The Quiet Work of Renewal

Renewal doesn’t come through spectacle or speed. This season finale explores how cultures are rebuilt slowly through faithfulness, formation, and local responsibility — and why the most important work is often unseen.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Welcome to Ordered Reality. This podcast explores the deeper patterns shaping our world through history, philosophy, and the moral framework of the Christian faith. In a culture driven by speed, noise, and constant reaction, this show takes a slower approach. Each episode examines a single idea truth, power, memory, responsibility, and asks how these principles shape both civilizations and the lives we live today. Because understanding reality clearly is the first step towards living faithfully within it. Civilizations don't collapse all at once, and they don't renew themselves overnight. Over the course of this season, we've talked about foundations, truth, memory, power, speed, authority, responsibility, witness. None of these conversations were meant to diagnose the world as broken beyond repair. They were meant to clarify where we stand within it. When you spend time thinking seriously about these things, a natural question begins to surface. If all of this is true, what do we do now? Not as a movement, not as a reaction, but as people trying to live faithfully in a world that often feels disordered. Renewal is often misunderstood. We expect it to arrive loudly through systems, movements, elections, or cultural moments. But history tells a different story. Renewal rarely begins at the level of headlines. It begins when ordinary people quietly refuse to surrender what matters most. Even when no one is watching. This episode isn't about fixing the world. It's about understanding how the world is actually renewed. Quietly, slowly, faithfully. Today we're going to talk about why renewal is always local, why waiting for a grand solution delays responsibility, and why formation matters more than influence. Because the most important work rarely announces itself. This is going to be the final episode of our first season, and we'll move into a different theme for season two starting next week. But let's dive right in and focus on renewal, kind of wrapping everything up that we had talked about through episodes one through eight and tying a bow on it so that we can think a little bit more critically and begin renewing ourselves in the eyes of God. So why is renewal always local? Systems don't repent, but people do. Think of renewal starting in the family, or family as the first institution. Family predates government, schools, and churches, and is the foundational unit for human society. You learn the vast quantities of values, culture, and societal norms for cheap children and people, while also being the first line of care and emotional support and economic stability for a child or a person. Family is the foundation for society, and it is the basic social unit. The family is so important because the first place, it's the first place where children learn cultural norms, values, and behavioral expectations. If parents do not frame the moral and inherently good mindset first and foremost at the familial level, children have to find meaning and purpose in the world elsewhere, generally leading them to a place of danger. And I think in today's society we can all agree that if you don't have a strong um foundation as a family, the children look to wherever they could find meaning and purpose, which a lot of times is online. And I don't know about you guys, but the internet can be a wild and crazy place depending on where you go. Now it's a very, very useful tool. The internet has changed the world for the good. It has also changed the world in a negative light as well. And we don't want children having unfettered internet access without having good guiding moral principles first. Family is also the quote first school. Parents act as the first teachers in life. It's an initial training ground to teach children emotional stability, honesty, integrity, compassion, and tolerance. Family is crucial for both individual development and the continuity of society. And why is this important? In society today, we see fractured families. You know, characteristically or uncharacteristically, the divorce rate in the United States is uh, and I'm just pulling this from what I've heard. I you guys can vet this, um, but it's around 50%, which is just astounding. And not having a solid uh mother and father figure in the household present with the children causes a rift, confusion, and other things that um are very destructive for the development of children. The idea that being um sexually promiscuous without accepting the reality can lead to pregnancy, and again, kind of reverting to comfort over responsibility. It's this short-term desire over long-term impact, leads to single mothers and fathers, fractured homes, um, leading to greater challenges in the home. And now, please hear what I'm not saying. Um, there are tons and tons of amazing single fathers, single mothers out there who are doing the very best they can with uh what has been provided with them and what they are able to achieve. Um, they are incredible. I could not imagine leading my family uh without my beautiful wife. Uh, but too often moms and dads neglect their duty to be their children's first role models and teachers to build a better society. It feels like today the focus and a lot of it is from outside sources, it's to focus on yourself and yourself before anyone else. And while self-care is extremely important and taking care of yourself is very important, if you choose to have children and build a family, your responsibilities shift into building good quality children that essentially have good moral compass and are able to be functioning members of society that have a morally good compass and know the truth. The state in today's society wants to be this familial uh figure and they claim to take care of you, but nothing can replace a coherent, strong foundation of parents who love their children enough to do the bare basics of teaching their children how to be, not just how to survive. And we have to go beyond this. It is our responsibility as parents to make sure that our children learn the truth, they learn what is uh morally correct and what and what the objective old truth is. Looking at Catechism uh 2207, uh family is the quote original cell of social life. And this is where we learn to love, pray, and grow in virtue. Taking a look at this idea of parish over platform, so we're kind of branching out from the the nuclear family and kind of getting into more of our church family. Our parish, again, is our church family. Our parish is a formally established jourtic, territorial, and sacramental entity that embodies the universal church at a local level. While platform may provide spiritual resources, content, or community, but it typically lacks the structural, sacramental, and authority-based role of a parish within the church's canon law. Parish provides community and support for its people. It has fundamental structure to how the church organizes the faithful. While platform can serve to nourish the faith, it often operates on a voluntary basis with no formal structure and no official responsibility to its members. It's a great supplement to parish, but it doesn't replace parish. Our parish is our spiritual family. It provides us a community where we can grow in spiritual knowledge for the moral and objective truth. Let's take a look at this idea of character before culture. We have to look internally during renewal, focusing on the fundamental slash internal values as well as moral integrity of individuals rather than just superficial shared norms. While culture does provide a shared identity and has its own importance, it can lag and resist change and can default to conformity and groupthink. This can make culture ineffective during times of unrest or uncertainty. Character, on the other hand, represents the courage to be authentic and to have the integrity to act accordingly to deeply held principles. This allows individuals to adapt, innovate, and lead during a time of crisis. And so if we want to use a biblical aspect, you can look at uh Moses and uh the character that he had leading the Jews through the exodus of Egypt. That took someone to have the integrity to act upon God's word and God's vision to free the Israelites from the Egyptians. And it allowed Moses to adapt, innovate, and lead during that harsh time, not only through the Exodus, but through the 40 years in the wilderness. Renewal occurs when you have character and driven individuals who transform a stagnant, inauthentic culture into a living, adaptable expression of shared values. A healthy culture is the outcome of strong character. Renewal can start with one individual with strong character values, which resonates with why renewal is always local. It always starts with one and it always starts within. So moving from uh the idea of renewal as beginning as a local piece inside or internally and familial, we're gonna move on to this idea of the myth of this grand fix, right? That waiting for total reform delays responsibility. Again, kind of just hitting on why waiting for total reform delays responsibility. Let's build on the idea of renewal being local by taking a look at this. Revolutions over promise. Now, why do they do this? Revolutions have to mobilize a mass of people large enough to accomplish their goals and grab power. They have to plant ideas of a utopian society with unrealistic visions of justice, equality, and prosperity to overthrow a current sitting power. If revolutions don't promise to completely change a system for the better in a wild and fantastical way, they can't gather the support. But they do this in a way generally without an actionable plan to make unrealistic goals a reality. But they know the vision is so great, it will mobilize individuals to action, and they can try to follow up on their promises after they achieve power, or in most cases, can't achieve those actions that they promised, or they just don't even try because once they have power, they don't need those constituents anymore. Just take recently the example in New York City, um, where you have the current mayor promises uh you know free transit, free child care, rent freezes or reductions at no cost to the citizen. Now, while I think we could probably all agree that that would be amazing, I would love free transportation for everyone. I would love free child care for everyone. I would love for people to pay less rent or not have it go up. And I would love for it not to come out of their pockets. That would be amazing. But in actuality, the citizens, now that he's been voted in on all these promises, the citizens are now being potentially taxed at a higher rate as far as their property tax may go up around 10%. They rated pension funds and a supposed rainy day fund, and we're still looking at a way to close the deficit for New York City as far as the projected budget goes, which again is just this fantastical way of saying we can fix all of your problems and make your life better, just give us the power to do so. And they can't, it is this idea for this revolution uh change in New York City, but they can't follow up on any of their promises right now at the moment. And unfortunately, they have the power. So whatever they choose to do, they don't need you anymore. The promise of all of these free things in New York City was too good for the people not to vote for. And now, well, you know, this is very similar in other communism or uh socialist societies where the power or the group promises and promises and promises and promises, but they can't deliver the promises on the back end. And the ideas look great on paper, but executing it is impossible. And generally, this is deep-seated with corruption. Let's take a look at why spectacle exhausts people. So, kind of moving on from the whole revolutionary aspect of we can promise you all these great flashy things, but we can't follow up on it. Why is this exhaust people? Spectacle exhausts people is generally true because it replaces authentic lived experiences with direct or indirect action with dramatic, entertaining, and commercialized performances. Action loses its authenti authenticity in this case, and frankly, people seek and want uh to know the truth. It's just hard in today's society to determine what the object or the objective/slash moral truth actually is. Reform and renewal don't always need to be flashy and doesn't always have to be drastic or be a drastic 180-degree uh turnaround or change. Reform in the Catholic sense centers around something as simple as returning to the sources of the scripture and tradition to renew the present rather than just innovating for the sense of change or for the sake of change. Ensuring that the Church keeps the Word of Jesus Christ centered in faith is an ongoing process, but it shouldn't be treated as a sideshow. Let's take a look at hope being misplaced in structures instead of virtue. So what is virtue? Let's just define it. Merriam Webster dictionary defines virtue as the quality of being morally good, righteous, and honorable, representing high character and excellence in habits. Placing our hope in structures, and by structures I mean institutions, systems, wealth, instead of virtue is hazardous because structures are fragile, external, and subject to corruption or failure. Placing hope in virtue will allow us as individuals to remain steadfast in faith. And what is the truth, and morally, objectively good, despite the failures of life on this earth. Placing hope in virtue will allow us to weather the storms in life without succumbing to despair. Placing hope in human power, institutions, and or material goods, is ultimately futile. Virtue builds internal strength and resilience while placing hope on structure builds dependency. According to Catechism 1803, virtue is defined as habitual and firm disposition to do good. It grounds us to be more like God as best as we can as humans, and in turn this gives us the conviction and strength to push through any human crisis. Putting your hope in virtue will lead you closer to God and allows you to shed your dependence on earthly institutions. In turn, if we want to see a change towards the objective truth and moral good, we should do this to transform others around us. If not us, then who will? Which is the quote, why or waiting for everything to change is often how nothing changes. Again, if we are waiting for the system to change for us to better our lives, we're going to be disappointed more often than not, rather than focusing on uh focusing on virtue and building our relationship internally, renewing ourselves in our faith towards God, and we can weather any human storm at that point, because we know that we trust in the Word of God, and we trust that the life after this one on earth is going to be better. So moving on to kind of this formation over influence. We don't need louder voices, we need formed souls. Okay, so we're no longer waiting for change, but we want to be the change. What does that look like? Well, we don't need louder voices, we need formed souls. Focusing inwards on our souls to trust the truth and be morally good, and the rest follows. Taking a look at information without formation just weakens judgment. Simply put, taking in information without context, critical thinking, or framework weakens judgment by promoting snap, biased, or superficial decisions. We've hit on the fact several times too much information can cause overload. Too much information then can cause us as humans to feel pressured to make quick decisions based on the speed and quantity of the information presented to us in a short amount of time or just a specific given moment. This is why slowing things down and contextualizing information and seeking knowledge is so important to making true, morally right decisions. Now, why does building good habits or habits outlast arguments? Well, building strong routines can build muscle memory. Practicing formation before making decisions consistently will allow you to make more reflexive choices to slow down, orienting yourself first before making emotional or emotionally charged or rash decisions. If we can focus on building habits to consistently seek objective truth and moral good, it becomes natural instead of seeking dopamine hits from emotional reactions we see online with limited or in some cases propaganda embedded into the headlines, telling us what they want us to believe, but not actually what's the truth. Doing this as a habit builds repetitive, uh consistent rewards. While arguments with oneself is exhausting and energy intensive, utilizing more brain power than building the habit and sticking to it long term. And then let's take a look at why obscurity is often protective. Obscurity serves as a hidden, sacred space for personal formation and divine protection from premature, destructive exposure. Obscurity teaches us to rely on God instead of human recognition. A great example of this is when David spent time in the wilderness seeking the advice and authority of God prior to acting. He also was spiritually developed for his essential role as king of Israel. Obscurity helped him remain loyal to the truth in God despite his rise to king, and he remained faithful even after becoming king, showing his integrity. It helped him have this sense of renewal and formation prior to receiving power, which allowed him to remain faithful to God and have the wisdom to lead Israel effectively without abusing his power. Focusing inward and taking the time to think critically, clearly, and seek the truth will form who we become. Which is more important than who we persuade. Again, kind of going back to our episode of witness, our role is to speak the truth and live God's word on a daily basis. And while it is our job to help bring people to understand and seek the truth and see the truth, ultimately I can't control whether or not they choose to believe the truth. But in order to be a good witness, I have to focus inward on myself, renew myself and my formation with God. And upon focusing on building my relationship with God and renewing myself and having good formation, then hopefully people will see how I act and how I carry myself and how we carry ourselves and choose to believe in God or at least experience the Word of God and hopefully make a change. So this episode's been a little bit more um Catholic-based or Christian-based, kind of thrown throughout the entire episode. Um and we're gonna even focus on it a little bit more now, as this renewal is as faithfulness. God renews history quietly. So how does renewal show faithfulness to God? God renews history quietly. Again, the church adapts quietly, remaining faithful to the scriptures, yet applying them to modern life. But still, let's see how we got here. Let's take a look at the saints as renewers, not disruptors. Saints worked to restore the core purpose and trust in a system that drifted, unlike being disruptive. They worked to bring faith back to a system, not tear it down for their own ego or selfish gain. They weren't trying to disrupt Catholicism, but through their actions, support um, excuse me, but through their actions of support the truth and mission of Jesus Christ. The goal of the saints were to strengthen and purify, not to destroy. They wanted to lead people either back to Christ or to Christ in the first place, but never away. They weren't trying to destroy the system as it was built, but they were trying to reform it and bring it back to what the truth of God was. There's this idea too of the kingdom of God growing unseen. And by kingdom of God, I'm not talking about up in heaven, I'm talking about its people here on earth. The Catholic Church in specific specificity has been growing unseen through quiet, intentional, internal transformation rather than flashy external show. There's this shift towards daily prayer, intentional discipleship, and a culture of service focusing on the spirituality of the individual, thus building a cohesive group of individuals and enhancing the kingdom and followers of God. We also have a Eucharistic revival and the focus on the real true presence of Christ. The second Vatican Council encouraged a deeper connection to Scripture, focusing in on the Word of God to guide the church. We are reverting back to the truth in the scriptures to help lead us. We're not trying to adapt to modern technology, we're not trying to adapt to, you know, change because just modern culture and modern society says that we should be doing this or should be doing that. We're reverting back to the scriptures to guide us because the scriptures have given us good guiding principles for the last 2,000 years. And anytime we have any sort of doubts in the world or who is leading us or what's going on, we can always go back to the scripture to ground us in our faith towards God. Focusing in on the word of God being the guiding principle is in itself enough to provide hope to current and future followers that Jesus is truthfully the way, the truth, and the light in a world of uncertainty and chaos. And that becomes more and more appealing as the world becomes more and more chaotic, right? So many times do we have these massive tragedies that happen, and you could pick any recent tragedy that happened, and we're always trying to ask the why behind this. Why is this happening? What is going on? And a lot of times we question why human beings can be so cruel to one another. And unfortunately, it's hard to find an answer to something like that in today's society. That's the truth. But if you revert back to the scriptures, you can get a good idea as to why certain things are happening today and how to navigate them. Just to kind of back up the fact that the Catholic Church has been growing quietly and unseen, Catholics currently make up, as of 2025, just over 1.4 billion people in the world. Now, I'm not sure exactly what the population of the world is today. Last time I took a look, it's 8 or 9 billion people. So when you're looking at, you know, just under 20%, just under 15% around that area of people in the world. And it is growing in a net positive direction across the globe. Um, when I took a look at the statistics, well, they're small statistics, um the church is growing. Catholics, Catholicism is growing. Um, it looked like the highest was around 3% or more in Africa, and in Europe and uh the Americas, it was much slower rate. Um, however, the important thing to note here is that it's spreading. The word of God is spreading. Um, God's message is getting out there, and continuing to renew ourselves and form ourselves to follow God's word and to act accordingly, we can be the examples for others to maybe they'll get curious and come join us on this journey. There's also this idea idea too that fidelity, um, there's fidelity before fruitfulness. And again, this is the idea that one must have a lifelong commitment, love, and spiritual faithfulness before tangible results. And basically, just kind of giving an example of this, is we have to have a strong spiritual connection with God and be grounded in faith prior to being blessed with children or having ministerial success. It's kind of like the idea of you have to take care of yourself, pour into yourself before you're able to take care of other people. I mean, a lot of us uh out there want to help. We all we want to do is just help other people. But if we haven't built a strong foundation for ourselves to be able to handle the load of being the shepherds of other people, then we're not gonna be able to make it. Um think of putting in the work to bear the fruit, because if we have children without being spiritually prepared to do so, how can we possibly raise children to be followers of Christ correctly? And you could use other examples. I just chose to use children. It's hard when, you know, kind of reverting back to the first part of the episode when we talked about family as being the core unit for renewal. If you don't have mom or dad prepared spiritually and on the same page, it's going to be very difficult to bring up children to be knowledgeable on the scriptures or knowledgeable on uh the works of Jesus Christ. And just kind of hitting off that example of marriage, you know, we're kind of going back from the kids' portions, uh, but what about marriage? You know, in order for us, you know, two loving individuals to endure the hardships of marriage, we have to be spiritually grounded in faith. There have been so many times throughout marriage where, you know, you're frustrated, you're exhausted, things are going on, and you're communicating as best you can, but sometimes you just have to take your partner's hands and just say a prayer to God and understand that God has this, we'll do the best we can, and we'll do the best to live how God intended us to live, and we know He'll take care of us and provide for us. You have to have fidelity and total faithfulness in order to bear fruit in a successful marriage. The fruit is a direct result of our fidelity to Christ. This also challenges current culture where the focus is on the here and now. Again, we live in a time where the culture just says uh comfort and immediate gratification is way better than sacrifice for something in the long run. If it feels good, do it. That seems to be the common theme these days. When as Catholics, we're focused on life everlasting with God first before the comforts of this life. Our goal is to get to heaven, not necessarily everything that comes along with, you know, money or fame or fortune, things like that. In summary, us as Catholics or even Christians in general, should work on faithful internal renewal, which will bear fruit through successful ministry, children, etc., and bring not just ourselves, but those impacted by our actions closer to God. Be committed to growing a deeper, more intense relationship with God through renewal. Throughout this season of ordered reality, we've talked about many different ideas truth, memory, power, speed, authority, responsibility, witness. Each of these conversations point to the same realization. The world is not renewed by noise, it's renewed by fidelity. It's easy to believe that meaningful change only happens when it becomes visible, when it reaches the scale of institutions, movements, or headlines. But history tells a quieter story. Long before a culture changes, people, or excuse me, long before a culture changes, people change. Families form habits of virtue, communities rebuild trust, individuals choose honesty, discipline, and faithfulness when no one is watching. Renewal rarely announces itself in the moment. Most of the time it looks ordinary. A parent teaching a child what is true, a person refusing to abandon their principles, a small community choosing to live differently than the surrounding culture. These things rarely feel dramatic, but they are the foundations upon which every lasting renewal has been built. For Christians, this shouldn't be surprising. The kingdom of God was never described as something loud or sudden. Christ compared it to a mustard seed, something small that grows quietly until it becomes something far greater than it first appeared. The same pattern appears again and again throughout history. Faithfulness first, influence later. Which means the responsibility placed on each of us is actually very simple. We don't have to fix everything. We don't have to control outcomes. We only have to remain faithful to what is true. In the places where our lives actually touch the world. Our families, our work, our communities, our faith. Renewal begins there. Quietly, slowly, faithfully. And if enough people refuse to abandon what is good, true, and meaningful, the future will be shaped by that fidelity in ways we may never fully see. Thank you for walking through this first season of ordered reality with me. Truth endures, and renewal begins with those willing to live it. Again, this is Ordered Reality. I'm your host, Kellen. I appreciate you coming along this journey with us or with me, um, taking some time out of your day to slow things down and think a little bit more critically and get a little bit closer to God. Um I just hope I just want to say thank you for coming along for if you've listened to one episode or all of them so far. I'm gonna continue this journey. Um, I've been having a lot of fun making these episodes. I really appreciate every single person who chose to listen. Um, if you want to support the show because you like it, please go ahead on over to um buy me a coffee. That's where you could support the show. I just want to say thank you. I can't wait to get started on the um theme for season two, and I will be coming back with episode nine or the first episode of season two next week. I hope you all have a blessed week and have a great day. We'll see you next week.