Speaker 1: Andrew Williams, thank you for joining me on commitment.
Speaker 2: To reality, pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: Well, just to start, I'd like you to tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about who you are? Who is Andrew Williams.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. Where does one start with it
Speaker 2: like that? Well, I suppose I would say that my
Speaker 2: faith is a very central part that divides who I am.
Speaker 2: And it's a really great question because I think it's
Speaker 2: something I struggled with all my life. Right, who am I?
Speaker 2: And what does it mean to be me? And or
Speaker 2: what does it mean, you know, to be a person?
Speaker 2: How does one define one's self? And I think I
Speaker 2: came to the conclusion over time, for a long time
Speaker 2: that it's not possible to define an individual apart from
Speaker 2: the world in which the person lives. So we're all
Speaker 2: a product of our environment, of our relationships. And obviously
Speaker 2: the sort of relationship is that of being made in
Speaker 2: the image of God and being invited into closer communion
Speaker 2: with Him. So I think, you know, that is that's
Speaker 2: why I start there, I guess, and I think a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of who I am? You know,
Speaker 2: in the world, what are my interests? The people associate
Speaker 2: with the things that I do arise very much from
Speaker 2: that combination of my own a sort of personal early experience,
Speaker 2: and how that led me to faith, and how that
Speaker 2: led me to the interest in mental health and the
Speaker 2: roles that I've done. So I've worked in charity work
Speaker 2: principally in Russia for quite a long time, and I've
Speaker 2: been teacher, and I've been a psychotherapist, and I'm finally
Speaker 2: a chaplain in a mental health context. So I think
Speaker 2: all of those things really tied together around that experience
Speaker 2: of relationship and particularly of faith.
Speaker 1: Yeah a question, Yes, quite, Hey, it's an open question.
Speaker 1: I really the reason I ask it that way is
Speaker 1: I hate going through bio roles because you're so much
Speaker 1: more than just the things that you've done. Absolutely, and
Speaker 1: so I feel like it's slightly reductive. People could fight
Speaker 1: me on that, but to just list this is where
Speaker 1: you went to school, this is you know. But the
Speaker 1: main reason that I became aware of you and aware
Speaker 1: of your work is your book From Object to Icon. Now,
Speaker 1: I gave it a different subtitle for years. I kept
Speaker 1: saying that it was from Object to Icon, Living iconographically
Speaker 1: in a pornographic world, And then when I looked at
Speaker 1: the book. The other day, I said, that's not it
Speaker 1: at all. It's the struggle for spiritual vision in a
Speaker 1: pornographic world, which is so much better because your book
Speaker 1: is really well, it deals with pornography. It's not so
Speaker 1: much about the problem of sex or sexuality, but a
Speaker 1: problem of vision of right orientation in the world. So
Speaker 1: your subtitle is a lot better than mine.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, thanks to the people of the Ancient
Speaker 2: Faith for the subtitle. I didn't.
Speaker 1: How did you get into this subject? And writing a
Speaker 1: book is not easy? What motivated you to write a
Speaker 1: book on pornography?
Speaker 2: Well, to be honest, was at it was external pressure.
Speaker 2: It was because I had done some of the study
Speaker 2: and I'd talked about it, and then I got a
Speaker 2: lot of people basically saying, can we hear more about this?
Speaker 2: Can you do more? Can you write a book? First
Speaker 2: of all the podcasts I did a series of podcasts
Speaker 2: on Ancient Faith, and then following that, can you write
Speaker 2: a book? So it was really you know, I didn't
Speaker 2: I definitely set out to write a book on this topic.
Speaker 2: In fact, I struggled quite a lot with the idea
Speaker 2: of writing a book on this topic. I mean, it
Speaker 2: all stemmed from actually a class when I was at
Speaker 2: Holy Cross and I read I was reading Father John
Speaker 2: Brett's book on I can't think what it's called now,
Speaker 2: was bioethics, basically Christian etha, and he just used this
Speaker 2: sort of he had a very brief paragraph on pornography,
Speaker 2: but he just used this phrase demonic iconography and it
Speaker 2: really stuck in my mind. And so when I had
Speaker 2: the opportunity, I decided I would look at the topic
Speaker 2: and I did. I remember interviewing three people, two priests
Speaker 2: and an iconographer about what that, you know, how they
Speaker 2: would see that this connection between the modern world's imagery
Speaker 2: and how we're encouraged to look upon the world and
Speaker 2: an iconography and that was so that was where it
Speaker 2: all sort of started. And then I and then I
Speaker 2: did a series of podcasts for Ancient Faith, and then
Speaker 2: that led that lead to the book. And you'll see,
Speaker 2: I mean, if you if people who've listened to the
Speaker 2: podcast will recognize some of the material in the book,
Speaker 2: but the book sort of builds on that announces that's
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 1: Well. I think the right place to start is with definition,
Speaker 1: defining your terms, although I think it's going to be
Speaker 1: quite difficult. How what is pornography? Because I know that
Speaker 1: famous Supreme Court justice you know, said, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I know it when I see it. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: think that's a strict legal definition, and you you talk
Speaker 1: about the pornification of the world that we live in,
Speaker 1: and so I think that pornography is a lot more
Speaker 1: than we immediately begin to think about.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Well, I came to the conclusion in the
Speaker 2: end that that that pornography, I mean that it legal
Speaker 2: definitions aside, because I don't think a legal definition is
Speaker 2: going to be good enough. So what I've got is
Speaker 2: maybe less It makes it less easy to say this is,
Speaker 2: this isn't. But what I would say is that looking
Speaker 2: at the I thought etymology is the way. So looking
Speaker 2: at the Greek roots, you know, pornia is principally things
Speaker 2: to do with prostitution, But I mean, basically it's about
Speaker 2: sexual unfaithfulness, and I think it's that unfaithfulness in terms
Speaker 2: of relationship and union. And then obviously is to write
Speaker 2: or draw or make an image. So so what we're
Speaker 2: saying is that if it's an image that relates to unfaithfulness,
Speaker 2: then that's pornography in that sense. And I think that's
Speaker 2: actually quite good. The literal, absolutely, literal definition is quite
Speaker 2: a good definition. And so you know, obviously, image is
Speaker 2: a broad term and it can mean things you see,
Speaker 2: you know, in real life with your eyes. It can
Speaker 2: mean images on paper or on digital devices. It can
Speaker 2: mean video, it can mean a lot of things. And
Speaker 2: you know, it can mean even writing, because you can
Speaker 2: have bornographic literature, for example. So so it's anything that's
Speaker 2: created that that either intentionally or unintentionally has the has
Speaker 2: the effect of making us unfaithful to God, it ultimately,
Speaker 2: but to but in them, you know, also to human relationships.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. And you say that we all, whether we
Speaker 1: struggle with pornography explicitly or not, that we all have
Speaker 1: a pornography problem. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2: Yes, well, I think I mean obviously I've only lived
Speaker 2: in this time, in this culture, but so it's maybe
Speaker 2: it's all of human history. I don't know, but certainly
Speaker 2: I think there's something particularly at this time, where we're
Speaker 2: encouraged to objectify and to separate the personal reality from
Speaker 2: the image or how we see someone. How we think
Speaker 2: of someone doesn't necessarily relate to who they really are,
Speaker 2: but it's associated with the whole set of other things,
Speaker 2: and I think that's all the same part of the
Speaker 2: same issue basically. So so in that sense, you could
Speaker 2: say a broader definition of pornography is that looking at
Speaker 2: someone and not seeing them they really are, but for
Speaker 2: something else. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's that objectification versus veneration, which we'll get into later.
Speaker 1: But you know, as I was thinking about this, I
Speaker 1: started thinking about another parallel vice, which is that of gambling,
Speaker 1: which has really exploded. I'm not sure about where you live,
Speaker 1: but in America, gambling was legalized in many states, and
Speaker 1: you've seen it pop up all over that. And I
Speaker 1: had been to Vegas a couple decades ago when I
Speaker 1: was younger, and it really felt different. And I went
Speaker 1: to Vegas a couple of years ago. My wife had
Speaker 1: a work retreat there and so I met her at
Speaker 1: the end and we stayed for a couple of days.
Speaker 1: Thought why not? And what struck me was how I
Speaker 1: want to be careful when I say this, so, but
Speaker 1: how ordinary it felt. It didn't feel like this special place.
Speaker 1: Now you can find, you know, darkness wherever you look.
Speaker 1: And I think that what has happened is like the
Speaker 1: proverbial lobster in a pot. America has become a lot
Speaker 1: more like Vegas everywhere else. So when you go to
Speaker 1: Vegas it almost felt more family friendly. It's like, hey,
Speaker 1: gambling has left the station. That's no longer our only
Speaker 1: show in town. We have to find other ways to
Speaker 1: attract people.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I think that the new vice there is gluttony. I mean,
Speaker 1: some of the best food I've had in a long time,
Speaker 1: So they're really really high on the culinary scale together
Speaker 1: well in quality. It's that thing where it just becomes slowly.
Speaker 1: The reason I talk about the lobster, the pods. It's slow,
Speaker 1: and you make little concessions here, you make little concessions there.
Speaker 1: And I think that the same thing has happened with
Speaker 1: the pornography that we all I know that there's a
Speaker 1: more philosophical definition of it that we've kind of gotten into,
Speaker 1: but just blatant pornography as we all understand it to be,
Speaker 1: it has become much more common place to the to
Speaker 1: the degree to which I think that I watch pornography
Speaker 1: much more often than I even believe just watching television.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely, I mean I don't. I gave up watching
Speaker 2: telligence more or less. I mean, there were very few things.
Speaker 2: I'll watch quiz Strais occasionally with my children, But yeah,
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I think it's really really pervasive
Speaker 2: throughout the culture. And you can see sort of certainly
Speaker 2: from the nineteen fifties onwards, are just looking at all
Speaker 2: of this basic media outlets. There's a very clear path
Speaker 2: that you're describing, this sort of broadening on what's considered permissible,
Speaker 2: and it just keeps on expanding and expanding and expanding gently. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so the sort of as you see it in
Speaker 2: the more explicit and extreme stuff as well, so they
Speaker 2: know the internet is is this really writ large so
Speaker 2: that the beginnings of the Internet, there were studies done
Speaker 2: about pornography and the impact of pornography, and they talked about,
Speaker 2: you know, hardcore pornography and extreme but what they were
Speaker 2: calling hardcore and extreme pornography is now absolutely run at
Speaker 2: the mill and there are far more extreme and hardcore
Speaker 2: things out there. So it's the same on every level.
Speaker 2: I think this has been working. It's really it's really
Speaker 2: fascinating to look at some of those early studies and
Speaker 2: see what they were absolutely shocked by finding, which you
Speaker 2: know now is considered relatively mild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's pernicious. I mean, I remember I grew
Speaker 1: up in the well My first exposure of the Internet
Speaker 1: growing up was late nineties really, and I remember in
Speaker 1: counting pornography and it was often through pop ups where
Speaker 1: it would just pop up and you oh, and as
Speaker 1: a child, do you think, Oh, and then you start
Speaker 1: paying attention to it. Oh, that's that it's caught my interest.
Speaker 1: What is that like? Especially as a young teenager. Now
Speaker 1: it is so much more baked in, whether it's through algorithms,
Speaker 1: and you know, I have a little hack that I
Speaker 1: try my best to stay off social media, but when
Speaker 1: I'm on it, I kind of have some degree of
Speaker 1: awareness of how algorithms work. So when I see something
Speaker 1: that I consider to be holy or like a quote
Speaker 1: from a saint or from the Bible, I tap it.
Speaker 1: I spend a little bit of extra time so that
Speaker 1: I train the algorithm this is what I want to see,
Speaker 1: and it does work, and it turns a nasty habit,
Speaker 1: if you will. In terms of just I think that
Speaker 1: social media can be a waste of time, but it
Speaker 1: edifies it in some way.
Speaker 2: It really goes back to what I was saying earlier
Speaker 2: about becoming the people formed by the people we spend
Speaker 2: our time with in the place where we are. And
Speaker 2: I think, you know, that's so that algorithm is a
Speaker 2: sort of an artificial reflection of real life too, in
Speaker 2: that we do form ourselves and I think neurologically as well,
Speaker 2: we form our brains, you know, form around what we practice.
Speaker 2: So I think that's you know, that's important not only
Speaker 2: on social media in fact, but in every day as well.
Speaker 2: How do we look at people, what do we how
Speaker 2: do we think about people and ourselves and our relationships,
Speaker 2: and how do we operate in the world. Yeah, all
Speaker 2: of that trains us constantly into a certain direction. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a C. S. Lewis said in one place, I
Speaker 2: can't remember where, but he said that every encounter you
Speaker 2: have with a human person, you're either contributing to them
Speaker 2: becoming something so incredibly beautiful that if you saw it
Speaker 2: now you'd be tempted to own worship, but or something
Speaker 2: that's so awful that it's worse than the stuff of
Speaker 2: your worst nightmares. That's an incredible responsibility. But I think
Speaker 2: this is exactly the kind of thing that is that
Speaker 2: that we are in fact doing to each other. All
Speaker 2: the time. And that's why that's that's so important what
Speaker 2: you're saying that training yourself to look upon the beautiful.
Speaker 2: Some Paul says it as well, doesn't he. Yeah, pay
Speaker 2: your full focus, your attention on what's good and beautiful,
Speaker 2: not ugly. In there.
Speaker 1: There's one hundred dollars word for it, nepsis, just watchfulness.
Speaker 1: And I think that it's a I think asceticism in
Speaker 1: general is a lost art. How do you draw the
Speaker 1: line between anxiety and watchfulness? You know, anxious paranoia about
Speaker 1: am I doing the right thing? Am I? Am I
Speaker 1: treating Andrew with the proper respect right now? And and
Speaker 1: just what is a sober guarding of the soul?
Speaker 2: Yes? Well, I think I mean sober implies the opposite
Speaker 2: of anxiety in a way, and I think I think
Speaker 2: that's that's where the prayerful aspect comes in. So I
Speaker 2: think it's the operating in peace, you know, rather than anxiety.
Speaker 2: So we know we're going to fail, We're going to
Speaker 2: do what we can do, and we're still going to
Speaker 2: fail because as fallen human beings, we will fail. But
Speaker 2: we can get up and we can keep trying. And
Speaker 2: so if we operate in prayer and put the attentiveness
Speaker 2: through prayer as well. You know, the Jesus prayer, for example,
Speaker 2: is something it works really well as a hospital chaplain.
Speaker 2: I understand this. You see somebody, you move to somebody else,
Speaker 2: but you have a bit of time in between. You
Speaker 2: can do Jesus prayer while you're walking in the corridor
Speaker 2: or whatever, and sometimes even while you're with someone. So
Speaker 2: I think it's staying in the prayer will bring peace
Speaker 2: and that is the opposite of anxiety. So yeah, it
Speaker 2: is possible to get too tangled up in this sort
Speaker 2: of in the cognitive way and thinking about I think
Speaker 2: it's sort of overthinking. You know, am I doing the
Speaker 2: right thing? How do I know it's the right thing?
Speaker 2: How do I know exactly what impact what I'm going
Speaker 2: to say is going to have on this person? And
Speaker 2: the answer is what I can't know for sure. I
Speaker 2: can just pray, release it to the Lord and do
Speaker 2: my best of it in the moment.
Speaker 1: M We talked about the legal definition of pornography earlier,
Speaker 1: and I think legalism rules the day in much of
Speaker 1: our modern world, or we get even within Christianity where
Speaker 1: you get caught up in the act of sin as
Speaker 1: though was that a sin? Was it? Well, well, maybe
Speaker 1: not quite. It's on the borderline, I'm okay. And when
Speaker 1: you view sin in that way as a kind of
Speaker 1: a breaking of the rules of breaking of the law
Speaker 1: versus a deforming of the person, then even the gray
Speaker 1: area you can view differently in terms of is this
Speaker 1: building me up or breaking me down? Kind of in
Speaker 1: the same way that you were talking about Lewis towards
Speaker 1: somebody else.
Speaker 2: Mean absolutely, absolutely no, I think that's right, and I
Speaker 2: think sin is you know, it's if we think again,
Speaker 2: if we go back to the edge of thinking about
Speaker 2: the good rather than the bad and keeping our eyes
Speaker 2: on what's beautiful, then if we think about repentance, we
Speaker 2: know repentance is not just you know, a correction to
Speaker 2: a particular thing in a particular way. It's a whole,
Speaker 2: lifelong process. And so I think focusing on that rather
Speaker 2: than on the sin is actually quite quite helpful because
Speaker 2: it's then much more of a disposition of the person
Speaker 2: rather than a specific act. And we can talk about
Speaker 2: specific acts all the time. And you know, certainly we
Speaker 2: always have mixed motives. I mean I always have mixed motives. Okay,
Speaker 2: I can do something that from the outside might look
Speaker 2: completely beautiful and good, but I know that there's probably
Speaker 2: something else in there as well. You know, I also
Speaker 2: want the person to respond to me positively. You know,
Speaker 2: there are all kinds of motives in that, and if
Speaker 2: I start getting tangled up in that, I'm going to
Speaker 2: get nowhere at all. So I sort of put that
Speaker 2: aside and say, is what I'm doing, you know, broadly
Speaker 2: in line with the life of repentance, with moving towards
Speaker 2: being Christ Like? Is it something I'm doing in union
Speaker 2: with Christ? Or am I doing it off my own
Speaker 2: bat for my own edification or my own glorification? I
Speaker 2: think again, going back to doing things in prayer, putting
Speaker 2: the self aside and moving forward in love for you know, God,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but which I think is the same
Speaker 2: thing in action in practice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I kept thinking, and I'm pretty sure it's in
Speaker 1: your book. But it's something that I think about all
Speaker 1: the time. The paraphrase Saint Porphyrios when he talks about
Speaker 1: let evil be turned towards Christ. I mean we can
Speaker 1: lament the darkness, and it is something that we should lament.
Speaker 1: I mean, evil is not something that we just brush aside.
Speaker 1: But the way that we conquer it is by poking
Speaker 1: that pinhole and letting the light flood in. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's a conscious act. I mean it becomes difficult because
Speaker 1: you have to talk about the darkness. You have to
Speaker 1: talk about evil in order to rightly orient yourself towards goodness.
Speaker 1: I mean, evil does not exist in isolation. It's always
Speaker 1: the opposite of something good, right, I mean, how is
Speaker 1: that true?
Speaker 2: And the twisting of the twisting of something Yes, because
Speaker 2: evil can't have its own its own existence because God
Speaker 2: only creates good. So evil is always something essentially good
Speaker 2: that's been twisted or broken in some way to make
Speaker 2: it evil. I think it comes to my mind. It
Speaker 2: comes to the question that I've often been asked as
Speaker 2: a chaplain, whether it be in in a cute hospital
Speaker 2: or in the mental health wards, which is you know
Speaker 2: the old how how can there be a God if
Speaker 2: all these horrible things happen? Why does God let you
Speaker 2: know my baby die or me have cancer, or me
Speaker 2: suffer these psychotic episodes? Or you know how how is
Speaker 2: how can there be a good God if this sort
Speaker 2: of thing happens? And you know, there areus lots of
Speaker 2: theological answers to this, but I don't find them very
Speaker 2: practical or useful in that sort of context, because I
Speaker 2: think people are asking not not for theological answer, but
Speaker 2: for an existential one. Really, it's you know, and and yes,
Speaker 2: this is a horrible thing, and and it's unfair because
Speaker 2: people suffer sometimes no apparently good reason, and sometimes suffer massively,
Speaker 2: you know, disaster upon disaster upon one awful thing on
Speaker 2: top of another. But what I always and they say,
Speaker 2: how can you believe in God? And so what I
Speaker 2: always say is well, to me, it makes sense that
Speaker 2: if the world is without God, then obviously all this
Speaker 2: stuff makes sense, you know, the disasters and the pain
Speaker 2: and the suffering and the evils and the tortures and
Speaker 2: everything else. But what you can't explain then is why
Speaker 2: is it that even in these darkest places and these
Speaker 2: most awful times, there are still these little glimmers of light?
Speaker 2: Where did they come from? Why is it that you
Speaker 2: can be in this place with people who've sometimes you know,
Speaker 2: committed terrible crimes and suffered horrible things, and yet they
Speaker 2: can still do altruistic acts just out of love for
Speaker 2: each other. How is that possible? Where does that come from,
Speaker 2: and so I think that again, it's it's looking looking
Speaker 2: for the good and the beautiful, because it's everywhere. You know,
Speaker 2: I've been in some pretty horrible places, and I've always
Speaker 2: found that there is good there. There's always there's always light.
Speaker 2: It's like you know, the pasca, when the light appears
Speaker 2: in the darkness.
Speaker 1: It's the pins Well, that's it's it's it's a very
Speaker 1: appropriate analogy because for those who aren't aware, I don't
Speaker 1: pretend to believe that everybody who watches or listens to
Speaker 1: this has ever been to a pasca service. But it's
Speaker 1: very beautiful. I mean, right at midnight, one single candle
Speaker 1: comes out and then within several minutes the entire church
Speaker 1: is lit up. I mean it's in total darkness, and
Speaker 1: from one candle everything is illuminated. And that's really I mean,
Speaker 1: it's illustrative of a lot of different things, but it's
Speaker 1: that pinhole. It starts with one small ray of light,
Speaker 1: and then it's our personal responsibility to be the light
Speaker 1: of the world. I mean, that's that's why it's it's
Speaker 1: so critical for Christians to not compartmentalize. And I was
Speaker 1: talking to somebody about this the other day we live
Speaker 1: in a secular world, which has caused many Christians to
Speaker 1: live almost schizophrenic lives where I'm a Christian here at
Speaker 1: home in church, but then when I go to the workplace,
Speaker 1: I kind of have to put on a different hat.
Speaker 1: And you really can't do that. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that you are, you know, Bible bashing
Speaker 1: people all the time, but it's it's the way that
Speaker 1: you live your life that that really becomes that that
Speaker 1: light of the world, that that transforms the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know if that helps somebody who's well.
Speaker 2: I think that really unfairly. The concept of the masks
Speaker 2: that I use in the book, it's this idea of
Speaker 2: having different hats and different roles I think is part
Speaker 2: of is part of masks and I and you know,
Speaker 2: obviously we have well we you know, we might have
Speaker 2: a profession. We're called upon to be professional in our role,
Speaker 2: which means behaving in a certain way, but it does
Speaker 2: mean being a different person or a different kind of person.
Speaker 2: If you're in a if you're in a job that
Speaker 2: forces you to behave in a non Christian way, then
Speaker 2: I suggests you get out of it because it's not
Speaker 2: any good for anybody. So I think I think the
Speaker 2: key is learning how to be the person we are
Speaker 2: in the situation we're in, and that means not wearing
Speaker 2: a mask, because we can't know each other or be
Speaker 2: known if we if we wear a mask. I remember
Speaker 2: I sort of I ham at this very hard, and
Speaker 2: the children were very small, this point about telling lies,
Speaker 2: because wearing a mask is basically telling lies. Rights about
Speaker 2: telling lies about who we are for the benefit of
Speaker 2: ourselves or the world or the relationship or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: And I always said said this to the children when
Speaker 2: they were very small, that if you tell them lie,
Speaker 2: then you the person you're really hurting is yourself because
Speaker 2: because I love you, but you won't know that if
Speaker 2: you've told me lies, you'll think I'm loving the lies
Speaker 2: that you've told rather than the real you that's behind them.
Speaker 2: If you tell me the truth, if you tell me
Speaker 2: the truth always, I will still always love you, and
Speaker 2: you'll know it's actually you and not the stories, because
Speaker 2: the stories won't be necessarily lovable, you know, in themselves,
Speaker 2: but you will be as a person. And I think
Speaker 2: that's that's the key with masks to me. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: actually in order to in order to have that relationship
Speaker 2: be real. That's the only way you can know that
Speaker 2: you're actually loved or.
Speaker 1: Loving by others or yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't just wear masks to fool others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you talked about in the context of confession in
Speaker 1: the book, I mean, what is the importance Once again,
Speaker 1: I can't pretend that everybody practices not everybody's Orthodox or Catholic,
Speaker 1: or you know, not everybody practices confession. Why is it
Speaker 1: so important? Why is the act of confession and being
Speaker 1: truly honest with yourself and others so important? I mean,
Speaker 1: it sounds self evident when I say it out loud,
Speaker 1: but it's not because I've even gone into confession and
Speaker 1: withheld and felt like I'm not ready to say that
Speaker 1: in front of somebody else. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah. And that's the thing. I think. It's because
Speaker 2: because delusion comes so easily to us, and so you know,
Speaker 2: we would like to think it's just as good to
Speaker 2: make my confession privately in front of Christ, you know,
Speaker 2: at home, as it is to go and actually say
Speaker 2: to the priest. But it isn't because actually I'm holding back.
Speaker 2: I don't know that I'm holding back. I may say words,
Speaker 2: but when you're faced with an actual physical presence right
Speaker 2: there that you can see and sense, it's different. It
Speaker 2: really is different. And and if you can then take
Speaker 2: that back, you know. And this is why another reason
Speaker 2: why I think icons are really helpful in prayer, because
Speaker 2: you can you can look, you know, Christ in the face,
Speaker 2: which is one of the miracles, isn't it about the incarnation?
Speaker 2: Compared to the Old Testament, when you can't see the
Speaker 2: face of God and live, you can look Christ in
Speaker 2: the face, and that's very difficult. And if you've really
Speaker 2: got that sense of you know, if I've got the
Speaker 2: sense of my own sin, then that's hard to do
Speaker 2: because I feel ashamed automatically and I want to look down.
Speaker 2: But I can raise my eyes and look up and
Speaker 2: know that I'm actually loved irrespective of the stuff that
Speaker 2: I've done, which is, you know, it's not very good.
Speaker 2: So you can bring that back into your own prayer
Speaker 2: life as well. But I think there's something about having
Speaker 2: to actually be there next to a physical person present
Speaker 2: and with sound and touch and smell and vision and
Speaker 2: all of the senses and actually let this stuff out
Speaker 2: is hard, and that's that's why it's good, because it's
Speaker 2: so easy. You know. I want to think that I'm
Speaker 2: a nice person and a good and I help people
Speaker 2: and unfriendly and I do good stuff. But actually that's
Speaker 2: only a bit of the story. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: I do all of those things some of the time,
Speaker 2: but there's a lot more to it, and it's important
Speaker 2: to be aware of that reality. And that's the problem
Speaker 2: with the mask is that it's fake. And I don't
Speaker 2: want to be fake. I want to be real. And
Speaker 2: the only way you know, I can ever I come
Speaker 2: into union with Christ is by being real.
Speaker 1: Amen. I mean, the name of this podcast is commitment
Speaker 1: to reality. For just that reason, I was looking around
Speaker 1: the world and I felt like we are living illusions
Speaker 1: left and right. I mean, and we're rubber stamping illusions
Speaker 1: left and right, and in order to kind of it's
Speaker 1: almost like a gravitational pool that we need to enact
Speaker 1: on ourselves to stay grounded. I mean, I just I
Speaker 1: always imagine grabbing hold of something, because if you don't,
Speaker 1: you're going to float off into the ether if you
Speaker 1: don't make a conscious commitment to what is real reality. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: icons are once again Uh, you know, I'm always very
Speaker 1: careful to try and frame things from a place where
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to just say icons are important.
Speaker 1: And if you don't think so, you're an idiot, Like
Speaker 1: you know, hey, get with the program. There's something wrong
Speaker 1: with you if you don't see this, or because I
Speaker 1: think that they can be easy to do, why are
Speaker 1: icons important? And really, if you could explain it to
Speaker 1: somebody who struggles with it, because I know people personally
Speaker 1: who will not step foot in my church because of
Speaker 1: the icons. Yes, and they are they are practicing, earnest
Speaker 1: Christians who just grew up with a tradition. I'll use
Speaker 1: that word that that either doesn't believe in icons or
Speaker 1: even more so, I mean you said poornography is demonic iconography.
Speaker 1: I don't think the distinction is wrong.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely, yeah. And it's this fear of it's a
Speaker 2: fear of idolatry, right, this is in essence and and
Speaker 2: idolatry is a thing well worth fearing. And I think
Speaker 2: idolatry comes into a lot of what we've been talking
Speaker 2: about in terms of the sin, and it's that desire
Speaker 2: to to put our hope in humanity rather than in God.
Speaker 2: Or in something something physical, something that we can touch,
Speaker 2: and that is a temptation, and it is a real temptation.
Speaker 2: And it's not something that you know, belongs in the
Speaker 2: Old Testament times. That's still a real temptation and a
Speaker 2: real problem. So I think, I don't you know, I
Speaker 2: think it's understandable why people have this. I think the
Speaker 2: key is to understand the nature of iconography, and that,
Speaker 2: as Synton Damascus says, you know, we do not worship
Speaker 2: the wood and the paint. If the image on the
Speaker 2: eye is so defaced that we can't see the saint,
Speaker 2: then we throw it away or we burn it in
Speaker 2: the fire. It's not it's not worth anything. So I
Speaker 2: think this is this is the key. The key point
Speaker 2: is that we're not we're not worshiping the icon. We're
Speaker 2: not using the icon for our own purposes. Is actually
Speaker 2: quite the other way around, you know. There's there's that
Speaker 2: concept of the of the reverse perspective of the icon.
Speaker 2: So the idea is that we're not looking at the
Speaker 2: icon and using the icon. Actually what we're doing is
Speaker 2: being looked upon when we look into an icon. So
Speaker 2: it's about this connection with the spiritual world, with the
Speaker 2: reality of the spiritual world, and the fact that it's
Speaker 2: a glorious thing that in the Church we don't just
Speaker 2: have the physically alive people on earth now are standing
Speaker 2: with us, but we also have all of these others
Speaker 2: who are still alive and still with us, and we
Speaker 2: can see them.
Speaker 1: Witnesses when we are surrounded by such a great cloud
Speaker 1: of witnesses.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and they're all there and we can see them,
Speaker 2: and that's really important, and that's part of the incarnation,
Speaker 2: the gift of the incarnation that we know that and
Speaker 2: we can see Christ's face because it's real, you know,
Speaker 2: Christ's face human. Christ's human face is real, So it
Speaker 2: is not it is not a blasphemy to paint it
Speaker 2: or look upon it, because it is real. It's not
Speaker 2: an imaginary face. It's a real face. And that's I
Speaker 2: think the essential difference and the fact and the fact
Speaker 2: is that we are connecting therefore with with Heaven. We're
Speaker 2: connected with Heaven in that way, and and that's why
Speaker 2: in the in the dimnetity, we can lay aside our
Speaker 2: earthly cares and we can just for a moment experience that,
Speaker 2: you know, being surrounded by the saints who've been perfected
Speaker 2: in this life. And that's a wonderful, a wonderful witness.
Speaker 2: But it's more than a witness, it's a it's an actual,
Speaker 2: you know, fore taste of heaven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they knew, not whether they were on heaven or
Speaker 1: on earth. You know, when when we first joined the
Speaker 1: church my family, my sister said to the priest, well,
Speaker 1: what do you tell people when they say that you
Speaker 1: you pray to dead people or iconography? And he just saw,
Speaker 1: point blank, there are no dead Christians. That's right, go
Speaker 1: back to your Bible.
Speaker 2: No. I had, so my my family, a lot of
Speaker 2: my family Salvation Army. So it's very sort of ultra Protestant.
Speaker 2: And I remember when I was a teenager. I remember
Speaker 2: so my my my granddad used to visit so his
Speaker 2: his wife died. He lived, you know, another thirty years
Speaker 2: or so after she died, and he used to visit
Speaker 2: her grave quite often, but particularly on her birthday and
Speaker 2: on Christmas Eve. And and when I was old enough
Speaker 2: to drive, I drove him. I start, because he didn't.
Speaker 2: He stopped driving when he was older, and I started
Speaker 2: driving him to the cemetery to go to his wife's grave,
Speaker 2: and he talked to her and I thought, well, that's
Speaker 2: not very that's not very in accordance with theology. What
Speaker 2: about the great gap that's between the dead and the lyric?
Speaker 2: But if he talked to her because he loved her,
Speaker 2: you know, the bond of love is the key and
Speaker 2: and it will it will not be broken by death.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, well, you know it's it's sometimes the most
Speaker 1: common example is common because it's obvious. I mean, whenever
Speaker 1: somebody tries to make a passion defense of iconography, it's
Speaker 1: is there anybody that you love? I mean, do you
Speaker 1: have a picture of your They don't even need to
Speaker 1: be dead. Do you have a picture of your wife
Speaker 1: and children? I mean. The only thing that has changed
Speaker 1: for me when it comes to a being oriented towards
Speaker 1: iconography now is that I'm much more likely to kiss
Speaker 1: a picture of my children than I would have been before,
Speaker 1: which I think is probably a change for the better.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a beautiful thing to see it and
Speaker 1: to feel it, and God forbid, if anything were to
Speaker 1: ever happen to them, it would only heighten the importance
Speaker 1: of that image because that they were real to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, they are real, and that becomes even more
Speaker 1: precious and as I've been Orthodox for a number of
Speaker 1: years now, but as somebody was visiting our church the
Speaker 1: other day and they said that they're studying hard, and
Speaker 1: I said, don't study too hard. You've got a lifetime.
Speaker 1: And that's still not enough, and that there's a constant
Speaker 1: reorientation that's taking place, and that continues to exist for
Speaker 1: me with iconography. I would say, intellectually I get it,
Speaker 1: but practically speaking, I'm still trying to re orient. I mean,
Speaker 1: you talk about the importance of vision. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: reorient my vision so that I actually see what I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to see and in your words, so that I
Speaker 1: can be seen that that that you know.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 1: On Mount Athos over the summer, and I was in
Speaker 1: a kind of a cafeteria surrounded by all of these
Speaker 1: icons of different saints, and and I don't know all
Speaker 1: of them. And I started to think about it, and
Speaker 1: I think it's it's appropriate start walking around and then
Speaker 1: I see what I know. And it reminds me of
Speaker 1: being at a party. When you're at a party and
Speaker 1: you don't know anybody, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you see that person that you know. I know that
Speaker 1: saint and I go over to it and I start
Speaker 1: looking at it and I feel this connection to it.
Speaker 1: And I took that as well. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: I only when you go to a party. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: best part is meeting somebody knew or learning something about
Speaker 1: somebody that you didn't know where you you might have
Speaker 1: thought you knew them, and then you get to know
Speaker 1: that and then you love them even more and they
Speaker 1: become part of your family. Before we started, I said, Andrew,
Speaker 1: I think we have some friends in common. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: no matter what, we have friends in common because we're
Speaker 1: both Christians, and these Christians love each other before before
Speaker 1: they meet. You know, it's just that opportunity to, you know,
Speaker 1: get to know each other. And I think that what
Speaker 1: a what a blessing that iconography exists, because it's there
Speaker 1: is something different. And so I'll ask you. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of prelude to a question why
Speaker 1: can't Why isn't just thinking and praying to God enough?
Speaker 1: Why do you need iconography for that?
Speaker 2: Because we're physical beings as well as cognitive. Thinking is
Speaker 2: a suitable for cognitive, but when we're a physical being,
Speaker 2: we need physical as well. And I think you know,
Speaker 2: it's a very gnostic concept that the spiritual is more real.
Speaker 2: Actually the physical is real too, and we're a combination
Speaker 2: of the two. We're a blend. We're not you know,
Speaker 2: we're not a spirit trapped in a physical body. That's
Speaker 2: that's definitely not a consume way of thinking. So our
Speaker 2: physical bodies are part of who we are and they
Speaker 2: need to be taken seriously. And so that aspect of
Speaker 2: being able to see and to hear, and to smell
Speaker 2: and to touch and to taste are all part of
Speaker 2: worship because that's who we are and that's really essential.
Speaker 2: I think. So yes, they're thinking, yes there's praying, and
Speaker 2: yes there's all these other things as well.
Speaker 1: And then and then that's where the really important and
Speaker 1: necessary distinction comes in because I let this think, you know,
Speaker 1: why do we need any kind of of Christ to pray? Well,
Speaker 1: why do we need an icon of anybody else? Because
Speaker 1: you could say, okay, well, I'd still that's a tough
Speaker 1: pill for me to swallow, but I'll accept your icon
Speaker 1: of Christ. But why everybody else?
Speaker 2: Reason that you can't be a Christian on your own,
Speaker 2: You need to go to church and you need to
Speaker 2: associate with other Christians, and why would you not, Why
Speaker 2: would you deliberately cut yourself off from those who are
Speaker 2: strongest and most mature in the faith. Mm hmm that
Speaker 2: would be insane, right.
Speaker 1: And you use stronger language in the book. You said
Speaker 1: it's it's like cutting yourself off from the vine, which
Speaker 1: is a terrifying image.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yes.
Speaker 1: So for you know, yeah, I'm constantly trying to build
Speaker 1: the bridge because otherwise it's just an echo chamber. You
Speaker 1: like icons. I like icons. Let's talk about how much
Speaker 1: we like chicons. But you know, more than anything I've
Speaker 1: began in my later years. You know, I grew up evangelical,
Speaker 1: took a long walk in the wilderness, and now I'm
Speaker 1: a firmly devoted Orthodox Christian. I mean, it's it's all
Speaker 1: I care about. It's all I want. You know, I
Speaker 1: didn't really understand evangelism growing up. Now it's like I
Speaker 1: get it. I want to grab Andrew come to church
Speaker 1: with me because I believe in the reorientation that takes
Speaker 1: place there. I've seen it in my own life and
Speaker 1: in like manner, all right, I believe in iconography. I
Speaker 1: want other people to see what I see or what
Speaker 1: I'm learning to see because you know, I forgive the
Speaker 1: tired cliche. And if anybody's listened to this, they've heard
Speaker 1: it or listened to this podcast more than once. They've
Speaker 1: heard it already. I always think about it the bunny
Speaker 1: ears on the old TVs where you know, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get the right picture, or you know, right before
Speaker 1: we hopped on, I got something in my eye and
Speaker 1: I just kept blinking, and I was like, maybe this
Speaker 1: is God saying, really focus on vision and the importance
Speaker 1: of seeing rightly because I can't see right now, and
Speaker 1: you know, going to the eye doctor and having them
Speaker 1: flip the things, and then all of a sudden, you go, oh, whoa.
Speaker 1: I thought I could see, but now I can see
Speaker 1: what was I missing before? And so it's that inclusion,
Speaker 1: that reorientation, that like, hey, I want to invite you
Speaker 1: into this world where you can see even deeper and
Speaker 1: what's what okay? So once again I went different. I understand, Uh,
Speaker 1: an icon of Christ? Why do the other ones matter? Well,
Speaker 1: the reason I made the distinction is you said, that's
Speaker 1: how we worship. And it's a necessary distinction because someone
Speaker 1: will say, well, you're worshiping that icon and we use
Speaker 1: the V word, the veneration. What is veneration and why
Speaker 1: is veneration important and not just of icons? Well, okay,
Speaker 1: that's the problem absolutely. I think you'll go there, so
Speaker 1: we'll see.
Speaker 2: I mean, veneration is respect and blood, I think combined.
Speaker 2: So you know, the appropriate it's just about being being appropriate.
Speaker 2: You know, if I see someone and when I see
Speaker 2: one of these great saints, I see somebody who I
Speaker 2: love and I admire and I massively respect, and so
Speaker 2: you know, it's a It's a culturally foreign thing, isn't it,
Speaker 2: Because you know, there are there are many cultures throughout
Speaker 2: history where you would simply automatically approach the person, you know,
Speaker 2: bow or neil or kiss the hand or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: And those are the kinds of things we've inherited as
Speaker 2: Orthodox Christians, which are quite foreign to modern Western culture.
Speaker 2: I think. But I don't think that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: I think that I think those gestures of respect and
Speaker 2: love are actually really important to human beings because actually,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not as good as anyone else. I
Speaker 2: know lots of people who are better than me, and
Speaker 2: and so yes, as a legal fiction, it's really important
Speaker 2: that we assume a level playing field and give everybody
Speaker 2: the same rights and responsibilities. That's really important for organizing
Speaker 2: a practically society. But it's not true, is it. We
Speaker 2: all know that's not true. We all know that some
Speaker 2: people are better than this. We can't pretend that's not
Speaker 2: the case. We can't we equally. We can't make lists
Speaker 2: and rankings and you know, sort of sort out where
Speaker 2: exactly everybody is because we don't have perfect knowledge. But
Speaker 2: I know that there are people who are better than me,
Speaker 2: and I think it's appropriate to give them a respect.
Speaker 2: Mm hm. So I think I think this is a
Speaker 2: big part of veneration. But I think more than more
Speaker 2: than anything, it's the love, you know, because and it's
Speaker 2: because it's a two way process. I think even that,
Speaker 2: even the veneration, I think of that marvelous scene in
Speaker 2: the Life of Saint Mary of Egypt when she encounters
Speaker 2: fathers us Us and he wants to prostrate to her,
Speaker 2: and she wants to prostrate to him, and uh and
Speaker 2: this sort of back and forth because he perceives her
Speaker 2: whole great holiness and she sees his his and that
Speaker 2: I just think that's absolutely beautiful. I love that part,
Speaker 2: and I think that's that's the thing. It's just the
Speaker 2: quality of the relationship, the depth of love and respect,
Speaker 2: and that's I think that's what veneration is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so veneration. I think the opposite would be objectification.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what you're getting at with the
Speaker 1: whole issue of pornography, and that it's a symptom of
Speaker 1: a deeper disease, which is narcissism, which.
Speaker 2: Well, the problem is that you know, you can't object objective.
Speaker 2: Objectification and love are incompatible, totally incompatible, because love requires
Speaker 2: you to learn to know the person, which is not
Speaker 2: knowing about the person, and it's certainly imagining. You know,
Speaker 2: your desired reality of the person is actually knowing the
Speaker 2: real person. And the only way you can love a
Speaker 2: person is to encounter them in their reality. And so
Speaker 2: it's it's a it's it's an attack on a person
Speaker 2: to objectify because you're denying them their true reality and
Speaker 2: that and that you know that happens on lots of
Speaker 2: levels and in lots of ways, but I think you know,
Speaker 2: pornography is the sort of exemplar of how awful that
Speaker 2: is when somebody looks on another human being and instead
Speaker 2: of seeing them in reality as the image of God,
Speaker 2: you know, an iton of Christ. They see them as
Speaker 2: a thing they can desire and use for their own gratification.
Speaker 2: And it's hard to imagine anything, I think worse very
Speaker 2: human being than that.
Speaker 1: Well, how is the desire to embrace an icon and
Speaker 1: pornography really based half of the same desire?
Speaker 2: Uh huh? Because so all desire I think I came
Speaker 2: to the conclusion when I thought about the question of
Speaker 2: desire that actually all desire in the end is desire
Speaker 2: for union with God, because that's what desire is made for,
Speaker 2: right and the and the ultimate, you know, the eschatological
Speaker 2: end for the human being is to be in perfect
Speaker 2: union with each other and with Christ, because that's all
Speaker 2: the same, all one. So all of our desire for
Speaker 2: other humans is part of our desire for this greater union,
Speaker 2: and it's it's a desire to come out of ourselves
Speaker 2: and encounter a real other. And so even the most
Speaker 2: sort of debased and broken and twisted forms of desire
Speaker 2: still you can see a little bit of this in them.
Speaker 2: And I think that's what happens with the pornography. It's
Speaker 2: it's a fearful and broken desire when we know we
Speaker 2: still want the other person in some way, but we're
Speaker 2: fearful of showing ourselves. We're fearful of learning about them.
Speaker 2: In our reality, we want the easy way out, we
Speaker 2: want the quick gratification, and it just stops, it stops
Speaker 2: anything deeper from being possible. And that's that's you know,
Speaker 2: that's the evil in it, isn't it. But it's also
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, if Christ said any anyone, any
Speaker 2: man who looks on a woman was lust, it's the
Speaker 2: same as committing adultery.
Speaker 1: Mm hm with his heart right, think about that. A
Speaker 1: lot years ago, I was working in the Dominican and yeah,
Speaker 1: there was I was working with a family and you know,
Speaker 1: we were at the beach and the husband we were
Speaker 1: on the beach and he did kind of one of
Speaker 1: those elbows and like and I was like, hey, you're
Speaker 1: you're a happily married man. And he said, you can
Speaker 1: look at the menu. I just can't order. And that
Speaker 1: gets back to the legality of it all. Like it's
Speaker 1: funny and it's clever and and yeah, but yeah, it's like,
Speaker 1: well I didn't do anything, yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 2: And that's the whole thing we were saying about sin
Speaker 2: being a disposition of the person more than a specific act.
Speaker 2: The act is just the outcome of the disposition. So
Speaker 2: you can't make that. It's a very fake distinction again
Speaker 2: to make. Yeah, so there's and and it's and it's
Speaker 2: and I see why people get confused about it, because
Speaker 2: you know, temptation itself isn't sin. Okay, they say, so
Speaker 2: that you know, having the temptation, but that's already one
Speaker 2: step way beyond, one step beyond the temptation. You're definitely
Speaker 2: actively doing something when you when you make the look
Speaker 2: and you make the gesture and you make the comment. Right,
Speaker 2: So it's a definitely step further. So, And I think
Speaker 2: the contrast between that response and the response that I
Speaker 2: took about with syt Nonys in the example with synonyms
Speaker 2: in the book where he's a bishop in a synod
Speaker 2: of bishops meeting outside when this beautiful woman goes by.
Speaker 2: I can't remember a horse or in a strong carriage
Speaker 2: or something, and she's a sort of she's quite scantily dressed,
Speaker 2: but you know, in a very beautiful, beaut beautified up way,
Speaker 2: and all of the bishops avoid their eyes apart from
Speaker 2: synon Us, who watches her go by and into the distance.
Speaker 2: And then when one of them says, why, you know,
Speaker 2: why are you doing this? She says, how could I
Speaker 2: avert my eyes when such a glory of God's creation
Speaker 2: goes by? And so I think, you know, this is
Speaker 2: the difference. So it's not, it's not. The problem is
Speaker 2: in us and the way we look. Actually, and so
Speaker 2: if we can actually genuinely look upon any other person
Speaker 2: as a glory of God's creation and a beautiful image
Speaker 2: of God, then that's good. That's fine, We can do that,
Speaker 2: But it's it's when the temptation is not to do that,
Speaker 2: that's when we have to avert our eyes. And I
Speaker 2: think that's a really important distinction to make. It's not
Speaker 2: about how the person is portraying themselves so much. I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously that is an issue, but it's much more the
Speaker 2: issue that it's about us and how we're looking and
Speaker 2: what we're doing with that in our minds and our hearts.
Speaker 2: And if we can achieve the level of purity where
Speaker 2: we can look upon any other human person as the
Speaker 2: glory of God, then we might be ready to start
Speaker 2: doing something good in the world.
Speaker 1: Well, there's something quite scandalous in your book and I
Speaker 1: remember reading it and doing a double take and thinking,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm going to read that again. And I
Speaker 1: remember communicating it to people because I read this in
Speaker 1: that book, and they go, you might want to go
Speaker 1: back and read that again, and maybe you will tell
Speaker 1: me that's not what I meant, but I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: that I've read it carefully. You say that you can
Speaker 1: even venerate pornography. Yeah, I'll find that because that's scandalous.
Speaker 1: But rightly I mean, I'm not talking about the improper
Speaker 1: veneration or the execrification, but rightly venerate pornography. Explain that
Speaker 1: because that is scandalous.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, because there's a human person there. So if
Speaker 2: we look upon that human person with purity of heart
Speaker 2: and see the image of God, of course we can,
Speaker 2: because every human person is the image of God and
Speaker 2: therefore deserves veneration. And it doesn't matter, you know, if
Speaker 2: we have the eyes to see, we can always venerate.
Speaker 2: And I think that, you know, as a chaplain, I
Speaker 2: think that's that's my job actually, is to go around
Speaker 2: venerating people whatever situation they find themselves in, and however
Speaker 2: farther far they are from where they would like to be,
Speaker 2: or where anybody else would like them to be. Actually,
Speaker 2: every one of us is a human person, and every
Speaker 2: one of us can therefore be venerated because we do
Speaker 2: always to some degree show forth the glory of God
Speaker 2: being otherwise we wouldn't be here, we couldn't live.
Speaker 1: It's that whole thing where you know, Okay, if you have,
Speaker 1: if you have a hard time with the paint and
Speaker 1: the wood perspective on iconography, okay, yeah, you can't win
Speaker 1: every battle, I think it would be good for you.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, and you mentioned
Speaker 1: this several times, and I think it's worth drilling into
Speaker 1: what does the incarnation have to do with iconography? And furthermore,
Speaker 1: I mean, we are all icons what what is what
Speaker 1: is the incarnation? What does the incarnation change there?
Speaker 2: Because well, as I said earlier, you know, in the
Speaker 2: Old Testament you cannot look upon the face of God
Speaker 2: and live. But actually Christ Christ bore the face of
Speaker 2: God in a human face, and so we can in
Speaker 2: that sense now. And and because that is a physical
Speaker 2: human face, it can be portrayed in an image without
Speaker 2: any issue. And because of that we can use our vision,
Speaker 2: our physical vision to become spiritual vision and that's what
Speaker 2: this that's what this takes. So you know, our physical
Speaker 2: vision alone we can't venerate. But our physical vision joined
Speaker 2: to our spiritual version vision is exactly what we do
Speaker 2: to venerate. And we can venerate every other human person
Speaker 2: because every other human person is also an image of
Speaker 2: God in that sense. In fact, even broader than that,
Speaker 2: all of creation, all of creation reflects God's glory and
Speaker 2: God's presence, So we can venerate everything in creation. It
Speaker 2: doesn't mean we're worshiping it as God. It means we're
Speaker 2: seeing God through it, because God's presence is in it,
Speaker 2: in his creation. Every part of God's creation bears his mark.
Speaker 2: We cannot look at it if we have true vision,
Speaker 2: we cannot look at it and not see God's And
Speaker 2: that's again we'll only mean by surrounding ourselves with the beauty,
Speaker 2: because we learn to see the beauty.
Speaker 1: And you talked about spiritual vision. I mean, that's another
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars word that maybe shouldn't be help. We're
Speaker 1: just not as well acquainted with it, especially in our
Speaker 1: modern world. But what what is noose I mean? And
Speaker 1: why is that really that the hinge of your entire
Speaker 1: thesis in the book, I mean is developing the news.
Speaker 2: Right, because so it's it's it's a marvelous thing. This
Speaker 2: translation is a really dodgy activity. But and it's not
Speaker 2: to say even that it's just you know, it's not
Speaker 2: even if we stick to Greek, it won't work because
Speaker 2: of course, the difference between the culture means that what
Speaker 2: was understood but in ancient Greek isn't understood necessarily in
Speaker 2: modern Greek. And I'm telling this discussion just the other
Speaker 2: day actually about about these some of these concepts, because
Speaker 2: the you know, modern modern Greece is part of the
Speaker 2: modern world and has modern concepts, and so the same
Speaker 2: words can be used in a different way. But I
Speaker 2: think the concepts are really important. And I think the
Speaker 2: key thing with the news is that it's it's about
Speaker 2: it's the point at which we connect with God. So
Speaker 2: it's our it's the source of our spiritual vision. And
Speaker 2: you could say in that sense because obviously on our own,
Speaker 2: if they're I mean, on our own is an imaginary thing, right,
Speaker 2: We don't exist without God. God is there, whether we
Speaker 2: like to think so or not, and that and if
Speaker 2: if there was, if God wasn't there, we wouldn't be
Speaker 2: so that's you know, it's it's entirely we're entirely dependent.
Speaker 2: And so the noose really is how we connect bring
Speaker 2: some of that into our awareness. We can connect and
Speaker 2: we can receive, we can receive that presence of God
Speaker 2: in a in a in a more aware way, if
Speaker 2: you like, in our spiritual and then we can convert
Speaker 2: our physical vision and our physical desires into spiritual vision
Speaker 2: and spiritual desire. And I think I think it's again
Speaker 2: going back to this union of of of of of
Speaker 2: the spirit and the and the body in humanity, which
Speaker 2: is an unusual and unique thing.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. Well, and two things came to mind when
Speaker 1: you were talking. I mean there are two eye words.
Speaker 1: One that the origin of the word idiot, which I
Speaker 1: thought was beautiful.
Speaker 2: Can you yes, Well, I mean idiotis is the individual.
Speaker 2: So an idiot is one who's cut off, completely cut off,
Speaker 2: and the the opposite of that is being connected and
Speaker 2: in relationship.
Speaker 1: And an individual I mean individualism rules the day. So
Speaker 1: when I read that, I thought, wow, I mean we
Speaker 1: idolize individuality, we idolize idiocy in a sense, here's just going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. And of course actually we're
Speaker 2: not individuals. We're persons primarily. I mean, we can be individuals,
Speaker 2: but it's not a desirable state because the person is
Speaker 2: the one who can see face to face. Individual is
Speaker 2: just a thing, you know, on the board that can
Speaker 2: be moved around, or a piece that can be assembled
Speaker 2: together with other pieces. But actually we're much more than that.
Speaker 2: We're persons, and that face element of the person, the
Speaker 2: persona or the pros upon in Greek is that is
Speaker 2: the key that we can encounter face to face. And
Speaker 2: that is why the masks are such a problem, because
Speaker 2: they get in the way. They prevent us from seeing
Speaker 2: each other's true faces.
Speaker 1: The mass whose elaborate on that way, I mean the
Speaker 1: difference between individual and person, because I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people would see that as synonymous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean the difference is simply that the
Speaker 2: individual focuses on the difference and the person focuses on
Speaker 2: the connection. So what is our primary thing? Is our
Speaker 2: primary thing to cut ourselves off from all of humanity
Speaker 2: and God and make somehow our own state a world
Speaker 2: of its own? Or is our primary purpose to bring
Speaker 2: ourselves into union with all of humanity and Christ in
Speaker 2: a union of perfect love? I mean that's what we're told.
Speaker 2: It's the end of our lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, like you said earlier, I mean, no one
Speaker 1: has saved in isolation. We are saved in union and
Speaker 1: communion with each other and with God.
Speaker 2: And that is, in fact, our our ultimate destiny is
Speaker 2: to be an ever more perfect union. So why would
Speaker 2: we want to focus on cutting ourselves off and bringing
Speaker 2: something of our own when actually everything we have is
Speaker 2: already shared, and everything we have is already a gift
Speaker 2: from outside.
Speaker 1: You know, it's probably why we find ourselves in such
Speaker 1: a disordered state, I mean, in our modern world. So
Speaker 1: that was one I word, the individual slash idiot. The
Speaker 1: other one that I kept thinking of when you were
Speaker 1: talking about is imagination. And we think I would never
Speaker 1: I mean, you just think of the Willy Walker song.
Speaker 1: Pure imagination. It's a good thing, right, And you said
Speaker 1: that more often than not, if not always, The Church
Speaker 1: fathers speak of imagination as a negative thing, whereas in
Speaker 1: our modern world we think of imagination as a positive thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who's right.
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing is, it's partly because of the
Speaker 2: definition of the word, but I think because we all
Speaker 2: know that imagination has two aspects to it, right, you've got,
Speaker 2: you've got the kind of imagination that takes you out
Speaker 2: of reality, and it can be really it leads. I mean,
Speaker 2: where's where's the distinction between imagination in that sense and delusion?
Speaker 2: I mean, in the end, it's it's creating a sort
Speaker 2: of a parallel reality which is not God's reality but mine,
Speaker 2: and that's a bad thing. But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: creativity and being co creators with God, that's a positive.
Speaker 2: And we often use imagination to indicate something like that.
Speaker 2: So I think that's the key is what are we
Speaker 2: doing and why are we doing it? And if it's
Speaker 2: because because we want to be individuals and therefore we
Speaker 2: want to be imaginative in a new way and create
Speaker 2: something ourselves out of ourselves, then that maybe not so great.
Speaker 2: But if we're if we're imaginative in the sense that
Speaker 2: we're being very creative with with with what God has
Speaker 2: given us for the purpose any of these purposes we've
Speaker 2: been talking about, then that, you know, that's that's a
Speaker 2: good use of imagination. So I think I think it
Speaker 2: really very much depends on the context and what we
Speaker 2: mean by it. But I think it's really important to
Speaker 2: be aware of that distinction. And not just assume that
Speaker 2: to be imaginative as a positive. It's interesting because I
Speaker 2: think there's a there's a sort of a trend in
Speaker 2: healthcare as well, that people talk about spirituality as if
Speaker 2: it's always positive. Of course it's not always positive. They say,
Speaker 2: you know, we want to get in touch with people,
Speaker 2: allow people to get in touch with their spiritual side
Speaker 2: and develop their spirituality. So well, that would be that
Speaker 2: that you know, that's that's great, But not if it's
Speaker 2: about connect communicating with demons, then maybe it's not saying good.
Speaker 2: We don't want to talk about that in a positive way.
Speaker 2: So I think there are lots of these things. I mean,
Speaker 2: pretty much everything in this world is split, isn't it.
Speaker 2: So there's always a danger, and there's always a temptation.
Speaker 2: There's always a way of using something to separate yourself
Speaker 2: from God, and there's a way of using it to
Speaker 2: connect and join yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, it's it's it's the one hundred our words,
Speaker 1: the news and the neapsis. I mean, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's transforming or getting in touch with the vision of
Speaker 1: your heart and and guarding it, I mean, being watchful
Speaker 1: being and like I said, not to the degree of paranoia,
Speaker 1: but this constant I mean prayerfully considering everything that you're
Speaker 1: going through and your desires, because I mean you talk
Speaker 1: about desire and specifically in context of pornography, but it's
Speaker 1: not just enough to kill your desires, because that's a
Speaker 1: that's a road block.
Speaker 2: Not helpful, because it's that's basically you know, the the
Speaker 2: it's emptying, emptying the house of the demons, so that
Speaker 2: if you do that, then just more demons will move in, right,
Speaker 2: So that's yeah, that's the desire is desire is not
Speaker 2: about being cut off, is about being transformed into desires
Speaker 2: for the wholely for God, and it's for the good
Speaker 2: of of you know, not only ourselves, but all the
Speaker 2: people we come into contact with.
Speaker 1: So it's ultimately all about transformation. I mean, it desire
Speaker 1: in and of itself, like like we've been talking about
Speaker 1: over and over. I mean, and I think it's it's
Speaker 1: a positive thing that to reiterate because it's something that
Speaker 1: I only learned a number of years ago. I Mean,
Speaker 1: I'd never really thought about good and evil just being
Speaker 1: parallels of the same stick and that nothing that evil
Speaker 1: does not exist in isolation. That was news to me.
Speaker 1: I mean I had kind of just had never really
Speaker 1: drawn the distinction. And then when you really, I mean
Speaker 1: sometimes it takes a lot of work, but you can
Speaker 1: trace the line where you go, ah, that's how something
Speaker 1: good got perverted into X. And it's the same way.
Speaker 2: And I'm hopefully the hopeful side of this is that
Speaker 2: it means that in every evil in this life, there
Speaker 2: is always an element of good. Yes, you're never entirely separated,
Speaker 2: because you can't. You know, everything depends on God. So
Speaker 2: if you're still alive, there's still you know, where there's life.
Speaker 2: There's how they say, And I think that's really really
Speaker 2: true for this reason, because however perverse or evil, the
Speaker 2: situation is, there's still well, it still is has a reality.
Speaker 2: Then that means there's hope and there's there's good in
Speaker 2: there that can be grasped and built on developed and
Speaker 2: I think that's really important.
Speaker 1: So, you know, this is just this has just been
Speaker 1: a conversation about killing sacred cows. In our modern Western world.
Speaker 1: You talk about you know, one, you say we all
Speaker 1: have a pornography problem. Two you bring in the twelve
Speaker 1: step program and you basically say we're all powerless which
Speaker 1: is anathema in our modern world. Are are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: Maybe you are, Andrew, But I I I've life hacked
Speaker 1: myself to the degree to which I am in control.
Speaker 1: Why is that an illusion? I mean powerless? We are
Speaker 1: all powerless. And you know it's it's said we we
Speaker 1: should not rely on ourselves. That that's that's completely contrary
Speaker 1: to everything that we're told in our modern society.
Speaker 2: I think it's pretty clear that none of us can
Speaker 2: create the world. I think I think we reached the
Speaker 2: realms of definite delusion if we're talking to somebody who
Speaker 2: thinks they can create the world. And so there's you know, yes,
Speaker 2: of course we can make a difference, and that's important,
Speaker 2: and that's important to affirm that. And you know, we
Speaker 2: do have the power to make things better or worse
Speaker 2: for ourselves and for other people. But we don't have
Speaker 2: the ultimate power. There's a very high degree of powerlessness.
Speaker 2: I can't control, you know, whether I'm going to get
Speaker 2: some terrible disease and die tomorrow. That's not within my power.
Speaker 2: It's just not. And so I can do things that
Speaker 2: make it more or less likely, of course, but I
Speaker 2: can't ultimately control it. So in the sense, in that
Speaker 2: sense we're all we are all powerless, and and and
Speaker 2: the idea of you know, sort of self made man
Speaker 2: that it's impossible because there are so many things that
Speaker 2: the self made man is depending on his health, you know,
Speaker 2: living in a country where somebody doesn't just turn up
Speaker 2: and steal his house and his family and you know whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, there are so many things that he is
Speaker 2: not responsible for in his self health made life. Which
Speaker 2: is not to say that hard work is you know,
Speaker 2: is a waste of time and pointless at all. It's
Speaker 2: just to say that there are limits and to acknowledge
Speaker 2: those limits. I think there's there's so much black and
Speaker 2: white thinking. And that's that's the thing, because actually real
Speaker 2: life is full of degrees of things. You know, where
Speaker 2: is the where It's not that there are good people
Speaker 2: and bad people, and good is this thing over here,
Speaker 2: and evil is that thing over there. It's just never
Speaker 2: so simple. The evil always contains good, that good always
Speaker 2: contains evil, That good people do bad things, that bad
Speaker 2: people do good things. You know, it's all mixed. And
Speaker 2: that's why it's so difficult, because we'd like it to
Speaker 2: be really obvious and simple.
Speaker 1: Nuance is a lost art. I mean, so true freedom,
Speaker 1: what is it? Because I mean, if we're powerless, how
Speaker 1: can we experience true freedom?
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean again, it's one of those things, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Freedom is like everything else on the continuum, and when
Speaker 2: we never entirely without it, but it's also never complete
Speaker 2: in this life, like everything in this life. So you know,
Speaker 2: I think I sort of thought about this from reading
Speaker 2: the accounts of the people who had been in concentration
Speaker 2: camps and in the Soviet gulags. You know, their freedom
Speaker 2: was enormously limited, and yet they used it but a
Speaker 2: little tiny bit they had to enormous effect in some cases.
Speaker 2: And we've got saints, you know, who came out of
Speaker 2: these contexts because they used their human freedom in a
Speaker 2: case where pretty much everything that we would call freedom
Speaker 2: had been taken away to such effect that they became
Speaker 2: they were able to use it to become saints. And
Speaker 2: so I think, you know, freedom is a huge, huge,
Speaker 2: And the other thing, I guess, the other thing that's
Speaker 2: really important to me about that is that that love
Speaker 2: depends on freedom, because love cannot be forced and still
Speaker 2: be real, and so in that sense, I think freedom
Speaker 2: is really at the center we have to be we
Speaker 2: have to be able to give and receive love freely,
Speaker 2: and that that's what God gives us, that opportunity to
Speaker 2: do that. We're not forced ever into can't be forced
Speaker 2: into loving God, right or anyone else. So the freedom
Speaker 2: is really it is really important, and we all exercise
Speaker 2: it all the time, all the time. But sometimes I
Speaker 2: think we you know, maybe we use it. Obviously we
Speaker 2: use it in negative ways, but I think sometimes we
Speaker 2: underestimate actually how valuable it is. And perhaps that's perhaps
Speaker 2: that's why, you know, the people who had most of
Speaker 2: it taken away were able to value the part that remained.
Speaker 2: But yes, there's a sort of a I think it's
Speaker 2: also part of being a a physical and a spiritual
Speaker 2: being that enables us to maintain that inner freedom even
Speaker 2: when the outer freedom is mostly stripped away.
Speaker 1: And how is this important the context of pornography? I mean,
Speaker 1: you're kind of tagline. I guess if I would attribute
Speaker 1: it to is finding the freedom to live And this
Speaker 1: is all based in the context of free I guess
Speaker 1: to some degree freedom from pornography. But pornography is just
Speaker 1: the symptom of the greater disease, right.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, And there's so many things that limit our freedom,
Speaker 2: and so many of them are I mean, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to say self imposed, but so many of them,
Speaker 2: things that we feel limit our freedom are actually not.
Speaker 2: You know, they're internal as much as external that we
Speaker 2: say in some cases, So I think, I mean, I
Speaker 2: think my own case, I was always a very anxious person,
Speaker 2: and the anxiety massively limited my freedom. But it was
Speaker 2: and it existed because of a you know, external factors
Speaker 2: in my life growing up. But I also had some
Speaker 2: freedom in how I dealt with that and what I
Speaker 2: did with it. And so I think there are lots
Speaker 2: of things like that, I think, which are sort of spiritual,
Speaker 2: if we like to say, spiritual limitations on our freedom
Speaker 2: rather than physical ones. And so I think this living
Speaker 2: the life of repentance actually helps to break through some
Speaker 2: of those things and allow us to experience its freedom
Speaker 2: and to use it. And I do think, I mean,
Speaker 2: I know that I underestimated my own freedom, and I
Speaker 2: suspect that's not a unique case, and that there's actually
Speaker 2: so much we can do for good if we're willing
Speaker 2: to grasp it.
Speaker 1: Well, you talk about repentance, I mean, why what is
Speaker 1: true repentance? And just to really hammer home that the
Speaker 1: point that we've already discovered. But I think it's worth
Speaker 1: it because you know, think about this a lot. Andrew that,
Speaker 1: and and I did a podcast with a guy named
Speaker 1: Justin Marler, who I love deeply, and I got a
Speaker 1: lot of pushback on it. This guy doesn't take sin seriously.
Speaker 1: Did you listen to our conversation? Did you read his book?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 1: I mean, he is not saying that sin is not
Speaker 1: a problem. It's just not the problem that you think
Speaker 1: it is. That your focus is so heavy on the
Speaker 1: infractional element, and I think it has a lot to
Speaker 1: do with the maybe the Western conception of sin and
Speaker 1: the Western conception of even being saved. And so I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's something that you think about a lot,
Speaker 1: or if you have anything to offer in this this realm,
Speaker 1: but it's something that I really, really, I don't think
Speaker 1: that we can talk about enough because I think that
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're in the the realm of therapy.
Speaker 1: Think there's a lot of hurt people that are hurt
Speaker 1: by a misconception of sin and that carrying it through
Speaker 1: they're unable to truly face or to live a life
Speaker 1: of repentance because they can't handle the concept of sin
Speaker 1: as it's been presented to them. Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it definitely does. No. I mean you said,
Speaker 2: you've said you know what is repentance? I was going
Speaker 2: to say, well, when you when you find out, you
Speaker 2: can tell tell me, because I think it's one of
Speaker 2: those things that to grasp in all its fullness is
Speaker 2: the work of more than a lifetime. But yes, I
Speaker 2: think you're You're right. I mean, what we know, what
Speaker 2: we know it isn't is this very limited conception of
Speaker 2: a sin being a bad thing that we've done, and
Speaker 2: the repentance being somehow overcoming that bad thing or turning
Speaker 2: away from that bad thing. And I think that's a
Speaker 2: very limited sort of concept of what it looks like
Speaker 2: and repentance. You know, there's so much in the Father's
Speaker 2: about this. The repentance is is a lifelong process, and
Speaker 2: for me that the best image of it is the
Speaker 2: story of the prodigal son. You know that his repentance
Speaker 2: was finding himself in there with the pigs and the
Speaker 2: husks and thinking, even the servants of my Father's have
Speaker 2: something more than this. And then he said, lor why
Speaker 2: not let's just go back. And it slept turning back
Speaker 2: and then throwing himself on the mercy of the Father
Speaker 2: and saying, you know, I did, I made a mess
Speaker 2: of it basically, and the Father says, you're my son.
Speaker 2: And so I think the repentance is just that in
Speaker 2: a way, it's it's being able to let go of
Speaker 2: all this stuff and go back and go back to
Speaker 2: the Father. And it's nothing to do with you know,
Speaker 2: doing stuff and overcoming issues issues, and all that is
Speaker 2: is that, you know, it may happen, it may be
Speaker 2: part of the process, but it's it's not the way.
Speaker 2: It's not the way we move. The way we move
Speaker 2: is to turn back to the Father and say your
Speaker 2: your will is what we need, Your love is what
Speaker 2: we need, and we need to live in that and
Speaker 2: the rest will just follow from that. Hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, once again turned towards the light. Yeah. I'm going
Speaker 1: to ask a question that it probably should have led with,
Speaker 1: why does the church care so much about sex?
Speaker 2: Oh, here's that one, Because it's about life, right. I
Speaker 2: think the obsession with sex actually doesn't so much come
Speaker 2: from the churches, with people constantly asking the questions of
Speaker 2: the church. Because I don't know about you, but I
Speaker 2: don't actually hear very much when I go to church.
Speaker 2: I don't very hear very much in my sex, and
Speaker 2: it's almost never in the sermons. So I don't think
Speaker 2: it's you know, I don't think the obsession is quite
Speaker 2: the churches, but maybe societies. But the Church does care
Speaker 2: about sex very deeply because it's at the heart of
Speaker 2: who we are as people, and because marriage particularly is
Speaker 2: at the heart of the image of heaven. And I
Speaker 2: think it's because, as I was saying earlier, you know,
Speaker 2: our vision of heaven is this true union of all
Speaker 2: in all all in Christ. And marriage is given to
Speaker 2: us as the sort of first earthly taste of this union,
Speaker 2: which is then fulfilled, you know, in the wedding banquet
Speaker 2: of the Lord. And part of the concept of marriage
Speaker 2: is precisely this joining together of the male and female,
Speaker 2: which were set you know, as Maximus, that confessor says,
Speaker 2: set we're one of the separations of creation. And so
Speaker 2: it's it's coming back together in a union of perfect love,
Speaker 2: where we can appreciate the other and the difference and
Speaker 2: come together in union and be one and yet still
Speaker 2: be twos as God is, you know, one and three,
Speaker 2: and Christ is perfectly divine and perfectly human, and it's
Speaker 2: all of the joinings together in which all of this works,
Speaker 2: the joining together of the things that are different. And
Speaker 2: so I think that's that's why, because sex is about
Speaker 2: the joining together of the things that are different, and
Speaker 2: so it's absolutely at the heart of the message of
Speaker 2: the Gospel. It's possible. You can do this. You can
Speaker 2: join together what's different, and you can do it in
Speaker 2: perfect love, and it can grow in union, and it
Speaker 2: can grow in union for a eternity.
Speaker 1: M beautiful brother, thank you for that. Thank you. It
Speaker 1: was like, you know, it's just there's so many different
Speaker 1: ways that that question could be answered and in just
Speaker 1: like you do in your book, and just like we've
Speaker 1: been talking, is the right way to try and do this?
Speaker 1: Is sure you could have answered in a polemical fashion,
Speaker 1: but but you chose to focus on the good and
Speaker 1: what well, why do we talk about it? Because it's
Speaker 1: beautiful if we don't just talk about why the ways
Speaker 1: that you are are kind of screwing it up, the
Speaker 1: ways that you're perverting the good. Well, let me tell
Speaker 1: you how the vision of what's truly good and the
Speaker 1: way that we're truly meant to live and it's it's
Speaker 1: that that whole thing. Wow, when you paint that picture,
Speaker 1: I want to live in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, it's a gift from God. I've got some
Speaker 1: big picture questions for you really relating to reality. Where
Speaker 1: are we most eager to ignore reality?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. That's a that's an interesting one.
Speaker 2: Where are we most ego to ignore reality? Well, probably
Speaker 2: wherever it's the greatest challenge to our own autonomy. I think,
Speaker 2: I think. I mean, it's something I actually I thought
Speaker 2: earlier I should probably mention. Is the idea of escapism,
Speaker 2: right that the part of the pornography temptation is the
Speaker 2: escape from reality. In reality, I'm struggling to form a relationship.
Speaker 2: I'm not meeting the people that I feel like I
Speaker 2: can connect to. But in pornography, I can imagine. I
Speaker 2: can imagine this. Yeah, I can take this image of
Speaker 2: this person and make that person whoever I want them
Speaker 2: to be and have that relationship however I want it
Speaker 2: to be. And that's a huge temptation of a break
Speaker 2: from reality. And you can understand exactly why that temptation exists.
Speaker 2: It's very obvious and being lonely is a horrible thing,
Speaker 2: and we've all experienced it at some degree. We know
Speaker 2: we don't like it, and so we understand why there
Speaker 2: are temptations to escape from it in an apparently easy way. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think that's it's important to live in reality
Speaker 2: because that's the only way of connecting with God in
Speaker 2: the end, because God is ultimate reality, and because we
Speaker 2: can't connect with anybody or anything. I mean, we can
Speaker 2: connect ourselves with lots of unreal things, but they lead
Speaker 2: to more unreal things, and we don't want that. We
Speaker 2: actually want reality. We want to love really and be
Speaker 2: really loved and be part of a real union. We
Speaker 2: want to be able to create things that are real
Speaker 2: and important and lasting and good. And we only we
Speaker 2: only satisfy ourselves with the evil because we think we can't.
Speaker 1: We can't it mm hmm.
Speaker 2: And hard. It's hard work. It's sometimes very hard work,
Speaker 2: trust me.
Speaker 1: That's why each other well each other.
Speaker 2: And we have the Church, and we have the and
Speaker 2: we have the Saints, and we have Christ ultimately, and
Speaker 2: we have to keep returning to that. And it's hard
Speaker 2: sometimes to do that, and we want to escape, but
Speaker 2: it's hard, but we have to keep going back because
Speaker 2: it's the only path. It's the only path that makes sense,
Speaker 2: if the only path that needs anyway good in the end.
Speaker 1: Well, a friend that we have in common. The first
Speaker 1: person that had on this podcast was Frederica Matthews Green,
Speaker 1: and I asked her. I said, well, what went through
Speaker 1: your mind when you saw the name of this podcast?
Speaker 1: Commitment to reality? She she got to give her answer,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, I think that the most important
Speaker 1: word is commitment. Yeah, but for me, because I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: reality exists whether you realize it, admit it or not.
Speaker 1: But it's making that commitment. And it's hard. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've talked about words in it's watchfulness, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's ascetical disciplines and practices. But hard things are almost
Speaker 1: always worth it, Like do the hard thing, like you know,
Speaker 1: going for a run. I don't always want to do it,
Speaker 1: but I can say with the high degree of certainty
Speaker 1: that I'm almost always happy that I did, unless I
Speaker 1: like pull the hamstring or something.
Speaker 2: My best example of that confession, I never really liked
Speaker 2: the idea of going, but I'm always really happy when
Speaker 2: they come out.
Speaker 1: It's a hard thing. No, you're right, I mean every
Speaker 1: time you're like, oh man, going in and you just
Speaker 1: there's and it's it's a really really good example. And
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you brought it up because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people, especially well even Orthodox people might not
Speaker 1: like to do it. But it's that concept of being
Speaker 1: truly seen. And I say this to my kids just
Speaker 1: the same way that you brought it up with yours.
Speaker 1: I love you. Let me love you, not the mask,
Speaker 1: I mean. And and you go in fearing the bad priest,
Speaker 1: right or the judgmental priest, or the person who's gonna
Speaker 1: tell you how bad you are. And and my experience,
Speaker 1: I always walk away feeling loved and seen and and
Speaker 1: and you know it's it's before the face of Christ.
Speaker 1: And what can be more relieving, you know, is that
Speaker 1: you see me and you love me.
Speaker 2: Astonishing is you know, I did? I did. I somehow
Speaker 2: still to this day sometimes seem to imagine that I
Speaker 2: can hide things from from Christ.
Speaker 1: We're deluded, yeah, but in a world that feels increasingly unreal,
Speaker 1: you know. By One of the other motivations for this
Speaker 1: podcast is our world is changing rapidly, I mean, with
Speaker 1: the assent of Ai and just I mean, I use
Speaker 1: the term future shock all the time. I think it's
Speaker 1: so funny because, you know, I think it was Charlton
Speaker 1: Aston in promoting future shock. He was doing a documentary
Speaker 1: on it, I think, and he's in a library and
Speaker 1: he's like, look at all of this information. Man has
Speaker 1: never had access to information like this ever before. And
Speaker 1: we're experiencing a state of a future shock of paralysis.
Speaker 1: And I remember watching that on YouTube and thinking he
Speaker 1: had no idea. You thought that was future shock? Like this,
Speaker 1: we are in shock, and so you know, we live
Speaker 1: in this world. It's increasingly feels unreal. What do you,
Speaker 1: Andrew Williams feels most real?
Speaker 2: I think it's and I think this is why I
Speaker 2: really appreciate my job, because I go in and talk
Speaker 2: to people who have incredibly difficult lives, and it's an
Speaker 2: enormous blessing. It's an enormous blessing to be able to
Speaker 2: share the reality of the situation and to be open
Speaker 2: to to to being there, you know, and and and
Speaker 2: to understand why people want to avoid it or escape
Speaker 2: from it or reinterpret it, but to just be able
Speaker 2: to be there.
Speaker 1: Mm hm.
Speaker 2: So I think I really value the ability to have
Speaker 2: those really real relationships, even even when they're difficult or
Speaker 2: sad and heartbreaking sometimes but they're but that's they're real
Speaker 2: and and the people are real, and we're all in
Speaker 2: this weird journey of live together. And yeah, I think
Speaker 2: I sort of lost a bit of a taste for
Speaker 2: the for the fake, and so I really appreciate those
Speaker 2: those moments when people and you know, I've never met
Speaker 2: more honest people than people in mental health wors and
Speaker 2: and also people with such a genuine interest in the
Speaker 2: reality of the spiritual life and what it means, often
Speaker 2: masters of research and come up with some really quite
Speaker 2: inventive answers, some tellius, but I mean the conversations are
Speaker 2: always fascinating. What was that?
Speaker 1: There was a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and I can't
Speaker 1: remember what it was, but there was a character and
Speaker 1: I think he won an Oscar for the for the performance.
Speaker 1: But he was crazy. He was the only one who
Speaker 1: saw things and said things as they truly were.
Speaker 2: They were uncomfortable told tradition of the you know, the
Speaker 2: holy fool, which I think is really important. And sometimes
Speaker 2: it is the person who will actually just say what
Speaker 2: they see and when the rest of us are sort
Speaker 2: of conforming to various societal requirements and not able to
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 1: Revolution Road I think was the movie. Uh yeah, And
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, what my mind just drifts there.
Speaker 1: You know, you're talking about suffering, and what feels real
Speaker 1: is is being in the presence of suffering with another
Speaker 1: I mean, not exclusively, but that's that's where my mind
Speaker 1: goes when you're when you're talking about it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the aforementioned justin Marler when I had him on the podcast,
Speaker 1: he said that a monk when he was in the monastery,
Speaker 1: he was a monk for a while, he said something
Speaker 1: that shattered his paradigm. And I said, I want to
Speaker 1: feel that, and I'm keeping it with me for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life. Said, we're taught in our modern
Speaker 1: world to avoid suffering. Suffering is evil, Suffering is bad.
Speaker 1: And the monk told him when you're suffering. Now once again,
Speaker 1: this isn't in a masochistic way where you seek out suffering, said,
Speaker 1: when you're suffering, God's visiting you. And I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: I'm reading too much into it, but when you say,
Speaker 1: I mean you if you're with people who are suffering,
Speaker 1: what feels most real to you, is the presence of God.
Speaker 2: Yes, No, I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right.
Speaker 2: But and I would also say that that in the
Speaker 2: midst of suffering there is also joy and that's also
Speaker 2: the presence of God. Not always obviously, that the joy
Speaker 2: isn't always there, but there are moments, there are moments
Speaker 2: of joy.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. How because I can hear somebody saying, not
Speaker 1: my suffering, I've never felt joy and suffering.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe, And I think maybe that's the individual thing
Speaker 2: as well, because I think it's when we when we
Speaker 2: when we when we join together there, when we sit
Speaker 2: in the place of suffering together, that we can find
Speaker 2: the moments of joy even lefter. You know, I've I've
Speaker 2: experienced times of lefter with people who are dying, with
Speaker 2: people who are in the bits of terrible suffering. And
Speaker 2: the humanity is humanity, and that that hope is always there,
Speaker 2: and there there are moments that come, sometimes quite surprisingly
Speaker 2: out of the blue, moments of joy and beauty.
Speaker 1: Particularly beautiful bright sadness. Yeah, absolutely, will you talk about hope?
Speaker 1: And I'd like to end that way, you know, for
Speaker 1: a podcast on pornography, I feel like we didn't talk
Speaker 1: about pornography a whole lot, which is kind of the point.
Speaker 1: That's it's kind of like that that that that I've
Speaker 1: read it before, where you know, a priest is told
Speaker 1: somebody confessing. You know, you think your sins are special,
Speaker 1: they're actually kind of boring. They're all the same. You know,
Speaker 1: it's beauty and that's unique.
Speaker 2: Look at the same slaves.
Speaker 1: But you know, hope, hope for anybody who you know,
Speaker 1: Glory to God, thank God. It's not something that I
Speaker 1: personally struggle with in the in the more acute version,
Speaker 1: not the because you did say that we all have
Speaker 1: a pornography problem. But for somebody who's really struggling with pornography,
Speaker 1: give them hope, give them a way out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I mean, I think the way out in
Speaker 2: all of these things is always real relationship. You have
Speaker 2: to It's difficult because it requires being vulnerable, and being
Speaker 2: vulnerable is a risk. Okay, whenever we take that step
Speaker 2: to be vulnerable, we're taking a risk, and there are
Speaker 2: people we can't trust and there are people who will
Speaker 2: abuse that. So it's a difficult thing. But I do
Speaker 2: think that the answer to to the problem is if
Speaker 2: you have to find a place where you can make
Speaker 2: yourself vulnerable. You have to find a person that you
Speaker 2: can trust and make yourself vulnerable with. And when you start,
Speaker 2: once you start to make that real connection, you understand
Speaker 2: how much more that's worse than all of this fake stuff.
Speaker 2: And I don't think there's anybody who choose this, this
Speaker 2: imaginary reality for the real one once they've experienced the
Speaker 2: real one. But I just think there's so many people
Speaker 2: in this world that are lonely and that don't have
Speaker 2: a person that they feel they can turn to and
Speaker 2: actually willingly make themselves vulnerable. And so I think that's
Speaker 2: that's the key, that's the key.
Speaker 1: Vulnerability when properly harnessed, is a superpower, true vulnerability.
Speaker 2: Not yeah, absolutely, but it's always a risk. It's always
Speaker 2: a risk.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's directly core a litive, but
Speaker 1: it's right below. And I think, hey, if there's an
Speaker 1: opportunity to bake this end to the end of the podcast,
Speaker 1: why not? Because I read it and I thought it's
Speaker 1: too good. Stand on the edge of the abyss and
Speaker 1: when you feel it's beyond your strength, break off and
Speaker 1: have a cup of tea.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I quoted that so often. Apparently
Speaker 2: in one of the hospital justs that I worked in
Speaker 2: that when I moved, when I left, as a as
Speaker 2: a parting gift, they gave me a mug with that
Speaker 2: quote on. So I have a mug and I drink
Speaker 2: coffee out of it every morning with that quote right
Speaker 2: on it. So I'll never never be able to escape it.
Speaker 2: Now I don't want to because I think that's an
Speaker 2: absolutely beautiful, beautiful quote.
Speaker 1: It will unpack it and then we'll leave. I mean,
Speaker 1: why do you love that quote so much? Because I
Speaker 1: saw it and I go, I don't know how to
Speaker 1: work that in. It feels like I might have to
Speaker 1: force it. But it's so beautiful because it's what we,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're called to do. It's the watchfulness, and
Speaker 1: it's it can feel so heavy.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think it's just that it's just that
Speaker 2: reality of it, isn't it that that? Yes? Okay, we
Speaker 2: we want to be heroes, we want to do grand deats,
Speaker 2: and sometimes we really struggle and we suffer and we
Speaker 2: have to contemplate, you know, this existential gap, what's missing.
Speaker 2: But but we have to also just be normal human
Speaker 2: beings and say, actually, you know, I can I can
Speaker 2: do this for so long, but I don't have all
Speaker 2: that strength I need. I need a cap of perhaps
Speaker 2: a couple of coffee if you.
Speaker 1: Context coffee, or you know, depending on the time of day,
Speaker 1: maybe a recent you go have a pint. But Andrew Williams,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. When I when I was conceiving
Speaker 1: of this podcast, you were one of the people that
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to first and foremost because I
Speaker 1: just really really appreciated your book. And I think, like
Speaker 1: I said.
Speaker 2: I think because I wouldn't have done it without a
Speaker 2: lot of pressure.
Speaker 1: Well, it's just it's a it's a perfect example of
Speaker 1: how you take a a subject that can be so
Speaker 1: dark and the answer is light. Yeah. Yeah, So thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me on commitment to reality.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you, I love you, and I thank God
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: Twice. Thank you.