When I Grow Up

In Today’s Episode, Lizz and Andrew have quite a coming-of-age episode as they discuss some new developments in their personal lives.  Followed by Lizz introducing a segment from another podcast about your last meal.  Then the two discuss the cultural discussion around the marriage and pregnancy of Alex Cooper, host of the Call Her Daddy podcast.  Finally, Andrew and Lizz ponder on what they want to be when they grow up and what life has taught them about work and identity.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:04

Ladies and gentlemen.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

This podcast is for the dreamers.

SPEAKER_04 0:15

It's for y'all sitting behind the desk. Wondering, what am I doing this for? It's for y'all wrangling kids together. Wondering, does this moment mean anything? We're just here to remind you that this show is for you. And that you, oh listener, are part of something. You're an eternal creature. What's up, ladies and gentlemen? How y'all doing? I'm good. Lindsay, how you doing? I'm good. I'm Andrew B. Welcome to the Eternal Creatures Podcast. Let's pod. It's good to be here with y'all. Welcome, welcome back, welcome back as always to the Eternal Creatures Podcast. The podcast for people who view the world just a little bit different. And brought to you, of course, as always, by Abiding God Studios.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

What's up, Keith?

SPEAKER_04 1:21

What's up, Keith?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

He is because he's above us. You know?

SPEAKER_04 1:26

Yes, Keith. Keith is above us. He is upstairs. He is upstairs. Lizzie A is here. We do not have Luki P here because he is flying. He is on a trip.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Fun fact, he hates flying.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

He does hate flying.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Like, absolutely hates flying.

SPEAKER_04 1:41

I think if you follow him, he posts at like every time he flies.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

I hate flying part 721.

SPEAKER_04 1:48

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So sucks. Yeah. Good luck, buddy. Well, maybe he's done by now.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

How when was his flight? No idea.

SPEAKER_04 1:56

Yeah. It's okay. He'll be done flying by the time y'all hear this anyway.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

We tell him to face his fears all the time.

SPEAKER_04 2:02

Yeah. And happy Memorial Day. Uh thank you. To us, because again, it won't be Memorial Day by the time you listen to this, but whatever.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Um Thanks to everyone who's served and given their life. Yes. That's what the holiday is for. To the troops, I think. To those who have fallen and given their lives. To the fallen troops, yes. Specifically.

SPEAKER_04 2:24

You know what? You deal with the thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Thank you, everyone, for who has um served, but ultimately those who have made the sacrifice of giving up their life for this country, also to the families who have lost people, because you hold a grief that we don't understand. I don't understand it. I'm not really from a military family, but in a military town. Um I really just empathize with that. So thank you for your sacrifice as well.

SPEAKER_04 2:49

Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, uh this episode should be dedicated to the troops. It's not. It's dedicated to a different kind of troops. Uh, this episode is dedicated not to the graduates of uh schools and universities across the country, which, you know, congrats. Uh, this episode is dedicated to the families and parents uh who had to sit during those graduation ceremonies. Listen, kids, there no offense to you all at all. This is not your fault. This day is not even for us, it's for you. But dang, our graduation's hard to sit through.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

I mean speaking from experience.

SPEAKER_04 3:25

Girl, I went through two. Now, listen to my sisters. I'm proud of you. I am proud of you. You did a great job. I'm so happy. But I realized, I don't know, there's nothing like a graduation to show you just how selfish you are. Uh the graduation didn't mean anything until my sister stepped on the stage, and they didn't mean anything after it stepped on the stage.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

It's like seven seconds.

SPEAKER_04 3:46

Yeah, I know. That's that's why it's such a wall. It's a long event, okay? It's a lot of people in gowns that I don't know giving speeches about things that I don't know about or I don't really care about. This is for the students, not for me. And then I gotta watch 10,000 other students walk across the stage that I don't know. So, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

I was on either Facebook or Instagram, and there was this one school that got called out for using an AI like system of calling the names and stuff. That's smart though. But they totally like AI messed it up. And so they put the wrong name with the wrong person, and this poor doctorate person who was doing the announcement was like, hey, if you've already walked across the stage, we're not re-letting you walk with the right name. That's right. And they all start booing this lady. I'm like, facts, and she's like, I know we call you guys to be critical thinkers, but our AI system be critical.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

We can't rewind.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Just messed up.

SPEAKER_04 4:54

There's 12,000 of you. We're not gonna rewind. I'm so sorry. Listen, shout out to the people who do it live, because the last graduations I did, uh, that I went to, like, the person that was saying all those names were live audiences or like was a live reader, and those are some tough names to say.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

You know, surprisingly, I was more nervous about someone's someone saying my last name wrong, which is Dutch, but my middle name is Chinese. And so I just remember it was my piano professor, God bless him, and he was like, Okay, so is your middle name Long Lee? And I'm like, Yes, but my last name is Amels, because he would always call me for six years Amels, Miss Amels, Miss Emils this, Miss Mel's that. And I'm like, I'm not that fancy to have my name be an italic saying like a Mels. But you could be. I'm not that fancy. It could be the French Dutch name. I'm like literally like Amol's, like it has American as Americana as you can get. Look, I learned in kindergarten or first grade that if there's a vowel, a consonant, and a vowel, it makes it a hard vowel. So I don't remember that rule. Somehow. Anyway, to all you graduates, cool. To all the families of the graduates, we see you, we love you. This episode is for you. We salute you.

SPEAKER_04 6:16

We support you and salute you, and hopefully, if you're bored in the ceremony, again, pay attention to your kid. Shout out to your kid.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

You could be listening to this episode dedicated to the graph.

SPEAKER_04 6:29

During the graduation, you could be listening to this and just say, thanks, man. I am doing it. I'm doing the scene. And congrats to the parents who get this really amazing moment of watching your kid, and you get to like tap your wife and be like, Holy crap, like the thing we made lived and made it through school.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Yeah, and then all you have to do is face the exiting of the stadium and parking. Good luck.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

Oh, yeah, no, good luck. Yeah, you know what? While you're taking while you're getting out of the parking situation, you might as well just throw on the pod because by the time this is over, you you'll finally be on the road.

SPEAKER_04 7:04

So, yep. Shout out to y'all. Shout out to y'all. Uh Liz, what's up?

SPEAKER_03 7:09

What's up? How you doing? Doing decent.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Decent. Isn't that a great word?

SPEAKER_03 7:16

I mean, yes. It's like almost good, but it's almost good.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Uh so we are recording this on Memorial Day. There we are. This is May 25th.

SPEAKER_04 7:26

It is.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

It is probably coming out on June 5th.

SPEAKER_04 7:30

Probably. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

And if so, at this point, on June 5th, I am actually stepping down from my full-time ministry job.

SPEAKER_03 7:41

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Why?

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Because the Lord has something greater in the Christianese language.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

Uh in the non in case you guys didn't know, I know this already.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

It's not a shocker to Andrew.

SPEAKER_04 7:54

Yeah, no, but it's it's uh she wanted she wanted to share with you all, which is lovely.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

I think when you're 27, it's normal to go through a job change.

SPEAKER_04 8:02

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Somewhere in your late 20s. And for me, it just happens to be right now. Yeah. There's a lot of other factors that led up to this. But ultimately, we started talking about dreams at one point on this podcast way early on. And I love seeing one of your dreams come into fruition, not in a weird new agey way. Everyone, stop that. But I I really want to go back into education and teaching music. Like if you ever see me with a whiteboard, I don't think you've ever had the pleasure of seeing me explain. The pleasure? No, I haven't. No, it's it's pretty weird and it's pretty awesome at the same time. But the way my brain works is so integrated with music. And I think I I think I just limited myself at one point to be like, okay, if it's not now, I'm just gonna go to this other thing. I'm really grateful what the Lord gave me for the last three years in this ministry opportunity, but at one point or another, just that question of like, are you stewarding well what I've given you? And I'm like, yes, in the context of the location he's put me in, the people he's put me around, but in terms of like the desires of my heart, okay, theology, like some of them are wicked, right? But like in the terms of what I feel very passionate about, what I feel very gifted for, that not other people are gifted for, um what I feel like I have authority to speak into and where like I feel like I fit good in a team, like I want to explore that a little bit more. So that's what made the shift. This was not just like a spur decision at all. It was like nine months, like carried a full-time pregnancy during this time. Which she didn't. I didn't. But it feels like um feels like it, man. So I'm really excited.

SPEAKER_04 9:46

Which by the way, I think it is nice to hear for someone who is in ministry.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:51

That this is a thoughtful decision. It's not just a spur of the moment, okay, I'm bored now. Like this was a this is a very thought-out, uh, carefully made decision, uh, long time in the making.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

So honestly, I wish it could have been a little bit faster. Like, I've watched transitions happen where they were super fast for poor reasons, for family reasons, for sicknesses, for people moving. And I was like, man, God, like, why do I get the long and slow track? Like, I want to fast pass a Disney World to like the single express lane to get to where I want to go. Fair. You know? Don't we all? And he's like, I got you during this. So, like, you need to just stop like trying to rush it, and you to you need to still finish faithfully well. Like, even if I didn't tell you you were supposed to leave around this time, like you need to still act as if you're working up until like the last day just as faithfully as when you started the job. And I'm like, Okay, that's a really good standard I can try to aim for. I'm very grateful for that.

SPEAKER_04 10:52

Yeah, I agree. I agree. Uh we and I'll speak for Luke in this as well. We're very proud of Liz. We're very proud of Liz during this time of transition, and we fully support and Keith, Keith mentioned as well that he's very proud of her and we fully support her uh her future. There's a lot coming with that, and y'all don't know the half of it, but that's okay. There's a lot coming with it, and we want to support her and be with her and walk with her all the way as much as we can.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

So I think the biggest thing, and then I'll switch to you, is uh learning to walk in full dependency of the Lord is a dangerous prayer to ask.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

I saw Hammy at church yesterday, and she kind of wrote something like that in her journal during the sermon.

SPEAKER_03 11:39

And then Hammy is Brooklyn for all you normal people that call her by her name.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

And then Pastor gets up at the end of the service and he's like, God, like make us wholly dependent on you. And I just give her a side eye and we just start snickering on the stage because those prayers are dangerous.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

And I just my favorite thing to tell people and my favorite reaction to get well, not my favorite question to get, but the question I get is so what's next? Obviously, you're leaving because you have something in mind. What's next? Yeah. And I look at all the people who I've led faithfully for three years and I go, I don't know. I was just told to step down. And they go, What? What? You don't have a plan? And so to this I challenge a lot of people and not not disregarding well thoughtful plans. Like this is not my ideal, trust me, this is not my ideal transition of just choosing to step down from a job and then not having a plan. I think that shows a lot of self uh or a lack of self-dependency because I literally would love to be in control of everything. But what if something I'm learning is the Lord called me to this. There's a reason why he's not telling me every single thing right now. Right? I think we've all heard that if you if God showed you everything in your life, you'd probably be either too ignorant, too proud, or too scared to accomplish everything that he had for your life.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

And so I'm doing this weird dance of like, okay, he like a week ago or two confirmed I'm supposed to move. So I didn't re-sign my lease. That's scary, because I'm like, great, I have to move in two months. Okay, God, where? And he's like, Yeah, no, I'm not gonna tell you that. And not from like a withholding teasing way, but I'm like, all right, like gonna trust you're gonna open the right door. Okay, God, like, what should I do for a job? Just start knocking on some doors and I'll open one. Okay, cool, but like, can you just tell me instead? It doesn't work like that. At least that's how it's not working for me on this time. So I'm really grateful for all the support from my family, from my friends, from my teams. So it's an exciting season.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

Well, good for you on this season.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Andrew, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_04 13:52

Oh, so I've got news. And I wasn't gonna bring this news to the pod, but uh, this might be relatable s to some people. I'm moving out of my parents' house. Yay! Um which I and I the reason I said I don't like saying it is because it hurts my American man pride to even say I was living that in the first place. Um and it's even more awkward to be like, I'm doing it, guys. Like that's some big accomplishment. But the reality is, and I think this this whole um the reason I'm even bringing it is because I actually have learned in my 20s a lot of people are living with their families. And this is just a part of a lot of our stories. And I think for me, I've lived in shame uh with it so much, and that I haven't lived with enough gratitude. One, that that's even an opportunity that I have um that I had. Um and and two, I really haven't had gotten to I haven't been thankful enough to my to my family, I think, for letting me do that. So I would encourage everyone to, if anyone is living with their family right now, to like set aside time, whether you're happy about it or not, to just thank them for having that ability. Because realistically, that's not a dream many parents, especially of our generation, grew up with. Like, I don't think as much as much as we grew up with this sort of expectation of moving out, like they grew up with an expectation of having their kids out at a certain time. And so there's been a lot of parents who've shifted how they thought and how they believed to accommodate the world that is.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:35

Um, and that's and that takes a lot of humility on their end, and it takes a lot of uh grace there, and so I need to, you know, I want to encourage you all to be grateful about that. But I also want people to be grateful for whatever changes, and you might need to journal this because it's easy to forget that God has made on you in this. Uh for me, I can't say exactly what God was doing in my life, but I know I've been humbled a lot in a lot of the situations that have come uh in that season. Um in relation to my job, in relation to my expectations of myself, my expectations of how life can be. And part of gratitude is also being grateful for the things that we don't love, but we know will be good in the end because that's just how God works. And so being thankful for trials sucks. But and and maybe you're in a trial right now where you can't be thankful, you're just too bitter, and it's okay. But at some point we want to get to a point where we recognize that God is good in all of it, and that this is just a part of your life. It's just a part of your story, and I'm and this part of my story I think has helped me be able to sit long enough to start to believe in myself again, to love myself again, to start bringing on dreams. But what I found is that now that I love myself again, there is a pride that comes with that that be that's like, all right, I like I'm awesome now. And it's not it, there's now a balance, there's a new balance to take on, which is having the confidence to do whatever you think what like to really pursue your dreams, but also the humility to recognize that my dreams are not about me because my life is not about me. My life is not even mine, it's God's life, and his plan for me is not singular, it's not in a it's not in a bubble, it's not in my own world, it is in line with whatever his plan is for the rest of the world.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

And there's not one singular plan that's correct and that he has for you.

SPEAKER_04 17:54

That too, and we'll probably uh get to that some of that a little bit earlier with or a little bit later with our topics, but so I'll I'll leave it at that. But that's just kind of been what's been on my heart is that there's a new change and I've recognized a new shift in my heart for both good and bad, and that's just a part of it, that's a part of the growth.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

So um It reminds me of the song Changes from Shrek 2.

SPEAKER_04 18:18

I haven't seen Shrek in so long. I've definitely not seen Shrek from the channel.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Literally, when you were talking about changes, it's the song Changes by Butterfly Boucher. Maybe a Shrek one. No idea. But I just sure the French Dutch name. It's the French Dutch. Anyway, I just heard the ch changes when you started talking. And I had to look it up in my head. I was like, I'm pretty sure this is from Shrek.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

I like it.

SPEAKER_04 18:44

I like it. Well, uh, Liz. Hey. Shall we uh move on? We got a couple things we could talk about. What did we wanna what do we want to talk about? We've got uh we've got oh, you know what? Let's start with the with your question on.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Oh, this is part of the section of Do We Care? Care, care.

SPEAKER_04 19:06

Yeah, yeah, I saw you put this in do we care.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Why did you put this in do we care? Because you already had a question for uh I've been thinking. Yeah, but I wanted my voice to have the cool reverb on it.

SPEAKER_04 19:15

Oh, gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Don't get it. Producer Keith, I didn't have one request on this podcast. So, gentlemen, gentlemen, gentle, gentlemen.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

Don't do we care is supposed to be about things that happen in the world. If you have a question for us, of course we can.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

I don't know, but I just wanted I just wanted to.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

Guys, I'll work with her on the schedule.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

See, there's a reason why he hosts and I I just yap and babble after that.

SPEAKER_04 19:45

No, no, yeah, yes, we care. We absolutely care.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

Also, I'm the babbler. This is my role. Anywho.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Okay, so there is this YouTube channel called Mythical Eaters or Mythical Eats. I need to confirm that. And one of my favorite things to watch growing up was Food Network. I wasn't a big cartoon network girl, didn't really dive into uh Nickelodeon, but I was a Disney girl, but if there was anything more interesting to me, it was good old Food Network on channel 29 in New Jersey. And so I fell in love with this one cooking show with the host Alton Brown, Good Eats. He also was a host on Iron Chef America where he'd do the play-by-play. He was on uh the cast of Food Network for several decades. I don't know why he stepped down. I think he stepped down post-COVID just because of life getting busy, growing, changing, evolving. All the words. Evolving. And so he came onto this YouTube channel, and this whole concept is like uh their framework is all people have one thing in com or two things in common. They all gotta eat, they all gotta die. So that's how he opens it.

SPEAKER_03 21:03

I like it.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

And so they have their last meal. Uh people talk about this, you know, if they're on death row, like what their last meal would be, but we rarely think about it with like normal people because we think, you know, we're probably not gonna die on death row, hopefully. But hope not. Not. But it does bring up an interesting question because he in this interview, the I wish I didn't prep for this super well. The guy who hosts it asks like questions on like why people want the meal and stuff, or what does this meal mean to you? Some people choose things for nostalgic reasons. Some people are like, I just like this expensive caviar. So give me the most expensive can of beluga sterling fish eggs you can, and I'll put them on some potato chips.

unknown 21:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

So my reason why I really liked this episode was Alton Brown, food scientist, food commentator, and judge and expertise, had a lot of his food made. Memories not only come from like significant family relationships or events in his life, but from literary works. Okay, cool, cool. So, like something by Ernest Hemingway like is randomly on his meal because he loved Hemingway. But I was just curious if you had any food that like bring out nostalgic things.

unknown 22:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Nostalgic feelings, memories. Um I can also chat about afterwards Alton's experience with a peach. Cool.

SPEAKER_04 22:31

Um, yeah. Uh let's go. All right. So let's see. If I were to start, let's try, let's see if I can do an appetizer uh main course and a dessert, eh? Um appetizer. The appetizer is like the one thing I don't know. Why did I do this? Oh no, yes, I do. Uh I would do mango. I would do mango.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Just a mango.

SPEAKER_04 22:51

Yeah, just a mango. Because it's my mother's favorite fruit. And so um, as a kid, I like my dad would always get her mangoes, and because kids just eat anything that like is in the kitchen, we he would be like, Don't touch the mangoes. You you you guys grab them before she even gets a chance to eat any. It took us years to let that go. Like we I'd be like 20, and be like, my dad's like You're reaching across, he says, Stop that. No, he'd be like, you know, you can eat the mangoes, but it's like, but as a like 20-year-old Mia is like, but you told us. I was like, I told you that when you were four, and you would just touch things. But uh mangoes are delicious, and so they are, yeah, and they remind me of my mom. So uh yeah, probably a mango. Uh for my meal, I would have pizza, because I love pizza, it's my favorite food. Well, I probably have a margarita pizza to try and be fancy, but I mostly like like pepperoni or like Italian-based pizzas. Um, and then I would have terramasu. I love terramasu. It's my favorite dessert, and it goes well with a cafe, and I like coffee. I I at the point, like I didn't like coffee growing up, but after I worked at Starbucks, and I hated working at Starbucks, but I did I loved like the whole culture of coffee. Like it, um, I love cafes, I love trying different cafes, I like different flavor notes, even though I don't know how to tell different flavor notes. I pretend to know flavor notes. I like pretending to know the different flavor notes, exactly. I like foods that go with coffees, it's it's great. And coffee shops are so interesting because they're just random places that like the community can like slow down. It's like you don't really go there to eat.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Unless you're Starbucks, then it just is on steroids.

SPEAKER_04 24:48

Well, unless you're Duncan. Like even Starbucks tries, like they've it's just such it's a corporate coffee shop experience. So if you go to coffee shops, you know the energy that coffee shops have, but Starbucks has just made it very repeatable for thousands upon thousands of uh franchises and locations. Exactly. So I like going to authentic coffee shops partially so I can taste their coffee in their location and have that experience. Um, and if I can be there with friends and music, like when we went to our little concert that we did several months back. Coalescence. Yeah, that was sick. So uh yeah, that's uh that's what I would have. Tiramisu goes great with coffee, tastes delicious anyway. It's great.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Lovely. You have a very similar story to Alton with one of your meals. Alton Brown talks about for his last course, he has like five courses, crazy, and he has a bunch of different wines and hard liquors that really mean something to all the pairings. But he talks about starting off his dessert course with a Georgia peach. I'm guessing he grew up in Georgia, but it reminds him of his dad because he's never seen someone come so alive, so forgot the phrase he said, but like had such a transcendent, I think, experience with food than when he saw his dad eat a peach.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Then he was like, Don't eat it first, because they actually go through eating the meal together with a the host, and it's quite emotional at the end of it. He's like, Don't eat the peach just yet, just smell it. And he's like, uh, this reminds me of the nape of my wife's neck, and there's just such a sweet relationship with food that each person gets to have on this earth that is solely theirs because it's connected to uh memories that are only theirs and how they experience it. I would say it's kind of similar how like we see colors differently.

SPEAKER_04 26:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Like we could see like your sweatshirt is like different colors or different hues, but it's so interesting everyone's relationship with food can mean so many different things. There was one thing actually on his menu he took off, which was grilled cheese.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

Really?

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Because he thought it was too childish, but there was something so comforting and nostalgic about grilled cheese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and it was really interesting because it meant really something to the host in a different season. And so by the end of the episode, they actually made them both a grilled cheese. Uh and they did the little like cheese pull.

SPEAKER_04 27:17

Oh, that's sick. Yeah. Very very little is more satisfying than like a good cheese pull.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Yeah. So that was really sweet. I don't have a full meal.

SPEAKER_04 27:27

Real quick, I would probably add a s like to the appetizer, a slice of homemade bread.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Sourdough?

SPEAKER_04 27:32

No, just bread. I I think it was wheat, like honey wheat or something. Because my my parents would make it. Uh again, my mom would make it from scratch uh when I was growing up homeschooled.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

So that's so good. There's nothing like good bread.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

Boy, is there.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Oprah Wimfrey was the first meme I ever remembered. I love bread. She just said that one day, and that was the first meme.

SPEAKER_03 27:54

It's a very relatable sentence.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yeah. I like it. Sorry, Hammy. She's gluten-free.

SPEAKER_03 27:59

Again, uh, Hammy is Brooklyn. Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

We gotta stop using hammy on the show. No, I once called her um a cubana sandwich because a gluten cubana sandwich because of how much she loves pickles. And I know, but she's also like the least Latina person I've ever met. You know, she can try.

SPEAKER_04 28:21

Can she?

SPEAKER_01 28:22

She attempts with her shoulders, man.

SPEAKER_04 28:24

Yeah, she's about as Latin as bagpipes. This girl. And this girl can sing like bagpipes.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Oh god. It's not like her voice sounds like a she holds her nose and kick.

SPEAKER_03 28:36

Clear it up, clean it up. She might listen to this episode. She doesn't listen to most of them, but she might listen to this one.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

You know, she if she was here, she'd start doing it right now, so I'm not really scared of it.

SPEAKER_04 28:46

God, she's not here at that particular sentence. We love you, Brooklyn. We're gonna, I'm gonna try and get Hammy off the show.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Nope, not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

Clearly, it's not working. All right, let's what's your what's your what's your meals?

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Uh I I was telling Andrew on the way here, I did not come as a good question host person for this. So I have a couple elements. One thing is definitely gonna have some Corbose ice cream custard. It's a boardwalk like custard ice cream place that I grew up actually, oh my gosh, I didn't plan this. I'm wearing a hat from Wildwood, New Jersey, which is where I would go to the beach uh all the time. Down the shore in New Jersey is what we call it.

SPEAKER_04 29:30

Oh, the Jersey Shore.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

The Jersey Shore, exit four off the Garden State Parkway, almost to the bottom uh to Delaware.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

And or just Google it.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

It's so good. And it's um their orange like cus or like Sherbert with their vanilla custard in a swirl, dreams. Oh so good. I really like it, and it reminds me of my childhood. It was my dad's favorite ice cream, and so it just reminds me of like younger times where like it was me, my mom, my dad. I think either her parents or his parents would come sometimes, but it just reminded me about the like being four or five at the beach. Not a huge care in the world. Want to stay up till like 8 30, thinking the world's like awesome at 9 p.m. And then I'm like, this is the best day ever. I had ice cream, and I went to the beach, and we made a moat around our beach setup.

SPEAKER_04 30:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

And then we ate pizza and chicken fingers, like simple life, right? Simple joys. With that, from my Jersey side, I also order a tailor ham egg and cheese sandwich on a roll, salt pepper ketchup. It is a quintessential breakfast sandwich specific to New Jersey and New York.

SPEAKER_04 30:44

Fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

It is a type of pork product, and I can't really explain it because it's not like spam. It's not like Canadian bacon. Oh god. Not like Virgo bacon.

SPEAKER_03 30:56

It's not like spam. What is this?

SPEAKER_01 30:59

It's a pork product. It's the greatest thing ever on a breakfast sandwich.

SPEAKER_03 31:04

Yo, what government official got rid of red dye?

SPEAKER_01 31:07

There's no red dye in this, I can tell you that. But there's a hundred pounds of salt. 100 pounds of salt, I feel like, and the product is crazy. It's so good. Um, I would have a bowl of garlic noodles, which is like buttered noodles, but add like olive oil and garlic, crush garlic to it. My mom would make it for me anytime I was sad.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

Oh, that's sweet.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Yeah, it was just like, or if I was sick, like that was the the food. And then I I don't know really what else I would eat because I don't have a lot of like food memories associated with anything. Right, I do a lot of cooking. I like cooking. So I'd probably have to do something like homemade somewhere in the middle of it. Probably my grandfather's bread too. Like he would bake bread all the time. And I can't really think of anything else, but I really just I really love sitting around the table. I think I was sharing with Andrew, like I could care less what's on the table. I really care about like who's around the table. So those are just a few things that have like those memories with it with me.

SPEAKER_04 32:11

I like that. Well, I thought it was a good question, so I wanted you to bring it to the pod. All right. We've spent we've spent quite quite a bit of time in the earlier section. So, Liz, I'm gonna let you decide what we do next. You want to do new music? We want to talk about the culture, we want to go to the to the the your the I've been thinking question. Which one you feeling?

SPEAKER_01 32:33

I could do the culture question. Wanna do the culture question? I think I can handle it.

SPEAKER_04 32:37

You think you can handle it? All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna start talking about what's been going on in the culture, and I have not seen a whole lot that interests me, because let's be honest, you people aren't interesting. But um there is one situation that's been going on, and that is that Alex Cooper, the host of Caller Daddy, is pregnant. Now, she got married not too long ago, but she is now pregnant, and uh, I'm gonna be honest, the conservatives and the Christians are kind of complaining. And the reason she is they're complaining is because if you don't know what Caller Daddy is, um, probably good for you, but it is Yes, good for you. It is a very popular podcast that is all about well, at first it was about like girl bossy conversations, feministy conversations, sex positivity from a from a feminine perspective. Yeah, it's not even sex positivity. What is it? Like uh sexual liberation, which is a little which is different than sex positivity.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

I heard it was the female version of locker room talk.

SPEAKER_04 33:36

Essentially, yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Which is a very terrifying thing to think about.

SPEAKER_04 33:41

So it's it started off as that. Then the then the original duo broke up, and so now it's the main girl uh who is Alex Cooper, and she interviewed, she mostly now interviews celebrities, but she still does it with that a lot of that same rhetoric. And so the reason people are kind of upset about it is because she was a very big uh proponent of like the hoe phase when girls are young, which is essentially you go sleep around with whoever you want until you want to find somebody. But in other words, focus on you, your pleasure, your enjoyment, your business, whatever makes you money, and don't even worry about getting married. If you if you want to, you can, but if you don't want to, don't worry about it. The world's way better, like like fame like the what is it, marriage is a portion of the patriarchy, all that kind of stuff. And um, so people are kind of thinking it's a little weird now that she's married and pregnant, and like essentially a hard shift. It feels like a hard shift. So just knowing that, and we've we've been uh Liz and I have looked at a few different commentaries about uh about her. I know Brett Cooper did one. Um uh and there's there's someone else, I can't remember her name off the top of my head.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Allie Cooper.

SPEAKER_04 35:02

Nah, I'm gonna look I'm gonna look her up without trying trying not to play the video. Um to shout her out. And I think she's a Christian as well, so I I wanna shout her out as well. Uh Emily Jeshinski.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Bless you.

SPEAKER_04 35:16

Uh yeah, no, right. Sorry, sorry, Emily. Emily Jeshinski. Uh she is a political commentator who is also conservative, but I think she's also Christian. So she kind of talked about it as well.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

So um Liz, what are your uh initial thoughts just hearing the Well, first of all, I just didn't I knew the name was being thrown around, and then I think I knew she was a podcast host of something called uh Caller Daddy. Yeah, and that and I just never wanted to listen to it.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

You just saw the name and were like, yeah, nah. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

I don't really want to. I understand the perspective of it trying to give uh room and perspective for females to have like room to talk about like things that are maybe more exclusive to male or socially acceptable, but I'm not really in the vein of how they'd probably like to talk it. I don't probably agree with most of the stances of her earlier stance. I think what a lot of like the Christian conservatives or those who disagree with it are saying, This is what I'm gathering. Uh I've been sold this lie that before you said it was good to live single, it was good to embrace my sexuality life, to go after whatever fleeting pleasures I could ever want because this world is gonna end, and so like if men can do it, why can't I do it? Right. And then to see the person who promoted this idea, not saying she was a soul promoter, right? But like who endorsed and kind of built a brand around that lifestyle in her earlier life, um, then get married, and then like if you see clips of her, it's like she's almost apologetic that she got married. Yeah. Uh not she regrets getting married, but it's just like like if getting married is not your thing, like that's okay, like you can still do you. And then now she's pregnant. Like some people are saying, like, it it just feels like a really big culture shift. And honestly, I think you can just call it as you have different values and priorities as you grow up. You can want different things. And some people are just like, why can't you just call it out that you didn't want to be married and have kids when you were younger? And it's okay if you want to want to have kids and a husband and a tread, like traditional wives are coming back into this whole phase after being a boss girl or uh the corporate uh climbing the corporate ladder for the ladies is exhausting. So I think you're seeing a whole culture shift from that.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

It's valid. I have a slightly different take on this. Do share partially because whenever I listen to feminists, which I do on occasion because and not real feminists, like there's like book feminists, like people who write books on the theories behind it, and they're like really deep, and I actually think their rhetoric is a lot more dangerous than um, or can become a lot more dangerous than what you kind of hear on the internet. What you kind of hear on the internet, I feel like, is a lot of like younger women, especially, but anyway, either way, kind of parroting certain talking points from greater feminism that appeal to what they want. And so when I look at a lot of the culture, and maybe I I I started doing this once I got into college, and I wasn't as into my faith at the time, and so I would hang with whoever, and I was around a lot more people that had a lot more liberal ideas, but I start to question okay, what do they want? And as a Christian, where are they going wrong? And so with Alex and Caller Daddy in the podcast, a lot of those girls just want freedom, which to me is relatable. Now, where I think we go wrong is we have different perspectives on freedom. They have a typical human perspective of freedom that doesn't really think about God, and it's just I should be able to do whatever I want. And some of this comes from a past where women couldn't do whatever they want, now some some of these women like Alex is not that much older than me, so it's not like she was in like the depths of like real bad feminism, but a lot of women still feel like some of those like some of those ideas that are very, I guess, limiting to women, especially when you start getting getting into like what trad actually means when you search it on the internet and what those talking points are, they feel like a lot of like a lot of women have been held to this very limiting standard of what can be. And if your mentality of what freedom is is I do whatever I want, and the culture is sort of telling me to hold back and or in a way telling me I can't have whatever I want, which is I can't have a career and uh and a family, a lot of these girls still want both. They just want it their way. They also want it with um sleeping around when they're younger so that they don't have to, so that they don't have to pick a person like too early, or you know, they want it without the fear of their biological clock and all that kind of stuff, which is where some of the benefit of like freezing your eggs and all these other things come in play. So there's a lot of things that come with feminism that is entirely toxic. And I think a lot of Alex's messages are toxic. But I think why is she an inspiration? I think we sort of talk, uh they sort of talk in some of the uh in some of the the the conversations around her. They don't like that she's an inspiration to women, but I get it, because she is an example that you can have both. She is an example that you can have a career, that you can follow passions, and that you can have a family as well. Where does she go wrong? Well, as Christians, we it's really how she does it. It's we sub we submit what we do to God. So some of the things that she says and the the ways that she gets to her success and the the actions that she does in her personal life, those are things that as Christians, we ought to submit to God. And so how we do things will change. And I that's where I think Alex is a really I think Alex is a very um, she's a very dangerous voice to listen to. But I do want us as Christians to see the person that she is and the things that she wants and the things that her audience wants, and at least be able to relate and say, I see you, I get it, but this is why it's wrong. Even if I'm not telling y'all, because they're on the internet, they're her fans, but when we tell our, the women and the girls that are in our lives, why this girl who seemingly hat lives the life, at least in the camera, that we want, that we're not just saying, Oh, how how dare this girl who had this jacked up past get married and be pregnant? I'm happy that she's married and pregnant. I want her to have good things, I just don't want her to parrot bad things or encourage people to live a bad life or a dangerous life, if nothing else, in order to get those things. And so I try and I want to try and divide those things and recognize that there are reasons that she is inspirational, but can we take the inspirational aspects and say it's okay to want both? But the but the way but under a life honoring to God, the way we accomplish those things is different than how she does it.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

Yeah, there's this post that uh Emily, right? Yeah, Emily and Brett, both Brett Cooper specifically, uh mention in their review of this whole event, which is it's by this uh person on X, Gina. I don't know, I can't see her handle, it's blurry.

SPEAKER_03 43:42

Shout out to Gina.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Basically, this is like the exact feminist dream that Alex Cooper is able to lead out, and so I'm gonna read a little bit of it. It says uh a woman is participates in the hookup culture as much as she wants when it's when she's in her prime, and then And it says, but when she feels like it's the right time, she settles down with a high value man. Only because it's her choice, not because she feels pressured by societal standards or a ticking biological clock. This man does not care about her past, because he wouldn't dare judge a woman for expressing herself sexually. They have a beautiful wedding and her dress is studying, she gets pregnant, and when she feels like she is ready to take on a motherhood, she trades in her promiscuous days only when she wants to on her own terms. And the perfect man she finds is more than happy to go along with her timeline because he respects her and her desires, and he doesn't want to lose her. Alex has quite literally lived out the perfect feminist blueprint thus far. And so I think at the root of it, what you were saying is, well, I don't know if it's necessarily only career and family. I think from my take when I read that and see that perspective of it, it's exactly more of the first of like wanting the desire of family, but then living selfishly in the gratifying of your flesh. Starts off in the Paul's letter to the Galatians, like uh if you walk in step with the spirit, like you will not gratify the desires of your flesh.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

And so that, like when she is engaging in the promiscuity, the hookup culture, that doesn't like honor the Lord, right? And so the Lord did work it out like she can. I don't know if she is a Christian, you said, right? She is Professor?

SPEAKER_04 45:29

Emily, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

No, no, no, no. Alex.

SPEAKER_04 45:31

Oh, Alex? Alex Cooper? Yeah. Absolutely not. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

So Emily is the same. Even the god of over the wicked and those who don't walk with him, like they can still prosper, right? Uh Psalm 73. Read it. So good. But uh, there is such a way where you are walking with the spirit that is honoring it produces the fruit of the spirit, which we can go list them off in Galatians 5. Uh, but also if you don't walk in step with the spirit and you walk in step with the flesh, has all these other things to it. Um, I don't wish any of that baggage that comes with like her earlier years in my life. Yeah. I don't want that.

SPEAKER_02 46:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

I'm not criticizing her. I just know for me, like I struggle enough with my own sinfulness. I don't want more on top of it just to enjoy the desires of my flesh younger outside of God's plan of her covenant. So I I see this more on like the getting what you want when you want it, and then having like the the fruit of the good choices of faithfulness, marriage, motherhood, whenever she's ready for it. But I think there's something that God wants to call us to specifically um, you know, in his timeline, in his plans, and his good fruits. Like we're all we've all messed up, some in other ways than others, but I want I want my walk for my family to be in step with the spirit, and I I know that that wouldn't for me, it wouldn't be right to enjoy hookup culture. I would not want to. I don't promote it in my own life, I don't want it. So that's my thoughts on it.

SPEAKER_04 47:04

For sure. I think uh maybe to close my opinions out on this, I I always want to look at the culture with interest and with curiosity. And like, okay, because I think I've realized in my own life that a lot of the things that motivate the culture actually motivate me too. And so my a lot of the questions I've had to ask in trying to follow a life of God is okay, well, why don't I do that thing? And I think and and not just say, well, they're not Christian, so I shouldn't do it. It's like, okay, well, if I if I actually am humble enough to say, not to call myself humble, but if I if I'm at least somewhat self-aware enough to say, okay, yeah, I see why someone would want that thing or would want to live that way, or would want these particular motivations, then the question is like, why not do them? And I would rather us look dead at the culture, see what they're actually looking for, and then be able to say to our kids, to our young adults, to our older adults, why this life is better. And some of it is you have to believe in God. And and the co and people who don't believe in God are gonna act like they don't believe in God, and that's valid. But uh, it's not good, but I understand it.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:29

Um but for us, like I didn't need to be inspired by Alex Cooper because my mom did the Alex Cooper thing, but better as a Christian. She did the career thing. She did like she's someone who has followed her passions and she's had a family. And I got to see her do that to the point where Alex doing it her way was not like being that level of successful as a woman was not impressive. But she was also, and my parents in general were able to express to me why that whole like promiscuous life, that sleeping around thing is not the way. And it's twofold, right? It's one way to honor God, but it's also because God knows the outcomes that come with that. And people who have lived it have the like have the outcomes of it. So I guess what I want is for us as a as Christians to see the culture and be able to say, Oh, I have someone, we have someone in our camp who follows the Lord who can stand up and be an example for those girls on how to do it better and how to avoid some of the pitfalls that Alex is leading them down. No, no, we get why Alex seems attractive, but let me take either a person who was redeemed from that life or someone who just made different choices than her and show, hey, the good things about Alex's life, here's why you can here's why some of those things you can have as a Christian and you can pursue as a Christian, but you don't do you don't need to do it that way.

SPEAKER_01 50:08

Correct. I'm all for the balance of women having careers in a family for the record. I just don't condone the hookup culture.

SPEAKER_04 50:14

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 50:15

That's my final take.

SPEAKER_04 50:16

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think, you know, the internet can get into this back and forth as to, oh, she's this kind of woman, she's that kind of woman. It bro, I I just want us to I don't care what kind of woman she is. I want us to just promote what's good. I just want us to promote goodness in the world. And so, yeah, I don't know. That's where I stand with her.

SPEAKER_01 50:37

Amen.

SPEAKER_04 50:38

All right. How are we doing on time? Probably not great. Uh let's see. We're 40 minutes. A few minutes ago. So, do you want to go wanna go into the last question? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:55

Let's go into the last question. And then we can end with music if we have time.

SPEAKER_04 50:57

Yeah. Let's what's the last question?

SPEAKER_01 50:59

Let's switch it up here.

SPEAKER_04 51:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

So I've been thinking.

SPEAKER_04 51:03

Yeah, all the music wasn't that interesting this week anyway. No one really dropped anything.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

I might wrap it into my answer, probably. Okay, valid. Yeah. Um, I feel like we were we both have been thinking this. Um we hang out a lot. Me, Luke, Andrew, Brooklyn, we do, other friends, we all hang out a lot. So some of our questions come out from just like when we hang out together, which is kind of fun. Um, not kind of is fun. I've been thinking, what do you want to do when you grow up? Okay. Do you want to talk about well, I'll just have you yeah, what do you want to do when you grow up?

SPEAKER_04 51:42

Yeah, so I went I went through a couple different ideas of this. I've realized the true answer and why it's created a problem in my life. The real answer is that I just want to be a philosopher of life.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

Okay, Plato.

SPEAKER_04 52:01

I I I realize it. The thing I enjoy doing the most in life is just experiencing it and then thinking about it, and then eventually having interesting conversations about it, thoughts about it, writings about it, which is awesome. Doesn't make any money. So, but when I realize I want to do that, and that really that's the thing I enjoy about my life the most, the the question changed. Because I don't that might not be a good thing to pursue. So the question to me then became okay, what things do I do in my life that I think give me life? The reason I ask it that way is because I think our whole life we've been asked what we want to do.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

From a vocational perspective.

SPEAKER_04 52:54

Yeah, from a vocational perspective. Um, we've asked, um, who what do you want to do when you grow up? What do you want to be? Who do all that? And the more I've learned about work, work lives, work satisfaction, all that kind of stuff, I I have two different questions. What brings me life, and who do I want to be? And so, kind of in line with the Alex Cooper topic, I'm I like the podcasting. So in that way, she could be an inspiration. I don't want to do it the way she does it. I don't want to be her. I don't want to be like her.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Shout out to Ella Langley.

SPEAKER_04 53:40

Fair and so I'll get back to the to the actual question and so I can let you answer, but and so some of the things I'll just say that give me that give me life, I love having deep conversations. I love having I love being in nature. I love helping people, I like engaging with kids, for example. Like when I volunteer with kids at church and stuff, that's very fun. And so the reason I answer those questions is because aspects of those can be brought to different jobs. And the reality is if I hold on to a job or a person, I'm likely to get disappointed. And I shouldn't be avoiding disappointment in life, but I want to hold everything I do with the with the open hands of recognizing that at any point they could change. And God could call the assignment to a different place. The other reason I want to hold them, hold my hands, uh hold those jobs like loosely, is because I don't want to do everything in my power to become the person I think I need to be. I want to do everything in becoming a man of God. And so sometimes that means sacrificing certain things, sacrificing certain ways of doing things that may benefit the task or that may benefit the job, but is that how God would want it done? And so the kind of the I I want to keep the things that I like in life or the things that bring me life in vision because I think those help inform the kinds of things we do and don't just like send me to any job thinking I can just do anything well. But also the kind of person I want to be and the kind of person that Christ inspires me to be shapes how I do everything.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:49

So that's my it's my over like my I guess my overthought out I mean, I sort of want to be a philosopher, my overthought out uh example of this, but I think it's also just where I am in regards to that question, because that question has always been tied to work for me. And I'm trying to change that for myself at least.

SPEAKER_01 56:09

Yeah. I find myself in a very similar place with the question because naturally, as you are, well, for me, I'm, you know, if you face change or you're changing jobs, you want to move, it's like, well, what do you want to do? And it's not even like when you grow up, it's like, what do you want to do? I have a hard time articulating what I even want to do because I've been just doing what I'm good at. And I think subtly I found out what I'm good at for a season is not actually what I want to do.

unknown 56:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

That's really hard to like admit. You can be good at something you don't want to do. And so when I think about answering the question, what do you want to do when you grow up? Or who do you want to be, even like that question? I I'm not trying to sound like cryptic when I say this, but like I want to think about like what my grandkids are gonna write about me when it's like my time to be with the Lord in a eulogy. Like that's that puts a whole different spin on how you live your life. Like, if I recall my grandfather just passed away in March, right? And if I had to write a eulogy for him, I'm not gonna write about how he was like in the Air Force was the greatest thing of his life. I'm not gonna write about how he was a traveling salesman for so many years. I'm not gonna write about how he like did probably ins and out jobs, like when he was younger, or maybe like as he was retiring, like what teams he was or wasn't a part of, but it's more of those characteristics at that point, right? Like he was a loving husband, he was a providing father, he was a providing grandfather. Like there's a proverb that's like, blessed is the man who provides for his children's children. I'm like, I wrote my grandfather's name next to that because he uh he was able to support me going to college, which is phenomenal. Like, I I owe him a lot for that. But I think a lot um of this question needs to be switched from vocation to like who you want to be. And I really am only starting to face that question now as I'm starting to pull away what I thought was like a main assignment for the majority of my life to be in a music ministry program. I think that was a great assignment. I think it's a holy assignment. I think it's a great assignment for people who are called to step in it to have the Lord's grace and empowerment on them to step into that shepherding role. And as I'm being called out, like I want to be so God-honoring in everything. I want to be a hard worker because like the Lord loves a diligent worker and like sloska, nothing. It says that in Proverbs like 10,000 times. I want to be someone people feel safe with. I think what's really encouraging about stepping down, and I'm not trying to make this whole episode about me and changing jobs, right? But I've gotten to hear words from people that they've noticed things about me that I've never noticed about myself for the last three years. I've had someone say, like, you lead with such humility that I've never experienced 47 years of ministry, which is crazy, because like this means like people that are older than me have led or worked with people who have been like more prideful, and I'm I'm not perfect at all. Um someone said yesterday I lead with nobility. I'm like, I'm not a princess, but I think they meant like like noble and like dignite, like you know, like very diligent. He didn't say the word, he's like, I don't like the word diligent, but noble, like in how you carry everything intentional, yeah. And um, I'm just more of those things. Like, I it's sorry to sound like so philosophy, but like you want to be a philosopher, so I'll just dig into it.

SPEAKER_02 59:54

Like hooray.

SPEAKER_01 59:55

I want if we're gonna talk about the work answer. Like, I just want to work so that I I'm able to live a life. Like, I don't want to live to work. I love that answer. Like, I don't want to live to work, I want to work to live. And the life I want to live is one of one of godliness and being present and being safe and available for people, but also have joy, have fun. Like the the mind who's set on this beer is life and peace. I want a joyful, abundant life. And that's that's who I want to be when I grow up. I do want to be a musician when I grow up. I do want to cook. Like, I have this strange thing with Food Network, I don't know why. I love food producing and I love photography. I love creating things. So I think there's a lot of fun passions the Lord's put in me, like to explore when I grow up, but I just want to be secure in him, less secure in like my own like provision and stuff, but ultimately I'm gonna wrestle with that. But I want to be someone who like the Lord can be proud of. I know that's another topic, rapid trail. My one professor in college would probably say that's heretical thinking about that. But I want to be God honoring, you know, at the end of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:06

But you know what? I You know why I and I know we're at the end and we need to wrap up, but you know why I'm so passionate about the Alex Cooper conversation and why I think it's so interesting? Because my podcast inspiration is not a Christian and I want to be nothing like him. But at the moment, I see what he does, and he and he's so good at it and so skilled at it that I'm like, huh, I wonder if I can do that for the Lord. Like, I wonder if I can take what he does and use it for and and make it more beautiful by doing it for the Lord. And sometimes that's your inspiration until you meet someone who can really be your inspiration. And I think for me, the inspiration where it matches the who, what kind of person you are with the work that you do is luckily our producer Keith. When I see how Keith is with his honor for God as both his friend, but also his lord, which he has a real good like connection, I think, of both. Um his love for his family, his care and his attentiveness to his family, um, his diligence in his work, but also the joy that he finds. You can tell he's put himself in such a lovely niche where he's like he sees what gives him life, and he's gotten maybe good at the parts that, you know, maybe aren't the most fun, but are necessary for those things to f for the things he loves to flourish. And so he's diligent in the things that aren't easy, but also brilliant in the parts that are easy because that's just what he was made to do. And so, and but he cares so much about people. Y'all don't know, but he'll spend an hour with us just talking about it. Before we even hit record. Yes. That kind of person. I want to be that kind of person where the work never comes before the people.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:22

Amen. He is interruptible, he's caring, he like he models Jesus well with that.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:28

Yes. And so it's so beautiful that we get to work with him on this podcast because I get to now take the maybe the original inspiration that I got from a non-Christian who does a really interesting role that but I don't love the person he's become through it. To oh, there is a mix of both. And I want to be that kind of person who can be that person for someone else, and I want all of us to recognize that look, we can get inspired all over the place, but Christians, we need each other to live lives that are beautiful, yeah, and because it's so important, man, it's important for how people outside of us look at the church, but it's also important for the life of the church and for the continuation of the church.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:27

Look at like how the Moses and the the scribes of the Old Testament described the first temple and the tabernacle. Such artistry and meticulousness. I guys, like, I like asked my old testament professor because I was having an argument with someone, and this person was like, God doesn't care about plans and like being overprepared, and I'm like, that's such a lie. We gotta go back to the Bible and figure this out. And I was like, Prof, why does he write it down to the qubits? And then why does he he spend five chapters like telling Moses to like scribe down this plan? And then the next five chapters is the same material, but then like the people building it, like why are there ten chapters just spent on details? And it's like because beauty takes work.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:15

Yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:17

And beauty is like like all this detail went into it to be adored, but like not just adoring the artwork, but to point back to the one that it's meant for. Like, we were looking at trees the other day, and like this is what Paul writes about in Romans is like God displays his divine nature and power through the creation of the world. Yes, the moral law is written on the hearts of men who don't necessarily have the gospel preached to them yet, but they should be able to look at this world and be like, wow, like there's no way, there's no way this could have just come. And I know that's a that's a hot topic for people, but honestly, like God's divine nature and power is displayed through his creation. The heavens declare your uh your greatness, the oceans cry out for you. I think it's a Lincoln Brewster song, but uh it's based on Psalm nine or eighteen, something oh no, eight. I think it's eight. Something somewhere in the early 20s Psalms at the beginning. But like creation points to God's goodness. We need to and go back to last week's pod, we need to light in that. So yeah, it's just God's creative, and then last thing I'll say if we're made in his image, like we are called to be creative as we follow him.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:40

Not artists, we're not called to be artists, we're called to be creatives, and that can go into any industry and needs to go into any industry.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:49

Food, writing, marketing, you can create stuff, great marketing plans, investing, childhood, homesteads, architecture, yep, everything, clothes, cars, cupcakes.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:05

Ooh, ooh, now I'm hungry.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:08

Yeah, uh get out here and eat some food.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:11

Yep, and uh pray for us because we're trying to build beautiful lives, but like Liz said, it's gonna take work. So all right, y'all. Uh thank you guys so much for listening. Uh, I wanna I want to say this one quote that came from a podcast I was listening to. There is nothing more important than talking about God. Amen. And that was really cool to me. So I would shout out the name of him, but uh I can't remember the podcast. So I'll say my thing, which is eternity is for the beautiful. Always remember that eternity is for the beautiful, eternity is for the timeless, eternity is for the creative, and eternity is for those who walk with God. And everyone's welcome. Until the next time, see y'all later.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:50

Bye, Luke's mom, play the music, Keith. And Luke, bye, Luke! See the next time.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:00

Just in the light on and until I live in the moment. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go. I gotta feel noise to feel ready to take off. Ready to take off in