When the fabric of spirituality weaves through our personal narratives, we find stories of profound faith and awakening. With Rabbi Stuart Federow our latest episode travels through the rich tapestry of our spiritual lives, starting with Professor David Capes' poignant recollections of his Baptist roots, where family and community threads intertwine to shape belief. As we share these intimate tales, our team's absence of Rudy Kong is felt, yet his spirit of exploration lingers, ensuring his return to future conversations will be eagerly anticipated.
Our journey takes an unexpected turn down memory lane as Father Mario unveils the quirky yet endearing ways mother's devotion colored her daily life, revealing the foundations of his spiritual calling. We understand that faith is more than a cerebral embrace; it's an emotional and communal contagion sparked not by debate but by the earnest examples set by those around us. We explore enriching the dialogue with insights into the symbiotic relationship between individual and collective experiences in the realms of faith.
The episode culminates with a raw look at how trials can be the crucible in which a deeper divine connection is forged. From the disorienting haze of an LSD encounter to the clarity of purpose found in its aftermath, we dissect how these pivotal moments steer us toward a transcendent calling. It's not just about the struggles we face but how we emerge, often with a renewed sense of vocation that carries us beyond the mere pursuit of earthly endeavors. Join us as we unpack these stories and more, discovering the beauty and complexity of our spiritual landscapes.
When the fabric of spirituality weaves through our personal narratives, we find stories of profound faith and awakening. With Rabbi Stuart Federow our latest episode travels through the rich tapestry of our spiritual lives, starting with Professor David Capes' poignant recollections of his Baptist roots, where family and community threads intertwine to shape belief. As we share these intimate tales, our team's absence of Rudy Kong is felt, yet his spirit of exploration lingers, ensuring his return to future conversations will be eagerly anticipated.
Our journey takes an unexpected turn down memory lane as Father Mario unveils the quirky yet endearing ways mother's devotion colored her daily life, revealing the foundations of his spiritual calling. We understand that faith is more than a cerebral embrace; it's an emotional and communal contagion sparked not by debate but by the earnest examples set by those around us. We explore enriching the dialogue with insights into the symbiotic relationship between individual and collective experiences in the realms of faith.
The episode culminates with a raw look at how trials can be the crucible in which a deeper divine connection is forged. From the disorienting haze of an LSD encounter to the clarity of purpose found in its aftermath, we dissect how these pivotal moments steer us toward a transcendent calling. It's not just about the struggles we face but how we emerge, often with a renewed sense of vocation that carries us beyond the mere pursuit of earthly endeavors. Join us as we unpack these stories and more, discovering the beauty and complexity of our spiritual landscapes.
Thank you. Please email us at ashowoffaith at hotmailcom. You can hear our shows again and again by listening pretty much everywhere podcasts are heard. Professor David Capes is our Baptist minister. He's the director of the Lanier Theological Library. Good to be with you. Our priest is Father Mario Arroyo, pastor of St Cyril of Alexandria, the 10,000 block of Westheimer. An honor to be with you. Rudy Kong is our millennial. He's a systems engineer and has his master's degree in theology from the University of St Thomas. I am Rabbi Stuart Federo, rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Sha'ar HaShalom, the Clear Lake area of Houston, texas. Jim Robinson is our producer and engineer. He's the author of the book I Am With you Always Matthew 2820, a daily devotional. Corey. Author of the book I Am With you Always Matthew 2820, a daily devotional. Corey and Miranda are our board operators and together, jim and Miranda and Corey help us sound fantastic.
Speaker 4:And other people who just come in. Yes, as well. We got a new board, so we're kind of trying that out and a new program too. New program as well.
Speaker 2:What do you mean? A new program?
Speaker 1:The computer program that runs all this stuff and turns on the commercials automatically and everything else.
Speaker 4:We are upgrading Now. The Rootster is not with us tonight because he's traveling. I think he's coming back from Brazil, isn't that where?
Speaker 1:he said he was Brazil to Guatemala.
Speaker 4:Brazil to Guatemala. I think he's in the air as we speak, so at any rate, he's not Brazil to Guatemala. I think is what he said Brazil to Guatemala. And I think he's in the air as we speak. So, at any rate, he's not going to be able to be with us, but he'll be back with us next week, Next week, Anyway.
Speaker 2:Well, tonight I am in charge, and I have Show director. And I have chosen tonight. What does it say here? You're not hearing. You are all on. I'm hearing everything.
Speaker 4:Okay, I guess you are on, so that's good yeah somebody.
Speaker 2:but anyway, um, the show tonight is going to be a um is going to be how should should I say Personal, yeah, personal, and the reason is just periodically, I think it's important for our audience to know who we are and why we talk about religion and what it means to us, and so what I asked the guys tonight is to share with you one religious experience, or religious experience where you had an experience of god, or a deep religious experience, and how that affected you, both short term and long term. So which one wants to go first, the protester or the Jews?
Speaker 4:Well, I don't mind going first, but I always respect my elders and let them usually go first.
Speaker 1:Thank you, why are you loving me when?
Speaker 4:you say that, but nonetheless, yeah, I was asked years ago. I've been a professor at HBU. I've been a professor at a number of other places for a while, but I was asked one week by a student who was in one of my classes. She asked well, why are you Baptist? Well, a good question. And I started to answer the way I typically would answer with just well, the reason I'm Baptist is because of things that I believe. And I decided I thought, boy, this seemed to be a real teachable moment. I said well, I'm a Baptist because my mother didn't drive. And she wondered well, what does that have to do with it?
Speaker 4:That gave me an opportunity to tell a story, and that story was that when I was a little boy, my mom did not drive. We lived in Atlanta Decatur, georgia to be specific, which is east of Atlanta and we had one car and my mom didn't drive it. That was not untypical in those days. People a lot of times have. This was back in the 1950s, going into 60. So my mom didn't drive at that point and my dad at that point in his life didn't care much for church religion. He had made a decision in his own life years ago and really wasn't following that, wasn't really living faithfully with that. So the closest church to us was a Baptist church, so we would walk to that church. It was less than a half a mile probably, but when you're a little boy walking half a mile that seems like a long, long way. So anyway, I would walk to that church and I would go to that church on Sunday morning and Sunday school and other things like that, and then I would in the summer go to some vacation, bible schools and such.
Speaker 4:I had an older brother named Terry, and Terry was five years older than me and he had made a profession of faith over. I think it was the summer when I was between six and seven and he made a profession of faith and I remember hearing the pastor talk to him about faith in the living room of our home and I remember kind of the experience that I had at that moment was that I want to share in this faith, I want to be a follower of this faith. So about six to eight months later I made my own public profession of faith in Christ. It was a moment that was really engendered by the fact that I believed with my heart that these things were true and that I had this warm, wonderful experience Of God's presence and God's movement in my life, even at six and seven years old. And so I made a profession of faith and then I was subsequently baptized after that.
Speaker 4:Now I want to say that to say that this is a personal experience is true, but also say that it's also very much a collective, communal experience, because I don't think very seldom do we have individual experiences that are cut off from a large group of people. And so it was the conversion of my brother. It was the witness of my mother mother, it was the witness of my grandmother as well, to the faith and to the benefits of faith and to a life of love and of focus. That was one of the first things that got me and got my attention. So at the age of seven, I made a profession of faith in this Baptist church. It was called Valley Brook Baptist Church and it was so small that we didn't even have a Baptist tree, which is pretty small for a Baptist church. We had a hose out back, but that was about it. So that would be more Methodist than Baptist. Just kidding, just kidding. But we went to the first Baptist church in Decatur, and I think it was Easter Sunday that year, when I was seven years old, that I made a profession of faith.
Speaker 4:It has influenced me. People will criticize and say, well, children don't know what they're doing, they don't really understand. Well, I'm 68 now and I've pretty much stuck with it, right? I mean, whatever I did at the age of seven stuck. And I'm still at it, still with it, still finding grace and mercy and benefit and all kinds of wonderful things. But that's how I came to faith. It was through the witness of my pastor, reverend Ray Collins, both as a preaching minister but also as a leader of our Bible school and just loving on kids and loving on people. And I think that collective thing is what brought me to a moment of faith and that's profoundly influenced my life. How's that, father?
Speaker 2:Not long enough Not long enough.
Speaker 4:Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:Would you call that a spiritual experience or more of an intellectual?
Speaker 2:This is a good idea actually yeah, yeah actually it's a good idea. I I did mean that not long enough, but I actually it's an interesting point for us to question each other, as, as you finish each of, the better understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it, I think, so we'll come back to my question later then. No, now.
Speaker 4:Was it a spiritual?
Speaker 1:experience.
Speaker 4:Was what you described more spiritual, more intellectual, more. I mean I was six years old, so I don't know how much intellectual power I had at that particular moment.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you had a lot.
Speaker 4:David I mean it? Made sense to me. It made sense to me, you know, at that point, honestly, but it wasn't the kind of thing that I felt like. And see, here's part of what I want to suggest. I don't think that the ground between the intellectual and the spiritual is a chasm. There's not a chasm between them.
Speaker 4:God is at work in our minds. God is at work in our minds. God is at work in our hearts. He's at work in our communities and I wanted, I desired to have what I understood my pastor and my church and my faith to be presenting. I wanted to be a part of it, and so it was that love. I don't think we're very often convinced into the faith by intellectual arguments. I think we can fail with that sometimes, but most of the time people who come to faith are won to faith by an undying bit of love that is directed toward them.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't remember where I got this, but I was talking some time ago to somebody. Anyway, they said faith is not taught, it is caught. And he compared it to a. If you were to compare faith to a positive infection, that when you're around people, a good infection, yeah, a good infection. When you're around people that are religious, you catch it like you would a bug or something it just then you try to understand it, but it's not necessarily an intellectual thing that I understand. Therefore I assent. It's more of a spiritual experience that catches you and then you try to understand it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think that's part of a journey of a lifetime. We spend the rest of our lives trying to understand it. We spend less time trying to sort it all out. What does it mean in my life and what does this mean for me in the future and what does it mean for the kind of person I'm supposed to be?
Speaker 2:I know that when I was growing up, my mom was like super religious. When I was growing up, my mom was like super religious and mom when mom mom was a horrible driver. She drove like a tortoise. It was awful. It was this really little old lady driving.
Speaker 4:Not like Stuart, stuart drives like a bad out of you know, yeah, I wish.
Speaker 1:My family wishes too.
Speaker 2:But anyway, my mom had only two places where she would go crazy on the road and then she would violate all speed limits and everything, and that was church and the beauty parlor I mean to get there on time yeah.
Speaker 4:Make sure she was there on time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Otherwise we were there at Cuban time. Whenever you get there, it's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:It's the right time whenever I get there.
Speaker 2:Did you decide at that age that you would be a pastor?
Speaker 4:No, no, that's my next story. You said one or two stories, so I was going to let that kind of be my next story about what that calling was like and what that calling the experience of it.
Speaker 2:Okay, we'll come back to you, okay well, why don't we go to a break right now? Why not? Why not? This is we are showing our faith in our sponsors. It's a show of faith.
Speaker 3:This is 10, 70 k nth and I will be right back surely by now you've heard that michael and dylan, my pillar, no longer have the support of their box stores or shipping channels the way they used to. They've been part of this cancel culture, so they want to pass savings directly to you by having the $25 extravaganza. When Mike started MyPillow it was just a one-product company. With the help of his dedicated employees, they now have hundreds of products, some you may not even know about, hundreds of products, some you may not even know about. To get the word out, I'm inviting all of our AM1070 listeners to check out the $25 extravaganza. Two-pack multi-use MyPillow is just $25. Mypillow sandals $25. Their six-pack towel sets $25. Brand new four-pack dish towels you guessed it just $25. For the first time ever, the premium MyPillow with all keys and fabric just $25. Orders over $75 will receive free shipping too. This amazing offer won't last long. Go to MyPillowcom or call 800-874-6540 and use the promo code Socialists and communists.
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Speaker 2:My still. This is my favorite song.
Speaker 1:Something happened here that isn't exactly clear A man with a gun over his head Telling me I've got to beware. I think it's time to stop. What's that sound? Everybody, look what's going down. This bad wine's being drawn. Nobody's right, everybody's wrong. Young people speak in their minds. He said it was his favorite. It is.
Speaker 2:From behind.
Speaker 3:Stop what's that sound. Everybody look what's going down.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to a show of faith. On AM 1070 the Answer, and we are now turning to the Rabbi.
Speaker 2:Now what we're talking about tonight, explain Well yeah, what we're talking about tonight is, you know, just letting you guys getting to know us a little bit. You hear us on different topics on Sundays and tonight. I just thought we'd share a little bit about what were important moments in our lives where we encountered God, where we had a spiritual experience that changed our lives, and now it's.
Speaker 1:Rabbi's turn. Yeah, great, okay, and I'm not even sure how to explain this. Okay, so Judaism'm not even sure how to explain this. Okay, so, one way in which? Another way, an additional way, one more way that shows me the very hard difference between Judaism and Christianity comes in how we relate to God, or how we experience God, or how we communicate with God or connect with God. And you know, you see it on TV, you see it in movies, you know what is now titled the Come to Jesus moment, the, you know, overwhelming spiritual event which, parenthetically, I think, provides not a pressure but a model of how people think they're supposed to relate to God. Judaism doesn't work that way. Judaism isn't, although they happen and we experience them. Judaism's way in which we connect with God, to obtain the numinous, fancy term, the spiritual, is by observance of the commandments that god gave us. Okay, now, that's one explanation. Another thing I have to explain, which I never have really talked about on the air, even though we've talked about this topic before, is what are tefillin, tefillin, tefillin, okay, exactly, tefillin the blank, Ha, no, that was my point, all right.
Speaker 1:In the Bible, in Deuteronomy, chapter 6, it says that you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your height. You shall teach them diligently to your children. Speak of them when you sit in your home, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, you will bind them as a sign upon your hand and for frontlets, whatever that English word means, between your eyes. Okay, and it's one of the things.
Speaker 1:There are many things in the Bible we take not literally, we take it figuratively. Or there's another I can't think of the other word Symbolically. Symbolically, that's not one of them. Judaism, for thousands of years, literally, has understood that literally. And so there are and you'll see this on TV when they, you know, show the next Jews.
Speaker 1:We take that literally and we have a way to put it on our arm. Okay, and they have a box with the with leather it's all made of leather, but a box with straps. And the same thing for frontless between our eyes, that goes over our head. Yes, I've seen that. And they are used in prayer. Okay, you may be familiar with the tallit, the prayer shawl that has the fringes on them. Numbers chapter 15, I believe that part we take literally too. These are in many ways means to an end. I would sort of kind of in a way, maybe a little bit sort of, relate them to rosary beads, okay. Okay, I'm not sure how accurate that is. It's pretty accurate but I think it has the same effect. It's an aid in prayer.
Speaker 4:An aid in prayer, exactly, and I think that's part of what rosary beads do.
Speaker 1:But remember this verse from Deuteronomy it's God speaking to the Jewish people before going into the promised land and saying to them this is what I want you to do going into the promised land and saying to them, this is what I want you to do. So I'm an impressionable 12 and three quarters kid. 12 and three quarter year old kid, which means approaching the bar mitzvah. Part of the lessons of the bar mitzvah is to understand these tefillin. You go to a dictionary. You look up tefillin, it'll say C phylactery. You look up phylactery, it'll say C tefillin. You go to a dictionary. You look up tefillin, it'll say C phylactery. You look up phylactery, it'll say C tefillin. And I've taken one dictionary and actually had that happen, so they don't really know how to describe them.
Speaker 4:That could not be the Oxford English Dictionary.
Speaker 1:I'm not so sure. But you take a look at the, you'll see in Deuteronomy 6. But you take a look at the, you'll see in Deuteronomy 6. So my father is teaching me and helping me practice the Hebrew and all that. And it comes time to actually wear, for the first time, the tefillin, and you know, he shows me how to put them on and everything else. And then when you get to the passage because it's in our prayer book, it's in our liturgy it talks it has this paragraph where you're where, it has the paragraph from deuteronomy, chapter 6. And you know, you have it on your arm, you have it on your head and in that instant, especially for the first time, as an impressionable child, I am literally, figuratively, symbolically, whatever word you want to use directly relating to God, because I am fulfilling and obeying God's commandment to me.
Speaker 2:Excellent you get followed Yep.
Speaker 1:Then I did a better job than I thought I would.
Speaker 4:Yep, okay, would you start over again and just go through? Oh, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:Thanks, dave. Smart Alec, he's such a smart alec, he says it yeah. Okay, smart Alec, he's such a smart alec, he says it yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, we need to go to a break anyway. Yeah, so this is 1070 KNTH and we'll be right back.
Speaker 7:The Mike Gallagher Show. He's your happy conservative warrior and I don't want to be offensive.
Speaker 1:for offense sake. I'm not trying to shock anybody. I'm not a provocateur. I'm a big mouth on the radio with opinions. I lament where we are, where speech is being shut down because people get so easily offended Breaking news and what to make of it.
Speaker 4:Don't miss the next, mike Gallagher.
Speaker 8:Show Mike Gallagher weekday mornings at 8, on AM 1070 and FM 1033.
Speaker 3:The Answer Maniac, maniac, footloose.
Speaker 1:No, the other one was still there. No, welcome back to A Show of Faith on AM 1070,. The Answer Go on, rabbi. Well, okay, so how did it affect you? Well, how did it affect me? Look my whole life. Okay, even up to the point. Okay was in a Jewish home that was kosher. We got our meat from the St Louis. Certainly weren't going to find kosher meat in Springfield Missouri unless it was packaged meat, and even that was rare, especially in the 50s and 60s growing up there it wasn't well done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it wasn't very accessible, but my house was kosher and we were very active. My parents were very active in the synagogue. My mom and my dad I think my dad first, then my mom were presidents of the congregation, you know, very active. And so Judaism had been part of my life for a long time. I was already and this is why I asked the question about intellectual. I was at 11, I decided I wanted to be a rabbi, not 13, not at Bar Mitzvah age, but 11. But that's intellectual, that is. It made sense to me. It was inspirational. It was.
Speaker 1:You know everything you would say about faith and religion at that point, up to a 12-year-old, 13-year-old's life. You know the socializing and the feeling of home and belonging and all the things that go into having a congregation or being part of a community. But the incident of putting on these phylacteries, the tefillin, was a much more physical, creating a spiritual connection with God. That was not intellectual but was gut, emotional, whatever the opposite is of intellectual and visceral. Visceral More so, visceral from the gut, not guts like got a lot of nerve to do it, but yes, and internalizing it. You feel these things deeply right. You feel it and then you spend, like you said David, spending a lifetime internalizing it. Hey, you feel these things deeply, right, you feel it, and then you spend, like you said David, spending a lifetime to explain it.
Speaker 1:I had already decided I wanted to be a rabbi. Okay, but this told me how to not like. What I wanted to do as a rabbi was to help people understand what Judaism can mean, how it affects the person. Like all religions, there are benefits that people don't even talk about. They don't even realize. They've got Okay, and all that did was to revalidate my interest, my wanting to become a rabbi. But it also gave it a little bit more depth and substance too. I feel Feel is the operative term. I feel like it gave it more substance.
Speaker 2:I guess it's my turn. Now your turn, I never thought I was going to be a priest. I don't remember. I used to like to play. You're smarter than don't remember.
Speaker 1:I used to like to play Smarter than all of us.
Speaker 2:I used to like to play celebrating mass when I was little, but I don't remember. Maybe one time I thought maybe I wanted to be a priest when I was a little kid, but I forgot all about that when we came to the United States and I found out there were girls and all kinds of stuff like that, I went through high school Catholic high school. My family's been Catholic all the time and anyway, when I was 20 years old, I had a very turbulent experience and I think I've said this to you guys before. A turbulent experience, and I think I've said this to you guys before Turbulent experience with drugs, and I think I must have been a very immature 20-year-old Because it was one night. A guy, I was in junior college. Now you've got to remember this. How long does it normally take to get through junior college? Two years, that's right. Well, I was on my fourth year.
Speaker 4:Late bloomer.
Speaker 8:You were having too much fun.
Speaker 2:He's a late bloomer, I was playing poker and I was playing all kinds of things Having too much fun. I was chasing girls. It was the Vietnam era. My number in the lottery had come up very high, so I didn't have any worries about being drafted. That was a real issue in those days. But a guy came over and I was doing, I was messing. Drugs in those days were not like it is now with cocaine and with hard drugs. In those days you were doing, you know, usually marijuana and.
Speaker 2:LSD and stuff like that, acid stuff like that. Anyway, one guy came over one night and I had never done LSD and he gave me an LSD and I said, oh, why not? And man, when I took that pill, my head exploded. It was. When I look back on it, it's still to me a tremendous source of interesting speculation. What happens is that you don't realize how much of reality you have constructed in your head by where you know. You just think that reality is the way you imagine it to be. And I will never forget that night because it's like it shattered my understanding of the real world. It shattered everything. And I went through a period of and by those, those days, I days, I I didn't go to church. I, I thought church was stupid, I was into um chasing women. Uh, I was I. Those days I had hair, I did not have a gut and I was fairly, we look, we look good back yeah, back then we, we all, we all look pretty decent, um anyway.
Speaker 2:but night my head just exploded and, to make a long story short, I started going down a road of about, oh, nine months to a year of panic attacks and of depression, temptations to suicide, all kinds of stuff like that.
Speaker 4:Were you still doing drugs at the time?
Speaker 2:No, God, no, I stopped drugs, but it was like my whole life had exploded and I didn't know who I was, what the heck it was, what was real, what was? No hallucinations or anything, just total emotional chaos and with heavy temptations to suicide. And that's when I was. I've always had a great, a very redeeming quality. I'm very chicken and I did not, that is a good quality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:I did not want to kill myself, but I because I knew that if I killed myself, in a sense, reality would cease to exist In a sense, or you know the way it. But anyway I didn't want to die. But anyway, I was living in Denver at that time, I wasn't religious, I wasn't going to church. At that time I wasn't religious, I wasn't going to church. But I remember the first time I turned to God and I said help me, because in high school I had learned that there was a God who was interested in you, who loved you, and that Jesus died for you and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:And how did?
Speaker 4:you learn about that. I was in Catholic school, in Catholic school. So it sort of began to dawn on you at that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bless you. Yeah, but anyway, what happened then was that I went into an entire year of just chaos, an entire year of just chaos, and then I decided my mom I mean all my friends were into dope and I said, mom, I need to get out of Denver. I was living in Denver and I came and I had an uncle here.
Speaker 2:In Houston, in Houston, and he said come and stay with me for a while. Anyway, when I got here, my aunt thought that it was important that I meet a Cuban girl, that a Cuban girl was going to straighten me out.
Speaker 2:Oh okay and anyway she introduced me to several people and the Cubans here had parties in those days and she would get me invited to the Cuban parties. I met a guy there in one of the parties that was in the seminary but he was secretly dating because, you know, as a Catholic priest you're not allowed to marry. Was he ordained at the time? No, no, he was just. But was he ordained at the time? No, no, he was just studying. But he wanted to finish the semester and he was going to leave then. But he was in the seminary and at one of those parties we started talking about God and I was going through all of this in my life In Houston. I didn't know anybody and he was the only guy.
Speaker 2:Anyway, my aunt got me a job. My aunt's uncle got me a job at St Thomas High School here in Houston as the janitor, the janitorial helper, and get this in our four years of junior college. And I'm a janitorial helper and what happened was that after three days I was fired. I was fired from St Thomas High School. Those of you who are graduates of St Thomas, you did me a favor because my future was not a janitorial crew, I was a lousy janitor.
Speaker 2:And that's when I went to a friend of mine. He was in the seminary. He was the only guy I knew and I went to the seminary just because I didn't want to go home and it was a low point in my life. You know, houston, my head's messed up, don't know anybody. Four years in junior college, that was the bottom. And I went there and, lo and behold, he said to me, you know, they're looking for help here in the janitorial crew. So I was hired at the seminary as a part-time janitor and you know their standards were not as high as St Thomas, st Thomas High School, and so I kept the job at St Mary's had you improved in your skill level as a janitor?
Speaker 4:No, not at all. Oh okay.
Speaker 2:But anyway, what happened was that I would finish work and there was Mass at 5 o'clock and I would finish at 4.30.
Speaker 2:So I started going to Mass there at the seminary and they allowed me to use the library and I started reading and I started understanding what was happening. You know, I started understanding, from the perspective of religion, what it means that God saves you and because, man, I needed to be rescued, I just needed it. And I understood that this was an existential issue, that it was not an intellectual issue. And that's when I began to call upon God and I just held on to Him, because I didn't know how to live without holding on to Him and not blowing my brains out. And so I held on, and I held on and I would read a little more and I got better and I started understanding what was happening to me and my relationship with God got stronger and stronger.
Speaker 2:And then, after about six months working there, I was better and I was attending Mass regularly, I was reinterpreting what was happening to me and I was holding on to God. And that's when my relatives said so what are you going to do now? You're getting better. And I said you know.
Speaker 4:They could tell you were getting better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I said you know, I want to dedicate my life to the only thing that stood when my life fell apart, and that's to the resurrection of Jesus and to the proclamation of the gospel. And in those days the standards for priesthood were pretty low too. No, they allowed me. Listen. I had the job of discerning which seminarians I was going to accept. Later on, I wouldn't have accepted me you wouldn't have.
Speaker 4:No, I would not have.
Speaker 2:but anyway, um, I was accepted into the seminary and I I still remember thinking, well, I'm a catholic and I always be a catholic. Um, so I want to dedicate my life to this. Um, so how do you do that as a Catholic? Well, you become a priest. Well, okay, I'll be a priest. And people say, well, you can't get married. I say, I don't care, I don't care At that moment, you don't really care, you're just trying to survive. And I entered the seminary and everybody thought I was running away.
Speaker 1:Running away.
Speaker 2:Going into the monastery to hide.
Speaker 3:Going into the monastery to hide you know, go ahead To hide your religion.
Speaker 2:But no, that's how the profound experience. So I've always said and a lot of times people don't understand this I did not become a priest because I wanted to be a priest. I became a priest because that was the way that, as a Catholic, I could proclaim the gospel of Jesus and I'll be a priest. So that's what I did and I accepted celibacy and let me tell you, I have been. That was 47 years ago and to this day I still am running on the energy of what happened 47, no more than 47 years ago, like 53 years ago. Yep, I know that, I know that, know that those fingers okay this is knt how to go knth 1070 and we shall be a high back.
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Speaker 8:Forget about the mainstream media for the truth. The truth is here, From Conroe to Omba to Cypress Fairways and all along the North Beltway. Are you seeking intelligent, conservative conversation on FM radio? Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, Charlie Kirk, Sebastian Gorka, Officer Tatum, Jay Sekulow and Dennis Prager are right here on FM 1033, the Answer. Fm 1033, the Answer.
Speaker 5:There is a season to seize a new day and a time to every purpose under heaven.
Speaker 7:A time to be born, a time to die, a time to have a time to breathe, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to have a time to give, a time to have a time to be to everything.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to A Show of Faith. There's one more thing I really want to say, because you asked me was that a bad trip or something like that? I want to no, it wasn't. In itself, the LSD wasn't a bad trip. It was horrifying, but it wasn't any kind of Horrorshow.
Speaker 2:No, no, not at all. But I want to make sure that people understand. I did not have a religious experience because of the drugs. I had a religious experience in spite I, I expect I I get give you this example. It's like you're living your life normally and all of a sudden you experience a tragic car accident that you survive. Your life, in your perspective on life, has changed totally okay, it's like getting over cancer yes, it's not one of those things that you go oh this brought me a enlightenment.
Speaker 2:No, it was horrifying and I became. I found my encounter with God in spite of having gone through that.
Speaker 4:Would you say that God used that event to speak to you?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Let me tell you, God speaks in normal life. He shouts in suffering. In suffering he shouts because you cannot BS anymore. You're facing the possibility of death by your own hand and I was scared to death that I would actually do it, that in one of those moments when you just lose it, you would actually kill yourself.
Speaker 1:You also talked about going to seminary. That other people would say you were running away, yeah, but wouldn't you call going to seminary running.
Speaker 2:other people would say you were running away, yeah, but wouldn't you call going to seminary running to god well, that's exactly right, okay, because my only desire was I wanted to spend my life proclaiming, the only thing that stood right when the rest of my life went apart, fell apart.
Speaker 7:So so now david, well, that's.
Speaker 4:That's the way that it strikes me that, as we've been talking, is, you know, I was fairly young. Right stewart was young, I was a baby, you were, you were young, but you were kind of in the between 12 and 13 and and you were a young adult who had made some pretty hard decisions and was sort of coming undone at that particular point. So I mean, each one of us have had a very different kind of experience as a result of that. I mean, I did not immediately what are you looking so curious about, do you really think it was that different?
Speaker 4:I think each of our experiences are very different, because I mean a seven, six to seven year old, their experience of god, which I think is just as legitimate and true, absolutely and beautiful. As a person who's 40, you know something. Or or your case moving from the, the, the childhood to adolescence. I mean each, each one of those are unique in and of themselves and I think God works differently in and with children and meets us where we are for lack of a better term and you have to have your antennas up to be able to perceive or receive what's coming from God, and I think that these instances have that similarity.
Speaker 4:Oh, I think it's similarity.
Speaker 1:yeah, you don't want to be slapped in the head, slapped upside the head, as they say. Oh, I think it's still allowing ourselves to tune in to God's broadcast.
Speaker 4:So I think, you know God is speaking and you know God has spoken and continues to speak and would like for us to be listening. At the end of the day, I'm not sure it just depends upon us, because there are times that God shouts louder than our own willingness. Right, absolutely? Because you know, father Martin said I didn't really want to become a priest, I was going to become a doctor. I was good in medical, I was good in science, I was good in mathematics, that kind of thing.
Speaker 4:So I was on the track to become a priest. Right, I was going to become a doctor. I was good in medical, I was good in science, I was good in mathematics, that kind of thing. So I was on the track to become a doctor. I figured one day I really admired doctors, really liked what they did, and I had a good doctor growing up. But somewhere in my teen years, about 16, 17 years old, I felt that all of that desire to do anything else, anything other than to be a minister of the gospel, sort of all that desire just went away and that's the only thing that I wanted to do. Everything else was sort of just dissipated, just dissolved.
Speaker 2:Isn't it interesting that the three of us have that in common. You encountered Judaism and you wanted to spend the rest of your life, but see, I knew that at 11.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but but it didn't, it wasn't tangible it wasn't touchable.
Speaker 2:It wasn't yeah, but it began. But all of us have the. I think whenever you have a calling to this is when you experience even if it's all of a sudden, like it happened to me, or over a time, you experience the treasure you have in your hands. And you want to dedicate yourself because you understand that, that treasure. There's nothing greater than that treasure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, nothing more important.
Speaker 2:Nothing more important than that treasure. Right, I don't want to spend my, you know, with all due respect to people who have normal jobs, you have a normal job, but ultimately, what lasts and for me the only thing that lasts is something that can survive death, you know.
Speaker 4:Well, I do think that there are people who are called into medicine, oh, I agree, called into being, uh, you know, yeah, absolutely, I do think that there are callings, but I do think, at the same time, there are different kinds of callings. Yeah, and that that god's calling for me was different than what it would be for somebody else yeah, right, and then that's manifested itself in was different than what it would be for somebody else, and that's manifested itself in a variety of ways in terms of being a pastor, in terms of doing music, in terms of teaching at a college, university, seminary level, all of that sort of and writing books, all that sort of.
Speaker 2:Let me bring up something. Let me bring up something I differentiate the vocation, the religious vocation, different than, for example, called to be a doctor or anything like that. My sense is, the religious part comes in when you see what you are called to do in the context or in the horizon of the infinite. So, for example, I can see a doctor or I can see yes, I can see it too.
Speaker 1:I can see any number of.
Speaker 2:But I can see it. But I can see a doctor healing people. But when I think that becomes a vocation is when the doctor says oh, this is what you would have me do, god.
Speaker 1:You see it? Against a divine horizon, Mario define vocation.
Speaker 2:I think that every single human being has a telos, which is what you have been called to be God. I don't think it's really all up to us. I think we discover ourselves because each person is given their being by God, and God has a certain amount of what he wants you to be.
Speaker 1:And circumstances or experiences push you towards that.
Speaker 2:Push you towards that and help you to discover that. So you don't make it up, you discover.
Speaker 1:And a cab driver can't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but a cab driver doesn't necessarily say my vocation is to be a cab driver. His vocation is whatever he is called to be, like, for example, a father, to be a father, to be a husband, to help, to see whatever you are doing in the context of your response to the divine. That is, to me, the vocation. You can see your job in response to the divine. Okay, yes, but I think when you term vocation is when you see whatever you do as a response to the divine.
Speaker 1:That's vocation. I think every single person can turn their work into a vocation. I agree.
Speaker 2:I agree, you can turn anything into a vocation.
Speaker 4:You can see that against what God is working at doing in the world.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 4:Because we do need Uber drivers in the world. We do need people that operate airplanes you know and fly airplanes and airplane mechanics. We need all that.
Speaker 2:But that's what I, the vocation comes in when you bring God into it, right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, when it becomes something that you are responding to, not just say, okay, I gotta, I gotta, I finished college. Now what am I going to do with my life? It's just about what am I going to do, as opposed to what does god want me to do let me sum this up because we're almost there.
Speaker 2:But saint teresa in in the catholic traditions, saint teresa the little flower, 19th century, died in the mid-20s and she was made a saint and she never left the convent and she was made the patroness of the missions, the foreign missions, and the reason why she was done that is because after she died they saw her journal and she would do everything she did. She would pray for the missionaries and she would wash the floor and pray for the missionaries. She would do this and she would turn that action into prayer for the missionaries. So she gave even the slightest, most little thing, but she turned it into an occasion to offer it to God for missionaries. And so to me, the whole vocation issue is, when you turn, whatever you're doing, even washing floors, you turn it into.
Speaker 4:The other thing real quick is I think there are times that your vocation is to be a student for that moment, your vocation is to be a parent or moment. Your vocation is to be a parent, you know, or whatever the task is you're doing at that?
Speaker 2:moment. Your vocation is to do whatever's in front of your nose and to do it for God.
Speaker 4:And to do it to God's glory.
Speaker 2:That's it, that's the vocation, that's the last sentence there Do whatever's in front of your nose and do it for the glory of.
Speaker 4:God Right. And that doesn't mean that that's your final vocation. It could well be that five years from now you'll be doing something else.
Speaker 2:That's right, because a lot of times people think, well, what's my purpose in life? And they're looking for something grandiose. And I say this at church. I say, don't look for something grandiose, do what's in front of your nose and do it for the glory of God and do it best. That's to me. So it's been an interesting time. Yes, it was Okay. Well, who's show director next week?
Speaker 4:I think it's me.
Speaker 2:I think it's you, David. I think it's me.
Speaker 4:I've been out of town and I'm glad to be back.
Speaker 1:It's Easter I think I was before that, yeah.
Speaker 4:I think I'm up. Yep, I think I'm up.
Speaker 2:David's up, so we will be here next week. We hope you have a wonderful Easter season.
Speaker 4:And I hope we survive the total eclipse of the sun.
Speaker 2:Amen because they're coming Okay.
Speaker 8:This is KNTH 1070, and we will see you next week. Find us at am1070theanswercom. Download our apps, stream us 24-7,. Kmth and K277DE-FM Houston.
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