mm-hmm david i i can't see you just so you know i i just that's funny you might have an intensive yeah yeah yeah so we are live and uh as everyone knows this is uh aiden lizney so we're just gonna pick up from where we left off last time and just talk about talk about our faith and what's been on your mind lately what kind of stuff uh has been on your mind like with your prayer life with your just your walk with god and you know your brother's pretty hardcore greek orthodox maybe how does that influence your spirituality and just anything that's on your mind sure i'm gonna preface this by saying i'll probably ask more questions than answer because um because i feel like i don't have too too much to offer sure i i don't feel like i've got anything to offer really when kieran's talking i'm just like i'll just let him put his uh foot on the gas there but is curing greek orthodox or is he just because whenever we talk about or he is okay yeah so whenever kieran and i discuss orthodoxy it's always just orthodoxy yeah um and i love it i love kieran's orthodoxy it fascinates me um i think that um orthodox spirituality and i could be wrong uh sorry i'm just readjusting a couple things here um has like a simplicity and has a cohesiveness and a unity to it that catholicism seems to miss the but my driving factor what uh i don't like so much about orthodoxy is the uh seeming uh gearing towards polemics rather than uh evangelism and so i find that in orthodox circles as well as catholic circles um there's this lack of talking about jesus and there seems to be this like like really hashing out um uh theological points which is cool um but after a while i'm like oh wait jesus was a dude like and and it's it's like oh yeah where's he in all of this and so um yeah that's kind of that's kind of where i am that's kind of where i am with that so whenever kieran has something to say i always listen because he passes on some really good stuff and all the saints especially the the orthodox saints that he's um shown me from mount athos they always have something good to say about jesus you just kind of have to fight through some of the um more aggressive uh attacks against people that are outside the group but what do you what are your experiences with with orthodoxy well you know i'm married to an orthodox culturally orthodox woman i do and you know i'm forbidden to speak about her too much because she doesn't want to be involved but i sure do i was going to say do you have a nickname for her on the air so you don't reference her no i've got a million and one nicknames for her in real life and i just watched uh curb your enthusiasm there's a new season i just watched episode two and there was a white fluffy dog called angel muffin so i've just adopted that today as my you know 999th nickname for her can we call rachel my wife the bear when we refer to her on this program sure why is that no reason i just want to be awful and if she ever happens to see this like mama you know i no no the bear or or the beast something like that no just so like if like if i would ever die tragically she maybe she'd be like you know what i'm gonna look up aiden on youtube yeah i just need a little ayden and then she'll get to this and she'll be like that douche but uh do you have any uh any tattoos about that refer to your wife on your body are you oh yeah i mean are you asking because you know that i have one no i'm asking because if her nickname's the beast then you might have the mark of the beast on you if you're if you have a tattoo hilario oh no i couldn't do that that would be that'd be terrible but yeah i do i have i have rachel's ah there you go that's the mark of the if she's the beast that's awesome i love it or the marker the bear if she's the bear i dude i had a dream about jesus as a bear and uh a couple months ago it was really weird i had this dream that i was um going down a river and i was stuck in the current and this bear um jumped in and he i i he picked me up and and i had me on his back and i woke up and he was walking along in the woods and i realized like i'm riding on the back of a bear and it went from me being like you know kind of um recovering from this this uh crazy near-drowning experience to me eventually sitting up on the bear and basically like kicking aside saying like yeah yeah you know like i want to like yeah faster and i looked down at the bear and realized he's injured his entire body is injured and i've completely taken his rescue for granted and i feel like total garbage and he he he collapses um uh in uh you know in exhaustion and so the rest of the dream i picked him up and i carried him and it was uh it's really weird i woke up and i was thinking about him and i didn't know why i missed the bear and i was like crying about it i got emotional and i'm like oh the bear was jesus and it was like uh it was a really cool thing really cool experience that i got to have yeah wow that's very deep in a way powerful calling rachel the bear is uh yeah is it called yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so you got you got any crazy dreams or are you not a dreamer yeah i'm definitely a dreamer i definitely have crazy dreams um they're um we had a pope francis dream yeah yeah i've had a couple of those i've had a couple of those um you know i my my thing with dreams is the catholic church tells us to not take them too seriously i mean and to sort of err on this side of dismissing them yeah and then if you know like i did have a vision or a dream of the blessed virgin mary when i just converted once entering into the church so i i i don't want to commit to the fact that it was a vision a spiritual vision but i'm leaning toward that just because it's a more pleasant interpretation and it was a significant time in my life and all these sorts of things but in general when i have dreams i enjoy it if it's intense like if it's a bad dream then you know i enjoy the intensity of the that genre if it's a happy dream i enjoy the intent the intensity of that but if it's just a lukewarm dream then i'm not so thrilled by it so it doesn't have to be a good dream but if it's intense that's what i like so i think god says the same thing like if you're lukewarm spit yo but if you're hot or cold that's exciting sounds like you're a junkie it's just like yeah yeah but i mean i do i do pray every night before bed to have sweet dreams holy dreams and catechetical dreams so i want my dreams to be more more catholic and those prayers being answered occasionally but usually it's demonic sex dreams so nice i'm not we've all been there i'm not celebrating those as i used to like i mean i used to be like wow free porn or whatever you know like it's just like really exciting uh detailed life like interactive porn but i because i hate pornography i right and i hate satan and i hate lust i mean in in theory at least like in practice if you were to enter into my mind and you could tempt me with all the dirty sick perverted stuff you'd find that i'm very amenable to it because i like i part of me likes it the animal lore beast part of me likes all that stuff right but um as uh as st paul said like they're too there's a tension inside there's a fight going on like and i'm the spirit is willing but the weak is flesh that kind of thing so like uh i try not to look at sexy women in the street but i just find myself my lower animal nature just like looking like if she's exposing her breasts and bending over in front of me i just tend to look instead of looking away and saying a prayer so this is the sort of thing like the same thing in a dream like if i'm in a dream i i very rarely say no to an opportunity for indulgence and it's often food but it's also often sex i find those are the two main things that excite me food and and women and even in my dreams i've indulged in food a lot i think they're closely connected and the orthodox monks talk about that they talk about if you want to curb if they want if you want if you're serious about curbing your sexual appetites just control your food and water and sleep which is hilarious because it's so hard to control food it's hard it's like yeah if you want to just conquer this one thing conquer that mountain it's impossible it's kind of like it's it's kind of embarrassing i was depressed i went into a mini depression because of reading the philo kalia or whatever you however you think you tell hilarious like oh spiritual upliftment not today not today it's just like hey look at how how much of a beginner you are 10 years 11 years into your christianity you know i mean it's embarrassing well the orthodox would say that you're being destroyed if you're prelist and that all of your spiritual illusion illusions were being dissipated and so that's a grace from god and i would what do you mean what do you mean the promise like um so like like prelist or spiritual delusion is a big concept in orthodoxy that like we don't really talk about too much in catholicism because um there's like the epiphanic and there's the cataphatic like modes of prayer and um and in catholicism we like to use imagery for a lot of our prayer which um i still have a hard time with this one because i'm like i'm like i don't feel like imagery is um terrible i i feel like no i don't i feel like holy you know like holy imagery is really good um i feel like uh like we were given our imaginations for a reason but i think there's a saint that says that our imaginations only developed after the fall and so um you know i'd have to look i'd have to do but um you know in catholicism like uh like the way that we approach prayer um you know there is that avenue to say hey you can use your you can use your your mind and your imagination to place yourself in this scene and um and orthodox christians would say no no there's too much um too much area in there to be filled with um uh spiritual uh what was the word i'm looking for um delusion and uh you can be led astray that way and i think that that's actually i think that that's really a good point and if you look at the church fathers a lot of the church fathers talk about that too and um and so like not trying to develop images in prayer um has been has been really helpful for me in in one sense um or not having to use my mind to develop the images so like gazing upon an icon or gazing upon the crucifix or like the holy that's been made i think that that's um i think that's really appropriate but i just think it's ironic though coming back to the catholic use of you know memory and imagination um somebody had to use their imagination to create whatever that image is that i'm that i'm gazing upon so you know there's definitely um i still i still haven't come to a like a definite conclusion on what my thoughts are of of um mental imagery and prayer yeah yeah i think uh i think we should enjoy the freedom that we have as catholics like there's not so dogmatic uh pressure as maybe the orthodox feel um so i think we can enjoy that and work with your own proclivities and you know no but i mean i mean you know like but no but i mean uh knowing if you know yourself and you know that the imagery your your imagination is an occasion of sin then like avoid that sort of stuff like i mean i i'm i'm stimulated by the visual like a lot of men are um i'm stimulated by the visual so i have to be careful what i expose my eyes to and when i say i have to be careful i mean this is theoretical because in real life i just i just indulge my eyeballs on whatever is good looking like i mean even if i'm biking down the street and i see a cute dog it's like why why do i feel the need to like turn and look and admire how cute this dog is it's not like i'm sexually attracted to it it's not like i'm going to eat it right i'm not going to eat it so why why am i turning my head in admiring wow that dog's cute like what is it what am i searching for and or is it just a an innocent appreciation of god's creation and that's a reflection of god's beauty and his design it's like the innocence the i mean i saw a squirrel today normally i don't really like squirrels but this one was cute and um it just makes me wonder like what am i thirsting after that i can even admire a squirrel you know um right so i mean there's francis uh saint francis of assisi i think that's maybe uh i'm not saying that i am anywhere near that but i could take inspiration from that that it's a wholesome thing to be connected with mother nature and the animals and so i guess it might not always be a sick perverted turning toward the creature away from god that sort of thing you know what i mean because that's sort of my default self-condemnation like why am i turning toward the creature right i don't uh nah i don't oh man that sounds torturous to live inside your head dude and that's coming from me because i'm just like i'm so like at work i'm just like every path is like how is that path going to kill a patient which is like a really it's a really it's a really dark yeah place to go and uh so my co-workers are like you should probably uh probably not think like that like you're going crazy and i'm like yeah yeah i know but you know um that's how they kind of train you to think it's cool like what what action is going to go to the worst consequence and so um maybe that happens in the spiritual life too where we're like over analyzing everything and seeing like the sinfulness in it but an old spiritual director told me there was this i can't remember what the saint was but he was talking about any imperfection in humanity could be conceived as a sin like babies crying for food like be the the like the actual like mechanism of being because we're not supposed to be oops oops hello hello hello can't hear you can't hear you keep talking i can't hear you are you can you hear me hayden it's weird because it you went muted as ah my phone got a call okay no problem do what you gotta do there i was just saying hi to converse contender hey thanks for uh being there still can't hear oh you're on the phone i think i muted myself on the call so he okay so sorry about this okay so i've sent him yeah it's good so did you manage to wrap up your call no i didn't even answer it all it did was i just hit the exit button on here and it just itched over the wrench and everything that's all right not a big deal so we're back now and uh what were we talking about we're talking about uh you have a bit of scrupulosity with your patience and all that darkest path the darkest path possible yeah that would that would be unnerving uh i think your line of work is very challenging i don't think i personally could do it because i worked in what we call an old folks home or home for the age or whatever you call it um i thought you said at home for the ancient and uh i mean i just couldn't handle the the suffering the misery the loneliness and the death of the patient's residence that's why sugar is so important lately i um if somebody's upset or if i go in there and i see somebody's looking a little glum uh popsicles i just offer everybody popsicles and you wouldn't believe the overwhelming majority of people are like yeah yeah i really do want that and it's like yeah you do you come back like watch somebody frown with a popsicle in their hand it's just not it just doesn't it just doesn't happen that's cute yeah do you do you always eat the popsicle with them you have a half and you split it half and half no no no i i grab my own i like walk around with it's hilarious because they're for the patients but you frequently look at the nurse's station and there's aidan just jumping on a on a on a popsicle you have a favorite color i won't call them flavors but you have a favorite color red yeah i used to be an orange guy but um red's got the best texture purple is garbage it's it's just falls apart and it's just there's no uh consistency to it yeah it's just too crunchy the red i find has the the softer more ice cream like texture that i'm looking for oh okay did you ever try a white one no um okay you know i i've not been graced with that um that that privilege what is it like a lemon lime flavor or i don't know i i remember as a child uh being fascinated by this like it's white like i didn't know what to expect and then i tasted it i wasn't sure what i was tasting a lot of these artificially flavored treats for kids don't really match with real world flavors do you know what i mean right yes i do so yes i do kind of strange i mean i used to eat all kinds of disgusting potato chip flavors too yeah i can get behind any terrible potato chips but are you still a chip eater not as much not as much and especially because my wife i used to be a barbecue fanatic especially a certain type of barbecue like the cheapest brands of barbecue would have a sweetness like a sugary sweetness to them yep and the more sophisticated expensive brands would be more savory and i like the cheapy ones but there's a lot of msg like i can still taste the msg but anyway my point is that my wife doesn't like any flavor other than plain and salt and vinegar that's it so that's all i've been eating for the past 11 or whatever i've been married 26 years so i guess last 26 years but um yeah i try to avoid potato chips because like i'm the kind of guy that i can't just have one chip or two chips or three chips i have to eat the whole like i'll just keep eating until they're if you're anybody if you're a fast eater then maybe we'll go 50 50 on the bag of chips but if you're slow or whatever then you're just not gonna get too many chips because i like uh i like that it's like that in our household like but it's like that with every food if rachel's not fast enough she's like i bought that for me and i'm like oh well you should have eaten it a lot a lot quicker yeah i have a problem where i'm a compulsive eater i have to like if i buy a treat i have to eat it like as soon as possible kind of thing and uh if there's anything good like i just have to eat it like the sooner the better it's like it's a race all the time for me so i told you that before like even in my prayer life it's like a race like i have to get through the prayers so um but that's i think that's a better hobby than eating junk food definitely definitely at least you have prayer on the radar i don't i don't know how many people can say that yeah how is your prayer life looking lately it's not great it's not great i've sort of been relegating my prayer times to like what's most convenient for my day so like my morning prayers i just usually do them in bed like as i'm getting up like i'll just uh hit the snooze button once or twice and just pray and then pray if i don't finish them there then i'll go to the bathroom and do my grooming and whatever and finish the prayers there and i feel like that's a little bit sloppy whatever but i've been doing that for years but um and then on my i was sort of like noon little noon priority or whatever and then i do uh evening prayers but i've used to do them in like the evening before bed and then i started doing them just when i got home from work and then i started doing them like at work and then keep pushing it back you know like i feel like i'm disrespecting this prayer time but now now now i kind of do my evening prayers kind of like either during lunch or during an afternoon break kind of thing and and then i do my rosary i've been doing my rosary now on my bike ride home i do a half hour 35 minute bike ride home so i've been doing that and i do i do enjoy it like i do enjoy the idea of being in motion and being having fresh air and all that sort of thing definitely but i do feel a little bit like it's better to be in front of my icons my crucifix on my knees and stuff like that but i've been my prayer life's been suffering for the past two years yeah i feel like uh i feel like everything just goes steadily downhill like in the spiritual life or maybe our realization just like you know like starts to see the prayer where it actually is and so um yeah i feel that that way totally um like for some reason i'm just so uh averse to waking up early to say prayers and to like get them the first thing that i want to do because the first thing i want to do is coffee i want i want i want my coffee before anything else and um and i don't want the coffee just because of the caffeine i want it because the creamer is sweet and delicious and i'm so viciously addicted to sugar so um yeah i have my my roll out of bed prayers as well and uh but i think that the rollout of bed prayers are actually a hidden virtue i know that they are sloppy there's like there's an element about it that is super sloppy because you can't put your mind fully in it but there's something cool about um having prayer as the first thing on your mind as you wake up so yeah um you know it's just then making uh tuning yourself into it so that you can be fully present fully aware um because in reality it feels like like a hungover like a you know as opposed to like uh you know like the the type of devotion and love that it actually calls for but yeah it is interesting like it's part of this journey is getting to know ourselves because like we talked about discipline is difficult with food with water with sleep with prayer with all these things it's difficult right so um you get to know yourself and you get to know how weak you are and how lazy and selfish you are and all that sort of thing so i mean i already know it you already know it we don't need to keep learning these lessons over and over again but i think i think there's a there i think there is slowly uh an increase in humor i think there must be an increase in humility right i think i think that that's where we're caching i think that's where i'm cashing in right he's like i'm just realizing oh my god i'm weak and then the next day it's like yeah i'm weak and i'm even weaker than i thought i was yesterday and so on and so forth so i think i mean this is sort of like trying to polish a turd here with my prayer life and saying wow i'm so i'm getting more humble because i'm realizing what a loser selfish loser i am but i mean there is some truth to that and i am trying to console myself here but there is some truth to it like i i cannot no one can convince me that i'm holy no one can convince me that you know my prayer life is amazing right like it's i'm beyond i'm beyond that no one can convince me that okay so that's a good takeaway right yeah i agree um and i'll second no uh i'm the most crap you're lousy like oh my goodness there's a trophy for that i'm sure there's a trophy for that i'm sure it's um humility i was like my favorite book on the rosary is actually by an anglican priest and um it's so good it's uh about entering silence with the use of the rosary and um and uh at the end of the book he talks about humility has a virtue that you can't you can't acquire you can't you can't willfully acquire it it has to sneak in while your head's turned the other way and i really i kind of like that that fact i don't i i i i always worry about humility i was worried about you know the faith hope and love and of course humility and uh like oh how do you acquire those and um a big part of it is um uh just going about um your spiritual routine with consistency and then letting those things kind of manifest themselves without um trying to to force it or fake it in some way because you see that happen a lot um especially like in catholic circles a lot of people embrace like the little way of saint therese uh which is cool um i'm just not a big big fan of the little flower and like the spirituality surrounding that because it's just so like it's so our market is so oversaturated with it but if you look david there's a lot of copycat stuff where it's like i have to be even littler than that and even littler than that and the other the other month on youtube i saw somebody the username was like the littlest soul and it's just like it's so funny how quickly our attempts at humility jump in and become uh prideful and it's just like yeah but you don't understand i'm the smallest and then it's like okay that sounds a lot like you're saying you're the biggest and so um and i get it because i you know i've played and i've i've been sucked into that trap too and i'm even aware that me talking about it right now it's like you're a douche shady that is so prideful but you know at this at this point i'm just like aware of my own douchiness and i'm just like okay like i'm gonna settle for it because like i i can't be i can't be anywhere else other than where i am right now and uh that feels good to come to that realization it's like oh jesus loves you anyway like you're abhorrent uh but he knows that you're abhorrent and he knows when you're gonna do terrible things before you even do them so uh you know um just run up to his feet and uh you know beg to not do that stuff anymore and one day maybe you know um maybe those things will will go down a little bit and so i have faith in that sense that uh i don't have to worry so much about like gunning through all of these hoops in the spiritual life do you uh do you know a guy named dan britton i do not he said hi to you in the comments in the live chat d l britain d l he said hey guys good stuff aidan dan yeah yeah i know dan um i didn't know his last name dan goes to my parish st oh no way yeah that's pretty cool yeah yeah he's the man he he started um uh checking your your posts out um i guess a couple months ago and he texted me the other day and he's like hey i saw you um uh on cbs i saw that you shaved and i'm like i didn't go to cvs i don't know like what are you talking about and uh and and i'm like that's really strange did you see me like driving somewhere and then it's like oh oh right yeah yeah that is hilarious yeah i mean when i when i started this podcast whatever it was four years ago or whatever um no i had no idea that there was a pharmacy in the us because in canada we don't have that we have like oh okay here in quebec we have jean coutu we have uh pharma pre uh yeah of course you do we have uh shoppers drug mart do you have that uh-uh no but i love how it's just like french french and then just like cheap dollar general is basically what i'm hearing um is it all like uh is there like a big bilingual market um well it's a it's a heavily like nazi germany imposition of french laws here so you cannot have a sign or a poster or anything that's not primarily in french in big letters and if you want to have english you have to put in like smaller font and stuff like that so they're really they're really pushing the um and they have been for a long time trying to defend their culture and there's even a clause in our canadian constitution that quebec is a distinct society like there are something like 10 or 11 provinces two or three territories i don't know the geography too well but quebec is like a unique in a unique situation politically and it dominates politically like it's it's got its own political party the bloc quebecois like on the federal level it's like it's a very they're very very very interested in maintaining their french roots in their french language and their french culture and i mean a lot of people are annoyed by that but i like it just because i like rooting for the underdog and i like how diverse it is here culturally with used to be a lot of immigration now they're turning a little bit anti-immigration the just people get political and they have a good thing going and then they don't want to share their toys anymore or whatever but i mean you can see how naturally bigoted no but i mean you have some french stuff there in louisiana and all that sort of stuff a little bit yeah we do yeah a little bit tiny um large hispanic taters up uh yeah yeah yeah yeah really do you really oh i wouldn't be the douche no it's totally it's totally like it's totally multicultural here oh okay so we have do you have a big voodoo population do you have a big one it's not big it's not big but if you listen to one of my montreal guests dan berman i asked him what's your favorite religion i i had no idea i thought he would say judaism or something because i think he descends from french jews but he said voodoo that was his favorite religion so there i mean there is a voodoo contingent here in montreal and we've got all the cultures all the races and all the different uh foods and languages and stuff like that that's one of the reasons i like it so in that way i mean i hear a lot of people talking about immigration on the right and they're bashing immigration i just don't understand i don't understand the nuances of you know what's wrong with immigration like i'm not very savvy when it comes to politics i just like having diversity culturally and sure it's nice to look at you have this like you have new flavors and tastes and sights and sounds you you know you just get a variety it's um and it's easy to like uh ape something you know culturally when you see it from the outside but then to like jump into it and actually like get to experience it it's a it's a whole different thing um like southern culture is actually super awesome it's a lot of fun um yeah uh you know people it's so it's so easy to make fun that southern drawl but like you come come down south and you you experience it and the the way of life is different and the food is different and it's uh it's very nice yeah it's funny i wouldn't change it i sometimes think about the the way we like if you're going to make some of make like let's say you're a douche bag and you want to make fun of your enemy uh and so you want to speak in a voice that sounds like a person a stupid person or just like a hick or something like that i often think about that you know um like you can put on an exaggerated voice that's either from an ethnic culture or from like a poverty stricken sort of ghetto culture or whatever i don't know i'm just trying to find examples but um objectively like there's no reason to correlate that accent with stupidity right like there's objectively speaking there's absolutely no basis to it so or any accent for that matter yeah right but the the the sort of twist the perverted twist that i came up with in my head was to do the typical thing where you make fun of someone by using this exaggerated hick accent or whatever and you're you know that you're surrounded by people that will find that offensive because what are you doing why are you why are you doing that right but then i flip it on them to the point where it's where is this going dude you know but i'm trying i'm what i'm trying to do is i'm trying to deconstruct the prejudices that we have in the cultural police that are saying no you can't do this you can't say that you know because today we have a lot of cultural police saying you know you have to check your pronouns and which pronouns are appropriate and you have to you know don't make fun of people's culture don't use the n-word like i i personally i don't have any problem with the n-word right like i i say it without oh dude i felt like in my heart i'm like let's not go down this road i don't have a problem with the n word personally okay we'll get this topic soon it just means black it just means black oh gosh are you triggered are you triggered oh definitely but i know that um it just means black i don't think that i don't think that black people are black i don't think that white people are white right what do you think what do you think white people are kind of a kind of yellowish gross color sometimes in pink sometimes in yellow you're looking a little bit on the reddish side because your camera settings i'm looking like a pasty yellow it's like um i find the whole race i find the whole racism thing incredibly racist i like that that's good people that talk about racism i think they're racist it's you know it's like it's stupid attention to to the external um yeah yeah so it's the same thing with the accent like with the like there was an old joke my dad told me where uh the bus driver is there and like the first kid comes on whatever he talks like with a voice like that right and then it gets on the bus and then the next guy comes on and he uses the same voice whatever and he said hold on are you making fun of that other guy and then he says with a normal voice no no i'm not i'm not making fun of him and then the punch line of the joke anyway i'm not a good joke teller but the punch line of the joke is david you are really bad at taunting let me tell you the punchline of the joke was that he wasn't putting on the dummy voice he was putting on the normal bus driver voice it's like no i'm not making i with the makeup on him and make up on you so anyway my point is with all these things like when it comes to uh skin color accent a southern accent or whatever i think that it's so superficial and it's being uh policed and emphasized when it shouldn't it shouldn't be like we're just we should just treat people like people right and uh even even if someone has a low iq even if they have a learning disability even if they're uh mentally ill in various different ways it's like so what that's the hand they were dealt or whatever and right even if it was brought on by drug abuse or whatever it's like well there's there's also a reason for that right like you just look at the history look at their family look at their context look at their environment look at you know there's always a good explanation now is there culpability probably i can't imagine someone going through life without sinning but right so there's culpability but my point is that i think we should treat people as individuals and afford them dignity and respect and before judging them maybe you can walk a mile in their shoes or get to know them or find out the context and the history in the background all that sort of thing that's sort of been always been my approach like i find people are very uh quick to judge and that just bothers me yeah i would i would concur with that um with that assessment people are super like on the trigger but i think there's for some reason for me double g words uh are just so like there's just so much hate are there multiple double g words yeah yeah yeah you um uh the n word both but notice how i'm less comfortable with the n word than i am with agate um but uh but there's just something like there's just such a visceral amount of hatred that's behind those words i'm just like ah i have an experience that like uh i have and i you know i like it's just like it doesn't it's ugly it's obvious it's really ugly you just get this type of violence that just like uh you just feel it i just feel like scooped out on my gut and so i just kind of um and you know uh uh i'm not clean i'm not like by any means um you know like like oh super her you know i'm very you know like uh raunchy i'm yeah i'm very raunchy um my wife will tell you like no no he's a devil but like uh no those words are just like uh uh they just carry so much baggage with them so as soon as you're like the n-word i'm like yeah yeah well you despair in mind bear in mind i'm a canadian and uh so we're not dealing with what you're dealing with down there at all right like i mean i can tell you i can tell you from traveling in europe it's like night and day just canada europe the race you feel the racism right that's the only time i felt racism was in europe towards canadians or no no no towards blacks arabs a bit towards uh anyone that's a foreigner really i mean i was yeah there was i felt prejudiced against myself in various different places but not to any real great extent but um mostly in england actually it was surprising i felt the most shunned by the british like that was a weird yeah not the irish but the british the english yeah i felt uh excluded like i was just like i could never have real connection with the english even though i lived there for like a year right and i could could not connect with them whereas all the immigrants like all the indians all the south asians whatever i could connect with them instantly real connection warmth british people have this like this politeness that's um insurmountable yeah well no i mean it's always there but it's also a barrier so it like it like evades any kind of deeper um like penetration so like you like they're very friendly with everybody but at the same time it's like that friendliness is like arm's length type of thing um but i also happen to have like you know very loving very caring family and they're you know all from england um but you can see that very much like don't pop over without without letting them know first type of thing um like you can see that like in the culture um because there's just like a a bunch of like unwritten rules that they kind of subscribe to like that's not proper and so um you know uh i i can see that that very much being very much being uh something that you be met with they're very conformist too it's incredible how conformist i think they're the most conformist culture i've ever witnessed is the english uh in what way like super politically correct uh hairstyles clothing like superficial stuff like what kind of drapes what kind of drapes people have in their window it's like everyone does the same thing like they're all on the same page in that village in that town whatever it's like maybe not in london okay but even in london with the fashion with the hair i noticed that they like to hop on the bandwagon and not everyone obviously like the punk rock is still a thing right like people do like to screw the system in there's a big rebellious contingent but i think the reason why you get a strong rebellious contingent in great britain is because of the repressive conformity like it's just a tendency to conform right which drives me crazy i just i'm on the side of the punk rock rebellion rebellious people 100 all the time just because i cannot stand it's so funny how punk rock christianity actually is yeah i hadn't paused to think about that it's a little maybe a little bit um confusing to non-catholics to hear a catholic ranting on about how he loves the underdog rebels but no man um uh i get it because that's why i i mean that's one of the reasons why i love christianity it's just like oh yeah uh everybody rails against it and so if everybody's railing against it um then usually that points towards the actual truth that's undercutting everything like if you go into like do you have tj maxx marshall's that type of thing nothing get target i think so i'm not a big shopper not a big shepherd okay well i don't know like how it is in canada but here dude it's like it's super common to see buddha statues um and like eastern uh uh religious statues and um basically anything like that in like home decor sections but you'll never ever ever find jesus and marry statues and it's like to me that's a very telling thing it's like oh yeah you know of course like if society is buying into it and trying to like force it on to us um in in that kind of manner and it's not like oh yeah every now and then you bump into this it's it's very much in vogue um that really kind of like points towards uh for me anyway um the truth the the truth that they're trying to actually avoid i find it encouraging here in quebec i don't know about elsewhere in canada but here in quebec in our dollarama do you know what dollarama is basically cheap stuff from from china for one dollar okay no but i'm loving it already yeah it used to be everything was one dollar now it's like they started introducing a dollar fifty two dollars three dollars four dollars five dollars like it's just suddenly it's no longer a dollar store but it used to be a dollar store but even in dollarama and these other various uh cheapy little stores that i like to go to to get cheap stuff um you will find catholic content you'll find jesus candles and different stuff like that so i think it's the same if you went to what's the main city in louisiana called new orleans yeah i guess so i don't know if that's the capital but i'm not i'm not the ambassador cultural i'm going to say yes cultural capital cultural capital or whatever it's the one we hear about a lot anyway i'm sure if you went into a cheap kind of corner store dollar store kind of thing i'm pretty sure you'd find some catholic content in there i'm pretty sure so it's the same in quebec well you know louisiana is super catholic it's very much um and this area is is very has a lot of catholicism in it um yeah because like like uh we have one of the oldest chapels in america um in downtown pensacola it's burned down a couple times but because you know um i believe the spanish occupied pensacola and uh england and i don't know five other five other different countries are five total and so catholicism is prominent and uh and so we've got a lot of a lot of old um catholic catholic churches around here um that are it's really cool very interesting that because in the south you know it like the south is known for the baptists and so there's like baptist churches everywhere and i will not go to a baptist church unless it's second baptist church because every everyone claims to be first baptist church and i don't trust them because i've seen like 30 of them and i'm like you can't be thinking about this church i'm going there because at least they're like well you know what uh oh what was i gonna tell you about that um the you mentioned the spanish you mentioned the church oh yeah i was gonna ask you what is your parish called saint anne okay you may have mentioned that to me before uh-huh that's one of my favorite saints and dude is it yeah um this you can't see what i'm showing on this my screen but i've got saint anne with the blessed virgin mary in her arms a little statue that i have it's not a statue it's about i can i can react anyway oh that's great dude it looks great imagine it those purple colors really no no it's it's like a little metal bass relief is shiny and blinding it's not shining at all it's not shiny at all it's a dull darling dark ah you can anyway i love seeing and and uh i love everything about her and her story and of course uh my wife's name is anna so there you go two birds once down there baby i'm hoping i'm hoping that my prayers to saint anne will help with conversion well i'll stick some in there as well um because cnn's awesome and all the all the statues around the church are they pretty much just make her mother mary like part one yeah but dude the the church that i go to it's so beautiful it's brick um there's like inlaid um stones everywhere and there's this giant fountain um it's just kind of a bizarre uh part of pensacola that it's in so it's kind of wooded and kind of not it's got like an orchard feel to it and uh and so it's um very nice very nice looking church it's not like uh you know like a lot of catholic churches if they're not cathedrals you know a lot of them are just like the the minimalistic wall yeah minimalistic and this is um very much unique in and of itself and well decorated and well attended and it's cool nice good sentiments yeah send me some photos sometime i will send you some pics for sure what's your pre do you remember your priest's name father chuck ah yeah yeah that poor dude named after saint chuck is there saint john i don't know st charles i guess may ah that would make more sense now he's father chuck and he's the man too he's great he the first day i met him i'm just like oh i gotta go to confession he's like come on over and just like heard my confession in the parking lot he's one of those dudes he's just like okay okay and uh just like real real very casual but very very much lives his faith um just a cool dude he's uh he's the type of person that you want to be a priest um do you have a good priest uh well i mean i uh okay i don't know how to just go into this like i don't want to make a six-hour speech about the priests in montreal but anyway um i'm a little bit paranoid i have trust issues with my priests so i i'm just like on guard all the time and i don't trust any of them and uh you think that they've been infiltrated by the masons and they're secretly trying to yes oh do you really i was just being no no no i mean that's that's an exaggeration but basically i think that uh i think it's rare to meet a good priest that believes what the church teaches like i mean i i i i realize that i it's probably mental illness on my part and that i've probably met plenty of really good priests and i know i have met some really good priests but i have a lot of uh trepidation and fear about wolves in sheep's clothing sure and that includes not only the priests but the bishops the cardinals and uh i'm even like entertaining doubts about pope francis now with like all this vaccine pushing the vaccine like i'm really i'm being it's the it's the biggest uh crisis of faith that i've had in my 11 years as a catholic is and it's not a big deal but right it's like i'm starting to think oh my god like and plus i've got anna in my ear constantly telling me that he's the spawn of satan he's the antichrist and he's this and he's that right so that doesn't help yeah but he's not good david i mean objectively he is not good and i've got the rad treads and the set of a cantus constantly pushing it on me but um okay he can be as bad as he wants and and his office is still is still divine i know but i want to i want to i mean i do i still do like him and love him and i still do trust him and i still think that he's a saintly man but i'm having trouble i i'm having trouble with um the pushing the vaccine i am having trouble with that i have to admit i haven't i used his comments on it conveniently to just look the other way when i got it so i'm just like he's like it's an act of love baby load it yeah just put it in there but um yeah again you know you know my thoughts on the vaccination it's yeah i just you know like again like of all the issues that like we all of a sudden decided to be concerned with it's like this one and uh it's just so political and uh yeah it's just like i'm tired of it you know i mean like tired we're all tired of it we're all tired the other issue that bugs me about pope francis bashing here believe me but dude i really don't like how you've changed you've been so respectful to the papacy no but the the other issue is the the other issue is uh evolution like i am disappointed in even i even have a picture here of pope saint john paul ii can i hear you actually hold on my headphones disconnected can you hear me that sounds good though yeah i can hear you is it better yeah it sounds actually better okay good that's my horrible quality headphones actually let me just plug in my iphone headphones here because so then you can hear me better yeah i feel like i'm shouting at a plus headphones makes me maintain the illusion of privacy even though it doesn't like it doesn't really afford that that sounds good it's better yeah that sounds good good that's that that's apple quality for you baby so i've got uh this little picture you can't see it but my audience can see it of pope saint john paul ii and i mean i'm disappointed in him for a lot of reasons like i mean why kissing the korean uh that doesn't bother me so much but a little bit a little bit a little bit but um it's mainly the evolution thing that bugs me like i i just don't understand why the recent popes haven't pushed a sort of special creation and sort of condemned evolution like that that does bother me that does fall do you want to you want to become orthodox let's just go let's go no i do not okay all right i do not i mean i i i consider the papacy essential like a deal breaker uh-huh and i do i mean i obviously i do love and respect all the recent popes it's funny because the one the ones i'm most fond of i i my the the pope that i'm most fond of actually recently is uh john the sixth who started second vatican council even though he was like extremely liberal but i i just like him maybe because there's enough distance between me and him that i can romanticize him sure but um i just feel a lot of warmth from him and i feel a lot of warmth from pope francis and of course from jp2 and all these sorts of things but it's that i feel that for pope francis but jp2 definitely that guy he's a boy yeah yeah but dude here's the thing my main gripe with the uh the papacy um serious lack of facial hair i don't it's like like there's just something just too like pristine about like white white how about like somebody now some beard yeah yeah yeah or get a black pope why not why like i mean that's racist affirmative action i know i know it's racist i think that you're focusing too much on the exterior could we get a black pope with a southern drawl please yeah would is it racist of me to think that they have to have a beard yes uh okay all anyway no i mean yeah i do i do admire the uh the greek orthodox priesthood they have long hair and a bun a man bun yeah they're cool man and they all play guitar did a little bit suzuki have you gone to a um an orthodox uh liturgy yeah i have i have yeah i have not not in greece though not in greece here in canada yeah gotcha and it's amazing it's amazing the singing the singing is so freaking amazing it's like a religious experience it is like a religion it's like a religious experience which i i have to admit it's rare that i have a religious experience at mass if the music is bad percent well we at least here me everything like because i'm i'm lazy yeah and spiritually ignorant and like i just want you to throw it all at me like i you know i show up for confession i show up for you know my weekly mass i say my daily prayers you just you just give me the stuff and then when it comes time to saying i'm just like ugh like i don't i don't want to i want to sing for me singing is outlawed here in canada so we're not allowed to sing in church anymore so because you're going to project the virus yeah exactly exactly it's dumb but that's the way it is yeah so i haven't been singing for uh two years oh man and i like singing do you are you good at it no but i like it it's okay you can say that you are no i'm not good at it but i like it blink twice if you are i can't see i can't see i don't think i'm a good singer but i enjoy i just enjoy the the exercise of like like belting out with your lungs in that sort of therapeutic primal way favorite song to sing to on the radio what is it i don't have a favorite song on the radio do you like secular music yeah but uh my problem uh i have another psych uh psychological issue which is that i can't hear lyrics in songs i only hear melody in music i don't hear the lyrics so then you just like like homehorn oh yeah okay and i also have a problem with memory like i could watch a video of my favorite song with the lyrics on the screen i could watch it 10 times in a row sing along with it while it's playing on the screen and then you shut the video off and tell me okay now just tell me the lyrics or sing the lyrics back to me and i couldn't do it i just can't i don't have that kind of brain it just doesn't doesn't process so that's a bit of a problem but i do sing for pleasure like sometimes i make up my own songs like i sing i i made up a little tune for the rosary and for the um so i could sing the rosary um that's fun it's more of like did you yeah yeah it's amazing it is amazing that i have about an hour maybe an hour and a half's worth of prayers memorized so like i could just go non-stop for an hour and a half of memorized content it's pretty cool because that is cool my memory is not anyone who knows me anyone who knows me knows that i have zero memory i don't have a good memory but for whatever reason i was able to memorize uh a bunch of prayers and so i have a similar memory except i i'm helped by music um okay and so but kieran kieran's the one with the fierce memory and he's like everybody knows that in that counsel they said this and it's just like nobody nobody knows that kieran it's like yeah but if you refer back to this reference then you're gonna say i'm just like yeah i don't get it i can't process like that and so yeah like um people that like like i can see how people could take a pathway to god where they like think themselves to god where they basically like study themselves to god like the dominicans but hayden's not hayden's not one of those people i'm gonna either have to get by by like just scratching at jesus please don't send me there or or just like no that's the only way that's really all that's the only way i'm getting i'm getting there and like hopefully i've loved enough people in the process but like if um iq or brains are gonna lead me anywhere like to heaven i'm not i'm not getting there well do you do you trip out with um contemplation like the goodness of god the love of god the beauty of god these sorts of things or no not really no in fact i find more peace more more of a contemplative type of prayer just by simply saying jesus's name and then sitting in the silence and like the realization that like as soon as i speak his name prayerfully he is he is very real and very present and so like it's such a simple like concept to be aware of but it's like oh jesus and as soon as that as soon as his name comes off my lips it's like the awareness of like okay he's here and he's acting upon you right now and you were forever changed as a result of that that's cool and so like that to me um that's a far easier way for me to slip into contemplation than um then like the traditional mental prayer approach where you consider develop an affection um you know develop a petition and then what um what's the lasting considerations affections petitions and then resolutions so like develop a resolution to be better like that to me there's i like knowing the mechanics of that but i can't employ them because i'm too i'm too focused on the little things and jesus is like you know you have complete you know what i mean like oh okay so like for me like preparatory work for anything like that would be reading and constantly doing some kind of like spiritual reading and then hopefully like something from that like sifts into my subconscious and then i like draw upon that um when i'm engaging in prayer but uh you know for me it's like the long haul like if i really want to absorb something i have to like sit with it for a long time and then even then um i'm only ever able to like regurgitate something i don't add anything to it i can just actually take it in for its depth and its meaning but i'm a glutton like you and so like when it comes to content like i buy so much and then i start reading certain things and i put them down and i come back and if i found that the only things that i actually complete are the things that are short enough to complete and um i just stumbled upon a book months ago by lev jalae who's a french man a french priest who is um roman catholic and then he became a greek catholic and um he wanted to be ecumenical and he wanted to re you know do some stuff to reunite the churches and he found that there was a lot of opposition from the roman side to to reconcile uh orthodoxy and so he with permission from his um his his elder in the greek or uh greek catholic community that he was in he got to convert to orthodoxy and then did a lot of work in orthodoxy and became an archimandrite and um just like very simple pure writing about um about uh the jesus prayer but the book that i've been obsessed with is his book on the invocation of the name of jesus and um i'm reading through it for the second time and the only reason that that can occur is because um it's so short so simple to read but also so spiritually deep that like i'm able to like keep coming back to it with vigor because most of the time you know i rip right through it and then discard it yeah yeah i often wonder uh how much is being digested like uh so i like to reread like you said that's a good idea reread and meditate on what you've read and these sorts of things and there was something you said earlier about the your experience in the mass and it reminded me of the council of trent the documents of the council of trent which i read recently it said something interesting i wanted to bounce it off because you might find it interesting it's a different mindset from from our mindset today as catholics and the experience of the mass especially post vatican ii right so in in the 16th century when this was written the documents were written the one of the documents i forget which uh session it was but the document said in a very matter-of-fact way like this is what everyone knows it's not a groundbreaking thing it's like everyone knows this is what happens at mass but the the fathers of the council said while you're at mass doing your private devotions and your your private prayers at mass there are a couple of times during the mass where you need to stop what you're doing and pay attention to the actual mass what's going on in the mass sure okay so what i've been trained to do from vatican 2 is to be present and actively participating all through the mass right and what trent was saying is you know when you're at when you're at the mass and what you're doing by default is your own private meditations and you're tripping out on you know doing your own thing praying and praying in your own head there are certain moments like a couple of times where you're going to have to stop doing that and actually pay attention to what's happening i find that fascinating fascinating but it's interesting because my wife told me that she likes the greek orthodox church because she doesn't understand like all the ancient greek and all the chanting and it's just a bunch of mumbo jumbo so she can trip out she could just sit there and trip out and actually that's kind of like what the council of trent was saying you're just kind of there doing your devotions you're soaking up the vibes yeah it's so different from the the post vatican ii experience of the mass no yeah it really is and um people were really upset that there was a document released like in the early 1900s discouraging uh rosary prayer during the mass and saying the mass is the mass and you shouldn't be praying the rosary during the mass and a lot of people were upset because they're like this helps me tune into the mass on another level and um people like people got really up in arms about it um but to me it makes sense that like if you have something in the vernacular um to pay attention you have an obligation to pay attention which is why i feel guilty when like half the time that they're singing i don't sing along um i sing along to like the the gloria and stuff like that but like other than that like the um the cheesy like hymns that they that they love to to whip out it's like no i'm not gonna do it because i i just don't i don't care i don't wanna physically exert energy because i'm a pig but um but i do like that that was the the case what how many years ago 400 years ago yeah um and i think that that would actually be really beneficial uh um i was because i was in church the other day thinking about this you know praying jesus name or praying with jesus prayer and i was thinking oh am i allowed to do this you know this isn't you know like if this puts me in tune with um if this puts me like in the present moment and aware of jesus's presence is this seems like this would be appropriate and i kind of discarded the thought like no you need to be present for the mass and what's going on with the mass and yeah and interact with the mass as it is but um do you ever think about food when you're at the mass like what are you going to eat directly after yes yes i do yes i do in fact i get grumpy when they go too long because like um like father's just like all right we got any birthdays we got any wedding anniversaries and i'm sitting there and i'm just like i just want to go home get my second cup of coffee and i want to make eggs that's like what i want right now and it's like aidan you're such a douche like it's like 907 right now mass was at eight like you're you're literally leaving you know but um why do you think about food at mass yeah yeah food and women no i'm just kidding but yeah sometimes i do think about women but um no i mean i'm aware i'm aware of the fact that i'm subject to demonic attack like all the time even in church even in church like i had some really demonic uh sexual imagery coming into my head while i was at mass last sunday and it was very very creative and it's something that i had never thought of before i think it was like a i don't want to use the word inspiration but i think satan was like just like giving me something like new and exciting and um so yeah i'm aware of the fact that this life is a test and a lot of the time at church i'm nitpicking like i don't like the music i don't like this this is long this is boring i don't like the homily i think this priest is a loser like whatever it's just constant constant negativity in my head constant so you know people would look over and go look at this guy is a nice catholic right but they don't know what's going on inside of my head right exactly exactly yeah so i mean i to me that's the intimacy with god it's like hey god is this uh like i mean am i like literally like i'm destined for hell and i'm just going through the motions like i'm pretending to be catholic and it's like i'm on my way to hell and this is going to torture me for all eternity like that i'm you know doing sacrilegious participation and whatever like you know i mean like it's just i'm not i may be exaggerating a little bit how how uh sort of scrupulous i am about about these dark thoughts but the dark thoughts are there and um no not constantly not all the time like i can be edified at church and i can think oh the priest is good and holy and i like his homily and the music's good and she's singing well and the organ is amazing and often the organ is amazing like it's just amazing but um there are demonic attacks that's how that's what i call it anyway demonic attacks like um so i sort of try to humble myself and say look i mean god is allowing this and it's my fault right it's not satan's well it's my fault like i mean satan's just doing his job right like i'm i'm susceptible to his his lies i don't know david if you don't entertain what's being given to you then it's not your fault like i would i would disagree with that i know but the thing is i know my i know my track record with like entertaining satan's uh temptations right it's like so if you're engaging and like then sure yeah there's fault there but yeah you know yeah yeah but even if i'm not engaging there like for example when i was at a mass and i had this weird sexual imagery came to me uh very graphic uh i was not tempted to engage in it but i know that in the past like in my off time like just you know playing video games or whatever like i've indulged in sexual fantasies and all sorts of things sure um yeah i fed the monster i fed the monster like it's like don't feed the the squirrels at the park that kind of thing well i fed the squirrels right so david how about the the monks who've gone off in the desert you know and they're still like molested by those thoughts like that's yeah you know what i mean like to a degree like you kind of have to just like hands off and just say like my fault jesus is taking somebody else yeah no you know as like jokingly as you can say that it's like the truth it's like i don't i i almost never pin blame anymore on certain things i'm like well you know what i either have new like like neutrality or garbage to bring to the table and i don't know if i'm bringing the garbage or somebody else is bringing the garbage to satan because it's in satan and so like i always get into like those tussles of like did i and or didn't i and i find that doesn't matter it does because either either way um either way it's there and it just needs to be ignored and so like i find that that's just a for me anyway fruitless yeah yeah i agree i agree 100 that's what all the saints have said to you know and that's what the eastern uh mystics talk about too with their stupid religion like just you know did you say they're stupid religion monism is stupid but you know i thought you were talking about i thought you were talking about uh eastern christians no no no i'm talking about like david we're talking about monism i don't know what that is it's like uh you know buddhism hinduism okay so buddhism in particular buddhism in particular i don't like that it's stupid because it's all it's all it's all too good like it's too good to be true like it's just like there's only god there's only heaven but right but they they say the same thing like in terms of detachment from the imagery and whatever like that's a meditation technique you know this very well from your past experiences just not not clinging and i've practiced those sorts of eastern meditations like stones that you're holding in your hands and you have to drop those stones sometimes david they're going to float back up and you just drop them again i've watched enough j