From Dating to Becoming Catholic, Brother Dave W's Journey (Part 1)

What if the road to faith ran straight through the heart? In part one of this two-part episode, Baron and Greg welcome Dave Winkel from St. Philip the Apostle men's bible study to share how dating his future wife sparked a profound and life-changing journey into the Catholic faith.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, so welcome back to my brother's journey. Uh again, I'm part of the tag team here. I'm Greg Joseph, Chuck, and with me is Baron Hink. Baron, uh, welcome back to you as well. We were on hiatus for about a week. You look very tanned, very rusted.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Come from sitting on the beach.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hey, I'm I'm uh I'm uh I'm very excited uh today because once again we we grabbed one of our brothers from the Bible study and beat him over the head and said, You'll uh you'll you'll you'll open up your whole life to us. But Mr. Guest, we're gonna hold off uh and have you introduce yourself in just a second. But Baron, I'm gonna throw it to you. If you don't mind, do you mind opening in prayer?

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Absolutely. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Dear Lord, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the opportunity to share some time with one of our fellow brothers to hear about his journey. Uh Lord, we ask that you uh uh always look after us and help us and guide us uh in our journeys, Lord, to and to encourage us um and to to lead the way. And we asked um this in your name, amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay, so we have a mystery guest. Mystery guest, would you be so kind as to please introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:13

I'd be happy to. My name is Dave Winkle, and I am a parishioner here at St. Philip and part of the men's group with you fine gentlemen here as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Now we're excited to have thank you, first of all, for agreeing to do this. Uh we're all excited to find out all about you. And and I'll start off with my first question, which is kind of one I think I've been saying to just about all of our guests now, and that is as you as you begin to tell us about your your spiritual journey, um, are you a cradle Catholic? Are you a convert? Kind of tell us a little bit about how you got to the Catholic faith.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Sure. Yeah. Um I am a convert, and um I was raised Presbyterian in Cincinnati, Ohio. Um, was active in the church in my, you know, starting about probably seventh grade and in through high school and um did a lot. We were very involved. Their family was very um faithful and um lived good Christian lives, had great role models as parents. And then um I went to Miami of Ohio to college, and and then I sort of, you know, like many people, sort of, you know, fell away a little bit. Just there's all these other experiences and all these things you're involved in. And um, so faith took a bit of a back seat during most of my college life. Um, but senior year, I met my now wife Ann, and she's one of 11. She's number seven out of 11 Irish Catholic, big Irish Catholic family, right? Yeah, and um, in fact, when I first went home to meet her family, I was just blown away because I I have two sisters, right? And so it's very quiet at our house, and there's kids running around, there's people, there's yelling and screaming and everything. So it was quite a quite a culture shock. But um, what was really interesting is um Ann uh I never really kind of met anybody like her. She's very um faithful, very strong in her faith. She knew a lot about her faith, and I was just really attracted to that. She had really strong, you know, opinions and she just knew where she was going, right? And so we we talked a lot about everything, the faith included. And I was just curious, you know, a little bit more about the Catholic faith, started just learning from her. And um, so so that was sort of the uh the beginning of my journey. Um, but we dated for um, I guess about three to three to four years. We started talking about marriage. And um there's just one problem, and that was the fact, and this is really mainly with her mom, who was very weary of this kid from you know, my this fraternity brother from Miami of Ohio, right? It's like, who is this guy? Well, Anna dated a guy for seven years uh throughout high school and most of college. They were family friends, and in her mom's eye, you know, they were gonna get married, everything was great, you know, they were all ready to go. Um, and then I came along, and not only that, but I wasn't Catholic.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

So so that was definitely an issue, a speed bump. But what was great is Ann never put any pressure on me at all. Like there was never a conversation like, hey, if we're gonna get married, you need to convert. Um, but I really felt like, you know, we had talked a lot about it, and I really felt like it's something I wanted to do. And if it to be honest, it wasn't as much about me as was, you know, thinking about our kids potentially, and the fact that I knew the Catholic Church did a fantastic job of educating and you know, teaching about the faith, and I wanted that, I wanted that structure, and um, so I was sort of you know thinking about that. Um, and then sort of the the last element was um I did end up converting at our wedding. I had my first communion at our wedding. Wow, and um it was it was uh kind of a cool thing because um little side story is in the process of trying to dig up my baptismal records, I found out that I was baptized at the same church that my wife went to all her life, St. Margaret of Cortona in Cincinnati, because we actually lived, my parents lived fairly close to their house for a while. And um, so I was baptized there, and it turns out she went there, and that's where we were getting married. So it was this crazy coincidence of all these, well, God incidents of all these things.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

So let me just so so you were baptized in a Catholic church? Yes, and but you your parents started, did they leave the Catholic Church or how no?

SPEAKER_01 5:47

My my mom was raised Catholic. Okay, and then but my dad was Methodist.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

So they really never came together on you know that aspect, the faith aspect.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

And so they decided they were going to do something that they could both, you know, live with. And uh so that's how we kind of found the Presbyterian Church. Okay. Once we joined this Presbyterian church, we really kind of dove in as a family.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

So um, so before you met your wife, how active were you in the Presbyterian church of faith? Was it something you were real strong in, or was it like, you know, tell us a little bit about that that piece.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

You know, I think I was fairly strong. I I mean, I really enjoyed it. I went I went to youth group. I did um, we would do like little um performances and things like that. And there was there were just a lot of little activities that we would do, and I always really enjoyed it. I felt like I had a good close relationship with Jesus at that point. Um, but again, that kind of waned as I moved into my college years. But yeah, we were we were active as a family, and um we had a lot of friends through the church, and it was a really great community that we had.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Super, super. And so uh so you meet your wife and you uh convert, and you actually you said you you had your first communion at your wedding.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

At our wedding.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Wow. I mean, that how did that feel? I mean, you know, your first time eating the body of Christ.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

You know, I don't know. I mean, obviously I knew it was, but I I don't know that I knew as much about, you know, I had taken I sort of an abbreviated uh sort of um you know teaching in order to become Catholic because I had moved to Texas and she was still in Cincinnati, and then we had um our engagement, and that's kind of when I was just you know seeing a priest and really learning. So I didn't go through the traditional, you know, um RCIA RCIA program back then. So um, but but you know, I it was cool because you know, I felt like I was I was just happy to kind of be associated with you know the Catholic Church at that point, and you know, I knew it was the right thing for our for me and for our family.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Yeah, yeah. And um, so let's continue down that path, if you don't mind. Sure, yeah. So you're married. Um uh tell us a little bit about that journey, you know, as after you're married. Um at some point, kids, right? And so tell us just walk us through kind of that spiritual journey. Now you're a you're a new Catholic, uh you know, uh just got married and coming into the church and beginning to uh understand that that it's a sacramental religion and uh all these different sacraments out there. Um how did that feel? I mean, what would tell me a little bit about that that journey?

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yeah, um so we we were blessed with four kids. We have two boys and two girls, uh, and now six grandkids, which is awesome.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

And um You don't have enough great gray hair for six grandkids. Somehow.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Uh they live in Alabama, so unfortunately we don't get to see them as much as we'd like to. But um, yeah, we so all the kids went to Catholic schools the whole time. Um, and we went to mass every Sunday. So, you know, we had our routine and we were living very much, you know, the Catholic life. Um but I was I worked for Eastman Kodak at the time and for about 20 years. And as a result, we had seven moves around the country. And we literally went from Texas to Minnesota to New York to California, and then ended up in Chicago. So those were our moves, you know, all in sort of the first part of my career. Um, but every time we moved, you know, found a new church, found a new community. And the beauty of this faith is that you know, we have that in common. So whether it was the kids' school, sports, you know, church, um, it was really great to be able to like just have that bond with people at a at a more deeper level than just sort of just a normal friendship. So I always really appreciated that having the Catholic faith and being, you know, um very involved in the church. I was involved in a lot of um, you know, whether it's lecturing, finance committee, or just you know, involved in in various churches. Um but you know, I have to be honest, I I traveled a lot, I was busy at work, and I sort of looking back on it, abdicated a lot of the kind of faith development to my wife to work with the kids. And you know, I do regret that now because it is important, I think, for the for the father to be also be a part of that. But you know, she was very strong, very knowledgeable, and I'm like, well, I'm in good hands. I mean, she's not gonna screw this up, right? So I'm like, cool. Um, but yeah, it was, you know, I I definitely could have done more in that regard. And frankly, um, I'm just kind of a lukewarm Catholic. You know, I went through all the motions, you know, we we did everything we were supposed to do, but I wasn't really all in. You know, I my heart was not all in. And so when you ask like how it feels, I would tell you, and sort of in the last five years, I can talk a little bit more about, you know, having gone deeper in my faith and sort of the all the benefits from that that I felt. Um because there was a bit of a my wife Ann, she was kind of going deeper in her faith, you know, as she would continue to get in, you know, women's groups and all of these activities she would do. Um, and she does a lot of volunteer work and a lot of, you know, she helps a lot of people in addition to her family. Um I didn't we didn't have that that strong connection back then. And that was, you know, a bit of I wouldn't say it was, you know, overtly a big wedge between us, but it was kind of subtle. Like we just did, we weren't on the same page when it came to that. And so um, and I also sort of struggled with some of the teachings. I don't really, I didn't really completely understand them. Um, and I don't think I really was in a place to want to learn more. I was just like kind of struggle with it. And I was like, okay, well, you know, I can still be Catholic, but there's these things that I don't, I was more of a cafeteria Catholic, I guess, you know, in that regard. Um so it really wasn't till we moved to Charlotte in 2012 um that kind of went started going a little a little bit of a different path.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

And um so let's let's talk maybe a little bit because I understand this too. I in my career I moved quite a few times. We we moved quite a few times, and uh and probably like yourself, I I traveled quite a bit, and so a lot of the child rearing was left to my wife, along with you know, uh figuring out the new community and you know where to where the schools are and you know where where the different retail is and kind of all the 101 things that go on when you relocate to a especially across states like that. Um and you know, it certainly affects children. There's there's no question about that. So maybe you can talk a little bit, if you don't mind, David, a little bit about you know how did the moves affect your children and and did it in any way uh cause issues with going to different churches, or were they were they pretty easy to you know kind of pick up from one to another and and continue on their on their own journey?

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Yeah, that's a good question. I I would say our oldest kind of bore the brunt of most of the moves because uh we had all these moves and we then we moved to Chicago and he was going in the seventh grade. So he was fairly young. And um, but yeah, I think it affected him. It was just hard to, you know, he had to start over a lot, right? And when you're kids, you just want to fit in. And as soon as you, you know, start fitting in, then you know, we move again, right? Um the other kids were uh or our second was um in the fifth grade, but the other one, the other kids were younger, so they didn't really have as much of that disruption. But that's one of the reasons that we decided to stay in Chicago and just stay there. And I ended up leaving Kodak and getting another job, just to have a little bit more stability. Um, but and I'll talk in a minute about my oldest. And I do think that that um, you know, it definitely leaves an imprint, and I think it's um it can be tough. It can be good in one sense to be resilient and learn how to kind of fend for yourself, but on the other hand, I think there's a maybe a security that is is missing a little bit when you're constantly moving around.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Well, I can't believe this. I mean, uh time, you know what I always say, it's it goes by pretty quickly here. Um so uh if are you okay with doing another session with us? Sure, absolutely. All right, great. Well then uh I think I think we're gonna wrap this one up and we're gonna pick up the next one talking about Chicago and your son and some of the other things that I know that uh I know you're involved in charities and things like that. So I'd love to we'd love to hear more about that. Um but uh as we wrap up, I'm going to just simply say, hey, thank you for tuning in and being part of my brother's journey. Hey, seek Jesus and all you do and be fishers of men. God bless you and please join us again. Thank you.