
01:07:13,920 --> 01:07:15,639
Speaker 2: I can't wait. I can't wait to go. So thank

1207
01:07:15,679 --> 01:07:16,320
you for doing this.

1208
01:07:16,639 --> 01:07:19,400
Speaker 3: Marriage conference dot com Love Marriage Conference dot.

1209
01:07:19,280 --> 01:07:21,519
Speaker 2: Com, Love Marriage Conference dot com. Go there, get your

1210
01:07:21,519 --> 01:07:23,719
tickets everyone. Thank you for your attention.

1211
01:07:23,840 --> 01:07:26,079
Speaker 1: Father just said thank you as usual for your your

1212
01:07:26,119 --> 01:07:28,239
wisdom and your thoughtfulness.

1213
01:07:28,280 --> 01:07:31,039
Speaker 2: And uh and I can't wait to see you in California.

1214
01:07:31,639 --> 01:07:32,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, wait to have you.

1215
01:07:33,760 --> 01:07:36,639
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed these videos and podcasts, please go to

1216
01:07:36,679 --> 01:07:39,400
the Symbolic World dot com website and see how you

1217
01:07:39,400 --> 01:07:40,599
can support what we're doing.

1218
01:07:40,920 --> 01:07:43,239
Speaker 2: There are multiple subscriber tiers with perks.

1219
01:07:43,400 --> 01:07:45,880
Speaker 1: There are apparel in books to purchase, so go to

1220
01:07:45,880 --> 01:07:48,760
the symbolic world dot com and thank you for your support.